Tues. through Fri.

Tuesday I went to Kalispell with Kathleen. We went to Smith's to buy things on the caselot sale. It was the last day of the sale, and they were out of a lot of things. People were stocking up like crazy this year! We went to Taco Bell for lunch, then went to Costco. On the way home we had an unexpected visit with Kathleen's husband's Aunt and Uncle near Whitefish. What lovely people, and such a neat house! Lots of wood and stone, and glassed-in porches. She was quite the painter in the day and there were lovely framed paintings on the wall that she had done. He was a great hunter and there were beautiful mounts of sheep, antelope, goat, etc.

We were quite late getting home and it felt frosty. Steven had covered the squash and tomatoes, but now we went out with flashlights and also covered the potatoes. The sheets were damp and had frozen, so I expected the worst. We must have been in time, because although it was 26 degrees Wednesday morning, there was only light frost damage to the leaves of the potato plants.

The tomatoes and squash took a harder hit, even though Steven had covered them earlier.

According to my book, "The Northern Gardener", squash that has begun ripening will continue to ripen after harvest. Rather than risk losing all my squash in a freeze I harvested some of them and spread them on a towel on the bathroom floor.

We ran in to Fortine, and on the way out we stopped and fed the buffalo.

The hay is across the road. If it's near the fence, the buffalo will lean on the wires trying to get to the hay. That stretches the wires and before long the wires sag and teh buffalo can get out.

The dog was turning in circles trying to watch Steven and the buffalo all at once!

When we came back from Fortine there were two moose just before we turned off the paved road. Both were cows, though one was smaller and might be a 2-year old calf of the bigger one.

They jogged off into the trees after we stopped to take their picture.

Last year I waited too long to gather the tomatoes, thinking the plastic cover on the hoophouse would protect them. They froze. They were still green, like the ones in the picture here, and I brought them in to thaw and see if they would continue ripening, but they turned to mush. So Friday I picked the ones that were near the tops and outsides of the plants, just in case. I hope they'll ripen inside the house. Some were pretty green.

But the leaves on the tops and outer sides had frozen and turned black, even with the cover on the hoophouse. The tomatoes would have been next...

The pumpkin vines were among the corn, and even with a cover over the whole patch, both the corn plants and the leaves on the pumpkin plants froze. The pumpkins seemed okay, no frozen places, so I cut them and brought them in too. I recently heard that they will continue to ripen, too, if brought inside. I guess we'll find out. That's a summer squash on the top right. These are on top of the spaghetti squash that are in the picture above. I covered them with a towel and set these among them.

"Nothing stands between me and being petted!"

The kitten tries to keep me from my computer!