Goodbye Fall! Hello Winter!

 

Not many people believe me when I tell them how short-lived our Autumn is here in the central mountains of New Mexico, above 7,000 ft elevation. When I posted on September 18 with my I'm Going To Miss Him post, I’m pretty sure some folks probably thought I was just being silly for whining about how much I was going to miss summer, the beautiful warm days, the cool breezes, wonderful hiking and camping, watching my garden grow, and enjoying my lovely hummingbirds.

September 18th seems so far away already, yet it was only just 2 weeks ago!

             Yes, that’s right…2 weeks ago!

And last night was our first hard freeze and our first snowfall.

Yesterday Jen and I harvested the rest of our zucchini,

Pulled up the last few bunches of baby carrots, (my kidlets and I ate them all up just 10 after this photo was taken. Mmm! So sweet and crisp!)

And picked the rest of the pickling cucumbers off their vines in preparation for this winter storm.(Hello! Bread and Butter pickles and Dill pickles, too!)

Good thing we did. I don’t think they would have survived the 28F temps and snow we had last night and this morning. Brrrr! (But sad. Because there are still some baby zucchini and zucchini flowers still on the vines)

My poor old hens have seen this time of year come and go for 4 years now. They are smart enough to stay inside their cozy warm hen house at least until the sun rises and warms everything up. (They have a reflective brooder lamp inside with a 100 watt light bulb, that I keep in there year round)

Most of the Summer chicks, who are now 16 weeks old, haven’t learned that winter weather tip yet. They were outside in the coop before the dawn had a chance to truly crack open it’s warm light.

Many of them were fluffed up, looking rather uncomfortably cold at 7am this morning.

I tossed them some scratch, poured some warm water in their waterers, and refilled their feeders, and that seemed to warm them up a bit.

Then I stuck around to enjoy their comforting clucking sounds as they pecked at the corn and seeds on the ground.

They can be counted on for gathering around me to receive some attention and petting and I always enjoy stroking their soft, silky feathers.

(Hey! Who gave me horns?!)

 

But then it was time to head up to the barn to feed the rest of the critters. Apache seemed to be trying to soak in all the warmth of the sun shining into her stall. She’s already been growing a thick, fuzzy fur coat to keep her warm, too.

Wait! Who is that??!

Looks like Val’s dog Sandy, of the Fantastyk Voyage Blog decided to climb under the fence into our pasture to visit Apache and the llamas and goats.

Howdy Sandy!

I was a little worried about Sandy trying to sneak into the llama’s paddock because llamas can be very defensive and aggressive towards strange dogs trespassing into their space, especially Catlinite, who takes his guardian job seriously.  Llamas, just like donkeys have been known to kill coyotes and dogs.

But as I watched the scene at the barn, Catlinite lunged at Sandy before she managed to scoot underneath the gate, and he chased her away. Whew!

After the animals were fed, I took a few more photo examples of “The Loss of Summer”…….

or “Farewell Autumn”………..

and “Hello Winter”.

And I was supposed to participate in another ACTHA Competitive Trail Ride out in Grants, NM today, but my ride never called. But it's ok. It must not have been meant to be.

And besides a barrel racing friend of mine invited me to come watch and support her competing at the Rockin Horse Ranch, in the town of Moriarty, just 15 minutes east of us. I’m very excited because I haven’t been over there since last April’s Paint Horse Show. And the barrel races will be in an indoor arena, too. Very nice.

Anyway…….. 

Looks like it’s time to pack up my summer clothes and pull out my winter woolies!  

Tea Time Tuesday

 

 

Following in the footsteps of Ed’s Tea Time Tuesday, this is my second week of sharing my own tea reviews. And this particular tea is one that Ed sent me recently and I must admit…………

I. Love. It!

This ASSAM tea is a true wake-me-up, dark, rich, strong, black breakfast blend with a lot of substance and character and I have even enjoyed a cuppa in the late afternoon when my eyes start getting heavy and I feel like I could use a nap. One cup of this delicious tea and I’m ready to finish up the day. With a splash of milk and a tsp of sugar it’s just as satisfying as a piece of cake, but without the fat and calories. Mmm!

Plus I like how the designs on the package look like little chicken feet. 

 

On a different note, my garden is still producing lots of delicious Romaine Lettuce and we are enjoying almost daily salads. We have enough to share, so I’ve been creating little bundles of lettuce to share with our neighbors and some friends.

 

The zucchini in my garden are also growing and I can already see that I am going to have a crazy overflow of zukes that I’ll be trying some new recipes with, as well as sharing with other zuke loving folks. Speaking of which, this is inspiring me to have a contest…..I’ll post more later.

Z-Day

 

This is Z-Day in more ways than one.

The first is because I am recuperating from a weekend whirlwind road trip up to northern New Mexico for a camping/Boy Scout/hiking/canoeing/letterboxing vacation at Heron Lake State Park (photos and stories forthcoming). And the other reason is that today is officially……..(wait for it)……………….

  

                               Zucchini Day!!!

Or, known more formally as:

“Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Tonight”

This holiday is celebrated every August 8. The holiday was established by Thomas Roy, a resident of the tiny borough of Mount Gretna in southern Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. The inspiration for the holiday is the fact that so many folks' home gardens produce more zucchini than they could ever use themselves, so they have to find someone to take the extra veggies. But since everyone else has also planted too many zucchini the excess squash must be left on neighbors' porches under the cover of night! Mwah hah hah hah!

I’ve not had to water my raised bed veggie garden since our Monsoon Season began a couple weeks ago, and it seems the plants know the difference between community well water and rain water, because when I was watering them, they grew very slowly, but since the rains have come, they have really taken off.

I used open-pollinated, non-genetically-modified-organism (GMO), non-hybridized seeds from Survivor Seeds for my garden and am extremely pleased with their quality. (Check ‘em out!)

Last year, Survivor Seeds sent me their wonderful Variety Pack to try. It was filled with 24 different packets of their specially grown and harvested seeds and I am amazed at how well they grow even for a beginner gardener, who lives in the high desert mountains, like me.

The produce tastes great and we’ve all been enjoying salads every day. 

The first seeds I planted were the spinach (at the far end), romaine lettuce, radishes and carrots. The most recent seeds I planted were only about 3 weeks ago and are the cucumbers (beside the wind sock), the onions and the sweet peppers (which have sprouted but aren’t tall yet), and finally the zucchini at the closer end. 

This is my first garden I’ve ever planted at home and I think I may have planted a few too many seeds *gulp*. 

My zucchini was planted later in the season, so I still have a couple more weeks until I’m inundated with my own harvest of zukes.

Thankfully my kids love this pesty veggie, too, because we can’t wait to have some grilled, fried and baked. And of course, there’s always the stand-by Zucchini Bread…..which you can also gift to the neighbors, too!

Zucchini Bread
Recipe courtesy Paula Deen

Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 1 hr
Level: Easy
Serves: 2 loaves

Ingredients
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup water
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, zucchini and lemon juice. Mix wet ingredients into dry, add nuts and fold in. Bake in 2 standard loaf pans, sprayed with nonstick spray, for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in 5 mini loaf pans for about 45 minutes.

April Winds bring May…….SNOW!

 

New Mexico has always been a little different.

We don’t get April Showers. It might not rain for many months and we can expect to see sunshine and blue skies about 350 days per year. But in return we also get less than 10” of precipitation for an entire year.

Compare that to the 80+ inches of rain and less than 130 sunny days that much of western Washington and Oregon receive per year.

But unlike the PNW, our rainfall doesn’t arrive until our Monsoon season in July and August. And we can get snow all the way into late May. So, we don’t see many flowers or much green grass here in the mountains above 7,000 ft elevation until late May, early June, although some of our trees are starting to leaf out now.

Which is why I have to wait to plant anything in my raised bed garden. Average Last Frost here is after May 26.

But with the low humidity, we also don’t have slug, mosquito or bug problems and flies don’t typically arrive until July and August and only stick around for a few weeks.

My apple trees did their bloomin’ over the last two weeks, but they’re done now, thankfully.

But our peach tree hasn’t even started, which could be good or bad, depending upon this recent change in weather. Don’t want them to bloom and then have an extreme drop in temperature freeze their ‘bloomers’ off before the bees have a chance to pollinate them.  (woohoo, sounds kind of exciting, doesn’t it?)

Nope, here in New Mexico, especially in the mountains, April brings us wind instead, followed by……May Snow.

Our chickens don’t seem too happy to see the snow.

I noticed that our neighbor is even grazing some cattle on his several hundred acres of land, although we’ve not had much grass growth since last August. I do like seeing the cows over there from my bedroom windows. Sometimes I can even hear them mooing. This is the same land that my neighbor friend Val and I have leased to graze our horses on and to ride. 

Yesterday it was over 70 degrees with sunshine and gorgeous blue skies. I wore a short-sleeve shirt all day. And when we were down in Albuquerque, just 2,000 ft lower in elevation than our house here in the mountains, we even turned on the A/C.

We’ve had a mild winter and hadn't had any snow since early February, so I kinda thought we were done with winter.....

I think our chickens did, too!

But last night the temps dropped down into the low 30's and we woke up this morning to snow...and it's still falling and blowing. And we’re supposed get down into the teens tonight. Brr!

Winter's last hurrah??

Sure hope so!