Curse you, Jere Gettle!

So yesterday the Baker Creek rare seeds catalog arrives in the mail. 

Drat!  I don't have time for that now, there's still so much holiday things, and this is my woodworking time...  I can't be set off dreaming about my garden yet, that's what february is for!

snow today.

made some progress on the woodworking Kufenschrank.  Changed the design slightly to better get the needed parts from the available material, cut most of the pieces.  Assembled two side panels tonight.

Woodworking

What with the frost and all, there's not much to say about the garden.  So i'm turning to other things, like furniture for pennsic.  I'll be making a kufenschrank, which is a footed cabinet.  Many thanks to Marijin from http://thomasguild.blogspot.com for excellent documentation of surviving cabons in several museums in Germany, and which provided the inspiration for the design you see here.

Here are some of the initial sketches

I wasn't quite sure how the feet were going to work, seeing as I need the whole thing to fold up flat for storage and transportation.  There will be a cleat on the inside of the front and back to suppor the floor, and this can run the full width of the cabinet, because the sides of the cabinet will not come all the way down.  The feet will have notches to fit the bottom corners of the front and back panels, and the side panels will sit directly on the feet, or in German, Kufen.

Next we have the scale drawing:

on 1/4" graph paper (my favorite stuff for this kind of thing) with one square equalling two inches.  A front view, and also a horizontal cross-section.  The side panels and back panel are of little interest as they will be mostly hidden, and not a very period design anyway.  The squared-off 8 in the previous sketch is sufficient to remind me of how they will be assembled.  From the scaled drawing we are able to make the parts list:

This details each part, how big it is, and how many of each are needed.  Sometimes it helps to have a cutting diagram, to determine how to get the best use of your stock so you don't waste a lot of wood.  I don't have one of those for this project yet...

Snow

well the blog is at 500 hits, thank you all for reading.

We got snow last night.  There wasn't much here by the morning, but further south there was quite a bit, driving to work was a winter wonderland.  A beautiful commute.  Likely be sick of it by february, but it's been a while and it was awesome.

Autumn

Well we have had our first frost, so much of what remained is no more...

collecting leaves and clippings for the compost.  big piles.  devoting a large chunk of the garden to this activity

dug the potatoes today

there's a lily in flower, but i didn't get a pic

third generation of chard thriving in the greenhouse. (even with the big hole in the roof.  They don't make the tedlar in that formulation anymore)

saving seeds from skirret, radish, dill...

Elderberries

A gift from Joanne Shaver, member of the famed Maplewood Gardening Club, the elderberry bush was left sitting in the lawn for a few days, with a piece of old fence wrapped around it.  This is fortunate, for the deer sampled what was left beyond the cage. 

Wednesday I got to planting it in the garden proper, where the original gate had been.

New World

Well things are winding down as the days get shorter.  Harvested the maize this weekend, Nancy helped shuck the ears, and we bundled up the stalks for october decor.

I did stick some peas in the ground around the beans a while ago, but nothing yet.  They'll have to be quick about it if they are to amount to anything.  Other than that i've nothing planted for fall.

The fence needs a few more boards, and of course a proper gate which i've mentioned.  Several times.