Staying and Leaving

It's 5:00 am and I hear my youngest son getting ready to leave for his job mowing greens at the golf course. I let myself drift back to sleep with the satisfaction of knowing that he does not need my help to do this. Next I am roused by Jon telling me he is off for a bike ride and will make breakfast when he gets back. I take my time and manage to get up about the same time as my oldest son who has just driven home last night.  We make coffee and I quiz him about his upcoming trip to Poland.  My third son surfaces and the two of them go to the gym before his lifeguarding shift begins.  I take a few minutes to myself in the garden before Jon returns and lights the grill for breakfast. All five of us sit on the patio for blueberry pancakes before everyone is off again to jobs and shopping for the upcoming school year. The boys will be leaving home, one by one, over the next couple of weeks, leaving Jon and I, for the first time, with an empty nest.

During our comings and goings this summer we have noticed one particular rabbit sitting in the same place on our front lawn.  I suspected she had a nest nearby, but found out where too late. My father in law was mowing the front lawn when the babies scattered. We found the mother attempting to lick her kit back to life. There was no hope for it, as most of its head was missing along with two paws I found scattered nearby. And those that had escaped were sitting by my front door or hiding beneath the hostas. I examined the empty nest and found it snuggly empty and lined with the mothers fur. By the next morning all of the kits had disappeared except for one. This was obviously the runt of the litter and wouldn't leave its mother. She nursed it on our front stoop for one more day. I realize now that all the time she had been sitting in the middle of our lawn, she had been nursing her kits and keeping them hidden beneath her.  They were too big now for that and must find their own way... or not.  The runt had also disappeared by the next day.

We have bird houses in our back yard, but the wrens prefer the small electrical boxes that meant to hold outside lights beside the doors. It was impossible not to notice one male building a nest  because its mate chose our back patio door.  I first caught sight of the bird collecting and maneuvering twigs into the hole. It worked throughout the day, regardless of the family's coming and going. The wren would simply defend its nest from us by scolding us with angry chirps. If ignored, it would attempt to catch my eye by flying to perch at my eye level so it could give me a hard look. I never did anything to cause the bird to fear me, but it never gave up its scolding whenever I was outside on the patio. When the chicks hatched we could hear their racket whenever the parent arrived with food. I am guessing there were quite a few mouths to feed by the number of large bugs that were carried in.

However, the wren had decided I couldn't be near the nest when he entered to feed the brood. So he devised a trick to lead me away. He would fly down into my path, clicking loudly, so that I wouldn't step on him. As I approached he would hop away, but not too far as to lose me.  In this way he led me away into the garden before doubling back and entering the nest. It felt as if I had obtained a bossy pet. I found myself looking out for him each day and anticipating the first flight of the babies.
To my dismay they were gone overnight. I could hear the parents screaming overhead, but didn't catch sight of any young ones. I started to worry, assuming the worst. There are stray cats, big black crows and a hawk or two around.  Any one of these could have been also waiting for that first flight. I did watch my little brave wren chase off a hawk, but I will never know if the babies survived.  All I know is that they are gone... and I miss them.

Memory Stones

Alexandria, in northern Minnesota, is proud of its Scandinavian heritage. Big Ole stands watch over the city and looks for all the world to be a conquering Viking.  But surely the Vikings didn't land in the upper midwest of America.  Even more hard to swallow is the claim on Big Ole's shield: that Alexandria is the birthplace of America.  I am familiar with Eric the Red's early voyages to Iceland and Greenland, but I had quite a few doubts that Viking explorers first came to Minnesota before other parts of Vinland.

It turns out that this claim is based on a rune stone that was discovered in the area, and is on display in a local museum. A quick Google search suggested that the stone was a hoax and not a record of Viking exploration.  I had to see for myself and handed over $8 to get in the exhibit.  The lady taking my money saw that I was worried if it was worth it and told me there was also a Viking ship inside. 

The stone looked quite authentic, the ship did not. There is quite a bit of evidence that the Vikings landed in Hudson Bay and headed south along rivers.  This would bring them through Minnesota, but they certainly would not have been traveling by ship.

The stone itself is fascinating.  The runes have been translated from Swedish and describe a 'journey of discovery' in 1362 of 30 men from Norway.  The party was attacked and ten men killed.  Another group of ten men were waiting for them with ships 14 days travel from that place.  The rune stone was unearthed in 1898 by an illiterate Swedish farmer clearing his field.  The date, location and distances seem consistent with other historical records, so why did no one believe the farmer's story and why did they accuse him of fabricating it himself?

The public turned against the Swede and his family.  One son committed suicide and his daughter ran away in disgrace. It wasn't until after his death that the stone fell into the hands of of a historian who studied the runes and decided they could be authentic.

There are several reasons why the runes were quickly dismissed. It was written in Swedish about a party from Norway.  The language and symbols used were not consistent with medieval times, but much more modern. And although rune stones are often made in memory of those who have passed, it is unlikely that a exploring party who had just been fatally attacked would take the time to carve a message in rock. 

It is much more likely that a learned Swedish immigrant made the artifact as a way of honoring his history and culture. He would have used old mementoes brought over from Scandinavia, artwork that incorporated some ancient runes. He would have described an account very near to what actually happened and displayed it on a stone similar to those found in his homeland.  Then somehow the stone is abandoned and forgotten; only to be discovered by a fellow immigrant some years later. 

I can see that happening in my yard. I might put some small piece of yard-art with my flowers; something meaning full to me. It would be a saying or some manifestation of my Anglo Brazilian roots.

Then my garden falls into disrepair, after I am gone. The piece is buried and covered with weeds. A tree grows over it, concealing it beneath its roots. Then, one day in the future, someone new buys the house or inherits the garden. In order to bring the wild beds under control, they clear away the weeds and pull up the young trees. They then find my piece; maybe it is written in Portuguese.  They decipher its message and puzzle over who put it there and why. 

I say I can see this happening because it has. Jon helped me with the worst of the clearing of my garden, using a tractor to uproot the unwanted trees that had grown.  The digging unearthed a metal tool and a large piece of bone. We immediately started to speculate who had buried them and why. Was the bone human? What was the metal tool used for that necessitated its being buried? 

I'm sure we could come up with an entertaining, if not believable, murder story. 

I do feel for poor illiterate Olof, who found the rune stone near Alexandria, Minnesota.  He did not deserve to be treated the way he was. Today we are thankful for his discovery for the simple fact that it fuels our curiosity and causes us to ask questions of the past... the past that has affected all of us who live in the midwest.

Memory-stones

seldom stand by the road

Save when kinsman honors his kin.

—Hávamál

Put up or unearth your marker. Claim your past.

Confessions of a First-time Jam Maker

I have never had aspirations to become a jam-maker, or canner, and I have no pantry. I only made wine out of necessity, and it was never very good.  However, we have a wild grape vine growing 120 feet along the edge of our property. It is very old and, being a male, bears no grapes. Or so I thought. Wild grape is either male or female. The male produces small clusters of flowers that resemble small bunches of grapes, but they never turn into fruit. It grows quickly and needs lots of pruning because it threatens to take over the back yard.
I was doing some weeding beneath its leafy bulk when I came upon what looked like a small cluster of seed pods growing along the vine.

After some internet searching I found out that it was neither a seed pod, nor part of the grape vine. It is a gall, which the plant produces to surround insect larva. Sure enough, I opened one to find a squirming worm-like creature inside. These larva will eat themselves out, and hatch much like aliens from the inside of a living host.  No one knows why the plant provides this case, but somehow it protects both the insect and the plant.
With this knowledge I was suddenly struck by the idea of an insect invasion and rushed out to check the vine for more gall.  Instead I found grapes, bunches of grapes hidden inside the dense leafy growth. Some part of this vine must be female! What a discovery! I wondered how many years these grapes had been hanging there unnoticed. No longer. I would put them to good use.
My first thought was to make wine. But I quickly ruled this out because I have some experience with other wild grape wines.  They are not very palatable, and the wine-maker I talked to told of taking weeks gathering the small grapes to make any amount of wine.

So that is where I got the idea to make wild grape jam. I was determined, if not very experienced. I looked up recipes and found that I probably should use pectin. Pectin was quite easy to find, right next to the jam jars and pickling spice. 
It took me all morning to pick the grapes. They are small and hanging deep inside a mesh of tangles vines.  No bird would ever find the bunches. When I had a large bowl full I went about washing and separating the grapes from the stems. This took me another couple of hours. I threw away the wizen raisin like ones, and those that looked too green. Now I had considerably less in the bowl, and plenty of dark blue stains on my fingers.
It was necessary to boil the lot to make grape juice. At this point I realized I was probably going about this the wrong way. 

I really didn't know what I was doing, and was treating it more like doing an experiment in the lab, than cooking. I should have asked a jam-maker for help, or at least for some advice. But I prefer to experiment alone, because if the result is a disaster, I simply throw it all away and no one else is the wiser. 
The accounts that I read on-line varied greatly as to reducing the grapes to juice. I boiled the fruit until it resembled seeds sitting in a pulpy mess. And since I didn't have cheese cloth I resorted to pushing the whole mass through a colander.  I ended up with about 2 cups of juice in a bowl and another cup all over the counter.  Wild grape really stains, by the way. And I was ready to make a very small batch of jam (or jelly in the US).

After adding sugar and pectin, and a little water to augment the amount, I left the jam boiling on the stove.  Perhaps unwisely, I wandered outside to check my cucumbers. My flower garden is in full bloom with lilies and phlox and daisies.  I lingered, appreciating beauty which I had no part in making.  I returned to the kitchen to find grape jam everywhere.  It pooled on the stovetop, ran down the cabinets and splattered the floor. I spent the next hour cleaning up. Who knew jam making was so messy. And produced so little, only two jars to show for all my hard work.  I fully understand why jam-making is a thing of the past. Who has the time?
To my surprise, the jam had a strong tangy flavor

and jelly-like consistency.  I had done it! I had made edible jam! My sons are not too sure. They think I am trying to poison them with wild berries.
With this minor success under my belt I decided to try again.  What else did I have in my garden that needed using? My son begged me not to make zucchini jam, so that left rhubarb. I also had some cheap past-their-best strawberries going moldy in the fridge. I followed a recipe I found on line, and avoided the mistakes I made the first time. I pulled up armfuls of rhubarb and then went back to pull up more. I added no water or pectin this time, just lemon juice and sugar. And I supervised the boiling process much more closely.
As before I produced a sticky jam with a beautiful color and sharp taste... and less that the two jarfuls that I had hoped for. It should take no time to eat through.  I won't need a pantry or more jars after all. I confess that I made jam just to see if I could; but mainly, I made jam in order not to let my newly discovered wild grape be forgotten or ignored on the vine.
**Now if anyone has any great ideas of what to do with all my zucchini...

Art, Olives and Peter Rabbit

He lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.After losing them, he ran on four legs and went faster, so that I think he might have got away altogether if he had not unfortunately run into a gooseberry net, and got caught by the large buttons on his jacket. It was a blue jacket with brass buttons, quite new. Beatrix Potter

While out weeding between the beans and cucumbers, I startled a baby rabbit from under the large zucchini leaves.  I presumed he was munching on my brussels sprouts and shooed him away. He ran right into a low wire-net fence and struggled to get out. I watched as he finally managed to squeeze underneath and scurry away. Beatrix Potter's classic tale and artwork flashed through my mind.  I found myself looking for a small blue jacket to hang in my garden.  And this is just one of the ways I find the garden life imitating art.

We look at nature and are reminded of a painting, a poem or a book, forgetting that the piece was first inspired by nature itself.

At first, art imitates life. Then life will imitate art.  Then life will find its very existence from the arts.                   Fyodor Dostoevsky

No doubt, Beatrix Potter was able to write such tales because of her study of nature. She must have seen rabbits do just as the one in my garden had.  Her art imitated life.
She moved to the Lake District in Northern England to buy her own farm and continue her art in the area where she first started drawing and studying nature. Her life became a celebration of the natural beauty around her, and her legacy to us is so much more that a series of children's books.

I was able to appreciate Beatrix Potter's art when I was young, though being brought up far from the English countryside and gardening of any sort. Now I find myself trying to recreate some of what I read about and imagined to be an idyllic country life.
Apple trees fit into this idyllic picture garden. My backyard had three.  One fell over and the other was cut down to tame the overgrowth and allow in a bit more sunlight. The trees were mainly for ornamental purposes, not producing much to harvest. The surviving tree produces an overabundance of hard green apples that weigh down its branches till they nearly reach the ground. The apples never ripen or need to be picked from the tree. They must be gathered from the lawn and carted off to be dumped by the truck load.  So why don't I have it cut down? Simply, it inspires me.  I love to look out at its blossoms in spring, and watch the animals that are drawn to its fallen fruit all summer: squirrels, rabbits, one possum and a groundhog, along with all the birds (and children) in its branches.

Inspired by Gerald Durrell's books, I visited the olive groves on the island of Corfu. I found these nets rolled up and hanging under the trees.  After a few more visits to Greece later in the year and watching the whole season of "The Durrells", on BBC television, I learned what they were for. They are harvest nets spread out under the trees to catch the olives when they ripen and fall. It is the easiest way to harvest the olives, and has remained unchanged over the years.  This gave me the idea to use nets to 'harvest' the apples from my tree. I found some used to protect fruit trees in Walmart, and staked them out below the tree. Just about everyone living here or visiting has been tripped up by the nets, and there is no easy way to remove them for mowing, but so far they are an effective way of collecting all the fallen apples. I haven't had any rabbit get caught it the nets yet, although squirrels have been seen wrestling the apples out. 

Something as simple as this dragonfly which caused my son to stop and photograph while cutting the fairway; the image and idea was shared, it's existence appreciated and caused us to go out and search for more.  My son has begun to come home with all sorts of living samples and even picked up a pair of hitchhiking protesters the other day. Curiosity is fostered and creativity born.