Ick this is what I woke up to Wednesday morning.





at work I noticed it snowing but the sun was shining so I didn't think it would be THAT bad. The sun was still out so I figured it would blow over..... wrong

This year I had tried to prepare before the first frost. I started by picking and pulling the tomatoes out front (and one in back) the night before. Here is the trash can full - those front ones got really big!










And here is the tomatoes I picked. They are in different boxes so I can try and tell when they ripen. Since some will be red, some pinky, some yellow, some orange, and the green zebra's will stay green, its important to not mix them together!














Picked a bucket of tomatillos in the dark.




not bad!




brought in the squash- sure didn't get as many this year. oh well.


I had left the bigger pumpkins (bubba and bubba jr). on the front porch.












I moved the big pots in next to the house to try and keep them a little warmer... not all of them made it. I do want to try pulling out the geraniums to see if I can keep them over for next year.




I brought these ones in for some reason that I can now not fathom.




I took cuttings from all the coleous this year to try and make next year cheaper.... we'll see how it works. The lighter collored ones already died.

Before I went to Vegas I had picked the onions, covered the ones that didn't get big enough to see if they grow next year. I also didn't get as many of these this year. Combination of too much shade from over zealous zuchini and not enough water?






Cut two pretty daliahs because didn't want them to die yet. I think I only did one bocquet this year... that was dumb.

I got my hoop house all ready to go but doing it in the night wasn't easy... I found that since I didn't plan for snow the clothespins weren't strong enough as you can see.

I guess it was a bit windy too cause I know this outside tomato was well covered the night before... It actually survived pretty well.

On the bright side the lover is now back on active duty!

New Project

I think I stopped blogging because the Hawaii posts were making me too depressed. I might go back and finish them another time but in an effort to keep going, I thought I'd put those posts on hold.

As most of you probably know I have a new project. I have wanted to get chickens for a really long time, and I think I've even blogged about it. Well I asked the landlord and he said yes so I started looking at chickens (from KSL classified) and coops. I had already done some research so I knew what I wanted and thought I could design it on my own. But I also wanted something cute. Once I found this picture I knew what I wanted.

Oh its so cute!

Unfortunately its taking much too long to finish this project. But at least I have something to do and to put off when I want to :)

I put together the run first. I figured it was easier and I could figure out what I was doing. It did go together pretty easy. Once it was all together I realized it was way tooo big. Umm chickens don't need a 4' tall run! I didn't have to make additional cuts cause Lowe's cut each 8' 2x2 in half but thats why its so big.

I didn't plan to add a human sized door so I did that afterwards. I've stained it a couple of times to help weatherize it.... hopefully. So now I just need to staple on the hardware cloth around the outside, add some wheels (its so big I want to be able to move it around easier). I think I'll use regular chicken wire for the roof as its lighter weight.

I got a bunch of free pallets so I could use the wood for the outside of the coop. Many, many hours and blisters later this is the sorry pile of only semi usable wood I was able to pull off and I've had to rethink my idea of free wood...

The rest of the pallets still sit in the backyard mocking me.

I've gotten the 2x4's bolted to the wagon and now just need to afix the flooring to the 2x4's. Which I've painted on the underside so it can withstand the weather.

I thought I'd attach this picture to show why some things are going slow. Coping saws aren't really designed for this. Fortunately the cuts haven't had to be real acurate yet....

I did just purchase this tool hoping that any future cuts can go a little faster and a little straighter :)