Crafton Street Block Party

This morning Terry and I manned a table for the Tiadaghton Audubon Society at The Second Annual Crafton Street Block Party over in Wellsboro. Actually, it was our table and chairs and a couple of our bird houses and pamphlets. The feeders and bluebird houses were supplied by other donors.

This was the second year they have run this particular event (sponsored by the Artisans Shoppe) and it was pretty well attended for a small scale event. The weather, at least, cooperated with nice comfortable temperatures and lots of sunshine. There were several vendors from nearby stores, lots of free food from local venues, a Cub Scout Pack had its Pinewood Derby materials on display, youth cheerleaders, live music, local country radio coverage (KC101.5), an animal shelter presence with lots of cute kitties and several well-behaved dogs, prize drawings, and more.

I took a few pictures but got wrapped up in several discussions and missed some of the best activities.


Several dozen young girls performed cheers to start the day.


Soon afterward, a band began playing an eclectic mixture of country and rock from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. They were surprisingly good.

People were wandering through all morning and into the early afternoon (when we were relieved by other members of TAS). Some brought their kids out for a nice walk through the town of Wellsboro and onto our little street. Others came by walking their dogs. At least one woman had some stranger pets that she brought out to enjoy the sunshine.


A beautiful green Amazonian parrot (of the Piratical persuasion) and a lovely green iguana of a matching shade.

Terry and I had a good time and enjoyed talking to those who stopped to look at our bird houses and feeders.

Zucchini Pie

I goofed back in the early days of summer and put 8 zucchini plants in the ground. They were sold in a four pack and the little, itsy, bitsy plants looked so delicate I felt it was necessary to put them all in the ground--just in case one or two didn't make it. Little did I know that these were genetically altered zucchini designed to take over the world.

Every plant survived--despite the presence of rabbits, deer, ground hog and bear. (One has survived being sat upon by the bear.) NONE have even been nibbled upon by any mammal, bird, insect, or worm. The four plants in the raised bed in the open--where there is plenty of sun light have grown to huge proportions despite having been planted in pairs. (I did separate the other pairs so as to have four individual plants with space in between.)

We have kept ahead of the plants by harvesting zucchini fruit when they are around 6 inches in length and certainly no longer than 8 inches. All tolled, we have probably harvested 36 of the little green tubes.

We have eaten them grilled, Italian-style with tomato sauce, as stir fry, and simply sliced and boiled. Terry has shredded cup after cup and turned them into zucchini breads which now are filling the freezer despite half a dozen having been gifted to others and even shipped to our son in Eugene, OR.

And then there was the Zucchini Pie. Seeking something "different," Terry asked around and one of the gals at Curves offered this faux Apple Pie option.

Zucchini Pie
From the Kitchen of Toni Bixby

Ingredients:

4 cups of Zucchini (peeled, seeds removed and cubed)
1 1/4 cup Sugar
1/3 tsp. Salt
1 1/2 tsp. Apple Pie Spice
1/4 cup Lemon Juice
1/4 cup Corn Starch (add a little water for thickening)
(Options: 1 cup Raisins, 1/2 cup Walnuts)

Directions:

Mix sugar, salt, and spice with the zucchini. (Add the raisins and walnuts at this time.)
Add lemon juice.
Cook until the zucchini is soft.
When done, mix the corn starch and water for thickening agent and add it to the mixture.
Cook until thickened.
Pour into a pie crust of your choice and bake at 400° F for 30 minutes.


Smells and tastes just like apple pie. Looks a little like a mince meat pie.
Do it up ala mode with some French vanilla ice cream and enjoy.
(Sorry about not having any pictures. We ate it too fast!)

Next year I'll only put in 4 zucchini plants!

Friday morning walk

Terry and I turned out to be the only two who showed up for our bird walk this morning. Between injuries, emergencies and prior commitments...well, no one else was there. We did have a fairly productive day, too. We started at the north end of the rails-to-trails path that runs from Wellsboro down t Jersey Shore. After parking at the terminus on Barber Road and waiting for others to arrive, we walked south on the trail about one mile to where it crosses the creek and then walked back. We started in the fog but that soon was burned off and the sun came out. There was no wind--or rain to speak of. The temperature soon climbed from a low of around 60 degrees to a high of 72 as we returned to our vehicle. There was fruit on many of the trees along the way, including a relatively large cherry tree, several crab apples, lots of what looked like elderberries and many others. The birds really liked the fruit.

Here's the list of what we saw:



Location: Rails-to-Trails Rt 287 W
Observation date: 8/15/08
Notes:
Number of species: 36

Green Heron X
Turkey Vulture X
Cooper's Hawk X
Red-tailed Hawk X
Rock Pigeon X
Mourning Dove X
Ruby-throated Hummingbird X
Red-bellied Woodpecker X
Downy Woodpecker X
Hairy Woodpecker X
Northern Flicker X
Least Flycatcher X
Eastern Phoebe X
Warbling Vireo X
Red-eyed Vireo X
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Tree Swallow X
Black-capped Chickadee X
House Wren X
American Robin X
Gray Catbird X
Cedar Waxwing X
Yellow Warbler X
American Redstart X
Common Yellowthroat X
Eastern Towhee X
Chipping Sparrow X
Savannah Sparrow X
Song Sparrow X
Northern Cardinal X
Rose-breasted Grosbeak X
Indigo Bunting X
Red-winged Blackbird X
Common Grackle X
American Goldfinch X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

Some more chores at the Aerie

Lovely summer day here at the Aerie (after the morning fog burned off). The sun was shinning and the temperature hovered in the mid-70s most of the afternoon.

I spent the morning cutting the grass and then picking blackberries. It amazing how many there were on the canes along the upper driveway. That's what happens when you ignore them for a week and there's lots of rain.

After lunch I went and got the Tundra serviced. It's about 10 months old and needed its 10K service. I also had the dealer do the PA inspection thing while I was there. The dealer is a little over an hour away and it took an hour and a half to do the work so I was gone for most of the afternoon sitting in the "lounge" at the dealer's.

Rain is supposed to return tomorrow--which is a bummer since we are supposed to be going birding in the morning. Hopefully, the 50% chance of showers will mean the other half of the county gets rained on and we don't.

There's a street fair in Wellsboro on Saturday and I volunteered to set up and man a table for the Tiadaghton Audubon Society starting at 10:30 AM. The forecast for Saturday is excellent and here's hoping it stays that way.

Back at the Aerie

As might be surmised by my willingness to post three pictures of the hawk, I arrived safely back at the Aerie this afternoon. Towing the trailer was a breeze and the Tundra performed marvelously. Although it did gulp the gasoline down like a drunk on a weekend bender! Just around 10 MPG with the "Tow/Haul" switch engaged, a truck bed full of wood and soil, and a 27' travel trailer in tow. At least the price of that gas is coming down. It was $4.07 at the Chittenango service area on the NYS Thruway and just $3.76 at the Gulf station at the intersection of Routes 14 & 6 in Troy, PA. A little over a month ago it would have been $4.30+ and $4.10.

Hauling the trailer up the hill to the Aerie was a hoot. I had to stop right at the driveway because a survey crew member was standing at the end of the driveway. (They're doing survey work for the wind towers they're supposed to be putting up on top of the ridge.) Once stopped, I spun my wheels a bit to pull a little further up the dirt road before I could back into the drive. I struggled with the backing up part a little. It would be easier with A- a smaller trailer, B- without an audience (survey crew), C- a straighter driveway (mine has a short dogleg at the end before it arcs gently into the clearing in front of the garage), and D- a road that didn't slope at an angle of between thirty and forty degrees.

Anyway, I managed to get the trailer backed in the driveway, wheel chocks in place, and unhooked from the Tundra without a major incident. Of course, it's not level since the driveway slopes just a wee bit, but I don't plan on sleeping in the trailer while it's in the driveway. I could have backed it up onto the grass where it would have been level, but I just planted that grass earlier this summer and it is growing too nicely to run over it with the trailer/truck combo any time soon.

Now, if only the papers from PennDot would get here so I can get the trailer inspected.

Red-shouldered Hawk at the Bolt Hole

So, as I mentioned yesterday, there was a hawk upon the electric wires outside the Bolt Hole in the morning and it seemed quite tame. At least it allowed me to go inside and get my camera and then come back and snap some pictures of it. It stayed in one place merely looking at me as I approached closer and closer. It wasn’t until I was nearly beneath it that it flew off.


Terry and I were looking at these pictures and comparing the photos in Sibley’s and we agree that it appears to be a Red-shouldered Hawk.




The place where it was perched is directly over a dirt road that has tall grasses/weeds on the south side and thick trees (apple, fir, pine) and brush (honey suckle, rugosa rose) on the north. Immediately on the other side of the trees and brush is the lawn. There are plenty of small critters, snakes and birds for this larger predator to eat.

Bolt Hole Weather and Chores

There was a little more rain over night but the weather quacks got a third day in a row correct. While the morning started off looking a little iffy, the sun burned through the clouds and shone brightly for most of the day. There was one little boomer that past over around 2 PM but it only provided 15 minutes of rain before it hightailed it eastward.

Yeah, I burned a couple of logs in the big wood stove here at the Bolt Hole last night. The Temperature was around 45 degrees at 8 PM and with the rain all day, it felt quite cold in the cabin even with the windows all closed. Naturally, the fire soon made it too hot inside and I had to go to sleep with the door to the deck cracked open and under just the sheet. I did wake up later to pull the comforter up, however. It was barely 45 degrees when I came down to breakfast at 7 AM and it never got much above 65 even with the sunshine.

I had a curious hawk sitting on the power line over the road this morning. It kept looking at me as I looked at it. It talked quietly to it and moved slowly as it continued to sit there. I told it to stay put and got my camera out of the house and snapped some pics. It allowed me to almost walk underneath its perch before flying off. I'll post one or two of the better pictures tomorrow when I get back to the Aerie. Trying to do so here at the Bolt Hole while on dial-up would just take too long.

Needless to say, I was able to get the ATV out and move about a face cord of firewood into the attached woodshed from the stacks in the field. Ticked off a bunch of snakes too. I probably spotted 8 or 10 of the little devils. Mostly garter snakes but there was one red-bellied snake in the wood pile that I kept chasing from log to log. Every time I picked one up it was underneath. Stupid snake kept stopping just one log down and of course that was the next to be picked up. It finally ran out of room when I got to the bottom level and then it slithered off under the next pile.

There was also one larger snake sunning itself next to the garage that I only caught a glimpse of before it slithered under the raspberry bushes. It was more of a brown color and quite chubby. Certainly not a garter snake as it had no yellow stripes down its back. I failed to catch a glimpse of its head so I can't be sure that it wasn't a copperhead. (If the head is triangular or wedge shaped it's a good indication that the damn thing is poisonous.) With no idea of what it might have been I let it go its own way.

I also loaded two ATV loads onto the truck to take back to the Aerie. It's good, seasoned cherry for the most part with a little birch and red maple thrown in the mix. It will burn nicely in the fireplace come the cold winter months.

After the wood (and two big tubs of topsoil) was loaded into the truck, I got down to the business of hooking up the travel trailer for a trip down to the Aerie. PA requires all trailers over 7000 pounds be inspected annually. The 27' travel trailer weighs in at around 7500 pounds. I sent off the registration over a week ago so it should be back from PennDot soon. There's no sense making a separate trip up to get the trailer when there is room in the driveway to park it until I decide to come back up. (Early bear season in NY starts on September 13 this year so I might be back in a month.)

This will be the first time I've towed the trailer with the Tundra and I'm interested in seeing how it handles the load of wood, soil and trailer. I know that with the Silverado my MPGs went way down when I was towing.

There you have it. I'll have a little packing to do in the morning and a little cleanup after breakfast but I should be on the road by 9 or 9:30. Hopefully they will be done stoning the road, Mark said it took him close to 40 minutes to travel the last 6 miles around noon today because of the trucks, rollers, etc. Could get interesting with the trailer in tow.

Another rainy cold day at the Bolt Hole

I woke this morning to a near 45 degree temperature and it hasn't gotten much better. The temperature outside reads a mere 55 at 1:30 in the afternoon. And the rain has been nearly continuous as well. The thunderstorms just keep rolling overhead. There was one boomer that, while not right over me--thank goodness, still rattled the old cabin to it's core.

This makes the second day in a row the weather quacks have gotten it right. Amazing!

I've once more had to postpone any outdoor activity but the place has gotten a much needed vacuuming and general cleaning.

There's hope that there will be some nice conditions coming tomorrow morning but they aren't supposed to last so if they do appear I'll have to work fast to get the things done that need doing.

Meanwhile it's more crossword puzzles and naps. I am thinking about building a fire if things don't warm up soon. It would also take some of the rawness out of the air.

It's so bad outside that I had a mouse or two in the house last evening. There hasn't been a house mouse in months. And it's not because the place is tight. If I ever had a build up of gas or anything inside I don't think I would have to worry. There are so many little openings that it would dissipate long before it came to any danger levels. I set out four Victor snap traps and caught one white-footed deer mouse over night. The traps will stay out until I have to leave later this week.

Morning Rain

It might be a first. The weather dudes got it right. They called for rain late in the night and sure enough it started to sprinkle around 4 AM. And then--as they predicted--it continued though much of the morning. We even had some thunder in the distance to go along with some heavier precipitation. Then, just as suddenly, it stopped raining and the sun came out for a couple of hours. Now there's a threatening sky in the distance and it may--or may not--rain again this afternoon. If it holds off, I may have to go out and do some of the chores I've planned as the chances of precip tomorrow and Tuesday are still bouncing around the 50-50 mark.

The temperature for August 10th is a remarkable 65 degrees (when the sun is out). That's a wee bit low for the southern Adirondacks.

UPDATE: It's 4 PM and there's more thunder and rain. I believe I'll go take a nap if I can. The sound of rain on a tin roof can be deafening.

At the Bolt Hole

I enjoyed a nice leisurely ride up to the Bolt Hole this morning (after dumping yet another 0.25 inches of rain out of the Aerie's rain gauge). The sun was shinning and the air was cool when I arrived. It's supposed to get even cooler yet we'll have thunderstorms and possibly hail tonight and tomorrow.

As soon as I pulled into the yard and unloaded the truck, I got the lawn mower going and cut the grass. It was a good 8 inches high in some spots and that forced me to go slow. I kept my eye on the critters in that thick stuff and noticed lots of black crickets but no grasshoppers. Last year it was just the opposite, there were grasshoppers all over the place. There were also three garter snakes, a couple of toads, a wood frog, a leopard frog and one dead bullfrog at the entrance to a burrow under the back of the garage. Lots of cedar waxwings flitted around the yard as the honeysuckle are loaded with red berries and the cherry trees are also full of fruit. There were two hummingbirds going after the phlox in the garden as well as the spiders in the spiderwebs round about. Dragonflies cruised the air above the lawn and picked off the deer flies and occasional black fly. I came across several balls of grass that were probably home to voles, but they were all empty wen I ran over them.

It took me just over three hours to finish the cutting at which time I went inside to fix dinner and turned on the TV just in time to see the Angles rack up an 8 spot on the Yankees to win 11-4. One thing that Tim McGarver said that was amazing was that the home run Vladimir Guerrero hit to start the big rally was his 105th home run on the first pitch. Now Vlad has hit a lot of home runs but still...to hit 105 on the first pitch thrown to him in a plate appearance is astounding.

Well, if the weather quacks have got this forecast correct (I know, what are the odds?), I should have an easy day of it tomorrow. It will be too wet to be shuttling wood from the pile to the storage shed and too wet to go walk in the woods. Sounds like a day for naps, crossword puzzles and maybe a little Olympic action.

Off to the Bolt Hole

I'll be heading up to the Bolt Hole in the Adirondacks for a couple of days. The grass needs cutting, firewood needs storing, I need to see about moving the travel trailer back to PA for inspection, yada, yada, yada.

If things go according to plan (and the weather doesn't sink me) I should be there only until Wednesday before making my way back to the Aerie.

I've already got a date in Wellsboro on Saturday the 16th, so I can't be delayed more than a day or so.

Rain report

As I mentioned, the Aerie had 0.12 inches of rain this morning. That was on top of 0.14 that fell last night. In addition, we had another 0.18 inches this afternoon--some of which fell as the sun was shining.


Currently the sun is shinning brightly and there are only a few picturesque cumulus clouds are present. And the temperature has risen to 66°F!


There's still the possibility of a shower or two overnight. According to the weather quacks. I'm thinking of hanging a weather rock out in the yard. It would give a better idea of what the weather is than either weather.com or accuweather.com.

UPDATE: Well, that didn't last long. A few minutes after I posted about the lovely cumulus clouds, they all pushed to the south and a thick dark gray cloud cover took over and hid the sun. And now (6:45 PM) it is raining again.

(Call me slow, but I just noticed that the time stamp does not use Daylight Savings Time and thus, instead of 6:05 PM this post was listed as having originally appeared at 5:06 PM. That makes a difference when considering the rapid change in weather conditions noted in the update.)

UPDATE 2: Doh! Not 15 minutes and the sun is out and the rain has stopped. Time for a rock.

Birding at Hammond Lake

Terry and I went birding this morning at Ive’s Run/Hammond Lake with a large group (9) from Tiadaghton Audubon Society. I was out there just last week but there have been major changes. The lake has been drawn down nearly 5 feet and vast mud flats are now exposed on the western end. This may have been done with the intention of removing some debris that has clogged the channels or so as to work on the dam/spillway. Whatever the reason, the flats have created excellent habitat for many wading birds.



Location: Ive's Run-Crooked Creek
Observation date: 8/8/08
Notes: Hammond Lake has been drawn down several feet exposing wide mud flats on the western end. Swallows, sandpipers, yellowlegs and plovers are using these to good advantage.

The morning started out clear and still but a cool wind out of the northwest brought dark clouds and eventually rain. The temperatures never got abouve 60 degrees F all morning.
Number of species: 33

Canada Goose X
Mallard X
Double-crested Cormorant X
Great Blue Heron X
Green Heron X
Turkey Vulture X
Osprey X
Bald Eagle X
Semipalmated Plover X
Killdeer X
Spotted Sandpiper X
Greater Yellowlegs X
Lesser Yellowlegs X
Semipalmated Sandpiper X
Least Sandpiper X
Ring-billed Gull X
Mourning Dove X
Belted Kingfisher X
Least Flycatcher X
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Tree Swallow X
Cliff Swallow X
Barn Swallow X
American Robin X
Gray Catbird X
Cedar Waxwing X
Common Yellowthroat X
Song Sparrow X
Northern Cardinal X
Rose-breasted Grosbeak X
Red-winged Blackbird X
Common Grackle X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

Weather eventually caused us to pack it in and shortly afterward the sky opened and the rains came. When we got back to the Aerie at 11:30 AM, Terry and I found it had rained 0.12 inches since we had left at 6:30 AM. We had missed most of that being some 15 miles away. No sooner did we get in the house than the rain arrived—again. It poured quite heavily for an hour, stopped, and then rained again for forty-five minutes. It looks like that could be the pattern for the rest of the day.

Oh, and the “high” temperature for the day has been 62°F at 12:30 PM. The fans are all off and the windows are mostly closed. Long sleeves or even a sweater are the rule for the day.

Finished hillside bed

This morning I went back to work on raising the wall and mixing the soil. There was rain in the forecast and I wanted to get done before it arrived.

I first spread a tarp on the ground above the bed and shoveled all the screened soil out of the bed. Then I laid a layer of landscaper’s cloth on the bottom of the bed and up the inside of the stone wall being sure there was enough on each end to wrap up the stone there as well. Once the cloth was in place, I shoveled enough soil back in to hold it in place. Next I added three bags of composted cow manure with humus and raked that out to mix with some of the soil. Then another layer of soil was added. Then half the 3 cubic feet of peat moss got shoveled on and raked in. Then came more soil, more peat moss, more soil and the last two bags of composted cow manure and finally the last of the soil. All the while, I was raising the stone wall a layer at a time and sending Terry to find some appropriate rocks for the back ledge of the bed. When all was done, I placed some of the left over hay from the lawn project on top to keep the clay from baking in the sun or washing away in a real heavy rain.





The best thing is that if I decide to build another bed up the slope. I should be able to use the top level of the back wall as the bottom edge of the wall. (It wouldn’t be part of the bottom row, I would put the new wall back into the slope so it just overlaps the edge of the stones already in place..)

Anyway, I do have lots of stone left which will be used on the next plant bed that will be built. This one will be done with a minimum of digging because the telephone/TV/computer line runs beneath the soil somewhere in the vicinity. It will go just to the right-foreground of this telephone pole. (A remnant of the previous owners wind mill project I believe.) I’ll have to do something to beat the weeds back. That won’t be easy as there’s a good sized multiflora rose sitting front and center and those things have got thorns to rival the blackberry canes.

Raised bed at the Aerie

I spent all day outside working to create one raised bed out of the hillside next to the stairs I carved into the slope. And I do mean all day. I started slightly after 8 AM when I finished my second cup of coffee and worked until just before 8 PM this evening. While the sun was warm (it reached 81° F just before 5 PM), there was a constant breeze blowing that kept things reasonable. Even so, I sweat like a stuck pig and took a fluid break every two hours; 20 oz. of Gatorade at 10 and 2, water at lunch and again at 4 in the afternoon. I had a beer with dinner at 5:30 and another liter of water at 8 PM when I quit for the day. Tylenol (extra strength) was also applied when I started, at lunch and again with dinner. When I finish loading this I believe I will take a wee dram of Glenlivet and then hit the showers and bed (with more Tylenol!).

This is what the area looked like yesterday before I laid a shovel and Johnson bar to it.



As you can see, there’s a considerable slope to the hill. I intended to cut into that slope and make two tiers each about 5 feet wide and 12-15 feet along the contour of the slope. Once I got into the task, however, two things became apparent: 1) If I built the second, higher tier, you couldn’t really harvest anything from it without leaning over and down the slope or stepping in the bed itself. Hat is not an ideal situation in that by leaning over you would have a tendency to fall down the hill and by stepping in the bed you would compact the soil and kill off the roots of the vegetables growing here. 2) It would be a bloody lot of work to construct and would take more stones than I have on hand.

Here’s the pile of rocks I hauled out of the woods yesterday and the day before using the hand truck and the wheelbarrow. It was actually easier to use the wheelbarrow because of the sides on the barrow. The stones could only be stacked one column and about 2 ½ feet high on the hand truck and, despite having two wheels, the hand truck was more difficult to move down the old logging road.
 


This is the pile of rocks I picked up last week on the second driveway up the hill. I hauled them out to the driveway and then took the Explorer up there to bring them down to the Aerie.



Here you can see the bed as it looked at noon. It is carved out of the hillside and is approximately 5 feet wide. (That’s the size of the rake.)



By dinner, I had sifted and screened nearly all the soil in the bed down to a depth of about 18 inches in the back and 2-3 inches in the front. The larger (bigger than a quarter) and rounder stones got discarded.



(Those are 6x6 timbers forming a rectangle approximately 2’ x 3’ and those stones all came from the screened soil of this one bed.)

Those that were really large or even just 9-10 inches across got set aside for use on the retaining wall. The small stones were saved to be used as a bed for the stone wall. And there were plenty of stones!

Just before quitting time.



My good friends the poor-man's backhoe (long-handled shovel and rake) and Johnson bar (the tall, skinny, black iron bar that weighs 16 pounds and has a chisel point on one end) which did the bulk of the work today breaking up and prying stones out of the clay soil.

I saved the first two wheelbarrows of screened dirt on a tarp and after that dumped the screened soil back into the trench as I worked. The trench is now full except for those two wheelbarrows of soil. They will go in after I build the wall to the finished height. That’s tomorrow’s job—along with mixing in some soil enhancers.

This is fill soil from the hillside, besides stones, it is almost exclusively clay. It needs organics in the worst way to improve its water holding capacity and aeration. To that end, I’ll be mixing in 6 bags of composted cow manure (with humus) and 3 cubic feet of peat moss. I’ll cover with mulch for the winter and it will be ready in the spring to plant some vegetables in this little stretch. Square foot gardening here we come!

If this project doesn't kill me, I'll be in great shape for the deer season!

More chores

I feel like I've been working on a rock gang lately. I spent the morning (8:00 AM 'til 12:30 PM) hauling more rocks out of the woods and moving smaller rocks and limbs about to create a terraced effect in the woods themselves. I figure I've got enough rocks now to start building the retaining walls I want for raised beds. As always I have to take into account the power line ant he transformer that's atop one of the poles outside. The garden space has to be arranged so the power crew can get in here with a cherry picker if something happens to that garbage can up there.

The construction will begin tomorrow.

After lunch I went out and did battle with the blackberry canes again and came back bloodied but victorious. I had a quart of the suckers and now have enough in the freezer to make some blackberry jam.

Tioga County Fair

After lunch back at the Aerie, Terry and I decided to go over to the Tioga County Fair.

Tioga County is not one of the most densely populated counties in the state. There are just over 41,000 people residing within its borders approximately 36 per square mile. Outside of Mansfield, a college town, and Wellsboro, the county seat, there are no real towns. Crossroads and villages at those crossroads, yes. Towns? No. (Mansfield and especially Wellsboro make up for the missing urban centers, however. The 1890s weekend in Mansfield celebrates the first college football game to be played at night with activities from Thursday through Sunday. last year, however, they did it without the football game. The university dropped the sport. Rumor has it a smaller, scaled back football program will return. The Dicken's Christmas spectacular held at Wellsboro every Christmas season is a huge gala.) Terry and I smile every time we drive down Main Street in Wellsboro past the movie theater that boast it is the best in the county. Heck, it's the ONLY one in the county.

As you might suspect, there's a lot of agriculture within the county and that's what I expected to see on display.

Today was the first day of the County Fair. We were curious to see what might be on hand. None of the rides were in operation when we got there at 2 PM. They wouldn't start until after 5 PM. We planned to be long gone before that, after all, we had blueberry jam to make.

We wandered around the animal barns admiring the working oxen named Brooks and Dunn as well as photos of their proteges Big and Rich. This Brooks and Dunn would not look good in tight jeans. Hauling timber out of a forest or pulling stumps? They could do that. And they clearly had the muscles to do so.

There were two handsome looking mules in the pen next door. The printout reminded folks that a mule is sired by and ass and born of a horse--and retains the worst qualities of each, but these two looked like they could pull a cart or a plow all day long--if they wanted to.

Sheep of every hue were in abundance. As were goats. There were pigs aplenty as well.

The 4-H kids were all over as well. Some led goats about the show ring and we watched for a while. Others had young heifers and sheep that were getting baths and a combing to look their best for the judges.

One of the buildings held the crafts and Terry was interested in seeing what they had. Lots of quilts and photographs. Some sewing projects and a few beading projects, baskets, etc. Interestingly enough, one of my friends granddaughters (aged 12) had two pieces that won prizes. One was a quilt that I saw her working on with her grandmother and the other was an embroidered horse blanket for grandma's Arabian. Another acquaintance, Gary's wife also had two quilts that won awards. One in particular was very lovely. Gary's son also got a prize for a photo of a House Wren that he submitted. (I looked but didn't see anything of Gary's there.)

No one from Terry's Embroidery Guild entered anything. All said the security at the fair was non-existent and from what we saw today, they were probably correct on that issue.

I was impresed with the number of gardening entries. Fruits and vegetables of all sorts were on display and some looked pretty darn good! There were also flowers on display. Some were cut flower arrangements and others were potted flowers. All loked wonderful.

There were a couple of booths set up for produce. A couple selling maple syrup and its products drew us over to purchase some maple based barbeque sauce will taste good on salmon, and some maple crunchies will be good on vanilla or chocolate ice cream.

There were lots of the usual food booths, wings, dogs, cotton candy, barbeque beef, funnel cakes.... All were jsut starting up and some weren't ready to serve yeet. As a rsult we missed out on our Mr. Sticky walnut sticky bun. (If you haven't had a Mr. Sticky's sticky bun, you've never had a real sticky bun! He's out of Williamsport and is local but if you're every in the area... The Black Swan in Mansfield serves them up. Otherwise you have to go to Williamsport or hope to run into his concession trailer at a fair like this.) We had to settle for a funnel cake instead. You can't go to a county fair and not eat something.

They do have evening programs and shows as well as the usual carnival rides and games. We just werent' going to stick around for them. As it was, we spent a bit over two hours roaming around the animal barns and the display buildings before we headed home to make our own jam.

Blueberry Pickin'

Terry and I went blueberry pickin' this morning at Murphy's Farm just west of Mansfield. It's a pick-youself operation although they do have some quarts for sale at $4 each.

The place is at the top of the hill and faces south with a gorgeous view. We arrived early and there were still several people there already. It was still cool and yet the sun was warming our backs as we worked. Being a Monday, there were lots and lots of ripe berries on the bushes and we only traveled about ten yards down our respective rows (about 10 plants in all). We picked for just one hour and each filled our bucket. I have to say it was nice to be able to pick berries without a thought of thorns and stickers. I feel like I gave a pint of blood picking raspberries and blackberries. I may have to invest in a kevlar jacket. Plus it was a whole lot easier than hauling stone out of the woods.

When we checked out, we had a nice talk with Deb Murphy who was manning the scales and cash register. The cost was $1.40 per pound and we each had over four pounds f blueberries. According to Ms. Murphy it takes, on average, 1 1/2 pounds to make a quart. So by picking them ourselves, we got them for half price over the going rate in the stores.

I asked her about the time it took to get her place in operation and she said that from the time they first put the bushes in it took around 6-7 years before they had a crop large enough to open for a u-pick business. Every January they start pruning the bushes. They take out half of the new growth and half of the old growth. It may take them all of January and February to get all their plants pruned properly. And they may have to dig the snow out of the way to do the job. She says they really, really hate that part! But the work they put in has yielded a beautiful blueberry farm. Their bushes cover about 2 acres and they are constantly adding plants. I could see five or six relatively new rows as well as the odd plant here and there where an old plant had to be replaced.

Ms. Murphy says that they will still be open daily until around the 19th of August. After that it will be Saturdays only until the berries are gone. I may go back again later this week.

We put 3 quarts of berries in the freezer (for pancakes, buckle and muffins), one quart in the fridge (for cereal), and the rest (3 quarts) we made into Blueberry Jam--7+ pints of it. (That's 7 quarts for a little over $12 and a little sweat equity.)

Aerie Chore Report.

I spent the better part of the day hauling flat stones out of the woods using the hand truck. before I could bring them out I had to first move them down the hillside to the trail where the hand truck could be used. Last time I moved stones up the hill to the driveway on the adjacent lot. Today it was a matter of getting them down to the old logging road at the base of the hill. I figure that leaves lots of rocks in the middle of the woods that I can take either up or down.

While walking about in the woods I carried my loppers with me and knocked down a good deal of dead wood. I made not so neat piles of the branches and logs across the slope of the hill in the hopes of slowing down erosion. (There really isn't very much erosion except in two little gullies that carry rain water and snow melt from the upper driveway into the woods. I laid some of the branches across these in several places as little check dams.)

After six hours traipsing in the woods and tossing stones around I'm sore from the bottom of my feet to the lower part of my back. (I sure could have used a couple of discus throwers or shot putters!)

I did take some time off immediately after lunch to go and pick some blackberries. I managed a little over a quart just from the bushes along the driveway and power line right of way. Now I've almost enough to make some blackberry jelly as soon as Terry can get some cheesecloth to act as a strainer. (I'd be happy with jam but Terry complains about the seeds getting stuck between her teeth, so jelly it is.)

And I'm taking tomorrow off from the stone work as Terry and I go pick some blueberries in the morning. Then we'll go over to the Tioga County Fair in the afternoon.

Gardening report from the Aerie

Terry and I woke up this morning to the sound of thunder and rain at 4 AM. It continued on through 8 AM and then the clouds in the sky opened into puffy cumulus with the sun shining between. By then the rain gauge held 0.35 inches and you could hear the zucchini sucking up the moisture and growing larger by the second.

We had planned on going over the hill to a commercial blueberry enterprise where you can pick your own for $1.40 a quart. A couple of hours with the two of us picking should get us plenty of berries for some blueberry jam. The rain forced us to change our mind. We'll go on Monday morning instead. (They are not open on Sunday.)

Terry went out with a knife in hand around 9 AM and I thought she meant those zucchini plants harm but she only cut off three of the largest zukes and brought them inside. We now have eight or nine, six to seven inchers on the counter. Terry declared today a zucchini free day and we hate none at all.

I spent some time walking about the yard picking up small stones and plotting where I want to built some more raised beds. Terry has declared our first two beds successes based solely upon the production of the zucchini and the herbs. I have to agree with her. Although we had very high mortality from the strawberry plants I put in, the ones that survived are suddenly putting out runners and there may be many, many more plants come next spring. The only real failures have been the bulbs and corms I put in the ground. neither the ones along the driveway nor the ones back by the bird feeders sprouted. I blame the quality of the bulbs and corms more than the way they were planted or handled. We need to get some daffodil bulbs for this fall.

Back to the future raised beds. I picked out two large beds and one smaller one positioned so none of them will interfere with a work crew from the power company if they have to bring a truck in to deal with the transformer on the pole outside. And I've already started to think about the vegetables and perennial flowers that will go in them. Some will be ordered as seed and others as plants--most likely from Burpee's catalogs.

Before I can start building the raised beds however, I will need more flatties. So, if there's no rain I'll be prowling the woods tomorrow morning picking up some more one to one-and-a-half foot square rocks. They shouldn't be hard to find. It's the hauling out that will be a treat!