Although there are nevertheless lots of leaves left at the bushes, the weather for the previous few days has been decidedly wintry. Yesterday, while heading out to the farmers' market for some neighborhood apples and cranberries (because it's genuinely stupid to make Thanksgiving cranberry sauce from Wisconsin-grown cranberries while the plant is local to New Jersey), I simply set aside my lightweightfall coat in pick of the cumbersome wintry weather one?And all the additives of me it failed to cowl have been though freezing. And despite the fact that we've got already fired up the heating tool for the winter, I additionally needed to haul out my wearable blanket more than one days last week to stay warmth while working.
This exchange within the climate signaled that it was time for us to attend to a few seasonal chores. We'd already taken care of stashing away the window air conditioner and converting our sheets from their summer season percale to hotter flannel, signaling that the great and comfortable climate became definitively over for the twelve months; now it end up time for those responsibilities that mark the transition from fall into winter. First, Brian went out into the lawn and harvested all the last tomatoes and peppers: severa extra of the large Pineapples, a few Black Princes (which is probably virtually Green Princes for the time being), a smattering of little Sun Golds, and approximately four green Jimmy Nardello frying peppers. All the ones which have began to
Then, today, Brian went out to deal with the job of stowing away our rain barrel for the winter. Yesterday morning, he'd opened up the spigot at the bottom to let the water empty out, which it did, but very slowly; when he got home from work, there was still water dripping from the spout. But by morning, the drip had stopped, and he just had to open it up to get out the remaining water near the bottom. In fact, as soon as he moved the barrel, it became apparent that he wasn't going to get the remaining water out without opening it up, because some of it had turned into a block of ice that we could hear clanking around in there.
So he undid the screws at the top and removed the lid, revealing a few chunks of ice, a bit of liquid water...and a layer of dark green algae smeared all over the inside of the barrel. Fortunately, it turned out that this stuff peeled off pretty easily, so Brian was able to remove most of it with his hands. He discarded it, and the ice, in a little bed to one side of the yard where we've planted this year's crop of garlic and shallots; with any luck, it will serve as fertilizer. Then he reassembled the barrel and stowed it in the shed. He did happen to notice one problem when he reattached the lid; the black rubber pipe attached to the back, which drains the overflow from the barrel away from the house, was starting to split in places. Trying to remove it from the spout just exacerbated the problem, so he left it in place for now. When we return the barrel to service next spring, we'll see if the damage proves severe enough to cause a leak and replace the part if necessary.
Then all that remained was to return the downspout to its wintertime configuration. He took off the piece that routes water from the downspout into the barrel and replaced it with a longer piece that extends the pipe down to the ground and directs it outward, across the barrel's concrete resting pad, and away from the house. That should keep the foundation safe from water damage, whether winter brings us rain or snow.
As for installing the storm windows in our screen doors, that turned out not to be necessary, since he'd never actually removed them to replace them with screens this spring. We don't tend to leave the doors open for ventilation anyway, since we have plenty of windows, so it wouldn't really have made much difference. We still have plenty of ice melt left over from last year, and our snow shovels remain in good condition, along with the car's tires and windshield wipers. And we've both had our flu shots already.
So now the only task left on our winter checklist is to buy a big bag of birdseed and set up our backyard buffet for the local cardinals and sparrows. (Not the squirrels, though. They may have managed to plunder our plum tree and pilfer our eggplants, but so far they absolutely cannot figure out how to hack our bird feeder. It's this kind, so if you're looking for a feeder that can truly thwart the furry menaces, I can recommend it.)
As soon as that's done, we can count ourselves ready for winter—which will leave us free to enjoy the last few lingering, golden days of fall.
