The Day After Snow

It was again cold this morning, but not as much as this morning.  I watched the morning news for a while and then went to work carving our pumpkins.  I sat around watch videos on You Tube for a while.

 I brought in the pumpkins and started to carve.  But first I looked at a lot of images online to get some ideas.  I used a sharp fila knife to cut off the lid.  It took a lot of scraping to remove all the seeds and gook.  They are really slippery  Their slippery-ness made it difficult to pull out everything.  I marked the location of the eyes, nose, and mouth.  I then carved those features.  When finished I got an anaheime pepper from the garden to give the pumpkin on the left a long tongue.  

I went out to the greenhouse to see how progress was coming.  House to was cleaned up.  The white is white plastic but by first glance it looks a little like snow.

Pumpkin with tongue which looks more like a red cigar.

All together

The more spooky pumpkin.

Sunday, I covered the carrot plants with 

Styrofoam to keep them from freezing.  I added more Styrofoam yesterday.  To day I removed the snow and ice from them today and covered the whole thing with poly that I used last year.  A 2x2 is attached to both sides which prevent the wind from blowing off the Styrofoam.  I can easily remove to remove the snow.

I put Styrofoam on the sweet potato plants.  The soil was frozen solid.  I hope that the heat from the soil will thaw the frozen soil.

I cut away the frozen tomato plants from the trellis string.  The trees shaded the area from the sun.  It was getting a little cold.  I stopped hope to finish it tomorrow afternoon.

Carol called  her knee  doctor.  She left a message. No one called her back.

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Pumpkins /Jack-o-Lanterns

Breakfast and the news.  I told Carol yesterday that I would turn the pumpkins into jack-o-lantern's.

We bought this wrinkled pumpkin at the     store in Orem a couple of weeks ago.  I got every thing ready.  The newspaper for the 'guts'.   The green bowl for the seeds and pumpkin pieces removed and knives and a saw.

I made a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin.  We will put it over a burning candle or a single LED light.  The hole wasn't big enough for my hand to fit.

I made it larger hole and was able to scrape out the seeds.  Those I put n the green bowl.

This doesn't look like much.  It was so hard I use a drill to make a hole and my jigsaw to make teeth.  The above photo shows four teeth and sort of smile.

I used a drill to make two nostrils for the nose.  Then a large spade bit for the eyes.  I was able to make the eyes larger with a knife.

I brought in the large pumpkin.  The photo shows the drill on the left and the jigsaw on the right.  The skin of this pumpkin was much softer and I only need my sharp knife.

I cut off the top and began to remove the seeds.

I cut out the mouth,  but it was to low.  I did make the mouth opening a little larger.

I cut out teeth to make it look vicious.  

I cut out the nose and eyes.  It looks a little better.   I folded the newspaper into a small square.  It acted like a lazy Susan.  It was easy two twist and turn.

Here again with the top in place.

The white pumpkin was also easy to cut.

I cut off the top or lid.

I quickly put on a face.  A wide smile, a triangle nose. and two round eyes.  I guess that I was getting tired and just made it simple.

The finished project.

Here are the three of them on the first step of the front porch.  Looks pretty goodl

I raked up the leaves without using a rake.  I used a large scoop shovel and made a windrow.

I laid down a blue tarp and put a black pipe along the front edge.  The pipe holds the tarp in place while pushed the leaves with the scoop shovel.  I tied the four corners together and drug it out to the garden.  I made at least four trips and have a nice pile of leaves in the garden.  I looked all over for the rake.

I started looking for a wood burner to burn in my name and dated under the Viking stool that I made for Skyler and Emily's wedding.   I didn't find one but I emptied a box that had canceled checks, statements and bills.  I run some of it through the shedder.  The was some letters in there that was written by my mother while I was on my mission.  I thinks she wrote one each week while I was gone.  There is a good piece of history in those letters.

Ray and Mary Anne stopped by for a visit.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Picked House Six the Last Time

This morning we drove to Fillmore.  Carol needed to have a paper signed by her doctor to certify that She was healthy enough to drive for another year.  We parked in front of the new Revere Health building, her Doctor Gross was in the parking lot.  He came in and signed her paper.

We then stopped at the Market for groceries.  

I am working on a CSA boxes and checking out some tomato prices.  The two above photos show the prices of tomatoes.

I prepared scallions, beets, and beet greens for Share the Harvest at the post office.  The I cut the tops off the larger beets.  I gathered all the tops of the scallions and put them and the beet tops in the compost pile shown above.

The above photo shows the beets in zip bags and the beet greens.

I picked a bucketful of tomatoes.  We took those to the post office on our way to Fillmore.  Most of the tomatoes in house six are badly cracked or green.  I turned the furnace off today.  If it gets to cold it will freeze in house six.

Here is a better picture of the middle of house one.

I began removing the tomato vines in house six beginning to get it ready for next spring.

I went for a walk.  I got a picture of the footing and foundation for a garage.  It looks like there will be a two door garage and shop.

There are three tomato plants that I have no seed.  Two have been propagated and are doing well in house two.  I took two cutting from what I will call Black Plum.  

I carved the pumpkin last night.  It has been on the porch all day.  Carol lit the candle late this afternoon.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Carving the Pumpkin

We dug over half or our potatoes yesterday.  The ground was too hard.  The sprinkle run on them for a couple of hours.  This afternoon Carol and I began to dig.  I dug and she gathered the into buckets.  It was pretty muddy and there were a lot of volunteer carrots.  We also dug themI left them on the lawn for a couple of hours while I cleaned the carrots.  No picture.  Pictured below are all the potatoes that we dug.  They are grade according to size.  The largest are in the top right bucket.  There is more than enough for us.

We bought a pumpkin a couple of weeks ago.  I was going to carve it a couple of days ago, but forgot, and didn't want to start after the sun had gone down.  I went online to get some ideas.  I then looked at pumpkin carvers on utube. I then made a design to work from.

I got some of my wood carving tools together.  The worst part of carving a pumpkin is removing the seed.  I used spoons and a curved scrape used in concave wood projects.  It was almost perfect removing the slimy seeds and fibers.   On the left is the scraper; next is a little gouge used for carving the whiskers.  The longer one is a small gouge used for carving around all of the openings.  One right is a saw type tool.