my liriopes needed their hair brushed

I raked leaves again today and filled my leaf composter to the brim. Let me be clear that this is the lazy man's leaf composter.

I'm not running the leaves over with the mower.

I'm not using any device to shred the leaves.

I'm simply piling them up in a welded wire vessel, and I'm going to let them do their thing until they look like something usable in the garden. I might end up with 20 of these vessels marking a border around the backyard -- I think that would actually make a rather cool garden border/fence. Because we have a plethora of leaves, and I'll be perfectly happy if I have leaf mulch to use by next fall.

However, I could not quite fit all the leaf rakings into my leaf composter.

Also, because I do not have a landscaping budget, I need to make the plants that already serve as our landscaping of sorts go the extra mile, so I decided to weed and mulch my three liriope plants (that's what I've been told they're called at least). I also brushed their hair with my rake -- for neatness' sake. I thought I might be able to gather seeds from them and propagate some new plants, but they seem to be far past that stage in life, and I really have no idea what their seeds look like anyway.

So being the frugal mountainsteader that I am, I used the extra leaves that would not fit in my leaf composter and mulched the liriope plants. I have no idea if they even need weeding and/or mulching, but I figured it was a good use of available resources. It also warmed my bones on a cool fall day. Score one for neatness and warming ability!

We had leftover pulled pork sandwiches for lunch, and I'm pretty convinced that it is actually better reheated after being frozen. Go figure. Also, making fresh Sexy Meat Sauce in some new squirt bottles that I found at the Evil Big W (no, I haven't stopped shopping there yet) helped a lot (Sexy Meat Sauce is apple cider vinegar, worcestershire sauce, sugar, garlic salt, mustard powder, red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, and, of course, Dave's Insanity Sauce, in case you were wondering).

Never, ever skip the Sexy Meat Sauce.

Welded Wire Tube O' Leaves. You see what I'm saying about having a fence of these around the yard.

After weeding but before mulching.

After mulching. Rad how I unknowingly aligned these two shots ALMOST PERFECTLY, RIGHT??

If you ever the get the chance to purchase a long, winding driveway
through a canopy of trees, I really think you should do it.
This driveway makes me happy every time we drive through it.

mother nature threw us a curveball last night

Our low last night was predicted at around 40 degrees. It got down to 27 degrees. My little garden doesn't seem too fazed by Mother's onslaught, since I didn't think I needed to turn on my green crazy lights and all, but I'm waiting to see if foliage turns black and we're doomed to consume no fresh greens nor veggies this winter.

But all sorts of other good things happened. It was an incredibly beautiful day, I finished the laundry and we have a wonderfully freshy bed to crawl into tonight (yea, I cheated and went to the laundromat), we have plentiful deer in and around our woods, the cat came back (Nekkie decided that he wanted to spend the night in last night's freezing temps, and I was a bit worried about him -- then I realized that he's definitely thickened up a bit and is fine outside, although I always prefer a warm, cuddly kitty cat at my feet at night), and we grubbed on some real good dinner. My locally-grown green beans had bit the dust in the fridge, so this was a vegetable-less meal, which I dislike, but the homemade chicken-fried steak and mac-(ok, penne)-n-cheese was totally worth it.

Defrost this morning before heading out to do laundry.

Hunter friends and their take-home.

I like to reuse styrofoam containers for mixing shit up. Then I plant things in it. Weird, I know.

My poor little late-seeded kale. I will eat you someday!

See the girth? Nekkie has accumulated some cold-weather mass. But he's still a killing machine.

I could have eaten the mac-(penne)-n-cheese before it was even baked.

I've never had chicken-fried steak before but I'm pretty much totally sold on this.

a trashy corn crib

My brain oftentimes gets distracted from important things by thinking about animals. As we were returning home today from Rogersville to open a checking account at Eastman Credit Union (the nearest Chase branch out here is two hours away in Knoxville, but up until now, we've been able to do all our banking online -- unfortunately, smart phone deposit amounts are limited, so we needed to buckle down and sign up with a local bank)... wait, what was I talking about again?

Oh right, animals. So, I saw our neighbor's chickens running around as we turned on to our road and decided that today is as good as any to get cracking on cleaning out the corn crib for our future layers and broilers. Some previous lazy inhabitant of our farm decided at one point to use it as a trash receptacle, so I started the arduous task of bagging up someone else's nasty bits.

I didn't find anything exciting except a vintage soda bottle that I think I'll use as a flower vase. Lots of weird, creepy toys, pacifiers, dolls, shoes, neck ties, sweaters, purses, games, rusty hangers, sheets, cushions, literature, books, magazines, canisters, plastic sheeting... you get the picture. Nothing salvageable because everything was breaking down into a big pile of, well, broken stuff. I'm sure that chickens couldn't give less of a shit about garbage in their coop, but you probably know me well enough by now that no chicken coop of mine is going to be filled with trash. Especially because I'd like to try the deep bedding method of dealing with chicken waste/manure.

Also, it was a beautiful, bright, relatively warm day and I've been dying to get started on organizing either the barn or corn crib. I thought it was a good excuse.

Our other dog, er, I mean cat, decided to join me.

Honestly, I just have to call him and he comes. Like a dog.
I even have a leash for him that he really isn't bothered too much by.

SLOBS.

SLOVENLINESS.

The view on my way back down the hill more than made up for bagging trash, though.

A certain monster greeted me upon my return.

listening to Imagine Dragons helps me make good pulled porkies

Admittedly, I'm a total Top 40 lover. So, I like Imagine Dragons and all their top 40 awesomeness (I'm told that my understanding of Top 40 might be a bit skewed these days), and it helped me to make some pretty fucking dynamite pulled pork today. My crock pot might have had something to do with it also, but I attribute the awesomeness to the recipe I followed on Pinterest. So yea, pulled pork, homemade rolls, fresh slaw, and some previously prepared mashed potatoes made for some killer dinner fixings.

Beginnning.

End.

But before I made all this pulled pork awesomeness, I took the Nap of All Ages earlier this afternoon. It helps to have a giant puppy dog to keep you company.

Take one part comfy bed + one part sunny window + one part St. Bernard = bliss for 45+ minutes until I had to make dinner. This was actually the best nap I have ever experienced and I am an experienced nap taker. A GOOD DAY.

roasted celery soup kinda blows

My roasted celery soup was less than magnificent. It's just that I had a lot of celery sitting in the fridge (because you can't buy just one stick of celery for, say, making pot pies or some other casserole concoction that only requires a little bit of celery -- no, you have to buy the whole bunch), and being the frugal person that I am, I know that soup is usually a good way to use up extra veggies. However, while French onion soup is a fabulous way to use up onions and is no way overpowering with all the onion-y-ness, too much celery is all bad.

Jay and I both choked half a bowl down, but the rest of it went in the trash (I can't compost it because of the dairy and fat contents, and I have no livestock yet that would happily take it). However, my slaw and homemade bagels with honey butter at least provided us with some needed calories and nutrition.

That's about a 1/2 yard of compost that I put dow a few weeks ago. You can't
see it from this angle, but Taco was pretty loaded down with the other cubic
yard I had in her yet to be put down.

We got all fancy with the laser level a while back and marked out the first of my on-contour garden beds. So far, I've dumped 1.5 cubic yards of mushroom compost on this one bed at about 6" deep, and I estimate that I'll need another yard or so to finish it off. I'd like to have two more beds of the same length for springtime planting, so I'll likely need a total of 7.5 cubic yards of material.

At $30.00 per cubic yard, that's $225.00 for all three long beds, which is a little pricey, but I'm hoping that this initial investment will pay off in the long run.

I probably would have gotten away with not using the rotting logs to hold up the bottom half of the beds (you can see we're on a slope), but it satisfies my inner OCD to have it there anyway so that I don't have to continually scoop up compost that shifts down the hill. I might end up covering the beds with some sort of plastic or other material to keep the nutrients from draining away. 

This was obviously before I shoveled compost and got it all in my hair.

Sandy!

No, we're not under siege by Hurricane Sandy. But I thought she presented a good opportunity (as in, being stuck inside all day) to get my shit together and start riding this bloggy train again.

It's rainy and windy, and I'm sorely disappointed in the lack of snow thus far despite it being quite chilly out, but I'm counting my blessings because all this weather enabled me to discover homemade bagels. I am also making roasted celery soup, and while I think it will also be good, roasted celery soup feels just kinda blah compared to the culinary excitement that is homemade bagels.

Before.

After. I didn't take a picture of the finished soup because, well, it just looks like pureed celery.
Although it is a lovely shade of celery green. Ha.

That's some wasabi sesame seeds on that thar last two. Totally unnecessary but a lovely addition nonetheless. 

We also attended the Fall Festival in Sneedville ahem, over four weeks ago and were pleasantly surprised by the amount of energy there despite our county's less-than-6,000-resident population count.

That lady in the overalls right there? She was from Virginia and sang
Coal Miner's Daughter during the karaoke hour better than
Loretta Lynn herself. It was a tear-jerker, I tell ya.

They take a potato and put it in a special spiral cutting mechanism to make
the most delicious fry ever. ONE FRY from an entire potato.

More spiral fry.

I also made homemade pizza for the first time oh about three weeks ago. It was delicious, but the mantra of less is more definitely applies to pizza. Too many toppings weighs it down.

Pepperoni, jalapenos, and red onions are delicious but weigh too much for this poor crust.

Someone discovered the sun spot in our bedroom.

We went on a tour last Saturday of a nearby farm (the pictures from which you can see on the Meetup group website here). I learned a lot about what we want as well as don't want to do. And now I want Chocolate turkeys and Silver Fox rabbits (in addition to our other choices of Highland cattle, St. Croix sheep, Ossabaw Island hogs, and Ameraucana and Marans chickens).

Lately, we've also:

- found a source for my beloved mushroom compost and started building spring garden beds

- erected a crude but hopefully efficient leaf composter (think welded wire in a circle stuffed with leaves)

- started hunting deer with the start of bow season (I should clarify that I merely sit in the hunting blind with a good book and take naps while Jay does the actual hunting)

- started knitting again (I'm determined to finish the scarf that is my first knitting project that I began at least two years ago)

- started sewing again (just a pillow so far -- don't get too excited)

- enjoyed a visit from my parents, which included the gift of a fabulous barn quilt that my talented artist Mother created that we hope to hang on the barn in the spring

- had business cards printed for my photography (need to drum up some wedding and portrait income)

- organized the wood shed (the number of liquor, wine, and beer bottles in our recycling area is not shocking at all, no)

- organized the guest cabin (my bro-in-law should be on his way out here soon!)

- and about a hundred other things that I'm failing to remember at the moment

So yea, there you have it, folks: a small glimpse into what we've been doing for oh, the past 30 days or so. And to ensure that I continue riding this bloggy train, I'm going to do a post every single day. YEP. You can hold me to that -- even if it's just one picture, it will be something at least. You can come break my legs if I fail miserably.