Farm Stroll

Sunday was the McHenry County Farm Stroll and Market. Pat and Nancy went last year, and we’d been planning to go with them this year since then. Hilda and I started at Cashmore’s Produce and Ponics. The hydroponic barn has three long shelf units with about ½” of water running along the bottom under the plants. One unit had lettuce about ready to harvest, one had plants just getting started, and one was empty. I’m guessing that the rotation might require a calendar. It would for me, anyway.

Hilda by the hyrdoponics shelves

We walked around the gardens outside as well. There was lots of spaghetti squash, kale, chard, and broccoli. There was also so much of this plant that we wondered if it was a weed or a crop. I guessed weed because there was a nearly equal amount of velvet leaf growing in that bed. It looked so familiar, but there were no flowers to help in the identification. I looked up “purple stem spiny fruit” on Google Images and came up with Jimson weed, Datura stramonium. No wonder it looked familiar. Jane and I pulled a huge clump of it out of her mom’s garden before they sold the house. It’s a beautiful flower, and a North American native, but a poisonous plant. Jane didn’t want the liability.

Jimson weed

We met Pat and Nancy at WalMart, leaving their car in the parking lot. I drove while Nancy navigated on a tablet down to Marwood-Ridge Dairy in Union. A theme of the afternoon was amazement at how close the Farm Stroll locations were. On the map, it looked like we’d have to drive all day, but we were there in 20 minutes.

It was a long walk from the parking lot to the dairy barn. We saw the girls lounging in the shade. Hilda was glad that they got to be outside between milkings. She can hardly stand the thought of cows or chickens spending all their time indoors.

Cows in the shade

The farm had free range cats as well. This young female lounged outside one of the barns. Calicos are almost all female—the gene for black or orange fur color is on the X chromosome. To have black AND orange fur, the cat has to have 2 X’s, hence a female. Unless it is XXY, a male with Klinefelter’s syndrome. Chapter 11.

Calico cat

When we saw the barn, I realized I’d been to the farm years ago when I took an Ag in the Classroom course many summers ago. The barn has the original mortise and tenon construction, held together with wooden pegs. The upper level of the barn was filled with hay. Enough hay, the guide explained, for 8 years. Hay never goes bad.

The milking operation was downstairs. We entered through the milk room and walked through the pristine milking stanchions. Somebody had been busy cleaning since the morning milking. There was also a newly-washed cow in one of the stanchions with the farmer standing next to her explaining the his 65-cow operation.

Exceptionally clean display cow

Here’s a picture of Pat and Nancy walking down the road back to the car.

Pat and Nancy walking back to the car

Our next stop was Prairie Sky Orchard. Pat, Hilda, and Nancy posed in the giant chair. A stranger offered to take a picture of all of us, but it didn’t turn out as well as this one.

Left to right: Pat, Hilda, Nancy in a giant Adirondack chair

Our only goal was to score some cider doughnuts, and they were sold out. The orchard was well maintained with all the trees espaliered (trained to fences) and meticulously pruned. Lotta work there!

Espaliered apple trees

Our favorite spot was Cherry Lane, owned by Trudi Temple, the founder of Market Day. She may be retired now. I know that Market Day was taken over by some corporation and is no longer in existence. In any case, she is not hurting for money. The property has lots of nooks and crannies with gardens, benches, and small buildings. It also has 11 arrays of 16 solar panels each with trackers. At $1K/panel, that’s $176,000 in solar alone.

This is the barn at the entrance.

Barn at the entrance of Cherry Lane Farm with chicken statues above the door

This solid stone table and benches is in front of a charming little house where the toilet is located—in the corner of a completely furnished room including a narrow bed, desk and China cabinet. So cute!

Stone table and benches in front of a little house where the toilet is

There was a huge winterized gazebo with overstuffed chairs, a wood stove, a deer antler chandelier, and game tables.

Gazebo

Pat lounging in the gazebo

Rustic chair and ottoman in the gazebo

This is how rainwater is collected in one of the greenhouses. Note the hose at the bottom for watering.

Rainwater collection in a small greenhouse

This is the largest bottle tree I've ever seen.

Bottle tree

There's a classroom, but we don't know what they teach there. Note the log ceiling.

Classroom

We saw this great spangled fritillary foraging on New England aster.

Great spangled fritillary on New England aster

On our way to the alpaca farm, we drove right passed Cody’s Farm and Orchard. We had decided not to stroll there, but I pulled over so Nancy could check on the cider doughnut situation. The entrance was confusing. I pulled it where it said, “Enter” and found that there was nowhere to go from there. I followed some tracks in the grass and ended up doing an embarrassing loop through the play area. Oh well. At least Nancy was able to get half a dozen doughnuts, one for each of us and two to take home to Dad and Terry.

The rain started blowing through in waves after we left Trudi’s . Perhaps because of that, all of the alpacas were standing in a group when we got to ALsPACAs. Al, the owner, was standing in the pen with them, talking to visitors. I learned three things by simple observation: 1) alpacas stink; 2) alpacas hum, and 3) I am wicked allergic to alpacas. My eyes still itch just looking at the pictures.

Alpaca herd

Alpaca portrait

As I walked around, I came upon a wheelbarrow full of alpaca poop, where I learned from a sign that alpaca poop is a perfect 1-1-1 and does not have to be composted like “hot” horse manure. Also, alpacas establish latrine areas, where they will poop in the same place for years.

There was one late baby among the herd. Al described it as a “love child” conceived when someone left a gate open. It was born right before Labor Day, making it about three weeks old.

Alpaca baby

In this video, you will be able to hear the alpacas humming and see the baby nursing.

We returned to WalMart to retrieve the other car. Nancy and Pat made one more stop at a horse stable. Hilda and I went home to start getting dinner ready. We had a lovely pot roast with mashed potatoes and chocolate cake and milk for Pat’s birthday. It was a nice day.

We be jammin'

I did nothing at all toward the onion harvest this year except help Terry move the drying shelves into the garage. Hilda harvested the onions and Dad patiently put them into the knee-high nylons, separated by twist-ties and labeled on a string at the top to hang them from the ceiling. Here they are installed in the store room of the basement.

Shallots and onions hanging from the rafters

Hilda has made most of the jam in recent years. After all, she’s retired, and I’m not (but I’m not bitter, that’s the important thing). Over the weekend, however, I volunteered to make one more batch of red raspberry jam to clear out the backlog. One should never complain about too many red raspberries or too many tomatoes, but there is a point.

I should not have been surprised about how long it took me to make this jam. The hard part was preparing the berries, throwing the molding ones and picking off the bugs. I separated some of the seeds from the pulp in a cone-and-pestle food mill, humming Prince’s song, “Raspberry Puree.” Oh, wait, that was “Raspberry Beret,” wasn’t it?

I got the last pack of Sure-Jell from Hilda and read the directions. I measured 4.5 cups of puree, cleaning yet another pint of berries for that last half cup. I mixed the Sure-Jell with ¼ cup sugar and stirred it into the raspberries. Then there was this part of the directions about adding ½ teaspoon of butter to reduce the foaming. I didn’t remember ever doing that, nor did I remember foaming as being a particular problem. So I skipped the butter. And I skipped the part about skimming off the foam. That all went away in the canning process, didn’t it? Brought the raspberry juice to a boil, added the rest of the sugar, which increased the boiling point in an amazing way, brought it back to a full rolling boil for exactly one minute. Holy foam, Batman! It didn’t go away in the canning either.

Foamy raspberry jam. We'll get through it somehow

Later, I asked Hilda, “Do you skim off the foam?”

“No,” she replied. “Did you add the butter?”

Checking off the list

The most fascinating culinary tip of the week was this serving suggestion for bacon: cook it. Skillet not included.

Serving Suggestion: cook the bacon

Even though it doesn’t feel like it outside, the New England Aster know that it’s fall.

New England Aster, one of the last flowers of summer

We are working frantically to check off all the things on the Get Ready for Winter list. The sauerkraut finished fermenting, and Hilda canned it this week. We’ve gotten the dry beans out of their shells, picked out the moldy and malformed ones, shaken off the dirt and packaged them in ½ pound aliquots.

Dry beans left to right: Lena Cisco's Bird Egg, Calypso, Vermont Cranberry, Black Turtle, Scarlet Beauty

I baked beets this morning and made pickled beets with hard boiled eggs for my lunches this week. I cut up the last of the cantaloupes. Not as good as the first ones, but still better than grocery store melons. I washed raspberries for my yogurt.

I went out to get herbs for marinated roasted red peppers this morning (I roasted them last night) and saw that the herbs were still in good enough shape to dry. Add that to the list. In addition to sage, rosemary, marjoram, thyme, and oregano from the herb garden, the volunteer dill is in its second flush in the garden. It’s perfect for drying. It would be perfect for pickles too, but the seed from last year sprouts too soon, and the seed from those plants is too late. I have learned that you need to inspect the herbs carefully before you put them in the dehydrator because you will never, ever find the black leaves, grass, and dirt afterwards. I learned today that sage and dill smells together are not all that pleasant.

Beautiful dill on the dehydrator tray

I rushed home from work Thursday so we could dig the potatoes before it rained on Friday. The potatoes were larger this year. Instead of 10 small potatoes per hill, there were a few giant ones. As long as they aren't hollow in the middle, this is a good  thing. Big ones keep better. It took two hours, and the potatoes were muddy. After all that, it didn’t rain. The potatoes would  have been cleaner if we'd waited. Oh well. The potatoes are dug anyway. I finished rubbing off the mud this morning, put them in boxes, and stored them in the root cellar. Good to have that done.

A giant potato

The potato harvest

The apples are quite wonderful right now. I picked a bunch for applesauce and saved out the best ones for my lunches. Hilda and I did tastes tests of the different varieties. My favorites were Macoun and Freedom.

Macoun, left; Freedom, right

It seems like this morning was a week ago. Through my frantic day, Hilda was canning the plum tomatoes that are now ripening. She joined me at the potato cleaning right at the end and said, “Tell me honestly. Do you think we have enough canned tomatoes?”

I laughed. “Of course. We had enough before.”

“Because I’m tired of canning tomatoes,” she said. “All my life I wished for a late fall, but now….”

“Be careful what you wish for,” I replied.

We agreed she could start on the applesauce. We are looking forward to November, when we can give thanks that the gardening season is over.

Corn Festival

Finally a cool morning with heavy dew on the spider webs.

Dewy spider web

The first thing I did this morning was go out to take pictures of a large bald-faced hornet nest that Terry discovered in the birch forest. After getting stung by one while washing grapes last weekend, I’ve been doing some research. The bald-faced hornet is not a hornet, but a member of the yellowjacket family, even though it is black and white (“bald” is short for “piebald”). It is a wasp, not a hornet. All my life, I thought that these big paper-like nests were made by paper wasps, but paper wasps build small, open combs. Who knew?

Bald-faced hornet nest

Hornet coming out of the nest

Usually one sees these nests high in the trees. This one is surprisingly close to the ground. I would have thought some brave and enterprising raccoon would have ripped it open to get at the larva.

The nest is only a foot or so off the ground

In previous summers, we have always had yellowjackets in abundance. I haven’t seen so many this year since the bald-faced hornets moved in. Makes me wonder about ecology stuff. Terry says he’s seen yellowjackets this year. He’s also going to get rid of the bald-faced hornet nest some cold night soon when he’s not so tired that he can’t run fast. (This is why he’s not doing it today—too exhausted from painting the deck.) And good luck to him, I say.

Last night we piled the whole family in the car to go to the Corn Festival in Darien for the first time. It had been too hot to go to the McHenry County Fair this summer. I hadn’t had my corndog yet.

Terry and I walked to the farthest part of the Festival—probably 100 yards from the entrance—where we found the beer tent. Miller products! Yeah, baby! None of that Bud Lite swill. He ordered while I walked over to the Giant Corn Cob. The Giant Corn Cob lives by the highway. I have admired it often. It is made of milk jugs! How awesome is that? The kernels are even dented!

Corn Festival Sign and Giant Corn Cob

Milk jugs! What a great idea!

When I joined Terry, he was forking over $6 for two souvenir beer cozies. He thought they were overpriced, but they would keep the beer cold. “Can we walk around with the beer?” I asked.

Souvenir beer cozies

Terry turned to ask the woman who sold him the beer, but she was busy. He asked the guy standing next to us instead. “Sure!” he said. “I’ve been doing it for years, and no one has ever stopped me.”

As a point of reference, the entrance/exit of the beer tent at the McHenry County Fair is guarded by cops who will definitely stop you if you try to leave with your beer.

Meanwhile, Mom and Dad had taken a walk through the World’s Smallest Carnival. Terry has seen smaller carnivals; I have not.

The entire Darien Corn Festival carnival. The grain elevators in the background add a certain je ne sais quois

There were exactly three carnival food trailers. I was able to get my annual corndog, which the girl dipped in the batter and fried while we watched. It was perfect. Mom and Dad also had corndogs. Hilda went to the fry vendor to get a Bucket-O-(soggy) Fries. 

My corn dog with Hilda holding the Bucket-O-Fries in the background

The third vendor had funnel cakes and candy apples. No mini donuts. Damn. Terry went back to the beer tent to get one of the barbecue sandwiches we’d seen people eating but returned with a brat because they didn’t have the barbecues, or at least didn’t have them anymore. Did we eat every last soggy, over-salted fry? Yes, we did. Ooof.

 There were about a dozen tents for politicians, t-shirts, and cheap plastic crap. They were closing up as we got there at 5:45. Usually festivals are just gearing up at that time. Not in Darien, I guess.

The ice cream tent was packing up just as we got there for our dessert. They graciously scooped our cones out of the back of their truck. As we ate the cone, we chatted with the woman who, with her husband and kids, now owns and operates the little ice cream store in town. She told us a lot of people from Crystal Lake come up for the Festival. I can only wonder why. We also learned that there is actual corn at the Corn Festival. From 11:00 to 3:00, the Fire Department roasts corn for everyone. Seems awfully late for sweet corn. I expect it's probably pretty mature by September.

“How does that work?” I asked. “Is it a free-for-all?”

“No”, the woman replied, “you have to stand in a line that goes back and forth, and each person can get two. It used to be a free-for-all and you could take as much as you wanted. But the people in back didn’t get any, so they changed it.”

She invited us to return on Sunday for the parade at 1:00. I bet they take the Giant Corn Cob out for a spin. Not sure what else they've got. Not that curious, really.

And we went home. Now we can say we’ve been. We could go back next year for the corn. Or not. After all, there weren’t any mini donuts.

Grape Expectations

Early last week, Terry noticed a fungus growing out of the sixth (dead) oak. He scoured all of his mushroom guides trying to identify it. He was pretty sure it was a chicken mushroom, but it didn't look quite like the picture in the book. It's supposed to taste like chicken, but we've done enough enough experimenting with eating wild mushrooms to know that "choice" in the guide only means "will not kill you." It doesn't mean it is good to eat.

Chicken mushroom on Aug. 28

Four days later, it matched the picture in the book exactly.

Chicken mushroom on Aug. 31

We had a busy Labor Day weekend. Harvard had its first ever balloon festival. I wasn’t thinking about that when we were out doing the chicken chores early Saturday morning until I heard “WHOOSH” coming from above. I looked up, and there was a balloon. Hilda went in too to get Dad. I’d gone out to take pictures of the turkeys and pullets, leaving my telephoto lens inside. I took a picture of the first balloon and ran for my other lens.

First balloon

“Put on your pants,” I said to Terry. “The balloons are going over!”

The wind direction was perfect for us. About a dozen balloons went by all together. I didn’t get pictures of all of them. One went directly overhead, so close we could wave to each other.

Second balloon

Third balloon

Fourth and fifth balloons

Sixth balloon

Seventh balloon

Eighth balloon

The excitement was soon over, and I carried on with my first mission. Here is a video of the pullets and turkeys. One of the turkeys has started tugging on the clothing of whoever is out cleaning the coop. It took two mornings, but I finally caught her in the act. The second part of the video shows how big the pullets and turkeys are getting. The tom turkey got on the storage box to check me out in more detail.

I thought that the white turkeys were albinos. So wrong. They have pale blue heads and soulful dark eyes.

A turkey's head is slightly blue on the back and the top of the neck. It has soulful dark eyes

Even though they have access to food and water all night, both of these seem more alluring al fresco.

The feeder is so much more fun with it's outdoors

I had hoped to take it easy over the weekend. It was not to be. The grapes had to be picked. I was not thinking this would be such a big deal. Two years ago, we were all done in half a day or so. Last year, the wild turkeys ate them all. This year, I bought long, narrow nets to cover the length of both rows. And holy cow, did we have grapes!

Grape vine loaded with Concord grapes

Terry and I started cutting off the grapes about 10:00 when the dew was gone. We filled four green trays and a large gray bin. And that was just one of the rows. “I think there’s about 30% more in the other row,” Terry said.

The first day's grape harvest + two more green trays

“This will be enough for today,” I told him.

Hilda and I set up operations on the lower patio. I washed, and we both picked grapes off the stems. After lunch, we moved the picking to the front porch to be in the shade. I continued to wash on the patio because that was where the hose was. As soon as one tray was almost empty, I ran down to wash enough grapes for another tray. In the process, I grabbed a wasp by not paying attention to where my hand was. I got stung on the ball of my thumb. Damn. Terry had recently treated a sting with isopropanol, which I tried with unbelievable success. Fifteen minutes later, it was as if nothing had happened.

When we had a good number of grapes off the stem, Hilda went inside to start heating the grapes to 190° and hold it there for 10 minutes without letting it boil, as specified in the Ball Blue Book.  Dad offered to take her place on the porch. Hilda came back to help periodically, but once the straining started, she was in the kitchen full time.

Meanwhile, while the three of us dropped everything to take care of the grapes, Terry went about with his previously scheduled activities, mowing the lawn, painting the deck, doo-dee-doo-dee-doo.

We were at the grapes until 5:00. At that point, Hilda had three stock pots full of grape juice, and there were two bins of de-stemmed grapes in the refrigerator.  The directions said to chill the juice for 24 hours, strain again being careful to leave the sediment undisturbed, heat to 190° again, put in jars, and process for 15 minutes.

Terry came in, took a shower, turned on the TV, and parked his butt in his chair. I went to the kitchen to make spaghetti with fresh tomatoes, garlic, and basil, a recipe that required much more patience and stamina than I had at that time. By the time we sat down to eat, I was peeved at Terry for thinking that his job ended with harvest and that the putting up would happen magically. He has done this before.We had words, mostly mine. “If you’re going to grow all this stuff, you need to help process it.”

“If you don’t want the rest of the grapes, we’ll just leave them,” he countered, missing the point entirely.

“Seriously you would rather let them rot than help put them up?” I asked. Hilda would never let that happen, and I didn’t want her out with the stinging insects. She had a bad reaction in the past. Better not to take the chance.

In the end, Terry agreed to wash the grapes and put them in trays. I tried to be more civil for the remainder of the evening.

I was up at 5:00 straining the grape juice. Only there wasn’t any sediment. I could only infer that we hadn’t waited long enough. Screw it, I thought, there’s always sediment in the jars anyway. We don’t have room to store the juice for 24 hours with 30% more grapes coming in today. I heated it to 190° and poured into quart jars. Fifteen of them, plus one pint. I could only process 7 jars at a time, so that was three rounds of processing. To be honest, when it got down to the end, I used some lid rings that had not even been washed. I was going rogue. I also set aside an unprocessed quart for Mom and Dad.

The first 15 quarts plus one pint 

Then it was time to make a raspberry pie. I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. Jane was coming up for steaks on the grill to celebrate Labor Day. I like raspberry pie. I’d made a double crust for the first raspberry pie; the other half was still in the freezer. I’m pleased to report that I finally had a successful blind baking experience. The crust was fully cooked, flaky, and did not slump down the sides. Good for me.

I was done with all that at 10:30 and went out to help Terry finish up the grape harvest. When we were done, he stood by his commitment and was even cheerful in its fulfillment. I demonstrated how to dunk the bunches in water to try to dislodge the bugs and dried up undeveloped grapes. He even said he enjoyed it. He was hot from the harvest, and it felt good to have his hands in cold water. He also learned that we are never bothering with the bunches of two and three grapes again. "Let the birds have 'em!" he said.

Terry washes grapes

De-stemming grapes is pleasant work as mindless, endless, repetitive jobs go. When you get a really good bunch, it feels good in your hand. The turgid spheres give a satisfying pop as you pull them away. Plus, you get to sit down.

A nice bunch of grapes just feels good in your hand

When I didn’t have to stop to wash grapes, we were able to de-stem one tray every 15 minutes. We were done by 2:30. As Dad and I were pulling the grapes off the stems, Terry came by and expressed amazement at what we were doing. “I thought you just put them in the pot. That’s a lot of work!”

So he’s learning. That’s good.

Mom and Dad de-stemming grapes on the front porch. My chair is on the right.

When Hilda started cooking grapes again, I suggested, “Since the sediment doesn’t settle overnight anyway, maybe we could just can the juice right away.”

“I’m for it!” she agreed.The last of the juice was made by 5:00. Hilda had gotten 14 quarts processed, but there were still two and a half stock pots of juice.

We had a very nice meal with Jane. It was good to relax a little.

I was up early today loading 14 quart jars into the dishwasher. I was tired of hand washing. When the dishwasher was done, I canned the rest of the grape juice, which added up to 16 quarts plus a pint, plus a little. All told, it was close to twelve gallons of grape juice.

And there were more raspberries. I put them in a bowl full of water, carefully inspected for picnic bugs and mold, and put the good ones in a colander. I poured the berries out on a towel and lined them up on a tray for freezing. If they are not frozen individually, they end up as one big block o' raspberries. The rest went to Hilda for jam.

Freezing raspberries

After that, there was the cantaloupe to cut up and carrots and kohlrabi to peel and make into sticks. Lunches ready. It will be good to get back to work where I can rest.