Weather journal: observations on twenty below

January. Wisconsin. Cold.

We hit twenty below for the first time yesterday, January 30th. I made myself a “fake beard” for exactly this weather. Alpaca and mohair means it doesn’t irritate my face and does a good job of keeping my body heat near my skin. The deer and birds also puff themselves up, keeping warm by insulating the air next to their skin.

The sun begins to have strength as we tilt toward springtime. Cloudless days still signal colder weather, as all that solar power bounces off the snow cover without any clouds to trap the warmth. Still air keeps the wind from blowing, or the lack of wind keeps the cold from going.

Today we have cloud cover, a small breeze and only fourteen below. The breeze makes up for the lower absolute temperature, cutting through my fake beard and making my nose rosy. My eyelashes froze together from my breath yesterday, but not today. I avoid wearing glasses as they always fog in this type of cold.

The prior spate of warm weather froze and compacted the old snow, with sandy textured new snow on top. The wind sculpts drifts much as it does dunes.

We were warned of the impending cold snap, so we got the last of our duck-potato sausage smoked. As this was the final batch, I had time to take a photo of Michael manning the smoker. Our chest freezer was just big enough. Total sausage count: 110 pounds. The cold makes me want to eat it all RIGHT NOW.

Instead, we used the last of our garden carrots in a stir fry. Yep, that is home-built tofu on top. We bought the cabbage and now remember why we love our garden grown cabbage so much. We had to feed the rest of the cabbage to the ducks. They liked it just fine.

All our wee ones (and not so wee ones) helped us reduce our sausage over-burden. Having others to feed (and help with the cross words) gives us a reason to cook, bake, and bask in the glow. Our wood stove has kept us toasty without needing to use much of our LP gas. Eggs are expensive. Gas is expensive. Feed is expensive. It’s amazing to have friends and neighbors willing to trade for things we have in excess. The deer have been sheltering in and feeding on the hay bales left in fields. Twenty below: we all depend on each other to survive and thrive. Whew. And Thanks!

Harvest journal: sausages

We harvest ducks and chickens and deer…and this year we were gifted a wild turkey. The animals and fowl not appropriate for eating in large chunks we save for sausage making. This year, sausage time fell just after I filed an appeal brief in a murder case. Seemed timely.

We save sausage making for days when we have nothing better to do and the snow is deep enough to provide clean coldness. Keeps the mix from getting too warm and “breaking”. Who wants broken sausage?!? Fair warning: the next photo is of Michael grinding meat cubes. Nothing identifiable, but even so…

We (meaning Michael) hauled The Monster up from the basement so our children could make venison hamburger. We kept it upstairs for sausage season. At 80 pounds, it isn’t anything I want to be schlepping up and down stairs more than absolutely necessary. It is a dream for grinding meat. And potatoes. And onions. And garlic. And anything else that makes sausage tasty.

We invested in an industrial scale stuffing machine. Given that we will make about a hundred pounds of sausage this season, it was a wise investment. We like it. A lot.

We started our sausage adventure with chicken bratwurst. We had two roosters too many this past season. We will enjoy the eight pounds of brats this summer. Great grilled. We also saved the hearts and gizzards of our broiler harvest. We never remember to thaw them for Thanksgiving stuffing, and it seems not everyone appreciates the chewiness they lend. Sausage making allows us to use the parts that would otherwise go to waste…and have people enjoy the experience.

Onions go into brats and potato sausage, but garlic is the driving force in kielbasa. Neither Michael nor I shot a deer this year, but we kept everyone else’s hearts and ended up with eight pounds of venison-pork kielbasa. We used a wild turkey breast and leg we were gifted by a guy we let hunt our land. It made some of the best kielbasa I’ve ever had. We may need to take up turkey hunting ourselves.

We use our cabin as an auxiliary refrigerator. It is too cold to keep the actual refrigerator operational, but insulated enough not to be a freezer. We appreciate the additional space.

I dice 20% of the potatoes that go into potato sausage to keep it visually and texturally interesting. The other 80% goes through The Monster with the meat. This year, all potato sausage is made from our old ducks. Gracie, one of our original flock, died several days ago. She is not in the sausage. We have two Khaki Campbells left from the initial cohort. We miss Gracie and Arthur, our favorite ducks. We decided we couldn’t keep all our ducks when our eggs cost $23/dozen to produce. We still don’t harvest as many old ducks as we should…. Good thing we are doing this for fun and not profit.

Hanging the sausage allows them to dry before packaging, reducing problems ice creates in storage. I didn’t get any photos of the smoker this year. The kielbasa are smoked, as are half the potato sausage. We will make about 100 pounds of sausage in four days. It is a series of early mornings and late nights.

We sample the sausage set aside when a casing splits or from the tail end of a squeeze. There is always something left. These confirm the end product is worth the work. Hot dogs and bologna were the only types of sausages I knew about growing up. Bratwurst were a revelation. Kielbasa a dream. Potato sausage otherworldly. My house smells like an old time deli/meat market. I ache all over and am tired to my bones, but my freezer is full and my heart is happy. Now I just have to convince our friends to make the trek and come for dinner!

Season journal: fire and ice

Wisconsin. January. Snow. More than we’ve seen in the past five years for January, and more for the season than in the past 30 years. It clings. It stacks. It sparkles. It melts and refreezes. Mostly on steps and paths. Everyone does the January shuffle. Choose your favorite tune.

I don’t know how the sons managed to skip out of the photos. They did. If you can imagine them hovering in the background, cheering the rest of us on, then you have the people who light up our lives. Minnesota. January. A great time and place to celebrate life.

Season journal:Twelfth Night

Which is now, the last day of Christmas.

Michael and I have been moving mountains of snow.

Blue potato pancake with green chile and duck egg.

Home made tofu in stir fry (black bean sauce) with brown rice.

Scrambled duck egg tacos, with all the fixings, and home built corn tortillas. Broccoli and blue cheese dip on the side.

Okara patties and more broccoli and blue cheese.

Which allows us to eat voluptuously.

The chickens and the cat refuse to leave their respective houses, but the ducks and Zeke revel in the deep snow.

Time with the Grands is Great!

First taste of pear cider. Yum.

To life!

Celebration journal: those colly birds

On my walk this morning I heard a bird call I could not identify. A high note and a low note. Perhaps it was one of the mysterious “colly birds” made famous by the Fourth Day of Christmas, which is today.

Christmas for us has oscillated between upholding traditions and shoveling snow. We cut a black spruce from the woods surrounding our house, then spent the rest of the day mopping up the snow melt from its branches. The pine scent and added humidity rewarded our efforts. We usually save decorating the tree for when we have children with us, but weather and flu defeated our efforts this Christmas. The tree graces our season, even so.

We make two types of cookies this time of year: gingerbread and bizcochitos (an anise seed sugar cookie). We did have help making cookies, but no time left to decorate the gingerbread. Just as well, since Michael prefers them plain. I gave away some to my church group, but we were left with most of them. I asked Michael why we still make cookies. His answer: “So our children will.”

And so our grandchildren will as well!

The snowfall has kept us exercising enough to burn off those cookie calories. We faced a deadline for clearing sufficient space for visitors to make it to our house AND have a place to park. Whew.

Christmas is, first and foremost, a birthday party. Michael is a pie person and I am a cake person, so we get both for Christmas.

Lilith, being the youngest person who can read (at 5!) was in charge of distributing presents.

Felix, being the youngest, was exempt from social graces.

I managed to make time for a single hat. I finished it on Christmas Eve.

No one can party like young ones!

Since then we have reveled in the blueness of the sky, highlighted by raking snow off of our roof.

Marveled at how deep the snow got on our deck.

Rejoiced at the increased level of water in the St. Croix.

Appreciated the ease which having clippers makes cutting Michael’s hair and beard. Power tools. I love power tools!

Birds. Light. Work. Food. Joy. These we share with neighbors. We offer as gifts. We celebrate as life.

Season journal: snow and tamales

Snow! We love snow. Even when it is eight inches of heavy, dense snow.

Spectacular! Also destructive. We lost some tree limbs from the pines. We will have to trim them off before they tear down fences.

Working together, Michael and I cleared our 600 foot driveway in about three hours. It feels so good to be well enough to work this hard.

It also allows us to eat the tamales we made yesterday, beautifully paired with the last of the cabbage from our garden

We experimented a bit with the basic recipe. Michael ground me three cups of red popcorn cornmeal.

Mixed with seven cups of masa harina, two cups of lard, two tablespoons of baking powder, a tablespoon of salt and enough pork broth from cooking a very large pork roast (stewed with garlic, salt, bay leaves, oregano and chile flakes) until it was a very soft paste, it made a sparkly, lovely base for the tamale meat. That was made from that pork roast, cooked until fork tender, which I then cooked down with green chile from our garden, more garlic, more oregano, more salt, and comino. We discovered that the comino from the Asian food store is more pungent than the comino we have found elsewhere. I also made a batch of filling with chile caribe from chile pods my mom sent from New Mexico. Yum. Oh, and the darker side of that tamale combo we made from blue corn masa (7 cups) mixed with 3 cups regular corn meal (and all the other masa ingredients). These may be the best tamales I’ve ever eaten.

We used our new space to make tamales. We are looking forward to making cookies with all the Grands this weekend. We are all feeling well enough to get together, and for that I am truly thankful. We look forward to seeing them, and then to having bizcochitos to share with my church group. We already delivered tamales to neighbors. Spreading New Mexico traditions in the Big Woods. It also gave us a grand incentive to get the driveway cleared. Oh come all ye loved ones!

Harvest journal: making soap

I read cookbooks for fun. My fascination with cookbooks began when one of my professors mentioned reading one from ancient Egypt. How recipes are written varies by culture. One of my all time favorites is Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. What she provides in that one book is technique. One such gem of process is how to render fat. She was speaking in terms of rendering duck skin, which produces these wonderful morsels of duck chicharones as well as duck lard. I use the same method to transform venison suet into venison lard.

Why would anyone want to render venison suet? The lard, paired with other fats (including duck lard!) makes wonderful soap. Michael started making soap decades ago due to my allergies to commercial scents. At one point, we could not find unscented soap. His first efforts involved shortening and olive oil and drain cleaner. He has since found a more reliable source for lye and our access to suet sources reduces the cost of the soap. My skin loves it!

Deer store fat in layers on their rumps, chest, and in their abdomens. Unlike beef, it doesn’t marble the meat. It is really easy to peel off the fat during venison processing. At that point, I put it in a separate bowl and when I’m ready to render, chop it into cubes.

The cubes go into a large stock pot, with enough water to barely cover them.

You bring the water to a simmer, leaving the pot uncovered. The target is to allow the suet to soften and release those fat molecules from the tissue. The milky hue of the liquid means it still contains water. By the way, this process smells wonderful in a fried meat kind of way.

I forgot to take a photo before I started to separate the cracklings from the lard, but you can still see that the liquid graduates from milky to clear.

I strain the rendered fat through a wire mesh colander and feed the cracklings to the birds. Pheasants love it.

The lard turns opaque as it cools. I use a glass mixing bowl and put it outside to harden. When Michael is ready to make soap, he brings in the bowl and the fat separates from the glass due to differential shrinkage rates. Otherwise it’s hard to get it out of the bowl. He scrapes off any fried bits that made it through the strainer. They tend to congregate at the bottom for easy separation.

Seventeen pounds of soap may get us through to next year, depending on how much we give away.

We have all these delicate little bodies to keep clean and happy.

Construction journal: wood stove Re-installed!

I hear Michael in the next room, loading wood into the bin. Our house has that toasty feel of a wood fire merrily dancing in its designated space.

For insurance reasons (and lack of skill, knowledge, and equipment) we hired Chris to put in the pad and chimney for our wood stove’s new home.

To prepare, we cleared out the room we had been using as a dining area and moved the furniture against the wall. The hole in the ceiling is where we had installed a chimney for the wood stove when the roof went on. Because we hadn’t yet put walls in, it turned out to be in the wrong place. We had also installed it in a manner that would have burnt our house down. Hence, the wisdom of hiring out certain jobs!

Before Chris started, Michael sistered joists onto the floor trusses to take out the bounciness from the floor. We had ordered reinforced trusses for under a wood stove, but put them in a different area. We had to install the trusses before we had walls and windows. Our floor plans keep changing as we go along.

We chose a stone type tile rather than ceramics. We figured it would look great with wood flooring. I also have this thing for agates.

Michael devised a brilliant way of getting that very heavy stove from its former home to its new location. That gray square you see on the floor is one of the heat shields we used to protect the old walls. He used one of the wall shields and would walk the stove off of the floor shield onto the next shield because it would slide on the slick metal surface. We propped up the temporary step platform we have between rooms to make a ramp. Between the two of us we moved that stove next to the new pad. It took three big guys to move it onto the pad.

Chris and his crew set the chimney and we were ready to have a fire!

And ready to host Thanksgiving! Chris patched the hole in the roof before it began snowing. I patched the hole in the ceiling before we started a fire. I still have to tape and mud that area, but it is air tight enough for the moment.

I also finally installed the trap door I made for the attic access. Our roof is a lot happier with fewer places for warm air to leak up and melt snow.

After all that construction, I had time to babysit Felix when he was down with what turned out to be Influenza A. I know this because I was just diagnosed with this bug. I also have a great case of bronchitis. Ah. The joys of daycare and viral infections. Michael is hacking and coughing too, and might have an ear infection (which is what Felix had). I’m on drugs. Michael is not. He is tougher than I am!

Thanksgiving journal: we celebrate our blessings

We were 12 for dinner. We miss Irene’s laughter. We give thanks to have so many who will take time from their busy lives to gather and celebrate with us.

Michael made us a lovely dinner and pumpkin and apple pies. Artemis brought a gorgeous and delicious cranberry tart. We feasted! We give thanks for the plenty we enjoy.

The gun deer season opened the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Our sons in law both bagged their deer opening day. Neither Michael nor I did. Michael helped the boys field dress their deer and then hang, skin and quarter them. I helped the girls process the back straps. We will complete packaging venison this coming weekend. Even my daughter who has never liked touching raw meat of any kind said that butchering the deer her husband harvested was “oddly satisfying.” We give thanks that our children wish to partake in the acts that bind us to this land.

I got to read bedtime stories to the Grands. Felix came down with double ear aches this past week, so I went to care for him for a couple of days. We give thanks for having the space and time to get to know this next generation.

Hunting allows us to spend very intimate time with our land. We give thanks for the privilege of caring for this land, and for its support of us.

Michael slaughtered the last giant squash that had been sitting in our guest room in preparation for the pre-hunt sleepover. It has fed both us and our ducks many delicious meals. We got the last storm door installed shortly before it started sifting snow on us. Michael kept the driveway open for hunters to arrive. We are thankful to have the health and strength to make this project we call life move forward with happiness to share.

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.