Relics and Escape Artists

 I have finally overcome my resistance to cleaning out my parents’ stuff. I’m making good progress. I found two typing erasers in my mother’s desk. I swear to God, these are the very same erasers she had when I was a child 50—maybe even 60—years ago. Why would they continue to be manufactured after the invention of Wite-Out?

Tools of the past--typing erasers, c. 1960's

Back then, you had to roll the paper up, erase the letter with the erasers shown, which, by the way, were different from a regular pencil eraser because they had grit in them to scrape away the ink, and brush away the eraser tooties with the brush on the end. If you weren’t careful, the eraser would make a hole clean through the paper. The paper got rolled down, and you continued typing. Oh, and if you wanted a copy of your document, you put two pieces of paper in the typewriter with carbon paper in between. If you made a mistake while doing that, you had to erase both copies. It was totally a lot of fun. Interestingly, this history lives on in “cc”, an abbreviation for “carbon copy.”

When personal computers were invented, my typing got a lot faster and a lot less accurate.

The automatic chicken door is working well. The netting around the run was not working so well. It was a worry. We kept finding chickens outside the run, and if a chicken was outside the run when the door shut for the night, we could easily lose her to a predator.

Our number one escape artist was Miss USA, so named because her white head resembles a bald eagle. She is bold and always looking for adventure, although once she’s out, she tends to just run around the outside looking for a way to get back in.

The bold and beautiful Miss USA

Miss USA’s closest friend, Miss Congeniality, follows her wherever she goes. They are often outside the run at the same time. Miss C. ventures farther away sometimes.

Miss USA's BFF, Miss Congeniality

Terry noticed yesterday that Miss C. has a white rump, which he thought looked like she was wearing a diaper.

Miss Congeniality's white rump

The annoying thing is that both hens seem perfectly capable of getting back in the run, but they don’t seem to realize it until we are chasing them. Under duress, Miss USA flaps and runs up the netting to where the holes are larger and slips through. I’m sure Miss Congeniality could do the same, but I haven’t seen it.

Blackbeard, the other first-year Americauna, also frequently escapes, not because she is looking for adventure but because she is especially skittish. If I throw scratch grains into the run too vigorously, she takes such  fright that she flies over the fence before she knows it. I chased her all the way around the glass greenhouse on one occasion only to have her fly back in under her own power.

Blackbeard, named for her spectacular cheek feathers

Even though the hens can fly over the fence, we suspected that was not their primary means of escape. Longtime blog readers will remember the year we raised three turkeys. We got the poults from a local man who told us that they would be “perfect” in time for Thanksgiving. In reality, the jake (male) weighed 36 pounds when he came back from the butcher, and the two jennies were in the upper 20’s. Anyway, because we kept the turkeys until Thanksgiving, they were separated from the pullets and meat chickens early in August. This was before we put the hens in the orchard for the summer, so the turkey enclosure was right next to the hens/pullets. The turkeys went crazy with loneliness, pacing back and forth on their side of the fence and pecking at the netting. We fixed the holes, but the netting continues to break at weak spots. Breaks are harder to find than you might think.

I was distressed when Terry told me one day that all of the hens had gotten out. That was a complete failure of the fence! He quickly confessed that he had left the gate open. Three hens were out initially. He opened the gate with the intention of shooing them in and then got distracted. I am not one to point fingers, as I get distracted a hundred times a day. However, I am able to keep my mind on the mission when I open the gate to the run. Be that as it may, when Terry’s attention returned to the chickens, all 11 of them were scratching happily around the base of the magnolia tree. He herded them back home.

Regardless of that episode, it was time to replace the netting. I placed the order, and we waited. It came late last week. Luckily, it was warm enough Friday to get the posts in the ground. As we were taking down the old fence, I realized that I had neglected to put earth staples in between the posts. It is possible that the hens were just sneaking out under the net. Oh well. We put up the new fence anyway. We have not had an escape since!

The new fence

 

 

Reindeer and varmints

Terry’s winter project for the last two years has been making eight not-so-tiny reindeer. He’s never been one to spend time in quiet contemplation. He needs to stay busy. Two of the reindeer are posted on either side of the garage. Terry has their feet on boards that are weighted down with bricks. Nevertheless, they keep blowing over in the 70 mph winds. Terry puts them back together and stands them up again. Hope springs eternal.

The other six are on the south lawn. At least they don’t break when they hit the grass.

Reindeer on the south side of the house

 One of them is different from the others. Terry does not like to waste scraps and uses them for embellishments of his own design. “Why does one of the reindeer have antlers on his butt?” I asked.

Comet, en flambe

“That’s Comet,” Terry replied. As if that explained everything.

“Those are flames,” he added. Ditto.

“Green flames,” I said.

“Yeah!” The tone here implied that everyone knows that.

“Coming out of his butt,” I said.

“Yeah!” Ditto.

In all of the variations of the Santa mythology, I do not recall anything about Comet having green (or any other color) flames coming out of his butt. However, I have learned that when Terry comes up with this stuff, it is often better to smile and nod.

In other news, I went out to harvest carrots from the high tunnel this week and noticed that some damned varmint had been there before me. This carrot did not grow this way.

Stumpy

I don’t know what varmint it could be. Mice and voles were my first suspects. They don’t hibernate. I have seen their tunnels all over under the snow. There wasn’t a whole lot of damage, so that would be consistent with a small animal. However, there was a whole lot of dirt excavated from the bed, which suggests something larger. I have not seen any 13-striped ground squirrels recently, but we haven’t had the consistently cold weather that would cause them to settle in for their long winter nap.

All of the black soil outside of the raised bed was excavated underneath the board.

The next day, there was even more damage. My carrots! My beautiful carrots!

Top chewed off a carrot

And another one

I could harvest all the remaining carrots and refrigerate them. I hate to do that, though, because they will keep better in the ground. It seemed that the varmints are coming in under the side of the high tunnel. Terry filled the gap with sand, which won’t prevent them from getting in, but will at least tell us where they’re tunneling. It’s always something. There was no further damage between yesterday and today. I’ll just wait and watch. Damned varmints!

Chicago and Christmas Cookies

 What an eventful week we had! Thursday, Terry and I took advantage of relatively warm weather (40’s) and the fact that the kids are still in school to go to the Big City for the first time since the pandemic. It was a nice day, beginning with getting all day passes on the train for just 10 bucks each! Normally, it’s $9.50 each way. “That’s like two free beers at Chistkindlmarket!” Terry said. We all have our own ways of assessing comparative value.

Ten dollar day passes in the ticket clips on the train 

Whoo-wee! That wind was NOT warm as it came whipping off the lake and into our faces as we headed up Madison. I was glad to have my hat and long underpants! Our calculations were correct. Christkindlmarket was the least crowded we had ever seen it. We walked right up to the counter and got two brats with sauerkraut. Next we walked right up to a counter a few shops down and cashed in our savings from the train tickets.

The relatively deserted entrance to Christkindlmarket

We shared a tiny stand-up table with an older woman (well, a little older than us) and her daughter. They were drinking that nasty hot spiced wine in souvenir Christmas mugs. Each year’s mug is dated and has a different design. I can see how that could be habit forming. After you get, say, 5 years of mugs, could you give it up? But where would you ultimately store them all? This year’s mug marked the 25^th anniversary of Christkindlmarket. That’s a lot of shelf space. The daughter was off foraging when we colonized our half of the table. I asked the mother if she collected the mugs.

“No, my daughter does,” she answered.

The daughter returned with potato pancakes. We chatted while we ate and drank. All of us came down once a year when there was no pandemic.

When we finished lunch, we moved on to the vendor booths. Terry was drawn to a stall selling Belgian chocolates molded into novelty shapes, such as nuts and bolts. My eye caught a chocolate croissant in the booth next door, St. Roger Abbey French Gourmet Patisserie of Marengo, IL. I’d heard of the nuns in Marengo. They are always getting in trouble with the City Council over permits for one thing and another. My croissant was $4.50. I gave Sister $5.00 and told her to keep the change. I felt that the sisters were a bit stingy with the chocolate, but not with the butter. It was an exceptionally flaky croissant.

Terry joined me with a white chocolate car in a fancy box with a gold seal, for which he paid $19.50. Get that man out on the town, and he just goes crazy.

Chocolate car in a fancy box

Our next stop was the windows at the store formerly known as Marshall Fields. The story this year was of a reindeer named TipToe, who was learning to fly. This window shows the lecture from the cliché wise old owl. So lame.

TipToe, the blue reindeer in front, gets her flying lecture

There is no more viewing of the tree in the Walnut Room from the floor above. TipToe and her friends were positioned around the tree. We could have had immediate seating in the Walnut Room during peak lunch time. Everything is different now.

TipToe at the base of the Walnut Room tree

This is the tree at Millennial Park.

The Christmas Tree at Millennial Park

The city was nicely reflected in the Bean.

The Bean

Here is our self-portrait on the Bean. I have the red coat and the yellow camera in front of my face.

Terry and me reflected in the bean

We walked up Michigan Avenue. The Mag Mile has taken a pandemic hit. There were several stores for lease. Crime has increased in the city. There were no Rolex watches on display in the windows. I saw a salesman locking the door on a diamond store. I guess you have to knock or have an appointment to get in.

We admired the bust of Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, the first non-Indigenous resident of the area. He established a successful trading business in the late 18^th century, but it was not until almost 200 years later that he was acknowledged as the founder of Chicago. Why? He was a Black man. The honor first went to John Kinzie, White guy, who bought Pointe DuSable’s property. I was surprised to see from the plaque that he lived to be 73 years old. Considering all the hazards of frontier life, that’s quite remarkable.  

Pointe DuSable, a handsome man

We didn’t go all the way to the Hancock this year. Terry wanted to catch the 3:45 train home. We had one more beer at Christkindlmarket on our way back to Ogilvie station. I got suckered into buying a pretzel. They always look so good, and they always are so dry. Bah.

When we crossed the Chicago River, we saw a crane hoisting up building materials to a skyscraper under construction. 

A crane in action

Back at home, I weighed Terry’s white chocolate car. It was 3.52 ounces, which figures out to be $88.64/pound. Way more expensive than Godiva.

This is what $88/lb chocolate looks like

Saturday was Christmas cookie day. I prepped the doughs on Friday, using butter by the pound. Kate wore the commemorative apron she and her sister Kim made after our jam session. It doesn’t seem like it was three years ago. Time flies. Kim was supposed to join us, but was snowed in up in Oshkosh.

Kate and her commemorative apron

I rolled and cut out the cookies. Kate prepped the frosting. Jane switched the trays and put the cookies on the cooling rack.

Rolling

Jane waits for the next tray to be done

When the cookies were cooled, the frosting began. Jane put chocolate frosting on the bison while Kate did the vanilla cookies. Then it was time to decorate.

So many cookies!

Kate and I tag team with different colors of frosting

And decorate.

Still decorating....

Finally, we had the cookies done.

Christmas bison with wreaths and bows

Lovely sugar cookies in the late afternoon sun

We also made peanut butter blossoms and Mexican wedding cakes. We were too tired to take on the pecan bars, so I did those today. I’m done baking for awhile. I’d better be!

Oh, Christmas Tree

 It is hard to imagine a drearier day. All of Chicagoland is socked in with freezing rain. Freezing rain is the worst. The football players on both teams are baubling the ball around at Soldier Field like it’s a hot potato. I bet they are all thinking of a hot shower right now.

We’ve had a rather eventful week here. I finally, finally used the last of the 20 pounds of carrots I harvested at the end of summer. I pulled the first carrots from the high tunnel Tuesday morning. They are so beautiful! They will last all winter in the soil. They are biennials, after all. Their reproductive cycle is two years long. They store energy in their roots the first year and use it to set seeds in the second year. I have one raised bed of carrots. I am looking forward to finding out how long that will meet my needs. I don’t think I’ll probably get through the whole winter without buying some. I assure you, the carrots from the high tunnel are much better, so crisp and fresh.

How lovely art the high tunnel carrots!

Tuesday afternoon, we cut our Christmas tree. Terry showed me several trees from the first planting up by the house. They are getting crowded and all are lopsided. It’s not a terrible thing. The flat side can go toward the wall. Here’s the one we selected; its flat side is where the lilacs blocked its growth in the back.

Our free range Christmas tree in its natural setting

Terry crawled down in the dead leaves with his chainsaw.

Terry cuts the tree

Soon the deed was done.

And drags it to the house

We put it up in the living room upstairs. There’s more space, and we’ve been going up there to watch TV in the evenings. We will be moving up there for good after we get some renovations done.

The tree in the stand

We put on our usual decorations.

Decorated

And turned on the lights.

Lit up

As I was unpacking the decorations, I saw that the “J” had fallen off one of the wall plaques. Now we’re ready for Hanukah!

Oy to the world!

The last momentous event of the week was the arrival and installation of an automatic coop door. I have been dreaming of one for years. Jane was kind enough to do some research for me, and I finally found the time last weekend to make a spreadsheet of features and decide which one to order. I went with the Omlet Automatic Coop Door—Green. It has three control options—manual, timer, and light sensor—as well as a safety function to prevent it from decapitating any chickens. I could also get an adapter to plug it into an electrical outlet instead of relying on batteries. (Not everyone has electricity in their chicken coop. Batteries seem to be the default for automatic doors.) The thing that sealed the deal was that it had the best ratings for low temperature operation. I had hoped we would get through more than three days without worrying about the channel getting clogged up with ice. When I was out earlier, it seemed like it was staying pretty dry, but I will definitely have to check it tonight.

The new automatic coop door with light sensor (above right)

Once we had it installed, the hens all stood around outside, eyeing it suspiciously. When the sun when down, though, in they went! That was one hurdle. The door closed all by itself when it got dark enough.

It opened up in the morning, just as it should have. When I went out to do the chores, however, all the chickens were still in the coop. The new door is about half the width of the old door, and it seemed like they couldn’t quite figure out how to get through it single file. My presence in the coop was alarming enough that they were motivated to use their limited problem-solving skills. Saturday morning, they went out on their own, but there was a great deal of confusion. Where are the scratch grains we get every morning when the door opens? They dashed around the run in a tight group, not wanting to miss out if someone found the cache. They are so funny! They will just have to learn to wait until I finish my tea. Because I can.

The best part of the coop door is that we can now go out for the day without worrying about getting home by dusk, a particular problem now that the girls go in at 4:15. It’s like a whole new world has opened up for us!

Thanksgiving

 I was a total slacker with the camera over the weekend. Thus, I have but two photos for the blog this week, both of which were taken by Nancy.

So yeah, it’s been a rough year, but I’m thankful that my chosen family—in this case, Terry, Jane, and Nancy--can get together and have a fun day. I’m also thankful that these particular people are the types who will hop up and help get dinner on the table. Jane made gravy; Nancy got out dishes and put food in serving dishes, and Terry opened the champagne. I carved the turkey, which was perfectly cooked, if I say so myself.

The first cut on the turkey

Taking off the wing

It was a nice day with good food. My innovation this year was to bake the herbs (fresh from the high tunnel) in the bread for the stuffing. Jane declared it a success. It made the flavors infuse into the bread in a way that took it to the next level. I got the last of the Brussels sprouts out of the high tunnel. I have mentioned that they didn’t grow right this year. I managed to salvage enough for dinner, but threw out about three times that volume. We had mashed Caribou Russets. To finish up, we had “pumpkin” pie made from BetterNut Squash, a new variety Terry tried this year. I loved it! The flesh was so firm and smooth. Not like watery, fibrous pumpkins. The only thing not from the farm (other than staples like salt and flour) was the turkey. I get such a kick out of that!

I suspect the cliché of turkey fatigue is from a time when all turkeys were 25 pounds and no one had freezers. Our turkey was gone long before I was tired of it. Jane and Nancy took some leftovers home. Terry and I ate turkey, gravy, potatoes, etc. until last night. There was barely enough turkey left to make turkey soup from the stock that I made from the carcass. We finished Jane’s legendary gravy with toast for lunch today. And that’s it. All gone, except for two more dinners of turkey soup in the freezer.

One holiday down, two to go. Then we settle into winter and wait for spring.

Last of summer produce

 The extra refrigerator is empty of all summer produce. I used the rest of the apples in a crisp and gave the last 6 pounds of carrots to a friend who was going to dehydrate them for soups. The only other thing in the refrigerator was a small melon that had been in there since mid-October. Remembering the liquified giant watermelon, I cut the small melon in the sink. But it was good!

A passable melon after a month in the refrigerator

It was a little squishy around the seeds, but cutting that part got rid of the seeds as well. Bonus! While not the best watermelon I ever ate, it was passable and better than what I expected after a month in the refrigerator.

I cleaned the refrigerator this morning. It looks a lot better without raspberry juice smeared on the shelf and too many dead fruit flies on the bottom to count. This is just where I want the spare fridge to be the weekend before Thanksgiving.

A clean refrigerator is a thing of beauty

Following an extremely gloomy spell, the sun finally came out yesterday. The girls were so excited to get back to their dust baths. Unfortunately, as I approached to take a picture, most of them ran to the fence to greet me in breathless anticipation for treats that I did not have. These were the only two left in the raised bed.

Dust bathing on a sunny day

It may get down below 20 degrees tonight. I’m not sure what the temperature will be in the high tunnel. I know that low 20’s will turn Brussels sprouts black. Not wanting to risk it, I harvested. My goal was to have Brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving, and I made it.

The high tunnel Brussels sprouts

You may recall from an earlier post that my Brussels sprouts did not do well this year. I think I may have topped them too soon. The best sprouts I have are ones that resprouted from a side bud after topping. This picture shows the new shoot with the young sprouts developing. You can see the joint between the two at the bottom of the picture.

A side shoot that I let grow is light blue-green above the greener green of the old shoot at the bottom.

I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving with good food and good company!

First snow

It’s feeling like winter. It makes me sad, but it is seasonally appropriate. The goldfinches are not gold anymore.

Not-gold finches

Their general strategy is to have representatives sit on the bird feeder and throw seeds to the ground as fast as they can. Then everyone flies in and has a party on the lawn.

PARTY! Mostly goldfinches with a few house finch crashers

The weekend had about the most dismal weather you can get--rain, snow, wind. Why, yes, that is snow in the picture.

Snow

When Terry came to bed Saturday night, he told me there was an inch of snow on the ground, even though the forecast was for no accumulation. By morning, though, most of it had melted from the grass. Only the deck bore testimony to the night’s precipitation.

The last vestiges of the snow that fell Saturday night

Last week, I wrote about the tomatoes biting the dust. I had some tomatoes ripening in the house. The very last one went to bacon, lettuce, avocado, and tomato sandwiches. I’ll long for ripe tomatoes long before they are available again, but for now, I’m glad to be done with them.

The last tomato sandwich of 2021

The only thing left that requires my attention are a few more apples. When the weather is so gray, wet, and bleak, I can’t keep myself out of the kitchen. I have to find something else to do soon, however, because every freezer we own is packed with baked goods. Anyway, I looked through some cookbooks for an apple cake recipe. I came up with on in King Arthur Flour 100^th Anniversary Cookbook. I’m beginning to suspect that these recipes are of more historic than culinary importance. The cake was leavened with yeast rather than the usual baking powder and/or soda. It did not have much of a yeasty flavor, a disappointment to me. It also had a kind of weird aftertaste. I’ll give it this—it aged well. By the third day or so, the weird flavor went away. I admit that it was a pretty cake, but I doubt if I will make it again. 

Not-so-good apple cake