Harvest, Pumpkins Sold Out Fast, Tree Felling, Grilling, Glass Work...

Yesterday started a bit busy as I was able to go out to soak for a bit but had to get to the garden to pick before we had to leave for the pumpkin sales.

When I went to let the birds out I found these pair of mushrooms growing right next to the coop in super dry soil. They are bigger than a golf ball so far and I am curious how big they are this morning.

The squash are still kind of producing and with the pair of acorn squash I ended up with 21.25 pounds for the day. A number of them had spots that had to get scratched our cut off so they won't be getting sold. I am settled on Tuesday being my last delivery to the co-op as that night will be a frost. I plan to pick most everything before that if I can.

I got the boys loaded up, the popup canopy, and the table then we drove north to Miller's One Stop in Elk. I parked next to the building and we got started setting up. Not long later Nick showed up with his Tacoma loaded with pumpkins and the sales began.

Both our canopies setup was perfect and gave us a nice bit of shade. Sales happened quickly and Mo's employer at the Camden Ranch ended up buying 51 pumpkins. She sent down a couple of the teenagers in her big truck that was parked in front of our trucks in the pic. That was an outstanding sale and once they had taken the load away we had just over 50 pumpkins left.

In 2.5 hours we had gotten down to just 6 pumpkins left that we were planning to use for a pack meeting but people showed up and we ended up with just 2 left. Over $600 for our pack from the less than 3 hours of being setup. The boys were all barking and hustling like mad and their excitement helped the sales too. We also got a good number of straight donations and an older gentleman who was our first sale came back later but we were out of pumpkins but he went in and bought a pack of pushpops and handed them out to the kids.

I am still amazed by the speed of the sales, I honestly had no clue just how long it would take to sell them all so this was incredible. We were standing there talking about it amongst us adults and we came to the conclusion that next year we are going to go big. I am going to grow a bunch of pumpkins and the other families will grow what they can as well. Next year we will have more notice and can get the word out earlier and we could possibly pay for our entire year for all the kids with the pumpkin sales.

Back home with an empty truck I got some food in me then headed out to do some tree felling. I was not sure at first if I was going to cut it down yesterday but once I got the cable tight I figured I might as well. First I hauled my ladder over to the tree and climbed to the top to hook the logging cable as high up as I could.

I love my logging cable, it makes leashing trees nice and easy.

Up the hill I stretched the wire, then hooked my two come-alongs on then stretched it up to the chain that I wrapped around a big fir tree. I ratcheted them as tight as I could and yard the tree towards the hill.

The wire was quit tight and the tree looked to have a good lean in the direction I wanted to fell it.

I cut my face cut which made it through the center core of the tree. I then did my back cut to fell it and it never moved. The tree stood there held with the wire and I had cut all but a small sliver of the tree with out it going down. The wire held it in place as I ran over to the house to get the big splitting maul and all my metal wedges.

I pounded 3 wedges in and the tree finally went down. A little out of line with the cable but that was good as it allows me to easily get it.

Then I bucked all the limbs and then began at the top and started cutting rounds.

The tip top bits I left and will cut up today.

The chain had dulled enough that it was getting too hard to cut due to hitting rocks on some cuts. Each of the rounds had gotten rolled down after each cut and they landed in the pile at the base of the hill.

I have the bottom part of the tree left to cut up today then I need to move it all out of the way so I can setup to cut down 2 more trees. It will be cool as I plan to setup a domino effect with notching the one then letting the bigger tree take it down when it goes. It is going to REALLY open up the sun for my garden once they are down.

I love having my chain sharpener as it takes but a few minutes to sharpen each chain. I got a pair of them sharpened with one on the saw. I have a couple more chains to get sharpened as I will likely need them with all the trees to cut up.

I got the fire going in the pit then got the bison steaks and peppers on the grill. The bison came out so delicious and tender.

J was whining most of the afternoon about getting into the glass studio but I had stuff to do first. After we ate dinner we headed out for a bit. I got a chance to try out my new bead mold which works really nicely. J just played with clear and learned more of how the glass acts when molten or soft.

My shower was really needed after the day and soaking was nice but I ended up passed out inside.

I have been to town for grain already this morning, have it emptied into the sheep pen, been out to soak, and I will soon be getting the birds let out to go browse the grain. I am going to watch the Seahawks game this morning then this afternoon I will be back out with the chainsaw cutting up trees.