Can't you see I'm trying to sleep?

I'm just trying to sleep in the window because I have the farts really bad.
What are you looking at, Shorty?
Could you bring me something to eat?
Oh, Oh. Watch out. Fire in the hole. You might want to go into another room.
Can't a cat get a little privacy?

This is where some of this year's wood came from. There was a big Apple tree in front of the house and Kaye got mad one day and pulled it down.

Is it enough?

Well, we have our wood stacked inside for the winter. This first area is in the garage. I measure about 97" X 63". That makes, by my calculation, about 1.3 face cords (plus some unstackable chunkwood on the floor). It is mostly Apple with some Ash.
And one cat that eats about 2 cords of catfood a week.
Next is the woodshop. I figure that this is about 3 cords. Ash, Hard Maple, and Cherry. Ignore the junk pile.
Another shot of the woodshop load.
In the basement, we have this hall. It is about 25' long and about 10' wide. That is a walk-in freezer with the white door. We don't use it. I figure we have about 7 cords down there. It is all Cherry, Hard Maple, Apple, and Ash. All of the wood has been bug bombed (so that we can store it inside without dealing with all of the spiders and stuff). There is a dehumidifier running in the basement storage area. That wood is really, really dry.
We have historically burned from about 8 to 10 cords per winter, depending upon how long the cold lasts and how cold it gets. We have a little more wood this time. On the other hand, we are having a larger woodstove installed right now. It is more efficient than the one we have now. Because it is bigger, I would think it would eat more wood. On the other hand, because it is so much more efficient, We'll have it choked off most of the time. The old stove ran with its air inlet damper wide open all of the time so that we could maximize its heat output. The bottom line is; I don't know how much wood this new stove will eat compared to the old one. I guess we'll see.

Grillin and Chillin

I like my meat.
I still like my meat.
Just in case you were wondering; I still like my meat.

Recent good times

Here's Armand on the hunt and Ocee after her dental visit.

Bucket Farmers II

This is a pepper plant in a small bucket on the deck. That pot next to it is my money tree. Put that one in the failled experiment category.
This in one on the rail of the deck. Not enough pot to support a bell pepper plant, evidently.
These are the buckets on the ground. This is my cherry tomato plant. It is in a bucket also. I never got around to tieing it to the cage, so it has kind of spilled over. It's produces pretty well, though.
The tomato plant in an action video. And then the peppers doing their growing thing.

Pepper or Plastic?

The peppers have almost run their course. We still have a few to pick, but they are winding down. The temps are in the 40ºF range at night now.
Some of them are squatty.
Some have Daddy Longleg spiders on them.
Neat.
Another load. This one makes a good desktop image.

Birthday Girl!

Happy Birthday to me!!!!!!!

I hope Greg buys me a Mini Cooper.

(And Greg, I would like to point out that I said Mini COOPER. The car. Not Mini Pooper, AKA Pierre the Cat. I already have one of those.)

Birthday boy

Today (Sunday) was Armand's 7th birthday. He got a nice bicycle, but I forgot to get a still photo.........got a lot of video, though.

Inevitable

I know that one day it is inevitable that someone will let the cat out of the bag.

First Competition

The first marching band competition of the season was earlier this evening in East Syracuse-Minoa. I thought the Marching Bucs did an amazing job! The program this year is entitled "Hunting Wabbits" and is quite challenging. Our score was not great (we came in 4th place out of four National Class bands), but hopefully we'll do better next Saturday when we compete at Cicero North Syracuse.

Here are the Bucs as they enter the field to start the show:

Mason is part of the sextet that plays the ballad.
Mason also has a solo this year. One of the wabbits dances next to him while he plays. I'm hoping to get a better picture Friday night when the band plays at the high school football game.

First Day of School

School started here on Wednesday, Sept. 5th.

Doesn't the sky look amazing behind Mason???? I love this picture!

Unfortunately, I changed the settings on the camera after I took the picture of Mason, so the sky doesn't look so pretty in the group shot.

Morgan and Mitchell are in 8th grade at the Oswego Middle School. Mason is in 10th grade at the Oswego High School. I can't believe how big they are getting! They are growing up too fast.

I hate the start of school. To me, it just means that winter is coming. I hate winter.

Bucket Farmers

We grow our bell peppers in buckets. It seems to work out OK.


Hey. They allow video on here now.

Apples Galore

More clearing. Yee hah. These are trees that I have dropped but not done anything with yet because they are small. I just pushed them to the back of the property.
This is a Gooseberry tree (and a white birch to the left of it). It produces berries that you can make jam out of. The birch will be going into the woodstove.
This is Kaye's cat trying to give me pointers on playing Pitch. Like he knows anything about Pitch. He can barely play Go Fish.
I have about 8 or 10 of this type of Apple tree. I went to the local nursery and they couldn't identify it. The guy said that in the spring he'll be able to look at it and tell me what it is, but it is too late in the season. He runs a huge Apple orchard, so he must know what he is talking about. He thinks maybe Granny Smith or Golden Delicious.

On the ground below the tree in the pic above (How did they drop through all the white area and words?). The deer love this stuff. They eat most of it and then the bees come.
This is a shot taken from the back of the property looking towards the road. That tall tree is a Poplar.
This is what is left of that conifer that Bub and I took down. The rest has been burned in the fire pit and this will be consumed soon.
The tree in the middle of the pic (the short bent over one) is a Macintosh apple. There is another White Birch to the left of it.

Macintosh apples. In the spring, the orchard guy will come over and advise me on pruning and spraying. I should have good apples to harvest this time next year.
Another Macintosh tree. I have at least three of them. This one has Concord grapes all over it. Sadly, they must go.
Another Macintosh tree.