Lots to do before the snow flies...

Lots and lots of fall chores, which is a good way to spend the sunny cool days of late october. I think I've planted about 150 garlic cloves, tucking them in to holes poked in the soft rich soil where they will start to root before the ground freezes. The first welcome green shoots to come up in april will be garlic plants.

Apple cider! At last I get to use my birthday cider press...but first I needed a way to crush up the apples before they could be pressed. I built this stand to accomodate an under - sink  garberator that I found on Kijiji.

Here is the underneath view with the machine running and disgorging the apple mush into the bowl below. It works wonderfully. Even tho the garberator is designed to run with water running through, it doesnt plug up, and the consistantcyof the apple goop  is fine but not too fine to squeeze through the holes in the pressing bag.

I can poke the apples down with this stick with a dowel through it, to keep it from going too far into the grinding chamber.

I made a wooden juice collection tray with a drain hole at the front. The press came with a plastic oil changing pan for juice collecting  (which I found quite horrifying and promptly discarded)

Lots of delicious juice, all from wild apple trees from here and there.

The apple corral comes off for cleaning. And a couple of jugs of water poured through the garberator with the motor on, cleans the insides.

The dryish pulp left in the pressing bag got spread onto trays in the dehydrator to make winter nibbling treats for the mini horses.
Nothing really ever gets wasted on a farm . Between horses, hens and compost there's a place for all the scraps.

Scrambling to catch up...

Gardeners are such an optimistic bunch...no matter how discouraging the passing season has been, next year will "always be better". Here are next summer's garlic cloves going into their new raised bed, amended with 2 buckets of super wonderful compost. My visions of tall green garlic plants with their artfully curling scapes are basking in sunshine, unlike this past summer's monsoon season... well at least with the raised bed they cant wash away.
A little more work on the greenhouse/chicken house. I've really got to figure out the eaves before I can go much further with the cedar shingles. The last few days I've been cutting glass to double the small windows between the doors, and caulking every draft I can find.







These are the plywood doors high up on the inside partition wall that will stay open during the summer to let out the excess heat in the greenhouse. Below them is the window through to the chicken house which can be opened on sunny winter days to let the heat through to the hens which hopefully will make them happy enough to lay.
My max/min thermometer is indicating that the greenhouse is about 4 degrees warmer inside than outside in the dead of night.
The lettuces, parsley and leeks are all thriving and I'm deeper into winter denial with each passing day....