Don't sit down, it's time to dig another one

There are more stairs to add. It's a long way up the Steepmeadow Mountain. And today we hit a layer of rock in the heavy clay. So I was reduced to actually using a pick axe. I'm nursing a blister. I'd wanted to install one more 2x6 plank, but I'd got to the point where I actually couldn't lift the pick axe to hit the unyielding ground one more time. It will yield, it is just a matter of time. I also can't believe that I'm actually digging a hole and forgetting the sun. 

Still, the sun is the same in a relative way and we're older. Winter is closing in.

You can tell, because the garden is in some pretty hard shape. Witness these diseased tomato plants. 

This does not necessarily mean that they've stopped producing tomatoes, of which we have many. We spent a merry weekend processing zucchini into 2 cup frozen bags and blanching tomatoes. Soon, we will be eating another tomato pie. And four quarts of refrigerator pickles. 

It is satisfying to have enough produce to worry about. And we think it is making a dent in our grocery bill.

I didn't much document last weekend's chores, which included relocating the blueberry bushes that we started the first year we moved in from the side of the garage to the back yard.

They are admittedly a little difficult to see in this photo, because they started out small, and they are apparently shrinking.

Still, it was nice to clean up that spot next to the garage door and put it to use. Stirred up the soil, dropped a couple of buckets of black dirt from the spring that we hadn't distributed and then tossed on a sack of manure. Hopefully that charges up the soil and these things start to actually grow.

An exciting development this week was the first controlled burns on the wood stove.

It turns out that there's a break-in period. You need to do two 20 minute burns at roughly 200 degrees to settle the paint, which gives off various gasses and stenches. You have to be careful not to let the door get stuck in the paint and rip off the insulating collar. There's one more break-in burn to do - bringing it up to 400 degrees, and then it will be ready for service this winter. 

I'd been carrying a lot of anxiety about these test burns, certain that I'd wreck the stove. But - not so. It works swimmingly. We will have a much warmer, and, I hope, more pleasant winter with this thing burning away.

Onward!