CertainSeason

Red Time

I had the most amazing experience this afternoon as I drove down Rte 149 into town. I was making all the turns and curves just like always, when this shadow shot over my windshield. The next thing I knew I was looking at the backside...in flight...of a redtail hawk! He was practically hovering over my car, and following it as I drove. I must have been traveling at just about the speed limit on the road, which is 55 mph. And this raptor was shooting ahead of me. He remained about 5 to 10 yards ahead of me and then shot off to the side of the road where he alit and I whizzed by. I wish I could say this was my photo, but it's not. It's just the closest I could find to indicate the perspective I had on this particular bird. Mine had a very distinctive red fan tail as he floated above me.

On another note altogether...it's kimchee time. Love making the ginger/garlic/pepper paste with my mortar and pestle.

Berries, Radishes, Brocolli and Orioles

The brocolli wasn't much to look at...not a tight head like the market...but it was tender and delicious. Some of the radishes split...but mostly they're picture perfect.

The actual perfect picture I didn't have the camera for this morning...two foxes in the meadow...Brewster and Missy took off like shots and I looked out and there were two of them running across the ridge!

That and a beautiful bright Baltimore oriole...I think I kept him from stealing my strawberries.

Happy Valentine's Day

Beautiful cards with sweet sentiment. Chocolates. Flowers to bloom in February. And a favorite dish for dinner and creme brulee for dessert. All with my honey...doesn't get any better than that.

Timbales of Dover sole, filled with shrimp and topped with a bit of red pepper and finished with red pepper sauce, creamed spinach and toasted quinoa with preserved lemon and toasted almonds. Alas, the creme brulee went so fast we didn't have a chance to take a picture. And this morning a red red cardinal at the feeder (and a mourning dove). The camera doesn't do him justice...he was crimson in the snow.

 

 

Dover Sole and Shrimp Timbales with Red Pepper Sauce

2 large red peppers

12 medium shrimp – shelled, halved and veined

3 small shallots, sliced

1 small clove garlic, crushed and peeled

1 C sake

red pepper flakes

2 sole filets halved lengthwise (Dover, lemon)

 

1. Peel the peppers with a vegetable peeler. Halve lengthwise and remove cores. With a small sharp knife, remove membranes and any seeds. Lay the pepper halves on a work surface and using a 2½ inch round cookie cutter, stamp out four discs; reserve the scraps
2. In a medium saucepan bring 2 C water to boil over moderate heat.  Add the pepper discs and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Transfer carefully to paper towels; let cool
3. In the same water, blanch the shrimp until just opaque, about 30 seconds. Drain and set aside
4. In a small saucepan combine pepper scraps, shallots, garlic and sake and crushed red pepper. Bring to a boil, cover and cook until vegetables are very soft. Remove from heat and let cool. Pour mixture into a food processor and puree until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve.
5. In a wok, bring four cups water to a boil over moderate high heat. Place a softened pepper disc in the bottom of four ½ cup ramekins, peeled side down. Line the side of each ramekin with half of a sole fillet. Place six shrimp in the center of each ramekin and press lightly to pack.
6. Place bamboo steamer in the wok and arrange the ramekins in the steamer.  Cover and steam the timbales until the sole is opaque and shrimp is heated through, about 7 minutes.

Remove ramekins from the steamer. When cool enough to handle, cover each ramekin with a small dish and tilt to drain off any liquid. Unmold ramekins onto each place and mask with red pepper sauce.

Garden Report

I've posted photos of the daffodils which continue in force. They just keep coming! The green spears of day lilies continue to fill in behind them, and the blood red shoots of peonies are close on their heels (do day lilies have heels?) Wish we knew what type of peony they were.

A nice surprise was that one of the "peonies" turned out to be a bleeding heart, a particular favorite of mine. A row of tulips is making their presence known; they should pop open any day now. They seem to be red, which is a nice burst among all the yellow and pale pastels of the daffodils.

The sour plum is in full pale pink cloud-like blossom (and has been for about a week or so now). The apple trees are budding, but no flowers as yet. We've been having fairly steady precip, if only of the misting variety during the day at least. One good warm sunny day and the trees should bloom into their fullness. A reminder here of what this means:

Everyone reminds us that we had a mild winter (I literally shudder to think.) And, true to form, we are holding off on most new plantings until mid-May. Technically the Farmer's Almanac says April 23 is the last possible day of frost (average). But the locals say not to plant until after Memorial Day. Fortunately, the already extant plantings are more than fulfilling our need to garden...but at the same time it whets that appetite, too.

Battle Knotweed continues. This could take years. The black  caps (blackberries) are beginning to green up. I think we've decided to put the roses down along the space between the apple trees and the meadow. The feeders are swarming with goldfinches.

There are just so many shoots coming up in so many places it's hard to know what we're looking at. Many, many hostas are piercing the mulch and will soon be unfurling.

The latest batch of sauerkraut, alas, must count as my first failure.  This was the first all green cabbage batch I had attempted. All the others had combined red and green (to get a brilliant almost magenta pink kraut.) Bill went in to taste it and he thought it tasted a little skunky. Then he touched it and to quote him "it mushed like toothpaste." My official sauerkraut guru, Pat  ("Wild Munch") Tedesco, advises that the slight changes in temperature we've experienced (average daily temps in the house in the 60s) is enough to throw the process and I need to add extra salt. Maybe...or maybe just wait until fall to start production again?

The Official Killer Karlyle Kount: 1 field mouse; 1 blackcap chickadee

We've spoken sternly to him about his murderous habits.

Eating Like Birds

Came home today, from a run into Glens Falls for various errands, to find a half gallon of maple syrup on our front steps!

And, for the record, we have officially gone through 75 pounds of black oil (sunflower) seed since November. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "eat like a bird" huh?

We put out three kinds of feed: black oil seed in the tube feeder, nyjer seed in a "sock," and suet with seeds in a cage.

Tiffany Skies

Our snow stuck. The light has changed dramatically...from lush green and warm sunlight to shiny, crisp black branches and backgrounds in a range from Tiffany blues to pewter grays and silver.

 I refilled the bird feeder, and the birds were quick to figure out that the kitchen was open again. Black oil sunflower seeds are the cuisine du jour. It draws all those aforementioned Chickadees and Blue Jays, to say nothing of a few hungry barn cats who lurk in what remains of the weeds. They stare. Their tails switch. And then they go home to the barn...where I put out a couple of cans of cat food so the kittens don't go hungry in the cold.

Word is that we are actually going to close on this place tomorrow. At least that was the word last Thursday. Who knows what changes have sprung up since then? The only surprising thing at the moment would be if it all went off as planned. One observation: the bank with whom we're doing business sent us a notice that our locked in interest rate (our second, for the record) expires...today. The day before we close. And what's more...they sent it to our old address in Brooklyn.

Right now we're trying to figure out what to do with twenty pounds of squash...squash custards, squash pastas, squash soups (with red curry and coconut milk...thank you Nilos!)

Jays, Chain Saws, River Mills and Ramps

First things first: this morning there was a flock of Blue Jays (cyanocitta cristata) literally swarming the feeder. The chickadees were still around, but it was clear who was running the show. I don't think I've ever see so many Jays at one time...there must be a dozen or more, working the feeder, the ground around it, flitting from the pine to the cherry to the ground. Sometimes they seem to be "spatting" with one another, chasing one or another of them away to the cherry tree and into the woods.

I went to Lowe's and bought a chain saw yesterday. There's a lot of dead wood in the trees around our fields and property, it seems silly to pay $200 for a cord of wood to be delivered when one of these dead trees, downed and cut up could last a season, I suspect. Now all I have to do is get the chain saw to start. 

I've been here for three weeks now. It's been three weeks since I've heard a fire siren or a police siren or a honking horn. The quiet is palpable on my ears. I wonder what effect it is having on my blood pressure, which had been steadily climbing over the past months in the city. 

Bill isn't here. Hasn't been for two weeks, now, and without going into the craziness surrounding the purchase of this property, there is no hard and fast assurance as to when, exactly, he will be. I don't know where anything is. There are boxes and boxes and boxes, everywhere. I don't have a bed, I sleep on an inflatable camping mattress. It was a decision we made, that we needed a new bed and we'd get one once we moved. But we both plan to sleep in this bed, so we both need to be in on the decision. So for a time I was waking up in the middle of the night to re-inflate the mattress, which was slowly losing air. That was the other purchase yesterday. A new, as-yet-not-leaking inflatable mattress. Last night's sleep was the sweetest I've had since before Bill returned to Brooklyn.

As much as I "knew" that we weren't moving to "the boonies" I know when I packed that I was hoarding 'special things' that I thought were going to be hard to get here. If you asked me what they might be, now that we're here, I don't think I could tell you. The supermarket is actually super. It's not Wegman's, which was our heart's desire -- the first time I was in one I wanted to move in! -- but a PriceChopper, which is pretty amazing, open 24 hours a day, and a mere two mile drive away. If I wanted to go 20 minutes away there are Hannaford's in the vicinity, too. Shopping is lovely.

The same lovely lady who gave the hearth cooking class gave a talk at a little Presbyterian church on "Mills on The Battenkill" which was wonderful on so many levels, not the least of which the fact that more than 35 people were in attendance! The number of mills that existed up here at one time, along this one river, for 24 miles from Eagleville in Vermont, through Shushan, Rexleigh, East Greenwich (pronounced locally as "green-witch") all the way through the Center Falls, the Middle Falls, Big Falls and the lower falls at Clarks Mills alone, is just amazing. 

And so many different kinds of mills, including not just wood mills, but pottery mills, flax, gypsum, grist, planing, paper, cotton, linen, and woolen mills. Metal knife mills, potato canning mills, shirt mills and marble mills. And yes, there are covered bridges along the way. I went because I would like to befriend this woman and her husband, so I was grateful for another opportunity to socialize, even briefly, and I wanted to bring her the last of the pickled ramps. And I was glad I did. Aside from the idea that Sally was unfamiliar with them -- so I was able to give back to her in a way for all the information she had imparted to me in the short time I've been here -- but as we were standing there two gentlemen walked by and she showed the jar to them and asked them if they knew what they were? 

To my delight, one of the immediately said, "Those are ramps." But even more delightedly, he said to me "There are fields and fields and fields of them near my daughter's house." And when I asked how I might find them, he told me his daughter owned one of the hardware stores in town. Her name is Wendy. I think we already bought a wheelbarrow from Wendy. And our mailbox post. So now I have something to talk to Wendy about.

Nature TV

The field grass is jade green with a gloss of frost this morning. And the sun shines across the ridge like a klieg light.

I'm a little astonished at how quickly the little black-capped chickadees (parus atricapillus) have emptied the bird feeder we hung on the scrubby pine tree. I can watch this action from the window I am sitting at to write this and watch them swoop and flit from the high branches to the feeder and back to their safer altitudes. We just hung the feeder a week ago last Saturday, the day before Bill (homo husbandus) returned to the city. And I didn't get bird seed in it (black oil sunflower seed with a little bit of corn kernel mixed in) until that Tuesday when I found Lowe's and the huge bags of bird seed they have there. Actually, now, as I write that, I remember that I didn't buy the seed there. I waited and then bought a smaller two pound bag at the Pricechopper.

In any event, it filled the blue glass tube, and spilled out into the feeder tray and almost immediately the small birds found it and started. They've eaten two pounds of seeds in a week!

We got the black-capped chickadees and Northern cardinals right away. But this morning ... a large black flash with a brilliant crest swooped across the television screen of my window...a pileated woodpecker (dryocopus pileatus). At least 15 inches long!

I've collected the National Audubon books for the Night Sky, Eastern Birds, Western Birds (for when I traveled out there). I'm going to start a Bird Journal, I think and keep track of what I see. The very first week, driving down the road coming home from finding Brewster's (canis lupus familiaris) vet's office a hawk of indeterminate species (I'm guessing red-tail, though I didn't see its tail feathers) swooped across from the left side, across the bow of the car as I sped down the highway, prey in its talons and disappeared into the tall trees in the field on the right. 

As I sit in the window here, and write, I've already watched a momma barn cat (from our barn!) lead her four bouncing kittens (felis silvestris) across the alfalfa field. The kittens are like puppets on strings, bounding and bouncing and rolling through the tall grass, oblivious, it seems, to the birds feeding just feet above them in the tree branches. Momma's not so oblivious, but there have been no encounters as of yet. I wonder what she'd do with that woodpecker? It's bigger than she is. Of course, she's bigger than Brewster, too, and she let him know who was in charge quickly enough. But Brewster knows cats pretty well. He's no fool.