Blooming journal: all things bright and beautiful

Last fall I had an extra moment or two, which allowed me to finally plant some spring flower bulbs for Irene.

We were rewarded with the first crocus on April 4th.

It’s been a slow and frigid trek to true springtime. Frost still threatens tonight.

On April 14 the forsythia blooms held the last measurable snow.

The blood root first appeared on April 9. They then stood still, waiting for sunshine.

I saw them open on April 28, when we had an odd day of 80° weather. Back to highs in the 50s ever since.

I saw the first pussytoes on April 19th, but they didn’t start carpeting the roadsides until early May.

The first anemones and wild strawberries appeared around May 1st as well.

The tulips, hyacinth, and daffodils I hid in the rhubarb patch appreciated the relatively mild winter we had.

May 4th brought us baby chicks. We are not incubating any of our own this year due to Michael’s broken foot.

These particular apple blossoms have us bursting with anticipation. This tree came from a sprouting Granny Smith apple seed Michael planted almost 9 years ago. Apples do not come true from seed, which means we have no idea of the character of this tree’s fruit.

Michael set back his healing process by ignoring his doctor’s admonition to put no weight on his foot. After seeing the increased breakage on an X-ray, he has been better about keeping the foot off the ground. This hasn’t kept him out of the garden! He knows I’m digging as fast as I can, which isn’t fast enough. I have yet to finish turning over the big garden.

The radishes and lettuce he planted are sprouting! The tomatoes died from frost, but the peppers and eggplant survived. We have more tomato starts to plant once the frost warnings cease.

The crab apple will burst forth any day. The cherries, plums and juneberries brighten the woods as well as our gardens. Lilacs have blossom heads standing at attention, just looking for that next injection of warmth. We work. We wait. We wallow in spring green.

We celebrate life—in this instance, Irene’s birth 89 years ago.

Construction journal: let there be light (again)

The shelf above the sink lights the dishwashing process. It finally went up today.

As recounted in my last post, we had a sudden and catastrophic failure of the cabinets that housed most of our dishes and glassware. They also supported a light above the sink. I’ve been slowly working on replacing that light ever since. This was my process:

Michael and I found a small cabinet in the clearance aisle of our big box hardware store.

We modified it by taking off the kick plate platform and adding 3/4” plywood top and bottom. The shelf hangers are attached to studs and are rated for more weight than this cabinet will ever hold.

I did have to add another 2x4 cross piece on the back of the wall to attach the shelf hangers. Luckily, this area was still accessible. Not so further up, which is why there is only one shelf hanger on top. I used the shelf hanger instead of a more unobtrusive L bracket because 1) I had it, 2) it fit, and 3) I couldn’t attach anything to the top of the cabinet because there’s not enough room to get a tool up there, so I needed to rely on the leverage of length.

The cabinet had to go up first in order to figure out where shelves would fit. I won’t be using this same method when I build my permanent kitchen, but I fear I won’t get to do that for several years yet.

The next step in the process of replacing the sink light was moving the stove. This is also related to shelf location. My next project after the sink light is constructing a 28” long wall, 4 feet high, to act as a side-splash between the stove and the walkway into the dining room.

Moving the stove allows short people like me to reach the counter space in the corner, effectively doubling our usable space. Worth building a small wall!

The next step was to take down the rest of the shelves from the wall and patch all the holes made during the catastrophe.

Every time I worked in this area, I had to clear out everything used for cooking and washing dishes from breakfast, then replace it all in time to prepare supper.

I did wash the walls and ceiling before patching. Then I used a good primer. I also moved the paper towel holder to under the new cabinet. Michael is cleaning dandelions, which have been great as cooked greens and fresh salad.

It took a couple of days to paint due to using different colors. A little of that yellow goes a long way. I will paint the lower cabinets, but they were not integral to getting the sink light up.

Yesterday I installed the backsplash and rehung one shelf.

Today I got the new shelf hung. We are back to having light over the sink. Whew. I will put in more shelves on the wall next to the stove when another bout of rainy weather arrives.

I hope to get my own thumbs up from the Grand Girl at the end of May.

Construction journal: sudden and catastrophic failure

Clyde and Irene first built a structure on this land with the idea that it was a temporary space used to park during summer. Think: a stationary mobile home, only with single pane windows. The project we adopted when we moved here: to transform this under-built structure into an ADA compliant full-season home. We mostly control the time frame in which we undertake modifications. Occasionally, the structure chooses for us.

Michael and I were peacefully watching a movie on Saturday, April 10, when we heard an enormous crash. Michael said it took him a few moments to realize what had happened. As I knew the kitchen cabinets were made of particle board, I’ve been wondering how long they’d last. I wonder no more.

We filled several industrial trash bags with the broken crockery. We had things cleaned up that evening. The Corell survived, except the coffee cups.

We emptied the cabinet that used to live in the space now occupied by the chair. Most of the items in that cabinet are now stored downstairs in a box. Half the stuff was out of date paperwork that followed the broken crockery. We cleaned up the cabinet and moved it into the kitchen.

The survivors fit in the repurposed cabinet. We now have a bit more horizontal space in our kitchen!

Yesterday we purchased a small cabinet from the “bargain” area of our local big-box hardware store. It is meant to be installed on the floor with other cabinets on top of it. We will modify it, putting a top on it and figuring out how to deal with the kick space on the bottom. It is made out of three-layer plywood and is stapled together. The normal price of this cabinet ($525), coupled with its shabby construction, is why I will be making the cabinets for our future kitchen.

I have no idea when I will be able to get back to real construction projects, rather than emergency measures. The catastrophic failure cost us some nice bowls, coffee cups, and a bunch of jars of herbs. Ridding the kitchen of a looming danger without anyone getting hurt was worth it. I don’t hit my head on cabinet handles while doing dishes anymore. We have a wider walkway to the washer/dryer area. Little used items no longer take up precious living space. All in all, I’d say we’ve come out ahead.

In the meantime, I saw the first bloodroot blooms on April 9th.

We have had several inches of much needed rain. It has kept me out of the gardens, but frost danger still looms. Regardless, potatoes and onions need to get in the ground.

April 5 ushered in the first summertime clouds.

Michael and I get our second COVID vaccines later this month. Irene was fully vaccinated about a month ago. We can hardly wait to begin actively sharing the bounty of the Big Woods again! We just have to find the glassware we packed 7 years ago….

Garden Journal: being a bit keen

Local wisdom says to plant a garden the last week of May and to plant corn when the oak leaves are as big as a squirrel’s ear. I began turning over our 36’x36’ garden on March 21st.

The chickweed blooms early and prolifically.

Parts of the garden were still frozen solid.

Even so, the garlic grows and shows.

I turned over a bit less than a quarter of the garden in two days. Then our weather turned wet.

The chickens stayed inside.

The ducks rejoiced in mud.

Then our weather turned cold.

Duck art.

We have bounced between wet and wind and snow with the occasional warm sunny day.

Whenever I have a chance, I’m out battling the quack grass and chickweed. The parts that Michael turned over last fall go quickly. The parts where the weeds have taken hold go slowly. The frost is out of the ground now.

The snakes awaken. I heard frogs peeping yesterday. Today I saw a vulture. More signs of spring!

Despite local wisdom, Michael has started eggplant, tomatoes and peppers. He has also pruned our fruit trees, having rigged a system that is kind to his broken foot.

Persephone and Nate got married on the 23rd. We celebrated with them a few days later with a “wedding pie” and Prosecco. I love the fact that they got married at 6:30 am at the place where they met and where the minister still works.

I cut our annual pussy willow bouquet two days ago. They know we’ve reached more than 12 hours of sunlight, even if the high for today is 29°.

Warm weather or no, it is time to be outdoors!

Season journal: Happy Equinox!

My boots went squish when I released the birds. No more solid morning mud!

Mosses win the “first bloom of the season” contest.

We have snow in the north sides of buildings and embankments, but the garden yearns to be turned over. Onion sets await planting!

The rhubarb rewarded my vigilance by making an appearance.

The fields have yet to green. Hidden in the shadows a pair of Sandhills dance the tango.

Yesterday’s walk to the St. Croix River rewarded me with a bald eagle, trumpeter swans, and a goose. If you look down and right from the goose, you can see the wake a river otter was making.

Sunlight drives the pace of life here. Michael broke a bone in his foot and so I spend more time outdoors, trying to get all that he usually does done without getting broken myself. The Marines have a saying, “Pain is just weakness leaving the body.” Michael got me a shirt that says, “Pain is just pain entering the body.” I sleep with ice packs nowadays, but I sleep hard and well. The real challenge is getting Michael to stay off his foot long enough to let it heal. A difficult task for that man of action.
Regardless, we revel in the return of the sun.

Season journal: signs of early spring

I heard my first Sandhill Crane this morning. Sandhills sound so distinctive. Early March and already so much says “springtime!”

Last year’s ducklings are beginning to lay.

They don’t always use the nesting boxes.

They share nesting sites. It is easy to miss some caches.

Even covered with blankets in a dark basement, potatoes know it is time to grow.

Potatoes and eggs.

A little flour.

Gnocchi!

Paired with gratinéed fish and broccoli: an alternative to a Friday fish fry that didn’t disappoint Irene.

This was our first effort at these Italian dumplings: fun and delicious too. Leftovers went into a frittata for a different take on potatoes and eggs.

Our stores are getting thin, but forage for the deer is much thinner. The deer raid the bird feeders every evening.

The warm air and cold ground generates ice fog: spectacular in morning light.

The warm weather has eaten most of the snow…with a little help from Zeke.

We’ve been wearing our anniversary shirts outdoors regularly.

Michael stripped down even further for his semi-annual shearing.

The neighbors are sugaring. The early spring may mean a short syrup season. We are due for overnight freezing for the next week, so they may gather sufficient sap yet.

We look forward to feeding the Grand Girl whatever may be in season when next we meet.

March 10 update: first rain!

Season journal: the waters of February

From subzero highs to above freezing lows, February waters fall and flow.

This local roadside pattern mirrors a braided river bed: formed by slow water running over accumulated gravel.

The St. Croix froze over and the swans, geese, and other water birds fled. Here, a feeder creek opened, as did a small portion of the big river.

That same day I saw the swans had returned.

Later this past week the sun came out and began melting the trees, encouraging them to take a deep breath and swell.

This is a sign of spring here:: snow pocked by tree drops.

Ducks love muck. They muddle the snow, making puddles cupped by bowls of underlying ice.

The chickens venture out less, preferring dry feet. They lack down coats and carry their fat inside, instead of having a layer between them and winter earth.

Today we have snow again. The eyes say “winter” but the nose says “spring.”

We will work hard to have gardens and sprinklers to welcome the Grand Girl when she comes for a summertime visit. In the meantime, she practices putting on her own bathing suit, even if she grows in the desert, where water is scarce in all seasons.

Livestock journal: how Hector got his name

Our chicken flock suffers from too many roosters. This sorry state resulted from Lil’ Blackie becoming broody late in the season, which meant her chicks didn’t show secondary sex features until it was too cold to harvest them. Of her five chicks (all Giant White/Light Brahma mixes) three were male. We already had two roosters: the Giant White (named Mr. Whitey, because his only accomplishment was being a good caretaker) and a Barred Rock (named Roger, because that is who he is). A fox or bobcat relieved us of one extra GiWhAhma rooster, and the other two seemed to be getting along well enough with everyone else. As they all are somewhat indistinguishable, we’ve just been calling them the GiWhAhmas. Until yesterday.

Fallen feathers and what looked like blood, but was a bit of leaf.

Michael took advantage of the sunshine and 20° weather to open up the coops and clean them. That meant shooing out the birds. He noticed some real drops of blood on the ice that accumulated in the chicken coop and the absence of a GiWhAhma rooster. On his way to the used straw heap, he noticed the feathers in the snow. This is when he called me in to track down what happed to the rooster. Michael figured he got chased out of the coop and then eaten by a predator. The question really was: owl, eagle, bobcat or fox? I went to the last sign of feathers. No tracks. No blood. No trail. Then something caught the corner of my eye.

The poor boy ran away and found a place he couldn’t be attacked. He also couldn’t get out. How he got in upside down I’ll never know.

I tried kneeling next to him and easing him up and out, but didn’t have enough up space to make that possible. The next step was to dig him out.

These picket fence pieces got stored behind the pistol backstop long ago. Other boards got tossed on the ground back there as well. Digging out the fencing became a journey of discovery.

Finally, sufficient flexibility to free the chicken.

Here’s Hector!

Michael believes that chickens earn individual names through doing individual things. This no longer is an anonymous GiWhAhma, but Hector: he who was defeated in battle and dragged around the block. The classical Hector also died a violent death, which might happen to this guy as well, but not this day.

This day he got to sit in the sunshine and eat raisins until I was satisfied he hadn’t broken any bones and could get by on his own again. The fact that he let me hold him at all means he was pretty shaken up. The biddies raised by Lil’ Blackie are more skittish than our incubated chicks.

Hector went back into the coop last night. He seemed fine this morning. I do admit to being quite happy to have rescued him, as long as Michael doesn’t start calling me Hecuba. We may have to consider renaming Lil’ Blackie though. I credit her mothering skills with his survival. I do hope she raises another brood for us this year…just early enough to cull the excess roosters before they earn a name!

Style journal: comfort before beauty

In my prior post I mentioned having equipment to deal with the cold. There was also mention of fur and ashes. Let me elaborate.

Walking Zeke at 21 below. I don’t bother wearing glasses. That is frost on my hair wisps. My eyelashes sometimes ice up too.

From nose to toes I cover up as much as possible. I have long underwear from Cabela’s. Hunting clothes are great for warmth and wicking. My Sorrels are big and clunky, but paired with thick woolen socks, they do keep my toes toasty. They don’t breathe at all, so l take the liners out every several days to dry them out. I have baggy boy jeans to go over my long underwear. Hauling water and feed for the birds and wood for the stove can wear through a pair of girl jeans in half a day. A nice plaid shirt and my Carhart jacket keeps the top of me wind proof. Then I add an alpaca scarf under my “fake beard,” which allows me to create a nest that heats air before it hits my asthmatic lungs. A pair of lined goat skin gloves completes the ensemble.

Zeke is still eager to go on walkies, but I know it’s time to go back when he starts to try to hold all his feet off the ground.

The pavement shrank enough in the current cold to create cracks. Big ones. This doesn’t happen every winter.

We’ve gone through a bunch of wood. We have two more bins this size that are mostly full. Filling the wood bins before snow falls is a yearly priority. I’d feel worse about my carbon footprint except using the downed wood probably is more efficient than using oil shipped from Canada or Texas.

The wood burning stove lives in my office nook. This is the oldest part of the house and has no other source of heat. Wood heat is as cozy as it gets (smells good too), but spreads wood chips, dirt and fine ash. We haven’t finished the wallboard in this room as it will all get torn out again when we convert this area into a kitchen. Some day I shall have counter space!

We double plastic the two single pane windows that still live in my office nook. The stripe on the wall that continues along the ceiling is where we took out a wall so that the wood stove could more efficiently heat the rest of the un heated space. That is an awning you see outside the window. It keeps the window from leaking, but blocks any view. We will be installing all new windows in this area. Some day I shall see trees!

We have been here going on seven years. It seems we should have more done, except when you factor in that we do the work ourselves. This means we balance style and comfort. The part we have completed is fairly stylish, as well as comfy. My lust for counter space will overcome the inertia of having gotten used to dirt and ashes in my office nook. Just see if it doesn’t!

Weather journal: party like it’s 1996

We moved to the Frozen North in 1990. We had just finished a two-year stint in Alabama. Michael grew up here, so he knew how to deal with the below zero weather we had that winter. I remember having highs in the double-digits below zero for a couple of weeks every year, but the weather people now tell me that only happened in 1996. We are having highs in the single below digits this February. Not as bad here as the snow they just had in Houston. When you are equipped for cold and snow, it’s easier to withstand. There is something incredible about truly cold weather. I’ve come to love it.

The snow cover has encouraged the pheasant to hang out in the duck yard.

The deer have begun gathering at the chicken feeder. The chickens, on the other hand, mostly stay in their coop.

Michael occasionally rescues the “out hen” and puts her up on a roost. Chickens can be very hard at enforcing a pecking order, by pecking old or infirm birds. We have three who are going on six years old. We figured they might not last the winter, but we aren’t willing to have their final days marked with the cruelty of nature.

Irene insisted we make sure the suet feeder is filled these days. The pileated woodpeckers appreciate the extra calories. We put up an extra sunflower seed feeder outside her window. The cardinals brighten her day.

Zeke and I have cut our daily walks in half. His toes get cold.

The cold encourages us to tackle long overdue projects. Michael cleaned and reorganized my office nook, getting cords off the ground so it’s easier to sweep up ash and fur.

We have been meaning to hang these chicken prints for at least five years. Maybe longer. More things off the floor!

My accent wall amplifies the sunset. We’ll see if I still like the warm colors come summertime.

We ate the last of our home grown carrots. The last of the rutabagas are on the menu tonight.

The squash pile dwindles. We will return to baking them when the birds start to come out of their coops again. We eat some. The birds eat some. We are all happy…when they aren’t in the middle of the kitchen floor.

We need to order seeds and chicks, gather eggs for the incubator, and otherwise begin to prepare for springtime and visits from the Grand Girl and her folks.

In the meantime we will celebrate Michael getting older with Persephone and Nate tomorrow. So good to have children close by.

Injury journal: anatomy of an accident

Now that I’m fairly sure that I haven’t irreparably damaged my intellects, I’m sharing a dissection of how I came by the black eye I’ve sported in the last two posts. The story begins the evening of December 30th, when Michael shot his deer a few minutes before sunset.

The snow: knee deep, beautiful, and exhausting to wade through.

He asked for help retrieving his doe and I answered the call. Three hours later we had her safe in the dooryard. We ate muffins and fell asleep in a heap.

New Year’s Eve came dressed in frost. I walked Zeke and didn’t do much else, still exhausted from the deer rescue mission.

I start this story with these two days to emphasize how tired we both were heading into the new year. I believe we celebrated the end of 2020 and were tucked in by 7 PM.

Remember these behemoths? Michael’s New Years resolution was to cook one every week and feed it to the ducks if not also us. Plenty to share! He took out a 35 lb squash and left it in the middle of the kitchen floor to bake on New Year’s Day.

Of the squash he chose, only one half fit on this tray.

Michael, being tired, didn’t get around to baking the squash in the morning as planned, so he left it in the middle of the floor to remind him to bake it later on. Irene danced around the squash when she made her breakfast. I danced around it most of the day. Cue menacing music.

See these two wonderful aluminum pans? We use them for many things. Around 3 pm on New Year’s Day I decided to use the one without the bail to soak Irene’s feet. I am the designated pedicurist of the family. I was looking for an easy job. I would have used the one with the bail if I could reach it, but Michael had put it up in his tall-guy fashion for the holidays.

This is where circumstances created the perfect storm. I filled the pan with warm water in the kitchen sink with about 3 gallons of water and some Epsom salts. I held the pan in front of me (it now weighing about 25 lbs) and started walking towards Irene’s apartment. The next thing I knew I was on the floor, water everywhere, and sounds reminiscent of any movie battle scene coming from somewhere…oh, that was me. It took me a bit to realize I had tripped over the squash. It felt like a brick wall. A short one.
Irene couldn’t hear me because of distance, two doorways, and a television. Michael couldn’t hear me because he was out cleaning the duck coop. I felt my head. No blood. First good thing. I tried to stand. First bad thing.
It took me a minute or two to figure out I could crawl away from the water, roll on my side, and get my phone out of my back pocket. I texted Michael “Help. I fell.” No answer. I texted Irene “Beer not doing toes. I fell.” They both arrived about the same time.

I hit the edge of the pantry with the pan, then the right side of my head, then my right shoulder.

The pan ended up with a permanent dent.

My head ended up with a big lump. More than two weeks later I still have a small lump there.

My eye and shoulder got bruised; the entire right side was swollen.

I did not go to the doctor. My vision didn’t get blurry, my speech didn’t become slurred, my balance was not compromised. If I had gone to the doctor, she would have ordered an X-ray/MRI, and then told me it was too early to say whether I had a subdural hematoma and to watch for blurry vision, slurred speech, or dizziness. Those are symptoms of bleeding inside the skull, which can be fatal. I know this because I took Irene to the ER when she fell and hit her head and temporarily lost consciousness. My dad did have a subdural hematoma, for which he was hospitalized, after a bad fall. Two of my uncles died from subdural hematomas. Head injuries are nothing to ignore.
I still rely on ice packs on various parts of my body (head, shoulder, lower back) and take ibuprofen regularly to reduce swelling. I have begun exercising again, both to increase blood circulation (that’s what takes away the bruising) and combat inflammation in my joints (due to disuse…the bane of those with arthritis). I credit prior years of resistance training for not having any broken bones. Irene is still gloating that I was the one who fell this time.
Michael initially was angry that I was stupid enough not to use the pail with a bail, to call him when I couldn’t reach the pail with the bail, to fill the pan in the bathroom closer to Irene’s apartment, or to not remember that there was a huge squash sitting in the middle of the floor. Anger is his defensive mechanism against the fear that comes when I get hurt. Thankfully, just that morning there had been an article in our morning news about how the brain takes shortcuts, remembering usual patterns in speech, spaces, and other common things, in order to allow us to move through this world more efficiently. Having my visual path blocked by the pan meant that, to my brain, the squash disappeared. Unfortunately, my feet still found it. Because a science article confirmed that my brain was working as designed, Michael could accept that, perhaps, it is bad policy to leave things in the middle of the floor where they may create a trip hazard. He has been much better about moving things off to the side of walkways ever since.
This is not to say that we were not all complicit in creating the circumstances that resulted in my injurious event. We were all tired. I could have moved the squash myself any number of times that day. None of us were thinking well. This is when bad things usually happen.
The moral of this story is to take it really easy when you are super tired. If you can’t take it easy, take it as easy as you can. If you still get injured, pay attention to your body and look up symptoms and first aid measures. Keep fit and keep walkways as clear of giant squash as possible.

Charcuterie journal: venison kielbasa

We got to put The Beast back in his box, stored the stuffer, and have kielbasa simmering in beer for dinner.

The kielbasa started as all our other sausages, meat and fat and salt and spices ground together, then liquids kneaded in until it looks like it will both stick together and flow through the casing stuffer. The one important difference in this batch was the addition of curing salt to the mix.

We added curing salt due to our desire for smoked kielbasa. It tasted great before smoking, but superlative afterwards. Adding curing salt ensures that nothing untoward grows while held at a low temperature during this process.

We used a combination of applewood and hickory chips. Off to the left you can see some lighter lines where the links touch each other. Ideally, the sausages shouldn’t touch anything which allows the smoke to penetrate all over. The loops of links were too long for the smoker, so I had to bunch them to make them fit. Next year we will be smarter.

The links stayed in the smoker for about 5 hours, but were in smoke for about 4 hours. It took us a while to balance getting the smoke going but not cooking all the fat out of the kielbasa.

Our house smelled like a deli. A really good one.

One of the sites Michael found recommended poaching the kielbasa for 45 minutes at 165°. We aren’t sure if this suppresses undesirable pathogens or just hydrates the sausages.

Every recipe said to shock the sausages in ice water.

Several sites said to hang the sausages in a cool place for a couple of hours. We opened the window in the guest room and left them overnight.

Kielbasa for breakfast!

Kielbasa for dinner!

I hope the house smells like this for days and days. We knew we loved fires. We just didn’t know smoke could be so good.

Charcuterie journal: duck sausage

Last summer we harvested a number of our older ducks. After 2 years they stop laying eggs reliably and we can’t afford to support ever increasing numbers of retired ducks. We ended up with 20 pounds of boned duck meat. Old ducks are tough. In the past two days we have made sausages from those ducks.

Michael was in charge of feeding the frozen duck pieces through our new grinder. We burned out our KitchenAid last year. The new machine is wicked heavy, but it grinds meat like a beast.

This is a batch of bratwurst made with 10 pounds duck meat and 2 pounds duck skin and fat. Onions, seasoning, eggs, and beer complete the composition. Kneading the mix distributes everything and improves texture.

Everything we’ve read counsels keeping the mix as cold as possible. Luckily, we have tons of snow right handy.

After mixing we always need to fry up a bit to check seasonings. The bratwurst passed muster, even without mustard.

We invested in a sausage stuffer last year. It’s been a good investment! This is Michael being cranked.

This part of the process always embarrasses Irene.

Twelve pounds of duck meat and fat made 15 pounds of bratwurst.

The chest freezer, packed like a suitcase.

Today we made potato sausage. It is a Swedish type of sausage that usually features beef and pork, potatoes, onions, and seasonings. We made one batch with all duck meat and a second batch with duck and pork. Most of the potatoes are fed through The Beast along with the onions and meat. I chopped 20% of the potatoes into larger pieces, as that keeps the consistency from becoming too mushy.

Cold fingers fumble tying off the sausage rings.

Fifteen pounds of meat, fifteen pounds of potatoes, five pounds of onions, salt, thyme, allspice, cardamom, white and black pepper and milk made a mound of sausage. The tape measure helped me gauge how long to make the sausage loops into one pound quantities. No. We will not eat all this ourselves.

This has been a ton of work. Just good that Michael and I do this dance together, making physical exertion fun. Next week we hope to take some of our venison and make smoked kielbasa. Today, we are ready to take a shower and tuck into bed.

Blessings journal: thanks for all the help!

There is a lot of territory to cover to count all my blessings. I’ll concentrate on the blessings of help this season.

We had help exploring how fast our desk chairs can whirl.

Help decorating the tree.

Help making cookies.

Help inspecting the snowmobile trail before much snow fell.

Help shoveling after a lot of snow fell.

Help demonstrating advanced manual snow shovel techniques.

Help in exaggerating snowfall amounts.

Help in distributing the largesse of friends and family.

Help in appreciating atmospheric phenomena.

Help lighting the farolitos.

Help enjoying the farolitos (the only decorating we do for the holidays).

Help with the luminaria.

Help feasting.

Help saying “so long.”

Help celebrating the last day of hunting.

Help dragging Michael’s deer a half mile out of the woods through deep snow.

Help appreciating the design elements of chiaroscuro.

Help working out the kinks left from last night’s hike.

Help realizing the wonder that is this world in which we live.

Many are celebrating the end of this year as a time of “good riddance” or bemoaning the coming of change. Life always presents challenges and brings change. May we all have help in appreciating the blessings we are given.

Hunting journal: black powder

Eighteen days. One doe. We continue to hunt. We hope for one more. Black powder season ends with sunset, followed by a four day antlerless only gun season. Then we get to take a break from hunting and prepare for hosting the Grand Girl and her parents.

These are the implements needed to load a black powder rifle. Starting from front left: a bag for bullets, a .50 caliber bullet, a batch of caps loaded into a seating tool, a starter to get the bullet headed down the barrel, a powder measure, a powder flask, and lube. That’s a ramrod in the background, next to a “possibles bag” for carrying all this equipment.

The first step of loading is to pour powder from the flask into the measure. You can see the calibration plunger there below my thumb. Once you have settled on an appropriate charge, the plunger is screwed down so that you get the same quantity each time. The top of the measure scrapes off any excess when closed.

I pour the powder down the barrel.

I smear lube (a bees wax concoction) in the grooves of the bullet, keeping the bottom clean.

I started the bullet and then seated it on top of the powder with the ramrod.

Having a cap seating tool makes getting the cap on the nipple much easier.

The cap in place, the hammer cocked, the safety on.

During gun season, I hunt with a .38 caliber rifle. That designation means the bullet is .38 inches in diameter. The black powder rifle uses a .50 caliber bullet, which means it is a half inch in diameter. The narrower bullet comes out faster because powders that go into cartridge cases burn faster, creating more pressure to push the bullet out of the barrel. Although the black powder bullet goes slower, it delivers about the same amount of energy because it is bigger and heavier. Black powder sounds more muffled than a smokeless powder due to the pressure differential. An advantage of a rifle that shoots a pre-made cartridge is that it loads fast, which means you may get a second shot. With black powder, you had best be absolutely certain of your first shot.

I am now including a lovely pair of pileated woodpeckers so that anyone who does not care to see what happens to a deer harvested with a black powder rifle can stop reading/looking now.

A lovely sunset. Really, you can stop looking now if you don’t like to see the venison production process.

This girl stepped into the clearing 50 feet below my deer stand about 15 minutes before sundown. She was wandering down the hill away from me, which means my bullet went through her lungs and made a very large hole in the top of her heart before coming out the right side of her chest. I didn’t hear her coming but only saw her ghosting out of the brush. She ran about 30 feet before collapsing. The chest exit wound is why there is so much blood beyond her.

I thanked her for being such a beautiful and careless animal; for feeding me and my family this winter.

We had a quarter mile drag back to the house. Going over the disced field was the hardest part.

We got her in the walnut tree with a stick propping open her chest cavity to cool her overnight.

Michael helping her off with her coat the next day.

All of her legs (the quarters) went into the tractor shed, waiting to be boned out into edible bits.

I clean the sinks with a bleach wash to sanitize them before washing hair and dirt off the big pieces. The back haunches will give us roasts and stew meat. The front quarters will go towards burger and sausages.

I free the meat from as much fat as possible. This will become burger.

I render the fat on the stovetop, starting with raw fat covered with water, then slowly simmering until the water is gone and the fat cooks down into cracklings. The chickens love them. We strain the tallow to make soap.

The back straps made 6 lbs of medallions. Think a fat less equivalent of filet mignon.

We also eat the liver (I take the membrane off and slice it) and will add the heart to our sausage mix. Yes. That is a very large hole the bullet made. It went straight through, leaving no shards. It allowed me to leave the girl’s innards for the crows and eagles without worrying about poisoning the scavengers.

Having sharp knives makes me happy. We own an amazing array of knives. We use them all.

The doe’s hide will go to a collection bin run by a local charity. The bones will be burnt in our garden, adding calcium and charcoal to our soil. Having a midwinter bonfire helps clear our brush piles and is a good way of keeping diseases in check. Hunting takes a huge amount of energy on many levels. Doing anything worthwhile takes energy. We hope to be able to continue being top level predators for years to come.

Hunting journal: permission to be quiet

We live in the country. It would seem that every day is quiet. It is, until you sit in a hunting stand for hours and hours, listening.

Listening to squirrels raiding the bird feeder.

Followed by woodpeckers.

Followed by more squirrels.

With a break to walk the dog and listen to snow falling.

Then back to squirrels.

This is the view from the base of a very tall tree stand. I refuse to hunt from the top of this tree. I did see some deer here, eventually. They saw me too and disappeared back into the brush. It was a very exciting 30 seconds.

We’ve had sun and snow and sun and snow.

Listening to the wind reminds me of ocean surf, but not as regular. You can also hear a gust approach, see the trees bend, then feel it as it passes over.
The deer were scarce on our little area of woods this year. The farmer who rents our fields disced the soy bean remnants under two weeks before the season started. The fellow who usually hunts just north of us skipped coming out this year. This meant the deer had no cause to cross our fields or wander our woods. The squirrels and birds didn’t mind.
Black powder season arrived and so we will keep enjoying the noise that comprises quiet for a while longer, until we have completed our hunt and retreat into our normal noise of wood stoves creaking, ducks quacking, chickens crowing, dogs snuffling, electricity humming and, when we are lucky, loved ones snoring.

Light journal: celebrating a dwindling resource

After an early and lasting snow, warmth returned and gifted us a week of sunshine. As of yesterday, the one year anniversary of my little brother’s death, snow returned. Tonight we will have temps in the single digits. This is winter.

Snow softens light and sound.

It makes for wonderful sunsets.

Remnants of the corn harvest glow in the low light of winter.

It turns cattails into tiki torches.

Soft browns and deep blues predominate.

New snow reveals the wanderings of deer.

And mice.

And voles.

And big black dogs.

Until things fade to black and white and sleep comes to us all.

I feel so much anxiety around me. People worry about the election and what changes it will bring to their world. They worry about this pandemic and how to remain healthy in the midst of spreading illness. They worry about carbon and how to balance staying warm or cool and getting from place to place with not being drowned or burned or swept away. Here we are, in this tiny bubble of daily beauty, hoping to share whatever serenity we can. Deepening winter: a time for celebrating the light, any light, one can find in this world.

Ritual journal: visiting the dear departed

All Hallows Day is not as celebrated in this country as much as Halloween (All Hallows Eve). Tomorrow will be All Souls’ Day. We spent yesterday getting ready to go visiting today.

Our first stop was to visit Bucka. The snow is gone but the wind made it feel as if it were in the 20s.

Persephone and Nate joined us this year.

We made Bucka cookies and coffee. Summa told the story of how they met and how she chased him until he caught her. Nate hadn’t heard that one. It made him cry (or maybe that was the wind).

We enjoyed the stories and the sun.

Klink and Harriette are still in Grantsburg. The Kozy wasn’t open, so no fried cheese curds for Harriette to steal. We had a good chat about how they met and courted. Harriette was such a cutie. My niece Valarie reminds me a lot of her.

Here’s to all those Thanksgivings we spent together!

Marcella and Bun got rice crispy bars and orange nectar. She loved anything with marshmallows. He skied well into his 80s. Even though they built their lives in Grantsburg, they came home to Cushing to lay to rest.

Here’s to another strong union and great stories!

We finished our tour with Cleone and Ralph. Cleone loved to go fishing and Ralph loved Cleone. Michael would bring them bread and cookies when they lived in Elk River, as I would often need to go there to visit clients at the Sherburne County Jail.

We returned home to lift a beer to my brother John. We had beans and rice and more stories. Today, All Souls Day, seems more somber and empty. It is good to spend time telling tales and remembering those who shared so much of their lives and love.

We need more time to create those stories with the next generation.

Weather journal: record breaking snow!

Five inches of snow on October 20th set a new record. Seems the trees knew what they were doing turning early.

We had warning the storm would come. We scurried to get the last autumn chores done.

I scoured the carbon off the bottom of the pots used to render fat and scald birds before plucking.

We cleaned out the last of the gardens, mowed the pastures one last time, collected the leeks, and covered the carrots with straw. They will last until Christmas if left in the ground. The straw keeps them from freezing.

It started snowing at about 1:30 PM.

The snow lasted through today. So good to be having soup weather again!

Season journal: the bear necessities

Bear? Bare? Behr? Three days after my last post I accepted a paying (eventually) challenge. Whatever drives me to moonlight has taken over all my extra brain space, which explains why I haven’t posted in a while. I’m posting now to celebrate almost completing the first stage of that project.
This doesn’t mean things haven’t been rolling right along. It does mean Michael has been doing all the heavy lifting.

Michael harvested a number of downed trees, which now just (!) need to be split and stacked. We had our first sprinkle of snow today, so filling the wood bins has become the driving need.

Updates. So much happens so quickly here in fly-over country. Here goes:

We are not the only ones preparing for winter. In mid-September we noticed a hole next to our driveway. On close inspection we discovered a bear raided a ground bee nest for its honey. Who knew ground bees were there?

Michael harvested the rutabagas he planted end of July. A magnificent crop, some paraffined for later consumption.

Rutabaga is an essential ingredient of Finnish pasties, a Yupper (or UP-er, meaning a denizen of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) staple.

Mashed rutabaga eats well. Clockwise from top: braised carrot and leek mash, Blue Hubbard mash, braised duck leg, and rutabaga mash. All from our gardens!

We ended up with 73 winter squash. We managed to distribute/barter about 40. The rest are in our basement. It feels good to share the garden wealth.

We bottled the rhubarb wine. Michael did the math and figures we have enough to drink a bottle a week for a year, with some left over to share. It’sa little raw, but Irene says it’s delightfully drinkable.

The leaves have been magnificent. Most are gone with the wind, rain and snow of the past week.

Ground cherries magically appeared in our garden this year. Think tiny, sweet tomatillos. They make a most amazing jam.

On the construction front, we have begun the process of creating a direct passage between the old house and the addition. A window used to reside in this hole. A doorway will go to the right of it someday.

The last of the ducks made it to Freezer Camp. Always good to get this done while we can still work outside. We love our ducks. I always have to stroke their breasts before and after the chopping block, to calm them and thank them for their lives.

Today’s snow did in most of the gardens. We have a small patch of leeks and carrots left.

A final photo of those marvelous rutabagas. Having cabbages and root crops stored away makes me feel rich indeed.

I can hardly wait to share the bounty with this wee wooly one.