SUMMER WINDS DOWN

Today, Sept. 2 -- smoke, clouds, rain

 It was another few days of “excessive heat” in the Valley, so Mike and I escaped to the farm where it was 10 degrees cooler. However, it takes the day a while to warm up now. It’s mostly just a hot afternoon. And today – Labor Day – it’s quite cool. And it’s so smokey!!! It’s so smokey that we can’t tell what kind of day it is, though it’s so dark and dull that we assume it must be cloudy. I have no specific info on the fires, but they can’t be all that far away, judging from the smoke.

Elderberry Bush, Aug. 20

While Mike was riding his bicycle last week (Aug. 20), Bess and I hiked behind the farmhouse to examine the elderberry bushes. Some bushes had no berries at all, and those that had berries were far from ripe. I vowed to keep an eye on them because last year I said they wouldn’t be ripe until October, and when October came, there were no berries.

So, yesterday (Sept. 1), I went again to look at the bushes, and to my surprise, the clumps of berries I had noticed before were dry and dropping. Just touching a clump made the berries drop. Ten to 15 years ago, we were picking elderberries in October and making jelly. We called it Elderberry Fest. So, no Elderberry Fest this year, and perhaps never again for us, but thanks to Mike, we will have haw fest. He picked more than three pints two weeks ago, which I cooked into 3 cups of juice. These berries were plumper than the prior picking and made juice more readily.

Picking haws (black hawthorn berries) isn’t easy. The branches have long thorns, and the trees grow in awkward places. Mike said he was picking in the deer’s bedroom and he hoped they appreciate the berries he dropped.

The thing about the haws is that they aren’t tasty – sometimes described as insipid. I add a good bit of lemon juice, which at least gives it some tang. They have a lot of natural pectin, and when I make the jelly, I’m not going to add any. Wish me luck.

I was ready to take the hummingbird feeders down last week when one lone hummingbird came up to the window and asked for more nectar, so I refilled both of them. That was a mistake. I saw the little fellow once more, and then he disappeared. We saved the nectar to use in the wasp traps, so at least there’s that.

Harvest of the spring wheat to the north of us has begun. We only caught a glimpse of the combine once, but we know it’s there. We can hear it. KW

Central Ridge