We have lit the fire. But just for a few days. Last night and tonight are down below freezing. But then after the cold has killed off all my favourites (though the tomatoes are finished anyway and I picked the last of the aubergine and capsicums yesterday – I knew tomatoes were part of the nightshade family but did you know that capsicums and aubergines are as well ? – we eat a lot of nightshades) – anyway after the frosts the temperatures pop back up into the comfortable range again just in time for Hugo’s family to visit from France (next week).
But the upside of the cooler weather is that we can light the fire. However, only for a few days as I am as nervous about firewood as I am about hay. I can never have enough. NEVER, EVER. So the fire is only lit when it is ACTUALLY cold – otherwise I encourage people to put on some bloody clothes. Clothe the body instead of heating an entire house. Walking around in a T shirt and bare feet complaining about the cold is just Bonkers!
We managed one more cut of hay from the home alfalfa field. We brought it in yesterday. It is beautiful hay too. Not a lot but better than a poke in the eye. This field will be tilled, sown in a cover crop and the year after next we will sow it in alfalfa again. It flooded so badly this summer that a good third of the field (maybe more) is weeds now. It needs some recovery time. Which means of course that we will be planting another two acres of alfalfa across the way. My life is a jigsaw puzzle. Or maybe it is “my life AS a jigsaw piece!” We are all a piece of a puzzle.
The sunsets are extraordinary lately though, or maybe it is that I see them more often what with the days shortening and the colors of evening descending so rapidly. Lady Astor is floating in and out of the milking parlour very sweetly, Aunty Del and Queenie’s Bobby politely watching. The two calves Not so Difficult and Little cough quietly in their room and Naomi studies her grammar under the tree. 
I need to look back in the diary to count the days since Aunty’s last breeding, we need to be watching her behaviour 18 – 21 days from then. It will be fairly easy to see if she comes back into heat or not.
Speaking of evenings this evening we are having a family celebration so I will not be posting tomorrow. Unless something wonderful shows up that is! And that does happen you know – wonderful.
Have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farm
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
67 responses to “The Fire is burning”
Great sunset! I hope you have a lovely celebration – you will be missed tomorrow 😉
I miss tomorrow already
Even if something woderful turns up, you have special dispesation to tell us about it on Monday! We’ve had no frost yet, but will light the fire this evening. And yes,I so agree about putting clothes on – I’m wearing vest, T-shirt and sweater (among other things!)
Enjoy your special evening.
love,
ViV xox
Morning Viv, I bet you are enjoying your extended view today!.. c
We surely are, with the patio doors wide open and the sun shining in on us.
Potatoes are also nightshade family, the white English/Irish variety, not sweet potatoes.
When I got cold in the winter, I would go and split logs (by hand, with a big heavy log splitter), just to confirm Thoreau: “Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice”. Sadly there is no equivalent for hot weather…
I’m with you Kate! Very reluctantly I’m watching our warm weather get chilly, and next comes the cold. 😦
While we watch the start of a long, hot, dry Wet season with dismay and longings for rain… the fire danger is very great now, and the farmers are becoming desperate.
Australia is a tough place for a farmer.
It is. The rain will come… eventually. The question is whether it’ll come in time to save some of them, who’ve had *six years* of declared drought. I don’t allow myself to complain about rain and flooding…
hmm
I agree Kate – and stacking it is another opportunity to let it warm you again!
And hauling it into the house, I suppose! I had to take mine upstairs, so I couldn’t use a cart.
Have a wonderful weekend 🙂 Laura
We are laura thank you – I hope yours went well!
I’m seeing the temperature fall all over the country, but we’re still in the 10-17s here on the West Coast. Much to Robert’s annoyance because he wants to see if our insulation work has had a benefit! I also grow a lot of nightshade. Probably too much and will have to give my little garden plot a bit of a rest somehow. Maybe with some winter rye as a green manure, or clover or something, and plant something else next year. 😀 Hope you have a marvellous celebration and then tell all on Monday.
the green mulch is a great idea.. c
It I cold here too. I geese have been flying over, headed south in big V shaped streams. The light has changed and so have the leaves, the Gatineau Hills are amazing. We are supposed to have snow flurries this weekend. I guess it is a little taste of things to come.
Tom Rush’s wonderful song, The Urge for Going can be found here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKfYw2JIvgE It’s a beauty. Lots of love, Gayle
smiles
Enjoy the party and we give you a pass on writing up a post for us. I love your fowl sunsets! 😉 We had wonderful colour in our sunsets last week but they are now more faded or hidden by foggy mists. Although we have had over night frost on a couple of occasions, I have held off lighting the fire. Soon I will be sporting more layers than an onion. ’tis the season of heavy socks for me, but they are well hidden inside my knee-high boots.
As winter in Sacramento, California used to edge in, my former husband always wanted to turn on the heat. I’d tell him to put on something warm because “A house is not a sweater”. Lots of love, Gayle
“A house is not a sweater” – very good, Gayle! This year I have a few very warm sweaters and jackets at the ready in case the awful forecasts materialise.
I need to find some really good socks this year too – maybe the internet and i will commence that search today! c
http://www.mountainwarehouse.com/ski/ski-socks/
! bought my first pair (red) in 1999, and after all thise years, of use they are still in excellent condition. I have added several pairs since then. Since there is no turned heel, I wear the toe seam to the underside and it is very comfortable that way. Even under knee high boots they remain hidden.
It certainly is a patchwork life here as well, which fits nicely with Debbie being a quilter. The summer baking madness is over and we get to recover and catch up on everything else that needs doing. I bought a bulldozer this summer so get to start my experiment with terracing. We live on the Canadian shield so there isn’t all that much good soil, but it in the low areas there is some. I’m thinking I can use terracing to gain some growing areas. Building a new chicken coop that will serve as more dry storage as well. Using the reciprocal roofing technique and it works great. Finish the garden and plant the garlic and the never ending splitting of wood.
Baker Pete! There you are. I hope your season of sourdoughs went well. Terracing is an excellent idea and a bulldozer!! THAT will be an amazing assett. My grandfather had a ‘dozer on his farm. He used to take us kids for rides in the bucket – can you imagine! c
Gosh, I know what you mean about Never, Ever having enough wood Celi! We heat mainly by wood all winter long, thus, I find myself lusting after other people’s tall, long, neatly stacked woodpiles, always wishing we had more. What a thing to lust after, eh??? 🙂 But I sure do like to be warm!!!
OH ha ha ha do that too! And when i see a tree down and dead wood in the hedges! c
we use only wood and when you get 10cubic m delivered it looks huge but as the months slip past the pile quickly decreases. We only have the fire in the evenings as it seems daft to warm empty house, but its lovely to be warm and snug when it is cold outside
A fire in the evenings is such a comfort.. c
Oh do enjoy your family celebration! When I first started living in Spain I couldn’t get over how bl**dy cold it got 😦 Then I twigged that I don’t need to warm the whole house if I’m in the sitting room or kitchen, I started putting more clothes on and invested in a top notch electric blanket so that I could slip into a warm bed at night and just let my snout peek out into the cold night air!
I should get an electric blanket this year but then I would never get OUT! We have no heating in the bedrooms either – total waste of energy.. c
I feel about your posts the way you feel about firewood.
Lovely!! We are having a beautiful weekend aren’t we! c
I had the fire on at Casa Debbio the other night for the first time…and last. I go back to Australian spring and summer in a few days.
My daughter tells me the spring is wonderful too though she is in Melbourne..
Celi ~ we enjoyed the beautiful sunset last evening too! It was 31 this morning ~ I covered all my tomatoes and red and yellow sweet peppers last nite – way too many on the plants ~ the peppers are huge!! and I covered a lot of my flowers ~ not ready to give them up yet!!! Have a nice Family gathering!!
I SHOULD have covered the nasturtiums too .. I think I have lost them – such a shame.. c
Just a word of caution….late cut alfalfa has TONS of protein and can bloat a cow or horse or sheep or goats. Use mixed with other hay so the protein count is lowered. We lost a wonderful cow that way…forth cutting of hay. 😦
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Thank you – yes like I say most of the alfalfa was drowned.. and I never allow the cows to eat freely of alfalfa – they are fed their portion of hay twice a day, but this cut is on the pigs pile . It is great pig food in the winter. Sheila LOVES it! c