October Wrap Up

I hate when I get so behind on blog-posting.  Although it seems like not much must be going on, in truth it is crazy busy.  So, this post will just be a laundry list of what we have been doing.

• Beginning with the weekend with my marvelous sisters!  Liz (middle) flew to Billings to meet up with Rita (left) and they drove 18 hours to visit for a couple days before heading north to see our parents. The last time they were here it was peak tomato harvest and they got to help harvest and can hundreds of pounds of tomatoes. (Maybe that is why they elected to visit in October this time.)  We had a fun,  relaxing weekend, culminating in making mozzarella cheese and wood-fired pizza. 
• More guests: my aunt Barb and cousin Mike stayed over last week en route to Texas.  I prepared a farm chicken dinner with salad from our high tunnel for them. The next day we made delicious stock and chicken pot pies with the leftovers.
• Rog installed the blower in the high tunnel greenhouse, the final touch. The blower maintains an airspace between the two layers of plastic, providing extra insulation from the cold.
• Received and stacked two loads of hay. With drought conditions, we have no pasture grass and are going through hay like crazy.
• Both dogs had their semi-annnual grooming session and are silky, cuddly and sweet-smelling now.
• Squeezed in a day in Minneapolis, shopping for fabric for a sofa I will be reupholstering for a friend.  Afterwards we had lunch on the town and toured the Weisman Art Museum.
• Lots of winter preparations:  Washed all the first floor windows and stretched plastic (for energy efficiency and because it provides a safe, trampoline-like surface if a winter bird crashes into a window); Leaf-swept the yards;  Put away most of the lawn furniture and bee-keeping gear; Hauled in tropical plants;  Built a clean storage space in the barn and moved all the stuff that was stored in the garage into it so we can fit the cars inside once snow arrives.

Last Saturday was the Barn Bar Halloween party. I whipped together  a queen bee costume at the last minute and Rog went as my beekeeper.  

Add in a few music gigs and rehearsals, some office work and house cleaning.  Pretty good accomplishments, if I do say so myself, but the To Do list is still VERY long.