Work on Studio, Tomatoes, Batch 52 Finished

The cold weather is setting in and the mornings are frosty and crisp. It's below freezing and make the hot of the tub feel extra nice. It also makes it that much harder to get out of.

Once the sun was up and had dried frost I took care of a couple of things on the roof. I had 2 pieces that needed to be installed to fill in the tiny sliver that I had missed on the very edge. It was truly just a half inch sliver but it needed to be covered.

The end of the building where I pulled the chimney down had exposed the base wood which showed serious heat and fire damage from over the years. The chimney has turned to pure garbage and all the mortar is as porous as sand. I am able to pull the bricks off by hand in most of the stack.

After a good bit of measuring I finally found 2 pieces of scrap OSB that would fit just right. I am going to have to install more once I rip the rest of the chimney out since it exposes the inside of the wall.

I have a roll of tar paper that I cut a couple pieces from and tacked them up to cover the OSB. I have to add a lid to the open chimney so it doesn't become a funnel for snow and rain. At least I will end up with a bunch more bricks to use around the farm.

While parked waiting for the boys to be out of school I stared at this gorgeous Malibu Chevelle. I grew up riding in the back seat of a 69 Malibu as we hauled ass towards the south entrance of Yosemite beating sports cars that didn't have the wide wheel base for handling the corners.

The tomatoes are ripening really well on the rack. It's super easy to see them and to pick.

A little after 5pm the freeze dryer finished its run in under 24 hours. The last batch of peppers took twice as long but it also had a lot of bell peppers that were probably a lot juicier. The hot peppers apparently didn't have as much since the walls of the chamber were pretty thin of ice. The peppers all came out perfectly though.

The jalapenos and the Hungarian wax rings are super cool and it feels so much like styrofoam but tastes amazing.

The ancho pieces and rings gave me enough for about 3/4 of a gallon bag and a full gallon in total of the ancho.

A good part of my afternoon was spent cleaning up under the carport and trying to vanquish my mortal enemy, the cardboard pile. It seems to grow in size, mass, and disarray so quickly and must be tamed regularly or else it becomes a herculean effort to deal with. Our friend stopped by with her kids to pick up pears that we had in the cooler for her and the boys all got to play for a while.

I made dinner and then had my co-op board meeting at 6. While I did the meeting Hive account@stryeyz worked on sorting grapes so they can be juiced. The rest of the evening was spent soaking until I just about fell asleep in the water and had to crash.