Archive for the ‘life’ Category

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Caught by the undertoad*

December 11, 2011

The tide swept in and washed over me, leaving me bobbing in the surf occasionally making it to the surface for air.  It now seems to be receding a bit, leaving me enough oxygen to write a post, something long on my list, but un-accomplished.

Despite a series of rainy weekends, we’ve been enjoying the long mild fall, which was only briefly interrupted by 10 inches of snow over Thanksgiving.  Yes, 10 inches, all gone now, which is a good thing as we still have not finished all the outside chores!  Here’s what we’ve been doing, in no particular order.

I made a delicious batch of soup featuring garden veggies and the fall kale.  Yum.

We picked all the Brussels sprouts in the garden the day before the snow — we got over 4 lbs of sprouts, and had them for Thanksgiving dinner.

We put out the birdfeeders for the winter.  I think it is appreciated.

Had our first snow to shovel on November 23. Thanksgiving Day itself was warm and sunny.

We gave the girls a special treat on Thanksgiving Day. At first, they weren’t sure what to make of the funky-colored kale.

But they figured it out.

I love this garland, filled with bird ornaments.

Had the usual massive pre-holiday cleaning and decorating, just in time to host friends for brunch, and a week later, four of my students.  (Having hens makes brunch an excellent party option, don’t you think?)  I must mention that I am especially proud of the student volunteers from our campus volunteer center, who raised $10,000 in 30 days from the local homeless shelter’s building campaign.  They collected over 400 donations, most less than $25!  They also got a matching donation from our campus this week for their efforts to reduce dorm damage during that month, adding another $5,000 to the total for a total donation to the shelter of over $15,000.  Incredible.

Did some shopping for a new pair of boots after the cheap ones I got at Tractor Supply cracked in less than a year.  Considering I wear them for about 10 minutes a day most days to tend to the hens, I wasn’t pleased, grrr.  The new boots are genuine rubber wellies from LL. Bean. I hope they last.  I think they look especially stylish with my kitty pajamas.

Today’s project is to finish modifications to the hendome, which will now be known as the Winter Palace.  Stay tuned.

*Does anyone remember that expression from The World According to Garp?

Posted in life | 9 Comments »

Steve Jobs

October 6, 2011

Yesterday, the world lost a genius with Steve Jobs’ death.  He more than any other technology guru changed the way we communicate and connect with each other and our world.  At only 56, he was probably just reaching his peak, and who knows what we will miss out on with his death.  It is a sad day indeed.

Posted in life | 2 Comments »

A big adventure

September 26, 2011


As the gardening season is winding down, Dan and I are getting into planning for next summer’s garden.  It will look a lot different than this summer, because we will be absent gardeners.  We are planning a Big Adventure next year, a summer-long road trip across the US, sea to shining sea, looping through as many of the beautiful and interesting places we’ve dreamed about as we can in 6 weeks of travel.

This does not mean the end of Henbogle (although during our trip it will be on hiatus).  We plan on continuing with the usual Henbogle content and as we approach departure, posting about our efforts to plan and plant a vegetable garden which will thrive on a summer of neglect.

We are still in the beginning stages of planning, and this is where we hope our friends across the land will help out.  What are the magical, beautiful, quirky, interesting places we should see on this great American road trip?  The more we look at this atlas, the more difficult it is to plan!  The Bitterroot Range through Idaho, or the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier?  Bryce Canyon or Arches?  Hell’s Canyon or Angel Falls?  We are asking you good people to tell us where to go –the chance of a lifetime!  To make it easier to tell us exactly where to go, please visit our new blog, Every Day is A Winding Road, where we’ll be planning and mapping our big adventure.  If we happen to be traveling through your general area, we would love to plan a meet-up.  Thanks for your help in planning our adventure.  I REALLY hope you will join us!

Posted in life | 11 Comments »

Good reading ahead

September 23, 2011

Last fall, I contacted gardener/writer Henry Homeyer to invite him to speak to our Master Gardener class.  Unfortunately, Henry was on his way to France and couldn’t attend, but we had a nice conversation, and he asked if he could contact me again and possibly write about my garden in his column.  I said yes, and promptly forgot about it until a few weeks ago, Henry called me and we had a nice chat about gardens and gardening, and producing food in a small garden.

At the end of our thoroughly enjoyable chat, (which may result in Henbogle garden being featured in his column), Henry offered me a review copy of his new book.  As I’ve read his column in our local paper for years, and enjoyed his earlier book, Notes from the Garden: Reflections and Observations of an Organic Gardener, I jumped at the chance.

Henry promptly sent it out and it arrived the other day.  I haven’t had a chance to delve in, yet, but am looking forward to reading it and sharing my thoughts here on Henbogle.  Thanks, Henry!

Posted in friends, life, resources | 5 Comments »

Crisp over pie, Bittman? I don’t think so!

September 12, 2011

I enjoy reading Mark Bittman’s column in the NY Times, and I’ve learned a lot from Bittman, but he disses pie in favor of crisp in his most recent column, saying “It’s that pie crust adds little to a fruit dessert apart from heft and calories.”  WRONG!

First, don’t you know how to make a good crust yet?  A good pie crust sets the stage and allows the fruit to shine with a beautiful and delicious vehicle to carry it from plate to mouth.  Second, all that cinnamon, and oats and nuts in a crisp distracts from the fruit, the supposed star.  No star likes to be upstaged, especially by some nut.

And by the way, Bittman, cornstarch is a bad choice to thicken fruit desserts (or much of anything in my opinion).  First of all, it is too gloppy when it does thicken, (recalling the horrors of cafeteria desserts) and it doesn’t consistently thicken due to the varying acidity in fruit.  Tapioca is a much better choice, and flour is terrific in some pies, such as apple.  Harumphh.

Show me a streusel-topped crisp that is as mouth-wateringly appealing as any of these pies, and I’ll reconsider my stance.

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Posted in food, life | 15 Comments »

Seeing stars

September 4, 2011

Years ago, I went on a minor rant about form follows function, form being colanders than don’t drain well.  I was trying to replace an old classic aluminum colander which was not supposed to go in the dishwasher, but had, and was thus corroding.

Long story short, independently of one another my sisters-in-law came to my rescue, and a while later two very different yet highly functional new colanders showed up at my door.  Both are excellent, one is shiny stainless that hangs on the pot rack, the other is stored near the sink ready to use its adjustable handles to drain over the sink from the rim.  Life was good.

Still, I had hung on to my mother’s old colander, as a memento, and attempted to clean it as per Martha’s instructions, which worked pretty well.  I just loved the memories and that pretty star pattern.

Yesterday, Dan made my day when at an estate sale, he found my colander’s big sister.  I love him.

You can bet I’ll keep this one out of the dishwasher.  If I could find 3 identical small ones, I would use them to make pendant lights, wouldn’t that be cool over the kitchen counter?  Someday, maybe….

 

Posted in family, life | 4 Comments »

Post Irene clean-up

September 3, 2011

We began the cleanup of the big flowering crab branch that broke today, along with a lot of other Irene cleanup.  We cut the branch off above the crack, and started cutting it up.  We’ll use the wood in our woodstove or smoker.  We will eventually prune the broken branch back toward the trunk to facilitate wound healing.  We also will prune some other large branches back to reduce the likelihood of future damage and to balance out the tree’s form a bit.

Our neighbor to the west lost a large old maple tree in the storm.  You can make out the large trunk on the bottom left of the photo.  As we were working on the crab we realized that the loss of that tree will allow a lot more light to reach the shade garden in the afternoons.

Another tree that received some damage and will need to come down is the basswood tree seen in the below photo to the right of the bottle tree.  The basswood has been unhappy for a while, but now has a large vertical crack in the trunk and lost a few limbs.  It is unfortunate because it is uncommon, but the risk of damage if it blows down is too great.

The loss of that tree will also let more light reach this cool shady garden.  Although it is primarily planted with ferns, hosta and other shade lovers, I hope the sun won’t been too much for the plants.  We’ll see in a year or two what the impact will be.

No word yet on when he can look at the maple from our arborist.  I’m sure he’s busier than a one-armed paperhanger these days, but I am anxious to hear what he has to say about our lovely maple tree.

Dan and I also went through the veggie garden and cleaned up the toppled sunflowers.  The ones we could save, we tied to the garden fence, the rest we gave to the hens, who love the seed heads, immature  or not.

One of the cages I made for the pole beans blew over in the storm, pulling the majority of the beans out.  I picked the beans from the few living plants today, and will pull the remaining plants tomorrow.  I also picked the remaining Royal Burgundy bush beans, and pulled the plants which had been hammered by the wind and rain.  There were a few blossoms on the plants, but the plants were so flattened I didn’t think they would produce much.  The final hurricane-related garden task was to reinforce the stakes holding the peppers upright.  You can barely see it in the photo, but there is twine tied to the hoophouse roof holding some of the large plants upright.  I hope the plants produce some additional fruits before the frost, or at least ripen up the fruits currently on the plants.

Dan’s mom came for a visit today and we put her to work raking the small twigs and branches littering the lawn so that we can mow.  All that rain was good for something.

Posted in gardening, life, weather | 3 Comments »

Irene damage

August 29, 2011

I’m sure things could have been worse, and I know others suffered more, but we are very sad here at Henbogle with significant damage to two mature trees, our beloved sugar maple, and the magnificent flowering crab that blooms reliably and beautifully every spring.

The sugar maple is a very old tree, with several trunks grown together, as sugar maples are wont to do.  Years ago, we had a local arborist cable the maple tree, and he has pruned it since, to keep it healthy and happy.  Unfortunately, Irene caused a large crack in the trunk, leaving the section closest to our barn at risk of falling into the barn, and we fear it will have to come down.

The flowering crab lost a major branch.  This will probably just require removal of that limb, but it is certain evidence that the tree is in decline.  We will have that tree thoroughly pruned again as well, and hope for the best.

The rest of the garden and yard fared reasonably well.  There were lots of small branches down littering the lawn.  The flowers in the deck garden were pretty much flattened.  If they don’t respond to being propped up I can just cut them back.

The vegetable garden came through pretty well.  The hoophouse did just fine, with the exception of a couple of end wall sections covered in non-greenhouse plastic.  The plastic just disintegrated in the wind, no doubt brittle from the UV exposure.  I will just need to replace that with greenhouse plastic, or even recover with regular heavy weight poly.

The primary damage in the veggie garden resulted from the sunflowers collapsing on the broccoli and squash plants.  I hope once I remove the sunflowers, the other plants will rebound, time will tell.

The hens were cranky from their imprisonment, but once freed this morning, happy with the fallen sunflowers and various tomatoes that fell off the vines into beak reach.

Some of the peppers in the hoophouse toppled over, but I will stake them and hope for the best.  All told, the veggie garden came through remarkably well.  I would have gladly traded even the hoophouse if it would have spared damage to my two lovely trees.  The hoophouse can be replaced; those trees are priceless.

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Posted in gardening, hoophouse, life | 9 Comments »

Backyard drama: Snake vs. Toad

August 27, 2011

In the midst of scurrying about preparing for Hurricane Irene this afternoon, Dan and I were startled by a large garter snake crossing the back lawn.  A few minutes later, I saw a toad hopping oddly near the maple tree and went t look.  I called for Dan, and we arrived just as a large garter snake got the toad by one of its back legs.

It was very cool to see, and a vivid reminder that nature is cruel.  That poor toad was alive for at least 90% of the ordeal, and maybe all, and it took at about 70+ minutes.  The first photo I took was at 2:35, the last at 3:38.  Photos are in the album below, don’t look if you are squeamish.  I also shot a lot of video and will try and upload some of that later.

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Posted in birds/wildlife, environment, life | 5 Comments »

Poor little piggy

August 16, 2011

Owieeee!

 

I came darn close to breaking my little toe yesterday morning.  The kitchen stove tripped me.  We’ve got big doings happening at Henbogle this week, so this is slowing me down, but I’ll try and get my harvest Monday post up today, then a general update.

Posted in life | 5 Comments »

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