Summer's last gasp

 

September is proceeding with its typical temperature fluctuations. It’s warm when that sun is out and cold when the wind blows. Last Thursday was one of the warm afternoons. Our 6 tom turkeys think that we installed solar panels to provide shade for them.

Six toms under the solar panels

The iridescent colors of bird feathers fascinate me. When I got too close to the turkeys, they moved from the shade to the sun, where the reflected light produced a lovely copper color.

Iridescent copper feathers on the turkey facing right

A few weeks ago, Nancy brought us some broccoli rabe plants. She’d gotten them free at a botanic garden. She doesn’t like broccoli rabe. None of us do, really, but it is against our principles to throw away plants. We put them in a raised bed in the high tunnel. At the time, they were puny and chlorotic (yellow). They had been potted up into 2” pots, but their roots were still bound in a 1” cube in the middle of the new soil. No wonder they didn’t look good.

Broccoli rabe

They have come out of it, though, and are finally looking green and healthy. My brother suggested sauteing in olive oil with garlic. We’ll give it a try, although we are not fond of bitter greens.

The lettuce and radishes are getting their new leaves. I will plant the next crop this week.

Lettuce, top; radishes, bottom

Our raspberry harvest this year is slow. We will probably lose the bulk of the berries in a killing frost. Terry thinks it is because the river birch are now so tall that they are shading the raspberries. My hypothesis is that a cold and wet May put everything behind.  Be that as it may, we had enough raspberries to make Ruth Reichl’s recipe for Oléron berry tart. After making and blind-baking the crust, I filled the tart with a mixture of butter, sugar, almond flour, and egg yolks topped with raspberries. I expected the tart to come out of the oven with baked raspberries on top of a dense marzipan-like layer of almonds and sugar. Instead, the filling had risen up to engulf the raspberries.

Almond filling rose up to engulf the raspberries

After the tart cooled, I put fresh raspberries over the baked filling. It was delicious!

Oléron raspberry tart

We finally got some rain Sunday evening and into yesterday. Even though there was no rain on the radar, passing showers moved through all day. Hilda and I were going to put the chicken fence around the Coop 1 run, but after lunch, I declared that it was just too wet. I went for a walk instead. I hadn’t been to the creek all summer. Every spring, I have plans to keep an eye on my woodland garden back there. By June, I remember about the mosquitoes.

There were still some mosquitoes around yesterday, but not enough to carry me off. The whole area was covered in beggar-ticks gone to seed, including much of the woodland garden. The one plant that is doing really well is Joe Pyeweed. It towers above all the other vegetation.

Seed heads of Joe Pyeweed

I don’t remember seeing pokeweed in the area before, but it’s there now. It’s an annual and produces abundant seeds. I’m sure I’ll be seeing more of it.

Pokeweed

The stems are tough and slow to decompose, but I love the magenta color when they are alive.

Magenta stems of pokeweed

Most of the flowers are gone now. When New England aster begins to bloom, you know that summer is heaving its last gasp. It makes me sad. Can’t put it off forever—October begins this week!

New England aster--one of the last blooms of summer

Late season harvests

 Ah, the landscape cloth. A pain to put down, a pain to pull up. But would we want to pull weeds in all the space that the landscape cloth protects? Absolutely not. Hilda and I worked all morning Friday wresting the edges of the landscape cloth from the grass in the corn patch. It was hard, dusty work. This is how it looked when we were done. Imagine, if you will, all the bare ground covered with as much grass as is growing between the stalks. That would be our life without landscape cloth.

Corn with bare ground between rows where the landscape cloth used to be

As I was pulling up the cloth, I came upon some tunnels and holes of some small rodent, perhaps a mouse or vole. That wasn’t so bad. One year, I uncovered a nest with babies. I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. The next day they were gone. Either mom moved them to a safer place or they were snacks for some predator. I’ll never know.

Rodent tunnels under the landscape cloth. Loose soil (upper right) probably came out of the hole on the lower left

Next to the corn, we have lots and lots of Delicata squash. I will have to remember to make squash every Sunday from now until Kingdom Come. So much squash.

Delicata squash

And then there’s the butternut. They are huge and numerous. To be honest, one butternut squash will be enough for pumpkin bars, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin pancakes until next fall. That’s a culinary secret for you—use squash instead of pumpkin in recipes. The flesh has much less water and is not a fibrous. You’re welcome.

Butternut squash

The apples are ripe. Terry has started picking them and filling up the spare refrigerator. So many apples. I thought about making applesauce today, but nothing came of it. I finished the Sunday crossword and made yogurt. Then it was time for football.

Apples

I learned from a friend early in the summer that the tops should be cut off of Brussels sprouts to promote even growth of the sprouts. I should have thought of it myself. It’s not as if I’d never heard of apical dominance. In past years, there were always big sprouts at the bottom and weenie sprouts at the top. A few weeks ago, I beheaded all the stalks, and by golly, the sprouts really are about the same size.

Brussels sprouts

 Before the beheading, I was worried that the sprouts did not seem to be growing at all. Now I’m worried that they are going to get excessively large before they get some frost on them to make them sweeter. They’re a little bitter before the frost (although not resentful, as far as I can tell). We had a light frost yesterday morning, but not enough to turn the basil black. Basil is so wussy.

The tomatoes in the high tunnel are just beautiful, as juicy and delicious as the first picks of summer, not like the mealy late season tomatoes we’d been getting from the outside plants. It’s just amazing.

High tunnel tomatoes

I finished reading Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman. I learned that the idea of the four season garden is to grow cool season plants during the autumn and spring. Some of these plants (carrots, beets) will survive the winter months in the high tunnel, covered with row cover, but only if it’s had enough time to get a well-developed root. Coleman says to plant a bunch of seeds and see what happens. Our seed supply was short. I found radishes and lettuce, which I planted on Sept. 14. And they’re up! Hooray!

Lettuce sprouts

Radish sprouts

I ordered seeds for beets, winter lettuce, carrots, and scallions, but I may miss my window by the time they get here. Coleman says mâche (cornsalad) is the bees’ knees for winter greens. As far as I can tell, there is not a single mâche seed left in the country. I checked 3 major seed companies; all were sold out. Next year for the mâche.

Speaking of bees, I recently learned that bumblebees can generate enough body heat to be able to fly on chilly mornings when other bees have to stay home. When I looked at (something I believe to be) hard-leaved goldenrod this morning, there they were, a bit sluggish, but getting the pollen and nectar. The genus name of bumblebees is Bombus. I love that. In Darwin’s time, they were also known as humblebees. Such fun furry little beasts.

Sluggish bumblebees on goldenrod

Hummingbird activity is slowing down on these cool days. There was one at the feeder this morning when the sunlight was just right to catch its beautiful iridescence. We have to enjoy them while we can. They will be leaving soon.

Hummingbird bulking up for winter

Harvest update

 It was certainly good to see the sun today! We had 7 days of rain last week. Fortunately, it was not enough of a deluge to flood the creek, but day after day of pissing drizzle can really get you down. The six tom turkeys hung around, looking damp and miserable. We don’t know what they were finding to eat in the lawn but they stayed busy.

Cruising the orchard fence

What are YOU looking at?

The turkeys have been inspecting the high tunnel. I found these tracks in the sand that Terry is putting around the edge of the high tunnel.

Turkey tracks in the high tunnel

I got a few weeks behind while I was doing the vacation posts. Prior to this last week of cold and wet, it was hot and dry. One day the turkeys seemed to think that we put in the solar panels specifically to make a shade shelter for them.

Hanging out in the shade of the solar panels

The meat chickens and 2-year-old hens went to freezer heaven on September 2. We moved the pullets into the orchard with the 1-year-old hens. They are still squabbling about position on the perch at night and mostly hang out in separate groups during the day. The pullets seem to have grown to full size just in the last week. Please admire the beauty of the silver-laced Wyandottes.

Silver-laced Wyandotte

I braved the mosquitoes to walk to my wetland restoration. It’s not going well. Reed canary grass has seriously taken over. I actually put herbicide on it in the spring. It was all for naught. The first year it bloomed, there was cardinal flower everywhere. This year I found this clump of three and one other plant. So sad. I love the bright red of cardinal flower.

The lovely red cardinal flower

My pollinator garden by the shed did quite well. For whatever reason, we did not see the diversity of butterflies we saw last year. We had an abundance of skippers.

Pollinator garden

Can you find the spider in this picture?

The spider's abdomen is the light yellow spot to the right

Great blue lobelia spontaneously appeared by the garden shed. It grows on the north side of the property, and I was excited to see it here. The stripes on the underside of the flower are a diagnostic characteristic.

Great blue lobelia

We dug the potatoes. They were larger this year than in previous years. These are the Norkota Russets, large enough for baking at last!

Norkota russetts. The one by the ruler is 6" long

The tomato harvest from the garden is done. This was our champion plum tomato this year.

Our champion plum tomato

The tomato plants look awful. We’ll be taking them out soon.

Scraggly tomatoes in the garden

But look at the tomatoes in the high tunnel!

Lush green tomatoes in the high tunnel

The tomatoes we are getting from those plants are beautiful. We hope to have tomatoes for another month, if we’re lucky.

Lovely juicy perfect tomatoes from the high tunnel

I planted some strawberry runners in the high tunnel raised beds. I forgot to water them the next day, and all the leaves wilted. I kept them moist, though, and was rewarded with new growth. Sometimes it takes awhile for the roots to establish.

New leaves on my strawberry runners

I was out grilling peppers in the mist one day this year and I noticed that I did not see any male hummingbirds. I put Jane on the research, and she discovered that the males do leave first, leaving the females and juveniles (which look like females) to bulk up for migration. I refilled my feeder when I learned that this is a critical time for these birds. Sometimes they eat.

Bulking up for migration

It seems like they spend more time guarding the feeder, like this one is. There is plenty of sugar water for everyone, if they would share. But they don’t. They’d rather spend energy chasing each other. Kids.

Perched above the feeder, watching for rivals

Terry discovered this hornworm on a jalapeno pepper plant. It is covered with cocoons of a parasitic wasp. The prognosis of the hornworm is not good. The adult wasps emerge through an escape hatch at the end of the cocoon. You can see it if you look closely.

A hornworm infested with parasitic wasps

We made sauerkraut on Friday. Last year, I harvested all the cabbage and ended up with 20 pounds of sauerkraut, most of which is still in the root cellar. This year, I weighed the cabbage as I picked it. Nancy went home with 10 pounds, and we had about 7. Much more reasonable.

Bubbling sauerkraut in the crock

We lost about half the grape harvest in the cold rain. We picked what was left today. We ended up with three trays full.

The grape harvest

I used my new steam juicer. The juice is not as concentrated, but boy, is it a lot less work! Looks like we’ll have four quarts.

Steam juicer

We had margarita pizza for supper tonight. We won’t have fresh tomatoes and basil much longer.

I

Margarita pizza (cheese, tomatoes, and basil)

t’s okay. I’m ready to be done with the frantic late summer harvest.

Boundary Waters vacation, Days 5 and 6

 

Thursday, August 13

As we were finishing our blueberry pancakes, I saw a head pop out of the water on the other side of the lake. We had been waiting all week to get pictures of loons. We grabbed our cameras and went down to the dock. We quickly realized that these were not loons. It was three river otters! We took dozens of pictures, but mine were all out of focus. With my bifocals, I can’t focus manually, and autofocus behaves badly when trying to get a small object in a large background. Jane had one good picture of many.

Two heads and the back of river otters

I took a picture of a waterlily blooming, just because I have to every year.

My annual waterlily picture

When we were back in the cabin sorting through the pictures and deleting the hopeless ones, Dave came to the door with the message that I had an urgent call. It was Nancy with the tragic news about Pat (see post from August 17). The rest of the day was a fog of shock, disbelief, and tears.

We eventually were able to rouse ourselves to carry on with our plans for the day. On our way to the Gunflint Trail, we saw the merlin again. This is a picture of the merlin’s tail as it flew out of the first picture.

A merlin leaving the picture (top)

It landed nearby, where I was finally able to get a decent, in-focus shot.

Finally, a good picture

Normally, the Chik Wauk Museum has a new display each summer featuring a different individual or event from the history of the Gunflint Trail. I’m not sure if it was because I was lost in grief or because COVID had impacted the museums usual schedule, but it didn’t seem like they had changed their displays since last year.

We went to the campground at the end of the trail. COVID has been good for camping. It seemed that every site was filled.

After a trip to town for wine, gin, and a stop at DQ, we went back to the cabin. We had spaghetti with chicken in a wine, mushroom, and garlic sauce for supper. I made peach and blueberry cobbler with cream scones. We put together the last of the 100-piece jigsaws.

Peach and blueberry cobbler; goldfinch jigsaw

Friday, August 14

As much as I hoped that Pat’s death was a bad dream, she was still dead when I woke up. I made eggs with stuff (peppers, onion, cheese), toast, and bacon for breakfast. The otters came back, and we took a bunch of bad pictures again. I had two that were almost focused. In this one, the otter on the right seems to have something in its mouth.

A not-too-bad picture of two otters

I’m not sure if these two otters are sharing or stealing food. Without knowing their motivation, it is impossible to tell.

Sharing or stealing food?

We went to Tofte to visit the North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum. I’d wanted to go there because I thought that Pat would enjoy reading about it in a letter, especially if she and Nancy had not been there before. It felt hollow now, but I have other readers.

North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum sign

The museum was small but filled with information and artifacts. It is difficult for the modern mind to imagine how hard those early fishermen and their families worked. This picture tries to capture the fisherman’s typical attire. The plaque next to the mannequin explains that the wives made the fishermen’s clothes beginning with sheep. Think of the skills they would have to have! Shearing, carding, spinning, weaving, sewing. No Asian sweatshops for them. I bet they never threw anything out before it had been repeatedly mended and patched. I wonder if they even had a second set so that one could dry before they had to go out on the lake the next day. Oh, and when they got in from the freezing cold water, they had to clean, salt, and pack their catch before they were done for the day. Oh, the family sometimes lived above the fish shack. There would be no escaping the smell.

Typical clothes of fishermen

Here is a picture of the pathetically small boats they fished in.

A small boat for a big lake

This is a herring shovel that was used for scooping herring out of the boat. The water went through the holes in the shovel, and the fish stayed in. One of my questions going in was about the herring. This particular fish was a different species than the herring that lives in salt water. It is more closely related to the lake whitefish than the ocean herring.

Herring shovel

We stopped at DQ on the way back to the cabin so Jane could have ice cream. I didn’t have much of an appetite. We had our final happy hour of gin and tonics on the deck.

Last happy hour on the deck

We packed our things and loaded as much as we could in the car. Time to go home.