Brussels sprouts and possum poop

I had hoped that Terry would have shot a big buck this weekend so I could blog about that. He has had several shots, but no hits. At least we know the deer are around, even if not within range.

Saturday was a lovely, sunny, 50 degree afternoon. Hilda and I went out to harvest the very last of the garden. The Danish ballhead cabbage and the Brussels sprouts didn’t do diddly squat during the hot dry summer. I left them in to see if they would amount to anything in the cooler fall weather. Most of the cole family can stand a freeze. Many of them become sweeter after the frost. Some of the cabbages still hadn’t tightened up, but seven of them had cute little baseball to softball-sized heads. The Bubbles Brussels sprouts were still pathetic. Diablo and Jade fared better, but it was hardly a bumper crop, and most were small. We dug the roots out while we were at it. If Terry decides the soil conditions are right, he can still Rototill before winter.

Brussels sprouts (var. Jade) on the stem

I trim the leaves off the stalks while wearing an orange cap, just in case  hunter might think I was a deer in red plaid.

The chickens did a pretty good job cleaning out the herb bed. Hilda took the spading fork in to pull up the parsley roots. Ellie helped by scratching the soil and eating worms.

Ellie helps Hilda clean out the herb bed.

The last thing Hilda did was to dig the crosnes (pronounced “crones”). These odd little tubers are prized by trendy chefs. To me, they are more work than they are worth. Hilda has a much higher tolerance for tedious work.

The crosnes are the white tubers. Hilda's finger is  in the top of the picture for scale.

We had a melancholy moment contemplating the empty garden. Fall is a sad time for us with the plants dying back and settling down into dormancy. I feel better when we get a nice layer of snow. Then it seems more like the earth is sleeping all cozy under its white blanket.

The empty garden. In the foreground, a pink tray with the last mini-cabbages and the pile of waste leaves topped with Brussels sprout spines.

Hilda usually leaves the “egg picking” to me on the weekends because she gets to do it all week.  I checked twice yesterday and found a total of three eggs, but every time I looked, there was a hen in the east nest box. We don’t usually disturb the hens to check for eggs underneath since we check several times a day. I figured it was a slow egg day and left the last check for Hilda. I took my cabbages and Brussels sprouts in the house and started cleaning them. I heard a knock at the door followed by Hilda calling. “Which is the favorite nest box,” she asked.

“The east one. Why?”

She held out the egg basket with SIX eggs in it. That brought the total to nine for the day.

Here’s our nature moment for this blog. We had noticed a possum hanging around under out bird feeder every night. Terry brought it to my attention that the ground was getting covered with possum poop. I had never seen possum poop. It seems to have an awful lot of fibrous material in it, as if the possum had been eating a lot of grass. I looked it up in the poop book (actually A Field Guide to Animal Tracks by Olaus J. Murie), hoping to confirm Terry’s identification. The book said, “Opossum scats are unfortunately not distinctive and will vary in accordance with the kind for food eaten.” Is there any omnivore for which this is not true?

Possum poop with sunflower seeds for scale.