Time and Strawberries Wait for No One

   Nature, the weather and plants have their own schedule--and they never check with humans when making it. A quick check of last year's garden journal last month revealed that this year's strawberry crop was coming a full three weeks early thanks to a spell of unseasonably warm weather and ample spring rain. The harvest was record-breaking: 83 quarts by the time I gave up and sacrifice the rest to the birds last week.
Unfortunately, the last of the peak picking days (14 quarts one day, 20 two days later) came just after I left for a week-long trip to Tennessee with my daughter. I processed 12 pints and 8 half pints of jam, along with 25 bags of frozen berries in the days before leaving. I arrived in Tennessee with a back sore from stooping and hands stained reddish-brown from hours of washing and hulling berries. When I returned, I added some fruit leather to my pantry, on the suggestion of a fellow gardener who makes real "rollups" for his kids. All in all, I 'm pleased with what I've stored up for the winter, and I had ample quarts to share with neighbors, friends and family.
   I left my husband and son at home with the strawberries, but with school and work, they didn't have the couple of hours daily that it takes to pick the beds thoroughly. I invited a friend to come over to pick and take home all she could. I'm not sure my husband understood the innate urgency I feel when it comes to not wasting a single berry and to saving as much of the fruits of my labor as I can. The thought of my berries lying "mouldering" on the ground made me feel a bit sick.

   The intensity of the strawberry season--and in turn, blueberries, blackberries, peaches and so on--reminds me yet again of the unforgiving cycle of farming. "Farmers must never go on vacation, except in winter," I moaned on my Facebook page as I packed for my trip. Then again, by winter they might be too tired to vacation. I recall the words of Anna Willson of Trumpington in Kent County, Maryland in the late 1800s. She struggled to entertain summer guests at the time of the peach harvest, after which her husband declared, "never again will we have staying guests during peach season." By the winter, with the preparations for the Christmas season following hog butchering, Anna was exhausted and decided against taking an excursion to Baltimore or even to attend holiday parties.

   I also reflect on the situation of the local and migrant pickers, especially as my back aches and my knees groan after spending only a half hour or so stooped in picking. Although it may have been a relief to have a period of guaranteed work, the prospect of 12-plus-hour days spent bent over with forearms immersed in itchy strawberry vines must have tempered any enthusiasm. Historically, the abysmally low pay and substandard housing provided made life tremendously difficult for this under class of workers. But they, like me, were carried along on the tide of the season, working as hard and as long as necessary to get the job done. Then a break--often brief--until the next harvest wave arrived.

The Virtues of Vinegar

Several weeks ago, I bought 4 gallons of vinegar, earning me a strange look from the cashier at the grocery store. "That's a lot of vinegar," she commented simply. I couldn't quell the explanation--or rather excuse--inside of me. "There's a lot of uses for vinegar. You can make window cleaner and use it as a disinfectant and I even use it in place of fabric softener." I'd lost her. "Don't your clothes smell like vinegar?" I sighed. "No." Then I gave up. There were three people behind me in line, who I could tell silently groaned as I pulled out my reusable cloth grocery bags.

It's a good thing I didn't share my vinegar and baking soda/salt drain cleaner story. Near the end of week two of being essentially snowed in from the Great Blizzard of 2010, our toilet had started gurgling ominously. My daughter, well-known for her overuse of TP, already knew how to turn off the water at the back of the toilet just in time to stop the dreaded overflow. Now, she refused to flush at all, and the exclaims of disgust from the rest of us were a daily (sometimes twice!) occurrence. I looked out the front window where the vent to our septic tank lay uder 3 feet of snow. Even if we needed to, there was no way anyone could dig it up now. What to do?

We'd fought the battle of the clogged toilet before. Five or so years ago, we had a chronic blockage that would miraculously clear, only to come back again without any--uh--unusually large amount of flushable material going down the drain (or NOT going down the drain). My husband tried the metal snake, a truly frightening tool. I mean, what do you do with THAT after it's been used. I'd just as soon throw it away and buy a new one every time except I'm too cheap for that. Next, I surreptitiously went to the store and bought some awful, earth-killing drain cleaner which didn't help at all. Finally, we bought a new toilet. On a hunch, my husband decided to bust the old toilet open with a sledge hammer, an act which I'm sure was quite gratifying. Inside, he found a plastic ant trap, which acted like a flapper and had closed off the toilet drain when it got stuck.

We vowed never again to let things go so far, or to use ant traps on drafty bathroom windows. It was time for some drastic action. It was time...for vinegar. I discovered a simple recipe "to unclog drains" in a household hints book. Mix 1 cup salt with 1 cup baking soda. Pour it into the clogged drain and then add 1/2 cup white vinegar. Let it sit for 20 minutes. Then, pour 1 gallon of boiling water down the drain. My husband skeptically peered over my shoulder, worrying about cracked porcelain and melting pipes, as I pulled the handle. Everything went down. I was excited: "Let's do the other one too!" Thirty minutes later, all of our pipes were as clean as a whistle.

At that point, my son came in with an urgent look on his face. "Are you done in the bathroom? Ugh, what's that smell?" Flushed with success, I looked at him a little sheepishly. "Ummmm....boiled pee." He was horrified, but shooed us out anyway. Now if we can only convince our daughter that it's safe to flush.

In the Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak mid-winter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter, long ago.
19th century hymn (one of my favorites)

As January draws to a close, Maryland is finally emerging from an early winter blizzard and deep freeze that had me doubting I would make it to the end of December with my sanity intact. Is winter this difficult for everyone? While I could force myself to go outside to exercise, to rake leaves, to do anything, the cold makes me want to stand with my back to the fireplace and "toast my buns," as I call it.

This is why my chickens have been a Godsend in so many ways. At least twice a day, I am forced to check on the status of their feed and water, and to look for eggs. Just before the December 19th blizzard, I discovered the push-in "nipples" on their waterers had frozen. The poor things may have been deprived of water for as long as three days--one of the down sides of my low-maintenance invention. I decided drastic measures were in order and put the red brooder lamp up in the coop. For nearly a week, I left it on almost around the clock. It may have been a cool 15 outside, but it was a spring-like 55 within the chicken inner sanctum.

The next shock for the flock was the 30-plus inches of snow. I trudged my way out to them midway through the blizzard and opened their door so they could get some fresh air. As usual, they noisily fought their way to be first out the door, until the first hen put her little toe into that icy white stuff and came to a screeching halt. Those behind her, especially the rooster, began complaining and looking over her shoulder to investigate the hold up. The result reminded me of their first trip outdoors as chicks: hens 1 through 3 and Randy the Rooster were ingloriously pushed out into the strange, white world by hens 5 through 10. The resulting commotion would have been rather funny if they were not so obviously traumatized. I left the door open during daylight hours after that, but I don't think they emerged until the snow began melting during the Christmas Day rain.

With nothing to do while they were all "cooped up," the hens apparently decided to focus their attention on egg production. On a slow day, I'll collect 5 or 6 eggs, but most of the time, I open the hatch to find 10 or 12 and 14 on one busy day. For a short time I became concerned that leaving the red light on was forcing them into a laying frenzy--organic egg standards actually mandate that lights are not left on for more than 16 hours a day. But as wind chills dipped to single digit and subzero levels, I decided keeping them warm was more important. When temperatures rose above 25 or 30 degrees, I began leaving the light off at night, and haven't used it at all for almost two weeks now. The eggs continue to roll in. One bumpy, enormous egg weighed in at 3 1/8 ounces--for a little perspective the largest USDA size is Jumbo, which is about 2 1/2 ounces. The same day, we collected one that would barely qualify as "peewee."


After exhausting my current file of recipes, including
Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese frittata, Coffee flan, Cajun Spoonbread with Andouille, and Enchilada Strata, I decided I'd better try to get rid of a dozen or two here and there to friends and family. How fortuitous that one friend recently became a vegetarian! My mother-in-law is firmly convinced of the health benefits of home-grown eggs. And my Mom and brother have waxed nostalgic about the flock they used to have and will take as many eggs as I can spare whenever I see them. I charge a modest $2 a dozen and while I hate collecting money, I need to justify the costs of my rather expensive "hobby." So far, my hens have earned me $42.50. Of course, I still owe some of my customers about 10 dozen eggs, since they gave me cash to put on account, but that will buy about four 50 pound bags of feed. I am contemplating designs for a hand-painted sign that I can put out in the front yard on days when the refrigerator is overflowing with cartons.

So while the mid-winter blues keep trying to muscle their way in, my New Hampshires and Delawares keep me feeling like my little homestead is producing something. And hey, I still have lettuce in my hoophouse, carrots under a blanket of straw, and rosemary on the southern side of the house! In two more months, I'll be planting potatoes! The seed catalogs have arrived! Perhaps I'll make it through this bleak midwinter.