Sunrise

If you haven't seen the sunrise in a while, I would advice you to schedule some day in the next week, and get up before the sunrise, and go to a place where you know you can see the sunrise, take in the beauty around you and wait to see the returning promise of the sun. It is a spectacular thing to see the horizon changing. Up top you have light blue, green, white, yellow, orange, red, purple against the hills. It might take you too long to see the sun actually come up, but seeing the horizon change is enough. The transformation.

While I like flat land, there is some beauty to the rolling land. Hills, and valleys, a 3D affect. Gardens on it have a 3D effect, the landscape is prettier, not only do you have the trees shrubs and everything else on it, but then you have the 3D of the land. It adds another aspect to it. My walk this morning was through the woods, up until I came to a spot overlooking an area, where I had a good view of the sunrise. After watching it for a few minutes I went down and came up several more times to other places where I could see it.


I found some good places for growing something. Places level, with only clump grass growing. My plan is to probably do winter squash there next year. My first thought was sweet potatoes, but deer like that, and generally besides bugs, most things don't like squash plants. Though, last year I did have that pumpkin vine that got nipped badly by that deer. But this year, I guess I had to many other tasty things for squash to be on the menu.

I don't take too many walks. My siblings often go, and in cooler weather my parents will go often. They walk around the neighborhood. I just don't really like that. Every once in a while I will get the urge to run, and so I grab an iPod and some shoes and run around the block (around a mile). I would much prefer a walk through the woods, or a run through the woods. I get a good bit of exercise going to and from my garden. From my greenhouse I walk 30ft to the creek, cross it (on the sewer pipe), walk 70ft up the path, come to the corner, walk another 150ft, up 3 steps, then walk another 150ft or so. Only I am usually running down or up to my garden, instead of walking. Walking if I'm loaded down with produce (usually when I have about 1500 zucchini).

I need a hedge. An evergreen hedge. A year ago I would never have considered a hedge, unless it was edible. But, an evergreen hedge will provide shelter to beneficial insects through the winter. I'm looking at getting probably 6 shrubs from somewhere (I don't know the price, so it might be less). I know one nursery that I like, it might have what I'm looking for. I want to plant the hedge so that it blocks more of the garden from view from our neighborhood drive.

I made 4 gallons of cider last night. Much to the shagrin of almost everyone in my family, I am turning it hard. They were pretty upset, the younger ones. But, I comforted them with "Well, now all the rest can be sweet!" I may take a quart or two, but I don't need more than half a gallon more. I also started some apple wine. With the apple pomace I added 4 cups of cranberries, boiled water with brown sugar and spices, added some lemon juice. Poured that and 2 gallons over the apple pomace, added some yeast and let it go! We will see how it turns out. Probably on the light side of things, with an alcohol of 4% is what I'm guessing.

We need to make 45 more quarts of apple sauce to get us through the year. And cut up enough apples for 10 apple pies I would say. We DEFINITELY want enough for Thanksgiving. What a pain it would be to go buy 3 bags of apples for apple pie at T-giving.

Last year, I bought enough cranberries to make 10 gallons of wine. They sat in the freezer and never did anything with them. Except gave them to the family, (yeah, I'm pretty generous, I also keep a store of sugar in my winery and the family takes it whenever we run out. : ) its pretty cool.

This year I hope to make some cranberry wine, maybe blending it with apple cider.

Well, I should eat breakfast, do some school work, and do some apple stuff. So, enjoy what God has given you, and praise Him for it!

English Vintner