Resident Deer Herd

The 9-point buck and his harem came for lunch the other day.

There are ten doe in this shot.

This doe must have had an injury to her ear.

I'm glad the garden is under cover!

I'll be happy when we can get a dog or two. Even tall fences are not enough to protect a garden from these deer. Our fence is seven feet tall! This doe jumps it easily...no 'running start' necessary. Just a big vertical leap for her.

Who needs a tree stand? You can just stand right on the deck!

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

I'll readily admit it. Our horse poop disposal system leaves an awful lot to be desired. Until we can build compost bins, we are putting the poop into the trash dumpster. 

Every day we scoop a few hundred pounds of it, then have to shovel it into the dumpster. It's hard work. Of course for the first time in my life I'm developing biceps and decent shoulder muscles! However, it's a giant pain in the butt to have to shovel it all into the dumpster.

Last week, G.W. had a brilliant idea. Brilliant I tell ya!

He backs his pickup truck up to the bank beside the driveway....

He gets the open tailgate up close to the bank.....

...then rolls the muck cart into the bed of the truck.

Then he backs the truck right up against the dumpster....

...and tips the muck cart into it.

It only takes about 4 minutes for the entire process! Much, much easier than all the shoveling!  I knew I married a smart, innovative guy and this is only the latest proof of it!

Salad Days

On December 5, 2012, I picked fresh lettuce and spinach from my garden. After two snow storms, a number of wind storms and temperatures in the single digits, my little garden is still hanging in there. 

Here's what the spinach was looking like. You can see the second crop on the left.

And here is the lettuce, also with the second crop on the left.

I picked just enough for one nice, big salad and left the rest for another day.

When I planted this garden in the fall, my goal was to pick a fresh salad on Christmas day. Wonder if that'll happen? 

Oh, remember those vertical supports I added inside the hoop house to add strength and stability?

They seem to be working. We got half a foot of snow last night and the hoops didn't start to collapse under the weight.  I was so happy when I got up this morning and saw that it held up.

Remember back in October what it looked like after the first big snow of the season?

Much, much better with the supports inside!

Now that the days are less than 10 hours long, plants stop growing. It won't be until February before there will be enough daylight for my garden to do much of anything at all.

However, I'm thrilled that I'm eating salad from my garden in December! Come Christmas, I'll let you know if salad is on the menu!

End of the Garden Season

Over the weekend, it was time to put the perennial garden to bed for the winter. This house came with a large, mature garden filled with plants and shrubs. I don't even know what kind some of them are.

Here's what it looked at it's prime in August.

And here it is now that the season is over. 

It was unseasonably warm over the weekend and I didn't even need a jacket. It was perfect weather for outdoor chores. I got in the garden with some clippers, a rake and a wheelbarrow and went to work. A few hours and a bunch of wheelbarrow loads of dead stuff later....

Now that it's cleaned up, I got a better idea of the basic layout.  There is plenty of room in there to add more plants. I'd like to put in some herbs like echinacea, chamomile, and lavender.  I'm curious to see what all comes up in the spring. I know there are iris, lilies, columbines and hollyhocks. But we arrived too late to see if there are any spring plants like tulips and daffodil. 

There's a very simple drip irrigation system in place, but I haven't tested to see if it still works. Now's a good time for that. For sure it needs more drip lines and/or emitters.  I've installed drip systems before and have a nice supply of parts on hand. Drip systems are fairly easy to put in and manage. In the spring, I'll be doing a few "how-to" posts on this topic.

The first seed catalog of the season arrived a few days ago!  My long-awaited asparagus plants also finally got here. I ordered the asparagus in August for planting in the fall but the company kept putting them on back order....three months of back order!  It's now too late in the season to put them in the ground. I hope the bare roots are OK waiting in my garage until spring.