Full Moon on the Farm

Written by Ian:
Winter in Wisconsin is cold. Mostly. It's also dark. Mostly cold and dark. The daylight is limited, the nights are long, and the earth goes into a big chill. It is this time of year that when walking through hardwoods on a cold day you hear the trees pop and crack as the moisture in their trunks freezes and expands. The moisture in the ground freezes, too. Normally up to three feet deep, it can freeze even deeper in the absence of a thick snow cover for insulation. This time of year you take advantage of the less cold days. Once a person's body is acclimated, anywhere from +5 to +25 f. feels just great. Perfect temperature, not too frigid at +5 and not too sloppy at +25 . If it gets much warmer and the sun is shining the snow turns to slush and you'd nearly wish yourself back to zero (Yes, that thermometer reads 20 below, that was last tuesday). But on nights when the reading gets down in the negatives, you settle in, put on an extra sweater burn all the white oak, elm, and whatever else you have stacked in the woodshed and soak in the heat of the wood stove because you know for some reason or another you'll be back out in the cold in the morning.
If I anthropomorphise and allowed myself too much sensitivity I would cry myself to sleep each night thinking of all the non-hibernating and non-torporing creatures in the Wisconsin woods in the winter time. My good friend John and I were deer hunting this fall when he made a simple, but profound comment. He observed that when fall arrives, comfort ends for deer (and most other critters for that matter). After a spring of new greens, a summer of abundance, an autumn of fruit, they are plunged into a winter of scarcity. Their only source of warmth is the byproduct of their metabolism digesting a spartan diet of twigs, some grasses, gleaned field crops, and select evergreens. The snow deepens, sometimes up to their bellies. Their small cleft hooves poorly suited for travel in the snow. Not too mention, a Wisconsin white tailed deer's initiation into winter is being pursued by a few hundred thousand individuals with rifles-- like John and I! (There are couple of genuine, non-native, chinese ring neck pheasant roosters tolerating the cold in this photo...many pseudo-conservantionists will hail the proliferation of this bird as an ecological success story. Those who are better informed know that it is a classic case of a non-native species elbowing in on native territory. Well...I do enjoy hunting and eating them, though).
However, I avoid anthropomorphising and try not to be overly sensitive. I appreciate deer, and all other creatures of the Wisconsin woods for what they are. I carry on wishing them the best through a cold winter.
The prevailing cold and dark makes for a reason to celebrate when we get a little reprieve that is not as cold, not so dark night. The full moon came up over the farm on Saturday as the sun dropped on the opposite horizon. It was half as big as the barn as it bounce up the horizon. I was out skiing on southwest corner and was able to capture the moment (above banner). I skied back to the house as my Dad was pulling up the driveway. We had planned to make beer that evening and he was right on time. Arthur came over, as well, and joined in the beer making. Here he is removing the grains from a batch of "Russian Imperial stout". I brewed an improvised recipe that I deemed "Starvation Moon Amber" on account of the Amber malt and the midwinter full moon.
-6 pounds Amber malt extract
-various grains...about 1 pound
- 1 oz each: Saaz and Cascade hops
My cousin, who is a professional Brewster says..."its easy to make a good beer, its a whole other challenge to make a good beer twice". If this beer turns out to be good, it will never be repeated.
As we brewed we sampled from a batch I had brewed way back in August, the day before my sister's wedding. After putting it in the fermenter I neglected it, The temperatur got above 90 deg(!). My Dad, however was able to rescue it. He bottled it using maple syrup (from his sugar bush, last spring) as priming sugar. Typical priming sugar is a super finely granulated corn sugar. In an effort to get away from refined corn products my Dad experimented with the maple syrup. It worked very well, actually too well. Its pretty tough to pour a pint of the August Bride IPA without overflowing the glass.
We finally siphoned off the wort into carboys and retired them to the fermenter around midnight. At my dad's insistence we then went out for a ski. The moon was fat and bright. We cruised at top speed through hardwood and pine forest over the smoothly groomed track beneath the midwinter midnight moon for over an hour before calling it a night.

Day Dream of Harvest Time

Sitting in front of the computer with fat snowflakes floating outside the window and Tom Waits scratching out a soft ballad, I think of harvest time in the fall. These thoughts come to me often when the dusk arrives so early in the day and my hands itch to dig into the moist earth and pull up carrots, beets and parsnips. But alas, there is still winter in our near future so I will have to enjoy the bounty in our cupboard, freezer and basement and taste morsels of the savory summer.

This past spring through fall, Ian and I were in transition, spending the majority of our time in Minneapolis fixing up an old carriage house, situated behind my cousin's house, using salvaged wood, cement board, paint, and furniture. Were were even able to salvage a tomato red cast iron sink from a house scheduled to be demolished to make way for a larger one and a small electric stove from Craig's List.

Needless to say, we were very busy, but stole a few weekends to spend at Elm Glen farm and put in a good-sized garden. Between Ian's dad and our trips to the farm, we were able to weed, water and plant second crops in the rich soil. It was mainly nature and a little luck that kept if from being eaten by deer and other little veggie seeking critters or drying up in the heat of the sun. A large basswood tree shades much of the garden when the sun is strongest and the deer do not come into the yard due to the wide open space of crop fields that surround it. Even the rabbits seemed to have moved on before the spinach leaves pushed through the soil.

I was able to harvest and can whole tomatoes, tomato sauce, pickled beets, cucumbers and beans using old jars left in the basement from Ian's grandmother's past canning seasons. Our freezer is full of sweet peas, beans, sun-dried tomatoes and zucchini. Zucchini is in there because I didn't know what else to do with it. I have made some yummy soup broths with it by boiling venison bones with salt and pepper. Then when all the flavor is in the water, I boil the zucchini with more spices and blend it all together into a thick broth...then add more veggies for texture and goodness.
We also have bins full of clean dry sand protecting carrots, beets and potatoes. We have onions held in old stockings hanging in the kitchen. All and all, we have saved ourselves quite a bit of money in groceries and have enjoyed the benefits of organic food grown on our land. This past weekend, we started our list of seeds for the upcoming planting season.
Yum.

The hatching of a grand scheme

Elm Glen Farm, a name and location- the driving force towards our self-sustaining future. This is our farm in northern Wisconsin. This is where our ideas and family will grow. Owned for more than 50 years by my husband's maternal grandparents and passed on to us to breath new life into for another generation.
We have big plans for the 40 acres that hold corn, wheat and buckwheat fields, a half acre garden, a run-down chicken coop, red-brick silo, a large wood shop and barn, garage and tool shed, small white farmhouse, a flowing trout stream feeding a large wetland, oak ridge and towering flowering basswood tree with a swing under it's shady branches.
This is where it starts. There are plans in the works with a great deal of sweat to follow.