AUTUMN IS A beautiful time to enjoy the Olympic Peninsula. The changing colors of the leaves in the lowlands beneath a dusting of fresh snow in the mountains reminds us why we live here.
But I’m not one to sit around and admire the view when there’s work to be done.
The main thing you should remember about the fall chores is it’s best not to get bogged down in the details. Prioritize, delegate and move with the rhythm of the season.
For example, now that the vines have died down, it might be a good time to dig the potatoes. There’s nothing I enjoy more than digging a sack of spuds to put away for the winter. To thrust the shovel into the mellow loam, exposing tubers of varied hues, it’s like digging buried treasure.
Which makes it too bad I loaned the shovel out to a clam digger. It was a rare antique. All my shovels are. By not using them, my shovels have a chance to get really old.
That is the secret to life in the country. Don’t use your tool and it won’t wear out.
So, I’m not going to dig the taters. It would be a complete waste of time even if I had a shovel. It seldom gets so cold they’ll freeze underground. Just leave the potatoes in the ground. They’ll be perfectly fine all winter, even if you have to paw your way through a couple of feet of snow to get at them.
Prioritize, delegate and move on to the next chore.
Picking apples is a favorite fall activity. The Olympic Peninsula is blessed with an abundance of pioneer homestead orchards.
It’s easy to spot these relics of an earlier, simpler time. Pioneer fruit trees grow can grow 50 feet tall and as big around. Climbing one of these monstrosities is risky. How you get the apples on the ground without bruising them is anyone’s guess. You can climb up a ladder to pick apples, if you have a death wish.
It seems ridiculous that anyone would pick apples by hand anyway. Remember to multitask.
By blasting the limbs off the apple trees with a shotgun (.12 gauge or larger), you can do your fall pruning while you get your apples picked. Which makes it even more tragic to run out of shotgun shells right in the middle of apple-picking season.
It’s OK. Once the bears got into to orchard, there was almost nothing left to pick.
Prioritize, delegate and move on.
Besides, there are still more than enough chores to keep us busy from dawn til dark.
After spending the summer curing in the sun, this year’s crop of firewood is ready to be put under cover. There are few things I enjoy more than stacking firewood. I studied woodpile management in college. And every once in a while, that liberal arts education comes in handy.
Which is why I’m going to hold off getting the wood in for just a while yet. The country is alive with a record crop of bald-faced hornets and yellowjackets.
Forget about firewood. If you should be unfortunate enough to chop wood on top of a hornets’ nest these days, it will be an experience you’ll never forget. Wait for a freeze to kill the bees.
That’s life in the country. We move with the rhythm of the seasons.
After a hard day of prioritizing and delegating chores, it’s nice to sit back and realize that it is now fishing season, when any chore that didn’t get done, isn’t going to get done.
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Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday.
He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.