Archive for Family Story
Update On A Backyard Fox
Posted by: | CommentsSometime ago I wrote about the foxes I have been seeing and my delight at the direct example of wildlife adaptation to an urban setting. Back then foxes were jumping up on the fence under my kitchen window and easily leaping onto the roof next door. As I may also have mentioned the squirrels in this part of North Denver had been having a field day with anything I grew: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and plums. What really pissed me off was the waste. I don’t mind sharing my bounty with the four legged, the winged ones, and other two legged as well. I just get mad when one bite is taken, the veggie or fruit is thrown down, and then another is taken with the same outcome. Waste not; want not. So in a fit of desperation, I called on a fox to come stay in my yard and help me keep these marauding squirrels under control!
When I looked out the window a few days later and saw a fox sleeping in the backyard, I was both surprised and elated. “Oh my Gosh! It worked!” I said under my breath to keep from disturbing his slumber. As the days went by, this fox grew accustomed to me and I to he. Even when sleeping right across from the back door, he would just raise his head when I came in or out, see that it was me, then go back to sleep. The other favorite sleeping spots were on the top of the straw bales I have for mulching, and on top of the sheet compost project in the NW corner of the yard. However, I was still seeing the squirrels running all around and wondered if Foxy was just using the yard as a rest stop.
Soon after having this thought I was at home, spending the day working around the house getting ready for winter. There was Foxy sleeping in the sun as usual. I continued on my own schedule and a short time later glanced out the back windows once more. This time Foxy was sitting in the middle of the back yard munching on a squirrel! I got the point! Unlike cats, foxes do not leave any remains behind, by the way!
As the winter moves along, so is the relationship between the fox and I and the fox and my grandchildren. One morning I was bringing my four year old grandson in through the back gate and the fox simply looked at him, sniffed, and went back to sleep. Foxy was directly opposite the back door and only five feet away at the most. Then a week later my two and a half year old granddaughter saw the fox sleeping on the straw bales when she came home with me. Being curious, she walked slowly over toward Foxy, who got up and stretched lazily as she approached. I told her to just stand there and go no closer (again about five feet) or Mr Foxy would run away. She stopped, chattered away at him, then turned to come back to the porch. Immediately Foxy stepped forward and sniffed the air and the ground where she had been standing a few moments ago then turned and jumped back up on the bales.
I think we have been adopted!
The Fruits of August
Posted by: | CommentsI’m establishing myself as an urban locavor (urban forager, frugal ecologist) and now I remember the joys and fatigue of August. It’s about putting food by for the winter and early spring months when there is almost no local fresh food available. I’m fondly gazing at pints of freshly canned peaches, apricot salsa, jam and jelly of several varieties and feeling both proud and somewhat overwhelmed. Tired also comes to mind since this activity starts when my day normally ends.
I’ve frozen broccoli and green beans – though I’m not finished by any means – and want to find more time to can tomatoes, beets, and make sour kraut. The full branches of the plum tree out front is calling to me and I’ve got permission to pick the wonderful heirloom peaches a couple of blocks from here. I am waiting somewhat patiently for the elderberries to ripen as well.
This is the month when the garden overflows with all the good things at once. Of course there has been a steady flow of produce since early greens and peas in April. However August is the time of almost overwhelming abundance of tomatoes, peppers, beans, greens, and corn demanding to be put by for the months of fallow, empty gardens.
Now, that last part is not entirely true since with good planning there will be the second crop of carrots and beets left in the ground with rows of parsnips, turnips, and rutabagas. Kale and Brussels sprouts taste sweetest and best after the first frost touches them and with a nice heap of straw covering the rows, all can be picked or dug well into December, maybe longer depending on the depth of the frost.
I think back to my childhood when we put enough food by for a family of five to last until the garden produced again in the spring. I’m definitely small potatoes compared to that. Just for starters we canned 150 quarts of tomatoes, and 150 quarts of various fruits (peaches, pears, plums, cherries, applesauce, etc). We rented freezer lockers for all the veggies and meats since our chest freezer couldn’t hold it all. It was a constant daily and nightly ‘meditation’ of picking, shucking, shelling, blanching, pickling and cooking. We used the porch, the summer kitchen and the winter kitchen to maximum capacity for several months, filling every shelf in the cellar with canned goods and making weekly trips to the freezer lockers down the road.
The smells were amazing, ranging from mouth watering to eye stinging depending on what was cooking! Vinegar and cloves vied with fruit syrups; sour kraut warred with applesauce. In the end the astounding bounty of the harvest surrounded us with such visible abundance that it mitigated the bone-weariness of endless activity. When the first hoar frost crisped and sweetened the kale, the end of the season was finally in sight. With a satisfied sigh of relief, we settled in for the winter.
Now, here in Denver, I want to work my way back to canning, freezing, preserving, drying, and pickling Summer for the Winter. I want to use the local abundance of fruit trees lining the streets, summer farms and small ranches to supply myself so that I again know where my meals come from. I figure it will take a year to get this up and running, so I might as well start now. That’s why I’m staring at my 16 pints of pink and golden peaches with affection and glee. I’m back in the saddle again!
Old Tools
Posted by: | CommentsUsing ‘tools’ in the broadest sense – maybe anything that extends your hands/body to get something done more easily – what is the age of your oldest tools, specifically the ones that have been in fairly constant use?
This is an interesting question for me, and brings an awareness about my life I haven’t had before. There are tools that I use in my life that are almost as old or older than I am. My Mother’s garlic press is still in use, and the pin that holds it together still slips out if you’re not careful. I have some kitchen spoons that have been stirring things since before I was born – both wooden and metal. I have a pottery bread rising bowl that has three little legs and used to have a bail handle. It was used in the warm ashes to raise bread and I still use it. And my Mother’s pastry blender with a handle that my Dad manufactured when the first handle broke. All still in use.
Outside I still use the asparagus knife, the long handled weeder with the steel digger, forked at the end – that I used as a kid on the farm, digging up burdock! I need to fill the handle and reseat the cap – other than that it is an amazing garden tool. I have been working for my daughter in her landscaping company, using this tool at least two days a week for 7 hours a day for almost three years. It’s still going strong when all the new ones have broken or bent.
I have loppers bought in the late forty’s, a brace and bit and the bits to go with it. And some really fine knives.
There’s a little green stool in the bathroom under the sink. My Dad made it when my older brother needed a stool (1942?). It was used by all of us kids, by my Mom in the kitchen, by my Grandma Armstrong to get in and out of the VW Van and now by my grandchildren. It’s not a thing of beauty, it’s a thing of function. It connects me to my whole life – the little, beat-up, dark green stool.
I even have a willow laundry basket I bought in Vermont in 1966 and I sure wish I’d bought two.
I am totally convinced that buying quality is the best investment you can have. For those things that are used all the time, and will be used by all, get tools that are forever instead of disposable. Your hand and body gets to know a tool and then the good use of it really begins. It’s such a pleasure to use a tool that has been well taken care of and cherished.
I know, some things go obsolete almost before you turn around. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the basic tools that only need elbow grease or skill to have them work. I love having that sense of certainty. I know I am an expert with these tools; I’ve had more than 5000 hours with every one of them.
