Blast from the Past

 In preparation for the memorial, Pam asked if I had any pictures of mom and dad. I began by looking through the box of photos in the basement. I thought it would make me feel worse, but the opposite was true. Last winter was so dark and scary and sad. It did me good to see pictures of sunshine and laughter. I found many pictures of good times. Here are just a few, in chronological order.

1985: I adopted my first and best cat, Fruitcake, a.k.a. Bubby, whom I found in the woods at camp.

Dear, sweet Bubby

c. 1987: Jane and I took Hilda and Dad on a trip to the Boundary Waters.

 I have no idea what we were having for supper, but we sure were proud of it.

Haute cuisine by the campfire

I loved canoeing! I loved the wilderness and the feeling that all I needed was in a few packs at my feet. So liberating!

So young! So tan!

Jane and I at the monument marking the border between the U.S. and Canada on the Monument Portage.

Monument portage

1991: After Dad decided he’d had enough of sleeping on rocks, we recruited other friends to take his place. We went for several years, but I’m only included two pictures from this year’s trip.

Bottles and cans are prohibited in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Here is a picture of Hilda portage two 5-liter boxes of Franzia Mountain Chablis. At the end of a day of portaging and canoeing, it tastes wonderful. Not so much when you are at home and better wine is available. (Note: this particular portage is through a parking lot at Trail’s End Campground. It is the only paved portage in the BWCAW.)

Hilda carrying the wine on the "asphalt portage"

On this particular trip, Hilda and I had new canoe shoes—khaki-colored, high-top canvas shoes. Aren’t they lovely?

New canoe shoes--Hilda would call them "fetching."

1994: Mom and Dad came to visit Jane and me for the holidays while I was in graduate school. I grew my hair out so strangers would stop calling me "Sir."

New Year's Eve with tiaras and top hat. 

Jane's cat Meggie supervised Hilda's quilting, which was very helpful, as you can imagine. 

Hilda and Meggie

Doug and Pam still have this quilt. There's a funny story that goes with it. Hilda appliqued all of the leaflets on the quilt squares by hand using "teeny tiny" stitches. She usually worked in front of TV so she wouldn't fall asleep. One evening, she stood up and realized she had sewn the leaflets and square to her shirt! All those teeny tiny stitches had to be carefully pulled out. In Hilda's words, "The air was blue!"

1996: I officially finished my PhD in December, 1995, but came back from North Dakota, where I was post-docking, for the spring graduation ceremony. This is the whole family.

The whole famn damily for my PhD graduation ceremony

1998: Terry and I were married in Buffalo, NY, where I was teaching at SUNY College at Buffalo (originally and still generally called Buffalo State College).

In the courthouse

The weekend after the wedding, we took Hilda, Dad, Terry’s mom, and his sister Iris to the Carousel Museum in North Tonawanda,

The Carousel Museum

The Maid of the Mist boat tour of Niagara Falls,

Maid of the Mist ponchos, which we carried around in the car for rain emergencies for years

And the Botanic Gardens in Lackawanna.

Me, Hilda, and my new mother-in-law, Minnie 

Later that summer (1998): Hilda and Dad continued to take trips to the Boundary Waters but switched to renting a cabin from Dave and Nancy at Hungry Jack Outfitters. The summer after our wedding, there was a terrible storm. The following day, Hilda caught the Walleye of Legend. Apparently all the little fish were blown into the bay by Cabin 1, and the predators followed. She was very excited! She ate it for breakfast.

The Walleye of Legend

2001: A happy moment in the old house in Portage, MI.

Mom and Dad

2002: Hilda and Dad visited us at the Girl Scout Camp where Terry was site manager. Della helped Hilda with her quilt. She was more actively engaged than Meggie. It's a cat thing.

Hilda and Della

2012: I took Hilda and Dad to the Boundary Waters for the last time. At 82 and 86, respectively, they still wanted to hike. They were truly remarkable.

Hiking near the Boundary Waters

Memorial Bench

 Friday, Oct. 22 would have been my mother’s 91^st birthday. To commemorate this occasion, my brother set up a dinner for the remaining family and some of his friends who knew my parents well in Grand Rapids. My brother’s wife, Pam, made reservations for us at a downtown hotel. We had a room with a beautiful view of the river. This is a picture of the sunrise on Saturday morning.

On Saturday, we went to Frederik Meijer (“Meyer”, for those of you who are not Midwesterners) Gardens & Sculpture Park. Doug and Pam donated a bench in the Japanese garden dedicated to the memory of our parents.

The bench

The plaque is just temporary. The permanent plaque will be installed in the spring when the weather is warmer. 

The temporary plaque

This is the view of the garden from the bench.

The view of the Japanese Garden from the bench

Doug and his friends shared their memories of my mom and dad. Every single person who spoke mentioned my mother’s love of food. I wondered if they knew how heartbreaking it was to see her become less and less interested in eating, and finally be unable to eat at all. It came back to me quite vividly, I assure you. I’m not done grieving yet. 

Terry and I walked around the pond. We were lucky to get such a nice calm day. The fall colors were reflected in the water.

Fall colors reflected in the calm water

And then we drove home, where there is still too much empty space in the house. I miss my mom.

More on watermelons

 I’m learning a lot about watermelons. To review, I grew 2 giant watermelons and three smaller ones. The first giant watermelon weighed 41.4 pounds and was mealy and overripe in the middle. The second melon, one of the small ones, was also overripe, but not as badly. I figured they were all overripe, but I cut another one of the small ones and it was perfect! Firm flesh right up to the center.

A perfect watermelon

Yesterday I had an hour in the afternoon and planned to make juice of the second enormous melon. This one weight a paltry 38.4 pounds. I made a slit with a knife, and juice POURED out. I tipped the melon up to stop the flow, grabbed a towel and wiped the counter, cutting board, cabinets, and floor.

Working on the assumption that there was a small amount of free fluid in the melon, I wrestled the melon cut side down into a bowl to let it drain. When it seemed like no more juice was coming out, I cut the melon in half while it was still in the bowl. I noticed too late that the entire center of the melon was liquified. Seconds later, the two halves of the melons separated; the halves fell out of the bowl, AND the bowl tipped. A tsunami of melon juice went everywhere. I put the melon back in the bowl and took it outside, which is where I should have been from the get-go. The should-haves don’t count. The hour I planned to use making juice was spent cleaning the kitchen.

38.4 pound watermelon with nothing but juice in the middle

Watermelons are native to Africa. Seeds have been found in Egyptian tombs. I had heard that they were bred for their water content and that they were carried across deserts as a source of water. I assumed that they got the water from eating the melons. It would seem, however, that they would only have to let the melon mature, drill a hole in the side and pour out the juice. Wikipedia says that watermelons were stored as a source of fluid during dry seasons. Unlike cantaloupe, the rind is hard enough to prevent bugs from burrowing in with their loads of bacteria and fungi. In theory, the inside of the melon would be sterile and be safe to eat/drink indefinitely. Ancient watermelons may have been even more robust if they were stored from the wet season to the dry. Amazing.

We are getting one blue (Americauna) pullet egg on most days. The Dominiques, as far as we can tell, have not started laying. The roosting segregation is breaking down somewhat. I took this picture last night. The first photo is the east side, where five of the six pullets are roosting with one of the Wyandott hens (right side of the group). Two hens were in the middle.

Left to right: 5 pullets, 1st Wyandott hen, 1st Americauna hen, 2nd Wyandott

On the west side, one Dominique pullet is sitting on the top of the ladder next to two of the hens. I’m taking this a progress. The hens are getting somewhat better at sharing the treats that we throw over the fence.

West side, left to right: 1st Americauna, 2nd Wyandott (as above), Dominique, 2nd Americauna, 3rd Wyandott

I didn’t plan my raised beds as well as I should have. The Brussel sprouts are the last things to be harvested, and I planted them in a bed that we usually include in the chicken run for dust bathing. When we moved the girls to their winter quarters, I had to exclude to the raised bed. It is obvious that I should have left a bit more space between the fence and the Brussels sprouts. The chickens have eaten everything they could reach on the stalk that was leaning toward the fence.

The Brussels sprout leaning to the left is definitely hen-pecked.

The sprouts have not done well this year, and I don’t know why. They never got very tall and therefore did not have many sprouts per stalk. Also, many of the sprouts are not as tight as they need to be to keep out fungus, slugs, cabbage worms, and other wee beasties. We are getting enough to meet our needs, but I have to throw a lot of them out. There’s always next year. (Which is also what I’m thinking as I watch the Bears game….)

Carrots and pullet eggs

 My dad used to say, “A pint’s a pound the world around.” I know this is true for something that has more or less the same density as liquid water, but I wondered how it would play out with sauerkraut. In my September 19 post, I reported that Jane and I put up 16 ¼ pounds. We put 10 pounds in one crock and the rest in a second crock. When the sauerkraut stopped bubbling last week, it was time to pack it in jars and can it. It turned out that a pint was just about a pound! I got almost all of the 6 ¼ lb crock in 6 pint jars. I filled 5 quart jars (=10 pints) out of the other crock, which left just enough to put in the slow cooker with pork country ribs for supper.

5 quarts and 6 pints of sauerkraut

We finally had enough rain to soften the ground sufficiently for me to harvest the carrots without having to chisel out each one. There are certainly challenges to clayey soils. I always think that I will harvest carrots throughout the summer and get them all before they get enormous, and every summer I get busy with other things and end up pulling most of them at the end of the season. I realize that carrots can be left in the ground, but unless the soil is sandy, it is impossible to extract them after the soil freezes. See above for our soil type. The only silver lining is that they don’t seem to get woody like huge carrots that you buy in the store. I filled three 2-gallon bags which, taken together, was 20 pounds of carrots. They keep pretty well, but I have to make a conscious effort to eat carrots daily to get through them all before they rot.

I may have overplanted carrots

I have seen odd carrots before, but not like this one! It reminds me of the tropical fruit called Buddha’s hand, except that Buddha would never flip anyone off. That would be unenlightened in a major way.

Not Buddha's hand

Yesterday was the moment we’d been waiting for since the first week of June. Terry found the first pullet egg—and it was in the nest box! Pullet eggs are so darned cute.

The first pullet egg, front and center

Also yesterday, we were anticipating high winds from the south. Terry left the south side of the high tunnel down. Being too lazy to walk around to the north side, I went in through the “rabbit hole” door on the south side. The door had not been opened all summer, but I didn’t think about that until I had a giant spiderweb in my hair. Ug! I did what I could to get the web off me, hoping it wasn’t full of dead flies. I didn’t see the maker of the web, but another predator was on the door. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a praying mantis, and this one was a beauty. I went back this morning to see if it was still there, which it was. There is also a small moth to the lower right in the picture. You would think that would be a perilous place for a moth to hang around, but it didn’t look scared. Maybe it’s safe as long as it doesn’t move.

Praying mantis with a tiny moth (lower right)

While I don’t welcome the coming of winter, I’m ready for the temperatures to go down to where they ought to be this time of year. Pests are eating my high-tunnel spinach, and the mosquitoes are annoying. It’s time for a killing frost, for heaven’s sake.

Giant watermelon

 As the first chicken mushrooms featured in last week’s post declined, a second round sprouted right next to two of them. The new mushrooms are more intricately structured as well as more like the picture in the guide book. As dry as it’s been, I can’t imagine where they got the moisture. This is the one on the end of the log.

Second chicken mushroom next to the declining first mushroom on the end of the log

This is on top of the log.

Second growth on both sides of the fungus on top of the log

The vine dried up on my largest watermelon, so I rolled it to the edge of the high tunnel and had Terry bring it to the house on the Gator. I put it on the bathroom scale. It weighed 41.4 pounds!

Melon on bathroom scale registers 41.4 pounds

Sadly, it was overripe. As you can see by the photo, the melon is split around the center, and the surfaces were grainy.

Cracks in the center indicate overripeness

I salvaged what I could for eating and made much of the rest into watermelon juice. I was careful to not get too close to the rind where the melon picks up bitter notes. Like making jam, this too turned the kitchen into a big, sticky mess. I had to wipe the counter four times before it lost that shiny, sugar-covered patina.

Watermelon juice = big sticky mess

The raspberry harvest continues to be great. Terry estimates that he has picked 100 pints. Yesterday I made another batch of jam and a tart loosely based on Ruth Reichl’s recipe for Oléron Berry Tart.

Raspberry tart

The filling is made of almond flour, sugar, butter, vanilla and egg yolks. One layer of raspberries is baked with the filling, and a second layer is added after the tart cools.

Inside view

I have enough crushed raspberries for four more batches of jam in the freezer. For the first two batches, I used fresh crushed raspberries, and the jams set up nicely. In other years, I have not had such good gelling. I wonder if freezing the juice makes the difference. I’ll know soon. Meanwhile, it’s time to can the sauerkraut.