The Mulberry Harvest
July 10, 2008
UPDATE: While she undoubtedly likes mulberries and tears up the blackberry bushes, our “bear” has cloven hoofs, to judge by the tracks across the garden this morning. Apparently one of the neighbour’s young Holsteins has a wanderlust, but manages to get back into the pasture by herself after each adventure.
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When we moved to Young’s Hill in 1968 I discovered an unusual little tree. In July it bore blackberries. Neither Mom nor Dad had any idea if they were edible, so I phoned my grandmother Florence, the family authority on mushrooms, and described the fruit. “They’re mulberries,” she said in her definite way. “They are fine to eat, but don’t keep well.”
They were indeed o.k. to eat, though not nearly as sweet and tasty as wild blackberries, my personal favourite. Still, the tree was loaded with the things, and Mom offered to make a mulberry pie if I would provide the fruit.
I pressed two white bed-sheets into service as nets to catch the berries when I shook the tree. This proved quite effective, though the sheets never saw another mattress after the ordeal. Personally I rather liked the tie-dyed effect the stains left: it was the sixties, after all.
The pie was quite a disappointment. The flavour was blandly acceptable, but soft, light-coloured seeds floated up in the filling and looked weird. I think we threw the rest of the first harvest out, and that was it for mulberries for the next decade or so.
By the late seventies I had discovered the delightful summer pastime of picking hand-to-mouth. I loved working my way through the patches of wild blackberries which grow on the property, but an occasional interval in the shade of the mulberry tree crept into my itinerary. My opinion of the fruit improved to where I added the following line to my repertoire: “The mulberry is nature’s way of telling you to relax and enjoy the fine summer day.”
Then a funny thing happened during the run-up to the plowing match: most of the mulberry saplings around the barns and fencerows mysteriously disappeared. Finally the various tree-smart volunteers admitted the pilfering and came out and asked if they could uproot some of the larger ones for planting elsewhere. We had lots of the things, so I saw no reason not to encourage others to enjoy the paradoxical fruit.
This year on the Net I discovered many recipes for the fruit, and more than a little interest in winemaking. Given the bumper crop of reds this year, I decided to call my vineyard-owning friend, Neil, to see if he had any interest in a harvest.
Neil arrived in the afternoon a day later. The morning’s fresh breeze had covered the ground with ripe fruit, but there were still quite a few berries on the trees. I had spent an hour with a trimmer clearing hay and undergrowth beneath the trees and unrolled a 40 by 60 foot tarp I found stored in the barn. We towed it into position with the golf cart and then discovered it very much wanted to become a kite. I parked the EZ-Go on the upwind end, and we wiggled the rest of the tarp under the southern half of the tree as far as the rail fence. This was harder to do than it sounds. Neil started to shake lower branches. I went for sticks which would reach the top.
There was plenty of ripe fruit on the tree, but the remaining berries had survived a stiff breeze that morning. The fruit fell somewhat willingly, and not in the volume I would have expected. Unripe berries, small branches, leaves and bark also found their way to the tarp, but Neil scooped most of it up into five-gallon pails until we both got sick of the process after the second tree. Away he went with his mulberries to see if he can make a wine as delectable as what his father produced years ago in England.
We stayed away from the third tree with the sweetest fruit because 1) it’s growing in a patch of poison ivy, and 2) the raccoons had had quite a party there the night before, and the area under the tree was a mess 3) something had killed one of the raccoons near there, and had made some very large holes in the underbrush surrounding the tree.
Having had quite enough of mulberries for a few days, I gratefully went back to blackberry-foraging, only to find more large holes in the undergrowth around the best of the bushes. Whatever it is likes to pick blackberries from inside the thicket. Ulp. I guess a raccoon on stilts or a stray hog would be out of the question…
Maybe I’ll get a siren for the golf cart to let it know I’m coming.
Canada Day on the Rideau
July 1, 2008
There may be a slight upside for bass fishermen to skyrocketing gas prices. I find generally that shorelines exposed to boat wakes do not hold bass. Noting the absence of cruiser traffic today, I tried some tempting overhanging trees which have never produced for me before because of heavy traffic. To my surprise the fishing was good.
Nobody will regret the passing and possible extinction of personal watercraft (known locally as lake lice). I overheard a guy recently say that a friend of his had gone ballistic when he settled his tab at the marina. His two kids had managed to run over $1000 worth of fuel through one in a couple of weeks.
With an American guest aboard it wasn’t hard to do the proud Canuck bit on the balmy day amid the beautiful islands of Newboro Lake. Everything is fresh, green and vibrant, and it’s a great time to be alive in this country.
Old Eights: in touch and intact after 45 years
June 15, 2008
On November 22, 1963, Principal Beulah Knapp signed six documents which created the Old Eights. Others will no doubt recall the date as that of the Kennedy assassination, but for Jackalyn Brady, Rod Croskery, James Forrester, Nancy Jane Genge, Donald Goodfellow and David Roberts, receipt of that Westport Public School graduation diploma granted admission to a most exclusive club, and we members have grown to appreciate its distinction.
Jackalyn and your scribe retired from teaching careers with the Upper Canada Board of Education. Jackie then joined the Westport Town Council, while I contented myself with the renovation of a stone house, acres of little trees, and miscellaneous scribbles.
Don retired from the Lupin Mine in Northwest Territories where he had worked as a maintenance planner for Echo Bay Mines – would you believe he commuted from Westport throughout his career? He told me once their schedule involved two weeks on, two weeks off, and workers were flown to Edmonton for their leave. Don found that for a bit more per trip he could switch for a ticket to Ottawa, so he came home instead. Apparently his co-workers used to commute from as far away as Newfoundland and Cape Breton.
Following the publication of the carefully-researched In the Shadow of Detroit: Gordon M. McGregor, Ford of Canada, and Motoropolis, David retired two years ago from his position as an editor of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography at the University of Toronto.
Jim’s currently Head of Library Systems & Technical Services at the Ontario College of Art. Nancy Jane is a veteran operating room nurse at Hotel Dieu and the Kingston General Hospital. Both admit that they are on the glide path to retirement, hoping for a smooth landing when they touch down. I don’t know if our comments at Saturday’s dinner will be of much help in this regard. The concept of the glide path seemed to bring out the black humour in everyone, but they can count on our support: we’ve been through it.
Jim, Stephanie, and elder daughter Corin hosted this year’s annual lunch at the family home on the shore of the Otonabee River in Lakefield. In this sumptuous location we gathered to exercise our digital cameras, accost passers-by from our chairs on the lawn, swap yarns, look at albums, and generally renew acquaintances.
Once we got past the inevitable animal stories, banter moved on to the Forrester family’s propensity to save everything in albums. An old photo of Chick Garvin’s service station reminded me of the time Johnny Bennett touched off some fumes in the tank of my dad’s pickup truck and blew himself out of the grease pit and through the doors of the garage. As I recall (Don confirmed it) Johnny wasn’t seriously hurt in the blast, though the truck needed a new gas tank and the garage doors never recovered.
In a group rant we discovered that automated phone messages have reached a new level of aggravation. Dave reported that a Rexall pharmacy in Scarborough has set up an automatic system which calls clients each day to remind them to take their pills. This produced no end of variations: “Good evening, Mr. Croskery. You have five days to live unless you renew your prescription. Please press (1) if you would like to order more pills, or press (2) to speak to a funeral director for alternate arrangements.”
Jackie and David swapped gambling stories on cruises. Apparently both succumbed to peer pressure and made a bet or two. Jackie turned her winnings into a bottle of champagne, and on another cruise David took his $112 in Bingo profits and ran back to the railing to watch the islands rise from the sea as they cruised the Patagonian coast line.
Jim and Stephanie wheeled out some fresh photos of Newfoundland fjords. Just back from visits to New Zealand and Alberta, Corin’s passionate concern about pollution in the Alberta Tar Sands project bumped up against local concerns about uranium mining and the current environmental initiative in New Zealand to reduce greenhouse gas production from flatulent sheep. The fun of retirement is that none of us, except possibly Corin, has any need to resolve such problems over dinner.
Now that she and her dad are at the cottage while her kids renovate the house in Kingston, Nancy Jane is free to enjoy her long daily swims in the pleasant waters of the Little Rideau instead of Lake Ontario.
As an enthusiastic member of the Westport Arts Council, Jackie made sure I warned readers to set aside time for Music Westport, on August 16th. Stages at Foley House, The Cove, and the lawn of Doctor Stevens’s house will feature a variety of blues, jazz and folk artists, with The Abrams Family headlining.
Stephanie and Corin Ford Forrester have a busy summer ahead with a variety of shows of their artwork. You may catch up with their schedules at http://www.stephaniefordforrester.ca (art quilts) and www.corinfordforrester.com (photos).
Amid all of this erudite conversation, this year we actually produced a resolution:
We, the above-named, hereby claim to be the largest “Old Eight” group in existence. We’re happy to make this claim if it brings forth any other graduating classes who have kept in touch.
If you are out there, intact and in contact, please post a comment below this article at https://rodcroskery.wordpress.com
As this is the forty-fifth anniversary of our graduation, we feel quite smug in our assurance that we’re the oldest and/or the largest intact grade-eight-graduation group around, but we look forward to hearing from other interesting associations which have stood the test of time.
A note on walnut sprouts
June 12, 2008
Note to visitors:
The actual purpose of this blog is to disseminate information about the culture of black walnuts, so please feel free to ask questions by entering comments in the space below each article. I’m no expert, but Neil Thomas is, and we have access to the library and the many years of experience of the Northern Nutgrowers Association, as well.
Rod
Neil
May 14th the new seedlings started popping up. They are still at it in the new field. Some of the early ones lost some leaves to a late frost, as did the new plantings of resistant butternut, but all have recovered from the setback.
I checked your earlier response in which you indicated that normal sprouting time is early to mid-June. I’m wondering if the early risers are from cracked nuts from last fall’s runs through the huller before the tolerances were set correctly. I tried to sort the damaged nuts out, but it proved too time-consuming, so I just dropped them into the ground along with the others.
Almost none showed signs of mould, most likely due to my use of toxic levels of potassium metabisulfide. To check for the viability of cracked nuts, I guess the only thing would be to dig up the seeds in a non-producing hill and see if they are 1) cracked and spoiled or 2) intact and goofing off, waiting for next year or 3) intact and slow to sprout.
After the Eureka! moment, of course, one must stop to ponder the potential value of early-sprouting nuts.
Much growth this week with the heavy rains and warm weather.
Rod
Update: June 13, 2008
A drive over most of the new plantation showed that about 90% of the hills have one or two seedlings growing at the moment, though some are little red shoots and others are sizable plants which already dwarf the yearlings transplanted in early in the season to replace seeds stolen by squirrels. At this point I’d have to say that the fertility of the cracked kernels is no longer in question. How vital the sprouts turn out to be is another question.
As usual, the grays didn’t take many of the nuts far. About six feet from the hills, lots of volunteer seedlings are growing right where I need to mow.
The apple and pear trees in the orchard are loaded, as are two young walnut trees adjacent to them. The older trees nearer to the woodlot are less willing to commit this early. I had noticed that last year and concluded they were taking the year off, but they produced good, late crops.
Update: June 18, 2008
With the aid of Joseph Booth, a summer visitor, I filled the empty hills in the new field with transplanted sprouts from hills with an extra seedling. After a steady overnight rain the ground was nice and damp, so we took advantage of the weather and put in a total of three hours at the task. There are still many hills with double sprouts, but there are very few now without any.
Just wait: in another week I’ll be writing here complaining that I now have a lot of hills with three walnuts growing out of them. Some hills in the display field have up to five seedlings, after last year’s overplanting. My mayhem with the string trimmer had little long-term effect upon the extra seedlings, though it did reduce numbers somewhat for the display at the plowing match. Roundup or transplantation will take care of them eventually.
Anybody want a hundred or so seedlings for immediate transplant? They’re healthy little devils.
Update July 3, 2008:
The Roundup burn in the new plantation is now complete, and the seedlings have recovered from the minor setback. I sprayed a 3′ square around each seedling. Afterward, a few low-lying leaves grew black and spotted and the overall size and strength of the plants seemed to diminish for a week or so. They seemed less green and vibrant as the vegetation around them dwindled and died. Now they’re coming back with new growth, though, and looking stronger (though less pretty) than before. Some sprouts are still rising. In the whole field I don’t think I killed a single walnut, so my skill with the backpack sprayer seems to have improved.
To date only one of Joseph’s transplants has died: it was in the lowest point of the back field and it flooded out during heavy rains. The rest appear nearly as lively as the other seedlings near them.
Update August 4, 2008:
The new sprouts seem to have done their growing for this year, as few are showing much new growth even though they are receiving abundant rainfall. I suspect the plants are devoting their energy to root development, though, as at some point the seedlings develop the tap roots and become much more difficult to transplant. Last year in late August the seedlings responded to my watering efforts with new growth after a lull at this time of year, but then the crusted snow last winter broke most of the new stems off and they had to start again anyway.
The seeds planted in the fall of 2005 are growing very well this year, with the odd one exceeding six feet in height now. Perhaps because of the rapid growth, the branches are very brittle, and I have to mow very carefully around the larger plants lest I break their limbs.
The middle-aged walnut trees in and around the woodlot are now showing substantial nut development on most trees. As usual, I see no nuts on the butternuts.
Yesterday’s Tractors
June 9, 2008
June is the month of the tractor in Upper Canada. Wherever I look from our perch on Young’s Hill I see the machines methodically changing the colours of the landscape as their owners prepare for another season.
To mechanically-inclined individuals who have not grown up with them, tractors are platypi: strange creatures, interesting, but so unusual that they are hard to relate to.
My friend Tony hates my 1947 Massey Harris 30. He seems to expect it to run like his BMW. Though he handles ten tons of Sea Ray with its six hundred horsepower with ease, Tony had never driven off a hard road surface until I eventually made him take a tour around the farm in my dad’s Jeep.
Tony’s anxiety about the Massey stems partly from the angry growls the starter makes occasionally. The first time it happened he jumped back as if it had bitten him. He never forgave the machine. Perhaps sensing this unease, the Massey does its best to break down as soon as he comes onto the property.
My pal Tom, on the other hand, adores the 1960 Massey Ferguson 35. He regards it as a big step up from his hydraulic lawn tractor in Pennsylvania, and gets as much seat-time running the bush hog as his schedule allows. A wannabe tractor owner, he loves the ride, the sound, the power of the beast. In summer I get a lot of raspberries picked while watching Tom mow around endless rows of walnut seedlings.
I share his fondness for the 35. Other tractors I had looked at were too big. They intimidated me with their size because I had never been around the bigger ones before. The 35 was just right, though.
It replaced a 1951 Ferguson TEA 20 which my dad had bought late in life. I hated that tractor because it terrified me. Running a bush hog with it was such an adrenaline-pumping experience that I couldn’t wait to be rid of the thing. First gear is an indecently fast pace, and in order to keep enough power to run a mower through long grass, I had to rev it pretty high. Galloping over rough ground led to unpleasant surprises every time I discovered where Dad had removed a boulder from the pasture. In long grass I once hit a stump with a front wheel. The sprained wrist took me out of the first month of bass fishing and I never forgave the tractor.
No one had told me that a rotary mower becomes an immense fly wheel connected directly to the driving wheels on a Fergie. I learned that myself the day I fetched up on top of a boulder in the horse pasture. It took an eight-ton hydraulic jack to lift the tractor back off the rock, and I decided then and there that this thing was too dangerous to use for anything except pleasant tours down country lanes with a trailer on back.
As I learned about tractors what amazed me was how much everyone else in the community knew about them. Two of my students had delivered the 35 from Almonte on a float. They gave me an amusing rundown on the strengths and foibles of this very common model. Rob Foster told me that “Some of those old 35’s leak so much they practically change their own oil, but this one’s pretty clean and it starts well, so it should be fine.” Over the phone my teen-aged neighbour Joseph Gordon easily talked me through the installation of a manifold one Friday evening.
Then I discovered the ultimate taboo for the owner of a tractor: I ran out of diesel, on the coldest day of the year, in the driving lane of the road going up Young’s Hill. There I was, snowblower down, engine rapidly cooling, dead on the hill.
I hurried to Portland for more fuel, poured it in, and then discovered why you don’t let these things run out. It wouldn’t go. Peter Myers stopped, took one look and said, “What did you do that for? Fixing that’s a terrible job! You have to work the pump on one side, while loosening each injector on the other side until it goes.”
I further confessed to having let the smoke out of the starter just before he arrived. Starters apparently run on smoke, because once I had let it out, this one wouldn’t work any more. Peter drove over the hill to get his tractor for a tow away from the danger zone. As he attached the chain I asked if it would hurt to try chain-starting the tractor. He told me to put it in top gear, high range, and see how it went.
Peter’s gigantic John Deere had no trouble dragging the suddenly-little Massey Ferguson off the hill and in the driveway. I popped the clutch and it started, so I finished the snow removal, then took off the starter and received an expensive lesson in tractor economics at the rebuilder’s.
When the Massey 30 quits, I add gas, but I don’t touch the diesel tractor until I’m sure the tank is at least half full. Lesson learned.
NOTE: For access to an outstanding knowledge base, check yesterdaystractors.com
The Morel Hunt
May 27, 2008
The morel is the only North American relative of the European truffle, and mushroom hunters and lovers of fine food alike greatly revere this early-season treat. I stumbled upon a wonderful patch of them this week.
A few came off their stems easily with a pinch (mustn’t hurt the root or it will kill the plant) and I rushed home with a hat-full, fidgeted my way through dinner, and then returned to the patch equipped to harvest. Wow! Were there ever a lot of them!
Of course we ate the first few dozen, but then we had to figure out how to dry the rest. Plenty of advice was available on the Internet, but my electric fish smoker was impossible to control, and Bet’s fancy new gas stove doesn’t have the recommended pilot light. Nevertheless, the lamp and convection fan turned out to do a very good job dehydrating morels. Mom’s oven stayed full for two days, as well. We had a lot of morels to dry.
The trouble on the second day of the hunt was the letdown after the first. The return trip with an empty basket raised the question: do I move on to fresh turf or keep looking here?
The longer I hesitate and pick around the corners of yesterday’s harvest, the harder it is to move on to the unfamiliar. Then in my mind every crunch underfoot becomes, not a rotting twig, but a precious morel crushed under the leaf cover. What to do but look? Once this starts, almost inevitably I will spend the remainder of the day crawling around in the mud, looking under fallen leaves and brush.
I remember once reading that the way you tell a mushroom hunter from a brush pile is that if you wait long enough, you’ll see the hunter move. It’s not the tidiest of hobbies, but the joy of picking a morel out of the visual confusion of the forest floor is a lot like that moment when, as a child, I first found the cartoon dog in that complex drawing, Where’s Waldo?
There was one area containing at least three dozen morels I literally couldn’t get to. The undergrowth was too thick. It would take a chainsaw to get in there, and that would probably destroy the patch, or at least announce its presence to other hunters. I did manage to reach in with a digital camera and shoot some great pictures, though.
The next day It took me an hour and many scratches to crawl in and out, but yesterday’s fugitives made it into my basket. I also found a few in the long grass around the patch, but who knows how many more there are just over the next hill?
For the rest of the week, nothing. The morel season had suddenly burst upon me. They were everywhere, so abundant and fresh that I wondered if we could handle the sheer quantity of the harvest. We picked, we split and dried, sautéed and froze in a magnificent and aromatic frenzy, and then all of the sudden they were gone, and it’s as if they never were.
Like a bewildered man searching through fragments of memory to try and understand where it all went, I have worn a path back to the place of this magical bounty, but like the unearned beauty of youth, it’s gone.
the Walnut Diary 