Rolling On One

My father used to have a riddle, “what’s red when it’s green?” The answer was “a blackberry”, and in the question “green” has to mean “not yet ripe.” These are starting to get there. Maybe Anne will find them next weekend. Maybe the birds will beat us to them. Watch out for thorns!

A former co-worker of mine used to like taking pictures of insects on flowers. We had one butterfly that seemed to want to pose for me, so I’ve joined the insect-on-flower picture crew.

— on some cucurbit, I think it’s probably a gourd but there may be pumpkins in this tub also

— on black-eyed susans, but I didn’t need to tell you that.

Unfortunately (because the wild blueberries have more flavor) this was made with cultivated blueberries, not wild ones. I got a pint of blueberries at the Bridgton farmers’ market (after having a long chat with the woman there about blueberries and raspberries and picking the latter) and added a cup or so of supermarket blueberries, then followed the recipe in Joy of Cooking with the addition of maybe 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 1/8 tsp nutmeg. Sorry I can’t invite everyone over to share it.

I sanded down the rough spots in the table top with 220 and 400 grit paper on Saturday morning and put one more coat of urethane on it. By midday Sunday everyone agreed it was dry enough to bring up to the kitchen. The garage, where it had been drying, is so much cooler than the upstairs, and the day was so humid, that the table top was covered with a film of condensation as soon as we set the table up. We didn’t put anything on top of the table, to give the finish more time to cure, but here it is. I’ve been working on it since February, I think, and am glad to have it done.

I finished knitting a hat from the Sweetgrass Wool extra-bulky yarn I had got at the Denmark Sheepfest in April. I did get enough to turn up a cuff to cover my ears, but there was enough yarn left over that I could have done two or three more rounds. That’s reasonably close to coming out even from about 150 yards of yarn on 1/4 inch (about 10.5) needles, 80 stitches to a round. This yarn was very easy to work with. The plies of the yarn stayed tight together, so much so that it almost seemed like a round piece of felt. The colors are considerably more intense than the picture shows.

We played Settlers of Catan with Charley and Nicole on Saturday night. Maybe Arlene and I played it one New Years Eve with Sue, Richard, and Katherine, but we’re not sure. I do like that game. There’s a lot of thinking and a lot of social interaction, and it doesn’t take too long go get through a game of it.

Arlene was hearing loons through the window as we were playing, but I hadn’t heard many. When the game was over I suggested that we walk down to the lake and listen more. We all stood on the association dock and looked out over the quiet, calm, dark lake. When we shined our flashlights in the water we could see the rocks on the bottom and one fish. As soon as we left the dock and started walking back the loons started up.

It was a good clear dark night. There are lots of trees down by the lake, so we hadn’t seen many stars from the dock, but there’s plenty of open sky near the house. We had a good time looking at the Big and Little Dippers and Northern Crown before we went in.

When I mentioned the mix for the northern Maine crepes known as ployes, I didn’t realize that there was a web site for them. There’s your link. I used up the last of the mix this morning, mixing a cup and a quarter of it with most of a cup of milk, an egg, and two tablespoons of oil. It could have used maybe a quarter or half teaspoon more baking powder, probably.

One other interesting thing about raspberries we learned at Hedgehog Hill Farm last weekend is that, like apples, they don’t germinate true to type. If you want cultivated raspberries, you need to buy a plant that’s grafted from the variety you’re trying to grow. Wild raspberry seeds have a thick husk that keeps them from germinating until the husk has been worn down in a bird’s crop. That is, they mostly germinate from bird poop.

Knowing that didn’t keep me from going out and picking all the wild raspberries I could find. I got almost a pint in each of three sessions. The Certo recipe for jelly calls for five pints. Maybe I’ll try to make half a recipe. The best thing about the raspberries is how good they smell when you’re picking them.
The raspberries are growing more or less in a thicket. For a ways I can stomp through it, so long as I’m wearing good shoes and long pants. After 100 or 200 feet it gets to a point where I want to cut some of it down just so I can get to the rest of it. Chances are that will have to wait until next winter. Let’s sort of zoom in on some raspberries:

There’s the thicket, with tantalizing glimpses of ripe red raspberries throughout, mostly hiding under leaves. Where the bushes are farther apart I took more time to look for the berries. Where they’re thicker I mostly picked the easy-to-see ones.

One bush, easier to see where the berries are growing.

Close up. The berries are pretty small, typical of wild as opposed to cultivated fruit.

Here are some blackberries, I’m pretty sure, getting started. These look as though they’re easier to find — if you find one, you get a lot from the plant. However, they’re also easier for the birds and animals to find. Also, they have bigger, heavier thorns than raspberries. They guy at Hedgehog Hill Farm said that you can pick raspberries and emerge unscathed, but that you’ll get all scratched up when you go after blackberries. Stay tuned.

And, of course, there are things you want to be sure you don’t get mixed with food you’re collecting. I don’t know about mushrooms, but I know I don’t want to take chances on them.

We tried again to find the route from Maine Turnpike exit 47 up to River Road in Windham. We took an early turn off the Westbrook Arterial and a left at the end. It wasn’t where we had wanted to be. A couple of right turns eventually got us into a commercial area. I stopped to ask directions at a gas station/convenience store. There were several people in line in front of me, including a youngish man who wanted to buy a six-pack of beer. He didn’t have an ID. The cashier was not buying his sob story of having lost his wallet on the beach earlier in the day. As I thought about it, I figured, pal, if you really lost your wallet, you have bigger problems than not being able to buy beer.

Oh, the immense industrial building we went past on that route is Sappi Fine Papers North America

I finally cooked up my raspberries into syrup last night. I had maybe a cup and a half of wild raspberries, a quarter or half a cup of water, and part of a scoop of sugar (maybe a quarter cup, maybe more.) And maybe one tiny spider crawling around to get out of the hot water until I fished it out. I boiled it up, simmered it for a while, tried to crush the berries with a spoon, and drained it through a tea strainer. It’s a thin syrup, but definitely good over vanilla frozen yoghurt.

It only ended up being half a cup or so of juice. If I want to make raspberry jelly I’ll need six times as many berries. I don’t think there are that many to pick.