Aronia harvest and redneck wine tasting

Our aronia berries ripened about a week to 10 days early this year. "Normally" they are ready on Labor Day weekend which makes the name appropriate - Labor Day. 

With the dry, hot year, I started picking in late August to sell at the local farmer's market and picked for ourselves on the off days. Ripening lasts only a couple of weeks but, again with the hot year, the berries were drying on the vine sooner than I wanted.

 

Yields were pretty good after sorting through the discards and we sold a good portion of that and kept some for processing into our home-made wine. It takes almost 3 gallons of berries to make one gallon of juice and one recipe uses 2 1/2 gallons of juice. We have enough juice for 3 batches this year, plus I'm looking at a rhubarb/aronia mix for next spring.

 

We do not sell but have given a few bottles away. Reviews have been positive and I'm looking at further experimentation with recipe mixes. 

We don't have a license to sell and we don't, repeat, don't sell to either family, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, or even family we do like. Nope. Once we come up with a proper recipe, we may look into it but danged if there isn't a hundred wineries per county in Iowa.

Which means we have to be different to make it a success.

In the mean time... A little redneck wine tasting.

Aronia dry 2021 and a half bottle of aronia semi-sweet. I use a half-pint jar.

In my earlier life, I visited a few bars where the glasses were pint mason jars, which made for cheap beer glasses for quarter draw nights. Yep, it was a while ago.

But for here, we aren't wine snobs but still, wine deserves glass. No frills label, regular half-pint jar, and a basic home-made red. I could have spruced up with a better cloth and background but I don't want to get carried away with a snooty atmosphere.

The Aronia Dry 2021 was a pretty good year... Cheers!

Miles to go...

In April and May of this year it was too wet to plant and our popcorn was delayed until June 3rd (6 weeks later than average and 4 weeks later than last year). I was beginning to wonder if this would be a repeat of 2019, when it rained through until July. No corn was planted that year and our bean production was nothing to brag about.

Through July and August, we had less than an inch total which, along with the summer heat, severely stressed everything including our market crops. I had to haul water - we don't have a well or electricity onsite. I have to pump water from the homestead and deliver using a 12 volt pump and batteries. There was no way I could keep up in order to water everything, so I left much to nature and hoped for the best.

I've lived through deluges such as hit Kentucky and Texas this summer and if nature would have shared a little of that with us, I would have been grateful but that wasn't to be our fate this year.

This past weekend was our first inch of rain in a day since June.

Better late than never, I guess.

But on the brighter side...

We have our first apple production on trees planted a few years ago. A couple of trees didn't survive winter but those were replaced. Now, if I can just get the pH balanced...

The aronia harvest was early because of the dry summer with production and sales that exceeded previous years despite our annual fight against Japanese beetles. The first batch of 2022 wine is currently fermenting as I write. (Strictly for private medicinal purposes only, of course.)

Our farmers market produce did well but I still have hopes for the popcorn which have 2-3 weeks until harvest. I'm guessing it won't beat last year's yields which brought repeat customers and rave reviews.

We still have beans to harvest and dry (navy, kidney and green beans for seed). This is my work for this week until a roofing project that came my way gets started.

The farm has occupied more of my time this year and I've pushed off other projects but fall is approaching and I have prep work before winter. 

As Robert Frost wrote: "Miles to go before I sleep"

Not sure

This is from a black cherry tree that I trimmed last year.

 I'm not sure if this is a heart or a smiling monkey laughing at me.

Caterpillar friend

It is the mid-summer weed cutting session. The never-ending effort to rid the acreage of noxious weeds such as the wild parsnip and other common weeds like lamb's quarter, horseweed, and thistles. We work to save as much of the milkweed as possible for any visiting monarchs, although it is nearly unavoidable when mowing on the tractor.

I have to cut the weeds on the slope of the pond dam with a weed cutter, one made by Stihl. I've used hand sickles in the past but operating something with a motor is much more productive and causes much less blisters.

On this day, while cutting the tall grasses near the pond, I found a bright green caterpillar with black and yellow spots arranged in rows. I placed it on a milkweed for safekeeping and looked up what it was. It appears to be a black swallowtail. 

Generally, caterpillars can cause a lot of damage to crops (if they would just eat the weeds and keep our beans alone, I would be happy). This one does eat mostly weeds.

I'll keep it around.

The next time I see it, I hope it has wings.

Wee Sprout waking up 2022

Cold winter, still it lingered well into April with its frequent rains, ice, and frosts. May warmed but the rains would not allow the ground to dry out long enough for planting of market crops. But the weeds grew. Thick grasses, thorns, and well-rooted wild parsnip (a plant that is best to avoid.)

The season seems to be running 4 to 6 weeks later than usual. Trees woke up late from winter’s hibernation cycle and in some cases, not at all which happens sometimes.

As Wee Sprout budded and dissuaded our worries, it’s grown to a “mighty” little seedling. The largest of the sugar maples planted three years ago, it’s nestled between a much taller walnut tree to the east and paired to another maple to the west. It has a way to go before it truly reaches the sky, being only about a foot tall.

Filtered sunlight leeches though a black cherry tree in the row to the south which protects Sprout from the harshest sun and heat that seemed to be most of our June as the season jumped forward. An abundance of overgrown soft maples blocks Sprout’s view to the southern hay field. I have been thinning these soft maples to use as mulch for the best and most important trees, protection from winter’s cold and summer weeds.

I cleaned up a bit around Wee Sprout this past week and noticed its little lean is growing away and becoming straighter. The pair of wrens that claimed a bluebird house this year chattered and scolded me the whole time. I’m used to them and they can squat again in any of the houses next year even if the bluebirds object.

As for today, the needed rain is falling, the weeds will wait another day, and I’ll have to wait to cultivate beans. If Wee Sprout had one desire (besides being the tallest sugar maple at the farm) it would want everyone to know how well it is growing.

Cheers to you all!

On May 5th

Exploding leaves on May 20th

 Linked to Poets and Storytellers United: Friday Writings #33: Daring to Dream

 

It can't rain forever, can it? 2022 style

I'm hoping that we don't get a repeat from a spring a few years ago but just when we get a day away from being able to get into the fields for some serious work, the sky opens up again. Although we could use the much needed rain to replenish the groundwater, the topsoil is saturated and flash flooding is a risk for the next day or two.

I've only been able to plant a very small test plot but my regular planting looks to be delayed for another week.

The big yellow splotch on the radar is headed our way.

Do daffodils bring sunshine?

Or does sunshine bring daffodils?

Cold has settled in for this mid-April day. It's too cold and too wet to turn the earth for planting but at least these daffodils brighten things up a bit.

An abundance of blooms next to the house.

Looking for a new home

We try to cooperate with nature as much as we can, so long as they don't invade the shed where equipment is stored as nature tolerates my tilling of the ground and other invasive activities.

We put up several bluebird boxes years ago with varying degrees of success. We enjoy the bluebirds as neighbors each year and they do help with the insect population but they are late this year as many other migratory birds to the area.

Yes, this birdhouse has seen better days but it has sheltered many a brood while stationed near a growing chestnut tree. I cleaned it out in February to await a new pair this year.

Sometimes nature fights against us:

Some wood devouring creature saw fit to expand the hole and then didn't bother to move in. 

With wood prices 4-5 times what it cost us to build the original birdhouse, I'll have to relook at our budget to see what we can do. 

It's a shame but nature does what it wants sometimes and we'll have to deal with it.

Tuesday Triumph - February visit in the snow

 She comes around when she feels like it. Triumph's first sighting of 2022:

Deer Run

Something surprised these deer as they ran through the bare walnut trees

Color for Winter Blues

Maximilian Sunflower

New England Aster

 

Fall flowers growing at the farm