Diary

First frostRSS feed

Posted: Tuesday 18 September, 2007

by Rosemary at 9:23pm in Anything goes 2 comments Comments closed

We experienced our first frost of the winter this morning. My goodness, it was cold. We've had a reasonably good spell of weather for the last three weeks or so, but it was cold yesterday and colder today. By 7.30am, the clear skies had clouder over and it was cold, windy and damp. Looks like summer is over for thsi year.

Mind you, I think this is my favourite time of year, if the weather isn't too awful. It's time to tidy the garden, admire the trees, light the fire and start planning next year's crop. And there's Christmas to look forward to, as well, with pies and cake and pudding to make and eat!

Comments

Wanda

Thursday 20 September, 2007 at 7:18pm

Hello Rosemary and Dan!!!!!!! I have been having BIG computer issues and have not been able to read, post or hardly anything. It seems to be back on track so far.

Thank you again, Rosemary, for the wonderful package. My whole family tried the Marmite. My youngest son loves it right out of the jar! I made three different recipes with it. My favorite is MARMITE VEGGIE BREAKFAST PIZZA. Very tasty! Made we tomato puree, baby spinach, mushrooms, plum tomatoes, olive oil and basil. I added a little shredded cheese, also. We all liked them! I loved the candy, oat cakes and for the Irn Bru. We ALL fought over that one bottle. Extremely tasty!! We are passing around the newspapers. I homeschool our youngest son; and I am using the papers for a school project. Michael ( the youngest) is helping me put together your surprise box!!! We are going to send you a touch of Central Oregon!! Hope you will enjoy! It is fun deciding what all to send!!

We have our garden all cleaned and ready to send into a long sleep for the winter. We harvested over 250 lbs of potatoes and around 240 lbs of onions. Root crops do very well here, although you still have to baby them. We can get freezing weather or snow in July!! Right now it has been getting down to around 30 degrees at night. I noticed my sunflowers that are planted around our small pound got a little bit last night. We turned on the heat two days ago. We are nestled around mountains that stand around 9 to 10,000 feet. We have huge Ponderosa Pines and Lodge Pole Pines all around. We are sending more in your package.

Tell me, how do you guy's celebrate Christmas? Every year here we do an around the world Christmas dinner. It is for our own family, here at home. This year we have chosen Scotland, in honor of you; Rosemary and Dan. We always have so much fun doing this. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

I am so PROUD of your winnings from your garden!!! Congratulations!!!! I wish i could have been there. Do you know that our local Deschutes county Fair only had 8 flowers to judge and NO PIES!!!!!!!!! What the heck is going on?? I must say we had some wonderful livestock! I wanted to take them ALL home with me. We just finished planting a small horse paddock this summer. It is about one acre. Next year we will put a small barn on it. Our 18 year old wants a horse, but he is busy Bull Riding right now. When we were out and about a couple weeks ago, I stopped to see some Minature Donkeys. Oh my, are they ever the cutest little guys. Do you have any in Scotland?

I am getting my roses bedded down today, so will be back soon.

Have a GRET day!!!

Rosemary Champion

Saturday 22 September, 2007 at 10:30am

Wanda, I love the idea of your winters. Not sure I'd like the reality, though. Our seasons are much less definite than yours and less definite than they used to be here. Oregon sounds fabulous.

Actually, until fairly recently (15-20 years), Christmas wasn't as big an event as Hogmanay and New Year. These were traditional Scottish celebrations, but they've been kind of taken over by Christmas now. Everyone went out and about on Hogmanay (New Year's Eve). You always made sure you had a "first foot" - a tall, dark man to be the first to cross your threshold after "the bells" and to bring whiskey, coal, salt and black bun ( a kind of fruit cake) to ensure that you woudl have food, drink and a fire in your grate for the coming year. Evertyone popped into their neighbours from midnight until the early hours, eating and drinking then to bed (for some) for a wee while then a traditional lunch of steak pie. It's a shame these old traditions are disappearing - folk don't even know who their neighbours are, and often don't want to.

Well, suitabley depressed, I'm going to do some weeding.

By the way, Irn Bru is a well known hangover cure so is also very popular at New Year!

Comments are now closed for this post.

© The Accidental Smallholder Ltd 2003-2024. All rights reserved.

Design by Furness Internet

Site developed by Champion IS