Mud

Despite dire forcasts of rain, and other than a few late night sprinkles, last week was absolutely gorgeous fall weather. The trees are in full color all over town. Just the drive from our house to the farm is stunning. Still it's been cold, and we've had frosts.

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Weather Note

By mid November, we're having serious frosts. Forget planting anything, and plan to pull up any summer crops that are still straggling along. However, August was none too soon to have put in the winter crops, which are just where they should be: ripening up as the weather turns cold.

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But, when the sun was out at midday, it was lovely. So we got going on the mudding. Rick and Rick met on Saturday morning to go buy mud. Here they are mixing the stucco in the wheelbarrow.

Rick checks out the first section.

They keep going.

Clear up to the top. You can't really tell in this photo, but they took turns having one person on the ladder, and one person handing up new trowels-full of mud.

I declined to help move mud, although the guys very thoughtfully offered me the opportunity. Instead, I ripped out the peppers. We had mostly harvested them by now anyway, and the frost caused significant damage, making it clear that it was time to take them out. This is where some of them used to be. I still have more to rip out.

The last dregs still make quite a haul. I don't think we'll plant quite so many next year, although we have some definite favorites, and not-so-favorites. For the record, next year, we'll do plenty of those fine fat jalapenos (Biker Bobs), and not a one of those lemon peppers, which sounded great and looked pretty, but fell down on taste. We all have soooooooo many peppers stored away, either dried, canned, or frozen in puree. It's true that we use a lot, but we have... abundance. I took some across the street and dusted off my Spanish enough to ask "Quieren jalapenos?"

By this time, the guys had finished the first layer of stucco. There are three separate coats. This first base coat is to squish between the lathes, and generally provide a base surface for the next coat. Then there will be a middle coat and a finish coat.

After they got the first coat on, we ran off to play croquet, where Rick C won again! A three-peat, yikes! Catherine showed up just as we were leaving, and she hung out and arranged for Ed to get the wood that's too big for our firepit. Then there was Titus's party over at Lori's where we also got to see the amazing fish murals. Oon Sunday, not particularly early, we came back for more punishment. Here the guys put on the second coat.

We decided that was enough for now. It's dark before 5 pm now, so weeknights aren't much use for farming. We can hang out around the fire, but... all in all, we'll probably be focusing most of our energies on the weekends. I did manage to roast the remaining jalapenos and serranos, and string the last of the Thai red peppers. Buddy's been checking on the watering, and watered everything down thoroughly on Sunday, because it's stayed surprisingly dry. But once again, the forecast calls for rain later this week.