Tucking in the strawberries

When I said we were all done with the garden after we planted the garlic, I was forgetting about the strawberries. Since my dad wasn’t going to be using the raised beds on the deck this year, Hilda thought it would be nice to plant strawberries there. We planted one variety that bears in June and a newer variety that is “ever-bearing,” that is, bred so that it will produce fruit throughout the summer. The instructions said that we should not allow June-bearing variety to produce fruit in their first summer (i.e., we should remove all blossoms and/or immature fruits), but that we could harvest berries from the ever-bearing varieties after they had been in the ground for 6 weeks. We dutifully followed these instructions. Not surprisingly for the first year, yields were low. Hilda and I took turns putting the daily picking of 3 or 4 ripe strawberries on our cereal. Next year, we hope to have enough for jam.

But first, the strawberries have to survive the winter in the raised beds. The strawberry plants were expensive, and it they froze out during the winter, all would be for naught. Had we planted them in the ground, there would be no worries. The raised beds, however, have the potential of getting to lower temperatures than the soil.  As a precaution, Terry rooted some of the stolons in pots and heeled those into his nursery beds (in the ground) for the winter. If the raised beds freeze out, we have a backup.

We waited and waited for the strawberries to die back for the winter. Last Tuesday, Terry decided it was finally time to winterize the beds. 

One of the strawberry beds ready to be winterized

We cut a length of row cover to put over the berries and piled mulch on top of the row cover. The idea is that we can use the row cover to lift off the mulch when spring comes. Hopefully, this will protect the strawberry roots from a hard freeze. Goodnight, strawberries!

Row cover, then mulch

The final touches to the mulch

We practiced on the two small beds outside the garage. We chased the turkeys out from under the bird feeders when we walked around to the deck. Few things are funnier than watching turkeys run. It’s a prance, almost. I suppose it is so comic because the part of the leg that is most visible seems to bend backwards. We expect a knee, but we are looking at an ankle with greatly elongated foot bones. Birds stand on their toes.

By the time we were done on the deck, the turkeys were sneaking back to the feeders from the other direction. We spooked them again as we put away the scissors and leftover row cover.

Turkeys sneaking back to the feeders

Most of the week was cloudy and drizzly. All the snow melted, helped along by high winds. The oak leaves did mad cartwheels over the lawn. On Friday afternoon, the sky finally cleared and the sun came out. I put on my Wellies and went for a walk. As soon as I got outside, I heard a familiar, if distant, sound. I squinted into the sun and just barely picked them out—hundreds of sandhill cranes! There were several groups of them, sometimes formed up in ragged Vs headed southeast, sometimes a swirling vortex of birds riding the thermals upward. I was so lucky to be out at that moment. By the time I came back from the creek, they were gone. 
One thing I have always loved in the winter is the architecture of branches backlit by the sunset. I even painted a mural of it on my bedroom wall in my youth.

Bare branches in the sunset

Such a lovely end of the day!

Winter sun

The day began with the sun low to the south, visible only as a muted bright spot in the otherwise gray sky. This is a winter sun.

Winter sun

The clouds got thicker through the morning, bringing a cold drizzling rain by afternoon. This weather cries out for baked goods. I am trying something different for Thanksgiving this year. Not very different, mind you, as I am a staunch traditionalist where Thanksgiving. Today I made a loaf of rosemary sourdough bread. 

Rosemary sourdough bread

I like sourdough for the dressing because it holds up to the chicken stock and egg so the dressing has structure. I don’t like soggy bread. (Or, for that matter, cake with ice cream.) I mixed 3 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh rosemary into the dough. That’s a lot of rosemary. Hilda brought her rosemary plant in for the winter. I had to go up twice because what I thought was plenty of rosemary on the first trip was less than half of what I needed. My hope is to get more depth of flavor by incorporating one of the herbs into the bread. Other than that, it’s turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. None of that cornbread dressing and apple pie for me.

I’ve had some motivational difficulty since the gardening wrapped up. I don’t get much done in a day, but I don’t have much to do. I finally got motivated to clean the refrigerators today. There’s not much in the extra refrigerator these days. As soon as the harvest starts, it’s full of trays of fruits and vegetables waiting for processing. There’s nothing left but a bag of straggly-looking beets in the rotting bin. Now we use this refrigerator for wine and defrosting chickens.

My biggest fear when I clean the refrigerator is dropping the giant plate of glass that serves as the lowest shelf. I don’t know what a person would do if that broke. I am very, very careful to be sure I have a good grip on it and don’t set it down to close to the edge of anything. Always a relief to have it washed and back in place.

The bottom of the refrigerator had an assortment of beetles and flies that came in with the raspberries and crawled out of the container to their death. It’s a cruel world. I wiped up the carcasses along with spots of raspberry juice and the very last remnants of that bottle of red wine that shattered on the floor last summer. And here it is, clean!

Clean!

I started on the kitchen refrigerator next. That was harder because that’s where all the food is. I cleaned the big plate of glass and got it back in place without breaking it. Whew! I threw out those little things that accumulate in the back, like the Solo cups of hot sauce that came with an order of hot wings several months ago. We never use them. Why do we keep them? It’s a mystery. When I was done with the shelves, it was time for lunch and then football. I’ll do the door tomorrow. All those condiments were more than I could take today.

Unseasonable weather, again

We had some excitement last Friday when Terry saw a bald eagle land in the fifth oak. He thought it had something in its talons. The eagle stayed there long enough for me to get a picture, which was a relatively long time since I got error messages from my telephoto lens and had to change back to the regular lens. Hence, the rather grainy image.

Bald eagle in the fifth oak

Then came more unseasonable weather. Monday, we woke up to 4” of snow. Our usual group of three tom turkeys is now five.

Five tom turkeys

We don’t know if two have joined the original group, or if the new group is made of this year’s now-grown-up chicks. In either case, they have routinely been coming up to the feeders to clean up the seeds that the goldfinches throw to the ground.

Turkeys under the bird feeder

When I retired, I thought that I could happily stay home on snowy mornings such as this one. Unfortunately, I had an appointment with my eye doctor and had to venture forth. The roads were not good, especially the east-west roads that were getting drifted by the north wind. I took Hilda’s Subaru for the all-wheel drive. It did not seem like the country roads had been plowed. There was no telling exactly where the edge of the road was, so everyone was driving down the middle. It was only a problem when one met an oncoming car. Unwritten protocol demands that both cars slow way down and cautiously move to the side of the road, hoping not to fall off the broken edge of the asphalt.

 I got behind a snowplow going 35 mph on Highway 14. I was glad I’d allowed twice as much time to get to the doctor’s office, since I was going a little over half as fast. It would have been nice if the plow had cleared the road, but the snow had fallen before the ground had a chance to freeze. In these conditions, the first couple of inches of snow melts into slush. The slush freezes into a glacier, especially if it has been driven over. And there we were, driving slowly over a 1” layer of ice. The truck was salting the road from behind as it plowed in front, but because we were following directly, there was no time for the salt to work. My drive home was a little better.

Tuesday morning was wicked cold. The temperature at our house was 4°F with below-zero wind chill. The turkeys did not show up for breakfast. The weather reports kept referring to “record low highs,” which seemed counterintuitive until I figured out that it meant the high temperature of the day was colder than ever recorded. Again, I had appointments and had to venture out. Who knew that there would be this kind of weather in November? Not me.

Suddenly winter

After the six inches of snow, temperatures dropped to the mid-teens. The day after that, a strong wind pretty much blew all the leaves off the trees. Fall does not normally transition to winter quite so abruptly.

The trees lost their leaves between Friday and Saturday

The farmers have harvested most of the soybeans. I saw combines and grain trucks in the corn fields today. That’s a sure sign of November. I am remembering certain aspects of winter that I tend to block out: wind that hurts your face and makes your nose run, chapped lips, dry skin, hair that will not curl, putting on and taking off layers of clothing/footwear, cold feet. Yet there are plenty of things that I enjoy: crisp air, deep blue skies, no mosquitoes, the silence of new snow, hot chocolate, flannel pajamas, cozy extra blankets, fuzzy sweatshirts, soft wool socks, slow-cooked suppers. As with most things, there are plusses and minuses.

With the Brussels sprouts all harvested, the raised beds were finally empty except for one frost-damaged parsley plant. Sunday morning, I moved the fence before I let the girls out because they love to scratch and dust bathe in the raised beds. Shortly after I opened the coop, Hilda saw 8 of the 10 chickens pecking at the parsley. Yesterday, I got a picture of the hens pecking at the naked petioles of the bedraggled parsley. Best thing ever!

Parsley! Best thing ever!

The pullets have finally started laying. Here is an assortment of eggs showing (left to right) Whiting true green, whiting true blue or Americauna, Australorp, and Dominique. We are getting three to six eggs a day. Egg shortages are a thing of the past. 

Eggs, left to right: Whiting true green, Whiting true blue or Americauna, Australorp, Dominque

I mentioned in a recent post that I had stuffed Cornish hens with Brussels sprouts. I have also roasted and steamed Brussels sprouts. This year was the first time I sautéed Brussels sprouts in butter and tossed them with crumbled bacon. It was a revelation. I didn’t freeze very many Brussels sprouts this year. They are not as good as fresh. I am wondering if the frozen sprouts will be good sautéed in butter with bacon. What’s not to like?

Brussels sprouts sauteed in butter and tossed with bacon

Here’s a funny story. When Jane was going through some boxes in her basement, she came across this:

SpongeBob Pez dispenser

She said, “I must have gotten it as a gift for you, but I forgot I had it. I don’t know how old it is.”

I replied, “I don’t think the candy goes bad.”

“It was never good to begin with,” Jane correctly observed.

October snow

When I retired, I looked forward to hunkering down at home on snowy winter mornings. I was thinking about January, not October. Every time I look out, the snow is coming down harder. We are poised to hit record-breaking snowfall on Halloween.

I spent the morning making red raspberry jam. I froze the crushed raspberries earlier this month when there was too much stuff in the garden that still needed my attention.

Red raspberry jam

 It feels luxurious to putter in the kitchen on a Thursday instead of white-knuckling my way to work on icy roads. Retirement is pretty darned nice.

Brussels sprouts

We have really, truly finished the garden. Saturday morning, we measured rows, put down landscape cloth, planted garlic cloves, covered them with straw, and covered the straw with row cover so it won’t blow away in the winter winds. It always feels very much like tucking them into bed for a long winter’s nap. Goodnight little garlics! See you in the spring.

I learned a couple of years ago that while Brussels sprouts get sweeter and less bitter after a few frosts, they will not tolerate a hard freeze. When the forecast for Chicago said 33° Saturday morning, I feared that we would be down in the 20’s. I harvested the Brussels sprouts Friday morning. They, like everything in the garden, had a slow start, but most got respectably large.

Brussels sprouts harvest

One stalk had only small sprouts, and all stalks have smaller sprouts toward the top. I had this thought that the little ones would be perfect for Cornish Hens Stuffed with Brussels Sprouts and Salami. It’s much better than it sounds. I haven’t made it in years. The thing I failed to consider in my plan of using these cute little sprouts is that there are roughly 10,000 to the pound, and I needed three-quarters of a pound. Each sprout needs to have the bottom cut off and any outer damaged leaves removed. I was at it for awhile.

Next, I had to bone four Cornish hens. Now that I am a savvy raiser of meat chickens, I know that these hens have not, in fact, ever been to Cornwall. They are just baby meat chickens, perhaps two weeks old, and probably males besides. I felt a little bad cutting down their tiny little backbones. As I tried to get the knife between the “oyster” and the pelvis, I thought back to a lesson that I was given by Dr. Rodland during my junior year—the best way to dissect is with your fingers. It is far easier to find the muscle bundles if you feel for them. I did my best to get between the bone and muscle of the back and ribs on one side, cutting the joints at the top of the thigh and wing so the limb bones would stay with the chicken. The shoulder blade threw me off for a minute, but I figured out what it was and extracted it. I then did the same for the other side. Then there was the matter of the keel, where the two (or more) breast muscles meet. The cookbook said to be careful to not puncture the skin. I ran my fingers down both sides of the keel, but couldn’t get the connective tissue free from the top of the cartilage. I carefully scraped it loose with the knife. I kept the bones for stock. All that baby-bone cartilage would make a nice, gelatinous broth.

Great—only three more to go. When I did the second bird, I realized I had not gotten the wishbone out of the first bird. I went back and took care of that. If I did it all the time, it would be fast and easy. Since I do it once in a blue moon, it was hard, time-consuming, and ultimately required a complete change of clothes.

On to the stuffing. I blanched my cute little sprouts and mixed them with ricotta, Swiss cheese, egg, and salami. I stuffed the birds and synched up the skin with toothpicks. I tied their little legs together to try to keep the stuffing in.  

Once they were all trussed and laid out on the baking pan, I put all my clothes in the laundry and took a shower. I had offered one chicken to Hilda for her dinner. I later decided that it had been too much work for anyone to eat it alone. She offered her dining room so that she could clean up the dishes. She also made the mashed potatoes while I finished the sauce using the pan drippings, wine, stock, and butter.

Stuffed Cornish hens

It was a nice dinner, and since half a bird is enough for any reasonable person to eat, we all got two meals out of it. I froze the fourth bird for another time.

Cross section of the stuffed bird

All afternoon for one dish to be eaten in 10 minutes. I have now officially joined the ranks of Women Who Do Not Have Enough To Do With Their Time.

October bonfire

Last week, we finished the last of the “can’t wait” garden tasks—canning the sauerkraut and harvesting the alleged garlic. We still have pint jars of sauerkraut from last year, so I put this year’s sauerkraut in quarts. Let’s see—a pint’s a pound the world around. So 20 pounds of sauerkraut would be 20 pints, two pints per quart, would be 10 quarts. I think. I put approximately one quart in the slow cooker with a pork roast. We had Ruebens one night. Figuring in the water loss from the cabbage to the brine, I washed 8 quart jars. There was enough to completely fill 7 quarts with the rest in the 8^th jar to be refrigerated and eaten first.

Canned sauerkraut

The ginger was an adventure. It had grown happily on the deck all summer. Since the leaves were turning brown, we knew it was time to cut it back and harvest some of the corms.

Senescent ginger 

There were lots of corms under the ground. 

The corms underground

We put two clusters of corms in new soil in the greenhouse for next year. The reason I said, “alleged” above is because the corms did not smell very gingery and the older ones were bright yellow. Hilda had also tried to grow turmeric, which we thought had died. The question remains—were the labels switched? I don’t know what fresh turmeric is supposed to smell like. We put the corms in the garage to dry, hoping that it would concentrate the gingeriness. Hilda grated some and cooked it in rice. The rice tasted mildly gingery at first and more gingery the next day. We haven’t made up our minds about it yet.

It was a beautiful weekend. Pat, Nancy, and Jane came up for our annual bonfire. Terry started it in typical boy fashion with a bottle of gasoline.

Terry pouring on the gasoline

A minute after he lit the trail of gas, it looked like this.

Whoosh! The fire starts from a trail of gasoline (right)

At three minutes, it was roaring.

Three minutes into the fire

Everyone helped put wood on the fire. There’s no picture of me because I was the photographer.

Nancy

Hilda

Pat used Hilda’s walker to move some logs over to the fire.

Pat

Pat and Nancy worked on pulling down a snag that has bothered Nancy for years. The rest of us hoped it wouldn’t land on their heads. Pat poked at it with a shovel….

Pat dislodged the upper end of the branch with a shovel

…until she got the long end on the ground.

The long end of the branch on the ground

Terry went over and helped dislodge the branch from the limb that was holding it up. And then it was put on the fire.

Nancy and Terry carry the branch to the fire

Terry frequented went around the sides of the fire with a pitch fork to rearrange the wood and toss in unburned branches.

Terry tidies up the fire with a pitchfork

I brought down a tripod to get a picture of all of us. We spent most of the time sitting by the fire talking. The picture shows how far we had to sit from the fire to keep from burning our knees. It was a hot fire!

Group photo

After 3 hours and 10 minutes, the fire looked like this.

Toward the end of the afternoon

Soon it was time to go to the house for pizza and wings. Nancy and Terry stopped off at the raspberry patch. Nancy left with 4 pints of berries.

Here is a photomontage of the fire at the beginning, middle and end. Hilda will watch this again and again. She loves a fire, as we all do.

Today the wind is blowing fiercely, and rain beat against the windows all morning. The time for hunkering down is nearly upon us.