Today is probably the last really nice warm day we will have for a very long time. In fact, it might be the last warm day until next spring. The weather folks are predicting some really cold days ahead - highs only in the 40's!
Maybe these cold temps will deter the horrible Asian lady beetles! Every fall when the soybean harvest is done, the beetles come around by the "millions". They crawl up the house, come into every crack they can find, fly around in your hair and generally are a nuisance. They stink, they can bite, and the sheer numbers of them are aggravating. Whoever first introduced them into this country in 1988 should be made to live with these bugs every day of their life. Supposedly they were brought here by government biologists (well, THAT explains it!!) to take care of the aphid problem. Really??? We had an aphid problem? That's not something anyone remembers! We can use a spray called Home Defense which helps, but doesn't totally control the problem. I also vacuum the bugs up with a shop vac, which works the best.
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| The Asian beetles like to gather on the porch ceiling. |
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| The beetles crawl up the house by the thousands. |
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| I sprayed the windowsills with Home Defense spray, and every morning I have to vacuum up the dead bugs. |
Anyway, so much for bugs!
Our colorful trees have a very short season! Right now the leaves are almost gone from the trees.
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| Our side of the lake - the leaves are quickly falling from the trees. Today is very windy, and the leaves are going fast. |
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| Looking towards the other lake on our property. Almost no leaves left on some of the trees. If you look closely, you can see a hawk flying above the trees in the upper left hand corner! |
Harold has been working on getting our winter wood in. The pile needs to get bigger!
Today we also harvested the last of the garden produce. We picked about 25 watermelons and at least 50 squash, and the rest of the sweet corn. It filled up the back of the pickup truck!
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| Some of the watermelons weighed close to 18 lbs. We went around the neighborhood and gave away plenty to neighbors. Plenty of butternut squash, too. |
A few days ago, we harvested all these squash:
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| Squash, pumpkins for pies, and more watermelons. Think we have enough?? Our pasture garden was very productive! |
We also picked about 100 ears of corn. We like to plant Golden Bantam corn. It is an old fashioned open pollinated variety that is not a hybrid. It is not sugar enhanced, non GMO, and not 'round-up ready'. We grow organic sweet corn that is as natural as possible. We think Golden Bantam tastes like corn, not sugar. It also freezes well. I will put all of this in freezer bags this evening. But we saved some of the best ears for today's lunch!
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| Here I am husking corn on this windy day! The back of another pickup works great for husking corn. |
So this was a typical fall day up here in northern Minnesota!
2 comments:
Wow, what a nice harvest! You are so fortunate that you can grow all your own produce! I grew up on a farm and miss being able to do that. So much better than what you can get in the stores! A lot of hard work however but definitely worth it!
I tried to comment and don't think it went through. Just wanted to let you know that Tom uses Bug Slayer from Fleet Farm on those asian beetles and it goes on with the garden hose and works great. Spray the house in fall before they arrive. We'll see if this works this time.
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