GOING GREEN

The frosty morning threat is looming so I picked everything left on the plants.
The pimento peppers usually are a dark shade of red by now, all ready for roasting and packing in olive oil, but not so much this year. So I just cut them up and froze them to use in chili.

The tomatoes will rest in a box covered with newspaper in the hopes that they will ripen for a nice tomato platter at Thanksgiving.

HOT BODS IN THE CITY

Heating season is near...so we had our old system upgraded.

Here in the garage is where the old heat pump furnace fit with the hot air going into the floor ducts.

This is the new unti...a 94% efficient gas furnace. It uses modern technology so we have a "dual fuel" system...the heat pump unit outside works until the outside temp get lower than 40 degrees and then the gas furnace takes over the heating duty. This spells relief in the bill paying department as we no longer have to rely on the electricity-sucking heat pump heat strips that were trying to heat during cold weather to the tune of about $100+ bucks a week! Oye!
The electric company (Pacific Power or Pathetic Power as we call it) did a number on folks here in the 1970's & '80's touting heat pumps as the way to go...yeah, if you love a $500 per month electric bill in the winter! Seems that heat pumps are great for cooling and do fine for moderate climates in the heating department but are not good for our colder winter climes.

All plumbed up. The vent is not metal but pvc pipe going out of the right side top of the unit. It is so efficient that the exhaust is lower than 55 degrees and doesn't require a double-walled metal vent pipe through the roof.
Okay, maybe it's hard to get excited about a furnace but it is nice to look forward to being warm this winter when the snow flies.

MIND IN THE GUTTER

Seems like fixing up an old house never ends! We found a product at Costco that is supposed to keep the gutters from getting clogged with leaves and needles. We thought we'd get it done before the storms came in this week.

The inserts come in 4' lengths and are some kind of coarse foam stuff.

This is what happens when you've been up on the roof too long!

The sections come 8 to a box so a box does 32 feet of gutter. I think that we used 7.5 boxes. Now we'll see if it works!!!

KID PIE & PEACHES

The last peaches of the season are big guys...only takes three to make a small pie!

A favourite treat around here when I'm baking a pie is the crust trimmings I call 'em "rat tails" because they are usually long skinny pieces trimmed from the outside edge of the rolled out dough. However a nicer name is "kid pie," what they called 'em in South Dakota, Jack says...just add sugar and cinnamon and bake for about 10 minutes. Have them right out of the oven with your mid-morning coffee!

FEELING FALLISH

Even though we have a bit more of summer to slog through, my thoughts have turned to fall! This ceramic pumpkin has proven excellent as a centerpiece for the dining table.

I've changed out the sunflowers for mums outside the entry.

On the mantle I've used an inexpensive triple candle holder with lots of bay leaves, artichokes and pumpkins.

Did I mention that Fall is really my favourite time of year and my favorite time to decorate? I did all this the day after my cataract surgery...not letting a little thing like blurry vision keep me from having some fun!

UNDER THE SINK WITH MOUSIE

A few nights ago we heard a strange scuffling sound. Thought it was the fridge making noises. Next morning we discovered lots of mouse turds under the sink! So Mr. A went to the Ace hardware to get some expanding foam to fill in the pipe holes. He was told that the mice just eat the foam on their way in so he used wire to cover up the holes to the outside. But that didn't stop the mouse! Seems he was coming from the hole where the dishwasher pipe went through!
Now we have a mouse trap armed with Parmesano reggiano. Gee, hope the mouse is Italiano! Ciao bello mousie!

PEACHY KEEN!

At last! The peaches are late this year in the Rogue Valley.
Here's a box of 49er peaches from the orchard on Old Stage Road. You can't get these in the grocery stores any more...they have quit growing them commercially because they don't like to travel thousands of miles to the chain stores.
I prepare them with the sugar, cinnamon & thickener so I can freeze them in a pie tin lined with foil. Then I peel off the foil and vacuum pack them for freezing so that all I have to do is pull 'em out and plop them into a pie shell. There's nothing better than a fresh peach pie served up with vanilla ice cream in the middle of winter!



Vacuum packed peaches for our 2-person King Arthur pie dish.