October snow

When I retired, I looked forward to hunkering down at home on snowy winter mornings. I was thinking about January, not October. Every time I look out, the snow is coming down harder. We are poised to hit record-breaking snowfall on Halloween.

I spent the morning making red raspberry jam. I froze the crushed raspberries earlier this month when there was too much stuff in the garden that still needed my attention.

Red raspberry jam

 It feels luxurious to putter in the kitchen on a Thursday instead of white-knuckling my way to work on icy roads. Retirement is pretty darned nice.

Brussels sprouts

We have really, truly finished the garden. Saturday morning, we measured rows, put down landscape cloth, planted garlic cloves, covered them with straw, and covered the straw with row cover so it won’t blow away in the winter winds. It always feels very much like tucking them into bed for a long winter’s nap. Goodnight little garlics! See you in the spring.

I learned a couple of years ago that while Brussels sprouts get sweeter and less bitter after a few frosts, they will not tolerate a hard freeze. When the forecast for Chicago said 33° Saturday morning, I feared that we would be down in the 20’s. I harvested the Brussels sprouts Friday morning. They, like everything in the garden, had a slow start, but most got respectably large.

Brussels sprouts harvest

One stalk had only small sprouts, and all stalks have smaller sprouts toward the top. I had this thought that the little ones would be perfect for Cornish Hens Stuffed with Brussels Sprouts and Salami. It’s much better than it sounds. I haven’t made it in years. The thing I failed to consider in my plan of using these cute little sprouts is that there are roughly 10,000 to the pound, and I needed three-quarters of a pound. Each sprout needs to have the bottom cut off and any outer damaged leaves removed. I was at it for awhile.

Next, I had to bone four Cornish hens. Now that I am a savvy raiser of meat chickens, I know that these hens have not, in fact, ever been to Cornwall. They are just baby meat chickens, perhaps two weeks old, and probably males besides. I felt a little bad cutting down their tiny little backbones. As I tried to get the knife between the “oyster” and the pelvis, I thought back to a lesson that I was given by Dr. Rodland during my junior year—the best way to dissect is with your fingers. It is far easier to find the muscle bundles if you feel for them. I did my best to get between the bone and muscle of the back and ribs on one side, cutting the joints at the top of the thigh and wing so the limb bones would stay with the chicken. The shoulder blade threw me off for a minute, but I figured out what it was and extracted it. I then did the same for the other side. Then there was the matter of the keel, where the two (or more) breast muscles meet. The cookbook said to be careful to not puncture the skin. I ran my fingers down both sides of the keel, but couldn’t get the connective tissue free from the top of the cartilage. I carefully scraped it loose with the knife. I kept the bones for stock. All that baby-bone cartilage would make a nice, gelatinous broth.

Great—only three more to go. When I did the second bird, I realized I had not gotten the wishbone out of the first bird. I went back and took care of that. If I did it all the time, it would be fast and easy. Since I do it once in a blue moon, it was hard, time-consuming, and ultimately required a complete change of clothes.

On to the stuffing. I blanched my cute little sprouts and mixed them with ricotta, Swiss cheese, egg, and salami. I stuffed the birds and synched up the skin with toothpicks. I tied their little legs together to try to keep the stuffing in.  

Once they were all trussed and laid out on the baking pan, I put all my clothes in the laundry and took a shower. I had offered one chicken to Hilda for her dinner. I later decided that it had been too much work for anyone to eat it alone. She offered her dining room so that she could clean up the dishes. She also made the mashed potatoes while I finished the sauce using the pan drippings, wine, stock, and butter.

Stuffed Cornish hens

It was a nice dinner, and since half a bird is enough for any reasonable person to eat, we all got two meals out of it. I froze the fourth bird for another time.

Cross section of the stuffed bird

All afternoon for one dish to be eaten in 10 minutes. I have now officially joined the ranks of Women Who Do Not Have Enough To Do With Their Time.

October bonfire

Last week, we finished the last of the “can’t wait” garden tasks—canning the sauerkraut and harvesting the alleged garlic. We still have pint jars of sauerkraut from last year, so I put this year’s sauerkraut in quarts. Let’s see—a pint’s a pound the world around. So 20 pounds of sauerkraut would be 20 pints, two pints per quart, would be 10 quarts. I think. I put approximately one quart in the slow cooker with a pork roast. We had Ruebens one night. Figuring in the water loss from the cabbage to the brine, I washed 8 quart jars. There was enough to completely fill 7 quarts with the rest in the 8^th jar to be refrigerated and eaten first.

Canned sauerkraut

The ginger was an adventure. It had grown happily on the deck all summer. Since the leaves were turning brown, we knew it was time to cut it back and harvest some of the corms.

Senescent ginger 

There were lots of corms under the ground. 

The corms underground

We put two clusters of corms in new soil in the greenhouse for next year. The reason I said, “alleged” above is because the corms did not smell very gingery and the older ones were bright yellow. Hilda had also tried to grow turmeric, which we thought had died. The question remains—were the labels switched? I don’t know what fresh turmeric is supposed to smell like. We put the corms in the garage to dry, hoping that it would concentrate the gingeriness. Hilda grated some and cooked it in rice. The rice tasted mildly gingery at first and more gingery the next day. We haven’t made up our minds about it yet.

It was a beautiful weekend. Pat, Nancy, and Jane came up for our annual bonfire. Terry started it in typical boy fashion with a bottle of gasoline.

Terry pouring on the gasoline

A minute after he lit the trail of gas, it looked like this.

Whoosh! The fire starts from a trail of gasoline (right)

At three minutes, it was roaring.

Three minutes into the fire

Everyone helped put wood on the fire. There’s no picture of me because I was the photographer.

Nancy

Hilda

Pat used Hilda’s walker to move some logs over to the fire.

Pat

Pat and Nancy worked on pulling down a snag that has bothered Nancy for years. The rest of us hoped it wouldn’t land on their heads. Pat poked at it with a shovel….

Pat dislodged the upper end of the branch with a shovel

…until she got the long end on the ground.

The long end of the branch on the ground

Terry went over and helped dislodge the branch from the limb that was holding it up. And then it was put on the fire.

Nancy and Terry carry the branch to the fire

Terry frequented went around the sides of the fire with a pitch fork to rearrange the wood and toss in unburned branches.

Terry tidies up the fire with a pitchfork

I brought down a tripod to get a picture of all of us. We spent most of the time sitting by the fire talking. The picture shows how far we had to sit from the fire to keep from burning our knees. It was a hot fire!

Group photo

After 3 hours and 10 minutes, the fire looked like this.

Toward the end of the afternoon

Soon it was time to go to the house for pizza and wings. Nancy and Terry stopped off at the raspberry patch. Nancy left with 4 pints of berries.

Here is a photomontage of the fire at the beginning, middle and end. Hilda will watch this again and again. She loves a fire, as we all do.

Today the wind is blowing fiercely, and rain beat against the windows all morning. The time for hunkering down is nearly upon us.

Field trip to Ft. Atkinson

To celebrate Jane’s birthday last Wednesday, we had a little adventure in Wisconsin. Due to road construction, we had returned from our vacation in August through Ft. Atkinson, WI. We remembered what a nice town it was and talked about going back someday. Thirty-some years ago, when I was teaching at Mukwonago High School, Jane and I had gone on a similar day trip one weekend. We intended to re-visit the Nasco store and Jones Dairy Farm and visit the National Dairy Shrine and Hoard Historical Museum for the first time.

Here I am outside the National Dairy Shrine and Hoard Historical Museum, squinting into the sun.

Me in front of the National Dairy Shrine and Hoard Historical Museum

We were greeted by a friendly volunteer docent, Joe, who gave us a rundown of the organization of the building, which was much larger than it appeared from the outside. The Dairy Shrine covered the entire nation, Joe explained, but the rest of the museum was just about Jefferson County.

We started in the Dairy Shrine. At the exhibit of the seven breeds of dairy cows, Jane said, “My dad would have loved this.” Jane’s dad would have been a farmer if circumstances had allowed it. Instead he was a sales manager for Mason-Lawrence Ribstone Silos.

The seven breeds of dairy cows

I was surprised there were only 7 breeds. I would have thought there were more dairy cows than that, but off the top of my head, I could only have named Holsteins, Brown Swiss, and Guernseys. The other four are Jerseys (I’ve heard of this one, at least), Red and White, Ayreshire, and Milking Shorthorn. Milking shorthorn?

The displays went around in a circle and included full-size replicas of a dairy barn

Historic dairy barn

And a dairy kitchen. I recognized the cream separator on the right. I think there was one in Uncle Dick’s auction. I’ve never seen one in action, but somehow centrifugal force separates the (presumably heavier) cream from the rest of the milk, which becomes skim milk or “blue john,” as my grandmother used to say. The kitchen included a butter churn (on the floor near the woman) and a hand pump for water at the sink. Fancy!

Historic dairy farm kitchen with running water at the sink!

One thing that impressed me about the museum is the various libraries that were embedded in it. A side room in the Dairy Shrine had books, tables, and chairs where an interested visitor could do research. There was also an interactive screen featuring the history of various contributors to the development of the Nation’s dairies. We didn’t recognize most of the names. We searched for names that we could think of. Neither Mason nor Lawrence were listed. We found Gail Borden, inventor of evaporated milk and a big name in Elgin, IL, where the library to this day is named after him. These days we buy evaporated milk once a year to make the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. Imagine what sterile, canned milk meant to people before refrigeration. What a relief for urban mothers to have safe, nutritious, shelf-stable milk to give their children! It played an important role in the rations of Civil War soldiers as well.

The anchor of the museum is the Hoard House, the home of William Dempster Hoard. He was the publisher of the Jefferson County Union and Hoard’s Dairyman magazine. He was also the governor of Wisconsin from 1889 to 1891. Hoard’s Dairyman featured articles on the latest techniques and research. Hoard purchased a dairy farm to use as a demonstration of best practices in dairying. He became known as the father of the modern dairy industry.

The Hoard house, which from the outside makes you wrongly assume that the museum is small

We entered through the kitchen. I was fascinated by a built-in, copper-lined pie safe that rotated shut. I’d only ever seen  stand-alone pie safes, often with tin plates punched in decorative patterns. The idea, of course, is to keep the pies safe from flies. A copper-lined pie safe today would cost a bundle. I don’t imagine it was cheap in the 1880’s. I’m guessing tin and copper were metals of choice because they resisted corrosion.

In-the-wall rotating copper pie safe

The kitchen was next to a well-appointed dining room. This is the parlor.

Parlor

Next to the parlor was the library.

The library

I loved the bookcase.

Detail of the library bookshelves. Wouldn't it be great to have these in your home?

While the ground floor was furnished with period furniture, the second-floor rooms were devoted to various topics, one of which was the birds, represented in taxidermy. There were cases and cases of birds arranged by family group.

Cases of birds by family

There were also four cases of Jefferson County birds made by Thure Kumlien (1819-1888). The birds were arranged in Victorian style, sort of looking natural, as if one could ever see a dozen different species of birds on one branch. The specimens were mostly male.

Male birds of Jefferson County

More male birds of Jefferson County

The next room was devoted to duck hunting. It had a boat specifically designed to hunt ducks on Lake Koshkonong. It looked like it had a wooden frame covered by canvas and painted with some water-resistant substance. The overall appearance was of an oversized kayak.

Lake Koshkonong duck boat

The Lorine Niedecker room featured information on a local poet. She was born on Black Hawk island, lived a quiet life, but eventually gained international fame. I liked the poem that was posted on the wall and wondered if a book of her poetry was in the gift shop.

Another room had creepy Victorian memorial art, such as this lovely arrangement of human hair from the deceased. Gross.

Hair art

We looked quickly into rooms about firefighters and policemen. The map that Joe gave us lists these rooms as “Exhibits,” which suggests to me that they change from time to time.

In the hallway between the Hoard House and the elevator was a picture of some football players with two of the faces cut out. I had to stand on my tip toes to get my face in the opening.

Me as a football player

Back downstairs, we went to the Lincoln Era Library and Exhibit. The walls were lined with displays and reference books. There was a statue of Abe Lincoln looking glum, as he is usually depicted. (PLEASE DO NOT Touch “Old Abe”) Joe had told us the story of Lincoln’s connection with Ft. Atkinson, which was that he was passing through one evening, had too much to drink in a local tavern, lost his horse, and had to walk home. I suppose it wouldn’t be right to show him bellied up to the bar having a right ol’ good time. It would be different, though. But what would the children think?

Abe, looking glum

A large wing of the main floor was devoted to the Native Americans of the area. They were mound builders. One wall had information about areas where mounds could be visited.

“Remember Aztalan State Park?” I asked Jane.

“Of course.”

On that early Bev and Jane adventure when we’d visited Ft. Atkinson, we had also gone to the Aztalan mound. Details have been lost to history, but somehow we got caught walking through very wet grass in a cold mist without proper footwear or rain gear. We dried our socks on the defroster of my Dodge Omni. We still laugh about it. We should go back again. From the information in the museum, it looked as if the site has been further restored in the last 35 years.

This picture shows a recreation of a “keyhole pithouse.” I was unfamiliar with this shelter of the Mound Builders. We all know the teepees of the Plains Indians and the birchbark wikiups of the Ojibwa. The keyhole pithouse is dug a little into the ground, hence the “pit.” A wall of reeds is put under a frame of saplings and covered with hardwood bark. The small tunnel-like entrance is the “keyhole.” It is shown here with a deerskin door. The sign said these shelters were used in the Woodland period (700-1100 C.E.)

Keyhole Pithouse

The diorama also showed a food storage pit underground. The hole was lined and covered with reeds. It contained Indian corn, a grain, hickory nuts, and acorns.

Underground food storage

The “Mounds Theater” had 5 artistic displays of arrows as well as two cases of hand axes and other tools. We didn’t ask to see the movie.

Arrowhead displays

The bookstore had two books related to Lorine Niedecker. One was a biography and the other was one of those silly books that have two lines of poetry at the top of each page with a blank spot below where you can write your own profound reflections. Please.

Jane and I each bought new cow socks to commemorate the day. These are mine. Jane’s have the same cows on a yellow background.

My new cow socks

We went to Jones Dairy Farm for lunch. The museum volunteers told us they had sandwiches and ice cream. They also had hams, sausages, and cheeses for sale, but the really good deals were on enormous quantities. How long would it take to get through 15 pounds of bacon? 

Jones Dairy Farm

We just got the “Jones meat wrap” with ham, cheese, cucumber, tomato and mixed greens in a tomato tortilla. We shared one, and it was plenty. They do make really good ham at Jones. Kind of ironic that it’s called “Dairy Farm” but specializes in pork products.

Jones Dairy Farm flying pig (DO NOT CLIMB)

Nasco was just down the road. It has gone downhill since our last trip. To begin with, the organization is odd. We walked down an aisle that had kitchen equipment on the right and horse medicines on the left. They had very little in the way of science stuff. We didn’t get anything.

In her research on Ft. Atkinson, Jane had come across an Amish Country Store that advertised bulk items. We took off through the country and did eventually find the road. Things were not quite right, however. A power line ran parallel to the driveway. A TV antenna was attached to the house. When we walked into the store, we were greeted by shelves of wholesome Amish cheese doodles in plastic packaging. My idea of bulk is open bins of stuff from which you can get as much as you need/want. Everything in the store was pre-packaged in fairly uniform quantities. Well, it is Wisconsin, home of draconian food safety laws. Another nail in the coffin of resident camps was the new law that required all food be prepared in a restaurant-level certified kitchen. In the six summers I worked at camp, 80 girls and 10 unit staff, prepared 15 meals per session, four sessions per summer, in unit kitchens using a campfire. Number of incidences of food-borne illness: 0. But I’m not bitter, that’s the important thing.

I digress. Eventually, I figured out what was going on. It’s a familiar story. Tucked here and there were coolers that had 2-pound logs of farm-made butter, free range eggs, and pastured meats. The farmers didn’t have a high enough profit margin on the food they actually raised, so they had to bring in the value-added cheese doodles. So sad. We totally do not pay enough for our food.

We noticed on the way out that the sign said, "Amish Style Country Store." That's different. 

We went back to Jones Dairy Farm for “midnight dark chocolate” ice cream cones before we headed home. We ate them outside. It was such a lovely day.

Midnight Dark chocolate ice cream

Fall clean up

It is time to clean out the garden. On the one hand, it’s sad to give up the fresh produce. On the other hand, I look forward to planning menus around what I want to eat rather than what needs to be used up before it rots. I can’t look at another cucumber. Terry picked all that remained when he pulled the vines a few days ago. I will give the runts to Jane’s box turtle—for the third “last time.” I have been thinking that the cucumbers were spent for two or three weeks now. I’m not sure what the fate of the larger last cucumbers will be. Terry is tired of them too. Most probably scenario is that they will sit in the refrigerator until they get slimy, and I will then put them in the compost bin.

The tomatoes looked very sad.

Sad, sad tomatoes

One overly optimistic tomato plant was still flowering in spite of the shorter days and cooler mornings.

One tomato plant was still flowering

As much as I looked forward to the first tomato, I’m ready to give them up for another year. Like the cucumbers, they have overstayed their welcome. I felt relieved when I had my last tomato on toast with cream cheese, a favorite summer breakfast. And damned if Hilda didn’t give me another tomato the next day. But now we are really, truly done. We cleaned the last remnants from the garden yesterday. It broke my heart just a little to throw a beautiful large green tomato into the heap, but the reality is that they just aren’t as good as summer tomatoes. It takes longer for them to ripen, and in the process, they get mealy and bland.

The Brussels sprouts are finally getting big. Conventional wisdom suggests that they are bitter until they’ve been hit with frost. In my impatience, I steamed some for supper, only to verify that it is better to wait.

The Brussels sprouts finally getting big

Another task I crossed off my list is drying herbs—thyme, rosemary, sage, and oregano. I always think that I will do that early when the plants are in their prime, but don’t get around to it until I’m under the gun with the threat of frost.

In addition to tearing out the tomatoes yesterday, we took up the drip irrigation and got the landscape cloth rolled and in storage. Both of these tasks are a pain to lay down and a pain to pull up, but well worth the effort when the rain doesn’t come when you need it, and the weeds grow like, well, weeds.

Buckets full of garden waste for the compost heap. The landscape cloth is the black woven plastic between the rows.

Most of my garden work lately has been standing at the sink. Actual harvesting is the shortest step in making produce suitable for winter storage. Thus, my gardening muscles were unused to bending. When I stood up after a brief rest in the afternoon, my heels were sore. I expected the back pain, but heels? Who knew that could even happen? I’m pleased to report that even at 60, most of the soreness faded overnight.

Just as we were thinking that the canning and freezing were under control, the apples and raspberries start coming in. I’ve made one batch of raspberry jam and frozen enough crushed raspberries for two more. One box of apples is now about 6 quarts of frozen applesauce, one apple crisp, and one apple cake. Three boxes of apples remain. More applesauce, certainly, and apple muffins. Perhaps an apple pie if I feel really ambitious. I can finish the jam at my leisure. The sauerkraut has finished fermenting, but that too will hold indefinitely until I have time to can it.

Today is Jane’s birthday, and I’m taking it off to have a little adventure in Wisconsin.

15 Life Lessons

1. It is, in fact, possible to blow out a tire on a pothole.

2. It will be raining, on a Sunday, with hoards of late-season, tiny, vicious mosquitoes sucking you dry.

3. A definite perk of being married to Terry is that he will cheerfully bring his truck, hydraulic jack, and wrenches, and be prepared to crawl around in the mud to put on the spare tire.

4. My car does not have a spare tire. It has a tiny air compressor that plugs into the outlet formerly known as the cigarette lighter and a tire sealant canister.

5. The tire sealant canister and air compressor are not helpful when there is a giant gash in the tire on the interior side where it will not be discovered until the tire does not hold pressure.

6. A bigger perk of being married to Terry is that he will also cheerfully negotiate multiple transactions with car care professionals to secure a new tire on Sunday afternoon. Talking to mechanics always makes me feel like a girl and not in a good way.

7. Never leave the hazard lights flashing.

8. When the battery is dead because, for example, you don’t know rule #7, the keyless entry function is useless. Neither the doors nor the hood will open. At this point, it will not seem like it was a good idea at all to lock the lug nuts, wrench, and vehicle manual inside the car.

9 No tow trucks are available in Harvard, IL on Sunday afternoon. It takes 30 minutes to get a truck from Woodstock.

10.There is a key hidden inside the car fob! There is a lock that fits the key underneath the immobile part of the door handle, which must be pried off. This valuable knowledge cost $105.

Car fob with hidden key removed

 11. After unlocking the car with the key, a “theft attempted” warning will appear the next two times the car is started.

12. My car has two batteries: a 12-volt battery to start the car and run the hazard flashers and one to drive the wheels. The 12-volt battery can be jumped.

13. After jumping the car, the “check engine” light will remain on until an appointment is made with the dealer. Also, the car will send an email urging maintenance within 7 days.

14. The “empty” tire sealant canister will leak. This does not appear to be harmful to all-weather floor mats.

15. There will be no charge at the dealer, but it will be another two hours of your life that you cannot have back. (The replacement tire sealant canister is $30, but it has to be ordered.)