February
23,
2006
Greetings on this lovely, snowy February day!
It began snowing early this morning and by now, noon, everything
is covered with about four inches of powdery light snow and
the sky is still pure white with the promise of more to come. We've
filled kettles and carboys with water in case we lose the
power tonight. Last week we lost power for 32 hours
due to high winds; we had agreed in the morning that it would
be prudent to fill the kettles, then neglected to do so.
Whoops! We're pretty lucky in a power outage.....we have
three woodstoves and plenty of candles, oil lamps and flashlights....so
the first 24 hours or so isn't too bad. After a while,
though, you really do miss water.
The best thing about power outages, though, is the enforced
slow-down. Lights went out at about 3 on Friday afternoon
and didn't come back on until just before midnight on Saturday
so we had two candlelit evenings. After dinner, there
just wasn't much to do but go to bed. After two very
early nights, I had to admit that I felt better than I had
in months after finally catching up with lots of sleep that
had been lost to the workings of my ever-spinning mind. It's
funny how your routine doesn't adapt to the loss of power. I
still went to the sink often to wash my hands or fill a glass,
remembering with a whoosh that there was no water coming
out of the faucet. The wackiest "duh" moment
came while I was exercising. I play the same three
CDs for exercising every morning. Since I had no
power I simply sang the tunes in my head from the first CD,
then, without thinking, strolled over to the CD player to
advance to the next disc which was, of course, available
only in my head.
IN THE KITCHEN
Because we picked up the Amherst Farmers' Market Valentine's
Show at Hampshire College two weeks ago (which was a wonderful
event and loads of fun!) we needed to spend time in the kitchen
making each kind of preserve. I can never adequately
explain how wonderful it feels for me to make preserves in
the wintertime. The aroma of the simmering fruit brings
back the light of summer and the steam fills my face as I
stir, stir, stir while it thickens.
Last autumn I bought a new kettle that I love so much I
have named her "Suki." She's even wider
than my original three kettles (which don't have names) so
her surface area is increased by about 2" in diameter.
This means that I've had a bit of a learning curve with her.....the
increased surface area means that my cooking times are reduced. Since
we don't rely on pectin or thickeners in our preserves, the
gel point is reached solely by driving off the water in the
fruit. You can only make a few jars of preserves at
a time by this method because it simply cannot work if the
fruit level is too deep in the kettle. (Suki is a 4 gallon
kettle, yet we only make 10-12 jars of preserves/ batch -
taking advantage of her width to increase surface area and
her height to guard against boil-overs.) Each type of fruit
has its own cooking time - times even vary with variety of
berry and dryness/wetness of the growing season and picking
conditions. This is one reason why I've never endeavored
to give cooking classes on preserve making. You can
teach techniques and times, but there is a feeling that you
get in the spoon when the preserves are perfect that simply
can't be taught.
We have good supplies of both regular and seedless Queen
of Hearts Raspberry Preserves, King of Hearts
Strawberry Preserves, White Rabbit's Blueberry
Preserves and Tweedledum's Damson Plum Preserves. We
have just under two cases of Dancing Bear Peach Preserves. We
are completely out of Teddy Berry Blackberry Preserves and Mad
Hatter's Pepper Preserves. (We still have plenty
of peppers in the freezer, though, and will experiment
with using them to make more of this.)
We have been experimenting in the kitchen too. Our
friend Tim Smith of Apex Orchards in Shelburne makes a cider
vinegar from unsprayed apples he grows (including Cortlands,
my all-time favorite apple). It's really wonderful
- full of apple flavor, tart yet fruity - so good that I've
taken to adding it to my drinking water. I pour about
a shot in a glass, fill with our good New Hampshire deep
well water, and drink it down. It's remarkably thirst-quenching. Ralph
and I reasoned, if it's this good straight, how much better
could it be with raspberries and blueberries infused into
it? We've experimented with various concentrations
of berries and vinegar and techniques and formulas. In
another week or so we'll filter and decant the gallons into
bottles and keep you posted. We think that these go
beyond fruit vinegars to the realm of fruit elixirs when
mixed with water or sparkling water. In old New England, "shrub" was
an old-fashioned beverage consisting of cider vinegar blended
with water and (sometimes) honey or molasses to fortify workers
during haying and harvest. I think this is really a rediscovery
- not a new invention. It seems that every week I read of
a new health benefit attributed to berries - antioxident-rich,
heart-healthy, even good for aging eyes - and I'm really
excited about this way to get that berry goodness into my
body. We don't plan to add sweetener, preferring the pure
berry flavor ourselves. People who enjoy a sweeter beverage
can add honey, maple syrup, molasses or sugar to suit their
own taste.
The third big project in the kitchen has been the great
garlic-peeling adventure of ought six. We realized
that after so many bumper crops of garlic in a row we were
growing more than we needed and reduced our planting this
autumn by half. That meant that we had more garlic
remaining after planting than ever. We've spent the
better part of the last two weeks peeling and peeling and
peeling garlic some more.....and putting it up in vinegar
for our Farmhouse Garlic Mustard. Whew! That's a big
job out of the way!
IN THE GARDENS
Valentine's Day is my personal deadline for placing my seed
orders, and this year I not only made my deadline, but I
had received my salad blend mix in time to start four windowsill
garden boxes on that day. I love this cut-and-come-again
blend of lettuces and mesclun greens and reds and it's such
a joy to see the little sprouts growing in my bay window. We'll
start spinach and delphiniums and some perennial herbs and
flowers in the cold frame Ralph is setting up in the beds
directly out the front door. Cherry and plum trees
shade this spot in the summer but it's the perfect spot for
an early start in late winter.
I am excited about all my new tomato, pepper and flower
and herb seeds, but nothing excites me as much as the new
elderberries we are growing this season. Our friend
Elisabeth recommended that we look into growing them,
and everything I've read just makes me more and more enthusiastic. Even
my parents got that wistful, far-away look in their eyes
remembering the good things their mothers had done with elderberries
- jelly, jam, syrup, wine - back when they were children.
My favorite herbal book touts the benefits of the elderflowers
as well as the berries.
Back during the years we filed for organic certification,
we had to have our farm plan map for the new growing season
submitted by March 1. Even though we no longer
bother with certification, I like the idea of planning out
the crop locations now. I know we are putting in a
brand new strawberry bed and think it will go where the flower
cutting bed has been for several years. We don't need
to buy new strawberry plants; we'll simply move excess plants
from the beds that we're picking from their second (and final)
harvest. We grow the wonderful Sparkle berries
- prized as the best for preserves. Since we've planted half
the garlic this year (rather than our usual double bed of
4 rows) we have extra room there for the tall heirloom tomatoes
that need staking. (I think that the tomatoes and garlic
will enjoy sharing a double bed.) Cayenne peppers will
return to the bed that wraps around the herb slopes and sweet
peppers and the other chilies will go in the long beds that
lie between the two ponds. We'll use the upper gardens
for flowers and herbs and the bush tomatoes. I grow
many kinds of both tomatoes and peppers because I've learned
that many things can go wrong and that having plants and
fruit at varying degrees of ripeness helps protect against
disaster.
Last month I wrote about how hard it will be to remove our
17 year-old raspberries, and that since the cane quality
looks so good, that I planned to put it off for another year. I'm
so glad I made that decision! I've spent a lot of time
this winter reading about herbal medicine and realized what
I have here. The major weed in the old raspberries
is St. John's wort - a highly beneficial herb. The
major weed in the blackberries is stinging nettles, another
highly beneficial herb. Once I started thinking about
it, I realized that this farm is bursting with beneficials
- many that are growing here on their own like the nettles,
yarrow and St. John's wort and others that are escapees from
my plantings in the perennial beds including echinacea, feverfew,
valerian and anise hyssop. The raspberry and blackberry
leaves are also highly prized for herbal teas. Newton
Farmers' Market friends have long asked me to offer a dried
version of the fresh herbal tea we make for market from mint,
anise hyssop and lemon balm. I'm going to spend more
time in the months to come learning about teas and tinctures
other ways to put up healing herbs.
AROUND THE FARM
Some readers might remember that Ralph's huge project for
last year was taking down the old house that we had lived
in while he built this one and recycling what he could. This
season, he'll use the recycled material to build an equipment
shed where the old house stood and a chicken house and wood
shed here. Our good friend Rick provides us with wonderful
eggs all year long, but I had chickens of my own once and
really love the birds. The last incarnation of the
Powers family farm was as a chicken farm and I think a love
of eggs is in my blood. I simply adore good eggs,
the same way I swoon for good raspberries. They're
such good food, and so good with fruits and vegetables. Rick
is going to part with 7 or 8 of his own birds so we'll be
getting "experienced" chickens rather than chicks
and I'm confident that they will do well. (Their experience
will also help in case nosy Rosie gets too cozy around them.)
We always have so much left over food from the gardens and
from making our preserves and sauces that we compost it;
it will be nice to add those scraps to the chickens' food
and get the manure from the chickens to return to the soil.
Ralph is also going to move our greenhouse (which was adjacent
to our old house) over here so it's closer. We think
we'll tuck it in to the south-western slope just below the
herbs and above the lower pond.
IN THE HOUSE
Teddy and Ralph are holding fast on the porch, their psychic
link stronger than ever. Ralph can't even think about
getting up without rousing Ted. Teddy sleeps very deeply
for about five hours, then is alert and hungry, then back
to sleep. This is fine during the day, but means that
Ralph is up in the middle of the night keeping his buddy
company during the alert phases. Sometimes Ralph really
does have to sneak out and go somewhere. Ted wakes
almost instantly and comes looking for his best friend, saying "Woof?!?!" "Woof?!?!?" "Woof?!?" (well,
it's as close as the poor guy can come to saying "Ralph?!?!" "Ralph?!??!" "Ralph!?!")
It's funny, he was always a very vocal dog and brayed as
a pup, but as a dotty old dog he talks more than ever. (In
the middle of the night he talks up a storm trying to wake
us. Nothing is wrong....he just wants company because,
after all, he's awake.) People who aren't dog-people may
find this nuts, but anyone who has ever had an elderly dog
will nod and understand. In our pasts, both Ralph and
I had to leave old dogs at home when we went to work and
worried the whole day about what was happening at home. I
am so proud of Ralph and his infinite patience with elderly
Teddy.
Somehow I've spent four hours on this message and my best
friend Rosie is almost out of patience with me. The
snow is still falling and we've only about another hour of
light so we'd better take off flying through the woods while
we still can.
 (and
Ralph!)
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