A Very Green Fall Season

I'm sitting in our living room right now looking out on a green world instead of a white one.  Normally at this time of year we have 60+ inches of snow already, with temperature highs of 15-22 degrees, sometime with high winds.  But not this year!  So far we've had two small snowfalls, each about 1-3 inches, which melted by the next day.  There is only one problem with this - the winter businesses are hurting.  Our skiing, winter frolicking, and icy businesses are asking for a very white Christmas right now.

When it did snow, we had the largest snowflakes I've ever seen.  Some of them were the size of quarters - see below!

We've had BEAUTIFUL fall weather - the kind of weather that we usually have in St. Louis - mid 40-50s (even as high as 60) during the day with mid 28-35 overnight...and low to moderate winds.  Deer season here was easy for our hunters - most of them were in light jackets or shirt sleeves in their blinds and camps.  With deer season over, we have had quite a few deer in our fields and yard.

Mark could have hunted from any room in our home - they are bold creatures as you can see.  This young buck/doe was right outside our living room window, snacking on the trees and grass.  Cleo sat, growling under her breath, watching from her seat on the window sill.  They saw each other and just watched each other for quite a while.

Our girls and their families came to visit for Thanksgiving - what a lovely holiday!  We lunched at the Four Season's Tea Room with Rory, Sophie, and Liam (we're hoping to include Claira next year) - it appears to becoming a tradition!  Now we're looking forward to Christmas and the New Year!
 

I thought I'd share a great little item we found on one of our apple trees.  I JUST finished canning our yearly applesauce and as I was prepping the apples, I ran into this little oddity - looks like a heart doesn't it?  We had four of these - Siamese apples!

Soon, I'm sure, it will start snowing and not quit until mid April - maybe even May, so we are enjoying the mild weather while we have it...but it doesn't quite feel like Christmas yet.  They are predicting snow for next Monday, but they say it will be another dusting.  But I'm hoping for more than that - just don't tell Mark as he is the one that has to plow it with the truck. 

Whatever the weather  - we hope that this season of wonder and generosity gives you all the joy possible!

Celebrating Fall

Mark and I both know that we have chosen to live in a very different place.  As you read through this blog, you'll see some of the reasons we love it here and we hope you will come visit and experience some of the beauty! 

I love that we have four full seasons here and, even though each has its beauty, I think fall is my favorite.  We've had a beautiful and long fall this year - the colors were spectacular! There is one tree here that I love to watch turn.  Where most trees are one color, this tree on the left is beautifully variegated with yellow, orange, and red leaves.  On the right - the Covered Road has it's beautiful yellow leaves!  All the leaves along that road are yellow so I love to take a drive there right after a rain, the deep brown color of the tree trunks against the bright yellow makes me feel happy and alive and I find myself smiling!

When the weather turns from warm, through chilly to cold it's time for cuddling.  We had our first snowfall two days ago (Nov 12). We got a dusting, which melted the next day.  We've sometimes have had hard frosts at night but then GORGEOUS 50 degree days full of sunshine!

Fall is also the time of year we seem not worry about how we look in our swimsuits and start to think of Thanksgiving and comfort foods.  Well,  I don't often take photos of food I make or eat...but this cheesecake seemed almost too pretty to eat.  I made the cream cheese for this cake from our local raw cow's milk and the cherries and chocolate just added richness.  I think I'll make another one during our Christmas visit to St. Louis.

 

This is also the time of year where we have local arts and craft fairs.  Many local artists show off their skills.  As I've said before, this area has more artists than I've ever seen before in one place.  Our nearby Porcupine Mountain (The Porkies) hosts an artist village which offers arts and crafts classes.  The bread board on the right is only two-dimensional but looks three-dimensional.  It is the result of one of those classes...this one's for you Kev!

Late this summer, Mark and I got to see a little bit of the northern lights as we walked through our garden one night - I wish I had a camera on me to photograph it.  Yesterday, the sunset was beautiful so I made this quick video from our kitchen window.

Last night, we had another experience that we would never have elsewhere.  Mark and I were taking our evening walk - after dark.  We try to get out there during the daylight hours as we don't have streetlights and it can be really dark. We don't have much traffic so we still feel pretty safe.  Since projects took longer than expected, we were walking at about 6 pm.  The moon (1/4 moon) was up so we had enough light that we could see an object in the road ahead of us.  It looked to be coming toward us; we guessed that someone else decided to take a walk too.  As we grew close we saw a hunter (about 40ish) in full camo strolling, with a scoped rifle laying across his right forearm.  He was just walking back to his grandmother's house (our neighbor).  In ANY other place, neighborhood, town/city, this meeting would set you back or make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.  Not here!  He stopped and chatted with us, introduced himself, told us where he had been hunting and told us that he was glad we purchased the farm and cleaned it up.

AND on top of that...this morning, I stopped by to purchase a cup of coffee at our local CYBERIA cafe.  I know they don't like to take credit cards and I didn't have any cash on me so I started to write a check for a coffee and muffin. The guy behind the counter told me to just pay him the next time I'm in so I didn't have to write a check for such a small amount.  I do visit the cafe once every two weeks attending knit night so they know me and I will pay him next Monday evening.  But - WOW - it is a great place to live!!!

Come step into the unique world of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with me - you'll love it!

 

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, and More Tomatoes

OMG is not the best way to start out a blog, but it fits perfectly at this time. I have ripening tomatoes on the top of both of my servers in the dining room,

on my south and west facing windowsills,

in the basement under a natural daylight grow lamp, and we still have a big bin of green Romas and Oxhearts sitting in the kitchen.  To date, we've either eaten or canned 75 lbs of tomatoes and have shared at least 20 lbs more with friends and visitors.  We still have approximately 25-40 lbs more to process as they ripen...or stay green. 

Remember how I told you about our "test garden" this year?  Well, I planted ten tomato plants, two of each of five varieties - Roma, Oxheart, Slicing, Yellow Giants, and Cherry Tomatoes. Up here, tomatoes are very hard to grow because of the short growing season and/or cool summers.  Because of that, I guessed that I would lose 1/3 to 1/2 of the plants...but I didn't lose any.  I didn't do anything but plant them, feed them once with rabbit manure, and weed the bed. I didn't even pinch off any of the suckers to increases the production of tomatoes. At the beginning, our plants were way too leafy so I didn't expect much produce. In late August we had a heat wave (for the UP) with the temps reaching almost 90 degrees and the plants exploded with tomatoes - they were so heavy that the tomato cages were stressed to hold the weight of the plant and produce! ...but it was late for ripening.

As we discussed the weather and the garden, Mark decided to build us a small hoop house to put over one row of five plants and I took a light weight sheet of plastic and a Planket (plant blanket) and covered the other row of five plants.  We thought we'd try two different methods to see if one worked better than the other to keep heat in so that the green tomatoes would ripen.  Well they both worked...to a point.  We'd remove the hoop house and planket/plastic during the days and cover them at night until it got cold enough that we had to pick all the produce in the garden.

Those of you who know me well know I hate waste, so I am bound and determined to process them. I've canned stewed tomatoes, crushed tomatoes for sauces, and I'm now experimenting on canning things like tomato juice and green tomato mincemeat.

I learned about green tomato mincemeat from my mother-in-law Dolores Bloomfield years ago.  She also experienced non ripening tomatoes in cool Michigan summers and would turn those green unappetizing bulbs into the best tasting holiday pies.

Original mincemeat was commonly thought of as a traditional Thanksgiving dish--actually traces its roots back to Medieval times, when preparing meat with fruit and spices was one form of preservation. Early New Englanders would make large batches of mincemeat and store it in crocks sealed with a layer of lard for use over the winter months.  Green tomato mincemeat is a very rich veggie/fruit mixture (no beef) that is baked into pies and tarts during the holidays. Since it is so rich, people either love or hate it.  Mark and I love it and have fond memories of Dolores' mincemeat pies - you knew it was Christmas when you had that pie!  I'd like to share it with you now - Old Fashion Green Tomato Mincement

If any of my sisters and/or brothers-in-law would like a home-canned jar of green tomato mincemeat, just let me know and I'll wrap one up and ship it off to you as our way of sharing family memories that are cherished by us.

I'm ending this with a note to self - use small hoop houses early in the spring to get the plants out earlier so that the produce will have time to ripen on the vine..and remember 6-8 plants will do!

P.S. We met with our Italian lawyer today on farm business - he wants whatever ripe tomatoes we have left to make tomato sauce to go with his holiday ravoli. We are now trading tomatoes for ravoli!  He stopped by and picked up about 20 lbs from us.  Now all I have to do is make and can the mincemeat!! Hurrah!

Cold Comfort Farm's Holiday Farmers Market Opens Tomorrow

Well, we are doing it!  Tomorrow we open our first Holiday Farmer's Market!!! Below are some photos of the "Market."

Keva's Christmas Corner

Diane's embroidered tote bags

Rory's, Keva's, and Diane's products

Part of my lavender and tea products display

Now I need to explain what this market is all about.  During the time I was not posting to our blog, I decided to take my homemade lavender and herbal products to Algomah Acres Honey House Meadery in Greenland, MI and their fall craft festival.  I added some of Keva's crafts from Acorn Grove and Diane's embroidery items from her Etsy business, which I had brought back with me from my late summer visit to St. Louis.  We all did pretty well that day and it sparked my past desire to have a shop here at the farm.

After much thought and discussions with Mark, we decided that I would open a small shop (now legally a farmers market) in our summer kitchen. This market would be open for about 2 months in the fall and again in the spring. Our summer is WAY too busy for me to take the time to stock and operate it...and it will NOT be an honor shop as some of our veggie farms run. We will be open three days a week from 10 am to 4 pm; one of those days being Saturday so we give working people an opportunity to come shop.

With the decision made, I moved all the non-essential kitchen stuff out of the summer kitchen, cleaned, and painted three walls. 

Then I brought the metal shelves back in and used anything we had on hand to build the product displays you saw above - I can't believe how everything fell into place.  Now we can experiment with this small market stand - Wish Us Luck!!!  I'll keep you posted on our progress.

I'm BAAACK!!

After a year of telling you all about our life here at Cold Comfort Farm, I thought you all would be tired of hearing about our life here so I dropped out for while.  But after talking to two of my sister-in-laws and a few close friends, they suggested that I keep going, so I hope to give you a little of us about twice a week.

Summer on the farm took over our lives.  We spent all our time gardening, working on the barn, and on anything else that kept us outside so we could enjoy the exquisite Michigan weather, all the time knowing that the season of snow would return soon enough.
I did write some blog posts, but decided not to post them for one reason or another.  I wrote one about our experimental vegetable garden and some observations I had about how much plants are not only a part of us but mirror us in many ways.  After re-reading it just now, I still think it is relevant so I'll share it now.

With all the gardening I'm doing these days I have LOTS of time to think.  After spending years in an office reacting to others needs and demands, I feel very blessed to have the time to think and reflect.  I don't mean to sound philosophical, but I'm having small awakenings, so I thought I'd share some of them with you.

As I'm on my knees or butt, planting, weeding, or harvesting, I have time to examine the plants and I'm amazed all the time.  Most of us don't realize it but we all NEED plants, they are a part of us. If it were not for plants, we would not be here.  They provide food, work, and beauty.  And plants are more like us than we know - here are some of my observations, some of them are "duh," but keep reading, the observations have a purpose.

Weather has a huge affect on plants as it does us.  Like us, each plant has its own schedule -it takes the time it needs to grow and mature. I can add fertilizer or grow it in a greenhouse; however, I can only affect it slightly.

• Some plants are light, airy, with lots of blooms and flowers for us to look at.  its purpose is to give us beauty.  It doesn't produce anything but beauty...and that's a great thing! We all know some folks like this - they give us beauty!
  
  
• There are some that are large, strong, and naturally bug/disease resistance, just like some of us!
  
  
• Some are very showy, REALLY big, and leafy but don't produce much fruit or vegetables - I'm sure we all know someone that is just like that.
  
• Some are small, hardy, and create more produce/work than similar types of plant twice their size
  
• A few start out small but once they catch up to others, they exceed the fast starters - they just need a little more time

  

  Notice the larger plants in the front of the photo and the smaller ones in the back - the smaller ones caught up and ended up larger and produced just as many butternut squash as the early bloomers

  
  
  
• Some are naturally weak - they get attacked by bugs. Once bugs see weakness, they attack in numbers

 But this bean one plant just amazed me!  I transplanted this plant to a new location because it was too close to another plant.  I moved several plants that day, thinning out so all the plants had room to develop to their potential.  It was doing fine until I affected it.  It obviously did not do well in its new location - either the soil, heat, less water, maybe all of those things was not what this plant needed.  However, it was strong and didn't die.  In fact, even though it was planted in adversity, it has grown (it's not a pretty plant, in fact not it doesn't have many leaves at all).  BUT what surprised me was that it has developed produce, providing as many green beans as a leafy plant twice its size.  I wondered, what makes this plant produce in adversity - inner strength??  We could all learn something from this little plant.


I know, you're probably thinking that these are some odd thoughts, but this subject brought me back to memories of my father.  As a child, any time I was in a place I didn't like or I was out of my comfort zone, he used to say to me that life does that to you and that you need to bloom where you are planted...then I married a Bloomfield.

So, gardening has reinforced that lesson and plants have been my instructor!  I encourage you to add a plant to you life to remind you to "Bloom where you are planted!"

Sauna - pronounced "Sow" Na

The local Finnish population swear by their sauna's...they take a sauna, like you and I take a bath - but with much more of a spiritual attitude.  Like the American Indian's have their ceremonial sweat lodge, the Fins take their sauna seriously (including either a dip in the frozen lake through a cut hole in the ice or with a roll in the snow).  See Health benefits of a sauna.

From the time we got here, Mark thought he HAD to buy a sauna for me to survive a winter in the north.  Well, we were really not ready to purchase last winter because we couldn't agree on one...do we buy a kit, a ready made sauna, or hire someone to build it for us???  Were do we put it - on the patio or next to the patio?? Since we could not decide, we decided to wait until we've been here a year and then make the decision.  It gave us the time we needed to finish the patio and get used to the farm - and I did survive the winter without one.

We finally decided on a barrel sauna, which holds four people.  They are hand crafted by a local retired building contractor and his wife.  They create 4, 6 and 8 person barrel saunas, some with dressing rooms attached, see them at Keweenaw Saunas. 
Once we saw the quality, we were sold.  We purchased a four person - no dressing room.  The price included delivery and set up - SWEET!!!

 So on Tuesday evening a BIG truck pulled up with our sauna.  They cut the door through our patio wall so that we could put the barrel behind the wall and walk through this door from the patio directly into the sauna.  That means that we have a clear path, right outside our                                                  back door, in cold weather to the sauna.  Mark is going to add trim to the doorway that was cut into the wall.

The sauna stove is a wood stove (typical Finnish design), not electric.  It can be moist or dry - whichever you like. You have a pail of warm water that sits on the stove top.  You ladle the warm water over  the rocks surrounding the stove or yourself as you sit.

I know many people don't like or can't tolerate moist or dry saunas, I've never had issues in the past so I'm looking forward to the physical and spiritual cleansing!

Canning Season Has Begun at Cold Comfort Farm

For most of you this month means "back to school," but here in the north it's canning season too.  In St. Louis, it was way too hot for anything to grow this late in summer, unless you replanted with a fall crop.  At this time our family always looked forward to mid to late September apples for saucing.  I always had a hard time growing a vegetable garden in St. Louis because I had to water the garden often, with chlorinated water - our water was so full of chemicals that when I ran a bathtub of water, it looked like I was going swimming.  And there were more bugs than veggies...unless I used more chemicals. 

I thinned our beets so the others would grow bigger & our first head of brocolli

Here in Houghton, since we all plant our gardens the first week in June, everyone's gardens matures around the same time so we run into neighbors in the canning aisle at Walmart.  As I said in a prior posting, our garden this year was purely a test garden to see what we could grow in our soil...well, have we been surprised - pleasantly so!

Our first large beets harvested

The huge summer squash plants - 30+ inches tall

                                                              

We learned that one side of our garden has WONDERFUL soil naturally and less than 100 foot away, the soil is very different.  I'm so surprised that even in the same growing bed, we have HUGE plants at one end and tiny ones at the other, all planted at the same time, same water, and sunlight.  We will be adding compost to that end of the garden bed to improve the soil next year.  I also experimented with the companion planting method and it seems to be working very well.   

 We, of course, have some bugs but not nearly what we expected or had in St. Louis. I think that the marigolds, narcissus, mints, etc. have done their jobs protecting their charges.  

We've been enjoying our veggies fresh from the garden for lunches and dinners...even the pickled beets!

 So now I've begun the process of canning or "putting it by" as they say here.  And I'm experimenting with that as well.  Mark and I have always been the kind of folks that will eat just about anything (until I started with a food allergy - bummer!).   

  

So, when our beets and turnips matured, I knew you can eat the entire plant, but needed to learn the best way to preserve it all.  I blanched and froze the leaves of both plants to use in soups and stews.  I also found recipes for pickled beet stems and a different one for pickled turnip stems that I've tried.   We have to wait a few days before we can try them - they may become a yearly favorite - or a Christmas presents to my son-in-law, Mitch who likes spicy foods.  They should taste like crunchy pickles.

Since we had a cooler than normal spring, some of our berries are just now ripening so that is adding to the workload.  Yesterday alone I jammed raspberries, thimble berries (Michigan is famous for them), and blueberries. I still have a bucket of blackberries that I froze last evening, holding them until I can pick more and jam them.  It's suppose to rain Tuesday and it will be a great task to do on a rainy day.

 

All this effort does entail long hours at the stove but this winter when the snow is falling and I don't want to go out to town to shop,  I can  make a hardy meal to warm our bones with our preserved and canned food.  It will bring a smile to my face and those hours will seem a very worthwhile effort!  And all that jam on nice warm homemade toast or in homemade yogurt (made from our neighbors cow's milk) will be a wonderful way to start our day.

And maybe, just maybe if you ask nicely or come visit, you can share a jar of pickled beet stems or thimbleberry jam!

Bunny Ranchers

Marti coined the term Bunny Rancher as a humorous poke at her brother, Mark. I hope that Cold Comfort will soon have more animals than rabbits, but right now it seems to fit. 

Recently our neighbor Melanie, who is a preschool teacher, asked me if I would bring the young rabbit kits to visit her summer preschool class of six 3-6 year olds.  I was happy to comply.  I decided to take three kits, one of each color - black, brown, and white.  I thought I'd share a few videos and photos with you for my grandchildren to enjoy.  My video's and photos are not super clear of the children's faces as I did not want to have to get permission from each child's parents to post this, but you'll get the point of how this visit went.  

They gathered around the kennel to peek in at the bunnies - they were so excited

 Most "Bunny Ranchers" leave their animals in cages ALL the time but Mark and I feel that is very inhumane, so almost daily we put the rabbits in a wire ring so they can get exercise and graze on the natural grass and clover.  We started putting the little kits out as they love bouncing - but of course, as soon as I grabbed my camera, they became quiet.  I'll keep trying to get them at their bouncy best and post the video at that time.  The cutest is when they try to stand on their hind feet; many fall over until they gain their balance.

Maybe this fall, once the garden is totally harvested,
we'll let the rabbits run in the fenced in area; they will have a blast - but can you imagine us trying to catch them - we'd become bunny chasers instead of bunny ranchers!

July Miscellany From Cold Comfort Farm

Wow, what a busy month!  Marti, Mark's sister, has been a great helping hand but will be heading home (south to Wyandotte, MI) next week.  Diane, my sister, and her grandson (my great nephew), Grant Stellwag, came for a visit last week. The weather has been hot, we actually had our air conditioner on twice!  Now we have BEAUTIFUL weather.

It's been Michigan cherry season! (our neighbor allowed us to pick from their sour cherry tree last week).  The jam we made will taste wonderful this winter on toast.

With Grant and Diane, we've visited our  beaches and Houghton's "shoots and ladders" slide park  (left), visited neighboring towns, our neighbors cows and pigs (his top request), and went for rides on our ATV and paddle boat in the pond. I think he had a good trip to the farm.

Going Exploring!

Morning

Evening

Our rabbits kits (see below) grow each day - they are bigger by the evening than they were that morning!  There are eight babies; one black, one variegated black, two brown, three white, and one silver.  Diane helped me try to figure out their sex but they are still too young for us to tell.

They have been popular with all our family, neighbors, and are even going to go to our local pre-school for show and tell this Thursday morning.  Our cats seem amazed by them - especially their twitching noses.  Cleo, one of our cats, walked up to sniff one of them in the grazing fence.  She was nose to nose with it and was just as they touched noses, the rabbit twitched its nose.  The cat leaped back as if on a spring and ran off...she has never come close again. We wish we had a camera, you would have seen it on YouTube.

I hope to breed the Rex rabbits as soon as I find a female and then sell their offspring for pets as they are the most clean, nice, and smart rabbits I've ever owned!  They have been a joy to own and have in our barn.  Their coat (pelt) feels like a cross between cashmere and velvet - they, someday, might make the best and warmest mittens imaginable!

Our veggie and fruit garden is doing well - I've harvested our first broccoli and beets/beet greens of the season.  Our onions are close to harvest and our squash is starting to go crazy - with six squash on each plant! We've gardened before, but this is a first in this very cool environment so we are discovering and experimenting with what will work up here.  I will be happy with any harvest we achieve. 

So far, it's been a great summer! 

Our First Anniversary at Cold Comfort Farm - Full Time

Instead of the typical anniversary reflection of listing all the things we've accomplished over the last year, this posting centers on an important comment that Marti made yesterday - on our first anniversary here at the farm.

As we worked helping our neighbors mow and bale their fields and our large field and as we climbed up and down a 6,000 bale mountain in their barn and a 762 bale hill in ours SEVERAL times - we got tired, very tired.

Our barn holds 10,000 hay bales in the loft so these 762 bales looks like a tiny mound

This window is 20' above the barn loft floor and Mark is standing on the mini mountain of bales at the foot or barn window

Yes, I do nap!

But it is the best kind of tired you can be.  It isn't the tired you get from sitting in a car in traffic, or at a desk - it's the kind of tired where you sleep well (sometimes after a little Ibuprofen - at our age).

This all happened as Marti helped (as she could), watched, and most of all gave us all the smiles and laughter that only Marti (feeding Mark's humor) can.  As we sat on the patio last evening after we finished putting the 762 bales in the barn, she made the most profound comment - unexpected - even for her.

She said that after living with us on the farm for the last two months, the next time she sits down to a steak dinner, she will have much more appreciation for the work it took to bring the beef to that plate.  She said that most people have NO idea (and neither had she until now) what it took to raise just one cow...let alone mow and bale hay for it to eat, feed it twice daily in the winter, clean the barn it lives in, milk it twice a day (milk really doesn't come from the store), butcher and wrap it, and transport it to your grocery store.  That statement resonated with me...that is the real reason we are here on the farm!

I know, most of you will think that we sound like the hippies of the 70s, but it is so true!  We have all (me included) lost the connection to reality, to our food and what it really takes to grow/produce it, to the land, and to the weather!  I used to be one of those "three degree" people that was not comfortable outside of a certain three degree range - not too hot and heaven help not too cold.

So, this anniversary blog is to admit that we've come a far way in the last year (not with just physical goals), gotten out of our comfort zone, grown in a way we had not expected - and it is good!  And we are so grateful!