They are quite liking the new set up. The kittens will wobble their way all over, then go back to their little bed for cuddles with Mom.
So far, it looks like all the kittens are male. There is only one, mini-BeepBeep, we haven’t been able to see.
While doing my rounds, I noticed these other babies.
This is a chokecherry. As the leaf buds unfurl, they reveal baby future berries! Those little clusters will eventually bloom and, if we have a good year, we will have lots of berries. This little tree is just sort of by itself in the middle of a grassy area on the North side of the garden. There are two more, among the lilac hedge. In the last couple of years, those ones produced berries, but this little one, not really. It looks like this year, it has reached production maturity!
Yesterday I was finally able to grab the step ladder and pick some of the last apples that are pick-able for my mother.
The cats were VERY interesting in the bag! Especially Cheddar! :-D
I was able to pick all the crabapples from the one tree, where the apples were the biggest and they had finally gotten sweet. Previously, they had almost no taste at all; not even the usual sour taste of crabapples, but now they have that delightful sweet/sour taste crabapples are the best for. There weren’t very many, so I picked some from the tree next to it. You can really tell which apples came from which tree! This tree had quite a lot of little apples that are more sour, but still quite edible.
Since I was there, anyhow, I took advantage of the ladder and cut away dead branches. The one tree with the bigger apples has a main trunk that is basically dead, but I did see some leaves on some of the branches at the top, so I just cut away the ones I knew for sure were dead. I pruned dead branches off a couple other trees, too, but I will save a major pruning for the spring.
I was able to bring the crabapples to my mother pretty much right away, and even get a little visit in. She was very happy to see them. Usually, there is someone who leaves their extra apples in the lobby where she lives, free to whomever wants them, but there were none this year. So now she will be able to make herself some apple sauce and compote that she likes. I also brought one each of the different flavoured jellies I’d made. I even remembered to bring an extra knife sharpener we has, as she was looking for one while we were out before. She was looking for a file, actually, so I brought her what I thought would be much easier for her to use.
I didn’t realize she wanted it for the hoes provided for the little community gardens where she lives. LOL I have, however, discovered that she has a knife sharpener with an antler handle, that matches the meat fork we found here. She tells me there used to be a knife as part of the set, but it’s one of the things that disappeared over the years.
I’m glad I was able to bring the sharpener I have, though. In the process, I discovered my mother has no good knives. At all!
Something to take care of for her, soon!
The cold, meanwhile, is already starting to show.
For the past while, I’ve been doing my rounds in grass sopping wet from dew, but this morning, it was all frost! The furnace has even been turning on regularly during the night.
Catching up on stuff that I intended to post about yesterday…
I finally got a chance to pick some crab apples.
I had help.
It was starting to get pretty late in the season to pick these. A lot were already on the ground, other had signs of being eaten by birds. There were some I could not safely reach, even with the ladder, but that’s okay. The birds will enjoy them.
The one tree that was giving larger, sweeter apples this year resulted in about 2 1/2 gallon buckets of apples.
There is one other tree that had larger, sweeter apples last year. Though the apples are much smaller this year, there are lots of them. When I do my rounds, I have been tasting them. As the season progressed, the apples on this tree did start to develop that sweet-tart taste crab apples are known for. There are a couple of other trees with lots of apples on them, but they are pretty… unpleasant.
I decided to pick some from the one tree with good apples. Just a bucket full, I figured. So I dragged the ladder over and went to set it up under the most apple laden branches.
There… weren’t any?
These apples have been getting a very deep red as the season progressed, and there had been lots of them, but suddenly, there were hardly any at all.
Of course, my first thought was to check the ground, to see how many had fallen, but the ground was clear of fallen apples.
I finally went to pick some. Most were already too far gone and starting to rot at the stems. This is all I got.
Barely enough to cover the bottom of the bucket!
You can see one with a hole at the stem that I accidentally picked. Most of the remaining apples I saw had much larger holes like that.
I am guessing that the apples were eaten by something. I’m good with feeding critters. What I found interesting, though, is that it was just this one tree. There are trees on either side of this one that are full of apples, and I can see apples on the ground beneath them.
I guess whatever has been eating the apples from this tree found it tastier than the others, too!
Anyhow.
For the larger amount of apples, I am planning to make jelly. For the smaller amount, I’m going to try making apple cider vinegar.
While doing my rounds yesterday evening, checking the eastern fence line in the spruce grove, something bright and red caught my eye.
There are quite a few bright red rose hips in the area, but these were completely different.
I tried to use the Lens app on my phone to identify them, but we get no signal – data or wifi – out there, so I wasn’t able to get a search result until I was by the house.
Apparently, we have American Cranberry growing among our spruces!
Last summer, while going around the property with my older brother, we had gone into an area filled with rocks and blocks of concrete and all sorts of bushes growing among them. My brother remembered that there were hazelnut bushes there. We didn’t find any, but I decided to check it out again, in case something managed to grow this year.
This morning, I grabbed a bucket and checked out the chokecherry trees.
After my last visit with them, I thought I might be too late for the one tree; either they would be over ripe, or the birds would have got them by now.
Happily, there were plenty of perfectly ripe (very dusty!) berries!
I was even able to pull branches down and get lots from the top.
This is how much I got, from just the one tree – minus the many that went flying or rolling out of my hands onto the ground! :-D
That was all what I was able to pick from both trees near the road, last year.
This year, that second tree is not doing as well.
There were very few berries, they were really small, and not consistently ripening.
I left this tree alone.
Then I went for the tree closer to the house. The berries there were much plumper, but the berries were also mostly out of reach. The lower branches don’t get anywhere near as much light, so there were fewer berries and they were redder. My daughter was able to come out and help by pulling the upper branches down so I could reach to pick them.
Check them out!
While there were a fewer berries, they had almost as much volume as the berries from the other tree.
Yes, they are also a lot more red and not as ripe. This is okay, as the less ripe berries have more natural pectin.
As I write this, the chokecherries are sitting in cold water to get rid of any critters that might have come along for the ride, and get the bulk of the dust from the gravel road off. Later, I will give them a thorough wash in cold water, then pick them over to get rid of stems and any messed up berries.
Last year, we made chokecherry vinegar, to use mostly as a drink mix, with our berries. I have not yet decided if we will do the same thing this year. I’ll go through some ideas with my daughters later. I rather like the idea of making a jelly, but that vinegar was really good!
At the very least, we’ll set some aside to freeze and use to make chokecherry mead at some point. :-)
Yesterday, the girls needed to pick up stuff not available locally, so we made a trip into the city.
While we were out, a wonderful, long rain came through our region.
We could actually see the difference in the trees between when we drove into the city, and when we drove back!
The only down side is that we had also been getting strong winds. Enough to blow over the bird feeder stand in its summer location. The hanging feeder fell apart, but thankfully, it just pops back together easily. I was needing to refill it, anyhow.
I also finally saw birds using the bird bath, in its now location. So I’m happy. :-)
I had nothing I needed to get in the city myself, but of course I was checking things out. Especially the garden centres. One of our goals is to plant food trees, so I’ve been checking out the varieties of apples – I’d like something other than crab apples! – that can grow in our region, as well as anything else that produces fruit, nut or berry.
I ended up buying our first food trees.
Also known as haskap, these berries were on my list. I’ve never actually had one before, but they can be used like blueberries, raspberries or strawberries. Part of why I included them on my list was due to their extreme hardiness. These babies can withstand -45C temperatures! They are also an early producer, with ripe berries (after the second year) by mid-June.
This is a variety that needs male and female plants to pollinate, and when I saw there was only one of each left, I grabbed them. We won’t expect berries in their first year, but we should have plenty, next year.
What we now have to do is figure out where to plant them. They require sun and shade, can grow 5-10 ft high, and should be planted about 4 feet apart. We thought of taking out more of that spirea by the storage house, and planting them near the grapes, but with the size and spacing needed, I’m moving away from that idea. They could be planted in one of my newly mulched beds in the south yard. They will also be easy to water, there.
Something to figure out over the next couple of days. :-)
I’m really looking forward to seeing how these grow!
This evening, I headed over to pick some chokecherries.
When I got there, I found far fewer than I expected to!
The birds are well fed. :-D
Which works out. They eat the stuff I can’t reach, and I pick the stuff they have a harder time getting to.
The chokecherry trees along the north fence line are in between lilacs. As I came closer, I couldn’t help but notice a lot of white powder all over their leaves.
It’s dust from cars going by on the gravel road! This is what falls on the leaves on the south side of the bushes – the north side much be just covered!
It made for some rather dusty berries, too.
This is all I got from the two trees along the north fence line, and even a bit from the one tree by my mother’s raspberry bushes, on the south side of the garden area.
After giving them a couple of rinses in the bucket, I cleaned out the leaves, twigs and stems, then gave them a couple more washes.
As I write this, they are soaking in our ice cold well water to get the last of the floaty bits off.
Tomorrow, I will go over the recipes I found and decide what to do with them. After I measure how much I have. Definitely small batch preserving on this one.
I found this link with several recipes for different methods of chokecherry preserves. It calls for 10 cups of chokecherries to make a juice, which is then used in most of the other recipes. I definitely don’t have 10 cups. I do have enough for the chokecherry vinegar recipe, though. In fact, I could start that tonight and finish it tomorrow night.
The Re-Farmer 