It's the middle of November here in Livingston, and the farm has that in-between feeling. The garden is winding down, the mornings have a bite, and I still drink my coffee on the porch and check the temperature on the fence post. The work just changes clothes.
The National Weather Service in Nashville, which covers Overton County, is calling for the first widespread hard freeze of the season this weekend. That's enough of a nudge for me.
Water comes first. A goat can handle a cold night a lot better than a frozen trough. Our San Clemente Island goats are a hardy bunch, reddish-brown, with black stripes on their faces and those sweeping horns. Rusty is the easy one to pick out of the bunch. I wrote more about the breed a few years ago if you want the longer story. This time of year I check the water every morning. A tank heater in the trough is a help when the nights drop hard. If you don't have one, breaking the ice a couple of times a day still works, it just means you're out there earlier. Drain the hoses and shut off any spigot that might split. A busted water line is a miserable way to start a day.
Hay and a dry bed matter just as much. They need a place out of the wind, enough bedding to stay off the wet ground, and loose minerals where they can get to them. Keep them dry and fed, and out of the weather.
The geese have their own opinions, as usual. Velzy and Dale, the two females, and Bing, the gander, are gray Toulouse geese, and they do all right in the cold if they have open water and a spot out of the wind. Velzy will still come looking for a little red tomato, even now. I have to tell her the garden's done for the year. She does not appear to believe me.
Cora, my black-and-white dog, makes the morning rounds with me. She thinks the whole operation is her idea.
Once the animals are settled, I turn to the garden. UT Extension's 2026 home garden calendar says November is a good time to finish picking, pull out the diseased plants, and start a compost pile with the healthy leftovers and the leaves. I'm also picking up soil test boxes from the UT Extension office here in Livingston on November 14. You can get the boxes at the county office on West Broad Street, or use a sturdy quart bag, and send them to the Soil, Plant and Pest Center in Nashville. Fall is a good time to test, because if the soil needs lime, it has all winter to work.
If you haven't planted garlic yet, this may be the last good week. UT Extension says September through early November is the usual window across Tennessee, and their calendar was still giving a mid-November planting a pass. Plant the cloves about two inches deep and six inches apart, in loose soil that drains, and cover them with straw. We can grow both hardneck and softneck here. There's a good walk-through in UT Gardens' garlic note.
Cover crops can still go in, too. They say a mid-November seeding of rye can still do some good. Anything that holds the soil through winter and feeds it a little before spring is worth the trouble.
While I'm at it, I'll clean and oil the tools, drain and coil the hoses, and keep a seed catalog by the coffee pot. Spring feels far off on a freeze night, but this is the time to think about what goes in the ground next year.
Around here the average last spring frost is about April 12, and the average first fall frost is about October 25. Those come from NOAA's 1991 to 2020 records at the Livingston radio station. They're even-odds dates, not a promise. The Farmers' Almanac, using the same kind of climate records, puts Nashville close to that: April 10 in the spring and October 26 in the fall. UT Extension likes a more careful mark, the date with only a 1-in-10 chance of a later frost. For Nashville they set that at April 21 in spring and October 10 in the fall. I'll put the tender plants, the tomatoes and peppers, in a little after that cautious date and keep one eye on the forecast.
If you need a quiet walk while the farm is in this slower season, the Mandala Walk is still here. Visitors are welcome, with reservations.
For now it's simple work. Keep the water open. Keep the animals dry. Get the soil tested. Tuck a little garlic in if you still can, and dream on the catalogs. Spring will get here the same way it always does, one cold morning at a time.
Darin R. McClure
Chief Goat Herder
Watch the movie
This post rolled into a little movie about winter prep and spring plans here at Rolling Pastures. Here it is, straight from my X feed.
Rolled the Rolling Pastures winter prep post into a little movie. 🎬
— Darin (@DarinRMcClure) November 11, 2026
Keep the troughs open, bed the goats, get the garlic in, and start dreaming about spring. ☕️
If the video doesn't load, watch it on X.
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