Rainy day...

9/19: I awoke to rain gently tapping the roof.. so I decided to snuggle in for an hour and watch the morning news and hubby made coffee. Hung out with mom for a bit, then hit the solarium for a bit of indoor work while the pepper mash came up to heat.
Capped off 3 windows with the foggy plastic on the north wall, leaving the last one open for now to use as an exhaust fan for the mash- that shit is toxic. But some more cleanup and re-arranging done again out there to prep up for winter. Later on tonight we shall see where the taste is at and where the liquid level is at, I'd like to reduce it a bit because it's rather thin right now. And it still needs a good stick blending too, but that will come later tonight as well.
Got the last 2 quart packages of Toothache plant sealed up and on the shelf. Glad that's done for the season. One last round of big stuff to go, the batch of garlic salsa. I got all the tomatoes, peppers, and cilantro in the freezer. But that will wait till after I get the hot sauce done at least.
The rest of the week we are supposed to be coming into something of a heat wave, upper 70's and might even hit 80's. Yikes. But it's also supposed to be dry, so I will be able to get that last round of mowing done before the leaves start falling. It's actually been kind of nice to really keep pace with the garden this year. I've had some losses and successes, and overall good year.

9/22: The gentle tapping of Tuesday has turned into a heat wave indeed. Yesterday I got my Zen on mowing down some of the last mow of the season till that got done. Then went into town with a huge donation load with sis. Astonishingly enough, our first then second favorite resale shops weren't taking donations, and Goodwill got it all.
Early this morning I watered well and set in soaker jugs to the perennial bed I just planted in.  Glad I hadn't really started into the other two beds yet. And cleaned out some beds early. And that we have saved up a goodly batch of water. Turns out the second harvest is hotter and dryer this year than the first harvest was.
Tomorrow is a moving day. Mom and Sis are taking a full truck to storage around the lake. Sunday is transport and dropping off and coming back.

9/28: Busy few days. First truck got unloaded Sunday, a couple dear friends and a new member to the crew helped unload, then we had lunch. Puttered around in town to kill time while rush hour traffic was going on came back home. Picked up an outstanding replica of the Alcatraz 1909 lighthouse complex- FT now has a prison, lol. Picked it up for 7 bucks, sells online cheap for 30+shipping, or more like 50-100 bucks regularly. I just thought it was cool as hell, then looked it up to see if it was really what it was labeled as, and got a steal.
Monday was getting the house straight and shuffling around some FT village stuff to blow off stress- there's going to be a large amusement haunt in Nightvale this year :) Then turned around and left for Wi again Tues morning, had a wake for a dear friend, came home Wed night.
Got a little shopping in while in Wi from a couple local old loved stored I know I can only find some thing in... picked up some more bulbs for the gardens, and 5 Dept 56 lights that were on deep clearance. I now am the happy owner of 7 pieces total of Dept 56- the stuff is sooo nice, but sooooo expensive I rarely can afford one piece, let alone pick up a few for a few bucks each- and holy crap it happened twice this year. Sis noted some tiny bat light strands that were inexpensive too, and it was funny- I had seen Dept 56 strand bat lights, they were around 20 bucks. I picked up 4 strands at the grocery store for the same price, lol. 
Today was a garden cleanup day. Got the whole batch of Tobago Seasoning and Trinidad Perfume peppers that were chilling in the fridge and fresh picked in the dehydrator to straight dry. Tomorrow I'm putting the last smoker batch of Aji Limons on- very happy that I will have a nice full jar of those for storage. I still have a good-ish flush of peppers on the 2 plants in the solarium, so I might still get a small batch for straight dehydrating too if I'm lucky.
Sis helped me out shuffling bins and big pots around- now the blue bins are boxing in the kitchen window bed, and it's filled with potted irises, first year lavenders, and a couple strawberries. That will get mulched in a bit to help keep them cozy through the winter. Since the next couple nights are supposed to bottom out into the upper to mid 40's, had to pull some plants inside. The 5 Tobago Seasoning peppers are now sitting on the basking edge of the pond in the solarium so their fruits can ripen in the warm. 3 coleus, 3 lucifers, and a couple other pots of small bulbs came inside too.
Moved the 5 gooseberries that might still be alive over to the kennel side.
Emptied out and cleaned up a lot of half gallon pots and other pots and added in some sweet feed to make a barrow full of mixed dirt- then used up all my half gallon pots repotting the asparagus. They had lived in those 3" pots long enough, and probably wouldn't have survived the winter well in such small pots. And this way, they have springtime to grow in happy again. I won't have their bed ready till later on next growing season anyway. I still haven't even fall cleaned it yet.
Picked up the first bucket of Chinese Chestnuts for this season- They are already in the fridge chilling, I'll pick out the best 6 for seed stock, then process up the rest for eating storage. It's only a little bucket, so no biggie. After this last weekend move, I'll start picking up more for bigger bucket storage. I want to try out a whiskey recipe and a sugar syrup preserve recipe, and a drying batch for nut flower. Probably only about 10 pounds total, if that. Each gathering will get another best 6 for seed stock picked out of it. Next spring I'll pot them up and start growing them out for planting somewhere. This fall the trees themselves are for sure coming down- I've already been talking to a guy I know about the removal. It just has to happen, that tree is really old, brittle, frail, and overhanging into power lines and over the solarium roof, causing extra damage to the skylight. I'm thinking I'd like to leave the trunks long if I can. Use them as platforms and posts for other stuff, like bird feeders and such. They have a lovely structure and I like the lilly of the valley pool around the base.
Sold the car- happened to be that the neighbor was interested in the car anyway, then his truck died and he needed a vehicle. So now that one is off the books. Need to figure out where to donate or slab the other one off to. It time to clear that space off too.

9/29: how time flies. Today I sealed up most of the windows in the solarium, and sorted out flower bulbs, cleaned up the solarium some more.. Popped off the Aji Limons into the smoker early, and then got them dehydrated off and into their jar today- I now have one whole pint! Took the plunge and waded through all my bulbs, and got some basic sorting done as to which beds they are going into. The front row where the hibiscuses are growing is getting some overdue attention in the coming weeks. All that's growing on right now is the hibiscuses, and I'm not sure where the daffs went, lol. The original bed was 3x14, and the original section isn't too bad. But it's a pain to mow around now, and the bed needs reopening and a bit of lengthening maybe. Might end up being more like 5x16 by the time I'm done churning stuff up around the outside edges. The wee folk garden area is getting a freshening of bulbs too.
There's bulbs going out into the herb garden, and a heap sorted out for the perennial lasagna bed switchover. And another pile for potting up this year because they are almost ready to split. Got one lone bag of something that didn't get it's ID tag included, and a couple missing small bulb tags, so I will have to re-pot that one to figure out what it is again, lol.

9/30: Had a town hall meeting this morning, followed by picking up a truck. Then a lot of tinkering and fussing with cleaning, and sorting plants, and so on. Got the first stall of the greenhouse cleaned up and stuff put away so I can start filling it with some leaves for me to nestle those 30 pots of asparagus I just repotted the other day into. Took some plant tallies, moved a few fruits- raspberries and jostaberries to the greenhouse porch. Culled out the last couple brown bags of seeds for their deep freeze.. I didn't bother with sorting flowers, because I always use those up pretty quick. But some of my seed stock is getting kind of old, or I know I won't be using for the next year or few while I use up some other seed stock. So right now from the total drawer, I've culled off about 10% as straight get rid of- it's all just things I've gotten in trade that I wasn't too interested in, or stuff I've tried that wasn't our speed. Of the 90% of whats left, about 15% of it is flower seeds. Of the remaining 75%, I culled out about 30% for deep freeze. Looking at the piles, I can tell I've reduced the overall stock by about 40% between the toss and deep freeze. All the seeds culled off for freezing will only take up a quart space at most by the time I'm done sealing down the packages. So now I need to catalog the freezer stock and write up it's list to have on hand and another in the package.

And ha, already on to more seeds. The other day in Wi I picked up a packet of spiderwort. Already starting a short wish list with Biquinho pepper. It's another seasoning pepper. And fresh stock on Dwarf Wild Fred- I just looked him up recently, and only a couple sellers offer it, and their pics do not match up with what I got. So now I'm on the hunt, lol.