Cherry Time!

We have some very generous friends who have a farm about 12 miles from here.  They had 6 or 7 cherry trees just loaded with cherries.  They said we could 'pick as much as we wanted'!  So we picked about 5 gallons.  
     The past few days I've been working with them, making a pie, jelly, jam, juice, and a wonderful ice cream topping.  I have more cherries left to make a cherry crisp tomorrow for company coming (Harold's sister from Texas).   The kitchen smells wonderful with all this fruit processing!!  Cherries are one of my favorite fruits, so I'm delighted to have the chance to work with them. 
Here's a couple photos of those wonderful cherries:

About 3 gallons of cherries right here.  There are 2 more pails full not in the picture.

A close-up of these beauties!    They are baking cherries (sour cherries).

While working with these cherries, we had several bad storms.   We lost power for 18 hours one day.   When the power came back on, we figured the storms were over.   About 3 hours later I put a lovely pie in the oven.  Halfway through the baking, the power went out again!  And it stayed out for 6 more hours!  When it finally came on at midnight, I tried to continue baking the pie, but I quickly learned that a half baked pie that sits for 6 hours becomes a soggy mess and baking doesn't help it.  Bummer. 
     I wanted to make a nice ice cream topping with the cherries, and searched all my 600 cookbooks for a good recipe.   You would think with that many references I would be able to find a good recipe, right?  I also tried the internet, but didn't find anything that came close to what I was looking for.   Finally, in an old Ball Blue Book from 1964, I found the perfect method for making a very tasty ice cream topping.   It is truly delicious!   The Ball Book calls it "Cherry Preserves", but to me, it's ice cream topping!  It has a fresh taste, not too sweet, not too tart, and is only cherries, sugar, and water.  No pectin.   No chemicals.  No preservatives.   I offer the recipe here, in case you ever come across a nice batch of cherries and would like to make some. 

A ladle full of the delicious cherry topping for ice cream!

CHERRY TOPPING FOR ICE CREAM

4 heaping cups of pitted tart red cherries

4 to 4 1/2 c. sugar (depends on tartness of fruit)

Drain juice from cherries (there won't be a lot, maybe 1/2 cup).  Add sugar to juice (if not enough juice to dissolve sugar, add a little water - up to 1/2 c no more)  Cook the juice and sugar mix until sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally.   Cool a little, then add cherries and cook rapidly (a good boil), for about 15 minutes, stirring constantly.  Cover and let stand for 12 to 18 hours in a cool place.   Next day, bring to a boil and cook at a high boil for 1 minute.  Pour hot syrup and cherries into sterilized jelly jars, adjust caps and lids, and process in a boiling water bath for about 10-15 minutes.  (I processed for 13 min)

Yield:  4 half pints. 

Note:  I doubled the recipe and all was fine.   Got 8 jelly jars full. 

And this tastes just like the cherry sauce you get at the ice cream parlor when you order a cherry sundae!  Pitting all the cherries is the hardest part, but it's worth it!  I used a cherry pitter, and it went quickly.

The Last Garlic Story

Can you stand another garlic post??  This will be the final post on my garlic stories!  But I wanted to show you all how we decided to dry the garlic harvest.   A few days ago I dug up all the garlic from the greenhouse - about 70 heads.  Supposedly garlic needs to "cure" for several weeks in a cool, dry spot, out of the direct sunlight.   We have a walk-out basement that is cool and dry and has good air flow.   So that's the perfect spot for drying, at least in my situation!  All the experts say that garlic must be cured with the roots and stalks intact until perfectly dry.   The garlic head itself doesn't dry out because it is protected by all the layers of 'skin' on the garlic head.   So Harold rigged up for me a hanging rack like this:

Two long boards (1 by 2's) are held together at the ends with cross pieces.  Before the last end piece was put on, I threaded the garlic heads upside down into the slot.  The whole thing is suspended from the ceiling rafters.  (our basement is unfinished)

Here's another view:

There were about a dozen or more heads that I couldn't fit on the rack, so they will have to just be laid out on a tray to dry.

The last couple days, the whole house smells like garlic - not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing???  When the garlic heads are ready, I will save about a dozen heads for replanting for next year, I will sell some at our farm market stand, and I will try my hand at braiding some into fancy garland shapes for the kitchen to use this winter.   Of course, next year, I will have to try other varieties of garlic and plant even more than 70 plants!!  One must always do things "bigger and better next time", right??

Oh No! Not Again!

This morning we walked out the door to do garden chores and heard an "extremely loud buzzing of bees".  Uh oh.  Another swarm!    But this time we lucked out.  The swarm went into a low branch on an  oak tree, about 10 feet off the ground.   All Harold had to do was back the pick up under it, get on top of the truck bed and give one vigorous shake to the branch to put all the bees into a large deep bee hive box.  Probably at least 3 lbs of bees were shaken right into the box.   Harold had our neighbor Frank help us this time, and he quickly put a ventilated lid on the box.   The bees that didn't get into the box in time just hung on the sides and bottom.   Harold is now taking this hive out to our friend Joe's farm as I write this.   Two swarms in two days!   Hopefully we won't have any more swarms, as we need our bees to work for US and make honey!!  This swarm was huge, and will probably be ready to go to work out at Joe's farm making honey.

Look at the size of this swarm!  It is about 30 inches wide and 18 inches deep and 8 inches thick!

This swarm was captured nicely in a regular deep bee hive box.

"What A Beekeeper Won't Do........."

This morning as Harold walked out into the yard to do chores, he heard a loud buzzing of bees, which is usually the sound of a swarm happening!  Sure enough - the bees from one of our hives swarmed high into a tree not far from the bee yard.  He could see the swarm gathering around the queen bee in a tall tree.   So Harold got into his tractor/loader and drove it into the woods behind the tree, and lifted up the bucket.   Then he got a ladder to get up there, and prepared a 'swarm box', which is a smaller bee hive box with a few frames in it and a special ventilated lid that fits securely over the box.   We managed to save the swarm and I am documenting the whole morning's work in pictures below.   Later this afternoon or evening, we will carefully carry the hive onto the pickup truck, cover it with a tarp, and drive the hive to a friend's farm about 10 miles away.  You must carry swarms more than 3 miles away from where they swarmed, or else they will go right back to the same spot.  You cannot put them back into the hive they originally swarmed from.   Hives are expensive, and we certainly don't want to lose any of them!

Here is the swarm in the tree - the bees are all gathered around their queen.

A swarm box and lid.   You can see that it is smaller than regular sized hive boxes.  There is a screen in the lid section for ventilation.  We build our own hive boxes and swarm boxes and supers.

Harold begins to climb the ladder to where the bees are.  It was too hot to wear a full bee suit, but he did put on a bee veil!  The bees did not swarm in a really good spot either, as it was located in trees behind where we have a couple old cars parked.  Harold had to maneuver the tractor behind everything by driving through the woods.

Getting closer to the swarm!

Harold begins to cut off smaller branches around the swarm.

He now cuts off the branch that the swarm is on .

While bringing the branch down the ladder, it brushes against other branches and the bees scatter!  Fortunately the queen had not left yet!

Harold sat on top of the loader for about 5 minutes while the bees re-assembled around the queen.

He begins carrying the big branch of bees down the ladder.

Almost there!!

The swarm is then shaken over the swarm box in one swift action to dump the bees into the box.   The lid is quickly put on.

The swarm is now in the swarm box.

The swarm box full of bees was placed on a flat pile of logs in front of the loader.  There are still many bees in the air, and they will eventually go to the swarm box and hang on the sides.

The swarm of bees has been re-captured!  Success!

Later this evening when it is cooler, and all the swarmed bees are around the box, Harold will gently tarp it and put it in the truck and haul it off to our friend's farm.   Over the years our friend Joe has graciously allowed many swarm boxes to be delivered to his yard for safekeeping.   We check on these hives, in addition to the ones in our back yard, from time to time and add supers as needed.   This basically gives us two "bee yards".   When a hive costs about $130 you certainly don't want to lose one.  Bees just naturally swarm - it's what bees do - a survival tactic for them.   If we can catch them, it doubles OUR hives.
     There's an old saying that goes like this:
A swarm in May is worth a load of hay
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon
A swarm in July isn't worth a fly
(not sure what a swarm in August is worth, the poem doesn't say, but it must be worth a lot less than a fly?)
     After all this Harold needed a rest and a reward - there's a pan of cinnamon rolls rising in the kitchen as I write this!  Good job Harold!

Flowers and grapes

Please humor me a little and allow me to show off a couple photos of things around here.   I got out the camera this morning and took some photos of how things look right now. 

Check out these beautiful petunias I started myself from seed and put into baskets.  My little "garden trolls" add a nice touch, don't you think?

More beautiful flowers on the Ferris wheel planter Harold made for me.   I started all these from seed, too.  (My own seed saved from last year's plants)

Our grapes are doing so well this year.  In previous years, we were plagued with a fungus that decimated our grape harvest.   This year, we found out what kind of fungal spray to use and also used ammonium sulfate granules around the base of the plants.   It seemed to do the trick to hold down the fungus, and look at the grapes!   We will have a huge harvest of grapes.   These are Northern Valiant grapes, hardy for northern climates.

Many, many grape clusters growing nicely!

The whole grape section, about 18 feet long:

The grape vines are just loaded with grapes this year.  We will have plenty of grapes for juice to can up.

The gardens are also doing well.   Here is one of our 4 gardens:

I couldn't fit the whole garden in this photo, but you will get the idea.

Harold and I find that growing things here on the farm is so gratifying!  It's a lot of work, yes, but we enjoy seeing the fruits of our efforts.   And it's nice to know that we can grow our own food, and I can grow my own flowers, too,  without having to buy anything.   It's basically our hobby!

Our Latest Project - Painting the Porch

A couple years ago we built my 'dream porch' off the living room.  It is 30 feet long and 6 feet or so wide.   We still have to build the ends of the porch but that will be for a later time. (When we get some spare cash for building materials!).  The wood is treated lumber, and supposedly a person needs to let it age at least 6 months before painting.   Well, it aged about 2 years!   Better late than never, eh?  I had hoped to get it painted last summer, but it seemed like the weather never cooperated - either too hot or too rainy.   But this week, the weather was just perfect for painting, so we went gung-ho on the project.
     Here is the "before":

Before painting:  a little excess lumber to get put away, and other stuff.

The porch is off the living room at the back of the house:

We still need to build the end railings.   We would have used the typical plastic porch railing sections, but those things are very expensive.   The cost for our 30 foot porch was beyond our budget to use pre-built railing sections.   The lumber to build the railing and our own work, made the porch railing about half the cost of the pre-built stuff.

Since the porch is quite high, painting the outside of the railings required some kind of scaffolding (which we didn't have).   So Harold used his tractor/loader and lifted the bucket to the height needed, then stepped onto the bucket from a tall ladder.

Harold stood on the bucket of the tractor and painted the outside, while I painted the inside railing.  He kept moving the tractor as needed.

So we finally got the railings painted:

The first railing section painted.

After painting all the railing sections, it was time to do the floor.   We pressure washed the floor and let it dry while we ran errands in town.

The railing finished, and floor section pressure washed clean.

And the finished project:

What a difference!  The porch is painted!  Now, all I need is some new porch furniture!

Garlic Harvest!

If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that I planted garlic for the first time last fall.  (The garden experts said that up north in cold climates, a person needs to plant garlic just before winter, and cover it with straw to "grow" all winter long).  I had my doubts about the survival of the little garlic cloves in 30 below zero temps up here, but the garlic did grow and came up this spring in full force.   I had posted photos of my lush garlic patch.  Well, now it is ready to harvest!   Again, the internet experts say that garlic is ready to harvest when at least the bottom 2 or 3 leaves are brown and many of the upper leaves are turning brown.   Here is what the garlic patch looked like this morning in the greenhouse:

The garlic looks ready to harvest - bottom leaves are brown and dead, and upper leaves are also turning brown. 

So I dug up a few plants to see what's what.  And yes!  It looks beautiful!

The harvested garlic.  The lower three plants are from commercial garlic, and the upper one is from a local grower.  Not sure of the variety, but it is bigger than the commercial stuff.  I only tried about 8 plants of commercially grown garlic, and planted 62 plants of the larger locally grown garlic cloves.

Here's a close up:

Four great looking heads of garlic! 

So I now can say I know how to grow garlic, and it will be something I grow every year.   I use a lot of garlic in my dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, spaghetti sauce, salsa, and also for every day cooking (zucchini sauteed in fresh garlic butter is fantastic!).    Now I need to let it "cure" for several weeks in a cool, dry place until the plants are really dry.   Then I will need to cut off the stem part, and trim the root part,  and store the garlic heads in mesh bags (I had neighbors and friends save me onion and other mesh bags just for this purpose.) I will also sell some of the garlic in our farmer's market booth.   I have a feeling that homegrown garlic will have a much fresher and better taste than the stuff a person can buy at the stores (and who knows where that comes from??)
     Anyway, my big garlic experiment was a huge success!!  Now I need to save some cloves to replant this fall.