Ten months out frostbit toes are almost back to normal. Our electricity biller declined to accept any responsibility for the February outage, and of course Oncor and Ercot (which I now refer to as Offcor and Ercut) are claiming they have systems improved to prevent another outage during frigid winter storms. We'll see. Personally, I have no faith in them at all. But now we're ready to handle any storm winter can bring, with or without grid-delivered electricity. It's the only

As a kid I raked leaves around the neighborhood for a buck. Now I'm harvesting them for reuse as a layer of biomass on hugel beds as I ease into the syntropic farming lifestyle. And just as start of leaf raking as a kid led to finding a fallen bird nest, that's how this season's raking began too, sparking memories a plenty. Ten decades ago it didn't mean much beyond gaining a little pocket money to spend at the local stop-n-shop for candy and chips–useless as far as bodily no

It's been too long since we've enjoyed oysters on the half shell. A gift from a sibling to our mother of four dozen beautiful oysters shipped fresh from the northwest coast, still alive in the shell arrived recently, and the Wizard Oyster Bar was eagerly opened for a second time. I had never shucked oysters, having only seen a shucker in action at Dupuy's in Abbeville, Louisiana more than fifty years ago on a cool, early-fall evening. That one was a pro. Fast and clean. He ma

One of the wild grape vines scaling the east fence produced a fair amount of fruit this fall. Cleaned up, there were enough to yield two full carafes of tart grape juice concentrate. Ready for making about two dozen six-ounce jars full of delicious wild grape jelly to enjoy! The final product: one hundred sixty ounces of the most delicious grape jelly I've ever eaten. One eight-ounce jar already gone, this delicacy can't be bought from any grocer, anywhere.

At the western edge of its range, it's nice to see this beautiful little ground skink living here. With impact of climate change now beyond any remedial action we might be capable of leveraging, it may not be around much longer. Glad to have encountered this one here now.

As woodland creature of the undergrowth watched and scurried out of the way, I started to work on a couple of the first permaculture farming tasks I need to get finished before winter. Planted the first black cherry seeds today. About fifteen had sprouted nicely while in the refrigerator and maybe another ten or fifteen might take root and grow. There's still warm weather remaining for a while, so some of them might sprout before winter freezes happen. Began building one of m

Recent evening thunderstorms have the local tree frogs coming out into sight again as the season slowly shifts into autumn. This green beauty made a brief appearance before rainfall.

This summer only one tomato hornworm was found eating leaf and fruit of a single cherry tomato plant. It did minimal damage to the plant and ate only a few tomatoes before it was finally spotted and eliminated. It was almost ready to burrow into the earth to pupate. I hated to kill it, but dread prospect of allowing the creature to multiply into a big problem. As this pandemic and all the negative effects it's having on production and supply chains grow, thoughts of expanding

The compost bin is half full now after about five months of use, producing plenty of rich dirt. The bin will be full by spring when all of it can be tilled into the garden plots before planting.

I love to look at them.

I'm never happy about killing a wild thing, but this Copperhead decided she would set up her nest in a Crape Myrtle in the yard just outside a bedroom on the east side of the house. Unacceptable for elderly folks living here all too feeble to dodge one if it's striking at us. Fortunately, Sky the ever-diligent sentry of the farm spotted the dangerous snake and let us know about it, dispatched with a straight-headed hoe without much trouble this evening. On a happier note, the

As delta variant of COVID-19 settles in for the long haul–making hardline deniers reassess their self-centered thinking about this never-ending pandemic–sheltering in place once again seems the best approach to life. Fully vaccinated with proof-of-that cards always handy if ever it becomes necessary to show my team spirit is both real and active, worrying over the unvaccinated, especially while so many are still so vulnerable, nothing else is very important. So decision makin

Sometimes, seeing red is highly desirable. After rinsing these still clinging to the bush, they became breakfast while the morning remained cool and the cicadas were still resting quietly.

It's not too difficult to stay on the sunny side. There are plenty of good things happening in the world despite its steady, inexorable shift toward the dark side as this pandemic drags on. Can't claim to always staying on the sunny side myself, though, as more than enough preventable bad stuff keeps happening in the world–even with plenty of historical information indicating we've been down these dark roads before and should know better by now. Hopes that social media would

I'd have had ripe tomatoes a couple of months ago if I had started with greenhouse seedlings instead of growing them from seed myself, but it's nice to see them doing so well now that they are finally producing ready-to-eat fruit. There's nothing better than plucking and eating them homegrown right off the vine after being rinsed by the morning watering. And now that the okra patch is producing a handful of pods each day, lunches are priceless. Won't be too long before some

Never inclined to adhere to any belief system, Hecate seems as good as any goddess to leave offerings for. So after the year's harvest of garlic has cured properly, I leave some at the nearest crossroads to ward off evil which may pause there and consider turning to come this way. So far, so good. What evil has come close has been weak and easily dealt with so far. The rest provides tasty flavoring to pizzas, and other dishes enjoyed throughout the year.

The first few okra pods have been harvested. Another handful should be ready by tomorrow, making enough to fry up for lunch. No leaf foot or stinkbug blight on these 100% organically grown specimens and none of the planting's leaves have been chewed on by anything so far.

First attempt growing corn has flopped. The plants never grew tall and the ears didn't develop well at all. Too much water, not enough sun, compacted soil. Who knows the cause. Probably all of the above, and possibly even a little disease brought on by all of the above. But I refuse to use chemicals on my vegetable gardens no matter how they turn out naturally.

First time composting has yielded decent results. Lots of bugs and microbes enjoying it. Not as smelly as I thought it would be down in there. Just the scent of rich dirt, no putridity. Having used about 10 gallons so far, the cantaloupe patch seems to like the end product. As do the tomatoes and okra. No infestations of destructive pests on anything, so far. We'll see how it affects the taste of produce. Starting to wish I had planted a lot more stuff.

Only two things that money can't buy...