Tag Archives: fall

Cabin Life – #90

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Growing up, I lived in only two houses.   Both had fireplaces, so fall was The Lower Fieldalways special to me.  From eating roasted pumpkin seeds in front of the fire to cuddling under a blanket and watching a movie while the snow fell outside, we usually had a fire going if we were home for the night.  I miss those days, but I have taken a big step towards making the cabin more like the home of my childhood.

Last week, my new (new to me) stove was delivered and installed.  There’s a shiny new chimney poking up above the peak of the cabin, and gone is the huge black box that was my old woodstove.  Of course, on the day the stove was delivered, it was close to seventy degrees out, so I could not get a fire going right away.  That did not stop me from sitting and staring at the new stove with its nice glass doors, just beckoning me to get a fire going and sit there enjoying the flames for the first time in years.

After the delivery guys left and the stove was all set, I had to do something to get myself away from the stove.  I won’t lie, I was giddy like a little school girl getting a new doll or videogame or whatever it is that giddy little girls get all giddy about nowadays.

I tore myself away and took Pico for a quick walk down the road.  We don’t get a whole lot of traffic down here, so for about a mile down the road, we’re pretty much assured we won’t run into anyone.  I take these opportunities to let Pico run around and smell whatever animal poop may be on the road.  He loves it, and I love seeing how happy he is to add his scents to the markings of bear, bobcat, and fox.

But believe it or not, I had yet to see a fox out here.  They’re not uncommon in this area, and it’s rarely more than a couple of weeks between sightings when I’m driving to or from work or town.  As we crested the small rise in the road near my neighbor’s camp, Pico stopped suddenly.  I looked up, and down the road about a hundred yards there stood a small red fox, more brown than red really.

He had seen us too, and as I sternly whispered “stay” to Pico, the fox stood his ground.  He was turned broadside to us, and the deep rusty brown of his fur was shining in one of the few sunbeams poking through the trees.  He and Pico stared at each other for a few seconds before Pico gave a quick wag of his tail.

The fox responded in kind, and slowly made his way across the rest of the road and into the fall woods.  Pico looked up at me with his goofy grin and trotted off the pee on some small shrub on the roadside.  I decided that we should turn around there, instead of getting too close to where the fox had been.  I didn’t want Pico bothering him, and I didn’t want him bothering us either.

When we got back to the cabin, I realized that that was the first fox we had come across, and probably the first fox Pico had ever seen.  I liked his reaction, and even though that very same fox could eventually end up with one of my chickens as his dinner, I was glad to have seen him just the same.

I impatiently waited another hour for the sun to go down, and got a small fire going in the new stove.  I sat there and watched the flames licking the top of the stove, glad to be able to add to the ambiance of the cabin.  If this place was lacking anything, it was lacking a fire you could see.  The weather has still been too hot to have another fire, but now I’m in no rush.  The stove is here, and long nights of sitting in front of the fire are something I can actually look forward to.

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Cabin Life – #89

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The fire is crackling, the dew is settling and the full moon is so bright that I Applescan clearly see the two does quietly munching on fallen apples in the lower field.  They don’t seem to mind that Pico and I are outside, and quite frankly, I’m happy that they don’t.

Fall is here.  About half of the hardwoods around have either lost all their leaves or are changing color as we speak.  I think it’ll be a poor year for fall colors.  Too many trees have already changed, and there are still plenty that are solid green.  The colors are changing too slowly for there to be any real “peak” this year.

The other very noticeable change is the amount of daylight we are having.  It’s starting to get dark around seven-thirty at night, as oppose to the nine or nine-fifteen of a few months ago.  It’s more tolerable now, with the solar panel powering a couple of nice LED lights.  But still, winter is coming and it won’t be all that long.

I’ve got a good stockpile of wood, well over two full cords, but I will still have to buy some to get me through.  A few face cords should cover me, and I’m hoping that once the new wood stove is installed, it will prove to be more efficient than the old on.  Even if it’s not, it will still be an improvement.

The shed is two-thirds full, and once it is really stocked up, I will feel much better.  There’s a certain comfort in knowing that no matter what, I will at least have enough wood to get me trough my third winter out here.  Plus, I have some extra in the old shed, acting as a security blanket, as well as insulation.

I’ve started picking some apples too.  They’re not all quite ripe yet, but those that are have for the most part been good.  Some are sweet and meaty, while two other trees are producing big apples that have a pleasant tartness to them.  It’s fun to taste and look for good apples, and to know that pretty soon I’ll be filling my weekends and evenings making apple sauce, butter, jelly, and cider.

Well, the peaceful serenity of a crackling fire and chirping crickets has come to an abrupt end.  Pico noticed (finally!) the two deer only a few hundred feet away.  He barked as he took off after them, like he always does.  He stood absolutely no chance of coming anywhere near catching a deer, but it was valiant, though loud, effort.  Luckily for him and them that he doesn’t need to hunt for food.

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Cabin Life – #88

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I’m sitting at the table, looking out the big window at the layer of frost The Scythecovering everything.  The car has a white windshield and the chicken coop has a good layer of frozen dew on it as well.  I guess now that it’s September, there are going to be more and more days like this.

Now that fall is almost here, I’ve been thinking back on the summer.  At the beginning, I was worried that this would be the summer that never was, what with snow until early June and then nothing but rain for quite a while too.  Then there was the heat wave, followed by more rain.  August was nice though.  It was hot but not crazy hot, with some rain here and there.  Of course, it rained almost exclusively on my days off each week, but what can you do?

Last night, I rebuilt the fire pit in the side yard.  It was working fine, but I wanted a larger one out there.  I dismantled the old pit and built a new one, about twice the size.  The funny thing is that I didn’t add any rocks to it.  The old pit just had so many rocks laying around not performing any function that there was a ready stockpile handy.

I got a fire going to enjoy the new pit, and since it was still daylight out and I was out of beer, I thought I’d do some work on the side yard.  I tend to call this area the front yard, since this is what I see when I look out the big window.  But my front door faces another direction, so the side yard it is.

In a way, the side yard is a much more active place than the front yard.  I park and walk through the front yard a lot, and that’s where the big fire pit is as well.  But the side yard is where the chickens are, the junk wood pile, the compost bin and the more manageable fire pit are.  It’s also where the solar panel and the remnants of the garden are located.

As I stood there surveying the yard wondering what project I could start, I decided it could be something fun.  The woodshed is done and almost full and the chickens are happy in their coop.  The main projects I wanted to get done are done.

I’ve wanted a horseshoe pit out here for a while, and this seemed like a good time to start it.  However, the most level part of the yard was covered in small balsam sprouts and other brush.  I had already cleaned up the entangled pile of old metal roofing and burned a bunch of old lumber that was slowly rotting away under the apple tree.  The ground was clear of debris, but not of brush.

I went to the shed and grabbed the scythe.  I had never actually used one of these before, but when I saw leaned up against the outside of an antique shop, I had just given in to the impulse and purchased it.  For twenty bucks, I got the scythe and an extra blade.

Walking back to the side yard with scythe in hand, I figured it would be best to have on steel-toed shoes.  So with the proper foot wear in place, I attacked the lower part of the side yard with the scythe.  I started out small on the goldenrod and tall grass, but soon got adventurous and tried my luck on a couple of the small balsams.  To my amazement, the scythe sliced right through them.  This was getting fun.

The huge blade on the scythe made short work of the brush, and I so had cleared a lot more than I intended to.  There’s plenty of room now for the horseshoe pit as well as a couple of raised bed gardens.  I had decided to do something fun for the night.  I may have sweaty from all the work of swinging the scythe, but it sure was fun to me.

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Cabin Life – #86

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Well, it’s finally happened, I have electricity.  Granted, it’s not much The Panelelectricity, but it’s a start.  I don’t need enough to run appliances or a whole house, just enough so that my phone and computer don’t go dead, and hopefully a light or two to read by.

A few months ago I got an email from a reader who said he had an old solar panel lying around and didn’t need or want it anymore.  It was mine, he said, if I just came and picked it up.  You never know who you’re meeting through an email, so I was a little wary.  So, fighting the urge to tell everyone where I was going and with whom just in case I didn’t make it back, I drove the little ways to his camp.  I did bring my girlfriend with me, you know, for protection.

He was nice enough to pick us up at the boat launch and give us a ride out to his camp.  It was a nice place, bigger than mine, but much better set up.  He had running water, internet, and a beautiful location right on the water.  We got the solar panel and hung out for a little while, then headed back to the car.

I’m sad to admit it, but that was almost three months ago.  For three months, I’ve had this solar panel sitting in the cool shade of my shed, doing nothing.  I even had the charge controller and a deep cycle battery, but was too busy (lazy) to get around to hooking the thing up.

So this week I pulled everything out to the yard and set I up just to see what would happen.  The charge controller showed a charge, and I was angry with myself for putting off what turned out to be a ten minute job.

I left the panel out all day in full sun and went to town to buy an inverter.  I picked up a nice one and did some other errands before getting back home in the evening.  I was excited and ripped open the package for the inverter and hooked it up.  It immediately started flashing and beeping, and not in a good way.  The charge was too low on the battery to power the inverter.

No big deal I thought, it’ll take a couple of days for the battery to get fully charged.  But, since everything else seemed to be working, I set the panel up in its full-time place on the south side of the porch.  I moved the battery onto the porch and drilled a couple of small holes for the wires to run through.  I then fed the wire through, and the positive wire was about eight inches too short.  Of course.

The next day I went to the hardware store (again) and picked up some wire.  The thing was now fully set up and actively charging.  But not fast enough.  I took the battery to work the next day and plugged it in to the trickle charger.

Now, the battery is fully charged, the panel is up and running and hopefully it will be enough juice to keep the battery charged.  It’s a big step up in the cabin life, and the prospect of having light this winter is very exciting.

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Cabin Life – #84

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It’s another beautiful summer night with fall weather.  Ed is helping me out The Girlsby sticking his butt in my face and stepping on random keys on the computer.  He’s always a big help in his own way.

We had a bit of a milestone out here at the cabin this week.  The chickens are no longer residing in a large box on the porch, but instead are enjoying their new digs and much larger coop.  While it’s not quite done, it is habitable and since there are no building codes or inspections for small wooden boxes, I figured the girls could use the room to stretch their wings.

It must be a big improvement, going from a box that almost always had a cat sleeping on top of it to a detached coop complete with nesting boxes and a perch.  Not that they’re going to be laying eggs anytime soon, but I have some idea of how they feel.  I too live in a small, cramped area with three other living beings.  Hey, at least the chicks never had to step in cat puke at two in the morning.  They just had to deal with seeing Herbie and Ed’s bellies all the time.

I used an old cart to build the coop, and again, the total cost of the project was only a box of screws.  Much like the woodshed, the coop is not square, but it is functional and will keep the birds dry.  I’m really happy with the way it’s coming so far, even though I still have a fair amount of work to do on it.  I need another door, latches and some small windows still, but it is a big step up for the girls.

I was very happy with myself when I was finally able to move the chicks into the coop.  I should have done this a while ago, but they seem happy in their new home now.  As I stood there in the sun, smugly enjoying the non-masterpiece of carpentry I had just completed, I thought how nice it would be when I get the one wheel fixed and can move the coop so it butts up against the chicken run we built a while ago.

The thought occurred to me that the girls will be very happy when they have a nice safe outdoor area right next to their home when I realized that I had never actually measured the coop and the run with the point of seeing whether they would fit together.  My shoulders drooped and I ran inside to grab the tape measure.

Obviously I had measured each structure while I was building them.  But building them so they would fit together just never entered my mind, even though that was the plan all along.  Maybe I shouldn’t have built the run two weeks before I got chickens and then built the coop two months after I got them.  I should have built them together.

I measured from the ground to the roof of the coop on the back side and got forty-two inches.  I literally ran around the cabin to the run and measured from the ground up to the lower edge of the top of the run.  Forty-three inches!  I couldn’t believe my luck and I was ecstatic.  My shoulder’s drooped again as I  had another realization.  The run was tall enough, but was it wide enough?  I measured the width and ran back to the coop.

I knew on my way that it would not fit, because the coop was forty inches wide without the roof, and the run was only forty-one inches wide.  Sure enough, the roof width was about forty-four inches.  With the overhang of the roof, I was not going to be able to fit the coop snuggly inside of the open end of the run.  Thoughts ran though my head as I pondered rigging chicken wire around the sides to keep the girls safe.  There was a quick mental image of a new door built into the run so I could access it.  But I want to be able to move the coop and run.  This was getting complicated quickly.

I stood there, slightly dejected staring at the coop as if an answer would suddenly pop out of thin air.  I ran through multiple scenarios, each more work than the last, and far more complicated than I really want to get with this whole setup.  Suddenly it dawned on me:  I own a hack saw.  I can just trim the back of the roof so that it still fully covers the coop but allows me to slide it into the end of the run.  Problem solved!

I grabbed the hack saw and walked back out to the coop.  Then I remembered that the girls were in the coop, and using a hack saw on the roof probably would not be good for their psyche or their hearing.  I’ve held off on trimming the roof, justifying it by saying that the girls need to stay in there for a while to get used to it.  Plus, I can’t move the coop right now anyway because of the busted wheel.  That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway.  It’s a lie, and I could do the roof right now.  But I spent a lot of time on this coop, and I kind of need a break.  If anyone asks though, it’s because of the girls’ hearing.  Yeah, their ears, that’s it.

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Cabin Life – #83

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I really enjoy fall weather, just not in July.  The last few nights have been The New Shedbeautiful, though cold.  I really struggled on Wednesday on whether or not I would get a fire going in the stove.  I decided not to, based solely on principle.  I will not be using my woodstove in July.  I just won’t do it.

But it has made the evenings pleasant.  The water is warm when we go swimming, and the heat isn’t as oppressive as last week.  On top of the coolness of the nights, they have also been really clear.  With a big moon in the sky and the stars shining, it’s been great.  As the moon moves to one side of the sky, the stars come out on the other, making a whole-sky panorama with the Milky Way visible on one end, and nothing but the slate gray sky around the moon on the other.

Now that the wood shed is done and partially stocked, I’ve been able to relax a little bit after work.  Ed and Herbie get to go outside for a while and the chickens have been enjoying eating bugs and grass in their run.

I was sitting on the boulder that serves as my front step the other evening, letting the day’s accumulated warmth keep me comfortable.  Pico and Herbie were lying in the dirt by the car, but Ed was not immediately in sight.  I then noticed something moving off to my left in the taller grass.  A lifetime of toys and free food have left Ed lacking in the hunting skills department, but he still gives it a good effort.

I watched as he not-so-subtly snuck down through the grass and toward the chicken run.  It took him a while to get up the nerve, but he finally launched an attack and ran smack into the fencing.  He seemed to have taken the girls by surprise, but they were safe the whole time.  They squawked and ran around a bit, but settled back into the rhythm of being chickens.  Ed settled in at the end of the run and hung out for a while to watch them, no doubt dreaming of hunting glory.  Soon, they’ll be bigger than he is, and I’m not sure how Ed will handle that, psychologically.

After watching Ed for a few minutes, I glanced over at the new shed.  I have a full cord of wood in there, and will need probably another two full cords to get through the winter.  I like the way the shed turned out, and with a grand total cost of about fifteen bucks, I think it was a good project to get done.

My dad had come up to help me build it, and along with my friend, we built the whole thing in about four hours.  I used a bunch of old lumber from underneath Upper Camp and only had to buy a box of wood screws.  The old metal roofing has holes in it, but they’re small and it will keep the vast majority of rain and snow off my wood.  It’s comforting to have it built, though now I really feel the pressure to get it filled.  Unfortunately, I’ll have to buy some fire wood this winter, but it won’t be as much as last year.

When my neighbor came up to brush hog the lower field, he noticed the new shed.  He said that he’s built a few sheds, and the biggest problem is that when you build a new shed, you fill it up, leaving you no choice but to build another shed at some point.  I like building things, so this wouldn’t be so bad, but luckily this new shed will be filled and emptied by the time next summer roles around.

Now I just need to figure out what else can go into a shed, so I can build another one.

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Cabin Life – #80

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I love it when a few moments of laziness lead to something good.  I had weed whacked all First Strawberriesaround the big fire pit and hammock a couple weeks ago, but there was one section of lawn that I just buzzed through quickly, and I did a poor job on about a ten square foot area.  Last night as I was moving some junk wood into the new wood rack, I caught a glimpse of some bright red in the slightly overgrown region:  two wild strawberries.

Only one of the very small strawberries was ripe, so after taking a couple pictures of the first strawberries of the season, I popped the ripe one in my mouth.  That was the first strawberry I’ve had in quite a while, and man was it delicious.  There was enough flavor packed in that little pea-sized berry to make all the rain worthwhile.

After I stacked the wood, I sat back on the porch with a beer and put my feet up on the chicken cage.  The little girls are getting bigger, and spend about a third of their time stretching their wings and preening the down feathers they’re losing.  The other two thirds of their days are split evenly between eating and sleeping.  They are having a good life so far.

When I brought them home earlier this week, I introduced Ed and Herbie to the chicks.  I held Herbie over their cage and let him sniff and watch for a few minutes.  He seemed to lose interest and eventually just wanted to get down out of my arms.  Ed, on the other hand, when confronted with the chicks for the first time, recoiled and was wary of the chicks.  They are tiny, but Ed was a little freaked out.  For all his posing as a killer, he’s still just my little man who would have no idea what to do if he saw the girls outside of their cage.

As I sat on the porch letting the beer wash away the taste of the strawberry, I glanced out over the yard.  The apple trees are starting to get heavy with small apples, and I can see the lime green berries starting to form on the blueberry bushes.  With the drought last year, I got no fruit off of the property, but this year is shaping up to be a banner year for all the strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry plants.  I know it’s early and anything could happen, but I have a feeling that I will have more wild food than I know what to do with.

I’m hoping that my friends with kids will come around later in the summer to help clear out some of the berries and apples.  Besides making jam, apple sauce, cider and hopefully some applejack, I don’t really have any idea what to do with the bounty of fruit coming my way.  Add to this the chicken eggs and garden veggies that will be appearing in the next couple of months, and I am facing a glut of food.  Obviously, this is not a problem that requires any serious deliberation.  I’m ok with apples and berries getting eaten by deer and other animals.  I just hope that some of the bears around don’t get too cozy here.  I may be facing a surplus of wild food, but a hungry bear could easily wipe out a lot of my apples, berries, and even the chickens.  I don’t mind sharing, but a bear coming in here and eating all my stuff is not something that I would forward to.

Cabin Life – #73

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The first clouds we’ve seen in a while are rolling in, and there have even Apple Budsbeen a couple drops of rain that have fallen from the sky.  So instead of writing this while lying in the hammock, I’m sitting in the old rocking chair on the front porch.  I can see the four-wheeler, the wood pile, and the lawn chairs that I’ve been too lazy to put away.  The grass is turning green except for the area where I almost always park.  That grass is dead and carries the color of dried wheat.  Other than that, the colors are coming out, and the rain we’re about to (hopefully) get will only make them brighter.

A coworker commented to me that the colors of spring are just as nice as the colors of fall, but no one seems to care or notice.  Sitting here looking out over the upper field and on to the slopes of the hill out back, I can see his point.  Everyone comes to the Adirondacks to enjoy the fall foliage.  They don’t know exactly when it’ll be, so they watch the news and try to time it right to hit the peak color season in early October or so.

But right now there is a bounty of color that, when you take the time to notice it, is really pretty.  Beyond the grass of the yard, the apple trees are starting to show a dull lime green as the tiny leaves emerge.  The little poplars are glowing, and the maples are covered in deep red flowers.  The white birch bark stands out against the dark balsam needles and even the brown of the trees that aren’t blooming adds to the ambiance.

Right now, I can see the colors.  My eyes aren’t being bothered by allergies, as mornings are usually when I suffer the worst.  I’m hoping that we get this rain and it washes some of the pollen out of the air.  My car, which is normally a nice dark green is now a pale disgusting green with streaks down the sides from where the washer fluid flows when I cleaned my windshield.  It’s odd having to clean it of the dead bugs that are starting to splatter their yellow guts on my glass.

Just now, I heard the first few drops of rain on the tin roof of the porch.  We desperately need some rain, as it’s been almost two weeks since we got any precipitation.  In fact, the last time anything other than pollen fell from the sky, it was snow.  The little stream that runs behind my cabin is dry in most spots, and the seeds I started for the garden could use a little natural precipitation.

It’s amazing to me that after complaining about the amount of snow we got this year, I am now anxious for some rain.  The last two weeks have been nice but hot and dry.  There have been a few forest fires, and I hope that this summer is not a replay of last year.  But as it stands now, we’ve had a pleasant transition from winter to spring, and even though I got my first black fly bite of the year, I’m happy at the changing of the seasons.

There’s more birds around including lots of grouse and turkey.  I was woken up by a big tom turkey walking through the yard this morning.  He was calling loudly, looking for love.  I got up early and snuck out onto the porch to watch him walk through.  It’s turkey season, and if I was a hunter, I could have gotten this guy with no problem at all.  Lucky for him I’m not, but I did enjoy listening to him and watching him walk from the left trail through the lower field and down the driveway.  His bright red waddle was swinging side to side as he tramped around, and to me, it was just one more color to add to the palate of spring.

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Cabin Life – #61

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Evening Entertainment
Psychologically, I am ready for winter to be over.  I like the snow and the skiing and the trips to the gym that I just can’t justify when it’s nice out, but I would really like some nice warm days to come our way.  Maybe I’m not ready for winter to be completely done, but I could use a February or early March thaw.

I was sitting here reading the other night, when the radio suddenly turned off.  This is a common occurrence, due to the fact that my radio is a “solar” radio.  I put solar in quotes because this is what the radio was advertised as, but it is, in fact a crank/rechargeable radio that happens to have a small solar panel on it.

This past summer I spent a little bit of money getting solar lights and this radio.  Last winter I had used an old digital alarm clock for my radio.  That clock was the same one that’s been waking me up since I was a freshman in high school.  It was a good, old-fashioned plug in clock radio that had a battery backup so that if the power went out, your alarm would still go off.  I went through a lot of nine-volt batteries listening to NCPR last winter, so many that I had to repair the wire harness a few times.  I took that clock radio to the campground last spring and decided to leave it there when I got my new solar radio.

The reception that I get on the new radio is good, but tuning it is a hassle and if I don’t charge it in the car then I will inevitably spend a significant portion of my evening cranking the thing so that I’m not sitting here in an eerie, mind-numbing, depression-inducing silence.

All that being said though, I wonder how long I would last without it.  Now, admittedly, I live in a writer’s dream.  Solitude, peace, quiet, and lots of inspiration surround me.  I like the peace and quiet, with no neighbors’ dogs barking or loud vehicles driving by.  I like the lack of distraction when I’m writing and reading.  But riding out the winter with its long nights would most definitely be a lot more trying if not for the company of the radio.

I suppose that when you deprive yourself of a lot of distractions, it becomes a luxury to have a little something going on in the background.  I have friends that have come to visit the North Country and can’t sleep because there’s no sound of traffic or sirens to listen to as they drift off.  I don’t have that problem.  There’s no shortage of noise out here, it’s just not the type of noise created by planes, trains and automobiles.

Between the wood crackling in the stove and two rambunctious, mostly nocturnal cats, I have plenty of sound to drift off to.  Throw Pico’s gentle snoring into the mix and the sound of the ever-present wind blowing around the cabin and it’s basically a symphony of natural sounds all night long.  But there’s sometimes I just don’t feel like listening to the wind or to Ed and Herbie wrestling.  That’s when the radio becomes important.  The distraction of music or talk radio or whatever is on gives me a much needed respite from the regular sounds this cabin makes.

When the sun goes down at four-thirty in the afternoon, it’s the radio that keeps me awake until seven.  When I don’t know if I should bother shoveling in the morning, it’s the radio that lets me know.  And it’s not that I have the radio on all the time.  I can’t write with the radio on, but I can read and play Scrabble.  I don’t change the station that frequently because it’s a bother, so I often listen to talk radio or music for a week at a time.  Sure, the radio I got may be under-performing.  However, it’s my lifeline to the outside world and my one source of passive electronic entertainment.  And if that means that I have to spend ten minutes cranking it to listen to twenty minutes of music, I guess I’ll just have to be ok with that.

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Cabin Life – #52

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Remnants of the apple crop
The best feature of my cabin is the big window.  It’s probably four by four, with two smaller windows on either side that open to let in fresh air.  With myself, a dog and two cats living in this one room cabin, fresh air is a precious and much needed commodity.

The big window is on the south side of the cabin, looking down the driveway and over what used to be the garden.  I can see Lower Field, Left Trail, and last year’s junk wood pile.  The old plow is right in front and a half-dozen apple trees are in plain view.  I can see Whiteface Mountain, but only the summit.

There’s also two birdfeeders in front of the big window.  This is Ed and Herbie’s entertainment.  I get a lot of black-capped chickadees, but have also had blue jays, red-breasted nuthatches and house finches.  I’ve seen deer, ruffed grouse, turkeys and porcupines through the big window too.

My solar panels are just outside, underneath the window so they can catch as much sun as possible during the shortening days as winter sets in.  I have been really disappointed with my solar lights and radio.  One of the lights stopped working altogether when I moved the panel outside.  I looked at it today and was going to try re-wiring it, but noticed that the switch on the panel was in the “off” position.  I’ll give it a day or two, but I have a feeling that I fixed the problem.

But looking out the window, I think about how this place makes me learn, and makes me want to learn.  I didn’t know what a house finch was until some time this past February.  I assumed that a red-breasted nuthatch was a weird looking chickadee.  And I didn’t care or want to learn about taking care of apple trees.

Now I know some new birds, and am going to spend some time this winter reading up on the care of apples.  I’d love to make apple jelly next fall, and use next winter to make applejack.  (For those of you who don’t know what applejack is, you take hard cider and freeze it, then skim off the unfrozen alcohol.  This is what Johnny Appleseed actually planted all those apple trees for.)

There’s about thirty apple trees out here.  There’s about a dozen in Lower Field, and maybe ten in Upper Field.  I’ve found a few more scattered throughout the woods too.  When I moved out here last fall, there were some apples still on the trees, and a few were really good.  It’s apparent that there are a number of varieties, but the trees haven’t been touched in years.  I’d like to do some pruning and trimming to help get the apples going again.

This year there were basically no apples, but that was because they all bloomed in March when it was so warm, and then the blossoms got hit and killed by frost.  It was a common problem up here.  I’m hoping that by giving them some TLC next year, I can get a crop of all kinds of different kinds of apples.  I bet the mix will make the applejack taste fantastic.

 

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