NELLIE'S EXERCISE RUN

Ordinarily when Nellie and I go for our walk, Mike has already left the yard on his bicycle. We established this practice years ago when she used to try to chase after Mike as he rode by. Today we got it backwards, though. I was leaving for the walk about the time Mike decided to get ready for his ride. Nellie and I were just at the top of Plank’s Pitch when Mike caught us and rode on by, picking up speed. When Nellie saw him, her youthful instinct to follow kicked in and she took out after him lickity-split. I didn’t have her whistle, and I knew it was useless to call. I also knew it was useless to chase after her, but I did some fine speed-walking.

I hoped that Mike would notice her and make sure she turned back, but when I got to the mailbox and she was nowhere in sight, I realized she was likely still running after him. Unless he slowed for some reason, she wasn’t going to catch him. So, after retrieving a package from the neighbors, I started back to the farmhouse, checking over my shoulder every 10 steps. 

I suppose I was a third of the way to the house when I saw her trotting along behind me. I waited for her to catch up, and when we reached the big puddle she plopped right in and commenced to lap the water.

Once we were at the house, she sat down to wait for her master. I could tell by the set of her back that she was a little worried that she was in trouble – that maybe she would have some ‘splainin’ to do.

When she saw Mike coming she went quickly to the top of the lane, but instead of greeting him as he approached, she disappeared into the tall grass. I was the one who had to explain that Nellie had followed and was now worried that she might be in trouble for not keeping up. She was so relieved when Mike called her to him for an affectionate pat that she did a joyful dance. KW

NOTES ON A CHOCOLATE CAKE

It was cold yesterday and rain confined us to the farmhouse, so I decided to experiment with a chocolate cake recipe from Ina’s box. I chose one labeled “Ada’s Devil’s Food, July 2, 1937.” The date is just right.

Here’s the recipe as Ina wrote it out:

2 cups sifted flour (Swan’s Down preferred)

2 ¾ tsp. baking powder, level

Salt

4 tbsp cocoa, or use 3 squares chocolate

1 ½ cups sugar

2/3 cup shortening, butter preferred

Break 3 eggs in bowl, beat well

Add to sugar and shortening and beat well.

Add 1 tsp vanilla

¾ cup sweet milk

That’s it. And it was written all over the card with no organization. So, the first thing I did was to re-write it as follows:

2 cups sifted flour (cake flour?)

2 ¾ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

4 tbsp cocoa (or 3 squares baking chocolate)

1 ½ cups sugar

2/3 cup shortening (butter preferred)

3 beaten eggs

¾ cup sweet milk

Cream sugar and butter. Add beaten eggs and vanilla and beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with ¾ cup sweet milk. Bake in 9x13 pan at 350 for 35-40 minutes. For layers, bake 30-35 minutes.

And here’s what I did:

·        I sifted regular flour and then measured two cups. Then I added the baking powder, salt, and cocoa (Hershey’s Special Dark) and sifted twice more  -- a retro practice, you know.

·        I creamed the butter and the sugar and added ¾ cup egg substitute -- a concession to the modern diet. I forgot the vanilla.

·        At about this point, I questioned that 4 tablespoons of cocoa would substitute in chocolate intensity for 3 squares of baking chocolate and decided to check a cookbook (Betty Crocker’s Baking Classics, 1979.) [I know – why don’t I just use the cookbook?] Betty’s chocolate cake called for 2/3 cup cocoa, so I increased the amount I used to 2/3 cup.

·        I blended the sifted dry ingredients into the sugar mixture alternating with ¾ cup canned milk. (The canned milk was in the fridge and needed to be used.)

·        The baking time per pan size I also learned from the Betty Crocker recipe.

Ina’s recipe card does not include a frosting, but there’s one with Betty’s recipe and one on the cocoa can.

Most all the chocolate cake recipes in Ina’s box are called “Devil’s Food,” but as I suspected, most of them don’t fit Wikipedia’s definition. They’re chocolate cakes but not necessarily Devil’s Food.

Verdict: The cake seemed a little dry. I probably should have cut back a bit on the flour when I increased the cocoa powder. And I could probably cut back five minutes on the baking time. However, I frosted it and we like it.

On my next try, I will use cake flour, 3 squares baking chocolate, increase the salt to one teaspoon, and remember the vanilla. If it’s a success, I’ll write out the recipe for use at our summer celebration (July 14) and attribute it to Ina’s neighbor, Ada Plank, whose house sat right at the bottom of Plank’s Pitch. KW

BIG STORM A-COMIN'

We knew about the "severe storm warning" when we came to the farm yesterday morning. Mike mowed. I did the laundry, planted two hostas and a coleus, picked spinach and buried a banana peel beside the cute little lilac I found last week. So far so good on the rhubarb we planted.

The yard actually looks pretty good, quelling some of the discouragement I felt last week. In fact, over the weekend the little spinach plants grew leaves big enough to pick. Here's a picture of a wild rose that "volunteered" at the woodshed. It shows one pink blossom and lots of buds.

The wild rose bramble bush that Nick and Hallie cut back is a bramble again and would make fine cover for a covey of quail.



 





The pear tree is setting its fruit.




Mike took his mountain bike and went for an exercise ride in the late afternoon. Nellie insisted we go for a walk. Here she is on point above our lane near Plank's, waiting for me to approach her. When I did, she flushed a pair of huns. Proceeding on up Plank's Pitch, I met the FedEx man with a package for Mike -- ink cartridges for the printer. He said he didn't know there was a place "back here." I accepted the package right there and he went his way. Out on top, I met Neighbor Pete who advised me of packages in our mailbox and offered to give me a ride, which I declined.

Then the wind came up -- just like that. I hurried to the mailbox (one mile from the house), pulled out the small packages, and calling "back" to Nellie I slipped into my fastest walk. I felt the occasional drop of rain.





I paused long enough to take this picture of a garter snake sunny herself by a pool of water. I retrieved the package I had left at the top of Plank's Pitch. Now I'm managing three lightweight but bulky mailings as I scurry down the road.





When I arrived at the house, the wind was blowing in earnest. I removed the mostly dry clothes from the line and got supper. Nellie hid under the table at my feet and went right to her barrel house in the woodshed as soon as the dishes were finished.  The rain didn't really commence until 7:20 -- the predicted time frame. We had no hail but periods of heavy rain and wind. KW

TREADLING

 

When Grandmother Ina left us, she left behind her treadle sewing machine. Once I retired, I declared that I wanted to learn to use it, so Mike serviced it for me and we bought and installed a new belt. That was 2007. At that time I practiced treadling but didn't thread the machine.

Fast forward to 2012 and I still hadn’t committed to sewing with Ina’s “New Automatic” sewing machine. Since I didn’t have my Bernina with me, I decided the time had come.

I was going to make an apron, but this cute little jacket pattern started singing my song. I remembered some corduroy stashed away that I thought I just had to have some 20 years ago. “Perfect!” I said to myself because, of course, the investment is depreciated out and it won’t matter if all doesn’t go well. The pattern, “A Little Somethin’ Jacket,” comes from CNT Pattern Company out of Aspen, CO. 

So I carefully cut out the jacket. Then I was ready to start sewing, right? Wrong! I still had to learn to thread the old treadle machine. Luckily Ina left the manual in one of the drawers, so I commenced to read it. The first page reiterates at least four times that the first thing the new owner must do is “READ THIS BOOK CAREFULLY.”

“We give you this book, the most accurate, clear and complete instructions ever printed on, ‘How to operate and take care of the sewing machine.’ By carefully following the instructions YOUR MACHINE WILL ALWAYS GIVE PERFECT SATISFACTION.”

But the admonishment I particularly love is this one: “WHEN DIFFICULTIES ARISE, REMEMBER that your machine is seldom at fault and does not require the aid of a repair man. You will find on close observation that your trouble is generally due to your oversight or neglect in following out these simple rules.” Ha! So blaming the operator for failure is evidently a concept as old as technology itself.

Here are the simple rules:

An imperfect or crooked needle.

Cheap, inferior quality threads.

Failure to have machine properly threaded.

Needle not large enough for the thread.

Tensions clogged or out of adjustment.

Lack of oil or the accumulation of dirt and lint around the feed, needle well or the shuttle.

I am not patient with the learning process – never have been -- but I made myself peruse the manual. I learned to wind the bobbin and then load the bobbin into the shuttle. But when I tried to sew with thread, I had the biggest mess of loops ever! I read and re-read the statement that “trouble is generally due to your oversight or neglect in following out these simple rules,” struggling to keep frustration at bay.

Well – long story short, the problem was my failure to correctly pull the thread through the tension discs. Now on my fiftieth re-thread and perhaps just a touch angry, I gave the thread a firm tug with two hands when I came to the discs and could tell immediately that this was the missing step.

Then I commenced to sew on the “Little Somethin’ Jacket,” bringing the five pieces together as one unit. Now I’ll finish it on the Bernina.

We drove to the town house early yesterday morning. The day turned hot. Mike took a bike ride while I ran errands in town. The traffic was horrendous on Bridge Street, backing up for blocks. Note to self: Do not shop on Friday afternoons! KW

DISCOURAGED

Sunday morning I got up feeling discouraged. “Don’t talk to me,” I warned Mike.

We’ve been working earnestly at the Gilbert homestead for 10 to 15 years. I’m so grateful for what we’ve accomplished, but sometimes it just seems we haven’t done enough. Some of what we’ve tried to do has come to naught. Some things don’t move beyond my dreams. I guess that trip to the abandoned yet prolific rhubarb patch brought me down.

 

My mother and father both had green thumbs, but I must have been gawking at the moon – or, more likely, television -- instead of paying attention. As an adult I stood in my mother’s kitchen and complained about my brown thumb. She pointed to my dad in the back yard. “He’ll stand there and stare for a while,” she said, “and then I’ll see him puttering around with stakes and twine or fertilizer.” She finished by saying that a good gardener is a putterer.

It’s difficult when the growing season is short, when we aren’t always here, when growing things means real work and when you know that failure may be in the cards no matter what you do. So I asked myself, Was it different for the homesteaders?

I think my grandparents grew a decent garden here. A vegetable garden was part of the homesteading equation for successful self-sustained living. Livestock provided plenty of fertilizer and there was always a compost pile. Mike notes that the patch of lawn that lies north of the driveway is the best we have. That’s where the chicken coop used to be.

And when the days were hot, maybe the folks carried a little water to the garden, but I doubt it. Water had to be hauled some distance for house use, so they likely didn’t spend it at the garden. The term “dry land farming” applied to the garden as well. But I believe they seldom experienced long summers. Even I remember soaking summer rains. Today we can’t garden here without watering.

The homesteaders learned by experience and stood on what they learned. For instance, my dad planted the corn about the first of June and never before Mother’s Day – or something like that. Any later than that and the corn might not mature before the first freeze. The homesteaders had to pay strict attention to those “days to maturity” on the seed packets.

And speaking of seeds – Were the seeds hardier in the old days? Sometimes I wonder. I’ve flirted with planting heritage seeds. This year I bought Ferry Morse seeds and won’t do that again.

The homesteaders had their fair share of rodents and other farmyard pests, but I think we see an explosion of mice and voles today because of the years we weren’t actively endeavoring to control them. I remember my dad and brother Chuck occasionally setting about to eradicate a mole, and mice were never far away. But my dad never fenced against the deer. Today we can’t grow anything unless we fence first and you can’t fence against the rodents. The need to fence is really a huge impediment to gardening for me.

 

Then there’s the crop dusting and the application of herbicides, and the fields now encroach on the yard whereas in the old days there was a buffer between the yard and the fields.

Still feeling sorry for myself, I went down to check the rhubarb starts at the barn. They may never grow there in that clay. Nevertheless, I amended the soil with some 16-16-16 fertilizer which is supposed to break down clay, and then – Oh joy! -- I noticed lilac we planted last year making a strong appearance from the root. Mike trimmed around it, and I poisoned the rodent holes. Maybe it will grow there. And then I found that our gooseberry bush not only has berries but also new growth from the root. Yay! I had fertilized it a little last year and apparently it liked it, so I loosened the soil around it, added compost, and gave it some fertilizer.

Putter on! KW

MOSTLY PICTURES

In the real world, today is Memorial Day. Here where time seems to stand still, it was just another day. I did five loads of laundry and hung the clothes on the line. 

If you look closely at the photo to the left, you can see five doe and a buck grazing in our south field. They were there a long time, then headed out toward the canyon. In the afternoon, they were back. I should have asked what they knew that I didn't.

Mike rode his bike out to Nezperce this afternoon so I took Nellie for a walk. The sky looked okay to me as we walked down the lane.

We're growing a lot of canola in the region now. When the sun shines on it, it just glows. The contrast of the darkening sky while the distant canola field caught the sun's rays inspired this photo.

Here's a canola field in the foreground while the storm develops in the distance.

I would like to have this scene hanging over my mantle.

As I stood in the canola field to take this picture, it suddenly occurred to me that the distant storm probably wasn't too far away, and I thought about my clothes on the line -- way too many to dry in the house. I commenced to walk/run the mile back to the house. Kinda deflating when Nellie passed me by at her fast walk, not even breathing hard.

And here I am, back at the house. It wasn't raining yet, but it did rain fairly hard ten minutes later and I had to deal with some not-quite-dry clothes.

Mike arrived back from his ride, not even wet. KW

RHUBARB GROVE

After that long trip to Nevada, it’s time for a rest. We might have come to the farm sooner except that last week the weather turned cooler and rainy after a spell of 90-degree temps the previous week while Mike was gone. I tell him he missed summer.

So Friday morning (May 25), we packed up the Dakota with a bicycle, provisions, the laundry, and Nellie and headed for the farm. We stopped at the nursery in Orofino, sharing pleasantries with the owner over what a lovely day it was – sunny and warm. I bought a bundle of day-neutral strawberries to plant in one of my old raised beds.

But when we arrive at the farm, a thousand feet above the nursery on the river, the warming sun was nowhere to be seen and the wind was blowing with some ferocity. We quickly unloaded the pick-up and went through our arrival routine. Finding the pilot on the wall furnace was still lit, Mike turned it on for some instant heat.

 

I say we came for rest, but that’s not quite true. We’re planning a celebration for July 14 and we have things to do – like clean the house, improve the yard, and plan, plan, plan.  

Mike didn’t let the wind stop him. He mowed the lawn first thing. And despite the wind and threatening rain, I planted the young strawberry plants.

Saturday morning we took out the old spirea bush. I think it’s really quite old so I was disappointed to have to remove it, but over the last several years it has been in decline, and I noticed rodent activity in the roots. So Mike took a saw to it and it is no more, unless it comes back. And I poisoned the rodent hole.

But Saturday afternoon we enjoyed a new activity with new vistas. A friend has property here at Gilbert where the original homesteaders planted rhubarb. Homesteaders did that, you know. They planted rhubarb because the deer don’t bother it and it tends to be prolific (for other people), providing a family with an easy source of nutrition. Anyway, my friend invited me to this rhubarb grove – and since she and her husband were coming to visit the cemetery, we agree to meet them and gather some rhubarb.

After decorating at the cemetery, the four of us went on to the rhubarb grove where I counted at least five huge rhubarb plants. We pulled beautiful big stalks, dug roots for replanting, and enjoyed the wonderful vistas above Orofino.

And look at this spirea hedge in bloom. My friend said that the vegetation here benefits from the fertilizer that is poured on the field. Hallie would love to hear to that, I remarked to Mike. The vegetation was surely lush, what with the rain and the fertilizer, which is something we just don’t see in this dry place.

 

After a leisurely visit, our friends left for town while Mike and I went back to the farmhouse. We planted four rhubarb starts down by the pond, and I’m already nervous that it won’t grow in that environment. And at the end of the day I had six quarts of rhubarb in the freezer and six cups waiting in the refrigerator for our next dessert. KW