LOVE AND LABOR

In my June 11, 2011 Blog Post, I showed the following photo of a tomato plant my dog had slashed, and I repaired with duct tape.

This photo is the plant today.

It has flourished, and produced many tomatoes.

I picked this two pound tomato from the Duct Tape Plant just a few days ago. When the season is over, and the plant finally gives up its well-earned life, I am going to dig beneath the soil to see exactly what happened at the site of the taping. What a will to produce, and what delicious tomatoes came from that.

On another note, a bit of a sidebar, Iris and I picked a bouquet of flowers the other day and came upon this 'Siamese twin' zinnia. We thought it quite unique.

And Labor Day did elicit some labor from me as I cleaned and cored 30 #s of tomatoes to roast into pizza sauce, which I then canned into 12 pints.

But we also had a great time on the Reserve with good friends. Hiking, picnicking, and hiking some more.

Gordon, Freddie and Olga on a beautiful trail.

For some reason this view reminded me of the views out west.

Gordon, Olga and me...nearing the end of our 3 hour hike. We were reluctant to end this magical day of exquisite views, good food, good friends and good exercise.

A view of the Kickapoo River from the trail.

Home to finish the labor (of love), my tomatoes.

A wonderful Labor Day spent not only with good friends, but with the bounty of my garden.

LET THE HARVEST BEGIN

Maintaining a vineyard, especially a two acre organic one, is work beyond description. However, come late August early September, all that changes. Yes, there is still 'work' to do, plenty of it, but the work now seems pure pleasure.

There is nothing quite like the harvest!

I have been testing the Brix (sugar content) of our grapes for about a week and a half. Each variety has its own Brix level for harvest, for example the Edelweiss, which we harvested this past Saturday was at 15. The Sabre Vois should be in the 20's as should the Bluebells, which are a table grape, and the St. Croix is best in the upper teens.

Last Monday Bob Starks, from Vernon Vineyards, came to look at our grapes in anticipation of buying them. He deemed them far ahead of his grapes, and said they were really beautiful. (Wow!! I thought, finally a perk!) He wanted them on Saturday.

So Friday was spent collecting and gathering buckets. (Per usual, I way over estimated how many we'd need.) Bright and early Saturday morning we were ready to take the empty buckets to the vineyard.

Using buckets keeps the juices which drain out and are lost in the traditional grape picking containers. (Like those 30 yellow ones up in our barn we bought years ago at the beginning of this venture.)

Freddie is ready!

Although this photo appears grainy, it really is not...it was so early and so foggy that it looked just like this. The dew was heavy, and my shirt soon weighed several pounds more as it soaked up the water.

And they truly are beautiful!

Edelweiss is a wine grape, but it once was considered a fine table grape, perhaps a relative of the white Concord.

We spent nearly four hours harvesting the Edelweiss and took off for to Vernon Vineyards.

Vernon Vineyards sits atop a lovely ridge, the Tasting Room surrounded by 10 acres of Bob Starks own grapes.

We delivered our grapes on Saturday where he placed them in a cooler. He invited us back the next morning to watch the first pressing of the season, with our grapes. He said coffee would be on. So, bright and early we found ourselves back at the winery...

where our grapes were loaded onto the scale...

and although I was hoping for close to 700#, I was happy with 432, after weight of buckets subtracted.

Initially the grapes are dumped into a machine called the De-stemmer...

which separates the pulp from the stems....

...and shoots the pulp/juice out a 3" pipe, ready to go into the crusher.

This machine presses the pulp and extracts the juice used for making wine...

at the end a large black rubber bladder is inflated and further presses the grapes to get all of the juice possible.

The juice, which turns a darker color at this point from oxidization is channeled into a waiting bucket...

where it is stirred. Some of the sugar is added at this point.

The juice ends up in this tank, where it is monitored for settlement, and awaits the next step in its journey to the wine bottle.

Another perk...Bob said he was paying us an additional 5 cents per pound because the quality of our grapes was so good. Now if only we had a ton of them!!

Honestly, I kind of felt like we were on some kind of vacation, it was so much fun.

We will probably spend next weekend harvesting our Sabre Vois, St. Croix, and Frontenac, which we will bring to Weggy's winery.

Our Bluebell crop, which appears to be the heaviest of all our grapes this year, is already sold and will be harvested by the people to whom we sold them. (Although I may not be able to resist grabbing my grape fork (device that severs the bunch from the vine) and assisting.

GLORIOUS SUMMER DAYS

On a recent weekend get-away Freddie had in mind to stop in Winona, MN to look at a used canoe he had heard about. So, on the way home we did just that. There are two canoe factories in Winona, and this gentleman sold used or 2nds made by the Winona company. The particular canoe we looked at (the last one, this man said he simply cannot keep canoes on hand, they sell so fast) had been loaned out to the Boy Scouts for a year and was being sold cheaply. We left there with a 'new' Wi-no-na canoe!

So last Sunday off we set for our maiden voyage, a short trek down the Kickapoo. We did this late in the day, as any earlier on a weekend on the Kickapoo it is bumper to bumper. We timed it just right and never saw nor heard another canoe, it was idyllic, quiet, and supremely lovely.

The laid back canoe master just meandering along....

The scenery along Kickapoo River is nothing short of stunning.

The sky was so blue and looking at it framed by the dead trees along the banks only accentuated both the trees and the blue.

The rocks and rock outcroppings are likely the loveliest in the US, if not the world.

Home to a fine dinner of fresh roasted tomato sauce over cheese ravioli...mmmm!

The next night it was a fresh picked broccoli frittata smothered with shredded Romano cheese and cut up tomatoes.

What a glorious season it is.

EVERYTHING'S A FLUTTER

Perhaps because of the 'landscape rubble' left behind from the construction of my workshop basement last summer, Freddie plowed about a 5' wide by 30' long swath right outside the workshop window. After harvesting 10 gallon bags of dried zinnia seeds last fall, I couldn't resist sowing that swath with lots and lots of those seeds. And to say it is a stunning view from this very window is to belittle it.

Right now it seems that those thousands of zinnias are themselves in some kind of orgasmic frenzy, but if one looks closely one will notice it isn't the zinnias that are in a frenzy, but the hundreds and hundreds of butterflies fluttering and fleeting in some kind of grateful ecstasy.

One can never, as far as I'm concerned have too many zinnias.

In talking with friends it seems everyone is being dazzled with the multitude of butterflies that are gracing our lives this summer. They are a blessing that never ceases to bring a smile to my face.

HOT SUMMER...COOL SALADS

Thank goodness for the greens, the ripening tomatoes, the crispy cucumbers, and the sweet onions. My garden is overflowing and during this exceptionally hot weather, what better than a cool salad for supper.

A Greek salad with tomatoes, feta, brined black olives, cucumbers, basil, and a drizzle of oil and vinegar.

...another not so different, but with the addition of cashews...

...fresh garden peas, left over chicken cutlet slices, and a homemade blue cheese dressing...

...and again...

...this time with a smoked turkey pannini with mayo and pesto....

This heat can't get the best of our meals.

FULLNESS

What a glorious morning! So much sun, just the right amount of heat, and limitless potential. On mornings like this, I feel an excitement that is difficult to articulate. It has to do with the fact that almost anything seems possible as I navigate this day and it unfolds its secrets.

My first stop was at one of the many large zinnia patches spread in various spots around the house and garden. They are in superb and profuse bloom now, and to see them in such splendor is to fill ones soul.

I have been collecting zinnia seeds from my plants in the fall of the year, October or November, for about 14 years now. Last year I collected 10 gallon bags full! I love zinnias. Their color is so intense and varied, and sometimes, on the same stalk there are flowers of different colors! Their shapes and sizes are beyond chronicling, and never cease to amaze me, and again I have found zinnias differently constituted on the same stalk.

Here are just a few:

I think I'd like to be the Johnny Appleseed of zinnias, and in the spring of the year, I give away bag after bag. I also like to give zinnia packets as part of birthday or special occasion gifts. There can't be enough zinnias in the world as far as I am concerned.

My second stop this morning was at my garden, which is a profusion of greens and bursting with produce.

This is what I harvested before 7 a.m.

Tried a new green bean dish tonight...it included some of the half bushel of delicious peaches which are fast disappearing.

and it was incredibly delicious and refreshing!!

Saute onion rings in olive oil, when golden add 1 # of snipped green/yellow beans, a bit of salt, 1 tsp. or more of snipped fresh rosemary, 1 clove garlic, minced, and cook until beans are just tender crisp. Add two to three sliced fresh peaches, and squeeze the juice from 1/2 fresh lime over all. Serve hot or cold. I refrigerated and served a few hours later, mmmmm.



My third stop was at the gooseberry bushes.

These are domestic gooseberries. When I lived in South Dakota, we owned a lovely home in town, but with a 3/4 acre ravine as a back yard. It was wonderful. The ravine, among other delights, had lots and lots of wild gooseberry bushes. I spent countless hours gathering the tiny berries.

These domestic berries are anything but tiny, and even eating one berry fills the mouth with pleasure.

Now the hitch in gathering and utilizing gooseberries is that there is a stem on one end and a dried blossom at the other end, and each has to be picked off. This is a time consuming task, but compared to doing this with the tiny wild berries, it is nothing.

Gooseberry jam is one of my two favorite jams, the other being currant.

On a day like today, I am overcome with gratitude to these plants, the earth, the elements, and all of nature. I feel the life in these plants and the forces they exert to become. I have a great reverence for this food, and for my garden. I cannot help but think of the countless people around the world who have little or nothing to eat, and wish there were truly some way to share my bounty with them.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF BLUE

I wanted to 'Pick Your Own' blueberries this year, but could not find the time to get over to the blueberry patch outside of Tomah. An Amish friend of ours brings in produce and sells it by the box, bushel, etc. I went there on Friday and bought 10 #'s of really good blueberries and a half bushel of peaches.

...a lovely dusky blue....

Picked through, washed and dried all 10 #'s when I got home. I froze most of them, but left enough out to have with yogurt and also to make a pie, which I did early this morning way before it was going to be 105 degrees with the heat index.

Hard to wait, but Freddie didn't succumb until mid-afternoon...


perhaps because of the extreme heat today, the pie still seemed warm...




and with some vanilla ice cream, he deemed it ...the best blueberry pie he'd ever eaten...

On another blue note, I went to Gramma's Attic (a twice per month jumble sale in an old building...and jumble is really a descriptive word for this place) yesterday and scored with.....

these brand new, Hand loomed brilliant blue and cream cotton napkins, at ten cents per. They are really lovely and I sure would like to replicate the weaving pattern. The colors are stunning, as well. I also got brand new beautiful place mats, four for a dollar. It is a real chore to weed through all of the items, but in this case, there they were, sitting right on top of the box waiting for me.

Now this is a blue that's easy to take.