Notes for Monday November 30, 2009

Finally a success for the record books.  Well ok may be just for the journal.  Thursday (Thanksgiving) morning, I picked the last of my radishes and I picked some carrots.  The carrots weren't big enough for the dinner meal but they were big enough for the snack tray.  And this year they were alot sweeter.  Last year the carrots were bitter.  So this year I tried a variety known for being sweet and I made sure that I added wood ashes to the soil.  I plant my carrots in the same bed that I plant my onions and after harvesting the onions I plant carrots in late August in hopes of some small carrots for Thanksgiving.  When I made the soil ready for the onions and then for the carrots, I added ashes and leaf mulch to the soil.   This weekend I also finally put up my two suet feeders for the woodpeckers and nuthatches as well as the squirrel jar.  I bought a new silo feeder for the finches.  The one I got this summer was already caked up in the bottom half and the birds stopped coming to it about a month ago.  Last month I collected about a bucket and a half of acorns and I plan on putting them out for the squirrels in January.  I'm interested to see what happens.   I replaced the screens with the windows in the storm doors as well this weekend.  It really hasn't been that cold yet for it really to be needed.  Even yesterday afternoon was delightful after starting out at 27 degrees.  I tried to put up the outdoor Christmas lights yesterday but I had completely forgot that my father-in-law took back his ladder a few months ago (I borrowed it a few years ago and he hadn't needed it since).   I've started to get seed catalogs already but I try not to look at them until after Christmas.