Now that all the leaves are off the trees, Bookman cleaned out the gutters today. I dug up some more sunchokes, wow are there a lot of them and I just dug in a small area where they were starting to encroach on the bush cherry. So more yumminess to look forward to. We had planned to mash the first batch last week but ended up roasting them with beets and then having them along with the beets in a spinach and dandelion greens salad. Oh it was so yummy!
We haven’t had rain in weeks and our rain barrels are full and need to be emptied for the winter which, though it doesn’t seem like it will ever come, will arrive eventually. So I started work on emptying one of them by watering the apple trees, cherry tree, the fruit shrubs, the rose bush and the grapevine.
The grapevine! I haven’t mentioned it all summer. I’ve tried growing a grape before at the back of the garden along a trellis fence and it died, didn’t flourish and then winter killed it. So the next year I tried a different variety of grape in the same location with the same result. I thought about trying again but decided I just couldn’t grow grapes. Years passed. Two years ago I was looking at all the grapes in the plant sale catalog Bookman and I attend every year and I thought, I’m going to try grapes again! But all the varieties they had were wine grapes with only one that said it made good jam. While I am interested in making jam, I also want to be able to eat fresh grapes so I passed on getting a vine. Earlier this year the sale grapes were still lacking in choice so I took a chance and mail ordered a red table grape that was bred in Wisconsin and hardy in my area.
Instead of planting it in the previous grape graveyard, I planted it in a sunny spot right against the south side of the house where it gets hot in summer and has protection in winter. Bookman used some of the extra hardware cloth we had bought for the chicken run, fixed it up the side of the house for the grape to climb up, and then we pretty much left the grape to its own devices. It is thriving! It has vined up the wire about five feet/ 1.5 m! I mulched its feet with leaves and gave it a good watering today. Fingers crossed it survives the winter. I am hopeful that it will since it is going in strong and healthy.
With the time change and the shortening days, the poor Dashwoods don’t get to roam the garden as much anymore. I used to let them out of the run for a couple hours when I got home from work. For a few days after we turned the clock back an hour they’d get about 45 minutes of light and now it is sunset when I get home so I go out and say hi for a few minutes but they are already starting to think about bedding down. They got to be out in the garden all day yesterday and today and were so very happy about that.
Friday when I went out to visit them after work I took them a treat of lettuce leaves. When the leaves were gone, Marianne jumped up on my back. Then Elinor walked up the ladder and stood there looking at Marianne and to my surprise joined her on my back! So there I was, bent over in the run with two chickens on my back. Margaret was at my feet making her strange Margaret squeals and Mrs. Dashwood was on the ladder almost eye-to-eye with me chattering away. Marianne and Elinor were happy as can be on my back, carefully moving around and changing positions so they could get a good survey of their domain. At one point Elinor’s butt was on my head and I am bent over saying “please don’t poop, please don’t poop.” She didn’t, thankfully.Marianne had her fun and jumped down, but being on my back was all new for Elinor and she was not about to leave now that she had it all to herself. So I let her hang out for a few minutes and then told her it was time to get down. I stood next to the ladder and began to slowly move upright, but Elinor started complaining and clawing and scuttled up onto my shoulder. She thought that was great! The other three are now all around my feet looking up at Elinor on my shoulder and all of them are excitedly clucking.
I squatted down and for a moment it seemed Elinor was going to jump off my shoulder but she changed her mind. I now had chickens around my feet and right behind my head on the ladder, and all of them were worked up into a chicken frenzy. Elinor, I said, you have to get down now. I stood up and bent over again so she had to move from my shoulder and I tried standing upright again only faster so she would slide off and not have time to scramble to my shoulder. Dear Elinor gave it a good effort though. As she began to slide off, she tried to grab me and my shirt with her claws and started flapping her wings, but it was no use. She landed on the ladder, a little ruffled, and immediately began scolding me.
By this time it was almost dark and Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne were already in the coop. I thought of shoving Elinor in and giving Margaret, who was slowly on her way up the ladder, a helping hand. But I figured that would just add one more insult and I didn’t want to suffer the wrath of Elinor (she is a very stubborn chicken!) so I let them be. I closed the run door and went back out half an hour later when it was full dark. They were all bedded down in the coop making sleepy chicken noises. I wished them goodnight and closed the coop door, locked the run door and retired to the house.
I didn’t really know what it would be like to have chickens, but I can say I never imagined that it would be like this!
Oh Stefanie – you love them, and I hope they know how lucky they are to have you and Bookman looking after them! We’ve had one very slight frost too, and ice on the edge of puddles, but it is warmish again 55F but wet, dismal and dreich – as we say.
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pining, I love them silly! Oh, “dreich” sounds like a perfect word for that sort of weather! I will have to try an remember it and try it out sometime!
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One day I will have a garden and grow all kinds of stuff from grapes to pumpkins to some terribly superfluous and prideful roses! And I will call it Stefanie’s Collection! 😀
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cirtnecce, oh you made me laugh! I will be greatly honored, just don’t make me come and help you weed 🙂
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Hahahhhhaa…I think I can safely promise NEVER to bring you all the way here to make you help with the weeding! 😀
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Darn, I was secretly hoping for a trip to India! 😉
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Of course there is a trip to India, I cannot start a collection called Stefanie without Stefanie herself! Only I promise to treat her with all the royal hospitality of the orient and that DOES NOT include weeding! 😀
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Oh my! I might have to take you up on that someday! 🙂
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Absolutely!
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The Dashwoods are so funny–they each have such distinct personalities–who would have thought it! 🙂 They all have their own markings, too, which must make it much easier to tell them apart–how much do they weigh? They look pretty substantial! Pretty soon you are going to be carrying chickens around on your back and your head . . . It’s been strangely warm and sunny here (I hate to say strangely–I am enjoying it, but it is weird for November). I never know what to wear from day to day!
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Danielle, the Dashwoods are all characters that’s for sure! They each weigh about 5-6 pounds. I had better be careful or I will look like the crazy cat lady from the Simpsons only I will be the crazy chicken lady! Ha! I am daily having difficulty knowing what to wear too!
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I’m keeping my fingers crossed for your grape vine. When I was nine, my parents moved us from an apartment (with the biggest, most beautiful Japanese cherry tree in the world – which has now been cut down for more apartments) to a half-house (a semi-detached house?). The other half was occupied by an older couple from church. The side we lived on had been her sister’s. There were mature grape vines, a sour cherry tree, and an apricot tree, as well as having a huge vegetable garden. We were so lucky. Almost no one uses their back yards like that anymore, just lawns, and patios, and pools, I guess. We had a treasure.
I want my own chickens!! But our urban outdoor space is not much bigger than a large dining room table. Sigh!
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Joan, the grape and I appreciate it! What a marvelous garden to have as a child! Of course I agree that a backyard composed of a lawn and a patio is a much neglected space. I hope one day you will have some chickens of your own!
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Who would have thought that chickens have such personalities? Your stories about the Dashwoods never fail to entertain!
This weather – I just want it to get cold for good now. The freezing temps at night are good but jumping up to the mid-50s/60s in the day makes it nearly impossible to pick one coat in the morning. I never thought I would say that I am ready for winter, but I most definitely am.
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Michelle, glad you enjoy the Dashwood stories. They are so much more than I ever imagined.
I hear you on picking a coat! It’s the dilemma of warm now and too hot later or a bit chilly now but comfortable later. Our forecast people are suddenly saying we might get snow Friday/Saturday and maybe more than a frosting! The way they get so excited about stuff though you just never know!
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It’s FINALLY chilly here today – high of 51. I’m ready for a proper fall and winter! I love seeing all your jars of pumpkin and wonder what kinds of things you and Bookman like to make with it?
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Laila, that pumpkin will get made into pie, pancakes, muffins, french toast, and mixed into oatmeal and other breakfast porridge foods until we are both glad and sad that it is gone 🙂
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Pureed pumpkin for winter. That sounds yummy. How do you use it? I think Americans, to some degree, use pumpkin a bit differently from us.
Love the stories about the chooks, and I love that Elinor decided to join Marianne on your back. What a hoot. (I’m glad she didn’t poop – though, thinking about it, it would have made a good story!).
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whisperinggums, in our house pumpkin gets made into pie first and foremost. Then it gets made into muffins, pancakes, French toast and added to various breakfast porridges like oatmeal and quinoa.
Elinor surprised me when she joined Marianne. And now Mrs. Dashwood keeps giving me the eye. I hope she doesn’t attempt to join the other two, my back isn’t all that spacious!
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Thanks for answering that. the most common use for pureed pumpkin here would be soup.
Sounds like some serious chicken training might be in order. They need to know who’s the rooster in their flock!
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I am not a fan of pumpkin soup for some reason. Technically Bookman would be the rooster so he should climb up on that roosting pole and show them how it’s done 🙂
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We are all different, eh? I have never yet met a pumpkin pie I like – thankfully, they are rare here – but I will always gravitate to pumpkin soup.
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