Christmas

 I slacked off last week and did not do a post. Time got away from me.

Because of a forecast for single-digit temperatures, I went out to the high tunnel to harvest the greens I had left. I didn’t take all of them, even though I figured the ones that remained would be killed by the cold temperatures. I had to do the experiment.

Greens from the high tunnel

I have found that the best way to thin or harvest baby lettuce is to snip off the stem at the base, usually a wee bit below the surface of the soil. When I stuck the tip of my shears into the ground, I hid a rock. How odd. I poked around and finally got the shears where I wanted them to be, snipped the lettuce and put it in my harvesting tray. I went on to the next plant and hit another rock. That can’t be right. I filled this raised bed myself with potting soil, peat, and sand. There shouldn’t be any rocks! Then it hit me: the soil was frozen. Duh.

Pretty amazing, though. The above-ground lettuce was just fine, yet the roots were in frozen soil. Indeed, the outside temperature dipped to 4°F one morning, but the lettuce in the high tunnel still looked good. I will continue my observations over the coming weeks to see how cold it has to be to kill the greens.

Terry’s holiday craft project this year is making some deer lawn ornaments from a pattern my dad ordered for him a couple years ago. He’s making them from plywood. He starts by drilling a hole and the base of each notch, being careful not to go all the way through because the last layer will split out.

Drilling out the base of the notches from one side

Close up of the drilling (he changed his mind about the position of the pieces when he was tracing)

Then he turns the board over and finishes the hole from the other side.

Finishing the hole from the opposite side

After that, he cuts out the shapes with a jigsaw.

Cutting out the shapes with a jigsaw

After painting and assembly, the deer look like this:

Finished and weighted down

Even weighted down with bricks, we’ve had trouble with them blowing over. It’s been crazy windy on a couple of days.

We were pretty much done with the Christmas cookies we made earlier. Jane found a recipe for Linzer cookies she wanted to try. Jane is fine mixing dough but claims she is unable to roll and cut. She’s the only person in our pod, and we had a small Christmas Eve luncheon, rolling and cutting the cookies afterward. We each got a Christmas cracker containing a paper hat and plastic toy. This year's crackers did not include any riddles, more's the pity.

After baking the cookies, we spread jam on the uncut cookies,

Spreading jam while wearing my "cracker" crown

Put cut out cookies on top,

Assembling the cookies

And sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Dusting with powdered sugar

They were pretty darned good cookies!

I hope you all had a good Christmas and are looking forward to a better New Year!

Crossbills and Christmas trees

 I had my Christmas letters in their envelopes a week ago and finally put them in the mail today. Why the delay, you may be asking. I ordered stamps online, thinking that my request would be forwarded to my local post office, and in a day or two my stamps would come in a small envelope to my mailbox. There was a warning that the order might be delayed two to four days because of high volume, etc. While ordering stamps did effectively prevent exposure to COVID from other postal customers, in every other respect it was not satisfactory. It took a full week, Saturday to Saturday, for the stamps to arrive. Furthermore, the four books of stamps, which measure 2.25” x 5.5”, were placed in an 8.5” x 11” envelope with and 8.5” x 11” invoice AND an equally sized piece of light cardboard, all of which went straight to the recycle bin. I believe I will take my chances at the post office. At least there will be less waste.

Stamps, left; excessive packaging, center and right

Terry and I cut trees for Hilda and us this week. We are doing concolor fir this time. We actually cut two of three trees that were growing in a group. Thus, we each have basically half a tree, but you can’t tell from the front. It worked out well. We can have the tree closer to the wall which allows for better TV viewing.

Oh Christmas tree!

I realized recently that Aunt Sam has a deformed beak. For a long time, I thought she was carrying around a stick, which chickens do sometimes. But she seemed to ALWAYS have a stick in her mouth. I finally got a closer look, which was tricky because (as you may recall) she’s skittish and a bit hyperactive. It was delightful to try to get a good picture. I must have taken 20, of which three were both in focus and showed the deformity. This is the best one.

Aunt Sam's cross beak

Here’s what I find interesting. There is a genus of birds (Loxia) that have crossed bills as an adaptation for prying apart conifer cones. There are two crossbill species in North America. I have no reason to believe that these crossbills are closely related to chickens. Certainly, Aunt Sam may have gotten a cross bill through an error in development, and it might not be genetic at all. But what if it were a mutation? That suggests that there’s not many genes, maybe only one, that separates a normal beak from a crossed beak. If that were true, this gene would be responsible for beak development across a wide diversity of birds. Maybe I think too much.

Christmas cookies

 I’m not quite in the Christmas spirit yet, in spite of a regular application of Hallmark Christmas movies. Sigh. It just isn’t the same when you can’t have people over. Still, I made some of the Christmas cookies. Just the sugar cookies and sour cream pockets, so far. I mean, you can’t have NO Christmas cookies, can you, even if you have few people with whom to share? I gave up on the Christmas bison this year, even though they are chocolate, and in my opinion, the only cookies worth the calories. But it’s not about me, and probably better that I don’t have a lot of my favorite cookies calling to me.

So I rolled and cut,

Rolling and cutting

Frosted,

Frosting--green for the trees and holly leaves

And put on jimmies (elongate) and sprinkles (spheres). Forget the piping of decorative frosting. No patience for that this year.

Sprinkles in lieu of piped frosting

Sunday was the last day of deer season in Illinois. As the afternoon went on, I saw turkeys again for the first time in several weeks. There were 10 toms in our field (nine are in the photo; one was off by himself). When I showed the picture to Terry, he said, “They’re toms! I can see the beard!” Turkey beards are on their chests. Don’t ask me.

Nine of ten tom turkeys. Note "beards" on their chests

In the field across the road there were 20-some hens and poults. The poults were a little smaller than the hens. They were too far away for pictures. Terry figured that deer hunters had moved through our neighbor’s woods looking for deer and flushing the turkeys instead (or in addition). Anyway, we were glad to still the turkeys still in the area.

Thanksgiving

 Last day of November already. We had a nice, safe, intimate Thanksgiving. Doug and Pam thought it too risky to come in from Chicago, where COVID infections are rising, so Hilda and I chatted with them on Zoom in the morning. Hilda enjoyed seeing their faces.

I was much relieved to be cooking a small turkey this year. I also felt prescient to have purchased said turkey last Thanksgiving. I usually get two so I can have Thanksgiving Observed in February when we all need something to cheer us up. I didn’t get to it last year, though. First I was in Florida; then we were quarantined. And now we’re quarantined again, wondering if this would have happened if we’d done it right the first time. Anyway, the label on the turkey gave the use-by date as April, 2021, so no worries there. I started it on it’s back and flipped it after an hour. It was, if I say so myself, perfect.

A perfect turkey

I also made the traditional pumpkin pie.

The traditional pumpkin pie

And cute little deviled pullet eggs.

Pullet eggs garnished with scallion. So cute!

Hilda made mashed potatoes. I pulled a casserole of Brussels sprouts, cheese, and bacon from the freezer and made a small pan of dressing. Here is a picture of Terry making his plate.

The full spread

We worked on a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle in between dinner and dessert. By Sunday, I was down to the white part. I had to sort the pieces by shape and try each one until one of them fit. I know why I don’t do jigsaws more often. I never get anything else done.

Finished jigsaw. The white part was HARD

Yesterday morning, I saw a red-bellied woodpecker eating one of the apples that was still on the tree. I’d never seen that before.

Red-bellied woodpecker pecking apples, not wood

It was a beautiful day. Hilda and I walked down to the creek. Wave after wave of sandhill cranes flew overhead. It seemed late for their migration. I thought I’d missed it and was happy that I hadn’t. We had a few flakes of snow this morning, blown by a wicked north wind. Sigh. Winter is upon us.

Chicken beards and comfort food

 I sat down yesterday to do my blog post and realized I had no good pictures and nothing to write about. I was marginally more inspired today. Chicken pictures are always good.

When we first got the chicks, I named one of the Americauna’s Aunt Sam because of her eagle-like white head. Unlike her namesake, Uncle Sam, Aunt Sam is a coward, the sort of chicken that gives chickens a bad name in the courage department. One day, I threw some carrot peels into the run, and it spooked her so much that she flew over the fence. Once outside, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She walked around the fence, trying to push through at intervals, never letting me get close enough to grab her and toss her in. When she was sufficiently motivated, she flew back over the fence. Silly Aunt Sam.

Aunt Sam, a chicken chicken

I think of another one of the Americaunas as Black Beard. Look at her magnificent facial feathers! This is a good sign. When there are peckers, so to speak, among the chickens, the beard feathers are the first to be pecked off. That Black Beard is sporting such a lovely beard means that there is not much inter-chicken harassment.

Black Beard 

The third Americauna has a less pronounced beard. Oddly, her body feathers are nearly black, but her beard feathers are more of a brown. All of our girls are really beautiful right now.

Brown beard, black body

All the pullets are laying now. We have had as many as 10 eggs in a day! And we are locked down again, so exactly where those eggs will go is undecided. I’ve been doing my best to use them up in baked goods. The cake I featured in last week’s post was not helpful, since it had no eggs. If I want to avoid those 15 COVID pounds, I should stay out of the kitchen. Yet I do not feel capable of that. I want comforting food, and much of that comes out of an oven.

I continued my chocolate cake experiments, this time with Laurie Colwin’s Happy Winter Fudge Cake. It included both melted chocolate and chocolate chips. What’s not to like? This recipe had two eggs but no salt. After some pondering, I decided, as I usually do, to follow the recipe exactly the first time (except for substituting leftover buttermilk from last week’s cake for plain yogurt). When I began baking many decades ago, I wondered why sweet food even had salt in it. Now that I am wise, I know that salt enhances every flavor. Without it, the cake seemed almost cloyingly sweet. By the way, last week’s cake did not, as promised, age well. It started out dry and got drier. Did we finish eating it? Of course. It was still chocolate cake. Happy Winter Fudge Cake really doesn’t need frosting. I’ll have to find some other use for the languishing buttercream.

Happy Winter Fudge Cake

When I worked, I often made cranberry, apricot, orange, walnut bread for the holiday potluck. Let’s do some potluck math—20 persons bring enough food for 20 persons. How many can you feed? 400. I always brought a lot of the cranberry bread home. Now I don’t have to deal with cranberry bread that has dried out for an hour at a potluck, but I also don’t have anyone to share the calories with. Still, it wouldn’t be the holidays for me without cranberry bread for breakfast. A lot of breakfasts.

Happy Winter Fudge Cake in cross section with cranberry, apricot, orange, walnut bread

I spent some time in the high tunnel yesterday. I put the strawberries that Terry started in pots into the ground for the winter.

Strawberries ready for winter

I transplanted more lettuce. Incredibly, I have not lost a single one. The row on the right is mâche or corn salad. It’s still little but so far it is not bitter and seems pleasingly lettuce-like.

Lettuce transplants and baby mache

The spinach was finally big enough to thin for the first time. We had a tiny bit of spinach in our salads tonight, along with the last of the first planting of lettuce. I know it’s going to get cold and more to the point, cloudy, and the flimsy row cover won’t keep my babies warm enough to grow or even survive. Next year, you just wait! I’ll have everything planted in August for harvest through Christmas. Look very carefully on the right for tiny green threads of onion sprouts that will never, ever make it to the kitchen.

Left to right: lettuce, spinach, more lettuce, and sad, sad little onions (look closely)

Thanksgiving is up next. My turkey is defrosting. I have made a mental list of what to do each day in preparation for Thursday. A written list would likely be more helpful. Given that Illinois went to Tier 3 COVID quarantine on Friday, the number of diners is down. Oh well. We love leftover turkey.

I wish you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving! It seems quite likely at this point that next year may be normal. Whether it’s the end of a pandemic or scallions from the high tunnel, hope can’t hurt.

 

Big Wind

 

At last, I have processed the videos I took of the dust bathing two weeks ago when the weather was lovely. I love watching the hens bathe in the dust. They look so happy! It’s also a bit mysterious. As much as they roll around in the soil, they never look dirty.

We had a big storm at 4:00 Tuesday afternoon. Wind, rain, and hail ripped through with the incoming cold front. It didn’t last long, but it was scary. The weather alert on my phone said there was a tornado warning until 4:45. I made Hilda come downstairs until it was over, although I suspected that the danger had already passed.

And then the power went out. It gets dark about 4:30 these days, so we had to find our flashlights. All night long, there was no power. When the sun came up, all the big oaks were still standing (whew!), the high tunnel was not damaged (whew again!), but we did lose this pear tree. Everything that broke in the wind was already dead, frozen back during a polar vortex at some point in the past. The rest of the tree was not worth saving. Terry cut it down later in the week.

Sad, broken pear tree

I left for a doctor appointment, lunch with Kate, and shopping with Jane. Hilda called at 3:00 to report that the power had finally come back on. I was glad to have my electric blanket working again.

I made two quarts of apple juice and another batch of apple butter yesterday. And that is the end of the apples this year.

I can’t seem to stop baking. I have started a little research project on chocolate cake, inspired by Laura Colwin’s More Home Cooking. She presents three chocolate cakes made from stuff that one might just have in the pantry. I tried the buttermilk cake first. I read the recipe over and over, but it did not, in fact, call for any eggs. How peculiar. Never the less, it seemed to rise normally on the strength of baking soda alone.

The cake cooling

Colwin thinks this cake should be served as is. I had buttercream frosting leftover from Hilda’s birthday cake. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

Final presentation

Colwin also said that the cake gets better with age. Frankly, I thought it was pretty good today. Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Apple butter

 My, what a pleasant week it was! We finally got the garlic planted. The first step is getting the landscape cloth down between the rows. We worked on that over a few days. By Tuesday morning, all was ready. We tried to start early before the wind kicked up. We used a dibble, shown below, to make a hole in the ground. The garlic clove goes in root end down.

Dibble next to a hole with a garlic clove in it

After that, we cover the rows with straw. By the time the garlic was planted, the wind had, in fact, started, so spreading straw was challenging.

Spreading the straw

The final step is covering the straw with row cover. Needless to say, this is even more challenging in the wind than the straw. We weighed the row cover down with boards, which Terry kindly fetched from his stash.

Goodnight, little garlics! Sleep well.

The plants in the high tunnel did well in the warm spell. I’m planning to harvest some of the large lettuce soon.

The oldest lettuce, left, is nearly ready for harvest

I finally pulled the broccoli rabe, which was getting out of control, and we ate the last of it. For reasons that are not clear to me, the lettuce in the earth boxes (planters with reservoirs at the bottom to provide a constant supply of water) were growing poorly. I took courage from Eliot Coleman (Four-Season Harvest), who claims that it is possible to transplant lettuce, and moved some plants from the earth boxes to the raised beds in the space where the broccoli rabe had been. I’m pretty excited that they all survived so far.

Lettuce transplants

Meanwhile, the apples are getting older every day. I got a recipe for apple butter from Nancy. That’s a process, let me tell you. I started with 6 pounds of apples, diced. I filled my largest slow cooker and turned it on.

A slow cooker full of apples

It was supposed to go for 8 hours on high, but I didn’t get to that point until 4:00 pm. By the time I went to bed, it had cooked down pretty far, and I was sore afraid that it would be ruined by midnight. I turned it to low and stirred it every couple of hours when I was up anyway. By morning, it had reduced considerably. I ran it through a food mill to remove the skins (although the recipe said one could blitz them with a stick blender). After that, it looked like this.

Apple butter

I stirred in sugar and spices and continued to cook off the water. One of the other recipes I found in my brief research said to cook it until no fluid came out of it when it was put on a plate. This was a handy tip.  

When it seemed sufficiently dry, I put it in half-pint jars and processed it as usual. This is the result.

Apple butter ready for storage

Yesterday was exciting. We had two brown pullet eggs on the same day! This is clear evidence that at least two of the Wyandottes are laying.

Two pullet eggs on the same day!

Today we had the first blue Americauna egg! Hilda thoughtfully gave it to me. I carefully wiped it clean (not to go into too much detail, but it looked like it was painful), but while I was hanging up the Egg Towel, it rolled off the counter and landed on the floor. Damn it! So no picture of the first blue pullet egg.

I also have some videos of the girls dust bathing in the nice weather, but due to technical difficulties, those will be posted at a later time.

Rain and cold weather are coming. It’s seasonally appropriate.

 

Halloween Bonfire

The week started with some excitement. On October 27, Hilda found the first pullet egg. There has been another pullet egg every day or two since then. We can’t be sure yet whether or not there is more than one pullet laying. We do know for sure that none of the Americaunas are laying—all the pullet eggs so far have been brown.

Pullet egg, left, normal egg, right

Pullet egg among the hen eggs

Saturday was Halloween, of course. We scheduled our annual bonfire for that afternoon. Terry spent the month preparing for the fire by cutting down all the dead trees from the orchards and windbreaks whenever he had the chance.

I spent the morning making a cherry pie for Jane’s birthday, even though the actual day was weeks ago. I made a jack-o-lantern face with the steam vents.

Jack-o-lantern cherry pie

Nancy made some cute Halloween-themed snacks. She got the ideas from Pinterest. There were apple lips with marshmallow teeth, glued together with peanut butter. They weren’t as sweet as you might think from the marshmallows. Quite good, actually.

Apple lips and marshmallow teeth

She made witches brooms from string cheese and pretzels as well as deviled spider eggs. Not show are the “mummy fingers”, which were teeny wiennies wrapped in crescent rolls. So cute!

Witches brooms and spider eggs

Jane brought apple cider doughnuts, which we look forward to every year. I was too busy eating to take a picture.

Terry started the fire with gasoline. Boys will be boys.

Terry puts gasoline on the wood

This is the fire after it was lit. It was a blustery day; the brush was not very compact, and the first attempt did not take. Terry put more gas on the fire. It flashed up, but no one was injured.

The first flames

Once the fire got started, we began dragging more brush to the fire ring. It was sad. Here is our beloved plum trees. We only got plums one year, but they were the best plums ever! After that major reproductive event, it succumbed to “gummosis,” a bacterial infection. As the tree goes through freeze/thaw cycles, the bark loosens, allowing the bacteria to invade. This is a problem with all of the Prunus (stone fruits), Terry says, which make them tricky to grow in places with real winters.

The long sticks on the top are the branches of our plum tree

We burned many of the dawn redwoods, too. So sad. I love the dawn redwoods. I think they gave it up in the last polar vortex.

After all the wood was on the fire, Terry went around with the pitchfork now and then, putting the loose branches into the middle of the fire.

Terry tends the fire with his pitchfork

Here we are in our socially distant chairs, watching the fire.

Socially distanced around the fire.

As the afternoon went by, all the brush was burned up, leaving only the logs. These logs are from downed box elders and willow. Terry doesn’t use them in his wood stove because they burn up to fast. Even so, they didn’t seem to burn very fast in this fire.

Down to the big logs

Jane noticed the end of this log, which had nice patterns of light and dark.

Art shot!

The fire burned down.

Just about done

As with every fire, I made a video so Hilda could watch the fire again and again. It helps get her through the winter.