Fall Back

It's 5:10 PM as I start to write this, and it's pitch black outside.  Daylight Savings Time came to an official close earlier this morning.  Now we have one less hour of daylight each evening which means less project time (unless we got up earlier on the weekends, and I can't see that happening).  Of course that means more time in the house, and Ross is kicking off Regular Time with homemade pizza (this is another instance where Ross has ruined being able to go to a restaurant because his food always ends up being better).

Going back to projects, Ross surprised me earlier this past week by starting one that I did not think we'd get to until Spring.  There was this moderately-sized, triangular swatch of bramble that I wanted to reclaim as either yard or as a squash garden.  The area is bordered by large boulders that I assume were placed there when the basement of the house was dug; their layout is too methodical to suggest Mother Nature's hand.  Ross has cleared 90% of the area which just astounds me.  He is a busy little beaver.  He said that the chickens stay right with him while he is out there, and as he would rake an area they would come right behind and scratch up all the bugs.  I guess they can't pass up a good opportunity!  I was going to use a wonderful picture of Ross rolling a small boulder instead of the one I posted, but it had his butt in the air and that could get me divorced.

Another project that we have talked about and started this weekend is building a trail through our woods.  Those in the know know that our land was once upon a time farm pasture land (hence Looking Glass Hill Farm) but is now a wooded lot.  This year I have taken a great interest in the trees on our lot.  I spent part of the summer walking around with a pair of binoculars looking at the leaves on the trees.  Ross would laugh when he would come upon me laying on my back looking up in the tree canopies.  I was looking at the leaves and the branches and the fruit and whatever else I could make out.  We have a wonderful mix mostly made up of oaks, black cherry, young sugar maple (grow my babies so that Ross and I can tap you for maple syrup), and eastern white pine. In smaller numbers we have birch, ash, eastern cottonwood, and American beech.  We also have a few eastern hemlock which is one of my favorite trees; our neighbor's lot has a tremendous amount more, and ours is probably a result of theirs.  Of course a trail would make it a lot easier to get to all my lovely trees, so hence the project.  Ross and I walked on Saturday what we thought would make the best trail showcasing some of the more outstanding landscape features.  Today I went through about one-half of the trail marking trees and clearing logs, sticks, and shrubbery from the path.  We are hoping to get the path completed before the snow falls so that we may cross country ski and snowshoe it this winter.  Between me and the trail and Ross and the land reclamation we sound like old men complaining about our sore muscles and tired backs!

Our last project was the bees.  Over the last month Ross and I have discussed exactly what we were going to do with the bees and their honey.  Last year was our first year with them, and they did not fare so well.  We ended up having to feed them sugar candy starting on January 1st of this year until there was enough supply in Spring for them to fend for themselves.  They produced more supplies this year than last, but with it being such a dry Summer we found ourselves second guessing if they had enough honey to make it through the winter.  Saturday it was warm enough for us to get into the hive one last time this year.  It looked like there was an abundant supply in the hive so we decided to remove the honey super (we only got one super with honey of which we placed two frames back in the hive because the honey was still too wet to be processed).  We are excited to get honey as this is the first time our bees have produced enough for us to have some too.  We're talking about starting another hive next Spring with the hopes of getting twice the supply.

It's been a full weekend, and now, just like the clocks, Ross and I are looking to fall back-to fall back into the couch to relax and eat some homemade pizza (yum, yum).