Construction journal: ducks in place

We completed work on the Mansion before temperatures have started to dip below freezing with regularity.  

Three doors, three windows and a large yard. 

The older ducks are staking out their territory.  

The Khaki Campbells just blend into the background.  

We will move the new ducks up when their pond freezes.  

On unfrozen pond.  

The young ducks have been laying well despite the darkening days. We have all the chickens in their winter quarters.  

The flocks are blending without much blood shed, although the hens stick close to their roosters. 

I love looking out my window and watching my birds! 

Construction Journal: engineered flooring at its finest

The Duck Mansion didn't get completed last weekend. We had an art show to attend Saturday. Oh, the price of having talented children!  Sunday a good friend came to visit...and so the time goes. Today marked a construction milestone:  the Mansion floor is finished!  

This floor represents about two square yards of compacted dirt. That's a lot of dirt! 

We have a mound of dirt left over from the first addition to the house. Michael hauled dirt from the mound with our 1949 Ford tractor.  

The tractor lacks traction, so Michael shoveled the dirt into the front end loader. Beats hauling dirt by wheelbarrow any day  

Once he dumped the dirt in the Mansion, I raked it out. As a final touch, I compacted it with Irene's lawn tractor.  

You can see the Ford in the background.  

Raising the level of the floor will help keep the Mansion dry. Making the floor of dirt will allow moisture created by our livestock to leach away. We will probably store straw in here, which should give a little added insulation and make it easier to keep clean straw on the floor. I love my ducks, but they are messy!  

As I was raking dirt around for hours, I thought about my grandfather, who built his home in New Mexico from adobe. It had a dirt floor too. My dad told me that my grandfather would have been pleased to know I had argued before the United States Supreme Court, but would be immensely proud that I own a farm.   I now feel I share a dirt bond with my abuelo. 

Construction journal: making a winter home for our larger flocks

We are in full fall (not to be confused with free fall) here in Western Wisconsin. We have not had a hard freeze yet, but the fog falls heavily over our mornings. This means that when it does start freezing, we need a place closer to running water for our ducks and chickens. Since our flocks are about twice the size they were last year, we need more space close to the house. Hence, our newest construction project: the Duck Mansion:

Putting the roof on what Michael calls the Duck Manger, but I think of as the Mansion.  

The above photo represents about a week of steady work, since we took a week off to prepare for The Ramble. Michael broke ground and installed posts on September 14th: 

This is the second time Michael sank posts. Notice the post hole digger in the bottom right of this photo.  I was at a conference when the first set went in. When I returned home, we both agreed the first site was just wrong. So it goes.  

Supports for the roof beams came next.  

Michael always gets to do the stuff that requires being tall (or taller that me!) 

Once the roof supports were in place, but before climbing up there to nail down the sheathing, we put up the plywood on two sides, to act as bracing. This kept everything square...or as square as we could make it with hand- dug post holes.  

Two sides partially sided. It tells us where the windows will go. 

The metal went on the roof yesterday and we hope to get the dirt filled in the floor today so that we can finish the walls, doors and windows tomorrow ... Or at least next week. 

Farm stand journal: good clean fun

Saturday was River Ramble Day. They came. They saw. They occasionally bought things. We sold a little bit of everything.  

Onions onions ha ha ha. Onions onions fa la la. I love onions.  

I discovered that the River Ramble is more about meeting your neighbors than anything.   Betty and Jeff brought an alpaca fleece and two beautiful roosters. Paul and Elizabeth brought good conversation and commeraderie. Laura and Jim brought observations on our favorite woodland trail. Steve and Christine brought knowledge about pasturing sheep. 

Another benefit: time to spin!   

We ended the day much richer than when we began! 

Farm stand journal: last minute prep

Details, details. I spent 6 hours today painting signs. No use having a farm stand if no one knows where you are!  Yes, the St. Croix River Ramble does supply maps, but signs help.  

Short and sweet

And to tempt those of you who may be in the neighborhood, here is a lineup of the jams and jellies: 

Whoa. How did the dried mushrooms sneak into the middle? 

One more photo: 

Quill Notes-cards for all occasions

Hope tomorrow goes well.  

Farm stand journal: fruits of the earth

It has been a rainy year in Western Wisconsin. All the squash that went toward animal feed last year reappeared this year as vines in surprising places. And heaps of squash! 

Blue Hubbard by the bucketload.  

They save well, bake nicely and taste wonderful.  

Blue Hubbad empanadas. Yum.  

I would feature the pie made from squash, but it got eaten before I could take a picture!  The magic of the pie may stem from the eggs.  

This year's chickens and ducks are laying well. Their yolks tend to be dark yellow as they can eat grass to their heart's content.  

The squash and eggs will be on sale at our farm stand on Saturday, September 24th as part of the St. Croix River Road Ramble. Come and share in our bounty!   

Farm stand journal: knitting socks for soap!

Irene had a near disaster when she dropped the soap while showering. (She's ok, and so is the shower.) Jane Brody, in the New York Times, suggested putting your soap in a sock.  The sock was either too big or too small, so I am making them "just right."

Hand spun yarn and custom designed!

I have to say, these are wonderful to use. They exfoliate while cleansing and make your skin feel happy. They also keep soap ends manageable. Wool has natural antibacterial properties. I hope to be able to sell them on this site sometime soon, but if you can't wait, come to my farm stand and enjoy the fall colors and other sights along the St. Croix River Road Ramble!   

Ceramics journal: a successful fire!

We are preparing items for our farm stand as part of the River Road Ramble. It is this Saturday, September 24th from 9 am to 5 pm.  

Lovely black figurines. We've been playing with semi-burnished surfaces.  

Ceramics at a farm stand?!?  Yeah, we never were very good at drawing in the lines.  

Mushroom journal: the first entalomas of the season

Yesterday was an Aunt Harriette visiting day. She's a wee bit more fragile, but still getting around on her own two legs, which is not bad for 97!  After taking her to lunch, we stopped by the Mushroom Woods. We were not disappointed.  

Aborted entalomas in place

Entalomas are fragrant mushrooms that vary from choice to poisonous. Only the choice ones become invaded by another fungus, which gives them an unmistakeable and unique appearance, which means we get to eat them.  

Aborted Entalomas in hand

They fry up to have a meaty texture and flavor. They go well in hot dishes calling for hamburger. They also dry well. When in season, they are abundant. 

From bottom clockwise: aborted entaloma, grifola fondrosa or Hen of the Woods, chanterelle. 

I spotted the Hen of the Woods as we were walking out. It looked like a large, gray pine cone without any pines nearby...  It seems our favorite mushrooms all grow on oaks, except those that do not. The chanterelle appeared in an area we rarely traverse, but I spied a different cluster of mushrooms and had to investigate. Chanterelles smell of ripe apricots. The one I found was a single, and already old. But beautiful. The Hen of the Woods was tender and delicious. We had it for dinner. The entalomas we cleaned and put in the dehydrator, which took up the rest of our day. Today we are back to building winter shelter for our increased flocks.  

Wildlife journal: swimming squirrels and other delights

Michael and I gave ourselves a holiday last Sunday and wet the canoe in the St. Croix River. Once on the water we took a detour to identify the creature sharing our paddle.  

Rocky the Swimming Squirrel, the only other paddler we saw all day!

We fished around to see who else was in the river with us. 

Small mouth bass and Northern Pike ripped up my Rappala

We next stalked through the Mushroom Woods:

It's turning blue!  Some type of bolete.  

We found about 20 pounds of Sulpher Shelf. Made about 5 quarts of dried mushrooms.  

Perfect mushroom weather

On our way home, whom should we see?

A narrow fellow, not in the grass

As the Bonus Photo of the Day: 

Soap, not cheese

Today Michael made soap with fowl fat. Yes, we really do try to use all of our birds, including fat (for soap), feet (for soup) and feathers (for fun).  That lovely yellow comes from grazed grass. Golden soap of the sun!

Foraging journal: this is not a volley ball

Tis the season for giant puffballs.  

Can I keep it? It followed me home.... 

Last week we saw (and adopted) purple spored puffballs and sulphur shelf mushrooms on our trek to see Aunt Harriette. This week the giant puffballs made their first appearance of the season. Puffballs, as previously mentioned, are not prime for eating fresh. 

Yes, it looks like they should make great mushroom steaks, but I haven't discovered how to make them palatable in this form

So into the dehydrator they go.  

If only I could bottle the aroma of drying puffballs! 

They dry well and store well.  

1 mushroom=3 quarts

A cup to a pint of dried puffballs, rehydrated in the broth of your choice (we tend to have a lot of chicken and duck broth on hand....) and then whirred in a blender makes a fine substitute for any recipe callng for cream of mushroom soup. I love baked wild rice with puffball slurry, onions, and carrots. It is the taste of autumn. 

Blessings journal: this is our second anniversary

Two years ago today, we parked the U-Haul, kissed Irene, and started cleaning and clearing and deconstructing. A year ago we woke up, kissed Irene, and parked the tractor in its new home.  Yesterday, Michael cut a hole in our perfectly good new roof.  

We are working against the clock: rain scheduled to begin in eight hours

Getting the stovepipe perfectly vertical required some basic engineering (the framing on the insulation shield is movable and will be reinforced) and upper body strength (lifting a six foot section of ainsulated stove pipe to Michael who was sitting in the rafters was no mean feat).  

Adjusting rafter ties before installing stove pipe.  

But that was yesterday. Today we woke up, kissed Irene and headed off to the Minnesota State Fair. We arrived early to avoid traffic and parking woes.  

Not many people at 7:30 am! 

We started with the animals, visiting fish chickens ducks turkeys geese sheep goats cows and pigs.  

1200 pounds of pig.  

We ate cheese curds malts cream puffs and:  

Our favorite vendor.  

We perused the art gallery Eco building frontier village international bazaar and agriculture building.  

Flowers. I love flowers.  

By 2 pm our dogs were barking.  

Feet in place.  

The crowds were gathering.  

Relatively empty for the Fair, but crowded for us country folk

So we headed home. Would our house be dry?   

No leaks!  Yay!   

Despite aches and pain and exhaustion and overcoming fear, it was a perfect end to a really good day, week, month, and year.  

Foraging journal: there be gold in them thar woods

As in the makings for golden mushroom soup: 

A prime sulphur shelf was waiting for us on the East River Road. This area usually is too dry to support sulphur shelf. Not this year. 

We were on our way to gather up Aunt Harriette and bring her home for a roast chicken dinner (she liked the plum pie too) when I told Michael that the air smelt of mushrooms. Not 30 seconds later, Michael spotted the above lovely winking at us. Our first of the year. We will have part for dinner tonight. The rest I cut up and put in the dehydrator this morning. 

The aroma of drying mushrooms has the sweet earthy smell of walking in the woods as the leaves begin to fall.  

We also found a number of purple spore puff balls, which are about the size of a soft ball. They are tasty, but lack something in texture, being kin to marshmallows. They dry well, and then can be pulverized to make velvety savory sauces.  They grow in sandy areas where the grass is kept short. 

The few sulphur shelf left from last summer. They rehydrate well.  

Wild foods appear sporadically, which make them all that much more appreciated when our paths meet. 

Harvest journal: another 34 pounds of chicken in the freezer

As soon as the weather allows, we will have to have people over for chicken dinners. We hope to start on Wednesday with Aunt Harriette. The thermometer topped out at 62° yesterday. Too early for a fire, but fine weather for making quiche (we are also swimming in eggs). Despite the (continued) rain this morning, we made good on our promise to reduce the stress in the new bird coop.  

The silence of the roosters.  

It took us 6 hours to process 9 birds.  

Only the final cleaning happens inside.  

Tyson Foods we ain't. Which, I suppose, is entirely the point. When I was 21 I sat for hours with my grandfather, boning chicken to feed the 200 guests who would celebrate my syster's wedding. I could not eat or be around any chicken for years afterward. The (normal) chickens we raise smell so sweet, whether alive or awaiting to be plucked. The broilers were not as pleasant either to butcher, or to raise, even if the are the most efficient animals at converting feed to protein on the face of the earth. Someday we may figure out how to market our overage so we can continue to support this 40 acre garden. It is not practical. It is not efficient. It is heaven. 

The volunteer Blue Hubbard is taking over the winter chicken yard.  

Weather journal: watching the clouds roll in

It's been a wet year here in Western Wisconsin, the second in a row. Unlike last year, it is also warm. The corn loves it, as do the mosquitos. 

No seeing deer in this back yard...but they are there, nonetheless, like Certified Public Accountants. 

Some storms are slow and gentle, and some magnificently not.  

Racing the rain (gotta batten down the birds) 

Inches of rain in minutes sometimes.  

Or maybe 1/3" in 5 minutes

A welcome break in the heat.  

Harvest journal: garlic, onions, potatoes, elderberry jelly and fish

August 1st of last year saw us digging potatoes and swimming in tomatoes. The potatoes, garlic and onions came ripe at about the same time this year, but we are just now beginning to have tomatoes for three meals a day.  

Golden (and red and white) onions of the sun.  

The garlic started coming out of the ground first, but since we cultivate five varieties, they came out in stages.  

July 12 and the River Giant and German Red came ripe, which is when the bergamot started to bloom.  

Our potato crop suffered from the wet, with too many of the Kennebec having soft spots. They eat fine now, but will not save.   Darn. Having to eat new potatoes...roasted on the grill...poor us. 

Red Pontiacs...we started snitching new potatoes from under the plants about a month ago. The new reds are the best.  

I am grateful to have a basement this year!  The ground under the addition remained undisturbed until July 18th last year, and we had to scramble to find a place out of the rain for our harvest. This year we trooped the goods directly to their hiding places. 

About 500 bulbs of garlic and 130 pounds of onions. No vampires around our house.  

We did not go fishing until late July, when my sole birthday wish was to get out on the water. We caught fish, and so have been out twice since then.  

Turtles share their lake with us.  

We will feed Aunt Harriette and Irene fresh fish tomorrow, with a few more stashed in the freezer for future reference.  

Jelly in the making. I need to see if I can capture this color in wool.  

And just to show that our lives haven't been entirely devoted to filling the larder: 

Spindles on and railing sanded. Now for some steps... 

Construction journal: no falling unless you really try

Today was an outdoors day, even if they keep threatening us with severe thunderstorms.  

Still lacking spindles, but we need to buy more deck screws and lumber, having cannibalized some of our 2x4s for other projects. 

Bottom and top rails are in. I feel so much better about setting up a ladder to stain the soffit now.  

Playing hooky journal: thank you Aunt Harriette

Last week we visited Aunt Harriette for the first time in about six weeks. We knew it had been that long because we visited shortly before Irene's surgery. Bad us. So we put Harriette outings on our weekly calendar, to make sure we didn't skip another six weeks working away into oblivion. Because our calendar told us to, we picked her up from the continuing care center, took a short tour of Grantsburg, and headed off to Crex Meadows.  

The greeting committee: two adult swans in summer brown and their three cygnets

Harriette, who is Michael's aunt (and celebrated 97 years on Groundhog Day), and her husband, Klink, were longtime Audubon Society members. They helped create Crex Meadows as a bird refuge. Harriette, who is mostly blind, can still navigate us through the back roads and get us all home in one piece. We haven't had the opportunity to get out much this summer, so having the luxury of taking a morning to espy sand hill cranes, swans, coots, and geese was...a luxury!   

Fish Lake Preserve, another favorite on our way home

The air has that late summer/early autumn smell of ripeness...like waffle cones or raspberry jelly, or watermelon when you first slice into it. Not too hot not too humid, but enough of each to make you feel cradled in wellness. Thank you Aunt Harriette!

Construction journal: the great migration would have taken a lot longer without our Secret Weapon

Also known as our private angel: Brother Douglas. Since we doubled the footprint of our house, we needed to double the electrical capacity. This meant replacing the 100 amp service that had been in the wall of the cabin with 200 amp service installed in the basement. The project began last year when Michael ran the wires in the sky so that the basement diggers would not run into hot wires as they excavated under the cabin. This year, new and better wires went back in the ground with the expertise (and I mean expert: Douglas not only is an electrical engineer, he's wired houses before too!) of a person with knowledge. 

Starting at the pole.  

The first day the guys worked for 11 hours getting electricity in the ground and to the house so that when the power company guys came the next day, all that would need to happen would be to connect the box on the pole to the wires at the top.  

Removing the box from the wall, where it was causing problems due to inadequate insulation.  

Just like last year, it rained.  

Racing against wind and weather.  

Half the battle was not slipping in the mud. 

Running wires through conduit; not easily done at some junctions.  

The boys won.  

A box where it belongs! 

They did work well into the night, connecting the old wires to the new.  Not pictured: various runs into town for parts. It always happens. 

Thank goodness for great flashlights.  

And then the next day Douglas performed a high wire act.  

The 100 amp wire came down and the 200 amp went up. The tricky part was raising the wires in the conduit and holding them in place while Douglas secured them to the pole.  

I helped hold the ladder. It was the least I could do. Or perhaps the most...  Thank you Sister Teresa for letting us have Douglas for the duration. Most of the addition is wired now, just waiting for insulation and wallboard. Plumbing and heating. Siding. There is more than enough to keep us busy, but this was a huge advance toward making the addition a space to live in. 

Harvest journal: we are in a pickle now!

Last year the cucumbers never grew. This year they are coming on strong! 

The eggs were a bonus.  

Michael makes great table-top crunchy pickles. He gathered all the necessaries: salt for the brine, fresh dill and garlic, grape leaves, and of course, the cukes. (I'll post a recipe with proportions soon).  

The dill thinnings-the roots didn't make it into the pickle jar

We often buy pickles by the gallon, conveniently leaving us with large jars. After packing the jar and pouring on the brine, Michael loosely fits the lid on.  

The bowl is to catch any overflow from the pickling action.  

After a day or so (depending on ambient temperature) the pickles start to work.  

Bubbles mean no troubles.  

We've been having weather in the 90s...good for pickles and cooking outdoors. After three days, you "test" one (eating it is the favored method), and if they are pickled in the middle, they go in the fridge. If not, let sit another day and test again. Refrigeration slows the pickling process, and so a gallon of pickles can theoretically last up to five months if refrigerated. I've never seen a gallon of pickles last even one month in my family...hence the excitement over having cukes AND dill AND garlic AND grape leaves coming ripe all at the same time.  

Bonus photo of the day: our wee helpers avoided being added to the pickle jar. They like to preserve themselves.