Homemaker blues

A few days ago I went to the basement to put something in the chest freezer; an ordinary day, a typical walk down the basement steps. The green and red lights indicating that the freezer had power, were on. Everything appeared fine from the outside. I had no way of knowing that I was moments and a few footsteps away from discovering disaster. I opened the freezer and found it a  balmy 65 degrees inside. Our food was bloated, stinky and moldy.

Though it could have been much worse (last year our freezer held half a hog), we lost all of our summer U-pick berries, salmon caught by a friend in Alaska (thankfully it was vacuum sealed so the smell wasn’t what it might have been), soup stocks, and corn. We are left now only with our fleeting memories of picking and preparing these things. In the dead of winter, there will be no juicy fruit-filled cobblers and pies to remind us that summer exists, and no creamy corn chowder on a cool, damp day. 

I felt betrayed by the modern world, and so thankful that I’d challenged myself to can more this year.  My brain immediately began to search for someone or thing to blame, from the wiring in our old house to the manufacturer of the freezer to the store that sold it to us. I searched for great meaning in the act; perhaps it was a sign from the universe that I’d taken a wrong step somewhere and was heading down a terrible, dark path. 

Tom did the dirty work of cleaning up the juices that festered in the bottom of the cheaply constructed hunk of plastic and metal. He filled a garbage bag with our food. I wheeled over the trash can, and averting my eyes and head (in sadness and because of the smell), dumped our memories, work, and nourishment into the can, letting the lid drop hard. I wrestled with anger for a day or so, and then resigned myself to the fact that I just needed to accept this. For about a day I thought maybe I had. But then I thought, what if I choose to not swallow this? What if I don’t accept the fact that an appliance lasts a mere year and a half? What if I do hold someone accountable? I decided to fight.

In the mean time, these slow roasted tomatoes from my mom’s garden, and these grapes from her vines that we steamed into delicious concord grape juice, remind me that the earth continues in its abundance. I’ll not starve because of the freezer loss, but I can still be heartbroken.

On another note, I have a correction and update on my last post regarding stratifying cherry seed. I said that the seed is being kept cold and moist for cold stratification, when in fact, it is being kept warm and moist for warm stratification. The bags of seed and sawdust have been moved outside and are completely covered by a substantial mound of sawdust. They will live there, nestled in the sawdust for about 30-60 days, after which time they will be planted in the ground where winter’s wet, cold temperatures will induce cold stratification. 

Big pants farming

Tuesday was Day One on my parents’ farm, where I’m now working a couple of days a week. These are the ducks. Last spring, Dad got four ducks, which quickly became but one. I’ll spare the details and just say that this is a farm and one must get accustomed to seeing dead things on occasion. There are predators here, both the wild (owls and coyotes) and the tamed-wild (the family dog). So, Dad headed back to Gaston Feed where he bought 13 more ducks for good measure. He beefed up the pen and constructed a refuge island in the middle of the pond; he crossed his fingers. Four months later, and sans one that "failed to thrive" according to my mom, the ducks are going strong. They are quite a pack of talkers and eaters. Their favorite activity (if one can read enjoyment on a duck) is following me to the apple orchard, where they cajole me with insistent quacks into smashing apples into bite size pieces with the bottom of my shoe.

My first task on the farm was to propagate cherries by way of stratifying seed–Prunus Mahaleb (for sweet and sour cherry root stock) and Prunus Mazzard (for sweet cherry root stock)–to be exact, which this business is. 

My job was to expedite the sprouting process by fooling the seeds into behaving as though they’d experienced a couple of seasons. First, I took six 50 pound bags of cherry seed (pits) and divided each of them in half to make twelve 25 pound bags. Next, I tied the bags shut and meticulously labeled them with their variety, source, date and weight. I then lifted them into a giant water-filled trough where they soaked for 24 hours (a bit like soaking beans overnight). The next day, out of the water they came. I opened the bags and filled them with equal parts sawdust which I fully incorporated so that each seed was surrounded by sawdust (thus the term stratify); this keeps the seeds moist and cool for a period of time. Phase One in the process of cherry making. Stay tuned for the next step.

Back in the city plot things are beginning to look a lot like fall. I’ve scattered a cover crop of vetch, peas and rye grass in one bed; a fresh round of brassica starts are settling into another; shelling beans swell in their pods; and I have covered the tomatoes and peppers in plastic to prolong ripening. Soon, I’ll remove the bush beans that do little more than leak beans like a faucet that has just been turned off but still drips a bit for a minute or two. Thankfully, there is an inverse relationship between the garden and the pantry; as one empties, the other fills.