I got in as much firewood as I could, and cut down more fir and spruce branches and piled them up to season and drop their needles for next year.

No hard freeze predicted yet, so haven't drained some of the hoses. Have to wrap and bag the free-standing faucets.

Checked the roof, cleaned the gutters and chimney.

Cleaned branches and needles off the garage roof, cleaned those gutters, too. Plugged the hole in the metal of the attached lean-to (from a fallen branch).

Picked up a few canisters of propane for my Grasshopper stove, and some spray windshield de-icer, and filled the washer fluid with the good stuff instead of the junk that JiffyLube puts in my work van that freezes into a gel on the windshield if you accidentally hit the sprayer.

Mowed the back half-acre for the last time, I hope.

Cleaned out the chicken coop (6 pullets) and spread contents on the garden.

Still putting the garden to bed, a few cherry tomatoes are still ripening. This time I'm laying down flakes of wet straw (they were directly under the hole in the lean-to) over the limed soil to keep the weeds down. I hope they last long enough so in spring all I have to do is rake the straw off, add nitrogen and potassium, and plant. We shall see...

Lined the sides of the largest wire mesh compost pile with two-ply cardboard and have been layering the almost-finished compost with cuttings from the comfrey plants and dandelion tops (both nutrient accumulators), and adding some alfalfa mean, wood ashes and bone meal, covered with plastic to prevent nutrient leaching during our heavy rains.

Bathed both dogs.

Bandaged hand after slicing thumb joint with knife while harvesting comfrey.

Sue