Things are quiet at the start of the new year. The greens and garlic are still hanging on in the garden. We have been poring over seed catalogs and deciding what to plant in the spring.

Hopefully, the drought will break before this summer. We ended the year with a huge rainfall deficit. Even the Home Depot down the road has started carrying rain barrel kits. Unfortunately, our region still does not have a strong comprehensive plan for water conservation and management. I don’t understand that. With growth, the problem will only get worse. It won’t just go away by itself.

The bee equipment we ordered has started coming in. Now to assemble our hives and set them up! It’s funny to think that in a couple of months or so we will have a few thousand head of livestock in our own yard. It will be an interesting process, to be sure.

In the meantime, I am still exploring options for working at home. I hope to be doing that by the end of this year, or at least making a substantial part of my living from home. It is my top goal for the new year.

The year is ending in tears from the sky, and that is good. We have gotten rain many days in the last week or so. The winter garden is growing much better. The mustard and collard greens are so fresh and succulent.

I ordered the bees for the new hives we will be starting in the spring. I’m really excited about keeping bees once again. We have a little work to do on the site where we plan to keep them, but it won’t be long before thousands of little buzzing critters will be resident in our little homestead.

It’s Thanksgiving day today and I am definitely feeling thankful.  The main thing I’m thankful for today is that we are receiving a steady, soaking rain right now – the first good rain in months.  We really need it.  The reservoir that serves most of our area has less than 3 months of water in it.  And all the trees, plants, and gardens need a good soaking, too, they are so parched.  My rain barrels should be full again after this rain.

I’m thankful that we have plenty of good food in the house, and my family is here, safe and healthy, to share it with me.  I’m thankful that my little fall garden is still growing away, even with the scant water I’ve been able to give it these past few weeks.  I’m thankful for the beauty of the autumn leaves all around.  I’m thankful that I have a stable job while I transition to the next phase of my life (Although I’m not too grateful for the commute.) and that my needs are few. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful day today, full of peace and reflection.

We’ve had one night of freezing weather so far.  I pulled all the green tomatoes from the vines and they are ripening in a dish on the counter.  I dug up a hot pepper plant and a bell pepper plant before the frost and planted them in pots.  They will winter over in a back bedroom and hopefully provide an early start on peppers next year.

Today I dug up the sweet potatoes I planted.  It is a very small crop, but I am not discouraged.  I saw that the hugelkultur bed I planted yielded much more than the conventional raised bed.  I think that in a more normal year, when I plant earlier and perhaps we get a bit more water, the sweet potatoes will yield quite a bit more.  They will definitely be one of our staple crops.

We still do not have any rain.  I am watering our greens and other fall vegetables with water saved from our showers and rinsing vegetables, and with the last of the rain water we saved from the last rain.  But it’s not enough.  We need a really good rain.

Tonight we have the woodstove going.  The warmth is so soothing.  We got the wood from someone who lost a tree to a storm last year.  I’m grateful for the warmth, and for the exercise I get hauling in logs.

The garlic is coming along well, as are the snow peas.  But the little greens seedlings are growing very slowly.  We don’t have much water to give them and we have had no rain for two weeks.  Tomorrow night or the next we are predicted to have frost.  Let’s see if they survive it.  If they don’t, it is goodbye to the garden for the winter.

I had asked my supervisors if I could work from home on a regular basis.  I thought I could at least cut down my driving – and carbon emmissions.  And I am much more productive working at home.

They are thinking about it, as far as me being being to do it on a regular basis.  But in the meantime, I am getting to work from home one day this week so that I can work around an appointment.  I’m really psyched!  I hope to show them that telecommuting is a benefit for both them and me.

Well, I started my goat cheese this morning.  By the time I get up tomorrow morning, I should be able to spoon the curds into molds to drain.  I hope to have chevre for dinner tomorrow night.

We made applesauce with the last of the apples this afternoon.  My kitchen smells delicious with the sweet-spicy smell of the apples.

I also made hummus and eggplant salad for my lunches this week.  It is a really good feeling to have my refrigerator full of delicious, wholesome food.

I went by my usual farmer’s market tonight to pick up veggies for the week.  This is the last week for this particular market.  They only run from May through October.  One of the farmers told me about another market that runs almost year round, though.  I may try it next week.

Tonight I picked up lettuce, radishes, baby collards, and eggplant.  I guess this is positively the last eggplant I will get this year.  I will savor every bite.

I picked up some milk from a local supplier this evening on the way home from work.  I’ll be making goat cheese this weekend for sure.

We have had rain for the last three days.  I am so grateful.  The garden is looking so much better.  The little seedlings are looking refreshed and happy.  I feel refreshed and happy, too.

The tree guys showed up today.  We had called them for an estimate a couple of weeks ago, but today they finally got around to us.  It was a strange day – my husband had surgery on his knee yesterday, and I just happened to be home.  So I guess if they had showed up later this week, it would be a no-go, because there’s no way he could get back to the tree on his crutches.

They had a hard time with it.  Not only is it not too accessible from our yard, it leans over a ditch next to the road.  Hours later, after bringing in a cherry-picker truck, they got it down.   They did not cut it up into firewood lengths as I had asked, but I gave them a bye on that.  They actually ran into (they said) some metal in the trunk – maybe the remnanants of an old fence when this land was part of a pasture.  They ruined a chainsaw on it, whatever it was.  I did not have the heart to make them go further after that.  And I did not want anyone to be injured.  And they had already been cutting through a (rare for us) rainstorm.  I think we both got a fair deal.  At least I don’t have to worry about the tree falling on anyone now.

After they left, I went out with a flashlight and looked at the tree, or rather the pieces of it.  They left the trunk – about four feet high.  I put my palm on the wet wood and looked at the rings.  All the history of that tree laid out to see.  Fat rings and rings so narrow they almost blended into each other.  And right in the middle a star of cracks where the rot started.

This weekend, in the bright light, I will go out and count the rings.