It is getting toward that time when when we have to think that snow cover will come in and blanket the North Country until the second week in April. It doesn't happen that way every year, but it is prudent to plan for it starting sometime the first week in November. What does that mean?
Planting Garlic: This year I'm planting my garlic about a month later than last year. Last year's September planting was a little too early for some varieties which seemed to get too much of a head start before hard winter and presented to the extreme cold of the Adirondacks a little too much green stem and were too vulnerable. Most of the varieties did just fine and I enjoyed a great harvest this summer, giving away a lot of luscious smoldering garlic. I've planted as late as the second week in November in some years and had good results - although I had to move the snow aside to to the planting.
End of season for summer rentals: Our Summer rentals end at Columbus Day. The rental business was great this year. We met lots of wonderful people from all over the country and even some from Europe. The Internet has been great for our business. We used to have most people from the NYC metro area, but the Internet has opened up the rentals to folks from all over the country, Canada and England. With the end of the season the valley becomes much more sparse and private. This is good, but not something we would like to have all year long.
Once people are no longer in the buildings, we have to arrange for routine repairs that come with use of normal wear and tear. Chimneys have to be replaced. Plumbing upgraded. Roofs fixed. Screens repaired. Internet sites need to be updated for the next year. A lot of this work is done by local business people and craftsmen.
Cleaning up the garden: We pick the last vegetables - kale, rutabaga, lettuce, beets, carrots, broccoli, some herbs. We pull away the weeds. Clean up the Asparagus ferns to make the bed ready for next year. Cut the corn stalks and chop them up some so they will compost. Refuse goes in the compost pile for next year's plants. We've already picked the dry bean plants and thrashed the beans and stored them in jars in the house. Onions, squash, garlic, potatoes in the basement. It is time to make some horseradish sauce - dig up some roots and blend them with some vinegar and pop it into the freezer. It is great with Kefilta fish on Friday night Sabbath meal.
Butchering chickens, eggs, undeveloped eggs, cooking pullets and hens: This is a big topic. This year we cared for 4 Wyandottes as laying hens from our niece Ilana Nilson. They provided us with eggs from about mid April until mid September. There were a couple of times when we had to buy a dozen eggs because we had company. The two dozen New Hampshire Reds we had delivered as day old chicks in April began laying in mid September. At that point we butchered the Wyandottes and put them in the freezer. Subsequently we cooked one of them with very satisfactory results in a Joy Of Cooking marinade. They tasted good and were relatively broad of breast and thick of thigh. Coq au van worked well as long as you marinaded longer and cooked longer than the modern recipes in Joy of Cooking
During the course of the summer we butchered several of the New Hampshire Reds. They were thin in the breast and clearly don't provide the best kind of meat bird. They do range really well on pasture which is nice and organic, but, if you want to eat chicken, better to raise some other variety of bird. In the middle of September they began to lay eggs - wonderful eggs with rich orange yolks that stood high above a firm egg white. We let them lay for about a month and provide us with enough eggs to get us well into January. Eggs can be kept in the fridge for about 100 days.
So, now at the end of Oct. we are butchering the remaining New Hampshire Reds. They are broader in breast and thicker in thigh than they were a couple of months ago, and have made some very good eating - again very much in the tradition of slow cooking in a covered dish with nicely flavored sauces. We slowly realized that we are cooking more like our grandparents cooked chickens. Both Naomi and I have memories of grandmothers using parts of the chicken we no longer have any familiarity with- feet and heads used to make soups, internal organs used to make pate', undeveloped eggs to make soups. It is clear to us that, not so long ago, much more of the chicken was used for food and chickens were not slaughtered at such a young age - 8 weeks is now the average. Something has surely been lost with the industrialization of raising chickens for food. We have a memory of what was lost. That should not be forgotten.
As the days shorten, we find ourselves sleeping later. The evenings are longer with more inside activities - reading. When we do venture out we see the amazing winter stars. I often think about the fact that most Americans who live in large metropolitan ares no longer have the same skyscape we do. I wish I could bring them all here for just one glorious night to see the milky way.
Puttin' up the wood is another big fall job. I had the logger, who did our harvest last year, leave a couple of twitches for me to cut to size and split for our firewood. It is a big job and my arthritis in my hip doesn't make it any easier. Almost any amount of chain sawing or splitting gives me a sleepless night with hip pain. Oh well! The orthopedist says I need a new hip. I keep hoping that I can find a way to schedule it so that it doesn't interfere with my life. Looks like next fall at this time will be the time. I'm scared of it.
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