It’s coming. Yet another winter. Seems like the last one is still breathing down my neck. I wonder where the time went. But here is comes. The leaves on the trees are now turning color and it’s generally colder out. We have not yet had a frost – when that comes kiss all the garden produce goodbye that we planted late. This was our doing.

The garden status – did excellent on the strawberries. Pete planted 75 plants in the hoop house, and we’ve had them to munch on nearly every morning since June. The zucchinis, so so; the raspberries, better than so-so; – the swiss chard, a bust; the carrots and beets, too early to tell but

most likely so, so; the snow peas, OK; the tomatoes, less than average.

The cool weather early on this spring and a cloudy summer was the culprit. And there was rain, lots of rain.

I hate seeing the plants, and in particular the flowers, wither and die. Was thinking about this today, perhaps I am better suited to live in the south. But then I don’t like ochre and there are fire ants and water moccasins everywhere. And grits – the thought of this food freezes movement in my intestines. I don’t know what grits are even made of. And who in their right mind would call a food grits? I would not even feed the stuff to our chickens because I seriously doubt that they’d even eat it.

So we are somewhat set – we have enough raspberry jam to live on if the big one hits. And we have enough food in general on hand in case the big one hits. We don’t have enough to sustain us for a long time, but long enough to get back on our feet again. As for water – we have enough gasoline to keep the generator going for some time. And there’s a creek nearby with water for the horses, if need be.

I want to get Hrimmi’s cart fixed so that we can haul things with it. It’s not a priority item around here. The main priority right now is getting the fencing up in the Playground of Higher Learning. This way, the horses will know this is an enclosed space, and in knowing it’s an enclosed space, they will be less apt to clamber out of it. We’ve had a few close calls lately – the new gate keeps them in the arena but in order for this to work it needs to be latched.

The brush and shrubbery that surrounds the outside of the arena – is mostly ferns. I’m also going to have to clear the arena area of rocks.

Sunday is my birthday, and so we are hosting a horse/human body awareness session, a trail ride, and a barbecue. It’s been raining so much that everyone I know, including me, has become impervious to the weather. So this is going to be a rain or shine event.

Next: 256. 9/16/17: Hard Physical Labor