Came in the house an hour after sunset, thinking it was time for dinner. Wrong… only 6:00. I spent the first full day outdoors since the elections and probably since 3 weeks before the election. Have only had a couple of nights of killing frost and the last few days have been warm with not much wind. Finished washing my 20 some gallons of walnuts that I finished hulling / husking yesterday… after picking them up a few weeks ago… if not earlier. They were all from the trees that I had planted back in 1972… the year I was back in Iowa for doing Conscientious Objector work at the University of Iowa Hospitals. I only picked up walnuts in 2 of the 3 patches. One is between my place and my brothers and the biggest trees hang over his yard fence so… easy pickings. The worst thing is that his dog keeps bringing a tennis ball that has to be thrown a few dozen times. The other patch is down behind a neighbor’s house on land that my sister bought from Mother after Dad passed away… and then she sold to a young couple 4 or 5 years ago. They let me go back and pick up walnuts. I put the walnuts in the driveway the other day and drove over them as I went to and fro… though probably lost some to the damn squirrels. I then picked up the few that had the husk off and had to use my foot to roll the walnuts on the driveway gravel to de-husk them. I rented a small cement mixer and washed them yesterday as it was warm and the water not too cold. I had to soak some in buckets if they had become too dry and then put different loads of my walnut laundry into the cement mixer and go through a 3 or 4 cycle of wash and rinse.’ The black surrey/slush from the different washings in the mixer was saved and put under my bird feeders … Worms crawl out of the ground very quickly if walnut water is poured on ground they are in … immediately irritating. I am happy to have the worms there, but that brings moles which ruffles and irregulates. the ground upon which I feed the birds in winter or where the feed spillage from the feeders go. I want that ground flat and ready for use … before frost. When a batch of walnuts look ‘done’… I dump the walnuts from the 3 or 4th wash… onto the grassy ground and hose them off again to get rid of the residual junk then let them dry a little… and pick them up and carry them to the patio cement to dry. I then store them away in varmint proof containers… so that damn squirrels, ground squirrels and mice won’t be busy all night… stealing them. I also transplanted several perennials today as I saw a professional gardner doing it this late… he was planting the rejuvenated park across the tracks from the Amtrak Depot. I moved cone flowers, day lily and blue sage and some yarrow. Spring will tell whether this was a good idea or not. Also dug up the last of the regular planting of potatoes. I now have to cook sliced potatoes. Not sliced potatoes but… THE sliced potatoes… the ones that got cut by the space while I was digging. While out working, it dawned on me where I could put the potatoes next year… and free up the 2 raised beds that I had put them in this year. Now I hope I remember where I think is a good place… by April of next spring. Still have to pick the huckleberry if the birds have not done it for me. The willow are still quite green and the Chinese elm are pretty green so it has been a warm and pleasant fall so far… but rumors of snow and dropping temperatures keep popping up in Northern Iowa….. Kind of… sort of ready. Even brought the scoop shovel out the of barn and have it in the entry way. Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 00:43:42 +0000
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