Foraging journal: Gleaning and other skills

Last year Michael mentioned that we could gather some of the bounty left in the fields after harvest. This year I took him up on that challenge in a small way. During a couple of dog walks, I invaded a neighbor’s field to glean soy beans.

Gleaning is an old tradition where locals gather whatever is left in the field after harvest. Some places have institutionalized this idea for food banks. There is not much call for raw soy beans anywhere I know, and I have to say that it would take a lot of work to gather significant quantities of soy from these fields. But for experimentation sake, it was worth the walk.

Michael husked my beans and we composted the husks, saving the beans for an opportune moment. As there is never an opportune moment around here, Michael hauled off and started soaking beans a couple of days ago.

You will note that the beans are now bean-shaped, and at least doubled in size. Why would we be soaking beans? I suppose we could have tried cooking them as a pinto bean, but instead we decided to try making tofu.

To one cup of soaked beans we added a cup and a half of our lovely well water, then blended.

We ended up with five batches of blended beans, which had this amazingly thick foam on top. The instructions we read said to be careful at this stage and constantly stir the mixture until it boiled. Apparently, soy solids burn easily.

I could tell something was happening because all that foam went away. Interesting. The next step was to put the slurry into a muslin cloth and wring the milk away from the lees. Michael and I were both so busy handling hot soy milk to take any photos of this step of the process.

As I saved the lees, which are called “okara”, I at least have a photo of what was left over after we strained out the soy milk. It is about the consistency of masa harina, or corn tortilla dough. I also don’t have photos of cooking the soy milk and adding nigari, or magnesium choride, which actually was like watching paint dry. You stir the milk until it reaches about 170 F, and then add the nigari, stir a couple of times, cover and let sit for half an hour.

Michael ordered nigari on line. We had to make the nigari solution just before putting it in the hot soy milk. Michael also dug out some of our old cheese-making equipment. The processes are strikingly similar, only tofu is like a fresh cheese, meant for immediate consumption.

We loaded the curd into forms, put the tops on and found weights and left them for about a half an hour. Because we are using cheese, not tofu, forms, our tofu turned out round. Look at all that liquid! I tried some and it was not unpleasant, but nothing to brag about either. The house plants ended up drinking the soup as it is high in nitrogen. Beans are that way.

Was the experiment worth it? Home made tofu has a similar texture to firm store bought tofu but tastes better. Michael calls it a nuttiness, or perhaps just a more complex flavor. It is much cheaper to make, especially if the beans are for free! But we can buy a 50 pound sack for $25, which combined with the cost of the nigari, might come in at less than $1 for a meal’s worth. We pay close to $5 for that much tofu at the store…and by making it we get the house plant fertilizer and the okara as extras. Those are okara cookies. They are tasty, but a bit texturally challenged. I believe I will experiment around with the recipe. Making tofu at home involves a time component. We hope that with practice we will get more organized and thus more efficient. If you can do the various boils in between working on other things, it should not be that burdensome.

For dinner tonight I made okara patties. Dipped in sweet Thai chili sauce, they were magnificent. Who doesn’t like fried things? I made them with carrots, green onions, sliced up nori (sea weed), almond flour, corn starch, truffle salt and a bit of water. Yes, I have a strange mix of things in my larder. The stir fry was with carrots, onions and cabbage from the garden, and some thin noodles and black bean sauce (more soy!) from my local Asian food store (which is about 70 miles away). Michael and I are stuffed!

We just learned a new thing, or maybe five. Like many of our adventures, it involved food. This food ties us even more to the land around us.

We hope to feed soy beans in all their various glories to these wonderful people sometime soon.

Celebration journal: picnicking with our dearly departed

One of the advantages of moving to the area from which your family has lived for more than a hundred years is that you get to visit in person as well as in spirit. Halloween is like Christmas Eve, only it is the night before All Saints’ Day, which is followed by All Souls’ Day. These are the days when those who have died come back to visit and be remembered. Irene was so afraid we would forget her. Even Lilith got to tell stories of her Summa this year. Her Summa’s red hair, having fingernails painted, watching kid shows on TV. Endless snacks.

Irene now has her own headstone. We brought photos and food and family. It is a tradition from my Mexican ancestors, but having picnics with the dearly departed also used to be a Midwestern tradition. Except it was honored on Memorial Day, which was for all the dead and not only veterans. It would make more sense to picnic in May around here. Who said we must operate on good sense?

The Grand Guy is walking, but I think he just likes to roll around in the grass.

Michael made everyone’s favorite cookies: oatmeal, chocolate chip, molasses. The last from a recipe his grandma used and was gifted us by Harriette.

Petra wandered about, eating the cookies and drinking the drinks left for the dead. I believe they were delighted to share with her.

We visited three cemeteries. The first was the Veterans Cemetery, to be with Summa and Bucka. Then to Grantsburg, to see Harriette and Klink. Harriette is Clyde’s older sister, and she and Klink became secondary grandparents to our children. We spent many Thanksgivings and Christmases with them. It is good still to spend this one holiday with them each year. The last graveyard is three miles from our home, and is where Michael’s great grandparents, grand parents, uncles and aunts, friends and extended family are buried. We make a special visit to see Cleone (Nonie) and Ralph, who took Michael and his brothers fishing and were always the “cool” aunt and uncle. We hope to be buried next to Cleone and Ralph. We came back to the house and had beans and tortillas, in memory of my father and his parents, and then apple pie for my mom’s folks.

Usually we freeze on our rounds of visits. This year we wore sunglasses and T shirts. Now the wind howls and tears at the last leaves with sharp teeth.

We ate the last of summer’s tomatoes. We will keep eating cabbage and root vegetables until January or so. Potatoes will last until springtime, when dandelion greens become our first harvest. It is a time to contemplate death, to remember those who have gone before, cherish their memories, create new memories in those who will come after. And it is good to have a reason to eat cookies!

Weather journal: last days of summer

We are in the roller coaster time of year, where the high went from 40 to 60 in 24 hours.

Perfect for getting the corner on the siding.

I made any number of trips up and down the ladder making my template. It was worth it. The top of the corner didn’t bind anywhere when we put it up. Whew.

The warmth let me get the soot off the bird dipping pot without freezing my fingers.

The mulberry lost all its leaves on the same day as one of the apples decided to bloom. This is a very strange year.

Michael finished taking down the interior wall in the room with new windows. Now we hope to be able to better visualize where the stove, ovens, refrigerator, etc., will go. We need to plan now due to appliances having different power requirements. Wires go in, then insulation, then wallboard. Getting even this close to having increased countertop space makes my heart go pitter pat. The transition to the new kitchen/bathroom/laundry will need to happen all at once, since it will mean shutting the water down and tearing out/replacing all the plumbing in half the house. I’m thinking of it as a prolonged camping trip, with really nice beds. Stay tuned!

Weather journal meets construction journal: first snow and last metal

We awoke to our first snow this morning. We usually rejoice in this yearly event. Today, we wish it had waited just 24 more hours. It did not. Instead, we have had flurries all day, and a hard rain came at sunset.

Even so, we got all the metal up, but for the corner. We need one more burst of warm weather, and some double-sided butyl tape, to put up the corner piece.

We began the siding project with putting up new soffit on October 4. Michael’s father used Lauan, a very thin plywood, for his soffit. Because it was so thin, he didn’t put in any vents, as the Lauan wasn’t strong enough to support them. This worked as long as no one lived in the house in winter. Lack of vents means cold air can’t circulate in the attic above the insulation. A warm roof melts snow, but the eaves are colder, causing ice damming. This backs water up the shingles and into the house. Never a good situation. We covered the Lauan with half inch plywood and added vents. The house breathed a sigh of relief. The sturdier plywood should also prevent warping and gaps, reducing the number of places for insects to come inside.

The next step after the soffit was putting up J channel along the top of the walls and around windows. The bottom trim also went up at this time.

It took us half a day to find a template to cut the roof slope. I had one last year, but the various moves of storage items made my old one disappear. Luckily, Michael found a piece of scrap from the tractor shed project from about 7 years ago. It worked. Hooray for being pack rats!

Installing the outside electrical box took another half a day. Part of the problem was finding all the parts we purchased a month ago…and then lost in the general mayhem that is our lives. I look forward to having a space that is construction free. Someday.

All the photos are of Michael working. That just means he was too busy to take photos of me up a ladder. Note there really are two ladders here. We would both climb up to install the pieces above windows. For the ones that went around windows, I’d be up top to make sure the metal went inside the J channel and Michael did the lifting from the bottom. Then I’d hold things in place while he hammered nails. I have a series of bruises on my legs and arms from ladder rungs.

Having this project take ten days seems really slow. But we take off Saturdays to be with our children and the Grands.

We take time to marvel at apples and lilacs blooming in early October, and a cob growing where a tassel should have been.

We take time to make good things to eat from the bounty of our gardens. The last photo is pumpkin juice. I make Petra a pumpkin spice cake, which required removing water from the baked pumpkin. I couldn’t bear to toss the water, it smelled so wonderful. Michael agreed that it was fit to drink…straight!

We take time to marvel at the special light of this time of year.

We take time to celebrate all these gifts we have been given and marvel at all the life around us. Family. Friends. Strangers just waiting to become friends. I am tired to my bones and happy to no end.

Season journal: first frost

Frost threatened on September 27th and came on the 28th.

Frost means our gardens are mostly done.

We stripped our cabbages, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and green beans. I made a wonderful soup from chicken broth, cabbage, green beans, tiny potatoes and kielbasa.

The low-lying wildflowers survived.

We spent Monday, the 26th, reducing our overburden of roosters. The cold means living in tighter quarters. Peace in the coop becomes ever more important. The Wyandottes were 20 weeks old and averaged 4 pounds, the chicks incubated by Lil’ Blackie were 10 weeks old and averaged 2 pounds, and the broilers at 8 weeks old averaged 8 pounds.

We have had several broilers die on us. Doing the evisceration, I noticed the smaller ones had internal plumbing aberrations. Because the broilers are genetically related, every year’s hatch seem to share certain characteristics, both for good and bad. Even though we would have liked to grow the broilers a bit more, the weather and the morbidity rate said the time for harvest was now.

We picked the last of the apples on Wednesday and pressed more cider. I think we went through 60 gallons of apples to make 8 gallons of cider. Michael took about 6 and a half gallons to make apple wine. I boiled the leftovers and made apple cider syrup.

Pancakes with fresh syrup was what we had for dinner. Michael said it tasted like sour apple candy. Ten cups cider filled my wok. It made two cups of syrup. I’m not sure I would do this again, or I might try it with different apples. It is very intense.

The frost killed the squash and pumpkin vines. I harvested the last of the potatoes I had planted in the straw pile. We haven’t counted up our squash harvest, but it appears plentiful. We suffer from cross pollination with the giant pumpkins. Good thing they are tasty, even if ridiculously sized.

We will feed pumpkin to all our cutie pies.

Construction journal: windows in!

Look! Windows in!!! Whew! (Ok, many exclamation marks, but this is major.)

We started by drilling the corners of the rough openings to the outside, allowing us to figure out where to cut the house wrap. Michael then cut out the OSB.

Petra and Matt were visiting. We were all mesmerized.

After the hole was cut, we put flashing on the bottom sill, then lifted the window up into place, where Michael nailed the fins onto the OSB. Then we flashed the sides and top.

“We lifted the window up into place.” Ha! I was shaking so much after that first window. I’m not sure how much those windows weigh, but we had to lift them over my shoulder height. Without having them tip over. We learned from the first and the second two came easier.

Let there be light!

We got three windows in over two days, then celebrated with our funny shaped sweet potatoes, some sautéed oyster mushrooms, and duck breasts. Michael found the oysters growing on a walnut stump in the duck yard. The have a vague anise scent.

We harvested more potatoes. We will have enough potatoes to feed a small army.

We’ve been enjoying our meals at our indoor bistro nook. We’ve been looking forward to meals in this space for years! It’s every bit as good as we imagined, and then some.

We get to watch the change in leaves.

It also gives us a bit more horizontal space. We needed the extra space for making cakes and pies for our local church’s fundraiser today.

Michael makes the best pies! He’s my sweetie.

Season journal: fall comes

High summer ends and fall comes. It is a time of maturing, growing up, wearing out.

The baby turkeys grow large. Leaves begin to turn red.

We separate garlic for fall planting.

All our hatchlings are laying eggs. We have gotten to the place where we hope to house more over winter, unable to decide if we lack space for those who remain. Autumn joy wins us over. We have had too much death this summer.

The apple harvest keeps us working. Eight gallons of cider and counting. Heat will keep us from working on windows, allowing us to squeeze more apples. It is all a balancing act.

The rhubarb wine is ready to bottle, freeing space in primary fermentors for more cider. Balancing act!

We found another Hen of the Woods while hunting in the Mushroom Woods. We also found more Lobster Mushrooms. We did not find any Chicken Mushrooms. Our children sent us a message that there were Chicken Mushrooms to be found, and we found them. So happy we have taught children what to look for!

Morning fog. Less light. So many signs to tell us: work hard for winter is coming!

Even if winter comes for us, endless spring exists in those who come after us.

Construction journal: window progress

This past Sunday we harvested 10 of our 14 broilers. We considered it a vacation from window construction. We now have about 50 pounds of chicken parts in our freezer. We will need to offload some of our stashed protein on our children! On Monday we recommenced window replacement.

These were the last two single paned windows in the house. They are gone now.

The last old window. Out. Yay.

Framed for a new window! If you compare these two photos, you will notice that Clyde used windows that fit between 24” studs. As such, he didn’t need to create headers to support the roof trusses over a window. The windows were between all needed supports. However, the windows he used leaked, which then required him to build awnings over them. It worked, but also blocked the view. I am looking forward to being able to see out of windows!

Michael and I got the Oriented Strand Board (OSB) up by balancing it on a board and then attaching it to the studs. Figuring out where to put that board wasn’t as easy as it may seem. OSB comes in 8 foot sheets. The wall, however, is longer than 8’. Clyde installed a small strip of siding at the top to fill the gap. I didn’t notice this immediately (since I hadn’t been working up there) and so our first two sheets of OSB wouldn’t pull down right. It took us until the second sheet to figure out what was wrong, which meant we had to take down those sheets, lower our board by about 3/8”, and then put them up again. They fit the second time.

Because we put a basement under an existing structure, the two parts of the house don’t align well. In order to have siding that doesn’t buckle at the bottom because of the uneven spacing, we have been shimming out the space and extending the OSB to the cement block of the basement.

Not only does this look better, but it will protect the wood from getting wet and rotting.

House wrap. More moisture barrier. We will cut out the window holes next week. It is due to start raining again tomorrow.

Time to pick more potatoes.

Make and eat apple pie.

Pick and roast vegetables.

And enjoy the little things in life.

Construction journal: about those windows…

We began the three window project in all seriousness this week. During the past couple of weeks, Michael had taken off the chimney to our wood stove, then the siding, and then we began tearing down the interior wallboard.

Finding the screws holding on the wallboard was challenging in that the whole purpose of taping is to hide them. Michael devised a clever trick of using niobium coin magnets to find the screw heads. Worked like a charm!

The next part of the deconstruction portion of this project was figuring out which breakers went with the wires running through the walls. We could trace three of the five wires, but the next two ran into the part of the house we are not yet tearing apart. So Michael turned off the main breaker and cut the wires, capped the live ends, and turned the breaker back on. We now know what those wires powered.

One powered the refrigerator and the other the washer. We’ve been dancing around extension cords ever since. Michael pulled those wires downstairs and hopes to re-route them under the house one of the rainy days they are promising…perhaps tomorrow.

We could tell that the sill plate and part of the flooring had rotted away. Before taking down the wall to the corner, we built a support system for the roof trusses. No having the roof fall on our heads!

I was too busy to get a photo of the joists we installed to support that portion of flooring, but they are there!

We got the window framed, the rest of the wall reinstalled, and put up OSB today. It’s been a couple of pretty intense days. We will frame in the next two windows before actually installing them. We haven’t found any more rotten areas, which is better than we expected.

In between times we have been graced with visits from children and grands. The babies are jockeying to see who begins to walk first.

We have begun harvesting potatoes. It’s our first year growing blues. They are best fried. They crisp wonderfully.

Our neighbor gifted us about 60 straw bales, which we gathered from our field.

While we were out, we checked on my deer stand. At the bottom of the oak it’s built around, we stumbled on this magnificent hen of the woods mushroom. It is now dried, waiting to go into stews this winter.

We found a sackful of aborted entaloma in the Mushroom Woods. They usually don’t appear until October. We also found lobster mushrooms. We usually find them in July. The fungus that turns the mushrooms red will infect more than one type of mushroom. Since I can’t be sure the underlying shroom is edible, I’ll make dye baths from the lobsters.

We’ve eaten tomatoes morning and night.

And today was the Grand Girl’s first day of school. She reported having a good time. I can hardly wait to see her and find out what she has learned.

Time warp journal: this is how our days go

We ordered new windows in March. They arrived in July. Such is the nature of supply chains these days. We still haven’t begun to install them. We have made progress in that direction, but triage overwhelms us.

Yesterday Michael announced that the pears were ripening. This is an emergency, as a ripe pear keeps for 30 seconds. Not all pears ripen at the same time. But if you wish to do anything but graze upon them, the time to act is always NOW.

I picked while Michael set up the press. They ranged in ripeness from sauce to potato hard.

I used the riding mower as a ladder and picked the tree clean. It filled the metal bucket, but just covered the bottom of the plastic one.

I chopped while Michael pressed. The juice turned out to be a light pink and tasted like a perfectly ripe pear smells. We have about 2 gallons fermenting. We will see how it translates into cider.

This afternoon we are sitting on the deck, enjoying the antics of the ducks who graze in the upstairs pasture. We spent from 7 am to 4 pm harvesting 6 ducks. That is 6.5 pounds of immediately edible duck (no, that is not what’s for dinner), and 8 pounds of sausage makings. We have 11 more ducks who need to go before winter arrives. The choice of who lives and who goes to freezer camp becomes ever more difficult. We harvest whenever the temperature drops low enough in the morning to fend off flies. We usually harvest 4 at a time due to having other required tasks, but time and approaching winter presses. One of our time sinks is to replace single pane windows. We have been having scattered rain, which keeps us from tearing down outside walls. We need to tear down walls to install the windows. Triage rules our lives.

Except for the bit we reserve for family. Tomorrow we make dinner for our children and their children. It is good to have occasion to set aside need and simply celebrate life. Is it work if it is joyful? It’s a debate I’m having with my back right now. Joy is winning.

Season journal: sure signs of autumn

High summer still reigns, but autumn begins to peep around the corner.

We have new potatoes! The purple vines have begun to die back, a sure sign harvest time approaches. Tomatoes come plentiful and luscious, finding a place in every meal. Michael and I went fishing for the first time this year, perhaps the latest we’ve been out since arriving eight years ago.

“Beautiful. Gorgeous. Wish you were here.”

Meadow mushrooms and puffballs appear as if by magic. We brake for fungus! These we found on the lawn surrounding a local business.

Sautéed, they made an amazing omelette. We also made mushroom pizza, but wolfed it down before I took a photo.

Our neighbor cut and threshed his oats and barley this week. The ripening oats have scented the air of Cheerios. Ripening grapes waft KoolAid memories through the air. Tasseling corn in the heat of August mimics cotton candy. Biking through the rolling hills—better than a rollercoaster at a carnival.

We made a hajj to the Cities to view a textile exhibit at a museum. It is interesting and exciting to visit urban areas.

We have also sojourned to the Cities to deliver the Grand Girl her mother’s childhood bed frame (we did not save the cowboy mattress that came with it when we bought it 30 years ago), and to repair the porch screen door frame at our other daughter’s house. We installed a temporary screen door taken out of our space, making sure that our repair job lasts the winter.

As much fun as it is to have our children and grandchildren within driving distance, we love coming home to find the sweet potatoes have begun to bloom and to take advantage of ripening plums.

We can lull those babies to sleep on our bumpy roads, having them breathe in all the memories they form even before formal memory begins. Their noses will recall these ripe scents of high summer and nascent fall, with our love swirling through it all.

Garden journal: the fruits and vegetables of our labors

The first ripe tomato appeared on July 29th. I always hope for tomatoes by my birthday. I’m usually overly optimistic. The plum tomatoes ripen earlier than all the others. I like plum tomatoes. I like our big tomatoes too.

We grow four varieties of garlic: two types of hard neck and two soft neck. It is our mantra that having more varieties allow for the natural variability of weather on the harvest. We were eating the soft necks up until the hard necks got ripe. I love having a continuous garlic supply!

This is about half of our onion harvest. We will be buying onions again. The late springtimes and early autumns reduce the size and quality of our onions, regardless of the variety.

The cabbage and rutabagas limp along but the popcorn likes the weather we’ve had. Michael holds pickling cucumbers near as they appeal to his love of salt.

Grape leaves and black pekoe tea bags give the pickles crunch. Volunteer dill and garden garlic give them flavor. Salt cures them. We have munched our way through a gallon already!

Sunday past saw us with sufficient time to go to the Mushroom Woods. It is our first outing this year. We saw few signs of old mushrooms, but found a young new one.

Along with green beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic and herbs, it became dinner.

Michael and I were working on a variety of projects yesterday. It got to be 6 pm and we were hungry. I gathered some beet greens, Michael dug a few potatoes, he had made Hungarian cucumbers and we had leftover pinto beans. With a little red chile, dinner couldn’t have been better (or faster).

Fried potatoes was what my dad called “papas doraditas.” He said my grandmother would make them from time to time because she knew they were his favorite. I think of them both when I fry potatoes.

Beet stems and green beans make a fast and tasty dinner as well. I keep ginger root on hand for such opportunities.

Today we harvested four of our ducks. We have 22 more to go. We wait for cool mornings and work fast to avoid as many flies as we can. Then the inside work began. Michael went hunting in the tomato thicket and hit pay dirt.

Tomato and egg sandwiches are what’s for dinner.

We planted Irene a week ago today.

I like to think of her as the genie in the bottle. She always did like green rooms. We had a good party in her honor. I was so busy having a good time I forgot to take photos.

We will have to bring Clyde and Irene some of the sunflowers from our garden. In October or early November we will bring the Grands to visit and tell them stories of all those for whom they are the fruit of their labors.

Learning journal: Cake

Michael is a pie person. My family tend to be cake people. Even having grown up wallowing in cake of all types, I continue to learn about cake.

Our wild black raspberry crop came in few and far between this year. Even gathering over about a week, I could only come up with about 4 cups, so I decided to incorporate them into a cake. A cup or so of sugar, juice of a lime, a drop or two of almond extract, corn starch, and some light simmering, transformed them into pie filling consistency.

I made my mom a lemon raspberry cake for her birthday, but I wasn’t happy with the actual cake part. When I was making the Grand Girl’s cake, I researched what makes a good Red Velvet cake. Moistness and lack of hard edges were a couple of the criteria. The Red Velvet batter was very thin. The lemon cake batter was thick. But both instructed to bake until wet crumbs stuck to a cake tester and then to let the cake finish cooling entirely in the pan. What this does is allow the cake to finish baking outside the oven, which prevents over-baking. The recipe also called for the juice and zest of two lemons. Wow. This is where I got the lemon cake recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/lemon-cake/ Because I can never leave well enough alone, I fine-chopped some lemon thyme (one of my flower pot herbs) and added it to the mix. It came out as moist and lovely as the Red Velvet cake had. I got that recipe here: https://divascancook.com/the-best-red-velvet-cake-recipe-easy-homemade-moist-with-southern-flair/ As for the frosting, I went with the Divas Can Cook version again. It is basically the same as Sally’s Baking Addiction in method, but uses four packages of cream cheese instead of one, and less sugar. Even my daughter who doesn’t like frosting likes the supercharged cream cheese. Then again, she likes cheesecake, so I suppose this makes sense. As a practice tip: using parchment paper in the pan allows the cake to release when cooled without sticking to the pan. This would not work with a Bundt pan! The cake left a fresh, lemony taste in the mouth. It may be due to the zest of two lemons or the lemon thyme. Whatever it was, the cake did not last long!

I am beyond thrilled to have more people to help me eat cake!

Season journal: jam

We planted Nankin cherries in among bare root pine sprigs about 30 years ago. Now those pines tower above the cherries, mostly shading them. They are tiny things and usually produce enough fruit for 4-6 cups of jam.

This year, I filled this bowl to the brim!

Fifteen cups of cherry jam! I feel rich.

The black currants came few and far between. They gave me four jars of jam. You will know I truly love you if you get one of these jars. It is my favorite.

The red currants have thrived this year. They are jelly fodder. If we have enough, we may even try to make a little red currant wine….

The mulberries we planted five years ago are beginning to produce fruit. Not enough at any one time to make jam, but sufficient to entertain Michael while he puts away the ducks at night.

The black raspberries are also few and far between this year. I will see if I can gather enough to make jam.

We have tiny chicks. I may feed them some raspberries. Or I may feed raspberries to a Grand. They are all great.

Garden journal: high summer is here

We ate all the radishes and need to plant more. Salad forms the base for all our dinners. We can eat nothing but salads now that we are not enticing Irene’s appetite. We have no trouble inhaling whatever comes our way!

The popcorn made it through the crates Michael built. Because it is a heritage variety, it tends to lodge (fall over) in high winds. The crates help keep it upright. The beets will be ready in another week or two. We are still waiting for our first peas and beans. We have had good rain, but days that swing between hot and cool.

The winter squash want to take over the world. We need to keep them out of the field this year, as the oats and barley will ripen before the pumpkins will.

Tomatoes have set fruit. August should see them ripen. Eggplant will come in at about the same time. My mouth is watering already.

I am particularly proud that the potatoes look this good. Even though we moved them away from the beetle infested ground, the beetles are mobile. They found our potatoes.

We patrol the patch almost every day. We crunch the mature beetles, lift up leaves looking for those conveniently colored egg clusters, remove them, and squish any of the grubs that have already hatched. It is a lot of stoop labor, but it is the only way to control this particular pest. Left alone, they strip plants to the ground.

We harvested the broilers today. They were about 7 pounds each. We will leave a couple of the broilers we ordered for early August until they are in the 10 pound range for holiday dinners.

We recruited help picking and chopping the 36 pounds of rhubarb that is now sitting downstairs, fermenting into wine.

It can never be too early to introduce the Grand Guy into the delightfulness of rhubarb.

That way he can teach his cousin how it’s done!

Death and life journal: Goodnight Irene/Happy Birthday L

Irene. Ma. Summa. Red. She left us on June 20th, a Monday morning. The very last smile she had was for Lilith, who turned 5 shortly after her Summa died. She will be buried next to Clyde at the Northern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Center in Spooner. We will be able to visit them and share stories, raising a cup of coffee to Bucka (Clyde) and a glass of Baily’s to Summa (Irene) as they lie there side by side. She gets her own gravesite, as she is a veteran in her own right. She was a trailblazer on so many levels. And every time we visit, I will sing “Together Again,” just for her.

Summa wanted to be there for The Grand Girl’s party, but didn’t quite make it. I made sure Irene saw the twirly skirt she told me to buy for this dancing girl. They both loved it, as I knew they would.

Michael and I operated on 3-4 hours of sleep for about 2 weeks. It led us to the inevitable brain fog that does not easily go away. We had 100° weather the day Irene died. We lost 21 of our broilers to the heat. We didn’t check on their water supply in time. Four of the broilers and all of the Golden Wyandottes survived our negligence.

We ride bikes, care for the birds, work in our gardens, and do those things that life and death require. We are not so much tired as we are exhausted. It will take a while to heal from this transition. It was good to be housemates with Ma for the past 8 years. The last 6 months became intense. For the love of those around you, eat good food, mostly vegetables, and avoid sitting for long periods.

Blooming journal: everything’s coming up roses

Irene. Ma. Summa. Red. She is one of the most precious flowers in our garden. She’s been a bit droopy lately, but seems to be coming back. We are hoping a little more TLC (and a lot of elbow grease) will get her over this latest slump.

Wild roses. Red clover. Orange hawk weed. Vetch. Goats beard. Wild carrot. Phlox. Columbine. Daisies. No cascades of azaleas as in Berkeley. No riot of hibiscus as in São Paulo. But the aroma of ripening black raspberries is headier than single malt whiskey.

The winter squash are up and getting in gear. Tomatoes, eggplant and peppers look lively. All but one of the potatoes spronged. The first radish is always the sweetest. Popcorn and onions haze green. That is rhubarb being boisterous in the front row.

Michael completed the fence for a new duck pasture today.

The chicks grow by leaps and bounds.

And the Grand Boy has a smile as bright as the roses. Michael and I have been exhausted. But a cup of tea on the deck, watching deer and turkeys and herons and swallows, reminds us why this work is worthwhile.

Garden journal: squirrels ears

Michael says the time to plant corn is when the oak leaves are the size of squirrels ears.

It’s been a challenge to get the garden bed prepared in time.

Yesterday I noticed the oaks had leaves.

And Michael planted the popcorn. He also planted onions. Cabbages and carrots go in today.

The radishes he planted in the raised beds surrounding the big garden say hello.

They share space with sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, peppers, and lettuce.

The potatoes went into a straw pile garden.

The big garden is infested with potato beetles. They overwinter in the dirt. We fought them all last year. It was time to find new ground.

We also planted our other nightshades (tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers) in new dirt. We had to cover these delicate plants with straw a couple of days ago due to frost danger. They survived!

Penstemon, Sweet William, wild geraniums, mustard, strawberries, and yellow violets accent the intense and varied greens of spring.

We have taken advantage of cool afternoons to ride through this changing landscape. It helps work the kinks out! We sleep hard and fast these days. Soon the busy season will be here.

Livestock journal: the importance of poop

We retrieved a box full of chicks from the feed store on May 10. Michael had set up a place for them to be warm and safe in the chicken coop. Our weather had been chilly, so two heat lamps glowed brightly.

Then the weather warmed. We neglected to keep a close eye on the temperature in the chick enclosure.

Michael found this poor baby four days after we picked them up. Discovering the cause of death was important due to the possibility of having brought avian flu into our coop. Due to the liveliness of the other chicks and the temperature swings, I first checked for signs of dehydration.

Sure enough. This is a condition called pasty butt. It kills by preventing poop to come out of the chick. I found three chicks who needed their bottoms cleaned. I performed this act of care with a cotton swab dipped in oil. We reduced the heat lamps by one and haven’t had any more losses.

Harvest journal: delayed duck reduction

Our livestock age group became unbalanced when Michael underwent foot surgery last year. We normally harvest ducks in the fall. This year we started yesterday.

The ducks began to molt, but due to the late spring were not terrible for pin feathers.

Pin feathers are like stubble: sharp and short. They are hard to remove from the skin, which has led us to discard the entire skin at times. We hate doing that as duck skin is about half of the harvestable weight. It also makes delicious sausage, cracklings, and rendered duck fat. No one eats feathers, not even coyotes, with good reason. Pin feathers also reduce the amount of down salvageable from the duck. Sharp is antithetical to downiness!

We sacrificed 5 drakes and a hen. These small stones came from the hen. The drakes only had sand sized grit in their gizzards. We added the hearts and gizzards to the sausage meat mix now sitting in our freezer. Out of 6 ducks we harvested a 10 pound package of a meat/skin mix for sausage (80% meat, 20% skin), a 5 pound package of pure skin and fat (to add to other sausages), and 3/4 pounds of livers for dinner tonight. We try to use as much of the duck as we can, not least because it took us about 7 hours of hard work to put duck in the freezer.

Many people would not go to the trouble and would simply kill the old ducks and bury them. Harvesting our ducks is part of loving them and celebrating their lives. Pear blossoms mean future work, but present beauty.

Same with plum, apricot, and cherries. Having food literally be the fruit of one’s labor provides a level of appreciation for what energy it takes to feed people.

We hope not only to feed another generation, but to pass along that appreciation.

Michael’s motto: Raise them right. Don’t plant them too deep.