I never, ever thought when I planted this garden in early June that there would any chance of harvesting anything in November, let alone tomatoes. I can't even remember a year where we hadn't had a hard frost by Halloween. Not only have we not had even a light frost this year, but the forecast for the next ten days is in the mid-50's with rain. And I picked a whole lot of tomatoes.

I wrapped this set in newspaper and put them in the garage to ripen.



I brought in all the paste tomatoes and anything that was slightly turning color and anything that had split or bruised. They are sitting on my table to ripen.



And the red ones are here along with some last gasp green beans and the surprise of the fall, a bit of cauliflower.



I pulled up the spent broccoli and cauliflower plants and the bean plants and gave them to the chickens and ducks. The six tomato plants can't go to the birds (the leaves and stems are poison to them, but they can eat the fruit) or to the compost. Even though there is no blight on them, I practice prudence in not ever adding them to my compost bin. Into the trash they went (since the yard waste recycling is done for the year). I could have let the tomatoes go longer but the rain was really making things split and that doesn't bode well for wrapping and storing to ripen.

In the main garden I have four broccoli plants left growing, two kohlrabi, and the zucchini plant which is flowering. On the other side of the house I have several more broccoli plants that are heading up and 3 bunches of green onions yet. And there's plenty of chard for greens. I really hope this means we are going to have a mild winter. I'm still not over how much snow we had last winter. Mild weather would be great for the grocery budget.

I've been reading a survival blog for about a week or so. It's by one of those people who are preparing for the end of the world as we know it. It's been interesting reading, especially in light of what has happened on the East Coast this week. I imagine in some places it really has become the end of their individual worlds, especially for those who were not prepared for the wrath of Sandy.

It's definitely made me think about how prepared I would be to handle a similar emergency. Although we don't get hurricanes here, there is always the chance of one of the volcanos blowing again. Depending on the wind, we could get hit by ash from Mt. Saint Helens. Mt. Baker is a constant steamer, if it ever woke up we could get hit by more than ash. And of course there are always earthquakes living here in the ring of fire. Though we are most likely to be stuck at home due to a Nor'easter blizzard than anything else.

I think the longest I've ever gone without power was five days. But we had the wood stove and we had water and ice and a good store of canned goods. We had kerosene lamps and candles and I could charge my laptop off the car battery.

I decided to inventory what we do have if the power fails. We have enough canned goods to get through about a week. More if you count all the jam and tomatoes, but I'm talking more canned meats and vegetables. I think that is something I should probably rectify. I have plenty of food in the freezer but that does not help me much if the power fails.

I also need to set in a store of water. I mean we have the rain barrels, three of them, but any water from them would have to be boiled, so I think I should get in several gallons of drinking water. I also need to work on canned meat and canned fruit and a bit more canned veg. Pineapple is my number one priority for fruit as it would hold off things like scurvy or vitamin C deficiency. But we should have more green beans on hand. I'd like to keep a fairly balanced diet and that would help.

I have been watching videos on how to can your own beef, chicken, or venison, so as I get a surplus going I may do that. I'd rather know where my meat is coming from and can it myself, but meanwhile I have 12 cans of beef, 2 cans of chicken, and four cans of tuna.

I'd really prefer to be able to survive more than a week without a grocery store. In the case of a disaster it could be several weeks before we got our infrastructure back.

How about you guys? How long could you survive without power?

ING posted my interest today so I added that to the Emergency Fund. It seems so weird to be adding money to the EF again, but nice.

$1000.00
+___1.33
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$1001.33 New EF Amount

I also added .24 to the coin jar and replenished the 50 cents for parking that I used yesterday. I try to always keep 2 quarters in my wallet. I consider parking money to be a use tax since that is really what it is.

Tomorrow I will be sending the $230 left in checking to the credit card along with the usual payday payment. Take that, Evil Empire.

I went down to the courthouse today and paid the property tax. I was off by $6.44, but I had plenty in checking to cover that. I'm glad I checked it beforehand and didn't just write it out for the amount I thought it was, which was actually last year's half year amount. I guess I didn't update that on one of the spreadsheets.

I also went to the library while I was down there. It is across from the courthouse. I had two books on hold, Why Gender Matters and The Artist's Way. I need to hurry and get through the book I'm reading now. I wasn't expecting the holds to come in so soon since I was a ways down the list.

I paid 50 cents for parking and $1 on library fines. Oops.

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We ended the day with as many birds as we started the day with, always a good thing. No duck egg today, either. I think Lady is still freaked out. Five chicken eggs though. I'm going to have to make a meatloaf and a quiche to use up some eggs.

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I think I am finally almost over my cold/infection/flu/general case of the yucks. I still am a little stuffy but that might be allergies. Still a little draggy, but that's probably just general tiredness. I hope.

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I am really looking forward to payday Friday. We finally get to start making forward progress again now that the medical is paid off. I am so sick of debt. I just want to be done.