Fall in Lone Butte

Second Annual Note to Self

Because I can never remember what I planted where the previous year: Garlic is planted as follows in alphabetical order:  Rows 1&2 Bogatyr, Rows 3&4 Georgian Fire, Rows 5&6 Polish Hardneck and the rest are Yugoslavian.  Each year I'm planting fewer varieties. The first couple of years I went a bit crazy with planting zillions of varieties, but in all honesty they all taste pretty much the same to us.  Some are a bit milder than others, but I don't think I have it in me to be a garlic gourmand.

All done.  I planted the garlic after work today;  it is an especially lovely afternoon, mild and breezy, and the apsens are at their stunning golden best everywhere.  Yesterday I dug and weeded all the raised beds, except for the herb and flower one, which is too full of stuff to tackle just yet.  Then I got out the tractor and scooped a couple of buckets of composted manure from last winter's pile (thanks, Buck and Rupert!) and added that to the raised beds.  They can sit now for the winter, and in the spring will just need a quick dig to loosen up the soil again.

Critter update coming soon, RinV!

September Snapshots

One of the most wonderful things about living in the Cariboo is witnessing the southward migration of sandhill cranes every September. Mike and I were cutting and burning beetle-killed pines last week when this group appeared. They spent quite a bit of time circling and calling, and gradually other cranes flew in from different directions to join them. We watched them spiral up and up until we couldn't see them any more.

One of our aspens, in fine fall form.

Here's what I woke up to on Tuesday morning...September 20 seems a tad early for 3 inches of snow! It stopped mid morning, and was all gone again by Wednesday afternoon.

My beautiful Rudy has been very unwell for many weeks. He has been back and forth to the vet, had bloodwork, xrays, and a multitude of other things done to him, and got no real diagnosis. During the summer he was thought to have developed laryngeal paralyis when he had trouble swallowing and lost his voice. Next he developed a huge swelling under his jaw, which opened and drained spontaneously. After that his gums swelled enormously...and then we discovered he had developed the world's stupidest habit of eating wasps and bees. That all resolved, but next he developed an enteritis. That resolved, but he has been quite lethargic, often seemed to be in pain, and he lost several pounds which he could ill afford to lose, being a naturally thin dog. On Tuesday, he developed a large abscess on his abdomen which the vet incised and drained...he had his drain removed from today. He's on antibiotics and is feeling lots better. Hopefully this will be the end of his problems. He had a horrible summer. I'm sure he'll have a much nicer Autumn.

All Grown Up

The Girls, as you can see, are all grown up. They're now just over 3 months old, hatched on the first day of summer. No eggs yet; they should start producing within a month or two...everyone I ask who knows about chickens has a different idea of when they should start to lay. Some say four months, some five, others tell me I won't see an egg till Christmas. We shall see.

All 26 chicks survived, we kept half, and a friend from work added 13 to her existing flock.

They're quite tame, and highly entertaining. Elizabeth, the one eyed chicken, stayed with us.