Christmas Bird

The last post explained our new display for wreaths and swags. While Denise and I were painting, Jim was inspired to make arms for the St. Nicks so they could hold the wreaths. My idea was simply to impale the Jolly Old Souls with nails for hanging the wreaths. I'm glad that Jim stopped that cruelty and got busy making arms for the Jolly Old Souls.

The wreaths and swags look wonderful on their new display. It's always great to see an idea become a reality.


And then, there's this guy :)

 

 

Jim found an abandoned bird's nest and placed it on one of the Santa's arms. Naturally he found a bird in my craft supplies to take residence in the nest. When I investigated, I discovered that our feathered friend was sitting on a golf ball. Is Jim hoping for a hybrid 'birdie'? A golf ball with feathers that assures a birdie for every hole? Or one that is good for badminton as well as golf?

 

One can only wonder....Jim's brain works in mysterious ways. And that's all I am going to say about that!

 

Marcheta *bye, bye Birdie!

'Tis the Season!

I love our seasonal lifestyle because it keeps life interesting and lively.

We enjoyed an extra-long autumn, setting up at farmers markets right up until the last week in October. We picked around 300 bushels of apples and had around 500 gallons of cider made.  *whew*...it was such work that the end of the season was bitter-sweet. I was glad to let go of the heavy work, but really missed seeing and visiting with market customers. And I especially miss our fellow vendors.

Now that we are recovered from apples, it is time to make Christmas greens. Our big, commercial orders are taken care of, and that's a good feeling for sure.
 
Here at the farm, we are in retail hours for Christmas trees and greens. All of our wreaths, swags, and grave blankets are made to order with our own, home-grown greens. I like to have a variety of greens in our wreaths...Blue Spruce for its strength...really the 'bones' of any structure. White pine adds soft, long-needle movement, Fraser Fir for fragrance, juniper for lovely texture and fragrance, and last, but not least, arborvitae for it's lovely, lacy texture. Making Christmas greens is a wonderful job, indeed, and I feel very fortunate to help people with their festivities.

This year, Jim brought home a picket fence that a landscape customer wanted removed. Jim pitched it on the burn pile. Lucky for me, I found it before a match was lit. I had big ideas for the fence.

Friend Denise came on board with my idea, and one sunny afternoon in late November, she came out to paint Santas on some of the pickets, while I worked on painting trees on other pickets.

Now our old, worn out looking barn is all "spruced" up, with evergreens and a new display created out of imagination and discarded items.

Stay tuned to this blog to see a fun development on our Santa Fence!

 

Marcheta *fa-la-la-la-la!

 

 

Retro Recipes...Nine Ideas for Apples

I love vintage magazines for many reasons. The woman's magazines, especially, had wonderful, well written stories and were packed full of projects and recipes. But mostly I love them because they give a glimpse of true history...what was popular at the time.

Soon I will be decorating a room in our new building that will serve as both a workshop for me and, in season, a space to sort, store, and sell our apple harvest.

 

I am calling this room my Happy 50's Kitchen. Today I was bumming around in a local second hand shop (Galion Flea Market in Uptowne Galion, Ohio), looking for magazines to help me get an idea of what the interior of 50's kitchens truly looked like.

 

I found an October, 1953 edition of Woman's Day. The first page I opened was this page of ideas for apple salads. How appropriate is that? :)

 

Some things never go out of style. They are called "Classics" for a reason, and these recipes sound as yummy today as they did when Marjorie Henderson, of Woman's Day kitchen, designed them 62 years ago.

 

See if you agree...

 

1. Apple Luncheon Salad

Arrange  wedges of unpeeled red apple on greens. Top with ham, chicken, tuna-fish, or shrimp salad.

     *note: you could also top with cottage cheese

 

2. Apple, Carrot and Raisin Salad

Combine bite-size chunks of unpeeled red apple with shredded carrot and seeded raisins. Serve with mayonnaise.

 

3. Apple Glace` with Honey Cream Cheese

Simmer 4 peeled, cored apples in syrup made by boiling 2 cups pineapple juice, 1/2 cup sugar, and a little red coloring, until apples are tender and red, turning often. Drain; chill. Put on greens. Stuff with cream cheese softened with honey. Top with walnut halves.

       *note: keep the apples whole, like for a baked apple. I would not use red food coloring.

 

4. Danish Salad

Combine 1/2 cup each finely diced apples, cooked potatoes, beets, cooked veal, and pickled herring. Add small, diced dill pickle, a little mince onion, and vinegar. Season to taste. Moisten with heavy cream. Mix lightly. Pack into 4 custard cups; chill well. Un-mold; garnish with sliced hard-cooked eggs.

    *note: this recipe is more involved, but the combination of foods is intriguing to me. I have no idea what pickled herring tastes like because I am allergic to fish. But now I know why this is called "Danish Salad" :)

 

5.Apple-and-Orange Salad

Alternate slices of unpeeled red apple and orange on water cress. Serve with sweetened French dressing.

     *note: I think putting the fruit slices on any type of greens would work. For instance, a modern twist might be to put them on a bed of spinach, which is so popular right now.

 

6. Waldorf Salad

Combine chunks of peeled tart apple, diced celery, chopped walnuts, and cooked salad dressing. Garnish with cranberry sauce. 

     *note: what is cooked salad dressing? I know, right? Well, no fear...a quick search on Cooks.Com led to a slew of recipes. For me, well, I'd probably use mayonnaise >grinz< 

 

7. Two-Cheese Apple-Ring Salad

Core, slice large red apple. Put cottage cheese between and on top of two apple slices. Top with crumbled blue cheese.

     *note: again, because of allergy, I'd omit blue cheese and use any kind of crumbled cheese that I like...such as farmers.

 

8. Curried Apple, Onion, and Pepper Salad

Combine strips of apple with thin onion rings, crisp slivers of red and green peppers. Serve with mayonnaise seasoned with curry powder.

    *note: apples and onions? In Laura Ingalls Wilder's book, Farmer Boy, she wrote that one of Almanzo's favorite dish was fried apples and onions. I gave it a try and can honestly say that I am a fan! So I imagine that this combo is tasty in Marjorie's recipe. I would use a sweet onion, such as Vidalia or Walla Walla

 

9. Jellied Cinnamon-Apple Salad

Dissolve 1/3 cup red cinnamon candies in 2 cups boiling water. Heat, and pour over 1 package red, fruit-flavored gelatin dessert. Stir until dissolved. Chill until partially thickened. Fold in 3/4 cup each chopped celery and apple, dash salt, and 1/3 cup chopped nuts. Pour into molds; chill until firm. Unmold on greens.

      *note: I doubt if I would bother to use a mold, I think it would be just fine chilled in a regular bowl and scooped out onto the greens when ready to serve.

 

So there you are, nine retro recipes for apples. As our varieties ripen I will give each one of these a try, and (hopefully) make blog post updates to give you my opinions. :)

 

Marcheta *all in a Woman's Day

 

 

Little Green Apples

If it's July, it's Summer Apple Pickin' Time.

The first apples of the season are Yellow Transparent and the child it had when it crossed with Montgomery. They named their baby "Lodi". Both are thin-skinned and extremely tart. And they don't last long.

So...what good are they?

SAUCE!

And yesterday I baked an apple/raisin/nut quick bread with Lodi apples for the first time to check out how the apples would hold up (they did) and it is fantastic! More about that later.

First: to make sauce. For this blog post I used one quart of apples. It took 20 minutes from start to finish and yielded a pint of sauce.

Begin by rinsing the apples under running water.

Next, quarter and core the apples. No need to peel them as the skins are very thin and will separate from the flesh when cooked. Plus, there's a lot of good nutrition at skin level. :)

 

Cook with about 1/4 cup of water over low heat. As the apples begin to cook down you can turn up the heat to speed up the process. Stir often to make sure the apples are not sticking to the bottom of the pan. If the sauce gets too thick before the apples are cooked down, add another splash of water. The cooking time takes about 12 minutes.

 

The apples nearly sauce themselves when cooked. When done, run the apples in a food mill or sieve, like this one, to remove the skins and make a nice, smooth sauce.

 

 

That's all there is to it! I added 1/2 cup of white sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, and a dash of nutmeg. Honey is also an excellent sweetener. For Lodi and Transparent, I do not recommend using maple syrup, which is really tasty on other varieties of applesauce such as yellow delicious.

Now for that apple bread!

Lodi Apple Bread

If you don’t have time to make Lodi applesauce you can substitute commercially prepared apple sauce.

Directions

Dry mix:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. apple pie spice or a combo of cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg and allspice
2 cups white sugar

Wet mix
1/2 cup Lodi applesauce
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs, lightly beaten
3 cups peeled, cored, diced Lodi apples
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 cup golden or regular raisins
1/3 cup chopped dates

Whisk together all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk together applesauce, oil and eggs.

Add remaining ingredients to wet mix. Add wet mix to dry, stirring just until combined. The batter will be very dry. Place in 2 small bread pans that have been well greased and floured.

Bake in 350 degree oven for about an hour. Allow to cool in pans for at least 1/2 hour. Remove from pans very carefully.

Marcheta *the "Apple Lady" strikes again!

A Beautiful Sight...

 

It's no secret that we had a long, cold winter. We had some concern that we might not have much of an apple crop this year.

 

Well, well, well...just looky here! These blooms tell a different story :) Every tree bloomed its little heart out. Just goes to show, what do we know about anything? Nature, if anything, is always surprising.

 

 

 

 

When I left for a trip to Florida earlier this month, the trees were barren in the still cold and drizzly Ohio climate, despite being early May. Winter just did not want to give in.

Gazing upon these fragrant blooms the morning after I returned gave me a sense of what Dorothy must have felt like when she opened her farmhouse door and stepped into the Technicolor world of Oz.

 

 

This lovely poem by Susan Kelly-Dewitt expresses how wonderful it is to see blossoms after a long winter:

 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/247180

 

Apple Blossoms

BY SUSAN KELLY-DEWITT

One evening in winter

when nothing has been enough,

when the days are too short,

 

the nights too long

and cheerless, the secret

and docile buds of the apple

 

blossoms begin their quick

ascent to light. Night

after interminable night

the sugars pucker and swell

into green slips, green

silks. And just as you find

yourself at the end

of winter’s long, cold

rope, the blossoms open

like pink thimbles

and that black dollop

of shine called

 

bumblebee stumbles in.

 

 

Marcheta *stumbling in



Oh! How Sweet it Is!

Ohio's abundance of Sugar Maple trees makes for a sweet "crop" of syrup come early Spring, Oh, how sweet it is!

Making maple syrup is labor intensive work; beginning with cutting down enough old trees and chopping wood to keep the fires in the syrup evaporators going. Next, trees are tapped, which means drilling holes for spigots to drain the sugar water that is rising in the trees and collecting it in buckets, pipes, or plastic bags. Long hours are spent boiling the sap down and bottling the syrup.

Sugar season is coming to an end because the trees are claiming the sap for their own use by leafing out. A leafing tree yields ucky syrup, so I imagine it is nature's way of preventing having the life drained right out of them, literally.

One of the things that I love best about March is going to Maple Syrup festivals and pancake breakfasts. We especially love the festivities at the Lutheran Memorial Camp in Fulton, Ohio. The pancake breakfast is a real fest; served family style and loaded with fruit, sausages, OJ or coffee, plenty of pancakes and, oh yeah....pure Ohio maple syrup!

There's always a live band filling the air with (mostly) old-timey music (with a few modern twists thrown in just for fun).



Outside horse drawn wagons take visitors into the woods to see the tapped trees and watch the sap being boiled down into syrup.

 

 

 

 

For a refreshing treat that helps warm up cold hands and chase away the chill air, hot, homemade Sassafras teas is made.

The end result is fresh syrup, ready for consumers to enjoy. For those who did not make it to a festival, no worries. Area farmers markets are getting set to open the first week of May, where one can purchase the fruits of the maple producers' labors. :)

 

 

Marcheta *Savoring the Sweet Things in Life

Snow Laughing Matter!

Ok, I admit it. I am ready for winter to take a bow and graciously welcome spring. I am totally flaked out by it's many encores. Yesterday's snowfall started out lazy, so I was OK with it. Liked it, even. Today? Not so much.

But before yesterday's lazy snow went to bed it had a surge of energy.

So did I. Even though I am weary of Jack Frost nipping at my nose, I bundled up and braved the cold to walk around our property to take pictures.  Numb fingers aside, I got a big kick from seeing this milkweed pod having a last laugh at Old Man Winter.

 

I don't think that the bees in this super were laughing, though....do you? I think that they were probably worn out from beating their wings for the past four months to keep their home warm. The bees in the other two supers did not make it through the harsh winter, and we've removed the supers from the bee yard.

 

And the fish? Well, who knows?

 

 

 

 

But of all, I think that these snowdrops were maybe happiest of all with their message that, hey..."spring is here.

It really is.

 

After all, we're bloomin', ain't us?"  :)

 

 

Marcheta *Hit the road, Jack.

Across the Pond

Here's Lumber Jack Jim, cutting away at

 a low branch near the small pine.

 March 9.
There's still a lot of snow on the ground because this winter simply does not want to end. The pond is still frozen (as seen as the "Big White Way" in this photo. 

The  sky is brilliant blue, the temperature is 40 F making the day feel extra warm. Funny how living Life Below Zero for the past while makes an otherwise 'cold' day feel downright balmy!

This warm weather means that Jim has to work quick today to cut firewood in the wooded area on the side of our small pond that is opposite the house and driveway while the ground is still somewhat frozen and he can drive his Kubota back to the house without flinging mud all over. ( LOVE run-on sentences! Where else but a blog can people get away with them? >grinz<)

Or, worse yet, getting stuck in the mud.

Like his wife did. 

In the driveway, where not so long ago we were getting our vehicles stuck in the snow, I had a "Close Encounter of the Muck Kind"  today. I returned home from morning errands just in time to fix lunch, before venturing out again. I did not want to park the car in the garage because I wanted it to sit in the sun so that I'd have a nice warm car for my afternoon running around, so I pulled up past the garage into what I *thought* was a gravel area. Silly me. When I opened the door I sank into mud about half-way up my ankle boots. :(

What an ordeal it was to not drag that mud into the kitchen,

Yep.

Mud. The True Sign of Spring :)

Marcheta *Mud pies for dessert, anyone?

Signs of Change

 

As in last post, do not click on double underlined links. I did not insert them. I do have links to information, and they are regular-looking links. This problem is one of the reasons will be leaving Blogger soon. Sorry for any inconvenience or confusion.

 

 

 

 

Last week I saw this American Robin sitting on the outside ledge of my sewing room window. It was extremely cold outside, but the sun was out in full force and warming up the south side of the house.

People think of spotting robins as the first sign of Spring. Although these red-breasted birds are a welcome sight, actually they hang around all year. A robins diet is bugs, worms and fruit. In the winter they do not visit bird feeders, they are busy foraging for fruit in hedgerows. In January a flock completely stripped the berries from my Hawthorn tree, which not only provided nutrition for the robins, but also supplied me with welcome entertainment. How hardy are robins? They even live in Alaska!  So, no. Robins are not harbingers of Spring.

A few days later I saw a true spring-bringing bird; a Red-winged Blackbird at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge on Lake Erie. Yep. It was another cold day and the bird might have been thinking it had been duped by the lengthening daylight which brought it "up North", but seeing it was a thrill for my friend and me.

Then, just yesterday, I saw a Turkey Buzzard gliding over a snowy field, looking for something dead to feast upon. Year-round residents in southern Ohio, buzzards are another sign of spring where I live. Legend has it that they return to Hinckley, Ohio, every spring on March 15. Jim told me that my buzzard had ignored protocol by daring to show up early. I think that the buzzard is as hungry for spring as we are.

Even though I am looking forward to spring, I am a *little bit* sad to see winter, with all of its challenges, go. Why? Well, I had a ton of projects that did not get done (as usual) and would relish a bit more time to work on them before outdoor work takes over my days.

But the biggest, most exciting change for me is moving.

No, not moving locations; moving forward with said projects. Growth is a good thing. I've decided to move my online presences to one location. Blogger has been a great tool, but I need a bigger space to hold all of my blab and big ideas.

To reach this goal, I am meeting with JoAnn Snell, of Jo's Graphic Design today to work on a new website; to build a home big enough for OCJ and The World According to Marcheta. Everything tucked into one URL.  Won't that be tweet sweet?

Marcheta *bob-bob-bobbing along

Grumpy Bird

First off: ignore any links that show up in this post. I did not put them in, and every time I open this post there are different links. I *think* this may be from Blogger/Google (paid ads).

Soon I will be working on moving OCJ and my other blog, The World According to Marcheta, to WordPress. Thanks.

Now for our regular scheduled post:


Everyone seems to be tired of this cold weather, including the birds that share our property with us.
During extreme weather, I like to keep our birds well fed. This year, to insure that our avian amigos are never without food even if they are "clean platers" before Jim or I can re-fill the feeder, I put out extra suet feeders. Usually I only hang two of the cage-type of feeders, one with a regular mix and another with a peanut mix. This year I have three of each kind.

Even with giving extra rations in the feeder and having six suet cages, some birds are not amused.  I think that this tufted titmouse should change its name to tufted ticked-off mouse. What do you think?

I have several more pictures of Grumpy Bird to share. Sure, he's no rival for Grumpy Cat, but hey...misery attracts misery as they say, so move over Grumpy Cat, this bird's horning in on your territory (of grumpiness) "weather" you like it or not! :)

If anyone has a caption for Grumpy Bird, share it in the comment section and I'll post it under his picture :)

Marcheta *bird is the word

'Sno Fun :(

Every few years *this* happens:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, we manage to get our plow truck stuck here at home, usually in the lane where we get nasty drifts by the barn. This year's Fun Event took place in the new driveway, graded and graveled last fall for the garage we had built on the south side of the house.

 

Here's how it happened:

 

Instead of the Big Snow that was predicted for overnight, we got rain. And that rain froze. And then it snowed on top of the ice. Jim's truck simply slid off the gravel and onto icy, mucky, land.

 

But we've had it worse.

 

Much worse:

 

One year when Jim got his plow truck stuck by the barn, we also had TWO "rescue" trucks stuck in the deep snow behind our truck. The trucks were lined up like sitting ducks and didn't go anywhere fast. I took pictures but have no idea where they are (good old film days and shoe boxes filled with miscellaneous pictures!)

 

 

Eventually, all of those trucks were pulled out.

 

 

 

 

Today was lucky for us, no extra aid was needed. After some digging around the truck with the Kubota tractor and salting the area,  under this brilliant blue sky we were able to drive the truck out of its quagmire.  And at only 15 degrees F, un-stucking this truck was truly  'sno fun :)

 

 

All is well...but it sure left a mess!

 

Marcheta *you get the drift...



What's on Your Bucket List?

2015 has arrived!
 
Hey, how about instead of making resolutions to change how (and who) we are, why not make a "2015 Bucket List"?

Sounds like more fun (and obtainable!) to me. :)
 
Happy New Year!
 
May it be filled with wonderful colors and fantastic adventures, and all of your Bucket List desires come true.
 
Marcheta *Making her list, checking it twice