Leaving the farm for a while

It is hard to imagine why anyone might want to leave this beauty to go travelling, and today I have asked myself that, too. Yet we know that with the beauty quite often come bitter cold, blowing snow and icy roads, and every day has a little less light.

It is once again time to pack it up and head into a new adventure, then. Tomorrow afternoon we'll be on our way to Toronto, and from there to Buenos Aires. Whatever will happen in the four weeks until we fly home from Lima is still a big unknown - plans, as usual, are being made as we go along. Oh, there are some destinations that we know about with certainty: Buenos Aires for the first couple of days, Montevideo and parts of Uruguay, the mighty Iguacu Falls ... I will try to send regular reports on my travel blog: 

http://susannetravels.blogspot.ca

Only two days from now Orion will be standing on his head, referred to as  'Las tres Marias'. For me, he will be who he always is, looking at the world from a different angle, just like us. 

The many lives of a farm kitchen

Over the years my kitchen, like many farm kitchens even now, has been the setting for many interesting endeavours. The annual processing of bountiful garden harvests, blanching, freezing, canning, making copious amounts of apple butter and plum preserve, sauerkraut and pickles is hardly worth mentioning: all this has become routine, and with family members pitching in for shelling peas, cutting the ends off beans, pitting cherries and cutting apples the task is not so daunting. 

For years my mother-in-law came for month-long visits to escape dreary Novembers in Germany. Under her expert tutelage I learned to cook Borscht and meat-filled German cabbage rolls, but also the fine and elaborate art of making “Königsberger Marzipan”, a sweet delicacy made with almond paste that has its origin in East Prussia where she grew up. She taught Johann the cuts necessary to dress a butchered pig, and showed me how to make the brine for the ham in preparation for smoking and to season liver sausage – in short, I learned skills very new to me and now largely lost for people of my generation, let alone the generation of our children.

All these things took place in the kitchen, and to this day it is not only the setting for big work bees, but also a favourite gathering place for family and friends. Needless to say my kitchen has been greasy, sticky, and messy from all kinds of endeavours, and I believe I am quite tolerant of (temporary) chaos. 

The bigger part of our own apple harvest

These last couple of days, however, the kitchen has seen more than its usual share of that. Weeks ago when the abundant apple crop was ripening Carl found that many people were not going to make use of it and simply let them fall to the ground and go to waste. He set out to save as many of them from this fate as he possibly could and picked and gathered apples in the gardens of several friends and acquaintances: he was going to make apple wine! Our own three apple trees had once again produced well, too, but they are much too precious to me to see them turned into wine. After several excursions Carl had stowed away copious amounts of apples and crab apples in our freezer and the freezers of two friends who generously donated space until he had time for the next steps. 

The snow provided the perfect opportunity to tackle this big job. Garbage bags full of apples were brought into the kitchen, their frosty outlines white on the black plastic. They found a temporary home in five ten-gallon plastic tubs, and, thawed a bit and cut in half were transferred to two steam juicers, mine and one of a friend. These juicers have been running day and (with a two-hour break) night for about 36 hours now, and finally, finally the last batch is almost done. 

Johann and Carl took turns checking during most of the night: the water level needed to be checked – once it had almost run dry – and leached-out fruit had to be dumped and replaced with the next basketful. It takes between two and three hours for one batch of apples to release the bulk of its juice, and for the longest time the tubs hardly seemed to get any emptier. Every time the clamps locking off the plastic hoses were opened and the golden, pink-red or almost translucent juice – depending on the variety of apples – drained into a big pail, we took heart, however: slowly, slowly, straw was being turned into gold, or rather apples were being turned into fragrant must.

It didn’t take long for another side-effect to appear: with all that steam being released the windows have fogged up and droplets of water are gathering slowly until the panes look as if they are weeping. How welcome this moisture would be during those times of -30 or -40 degrees when the relative humidity in the house gets down to 25 or 30% and we try anything from drying laundry in the basement to letting a large pot of water slowly simmer on the stove to raise it a couple of degrees. Now, it is up to 55 or 60%, and I’ll be glad to see it drop to 40. 

As soon as the must had cooled off a bit Carl added sugar and yeast and a few Campden tablets as a stabilizer. Now, ix five-gallon pails in various stages of early fermentation are lined up along one of the kitchen walls. The first one is foaming furiously already, the last one hasn’t quite started to pearl yet. Within a day or two the stickiness and mess in my kitchen might have disappeared, but the smell of fermentation will be overpowering, and we’ll be glad that it is not too cold to open the windows and let in some fresh air. 

I believe even Carl was a bit overwhelmed by the magnitude of this project once he realized just how many apples there were, but of course by then it was too late. Instead of talking about less apples in coming years, however, he is already making plans how to streamline the process. Maybe a hydraulic press would be the answer?

A change of focus

 

Things have changed in the last week. When I stepped out on the deck Sunday night before I went to bed to take one more look at the sky, something I do almost every night, thin snow had started to fall. The next morning the layer of snow measured five centimetres already - not ideal conditions for trimming the feet of the three horses, but since it wasn't windy it was not as unpleasant as I had feared. Fortunately even Romeo cooperated for a change, and our feet and hands barely had a chance to get cold. 

 The weather forecast had promised early on that this was not going to last, that sunny skies would soon return. Alas, as so often it was wrong. We woke up to damp, cool, dreary mornings all week, and the sun didn't show its face even once. It was cold enough that not even the snow disappeared, and the beaver pond soon had a crinkling skin of thin ice. Only today it warmed up to about four degrees Celsius, and once again a hint of green lawn greets the eye.

With this taste of winter it was time to move inside, even though I am still far from finished in the garden. There are other projects that need to be done, however, and it was a good time to tackle a big one. 
                                

Carrots, anyone?

Harvest has been over for more than a month, and we have enjoyed a beautiful long autumn. Even now, at the end of October, we haven’t had a really harsh frost, and the warm tangerine glow from the Siberian wallflower at the corner of the perennial bed is guarded by a few purple spikes of late delphiniums. Pansies, too, have not yet succumbed to the cold. 

After a couple of days with strong winds there are not many leaves left on the trees. Only the Evans cherries have managed to hang on to their glossy orange-and-gold foliage, leathery leaves flaming in the last rays of the setting sun. The wind has died down, and the air is still and almost mild. My day’s work in the garden is almost done, and I decide to just sit and watch and listen for a little while now. I lower myself on a pile of dried chickweed I raked up the day before, a warm and comfortable cushion. Leo, at first excited when I get down to his level, eventually settles down beside me. 

From the corner of my eye I notice quick movement: the flutter of two chickadees probing the blackened sunflowers for a few last seeds. Where I sit, the air is totally still, but the tops of the poplars are still swaying in the wind, the fine lacework of branches outlined against the light blue sky. High up a plane moves noiselessly, illuminated by the sun just slipped below the horizon. Suddenly, a big commotion: the chatter of many geese convening for the night in a nearby field. It sounds as if they are exchanging news of the day after arriving from different directions. Only moments later all is quiet again. It is interesting how this always happens right at sunset: they certainly know their time.

It’s time to finish up: two long rows of carrots are still waiting to be packed in boxes and brought inside. Surveying this bounty I ask myself what I was thinking when I planted them; obviously I have still not quite made the switch to a family reduced in size. It is not only that, however: for once not only growing conditions were perfect, but my ‘carrot management’ as well. I didn’t wait until the middle of July for my second planting, and, just as importantly, thinned them to the proper distance, at the proper time, as well. The result is stretching out in front of me: nice, straight, good-sized carrots, some so big that I had to pry them out of the ground, damaging a few in the process. The longest are over thirty centimetres long. 

For the last couple of years I have stored the carrots in moist sand in tubs in the cold room; that way they keep in excellent shape into spring. Even with this, however, I will have to get creative to use them all up. All through late summer and fall salads of grated carrots and apples, marinated in oil and lemon juice, salt and pepper, have been a regular part of the menu, and now I have retrieved the juicer for my Bosch kitchen machine from long years of patiently waiting in storage. Our eyesight will surely benefit from it – maybe to the point when we can say good-bye to our reading glasses? 

I heave three big boxes of carrots on the wheelbarrow and take a last survey of the garden. Whatever is left now can withstand a bit of frost: some kale, a few kohlrabi, a row of leeks, a bit of lettuce. Surprisingly, even the Swiss chard is still alive. None of that should be much affected by the rain showers  and snow flurries expected over the weekend, and if the forecast can be trusted we will have sunshine and temperatures of six or seven degrees back by the later part of next week. With luck I should be able to spend a bit more time in the garden before we leave again for South America in mid-November. 

 

Trying to catch a thief

The garden is at its most beautiful right now: delphiniums are in full bloom, the many shades of blue offset by the warm yellow of the perennial sunflowers and the bright red clusters of the Maltese Cross (I like its German name, Brennende Liebe – Burning Love). Lettuce and new potatoes are as much part of the menu as spinach, Swiss chard and all kinds of herbs, peas are ready to be picked, and beans, squash and cucumbers are blooming, tiny fruits already set.

One of my special joys is the blackberry bush I planted last year – well, two, actually, but one of them has not really grown very much at all yet – that has recovered very nicely from the damage sustained by mice over the winter: they had gnawed off most of the bark, but thankfully left enough for it to survive. Again I watched it grow and thrive, and not so long ago even found it had formed buds. There is still a big question if these plants are really suited for our rough climes, but they are supposed to be hardy for Zone 3, so I am hopeful. 

By now I could almost feel the purple, juice filled little cushions of the blackberries burst in my mouth. How great my horror, then, when I found the leaves of many of the long branches nibbled, soon disappearing one by one! After all this coddling someone seemed to be set on destroying my dream. What could it be? At first I suspected a rabbit: the peas, too, had been razed while they were still small, and at that time there were several rabbit sightings in the yard. But why would it choose blackberry leaves, of all things? Yesterday morning a flattened area in the raspberry patch right beside the blackberry seemed to indicate that a bigger animal had made a bed for itself there, breaking its branches as it had broken the tips of the blackberry bush. A porcupine, maybe? A deer? There were no tracks in the dry soil. 

But I couldn’t just sit by and watch my precious plants slowly being reduced to shreds! I decided to keep watch for a night: if I didn’t see the thief it surely would see me, and maybe that would be enough to deter it from further visits.

Thus I gathered up my sleeping gear late last night, grabbed a flashlight and made my way out to the garden. Leo happily trotted out to the garden with me, watched in respectful distance as I unfolded the tarp between the lilac hedge and the raspberry patch, rolled out the old blue foam sleeping pad, shook out my sleeping bag and stuffed the pillow under my head. Once I had crawled into my sleeping bag he plopped down beside me, only to jump up a couple of minutes later to bark frantically at nothing in particular. Oh boy - was that going to be the pattern for this night? Dutifully I sat up and shone my flashlight in the general direction in which he had pointed his nose, but of course saw nothing. I lay back, more awake than I would have thought possible that late at night, snuggled into my sleeping bag and started to relax.

The sky was veiled by diaphanous white clouds, but right above me they started to pull away, and soon the misty brightness of the Milky Way had replaced the clouds. A blinking light traversed this window from southeast to northwest: a plane. A moment later a steady point of light moved from north to south: a satellite. I lay on my back and watched their progress, listening idly to the far-away barking of a dog, the brief rumble of a truck engine from the highway a couple of miles to the east. But there: a thin streak of light, vanishing in the blink of an eye! Could I have been so lucky to have picked a night of shooting stars? 

Leo snuffled a couple of times before his breathing became regular. I, too, was starting to get sleepy, my eyes still directed to the cloud of distant stars above. Two more meteorites made their brief appearance before I fell asleep, oblivious now to anything, be it thieves of blackberry leaves or fairies flitting in the lilac hedge.

The first thing I became aware of was the sound of Leo having a breakfast helping of raspberries: he was lying beside me and only had to stretch a bit to reach the bottom ones. I was slightly moist: fog had crept in during the night, but by now lingered only in little shreds between the trees, droplets of moisture sparkling in the light of the as yet hidden sun. It was 6:15, and a beautiful morning. I had neither seen nor heard a secret nibbler, and a brief inspection of the blackberry bush convinced me that none had visited during my watch either. All I had to show for my effort was a big bump in the middle of my forehead: even though it's dry now the mosquitoes have not totally disappeared.

Will I go back to keep watch again tonight? Clouds are starting to roll in, and there is a chance of thundershowers. Maybe I will postpone it for a while, hoping the thief got enough of a scare when he poked his head through the lilac hedge.