More Winter Reading

M.C. Beaton is one of my favorite authors. She's also a prolific writer with several series of books to her credit.  One of my favorite is her Agatha Raisin mystery series. 

 

Beaton's books (pen name for Marion Chesney) are not great literature.  Her writing sometimes reads almost in outline form, but her story lines and mystery plots are  intriguing and I always  look forward to her next book. 

 

Her Hamish Macbeth mystery series about a policeman in a small village in Scotland is also pretty good. It was made into a British television series back in the 1990's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd love to see the Agatha Raisin books made into a television series.  The setting for the books is the English Cottswalds, so that would be beautiful. Agatha herself is a entertaining character and there are lots of other interesting characters in the books to make it interesting.

 

 If you are looking for a new mystery series with good plots and easy reading, give either one of these a try.

 

 

 

 

 



Salavating Over Seed Catalogs

Burpee's new sauce tomato

It's the week between Christmas and New Years and right on time the send catalogs have started to arrive in my mailbox - the one at the end of the driveway.  Jungs Seeds & Plants arrived on Wednesday and then on Thursday a whole bunch arrived including Gurney's, Henry Field's, The Cook's Garden, R. H Shumway and Burpee.

Burpee gets the award for the most eye catching. There on the front of the catalog is a big red tomato with a yellow sign proclaiming "Shown Actual Size".  Before I even opened the catalog I got out my ruler and measured the picture.  The tomato was five inches across and five and a half inches tall! SuperSauce is definitely not your average Roma type paste tomato and I don't think I'm going to be able to resist ordering it! 

The copy describing this new tomato, found on page three of the catalog, is effusive to say the least.
Burpee proclaims this is a "superhero" tomato, a "roma with aroma".

Just below the picture of the huge tomato is a picture of a large flower pot growing sweet corn.  This Burpee exclusive is called On Deck Hybrid and is the "first sweet corn bred for containers!".  Apparently you take a 24 inch pot and plant nine seeds in it and you can pick corn from your back deck!

Burpee boasts 80 new varieties this year including a pink raspberry, a white and purple striped potato and a heat resistant broccoli.

The Cook's Garden catalog has lots of pretty pictures and both Henry Field's and Gurney's offer big discounts on mostly standard vegetable offerings. Both Jung's and Henry Field's have a nice offering of perennials and shrubs.

But my favorite catalog to browse is the R.H. Shumway's Illustrated Garden Guide.  Shumway's is illustrated with old time looking drawings both black and white and colored.  They offer some hard to find heirloom varieties like Bohemian Horseradish, Howling Mob sweet corn, dark red Egyptian beets, sugar beets  and Shumway's Colossal Long Red Mangels (beets). The catalog says that mangels are "equal in nutrition to grain" and "relished by livestock, particularly milk cows".  I think I need to invest in some mangel beet seed! 

For 2013 they are announcing, beautifully illustrated on their back cover, Mr. Wrinkles Pumpkin and Mrs. Wrinkles Pumpkin.  Mr. Wrinkles is touted as a wonderful orange Jack O'Lantern type with a good barrel shape and large dark green handles.  Mrs. Wrinkles is a deeply ribbed orange pumpkin, growing 10 inches wide and only nine inches tall - like a Cinderella pumpkin I'm thinking. I might just have to get some of those too. 

As the days begin to lengthen etc.

As the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen - so goes an old saying. And as old sayings go, this one always seems to be true!   Winter has roared in on its appointed day and seems determined to stay awhile.  The Old Farmers Almanac (www.almanac.com) and Success Farming magazine both predict a colder and wetter winter than average for our part of the country.

Zeke among the 800 pound round bales.

Snow, ice and strong winds have made life outdoors pretty miserable - or so my cows are telling me.  They are rapidly eating through my hay supplies trying frantically to produce enough body heat to keep warm.  Hay is very scarce this year and I've been parceling out the round bales on a strict schedule.  The Angus herd of 8 pregnant cows and heifers has been getting an 800 pound bale every four and a half to five days.  My Limousin herd of nine pregnant cows and heifers, two bulls and four calves has been cleaning up a 500 pound bale every two to two and a half days.  They are also sharing a 50 pound bag of crimped corn every three days.

This week the Limi's have eaten a round bale in a day and a half. The Angus however, went through two 800 pound bales in six days! By yesterday evening they had eaten the last of the second bale. My plan was to put a third out this morning. But by 5:00 pm they were lined up along the fence, staring at the house and hollering.  I was running the vacuum cleaner around in the living room and they could see me through the windows.

Happy cows with their big round bale of hay.

Finally about 5:30 I gave in.  It was a beautiful evening with a gorgeous big gold moon low on the eastern horizon, very Halloween like with a ribbon of cloud under it just so.  The temperature was just at freezing and the wind had died down. It was a lovely evening to be out doors.

I picked up a round bale with the tractor (I have a huge spear attached to the front of the tractor operated by an hydraulic lift mechanism).  The bale was sitting on a wooden pallet meant to keep it from absorbing moisture out of the ground.  With all the rain, then snow, then sleet, the bale was topped with a thick layer of ice topped snow and the pallet was frozen to the bottom.

The bales are wrapped in a fine plastic hexagonal mesh, which I usually easily unwrap from the bale just before I place it in the round bale feeder ring. This time however, I needed my big sharp knife to cut through the mesh in several places as it was frozen to the bale. The wooden pallet also frozen to the mesh so I had to cut both sides at the bottom and stomp on the pallet to free it from the bale.  The hardest part was pulling the mesh from the top of the bale, as the bale is taller than I and the snow was about five inches thick on the top.

I checked out the living room windows several times during the evening and out the bedroom window through the night and still again this morning. The feeder has never not been surrounded by cows all that time.  Of the 30 round bales the vet bought for his Angus herd and had delivered in late October and early November, 15 are left counting the one I put out last night. 

Oil Lamps and No AGA

It was dark when I arrived home from work last night and as I drove down the driveway I noticed that the outside lights did not turn on.  They should have turned on automatically. The wind was blowing like a hurricane and I figured the power was out - again!  I was right.

Oil Lamp

I keep a flash light on the counter just inside the door and an oil lamp on the kitchen island so within a matter of minutes I'd turned on the flashlight, located the box of matches and lighted the oil lamp.
Reality hit me square on when I remembered that my AGA cook stove broke down last month and I've not been able to get it repaired, so its comforting warmth and ready cooking facilities were as cold as the rest of the house.  The power goes off here often, as it has around the area with all the fierce wind storms we've had the last few years.  But I've always had the AGA at the ready, which runs on propane and requires no electricity, radiating its comforting warm and making it possible to cook a nice warm dinner or boil water for tea regardless of the electrical situation.

My AGA Rayburn Classic Cooker
 

The AGA is the perfect stove for a country house.  When its working properly (which it has most of its 14 years in this house) it runs on either propane of natural gas and is on all the time - you can see the stove pipe in the picture. The round silver domes on the top are insulating covers for two large round pads that are the stove top cooking units. One is set for boiling and the other for simmering.  I can put two or three saucepans on each pad or one big canner.  The boiling pad boils a kettle of water in 90 seconds. In the picture above, the tea kettle is sitting on the warming pad. I can keep a pot of tea warm by sitting it on the pad and covering it with a tea towel or I can culture yogurt by sitting the glass jars of milk and starter on a tea towel laid out on the warming pad. It's a great feature.

The AGA has four ovens. Top right is the roasting oven set for 400 to 500 degrees. Under it is the baking oven set for 300 to 375 degrees. The top left oven is the simmering over set for 200 to 275 degrees and the bottom right is the warming oven set at 140 degrees.  You can sit a plate of cooked hot food in the warming oven with a little foil over it to keep it from drying out and it will stay warm and tasty for hours.  It's also perfect for drying herb, corn and making tomato leather.

Wonderful smells of cooking roasts and such come out that stove pipe into the outside air. Working outside in the yard, you can smell a roast in the oven and know there will be a great meal waiting at the end of your work. When you come inside the kitchen is warm and cozy, thanks to the AGA which radiates a little heat - enough that I can shut off the front of the house, set the furnace at 60 degrees and know the AGA will keep the kitchen and family room a cozy 68 degrees all winter long. 

The AGA was an expensive addition to the house. It came shipped from England in crates and had to be built on site. We added extra floor joists to the kitchen floor system and installed a brick pad to house its 900 pounds of cast iron .  It's cost was more than 10 times what a plain electric range would have cost and since its a built in feature of the house it was financed as part of the mortgage.

But it's been well worth the extra cost and effort.  The warm and comforting AGA is the heart of my home. Without its gentle warmth I am bereft!

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

 Left Over Pumpkins

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn't keep her
Put her in a pumpkin shell
An there he kept her very well!

I had half a dozen left over pumpkins from decorations at the museum this fall and decided to bring them home, along with the decorative corn shucks, to feed to the cows.  The corn shucks each had at least one good ear of field corn attached to each corn stalk and the cows loved them.  Interestingly enough some of the animals knew right away what to do with the corn stalks and some didn't.Their behavior didn't have anything to do with age, because one of the first to grab a stock with an ear of corn and begin munching the corn was Thor, the coming two year old bull. Jealousy, a six year old cow had to watch Thor work on that ear of corn before she figured it out!  Fascinating!.

Anyway, I tossed a couple of pumpkins over the fence and they split open.  I was sure the cows would love them, the goats always did.  But almost a month later the pumpkins are still laying in the field.

I also broke a pumpkin open and gave it to the chickens, thinking they would peck it down to the rind in no time and be thrilled with all those pumpkin seeds.  The seeds disappeared but the pumpkin is still laying out by the chicken house. I'm not sure what ate the seeds, but no body seems to interested in the pumpkin. 

So, I had decided to throw the remaining pumpkins on the compost pile when I remembered what had happened one winter when I'd left some pumpkins and squash in the front yard a little ways away from the house and propped up against a tree. They had been part of a decorative display of mums and pumpkins and big Hubbard squash.  I planted the mums but forgot all about the pumpkins and squash until spring when I began cleaning up the flower beds for spring planting. Nestled up again two large Hubbard squash one of the pumpkins had been excavated and turned into a baby rabbit nest with a southern exposure.  Mother rabbit had a safe shelter for the babies and a ready food supply of pumpkin seeds all in one place.

Here's Zeke on top of a round bale of hay.  The cats love to sit on top of the bales and watch the world go by. It's a great vantage point for scoping out mice and rabbits. 

With eight cats around, I doubt any mother rabbit will have a chance of raising a nest or bunnies in a pumpkin any where near my house, but I'm leaving the rest of the pumpkins propped up against a tree in the woods, just in case.

Planting Garlic

Sprouted Garlic

I was making beef stew this weekend and wanted to add a clove of garlic.  Unfortunately both of the heads of garlic I had on hand had sprouted.  Most cooks agree that sprouted garlic has a bitter taste so I tossed in a little garlic powder and set the two bulbs aside to plant in the garden. You can plant garlic anytime during the fall but traditionally it is planted on the shortest day of the year which is December 21 this year, also known as the Winter Solstice and the day the Mayan calendar seems to say the world will end. 

Good, wormy composted cow manure and old round bale leavings! Good dirt!

 

It's December 17, but I don't think four days will matter so I cleaned out one of my four foot by four foot box gardens that had held beets earlier in the season to use for the garlic. I dug out chickweed, clover, grass and a big leaved deep rooted weed whose name escapes me.  The bed had become very weedy with this mild fall weather, but I'm glad to report that the dirt was full of worms! 

Eight cloves of garlic spaced about a foot apart.

The garlic bulbs had only four cloves each, but they were nice big cloves and the garlic was one of those large, lightly purple shaded garlics, very pretty really.  I planted the cloves, fat end down with the sprouted top sticking up, making sure to plant them deep enough to cover the sprouted green parts.

Clove of garlic ready to cover with dirt.
 

It's suppose to rain a lot this evening and through out the week, so I didn't bother watering in. The soil was nice and moist.  I confess this garlic was from the local Kroger store and may or may not be well suited to my soil or climate.  You never know for sure where Kroger may have purchased the garlic, and it is definitely not the same size and color and type of garlic you usually get at the Kroger.  Usually I get smaller, white bulbs that are made up of six or more small cloves.  I'm really hoping these grow because I liked the bigger, and what I thought were milder, cloves of this particular type of garlic. Time will tell.

Round Bales Arrive

One of the biggest problems I have in keeping cattle is finding them enough hay for their winter forage.  The other issues is paying for it! I don't have the equipment or the acres needed to make my own hay, so I am dependent on others.

Round bales of hay.

This year, with the drought, pastures were thin in the fall and I began feeding hay in early November. In the normal course of things that's not that unusual.  But in the normal course of things I would have sold at least one bull and several bred females by now - and that has not happened. With the scarcity of hay, many small holders like myself, and even some of the larger  herds, are culling cattle (selling the least productive animals) and not replacing them.

Better than average sized round bales of hay. These weigh about 700 to 800 pounds each.

I'm used to paying $25 for a round bale that measures four feet tall by five feet deep and weighs about 500 to 600 pounds.  This year those bales cost $50.00 a piece.  Most years, when hay is scarce and expensive, corn is fairly cheap and you can supplement the hay with corn at a reasonable cost. Last year for example, corn was $5.50 for a 50 pound bag. This year its $11.50 ish. I shouldn't complain I guess as I hearing that in the heavy drought areas in Texas and Oklahoma they are paying up to $100 for a round bale like this.

Yum! Seven cows and a bull share this round bale feeder. With the mild weather we've been experiencing they will consume one bale every five days.  When the temperatures drop down into the 30's in January and February they will gobble up one bale every four and sometimes thee days.  Digesting the hay is what keeps them warm.

High Drama in the Chicken House

Big Chickey and his girls

Big Chickey has been the head rooster in my flock since my sister gave him to me as a two year old in 2006.  That makes Big Chickey old for a chicken.  In 2009 I brooded a bunch of day old chicks I'd purchased from Murray McMurray Hatchery.  In that clutch of chicks was a Blue Laced Red Wyandot hen and rooster chick.  The Blue Laced Red Wyandot rooster grew up with Big Chickey and they seemed to get along all right. In August 2010 one of the white hens hatched two chicks. One was a hen and the other a rooster. I call him Booster Rooster. He also grew up with  Big Chickey.

Blue Laced Red Wyandot Rooster

Both the Blue Laced Red Wyandot rooster and hen were killed the summer of 2011. That left Booster and Big Chickey  as roosters in the flock and Big Chickey tolerated Booster most of the time.  The only time there seemed to be a problem was at dusk when the chickens would be going to their house to roost.  The chicken house has two rooms and Big Chickey roosts in most interior section along with most of the hens.  BC wouldn't let Booster into the Chicken house until all the hens were in and he had gone to roost. Then Booster could enter the house and roost in the room closet to the door with his hatch mate and one other hen.

Over the last month or so I've noticed that fewer and fewer hens are roosting with Big Chickey. They seem to prefer to roost with Booster.  Yesterday morning when I went into the chicken house to feed and water the flock, I found Big Chickey crouched down in a corner by the door with his head bent down. I often find a chicken who is dying in that attitude.  I checked to see if he was alive and he perked up a bit, but I thoroughly expected to find him dead when I came home last night.

When I returned home yesterday evening I was pleasantly surprised  to find Big Chickey all alone walking along the driveway. I've never seen him out by himself before but thought perhaps he'd gone looking for left over corn among the cows and was late getting back to the house.  All the other chickens including Booster had gone to bed.  I herded Big Chickey into the chicken house and shut the door. He immediately wanted out and about two second later Booster attacked him.

Buff Orpington Hen

It was obvious at that point that Booster had taken over and was determined to kill Big Chickey. I grabbed Booster by his tail and threw him out the door. Big Chickey retreated to the inner room where he roosts along with one red hen.  I put food and water out for the two of them and locked them in. Then I let Booster back in the first room where all the other hens were waiting to go to roost. 

This morning Big Chickey seemed fine though he looked a little bedraggled.  He and the hen spent the day in the in their room.  I kept the rest of the flock locked in the front room of the chicken house thinking it was best to keep eveyone in so they would all be equal in their confinement. This evening everyone was fine, but I don't dare let Big Chickey out with Booster yet.  Obviously Booster and the hens have decided, or they sense, that Big Chickey is on the way out, and rather than tolerate him the way he tolerated Booster, Booster has decided to do away with him.  This is the way of chickens.  If a hen or rooster shows weakness, the rest of the flock will kill the sick, hurt or old animal. Such is the law of the jungle - or at least the chicken coop!

Doe with Hurt Leg Surving So Far

Night camera shots of deer in the woods.

 

I'm not seeing many deer lately.  I know they are out there but unlike the shot above, taken last winter, the deer cams aren't picking up much activity. With the drought and the scarcity of pasture grasses,  I'm wondering if they are spending their time near harvested fields, picking up dropped corn and soy beans.

About 10 days ago I noticed a small doe running sort of crookedly around the perimeter of the calves pasture. She seemed to be having a hard time jumping the fence into the woods.  The next day I saw her going through the barbed wire fence in the back yard headed for the pond. It was obvious her right front leg was damaged.  Yesterday I saw her coming from the pond.  At first I thought she was a very large coyote from the kind of loopy gait she displayed, but when she came up the hill behind the house it was clear she was the injured doe.

I'm encouraged to think she's made it this long. I'd hate to see the coyotes get her. Much better to get my brother or a friend of mine to try to take her down quickly and cleanly.  Then again, maybe she will survive.  She uses the barbwire fence to move around since she can't jump well, and she seems to be staying near the cattle, so I imagine she eats off the round bales at night. Will keep you posted.

Everyone is Pregnant!

Very pregnant "Frenchy" couldn't fit into the cattle chute.
 

My large animal vet, Dr. Gano from Orchard Veterinary Practice in Wilmington, spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon worming, vaccinating and pregnancy checking the herd.  I am happy to report that all the girls are pregnant.  Valentine and Vera B. seem to be carrying their AI'd calves and should calve March 23 to Burbank.  The others will calve  between March and June with calves from either BTAP Thor or CEH In Focus (Bobby).

Running my animals through the cattle chute is always a difficult process. They all know from past experience that time in the chute means pain and some indignities (pregnancy checking). And too, the chute is a tight fit for my big Limousin cattle.  Yesterday, the chute was too small for several of the more pregnant cows.  French Silk Pie, better known as Frenchy was a case in point. She doesn't have a deep body like Violet and Valentine. Frenchy is round like a barrel and the closer she get to calving the rounder she gets.  She refused to squeeze into the chute and instead tried to do her imitation of a deer and jump the corral. 

Unfortunately for the corral she was too pregnant to make it over. Big tall Frenchy reared up on her hind legs and tried to jump over the corral gate but only managed to get her self hung up on the gate with her pregnant belly holding her back. For about five minutes she teetered on the gate  - which she bent beyond repair, first her hind feet on the ground, then her front feet on the ground, unable to get her belly over the gate. She was cutting off her air and getting panicked. It took three of us to get the corral panels detached from the gate so the gate would collapse and release her.  An 1800 pound pregnant cow hung up on a gate puts a lot of pressure on the gate fasteners, but we finally got her free and she happily returned to munching hay like nothing had happened. The vet assured me she had not damaged her unborn calf.

BTAP Thor, coming two year old bull

BTAP Thor, the coming two year old bull, hadn't been in the chute since he was a calf.  When it was his turn he ran down the runway and into the chute thinking he could run right through it. Imagine his surprise and fury when he was caught in the head gate. He fought the chute like a demon, trying like crazy to get out, but all he managed to do was make a lot of noise and rock the chute from side to side. He got his vaccinations and worming pour on despite all the ruckus. Next year he will be too big for that chute, but next year hopefully he will be living on some other farm!

At the end of the day I headed for the house exhausted and achy from man handling all those 1500 to 1800 pound frightened babies.  The former show girls who had been halter broke were much easier to handle then the general range cattle - like Frenchy - and I renewed my determination to halter break this years calves.  Already ZZ Tom has a major "bull" attitude and little BTAP Zooey, who had her first time in the chute and didn't like shots and ear piercings at all, is as wild as a deer.  As I reached for the Advil bottle I silently vowed to get those two locked up in the barn this winter for some serious manners training.

Garden Gone to Bed

Breaking dawn, about 7:45 this morning. Chores are finished.  Notice the oak tree on the right. It doesn't shed its leaves until spring.

Heavy frosts this last week have taken their toll on the garden. It is almost December after all, but I hate to see the end of the season.  The Swiss chard and the kale are looking very droopy and the cabbage and broccoli haven't grown in a month.  I did manage to find three smallish beets out of the entire beet patch.  Something is not right with my garden and beets.  Perhaps my cow and chicken manure rich compost is not good for them. Time to do some research!

Green Oak Leaf lettuce

I cut the last of the fall lettuce - which was the green Oak Leaf variety. That was the only one of the fall lettuces that grew well. I still have the patch covered with floating row cover but I doubt the plants will put on any new leaves this late in the season.

Round bales of hay, each weighing about 700 pounds. Twenty six of them arrived last Sunday morning. Forty three more to come. We are feeding 25 head of cattle who eat an average of 25 to 30 pounds of hay a day. You do the math!

The calves who live in the field next to the garden stand at the fence and beg for chard, kale, broccoli and cabbage plants.  Everyday I pull three or four plants and toss them over the fence. They are getting a good diet of grass hay and crimped corn (not cracked, which has had the good parts removed) which will help them grow to their full potential, but a little extra vitamin rich greens go down well.

The calves in for their morning feed.

 

 Ghoulish morning picture eyes!  Left to right, ZZ Tom, the Angus heifer and the little Angus bull.  ZZ Tom is twice the size of the Angus bull and he's only three weeks older. If I every questioned my decision to raise Limousin cattle over Angus, this set of three calves shows why people buy my bulls to breed to their Angus and crossbred cows. The Limousin bull calf, ZZ Tom is twice the size of the Angus bull calf and he's only three weeks older! If you are raising feeder calves to sell at six to nin months and you are paid by the pound, which calf do you think you'd want to be selling?  In a year or two the Angus  may be the same size, but that's a lot of time and feed in between.

Drought and Poison Pasture Plants

Poison Hemlock- kill this weed whenever you see it - even use harsh herbicides if you must, it is that bad for you, your children and your pets.

We moved to our farm in 1955 when I was just four years old.  My Dad took his day off from his medical practice on Thursdays and he devoted the day to chores on our farm. He and my mother kept a small herd of Hereford cattle, some chickens and a small herd of sheep.  We kids went with him while he mended fences and walked the fields checking on the cattle. Those trips around the farm are what developed our love of nature. 


Ground cherries, one of the poisonous nightshade family of plants. We love some of the non-poisonous ones such as white potatoes and tomatoes.

While we walked the fields my Dad would pull up weeds, cursing under his breath and naming them as we walked.  Canadian thistles were always a problem and he worked diligently to root them out. But his most hated were things like milkweed, jimson weed and horse nettle, another of the deadly nightshade family.  We learned to pull those weeds whenever we saw them and to never ever put anything we found in the pastures in our mouths.  Dad wanted to keep those weeds out of the pastures just in case a cow or sheep got a hold of one by mistake. They were all poisonous to our livestock. We worked diligently at eradicating those weeds and to my knowledge Dad never lost an animal to poisoneous plants.





We all love to blow these fluffy seeds in the wind, but don't do it!! Yes butterflies like the flowers but the plant is poisonous to livestock and those seeds scatter and grow everywhere.

 



Drought causes most of us some distress because our flowers, lawns and vegetable gardens all suffer from lack of rain.  It causes crop farmers stress because their crops don't grow well or not at all. Livestock farmers worry about our animals having enough pastures grasses to eat, but we also have to worry about  poisonous weeds that may have been crowded out by lush grasses and clovers in good rain times, but thrive when those same grasses and clovers go dormant in drought times. 

This fall my sister lost one of her  sheep to poisonous plants.  Her sheep are very old and don't like to travel far to graze.  When their pastures began to dry out and go dormant in late August, they traveled a little farther afield then usual and found some still green ground cherries and poison hemlock that had snuck into a small, seldom used corner of their pasture.   A trip with one of the sheep to Ohio State Veterinary hospital confirmed the problem.  Blackie died of a lack of thiamine (one of the B vitamins) , a critical nutrient in sheep. The thiamine was blocked from her system by the poison in the hemlock and the ground cherries.  The poison made her brain swell, blocking her optic nerve and causing sudden blindness. Then it went to work on her central nervous system and caused her to loose the use of her legs. A younger sheep might have survived with emergency treatment, but Blackie was over 20 years old and her system couldn't recover.

Needless to say, my sister went after those plants and destroyed them. More drought is predicated for 2013 and you can be sure we will all be walking out fence rows and pastures this coming spring, summer and fall rooting out any of these poisonous plants.

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.."

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance, pray love remember", says Ophelia in Shakespear's Hamlet.  

Planting Trees and Harvesting Lettuce

Oak leaf lettuce

By the time I fed and watered cattle last night, it was too dark to plant the white fir seedlings that had arrived from the Arbor Day Foundation on Wednesday, so I healed them in.  That means I dug a shallow trench in one of my garden beds, laid the bundle of trees in the trench, covered the root ends with soil and gently watered them in.  They will keep just fine that way for several weeks, but when I arrived home, once again my mailbox was bulging with a package of Arbor Day Foundation trees. This time it was the package of oak seedlings I'd ordered earlier in the month.

This afternoon was one of those gorgeous sunny fall days with temperatures in the mid 50's and a light breeze.  I put on a cotton turtleneck shirt, a cotton sweater, a scarf and a sweat shirt hoody and my heavy work gloves and ventured out to the garden to plant the white fir seedlings.  First I unearthed the seedlings and stashed them in a big water can full of water.  Then I began working up the soil in a spot where I hope they will be happy.  It didn't take long for me to shed the hoody, the scarf and the sweater. What a great day to work outdoors.  It's definitely going to be an Advil night!

Difficult to see with the straw covering but there are 10 little white fir seedlings planted in this bed.

I spent about an hour and a half digging over and weeding out a large mounded bed of what I think was a compost/manure pile about five years ago.  The dirt was easy to dig and the weeds, with the exception of some poison hemlock roots, came out easy.  It should be good, light soil that will drain well, just right for starting young trees. I'll have to deal with the poison hemlock again in the spring.

One of the white fir seedlings
 

Lettuce under floating row cover. I've used this stuff for years and it works great!

I've kept my fall planting of lettuce under floating row cover since we've had some heavy frosts the last week or so.  The oak leaf is doing great and I cut a big basket of it this afternoon.   I always bring my lettuce in the house right after cutting, fill my clean kitchen sink with cold water, then dump the lettuce in the sink and swish it through the water to clean it of any grit or dirt.  Today, for the first time, I found slugs in the water.  I've never had slugs in my lettuce before and they didn't seem to have hurt any of the leaves, but I picked half a dozen of them out of the water and tossed them in the compost bucket. 

Washed lettuce, blotted and ready to put in the frig.

When I'm finished swishing the lettuce I let it sit for a minute in the water. The lettuce sort of floats and the dirt sinks to the bottom. Then I carefully pick the lettuce up out of the water, shake it a bit and lay it out on a clean kitchen towel - a linen like one, not a fuzzy one. Carefully, I blot some of the water off the lettuce with the towel then transfer it to another towel, wrap it up carefully in the towel, put the towel in a plastic T-shirt bag and store the whole thing in my refrigerator's crisper drawer. It keeps that way a week or more.

This towel will absorb a little bit more of the water off the lettuce and help keep in fresh in the frig.

 

One bag ready for the refrigerator, and one more ready for towel number two. Yum, yum!  I should have at least one more cutting before Thanksgiving and then I'll have to go back to the Swiss chard and kale. The calves, who live in the pasture next to the garden, were begging for something green this afternoon, so I gave them some of the chard and the kale. They really liked it.

Peanut Soup



Outside the King's Arms Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg, VA.

One of my very favorite places to visit is Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. My parents took us to visit often when we were children and I never tire of visiting the craftsman's shop or listening to "Thomas Jefferson" speak on the Governor's Palace lawn.  It's always 1774 there and you can loose yourself in the history of the American Revolution while eating and dining in style and comfort.

There are a couple of good, authentic restaurants in the restored area. I usually try to eat one meal at Chownings and another at Shields Tavern but I never miss visiting the Kings Arms Tavern.  My favorite corn pudding recipe comes from the Kings Arms. My out and out favorite is the Cream of Peanut Soup.

It's a simple enough recipe. You may be thinking Peanut Soup? But just like some folks love Peanut Butter Pie, I love Cream of Peanut Soup. It is a great starter for Thanksgiving Dinner and a serving is a little more than 400 calories, so plan to take a long walk after dinner!

 

King's Arms Tavern Cream of Peanut Soup

 

1 medium onion, chopped                                           2 quarts chicken broth

2 ribs celery, chopped                                                 2 cups smooth peanut butter

1/4 cup butter                                                              1 2/4 cups light cream

3 tablespoons flour                                                      chopped peanuts to garnish

 

Saute the onions and celery in butter until soft, but not brown. Stir in the flour until well blended.  Add chicken stock, stirring constantly and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and puree the mixture in a food processor or blender.  Stir in peanut butter and cream and blend thoroughly.  Return to low heat, but do not boil.  Warm through. Serve garnished with chopped peanuts. 





Arbor Day Trees Arrive

 

I arrived home late last night to find a package of trees from the Arbor Day Foundation sticking out of my mail box.  Just my luck they arrived on an evening when I was home late, but not to worry.  I opened the package and the trees were in great shape, roots still nice and moist. They will keep that way in a cool place until Friday evening when I can plant them in their nursery bed. 

 

I received a package of lush green white fir seedlings, each about 18 inches tall. I'll plant them in their nursery bed and next fall or the fall after (depending on how well they do this year) I'll plant them along my drive to provide some windbreak. Below is a picture from the Arbor Day Foundations website of a white fir.  These also make a very nice Christmas tree. It may not be too late for you to order some yet this year.  Check it out at www.arborday.org.



White Fir

Abies concolor

• Drought Tolerant
• Silver Blue-Green Needles
• Light Colored Bark
• 50' with 20' Spread
• Zones 4 to 7

Indian Pudding

Indian Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream. November 13 is National Indian Pudding Day.

My AGA is on the blink.  The hot oven which is suppose to range top to bottom from 400 degrees to about 500 degrees doesn't register above 300 degrees on my oven thermometer.  The boiling plate still boils water but the simmer pad is not heating to its normal heat either.  That means I can't bake too many things since most recipes seem to bake at 350 degrees. It's difficult to find a repair person, but I finally found a company in Cincinnati that says they have techs trained on my style of AGA (which is the real AGA). They had one question for me. They asked if I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I confessed that I was not, so they asked if I could wait until November 26th for my service call. I had to agree. Oh well.

www.osv.org

So I've been thinking about things I could bake at these lower temperatures and Indian Pudding came to mind.  I first tasted Indian Pudding when I was about 10 years old at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.  Next to Colonial Williamsburg, Old Sturbridge Village is my most favorite place to visit. It's an outdoor living history museum of a country village around 1790 to 1830 and its done just right. You should visit some time. The restaurant is also one of my favorites.

 

Indian Pudding is made with cornmeal (called Indian meal in Colonial times), milk, molasses and sweet spices like cinnamon and cloves. It is not a Native American dish but a colonial American dish. It's made by boiling the cornmeal in the milk and then adding the molasses and sweet spices. It is sort of like pumpkin pie only thicker and creamier and heartier in flavor.  It's culinary cousins is Hasty Pudding which is simply corn meal boiled in milk until it thickens - kind of like polenta.  Both of these dishes  made use of colonial American staples - corn and molasses. I've researched several recipes and I think this one from www.whatscookingamerica.net is the most authentic:

 

3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy (whipping) cream
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup molasses
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
4 large eggs

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F. Lightly grease a 6- or 8-cup soufflé or baking dish with butter (you can use margarine, but DON’T use non-stick sprays).

In a medium-sized saucepan over medium-low heat, scald the milk. That is heat it until little bubbles form around the edges of the milk but don't let it boil.

While the milk is heating, pour the cream into a medium to large bowl, add the cornmeal, sugar, molasses, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Add this cream/corn meal/spice mixture to the scalded milk. Cook, whisking constantly, over medium-low heat until the pudding has thickened to the consistency of syrup (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat.

In a bowl, beat eggs with a whisk. Temper the eggs by adding 1/2 cup of the hot cornmeal mixture to the eggs while whisking rapidly. Vigorously whisk the egg mixture into the remaining cornmeal mixture. This helps bring the eggs up to temperature so they will accept the hot mixture with out scrambling. Add butter, one piece at a time, stirring until melted.

Pour mixture into the prepared soufflé dish, and place dish on a shallow baking pan on the center oven rack. Pour enough HOT water into the shallow baking dish to come 2/3 of the way up the outsides of the soufflé or baking dish.

Bake until pudding is set, a tester inserted close to (but not in) the center comes out clean, usually about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Remove from oven and remove from the water bath and let cool slightly.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream or heavy cream.

Makes 8 to 16 servings (depending on your sweet tooth).

 

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Winter Reading List

One of my new favorites for my Winter Reading List
 

The publishing world is always touting their summer reading list.  But I think the dark, cold days of winter, when I don't want to be outside doing anything, are the best times to sit by the fire or snuggle under the covers or soak in the tub -  with a good book.

I love medieval historical fiction and mysteries.  One of my all time favorites is Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth, a great historical fiction novel which has been made into a very good movie.

My new favorite is by Jeri Westerson and features a disgraced knight who has remade himself into a sort of medieval private investigator.  Ms. Westerson is a medieval scholar of sorts and she peppered the book with many words I've never seen before, which always makes me happy.  I also love her website www.jeriwesterson.com.  She is obviously a very talented and creative lady and I look forward to reading all the books in this series.

Kate Sedley, author of the Roger the Chapman mystery series is another favorite. She was born in 1926 and has been writing for years, so there are a lot of books in the series, which also makes me very happy. 


A long running series and always entertaining as well as informative.

Indian Summer

Look carefully just by the last fence post on  the right of this picture and you see a deer jumping the fence. I see bucks and does all around the house right now but it is rare I have a camera on hand when they are close enough for a good picture.
 

Well, our Indian Summer was short lived this year. I had windows open all weekend, dried sheets on the line in the sun and generally enjoyed being outdoors as much as possible.  This morning the weather is straight out of the south and raining and warm but the temperature is expected to drop into the 20's tonight and be cold most of the week.  The Old Farmer's Almanac says to expect snow at the end of November and December and the beginning of January. See more at www.almanac.com.

Annual Weather Summary: November 2012 to October 2013 from the Old Farmers Almanac.

Winter will be colder and drier than normal, with above-normal snowfall. The coldest periods will be from late December through early January and in early and mid-February. The snowiest periods will occur in mid- to late November, mid- to late December, and early to mid-January.April and May will be warmer and rainier than normal.Summer will be slightly warmer and rainier than normal, with the hottest periods in late July and mid-August.September and October will be warmer and drier than normal.

 

Fried Apples & Smoked Sausage

Sliced Melrose apples cooking over medium high heat with a tiny bit of Canola oil and butter.

My mom used to make us fried apples, or I should say, sauteed apples as a side dish.  She used Jonathan apples usually, for their red skins and good apple flavor. She cooked them over medium high heat in a large well seasoned cast iron skillet.  Jonathon's  hold up well to cooking.  As soon as the apples were cooked through and beginning to brown, she added a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar and a pat of butter and tossed and cooked the apples a minute or so until the sugar melted and formed a syrup. Sometimes she added a little cinnamon as well.

I've turned the apples and added slices of smoked sausage.

The other evening I started to saute an apple to have along side some smoked sausage.  I hate getting two pans dirty so I decided to combine the sausage and the apples.  I had turned the apples once before I added the sausage which was good because since the sausage is pre-cooked it browns very quickly.

Adding brown sugar/dry mustard mixture. The apples could have browned more before adding the sausage.
 

Next I mixed a teaspoon of brown sugar with a pinch of dry mustard. As soon as the sausage and apples were nicely cooked through  I took them off the heat and sprinkled the sugar mixture over all. Then I tossed the apples and sausage together.  The hot food melted the brown sugar mixture and formed a syrup.

Sausage and apples glistening with the brown sugar syrup.

This is half a large Melrose apple with about three inches of Hillshire Farms smoked sausage, a green salad of oak leaf lettuce still good from my garden, walnuts, raisins, Parmesan cheese and homemade lime/honey vinaigrette. You could substitute other types of sausage such as a country style sausage patty with sage. That would be very good as well. 

Green salad and apples with sausage makes a nice lunch.

Change this up for breakfast. Add some maple syrup on top and serve over pancakes or waffles. With a big glass of orange juice, that's a big yum!