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Well, the glory train had to end sometime. I pulled my 34 tomato plants yesterday, coiling the (very much still-growing) vines like spent Christmas lights in a pile on the grass. The end of the week is bringing us mid-fifties weather, and if it doesn't frost by Monday I'll be surprised. Figuring it'd be more pleasant to pull tomato vines in mid-afternoon sunshine than sniveling rain, I sucked it up and powered through the job.
It was a job, dismantling the supports and stowing them, harvesting every last reddening tomato (and plenty of green ones, too) and starting a final pot of sauce on the stove. So bittersweet, the end of tomato season. This year, we were absolutely rolling in tomatoes for two solid months, and that is a rarity. Such a nice treat.
Now, to harvest and freeze broccoli, shell the very last of the beans, pull winter squash vines, plant garlic, and... do more mulching... and then this here garden will be really ready for the cold months. Wow. What a year.
What a dog.
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Saturday was 71, sunny, and I was free as a bird. I had heard tell of a great cidering to be taking place that afternoon, and so I quickly set about learning the deets, and making plans. Our friends Norm and Michele and their daughter Maya live on the hill just outside the village, and they are good inventive homesteader-DIYers like ourselves. Over several years (and four iterations) Norm has invented this amazing bicycle-powered apple grinder, for the purpose of converting apples into mash, from which the cider is pressed.
When someone you know has a bicycle-powered apple grinder, you find out when and where and you show up.
Norm offered to come down early to help me shake our (loaded) apple tree that is perhaps as old as the house. Then our neighbors Zena and Simone wandered over, and together we emptied three other trees nearby. Traipsing through a tangled field of dead goldenrod trailing empty feed sacks felt like those wild foraging missions I would take on as a child, with zeal, encouraging (bossing) my dubious friends to help me in digging spring beauty bulbs, or cattail roots, or picking elderberries. The zeal is still there, but I kept my bossing mostly to myself.
Mid-afternoon, we and a few other families converged on the scene. Everyone brought apples from their trees. It was poetic-- everyone brought something truly from their land, something free and wild and flavored with the particular flavors of everyone's native ground. (This is the kind of thing that really sets me off, in a good way.)
In addition to apples, I brought Del. Michele spread out cinnamon sugar popovers and molasses cookies. We all took a cup from a big bowl of cups, and as the cider started to flow we dipped and drank. The taste changed as different bags of apples were pressed.
Del wooed everyone, as is his way. I think he was angling for a cookie.
I don't know what the final cider tally was, but we pressed probably somewhere close to 50 gallons of cider in not very much time at all. We all milled around, dumping apples into the hopper, and checking to see if the mash bucket was full, and dumping the mash, and pressing the mash, and of course riding the Ciderator, the fabulously effective apple grinder.
There are those who love the theater, or the beach, or a luxurious meal out (and I love all of those things too, in their time). But my main inspiring happy-place is right here, at the intersection of invention and self-sufficiency and FOOD, watching manpower (and womanpower) and harvest and ingenuity become something delicious and amazing and so totally humble. By the people, for the people, not to get too carried away.
And it is really damn good cider.
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Fall is really upon us. You can see the difference in the photos above-- look at the big tree in the middle of the frame. Picture one was two weeks ago. Wow.
I'm pretty much savoring the changes. I'm doing a little bit of raking each day, a little bit of house painting, a little bit of dumping fallen apples into the chicken yard (delight!). A little bit of time here and there basking or frolicking or both with Pete and Del.
My very extraordinarily lovely and late-blooming windflower, new this year, courtesy of my mother-in-law, makes a showing. I planted two pieces of this, one on either side of the shed door. The shed is slated to be painted the same color as the house, and I get almost giddy imagining how delightful these windflowers will look against that rich teal. It's the little things.
I'm in the midst of a pretty big work transition right now, winding down some old gigs and sizing up some new ones, which is simultaneously exciting (self-direction! choices! the world is my oyster!) and terrifying (oh HI, lack of regular paycheck). It will all work out over time, hopefully before the dead of winter is upon us. In the meantime, I'm keeping my nose to the grindstone when I'm not outside making tracks.
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I cannot believe we have not had a frost yet. I cannot believe I still have tomatoes, almost halfway through October. (See last year's October garden, for reference.)
They are winding down, surely, but I'm still managing to make a big pot of sauce each week. I fill my big pot and let it simmer for about 24 hours, throwing in the seasonings only at the very end. Oh, it steams up all the windows, and makes a mess of the kitchen, but isn't that what tomato season is for? I think so.
Out in the garden, it is that sweet overlap of tomato season with roots and greens season.
I really enjoyed growing calendula this year, for the first time. It's supposed to self-seed, but I helped it out by crumbling up some of the seed heads along the borders. I've said it before and I'll say it again, pretty, well-mannered flowers will always have a place in my vegetable garden. I cut and dried quite a lot of the flowerheads, too, to use in lotions and potions and bath salts. Calendula is fabulous stuff for skincare.
Inside, I've been shelling the very last of the beans, and making my final end-of-season garden notes, and slowly, slowly, starting to imagine next year. 2013 was truly a stellar garden year-- thanks in large part to the highly cooperative weather-- and I am so grateful to have been here for it. I have a feeling I might be looking back on this year's garden with some nostalgic gleam in my eye...
Or maybe not. So many things, so many systems here have only just begun to work. I've tilled in two entire autumns' worth of fallen leaves, plus compost and horse manure, and I mulched heavily, heavily with mowed grass all summer. I have made a significant dent in improving the heavy clay soil of this place, but next year, it'll be even better...
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The thing about being a band wife is, sometimes he's gone and life is bland and tedious. But then, sometimes, he comes home, and life is fun and AWESOME! So it was this weekend. It had been almost two weeks with zipzilchzero weekend chill time for the two of us, and though I can suck it up like the best of them, eventually the lack of fun time starts to wear.
This weekend, Patrick had a Friday night gig, that's it! So we slept in Saturday morning, got up, waited for the grass to dry so P could mow, then we loaded up the Del and got the hell out of Dodge.
It was a humid and brooding afternoon, really odd for October in upstate, but we weren't about to complain. We headed to Cherry Valley, home of one of the most awesome old cemeteries ever, and one of the best and most fun Mexican restaurants ever, but on our way we stopped at Betty and Wilbur Davis State Park.
The leaves were at their peak, and the woods were so pretty.
Quickly, the sun began to set.
And just as quickly, the mist began to rise...
...which meant that, fifteen minutes later when we arrived at aforementioned spectacular cemetery in Cherry Valley, the scene was just right for a haunted photo shoot. I'm not especially in love with Halloween kitsch, but this kind of spooky I can dig. There are graves here from the Cherry Valley Massacre, when 14 soldiers and 30 civilians were killed by a mixed force of British, Loyalists, and Indians...
Then we ate our Mexican food and drank our margaritas, and headed homeward...
Sunday I raked and cooked and harvested 20 pounds of parsnips and Patrick worked on patching the siding around the front porch roof. And then we drank a couple of beers and frolicked with Del. And had pizza for dinner. It was perfect.
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Consider this an official "Look, Ma!" It's been about two weeks of near-constant work out here (constant except for weekends and a sweet visit from Jen) and I'm proud to say I have something to show for it. It is amaaaazing what a difference paint makes, and the more I spread that tealy goodness across the front, the more I love it.
I could only reach about two-thirds of the front with the man lift in its current position, so my goal was to get that side completely done before moving the lift forward six feet or so to finish the other side of the front. I still need to scrape my sloppy yellow paint off the window panes, and of course replace some siding over the porch (there was rot) AND oh yeah, we need to deal with the complete lack of siding in the very peak of the gable.
THAT was a fun surprise. I started tearing off the aluminum up there, and, SURPRISE! Nothing was under there. Just barn-ish wood with BIG gaps between the planks and a ventilation hole into our attic. Eagerly, we are spinning a silk purse out of that particular sow's ear-- we have ordered fish scale siding (the scalloped stuff) to address the missing pieces. That will look pretty awesome, we're thinking.
Two-ish weeks ago:
Since we bought this place, I've made a goofy habit of saying "Hello, pretty house" as we turn into our driveway. It's really starting to look that way, now, from the outside.
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This was the Month of Kale, apparently. The Swiss chard I've been staying on top of-- each of my plants is a tidy little knot of rainbow-colored stems sprouting fresh new leaves-- but my kale is getting holey, ragged, and damn enormous. So once the green beans were done, early in the month, we started eating kale. It's not a bad thing, really. We like kale. Sometimes I make kale slaw with a very tangy Caesar-style dressing (mayo, olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon, parmesan), but most of the time it gets sauteed or thrown into soup.
Above is something I call "California Kale," a big pile of kale steamed in a skillet with garlic and a splash of soy sauce, and a sprinkling of raisins. The raisins plump, the kale gets tangy and delicious, and a shower of almonds caps it off nicely.
Early this week our good friend and former neighbor Jen (see here) came to visit, for the first time in three years. As in, she hadn't seen Gilbertsville yet! So, it was quite a joy to go around, to show off the chickens and the garden and the house and the town. I love playing tour guide. I also love cooking for company, especially now, when so many good things are so wonderfully improvisable. Early in the afternoon, I threw a big pan of halved tomatoes drizzled with oil into a 300 degree oven, and took the frozen tart crust and some pesto out to thaw. We (and the Del) took a long walk around town. We came back. We picked up a basket full of apples, from the ancient tree in our side yard. I added oats, flour, maple syrup, butter, and made an apple crisp. Then, we cut kale, and I sauteed the kale with shallots and garlic, and a splash of vinegar at the end. I mashed one of those roasted tomatoes into half a stick of softened butter, and that was divine. The rest of them I layered into the tart shell, and topped with beaten eggs and a luxurious sprinkle of smoked mozzarella.
My cooking style has changed so thoroughly, and I love the changes. Everything used to be store-bought, from the eggs to the kale to the apples. We used to buy things like ricotta salata and fig jam and fresh pineapple. It was lovely. It was a nice style to embrace. But this one here is so much more fun, and more fulfilling. And less stressful-- I'm more likely to throw things in a pan than I am to follow a recipe. Cooking feels freer, because I've mostly let go of anything really involved.
This (not very photogenic thing) was white bean and kale soup with potatoes and smoked paprika. I am soo happy to welcome back soup weather. Talk about stress-free cooking. Throw things in a pot. Cook until done.
Last but not least (AGAIN with the kale...) scalloped tomatoes. Not the most healthy or virtuous dish to grace our table this month (but California kale made up for it, I hope) but in my opinion the most delicious. This was a big staple in our house when I was a kid-- a terrific end-of-tomato-season dish. It's comfort food-- of course-- for me now, the one thing I make Just Exactly Like My Mom Did, something I think I could eat for the rest of my life. I mean, like, if they don't serve scalloped tomatoes in heaven, then I'm not interested in heaven. Like that. I believe I have made them on-average once a week this month, and I'm sure I have a pan or two more up my sleeve before the bitter end.
Now, roll on, October! Roll on butternut squash soup and roasted roots and soup, soup, soup!
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