End of summer journal: harvest in all its glory

A mid-afternoon Honeycrisp cider reminds us why we grow fruit and press it. The early pears came ripe when we had no time. They fed the bees.

Yesterday the Uhr pears came ripe. We picked all that we could reach, which filled every pail we have.

We squished pears today. We got 8 gallons of pear juice. 6 we will process into cider. We will do something delicious with the rest.

We picked elderberries two weeks ago. I separated 28 pounds of berries from their stems. 24 pounds went into making five gallons of juice which with 10 pounds of sugar, will make 6 gallons of wine. It smells heavenly! I still have 2 paper bags of berries to process. The 4 pounds of berries I have done that didn’t go into the fermenter I made into juice. I’ve been drinking it with seltzer for an afternoon mocktail. No need to add sugar! If I can get to the rest of those berries before they molder, I will make jelly or try some syrup.

A warning and observation about elderberries. They are covered in a waxy substance that must be fat based. I say this because detergent is ineffective for getting it off. I forgot to remove my ring before squeezing the juice out of the berry bag for the wine. To get the sticky stuff off, I coated my ring in baking soda. Fats are acidic. Baking soda is basic. Bases love to combine with acids, which cleaned off that impervious wax. It is that wax which preserves those berries for such a long time after being picked.

The second chemical reaction with elder juice results from its phenolphthalein content, which turns red in an acidic environment and is blue in a base. Really it is colorless in a base, but my berry juice is blue. I added vinegar after removing the wax with baking soda, which resulted in foam and that pinkish tint.

In mid-August I strained the alcohol off the green walnuts, added maple syrup for a sweetener, and put it in clear bottles. It definitely needs to age to balance the tannins, but the aroma promises something extraordinary. In January, I’ll know if nocino will become a tradition.

Two days ago we processed 6 roosters and 3 old ducks. Daughter # 2 & family came to help with the outdoor stage of processing.

We fed everyone BLTs for lunch and then Daughter #1 & family stayed to help with the indoor part of the process. They get chicken, duck, and duck sausages, so they have a personal stake getting the birds off pasture.

Part of preparing for winter involves replenishing our straw supply. We ran out too soon this year. We bought straw and have the duck’s winter quarters stacked high. We hope to get a few more bales in there before snow flies.

We managed to go to the fair this year. One day is never enough to see everything I’d like to see, but taking the time to spend with family and friends is more important.

As is babysitting this sweet pea! If I don’t get the rest of those berries processed, I will have some very good memories instead.

Small things journal: animalitos de Dios

My father called insects, snakes, and various living creatures “animalitos de Dios”, or small animals of God. I remember the eldest Grand Girl stopping to peer at a burrowing bee on her way to daycare. I share her fascination with all that creeps, slinks, flies, buzzes, flutters, spins, burrows, bites, stings, and makes its living in this world. So I take photos in the hope of finding out who they are.

Like this cicada, they often are colorfully intricate. I grew up gathering cicada larva husks at my grandparents house in New Mexico. I remember being amazed by the perfectly round holes drilled all over the ground where the larvae emerged in the summertime. They are less common in Wisconsin.

This is a Virginia Ctenucha, a type of moth that feeds on irises as a caterpillar and on goldenrod as a moth. It caught my eye on one of my Zeke walks.

I tried to figure out who this is, but there are too many black and red beetles out there. Too large for a lady bug and the markings are wrong.

This may seem like another black and red mystery beetle, but its presence on milkweed helped me find out that it is a Red Milkweed Beetle. It shares milkweed with the monarchs…and is uninterested in my garden!

This is a hunting spider on a milkweed. I have made my peace with spiders, as they are everywhere I go and part of almost everything I do. They help control flies, gnats, mosquitos, and other pests. Not all spiders spin and weave, but most are my friends.

The top photo are the eggs of a Japanese Beetle, which is that shiny girl in the second photo. These beetles are invasive and voracious. There is a little red guy below the beetle. He’s the larva of a Colorado Potato Beetle. They are also invasive and voracious. I patrol the potato patches daily (ideally) and make war with these two pests. It’s a labor-intensive, icky job. So it goes if you don’t use pesticides but still want potatoes. Add potatoes to the list of vegetables I do not buy anymore because they don’t taste good from the store.

I’ve been watching the woolly bear caterpillars growing over the summer. They turn into Isabella tiger moths in the springtime. They freeze solid in the winter, reviving with the spring thaw. It is said that you can tell how cold the winter will be by the width of the brown band. I cannot corroborate this, but they do tend to have different width of markings grouped by year.

These two caterpillars mimicked branches, which means they probably are some type of lytrosis caterpillar. They both have grippers fore and aft, allowing them to inch along as well as hold themselves out like parts of a tree.

This is an 8 Spotted Forester moth. It lives all over the US, but likes areas where forests meet fields. I found this one on my currant bush, which meets its eco niche.

This is a bumble bee having a snooze on a thistle. There are different types of bees. Bumbles live in small colonies and often over-night on flowers. Nests are underground, but the bumbles are larger than ground bees, who also live underground. Bears around here will dig up ground bee colonies to raid their honey.

This sweet little hopper-type fellow came in with me. I gently took him back out. He tickled but wasn’t a biter.

I’m including the huitlacoche, locally known as “corn smut”, as fungi are more related to animals than plants. This year I had sweet corn smut before finding some on field corn. Sautéed in olive oil with salt and pepper, and then dressed with lime juice, both were delicious. The field corn smut improved with a little sugar added.

Birds build nests on ladders, in canoes, wherever there is a protected horizontal space. These are robins. We waited for them to fledge before we used that ladder.

Snakes love basking in the sun. The top is a garter snake hanging out by my garage. He let me walk by him several times before moving along. The other is a gopher snake on the road. As with the spiders, snakes have become my friends. They are great for gardens and coops.

Dusty lost an eye in a cat fight. He still patrols the property for mice, living his best life. May we all find our niche and occupy it well.

Grand journal: time with the girls

The Grands from Girl #1 are old enough to spend time with us sans parents. We didn’t know if we would have space for beds this year, as we are under construction. We made it work out.

It’s not pretty (yet), but there’s no exposed insulation. A window came out. A window went into a different place. Everything got swept and mopped. Tools put away. Beds put up. I hope to eventually carve a new bathroom out of this space.

On Day 1 they settled in, helped Boopa put the birds to bed, and picked the first watermelon.

Day 2: we explored the Wisconsin side of the pothole region of the St. Croix River. “Potholes” are formed when a rock gets caught in an eddy and bores a hole in the basalt. Some of the holes are more than 100 feet deep. The rocks, called “grinders”, look like huge bowling balls. After hiking the pothole trail, we wandered a beach further downstream. The basalt gives way to sandstone, which in turn gets eroded back to sand. We saw a number of different mollusks. The girls liked the shells the otters left for us. Ice cream at the overlook in St. Croix Falls and the girls zonked.

Day 3: back to the river, but this time to take a river boat ride. Michael’s assessment: good to have done once but not worth a repeat. I think the girls weren’t interested in the scenery. Note to self: do things with children where they can run.

Day 4: the cousins came to play! Waffles for breakfast and enchiladas for lunch. Then home with mom.

Even the squirrel waved goodbye.

Health journal: working together

Smoke from Canada slowed us down for a full two weeks. Two days ago we awoke to cool, clean air; time for a bike ride.

This is the longest ride we’ve accomplished this year and it included some steep terrain. Our longest ever was a little over 17 miles, but was pre-knee injuries. Getting back to this level has been a long haul. Michael could ride by himself, but he says it’s too lonely, so we challenge each other. We’ve been exercising together for over 30 years. It hasn’t kept us from the bane of arthritis, but we’re still moving.

Biking (and walking) gets us out to see the sights. Butterflies flutter.

The corn is in silk.

The wild cucumber climbs any convenient lump: branch, bush, or stump.

Foxtails flash bronze as we fly by.

I had to look up this pretty plant: purple loosestrife. I’ve only seen it in my neighbor’s ditch. He has a boat. Imagine that. We saw even more beautiful flowers on our ride, but I can’t manage to pedal and take photos at the same time. Believe me. I’ve tried. These are from Zeke walks.

Last night an amazing thunderstorm blew through, complete with hail and high winds. One lightning strike came so close it nearly knocked me out of bed. I had nightmares of shredded tomato plants. Today, armored in long sleeves and clippers, I was prepared for disaster. I removed some broken vines, trimmed a lot of suckers, but there wasn’t as much damage as I feared. The tomato patch may have been mostly saved due to being behind a mass of grape vines and also pretty dense. As a reward for trimming vines, I spied our first ripe fruit. To show how much I love him, I saved a few for Michael. Michael dug the patch. I planted the starts. We both weed.

Onions. We love onions. High in vitamin C, they last us all winter and through early spring. Michael plants them and harvests them (bending over is still really hard on my knees) and he puts them in the sun to dry every day for a week. We take them into the garage at night. Then I make braids and into the basement they go. The ones that have soft spots I set aside and we use those first. Onion quiche. Onion soup. Onion pasta sauce with beet greens. Once we ran out of onions and bought some at the store. We stopped eating onions. We each have our separate tasks in growing, harvesting, and storing them, based on physical limitations and abilities. We both weed.

We have great incentives to take care of ourselves and each other. A side effect of doing stuff is being able to do stuff, and then having stuff to share. And the food is really good.

Season journal: jamming in July Part 4

The chokecherries ripen in late July. Good chokecherry jelly is hard to come by, if only because choke cherries grow wild. If you buy jelly, it often lacks the richness of my jelly, as it is cut with apple juice. Properly made choke cherry jelly should be deep, dark, and velvety.

The cherries grow on racimes, namely, spronging off a central stem. It’s one way you can identify the bushes/short trees in the springtime: the blossoms are unique and visible.

Preparing the juice is akin to any jelly recipe: cover cleaned cherries just barely with water, boil for 15 minutes, mash, strain.

Eighteen cups of cherries rendered seven and a half cups of juice.

Seven and a half cups of juice, with ten and a half cups of sugar and pectin, made fifteen jars of jelly.

The difficult part of chokecherry jelly is doing all of this at 90° and 61% humidity.

The black walnuts steeped in water turned cloudy by Day 7. Took me 2 more days to find time for the next step: chopping them and spreading to dry for a day. You can see the nuts start to oxidize once exposed to air. I wore gloves and tossed the plastic cutting board after this step.

The nuts turned this deep black-brown once dried. Into a stainless pot with vinegar, red wine (and some rhubarb because it took 4 cups for 4 pounds of nuts, and a bottle of wine equals 3 cups), cloves, allspice, black pepper (toasted together and fresh ground, these spices soar to a whole new level), onions, garlic, anchovies, ginger, horseradish, and a lotta salt. Simmered for 20 minutes. House smelled wonderful. Then came the hard part.

You need to blenderize the nuts, etc., and then strain the solids out of the juice. I was not familiar with putting hot mixtures into a blender. It creates a steam bomb that blows off the lid (even if you are holding it tightly) and spews walnut bits all over everything. Cleaning it immediately to avoid staining gave the mixture time to cool. The solids look amazingly like coffee grounds and have that same grittiness. They went onto the compost pile. After separating the solids from the liquid, I was supposed to thicken with xantham gum. That isn’t something I keep in my larder, so I looked up a substitute. I do have flax seed meal, so I added that. Brought back to a simmer, used an immersion blender to whirl the flax seed meal, and had my canning equipment ready.

This made a fairly liquid product. Tastes similar to Worcestershire sauce, only better. I tried some on fried potatoes. This is an excellent condiment! I can detect the green walnut flavor, although Michael cannot. Then again, I worked with the nuts and reveled in their aroma.

Michael finally took me fishing. That is wild fire smoke making things hazy. We went earlier than usual, to beat the heat.

It must be a morning lake, since we nearly reached our bag limit!

That lady in the middle measures 9.5 inches! We also caught a number of yellow perch, a couple of crappies, a rock bass and a large mouth bass. 38 fish in less than 2 hours. We spent the afternoon cleaning them, ate fruit and yogurt for dinner, showered, and fell into bed.

We’ve harvested onions and garlic. The garlic crop suffered this year. We planted 56 cloves each of 4 varieties of garlic. For two types, we harvested about 28 cloves each. The other two produced 48 cloves each. It might be due to having planted early last year (we had a wedding in Boston to attend during the time we normally would have planted). Or it might be due to the lack of snow cover. We have noticed fewer potato beetles this year, and they overwinter in the ground as well.

I celebrated another turn around the sun, with lotsa love from near and far.

The primrose wave ciao to July.

The milkweed greet August with exuberance.

Harvest journal: broilers by the numbers

Broilers are unnatural birds, bred to produce meat in an efficient manner. They eat, drink water, poop, and grow. In nine weeks they can weigh nine pounds. They grow so quickly, they die from heart attacks or broken legs before they reach sexual maturity. A “heritage” chicken, if it is a large breed, might top out at 5 pounds after 20 weeks, at which point it is sexually mature. Broiler’s breeding and growth rates create certain problems, which is the topic of this post. For anyone who doesn’t wish to see photos of chickens being processed, stop reading here! I am providing some “buffer photos” to avoid any accidental viewing of anything resembling blood or a recently beheaded bird.

Down to the hard data. We bought 35 broiler cockerels (baby boy chicks), which arrived on May 6th. There were 36 in the box. The hatchery will sometimes add an extra in case a chick dies in transit. I’ve experienced this once in the eight years we’ve bought birds. The broiler chicks cost $2.50 each, for a total of $87.25.

They are so charming at this stage! But hungry. Unlike other chicks who aren’t immediately interested in eating (the nutrients in the yolk sac that sustained their growth in the shell usually lasts a day after hatching), these were furiously pecking at my fingers immediately.

We feed them “chick crumble”, which is a 22% protein feed, their entire life. We mix in some layer feed, which is 18% protein, when they are about a month old to keep their poop from becoming too runny, which tends to burn their butts. We probably sacrifice some growth, but they seem to do just dandy. We spent $122.85 total for crumble. We originally put the water jar in a cake pan so the chicks wouldn’t knock it over and thirst to death. It took two chicks drowning due to getting trapped between the rim of the cake pan and the waterer before we wised up and used a large plastic 5 gallon bucket lid to provide a stable, but non-lethal, platform for the water.

At three weeks old, we needed to use a larger feeder. We eventually graduated to two feeders to keep up with demand. We only feed during the daytime, and mostly outdoors. This helps keep their sleeping area freer from poop as well as discouraging the mice and rats. I would bring in the feeder at night to lure them into the coop. My heritage chickens made me chase them twice before learning to go into the coop on their own. The broilers went into the coop voluntarily on the last night before there were no more.

At one month old we began to lose broilers to unknown causes. We lost a total of 9: two to drowning and the rest to what I suspect was malformation of their digestive tracts. We might lose 2-3 in any one year due to getting trampled or cold or some other accident. This year we lost a lot of chicks. If it were the bird flu, we would have lost more. For comparison, we haven’t lost any of the 18 heritage chickens we incubated from our own eggs.

We began harvesting the broilers at about 5 weeks, and this one weighed in at 5 pounds, which is pretty normal.

But then there was one who weighed only 2.5 pounds, and as you can see, does not look normal. This guy’s crop was full to bursting with feed, but he was starving. When I examined his entrails, the section of gut between the crop and gizzards was hard, swollen, and almost entirely closed off. By the way, chickens have a “crop”, or sac, which is where the neck meets the breast. They store food there until it can make its way through the gizzard, which is full of grit that acts like teeth. From there, food goes through the intestines.

We started taking the ones that were visibly smaller than the others and found they, also, were suffering from gastric abnormalities. The one on the left was full of liquid. I sometimes find this condition when harvesting older hens whose innards are beginning to break down. Finding this condition in young birds probably explains the increased mortality of the chicks. We have noticed that cohorts will share certain problems, such as splayed legs, from year to year. We think this happens because the semen of a limited number of roosters are used to create the hybrid that is the broiler.

Even if they are short-lived birds, we try to give them the chance to be a chicken.

And then we kill them and eat them because that is part of raising broilers.

Seeing how leg skin looks like snake skin is something not everyone gets to do. Not everyone would want to. Personally, I like knowing my food on a very personal level. Many like to have their food processed so that it no longer bears any resemblance to an animal. Think chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs.

We ended up with 168 pounds of chicken bits. Most of that went to our children, whose freezers are now full. It cost us about $1.25 a pound to purchase the chicks and feed them until harvest. That does not include infrastructure, utilities, and equipment. It does not include labor. It does not include the pleasure of eating a chicken that tastes better than anything you can buy at Walmart, or even Whole Foods. Here’s to being an omnivore and eating dinosaurs that look like dinosaurs!

Experimentation journal: green walnuts and golden potatoes

We have a very large black walnut tree growing between our garage and the clothes line. Michael trims it back to keep it in check and to protect the garage roof. Several days ago he lopped off a number of branches. They were laden with green nuts.

My assignment was to cut up the downed branches, haul the brush, and gather the usable firewood. When I saw how many green nuts were in those branches, I headed to the computer for recipes. (I did get the yard cleaned as well. I love my mini electric chain saw!)

I found two recipes that interested me. One was for nocino, an Italian liqueur made from steeping chopped green walnuts in alcohol. We have some Everclear, which we got at the beginning of the pandemic in case we could not get other disinfectants. Our hoarding sensibilities proved useless, but it turns out Everclear is fine for making nocino, as long as you cut it half and half with water. The other recipe, for walnut “ketchup”, left the walnuts hole and soaking in water prior to final preparation.

The recipes I found for nocino generally involved adding spices such as cloves and star anise, as well as lemon peel. The one I chose mentioned those, but warned that the spices could drown the nutty flavor. It suggested using some coffee beans and fragrant bedstraw (galium triflorum) or Angelica instead. I looked up the herbs, including their range and habitats, and took Zeke for a walk. I could not conclusively identify any Angelica, but I did find the fragrant bedstraw in a neighbor’s woods. And boy, is it fragrant! Apparently, it is used to make vanilla flavoring when true vanilla is not available.

My experiments are sitting on my kitchen floor. The whole nuts steep for a week before processing with vinegar and spices. The chopped nuts steep for a month before being strained and then aged for six months. In other words, I won’t know if my experiments are worth the effort for a while yet. Patience!

In the meantime, the potatoes and onions are getting ready for harvest. Potato salad must have been invented to take advantage of the convergence of these two garden wonders. It is our first year growing Yukon Gold. They taste richer, perhaps starchier, than reds or russets, frying up as well as the blues. They produce large, nicely shaped potatoes. We will grow them again.

We will feed potatoes and onions and walnut ketchup to these impressionable wee ones (and anyone else who may be interested).

Season journal: jamming in July, Part 3

The red currants turned jewel-like, perfect to pick and eat out of hand.

Instead of gorging myself, I gathered (with help!) about 25 cups of fruit. Cleaning red currants is best right after picking them, when they pop off their stems without smushing the berries.

Red currants have large, hard seeds. They make jelly, rather than jam. This means boiling the berries, mashing them, straining through cheesecloth, and pouring off the juice. I strained the juice twice, once through open cheesecloth and the second time through a cotton dish cloth.

I used a little more sugar than juice and a box of pectin. I have friends and family who make low-sugar jellies and jam. They tend to need to be refrigerated after opening to avoid getting moldy. Sugar is one means of preservation. Michael and I tend to forget to use jam left in the fridge, so I the make full-sugar varieties. We don’t eat many sugary foods (except the occasional pie), so I figure we can indulge our lack of memory with full-glory jelly.

We have been grazing on fresh peas. The garlic is almost ready to harvest.

We had berry-picking help this past weekend.

It helped me detox from several days in Minneapolis. I attended a fabulous continuing legal education series presented by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. But I can only take so much time in the city anymore. I need more green around me, more vegetables in my diet, and more physical work.

I like where the turtles feel welcome to wander by.

Season journal: jamming in July, Part 2

In our last episode, our heroine was up to her elbows in cherry juice. Join us as we follow her into the deepest, darkest, BLACK CURRANT BUSH!

July 5th the currants came ripe. I picked 12 cups of fruit off of our sole black currant bush. I had to pick fast before the rain came!

Almost an inch in about an hour. It kept raining on and off all day.

Cleaning the berries has become much easier since I discovered this nifty flat strainer at a yard sale. Five nickles: a bargain at twice the price.

Black currants contain their own pectin. This means I could use less sugar and no additional pectin and my jam still jelled. To 4 cups of cherries I used 4.75 cups of sugar and a box of pectin. To 6 cups of black currants I used 4 cups of sugar. Fresh lime juice in both. I ended up with 15 jars of both types of jam.

On Michael’s barley and oat rolls, the cherry was divine and the black currant to die for.

I earned my jammy rolls today as we sent the last of our broilers to freezer camp. The largest weighed in at 9.75 pounds. He was 9 weeks old today. His liver weighed a quarter pound all by itself!

These fellows will wait until the end of July before taking that fateful trip to camp, and will be about 14 weeks old. They might get to be 3 pounds each…if they work real hard between now and then.

Michael and I bottled the first batches of rhubarb wine today. We are 36 bottles of wine richer. I like to think of it as a daily dose of Vitamin C. Not that it is. I just like to think of it that way.

Best of all, we spent time with family and friends celebrating birthdays on the 4th and 6th. Baking pies and boiling beans in the heat of July was an act of love. Imogen devoured those beans. “It takes life to live life.” Lucinda Matlock, by Edgar Lee Masters (Spoon River Anthology). I’m hoping she’ll make me a pot of beans some day.

Season journal: jamming in July

July is the season of red.

The Nankin cherries ripened right on the 1st, so I picked them.

I spent 7 hours on the 2nd pitting the wee things, rendering a smidge more than 8 cups of fruit. I lost count of how many movies I watched while doing this. I had some backlog waiting…

Today we have 15 jars of some pretty amazing cherry jam. If you ever receive one of these jars, you know I love you!

The tomatoes begin to set fruit.

The potatoes are surprisingly beetle free!

The blue potatoes are not far behind, despite being planted late.

We picked this last batch of bok choi today before it bolted. We finally have the hot humidity that makes corn grow six inches a day.

And so it is more than knee high by the Fourth of July! The cabbages are a bit scraggly, as the rabbits keep trimming them down to nothing. Michael dug up the lettuce and will plant rutabagas in this area. Planting them in July allows them to grow to a decent (but not ginormous) size by fall storage time.

I finally fenced the peas and they begin to bloom. It may be too late for a good pea crop.

I had two beans survive before I fenced and replanted. Now I have a climbing variety and bush beans. They should produce by August.

We only had one winter squash sprout. The rest are pumpkins. Michael replanted. We’ll see how it goes. Every year is different!

The currants will be ripe by next week. I may have to make some red currant jelly this year, although the currant wine is one of my favorites.

I hope to be jamming black currants on the 5th.

Daylilies, phlox, black-eyed susans, sorrel, the flowers know it is July!

This year’s rhubarb wine is one of the palest pinks ever. Tastes like a lovely dry white with that wonderful hint of rhubarb.

And what would summer be without mower rides with duck feathers? We get the wine. They get to play. It all works out. Here’s to heat and humidity!

Harvest journal: fruits (and vegetables) of our labor

These are salad days, where we may have lettuce and whatever else presents itself for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Gardens burgeon. We feast. Chicken-bok choi stir fry on the menu tonight.

Rabbit cacciatore: better with home grown tomatoes, even if they are last year’s put up to get us through the long tomato-less months. We refuse to buy tomatoes anymore, having been spoiled by the high-acidity variety we grow.

We don’t buy chicken either. First, our chicken tastes better than anything you can find in a store. Letting our chickens, even broilers, out on pasture, allows them an stress-free environment and tasty bugs and grass for nibbles. Broilers grow at an amazing rate. We got them as day-old chicks on May 6th. On June 14th they averaged 4.5-5 pounds. On June 24th, that increased to 6.5-7 pounds. Better yet are the heritage chickens. They grow slowly and are tougher meat, but make up for lack of tenderness with flavor.

We have not harvested any wild mushrooms yet this year. Taking time to go out and look for them is a type of harvest in itself, reaping the knowledge that comes from traversing the same paths in different seasons, seeing what the weather has brought this time.

My brother John called his children his “tesoros,” his treasures. It is the time we are gifted to see children grow, become adults, form loving relationships that produce another generation of beautiful, smart, funny, amazing people, that is a true gift. “Work hard. Rock hard. Eat hard. Sleep hard. Grow big. Wear glasses if you need them.” Webb Wilder

Flower journal: abundance

The peonies finally bloom. I need to bring some in before the rain starts again.

Pink yarrow escaped from someone’s garden. Thank you to the birds who spread flower seeds!

Canadian anemone. So much larger than the local varieties.

Wild alyssum. They line all the roadsides.

Bird’s foot trefoil. One of my favorites!

Hoary cinquefoil. A humble blossom that creates carpets of color.

Wild roses: the scent of cloves clued me in to look for them tucked into the tall grass.

Bladderwort: a terrible, if beautiful, weed.

Butter and Eggs. I love Butter and Eggs!

Goats beard: a cousin of dandelions.

Queen Anne’s Lace or Cow Parsley. So many variations of wild carrots, parsley, parsnips, and hemlock. Some poisonous, others not. I leave all alone.

Columbine. There is a huge patch on one of the routes Michael and I often bike. I never have time to stop and take a photo.

Wild daisies everywhere!

Red clover. Clover. The scent of summer.

Pine and blackcaps. They stop me in my tracks to take a moment and breathe in their sweetness.

My iris have been loving the cool, damp weather we’ve been having.

I planted marigolds in the tire planters. I think of Irene every time I pass by. She loved colorful things and always wanted something pretty at the entrance to the driveway. It is good to have the time to make small memorials to those who came before.

Garden journal: slowly we plant, quickly they grow

The big garden: only a small space remains in need of seeds.

The central area hosts onions, garlic, popcorn, cabbages, carrots, collards, and green chile. That is rhubarb keeping the quack grass and creeping Charlie at bay.

The east side raised garden sports lettuce, radishes, peas and green beans.

The north side raised garden sprouts radishes, beets, bok choi, watermelon, leeks, eggplant, and cucumbers.

Michael weeded the potatoes, which do not yet show signs of pest depredation.

My iris begin to bloom. We adopted these as they escaped the fence in a St. Paul cemetery, lo these 25 years ago. Irene would be so pleased with how the Bridal Veil spirea has recovered from the transplant trauma it suffered 10 years ago. Better to move it than to have construction trucks run it over.

The tomatoes wait for Michael to finish digging a space for them in our latest duck straw garden. Maybe by Tuesday they will be in the ground. Then he will tackle the squash garden. My knees prevent me from assisting in space creation.

The broilers eat and drink and poop and grow. We shoo them outside everyday so they have a chance to graze on grass and worms and lay about like Miss Piggy at the beach.

My energy ebbs in the smoke of Canadian wildfires. Or perhaps I’m tired because I’ve spent the day in the gardens. My activity tracker says I’ve done a week’s worth of moderate to intense exercise today. Michael has done more!

Tomorrow we travel to see these sweet peas. Our gardens, and all these small beings, flourish with care, attention, and space of their own. Yes. This is work. And so much fun!

Celebration journal: Memorial Day

Although I am not a Methodist, I am active in my local church, which happens to be Methodist. I have no photos of the Memorial Day ceremony held at the cemetery, nor the luncheon served by the church ladies (which group includes me!). I was in charge of keeping the drink table (coffee, lemonade, water) supplied. Michael pitched in with set up and made the coleslaw for this picnic-style meal. We are both exhausted (Michael is gently snoring as I write), but it was a lovely way to spend the day. Met nice people. Gave away Michael’s rhubarb scone recipe. (Yes, he made those too.). This, interestingly, is part of our farm project. We support our community and spread the gospel of duck eggs (church is a great outlet for gifting eggs), and in turn receive the gift of community support.

We traveled to see our children and grands on Saturday, as our house is currently under construction. We spoke of the horrors of war and then of gardens. It is the time to remember death and destruction, past and present, and to rejoice in peace as well.

It is a wonder to live close enough to visit, yet get home in time to care for the livestock. Important to keep the young birds in enough water so they don’t get constipated, but don’t have water cans in which they can drown. We lost 2 chicks to drowning before we modified the trays holding the water cans. Keeping straw dry is also important.

Flowers are everywhere. Lilacs and wild grapes in our yard. Choke cherries set on the fence line trees. Alfalfa, swamp lilies, winter cress, wild geraniums (and Zeke), yellow violets, pink trillium, Japanese honeysuckle, wild blue phlox, and hoary puccoon: all conspire to create an intoxicating scent that makes the simple act of breathing a wonder and a joy.

Our gardens slowly get planted. The corn will get in the ground tomorrow while the potatoes need weeding yesterday. Now it is time for me to join Michael and snore a bit.

Growing journal: the season of everything

Time warp time: spring. We needed fires in the woodstove when I returned home from New Mexico. The bloodroot and pussytoes began to bloom in my absence, but then stood still. When we started to hit highs in the 70s and 80s this week, everything went into overdrive.

Three days: barely green/no leaves, very green/no leaves, GREEN! (Bonus: fuzzy cows.)

April 28: the weeds (Creeping Charlie and dandelions) flowered but little else.

May Day: Michael and I took time from various chores to wander and look at flowers. Daffodils and tulips in my yard. white hepatica, Canadian wild ginger, whole hillsides of trout lilies, Marsh Marigolds (and Michael braving the marsh), trillium set to bloom, all along the River Road. In our woods: purple hepatica, ramps (delicious!), and butternuts in bloom. Our neighbor’s yard: covered with pussytoes!

Seasonal delicacies include the first rhubarb pie, winter-cress with every meal, asparagus that never makes it inside the house, but is eaten warm from morning sun…until there is enough to share.

Cinco de mayo and the potted plants can survive outdoors; the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and leeks are up; garlic has sprouted, potatoes peeking out; apples, plums, pears and cherries add to the riot; and the trillium now covers hillsides too. Michael has double spaded the garden and planted 700 onion sets. We need more!

The young stock grow in the blink of an eye.

Construction projects advance. We have a new back door!

And I get to tell about all this as this smiley child, who I get to chase around today, is napping. Otherwise, I would be in the garden, getting more dirt turned over and lettuce and radishes, peas and beans planted. Tomorrow. I am loving being with this wee sprout, who began walking on Easter Sunday (4/20), today.

Travel journal: Thelma and Louise!

So what if we didn’t go to a honky tonk, get drunk and shoot someone? My momma and I had a great time road tripping to see my brother’s family, including his granddaughter!!! Neither of us had met her yet. She just turned 3.

She was a pleasure to meet. Well worth the 6 days of travel to and from my mom’s house in New Mexico to my brother’s home in Washington.

Before hitting the road, I saw brothers, nieces, spouses, and a cousin!!! Bonus.

We saw scenery galore traveling back roads through New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington. We made one wrong turn in Colorado; 30 miles of gorgeous! We found snow in Wyoming and avoided more snow by heading east into the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho. Back roads. We love back roads.

We ate, and ate, and ate. Yum.

We stopped at cute hotels, historic sites, coffeehouses, and wherever else caught our eye. (The Blue Lantern in Lewiston Idaho serves one of the best scones I’ve ever tasted. Downtown Lewiston is charmant!)

We made it home. Whew.

The lirios were there to greet us. Ahhhh.

Grand journal: Spring Break!

Our eldest and her hubby wanted to take advantage of warm weather for camping and hiking, which meant a looooong car ride. So we got their girls for the week.

The Play Doh lasted an hour and a half; then got spread around periodically. We devoted our usual breakfast table to Play Doh.

Day1: Petra was the early bird, coming to tuck in with us while we read the news and drank coffee.

L helped grind grain for rolls and then we got free entertainment for a day with cousins.

Day 2 gave us a walk to the river. We saw fuzzy cows and L was startled by the sound of Great Blues nesting. She ventured out on a downed tree over the water. That girl can climb. Petra contented herself with throwing rocks in the river. Hot chocolate on our return.

Day 3 brought new ducklings and snow.

A walk around the land and hot tea in fancy cups served for entertainment. The girls were very careful with Bubba’s teacups. Bubba was Michael’s grandmother.

Day 4 gave us a walk along the river. We saw where beavers gnawed trees, bears walked just before us, scarlet cups and skunk cabbage bloomed. Then we found ice cream.

Day 5 had us running errands to the feed mill to pick up duckling food, look for potato sets at the local grocery (not in yet, so mini donuts had to do); visit the graveyard where Michael’s grandparents rest, and then to The Upper (one of the two local bars) for burgers and root beer. Wearing a new dress made Petra’s day.

Day 6 we had a chocolate chip cookie fueled dance-in-the-snow rave.

Day 7 we went to Lion’s Park. The slides were sub-par for big-city kids, but the rocks and parking lot bumpers were pretty cool to climb on. The girls wanted pizza for dinner, so we went to the Wolf Creek bar.

Day 8 we had cousins again! Then mom and dad arrived in the afternoon. The girls waited for them at the end of the driveway…until they got cold.

Every day included cuddling ducklings, looking for new hatchlings, helping Boopa with chickens and ducks, seeing odd things like tree stump fountains in the woods, taking a bath (so you know when bedtime is), and getting a bedtime story. We are delighted to have had this Grand time. Now excuse us while we collapse in a heap!

Livestock journal: overachievers

An average large chicken egg weighs about two and a half ounces.

This duck egg weighs more than twice that. Duck eggs usually come in around 3.5 ounces. We have one hen who gives us ginormous eggs. Wish we knew who it is!

This is Boyo. She joined our family in 2015, with our first flock of chickens. She died yesterday, just shy of her 10th hatch-day; the last of her cohort. Light Brahmas have those feathered feet. She was a big hen who gave us eggs for about 4 years. Most layers reach peak at around 2 years. She and Mrs. Beasley were fast friends. Mrs. Beasley died last year. We had Boyo in with the ducks for the past two years, as the young hens would have pecked her to death. I will miss feeding her worms while digging in the garden. Now she is feeding the worms in the garden.

Equinox journal: more sun!

Here in Big Woods country , you have to look closely to find signs of Spring.

Moss sends up its “blossoms,” releasing spores into the wind.

The grass and weeds show tiny bits of green.

Trees begin to thicken with swelling leaf buds.

Our pumpkins and squash have kept well, encased in their fine veneer of natural wax. You can see the wax as a white blush where the pumpkin is cut.

Our future ducklings grow, nestled in the incubator.

The ditches are free of snow and poison ivy. Michael loves me so much, he will come and pick trash with me!

The St. Croix flows freely. I’m waiting for the first turtles to emerge from the mud. Not yet. Not yet. More sun.