Wow, what a beautiful weekend. Warm, sunny, and breezy. Highs in the high 60's, warm enough for short shirt sleeves. We don't often get weather like this in November, so it was very much relished and taken advantage of.

Yesterday I picked up the trailer (borrowed from a friend) that we will haul the pigs to "freezer camp" in, and then we can use it to load up the broilers and turkeys and take them also to their respective final destination. The pigs should go in on Wednesday afternoon, and the birds have their date the following Monday. I've wondered what it will be like that week, after the pigs have left but we still have birds to take care of. And of course, I think about what it will be like after all of our 'agricultural products' have left the place. I will miss the rhythm and responsibility of caring for them, and I will surely miss the entertainment of watching them run and play. It will be quiet around here. I hope it gets really cold soon, because if it stays this nice, and I want to work outside, it will be too weird without the grunts and cackles and squeals and squawks and the constant mental notes of checking on water and feed and fences.

Couple of days ago, I stopped in the local garden center looking for garlic. We just hadn't gotten it together to purchase any replacement garlic yet. Garlic needs to be planted in the fall in these parts, and is harvested in July. Karen especially was feeling anxious about our lack of garlic in the ground, but I kept telling her we still had time. As long as the ground isn't frozen solid, you can plant garlic. And our soil is still nice and fine, especially with all this warm weather just now. So I walked in to that garden store thinking I was probably too late, and they'd be all out of garlic. I asked, and they said they had just gotten a fresh shipment in! Score! I bought about 3 pounds of the stuff. Varieties called Siberian, Italian Late, Musik, and Northern White. got it all planted yesterday afternoon. Once it was all in the ground, I realized that this paltry amount would be a nice moment in garlic time for us, but if we wanted to really grow most of our own garlic, we needed a LOT more! So I'll go back this week and hope other procrastinators haven't cleaned them out before I get there.

Last night the neighbors had their annual bonfire, which is always fun. This year they strung out some party lights, which added a nice effect. Got to chat with another new neighbor, so that was nice, too. I love going to events where my trip consists of going to the backyard, grabbing a chair and walking next door. Nice.

This morning I started some pork spare ribs with a rub containing mainly brown sugar, mustard, seasoned salt, paprika, pepper and onion powder. Left them in the fridge for a couple of hours, then I lit a fire in my smoker and put them on to smoke around noon. I smoked them for about three hours. The wind from the south today was my ally, as it made for a perfect draft and I never even had to poke my fire even once. Plenty of time to keep working on other stuff. After three hours of smoke, I brought them in and roasted them in the oven. I poured my "slather" over them, consisting of a bottle of flat dark beer, brown sugar, yellow mustard, white pepper, some salt, maybe a few other things I can't think of right now. About 1.5 hours in the oven, and OHMYGOD, they were gooooooooooood!! An added benefit is that our house smelled like a traditional smoke house. mmmm. That's a good thing, in my book.

Today I moved surplus sheets of plywood from the garage to the barn mow, making room in the garage for more storage for winter. My goal is to be able to get the tractor in there for the cold weather. I cleaned the barn, cleaned up the yard, greased up the trailer and hooked it up to the truck, turned the compost piles and combined them into one with the tractor loader. Went through the old pig pen and cleared the hot wire of dirt and debris, preparing for the next round while the ground is still workable. Fixed a leaky faucet in the kitchen and then cleared a clog in the bathroom. Besides putting the grill away and doing a load or two of laundry and moving hoses and shaking down all the remaining apples from the apple tree and general picking up all over, I don't know where the day went, but I do know I was almost constantly moving today. It did feel good, I have to say.

When the days get short like this, but we get a warm southerly breeze, we tend to go nuts with running around outside, like the squirrels do. We know there are so many things to do, and we do get the necessities done before the snow flies, but if we have extra time, we find so much more to do! I could still have used more time to get to that dirt pile next to the berry patch, and to prune them, and work on the perennial garden, etc., etc., Guess that might happen if we get more mild weather, hey?