Fall work

Getting the turkey gravy ready today, I use the NYT recipe from last year to get a head start on it: use 6 pounds of dark turkey meat (legs and thighs), brown in oven to create a nice fond (deglazed with sherry), then boil for 6 hours with carrots onions and celery. This makes a great flavorful broth to create gravy. I used to do the Cook's illustrated method, probably only a 3 or 4 hour task, but you need the bird thawed out for that and I don't want to work that hard on Thanksgiving.

Aliceon and I also worked on the woodshed. Our cut and split wood from two years ago is about 2 inches too long so we end up cutting it all in half. Al worked on that and I kept her supplied with long wood while moving this years pile into the shed. We sawed and moved about a firepalce cord into the house and about 1-1/2 full cords into the wood shed. I might mention that we added another chain saw to the arsenal, a Stihl 180 with easy start to our older 025. The easy start was a must for Aliceon and I have to say it's great. Just a slow steady pull and it kind of builds up and then spins. It's a little wierd at first as you are used to that jerk/pull of a regular saw.

Then I added 2 inches of foam to the roof of my root cellar. The cellar was already part of the house, about a 8 by 6 space next to the basement, but I've have it sealed off until this year. A bit too exposed to the ourdoors I think with freezing just about assured, so the foam shold help with that. I suppose I should have added a thermal barrier, but it is it's own little blockhouse.