Week of 11/3/24

Now that the harvest is over and the garden is done, as well as the farmers market being over for this year things have sort of slowed down from what has to get done. So I have started to work in the woods. On Monday I got a couple gator loads of wood cut down from a few cherry trees that had blown over this summer. There are still some more yet to go.

I also helped Ted load out some cull cows we had culled out from the herd when we weaned the calves. Then on Tuesday it was a wet and cloudy day, so we went to look about getting a new stove as the top of the old one had cracked and to replace the top was over half the price of a new stove. So we decided that a new stove would make more sense as the old one was 14 years old and has seen a lot of use, as Ruth bakes around a thousand pies a year plus a lot of other stuff.

Wednesday, I went to planting walnuts in the woods, where I have been cutting the wood trees down for firewood. These woods are on a steep rocky hillside, so I can only work between 3 to 4 hours a day before I get severe leg cramps in the evening. I move very slow as these hill sides are slippery as heck and when I fall it gets harder to get back up each year. So, I only get about 150 planted in a day. I would like to get at least around 2000 of them planted before this falls freeze.

After that I will go to cutting wood for the house as we still use wood for heating the house in the winter. I also cut wood for our little maple syrup operation; a total needed of 12 full cords.

I also have a few chores to do now, like taking care of the weaned calves and feeding the cow herd.

I got the garlic planted this week but I didn’t plant as much this fall as the market wasn’t as good as what I had thought it would be and I have a fair amount left over. The book sales are going great, we added 2 new places to sell the book. A little store in Dodgeville called Roots to Branches and a home and garden center in Mineral Point called Aspen Ridge. We will be having a book signing event there on Saturday, November 16th going from 10 to 4. I hope to see a good turnout.