Walnuts & Catepillers

Catepillers eating my walnut tree leaves

So can anyone out there tell me what kind of catepillers these are in the photo above? What kind of moth/butterfly do they turn into when mature?

They appear this time of year and eat as many of my walnut tree leaves that they can before I find them. They literally devour the leaves off the tree. I am left with just the skeletal veins of the leaves.

I'd like to know what they are and how to prevent them from eating my walnut tree leaves, if possible. I don't spray my plants and trees with pesticides (or anything), so maybe I'll just have to pick them off each time I see them.



2011 Walnut Harvest ~ with protective husks

The photo of the 3 walnuts above shows my entire walnut harvest for 2011! There were 3 or 4 more nuts on the tree, but the squirrels got to them before I did.


Washed Walnut Harvest

So I cleaned them up and am waiting for them to dry a bit before I eat them. What should I feed my tree to get a bigger crop? I want lots. Not just a handful.

Bah!






© Copyright 2011 Mountain Harvest Basket

Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns

Scary Toothy Grin in the dark



Not So Scary in the Light


This is just a quick post to show off our pumpkin carving talents to make this year's Jack-o-Lanterns for Halloween.

First off, we went out and bought field pumpkins because we only grew sweet pie pumpkins this year in our gardens, which are way better for making pies than for carving into jack-o-lanterns. Since Bob really wanted to grow his own pumpkin and make it grow really, really big, I have saved some seeds from these field pumpkins and we will plant them next spring to see if Bob can nurture "the Great Pumpkin" in his garden for his 2010 Halloween jack-o-lantern.

So on to the pumpkin carving. We gathered in my kitchen the night before Halloween, carved designs into our pumpkins, drank hot spiced apple cider and ate Halloween candy. (we don't get many trick-or-treaters around here, so we didn't need to leave much candy for them!)

First up is Bob's fancy design showing off his knife skills (a very sharp knife!) especially around the eyes & eyebrow areas:



Next is Jack's toothless design that seems to have some anxiety and stress going on. Great expression on that one! Kind of disturbing too. Bob mentioned that this face reminded him of someone he knows.



Then there is mine. Sort of cat-like, but with more teeth than one would expect for a cat. The guys said mine was the scariest face. (my pumpkin, not my own face...at least I think that's what they meant!)

Here's the full family trio of scary jack-o-lanterns, lit up and slightly out of focus.

Great fun and great family time. I love pumpkins.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween and got only treats and no tricks this year.

© Copyright 2009 Mountain Harvest Basket

Gala Apple Harvest

Beautiful Gala Apples

I have several apple trees. One of my apple trees is a "triple graft" that grows 3 different kinds of apples on one main rootstock. This is nice because we only had to dig one hole to plant this tree, but we get a variety of apples. Gala, Jonagold and Mutsu apples are all on this one tree.



The Gala apple blossoms are the pollinators for the other two varieties, and the Gala apples ripen earlier than the other two. Usually I can pick ripe Galas in late August, but this year everything was wacko and delayed a bit. I didn't get to harvest these nice eating apples until about the second week in September.

They were numerous for my small tree, but smaller in size than they have been in the past. All of my apples were small this year. Again, I think it was our crazy weather, especially the extended heat wave we had. I probably should have watered my fruit trees a bit more deeply and more often to help compensate for the extra hot weather. But I didn't.

Anyway, my Gala apples make very good fresh eating apples for snacks and they also add a nice sweet flavor to apple crisps and pies. They are softer than the more common pie apples like Granny Smiths or Golden Delicious, so they do break down more when cooked, but they are still very tasty. I've been snacking on them when I want something sweet instead of grabbing a cookie or some candy. (not that I keep any of those things around my house, mind you)


Gala Apples up close ~ you can almost just reach out and grab one!

Happy Autumn!


© Copyright 2009 Mountain Harvest Basket

Harvest Dinner 2008

Harvest Dinner 2008

For the past decade or so, at least since my Mom passed away, Jack and I usually travel to the LA area to attend Thanksgiving dinner at the home of one his relatives, usually one of his sisters. This means that for several years I did not have the pleasure of preparing and hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner celebration in my own home with my family and friends. It also meant that I did not get to make the traditional foods for Thanksgiving the way my own family did or the foods that I had learned to make as a young woman when I was married (both long ago).

So a few years ago I started the tradition of having what I call our annual Harvest Dinner celebration in the comfort and relaxation of my own home, with my friends and family, with my traditional foods, served on my favorite plates, with my festive tablecloth, using my serving dishes, my decorations etc etc. In other words, Harvest Dinner is Thanksgiving my way.

Here is our Harvest Dinner invitation that we gave to our family and friends:

The 3 of us invite you to share in our annual Harvest Dinner. It’s our way of celebrating our abundance and to give thanks to the earth, our loved ones and our universe (spirit). Sort of like traditional Thanksgiving, but not on Thanksgiving Day.

I like to include a moment or two before we begin eating the feast of food to express our thankfulness for all of the abundance that we have. Some would call this moment of thanks a prayer or the traditonal grace that is said to give thanks for our meal, but I mean it to be much more than mere gratitude for the food. This moment of acknowledgement for our great abundance, is meant to bring into our consciousness how fortunate we are to have not only an abundance of food on our table, but also our great abundance in many other areas of lives. We have homes, health, safety, freedom, friends, family, and most of all we have love. So as we raised our wine glasses to toast a Happy Harvest, we thanked each other for being being here, Mother Earth for our abundant harvest, and Spirit for guiding us each day. Then we dug into the mounds of food on our plates.

Some years I have printed out this grace that I found in one of my Mom's books long ago, and we have made it a part of our Harvest Dinner thankfulness moment. I do not know who the author is:

This is a time for giving thanks
This is a time for remembrance

Let us remember our past and
Give thanks for what we have become

Let us be present in the present and
Give thanks for the here and now

Let us remember our future and
Give thanks for all that is to happen to us

Let us give thanks for the whole universe
Especially for our creation
And the life that is in us

Let us give thanks for that consummation of all things
Which Spirit is working out in us

May light and love surround us
And guide us to right action

I think it is a lovely, although lengthy sentiment.

Anyway, I wanted to share our most recent Harvest Dinner with you. We usually have it on a Sunday afternoon about two weeks before Thanksgiving. We had our 2008 dinner last Sunday, November 16th.

Here's the menu:

2008 Harvest Dinner Menu

Appetizers
Baby Carrots & Celery
Mixed Nuts
Olives
Goat Cheese & Crackers

Main Course
Free Range Turkey
Greek Stuffing
Bread Stuffing Casserole
Cornbread Pudding
Mashed Potatoes
Turkey Gravy
Pineapple-Orange Sweet Potatoes
Fresh Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce
Jellied Cranberry Sauce

Desserts
Apple Pie & Sugarless Apple Pie– both by Bob
Pecan Pie – by Jen
Pumpkin Pie – by Jack
Whipped Cream

I got lots of photos of the food, but absolutely none of us or our guests! We invited Bob's parents and a close friend of the family to make us 6 for dinner. Just the right amount of people to fit around my dining table.

So what follows here are the photos of our food feast with no pictures of any people or pets! Oh well, I guess I was totally focused on getting the food prepared and on the table for everyone.


Harvest Dinner Dining Table


That tablecloth was made by me 15 years ago for a Thanksgiving dinner I hosted in my little condo in Southern California, long before I moved to the mountains and my rural life. I still love the tablecloth and its rich colors.


Buffet Table set up in my kitchen


We served the food buffet style on a portable table set up in my kitchen. Everyone filled their own plate with whatever they desired from the buffet setup. I find this is the easiest way to serve the food because all of that food would never fit on my dining room table. This also eliminates the need for everyone passing heavy hot serving dishes around the table. It limits spillage and other dining "disasters".



The roasted turkey before being carved


I try to buy naturally raised hormone and antibiotic free turkeys when I cook turkey. I find that I like the way they taste better, and I feel better about buying a turkey that was raised without chemicals. This one was a Diestel Farms brand turkey. That's the brand I usually buy.

On our buffet table there was:


Roasted Turkey ~ light and dark meat





Pineapple Orange Fresh Sweet Potatoes



Bob's Famous Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes




Turkey Gravy ~ photo taken while gravy was cooking




My Mom's Greek Chestnut Stuffing



Cornbread Pudding ~ made this year by Jack



Bread Stuffing ~ Mrs. Cubbison's with my "doctoring up"



Fresh Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce

Bob's parents brought some flaky dinner biscuits that were wonderful, but I failed to get a picture of them. Trust me, they were good.

And then after dinner we had pie! Errr...make that pies. Plural.

Jack's creamy Pumpkin Pie

Jack tried a new filling recipe this year that used real cream instead of evaporated milk. It was a richer pumpkin than I have had before.

Bob's Sugarless Apple on the left, and regular Apple on the right

Both apple pies were great. I couldn't even tell the difference between the sugarless and the one with sugar in it.


My Pecan Pie ~ tasted great even if the crust is ugly

Well, that's it for this year. The turkey and all the leftovers are long gone by the time I am writing this post. Maybe next year I'll get a photo or two of the people as well as the food!

Happy Harvest everyone! And Happy Thanksgiving!

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

Halloween Pumpkin Celebration

Bob's Pumpkin from Halloween 2007 ~ Jen added the greeting

Tonight is Halloween night so last night the 3 of us got together in my kitchen and carved our Halloween jack o' lanterns. We started this tradition several years ago and I really enjoy the evening.

We each picked out our own pumpkin. Each one had its own personality that spoke to the new owner. This nice whimsical round one is mine:

Isn't he beautiful? So round and orange.

We set up our work space in my small cluttered kitchen. The guys shared a work table, while I used my kitchen counter.

Jack and Bob carving their pumpkins and having fun. (the front of Jack's sweatshirt says, "When did my wild oats turn into shredded wheat?" Ha!)

Here's my cleaned out beauty:

And here's just some of the gooey insides that came out of our pumpkins.

Stringy stuff & seeds ~ I will roast the seeds later, maybe tonight!

I will save a few of these field pumpkin seeds to plant next summer. These field pumpkins make great Halloween and fall decorations, but not so good pies. For pie making, I grow special small and tender Pie Pumpkins

The rest of the pumpkins seeds I will salt and roast in the oven. Probably later tonight or tomorrow. Jack really likes them. I find them a bit tedious to get out of their shells.

Now comes the artistic portion of our program:

Jack carefully drawing his pumpkin face features

Bob concentrating hard on his careful carving ~ notice his open mouth with his tongue poking out like a cute little kid hard at work

I don't usually draw or plan my pumpkin faces. I just carefully clean out the insides and then stare at the front of my pumpkin for several minutes until some creative idea comes to me. Then I just pick up a sharp knife and start carving. Usually I do the nose first, then the mouth and last the eyes.

We have found over the years that we each have our own unique pumpkin carving styles. The faces vary from year to year, but our unique styles remain consistent.

Here is our finished trio of carved jack o' lanterns:

Jack's on the left, mine in the middle, Bob's on the right



Jack's scary faced pumpkin all lit up!

Bob's happy vampire pumpkin glowing eerily!

My crazy laughing wacko (menopausal!) pumpkin on fire (hot flash!)

Our family of jack o' lanterns ready for Halloween night

Happy Halloween Everyone!! May you only get treats and no tricks.

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

Cleaning Out the Refrigerator

Fall Vegetable Soup goes into the Crock Pot

Summer is over despite the warm weather. We are well into fall, so it's time for me to clean out my refrigerator and use up the remainder of the fresh vegetables while they are still somewhat fresh and not yet compost.

I woke up yesterday with the desire to putter around in my kitchen cooking and even cleaning up a bit. So out from the fridge and into the crock pot went a variety of veggies:

carrots
potatoes
bok choy
broccoli leaves
onions
garlic
yellow crookneck squash
Roma tomatoes
green bell pepper
red slightly spicy "mystery" pepper
1/2 can of garbanzo beans
extra virgin olive oil
homemade vegetable stock + some water
herbs & spices (including basil, oregano, bay leaf, black pepper, paprika etc)

Turned the crock pot on high and let it simmer for about 8 hours.

Here's my bowl of "End of Summer" veggie soup that accompanied my dinner last night:

Tasty Vegetable Soup ~ and more room in the fridge now too!

For the last couple of days I have had an almost tame deer, a doe, hanging around my house all day and night. I am accustomed to having deer around, I do live in the forest, but usually they don't show themselves so boldly in the middle of the day, nor so close to the house.

I don't usually feed the deer, as I don't want to tame them. I prefer to let wild things stay wild and free. This deer did get a couple of handouts from me. Some old carrots that weren't tasty enough for my soup pot yesterday. She enjoyed those quite a bit.

Here's a photo of her in the background while she was eating the carrots:

My friendly Doe in the background eating her carrots, and my black cat "Charity" (sitting high in his new climbing tree that Jack made for us) in the foreground. Yes, Charity is a boy kitty, but that's a story for another day.

And today I gifted her a big old apple that had been in my fridge for quite awhile. I cut it up for her to make it easier to eat, and she liked that a lot too. She was practically following me around my property earlier. Sort of put me on alert. I am sure I will regret feeding her at some point. Probably when she helps herself to my red petunias on my porch table or when she eats and breaks my fruit trees. She was so cute and so skinny. My heart just softened in a moment of weakness. We are all connected in nature, and she looked hungry. So I fed her.

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

*Falling* Down on the Job

I have been so busy with Fall chores around my home, garden and business that I truly have been "falling" down on the job of keeping my blog up to date. My apologies to my loyal readers. I'll try not to let that happen again. (yeah, right.)

Fall seems to be the time to gather, clean, organize and plan. Plan for winter. Plan for the upcoming holidays. Clean and organize everything. An awesome task around my cluttered and busy home. And I must say that I don't seem to have much energy for any of that lately. But I plod on, however slowly.

In the above photo you see a close-up in my produce scale of these beautiful Jonagold apples:

Jonagold Apple Harvest ~ almost 9 lbs!

My triple graft apple tree (has 3 kinds of apples on one tree) gave me the best Jonagold harvest ever this year! I picked more Jonagolds this year than I have in the past 9 years from that little tree. Mother Nature really outdid herself there. These apples are sweet, juicy and crisp. Great eating apples. Nature's perfect snacks.

Also on that same triple graft apple tree are my Mutsu apples seen here after harvesting:

Mutsu Apple Harvest ~ 4 1/2 lbs

Big beautiful green apples with a yellow-pink blush. This year the Mutsu apples were bigger than normal, but the overall harvest was about the same as usual. Maybe a bit heavier. These are not quite as sweet as the Jonagolds, but are still very tasty.

Also from that same tree I harvested about 8 pounds of Gala apples in September
Those apples are getting soft now and are not as good eaten out of hand as the rest, but will still be fine for baking or making applesauce and jelly.

That tree had so many Galas this year that the Gala trunk of the tree broke in half from the weight of the apples. I had to pick about 4 pounds of apples prematurely in order to unweight the branches and hopefully save the tree. I tied and taped up the broken trunk and pray that the tree will heal itself. The Gala trunk of this tree is vital to the apple production on the rest of the tree, since the Gala apple blossoms are the pollinators for the Jonagold and the Mutsu blossoms. I guess I really should thin out my apples the next time the harvest looks heavy. Before the tree breaks.

Shown below is the very last zucchini summer squash from my summer 2008 garden. I found him hiding at the edge of my garden underneath a big squash leaf. Surprised and pleased me!

Big Clarimore Zuke ~ soon to be soup!

Hardware Bob had made enough basil pesto for the season so he allowed me to harvest the rest of his basil plants before the cold nights froze the beautiful green leaves. I made one last batch of pesto and then bunched the rest for drying. We will use the dried basil in our winter cooking. Winter comfort foods such as soups and stews need lots of herbs and spices.

Basil drying for winter storage and use ~ thank you Bob!

Below is a gratuitious photo of my pretty red petunias that have survived through 2 summers and one winter so far, even with me forgetting to water and prune them. Also growing in the pot are a few yellow marigolds that started from some seed casually scattered in there.

Pretty Red Petunias ~ will you make it through another Winter?

Well, it's late October. Fall is well established, however, we are still having very warm days with cooler nights. The upcoming cold weather is going to be a shock to our systems no doubt. I have cleaned and readied my woodstove that I use for winter heating, but have not yet made a fire in it this season. The cold weather will come soon enough. I am just going to enjoy the sun as long as I can.

Happy Fall everyone!

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

Happy Autumnal Equinox (a few days late)

Pie Pumpkin Harvest

The calendar says that Fall arrived this past Monday, and I really meant to celebrate it with you by posting these photos a few days ago, but this week has been very busy for me. Right on schedule the nights are getting cooler now, but our days are still quite warm. We have had a lot of smoke blow in from some fires that are burning in the national forests. Some fires they just let burn, while monitoring them, to restore the natural ecosystem of the forest. No fire danger for us, but still a lot of smoke to breathe around here.

I grow small tender Pie Pumpkins each year. They differ from the standard field pumpkins that are used for Halloween decorations in that they are smaller, sweeter and not as fibrous.



I roast them by first slicing them in half around their equator, scooping out the seeds and stringy stuff, and then placing them cut side down on an oiled cookie sheet. Roast them until "fork tender". Probably about 375 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. Placing them cut side down on the cookie sheet allows them to steam themselves while in the oven. When cool enough to handle, carefully scoop and scrape the cooked pumpkin flesh away from the skin and into a storage container to puree and then freeze for baking or to eat as you would any winter squash. Of course, you can use it and eat it right away without freezing it first.



These home grown pie pumpkins make wonderful pumpkin pies and pumpkin bread. They taste much fresher and brighter than the canned pumpkin.

Before I discovered the tender and sweet pie pumpkins, I tried to make pumpkin pie from a standard field pumpkin that I grew my first year gardening. The pie was not very sweet and definitely not tender. I find that the field pumpkins are much better for decoration than cooking. Sometimes I still grow those too, but usually only the small pie pumpkins. This year's harvest was smaller than normal. Fewer pumpkins total and each one smaller than I have grown in the past. I think I need to replenish the nutrients in my soil for next year. Organically, of course.

In the photo above you can see a couple of very small ears of sweet corn nestled in with the pie pumpkins. I grew those this year too. My corn stalks were very stunted. They only reached about half the height that they should have, but they did actually produce many tiny ears of corn for me. Most of the ears were not completely populated (filled with kernals), but some were as you can see in the above photo. I've eaten a couple of them so far, one raw standing right in my garden, and one I steamed and dressed with butter. Both were very sweet. Both were very small.

This photo shows what an ear of corn looks like when you neglect to harvest it on time. All of the kernals are dried right on the cob!


Dried Corn on the Cob

I allowed the corn to dry a little more before feeding it to my chickens. Not sure they liked the whole kernals, my old girls are picky and spoiled. I think they like their corn fresh and not dried and chunky.

It's also apple picking time around here. Most of my apples are still on the trees, but I did manage to harvest a couple of baskets of Gala apples so far. Usually they are ripe and ready to pick in late August, but this year they got ready much later. These were harvested in the middle of September.


Gala Apples

They taste great. I need to get outside and harvest all the rest of my apples before the weather turns cold and before the birds and other beasties find them.

Happy (belated) Autumnal Equinox everyone!

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket