Just a little colder than that here, wge ot our first hard frost this am.

It wasn't yesterday

A few Maples are beginning to glow and the Burch are looking ragged but the Ash are all but bare. The Ash however, have been without leaves well before Autumn.

The Emerald Ash Bore is wreaking havoc in my little piece of Penn's Woods. The trees are trying to hang on, producing new branches and shoots but to no avail, this time next year the trees will likey be bare of any bark. Becoming dead stands perhaps waiting for the chance, to become firewood and heat someone's home or even to roast a hotdog.

Getting better. Some wind and rain today with falling temps. Took my a/c out of bedroom a few days a go but wished I had it last night.
I'm still working the garden. Peppers are still strong as is spinach. A few herbs hanging on but they are loosing flavor. Going to do an indoor winter herb garden.
All winterized and really ready for some frosty mornings to get my hunting mode in gear. I been moping around to much.

Thanks for sharing all your river adventures. They keep me interested and my mind wandering about times I've had in the past.
Feeling a little like making another visit sometime ( like a Thursday ) after opening xbow and before gun opens just to see if I got what it takes ,lol, to fish that river for trout 🤔
Be well folks ✌

Tuna I got that same water pattern trucking through my area as well. Raining behind the house and sun shining in front of the house.

No more gardens for me I'm afraid. Sold my tiller this past spring. Not nearly as good as home grown but Giant Eagle makes it just tooooo darned easy to pick vegetables and, no weeding.

Thought I'd include a picture resulting from that crazy weather system and what it did in my back yard.

Good luck fishin & huntin this season.

Attachments are not available: Download requirements not met
Attachments are not available: Download requirements not met

Well I'd venture to say Clint may be more a farmer then my gardening. My plot is small but productive . I'd love to do canned potatoes but not the space and effort I can provide. Carrots were a bust for me. Again not the depth and space. Mine tasted like mulch and rooty, yuck.
We had 1 hard frost so far in my flatland.
It hurt my jalapenos and cayenne but didn't kill em and I must have 20 per plant. Dehydrator runs every day. I'm looking to pickle more jalapeno this weekend.

My goal in life is to retire as a hippie farmer. We used to call them homesteaders back in the day. Now I'm cool with spending time in the garden and sharing all that we can't process. Profit or not ,I'm into keeping busy but not that busy. Do folks still remember lemonade stands, roadside markets and trading posts ?
Been along time since I seen the first and latter

Down here there are veggie stands and fruit stands(and some have baked goods as well) all over the place, most have a box tacked to a tree for you to put the money in.  I never was much for gardening but my GF is disabled and has started doing one as well as raising chickens so she has something to do with her time....I do like the home grown :)

That's awesome Bigbear that your girl is starting a hobby such as gardening. There are rewards :) like good eats and to me its very therapeutic.. It's a great stress relief on my end. Sometimes I just sit and try to watch the plants grow , lol. I will grow (try) anything that has a benefit to me . Somethings while I love, just don't work in a practical sense, like potatoes and corn.. I just don't have the space or equipment .  I have 4 apple trees and am going to plant 2 peach trees next spring.
I can say bigbear, raised bed box gardens are easy and can pack a lot of veggies , especially if you rotate crops and plantings by season.
 
Yes , roadside farm/fruit and farmers markets is in "flavor" right now, maybe the last 10 years ? I know people who make a living doing these things.. 2 questions :
1. do you think its due to an upswing of city folk coming to the country ? As is that's what has driven the market for them . or do you think farm stands and farmers markets have always been around . Me personally, I can remember like 1 or 2 actual farms we would visit for produce and poultry, not so much a farm stand or market all over the place like now..  I feel it's city driven myself.
 
2. what about trading posts ? I cant find a "real" one today or for the last 15 or so years.. I loved them and still have many hides and goods such as clothing from the last one in my area many years ago. I trapped, hunted and traded at these places.. It was fun and an educational of learning the outdoors and sportsmanship. Do you think they will ever make a comeback ? PETA kinda squashed them imo..
 
I ask these as that's my goal toward retirement in 6 years.  Property wont be the problem but "prime" real estate might get tough, like high traffic areas. I have my eye on a place now but it won't come cheap.
 I'd like to have a trading post / produce store. Not a big box run of the mill sporting goods but a place where you could bring quality used goods for trade or sale . If someone had an orvis fly rod or gear they no longer used why not trade or sell it for something they and another may. Even then , just a place to sit by the woodstove and drink coffee or a brew and talk about the outdoors with people. I'd  Leave produce outside with a drop box for after hrs folks while the storekeeper is away. In no way would I be able to put in 10 hrs a day tending the shop.. That's not what I'm looking for at all.  
These are just a dream of things that I remember happening growing up. It's seems in today, lots of people are trying to relive those things from their past in a newer fashion way. I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing , just a different way.
I'm not sure if my thoughts towards what I'm thinking might be as welcomed enough in the public mainstream .
 
Thanks for reading .
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
    

There are some taking advantage of the ''eat organic'' bug. Issue is that most roadside stands are far from organic. Heck I have seen the Amish around here spraying. My bother lives about 1.5 hours out of NYC and makes real money off a roughly  75*200 foot garden. He goes somewhere just out of the city. What costs 2$ here goes for 8$ there. Whole butchered chickens can go for up to 30$  He is not certified but totes his stuff ''as close as it gets without the stamp'' He never comes home with anything left.  I sell a few eggs and have no issue getting 2$ a dozen when the farmers market wants $5 for brown ones (there is literally no difference). I give away most veggies I don't use and often get a donation. I could sell many more sides of beef too. We charge $3.50 a pound cut and wrapped, you must buy a whole one or split with someone. I have a waiting list.

I grew up with my Dad growing and bartering for most of our food and wood for heat. One part is an advantage- I do well in the cold- my bedroom was usually below freezing in the winter- the other is a hate for weeds and  stewed rabbit. I've built  farm stands, did it as a kid, and helped start 2 organic berry farms. I live in Grandma Moses land (a few miles where she was born and painted), that is mostly farm. I get lots of meat and  eggs by barter.  For now, I gave the gardening up, only the two of us and I'm spending as much time as I can fishing and climbing mountains. 
   This October is hard to take. Not. I've been working on a Victorian garage/carriage house I did extensive repairs to and had to put a 3 color paint job on. Thanks to the very co-operative weather it got done.
   I was going to make my annual birthday trip to the river this weekend, but decided to go east old man, go east. Stripers still hanging in large numbers in the Merrimack and an empty campground still open with a site 100' from a good rip and eddy. Latest trip there, ever. 
    HT, that old church would've made a fantastic music venue. A friend of mine played at the Guthrie Center and I was incredibly impressed with it. Old churches lend themselves to good acoustics. Natural reverb with those high ceilings, old sound guys/musicians know these things. I hope it remains a benign property and you don't get the smell of gas and  potato chip and candy wrappers wafting through your yard.

Uh oh it's gonna rain and rain hard. I rushed to get a few things done today. Had to pull my well pump due to a leak, I was getting a little air after extended times of the pump not running. Pulled the well cap and was relieved to hear a drip in the well every minute or so and actually saw a few fall. I think it was the pitiless o ring . After replacement I heard only one drip in over 5 minutes and I suspect that was crap falling off the side if the well. Could get a few inches of rain tonight through tomorrow......

Clint S
 Taters and winter squash  get put in a crate under the stair,  taters  last till the middle of summer and squash last up to a year. We do a few pigs and a cow a year too. Chickens for eggs, but its tough for me to keep enough of those to eat due to cost vs predators vs storage. I can't freeze 30 whole chickens and butchering 1 a week does not suit my fancy. Maybe if I was retired........
Oh yea we never have to buy fish to eat either...........

Clint, try pressure canning the chicken. We raise birds also, we have a bunch who happen to love raising chicks, so we let the broodies hatch and care for them, we sell the pullets and let the young roosters grow out on mostly forage, when we have a few at 16-18 weeks we figure a butcher night.  We butcher them, skin them, strip the meat, pack the stripped meat in gallon zippies and freeze. Then when we get 14 or 15 lbs worth of meat we do a 'canning run'. The bones can be cooked in a pressure cooker for some excellent broth which we also can for future use. After pressure cooking the bones we run them through an old grinder and feed them back to the chickens or to the dogs as  'chicken mush' . Hearts, livers and gizzards are cooked for us, added to the grinder for mush, fed to the dogs as treats or used for bait. 
1 lb of boneless meat  produces 1 pint jar of awesome cooked chicken ready for use in salads, sandwiches, stir fry or any recipe calling for chunked chicken. It is cooked in the canning process and can be eaten right from the jar. We even carry jars of drumsticks on the boat for snacking. 

Pictures on this post were from a day I was using a stock pot for process, I use a pressure cooker for 95% of the processing now.
 
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/processing-day-support-group-help-us-through-the-emotions-please.768107/page-146#post-11599346
 
 
About halfway down the page is a post of mine with further info...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/pennsylvania-unite.248345/page-5160#post-15166446
 
We also use a modified harbor freight car canopy as a moveable chicken tractor for meat birds or obnoxious cockerels being fattened up for butchering or a safe brood hut, whatever is needed at the moment. We welded up side and end panels and used 1" angle iron around the base for stability. 
 

BeenThereDoneThat.
OMG how great is that?

Suddenly I'm hungry for a chicken salad sanmmidge.

Great read Fisherlady.

If we ever get a chance to meet in real life I will gladly bring you a jar of chicken, I happen to think it makes awesome chicken salad sanmmidges,  lol...

That's pretty neat fisherlady . I got into canning and dehydrating this summer from fruits, veggies and herbs. I'm getting quite the stockpile and the wife loves it. I wouldn't mind doing some venison this season to see how meat goes.
Yesterday I did a batch of pickled then canned sweet & jalapeno peppers
Today I'm dehydrating cayenne peppers.
Since I was lame on the wife's birthday present, I'm doing a major house cleaning from ceiling to floor. Not a bad thing on a rainy day.