The harvest has begun. These are small winter squash that seem to be particular favorites of Sargie and the Milligan sisters.

October 6, 2016 - Thursday

39 degrees/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

The harvest may have started on Wednesday, but it didn't last long past noon before the latest monsoonal rains came blowing through and ended what had been a productive day in the garden. Six-tenths on an inch of water landed in the rain gauge, adding to the eight-plus inches of surplus we've already received this year, mostly in the past three months. 

Wednesday began with the usual walk. I must be getting back into some kind of shape as I don't notice Heartbreak Hill and a couple of the others that used to be considered quite strenuous. I have five pound ankle weights and will strap them on in the near future. Now THOSE will make my heart rate rise considerably. 

A lone sugar maple in Neighbor Mike's field is brilliant year after year.

The rest of the morning was spent in the garden. The sunflowers are fun to grow and beautiful and impressive when in full bloom, but are they ever a pain in the rear to pull/pry/dig after the growing season is over.

Some of the bases are over 8 inches across and it requires a shovel and pry bar to remove them, roots and all. There are just three left to dig and I can chalk the sunflowers off my list. The zucchini plants were pulled and the cucumber vines and old fruits removed from the trellis.

It's always fun to wade into the maze of vines and see what has grown over the summer months. Case in point are the small orange/red winter squash. I have no idea what they are called as the company sent me the wrong seed three years ago and since, I've simply saved a few seeds to plant for the next year. Whatever they are, they sure are productive.

I called it a day once the rain started falling. There's still another week's worth of digging, cleaning, and harvesting, left before I can tuck the garden in for the upcoming winter months.

My sons will never let me live this down, but I ordered a small electric wood splitter ten days ago. The unit was on clearance from Grizzly Tools and after reading multiple reviews on Amazon and other online sites, I decided to order one. It made it to Michigan in record time then has been sitting in a warehouse since.

When alive, my Grandpa Pennington, and later, my sons and I, have all taken a certain pride in our abilities to swing a twelve-pound mall and split what firewood we've needed by hand. We laughed at those sissies with mechanized splitters and wondered how we were so fortunate to end up with genes that allowed us to work up cords and cords of wood hour after hour without a break. 

Yeah, well, Grandpa didn't have no dummy for a grandson. My back, the one that I broke in the arctic years ago, has been telling me that's it time to move into the 21st Century. When the splitters came on clearance, I bought one. 

I called UPS freight yesterday, asking where my splitter was, and found that they had the wrong telephone number so they couldn't deliver it. The machine's been sitting in Iron Mountain for the past week. I told them I'd be over this morning and take delivery.

With that in mind, I drove over last night, met Sargie, and rode home with her. She had a beautician's appointment after work, so I went to Home Depot and window shopped until she was finished.

Last evening was spent watching programs we'd recorded on the DVR, fast forwarding through the commercials. 

Wha' choo talkin' 'bout Willis?
A perfect picture, except that should be a Chicago Cubs bonnet Ivy's wearing.

It's going to be a busy next few days on Pentoga Road. Suddenly, with cold and freezing weather in the forecast, there are spuds to be dug, flowers to be moved to the basement, wood to split, equipment to winterize, a new window to install in the shop, and the list goes on and on. If only you had my life, but then as we all know...

My experiment of having pole beans grow up the giant sunflower stalks was only partially successful. I waited too long to plant the beans and they suffered from lack of sunlight due to the flower's huge leaves. I'll plant both at the same time next spring. Still, I gathered a few for Sargie yesterday.

A man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...