Equinox, Harvest, and Well-Fed Coyotes

On Saturday, September 22 at about 9 o'clock in the morning local time, Old Sol crossed the celestial equator, marking the autumnal equinox ("equal night"), although not until Tuesday the 25th were day and night closest to equal length at our northerly latitude. Nevertheless, it being a matter only of minutes in difference, I chose the 22nd to set sunrise and sunset stakes on the perimeter of the observatory in the big terraced field. The stakes will be replaced by something when we eventually build our version of Stonehenge.

In this predawn image you can see the guywire-supported gnomon ("indicator", "that which discerns") in the center of the field that we use to line up the stakes with the rising and setting sun on significant dates.

Here it comes.

I set the stake and quickly walked down to the road, which runs east-west. At the equinox, the sun rises  precisely in the east and sets precisely in the west.

I am a gnomon.

In the evening I was back out with my sunset stake. The fall colors are coming on in the avenue of ornamental maples and Grandmother Cottonwood.

And there it goes. The observatory gnomon is barely discernable in this image.

As the earth rolled up in front of the solar disk, the clouds were illuminated from beneath.

When the drought broke in August, the garden responded with a burst of productivity in a race against time as the first frosts approached. Saturday and Sunday night there were spots of frost that knocked down the peppers, the tomatoes, and the sweet potatoes so the following days I hurried to harvest them.

Here are the last of the peppers.

Last night I made a first batch of pickled jalapenos – five-eighths of a peck of pickled peppers.

Sweet potatoes have to be cured for long-term storage, a week to ten days at about 85 degrees and 85 percent humidity. I'm doing this in the oven with a pan of water below and the oven light as the heat source.

In the garage I'm drying mustard and sunflowers for the seed.

I took my early morning walk today around the farm perimeter, hoping to observe a coyote, and I was not disappointed but still pleasantly surprised. Across the north fence where Kincaid Creek passes onto our place were three of these handsome creatures, about 50 yards distant. They noticed me but did not startle and I watched for about ten minutes until they trotted off into the woods. A most excellent beginning to the day.

Catching Up

The drought broke here, after a fashion, on August 4 when during a large outdoor party in the afternoon we got a terrific thunderstorm and blow that dropped 1.5" of rain. Two hours later, though, one would never have known it had rained – there was no runoff nor even puddles. Since then we've had a couple storms that left about 0.7" each, and a couple at 0.1". None of this has restored the deficit and there's been no runoff so the pond continues to dry up and in the surrounding countryside the corn continues to die. Still, the grass has greened-up and everything looks a lot better. Temperatures moderated over the past couple weeks, 80s and 90s, and this makes for easier working outdoors.

In Seattleland, I always had the impression of the sky, and weather, being quite close to the ground. The skies here in Iowa are big, expansive, and layered into the stratosphere. On several recent days the cloud cover has primarily been composed of condensation trails from aircraft crisscrossing this piece of flyover country.

Today I met the farmer on the other side of this fence. He'd was looking for a four-year-old, 2500 pound bull that had gone missing, and I had to tell him I'd not seen it. It's a bit of a mystery because his pastures are well-fenced, but he told me that, without the addition of electric wire, a bull of that size can jump five strands of barbed wire. I rather hope I don't find the big thing.

The previous owners installed chain-link fencing around the house, presumably to contain their small children, and one of the first things Alan & Donna did when they arrived was to take down the mesh, but the posts were set in concrete – not just the corners but every one! – and proved quite difficult to remove. Alan and I gave it another go last weekend, using a technique derived from a 1909 book, Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them. We had a tractor instead of a team of horses, but the principles were the same. Our first attempts failed, but after digging away the turf that had covered the top of the concrete bases, creating little moats, and soaking these for a while – success!

Now the collection of posts is stacked in our stockpiles area, awaiting repurposing. Perhaps we'll cut off the pipes above the concrete and make giant wind chimes in the woods.

On a recent evening the clouds boiled up then, as has usually been the case, parted and went around without producing rain. But such magnificent tableaux! As my hero Jack Vance might put it, allegories of battles between good and evil...

The rain caused a lot of the tomato crop to split on the vine, and these fruits require a lot of culling and trimming before we can use them, but the dehydration project continues and the next step will be to pack them in oil and herbs. There are still a lot more on the vines, and sauce to be made and preserved.

Donna harvested Concords from one of the grapevines and made jelly. A rip-roaring success for her first attempt at this – excellent color, consistency, and flavor.