What you see here are the remains of an orchard.

An orchard I drive by often, on the grounds of an empty house. Last year, on my drives, I watched as the trees blossomed in billows of white that sent apple-blossom fragrance through the car, watches as the apples ripened, fell unused to the ground, or clung to the branches after the leaves were gone, shrivelling as they froze. I thought a couple times of trying to track down someone who might be able to give me permission to gather and use the apples, as they were likely unsprayed, in their abandoned state.

Now, as winter draws to a close, the grounds of the house are filled with bulldozers. Other large trees on the property have been felled and bulldozed into piles, likely for burning at some point. I looked at the orchard with a sinking feeling in my stomach - surely they wouldn’t bulldoze it? Surely, someone would value a pretty, productive, beautifully laid out little orchard right in their backyard? Surely, a community would not bulldoze an asset that takes years to establish?

But no, the day came when on my drive by, the beautiful little apple trees had been hacked down to these trunk stumps. The stumps have sat like this for weeks now. They must be awaiting the bulldozer. The bulldozer sits quietly beside them. I wonder, why not just bulldoze them, then, and be done with it? Why leave it like a mockery to spring? Was it important to chop the tops off the trees before the buds begin to swell and look alive? Important to start the destruction before the blossoms break and create a reminder of what is being destroyed?

Someday, I am convinced, (some of) our decendants will look back on this time as we do upon historical times of misled thinking, and wonder at how it could have been so. How could a society condone bulldozing trees into piles to burn, rather than at least providing firewood to the community? How could they destroy a productive source of local fruit, then pay in so many ways to ship what they eat thousands of miles? How does this make sense? I am filled with sadness when I drive past this spot.

I wonder what they will name the subdivision. “Apple Acres”, perhaps.

Must have done something right with the eggplant seeds this year. I was feeling behind, off to a late start on the seeds I usually start in February. So I soaked the eggplant seeds for a day before planting them. Eggplants need warmth to grow quickly, so their seed trays are also parked on a seed heating mat, and located near the woodstove. It all seemed to make a difference: eggplant seeds that often take 2+weeks to germinate were up in a record 5-7 days!

We’re growing 4 varieties of eggplant: Japanese Long Pickling, Pingtung Long, Rosa Bianca, and Snowy. The Asian varieties are more reliable, earlier fruiting, and perhaps grow a little faster. Snowy is a white eggplant that was one of the few productive survivors of last year’s eggplant debacle. Rosa Bianca is a beautiful eggplant dream I chase…. supposedly requiring too long a season in this area to produce, but the fruit are so delicious and so beautiful that I will try until I have reason to give it up. Last year I ended up with only 3 specimens of Rosa Bianca fruit - but the circumstances were extreme! Hoping for better this year….

It was inevitable, following my reprehensible actions. Late last week I expressed dismay (? well, at least disbelief) that I had not once this winter shoveled our driveway. It was very shortly thereafter that the first inklings of the latest (last night’s) snowstorm started to hit the weather predictions. Then over the weekend I found opportunity again, and repeated my proclamation, thus sealing today’s “snow day” for schools all over the midwest, and adding another X inches of in the east and northeast today. To all who feel inconvenienced by my actions, I apologize. To those who get out and enjoy this snow, You’re Welcome!

I was up last night around 2am, helping Mandy get out the door and on the road, in the middle of the snowfall. Actually, near the end. We already had 8-10″ on the ground and only a couple more inches fell after that. It was beautiful outside, and the snow was perfect powder, light and fluffy… a joy to shovel, or even to sweep.

my winter friend Tippy

This morning though, it was worktime. After coffee and some early emails, I headed outside with water and feed for the chickens. First I shoveled out to the west flock (not so far) and shoveled out a circular path for them in their yard. Then I invited them out and sprinkled scratch grains all along the circular drive… half of them joined me. Changed water, collected eggs, added feed, chatted up the peeps (6 little ones, three months old, have their own little corral in the coop) and headed back to restock.

Tippy joined me then, stretching as he came out of the garage… the other cats (Caprica 6, Georgina and Sassy - our three polydactyls) had been across at the east flock last night, so I hadn’t expected to see anyone this morning here. Tippy rides my shoulder all winter long whenever he’s around, and he mewed to jump up.

As we trudged across to the east flock through the drifts (not quite knee high), I found I was following Tippy’s footpath. Obviously it was the footpath we use every day, but the 6″ of snow that had fallen since yesterday’s trip to close up the east flock and the blowing powder should have obliterated the path… but here it was, freshly marked by Tippyprints only partially reclaimed by the drifts.

Tippy's trackway, 10" powder

O Intrepid Cat! O Noisome Traveler! (I could say noisy, but sometimes this field cat is more noisome than noisy). After following his path, I could see that he went from the east coop barn overnight, over to the nearby garage, then back to the usual path and over to find me. He had leapt through the deepest snow in several places, but mostly trudged through the powder dragging his belly. I was proud of him then. He is a fine companion cat for the out of doors.

The chickens are all fine this morning. I used my boots to scuffle out a smaller circlepath for the east flock and scattered their scratch grains outside too. The roosters deigned to join the hens this morning, as seems their fair-weather prerogative. But everyone seemed happy. And I was too.

I keep thinking of joining the Dark Days Challenge, but don’t quite. We make locally produced food (much of it our own) a feature of most meals already, rather than a feature once a week. I think our general approach is to eat mostly local food, and most of that is grown by ourselves, or someone closeby we know. But our effort seems to be put into having a significant part of almost every meal be local… rather than having limited times of being completely local.

Brunch today: (A sub-average one for us actually - it’s rare not to have some kind of homegrown vegetable, either in an omolette, or a side of cabbage or brussels sprouts…)

Sourdough bread using the recipe from Jeff Hertzberg, published in Mother Earth News, and using local flour. Eggs produced here at home; quince jelly we made from quinces that grew here. Butter, salt&pepper, and coffee were not local. Milk in coffee from a local source.

It fascinates me to see how many people are photographing their food, and their cooking processes in the kitchen. I feel drawn to do the same thing. When you grow and cook your own food, there is such wholeness to it, such wonder in it. I think it shows what a rediscovery it is, to want to document it.

Sometimes our lives are quiet, like reading a local newspaper front to back without looking at the headlines, just reading about what happened to who, day after day.  And sometimes our lives are like headlines and more headlines with no time for details, no time for the articles, no time for who’s who, just go and go and go.

Slowly I’m moving toward a more quiet life, and I’d like to reflect that here on dragonwood.org.  I have succeeded to some extent… the snick! of firewood splitting isn’t so very loud after all.  Our headlines are smaller and more local, terrifically important to us, but hardly momentous. I’d like to think that the headlines of our lives are quieter but more important, messages that set a mood for a period of time, or reflect the mood around us for a season, for a phase we’re in, or just for a spell.

The photo banners at the top of the site are our headlines now, the headlines of our life together, of the seasons of Dragonwood. They tell of our doings or local happenings, or they tell of what surrounds us here, what captivates this moment in Dragonwood time.  Mandy carries her camera out and captures the action, or I pause with my little phone camera and capture a random moment… and a banner appears.

Autumnal Asparagus

Right now it’s late autumn (late because the leaves are mostly down, and mostly not raked up) and the brightest colors are mostly past.  But as we step out our back door toward the garden, on bright crisp afternoons, we are treated to a tiny pyre of bright yellow flames where the asparagus patch has caught fire.  The colors vary with the sun angle, from fiery yellow and gold to damp bedraggled yellow matter custard.  And it’s hard to catch it with the camera, hard for the camera or the eye to find focus and produce an image that shares its feeling.

But in this banner, I managed to catch not just the color of the lacy fronds, but there in the folds a single autumn leaf cradled in the fragile arms of this wondrous vegetable.  Suspended in time, representing this short season of Dragonwood, when quinces smell up the porch (and kitchen), and the last of the cider is being pressed, and the younger chickens and kittens are wondering about the chill in the air, this one browning leaf is kept from blowing away, kept in these thin woven arms, held for me.

Banners of our seasons, seasons of our lives, lives at Dragonwood, lived daily with eyes open wide.

Someone commented to me last night, “Well, so the garden is finished now, right? You’re not getting anything much out of it anymore?”

There is so much. We are so fortunate to still be pulling so much fresh food out of the garden for most meals. I guess, sometimes it’s hard to see beyond tomatoes, basil, potatoes, and zucchini, and recognize what’s still there when they’re gone.

So here’s what we’re still harvesting:

Brussels Sprouts… my favorite at this time of year. They are so good after a couple frosts, and just very lightly cooked until they are bright green. Dress with butter, some chopped chervil, parsley or dill, or balsamic vinegar.

Oh, the chervil, parsley and dill come from the garden still. And green onions. And thyme and sage.

Broccoli (little tiny florets “pre-cut”).

Celery. Beets.   Leeks…tons of leeks.  Radiccio.  Cabbage.  Carrots. Still have some potatoes to dig, just a few.

Parsnips and Rutabega. There are some Turnips there, but have been harvesting greens from them more than liking the roots.

Greens: (Our house salad mix is currently lettuce-free, as the voles ate ALL of several plantings of lettuce)…Mizuna, Chard, Kale of several types, Mustard greens, Arugula, Spinach, Beet greens

Corn salad is coming along, not ready quite yet.    Found a couple self-seeded Radishes.

There is still so much in the garden.

Friday the 13th:  We know now that we’ve been losing chickens this week.  About 10.  About one a day, since about when the leaves fell.  We’ve seen the hawk several times.  This morning I got up early and when it was light walked out in the morning mist.  The weeds and branches were softer in the fine rain, and didn’t cling to me so much as yesterday.  I found three spots, as though visiting shrines on a pilgrimage, where a sad soft cloud of feathers on the ground marked a chicken loss.  The cobwebs dripped teardrops when I brushed them.  And the complicated interwoven circle of life goes on.

Discovering membrillo has been a revelation.

Quince Paste - Membrillo

We found out about it when we were researching what to do with our quince harvest a couple years ago. Quinces are hard, tart, and astringent raw, but cooked they soften and sweeten, and when cooked down, they magically turn from dun yellow stuff to clear, rosy red.

Membrillo is quince paste. Think of some meeting of fruit leather, jelly beans, and apple butter. The flavor is mild and flowery, but in appearance, it looks like a slab of organ meat. The traditional way of serving it in Spain is sliced with manchego cheese as a snack. We do the same with it, but also love it tucked into a hot popover with butter, sliced on toast, or just by itself.

quince pieces and cores ready for cooking

see the pectin-rich goo around the seeds?

We made membrillo by starting with the quinces, washed, and cut up. Most recipes say get rid of the cores, but I noticed that the cores seem to have a huge amount of pectin in them, which I wanted. (Pectin makes things gel!) So I boiled the best cores in a little pan and added that water to the big pot.

The cut-up quinces go into a pan with a little water, and brought to a boil. They cook until the fruit is soft and can be mashed easily.

processed, ready for second cooking

Drain off excess water, add the little bit of water the cores cooked in, and run the fruit through a food processor until it is a smooth yellow applesauce-y consistency.

Now, according to most recipes, the sauce is measured, and an equal or nearly equal amount of sugar (by volume) is added. I sweeten it by taste instead, and usually end up using 1/2 to 2/3 the sugar recommended.

This all goes into a heavy-bottomed saucepan (pick one that reduces jams and jellies easily, without burning!). Now comes the part that requires a fair bit of patience. The sauce is cooked over medium-low heat, stirring often to nearly constantly, until it thickens, loses moisture, and turns into a lovely shade of merlot red. If you leave it to cook on its own, it will burn to the pan!! It will begin to move and bubble slowly like lava, with steam-holes bursting through, and throwing red bits around your stove, or up to your ceiling, if the heat is too high!

When it’s thickened about until you can swipe the spoon through it and see the bottom of the pan for a moment, or it’s starting to hold shapes you stir into it, it’s ready. Have ready some lightly buttered pans (or line with parchment paper and butter over it). Pour the sauce into the pans, to about an inch thick or less, and smooth the top. Leave this to cool undisturbed at room temperature, and surprise! It magically solidifies into a gel that slides easily out of the buttered pan, and can be cut into squares or wedges. (This year…we’re going to try cutting into small squares and chocolate-covering it…) Another bonus - a big batch can be made and stored in the fridge, well-wrapped, for literally months.

Cooked down and ready to pour

membrillo setting up

We are blessed with a quince tree in the back yard.

It blooms with beautiful white flowers in the spring, and by fall, if it’s a good year, the branches are weighed heavily by fuzzy yellow fruit.  This year was a great year for the quince tree!

We picked quinces a week or two ago on a rainy day when our raincoats exactly matched the color of the fruit.

Quinces are an intriguing fruit that looks like a combination between a yellow apple and a pear.  But if you bite into one raw, the high level of tannins make you feel like the insides of your cheeks are trying to adhere to your tongue!  They need to be cooked……next post!