Harvest
Garden season was another hit and kept everyone (mostly me) busy with things to plant, weed, water, pick and harvest. The kids were best with planting and then harvesting. lol. Everything in the middle was pretty boring and I get that. The swales and perennial trees and bushes really did well and the kids loved munching on the berries and cherries. The garden did well and I will look to expand the footprint. Its a lot of work right now, but the kids are really starting to get it.
Its been a super busy start to the spring, but we managed to get out for a good family morel hunt. We’ve been going to this spot for years now because it is so close, but its always a challenge to find them because they change locations every year and there never is a huge flush of them anywhere. The big change I notice every season now is how much faster the kids have gotten and how good they are at finding them. They can go off on there own and find them themselves. Its really neat! And the best part is that they like to fry them up with me and eat them - which is certainly a main reason to do it (among others!)
Our little guy Declan was still backpacking it and loving life. Ewwing and owwing in my ear the whole time. He loves the outdoors just like the rest of them and will be following in their footsteps in no time soon.
This year’s pilgrimage included a trip to the cabbage farm followed by a pheasant hunt on opening day in Somerset County with Cooper and a pit stop to Whitehorse Brewing for some Packsaddle Ales . Over the next couple weeks, we had quite October stomp action with the kiddos and even little Declan baby got in on the action. This year I felt confident enough to let Jack do some of the shredding and put Hunter on the salt. Of course everyone stomped.
Part of the tradition has evolved into pumpkin carving while we stomp. It is truly a Fall celebration.
March means its time to get the early season gardening activities in as Spring is right around the corner. Onions, potatoes, and peas all go in and we've started all the seedlings for the May plants. Each year the number and variety of plants increases and so does the size of the garden. The kids are great with planting the garden and harvesting; now we just them to do do some of the weeding this year!
It's a fairly predictable event that it will rain on a Sunday in late October and there is no better time to get our sauerkraut stomp on with the kids. This year, my father-in-law really led the whole effort with the kids as I did a thousand other things plus carved some pumpkins. The best part of this whole tradition is spending time with the family.
This year, we even had a debut appearance by one week-old, Declan. My wife was none-too- pleased with my decision to drag him out into the cold, but it really is a family right of passage. And, it will be great to benchmark him up against this crock next year to see how much's he's grown!
One unintentional outcome of celebrating the annual family tradition is a a get a yearly data point with the kids with the same brown crock as a reference to how much changes in just one year! Not even first-day-of school and Christmas can benchmark a year like that brown crock.
...For proof to this, here is some pictures from October of 2015.
Yes the garage was much cleaner too!
This year was not the year we needed to make the trip to Somerset county to get the cabbage for sauerkraut. We have some kraut left from last year and we are busier than ever in preparation for the new baby. My wife bestowed this logic upon me multiple times, along with the fact I tend to take on too much. She may be correct, but I was adamant that it still just had to happen. The torch has been passed to me and so I go get cabbage each Fall. It's simple; it's tradition. Plus, I love the process and it creates an excuse to hit the Laurel Highlands in the peak of the Fall season.
Upon arrival at Lehman's cabbage farm, I was greeted by the two largest Rottweilers I've ever seen in my life. I asked the farmer how big they were and he said 'bout 200 lbs'. That's the size of a bear. Considering the beast's head was 5-7 times the size of a head of cabbage, I don't think he was lying. My next question was are they friendly with kids. He didn't have to answer that one...his hesitation before his uncertain answer was all I needed. Needless to say, the kids stayed in the truck the entire time. So, I loaded 250 pounds of the best cabbage in the country and we rolled.
The kids were ready to be out of the truck, so we made up for it with a wonderful hike in Laurel Highlands State Park. I love this part and I love the delayed harvest section of the trout stream. The water was low which allowed for some real life Q*Bert on the rocks that were exposed from the recent drought and an old dead fall allowed them to practice their balancing skills. It was the peak of the Fall foliage and about 70 degrees. It was a prefect day and we even watched a few trout rising in the stream.
The one thing the kids are really great at doing is picking! Its harvest season and they are great at finding anything ripe. From raspberries to tomatoes, strawberries, and cherries. If its red, they are all over it!
Like everything else (fishing, camping, holidays, etc) life experiences just keep getting better each year with the kids. Stomping sauerkraut was no different. I remember when Jack and Clara were less than a year old and I propped them up on my leg just to barely hold the stomper, in a ceremonial fashion. This year, they were full of excitement and fought over the turn to stomp the kraut. They had a blast and that's what it's all about.
In fact, Jack was so excited he broke his first crock with the stomper. As my Uncle Joe told me, my Pap has broken many of crocks in his day and he would be proud. Fortunately, we had a backup crock, so we moved the cabbage over and kept on stomping.
For many decades my Pap, Dad, and Uncle have made the annual pilgrimage up to Lehman Brothers Farm in Berlin, Somerset County, PA to get the highest quality cabbage in the country. This cabbage is dense like a bowling ball and is the secret to the high quality sauerkraut we make each fall.
This picture of my Pap, at age 92, is one of my all time favorites. I get lost thinking of my Pap's entire life experiences in this one picture. For me, it's so deep.
We took the kids up to the farm and got a very similar picture. Similar to the picture of my Pap, I get lost staring into the eyes of these kids . I feel like I am staring directly into the history and generations of our family. Without my Pap and Dad now, these kids gives me so much happiness knowing the family traditions live on.
If the kids like to plant seeds and water plants, they LOVE doing the harvest. They love trying to carry the huge zucchinis, loading up their trucks with garlic and finding red tomatoes (though they havent learned to eat them yet). Though, by far, they love picking (eating!) all the blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries. they have procduced on a daily cadence in just their first year. And the wild black raspberries were such a treat.
The kids are garden machines and love it!
Each year, the kids are learning more and more about where their food comes from and how to grow plants from seeds and that they need sun and water and some TLC. they are so proud of their little plants and really get into it!
We wanted to grow some pumpkins for the kids this year, so we planted a couple plants on the perimeter of the property. We had 3 pumpkins grow and each day the kids went and checked on their pumpkins. Ironically, the farm directly across the road planted about 40 acres of pumpkins, so there was no shortage of pumpkins or seeds, but glad we plant our own little patch.
I was making my way to my treestand this evening and found a half dozen giant puffballs all around my tree. I climbed my tree and sat out the last couple hours of light. The deer were on their feet and I watched a couple small bucks chasing does all over the hill side. Fun action, but no big boys yet. On my way out I grabbed one of the medium sized puffballs (yes, some were bigger).
I knew puffballs were edible, but I mean, just look at it. Does it look edible? It took a bunch more research to convince myself to actually eat one. The key when eating a puffball is it HAS TO BE PURE WHITE. If it starts to turn yellow at all (entering the stage when it turns into that big dead "puffball" we have all intentionally stepped on in the woods) then it is past its prime and not edible. This one was pure white and in perfect condition, so I cut it into about 3/4" steaks and pan fried it in butter until golden brown on both sides.
The results??? Delicious!! It was like a little piece of fried dough. It was mild in flavor and just a fun little snack. I bet puffballs would actually be pretty good with a little maple syrup on them for breakfast too and be a nice paleo replacement for pancakes.
It's tomato picking time with the kids! In my opinion, there isn't anything more fun and satisfying than watching them enjoy picking some fresh garden veggies. This isn't always the most productive harvest, but it sure is a whole lot of fun!
I took Hunter on a like fall forage around the mountains of Hot Springs, VA, primarily so he'd finally take a nap, but also so I could do a little mushroom hunting. We had a great hike and he was drooling out of the baby bjorn in no time flat.
We found some older mushrooms, but still fun to find nonetheless. We found some Chicken of the Woods, Maitake, (Hen of the Woods, and my first ever Cauliflower mushroom. I've never found one of these and had to do some research to even find out what it was. Unfortunately, it was a bit old and I opted not to eat it.
Note: I intentionally picked some Jack O Lantern mushrooms so I could take them back to the house and examine them further. I found them on the tree with the maitake and I circled them red in the last picture. Don't eat those. You might die.
*As always, I am not a mushroom expert, so please do not use this blog as a source of knowledge. Do not consume wild mushrooms unless you are 100% sure of their identification.
We took the family down to Hot Springs, Virginia and I was able to spend a precious few hours casting into the Jackson River.
As I was walking the banks, I came across this magnificent berry bush covered in glowing red berries. Raspberries, I thought! But as I got a little closer, I knew these were not raspberries. I picked them anyway, but waited on stuffing my face. When i got back to the cottage, I did a little research and quickly identified them as Japanese Wineberries, They are considered an invasive species, but man are they delicious. They are related to the raspberry, but have a distinctive sweet / tart flavor. I honestly have never heard of them around Pennsylvania, but I will definitely be looking out for then in Virginia.
We grew a garden and the kids helped pick the first harvest of the season. We had beets, carrots, and lots of snap peas! The twins loved pulling a surprise out of the ground and the boys ate enough peas to get a stomach ache. We had a great time harvesting what they helped to plant.
We took the kids on an afternoon hike to look for some morels. We went to a place we'd never found any before, but it was close and needed some fresh air. We were delighted to find some morels and let the twins pick their own (last year, they were in baby bjorns). They were certainly interested and loved how excited we were!
Got my new German style 40L (~10.5 gallon) crock for mass production of sauerkraut for 2015. I currently have a 20L and an old style crock, but needed this bigger model for the amount we eat and amount I give away. The 'Nik Schmitt' fermentation crocks are the secret to making sauerkraut.
The annual family tradition - cabbage from Somerset County and spending time with the kids stomping kraut for New Year's and 2015. We expanded this year and did a couple hundred pounds of cabbage in a few different crocks. Going to be a healthy 2015!
