More apples and snow?

Remember last week, when I said the white pine look awful with all their dead needles, but they would look like nothing happened when the needles dropped? We had some Big Winds this week, and you can now see a pile of yellow needles under a perfectly fine-looking white pine. Scroll down to last week’s post for the “before” image.

Dead needles on the ground; impossible to tell the tree lost any

Here it is, October 19, and we are still harvesting tomatoes from the high tunnel.

High tunnel tomatoes--are they not beautiful?

I thinned the baby lettuce for the first time on Tuesday so we could have bacon, lettuce, tomato, and avocado sandwiches for supper.

Tomato sandwich with the first picking of high tunnel lettuce

I devoted Wednesday to getting apples out of the spare refrigerator. I made applesauce, which is (I mention every fall) the easiest thing ever. I peel the apples, but that step isn’t even necessary if you like pink applesauce, as my mother does. First put a bunch of cored, cut-up apples in a big pot. Add a little water so they don’t burn on the bottom. Heat and stir every few minutes.

Early in the applesauce-making process

And stir and stir, adding a little more water as needed. Eventually, the apples will break down and voila! Applesauce!

Applesauce! Like magic!

I also made apple cake, the best part of which is the cream cheese frosting (of course!).

Apple cake

At the end of the day, all the apples in the house were gone. At the end of the next day, Terry had filled the refrigerator again. We have some outstanding Yellow Delicious this year. I don’t remember having those before. It might be the first year the tree has borne fruit.

We had another cold night Thursday. The tops of the basil in the high tunnel got frozen. Basil is such a wuss about the cold!

Frost-nipped basil in the high tunnel

When I cleaned the lisianthus pots, I found one plant with three buds. I put that pot in the high tunnel, and the first bud has opened.

A brave last lisianthus

The tomato plants were damaged on the top and along the wall. Nevertheless, I picked 12 more tomatoes on Friday, and they are still ripening. I think the plants have stopped flowering, which is no surprise because they depend on long days to get the reproductive action cranked up.

Frost damage on the tops and sides of the tomatoes

The phone just rang. It was Terry alerting me to the fact that it was snowing. He got the tractor back in the shop in the nick of time. I asked him this morning if it was going to rain today. He said no. I didn’t ask about snow!

Snow? Seriously?

This is very early for snow. I don’t know if it will stick, but even so, it makes one wonder if it’s going to be a long winter.