Fall seems to be closing in. Woke up to much cooler temperatures. 43℉. Evidence of a hard frost. Time to put up food.

Well the good news is we did get an Apple crop. The bad news is the apples were not the best of quality. There was a fair amount of insect / disease / cold weather damage. These five apple were better than most.

Picked and ready to process.

Last batch waiting to be processed later this week.

This is our food dehydrator. It does a great job dehydrating fruits and vegetables.  Notice that it has 10 stackable trays.

Here is one of the stackable trays with apple slices dehydrating.

Apple chips nearly ready for storage.

This will be the next crop we will pick and process. Maybe later this week or the beginning of next week.

This is what a nice bunch of grapes looks like. Although they all tend to start out this way many  unfortunately don't end up looking like this.  Between the birds, squirrels, and raccoons we loose a lot of the best fruit to the wildlife.  

Some get away with it.

SOME DO NOT and GET A TRIP TO THE COUNTRY

This guy is waiting for transportation. Heading out to "the summer home" to spend time with the first two that took the trip earlier in the week. Three trapped this year 4 trapped last year.

This how I found him early in the morning. Just lounging around waiting for someone to show up. Although they might look cute and friendly they are NOT.

This guy just charged me as I approached. Snarling, growling and baring his teeth. NOT friendly NOT friendly at all.

Backyard: changes. Crops: fruits and seeds. Birds: variety and color.

This is our composting area. It also does double duty and serves as seasonal "toy" storage.

Our new birds feeders. Notice the mounting to the stump (drilled hole and wedged post).

I saw this little storage tip for the wheelbarrow on a TV program. Works great. It is built with a 2 x 4. This one is sized to fit the location on the shed. It could have been shorter (narrower). On each end attach a 2 x 4 block. The blocks serve as spacing for the front lip of the wheelbarrow to sit in. The final step is to add the slide bolt (at the top center) to hold the wheelbarrow against the wall.

This Morning Glory has grown along the driveway edge for years. The seed pods self seed the garden spot. Donna also hand harvest seeds each year. She gives them away to anyone who wants to have them growing in their yard. Each year we find them growing in other spots around the yard and neighborhood. My guess is the birds are dispersing them from our garden to wherever they travel.

This year we are going to have a fairly good plum crop. They seem like they are maturing early this year as are the apples and raspberries. It has been a very hot summer. Lots of days in the high 90's even some triple digit days. 

The apple tree only fruits every other year. Although the quantity of the fruit seems about normal the quality is not up to par. We have a lot more insect damage than in pass years. We do not spray the fruit trees by choice. We prefer to feel like anyone can safely eat the fruit directly from the tree.

We are thrilled with the number of birds we are seeing at our new feeder station. It took the birds less than two days to find the new location.

We are enjoying the variety and colors of the current visitors. 

This male Cardinal and his mate are year around residence of the neighborhood. We hear them 'talking' to each other throughout the day. The chirps and calls have increased in frequency in the last few days. The photo below helps explain the increased activity.

I was lucky to catch this photo.  Our kitchen window over the sink is high (eye level). We can not easily see the ground at the base of the feeder. I was watching the birds at the feeder this morning when the male Cardinal flew in perched momentarily on the crossbar and then quickly dropped to the ground. My guess was that the female was probably on the ground already.  I quickly grab a chair and the camera and managed to peek over the edge of the window to the ground. My first glimpse was of four Cardinals mom, dad, and two chicks. The mom heard me or saw me in the window and flew away. The dad however was to busy feeding the chicks to notice the guy in the window with the camera fumbling to get a vantage point and a picture.

This hummingbird was a little nervous about me being 2-3 feet away on the other side of window. We have to move slowly for them to land and stay. We are hoping they will get use to us and come and go without the additional caution. In any case we have seen and I have photographed more hummingbirds in the last 2-3 days than anytime in the past 10 years.

Hanging in the yard.

Fruit crops are coming in. Some good and some not so good.

A fair grape crop if the raccoons had left them alone.

Swenson Red grapes

Grape jams and tomato sauce.

Apples aren't quite ready yet. One or two cold nights should sweeten them up. 

 We have dried (dehydrated) the dropped fruit and have several large jars of crispy apple treats.

The plums didn't fair well this year. The crop was small and some fruit was infected with "Brown Rot".

The apples are almost ready. One or two cold nights should do it.

This is what we have from the cherry crop. Cherry Cordial. Thanks to the expert advise, guidance and recipe from our friends Ed and Terry. A great sweet w..a..r..ming after dinner sipping treat.

This generally wasn't a great growing year this year. Everyone seems to have had smaller or no crops at all. Our vegetable garden was horrible. Tomatoes either didn't set fruit or the fruit that set didn't ripen. The squash performed as usual. One or two edible fruits. Most set then wither on the vine.   Green beans were slow but might be the highlight of the year. We are still getting small helpings every few days from the pole beans.

One very notable observation IMO.  I saw very few if any honeybees foraging. Even with sunflowers and other aromatic flowers the bees weren't here. Although neither were the yellowjackets. Their numbers were also small. Of course weather might explain both of these observations. 

We had an early warm start. We had early flowering but just at their peak we had a cold rainy (sleet) few days. The interrupted flowering cycle might explain the low crops on the fruit trees. 

The most discouraging event of the growing season was the infection of our Mount Royal plum tree. Although it did result in me making a new friend at the UW Madison Plant Pathology lab.  Thanks Brian H.

Brown Rot

Apple Cider making day.

Grinding and mashing crews.

Picking methods.

Fresh pickers arrive.

Professional picker.

You can't spend all day picking apples.



Sampling the product. Vintage 10/17 - 2009 - 12:30 P.M. A discerning palate?

Thanks to Dan and Krista for inviting us.

The 2009 harvest continues.... Trannies.

This year is the first good harvest we have had from the Transparent apple tree. This year we had enough for a few eating apples, enough for dehydrated slices and enough for one great apple pie. The tree is 6 years old.

2009 Harvest. All within 50 feet. Small yard gardens.

The birds made me do it. Really, as I sat in may chair working (really) I looked out the window and the blackbirds were stripping the tree. Decision time. Work, pick, work, pick, work, pick? I'll..............take a break from work and pick.

I'm going for the low hanging fruit. In this case sour cherries.


Might just as well pick some raspberries while I'm taking a break from work to pick cherries.

Might also need to check and see "what's on deck" to harvest next. Plums and........

Grapes and..............
Transparent apples.