Harvest journal: the way of the potato, and onion, and garlic, and…

It’s raining again. Half an inch in ten minutes could drown a duck! But the birds are all under shelter, as are we.* The past couple of days have been in the 90s and humid. We have been in the garden, racing time.

*Rain gauge the next morning showed an honest two inches.

Michael dug up red potatoes today. He soaks them in water and then sets them out to dry. Then they go into the basement, spread out on cardboard with a fan on them. Then into boxes for the winter. I rescued them from their bath today as the storm was coming. Sitting on the lawn in the heat, swishing potatoes in cold water, felt methodical and slow. Not in a boring way, but more as a meditation. The dao of potatoes. Who knew? Red potatoes are prone to have scabs, as illustrated by that middle photo. This year, most of the reds are scab free. All the better to eat with the jackets on!

We got the last of the garlic out the ground today, along with the final onions.

The Siberian White, a hard neck, had turned completely brown on top, which meant the paper was beginning to deteriorate on the bulbs. They will not save well this year. The other varieties were not as brown and had more paper left. We will use the Siberian White first, which we would do regardless. It’s just not as pretty as it should be.

The garlic got neglected as Michael and I were getting the onions out of the ground.

They covered our outdoor table space for a couple of (rainless) days.

Michael helped me get them braided this year. The next day he wondered why his hands and arms ached. Braiding onions takes upper body strength! Again, sitting in the shade in the warmth, doing the rhythmic action of braiding, proved a meditative and calming type of exertion. Digging them out of the ground was a sweatier endeavor.

We’ve been picking green beans daily, along with peas. Shelling peas for dinner gives me an excuse to sit for a bit. I love peas. The beans are delicious, but don’t provide as much of an excuse to take a moment for another one of those rhythmic, meditative breaks.

We have been reducing our duck flock. They have finally feathered out from the last molt. It makes them easier to pluck, and also allows me to harvest the down. Some day (when I have a sewing room) I shall make a down comforter. If you harvest the duck before fully feathered, the down will still be partially encased in a quill, which create sharp points. Not good for laying next to your skin. I always regret when I am unable to save the down. I’d use their quack if I could!

It is never all work and no play here. My daughter came and made us lemon-thyme ice cream. She forgot to pack part of her ice cream maker (ah, the chaos of a 2 year old in the mix) so we improvised with a wooden spoon and an electric drill motor. Worked like a charm. Yum!

It’s wonderfully exhausting to have children in the house, everything happening in double time. A lovely counterpoint in the rhyme of life.

More ice cream (with raspberry jam sent by my brother!) at the end of today. Sweetness in his thoughtfulness for sending it; energy we sorely need.

Harvest journal: garlic, potatoes, onions, and other delights

Late July and the days grow shorter and warmer. Suddenly, the root plants die back and it is time to get them out of the ground.

We grow four varieties of garlic: two hard neck and two soft neck. The “neck” refers to the stems. These are River Giant, and they loved the weather this year! Only a few tried to bolt (creating a hard neck in a soft neck variety), so I was able to braid them easily. I will bundle the hard necks. All will go down into the basement, where it is dry, cool, and dark. We are just finishing off last year’s garlic, which means we planted enough, but not too much. The soft necks tend to last longer than the hard neck varieties, as the paper around each clove clings tighter, protecting them from dehydration.

The red onions are so jewel-like as they come out of the ground. We rub as much dirt off as possible right away, as they are almost impossible to clean if the dirt dries on. When we first grew onions we washed them in water. The onions rotted. They need to be kept as dry as possible if they are to last all winter.

We spread them on tables until the tops are mostly dried. Then I braid them and into the basement they go. We ran out of onions in May. Shortly thereafter, the new crop grew large enough to steal green onion tops. We bought onions from the store twice. It reminded us why we grow our own.

These little tomato-y looking fellers are potato fruit. I found them about a month ago. You can see the leaves beginning to turn brown on the ends. They are very shriveled now.

The russets ripened first. Michael digs them, washes them, dries them in the sun, and then spreads them out on cardboard in the basement with a fan blowing over them. After a week of drying, they get packed in cardboard boxes with newspapers tucked around them. They last longer in the dark. We bought store potatoes twice, and then swore off. Seasonal eating, it’s what we do more and more.

We harvested the last four broilers on July 18th. They averaged 10 pounds each. It was almost as much work getting them into the freezer as it was processing 10 chickens weighing 4 pounds each. We have started harvesting ducks too. However, they are still feathering out after the molt, which makes plucking them very labor intensive. We will give them another week before trying this again.

We work in the early mornings while it is still cool. Keeps the birds fresh as we clean them and the insects at bay.

The sweet clover, goldenrod and black eyed susans appeared in mid-July.

At about the same time we picked all the red currants and started a batch of wine. We should have gathered the black currants at the same time, but we got chased in by the weather.

Big lightening accompanied this rain. Safer to be indoors! I raced inside with my bowl of currants.

I gathered about 3 cups of black currants and made 3 cups of jam. You know I love you if you ever get any black currant jam!

Hot weather. We will have tomatoes soon. No wine and roses. These are days for milkweed and beer!

Thank you Nancy and Diane for coming to share our bounty!

Season journal: flowers!

Pink yarrow! Who knew? It’s usually white!

Michael calls this “Butter and eggs”. My flower finder calls it Toadflax. It looks like a tiny snapdragon. I love snapdragons! They magically appeared the beginning of June and will be some of the last flowers of fall.

Marsh Woundwort. It has square stems and so I think of it as a non-fragrant mint.

The peonies smell light and sweet.

The Hop-Hornbeam is in full flower. A relative of a birch, it has very hard wood.

The hop clover grows everywhere.

I planted a lot of bulbs last fall and then forgot what was there. Such a lovely surprise to have some late bloomers!

The garlic blossoms, aka scapes, need to be gathered, sautéed in olive oil and tossed with pasta.

I greedily watch the tomatoes.

My first daylily burst forth today.

The elders are “blowing,” which is what we call its blossoms. The elder blow wine we made last year finally came into its own and has a complex, slightly bitter but floral flavor. It grows on you.

The Johnny Jump Ups and marigolds brighten the deck.

But they cannot hold a candle to this wonderful child. Happy Birthday Grand Girl!

Harvest journal: 82.5 pounds

In two days. 20 broilers. 2 girls.

These are “buffer” photos for those who would prefer not to see the blood involved in transferring chicken from pasture to freezer. We did have our first salads this past weekend. Amazingly yum.

We love our chickens. We both carry them down to the “lick log.” I create the kill sack. Michael beheads them. We started early in the morning Saturday, racing rain.

We had all chickens hanging and started the plucking/gutting process both Saturday and Sunday before our children arrived. Sunday we tried to beat the heat (and flies). Successfully.

Saturday the only Grand in attendance was the one dependent on her mama for sustenance. I got to introduce her to the Cresap mania for word puzzles between outside and inside processes. Always good to rest a bit between times.

They are beautiful: excellent at transforming feed to protein while still keeping their individuality. We love our birds.

Chickens breathe without benefit of a diaphragm. Their lungs are attached to their ribs instead. It makes removing them from the carcass a challenge. Amazing to have such perfect specimens. Marvelous!

This is what 40 pounds of chicken parts look like. Those are soup bones in the far bowl. The extra 2+ pounds were from hearts and gizzards (for making sausages) and livers (which neither of our girls like).

But we do! We have 14 more broilers to do in. We will package 10 soonish, letting the smaller ones grow a bit while it rains. We got an inch today. More rain due tomorrow. Four will grow up to the ten pound range, graciously providing holiday dinners. We have some Speckled Sussex to process as well. They will weigh half as much in twice the time, but will be delicious in a slow food kind of way. We love our birds.

Garden journal: producing produce

Our first radishes: Thursday June 6. Crisp and mild, they have benefited from the near-constant rain we have received.

Peppers, tomatoes and potatoes are abloom.

As are the potato beetles. Organic potatoes means squishing them. One. By. One.

My eggplant starts are almost large enough to plant.

Unfortunately, the eggplant garden needs some work.

The pumpkin patch has been prepped and planted.

The squash square sports sprouts.

I found a lovely toad while weeding garlic.

Onions! No bottoms yet, but we sneak some of the tops into pasta, guacamole, and anywhere else we can.

The cucumbers need weeding.

My lettuce/radish ratios seem about right.

We thinned the carrots and bok choi.

I thinned the Grand Guy’s thatch.

The rabbits thin the peas and beans.

Michael thinned the rabbits. (Cuban style fricassee comes highly recommended.)

The only one not getting thin is me!

Visiting journal: travelers and hosts

I usually visit my mom in March for her birthday. This year the tiniest Grand Girl took precedence, and so my sojourn occurred in May.

Added benefit: seeing not one but two brothers! One in Las Cruces and the other in Santa Fe.

We walked every morning.

We enjoyed neighborhood flowers.

We ate good food. (Now you know from whence the good food genes…)

We achieved Queen Bee status.

We got out and about.

I puttered in her yard while she puttered in her wood shop. And then I went home.

Where a few days later my Uncle Tom and Aunt Marcy arrived from Alaska! Just in time to read to the Grands and eat good food. I love my huge family!

Flower journal: the world is a blossoming

The iris and pinks blaze in low sunlight, greeting me every morning.

Today the black raspberries came into bloom. We do not often get berries, but with the steady rain we have received, there may be berries this year.

I mowed a legion of daisy buds two days ago. These smaller aster cousins appeared before the daisies.

Despite my mowing, daisies dust the landscape, set off by orange hawk weed.

Hawk weed comes in yellow too.

Vetch provides a soft purple haze when I ride by on my bike.

The dreaded buckthorn: planted for its beauty, spread by abundant berries.

Wild carrot or perhaps hemlock. It does not have hairy “legs”, so is not Queen Anne’s Lace.

Wild parsnip shares the same habit, but blooms yellow.

The humble clover holds its own.

Wild roses: you often smell their clove-like scent before you see them.

Phlox shades from pale to intense pink.

Hoary Puccoon: a horrible name for such a bright flower. These first started to show up in late April.

Hoary Alyssum: a more fitting name.

The shy Columbine.

The brash Bridal Veil Spirea.

Lilacs have come and gone.

As have the trillium.

The wild strawberries continue to blossom, even while bearing fruit. That is a plastic garbage bag on my fingers. I didn’t come prepared for strawberry picking, only stray trash picking.

My favorite flower of all!

Babysitting jounal: fun with Felix

Occasionally, daycare takes a day off. A week ago we took advantage to have overnights with Felix.

We immediately put him to work helping Boopa with ducks and chickens.

I rewarded him with biscuits and gravy. He slept well.

He didn’t fall off a cliff or into a pothole.

We all enjoyed a treat.

Had a great time waiting for dinner at our local dive bar. French fries! Ketchup! Nirvana! He slept well again.

He explored the lawn tractor while waiting for Baby Sister to arrive.

She showed up and stole all the hugs.

Then happily helping back home!

Garden journal: tomatoes and peppers and onions, oh my!

Today we got tomatoes and peppers in the ground. Michael spent several days digging this 14’ by 14’ garden, setting posts, and fencing.

I took our starts and got them planted.

I cut the styrofoam cups, leaving a collar.

I dug a hole, snuggled the roots into the dirt, and packed them in so a collar of styrofoam remained above the dirt. Styrofoam is easier to trim than plastic cups and provides as good a shield against cut worms as plastic or metal. Using a physical barrier keeps us from using pesticides to protect our baby plants.

We planted the big garden with onions, carrots, bok choi, potatoes, lettuce, beets, cabbage, popcorn, peas, beans, leeks, dill, radishes and flowers. I found my experiment with egg carton starts were mostly successful. They are smaller than peat pellets and so dried out more quickly. I lost some flower starts to dryness. They also deteriorated over time. I may have lost some leeks because the soil fell away from roots in the transplant process. Generally, they worked. They just took a bit more care.

Growing things. Yayayayay!

Harvest journal: green

Michael cut chives almost in time. They were beginning to bloom, which means separating out the stiff blossom stems as well as random grasses.

After washing and separating, we snip them onto screens. Then into the dehydrator they go.

After about 24 hours, chives have gone from wet to package worthy.

Seven screens filled two jars. This will supply us with chives for blue cheese dressing, white sauces, and other delicacies for an entire year. Fresh chives will go into omelettes, croquettes, and any other dish we think would be improved by these savory morsels.

We have feasted on asparagus for about two weeks now. My daughter noticed that asparagus fresh from our garden tastes so much better than anything available from a market.

Michael has been making rhubarb pies. Soon we will harvest rhubarb for wine. We move from spring to summer at lightning speed.

Rainbows and Northern Lights. It is shaping up to be another amazing year.

Season journal: leaves!!!

The Japanese honeysuckle won the first leaf contest on April 11th. This invasive bush lives on the edges of woods, producing abundant flowers and berries. It competes with the prickly ash for this ecological niche.

The box elders tied the poplar for first trees leafing, which happened yesterday, April 27th.

The Nanny Berries, a type of viburnum, finally showed their leaves as well. They will have big panicles of flowers that turn into clusters of dark berries in the fall. They remind me of dates in flavor and texture. They were Michael’s grandmother’s favorites.

The tree pictured below appears to be leafing out. It is a maple in full blossom!

I saw my first bloodroot, violets, pussytoes and sedge blossoms on April 25th. I’m probably missing the hepatica, which bloom in the deep woods. It has been raining and my knees are not yet stable enough for slippery hillsides.

I am enjoying the flowers I over-crowded last fall. They will never disguise our old LP tank, but they do increase my joy looking in that direction.

All the sprouts give me joy too. The 6 year old travels too fast to capture. The two years olds also demand more attention. The 6 week old has to be held while she is still a peanut. She started cooing today. They grow so quickly. We do not want to encase them in amber, but only to soak in their wonder at this world while we may.

Celebration journal: Earth Day meets Passover

The mosses bloom and oaks shed their leaves.

Chives will be our first harvest. We long for the greens our land will gift us.

Michael planted 900 onion sets today. He planted potatoes by April 15th as the soil complied by not being frozen. We will have frost tonight, but the earth will retain its heat.

The tomatoes I planted a week ago sprouted overnight. The peppers and eggplant have yet to show signs of life. My leeks need sunlight!

No matzo, but a different type of unleavened bread: corn tortillas. No lamb, but a different cloven hooved animal: venison. No bitter herbs, only spinach. Green and red chile from New Mexico, the land of my ancestors. It is a good day to remember how they abandoned the places of their births and slaved to make life better for their children. Salt to recall sweat, if not tears. So much to be thankful for. So much to celebrate.

Growing things journal: caring for Grands

Every now and then we are called upon to care for various and sundry Grands. We love various and sundry Grands! We live to spend time with these growing people.

Their parents went off for a long weekend to celebrate a birthday with friends far away. I’m sympathetic because the friends are of long standing and have traveled far…accomplishing fabulous things. It is so good to keep contact with such amazing people. And we have been wanting to have a sleepover with the tiny people.

The Tiny Grand and I went and did those things that Michael got to do with our girls as they were growing up. I missed out on some things with my own children. It is good (if physically challenging) to be lifting 30 pounds up repeatedly to see over fences to peer at zebras and tigers and gorillas.

Back home again and all Grands together for a day. What to do but read books! And feed them good food.

All our ducks in a row.

In with ducks and cherries and chickens. Rawr! How to exert primacy as one finds one’s way in the world.

Eating pineapple gifted from Chiapas.

Braving storm clouds bringing snow flurries instead of sunshine.

Finding flowers after the storms.

We hope to foster familiarity with the foreign, so that these tiny people can be at home wherever they may go.

Season journal: springtime weather and life quickens

Our first four ducklings hatched yesterday. Felix gently welcomed this first, who arrived in time for a visit. More on their way! We check the incubator every couple of hours, so tiny feet don’t get trapped in the egg turning mechanism. Made for a poor night’s sleep, but that is the nature of babies.

We got to see Moogie’s eyes! She is an amazingly chill child.

Felix and Zeke basked in the sun.

My crocus are blooming! They began flowering on on March 23rd, but then a foot of snow fell on the 26th. Unfrozen soil allowed my flowers to survive!

The ducks loved the snow. The chickens, not so much.

Enough cool weather for Moogie to make use of her tiny hat.

We celebrated Easter early in Minneapolis…

…and then spent a quiet Sunday together.

I’m taking my time taping and mudding, if only because my knees don’t allow much floor work or time on a ladder.

Today I listen to rainy day music as the ducks revel in the wet.

A good day for asparagus soup (not local asparagus, alas) and red corn bread.

We baked our last winter squash today: sweeter than the kisses of Esmeralda. I made broth from the last of my soup bones today as well. We spend down our stores, reveling in the fruit of our labor and making way for the coming year’s bounty.

The heartbeat of the land quickens with increased sunshine. The vultures and robins returned before the snow. Sand Hill Cranes creak their love songs and the Great Blue Herons have begun nesting. Black birds and grackles return in clouds of racket. Red birds blaze in the tree tops. Eagles and hawks glide by, eying our chickens and ducks. Turkeys strut and fan. Poplar, cedar, maple and birch flower out, wanting to leaf any moment. The waiting is agony and joy wrapped together. So much death. So much life. This is springtime in Wisconsin.

Grand journal: toeses!

Imogen Alice Luz made her appearance on St. Paddy’s day.

I showed up on Felix’s doorstep early that morning so mama and daddy could sneak off and get baby sister. We didn’t know how long that would take, so we took a walk and found a donut as big as Felix’s head. It was spitting snow on us during our walk.

Imogen looks just like her mama. She came via C section, so I brought Felix to our home.

Felix played with ducks…

Taste-tested the deer tallow soap…

Made friends with Zeke…

Slept well and then helped Booma make pancakes…

Went and met Baby Sister…

Came back and helped Boopa haul wood…

Ran amok in monster dish gloves…

Took our measure after another great night sleeping…

Waited patiently for mama and sister to arrive…

And was overjoyed to have everyone back home!

Nate ran errands and read to Felix when he got home. It’s been a number of long days for everyone. Good job bringing these precious toes into the household!

Season journal: early signs of spring

March 1st and I really want to start seeds…but I haven’t yet.

At first glance, our road does not look very spring-like.

But the kapok falls off the cattails.

The buds swell on the poplars.

The river opens and welcomes rafts of geese, ducks and swans.

The frogs explode from the mud, leaving tiny craters.

Michael makes hot crossed buns, which we share with neighbors and friends.

The Grands say “cheers” to longer days and time to play.

Ephemera journal: ashes

Michael and I celebrate 39 years together, 37 married. We are stardust. We are golden. And we have to make it back to our garden.

These are the rootlings that anchor us in time and space.

We create space.

The rootlings engage in activities beyond our time. (Was I ever able to do a head stand?!?)

We celebrate the passage of time. (Michael’s new favorite is carrot cake.)

We take advantage of our gift of snow to turn our old ducks, chickens, gizzards and venison hearts into brats and kielbasa. To be eaten, turned into energy and growth, until we fade and become stardust once again.

What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.

The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.

All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.

To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

All things are wearisome, more than one can say.

The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear it’s fill of hearing.

What has been will be again, what has been will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1: 3-11

Michael and I shared a love of the wisdom of Ecclesiastes before we met. It is the glue that binds us, makes us fertile soil to support new growth and a return to ashes. We are stardust; there is nothing new under the sun.