Basil harvest

I put up the basil yesterday. First I give all the basil plants a serious pruning. I’ve heard that the way to keep basil from senescing is to keep it from setting seed. In the Darwinian sense, the purpose of all living things is reproduction. Once a basil plant has produced seeds, ensuring the survival of the species in general and its own continued presence in the gene pool, it has fulfilled its function and dies back. By this time in the summer, the pruning gives me a huge amount of basil. I use only the perfect leaves. In the picture it is hard to tell the difference between the stems before (on the left in the green bin) and after (on the ground to the right) I have done the harvest. The bowl in the middle shows the leaves I have removed.

Left to right: basil before I take the leaves off the stem (green bucket), harvested leaves (blue bowl) and rejects (ground)

After I have picked off all the perfect leaves, I wash them, blanch them (to keep them green), and make pesto. I freeze the pesto in ice cube trays for use during the winter. I find that the frozen pesto gives a fresher and stronger basil flavor to sauces than dried basil. Whether drying or freezing, the time consuming part is the harvest.

I took a picture of Hilda with the chickens this morning. She still has a round robin with a few of her college friends. For those of you who are not in your 80’s, a round robin is a mechanism of sharing news among several individuals through actual paper letters. The round robin comes to one person with letters from all others. That person removes her previous letter from the collection, puts in a new one, then sends all the letters along to the next person on the list. I’m sad that the round robin has gone out of style. How fun to get letters from five or six friends all at once! Anyway, the round robin is on its way to Hilda, and she wanted to have some pictures of the chickens to include.

Portrait of my mother as a chicken lady. She is holding Ellie as Ina stands on the cage and Bridget climbs the ladder. Giada (left) and Ingrid (right) look on. 

We ended up looking through the whole blog and marveling at how little our chickies were when we got them. It seems so long ago. We gave the girls some Happy Hen mealworms today so we could get everyone in one picture. While we were at it, I made a video. If you listen carefully, you can hear (in addition to Hilda calling them) “the gentle cooing and soft growling of chickens at peace” (Bailey White, 1994).

Our girls enjoying dried mealworms.

Corn harvest

Every day brings new things from the garden. Three cantaloupe were ready on Friday. Hilda and I also harvested the Kandy Korn and Incredible sweet corn.

Corn harvest with the best of the first three cantaloupes.

The hot weather finally broke. Out of habit, Hilda and I set up our corn husking operation in the shade of the second oak. With a brisk wind blowing, I was almost cold! We would have been more comfortable in the sun. We put up 14 ten-ounce bags of sweet corn from that day’s harvest. With the 9 bags we froze when the Peaches and Cream corn was ripe, our total yield came to nearly 15 pounds! That should do us for the winter.

Hilda cuts corn from the cob using an angelfood cake pan to catch the kernals.

There were a few ears of Peach and Cream left, but we found them to be overly mature. As with all things that get away from us, we fed them to the chickens. They enjoyed the corn very much.

Mmmm! Overripe corn is the BEST!!!

I finally took the row cover off the cabbage and Brussels sprouts. It did a pretty good job reducing the number of cabbage worms, more so on the cabbage than the Brussels sprouts. I have never had such beautiful cabbages!

Such beautiful cabbages!

 I picked several worms off the Brussels sprouts and fed them to the chickens. That was the best thing they’d ever had since the overripe corn! The chickens are still living in the moment. It was quite fun to watch them steal cabbage worms from each other. Too bad I didn’t have my camera handy.

The green beans did not do well this year. The peppers, on the other hand, are fabulous. They must like the hot weather. The fruits are so numerous and heavy that I worry about the plants toppling over.

A yellow pepper plant loaded with fruit

I started harvesting baby lima beans today. I haven’t shelled them yet, so it remains to be seen if I was rushing it. Zucchini, eggplant, and cucumbers are still coming in. So far we have donated over a hundred pounds of cucumbers to the food pantry. We have never done so well with cucumbers. The tomatoes are gearing up to full production. It never fails that the garden is busiest just when classes start.

Nesting boxes

Another busy day. I finally bit the bullet and went out to catch the bumblebees I need for Lab 2. Yesterday, I tried putting out traps (yellow bowls full of soapy water), but I caught not a single one. I got the butterfly net that I bought for $1 at True Value a month ago out of my car, put on long sleeves and gloves, and set out. I checked both gardens without much success. I picked up the bowl of soapy water and walked to the wetland. The goldenrod was a few days from flowering. No pollinators there yet. Ah, but the Joe-Pye weed was blooming! I had to walk through the goldenrod and nettles to get to it. I’d worn my thinner gardening pants; the fabric was not up to the task of keeping out the nettles. The first bee I spotted was hanging upside down at a peculiar angle. On closer inspection, I saw that the bee had been captured by a beautiful white spider. So then I had to go back to the house to get my camera. It was a great example of ambush/piercer predators for my Ch. 47 lecture.

White spider sucking out the digested contents of a bee on Joe-Pye weed

There were plenty of bumblebees on the Joe-Pye weed. I discovered that bumblebees die right now when they hit the soapy water. Not like Japanese beetles that can swim around for many minutes, if not hours. Here’s another news flash: bees are black. All the yellow is in their hairs, for both honey bees and bumble bees. When wet, they appear as solid black. Wasps are yellow on their exoskeletons and look the same wet or dry. I’m learning a lot from developing this bee lab.
The other momentous occasion today was the installation of the nesting boxes. The girls are probably a month from laying. Terry built and painted the boxes Sunday and Monday. Today we shut the chickens out of the coop while Terry screwed the boxes to the 2X4s. The girls HATE being locked out of the coop. All the while Terry was working, they knocked at the door.

Terry positions the nesting boxes

 

What are you doing in there? Let us in!

When the boxes were in, I put in a layer of wood chips and the ceramic eggs. This is why we got the boxes in early. I have heard a couple of places that ceramic eggs serve two functions. First, they teach the chickens were the eggs belong. Secondly, they teach the chickens not to peck at eggs. Chickens sense their environment with their beaks. If the first egg-shaped objects they encounter are ceramic, they peck at them awhile, decide they are not interesting, and stop pecking at them. If they first encounter real eggs, they might peck the egg open and learn that eggs are good to eat. It’s a habit that can’t be broken, and the hen has to be put down (or, as Hilda says, “into the stew pot”).

Nesting boxes with ceramic eggs

Nesting boxes complete, I let the girls back in. They gave the boxes a careful look, but did not attempt to get in. I hope their instincts will once again take over when the time comes. I suggested to Hilda that she give them The Talk about becoming a hen. She laughed.

What are these things in the wall?

So the coop is pretty much done now. We are now on the countdown to the first egg.

Do I dare eat a peach?

I’m starting this post with a quote from T. S. Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to celebrate our peach harvest. Terry has been trying to grow peaches for several years; each year the winter was too cold until this year. The mild winter allowed the flower buds to survive. Unfortunately, a late frost killed most of them. Our crop—the whole crop—is shown in this picture. That’s right, one peach. We picked it on Monday and cut it into four parts so we could each have some. We could have waited a day or two. The peach was quite firm, but sweet and flavorful, not sour. Maybe next year we’ll have TWO peaches.

Peach harvest, 2012. Surprisingly blemish-free for not being sprayed, don't you think?

During the week that I was gone, the orioles and rose-breasted grosbeaks left us. Summer is slipping away. I am fully immersed in the cycle of harvest, put up, harvest, put up, caught up in the desperate race to eat, blanch, roast, freeze, and/or can everything that comes in from the garden. Over the years, I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of quotas. We won’t use more than a dozen quarts of dill pickles. Eight pints of sweet pickles is plenty. I’m done with those. I’m just getting started on freezing green beans; the goal is 20 10-oz bags.

Just this week the standard tomatoes have gotten ripe. (We’ve had cherry tomatoes for three weeks.) Oh my, that first ripe tomato is almost orgasmic. It is just so much more flavorful than anything that can be found in a grocery store. If I could only grow one thing in my garden, it would be tomatoes. Tomatoes and cream cheese on toast for breakfast. BLTs for supper. Tomato wedges with salt and pepper for lunch. Can’t get enough. I’ll feel differently in 6 weeks.

Terry and I went to the McHenry County Fair in Woodstock Wednesday night. We had mini-donuts and Chicago-style hotdogs complete with the celery salt and nuclear green pickle relish. The hot item of the fair was the nubby ball, a large inflated plastic ball with little nubbies all over it. I expected to see them for sale among the vendors, but did not. Apparently they were all being given away as prizes from the carnival games.

We watched some dog obedience demonstrations before going to the 4-H building. The number of entries in drawings and photos were pretty constant. Every year there are fewer and fewer entries in the gardening section. I was surprised at the size of the zucchini. For God’s sake, anyone can grow a baseball bat zucchini. The trick is to get them when they are 4 to 6 inches long and still edible. Size does matter, but inversely. Sewing, quilting, canning, and baking seem to be shrinking as well. There were two entries in “Dry Cereal Mix.” Are you kidding me? Since when is mixing dry cereal with raisins, peanuts and M&Ms a domestic skill?

We got our usual ice cream cones in the back of one of the commercial buildings. I got a full scoop more than Terry did. It took me awhile to get through it. All we had left to visit were the animal buildings, and I had to finish eating before entering that world of manure smells. We stood outside finishing our cones. Meanwhile, the dog obedience demonstrations had cleared out of that arena, and the stage had been taken by a man playing “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” on the accordion.

From where we stood, we could see a big crowd by the swine barn. Terry had read in the paper that three women had died in the previous year, and each had bequeathed a considerable sum of money for a new swine barn. The crowd was attending the dedication. The dedication of a new swine building takes longer than you might think. I finished my enormous ice cream cone, and we walked through the sheep barn while the speakers were still going strong. I heard a man say, “a quarter of a million dollars.”

“Could that new pole barn have cost a quarter of a million?” I asked Terry.

“Probably,” he replied. “That’s a hundred thousand in cement alone.”

Upon closer inspection, we saw that some of the concrete had been reused. Still, with the bleachers around the show ring, the roof and supporting posts, and the fencing, I could see that a $250K was a reasonable price. The gutters, a sign informed us, were donated by a local business.

Of course we went to the poultry barn. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like there were fewer sheep, swine, and cattle and more goats and poultry. The rise of the hobby farmer. The poultry barn seemed different to me this year. For one thing, I didn’t notice the smell as much, presumably because I am becoming used to the smell of chicken poop. Also, I looked at the breeds with more than idle curiosity. I wouldn’t want to have the ugly bare-necked chickens, but the Mille Fleur bantams, maybe. All things considered, however, none of the chickens were as beautiful as my girls.

Back from the north woods

My vacation with Jane went too fast, as usual, and yet when I think of everything we did, it seems like a lot. Needless to say, it was difficult to decide which of the 97 photos I should post.

We took two days (Friday, July 20 and Saturday, July 21) to drive up. Our first stop was the new Duluth Trading Company outlet store in Belleville, WI. We found some bargain hats, shown here in front of Cabin 1.

New bargain hats from Duluth Trading Company

On our second day, we stopped at Bargain Bill’s in Rice Lake. I found a Mini-Gourmet Cocktail kit that included plastic swords, monkeys that hang on the side of a glass, little umbrellas, coasters, a guide for giving cocktail parties including recipes, and a collapsible shot glass (which turned out to be completely useless). All this for $2.49! Gotta love Bargain Bill’s!

Our cabin was situated on a little bay of Hungry Jack Lake. The water lilies were blooming. Before the week was out, I discovered that water lily flowers close up at night.

Water lilies near our cabin

We hung around the cabin on Sunday, recovering from the long drive. We fished from the dock and from the rowboat, with limited success. Lots of strikes, but few actual catches. Bluegill put up a good fight, though, so it was fun.

On Monday, we drove around the back roads on our way to Grand Portage State Park, just south of the Canadian border. We did not see much charismatic megafauna except for deer. I got a picture of one that was standing in the road, but not of two others that spooked more easily.

There were a few blueberries at the Otter Lake boat access, but not like the bumper crop of last year. We each got a handful. I took a picture of the berries in my hand to give an idea of their small size. They are not like domestic blueberries.

Tiny wild blueberries

We stopped at the county park at McFarland Lake for a break. We usually have lunch there, but this time we were too early. We like the view from the picnic area.

View from the county park at McFarland Lake

We ate chicken salad sandwiches in the pavilion at the state park overlooking the mouth of the Pigeon River and a restored prairie.

Restored prairie near the mouth of the Pigeon River at Grand Portage State Park

The Pigeon River is the border between the United States and Canada. The falls and rapids in the river are the reason the voyageurs preferred to carry 180 pounds of beaver pelts along the 8-mile Grand Portage. The trail to the falls is a combination of asphalt and boardwalk and is completely accessible right up to the stairs to the falls viewing area. The sun shining on the falls made a rainbow.

I broke out the cocktail set for happy hour that evening. Umbrellas make a drink look so much more vacation-like.

Festive umbrellas in our drinks

Here’s a picture of us (taken with the timer, which explains why there is so much railing in the shot) enjoying our beverages while overlooking the lake. We saw hummingbirds visit the impatiens in the flower boxes nearly every day.

Afternoon beverages (with festive umbrellas) on the deck

Tuesday was another fishing day. Our luck was about the same, which is to say not much. We only catch and release anyway. Even if cleaning fish wasn’t a lot of work that makes your hands stink forever, I don’t like eating pan fish. We watched a loon having more luck fishing than we did.

Loon with fish

In the afternoon, we drove down to the Chic-Wauk Museum and Nature Center at the end of the Gunflint Trail. On the way, we saw a bear cub run across the road. I was able to get a not-very-good picture of it in the underbrush.

Bear cub in the underbrush. Its nose is above the fir branch next to the tree at the righ

On our way back, we saw a deer standing in a creek eating water plants. Are deer supposed to do that? I associate that with moose behavior. The deer had quite a time getting its feet out of the muck.

Deer foraging in the water. Note water vegetation hanging from its mouth.

We woke to rain on Wednesday. We finished a jigsaw puzzle and then drove south on Highway 61 along Lake Superior to make a loop through the National Forest. We took a short hike up to the falls at Cascade River State Park. These videos are of the upper and lower falls, which cannot both bee seen from the same place.

We ate lunch overlooking Lake Superior in the Temperance River State Park. We drove and drove through Superior National Forest but spotted no wildlife except a duck and three ducklings. We were too far away to determine what kind of ducks they were.

Thursday was rainy again. We fished from the dock in drizzle. The fish were biting better that morning, but we got chilled and had to retreat to the cabin for hot showers. We spent the afternoon visiting art galleries in Grand Marais. We had frozen custard at Sydney’s, as is our habit, and ordered a pizza from the wood-fired oven for supper. We got the traditional Margarita—cheese, tomatoes, and basil. The crust was incredibly thin and crispy. We would get that again.

Margarita pizza from Sydney's

The weather was back to beautiful on Friday. Mist hung over the smooth water.

We went for a long row across the lake to a bay where we once caught a lot of big bass, but not this time. It was a great day to be outside.  After lunch we fished from the dock. I caught a pretty good sized bluegill. I had Jane photodocument since it was our last chance for a fish picture.

Probably the biggest bluegill I caught. Too bad it is the same color as the water in this picture.

Here’s the obligatory sunset picture to end our vacation.

Sunset on Hungry Jack Lake

Here’s a bonus picture of the moon rising and reflecting in the water. We were feeling melancholy about leaving. A week without responsibility is nice.

Moon over Hungry Jack

Now I’m back home. It’s time to start putting up pickles and green beans. Tomatoes will be ripe soon. The chickens seem to be about full size. Classes start in three weeks. Egad.

Let us do the Dance of Joy!

Finally—the deluge. Oh, we had measurable precipitation Saturday morning, but just barely (0.1”). It accomplished little except for creating intolerable humidity as the temperatures soared to the upper 90’s. “Like air,” to quote Bailey White, “that has already been breathed.” But we were grateful for the rain nevertheless and dared to hope that it had broken the seal on the drought. It seemed it hadn’t, as one dry, hot day followed another. This afternoon, we got 0.3” of rain before I got home and more since then. Just now (7:45 p.m.) we had a downpour of serious proportions. Terry had forewarned me that it was coming, so I put the girls to bed early. I asked Terry what he was going to do with himself tomorrow when he didn’t have to spend 4 hours watering. He hopes that the ground will be soft enough that he can plant the large number of trees that have outgrown their pots. The drought isn’t over, but maybe we’re into a more normal weather pattern. We can dream.

Yesterday, Mom, Dad, and I made the water haul to the wildflowers about 9:00, when the heat was already bad enough to give me a headache. On the way back, I came quite close to two female turkeys with at least 8 chicks. Chicks are hard to count when they are moving in the tall grass. I didn’t have my camera, and running for it was out of the question. Even if I hadn’t been in danger of heat stroke, the turkeys were not very likely to wait for me to get back. I was delighted to see the family (or one very much like it) reappear this afternoon shortly after I started cooking supper. I asked Terry to watch the burgers and dashed upstairs to get my camera. So here you go: turkeys with chicks. They are really quite beautiful birds.

Turkey families (two hens and chicks) out for a walk

I’m off for the north woods on Friday. I’m not thinking I’ll post again in July (where has the summer gone?), but hopefully I’ll have some awesome wilderness shots when I get back!
 p.s from Thursday morning: We got somewhere between 2.2" (the small colorless rain gauge) and 3" (the yellow gauge). Whee!

Experiments with video

Today the rain missed us to the north, something of a change of pace from  all the times it has gone south of us. The effect, however, was the same.

I drove Mom and Dad to IKEA yesterday. I planned to get the cucumbers picked when we got home. I forget what traffic is like in the real worlds. We didn’t get back until 3:30. I’d had the zucchini and cucumbers on an every-other-day rotation, but I couldn’t bear the thought of putting on my gardening clothes and going out again. Thus, we had to pick both zucchini and cucumbers today. Already I am spending more time at the sink than in the garden. I don’t mind so much when it’s so darn hot out.

I was alarmed yesterday when I went into the coop to install the “air conditioner.” We’ve been putting ice frozen in gallon jugs into a covered storage bin with a little water at the bottom to create a cool microenvironment. On top of the storage bin was a small puddle of water that could have only come from the back end of a chicken. Did someone have a disease? If so, how on earth would we find out who? Was it the heat?

Thank goodness for backyardchickens.com! I put “watery poop” in the search box, and sure enough, I got several hits on the disease discussion board. Someone had posted my same questions using the same terminology, to which another more knowledgeable person replied, “It’s just the heat.” Well. That seems maladaptive, doesn’t it? Losing water when one ought to be conserving? But then, I get a little crampy on a hot day sometimes myself.

I made short videos of the morning ritual. The first clip is the charge out of the coop.

In the second, a chicken fight between Bridget (all white) and Julia (grey head) is visible on the right side of the screen.

While we were in the Farm and Fleet in Mandan, ND last week, I found some Happy Hen Treats, which are freeze dried meal worms. The label was careful to state that they were not for human consumption. In case they looked good to you. I bought them to help us train them to come when called.

The claim that the chickens would go crazy for them is true!  We had them eating out of our hands, which was a bad idea because both Hilda and I got painful nips. There was no long-term damage, but it wasn’t pleasant. The chickens do seem to have learned to recognize the container.

I mentioned before that we have electric netting powered by a solar unit around the chicken run. We tested it with a tester after we first got it installed, and it showed 3000 volts, just like it was supposed to. But was it really working? At the Grand Opening on Sunday, whether by accident or as a result of unrestrained curiosity, someone put a finger to the electric netting. Nothing happened. So we all had to try it. I could detect a very faint pulse. I thought I’d have to call the company to see if that was right.

On Monday, however, Terry told me, “If you grab it with your whole hand, you’ll wish you hadn’t.” He held his fist out horizontally to demonstrate. Then he added, “I tried it three times.”

I didn’t ask.