~
Thursday, September 30, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
56 degrees, windy, fog, rain
September is leaving in a huff, quite literally. A
gusty south wind and misty rain has saturated
the leaves and hurls them through the air like giant
confetti at a new year’s eve party. The rain is
destined to become more torrential as the day goes on,
and when the wind does a one-eighty and
shifts to the north, we should see some pretty awesome
weather effects. As the cold front deepens
and grabs hold of the weekend, I wouldn’t be
surprised to see a few snow flurries on Saturday night.
You heard it here first! This is not ideal weather for
drying the shell beans that are left on the vines
and bushes; I hope they don’t get moldy. I haven’t
seen any birds this morning, but heard several
flocks of geese passing through during the night. Sunset
was spectacular, and a large flock of ra-
vens tarried over the potato field, black silhouettes
against a smoky pink sky. They were very
vocal, which is what drew my attention to them. If you
have never heard a couple dozen ra-
vens in full-tilt growl, it is indescribable. They took
off towards the setting sun, into the tall
balsam forest and beyond. We are accustomed to seeing two
or three ravens as part
of our daily view; it is an unusual event to have so many
grace the neighborhood.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
56 degrees, windy, partly sunny
I really need to do some laundry, but if I hang it out
there today it might end up all piled
down at the hedgerow. It is very windy indeed, and while
a good breeze can help dry things
quickly, this kind of wind will rip stuff right off the
line and send it flying. Leaves have been zipping
past the window at a furious pace, and flocks of geese
have been pushed off course in their effort to
head south. I saw an entire long vee of geese moving
sideways as they made a little forward progress, like
an old hound dog coursing after a snipe. The fall colors
look wonderful during the brief times that the sun shines
through the clouds; even the maple trees have started to
change. Our forsythia hedge is deep crimson all along
the top, blending into the dark green of the lower leaves
in a beautiful patchwork of in-between hues. Although
the day has a chilly start, if we dress in layers we
should be comfortable outside as we walk about the Hill.
The ground needs to dry out before we can continue our
garden chores; today will be a good
time to harvest most of the peppers and turn them into
relish and jam.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 9:00 a.m.
66 degrees, breezy, fog, rain
Yesterday’s intermittent rain has settled
down into a steady drizzle, mixing with fog to
form an almost physical barrier between us and the
outside world. It is fairly warm, and
once outside not as uncomfortable as it appears from
inside looking out. If the deer hadn’t
nibbled it down to nubs, our late crop of spinach would
be loving this kind of weather. Critters
have chewed the tops off of all of our beets, sampled the
lettuce, devoured the spinach, and eaten
the top leaves from just about every bean plant. I guess
they grew tired of patiently waiting for us to
finish up all of the goodies and decided to help with the
harvest. All I really care about is the lettuce
and spinach, so I will spread dog hair clippings and
stinky soap shavings alongside those rows. As
far as green beans go, there are more than enough for us
and the deer, and anyone else that wants
them. Yesterday we cooked a huge pot of beets, peeled and
cut them, and froze them in quart bags.
We love beets, but they are very labor-intensive, and
this way all we have to do is simply heat and eat
when the urge is on us. One year we stored whole beets in
the cellar, packed in sand, but I hardly used
any of them. In the spring, long dappled leaves and dark
red stems snaked towards the cellar window
and a few of them produced beautiful yellow flowers at
the end of the stalks. I believe I will keep a
few beets in sand again this year, and then plant them
out in the perennial bed come spring so
we can enjoy the blossoms, and eventually use the seeds
for sprouting greens.
Oh my, already planning for spring; that’s a sign
that summer is truly over.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Monday, September 27, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
53 degrees, windy, cloudy, sprinkles
Although clouds abound, the air is clear and the
treeline is glistening with rain and very colorful.
This morning’s view is a balanced mix of green, red,
gold, and maroon that I find most beautiful in
early autumn, before the foliage is at what others would
consider peak. We drove back roads to
Remsen yesterday and saw some beautiful leaves; most
notable were the vibrant red and orange of
roadside sumacs. We returned home in time for a good long
walk up the Gomer Hill Road, accom-
panied by many flocks of geese and encountering every
single dog in the neighborhood. Our little guy
used to be very aggressive towards other dogs, seemingly
unaware that he may be outweighed ten
times over by the dog he was challenging. It was quite a
job to socialize him, but now he gets along
with everyone, and our walk was punctuated by lots of
stops for sniffing-greeting and tail-wagging.
We shared the road with roving gangs of four-wheelers,
most of them giving us plenty of room and
slowing down as they passed. There are always a few
outlaws that give any group a bad name, so
we always get right off the road when we hear any quads
approach, and sure enough, there were
a few that blew right by at high speed, shrouding us with
clouds of dust and dried manure from
the road. ATVs are not the only danger to life and limb
when walking on Tug Hill; one yahoo
in a pickup truck was traveling extremely fast, and sped
right through our neighbor’s flock of
chickens, cutting a rooster in half. What a mess. At
first we thought he had hit two chickens,
but then we counted the feet as we moved the carcass off
the road, and found only two.
After our rather eventful walk, we took the apple picker
to a couple of nearby trees
and harvested a pail full of wild apples, some perfectly
sweet and ready to eat,
and some more suited for cooking. I feel an apple crisp
coming on...
Have a sweet day,
Daisy
Sunday, September 26, 2010, 8:30 a.m.
52 degrees, breezy, mostly cloudy
Fog is lifting from the valley in small cottony sections,
like clouds returning home.
We are headed out the door to the Remsen Barn Festival,
which we haven’t had a
chance to attend for several years. The gardens are too
wet to work in, all of the house-
hold tasks are caught up, so we are taking the day off!
Yay! Here is a poem that reminds
me of my childhood growing up in a large midwestern city
full of cardinals; the change
of seasons has always been a special time for me, to be
savored and treasured.
Have a wonderful day,
Daisy
Fall
Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet
tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer's
Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.
And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.
by Edward Hirsch
Saturday, September 25, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
55 degrees, windy, partly sunny
Yesterday’s record-breaking heat was short-lived;
the temperature has fallen thirty degrees since then,
and continues to drop. A brisk west wind is ushering in a
cold front that will flavor our weather for the next
few days. We enjoyed being outdoors yesterday because the
wind was refreshing, and we were comfortable
as we picked all of the shell beans that were ready. We
spread them in flats and left the on top of a cart in the
yard, where they dried enough so that we can begin to
scoop them out of their pods during upcoming evenings
while waiting for dinner to cook. Last night I shelled
all of the scarlet runners that were ready, and now have
a couple of quarts of dry beans for the effort. By the
end of October I should be able to measure the amount in
gallons, not quarts. A flock of about twenty turkeys just
hiked up the road single file, a hen at the beginning,
middle, and end of the line of mid-sized poults, looking
like a kindergarten class out on a field trip. When I
opened the door to fetch some carrots from the woodshed,
they all stopped dead in their tracks and look-
ed over at me, waiting to see if I was a threat. After I
entered the house, they stayed motionless for a
good long minute before resuming their slow plod up the
road. Several flocks of geese have passed
overhead, calling loudly to announce that they are
blowing this pop stand, heading for the
warmer waters of Chesapeake Bay and beyond. What a
wonderful, nostalgic sound !
Have a great day,
Daisy
Friday, September 24, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
74 degrees, windy, partly sunny
It is warm enough already for me, but a high in
the eighties is in the forecast,
maybe even creeping up to ninety, definitely a last gasp
of summery weather before
autumn settles in. I have noticed that trees are
beginning to change from green to their fall hues
almost overnight; my ride to work yesterday was full of
surprises. Ash trees in particular seem to
be more colorful than usual, and some of the smaller
shrubs and vines, such as sumac and woodbine
are shiny red. Most maples are slow to join the party,
but the swamp variety has fully changed into
shimmering crimson garb. Today will be a good day to pull
dried pole beans off the vines and bring
them indoors to complete the process before releasing the
plump little seeds from their shells. The
pods pop apart much easier if they are crispy; right now
many of them are still leathery-tough.
Some of our bush beans for shelling should be harvested
as well, although not all of them are
fully mature, I think I can pick about half of them and
spread them to dry underneath the wood
range. I have begun to pull carrots for sale, and this
year’s crop is full of large straight deep orange
roots; hardly any are deformed. The ones that we will
store in the cellar for use all winter long will
come out of the ground after the first frost. I need to
pull the rest of the beets and prepare them
for the freezer, before the deer decide that I have left
them in the ground just for their enjoyment.
If the rain holds off, we should be able to accomplish
many garden tasks on this beautiful day.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Thursday, September 23, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
53 degrees, breezy, thick fog
The aspen leaves twirl and shiver in the breeze,
and every so often a few loosen their grip
and fall through the fog, barely turned from green to
gold and giving up the ghost early. Only a
few trees have begun to shift into their autumn colors,
and many maple leaves have fallen while still
green. We can usually count on the first full week of
October to be the best for viewing the fall colors,
but it has been such an odd year in so many ways that we
have low expectations. We experienced a
power outage late in the day, and cooked our late supper
on the wood range by candlelight, which
was very nice. It was almost a shame when the lights came
back on. Last night’s almost-full moon
was very bright, and may have helped set the stage for a
very restless night. I managed to read most
of a novel; by the time I finally drifted off to sleep,
it was short-lived because a mouse was racing through
the upstairs rooms with the cat and dog hot on its tail.
At last sighting, it had taken refuge under a low-slung
dresser. This is the time of year when all little
critters look for a warm dry place to spend the winter
months,
and we are missing our two recently departed cats more
than ever. They were not only cuddly and fun, they
were wonderful mousers. I reckon I will set a trap under
that dresser, but I will be sure to anchor it so that if
I catch something I can retrieve it easily. I hate to do
it, but I hate the mess and stink of rodents even more.
Have an interesting day,
Daisy
Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
60 degrees, windy, mostly cloudy
Rain looks imminent; big black clouds slowly
approach from the west,
and the quality of light is odd, filled with waiting.
Autumn arrives officially tonight at 11:09,
and it appears that this change of weather is part of the
greeting committee. Summer will be back by Friday,
however, with sun and heat returning for a brief Nelson-esque
ha-ha! before the brisk days of fall begin in
earnest. Friends in Boonville have already had a good
hard frost; they had to scrape ice from their wind-
shields yesterday morning. We picked a few pails of
barely ripe tomatoes yesterday, and I am sure that
won’t be the end of them. Blight never made it to
our neighborhood, and the vines have been very pro-
lific this year. Zucchini plants were still producing
dozens of small fruits and flowers, but we gacked
them to make way for a load of horse manure, precursor to
tilling that space for next year’s garlic
crop. The wind is picking up, but the black clouds have
given over to big white puffy ones with
patches of blue sky poking out here and there. Is it
possible that the rain will go around us?
I think that it is a good idea to tuck a raincoat into my
day pack for this morning’s hike,
even if we don’t plan to go very far.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
49 degrees, calm, mostly sunny
As I typed today’s date, I realized that it was
twelve years ago today that we found
a small raggedy dog looking in our back porch door when
we came downstairs first thing
in the morning. He is still small, but has turned into
quite a handsome little guy, and has made
my life so much more interesting just by following him
around and watching his shenanigans.
We had only ever had big dogs before he showed up; now we
realize that small dogs are
very cool, and he has only gotten better with age. Our
vet thought he was about a year old
when he found us, so we gave him this date as a birthday,
easy to remember as it was also my
Dad’s. To celebrate, we will enjoy a romp around all
of the meadow paths, his favorite kind of
leash-free adventure. Today is going to be on the warm
side, following a chilly night where the
temperature almost dipped into the thirties up here.
There was frost in the Adirondacks, and I
won’t be surprised if some of my lowland friends
report light frost in their neighborhoods when
I see them later today. We are sitting pretty up here on
the edge of Tug Hill, with just enough
thermal inversion on really cold nights that we are often
fifteen degrees warmer than folks who
live down by the river. I see that Saturday night also
has some low temperatures in the forecast,
so we will be sure to have our tomatoes and peppers all
picked before then. Yesterday we
harvested all of the delicata squash and zucchinis, and
also cut down cornstalks to prepare
the soil for planting garlic in a few weeks. We are
moving the patch, which is a good way
to control the spread of garlic nematodes, which can wipe
out an entire crop if good
rotation practices aren’t followed. And now, off to
trek along the paths !
Have a great day,
Daisy
Monday, September 20, 2010, 7:30 a.m.
45 degrees, windy, sunny
It is a clear cool blue-sky morning here on Gomer
Hill, but the valley is completely hidden
by a very thick white cloud. Dew was so heavy last night
that water runs in streams from the
eaves, as if it had rained. Bluejays, woodpeckers, and
nuthatches flock together in the white birch
and poplar trees outside the window, three species that
eat very different things finding something in
common on this late summer morn. There are only two more
days of summer left, with autumn arriving
just before midnight on Wednesday, making Thursday the
first official full day of fall. Daylight Savings
Time doesn’t leave us until November seventh this
year; already I notice how dark the early mornings
have been, as sunrise inches closer to 7:00 a.m. The full
harvest moon will appear on the 23rd as well,
so I expect just about anything could happen on Thursday.
The weekend weather was perfect, and
we accomplished all we had set out to do. We ended the
day with a short truck ride to admire some
of the red swamp maples of our neighborhood, and also
checked out a few good apple trees to raid
later with our long-poled picker. I kept my eyes peeled
for elderberries, but all of the bushes I saw
were picked clean by birds. We harvested some delicata
squash yesterday and got fourteen from
one volunteer vine that showed up next to the strawberry
patch. The row we planted wasn’t near-
ly that prolific. We also busted up one big blue hubbard
and steamed it to scrape it from the shell,
enjoying some for supper baked with cranberries and maple
syrup; the rest went into the freezer.
I am baking bread today, and squash will replace part of
the flour, making beautiful golden
loaves loaded with natural sweetness. As soon as I put
the dough to rise, we plan to walk
on the Smith Road, stretch our legs after a few days of
working bent over like trolls,
and appreciate the cool crisp air that will renew our
spirits as well as our bodies.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Sunday, September 19, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
55 degrees, breezy, fog
The fog is very thick this morning, and although I heard
two flocks of geese when I
was outside with the dog earlier I couldn’t see
which direction they were headed. The
fog is bound to lift soon and a sunny day should slowly
be revealed. We have seen several
large flocks grazing in old cornfields during the past
week as we traveled about the county,
and our friends that hunt geese for their rich meat have
been very successful so far this season.
We enjoyed a very busy day yesterday, and accomplished
most of what we set out to do. We
ended the day with a visit from an old friend who used to
live here on Tug Hill, and walked up the
Evans Road with her, breathing in the cool evening air
and gathering wildflowers and apples as we
strolled along. The pond is overfilled with water, and
has flooded part of the cart path that runs beside
it. We startled a flock of turkeys who ran lickety-split
the whole length of the field to get away, rather
than taking to the air. We had the best of both worlds
yesterday, satisfying hard work with a little
playtime as a reward, and enjoyed a solid night of well-deserved
sleep broken only by the
loud songs of a coyote pack passing through the yard at
midnight. Life is good !
Have a great day,
Daisy
Saturday, September 18, 2010, 9:30 a.m.
66 degrees, breezy, mostly sunny
On a morning like this, there is a tendency to wander
from one unfinished project to the next,
a finger in a whole lotta pies with no actual pie being
baked. I had better make a list, but on a
day when there are too many tasks to fit on one page, it
seems a bit pointless. The weather is so
very nice that we should tackle outdoor jobs first, but
there are also many time-sensitive indoor chores
that require immediate attention. For example, the
tomatoes that can’t wait one more day or they will
be-
come fruit-fly farms instead of sauce, the wine that has
been finished for weeks and really must be put
into bottles, dishes to wash because we have run out of
sharp knives and big spoons, and on and on
and on. So I guess I’ll pop in the new Donna the
Buffalo CD, crank up the volume and do what I
can indoors until the music stops, then head out to pick
some herbs which will be at their peak be-
tween 11:00 and 2:00, to capture the aromatic oils that
the sun will coax to the surface. I have
quite a bit of salvia apiana (holy sage) that
needs to be hung up to dry on the sunporch,
same with rosemary. I guess I had better shut down the
computer, and get to work !
Have a great day,
Daisy
Friday, September 17, 2010, 8:30 a.m.
45 degrees, breezy, fog
Very thick fog obscures the sky for now, so I can’t
tell if it’s cloudy or clear.
We have to travel south anyway to pick up tractor parts,
and it looks like a good
day to leave the Hill behind for a few hours. You can bet
that the trip will include a
visit to the Franklin Hotel in Rome for a tasty lunch. By
the time we return, things may
have started to dry off a bit. I would like to begin to
pick some of our shell beans that have
turned brown on the vines, but because of all the nearly
daily rain showers haven’t had a chance
to become dry enough to release from the pods. The grandma
rosas have lost most of their leaves
and are very pretty hanging from bald vines, plump and
faintly purple, fairly bursting with bean-y
goodness. The scarlet runners are still setting
new beans and are fully leafed out with a myriad
of lovely crimson blooms at vines’ end, but there
are dozens of pods that rattle when shaken,
and we have been plucking them selectively. The black
coco and tiger eye beans grow on
bushes instead of twining up long poles, and need to have
a few dry days in a row before
we can even think about pulling them. We are getting
ready to till a new garlic patch for
fall planting, but first need to spread horse manure on
that spot. It looks like there
are a few sunny days in a row on the schedule, which
means we will be
one step closer to closing up shop for another season.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Thursday, September 16, 2010, 8:30 a.m.
53 degrees, windy, mostly sunny
This beautiful sunshine is a nice surprise ! The washout
of a day that had been in the
forecast has been changed to a chance of rain later in
the day. We managed to buzz up
all of the slabwood we had but still have quite a bit of
long limbwood left to do; perhaps we
can get it all done before the weekend. But if not,
that’s okay too, that wood isn’t going anywhere.
Yesterday was a perfect day for the task, cool and breezy
with the wind fortunately blowing the saw-
dust into the meadow instead of into our faces. We have
done the job on a hot day before, which means
the sawdust sticks to any little bit of sweat, and all
too often swarms of biting insects complicated matters.
We had no such annoyances yesterday, and thoroughly
enjoyed ourselves. I came back from the woodlot
through the garden, and there are a half dozen small
zucchinis growing on the very ends of the plants, as ten-
der and green as any we picked in July. I pulled some
carrots for dinner; they are really getting big. We like
to harvest them for storage after the first frost; this
makes them sweeter, and also insures enough dry leaves
to use for packing material between the roots. There are
scads of beans in long rows in perfect condition,
and we have sent out the all-call to friends and given
away literally bushels of them during the past week.
We plant the late crop as insurance against bad weather
and/or deer damage, but this year all four plant-
ings of beans were super-healthy and we pickled and froze
all we needed by the end of August. Of course,
we still enjoy them fresh nearly every day, but holy cats,
there is a limit to the amount of beans two people
can eat. We plant to bust open a blue hubbard squash this
weekend, to see if they are ready to harvest.
It has been a few years since we grew this variety, but
we have had many requests for them from peo-
ple who love the old-fashioned flavor and vast amount of
sweet flesh in every specimen. We cook
up a big kettle full and then freeze it, all ready to
heat up in the oven. I also like to mix it into
bread dough, for beautiful golden loaves with just a hint
of squash-y goodness. A
wall of fog is rolling up the Hill like the incoming tide;
best get outdoors quickly.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Wednesday, September 15, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
48 degrees. breezy, sunny
There is a distinct nip in the air that the rising
sun hasn’t had time to dispel. Of course,
the rays lose some of their oomph as we draw near to the
equinox, but on such a bright
morning as this it would seem like the chill would
dissolve at first glimpse of the fiery ball
over the horizon. Tonight will be even colder, with frost
advisories for the Adirondack region.
The northwest wind only serves to reinforce the fact that
summer is indeed drawing to an end.
I think I will put on my thin stretchy gloves to hang out
the laundry this morning. We plan to
spend much of the day at the buzzsaw, whacking up some
long skinny limbwood for the
kitchen range and also cutting several bundles of
slabwood gleaned from a nearby sawmill.
We still have a great deal of kindling stacked in the
barn leftover from last year, but when the
opportunity to grab more slabs presents itself we just
can’t seem to say no. It will be a nice change
from backbreaking garden tasks to be handling firewood
for a day or two. We already have the barn
filled with big chunks to fuel our big stove, but still
need to bring over several loads for the woodshed
attached to the house. We wait until the last minute to
fill the back porch with kitchen-length wood,
because we enjoy sitting back there with our coffee in
the morning and our cocktail at night,
watching the valley scene shift as we start and end each
day. We are indeed fortunate to
live in such a beautiful spot, where endless
entertainment is just a few steps away.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Tuesday, September 14, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
55 degrees, windy, partly sunny
This morning is a carbon-copy of yesterday, right
down to the sparkling gems left on the lawn
by last night’s rain. We didn’t receive a
significant amount of water, with one fairly hard
cloudburst
passing through late in the evening, but the overall
effect is spectacular in the slanting rays of early morn-
ing sunlight. I heard the first southbound geese of the
season as I sat on the porch with my coffee, and when
I searched the sky for them I saw just two of the big
birds, heading towards the valley with steady slow wing-
beats. It won’t be long before big flocks start
their long trek south; we seem to be along the main
flyway, and
that beautiful resonant honk spells the end of
summer to me more than any other marker. Of course, there
is
bound to be a smattering of balmy days before the leaves
begin to fall, but I doubt that nights will be too hot
for comfy sleeping until next July. In fact, I have made
the transition to flannel bedding, and I don’t
expect to
take the cotton percale out of storage for many months. I
look forward to the seasonal changes of the North
Country much as I used to appreciate the coming of
Christmas as a young girl. In fact, the seasonal events
is a
far richer experience; every red/golden leaf, every
fallen apple settling into mulch, every migrating bird,
all are
small gifts from Mother Nature, arriving over a period of
weeks instead of all in a rush on a single morning.
Have a wonderful day,
Daisy
Monday, September 13, 2010, 8:15 a.m.
55 degrees, windy, partly sunny
A little taste of fog has just moved in;
previously the sun was dazzlingly reflected off
of a bazillion drops of water that rest on every outdoor
surface. We had a day filled with
light rain, but not enough to keep us indoors, and then
the pace picked up after bedtime and
some harder showers hit the roof. We ended up with about
a half inch of water from that action.
I would guess the water tables are just about back to
normal, after being so low at the beginning
of the summer season. We enjoyed a fine walk around all
of our meadow paths yesterday, ending
up with wet feet and pantslegs; the dog got so wet he
looked more like a chihuahua than a fluffy little
poodle/terrier. We found many shed turkey feathers along
the trail, and several piles of scat, both coyote
and raccoon. The meadows are rife with second-growth red
clover blossoms and tiny queen anne’s lace
and goldenrod, miniatures of their earlier pre-mown
selves. Since our hay was shorn fairly early in the
summer, the new growth has had time to get pretty tall;
if we were still in the hay business, we would
certainly cut and bale this second crop, although it is
hard to get it dry when the heavy dews of late
summer show up. Today I will harvest a few carrots to
share with friends, although I like to pull
the bulk of them after the first frost has sweetened up
the roots. We have parsnips this year too,
and the same can be said for them. Cabbages are certainly
ready to bring in, but I won’t have
time to turn them into kraut today, as I must return to
my part time job after taking last month
off. I think I will grab just one head , and make half of
it into sweet crunchy coleslaw, and
cook up the rest with apples, bacon, and onions to enjoy
with some smoked sausage
at tonight’s supper. I need to thin the latest
planting of spinach and lettuce as well,
and should get out to do that before the next wave of
rain arrives.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Sunday, September 12, 2010, 8:15 a.m.
57 degrees, breezy, mostly cloudy, sprinkles
Fine mist shows up once in a while, not qualifying
as actual rain but still enough to cause
small streams of water to run from the eaves. I think
there is time to get a good walk under
our belts before rain starts to fall for real. Yesterday
we checked out the Flywheels and Pulleys
Steam Show in Constableville; we have been going to that
event since the very first one thirty-six
years ago, when all there was fit on the corner in the
middle of town, where the skating pavilion is now.
It has grown into a huge venue, with several permanent
buildings, a museum, and room for hundreds of
exhibitors and their RVs. After that, we went to the
Mohawk Valley Garlic and Herb Festival in Little
Falls. The motto of the day was eat, stink, and be
merry, and we achieved all three. Along with the
garlic and herb merchants were several booths offering
tasty meals, from garlic pizza, golumpkies,
lamb dishes, pulled pork, soup, and sandwiches. An
excellent blues band kept us entertained,
and we ran into many old friends which made the day even
more special. Now it is back to
business as usual, more tomatoes to can and countless
housekeeping chores that seem to
have piled up with our main focus having been on outdoor
work for the past few months.
But first, that walk!
Have a great day,
Daisy
Saturday, September 11, 2010, 8:30 a.m.
63 degrees, breezy, mostly sunny
The yard is alive with birds this morning, after a
month of scarcely any avian activity at all
except for crows, ravens, and wild turkeys and their
poults. A family of hairy woodpeckers
is climbing all over the aspen tree outside my window,
and several bluejays work to pry seeds
out of the dozens of sunflower heads that are nodding
from the weight. Some small birds flit about,
so fast that I can’t identify them, too thin to be
sparrows, perhaps some young finches or nuthatches.
It is nearly time for the bluebirds to return with their
young to bid adieu for the season, and we have
been keeping a lookout for them whenever we are out and
about. The aforementioned turkeys have
formed one big flock of about thirty birds, five mother
hens and a bunch of little goblets of varying size.
All have their feathers now, and it has been fun to
surprise them on the path and watch them learn to
fly away. Yesterday we walked for a few miles up the
Smith Road, and turned down a farm lane to
an out-of-the-way field that has recently been reaped of
oats. We came upon a single coyote, who
was no doubt hunting in the leftover straw for rodents.
He was a big sleek animal, and skedaddled
when he saw us, as any normal healthy wild critter would.
I think most of the potentially dangerous
wildlife on Tug Hill will flee at the sight or scent of
humans, with the following exception: I have heard
that several nuisance bears have been trapped in the
Adirondacks and released on Tug Hill, in unpopul-
ated areas. Of course, the bears were a problem inside
the Blue line because they had become habituated
to humans, and associate people with free food. Some have
wandered too close to camps and year-round
residences on Tug Hill, and are beginning to be as much a
problem up here as they were on the other side
of the river. If you happen upon a black bear in this
neck of the woods, don’t assume it will turn tail
and
run away as any Hill-raised bear would; it may be a
transplanted bruin after your pic-a-nic basket.
Best let him have it.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Friday, September 10, 2010, 8:30 a.m.
55 degrees, windy, overcast
The forecast is for the sky to clear, but right
now I wouldn’t put any money on that happening.
As I drove home from work last night, I saw a break in
the heavy black clouds and thought that
was a front pushing through, but it was short-lived and
rain followed right after the brief interlude
of sun. We finished sorting and trimming garlic yesterday,
and swept up the mess the project left
on the barn floor. Oh! all of a sudden the sun has come
out, and quite a large patch of blue sky is
opening up, what a nice surprise! I had planned to
harvest beets for the freezer, but now it looks
like I should hang out the week’s laundry and then
take our dog for a much-needed long walk.
He has been very patient with us, content to accompany us
around the garden paths as we
pick and dig and pluck and shuck, but what he really
needs is a trek of several miles to get
out of Dodge and explore the Hill. I could use a good
hike as well, to shake the creaks out
of my spine and get all of those work-stiffened joints
moving smoothly. Bending over to pick
beans and then hanging out at the counter for hours to
process them isn’t exactly the formula for
optimal fitness, although it sure beats watching
television for the same amount of time. Any job that
involves such repetitive motion needs to be balanced by
an activity that will utilize the entire body, cir-
culating the blood and other fluids to replenish living
cells with nutrients and oxygen. For sure, hunching
over the garlic crop like a couple of trolls for hours on
end has given us new awareness of the importance
of mixing a more active task into the agenda; it was
almost a relief to unload and stack a wagon full of fire-
wood after finishing with the garlic. In my opinion, a
long walk, with or without a dog, is the kind of thing
that not only restores the physical self, but a good
mindless ramble helps to calm the monkey-brain that
often descends this time of year. All of the seasonal
work that looms during the next six weeks or so
and has my mind racing to prioritize and try to schedule
every task, this all gets shoved to the back of
my head in favor of mmmmmm, leaves smell good... creek
gurgle/nice sound, oh look! a daisy!
how did those leaves get sooooo red... a stream-of-consciousness
whole-body experience rooted
in nature’s wonders that shoves the minutiae of the
harvest season to the back burner, even for
just a little while. Sweet! I feel more in tune than ever,
just from planning the upcoming walk.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Thursday, September 9, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
50 degrees, breezy, cloudy
We had about a half inch of rain yesterday and
last night, alternating with glorious shiny
bouts of dazzling intense sunshine. I spent the day
picking lettuce, carrots, and shell beans
in the sun and cleaning up garlic bulbs during the rain.
The wind and water beat against the
old barn siding while we trimmed roots and whacked stems,
but we were snug in fleecy vests
and had the radio playing feel-good hits of the 70s; the
company was affable and we managed
to get more than half of the garlic ready for storage. We
sorted it by variety, and each basket
contains a smaller bucket of bulbs that will be best for
planting, either because they have ex-
ceptionally large cloves or they cured with a split skin,
so they wouldn’t store well. We plan
to move our garlic patch this fall, as nematodes have
been found in New York garlic crops
recently; one way to avoid those is to rotate the garlic
with kohl crops. We will harvest the
cabbage soon, and prepare that soil for planting garlic
in early October. We are headed to
the Mohawk Valley Garlic and Herb Festival in Little
Falls this Saturday; perhaps we will
add another variety of garlic to our patch this year. For
this year’s schedule of events,
check out mvghf.com/festival-schedule
We have a few boxes of tomatoes ready for
the canner this morning, which will be a pleasant indoor
task on this misty moist
morn. The kitchen wood range is crackling away, and we
are warm and dry
and full of leftover homemade pizza, an excellent way to
start any day.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Wednesday, September 8, 2010, 8:30 a.m.
60 degrees, windy, mostly cloudy, drizzle
A few very small patches of blue sky add interest to the
view this morning,
which is otherwise filled with dark grey clouds and misty
intervals of rain. At 4:00 a.m.
the sky sparkled with starlight, undiluted by moonlight.
I had hopes for at least a clear morning
so I could get out for a long walk with our dog, but then
light rain picked up where the heavy midnight
downpour left off. We are pretty much done with beans for
now, so the pressure is off to pick any more.
I ended up with some brine that I didn’t use for
dilly beans, and may use it to preserve some of our hot
pep-
pers; I usually dry them for storage. While picking shell
beans yesterday, I found a great deal of broccoli in
the row next to the tall poles, something I had thought
was done for but it seems to be having a revival. This
year’s broccoli never produced any big central heads,
instead moving right into smaller side shoots, as many
as ten per plant. Now each of those stems has put out
more heads, some of them pretty large, considering.
Some of the plants are nearly waist high, forming a
regular hedge in the middle of the garden. Deer
haven’t
eaten any of it, which is a miracle. We continue to pick
tomatoes almost every day, and by tomorrow I
should be able to pack some more away for winter. If it
is a cool day I will let a big pot full simmer on the
back of the wood range into a thick tomato sauce,
fragrant with fresh basil and oregano. We have been
eating them fresh every day, on sandwiches, in salads,
and the sun sugar grape tomatoes are perfect for
snacking. It has been a wonderful year for heat-loving
vegetables, and we are grateful for the bounty.
Have a wonderful day,
Daisy
Tuesday, September 7, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
65 degrees, breezy, partly sunny
Some flat streaky clouds hover to the east, and
overhead a classic mackerel formation
foretells rain within twenty-four hours. So it looks like
this is the nicest day for a while, and
we plan to pick more beans to stuff into quart jars with
dill and garlic, bathed in vinegar brine.
Dilly beans have been a favorite side dish in this family
since we started gardening forty years ago.
Sometimes we tuck a hot pepper into each jar, replacing
the spoonful of black peppercorns for more
bite. Yesterday we picked a bucket full of strike
beans and pickled them. I don’t believe we will
plant
this variety again; they have a tendency to form strings
as they grow bigger, and that is something that is a
little off-putting in a whole bean. They are fine if cut
up and cooked, but not very good raw or steamed whole.
I hope they make good pickles. By far the best variety we
have ever grown is jade, but they are best grown
after the soil is quite warm, not suited for planting
early in the season. Jade beans are long, straight,
tender
even when mature, and as the name suggests, a beautiful
shade of deep green. Providers do well in cool
soil, but the beans are curled, and not good for cramming
into jars. We did a lot of canning yesterday,
and I will leave the rows of jars containing tomatoes and
dilly beans lined up on the counter for a week,
supposedly to make sure the seals hold, but really just
so I can admire their beautiful colors and brag on
them a bit to friends who drop by. There are more
tomatoes to pick, and hot peppers to preserve; this
is the start of the canning season, which usually
coincides with a trend towards cooler temperatures.
Today will be an exception with highs in the eighties,
but as the front passes through tonight
the thermometer should reflect the change by tomorrow
morning.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Monday, September 6, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
59 degrees, breezy, mostly sunny
There was a bit of rain late in the day, and maybe some
overnight as well,
but I slept very soundly, awakening only when the coyotes
sang the sun up
quite early. It must have poured yesterday up here,
everything is saturated,
and the birdbath is full to the brim. In Syracuse, it was
extremely windy and
the sky was bursting with huge dark clouds, but no rain
fell on the Great New
York State Fair. We went into all of the animal buildings
and were disappointed
in the scant amount of chickens in the poultry house.
There were no heavy breeds,
and what birds were there were not labeled, so it
wasn’t the educational experience
of past visits. The fairgrounds were wall-to-wall with
people, very crowded indeed;
I think we must have never gone on a weekend day before;
lesson learned. The Center
of Progress building was groaning at the seams; what was
up with all of the folks demon-
strating electric irons? The butter sculpture was cute,
and the sand sculpture featured the
Beatles. Hilby (The Skinny German Juggle Boy) was his
usual hilarious self, and his show
was the high point of our day. We returned home at
suppertime, and the sky was filled
with a vast assortment of clouds, stacked up in layers
and looming over Tug Hill like
a dark omen. The heat will return tomorrow, so we
can’t call summer over. Yet.
And now, on to can the tomatoes that were abandoned on
the counter yesterday.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Sunday, September 5, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
50 degrees, windy, cloudy
Wowza, what a change of weather! it was downright
cold last night, and of course we lit
the kitchen range to take the edge off. Yesterday was
very windy, but the rain held off until
late afternoon, which was lucky as we were at an outdoor
auction for much of the day. There
was still time after I returned home to pick all of the
ripe corn and process it for the freezer. We
enjoyed a ten pound roast chicken for dinner, and will be
feasting on that big bird for a few more
meals yet. It is cool and cloudy this morning, but south
of here the weather is sunnier, so we are
jumping in the car and going to the state fair. We
deserve a day off now and then, and since the
gardens are too wet to get into until tomorrow, this
looks like a good time to head off for the day.
Enjoy your day,
Daisy
Saturday, September 4, 2010, 7:30 a.m.
57 degrees, windy, mostly sunny
We missed any rain that may have fallen on Tug Hill last
night, and the Nexrad radar indicates
that today’s lake effect showers may pass to the
north of us as well. The front brought along with it
some much appreciated cooler temperatures, welcome relief
from the heat and humidity of last week.
A western breeze wafts the scent of fresh-spread manure
into the yard, pungent and reminiscent of the
short time I spent on a dairy farm in my younger days.
Yesterday a friend came up to glean the last of
the second planting of beans, and I kept her company
picking tomatoes and dead-heading the dahlias.
We have a great number of green tomatoes, and although
the plants have some brown leaves on the
bottom, I don’t think it is blight. This time of
year, the bottom leaves just sometimes die of old age.
Our big broccoli bushes also have some huge yellow dead
leaves at the bottom, easily pulled away
from the stem before they turn into a stinky rotten mess.
I picked some grandma rosa beans to eat
freshly shelled, stirred into a creamy onion sauce with
corn kernels to make sweet crunchy succotash.
These beans are somewhat like a small fat round lima when
eaten fresh, and when dried and reconsti-
tuted into soup they really add some solid meatiness
lacking in other dried beans. I picked a bucket full
of new jade beans, tender and straight as arrows,
some of them eight inches long and thin as a pencil. If
the rain holds off, we will pick more of these to put
into jars with dill, garlic, and cider vinegar brine.
We are off to an auction, so all of our garden chores are
taking a back seat for a few hours anyway.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Friday, September 3, 2010, 7:00 a.m.
72 degrees, breezy, partly cloudy
A crimson dawn reminded me of the old saw red
sky in the morning, sailors take warning.
If the weekend forecast holds true, then the old
saying will apply. I won’t mind an end to the
sweltering
heat that the past week has featured, but I am a little
concerned that the high winds in the forecast plus
chilly rain may mess with our tender new crop of beans
that are just hitting their peak. I had intended
to process them into dilly beans over the weekend, but
now it seems like I should get that done before
the front moves through. Our second planting of sweet
corn is ready for the freezer, but at least I can
pick that in the rain if need be. At some point we would
like to visit the state fair, but it looks like that
may have to wait for another year. Yesterday we put the
potato digger into its shed for the year, even
though the fingerlings are still in the ground. They are
just too small for the device; they fall through the
spaces on the conveyor so we will dig those by hand,
possibly later today before the rains come. We
don’t grow very many fingerlings, but they are
exquisite roasted with whole peeled garlic cloves,
olive oil, and rosemary. They also slice up into perfect
little rounds for venison stew, and hold
their shape well even after being simmered for hours in
savory meaty gravy. Clouds are al-
ready thickening up, so I guess I will get out and pick
some of the beans, just in case.
Have a great day,
Daisy
Thursday, September 2, 2010, 9:30 a.m.
76 degrees, windy, sunny
This morning’s sun and wind should shake the
laundry dry in no time at all.
Our window boxes and container plants have been dry, so
we made the rounds
with gallon jugs full of high-phosphorus liquid
fertilizer, the secret to keeping plants in
bloom all summer long. It is also essential to remove the
seedpods from flowering plants,
a practice known as dead-heading. Our wave
petunias weren’t supposed to set seeds, but
when I wondered why they stopped flowering a month ago, I
discovered huge ripe seedpods all
along the stems. I think maybe these plants had been
mislabeled, for true waves won’t set seeds.
There is a whole mob of crows hanging out on the Smith
Road, raising a non-stop ruckus, so I
think I will stroll up that way and see what’s up. I
may have heard a raven or two in the mix,
so it could be the usual territorial range wars. Coyotes
have been unusually loud during the
early evenings lately, so we have been coaxing our cat
indoors at suppertime just in case
they range close to the farm. They have been on the run
during the wee hours of dark-
ness as well, waking me up nearly every night for a week.
I don’t know what has the
local birds and beasts so het up lately, but I don’t
think I want to run into it personally.
Have a fine day,
Daisy
Wednesday, September 1, 2010, 8:30 a.m.
75 degrees, breezy, sunny
Welcome to September, an unpredictable month that
often can’t decide if it is summer or autumn.
The name is derived from the Latin for seven, septem.
The number seven has a reputation for being
connected with luck, perfection, and wonderful things,
and in my opinion, September is aptly named.
In the Roman calendar September was the seventh month, as
the year began in March. The Julian cal-
endar reform shifted the start of the year to January,
thus we are now beginning the ninth month of our
modern calendar year. It looks like today will be a
repeat of yesterday, right down to the mindless
trained-ape work of picking up potatoes. We gathered well
over half of them yesterday, but still
have the seed stock and a large quantity of fingerlings
to bring into the cellar. We worked until
noon, and the job was made a little more pleasant because
a good friend came up to help; we
traded stories as we hunched down the long rows, sorting
spuds for size and rubbing the dirt
from their skins with knobby-palmed gloves. We have more
of a breeze today, so even if
it is hot under the hazy sun, I can feel refreshed every
time the wind wafts past the
water-soaked bandana tied around my neck. This trick of
the old west really
works, as the wet cloth cools the arterial blood that
flows through the neck,
pretty nifty, eh ?
Have a great day,
Daisy
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