Feasting on Fiddleheads

It's  cold and rainy on the farm today.  While the weather has put a damper on my outdoor plans for the day, it does allow a little time to catch up on my posts.  While I feel increasing pressure to get all of the planting done in gardens right now, it is rather nice to exhale and reflect on the recent whirlwind of activity.

Things have been extremely busy around the farm with all of the spring rituals of tilling, planting, building, repairing, pruning and enjoying the change of seasons.  For some reason this past winter seemed particularly long and hard to me.  I can't ever remember longing for spring as much as I did this year.

Our oldest daughter, Katherine, will be graduating from high school this upcoming weekend.  The big graduation party scheduled for the middle of next month is also requiring activity and a critical eye when looking about the place.  All of the, "Fix It," and, "ASAP," and, "Honey Do," lists have melted into one overwhelming (and at times discouraging) enormous list of tasks that have reached critical mass.  My procrastination tendencies have been humiliatingly exposed once again and the success or failure of Katherine's party hangs in the balance.

It's amazing to me how perspective can change so dramatically.  The piles of lumber and tools and benches in need of repair and the camper in need of a new camper aren't really an eyesore to me.  They are symbols of my ambition, my handiness, and my industry.  However, being mechanically-challenged, a procrastinator by nature, and overconfident in my own"fix-er-upper" abilities, these symbols tend to sit for a long time.  A VERY long time.

But then something like a graduation party comes along and my perspective immediately changes.  Suddenly I am seeing things the way I think my relatives may see things.  And I am embarrassed for me.

In this condition my two-year debate about which type of hinge will be the right one for the garden shed door comes to an abrupt end.  The second guessing is no longer as important as the fact that my brothers-in-law are coming out to the farm and the garden shed is still doorless.  They wouldn't say anything about it, of course.  They are too nice to do that.  But I'll know that each of them will be shamefully shaking their heads on the inside, feeling pity for me and sorrow for their sister.

I can have none of that.  I must not allow my manhood to be questioned by them or anyone else.  My male ego needs to remain firmly intact.  I must be seen as a, "Man's man," an "Everyday Joe."  Especially since I sometimes write about cooking.  And not just cooking but sometimes even cooking with flowers.  And I haven't mentioned this before, but I like interior decorating too.  Drives Lisa nuts.

So projects have been slowly but steadily removed from my lists.  I have found new motivation to overcome my fear-of-failure for anything requiring a saw or a hammer or a drill.  As each task is completed I have experienced the added benefit of sticking out my chest and showing my handiwork to my lovely bride.  "Yeah, baby, I did that.  Built that thing from scratch.  Even cut down a tree and made the lumber myself.  It was hard work, but I got 'er done.  Guess I'm still a stud-muffin, eh?"

Despite the fever-pitched activity around here, I have still found time to forage for spring-time goodies.  The fiddleheads that I gathered were delicious and a hit at our dinner table.  They also worked well with my overloaded schedule as the prep time was about as minimal as it gets.

Our patch of Ostrich fern behind the house.  The area allotted to this delicacy will be increased dramatically next year.

The most time consuming aspect of preparing fiddleheads is cleaning off the brown debris from last season's crop.  I rinsed them in a colander but then cleaned each individually under running water.

I melted a couple tablespoons of butter and added a drizzle of olive oil to a pan.  After it was heated I threw in the fiddleheads and added sea salt, fresh ground pepper, and a little onion powder and let them saute away.  When they were fully cooked I set them in a dish and sprinkled some wood violets over them.  While not really adding anything to the taste of the fiddleheads, they did help make a rather nice presentation.  Besides, if you're going to eat fern, you might as well eat flowers too.

Much like the morel mushrooms on Hillsong Farm, my only complaint about fiddleheads is that there aren't enough of them.

Scenes of the Season

 

These are Nanking cherry bush blossoms that are located along our garage and near our gardens.  Always loaded with beautiful flowers this time of year, the bushes buzz from the hundreds of honeybees and other insects that stop by for lunch.  The berries are quite small (smaller than a grape) and quite sour.  Still, the kids try to eat some off the bush every year.  Lisa made a batch of Nanking cherry wine a few years ago.  I'm hoping to use them for jam this year.

Lisa's tulips survived yet another Wisconsin winter.  Some seem to have slowly disappeared, but this group does well every year.

These little yellow flowers are all over our southern-facing slopes in the spring.  I'm not sure what they are.  They look a little bit like Cowslip but the leaves are different, the petals are thinner, and they are not located in a marsh.  Whatever they are, I look forward to seeing them each spring.

Wood violets are everywhere this time of year.  They not only carpet the woods and hillsides in purple each spring but they are also quite edible.  Most people use them in salads or to garnish everything from roasts to birthday cakes.  I thought I'd try using them to top off the fiddlehead/stinging nettle soup that I plan to make next week.

You know, I occasionally write stuff that flows out from me quite naturally and sometime afterward I look at it and go, "Oh mama, what's happening to me?!"  It's like having a sudden identity crisis.  It's like waking up in some foreign land and wondering how you got there.  It's like that sudden jolt of terror that strikes you when you finally let go of all denial and surrender to the fact that you are about to throw up.  I just had that experience once again as I re-read the previous couple of paragraphs.

This is the view from the southern-facing slope where I took the wildflower photos.  I tried planting about a dozen grape vines on this slope seven years ago, but only two have survived.  Too bad, I always thought this slope would make a beautiful vineyard.

Nathan is filling in one of the raised bed frames that I built recently (and Addison and Grace painted... exterior only).  This one is for russet potatoes, which Lisa planted as soon as Nathan was finished.

And these are fiddleheads.  The four of these, located closest to our foundation wall, popped up before all of the others due to the warmth provided by the wall.  It's easy to tell from this photo how they got their name.  I resisted harvesting them, preferring to wait until there's enough for a meal.

Weekend Activities

This past weekend was a busy one on the farm.  The weather turned out to be far better than what had been predicted, enabling us the opportunity to knock a few things off our very large, "To Do..." list.  I also found time to sneak away to search for a few morel mushrooms.  Sadly, I did not come across a single one.

I did find that our fiddleheads are about ready to be plucked.  Fiddleheads are the early spring shoots of the Ostrich fern.  Last year Lisa discovered that they are edible.  While rather skeptical at first, I tried a couple that she had sautéed in butter.  They were incredible!  They actually reminded me of the rich, earthy taste of morels.  The ones in the above photo are conveniently located just outside our back porch door.

They were named because of their shape, which looks very much like the tuning end of a violin when they are ready to be harvested.  While other types of ferns produce similar looking shoots, it's important to pluck only those belonging to the Ostrich variety as they are the only ones that are edible.

I found most of my time consumed with building a couple of raised bed frames for the garden and preparing an antique door that will be installed on our garden shed.  Lisa spent much of her time in her flower bed, while closely watched by our two dogs, Stella and Dugal.

Nathan spent much of Saturday putting together our newest wheelbarrow.  I have found that you can never have too many of them.  The same can be said of shovels and landscape rakes.  It seems to me that I have bought a dozen of each since we moved out here nearly nine years ago.  I would be fortunate to locate three of each around the place if I had to. 

It never ceases to amaze me how things can disappear and yet our four kids are quite certain that they had absolutely nothing to do with the vanishing garden tools.  They also profess their innocence relating to the numerous disappearances of my hammers and screwdrivers.  It all remains a great mystery.

Despite the ongoing vanishing tool saga, good progress has been made this spring.  We haven't completed nearly the number of projects that I was hoping to at this point in the year, but overall things are shaping up.  I find myself cautiously optimistic that we might actually put a good-sized dent in our annual food bill this year with the fruits and vegetables that we will be able to grow ourselves.