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| House and grounds from south this morning (Aug. 10). Smoke is worse each day. |
Mike
left early Wednesday morning (Aug. 9) to motocache along the Lochsa, so the
dogs and I had a quiet day. Our morning walk was “out west” – behind the house
to the canyon rim. As the morning was slow to warm up, I baked cookies. About
10:45, I closed the house, picked up my picker’s pail, and invited Bess to join
me in picking hawthorn berries at the draw. Initially she seemed interested,
but uncertainty set in and she decided not to chance it. (She is
Butchie’s granddaughter, remember.)
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| Haws -- August 2 |
So,
down the lane I went to pick berries by myself. I found some lovely reachable
branches loaded with berries. Apparently the “haws” are a favorite of the birds
because they are disappearing rapidly. As I picked, a little bird sat on a
branch within the tree and scolded me.
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| Neighbor's place before harvest |
I
picked about an hour and came back with plenty – about three quarts.
Subsequently I poured them into a stockpot, covered them with plenty of water,
and simmered them for 20 minutes. The haws are pithy, seedy, and bland, but the
homesteader in me just can’t pass up available berries. The first cooking
didn’t yield much juice, so I added more water to the berry pulp and cooked
again, then strained the juice through cheesecloth. I now have a quart of “hawberry”
juice.
Having
finished my work, I settled down to quiet activity in the afternoon. While
Nellie snoozed on her pillow, I crocheted. Bess was outside.
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| Taken from the kitchen porch |
“Bark.
Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark.” Bess’ tone was urgent, but I figured someone was
coming in. Tossing my crocheting aside, I ran to the door, and the moment I
opened the door, I heard the telltale rattling buzz of a rattlesnake. I called
Bess, and she obediently came immediately. Then the three of us – Bess, Nellie,
and I – stood in the dining room and watched the snake through the window. Mike
doesn’t like to kill the rattlers, but when he isn’t here to carry them away, I
have to protect the dogs. Long story short, that’s what happened.
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| Bess in June's field, looking north |
Well,
you might think that was the end of the story. Certainly it was enough
excitement for one day. Mike came home, and Bess tried to tell him all about
it. I filled in the gaps where language failed her.
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| Grain harvest concludes on neighboring farm to the north |
Then,
in the evening – about 8:30 – Bess warned again, this time from the other side
of the house where the raised beds are. I heard the rattle from the open living
room window. Mike called Bess into the house and grabbed a light. Cautiously
the three of us followed the sound, which I located as coming from under the
tire with the strawberries. We could do nothing about that, so we left it
alone.
My
dad believed that rattlesnakes came in pairs. He would search for the second
one and sometimes find it. KW
5 comments:
Leaving on a bike ride this morning I saw 3 ruffed grouse cleaning up the berries Kathy had dropped the previous day.
Bess could have had those berries. Both Bess and Nellie love the berries that drop from the Hawthorn trees.
That looks just like the snake I almost stepped on!
The blackberries appear to be coming on now. We hope to do some urban scouting today. We'll see how it goes--from what we could see from the car, there were some that were ready, but others need more time. Our stores of jelly are depleted, so it would be good to replenish our inventory. We MUST plan on elderberry fest if we hope to bolster our stores enough to make it through winter.
So far, I have not managed to bolster my stores of jelly with this year's berries.
In searching the supplements shelf at the store today, I noticed one labeled "Hawthorn Berries." I'll have to research the benefits. However,this year's crop many be depleted.
We can share! Nick was just proposing that we pick more blackberries since it's so quick and easy. In the fruit business, we call this "low hanging fruit." Har har
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