SNOW, Batch 70 Finished and Bagged, Spelunking and Cleaning, Fire, ...

Woke to the first snowfall of the season yesterday morning. A VERY wet and heavy snow that had all the trees, bushes, and even weeds all bent over. We got snowed on as we soaked had our morning soak.

I emptied the gauge and we ended up with .75" of water content in the 2 inches of snow. Insanely wet and heavy snow.

I went to go let the birds out for the morning then grabbed a snow rake and went around the farm saving all the trees. I did not lose any branches thankfully but that was due to my banging the snow off all them. The cherry trees, nectarines, pears, and the oak tree were all still holding leaves which helped keep the snow weight on. It took some hours for the branches to all return to a more normal position.

Overnight the batch had finished in the freeze dryer and I had extended it some to give me time to get the morning stuff done. Around 10am I popped it open and found all the trays perfectly done. It helped that I ran larger sized pieces and not as dense so it took a lot less time than the prior batch of finer cut peppers.

The Anaheim are nice and mild with very little spice while the jalapeno retain a good bit of kick especially with the seeds still in them. The Nardello on the right have a nice sweetness to them.

I am being better about bagging and got all the peppers bagged and sealed. I still need to get a bunch more bins for storage as I am about full with the ones I have.

It was around noon when the snow turned to rain and the snow bombs began to rain down. The thumps on the pergola, deck, and the roof of the house were quite loud at times and had the dog on edge.

I then spent hours spelunking in R's room. Wit has busy as the summer was we let their rooms turn into disaster areas. Unfortunately I am the only one in the house that has the ability to organize trash heaps to any effect. It all started by me going looking for his winter clothes and ended up turning into a cleaning session. I am not proud of letting it get this bad but am determined to get it dealt with.

We have to do a massive donation of all the too small and not used stuff which will make a lot of space.

A little after 4pm I went out and got the fire going in the pit. I was quite happy to see the cherry and nectarine trees had largely returned to normal with only a few branches still slightly bent. The rains helps to remove the rest of the snow from them.

I grilled our beefallo burgers and toasted the buns. The back side of the storm was coming through and the evening was rather chilly so the fire was quite nice.

The rains had stopped as the storm moved on east but then the winds picked up. I was getting pelted by snow blowing off the pine tree above us.

It is warm this morning , 41F, and the snow is mostly all gone and pine needles are littering the farm. Today batch 71 has to get started in the freeze dryer, cleaning in the house and boys' rooms, I have plants to break down to bags, my writing to keep working on, Spanish and Python lessons which I am on day 14 and 7 of respectively.