In spite of the continuing hot, humid weather, there are
signs that we are move inexorably toward autumn. The end of summer is a
melancholy time for me. The bean seedlings that I carefully thinned and
nurtured not very long ago are brown and leafless as I, with sweat sticking my
t-shirt to my back, pull them from the ground and strip the dried pods. Yet I
can look forward to putting on my warm, fuzzy sweatshirt and making chili and
bean soup.
Pat, Nancy, and Jane came up last Sunday for sauerkraut
making. . Before
they arrived, I got our 3-gallon crock out of the root cellar and washed it.
This is not a small object, and I had to laugh when I saw this informational
label on the bottom: "Conventional oven, Microwave oven, and Dishwasher safe."
And how big is your microwave?
Many hands did, in fact, make light work. We were all done in an hour. There
were several factors in this record time. First, we intentionally planted fewer
cabbages this year because we made far more sauerkraut last year than we
needed, pawning all the excess off on my brother as recently as the day before
we made the new batch.
Six Danish Ballhead cabbages ready for processing
Second, I knew exactly where the sauerkraut cutter was,
which saved us all that time we spent last year looking for it. Third, Jane
joined the party, which made the whole process that much more efficient. Jane
cleaned the cabbages and Nancy quartered them. They also both thinly sliced the
stray leaves that fell off the cabbage heads as I ran them through the slicer.
Nancy quarters the cabbages while I, wearing a protective glove, slice them
Hilda weighed out half-pound increments (all that fits on
the scale) and counted to five (2.5 pounds per batch). Pat added the salt,
mixed, and mashed the sauerkraut into the crocks. Jane also acted as
photographer, which is why she isn’t in any of the pictures.
Hilda weighs and Pat mixes in the salt
We were lucky to get 1.6” of rain over the two days prior to
sauerkraut making. The extra hydration in the cabbage meant that the sauerkraut
juiced up nicely. Some years, it is a struggle to keep the cabbage submerged,
but this year there’s a good two inches of brine on top. (It is essential to
keep the cabbage under a layer of brine because it will rot if exposed to air. Decomposition
is aerobic. Fermentation is anaerobic. Chapter 8.)
The end of summer also brings us raspberries. I made a
raspberry pie for Sauerkraut Day by putting a bunch (when you don’t have to buy
them in the store, quantities don’t matter so much) of raspberries through the
food mill and thickening the resulting 1.25 cups of puree (with some water and ¼
cup sugar) with corn starch. After it cooled a little, I tossed in a quart of
whole raspberries and put it in a baked pie crust.
Raspberry filling in baked pie crust
Which I then topped with whipped cream just before serving.
The final presentation, topped with whipped cream
Individual serving
The oaks have dropped a prodigious number of acorns this
year. It makes for a bumpy ride on the mower, let me tell you. We often get
rafters of turkeys eating the acorns, but this year we have twin fawns and
their mom coming around early in the morning. Unfortunately, they don’t all
pose together for photos. Here are the twins, still spotted.
The twins foraging for acorns under the fifth oak
As soon as I stepped out of the house for a better picture,
Mama came over to see what was going on. Shortly after that, they all took off
for the field, white tails in the air.
This whole working thing really cuts into my blogging time.
Gotta pay the bills somehow, I suppose. I have successfully made it through the
first week of classes. I even used my blue neon eraser. It was very exciting.
When Jane and I got back to Jane’s house after our weekly
grocery shopping, this fine fellow was hanging out on her yew bushes. It was huge! Three inches long at least.
Preying mantis on Jane's yew
On my way home, I had to get gas for the first time since I
got my Volt in May.
The first fill up of my new car--after 3 months!
This is a photo of the odometer when I stopped
at the gas station—3057 miles on the first tank of gas, and I still had about a
gallon left. That figures out to be roughly 382 miles to the gallon. How awesome
is that?
3057 miles on the first tank of gas, and it wasn't quite empty (gas gaugeis on right; battery charge is on left)
Everything that you grow yourself tastes better. A few
things, however, are so much better that comparison to the grocery version is
not possible. Tomatoes are one. Cantaloupe is another. If you have never tasted
a cantaloupe harvested only when it fell off the vine and still warm from the
sun, you have not had a true cantaloupe.
A perfect cantaloupe
I made a special treat for the hens with leftover
buttermilk, old bread, and carrot peels. As you can see from the video, they
loved it. They typically grab and run, often with others in pursuit. I put a
little in a bowl for the pullets and turkeys. They didn’t know what to make of
it. The turkeys circled, but were really more interested in me. One of the
barred rocks took a look and wandered off. I moved the bowl closer to the coop.
Eventually the barred rock started eating from the bowl. One of the Americauna
was interested, and even pursued the barred rock when she carried off a piece,
but she just can’t bring herself to put her head in the bowl. Silly chickens.
I finally got out to the restored wet meadow. I’ve been a
little afraid to go. It was flooded for so long in the spring that I had
serious doubts about what could have survived. I was goaded into taking the
walk by huge plants that I could see from the house. I had to find out what it
was. Horseweed? Goldenrod? Giant ragweed? I was afraid I’d have to find time to
do major invasive plant removal.
Good news—the giant plant was that mysterious aster that I
was never able to identify with any satisfaction.
Giant mystery aster
Better news—I saw one cardinal flower that survived.
Cardinal flower
I kept walking. There were lots of cardinal flowers!
More cardinal flowers
Here is a clump of cardinal flowers with obedient plants.
Cardinal flowers with obedient plants
There were a few scatter yellow cone flowers and swamp
milkweeds as well. Still too much reed canary grass. I spent an hour pulling
wild cucumber vines and amaranth. Still, all is not lost. We really, really
have to get it burned this fall.
Hot. Humid. Every morning begins with heavy dew. A few days
ago, I saw an odd triangular white object from the kitchen that turned out to
be this spider web when I went out for a closer look. The spider really outdid
itself spinning silk to the tops of broad-leaf plantain flowers. The irregular
net weavers usually stick to the horizontal.
Spider web pyramid
Last Friday was when our meat chickens had their appointment
with destiny. We are getting better at the round up. Terry backed his truck up
to the chick fence and put the cages in the back. Hilda stood by the truck and
put the chickens in the cages as Terry and I caught them. Terry used an old
fishing net to capture the chickens, and I picked them up by their shoulders,
one hand on each wing, and handed them over the fence to Hilda. I also had some
success using the leg hook. I used the hook to pull up one leg of the chicken,
immobilizing it. It helped that they weren’t that mobile to begin with. The
hook is not nearly as effective on regular chickens because it’s hard to get
the hook around their leg, and their foot is so small they just walk out of it
unless you catch them at the ankle (which you might confuse for their knee
except that it bends the wrong way—the knee is between the thigh and the
drumstick).
In any case, we had all the chickens in the cages in a
matter of minutes and managed to do it without becoming completely covered in
chicken poo. The chickens calmed down right, except for panting in the heat. I
thanked them for their sacrifice and hoped that they had enjoyed their brief
time with us. They seemed unconcerned.
Hanging out in the pickup
Terry and I delivered the chickens to
the butcher a few miles away. While we were there, I made an appointment to
have the turkeys processed just before Thanksgiving.
And on Sunday they came back looking like food. We butchered
at six and a half weeks this year, down from our previous seven and a half to
eight weeks. We liked this schedule better for two reasons. First, we were
spared the last week of changing the wood chips in Coop 2 daily because of the
appalling accumulation of wet, stinky poo. Second, the dressed weight was a
more manageable 4.5 pounds as opposed to the 7 pound behemoths that the 8-week
chickens were.
4.5-pound 6-week chicken vs. 7-pound 8-week chicken from last year
And here are our chickens in Freezer Heaven.
Freezer heaven
The turkeys and pullets took a day or two to adjust to the
absence of their large and smelly comrades. They huddled together by the
greenhouse, but every time I came near with the camera, they dispersed.
Where did everybody go?
We have one tom turkey and two hens. Tom is beginning to
feel his testosterone.
Hey, baby!
With our plum tomatoes limping along, we had to buy tomatoes
from a local farm stand. Like the pickles, I wondered at first why we didn’t
just buy the tomatoes processed. If we did that, however, I would not have any
of my favorite baked tomato pasta sauce. It’s work, but it’s worth it. After
blanching, peeling, and deseeding the tomatoes, I smear them with a paste of
parsley, garlic, and olive oil. The tomatoes bake at 425°F for an hour. Here’s
how they look when they come out of the oven.
Baked tomatoes
The sauce is finished by stirring in butter and basil. I
also add some tomato pasted to thicken it. I used to mash it up with a potato
masher, but this year, I took the stick blender to it.
Sauce ready for freezing
I was proud of myself for actually serving pasta for supper
that night. The way I usually roll this time of year is to spend all day
cooking and bake a frozen pizza for dinner.
It is even more unusual for me to cook myself lunch, which
is a shame when so much excellent food is available. Here is a stir fry of
green pepper, red shishito peppers, onion, pattypan squash, and kale, which I
tossed with spaghetti and peanut sauce. I wish I had that kind of ambition more
often, although there’s nothing wrong with a quick tomato sandwich either.
I have been grumpy with the end of summer upon me. On a
recent trip to Meijer, I tried to avert my eyes as we went passed the Back to
School specials. But then I saw a pack of neon erasers.
“Do you think I’ll feel better about going back to work if I
have neon erasers?” I asked Jane.
“They’re only 59 cents,” she replied. “What have you got to
lose?”
I’m still a little grumpy, but I have neon erasers! Neon! I
can hardly wait to make a mistake that I need to erase!
Once I got back from vacation, I had to hit the ground
running. Summer was rapidly running out, and I had many things to put up for
winter.
We started with harvesting the garlic. We should have done
it sooner as the Purple Glow bulbs were starting to separate. They don’t keep
well that way. We’d already eaten a good deal of the Early Italian. As the name
suggests, it matures early and consequently does not store all that well. I dug;
Hilda pulled the bulbs out. Up by the house, Hilda hosed off the clumps of dirt
while I bundled and hung. Here they are under the deck.
Garlic hanging to dry under the deck
Meanwhile, the pullets and turkeys started to fly. This is
never a problem with the lazy, overweight meat chickens. They have to flap
their wings just to walk. They are never getting off the ground. I became
alarmed with our all-white Americauna, whom Hilda has named Angelica, was sitting
on the fence between her run and the big girls. If she landed on the other
side, there was a good chance she might be pecked to death.
In the management of poultry, night vision is a human’s
superpower. Chickens don’t see well in the dark. We had a choice of staying up
late or getting up early, and I preferred the latter. I went out just at
sunrise one morning and slowly opened the coop door. It was still pretty dark
inside at any rate. I grabbed one of the pullets, shut the coop door, stretched
out one of her wings with my left hand and trimmed the flight feathers with my
right. And on to the next. It was easier than I expected. Alas, just today, I saw
Angelica and one of the Barred Rocks sitting on the fence. I’ll have to get out
early tomorrow and trim them again. Here’s a picture of a turkey showing its
clipped feathers.
Turkey poults with clipped wing
One of the Americauna perched on the coop wheel.
Americauna perched on the coop wheel
Every morning when we open the coop, there is a rush to the
feeders. The meat chickens hog the feeders while the pullets fly to the top to see if they can reach food out of the middle. then they go eat grass, acting like it doesn't matter. After about 5 minutes, as you can see in the video, the chickens
wander off. At that point the turkeys and pullets have a chance
Here they are grazing by the fence.
Hanging out by the fence
The pullets and turkeys are good about going to bed when it
gets dark. The meat chickens, now so large they can hardly walk, take a little
longer and sometimes have to be herded or lifted in.
The nighttime march to the coop is complicated by the
preference for all the birds to sit in the doorway. It gets quite congested
during rush hour.
The march to bed
Traffic jam by the door
All but a few of our cucumbers have succumbed to wilt. We
were surprised because we thought all varieties were bred to be resistant.
Perhaps it is just most that are resistant. Perhaps the hot, dry summer is to
blame. Terry says that the wilt is caused by a virus that is spread by cucumber
beetles. Certainly we had beetled
earlier than ever before this year. In any case, this was our second year of
failed cucumbers. Last year, when the cold, wet conditions caused an outbreak
of slugs that ate the cucumbers right down to the nubbins, I figured we would
just buy pickles. Why bother if the cucumbers are not your own? As it turns out,
my family is very fond of my dill pickles. This year, I bit the bullet and
bought a half bushel of 3” cucumbers from Klein’s in Elgin. They were actually
a variety of sizes, and the largest were so big I could only get 4 pickles and
another pickle cut in spears in one quart jar. I spent a day in a pickling marathon,
putting up 20 quarts. If push comes to shove, it could last us two years.
Pickles with not home-grown cucumbers
On to the corn, which is very impatient. If you don’t get it
at the peak of sweetness, it gets all tough and starchy. Hilda and I picked,
shucked, blanched, and froze exactly 100 ears in the first picking.
Shucking 100 ears of corn
Corn, before
Corn, after
Since then
there have been two smaller batches of 52 and 45 ears, respectively. I left a
few ears in the garden for corn on the cob, which we had again tonight. We
never get tired of corn on the cob.
Finally, we had an interesting bird siting this week. We
were in the middle of supper when a great blue heron landed right on the top of
the fifth oak. I got one good picture before it flew away.
I woke up as the sky was just
getting light. I lay in bed listening to the dawn chorus of robins,
white-throated sparrows, crows, and songs that I was sure were from rare and
exotic species, if I’d only known what they were. Loons laughed on a lake far away.
I got up at 5:20 and made my
tea. The water in our bay was like glass with a slight mist rising. The moon
was so high that it made no reflection. I went to the dock to get pictures. The
mosquitos were fierce, and I quickly retreated to the cabin.
The moon above the dock
Sunrise on still water
We had reservations for the Hedstrom’s
Lumber Mill tour at 10:00. I’d wanted to go for years, and this was the day it
was going to happen. Afterward, we were also going to have lunch out at a
restaurant we hadn’t been to before.
Me by the entrance sign
Our guide, Mike, was already in
the lumber mill office waiting for us in his Forest Service uniform. He was
based in Tofte, but worked the whole North Shore that was part of Superior
National Forest. This was his summer job. During the winter, he taught fourth
grade in Silver Bay. It would be hard to get two other jobs that fit so nicely
together.
Just after 10:00, the 13 people
on the tour went to a conference room in the office building. Mike explained
that while we were on the tour, we would be wearing earplugs and not be able to
hear him say anything over the noise of the mill. He would talk us through the
process in this conference room before we went to where the action was.
The sawmill was over 100 years
old and was operated by the third generation of Hedstroms, with the fourth
generation working its way up. In 1914, Andrew Hedstrom purchased equipment
from a mill that burned down in Tofte to set up his mill. Fires are the most
common hazards of lumber mill operations because of all the sawdust and other
fuels everywhere.
The mill received about 15 loads
of logs a day. Each truck was weighed as soon as it entered the yard; the
average weight was 80,000 pounds per load. The logs went to the mill by species, pine today, poplar tomorrow.
Mike explained the layout of the sawmill. The logs came in through a
debarker. The big logs went to the head rig while the small ones went to the
scragg saw. The pieces cut by the head rig went to resaw or edging. Resaw also
led to edging, and edging went to grader. The grader, Mike said, was a person,
not a piece of equipment. From the scragg saw, the wood went to a gang saw
(having multiple blades), and then to resaw. Every step also had an arrow
pointing at “to the chipper,” which was where all the scraps ended up.
Separate from the cutting part
of the saw mill was a “filing room.” While you might think this was where the
company records were kept, it was actually where the saws were sharpened. They
changed out the saws daily and sharpened each tooth before using them again.
In my ignorance, I thought that
lumber mills would cut a bunch of the same board at the same time, like today
we’re doing 2-by-4s. In reality, a computer scans each log and calculates how
the log should be cut to maximize profit and minimize waste. Mike showed us a
cardboard model of how a log might be cut with skinny pieces (e.g., 1 x 6)
coming off the sides and larger cuts (2 x 4s, 4 x 4s) coming from the middle.
Before the log entered the mill,
it went through a metal detector. Metal + sawblade = sparks. Sparks + sawdust =
fire. Mike promised to show us the mill’s collection of metal that had been
found in wood.
The green lumber was graded the
first time and then stacked with thin strips of wood called “stickers” in
between each layer to prevent rotting. After air drying, the lumber went to a
kiln for up to a week until it was completely dry. This too is done one species
at a time because different trees dry at different rates. When dry, the lumber
was planed and graded for the last time, which determined the price.
We walked across the yard,
looking at the stacks of logs and green lumber.
The yard
Mike showed us the stickers
between the layers of lumber. All the stickering had to be done by hand. This
was the first of several times when I thought to myself, “God, what a boring
job.”
Green lumber separated by stickers
We entered the sawmill in the
breakroom. Mike pointed to a shelf near the ceiling of the scrap metal Hall of
Fame—pieces of wood with axes, horseshoes, sawblades, and so forth stuck in
them. A horseshoe? How did that get embedded in wood?
Horseshow and other pieces of metal that were found in incoming logs
Above the soda machine was a
twisted sawblade to remind everyone what happened when a log with metal went
through a saw.
A ruined sawblade
After putting in foam ear plugs,
we went up a flight of stairs to a catwalk above the action. The logs come in through a debarker.
The debarker
A log was going
back and forth through the head rig, which sawed in both directions. A man
sitting in a green booth watched, manually accepting each cut that the computer
recommended. This job seemed to require unwavering attention to detail while at
the same time being mind-numbingly dull.
In first part of the video, you
can see how the log is automatically turned in the head rig. In the second
part, you can see the boards coming off and going to different destinations,
controlled by a bank of giant screws running perpendicular to the head rig. As
the first cut off the log separated, the screws tip down, letting the thin
board drop to the conveyor for the chipper. The next cut is flat
on both sides but still rounded at the edges. The screws push it forward to
the edger. When boards come off that are square on all sides, a gate comes up
at the end of the giant screws so that the board moves sideways to a flat
surface where many boards can lay side by side. If it still needs to be cut
(for example, a 4 x 8 piece cut into two 4 x 4s or a 4 x 6 cut into three 2 x
4s), it goes to resaw. If it’s done, it goes to transfer
When we first arrived, the resaw
was not operating, and two guys were doing maintenance on a chain that looked
like an oversized bike chain.
Fixing a chain
The boards
coming off the head rig were backing up. We waited until they got the resaw
working again. It had several blades that changed width according to computer
recommendations. Like the head rig, each cut was approved by another man in a
different green booth.
There were two other employees
in this area, both young men. One stood in front of the edger, receiving boards
from the head rig and occasionally from resaw. As he grabbed the board and put
it in front of the edger, two laser beams flashed on it to help him line it up
straight. He pushed it forward until the conveyors grabbed it and sliced off
the rounded edges. There was a button he could press to change the width for
wider or narrower boards. The other young man took the boards from the edger
and the resaw. If there was still a bad edge on the resaw boards, he put it on
a belt to send it to the edger. Otherwise, he stacked them, regardless of size,
into one bin. God, what boring jobs.
We went down to the filing room
next. The saws were enormously long steel belts about a foot wide, with teeth
that were inches long. There were 195 teeth on single edge blades and 220 teeth
on double edge blades. One blade was on the sharpener while we were there. The
process was also automated. The belt moved in a circle as the sharpening stone
ran down each tooth in a shower of sparks.
The filer
Numerous belts were curled up
along one wall, waiting to be sharpened or to go back to the mill.
Sawblades
Next, we walked to the building
where the wood was graded for the first time. As the boards came from the mill
in all their various sizes, they entered a conveyor one at a time. The grader
entered the size and grade for each board as it moved to a giant sorting
machine that ran above a number of huge slings. When the board reached its size
and grade destination, arms flipped up to stop the board and drop it in its
sling.
The orange arms flip up to allow boards to drop into a sling with others of their grade
We left that building and walked
to the kiln, which was in operation. Mike had us feel the sides of the kiln,
which was warm on the panels and hot at the seams.
The kiln
After the wood was completely
dry, it went to another warehouse for final grading and packaging. This
building had floor to ceiling numbered metal shelves where the different sizes
and grades were lined up to be made into plastic-wrapped bundles. The shelves
were enormous, probably long enough to hold all the boards for one bundle in
one layer.
Boards lined up on numbered shelves after final grading
There were neatly piled stacks
of lumber on the floor that needed finishing. Mike pointed out that some of the
short boards were uneven on one end. That would have to be cut off.
Ends that need trimming
Plastic-wrapped bundle of lumber going off for shipping
We didn’t see the planing
building. Due to dangerous conditions, the planer was all enclosed, and there
wasn’t much to see. Also, there was a lot of noise. After the last round of
questions, we returned to the office to put our safety glasses back in the rack.
Jane and I drove to Grand Marais
to have lunch at the Harbor House Grille. The bulletin board by the street had a
little note pinned up in one corner that said, “We have A/C.” Not everyone does
up north, you know. Most of the time they don’t need it.
Entrance to the Harbor House Grille
The A/C felt good that day, I
can tell you. It had been hot in the sun while we were standing around the
lumber yard. After much discussion, we decided to split a ½-pound hamburger. It
is not clear to me why any one person would need a ½-pound hamburger, but they
seem to be popular around here. It did not have the aioli that we love at the
Red Paddle Bistro, but the ciabatta bun was better, and it was a wider, thinner
burger, which I prefer to a massively thick one.
We went to Sydney’s for the last
time on this trip. Sad to be leaving such fine custard.
It was a lovely afternoon for
sitting on the deck because the breeze kept the bugs away. And sit we did, just
enjoying the day. Watching the sparkles on the water made me happy.
When it was time for happy hour,
we finished the Acrobat Pinot Gris as well as the last of the popcorn and mixed
nuts. I made steak quesadillas for a light supper, which was all we needed
after our big lunch.
We lingered on the deck until
the mosquitoes got bad about 7:30. Then we set about the sad task of packing up
and loading the car.
We had our last night listening
to the loons and smelling the pine air. After a very long drive, we resumed our
regular lives Saturday night. Sigh.
