October 24, 2025
On October 16 (Thursday), I had to take Nox out at 4:43 AM. I was able to get this picture of the night sky.
During the day, we walked down to the mailbox and discovered the creek had dried up.
I continue to be fascinated by my red pineapple.
The bees were enjoying the basil when I went out to harvest it.
I cut several stems of basil, making an armful. The harvest wasn’t noticeable!
Using the blender, I turned most of the harvest into a paste to go into the freezer. For whatever reason, I was thinking it was the 18th.
I decided the slightly wrong date by two days didn’t matter.
I put the rest of the basil leaves in our old Ronco Food Dehydrator and plugged it in.
The whole house smelled of basil. Every time Bruce came inside, he mentioned how wonderful the house smelled.
The sunset was pretty.
Nox hung out with us while we streamed a show using our projector. We don’t have a TV in the house.
While I was processing the basil, Bruce drilled a hole in a concrete stepping stone. He put a pipe through it for the barn door latch.
This picture was taken on October 17.
Bruce had put the pipe in the ground without anything surrounding it. He was worried about accidentally running it over with the lawnmower.
He also did some mowing.
On October 17 (Friday), Bruce took the chipper out to the pile of branches from Pine Tree 2 and Pine Tree 3. He got the chipper running. I went out to help him. I pulled out branches from the pile, putting the easily chipped ones in Bruce’s reach.
The branches with lots of branching, I put off to the side for Bruce to use his chainsaw on.
While tugging on a branch, it suddenly came loose and I fell on my butt. I stayed put to catch my breath, then I got up to resume my branch-pulling operation. I got a bruise from the fall.
Bruce finished one more big branch and he was ready to call it quits for the day.
Here is Bruce putting the chipper away.
It was a good day’s work, even if it was just in the morning!
Blackberry Homestead 
Did all the PT you went through help make days like this less painful?
I’ve never been successful enough growing basil to have a harvest like that one. I’m jealous!
I hope Bruce’s dad is progressing with his recovery. ❤️
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The PT helped a lot. I am still doing exercises.
I am amazed at the basil. It is over 3 feet tall. I am so disappointed by the cilantro, dill, and fennel. I hope to have better luck next year with them.
Bruce is leaving on Sunday for a week to help out his dad. His dad will be having another surgery on Monday.
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I should send you my dill. It practically took over! 😆
Wow, another surgery on Monday. Was this always planned or because of a complication? I hope all goes smoothly. ❤️
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I’ve grown dill before that took over, but not this year.
It wasn’t always planned, but they did tell us there might need to be several surgeries. They are telling us his treatment will be planned day by day, depending on how he is doing.
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How nice to have a supply of your own fresh basil. Will you ever get a TV, or do you purposely not have one? Wayne watches a lot of sports on TV. We watch shows together in the evening, but only by streaming them with no commercials. There are many good shows on PBS, and we watch some on Netflix too. I basically never watch network TV any more. If we accidentally start watching something with commercials, it is so annoying.
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We aren’t planning on getting a TV. We like watching the projector. It’s like being at the movies. we really don’t like watching TV with commercials anymore. It’s amazing how annoying they are. 🤣
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I’ve never seen someone drive a zero-turn mower in that position! Guess it must work, though –
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He does that to back the chipper into the barn. Apparently, he wants to be extra careful since the chipper is so heavy.
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