Living in Season

Loving that Squash!

Samuel is a pumpkin nut. Since the pumpkins ripened he's been hauling one around the house setting it on the table, and even taking it to bed! I thought he would really get into carving this year, and I was right. The boy was right in there scooping out the guts. He loved carving the face on the front, and was thrilled when I lit the candle inside. Fire and a pumpkin? Jackpot!

I'm a fan of the squash, too, although I don't go as far as taking one to bed. I roasted the seeds from the pumpkins we carved, as well as cooked a few of the pie pumpkins I grew in the garden. They smell fabulous roasting in the oven, and it's so handy to have pumpkin puree on hand for mufins and cakes. Cooking a pumpkin, or any squash, is very simple. Cut it in half or quarters, depending on the size, clean out any seeds, and bake in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. I turn off the oven once the time is up,then let it cool before scooping out the meat. I typically measure it out into 2 to 4 cup amounts so I'm ready to grab one and bake.

So far we have a half dozen packages of pumpkin, plus about eight bags of butternut squash. The butternut grew in my plot at the River City Harvest community garden. It was nice to have a space where I didn't have to worry about the plants spreading out, and the squash did well. I like to use the butternut for a butternut/chicken soup (with kale), and would like to try a pasta with a butternut squash filling. At least now that it's in the freezer, I have it on hand to experiment this winter.

H1N1 hits home

I knew as soon as Grant had a tickle in his nose that we were in for it. Even though he's been diligent washing his hands and using Purell, it was hard for him to avoid it when co-workers came into work while ill. (Yes, having a Masters degree doesn't automatically mean there's a lick of common sense.)

The first part of last week I was preparing - cleaning, catching up on laundry, stocking up on food and medicine - waiting for one of us to go down. John, the poor baby, was the first to feel poorly. Grant was electrofishing at night on Wednesday, and John developed a fever in the middle of the night. Thursday evening, I called the Dr. after he threw up. She said it was most likely the H1N1 virus since it's running rampant through the community.  The pediatrician recommended giving him a dose of Tylenol and a dose of Motrin at the same time to break the fever and make him feel a little better. I didn't know you could do this - she said the Tylenol is processed through the liver and the Motrin through the kidneys so it won't overdose him, but not to do it all of the time. It did the trick. He slept pretty well.

Sam woke up Friday with a low fever in the middle of the night, but it didn't slow him down much. Saturday was a different story. He came out of bed in the morning burning up. His fever was 104.2. I immediately gave him the Tylenol/Motrin combo, and we put him in the tub. Grant had to hold his head up because he was so wiped out. Thankfully, the fever broke within an hour. He was pretty pooped the rest of the day, but never had such a high fever. By Sunday he was much better, and Monday was back to his busy self.

The last bit of drama was on Sunday when I took John into the immediate care clinic because I was concerned about dehydration. He wouldn't eat. He was so congested that it was hard for him to nurse, but he wouldn't even take milk through a dropper. The Dr. said he was slightly dehydrated, and showed me how to really get the boogs out with the aspirator. I had been cleaning out his nose, but obviously didn't get up in there quite enough! So, between the saline solution, aspirator and continued boiling water on the stove, he gradually cleared up to where he could nurse. Finally, on Tuesday his fever went away for good.

It's been a heck of a week, but I'm happy the boys are on the mend. I'm also very grateful I didn't catch it. I have no idea why since I'm chronically sleep deprived and running on fumes, except for the supplements that I call my voodoo meds. (I was ready to sacrifice a chicken, if necessary!)

My naturopathic doctor friend, Deb Oleynik, recommended a product called Oscillococcinum. It's a homeopathic remedy commonly used in Europe, and I picked up a couple of boxes at Smith's grocery store. I gave some to Sam, but think I might have been too late in starting it. I took it for three days. While I had a screaming headache and occasional chills, if that was it for me, I'm happy! By the third day, I felt fine. Exhausted from staying up with sick kids, but otherwise fine. I'm going to buy another box to have on hand, plus I"m continuing to take the elderberry extract and vitamins, including increased amounts of Vitamin D. I truly hope this is it for being sick this year, but I'm ready in case it isn't!

Digging into our roots.

John was fussy this week. Every time I set him down he cried, making work (which involves being able to think coherently and type with both hands... kind of like walking and chewing bubblegum) pretty much out of the question. At one point I sat down to check email, and saw the ad for Ancestry.com. They have a 14 day free trial, so I thought I'd see what I could find. Several hours later I found out I am obsessed!

I had a fair amount of information from what my stepmom, Maggi, gave me over the years so there were quite a number of "hints" - census records, military registrars, social security applications - right out of the gate. Many of these gave information on parents and children that we didn't have, as well as more interesting details such as addresses and even eye color. For example, the draft card for my great-grandfather, Robert Morris Hinman, came up. Their address was 75 Merriman Rd. in Akron, Ohio; he worked as a foreman at the Akron Foundry; his eyes were blue and he was tall. My brother has blue eyes while mine are dark brown, so it's interesting to see where it originated.

But the Hinman/Weeks (my grandmother's side) goes even further back. The Hinmans go back to the 1600's, and were some of the thousands of Puritans that came over shortly after this land was being settled landing in Plymouth, Mass.. There's a book by a Royal Richard Hinman listing the colonists, and I'm going to try to find it. (On an interesting side note, our second son's middle name is Royal for Royal Caulfield in Grant's family. Little did I know we had a Royal Hinman,too.)

The Weeks' lineage traces back to England, but what intrigues me even more is a Matthias Weeks in New Hampshire who signed a letter pledging life and fortune to fight the British armies. He signed it, but two of his brothers signed a different document saying they oppose the British, but wouldn't fight. A fourth brother refused to sign either. Once again, I can see similar family traits - all the family groans if my brother and I discuss politics, religion, actually pretty much anything in life. (Except the "Simpsons" - we both crack up.)

When the Weeks family came to Ohio in the early 1800's, three of the brothers, including Leavitt who is a great-great grandfather, formed the Weeks Brothers construction company and built most of the buildings in Wadsworth, Ohio before 1836. The Weeks also built many of the barns in the area. I can speculate that they're responsible for the barn on the family farm constructed in 1914, but I'm not certain. I remember Dad mentioning Grandma's family (Guy Larue Weeks) saved up $2500 for it. The timber was cut from the farm, but they still had to buy the slate for the roof. (These days $2500 would barely pay for two squares of slate on a roof!)

On the military front, two were in the Civil War. Asa Hinman and Harrison Weeks served in the Union Army. I know there's a monument in Sharon Center, Ohio with Asa's name on it. And we have paperwork from Harrison Weeks, as well as his canteen from the war. I even have a Confederate bill in one of my scrapbook from when I was little. I can't remember if Dad or Grandma gave it to me. I definitely need to dig into the details on both of these.

I'm stuck on the Hinman Tree at Thomas Bridge, the father of Mary Louise (Bridge) Weeks who was my great-grandmother. I know he was a member of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners in 1867, but can't find out where he was born or who he married. I'm sure with more digging something will come up, and undoubtedly this will be a good winter project.

Since I was on a roll this week, I asked my mom about my grandfather's parents. I know my sister lives in the house of my great-grandmother's brother, but didn't even know their names. When I did a "Google" search on Eva Schuckert in Copley,Ohio an entire website came up with pertinent details on the family, including pictures. I remember seeing Granny Emery once when I was little. She was a tiny woman with her hair in a bun. It's hard to believe she had 16 children! And I think all of them lived to adulthood.

I also didn't know my grandfather's father came over from Hungary around 1911. Their name changed from Imbrea to Emery, and they established themselves in Summit County, Ohio. My great-grandfather, Demetrius (Dan) Emery worked for Goodyear briefly, but was a farmer most of his life. Grandpa Bud, Wilbur C. Emery, did everything from farm to own Copley Sparkle Market (with his brother, Paul), the bowling alley in Copley, and built homes in Florida. It's interesting to see the "Emery" features we recognize all the way back to Demetrius. Emery's can be stern looking, and are notorious work-a-holics. Work is fun, and fun is work. Unfortunately, another common theme with the Emery's is Alzheimer's. Demetrius spent a number of years in a nursing home with it, and so far 4 out of 16 of the kids had or have it.

This is definitely going to be an enjoyable process. I love discovering the lost pieces of information about our families. My sister, Leigh, laughs at me, but thankfully, Maggi shares my enthusiasm, and we're planning on a day to explore cemeteries the next time I'm back visiting. That's what I call a good time!

How to replace the fuel pump in a 1999 GMC Sierra

I knew we were living on borrowed time. GMC pickups made in the late '90's to early 2000's are notorious for having their fuel pumps puke out around 70-90 thousand miles. My faithful black truck has 213,000 so we knew it was inevitable. Last week it sputtered and stopped in Loma when Grant was coming home. It cost $200 to haul the truck back to town, but at least he wasn't stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

Replacing the fuel pump on these models isn't exactly a quick fix, but Grant wasn't concerned (this is the man who put power brakes and steering in Frankentruck, and finds it no big deal to replace an engine). The only problem is he had to remove the bed of the truck to reach the fuel tank. (Way to think it out GM engineers!) A friend came over to give us a hand, but it was still a goat rope. Our dog was barking at the neighbor's dog, Sam was standing right behind the , and I fell backwards on top of a straw bale as I held up my end. Sam's crying, I'm yelling at him to stay out of the way so he wouldn't be hurt, and the truck bed is resting on my leg. I still have a bruise.

Once we got it off, it went smoothly for Grant. He pulled out the old pump, rewired the harness and set in the new one. His brother and nephew came by the next day to help put the bed back on. Even with the $200 tow bill and $320 for the new fuel pump, it still saved us at least $500. The black truck is back in business.

Boy, do I have a mess on my hands!

Sound the trumpets, we're finally above freezing. Actually, with balmy 60 degree temperatures it feels like spring. Too bad my garden looks awful. Normally, I can gradually tend to the fall clean up, this year everything needs to come out fast because who knows when the deep freeze will hit again.

What's worse, is it's one of the few garden chores I hate. Actually, cleaning in general annoys me. Being of the "hooshel" type - one who can do a tremendous amount in a short period of time - cleaning just slows me down. Where's the progress? This trait isn't manifested on in the garden. Take a look at my office, or follow me in the kitchen. Actually, my dream is to have someone shadow me cleaning up behind me. My mother did it years ago when I was a cook at the Izaak Walton Inn in Essex. I trashed the place as I made breakfast, lunch, breads and desserts, and she took care of the disaster. It was lovely. Too bad she couldn't stay the entire summer.

So, it's tempting, especially for me, to leave it until next year, but that's a sure recipe for trouble. My friend, Jodi Torpey, talked about the importance of garden clean up on her site, westerngardeners.com. She made a good point about the need to especially remove plants affected by a virus or disease. Powdery mildew is pretty common already, and no one needs to help it along for next year.

I talked about cleaning up the garden to get a jump on next season's potential pests on PlantersPlacea few weeks ago. Although some of the nasties, like grubs, will burrow deep into the soil, others are happy in garden debris. Tomato hornworms and cutworms can hang out in a cozy pile and make it through the winter. The less I have to battle these critters, the better so I need to be diligent about removing the large piles of spent tomatoes, squash and sunflower stalks I gather when I'm tearing out everything.

The high point in garden clean up is the bonfire. I don't have a large enough compost bin at home (yet) to take care of this amount of organic matter so the next best thing is to light it on fire. My friend's husband said when they start bonfires, they'll dump fuel on it then shoot a burning arrow at the pile. I love the idea! Very dramatic, and safety conscience. No singed eyebrows. Burning in Great Falls can be a challenge. We already had one neighbor require the assistance of the fire department, and I don't want to be the next topic of conversation. So, for now I'll make my piles, then on a snowy, calm day it'll be time to toast some marshmallows over burning tomato plants.

Making Mead - The Drink of the Gods

Are you one of the lucky ones who has a surplus of honey? A great way to use it is whipping up a batch of mead, a quirky high octane adult beverage that is super simple to make. I have an article in he current issue of Mother Earth News, How to Make Mead from Honey, giving step by step instructions on how to do it.

Mead makers are  different kind of folk. We seem to like a challenge, and enjoy the varying results since different honey produces different flavors. And even though the drink is technically a wine, it's not one you can drink in a matter of months. Mead takes at least a year before it's palatable.  So you have to be patient if you're going to tackle this project, but for those who like a light tasting (usually), sweet, earthy beverage with a kick it's defnitely worth the wait.

Two Little Monkeys Sitting in the Crib

When Sam was John's age he wanted nothing to do with the crib. Now it's all fun and games! I never thought I would have to put the side up to (hopefully) keep the toddler out, instead of the baby in it.

Early snowstorm puts a damper on the garden and electrofishing

I've been in Montana nearly 20 years, and I can't remember a winter storm quite this early.This includes the 7 years I lived in Coram (a.k.a. the land of perpetual winter) outside of West Glacier. We went from ninety degrees a couple of weeks ago to 2 inches of snow and temperatures in the twenties.

Yesterday's storm shut down the unprotected parts of the garden. The basil in the cold frame is gone, but some of it is still alive underneath the floating row cover in the greenhouse. The cabbage and other hardy ones are doing fine in the cold frame and greenhouse. Even though we had a nice burst of warm weather in September, I'm not ready to throw in the towel when it comes to the garden. We'll see how long I can push some of the cabbage and greens into the winter.

Grant wasn't thrilled about the change in weather, either. The first part of this week was the marking run in the annual rainbow trout population estimates on the Missouri River. The crews go out from sun down to sun up electrofishing. It's a few days of hard work each spring and fall, but Fish, Wildlife and Parks has been collecting this data for thirty years so it's an important project.

Electrofishing is an interesting technique. I've always been warned about mixing electricity and water, but for decades biologists used it to gather fish on a grand scale. In the simplest terms, they send a current through the water, and the fish caught inside the zone are practically immobilized. The biologists and unwitting volunteers (who often think it sounds more fun than it actually is) net them to bring them into the boat to measure, mark and weigh before releasing them back into the river. Two weeks from now they'll shock the same sections of river, and will count the number of marked fish they recapture. With this data Grant will calculate the population to make sure there aren't severe fluctuations that may flag a problem.

Although the electrofishing works wonderfully, it's not without its hazards. It is powerful enough to harm - such as burns or broken bones through extreme muscle contractions - or even kill fish making it important to have knowledgeable operators. The process isn't easy on the people doing it, either, particularly when it's cold and snowing... and anyone who's visited this area knows the wind can make thing miserable even in better conditions. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as the original forecast called for, and they marked over 1500 fish.

One of the nicest catches was this 30.5 inch/ 12.9 lbs. walleye caught in the electrical field. Grant said many times they can see these big boys beneath them, but they aren't often captured during these runs. It's pretty impressive to see what's out there, especially when they're as nice as this one.

Honey Harvesting Time

The honey is in for the season, and it was far short of a bumper crop. Grant pulled off seven partially filled supers last week, and took a few hours to spin out roughly 100 pounds of honey. It's a far cry from last year when he struggled in October and November spinning out over 700 pounds from 23 very cold supers. There's always next year.

Harvesting honey starts in the early summer. When the nectar flow begins, Grant places the supers, the smaller boxes seen on stacks of hives, to collect the surplus honey from the hard working bees. During out best year in Kalispell, the bees filled a super - about 30 pounds of honey - in a single day. Keep in mind, this is an 1/8 of a teaspoon at a time. One hive produced 270 pounds during the summer. That's a lot of bee spit.

The bees dehydrate the honey to approximately 16% moisture level, then will cap it with a thin layer of beeswax. This end product will keep almost indefinitely. In the late summer or fall, once most of the honey is capped, Grant removes the supers. and blows the bees off with the Shop Vac. Any stragglers are sucked up at home so they don't end up in the honey.

When he brings the supers home, he scrapes the cappings off of the top of the honey to allow it to flow with a fork like tool. Some people use a heated knife to remove the capping from the frames, but we've found this takes away much of the honey, too. (The cappings wax will be fed back to the bees, and they'll clean up every bit of honey mixed in with it.)

The honey extractor is a long stainless steel tub with a motor that rapidly spins the inside arms. Grant places four frames vertically in the extractor, turns on the motor and hangs on. The honey is forced out of the frames and drains to the bottom. Once one side of the frames is clean, Grant turns them over and does the other side. Obviously, the process goes much smoother when it's warm outside, which is was this year making a short crop spin out even faster.

As the extractor fills, he pours the honey into five gallon buckets. There's still a considerable amount of beeswax and some bee parts in the honey so he'll filter it through cheesecloth before selling any. The "wet" supers - the ones that are recently drained of honey - are put back on the hives for a few days for the bees to clean up. They'll move any drops of honey left in the frames down to the main hives to add to their winter stores. We leave them 30 pounds of honey to make it through the winter, and keep an eye on them in case they need extra early in the spring... just before everything starts again.

Putting Food By

'Tis the season to pack food away like a squirrel.  There is a big pot of applesauce bubbling away on the stove making the house smell heavenly. I'm using the Macintosh apples my friend, LeAna, brought when she visited last weekend cooking them down with the skins still on. I'll put them through the strainer before processing the pints in the hot water bath. Samuel's a big fan of the sauce, and now that John is starting solid foods, I'm sure it won't last long in the pantry.

A couple of weeks ago I turned 50+lbs of tomatoes into 13 quarts of sauce, and froze about 32 cups of fresh corn. This season I used the 'Martino's Romas' from Seeds of Change. They're a good choice. They produced nice sized fruit that cooked down well. I'm assuming it tastes good (once again - not a good person to judge a tomato). I added 1/2 tsp of citric acid per quart to ensure adequate acidity, and processed the quarts in a hot water bath for 20 minutes. They all look great. We'll use these primarily for a marinara either for spaghetti, cabbage rolls or the Greek chicken. I still have some of the 'Stupice' tomatoes frozen from last year, but need to do an inventory in the next couple of days to see if I should freeze additional ones before I can another batch. If so, I'll freeze them whole without blanching or peeling.

I planted 'Ambrosia' sweet corn on the recommendation of Marcia Bundi at Bundi Gardens here in Great Falls, and I'll plant it again. Even for an Ohio born corn snob, it was tasty. I was concerned it would be a litle tough since we were gone when it first began to ripen, but it held up well. Six "hills" had roughly 4 dozen ears, and I didn't notice any difference in production between the ones I de-suckered and the ones I didn't. I'm very happy to have our corn on hand. It beats store bought frozen corn hands-down!

This is such a nice time of year when the freezer and pantry are filled to the doors. It definitely gives me a little sense of security - like the hard-working ants in the children's fable - as well as a delicious reminder of summer.

Love Gone Bad - Urban Elk in Banff, Alberta

'Tis the season when bulls' hearts make them lose their senses. Their all consuming passion is rounding up the girls and fighting off any perceived opponents. Most of the time they keep their battles within their ranks, but under certain circumstances it evolves into a greater problem. 'Urban Elk' was the first program I worked on for National Geographic 'Explorer' when the town of Banff's resident elk turned from friendly neighbors to aggressive bullies.

Without question, it was my favorite program partly because nothing died (most films I worked on involved a carcass), and the whole situation was actually pretty funny. During the rut, the bulls lost their minds and chased anything that looked at them wrong. This included old women or Japanese tourists. In some years people were gored or cut, so the bulls were serious.

The first day of filming a woman was trying to take the picture of a bull in front of the hospital, which I thought was very appropriate. When the bull charged her she held out her hands in an "I mean no harm" manner. Well, the bull did. She managed to get out of there so there was no money shot.

I messed up another situation when I couldn't bear to watch an old woman be gored. We were at Turtle Mountain Campground where a particularly testy bull was set off by the squeaking of the door on the women's restroom. Everytime someone came out, he went after them. He was parked on the lawn outside the door when an Eastern European "Nana" type lady came shuffling out. As soon as that door squeaked, he was up and coming at her. She never noticed him. I couldn't help myself and yelled. That stopped him for a moment, then he went around a tree to come at her again as she slowly walked down the sidewalk. I yelled and waved a second time. She barely glanced at me as she kept going, and obviously never realized her imminent danger. At this point, he came after me, but I was easily able to out maneuver him by running in between campers and cars.

The entire two weeks we filmed we like that. Every day was a new scenario usually where people were too dumb to know better. Other times it was just comical, such as watching the golfers at the Banff Springs Golf Course try to put around the herd. The bulls also did a number on the greens, which is something I talked about in this week's PlantersPlace blog. Anytime I'm frustrated with the deer nibbling the apple trees, I need to remember the damage the elk did in Banff!