You may have heard that there were a lot of tornadoes in the Midwest last Sunday. The St. Louis metro area was on the western edge of the severe weather outbreak. As far as I know, there were no tornadoes in the metro area (there were some in the eastern past of the St. Louis NWS county warning area, including the tornado in Washington, IL). However, the metro area did experience strong winds, probably 50 to 60 mph, as the line of severe weather passed though. Some parts of the metro area got brief heavy rain and/or hail as well. We had a very brief heavy rain shower but no hail, and fortunately no electrical outage lasting more than a minute or two. Good thing, as we were cooking dinner for friends due to arrive in the afternoon as the severe weather passed through. Oddly, within 15 minutes or so after the height of the storm, the sky cleared and the sun shone brightly for the rest of the day. Usually it takes considerably longer for the sky to clear after a front passage.
Yesterday it rained a little, today it rained steadily for a few hours but seems to be taking a break at the moment. I'm not a fan of gray, damp days. But we do need the rain as the St. Louis region remains in moderate drought, with much below normal rainfall since August. The trees would appreciate moist soil as their roots are still growing, although most of them have shed their leaves.
I'd thought I would plant some winter wheat seeds this past week, but I reconsidered. It's probably a week or two too late for that. Instead I'll mulch the beds that need cover with leaves; with all the nearby oak and maple trees I am never short of those.
I am still harvesting a few vegetables. As planned, I finished harvesting carrots and sugar beets last week, before the storm came through. Both crops are being stored in our root cellar. All told I have the most weight in stored vegetables ever going into winter. While it isn't enough to get us through winter, it still represents a considerable amount of food that we won't have to buy. I also weighed the peanut crop (about 1 1/2 pounds altogether, not bad for my first effort at peanut-growing) and roasted some squash seeds in the sun oven. One of these upcoming sunny days I'll try roasting the peanut crop. Looking forward to eating homegrown roasted peanuts!
Mike purchased a small used box fan at a local yard sale. It will come in handy next summer! And I even got the longer blog post up; it's the one previous to this one. The next long post should be what I learned from my garden this year.
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