Field and Forest: An Equinox Mead

August 20 found me swimming with friends and family at the creek, harvesting and spinning two frames of honey that dear Mr. CR brought to the house early the morning before, and then harvesting boatloads of pears to the light of the setting sun.
I will never forget that pear harvest. Ruth and Dan Gallagher drove by as I harvested, stopped and tailgated it with me for a good long while. It was Dan's birthday, and he sat on the tailgate of their Honda Element, looking at fluffy innocuous clouds move across the sky over there in Tennessee, where the sun always sets- first turning pink, then brilliant shades of lavender and purple. We admired the Spider Lilies, one of Hot Springs's botanical anomolies- a species which started in someone's garden and has made itself at home here and there over the years all over the valley. It stands in the company of other naturalized plant forms- mahonias, Japanese maples, campion. The spider lilies put out leaves early in the season and then disappear only to shock us all with their brilliant bright red spidery long fingered flower blooms the third week of August. Their emergence always coincides with the first wind of late summer which blows walnut leaves in greenish yellow swirls lightly through the warm sunlight. Inevitably that wind stops me in my tracks, and I watch the walnut leaves beginning their descent, and I think: how did it happen so fast?
This particular evening, Dan was in excellent spirits, as was Ruth, and we picked pears, talked, laughed, and loafered around that tree until night fell. They convinced me to drive my Subaru right up under the tree, stand on my car, and then pick the big fatty pears which were too high to reach. It was a good move. All bags, buckets, boxes and tubs in sight were filled with the bounty in no time flat.

It is September 20 now, and the pears I came home with that night are officially either consumed or put up. First came the pies about 3 weeks ago. There were several, and they were damn good. Then came the chutney, which you can read about a couple of posts ago, the canning of which went flawlessly, thanks to the company and spur-of-the-moment tips by Susie.

Yesterday came the mead. As it were, after the pies and the double batch of chutney, there were still quite a few pears to contend with. I ate them freely- with yogurt, with cheesy crackers, with chocolate, alone, with a meal. Biting into their cool juicy sweet flesh was a gentle delicacy- a perfect nourishing treat for a late summer morning, afternoon or night. But there were so many, and I just couldn't work through them fast enough. I didn't want to do any more canning (I don't know how you people do it it drives me so crazy) and dehydrating is not the best option for so juicy a fruit. So fermentation it was. And I thought what with two good damn neighbors having stocked me up this summer with more than enough honey, it would be mead. And then I thought I would doll it up a bit with some sort of spice to make it a nice winter time sipping wine, and it was decided- the gorgeous bright red ripe berries of the keynote understory species all up in this dingle- the mighty Lindera benzoin- spicebush!

I enjoyed the lovliest September 19th wandering around field and forest harvesting pounds upon pounds of these berries. What a delight it was to slow down and mosey. I spent hours picking, mosying, watching, listening. I found so many cool things in the woods while daudling.

The great thing about this project is that it required no peeling! I simply weighed out the pears, crudely chopped them up and tossed them into the pot, poured the water over the chopped fruit, then cooked them for a while. After I turned the heat off, I added the berries, and then left the concoction overnight to steep and cool off. This evening, I strained the fruit off the water, squeezing the liquid out of it for flavor, and then strained and skimmed the liquid several times. I dissolved the honey in a little bit of water, and added it to the pear spicebush juice, heating it all up to about blood temperature. At that point I transferred the sweet juice into a 2-gallon carboy, added champagne yeast and closed it off with an airlock. It is working its little self away in the work room as we speak. I am aiming for the first little drinkypoo at Christmastime.

Proportions:

10 pounds ripe pears, unpeeled and chopped
1 pound spicebush berries
1 1/2 gallons spring water
2 quarts raw honey
1/2 package champagne yeast*

*If only some Asheville hippie or DudeBra would get off his ass and start a company producing and packaging local wine yeast everything that went into this mead could have been entirely local! Someone, please, just do that for next time.  It coule really nicely supplement your Further Tour parking lot hacky sack sales. Thank you.

Pears

Perhaps it is being driven by hoarding tendencies that began as a two year old when I refused to eat for days, screaming that we must save our food because the world is going to run out. Or maybe the root of it is guilt from the fact that even with 20 acres of land, we are well into September and all I have managed to put up for the winter is 5 quarts of blanched beans in the freezer. It could be for the love of a project or simply the fact that pear chutney is such so darn good over spring nettle and potato fritters. But whatever the reason, the driving force is apPEARently a strong one. I have spent the past 5 hours peeling and finely chopping pears from my favorite pear tree in Hot Springs. And I have so many more to go!

This is after spending about a two hour session picking them a few weeks ago and after dear friend Eliza spent an evening individually wrapping about half of the them in newspaper to minimize rot. I thought my mom was going to partner with me for this project, but everytime I call my PEARents to talk to her about it, they are just so dang busy. (Oh, what a PEAR those two are!)

So as of bedtime tonight, I have enough finely chopped pears for two batches of chutney and stilled enough peeled ones for several pies. And there is still a box of whole unpeeled pears left in the pantry, which I am thinking might become pear mead that I can bust out at wintertime PEARties...

Although I am overwhelmed by the scale of this project and my peeling hand is stiff and sore, I am looking forward to the chutney, pies and mead, and I am PEARfectly happy to share the chutney recipe with you. It came out of the Ball Blue Book for canning, and it rocks my world. It goes a little something like this:

Pear or Peach Chutney

4 quarts peeled, pitted and finely chopped pears (or peaches)
2 to 3 cups brown sugar
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped onion (about 1 medium)
1/4 cup mustard seed
2 Tbs ginger
2 tsp salt
1 clove garlic minced (optional)
1 hot red pepper, finely chopped
5 cups vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepot. Simmer until thick (takes a good while). Stir frequently to prevent sticking. Ladle hot chutney into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust 2-piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling water canner.

Yields about 7 pints.

It seemed a little crazy to be peeling all those pears by myself today for hours upon hours, but hey, that kind of craziness is just PEAR for the course.

Thanks to my food preservation insPEARation, Beth Trigg, for calling me and providing good conversation and moral support during the final stretch of today's chopping. And for Jessie Lehmann (aka Lil Razz) for being PEARticularly funny with the puns...

Coming up on September 9th

It's going on the three year out mark from 9-09-09,* which brought a terrorizing 3am electrical hailstorm to this small holler, scaring the daylights out of all residents and nearly washing me and my Airstream away. I was only halfway joking when I told my neighbor RM today that three years out I am finally beginning to recover from the stress of the storm; for example it can rain and thunder without me going into fight or flight mode...

It is hard for me to believe that in less than three years I have bought land here and now live in a gorgeous house on it, with a (currently) functioning kick ass water system and a good start to a garden. I never would have suspected on that bizarre morning of September 10, 2009,amidst the 2 ft deep drifts of quarter sized hail and the overpowering smell of shredded pine needles roaring down the new river that was created overnight, that I would be here today as a land holder and homeowner. So much has happened since then.

This evening I walked to the Sunset Spot and drank in the beauty of this place that I am beginning to call home.

May this September 9th bring unexpected delights. If you need to find me, I'll be the one sweet talking

Thor.

*For more about the freak storm of 9-09-09, click here and here.

Age 21

Serotinal #1

Lughnasa 2012

See the flowers, so faithful to Earth.

We know their fate because we share it.

Were they to grieve for their wilting,

that grief would be ours to feel.

There's a lightness in things. Only we move forever burdened,

pressing ourselves into everything, obsessed by weight.

How strange and devouring our ways must seem

to those for whom life is enough.

If you could enter their dreaming and dream with them deeply,

you would come back different to a different day,

moving so easily from that common depth.

Or maybe just stay there: they would bloom and welcome you,

all those brothers and sisters tossing in the meadows,

and you would be one of them.

                                                                    -Rainer Maria Rilke

We brought flowers and vegetables from our gardens and arranged them on a raft I built for the occasion. We made sure we were good and grateful for the generosity of the soil and the good fortune of rain this year- then we swam the colorful raft out into the middle of the French Broad and let it go at dusk. Homemade peach pie, ice cream and strawberry wine followed on the bank of the river.




                                                

Bring on the harvest!



Serotinal #2

Night falls earlier; the descent of the season is upon us. 

Dusky serotinal light show behind hickory

Stay tuned for Serotinal #1

August 1

August 1, 2012.

Feeling the drone of the summer heat- the quirky cadence of the nightly cricket number, followed by foggy humid mornings and sweaty days, the sun moving a little lower across the late summer sky- Thor rumbling his evening prayers of lightening and rain and then night falling sooner than it seems it should. I decided I should switch up the routine a little today. Although there was mowing to do, and erosion to control and firewood to restack and weeds to pull, I went ahead and stopped doing chores at about quarter of six this evening and at six I set out for a little adventure.

My props:

-Eastpack backpack containing a rain jacket, a bottle of water, some nuts and raisins, two empty plastic containers for gathering in case I found anything good, a camara and Newcombes Wildflower Field Guide
- a machete for bushwhacking ease
- a flask with Rebel Yell
- cell phone
My companion: Hopey, the ever-ready plott hound

We set out through the woods, and the first thing I found was a tulip poplar that had fallen in one of our recent storms. There was usnea growing on the trunk and all the branches, and I am fresh out of usnea tincture (there is always somebody calling for that stuff), so I worked up a dripping sweat gathering a big bundle. I wasn't working hard or anything, it was so blasted muggy.

I carried on to the sunset spot where I found the blackberries are no longer for picking (oh well), but the view is still breathtakingly stunning.I figured I would bushwhack down through the brambles to an old run down farm in a meadow that I love walking to once and a while, and then take a certain gravel road I know home. Well, I found a 4 wheeler trail through some steep dark piney woods, and I supposed that was as good a way to go as any. I found a lot of mushrooms I don't know the name of and some beautiful specimens of cardinal flower, a late summer blooming native flower so brightly red and surprising it will stop you in your tracks. I followed a little branch down farther and farther through some lovely dark woods, while thunder rumbled in the distance and the air stood hushed and still.

Eventually I came to a caved in cabin and then a barn, and another barn. Then I caught a glimpse of the blacktop road, and realized I was turned around. I came to the river, realizing I was trespassing on someone's farm, and took my boots off and rolled my pant legs way up so I could cross without going closer to the house to walk the bridge. I don't know whose property it was or if they were likely or not be the type of people who would be comfortable with a sweaty machete wielding girl emerging from the woods in the mid-evening.

I knew I was on NC 212, but I didn't know whereabouts on the road I was, so I guessed that going left would be a quicker way home. Finally I asked a lady passing by how far I was from Belva, and realized that I was far enough from home that I might not make it by dark. I don't mind walking at night, but as it turns out Hopey is really dumb with road walking. She kept standing in the middle of the road and not really even moving as the occasional fast moving car or truck sped around the curves. I decided to do the safe thing and call my neighbor MM to see if I could get her to pick me up. Not a problem. The me of 10 years ago would not have called for a ride. (Well, the me of 10 years ago didn't have a cell phone.) But I was not ready to potentially watch Hopey get squashed by some speedy commuter in front of my eyes tonight. No-sir-ee.

Moonie arrived in a few minutes, and toting homemade cupcakes to boot.

All and all the adventure was good, if not cut a little short due to my strange sense of directions.