What did you do in the garden today?

Good morning gardeners. Wow @karenerwin, you really had a bad day, sorry about that. I can relate to you wanting to finally put the canner away @Sueby. I'm still trying to decide whether to do a little applesauce or not so my canner is hanging out in the DR. The frost wiped out my dahlias and zinnias in the front yard. I plan to dig up the tubers when I'm planting my daffodil bulbs. Yesterday I had to go into Boston to meet my new cardiologist. My heart is doing well, clean arteries and good EKG. He did increase my BP meds. I picked my last 3 butternut squashes this morning. Two were over 1 pound each and the third just under 2 pounds. The leeks are staying in the ground until I need some for cooking. It's supposed to start raining later this morning and go non stop until Friday night or Saturday morning. It's going to be seriously messy. I have enough acorns on the ground to feed 200 hungry squirrels and their relatives. I've raked them away from walkways twice and they are still falling out of the trees. I've only seen one lonely squirrel in the yard lately. I think the hawks and eagles may have frightened them all away. Hopefully things will dry out enough early next week so I can clean up more acorns and the garden. I'm down to just a few more ripe tomatoes. I've been splitting them with the chickens. They really like the little cherry tomatoes. It's like they each get their own little trophy to run around with. Have a great day everyone and best of luck with your winter preps.
 
2nd day of field trip. My Mom called in the morning ( while I was getting ready for the kids to come fishing) to ask me to come get her because she could go home today. I told her I couldn't because I would be at the field trip till about 4. I thought the shuttle would take her home because it's on the same campus. She said the doctor said no, she would have to wait until tomorrow to go by shuttle. (my niece ended up being able to pick her up). Then my daughter called to tell me about the emergency dentist appointment and while on the phone she knocked the 140 ounce liquid laundry soap over and it broke open and spilled ( almost all of it!) into the washing machine on top of the freshly washed towels! :eek: She was in tears because she had to leave for work soon plus she wasn't sure how to clean it up without causing an overflow of soap bubbles. I told her I would go by after the field trip and take care of it for her.
Then while at her house our friend's gf called to say that our friend, Craig, went to Urgent Care on his way home from our house. Urgent Care ended up sending him by ambulance to the ER ( because his EKG showed he was in Afib and had abnormalities that they wanted checked out immediately. ( We just thought he had pneumonia because of his horrible cough!) At the hospital they did another EKG ( don't know the results yet) and a chest x-ray ( it was normal). His heart rate was 154, then lowered to 125. Doctor was going to give him medication. They are keeping him overnight.
In the midst of all this, my eldest son called to say that his jeep had broken down on the side of the road while on his way to see his PO. It turns out that he doesn't have to be there until Wednesday, so he has a day to figure out what is wrong with his jeep and fix it. ( He thought it was Tuesday).
I finally got home around 7:30 this evening. It took 3 hours to get rid of the suds in the towels and the washing machine!
So, no time to garden today!
Wow, what a day - you must have been glad when it was over! I hope your friend, Craig, is okay.
The weather has been really warm, around 70 degrees the last two days, so we've been trying to finish up chores before the weather turns bad. On Friday, it's supposed to snow in northern MN, but not where I'm at. It will probably frost here, though, so I want to cover the pumpkins with large sheets of plastic so they continue growing a little while longer. A few are getting pretty big and orange. Next week it's going to warm up again, according to the forecast.
I purchased an automatic chicken coop door from Fleming Outdoors, so the girls will (hopefully) be safe on the days I have to work long hours, and am not able to open and close the door for them myself. I saw many good reviews on the model we bought, so I hope it works out well for us. I'm a little skeptical about trusting a door to keep the ladies safe, but apparently they are usually quite reliable.
Well, I'm off to continue cleaning - just took a little afternoon break. Have a good day, everyone!
 
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@chickmom3941 I have an auto door, it's been super reliable. We both leave while it's still dark out in the am and are in bed before it's dark during the summer so we really had no choice. I do check on them when I can and have had no issues. Well once they got caught outside dilly dallying before heading to bed but thankfully I had checked in on them. They got caught trying to stay out all night. Lol
 
Our friend, Craig, had to undergo a Cardio Aversion today. My husband said they go in through the thigh and run electrodes up into his heart and shock some of the nerves that keep his heart firing too fast. This apparently kills those nerves and leaves the undamaged nerves to continue to run the heart correctly. The procedure took about an hour and a half, but Craig came out of it just fine! They are making him follow a diabetic diet ( which he should already have been following). He is spending another night in the hospital tonight. His girlfriend, Pam, said they will be making some major changes in their life. So, hopefully, this has been a good wake up call for them!
Today was a much better day, however, we did get some bad news. My stepdaughter called to say she was laid off today. Her husband recently had an emotional breakdown due to the stress of his job and has been looking for a new job. He will find out on Friday if he got a new job. He has had 3 interviews with them, so hopefully...
That would make the stress of Jessie being laid off easier to deal with.

I spent most of my day working on burning out the stump. It will take MANY, MANY days before it is gone.
 
Thanks for letting me know how your door has been working so well, Sueby. I am a bit concerned that our girls might stay out a little too late and miss "door curfew", like yours did. I've been keeping track of what time the ladies decide to go into the coop every night, so that I know what time to set the door closing for. The door probably wont arrive till maybe next week, so I have a few more days to figure it out. Luckily, I only work 3 days a week, so I will still go out and make sure the girls get in okay on my days off (and of course on the days I work, I'll check on them when I get home, as well).

My best wishes for your friend, and your stepdaughter and her husband, Karenerwin. Hope everything works out for them, and I hope you're not getting too stressed with all the happenings in your life lately.
 
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My sister was in afib in the spring, they had a very hard time stopping it (it happened 3 times) & ended up doing a cardio aversion also. She's been fine ever since but isn't happy she can't have alcohol or caffeine! I'm glad Craig is doing well & I hope your stepdaughter's husband gets the job, no job is worth that kind of stress.

@chickmom3941 I think my girls have it down now, they don't get caught out anymore (knockonwood). I do make sure to check on nights when it's stormy & the door closes a little earlier because it's dark. If you set yours to close at dusk, or just after, you might want to keep gray days in mind at first. :)
 
Good morning all. I've been so focused on whether or not it's supposed to rain and totally missed that this little rain storm is actually a full blown Nor'easter. That would explain the wind and horizontal rain. Fortunately we're having a bit of a lull right now. I went out to clean the coop and let the gang out to play in the grass for awhile. I also raked up some pine straw and about 50 pounds of acorns. It looks like Sunday will be the best day to get out into the garden. I really want to do a good clean up now because it makes Spring planting go so much easier. Good golly @karenerwin, you've got some crazy stuff going on right now. Sounds like rather than burning that old stump, perhaps beating on it with an axe for a bit might be a great stress reducer. Do take care of yourself. Stuff happens but it eventually works out. Have a great day everyone.
 
Grass is growing everywhere it was planted! The bare dirt berm is sprouting grass pretty evenly, although a bit sparse in some spots. All the sod we cut , removed, and laid back down after lowering the elevation appears to be healthy too. Gotta keep watering though, but at least everything looks good at this point. A homeowner about a mile down the road had their front, side and part of their backyard re-graded (water issues everywhere this past spring) and new drain pipe installed, and are just seeding it now, so they are about 10 days behind us, but weather still looks good for grass seed.

Today we are supposed to get 20 yards of garden soil delivered. This is for the large garden bed that spouse wants (20'x30'). This should be the last load of dirt for hopefully forever. We had to look around for a quality/price point we were happy with. Because we were buying a large load, they did offer us a good discount, and we are only a few miles from them, so delivery was low.

Next, dig a ditch for the drain pipe we are installing to take the barn run-off from the gutters to the farmer's field without taking our dirt with it. Luckily barn is about 50' from the field, so not too terrible.

We still have about 20+ yards of dirt to move into raised beds that we piled up, along with topsoil removed from the sod/ditch/berm project. But, we have 4 raised beds to build so that the dirt can be put somewhere.

We've gotten another 40 yards of chipped/ shredded wood delivered. Moved the first 20 yard delivery to fill in around the raised beds. Got the second 20 yard delivery yesterday, so that will get moved around over the next few days too. For now, this will cover the dirt around the raised beds. We are going to determine if that is the best solution around the beds.
 

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