This month Gavin has been working on building the front porch.

The front porch is identical to the back porch, except it is a little closer to the ground due to the slight slope of the site, so there will be fewer stairs.  Here Gavin drills a bolt-hole into one of the posts.

Gavin assembled the frames and we lifted one of them with the tractor bucket, then drove it over and positioned it over the post holes.

The frame is ready to be lowered into the holes.  You can see the rear frame in back, which we assembled in place.

The two frames, ready to be connected.

Frames connected, concrete work begun.

Concrete pier formed and curing.

While walking in one of the recently mown (and previously somewhat overgrown) fields we found these egg-sized fruits on the ground.  They are passiflora incarnata: passionfruit or ‘maypop’, a native plant which grows as a vine.  The fruits smelled heavenly.  They are edible, but we didn’t try them out.  You never know what treasures you’ll find when you don’t keep the fields mown!

Frost has finally arrived here (about two weeks ago) and so it is time to deal with the dahlia tubers.  I didn’t know what to expect, but what had started as one tuber grew to many tubers!  I dug up seven of the 20 tubers, washed them, and divided them.  We don’t really have a good place to store them, since they require a storage temperature of around 40-45 degrees.  Not sure what I’m going to do with them yet.  So I left the rest of the tubers in the ground and covered them with a layer of plastic and some grass mulch.  We’ll see if they survive the winter.

Two of the tuber clumps I dug up.