March 19-20, 2011

We went down to the cabin the night before so we could get a head start on saturday.  We spent friday night in the loft with the gigantic, gorgeous moon pouring in on us.  Pat wanted to try out our new broadfork.  Below is a picture (from Gemplers tools website) of what ours looks like.  It is basically a big pitch fork that you use like a lever, with two handles. 
 

  Below is me using the broad fork.  You stick it in the ground and work it back and forth, like a lever, pushing the handles towards the ground.  This fluffs the soil without compacting it by driving a rototiller or a tractor over it.  Also, it lets you work just what you want to--not the entire garden at once.

 

We started prepping the beds for potatoes and peas.  First Pat used the broad fork and then I came behind him with the hoe and weeded and chopped up the clods.  Then he spread compost and forked it into the soil.  We will plant potatoes and peas next weekend.  Two rows of potatoes and one double-row of peas.  We're going to try a fenced in enclosure of peas, hopefully keeping the deer out.  It will be a nearly continuous pea fence, wrapping around in a rectangle, with about a 2 foot opening we can go in and out of.  Deer supposedly don't like to be in enclosed spaces, so if we plant the peas on the inside, it might deter them.  Rabbits may be another story...

Pat also checked on his bees.  This year he is using a different feeding type of device called a feeder frame.  It is shaped just like a frame of comb and has little floats in it so the bees do not drown.  It is supposed to be better for them because it does not drip like a bucket feeder would.  He said he liked the way it worked and was pleased with it.  The "old" hive had eaten a lot of their sugar syrup and ALL of their pollen patties!  He was shocked when he saw that, and luckily we had a spare to put on them.  The "new" hive was not nearly as strong as the old one.  In fact, the new hive is about on par with the way the old hive was acting last year.  Maybe it takes a hive 2 years to really get established.

At any rate, the old hive is extremely strong for this early in the season, with tons of brood and sucking down sugar syrup and bringing in pollen...hopefully we'll get some honey off of this hive this year.  

We spent the rest of the weekend working on the inside of the cabin.  We have the drywall up, so now we are taping and spackling.  It is coming along well, and probably another couple of weeks we'll be painting.  Yea! 

Stink bugs

We've been battling stink bugs at our cabin.  Brown marmarated stink bugs are an alien invasive species in Maryland, according to the University of Maryland Extension Service.  My parents have really had a hard time with them--they even showed up in the Christmas decorations, inside sealed plastic totes! 

We thought we wouldn't have much of a problem, since the cabin is not heated continuously, and we assumed the bugs were trying to find warmth.  But last Friday, Pat came into the cabin and pulled his coat off the rocking chair (we leave some layers down at the cabin) and uncovered hundreds of them!  We spent about an hour sweeping them up and shaking them off of things.  We took off the slipcover and the bed clothes and shook them out, then swept them up and put them in a bucket.  Pat transported the bucket of either dead or cold-torpor stink bugs up to a group of six very happy chickens!  They put an end to our bug problem. 

Hopefully next time, we won't find too many have crept back into the cabin. 

This is one example of how a species can come into a new area and "take over."  They were able to explode because they have left their natural predators behind in Asia.  Why don't the birds just eat them?  They probably did, but there were so many of them, and it is such a new food source, that they might not have been able to recognize them as a food source.  OR, they may taste pretty bad (though our chickens didn't mind the taste!).  Anyway, a predator may come to the forefront, something that has developed a taste for the stink bug, or their population may reach some kind of carrying capacity.  But, it looks like they're here to stay.  Sadly this is just one of the many alien invasive species that have come to North America and have upset the "natural balance," what is left of it. 

Thanksgiving

This year we had my parents over for Thanksgiving dinner at our house--our real house, not our cabin (maybe one day!).  We wanted to get a local, farm-raised turkey from a local farmer but that didn't work out too well.  Pat got in touch with someone who sells turkeys in the local farmers market, but the farmer waited until Monday to get back to him.  And then it was just a mass email saying they had birds for sale.  Well, by then we had already gotten ours from my mom--she shops at one of those grocery stores where you rack up points and then can redeem them for a turkey, ham or lasagna for free.  So we got our (non-local) turkey for free, courtesy of my mom!  I still consider that working without our mantra of keeping things simple. 

I have to say that this type of behavior among organic growers is not uncommon.  I have noticed an attitude that some CSA growers and organic farmers have...that is sort of like snobbery.  They produce it so you have to buy it right?  It is organic so you want it right?  It doesn't matter if the product is sub-par or the method is sloppy or the transaction is not enjoyable.  Folks, just because you're organic doesn't mean you don't need to also be a good businessperson.  I find it insulting.  As if you don't have a choice, they're the local farmer so you HAVE to use them...not true.  Demand a good product.

Pat de-boned the turkey, a la Julia Child, and gave it a dry-rub marinade.  Before we plan to cook it he'll brush it with Wegman's basting oil which is infused with garlic and herbs.  Then he'll brush it with maple syrup just before it is done baking to give it a golden color.  It is going to be stuffed with stuffing made from his homemade bread too.  That way you cut it like a roulade with no bones in the way and get stuffing with every slice. 

Our free turkey is just about the only thing that came from a store though.  We will have our potatoes, mashed; our green beans, sauteed; our butternut squash, in soup form and pie form; cherries we picked ourselves in the pie...the only things we didn't grow in our menu are some broccoli and some beets that didn't grow well for us this year. 

I plan on taking some pictures so I'll post them later.

Give thanks for the blessings in your life, the people you love and whom love you, and the pets who make your life happy.  I know I do!

Wood stove

We have been spending chilly weekends at the cabin working on shingles and visiting family.  We have been putting the cedar shakes on the front side.  Pat and I did most of it except for the very top rows where we would have to cut each one to the correct length.  We'll wait till we have the chop-saw to do that.  But it is looking like a real cabin.  I love the colors of the painted trim and the cedar shakes. 

We had a wonderful soup supper at an aunt's house.  I made roasted butternut squash soup.  It is a Martha Stewart recipe!  It is a super-easy recipe, but takes a little bit of time to roast the squash (40 min).  Cut a butternut squash in half, tuck 4 sprigs of thyme and four unpeeled cloves of garlic into the cavity and lay it face down.  Bake for 40 min.  When cool, scoop out flesh and peel garlic, discard the thyme.  Process in food processor with about one cup of stock (I used duck stock).  Transfer to a saucepan, add enough stock to get desired consistency (maybe 1-2 more cups), season with salt & pepper.  I love this photo because the color contrasts so nicely with my grandmother's crock.


We have been keeping the chill out with our little wood stove.  It is a Jotul wood stove, a Norwegian brand, that is about circa 1960 or 70.  Apparently, they are made to last.  There is info on the internet on this model and people who have them keep them running forever!  We have put some money into it--we had to get the heat shields on the sides and bottom replaced because they had cracked.  It is just a little thing, but it heats up the cabin nicely.  The pooches love it!  Maggie had her belly facing it the first night we used it.  There is a cool relief picture of lumberjacks on the side.  Pat scrubbed it with wire brushes and gave it a coat of stove black--wow, what a difference! 

Good night garden

Today we pretty much put the garden to bed.  We had already laid down tarps to help kill the weeds/grass about a month ago.  Then a few weeks ago Pat tilled up the ground where we had laid the tarps (the tarps didn't really kill the grass, but it kind of knocked it back some.  Would have worked better in the springtime. 

This weekend we spread a mixture of winter and annual rye to act as a cover crop in the tilled area.  We tried to use Earthway seeders, but the seed was just too fine and it created "flour" instead.  So Pat used the broadcast seeder and I lightly raked it in. 

This past summer's garlic--today's seed source

Then we planted garlic.  We set aside part of the tilled earth for the garlic patch.  We had a lot of seed garlic saved from this summer's crop.  We set aside the biggest, best heads to plant for next season.  This was the 2nd year we had set aside seed garlic.  We didn't have quite enough, so we supplemented with store-bought garlic.  Altogether we planted approx. 180 cloves of our saved seed, and 60 of the store bought.  We'll compare them next year to see if there is any difference.  To plant the garlic, Pat turned the soil with a shovel, then we levelled it off and raked it smooth.  Next, Pat made a furrow with a hoe and I sprinkled in some bone meal.   We read that calcium is good for garlic so we added that supplement.  We planted the garlic 8" apart, then covered the furrow up with about 4" of soil.  Finally, we piled straw on top to make a thick mulch.  You almost can't mulch garlic too much. 

We have some seed garlic left over, and a lot in the basement still.  So we're going to try to freeze the cloves and see how it does.  We ended up loosing some of our garlic over the winter to rot, so hopefully that does not happen this year. 

There are still some peppers growing and the tomatoes are dead yet.  We left them for Dad to pick what he wants.  But pretty much that is it...the garden is ready for its long winter nap.

Hot peppers

We have found that peppers are something that we grow really well in our garden.  With the added help of the silver mulch, they did even better this year.  We got loads of green and red bell peppers, and the little sweet orange peppers called "Yummy" (no kidding, that's their name!).  We also got a lot of the hot chili peppers called "Red Rocket."  They're really hot, but they have a good flavor.  Last year we dried them and hung them in the pantry. We used whatever we needed by just pulling them off the strand and either clipping them or grinding them in the mortar and pestle.

This year we had so much, that even with strands hung up over the kitchen window, and the chandelier in the dining room, we still had leftovers.

So Pat decided to try drying them in the oven and then blenderize them with a little salt to help grind them up, to make crushed red pepper.  It worked great!  Now we have two whole containers of crushed red pepper flakes just waiting to be used in chili, soups, and refried beans!  The funniest thing is that a while back, we helped my mom clean out her old spices from her spice cabinet and we kept some of the old containers.  One was a glass crushed red pepper jar from circa 1970!  Too funny!

Eggplant a-go-go

More eggplants leads to more creative eggplant recipes.  Sorry, I don't have pics for these as they went pretty quickly!  These recipes all came out of an old copy of the Victory Garden Cookbook, which I did a quick search for and is available from most every bookselling website out there.  It looks a little out-dated but I am impressed with the recipes.

Eggplant "Grilled Cheese Sandwiches"
Lots of variations on this theme...
  Open faced sandwiches:  thickly slice eggplant (that has been salted and "wept" for 30 min), dredge eggplant slices in egg, then breadcrumbs and fry.  Then top with cheese, tomatoes & cheese, or shrimp & cheese (etc.) and place under broiler until cheese starts to melt.  (we've eaten this a number of times--really good)
  Grilled Cheese Sandwich:  Fry eggplant as above (thinly sliced), place cheese in between two pieces of eggplant.  Cook in butter until cheese melts.
  Broil eggplant instead of frying first (I haven't tried this yet...)

Eggplant-fish stew:
A little wierd, would be better without the fish and just be a jumble of veggies in a tomato-based casserole. 
  Sautee onions, peppers, garlic and herbs, add cubed eggplant (that has wept for 30 min).  Add tomatoes and fish (or sans fish).  Turn into a casserole dish, top with breadcrumbs and bake.  Pretty tasty, even with the fish.

Eggplant roll-ups:
This was kind of a variation on the theme of eggplant parm.
Place some tomato sauce in a baking dish.  Salt thinly-sliced eggplant and let drain for 30 min (larger slices work better).  Fry eggplant (dredged in egg then flour) then drain on tea towel.  Mix veggie crumbles (it calls for sausage & hamburger, but I used veggie alternative), parm, parsley and egg.  Spread the stuffing mix thinly on the fried eggplant.  Roll up, tuck into sauced pan, open side down.  Top with the rest of the sauce and parm & mozz. cheese.  Bake first covered, then uncovered till golden.  This was great!  it was very filling and hearty and good with red wine. 

Basically, I highly recommend this cookbook for those who want to try veggie-based recipes other than the normal tried and true ones.  It has really come in handy.  And thanks to Aunt Genie for sending it to us! :)