Glittering Encasement

As promised, I'm posting the other pictures I took when we had an ice storm.  Outside was a glittering landscape that lasted one day.  The next day everything had melted and gotten slushy.  In my last post, the bamboo had all leaned down to a right angle.  I was afraid they would all be permanently bent but by the next day they had all shaken away their burdens and stood upright and ready for another day.  Always a lesson to be learned from bamboo.

Above is the lovely pattern the ice encased on the undergrowth in our woods.  It almost looks like spun sugar.

The cedar saplings in the woods got a good coating.  The ice enhanced the green and pink colors in the branches.  I take a lot of pictures mainly to record things that I wouldn't have the time to capture with plein air painting.  Plein Air seems idealistic this day and age to me anyway.  Yes, it would be great to go into the wild with one's sketchbook/canvas/what-have-you but reality for most artists is taking images like these to reference later because they have to go to work or feed the goat or whatever.  Besides, mosquitoes like the way I taste.

The ice weighs everything down and pine trees have this beautiful cascading effect.  It's dangerous because the weight often equals falling tree but the spilling and tumbling visual of these frosted needles is hard not to admire.

I'm not quite sure how this red maple got its stripes of water running down the trunk.  It's amazing to see the difference in color between the wet bark and the dry bark.  I'm trying to be aware of these things more often as I make compositions in my work.  Little nuances like these are a real treat for the viewer.

This is the creek that runs through my back yard.  It definitely attained a ghostly quality from all the ice.  I'm working on a concept for an "Appalachian Dragon" and I think this would make a great reference photo to create its habitat from.  Wouldn't you want an Appalachian Dragon in your back yard?  

Here is a shot under the russian olive near the creek.  It weeps over and I love the pattern the weeping twigs create.

This concludes my showcase of ice for now.  Who knows what lies ahead!

Frosty Bamboo Goat

I went to bed last night after driving home in a slick mess but woke up this morning to a beautiful ice forest.  I knew what I had to do.  I set the kettle on the stove for tea, told Pat to find some batteries for the camera, and fished around in the refrigerator for a soft apple.  While the water was boiling for tea, I heard a hollow splitting sound and quietly thanked myself for parking the car far up the driveway.  The large pitch pine that had been leaning since the blustery winds a few days ago finally fell under the weight of the ice.  I watched it tumble down from the kitchen and heard the ice cover needles go crunch against the driveway.

After I made some tea I put more water on the stove for "goat soup" and popped chunks of cut up apple in the microwave with some dry oatmeal to warm up.  I filled a bucket up with the steaming warm water and trudged down to the back yard with that and the warm apples and oats.  Goat was very happy to have some apples and "goat soup."

In years past when we've had ice, some of the bamboo would lean down and touch the ground.  I was stunned to see that almost all the bamboo was touching the ground.  The electric fence was rendered pretty much useless with the bamboo leaning on it.  Legend didn't seem in any hurry to leave his nice house with steamy "goat soup" and oats.  

In fact, he seemed amused that one of his favorite delicacies was within easy reach.  The only problem was that now it was a frozen vegetable.  

I wanted to assess how bad the leaning was because sometimes the bamboo doesn't stand back up again after been weighed down.  I don't think we'll lose all of our bamboo but I'm guessing a good portion of it will suffer.  Bamboo is one of the "three friends of winter" so it will take a beating but will recover.  The only reason I worry is that for the bamboo to sprout this spring it will rely on the sugars stored in the older canes from the previous year.  Damaged and removed canes from last year = not as much bamboo in the spring. We'll see.

On a more pensive note, seeing my bamboo green and limber in the ice is an omen.  It reminds me that even if conditions around me may not be sympathetic to my ideal, if I remain flexible enough to continue traversing to my goal, sooner or later I will get there and even live to see another day.  If not, I might suffer the fate of the broken pitch pine that now lays in my driveway.

Legend says, "Yeah, okay crack head lady.  I'm going to munch the leaves now."  He nibbled some of the icy bamboo before heading back for more "goat soup" instead.  

One of the first things I noticed when I stepped outside was the lack of traffic noise.  Even though we are out in the country, there is usually some kind of noise pollution.  If you can't hear the traffic from 64, you hear the neighbor's tractor.  If you don't hear the neighbor's tractor, it's the other neighbor's lawn mower. If it's not the other neighbor's lawn mower, it's the other neighbor's four wheeler.  Don't get me wrong.  I don't blow a head gasket over these things but I do get excited when all you can hear outside is the "click, click" of ice falling and the chirp and flitter of birds.

I noticed a dead log under the overhang of bamboo and how it made an inviting little grotto.  I decided to crawl in and take my camera with me.

It was nice and quiet and every once and again some ice would cascade down among the leaves as a bird would hop to and from the canes.  It looked like a large green glass sculpture all around.

After a while, Legend came down to stare at me and assess whether or not I had lost my marbles.  Sometimes there is nothing wrong with sitting in the quiet and enjoying it for as long as it will last.

I took tons of other pictures but that will have to wait for another post.  Going to go enjoy the day now!

A Legendary Experience

Well, it has been a very LONG time since I've posted.  Here is one of the main reasons for my lack of communication.  Meet Legend.  He's a 6 year old Nubian wether.  Friends of mine were moving to a new house in a neighborhood that could not accommodate goats.  I was more than happy to take Legend off their hands!  Legend is actually kind of special in that I know his lineage.  My friends got him from a mutual friend who has ties to a local dairy.  Legend was so named because his mother was named Myth and his sister's name was Fable.  Anyway, I was coming to the realization that I was in need of more fertilizer than I could produce with my compost tumbler and my worm bin.

This whole process came about pretty quick.  I have to admit I wasn't prepared.  Thankfully my friend helped me set up the electric fence because the "duh" expression on my face pretty much summed up my experience with setting that kind of stuff up.  I failed that part of my country upbringing.  We fenced him into my garden and I turned my cucumber trellis into a goat house.  My husband had a roll of Tyvec that we used.  Though handy, that turned out to be a huge pain.  When the wind blew or it rained, Legend would freak out at the noise.  When it rained the water would pool in between the trellis rungs and the supports broke a couple of times.  I didn't have a manger either and the hay I subsidized his diet with ended up being pulled around and peed on.  Not a good situation for anyone.  But, through this whole time my husband and I were planning and constructing a goat house on skids.  I made a naive plan and we borrowed a truck and took a trip to Home Depot.  I wished we had took some in-process photos but the goal was finishing the project not documenting it.  A borrowed circular saw helped us out a TON!  I gotta get one of those.  As we built the shed, I was becoming worried because I didn't realize how damn heavy it was going to be.  Gone were the dreams of Pat and I tugging it down the hill.  We had a neighbor with a tractor that I was going to ask to help us out but no, we own Subarus.  Pat insisted that he pull it down with his Baja and position it with my Forester.  This is the part where I take a seat and pop a few more anti-hypertension meds.

Pat learned quick to proceed with all this when I was at work so I wouldn't have a cow or blow a head gasket.  We constructed the shed in the driveway because that was level and we hadn't dug the pad for it to rest on yet.  In hind site, next time I EVER have to do this, I will build things on site because this was a pain.  Pat had fun.  I just chewed my nails and lost my hair.

Here's another shot of our Baja "agricultural all terrain special" tugging the shed along.

The real treat for Legend was that with this new shed his fence would be expanded to the entire back yard.  I took a shot of the back yard and highlighted it in red.  The plus side is that in the spring all that becomes my garden!  Yay!  At first he was hesitant to come to the new end of the yard because originally there was electric fence there and he was afraid of getting shocked.  Eventually, he explored all of it and now we like to race back and forth with him on the "Legend Speedway."  He especially likes to race around if he thinks he's going to get some grain.

Here's a shot of the finished goat house.  As you can see, it's resting on a steep grade.  We got in with some shovels and leveled out a pad.  The roof faces the prevailing wind so that he has respite from that.  I found some awesome feed bins that hook over 2X4's.  We installed a manger that makes feeding SO much better.  He likes to chew the bark off that log and balance on it from time to time.

He loves to pin me in after I've given him grain.  Maybe he'll hold me ransom for more grain.

Okay, so I'm really proud of our manger because at this point I had returned the circular saw we had borrowed.  Pat bought the 2x2's for this project but the other wood was scrap we had left over.  We didn't have anything to cut the plywood with but a miter saw, a hack saw, or a pruning saw.  Pat wanted us to use the pruning saw but I said that was stupid.  I ended up using the pruning saw.  I'm beginning to discover that crow isn't half bad with a little salt.  Anyway, I'm proud of our ghetto construction manger. It's stout and makes feeding so EASY.  Just chuck the hay in there.  Before we were tying it in bundles and stringing up.  It was a huge pain.

Yeah, for anyone that cares, I'm proud of the drainage ditches we dug so that the run off wouldn't pool under the house.  That clay tends to do that.  So, when I was editing this goat glamor shot I happened to notice that his tongue was out.  What better way to end this post than with a goat raspberry!

Goat Raspberries!

Worm Snake

My husband and I were turning the soil in the plots of our garden. I had tried a method of three sisters I had read on the internet and decided that particular method didn't work well. It incorporated several small hills instead of one large platform. This spring we went about knocking down the hills and spreading out the earth. I am always amazed at the size of the nightcrawlers in our soil and I think it is a testament to our good practices. Just as my husband tossed a shovel of earth out from a pile he said "Whoa, is that a worm?" I looked and saw a large earthworm flailing in the dirt but it had an iridescent blue sheen to it. Upon closer inspection, it had a finely woven pattern of scales as well. My husband picked it up with his gloves on and a little chocolate brown tongue shot out from between two beady dark eyes. "That's the weirdest snake I've seen." I said. I wished I had the camera but, alas, I didn't.
Later, we looked up "worm snake" on google and found that Carphophis amoenus amoenus is indeed called a Worm Snake and it is found mostly in wooded areas in loose dirt and under logs and rotten leaf litter. I learned a cool new word to: "fossorial". Look it up. We read that they mainly eat earthworms and are not poisonous.
Days later, as we were finishing our work, we uncovered another specimen and this time I had my camera. He had the prettiest pink belly but he continued to struggle in the open and try to hide his face under one of his coils. You would too if you lived underground and now were being held captive in the open sun. We snapped a few pictures and then let him go. Sneaky snake, we hope you stay around!

Pickled Peppers

The dog days of summer really are the time for your peppers to shine. I had planted 3 different kinds of peppers this spring that had been started from seed indoors. I love germinating my own seeds but that is another discussion for another post . . .
Anyway, the season was rife with cut worms, mold, disagreeable weather, and chewing bugs but as soon as late summer swelter settled in my peppers took off. I planted a variety of sweet pepper called "Super Shepherd". Traditionally, appalachian farmers have had trouble growing sweet peppers because of nematodes and this strain was supposed to be resistant. It is an italian strain that produces big long sweet peppers. Alas, the mold, the nematodes, or something ravaged mine. I did manage to come away with a total of 3 sweet peppers that I saved seed from. These I figure will be "Super Super Shepherds"! The hot peppers however positively exploded. I had tons of Jalapenos and Chinese Five Color Peppers. They just kept coming in by the basket full!
I decided to can them because my efforts to dry things in the past have not worked. I can remember my grandmother drying things in cardboard flats (she loved to do apple slices this way) as the wasps and flies tried in vain to make it through the cheese cloth barrier. I think she did this in the dead summer heat and by the time I got things in the fall rains were being disagreeable. Maybe an electric dryer (*gasp!*) will be in the stars for me next year. At any rate, this year is the year of the pressure canner. Yep, in the photo above is mom's pressure canner that she has given me. Circa 1975, it takes a lick'n and keeps on tick'n. The gauge is off by a pound so it only starts to rock at 16 psi but as long as we take that into account we're golden. I really do have fond memories helping mom can with my sister and listening to the weight rock and hiss on the steam vent like a giant agitated dragon. The double pot right next to it is my stock pot which is perking along making me some chicken stock. Well, I'm already tethered to the stove, right?

I pickled the peppers in a horseradish and garlic brine. I kept these Jalapenos whole with the intention of trying poppers at some point in the future. The leaves out of the window were beautiful in the sunlight and I tried to photograph them behind the peppers but the sun glared in too much so those images were lost. It did create this beautiful ghostly glow around them and they look like some preserved potion in professor Snape's office. Magical peppers!

The Chinese Five Color Peppers were really pretty jumbled together. I cut these in rings fresh and packed them in the glass and then poured brine over them. I tried to process them as minimally as possible because usually bright colors do not make it past the pressure cooking stage. The bright green of the Jalapenos certainly did not make it past the pressure cooking stage. I was surprised at the color of the Chinese ones when they came out. They look like a bottle full of dragon scales and I'm sure have all the kick of dragon scales too.

Everything got snugged into the dark cabinet I keep my tomatoes stored in to await their turn in winter recipes. Cooking in the winter time with foods preserved from ones garden really is a treat. When the seal pops on the glass jar and those veggies turn out it's got all the taste of a summer ray of sunshine.

Tomato Paste Making

Ah! I have been over run by tomatoes! Seriously, this radio flyer full of tomatoes represents the tail end of the tomato harvest. I ended up canning 35 quarts of whole tomatoes and STILL ended up with this wagon full. I turned these into paste and gave up on the rest. This year's growing season was rough but still rewarding. The paste making was completed in the beginning of September but I haven't had time to sit down and post. The tomatoes are running my life! LOL!

The photo of the wagon full of tomatoes shows them fresh from the vine. You'll notice many of them have some shades of green. The bugs were so bad this year and rain so sporadic that I harvested the tomatoes as soon as they had shades of red in them. They ripened up just fine inside the house. Otherwise, the bugs would've chewed them to bits or they would've split during the next rain.

After they got red and soft, we dropped them in a boiling water bath until the skins split and then dropped them in ice water so that we could slip the skins off. In order to make paste we then pulled the seeds out of them. This was done easily in the Amish Paste Tomatoes but not so easily in the Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes. I think I will grow some Amish Paste Tomatoes next year just for the sole purpose of making paste. As you can see, that whole wagon full filled up this plastic tub. I think the tub represents a few gallons. If the tub began to fill up with water that the tomatoes weeped, we'd pour that off and add more tomatoes.

I finally got smart this year. Last year, my sister and I canned some paste and I rendered the tomatoes down on the stove. It took hours under a low burner. I was so busy this year I didn't have time and also the waste of having a propane burner on for hours seemed ridiculous to me. I whipped my slow cooker off the shelf and gave that a shot. I let it cook all day with the lid off and it worked like a charm. The tomatoes rendered down nicely. They don't look so hot in the blender but once they've been given a spin:

This velvety rich tomato paste rolls out of the blender and is better than anything the supermarket is going to try to sell you! The flavor is incredible! I ended up freezing mine but if I grow enough next year I'll probably try to can it.

Twinkling Shallots

Here is just a short post to highlight an event that occurred back in June. That's right, my shallots came in for harvest! There were many of them and I was surprised at how prolific they were! It seemed that for every clove I planted 10 to 15 sprouted around them, yay!

What pretty colors!

But I was a little disappointed at how small they were. They were still only the size of a dime or nickel. I've decided to take most of them and replant them in the garden this fall and see how they overwinter. I also plan to plant garlic, walking onions, and yellow potato onions in this fashion as well. I did enjoy seeing all the different colors. These photos highlight the myriad of colors that came to light. Shades of yellow, sepia, peach, orange, even pink and purple drift in and out over their skins.