First Hard Frost

On Thursday morning the thermometer read 27 degrees, and white covered anything that was not in direct sunlight.  The first hard frost of Autumn had hit, signalling the soon-coming end of the gardening season.

A conflict is raging within me.

The sentimental side of me is sad, realizing that the days of fresh-sliced tomatoes from the garden are over until next year.  The dreamer in me regrets that I did not preserve (either canning, freezing or drying) more of them, and remembers that last spring I really thought that I could put a much larger dent in our annual processed tomato budget.  The realist in me is thinking, "Oh, thank God!  I'm so sick of the piles and containers of tomatoes in the front room and in the kitchen.  I'm sick of cutting boards that can't hold back the pools of tomato juice.  I'm sick of tomato juices dripping all over the kitchen floor.  I'm sick of cleaning the kitchen floor.  I'm sick of peeling skins off of partially frozen tomatoes.  I'm sick of tomato seeds sticking to everything and everyone.  I'm sick of feeling guilty for not doing more.  I'm sick of the color red.  Oh, thank God."

Back in the garden, the kale, swiss chard and broccoli all look really good.  It appears that the cabbage plants are actually trying to make a second run at producing.  The root crops (beets, rutabagas, and turnips) are crazy big.  But everything else is done.

Weather permitting, I will be cleaning things up in the garden this week and roto-tilling all the areas that are done for the year.  Then it's time to plant and mulch the garlic, and wait for the 2012 seed catalogs to arrive.  There is something seriously wrong with me.

A Tale of Two Horrors

Something died outside.  It made its presence known on the afternoon after the big heat.  After a quick inventory of children, livestock and pets I began tracking the intensely unpleasant smell.

The smell of decomposition, or "decomp" for those in the real life C.S.I. business and for those of us in-the-know is unmistakable and sickening.  I know this because I read a book --a very disturbing one that I would never recommend.  I wish I hadn't read many parts of it cause now it's stuck inside my brain forever.

My worst fear is that it might be a heifer down in the pasture across the road from us.  That was the direction that my olfactory sensor was taking me.

We do not own the pasture.  It is owned by a family corporation, most members of which live in nearby towns.  The land is rented out to one of our neighbors whose farm is about a mile away "as the crow flies" from ours.  This neighbor recently hired Katherine to help milk their dairy herd 10 to 12 times a week.  She is such a natural at this that she began milking the herd on her own after the second day.

The problem with dead cattle is that dead cattle are big.  Really big.  When big cattle die and go unnoticed, they stink.  Really stink.  It takes turkey vultures, coons, possum, coyote, and other various members of nature's, "Waste Material Removers" a great deal of time to consume a full-grown cow carcass (yes, I wrote heifer earlier and that was in fact the accurate term to use, but cow worked better in this sentence and no I am not going to run through the not-so-subtle differences between cows, heifers, steers, and bulls at this juncture).  Consequently the smell of rotting flesh can invade the nostrils for days or weeks if the carcass is not properly dealt with by a rendering truck.

To have come through the horrible temperatures and humidity victoriously only to emerge from the house and be greeted by a wall of pure stink... well, it just ain't right.  I groaned, my mind reviewing what I had endured the previous 48 hours while simultaneously imagining life for a week or two under a invisible cloud of serious stink.

The temperature outside at 3:00 am Friday morning, the day of the big heat, was 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  The dew point was in the high 70s meaning the humidity level was sadistically high.  By 9:00 am we had already reached 90.  Our friends Tom and Emily called offering to take the kids along with their son, Henry, to a movie, dinner and shopping in Platteville.  Every activity on the trip was focused on air conditioning and kid-friendliness.  Our kids, of course, jumped at the chance.

Katherine was in Madison with a couple of friends.  They were housesitting for one of the friend's grandparents in a home that I presumed was air-conditioned.  Lisa worked that day at her new job as a staff Public Defender for the State of Wisconsin.  Her new office, located in Lancaster, is air conditioned.

That left me.  With the exception of our two dogs who played dead in the front room all day, I was completely alone.  And hot.  And sweaty.  And feeling increasingly grumpy and helpless.

I discovered however that one advantage of being alone was that I could freely roam the house and grounds in only my boxer shorts.  In retrospect, I suppose doing the full Monty was possible as well but the underwear-only approach was as risky as I was willing to be on that day.

There is something absolutely extraordinary about strolling through your grounds clad only in undies.  It's liberating.  Exhilarating.  Primal.  It's almost pre-fall in the Garden of Eden kind of stuff.  It's red, white, and blue, oh thank God I live in the good 'ol U.S. of A. material.  It's a William "BraveHeart" Wallace face-painted-every-muscle-contracted-reach-down-to-the-very-essence-of-your-being-and-scream-"FREEDOM!" kind of a moment.

Then I heard the unique sound that tires make when they leave pavement and touch gravel.  Someone was coming up our driveway.  It has been at least a decade since I have moved so quickly.  My mind was racing, "can I make it around the house before they make it around the garage?"  I did and in moments I was through the porch, through the kitchen and in the front room pulling up shorts and pulling on a T-shirt.

What a bizarre experience, going from such a state of contentment and exhilaration to one of complete shame and terror.  As it turned out, it was a false alarm.  The "tires touching gravel" sound that I heard was made by the postal lady as she delivered our mail to our mailbox.  I had been, unknowingly, safe from view the entire time.

Our house was closed up for nearly 24 hours.  In that time the temperature never dipped below 83 degrees and reached 90 degrees at the day's worst.  While local newscasters said we hit a high of 99 degrees and a heat index reading of 114, our thermometer topped 100 in the afternoon.

I realize that to those living in the U.S.'s deep south, or the jungles of southeast Asia, or to those along the Amazon river basin that I am coming off as a major league whiner.  I don't care.  I have chosen NOT to live in those places because I hate the combination of heat and humidity.  And because they have some really scary snakes.

Trying to fall asleep under these conditions is next to impossible for me.  I slept for a combined 2 and 1/2 hours on the worst night.  At  4:30 in the morning as I stood in front of a fan, leaning over a chair in my boxers, sweat rolling down my face and watching TV to try and get my mind off the heat, I almost gave up.  I came within moments of going to the foot of the stairs and calling up to the rest of the family in utter defeat, "That's it!  Come on down!  We're heading to a motel!"

I did not give up the thought completely.  That experience was early Friday morning and Friday was to be the dangerous scorcher.  I could not see any way possible that I could make it through another night like that.  While the weather forecasters promised some relief through Friday night/Saturday morning, I had already learned not to trust them.

When I woke up on Saturday morning, pleased to note that had i had both slept and that I was still alive.  I began to rejoice.  While struggles of any type are not something that I pursue, the sense of accomplishment found on the other side is remarkable.  If only it could be canned, sold and served in six packs.  As the morning wore on I began to notice that Barry Manilow's hit song, "Looks Like We Made It," was playing in my mind.  Truly a sign that I had lost it.

Saturday rolled on and the temperatures remained about 10 degrees cooler than the previous day.  Humidity had also dropped noticeably.  As the evening approached I looked forward to opening the windows and letting all the stale, musty, moisture laden air out of the house and to bring in the cooler, drier outside air.  I opened a south-facing window in the living room, turned on the fan which blew inward, and faced a sudden horror: something died outside.

Preparing for the Heat

Whenever I'm away from blogging for a significant length of time I find it difficult to re-engage.  Generally this is due to the number of things that have taken place since my last entry that I think people would find interesting or at least entertaining.  I am continually overwhelmed with material.

I also feel some self-generated, frustrating, suffocating pressure to write a novel once I've returned to the world of blogdom.  Whether this is due to a supposed need to properly update what few readers I may have out there who actually give a flip or perhaps some form of self-imposed penance, I do not know.  What I do know is that I find myself puzzling over this blog for a number of days before jumping back in.

So, here I is again.  Puzzled, overwhelmed with material, and ravaged by guilt.

A crazy amount of things have taken place since May.  I can not and will not attempt to cover them all.  Suffice it to say that it is nice to again enter a season of breathing in and out.

The weather this year has been a rollercoaster ride of high heat and humidity for a few days and then down to clear, cool, near fall-like days, leading back up to the heat and humidity.  We're moving back up the track again today, leading to a peak tomorrow of 95 degrees F, and very high humidity.  In short, a typically unpredictable Wisconsin summer.

We got rid of our window air conditioners two years ago.  We have survived up to this point by opening the windows up at night to cool down the house, and then shutting everything up in the morning to retain what cool air we were able to lure in.  It works remarkably well for the most part.  However, 95 degree days brutally test my resolve.

One of our reasons for doing away with the A/C was the realization that we became lumps in the house on hot summer days.  The coolness of the air conditioners, the soothing hum they create, and the darkness created by the window shades make perfect, though artificial, napping weather.  Once prodded (either by guilt or a disgruntled spouse) to go out the door and actually get something done, the sudden blast of furnace-like air would send me whimpering back into our cool sanctuary in search of mercy and understanding.

We have discovered our productivity has increased dramatically since leaving the window units in storage.  As an added benefit, our summer electricity bills have decreased dramatically as well.

You learn rather quickly to properly prepare when extreme heat is forecasted and you live without A/C.  Pasta salads are made and stored in the refrigerator.  Bread and lunch meats are inventoried and resupplied if necessary.  Lectures are repeated to little ears (and not so little ears) about the need for keeping doors shut, unnecessary lights off, eating foods that are either cold or microwavable, showers to be taken at night and then only after parental approval, and bedroom fans blowing out during the day and blowing in at night.

Outdoor work is done in the cool of the morning or after the sun goes down.  This morning I weeded, mulched and watered some of the remaining tomato plants that I transplanted from their seed trays last evening.  These plants were the "replacements" for anything that did not make it in the garden thus far.  Fortunately most our original tomato plants survived the move to their permanent beds, leaving us with many extras.

I have about a dozen more plants to go which will find a home in the remaining open raised bed.  I would have liked to have transplanted them this morning, but after soaking through my second T-shirt, I decided to call it a morning and headed for shade.  Besides, plants respond better to transplanting when it is done in the evening rather than in the hot, mid-day sun.

The big garden related mystery this year is our sweet corn.  More specifically, the lack thereof.  I tilled a large area behind the barn in early May.  It's nice and flat with plenty of sunlight and well fertilized soil.  Lisa put in a few rows and later the kids and I planted about a dozen more (each approximately 20 feet long).  I've yet to find anything growing but weeds and a single stalk in the area that Lisa had planted.

The seeds were not leftovers from previous years, but purchased this spring  We planted well after the last frost and have had plenty of rain to soak the seeds.  Still, nothing.

I considered the possibility of raccoons digging up the seeds as there are plenty of coons around here and they are crazy about corn.  Yet there isn't even a hint of any soil having been disturbed.  Even if some had been dug up, the odds of losing every one of them are astronomical.  Further still, they've discovered our grain bags in the machine shed and have had loads of fun feasting on grain.

We also have plenty of rabbits.  I nearly ran over some bunnies while mowing to clear the area and  unearthed their nest.  But again, the odds of them getting all the plants are unlikely and even if they had there's usually some sort of evidence such as partially chewed stalks.

And so the mystery continues...

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.