Foraging journal: sumac jelly!!!

I’ve mentioned the dearth of jelly and jam fodder due to early severe hail. This led Michael to look up whether you can make jelly out of sumac berries. Turns out it’s a thing.

Meet Bob. Sumac bob=cluster of those fuzzy red berries. We have dried them for their fuzzies before, which is a process we need not repeat since we found a source of ready-made sumac fluff.

We found the bobs when we went fishing. First outing of the year! We found a lovely young person to re-gel coat our aged canoe and just got it back. Eli did a fine job rehabbing the Mad River.

We fed grilled fish, garden vegetables, and jelly roll cake to children.

While leaving the bobs to soak in water for a while. (I used a glass pie plate to weight them down).

Then I heated the water to just under a boil while agitating them. Just under a simmer for about 20 minutes. Watch that water turn red!

Recipe called for ¼ cup lemon juice, 5 cups strained sumac juice (I used jelly bag), and 6 Tablespoons powdered pectin heated to a simmer. Add 5 cups sugar and get to a roiling boil for 1 minute. Makes exactly 4 pints of jelly. Note: a standard package of pectin is about 5 Tablespoons. I had enough for 3 batches. This makes the prettiest jelly. It tastes like a non-cloying strawberry with a Mediterranean accent. I will do this again!

I’ve been drinking the leftovers with seltzer and simple syrup. I may need to stew some bobs just to have sumac soda: my new summertime magic potion.

Foraging journal: chokecherry redemption

Back in June, hail happened.

It shredded our garden and ruined the apples, pears, plums, and cherries, and currants, red and black.

It even set the rhubarb back!

Amazingly, the wild chokecherries benefited from having some, but not all, of the fruit knocked off. They are relatively large this year, being the size of a large caper rather than a small pea. The hot weather we’ve had since late June concentrated their juice, making them extra flavorful.

After taking out stray stems and leaves, I barely covered the whole cherries with water and simmered them for a while, until they fell apart when smashed with a potato masher. Then into cheesecloth and hung overnight. This, of course, is happening on a day that is humid and 94° F.

We garnered about 12 cups of juice from 10 pounds of cherries.

Chokecherries: deep red velvet on toast. Yum.

Fiber journal: capturing warmth

In between gardens and birds, I’ve managed to complete a few fiber projects.

One of my church-lady friends mentioned that she dreamed I crocheted her a dress. I thought about her dream for a long time and then mentioned that I’d never seen her in a dress. She said, “That’s because I don’t wear dresses!” I asked if she would wear a long vest, and she said she would. I then asked her what color vest she’d like, and she said, “purple.” I found some purple sock yarn and started making squares. When I visited my mom, we found an appropriate accent color, which allowed me to put squares together. I made one of these vests for my mother-in-law, but it didn’t fit my friend. Once I got the front and back done, I measured her and made the side panels to fit.

Finally, a did a deep dive into my stash and found these amazing buttons either my momma or one of my sisters gifted me. They were exactly right! She loved the end result!

I considered using some apricot wood for buttons, but they turned out too dark once finished. Back into the stash they go.

We share dreams while we work on projects to give away. This is the quilt I made to go with our church’s monetary donation to a local project to supply children with beds. I began with a bunch of scrap material that had been donated to us, and then had to figure out how to parlay the scraps into a pattern large enough for a twin-sized quilt. I’m pleased with the result. I hope some child likes the colors.

I took a break from the above projects to dive into my yarn stash to make this “mushroom cap.” The bottom/brim is hand spun merino, Navajo plied. The top is made from mohair, hand spun and dyed with commercial dyes. It was a very soft but sturdy hat. I have a fairly substantial fiber stash….

My brother makes it look good!

I am surrounded by beauty every day. I find joy in being able to share some comfort with those who will appreciate the caress of whimsy.

Harvest journal: broiler math

We harvested broilers to piece out (breasts, legs and thighs, wings, soup bones) over four days, ending on June 25th. The average weight on that date was 5.5 lbs per chicken. While putting birds to bed on July 4th, Michael found a broiler who died, probably from overheating.

July 5th dawned cool and misty, having rained an inch over night.

Mushrooms sprouted everywhere.

And we did in the last 6 broilers.

Meaning to brag a lot, I manhandled these big boys one-armed down range, where the chopping block lives, back to the gibbet, then into the pot of hot water (to loosen the feathers for plucking). Now I remember why I’ve lifted weights all these years!!!

The largest broiler weighed in at 11 pounds, the smallest (who was suffering from water belly) was 8.5 pounds. The average weight came to 10.1 pounds. That means these birds gained about 4.5 pounds each in 10 days. We had to harvest them before they all died of heart failure. We will give 3 of these birds to our children. One is for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas. Then there is one to roast on some cold, winter day just to have leftovers. I will continue training for next years harvest!

Celebration journal: family and fireworks

My children provided the fireworks.

We all pitched in for lunch.

This guy just returned from an 8,000 mile motorcycle trip to the Arctic Ocean. (No wonder he looks tired!)

The other brother (and his lovely wife, not in this photo), traveled from Michigan to share the day with us!

The first ones here got (almost) all the berries!

Uncle Douglas made cool toys on his 3D printer.

Everyone enjoys flashes, bangs and smoke.

The grand finale: “Run, Boopa! Run!”

I missed it all due to comforting the Wee Grand, who didn’t like the noise. She needed a nap and I needed to have time holding her.

We celebrated a birthday (early).

And then marveled at the huge storm that blew in to water our gardens.

We, individually and collectively, are rich beyond measure. We work this land for fun and it nourishes us and our family. We care (in a very physical way) for our neighbors and community. Our neighbors and community care for us. I still work in the federal court system, trying to keep processes and outcomes fair. The system doesn’t always work, but it works mostly. Because I have spent so much time in jails and prisons (as a visitor, not an inmate) I value physical freedom fiercely. Because I have been a witness to so much pain, suffering and abuse, I appreciate emotional freedom intensely. Because I have lived in foreign lands, I recognize political freedom as precious. This country is a work in progress, and it depends on us all to progress. We celebrate because we have so much to be thankful for, and then we get back to work.

Feathered friends journal: from babies to broth

Our goal: reducing our winter flock while maintaining our freezer and egg stock.

We found Light Brahma chicks at Tractor Supply on April 23rd. We bought 4, all girls. Light Brahmas grow to be large, friendly chickens. One of our favorite hens (Boyo) was a Light Brahma. We like to introduce different breeds into our flock…because we can. Besides, feathered feet are fun.

Our first duckling hatched on April 29th. Michael gathered about 20 eggs for the incubator, but I left for the Thelma and Louise trip before it was time to candle them. As Michael did ALL of the chores, he didn’t candle eggs. We ended up with 9 ducklings from those 20 eggs. Tractor Supply didn’t have any ducklings we wanted.

We hatched 6 Speckled Sussex (with a bit of Golden Laced Wyandotte mixed in) by May 3rd. We keep the very small birds in the basement under heat lamps so they don’t freeze. They need temps in the 90s when newly hatched.

We brought home 36 straight run broiler chicks from the feed mill on May 5th. Michael prepared a space in the winter duck coop for them as there were too many for the bins! A “straight run” is where you get both males and females in the mix.

We moved the ducklings and heritage chickens to the winter coop on May 7th.

Those Brahmas love to jump up and perch on things. The ducklings tend to be afraid when you come to feed and water them, crowding into the furthest corner possible. Both these tendencies resulted in injuries. We noticed one Brahma not moving much, and one duckling had a leg that wasn’t working right. We brought them inside again and I splinted the chicken’s foot and wrapped the leg so it was immobilized. Both birds fully recovered; I got my bird first aid ⛑️ badge.

The ducklings moved to pasture on May 25th and have been happily running with the big ducks ever since.

We’ve inadvertently raised a clutch of robins and phoebes in our canoes. We hope to evict the nests when empty and go fishing one of these days.

This is not a dead bird. It is a bird that tipped over and couldn’t right itself again. We knew it was time to start harvesting the broilers when this happened.

Our son-in-law came and helped with today’s batch. Average weight was 5.5 pounds per bird. Three days ago the average weight was 5.25 pounds. Once broilers hit that 5 pound mark, they grow quickly. We harvested 6 birds today. 6 birds 3 days ago and 7 birds last week. Several were very small due to hip dysplasia which kept them from being able to access the feeder. I tried to nurse one back to health, but it was a genetic defect and not an injury. We lost 4 broilers to a variety of predators and injuries. We hope to raise the remaining 7 to roasting size.

Cheesy noodles made with chicken broth = energy!

Grand journal: time with that guy

We anticipate having both the grands gifted us by my youngest daughter for sleepovers when the baby no longer needs diapers. In the meantime, we celebrated being able to have the GrandGuy with us for a few days.

He walked Zeke.

And when he tired of that, he practiced walking like a dog and trumpeting like an elk.

He helped Boopa with the birds every morning.

And brought Booma flowers every day.

We went exploring along the St. Croix.

We ordered him his first sodas.

Painted his nails in super-hero colors and plied him with super-hero ice cream.

And then we returned him to his regular programming.

And we returned to ours. (We are still trying to catch up on weeding.). A brilliant way to begin June!

Solstice journal: racing (with) the sun

Today my eldest granddaughter turned 9, my brother celebrated 45 years of being married to the love of his life, and we all celebrated the fathers, grandfathers and those who act as fathers in our lives. It is a lot to ask of a single day, but the sun rose at 5:22 AM and will set at 9:02 PM…giving us more than 16 hours of daylight in which to be joyful.

I remember going to meet this bright flower on the day she was born. When she cried, as all children will, her entire forehead wrinkled and she looked like a Romulan. She was, and is, smart and kind and beautiful.

The child favors yellow, which makes sense for being born on the day with the most sunlight of the year. The mullein and butter-and-eggs have just come into bloom.

The bees have been loving our rampaging weeds.

This fine pheasant has staked out the end of our driveway as his territory. He is much less intimidating than the Sandhills I had to sneak by a couple of years ago.

I am grateful to have these wonders to share with this child of the light.

Foraging journal: what to eat before the garden produces

The last frost visited on May 20th. The first thunderstorm roared past yesterday. All our garden seeds sprouted with that storm. It will be at least another week before we start to harvest radishes. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been eating spring greens.

April 22: winter cress becomes plentiful along the fence lines and in the ditches.

The rounded leaves in a rosette pattern are diagnostic. I rinse off any dirt and pick the leaves from the stems.

Chicken winter cress Alfredo. (I use goat cheese to substitute for some of the cream to give the Alfredo sauce a bit more zing.). Winter cress colcannon. Good for what ails you.

When the winter cress begins to bloom, it becomes very mustardy and coarse. This is when nettles sprout along the edges of fields. May 7th arose bright and mild, a perfect day to scout out nettle thickets.

I snipped the tops off the nettles into a bowl and then used gloves to separate the leaves from the stems. A water bath washed off any stray debris.

Sautéed in olive oil with a splash of rice vinegar, they provided a deep flavor to balance the rosemary chicken and brown rice or sausage and potatoes. The dark green, almost black, liqueur they produce (full of iron and vitamin A!) does not pair well with cream based sauces. My tech approves of nettles!

May 23rd: Michael found wild mustard growing wherever we fed chickens and ducks last winter. Wild mustard is related to winter cress but sprouts later. It has softer, fuzzier leaves and a milder flavor.

Due to this mildness, it pairs well with fish, seafood, and cream based sauces.

June 3rd: the cattails were big enough to harvest. We have several ponds on our property, so cattails are very available.

After rinsing, I sliced off the root end and trimmed down the leaf end. You can see the growth rings. The outer layers with the holes get trimmed off as they are pithy and inedible. I was looking for the tender heart and found it.

They substituted for celery in my fried rice. They can be sautéed in butter, but I find them to be a bit bland. Interestingly, they stood up to the garlic-ginger-soy of the fried rice, giving it that lightness celery can imbue. Only better. Thank you to this land and place that provides us with greens when we need them most!

Construction journal: last window in, last outside wall sided

June 6th. A month ago our last (ok, maybe second-to-last) major outside project commenced.

May 5: this is the last of the old windows to be removed and replaced. The window going in isn’t the same size, so the header (the support system above a window or door) had to be redone. Working on a wall that support the roof trusses means making a temporary truss support while the permanent wall is reconfigured.

Old window gone! Hole for new window cut.

May 6: New window opening framed in! That’s Craig, our trusted builder, admiring his work.

New window in! You can see how much more light there is in that room now.

May 12: the last of the siding starts to go up. The soffit on that side also was replaced. The electricity and water taken out. We will put a faucet back in on that side, but in a different (more convenient) location.

May 21: siding finished! I still have a bit of construction debris to process, but the house is secured from the elements. Whew.

Not pictured: me, running around finding all the bits and pieces we have stored for the past forever waiting for this project to be done. Me, washing the dirt off of said materials, accumulated during years of storage in sheds and under tarps. Me, making executive decisions about window placement and height while Michael was off making gardens flourish. Both of us, lending a hand when needed to lift that huge window into place and other instances where extra hands made the work go smoothly. Thank you Craig for your diligence and expertise. Thank you Jenny for doing great work!!!

Harvest journal: Pentecost, Shavuot, and moveable feasts

I missed services today as I was out playing in the dirt. Pentecost or Shavuot, today is the 50th day after Easter (or about the same time frame as after Passover) and celebrates the breath of fire and first harvests. This year, it also is one of the first warm, sunny days of springtime. My daughter’s garden (and mine) called me to serve.

We brought them a scion of a lilac to replace the one which winter killed.

And a couple of elderberries to occupy the space formerly devoted to a compost heap.

We adopted their compost the Saturday before Mother’s Day and I spent most of that Sunday sifting the branches and trash out of the lovely dirt. Took us several days to process, but we put it to good use in our gardens.

They removed some very scraggly bushes from the front of their house and Michael and Nate rearranged the large rocks that had been hiding. Now there are currants that will give berries in July and we have a volunteer cherry bush that should go well in this space. Flame colored fruit seemed appropriate for the day.

I repotted their geranium…which was red! It needed liberating from the trailing vine with which it had been planted.

Upon arriving back to the farm, Michael commenced mowing almost immediately. I weeded the asparagus and harvested wild mustard.

We have harvested winter cress (a type of mustard) in prior years, but this is our first harvest of mustard. We assume the seeds came in with the bird feed, due to its distribution. I needed to get it picked so Michael could mow. With the warm weather, the plants will flower and will put all its energy into seeds again, rather than leaves.

It was amazing in the sunfish chowder I made last night. Here’s to honoring traditions tied to the land!

Mother’s Day journal: celebrating the divine feminine

Raised in the Catholic Church, the images of powerful women filled my childhood. Having a mother who could do anything was just as natural as having the sun rise.

This is the first light in Big Woods country this Mother’s Day. As my father would say, it is beautiful, but not as stunning as my momma.

I don’t often get to be with her, but she is with me always.

I am most fortunate to be able to share time more often with my daughters and their families. They, also, are powerful women.

I cannot share as much time with my amazing cousins, so I appreciate the time I have with them all that much more.

And thank you to all these men who celebrate us. We wouldn’t be mothers without you.

Learning journal: being a santo elf

My mom, when she’s not channeling Thelma, spends a fair amount of time making santos to bless people’s homes. For those of you who aren’t familiar with santos, they are paintings of saints to whom one may petition for divine intervention. For instance, I have a San Isidro on my wall, who is the patron saint of farmers.

When I visit, one of my regular jobs is to lubricate her tin brake.

It went umpteen years without being lubed and then fell apart. I put it back together and have made sure it gets regular care. That machine cuts a lotta tin!

Above the machine my mom pasted up a San José, since my dad used to maintain her tools.

She buys galvanized flashing in rolls of different widths at her local hardware store. She put me to work cutting the roll down to size.

After the tin is cut into a rectangle, she traces a semicircle along the top with a jig (a completed santo) and cut along the inscribed line with tin shears. Having cut tin for construction projects, I could handle this part, so cut about 20 tins to spec.

After trimming, a design is hammered around the edge with a punch designed for this task. Doing this tap tap tap part really made me feel like a santo elf!

No photos of me tapping away, but this is what the setup looks like.

I also didn’t get photos of her soldering hangers on the backs or gluing images (her artwork) on the tins, but this is the finished product.

I also planted a couple of tomatoes and did a few other maintenance projects around the house.

I work for lattes!!! Best elf gig around.

Grand journal: spring break

We hosted the elder girl’s children for spring break while she and her hubby went camping. It’s becoming a welcome tradition.

They arrived late, awoke early, and began playing.

The snow recedes.

We find signs of them everywhere.

As we find signs of spring. Leeks repotted. Tomatoes and other nightshades planted. Daffodils showing. Hyacinth blooming. Garlic growing. Rhubarb breaking soil. Frogs coming to life after a winter hibernation.

We make and help them make good food.

They burn up that good food.

We took them out.

We kept them in.

We put them to work.

We cleaned them up. (Water on the walls and ceiling were a byproduct.)

We completed projects.

We played games. Then they left. We will miss them.

Even if we are exhausted.

Grand journal: after the equinox

I play catch-up in a lull after a string of all encompassing activity.

I began springtime with shearing. My own. I sent the length to Children With Hair Loss. I feel quite liberated.

The snow recedes. The moss blooms. Lilac buds swell.

The river rises and the ground squirrels play.

We put the younger Grands to work, tiring them out. There is nothing like holding a sleeping child.

We revived them with “Boopa pie”. The winter squash survives.

Boopa entertained the younger grands.

And then napped. Napping. The new normal.

Harvest journal: using 14 pounds of deer tallow and 11 pounds of bird fat

Spring cleaning takes on a new twist in our household: using up what we have squirreled away in our freezers so we have more room when harvest rolls around. We hope to be gardening soon, but this is March, and we have 8” of new fallen snow, with more on its way. Towards our goal, we inventoried our cache and found 25 pounds of various types of rendered fat: deer, duck, and some very old goose. With our riches, Michael made soap and I made candles.

This is end-product soap. That darker soap is the goose-deer mix. It smells lemony, whereas the duck-deer smells more like milk chocolate. Pure deer tallow makes a bar so hard and sharp Michael says you can shave with it.

The process starts with measuring. The weight of the fats are entered into a soap calculator to give the amounts of water and lye needed. We zero the scale for every vessel, which is called “taring.”

Michael carefully adds the lye to the water, which creates an exothermic reaction. If he added the water to the lye, it would work on less water, creating a steam flash, which could create an explosion or would at least shatter the bottle. Bad idea. “Do as you oughta, add acid to watah,” admonishes every chem teacher ever. Same goes for strong bases, such as lye.

The water, which started at room temperature, clocks in at 185° almost instantly. (We do stir it with a wooden spoon handle to dissolve all the lye).

While the fat and lye solution cool to 100°F, Michael lines a cardboard box with plastic. We use construction grade garbage bags.

The lye solution works on the fats in a process called saponification, a fancy word meaning “turning into soap.” The trick is getting a combination that solidifies into a bar pleasant to use. The color change says the process works. The blending continues until the mixture thickens and “traces”, or leaves a visible mark on the surface.

Into the box. Covered with newspapers. Covered with covers. Holding the heat in allows the saponification to occur more quickly and keeps the lye and fat from separating. Wait until tomorrow. Cut with long thin knife. Don’t wait too long or the soap becomes too hard to cut. An 8 pound bar of soap isn’t handy. Use in two weeks to allow all the lye, which is caustic, to finish combining with those fats and have nothing left but soap!

While Michael makes soap, I make candles.

I use recycled candle glass and canning jars for my holders. I remove any old wick holders. I crimp on a new wick holder (came with the wick) and stick it to the bottom of the glass with candle holder paste. I secure the top of the wick with a toothpick (or other implement), which holds the wick in the middle of the tallow as it solidifies.

I melt my tallow. Lately I’ve added herbs as it melts. I remove the herbs. I pour. I wait. I trim the wick. It burns.

Cleanly.