Awww, Nuts…

When I was a kid growing up in the frontier town of Wenatchee, there was a wilderness right across the road from the little house at 16 Wilson Street. Well…not exactly a wilderness but a city park, Washington Park. In those pre-video game/t.v. days the park was a delightful playground. There was a merry-go-round to spin us dizzy and a wading pool to cool us on summer days. A few things I remember: the park’s summer crafts program to keep little hands busy (away from matches, perhaps?) and little children from being bored. For a nominal materials fee we could buy multi-colored plastic braid by the yard. Soon our nimble little fingers were weaving braid novelties: key chain holders, lanyards, bracelets…. We learned the flat braid, the diamond braid, the square braid. And our parents learned that a quarter or two was well worth the investment just to keep us out of their hair for an hour or two.

The wading pool I remember not so much for its cooling splish-splash but for my eager anticipation that Judy Burowski who lived in the house at the end of our block would be among the waders that day. If she were, wearing that stunning pink bathing suit I loved and which so complimented her deep summer tan, taking a dip that afternoon would be a joy. But enough of that….

Washington Park, too, was an arboretum of sorts: pine trees (one fall I found a hibernating colony of lady bugs in the crevices of one’s trunk—shiny black beetles with red spots!), spruce and other evergreens, and black walnut trees. In the fall we would shuffle through the fallen leaves beneath the black walnuts looking for their mast (mast? an interesting word I learned from Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ The Yearling: the term for fallen nuts from a nut bearing tree). An hour’s effort foraging among the leaves would yield us a paper bag half full of nuts and black-stained hands and fingers. 

There are those, I’m sure, who think the phrase “a tough nut to crack” pertains to Brazil nuts. To that camp I’d say, “You’ve never tried to split open a black walnut, then.” Mostly shell and little meat, that’s the black walnut. It takes a heavy hammer swing to sunder a a black walnut and to extract its meat is like separating gold from a chunk of ore. Perhaps the unique flavor of the black walnut comes in part from the considerable labor that goes into freeing the meat from its shell.

Black walnut trees. We have them in the Valley. One I noticed for the first time just a few weeks ago. It towers above the west bank of the slough adjacent to the cornfield on Fish and Game land. When you stop at the stop sign where the upper and lower loop roads intersect, gaze southwest across the water, and you’ll see the tree. Just look for the “No Trespassing” sign nailed to the trunk; you can’t miss it.

Two ancient black walnuts shade Riley Slough next to the old Victorian home (the late residence of the Aldens). With their massive trunks and leaders these giants are stately and impressive trees. In fact the tree closest the road has such a thick and lengthy leader it is experiencing, in arborist jargon, “mechanical failure”: the branch is too long and heavy to support its own weight and has begun to split.

And there’s Jeff Miller’s grove of black walnuts on the north side of Riley Slough. A few years back I ran into Jeff and his young daughter at a local Starbucks. We chatted for a while, and I’m not quite sure how the topic came up, but we found ourselves talking about college, the high cost of tuition, and the difficulty parents have paying their children’s education bills these days. Jeff then informed me of his unique way to send his kids through college. A walnut scholarship, I guess you could call it: that grove of black walnuts is not destined for mast, cookies or black walnut ice cream. As a woodworking/furniture medium, black walnut is a highly sought after hardwood and for nice, straight logs, commands a premium price per thousand board feet. By the time his kids are college age, Jeff told me, he hopes the timber from that grove of walnuts will pay their way through college. If there’s a more creative way of funding a child’s higher education, I have yet to discover it.

Now if it’s walnuts you’re after, good, old English walnuts, it’s the Barrell Man you want to contact. In late August I just happened to glance at the tree in Martys’ front yard. I’ve never seen such a crop of walnuts! The green orbs were roped on the tree like clusters of grapes.  A few years back the Martys cut their walnut crop in half by felling a second tree in the yard. If both trees still stood this year, they would have to scoop their driveway and rake the lawn just to leave their house. The Barrell Man had placed a stepladder by a low hanging nut-laden branch so he wouldn’t bump into the obstruction when he mowed the lawn.

By now the tree has shed most of its crop and a few days ago the Barrell Man was on his hands and knees in the midst of a humongous litter of mast. He had already gathered a plastic garbage can full of nuts, he told me. Mrs. Marty had three dehydrators going full time in the house drying nuts gathered earlier. “This must be the biggest crop of walnuts you’ve ever had!” I remarked. Apparently not. A few years back, I’m told, the Martys shelled out over one hundred pounds of meat from the season’s crop. The Barrell Man takes orders for his walnuts. One lady, he told me, has already requested twenty pounds of shelled nuts. If he charged as much for his walnuts as do the stores for bags of shelled nuts, he could go into the nut business and allow his barrell enterprise to roll its separate way.

I thought it would be nice having a resident walnut tree here on the place, and when our old dairy farming neighbor Herman Zylstra told me he was going to add a walnut tree to his arboretum and would I like one one, too, I said certainly. That walnut tree is now eighty feet tall (Herman’s, unfortunately was shaded out by a number of taller trees), I’d estimate, and in addition to its wonderful summer shade, provides us enough nuts to do our holiday baking. Some years I’ve even had a surplus to take to the Sky Valley Food Bank. Our tree, however, is some species other than English walnut; the nuts are more oblong than round and for some reason don’t seem to develop properly. A pollination problem, perhaps (I’ve heard black walnuts are excellent pollinators for other species)? Or does our species of walnut require a longer growing season?

I enjoy shuffling around under the tree these days looking for nuts just as much as I did in Washington Park those years long ago. Of course, I’m never alone as I circle the tree. Its canopy is usually hopping with squawking blue jays and a squirrel or two (one season I counted five). They knock loose the husks and the occasional walnut which clatter down on me as I hunt below.

Once a bucket is full, I bring it to the house, fill it with water and stir the walnuts vigorously to wash them. Then into the garden cart they go to dry on the south side of the house. From the cart to the hearth behind the woodstove for a final curing. On days the woodstove is purring away I like to shell the walnuts: the shells make a nice crackle when you toss them on the fire.

If one were to play word association and I said “squirrel,” what would you say? “Nuts,” would be my answer. Lunchtime and I’m sitting at the table gazing out at the walnut tree. One branch appears to be having a seizure, like a wet dog shaking itself. Otherwise not a leaf stirs. A squirrel, of course, cruising the canopy of the tree  for nuts.  The way a squirrel moves about a tree makes me think it must have been a monkey in another life (or vice versa).

I wonder about the ratio between the number of nuts a squirrel actually consumes and the amount it buries somewhere. Jays and squirrels alike are genetically programmed to be nut gardeners; burying their plunder is a sort of Darwinian foresight—a nut gravy train, if you will, for years’ bounty on down the line. I watched one of the furry little fellows bury a nut in the backyard the other day. Careful to note where the nut was buried, I went out to unearth it. Even though it was only a matter of seconds for the nut’s internment and I was most certain of its “grave,” I couldn’t find the nut anywhere! Come next August I’m sure to find it though when a miniature tree sprouts in the middle of the backyard somewhere.

Because it’s “all in one basket” (or wagon) until it dries, I’ve learned to keep a watchful eye on my nut crop. A couple years ago when half a wagon full of nuts was drying, I was sitting at the computer and noticed a squirrel rush by the window--nothing unusual during nut season. They sashay back and forth along the property line, a nut clenched between their teeth, which they bury in the hedge, lawn, mole mound…somewhere… anywhere…and then it’s back to the walnut tree again for more plunder. This squirrel, however, seemed to be exceptionally fast, a distracting gray blur zipping back and forth like a tennis ball in play. More than one squirrel, I thought…has to be…three, four, a half dozen perhaps? And that walnut tree is a long ways away. How could a squirrel make the round trip so quickly? The answer was obvious: “it” wasn’t covering the distance at all. I rushed outside to find the wagon nearly emptied; the squirrel (yes, just a solitary bushy tail) had nearly cleaned me out. Now during nut season I closely monitor squirrel activity in the driveway. I guess that’s what folks mean by “squirreling things away.”

The nut harvest continues. Blustery day aside, the Barrell Man is underneath his walnut tree today when I walk by. Bucket in one hand, cane in the other, he’s gathering the nuts loosened by last night’s windstorm. “How goes the harvest?” I ask. “We’ve shelled out one hundred fifty pounds so far,” the Barrell Man replies. He plunks a couple walnuts in his bucket, laughs and says, “The wife gives me hell whenever I come in with more.” And that’s a direct quote.

Fall in the Valley…Or is it?

The autumnal equinox has come and gone by a month. A week or so ago the Valley breezes seemed balmy, the breath of Indian Summer filling my nostrils as Gladys and I glided along. Today, however, as I do my constitutional walk, the wind has teeth, a bite of chill as if to say, “Let’s get on with the program: it’s mid October and you can kiss summer goodbye. Pin your Christmas list to the fridge and keep the credit card handy.” The western sky, gauzy with rain, screes the horizon.

This year’s corn is chopped, packed, and fermenting into silage for the Valley’s hungry cows. I can see across the Valley now. A short month ago the view was walled out by rows of corn. Memory of this year’s crop litters the roadside, chips of chaff strewn by silage  trucks. The cornfields are bare, shed of their stalks. Once again I can see the dairy barns, the farmhouses, the cottonwoods that line the river. Valley dairymen have taken advantage of the recent stretch of good weather, harvested and stored the corn, tilled and planted the fields with spring hay.

The cackle of geese and ducks fills the sky. Skeins of Canadians vee their way above the Valley in military precision; flocks of ducks pulse about the clouds like amoebas (whatever military training ducks receive is quickly forgotten), and in the pre-dawn murk I hear the percussion of shotguns—Valley duck hunters thinning out the incoming.

Doorsteps bulge with pumpkins, the hallmark seasonal orange, mouths agape in ghoulish smiles. (Little kiddos at Freddies frolic among the golden globes as if they were presents under the tree; there’s nothing like a plump pumpkin to bring out the kid in a kid.) Wooly bear caterpillars huffle across the road. Many won’t, don’t, reach the other side and become grease spots on the pavement. Yesterday as we pedaled by, Gladys ting-a-linged Song, the Cambodian flower farmer. He was working among his dahlias. Nearly every day last  month I saw him gathering armloads of flowers destined for the Pike Place Market. Four or five nights of frost a week ago blackened the patch. No flower gathering yesterday; Song was cutting the stalks and digging tubers before a hard freeze settled on the Valley and destroyed his cash crop.

On my return I approach Ed and Ginnifer Broers’ place and note the two ancient apple trees in their yard. Windfall apples litter the lawn. The branches, like the cornfields, are barren, bereft of leaves and fruit. I am closer now and notice something strangely out of place in the old King apple tree closest the road, some sort of seasonal anomaly. Sprinkled among the lower branches I note freshly opened apple blossoms, perhaps a dozen or so--pink and white polka-dots of spring. Off to the east the clouds choke the Cascades and new snow seeps like bare feet from beneath a nightgown. The season’s first snowfall has dusted the nearby foothills. Here it is, mid-October, and I’m seeing apple blossoms! It’s either an early April Fool’s joke or the ancient apple has entered its dotage, a sad, senile, confusion of the equinoxes.

Don’t Garden in Your Short Pants…

“…and books that told me everything about wasps, except why.”

Dylan Thomas, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”

A warm afternoon in the garden. These days won’t last much longer, I think, as I bask for a moment in the sunshine. My brief reverie is interrupted when I notice a buzz of activity in the dahlia patch. Insects are jetting skyward as if they’re shot out of the ground, their launch area the base of a favorite dahlia, a nice blossom, a blend of yellow and white pastels. I saunter over to investigate and discover ground hornets exploding from a nest next to the dahlia stalk. Their launch pattern reminds me of those rocket pods on navy warships that fire one missile after another until nothing is left but smoke. They rise from the ground and dart off business-like to visit their villainy on whatever they can.

The nest has been there how long, I wonder? Unaware that Mother Nature has planted a hornet minefield in the patch, have I unsuspectingly plucked a few blossoms from that particular dahlia while straddling that venomous hole in the ground? If that’s the case, then I’ve averted disaster. If my private space had violated their airspace, I could have been in for some excitement. My short pants would have been a box canyon for those adrenalin-powered missiles; they’d have had to sting their way to freedom. As that hypothetical scenario played out in my head, I was reminded of a Mark Twain remark about a distant uncle who while attending a Fourth of July celebration had the misfortune to open his mouth at the same time a sky rocket flew his way. In Twain’s inimitable understatement, the humorist remarked: “A man couldn’t have an experience like that and remain entirely cheerful about it.” Nor could a man whose short pants were full of angry hornets. We marked the dahlia, tied a conspicuous blue ribbon to the stake, a reminder for us to tread carefully in the hornet zone.

ground to air missiles

Ground hornets. Bane of the deep woods lumberjack, backwoods hiker, picnicker. Carnivores.  Cannibals. The striped pest that insinuates itself  at your picnic table, dive bombs your plate of fried chicken or barnstorms the barbecued rib you can’t bite into because you’re too busy waving it in the air to shoo off the uninvited guest. This is not the first nest I’ve encountered on the place. One evening years ago I was mowing out back. The sun was low in the west and on a return pass, I noticed a mirage of insect wings glinting in the sun. I had mowed over a ground hornets’ nest! The lawnmower sped along in fifth gear whenever I mowed that strip, and I continued to speed mow that patch of ground until the mower was retired for the season.

This time of year hornets are everywhere, into everything, the pests of the season. The first few weeks of fall the honeybees trim their hives of the excess drones; these ever hungry loafers could take their toll of the winter stores if their population was too great. Evicted by the workers, out they go, never to be allowed back in. These homeless drones are not long for the world; no sooner are they booted out than a hornet zooms in to pick them off and pack its prize  home to the dinner table. And if it can, a hornet will invade the beehive itself. Hornets will destroy a weak colony, especially one whose hive has points of ingress other than the entrance—too many openings for a small population to defend.  Hornets attacked my bee yard in Winthrop one fall and were picking off the hives one by one. I lost two colonies to the voracious little carnivores: all the honey, larvae, and bees themselves gone. The hives were licked clean, light as thistledown when I loaded them on the truck. I pulled one of the bottom boards and found an inch or so of dead insects, a goulash of hornet and honeybee carcasses. The bees had fiercely defended their home  but succumbed to sheer numbers and aggressiveness. When a hornet would alight on a hive lid, I’d smash it with my gloved hand. As soon as I’d lift my fist, there would be two or three of its fellows vying for their deceased relative. To a hornet, meat is meat regardless if the flesh is that of your own species. Carnivore and cannibal, that’s the hornet for you.

One of beekeeping’s  fall maintenance duties here in the Valley involves hornet prevention, and to this end I install entrance reducers on each hive, thus limiting the hornets’ means of access while giving the bees a greater chance to defend themselves from invasion. Even then an especially bold hornet will enter the reduced entrance, disappear inside, and back out almost instantly with three or four guard bees in its face.

Even this safeguard doesn’t provide one hundred percent prevention. Hornets fly in colder weather than honeybees and on a cool, rainy fall day it is usual to see several buzzing about a hive’s entrance. Honeybees cluster for warmth on cold days and hornets take advantage of the bees’ semi hibernation, enter the hive with little resistance and help themselves to the unprotected winter stores.

While I don’t want to invite trouble by flaunting my short pants in their airspace, I have to say I’ve yet to be stung by a hornet here on the place in all the years we’ve lived here. My wife can’t make such a claim. When we were preparing our yard for a lawn years ago, she was unaware that a hornet had settled on her underarm. When she dropped her arm, the hornet took offense at being pinched and raised both a welt on her side and a howl of pain from the victim. Hornets always invade my honey shed during the annual honey extraction. One at a time somehow they filter in and immediately hover around the nearest honey drip. Periodically I’d vacuum them up with an old vacuum cleaner I kept handy for that purpose. While they were batting their heads against the fluorescent lights, I’d suck them one by one from the glowing  tubes. Every hour or so I’d have to fire up the vacuum again and “sanitize” the surroundings…but not once did I receive a single sting.

I showed our resident hornets’ nest to my environmentally sensitive friend Nancy L.  As far as hornets (and squirrels and jays and moles and voles…) are concerned Nancy L. is environmentally insensitive. “Why don’t you pour a pot of boiling water down that hole?” she asked indignantly. Sure, Nancy L., that’s one environmentally-conscious way to eradicate a nest of hornets: no arsenic, no toxic pesticides, hornet bombs, RAID, or other pollutants…no argument there. But then there’s boiling the water, carrying the pot to the nest in the dark (yes, they all have to be home snug in the nest…and what if the water cools in transit?). No, Nancy L,  Mother Nature will take care of those striped varmints. The fall rains will drown them out. They always have. In fact it’s raining now. It’s really pouring down out there….

The Nasturtium Caper…

We had a problem area in the garden, just a little patch around the birdhouse pole that couldn’t be accessed by the tiller and consequently the area required constant weeding. The solution, we found, was to plant the area in nasturtiums. This second season the plants, which throw an abundance of seed, volunteered so profusely the weeds were crowded and shaded out. This summer the nasturtium bed was our garden hotspot, flickering flames of flowers—fiery shades of oranges and reds—as if the birdhouse had a brush fire at its feet. What an amazing return from a couple packets of seed!

The weekend before Christmas each year our extended family congregates at the designated home in the rotation where we consume copious amounts of food and commune with family. Before the party breaks up and we head out the door for our respective homes, my brothers and I exchange the personal gifts we’ve prepared especially for each other.  It’s become a holiday tradition for the brothers and me. The gifts usually come in a canning jar, something from our gardens or backyards. (A word about my family: I am one of six children, four boys and two girls. Of the six, only my brothers and I are canners and food preservers. The sisters for whatever strange reason have neglected the art themselves…don’t ask me why). I’ve been gifted pickled eggs (brothers’ backyard chickens), jams, spicy pickles…last year a jar of smoked salmon (one brother has a cabin on one of the islands). They in return: pickled jalapeno slices, pepper and quince jelly, pickled watermelon rind…and sauerkraut (two brothers have adopted my habit and we now have a “’kraut off” each Christmas from each other’s annual batch). For my birthday a year ago the brothers gave me a book on pickling: The Joy of Pickling (Linda Zierdrich). On the inside cover my brother Kevin wrote: “Enjoy the book. Might come in handy if you decide to venture off the beaten path….” This year I wandered off the beaten path and where did I end up? Well, at the nasturtium patch.

On one of Cisco Morris’s (“OO la la!”) Saturday broadcasts, the master gardener of local renown brought up the topic of nasturtiums. “Do you know,” Cisco’s chirpy voice announced, “every part of the nasturtium is edible: leaves to spice up your salad. Flowers for colorful presentation?” Cisco continued on. “During WWII the English couldn’t get capers because of the war.” (Apparentlyin those war torn days Italy was the caper capital of the world.) “And so they used nasturtium seed pods instead.”

I’m standing at the end of the beaten path peering into the mass of nasturtium vines. Sure enough there are seed pods galore, usually a cluster of three at the end of the curly-cue flower stems. I stooped, plucked a trio of plump pods, popped one in my mouth, and crunched it. Instantly a zesty tang exploded on my tongue followed by a peppery aftertaste that set my nostrils a’ tingle. Definitely a unique taste. Most certainly an unusual species of garden produce. And thus the inspiration for this year’s canned goods and my brothers’ Christmas surprise.

On page 155 of  The Joy of Pickling I find a recipe for “Pickled Nasturtium Pods.” Reading through the introduction I come across a quote by Euell Gibbons, the natural foods guru: “Nasturtium buds make better capers than capers do. My family likes them in pasta sauces; they are also good in salads.” If nasturtium pods are good enough for the Gibbons, my brothers should certainly have some.

I read the recipe which was taken from a 1739 cookbook, The Compleat Housewife, by Eliza Smith. Pickling the buds is a bit time-intensive: first, you have to pick a pint of them (half an hour to forty-five minutes). After the buds are washed, they must be brined for twenty-four hours in salt. The buds are drained and rinsed and rebrined two more times (three sessions total) before they are pickled. On the chance you yourself have tired of the well-worn path and want a new pickling adventure, use the recipe below:

4 1/2 Tbsp pickling salt

3 cups water

4 whole cloves

1 pinch mace

1/4 whole nutmeg

1 slice horseradish (about 1 1/2” in diameter by 3/16” thick) cut into thin strips

1 shallot, peeled

approx. 1 cup white vinegar

1. Dissolve 1 1/2 Tbsp salt in 1 cup water and pour this brine over nasturtium pods. Let stand one day.

2. Drain the pods. Make a fresh brine the same way as before. Drain pods as earlier. Make fresh brine. Let stand a second day.

3. Repeat steps one and two for a third day

4. On the fourth day, drain the pods, put them into a sterile pint jar with the cloves, mace, nutmeg,  horseradish and shallot and cover contents well with the vinegar. Seal jar with a nonreactive cap and let stand at room temperature for one week.

After one week, store the jar in the refrigerator or a cool, dry, dark place. The pickled pods will keep well for a year or more.

Now I’m sure this post might cause the more perspicacious reader to exclaim: “Wait a minute! He’s gone and given away his brothers’ Christmas surprise, hasn’t he!” No need for concern. This secret is as well-preserved as the pickled nasturtium pods. My brothers never read The Ripple. They’ve much better things to do with their time.

A Pocketful of Corn…

Yesterday as Gladys and I passed the Werkhoven Dairy, I saw Jim Werkhoven exit the milkhouse and stride toward some farm machinery parked nearby. Gladys gave Jim a feminine ting-a-ling, but her greeting was muffled by machinery noise and we glided by unnoticed. I heard Big Jim on the radio again the other day, the ad the Werkhovens do for the Washington State Dairy Commission and it always seems a bit strange to see the Werkhovens in person and later hear their voices coming from the radio speaker.

“You know, we try to be good neighbors,” Jim’s gruff voice booms over the airwaves. I think about all that good organic by-product I’ve been granted from the Werkhovens’ Dairy (they’ll even load it for you if they’re around). Friends of ours, those Rollers, wanted to pump up their pumpkin patch this spring. I told them to contact the Werkhovens. Sure enough, the Rollers came away with two pickup loads of digester effluence. “It’s the least we can do for you,” Jim told Darren, “after all the ****you’ve had to put up with from us all these years.”

I sat down with Jim last January to talk about the farming business, the dairy industry in particular. One subject that came up was the communal patch of corn that’s been a tradition with the Werkhovens for years (a part of their“…trying to be good neighbors”policy). Last year the patch was bare—in part because of the long, cool spring—but also because Jim, Andy and Steve were disheartened by some corn patch visitors who discovered the corn and took advantage of  the free produce. “I’d see fancy cars out there…one guy in a BMW,” Jim exclaimed, implying, “I’m sure, if you can afford a BMW, purchasing a few ears of corn shouldn’t be a problem.” Jim remarked about a van that stopped at the patch and the driver proceeded to load the vehicle with corn. “Now I know that guy couldn’t eat a whole van full of corn himself! He had to be selling it somewhere!” A sad fact, if true…which it most likely was. “Free” anything triggers something in our brains (unless, that is,  it’s a free used mattress) and perhaps because the situation arises so seldom, we tend to take advantage of it and often to excess. (Consider my last post and the dozen “free” apples from Hood River.) The “neighborly” intent of the communal corn patch was to provide a few ears for a family’s supper, share some of the Valley’s sweet corn with the locals and Valley visitors, enough for a meal or two--certainly not to provide a corn bake for a “city” block part or a sales booth at some farmers’ market. Jim just didn’t know if he wanted to continue the gesture.

And that’s why I smiled last spring when I saw new corn sprouting in the tilled ground, and I smiled again last week when I pedaled past  the communal patch and noted a hand painted sign propped against a metal box by the corner of the field: “CORN IS READY.” I parked Gladys alongside the patch and strolled into the field to examine the crop. A half dozen rows into the patch yielded two nice, plump ears. I removed the husks, left the sheaves for compost, and pocketed my loot. Now I must confess I have two rows of corn in the backyard garden, Golden Jubilee, and the ears are ripe for the picking. Why, then, you may ask, did I take two extra from the Werkhoven communal patch?  Because I appreciated the gesture in which it was offered. Because I could. And because the corn was free. Two ears. That’s all I took. Just enough for one recipe of little corn dumplings, enough for one evening’s meal. Two ears for one batch and no more.

                              Little Corn Dumplings

1/2 cup flour

2 Tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1/3 cup ice water

2 ears sweet corn, husked, kernels removed (1-1/2 cups)

6 Tbsp vegetable oil for cooking the dumplings

1. Mix the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and half the salt together in a bowl. Add the egg and 1/4 of the water, and mix with whisk until smooth. Add the remainder of the water, and again mix until smooth. Fold in corn kernels.

2. Heat 3 Tbsp of oil in a large skillet, and drop one Tbsp batter for each dumpling. Cook for three/four minutes per dumpling per side and transfer to wire rack when they are cooked.

3. Sprinkle the dumplings with the remaining salt and serve immediately. (Alternately prepare a few hours in advance and reheat on wire rack set over a cookie sheet in a 175 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.)

Note: Leftovers can be frozen and reheated at a later date—or we like them refrigerated and eaten cold.

A Late Summer Pilgrimage…

Chaucer’s storytelling pilgrims did theirs in the spring. We “Yanks”call it “Cabin Fever.” In England perhaps it’s “Cottage Fever,” that springtime urge to move about, go out of doors, hit the road, let the vernal breezes “inspired by Zephyrus” refresh your spirit. A pilgrimage by definition is a religious journey and in fourteenth century England that meant traveling from “every shires ende of Engelond to Canterbury” to worship at the tomb of the martyr St. Thomas a’ Becket. Come the second week of September, however, I like to get away from the place for a while, the demands of the lawn, the garden, household maintenance, all the trimming and mowing, the tilling and weeding, the watering and this summer—the house painting. You just need to step away, take a break, put some distance between you and the lawn mower.

I suppose it’s a vacation I’m talking about; yet for me it is a pilgrimage of sorts, too, because in a round about way there is a religious motif rattling around in this picture somewhere. Unlike Chaucer’s foot weary pilgrims, it’s not spiritual enlightenment I’m seeking but the opportunity to swing the insect net one last time for the season.

Apodemia mormo—common name the Mormon metalmark-- flies in autumn, late in the butterfly season and while this butterfly species to the best of my knowledge is not in anyway affiliated with the Church of Latter Day Saints, it is decidedly a “latter day” butterfly, the last species in Cascadia to emerge and fly during the butterfly season. This species, whose habitat is the Great Basin, roughly the same as Mormon country—thus its commonplace name—is the only metalmark (subfamily Riodininae) species in our locale. Because most species of Riodininae possess a metallic-like appearance on the top and lower sides—metal markings—they are commonly referred to as “metalmarks.”

Metalmark territory is stark and barren--hot, arid basalt hillsides and scablands--certainly not the terrain in which one would expect to find much insect life, let alone this attractive little bug. An experienced butterfly friend of mine said of  A. mormo: “You have to sweat to get ‘em.” And she’s right about that. To stay long in metalmark country, you need to be well hydrated.

The base camp from which we launch our assault on the metalmarks is the scenic town of Hood River, Oregon, a little town teetering on the hillside above the Columbia River Gorge and famous the world over because of its ideal wind conditions for windsurfing and parasailing.  We have booked three nights at the Hood River Best Western Hotel, our favorite place to stay at Hood River and have set aside one entire day of our stay to “sweat” for butterflies.

No sweat it looks like this time around. For days, weeks even, the weather has been warm and dry, but as luck would have it, the weekend we arrive in Hood River, the clouds move in and drag the wind with them. Whereas the day prior the temp was a torrid 97 degrees, the day after, a chilly 66 degrees settled on Hood River. Sweater and sweatshirt weather...and disappointment. We cross our fingers for the next day, hope this weather system blows east upriver and beyond.

The next day is “D” day, the day of our metalmark foray to the Deschutes River. Temps in the fifties; rain puddles in the parking lot; clouds layer the Gorge: all spell disappointment to me. But we may yet salvage the day. Our destination is due south between The Dalles and Bend. In that direction we see sunshine, blue skies…only a few clouds. Fifty miles south and an hour later, we hoped, conditions would improve.

The Deschutes River and Sherar’s Bridge provide a stark contrast to Hood River. No longer that mile wide expanse of Columbia or hillsides dappled with scrub oak and pines. The Deschutes has gouged its way through sheer basalt cliffs which in places give way to cobbled hillsides, sage-covered and bunch grassed. And through this bleak, austere landscape winds a beautiful aquamarine river, the Deschutes; lush greenery lines its banks: a moving oasis in the midst of arid scabland. This is Mormon metalmark country.

Mt. Hood has our back as we turn east off Highway 197 and drive the winding seven miles to Sherar’s Bridge. Upriver west of the bridge is reservation land, the Warm Springs Indian Reservation where Native Americans still fish Sherar’s Falls for salmon in the old way with long dip nets. Downstream of Sherar’s is public land, a recreational area, and a popular stretch of river for fishing. The salmon season opened August 1 and concludes October 31 (“limit four Jack salmon and two adults”). The hard pan unsurfaced road is washboarded and rutted. Pickups trailing boats, empty trailers, contrails of dust billowing behind, rattle by constantly as if some kind of a commute was occurring in this desolate spot. Drivers smile and wave; after all, I’m carrying a net, too.

Butterflies deplore three conditions: rain, of course, clouds that shadow the sun (I’ve seen the airspace above mountain meadows empty instantly of butterflies when a thundercloud passed before the sun)--and wind. No rain today along the Deschutes and temperature was in the high 70’s. A few clouds but these slid quickly across the sun. Clouds, however, usually mean wind and windy it was indeed. Fifteen to twenty mph gusts were the norm, but I’m sure some exceeded twenty. My net billowed out like an airport windsock nearly everywhere I went. Small butterflies would lie low and cling somewhere in a breeze so strong. And metalmarks are not big butterflies. The biggest disappointment, however, was not the weather, but the timing: adult metalmarks nectar on a species of eriogonum (buckwheat). This plant dots the hillsides above the road, but not a one was yet in bloom. There would be no metalmarks this day. Nor tomorrow. Next week…maybe…perhaps…. A pilgrimage of three hundred fifty miles and we had to reconcile ourselves with the scenery, but the Deschutes is beautiful river. Perhaps that was enough. 

So enjoy the scenery we did as we ate our riparian lunch. Fisherman were not the only ones using the Deschutes that day. For our lunchtime entertainment a party of rafters drifted by. A wave from me prompted the drifters to waggle paddles and arms: everyone likes to have his picture taken.A stop sign at the Fish and Game check point halted us as we left  the recreational area. A young man left a small trailer and walked up to the car.“Catch any fish?” he asked. “We weren’t fishing,” we told him, “just catching bugs.” A quizzical smile and with a wave he motioned us through.Even though we left the Deschutes empty-handed, our stay in Hood River was relaxing and memorable. Our last evening we strolled the trail along the river just as a graceful fifty foot sailboat, sails furled, under auxiliary power (a rare, windless evening in the Gorge), glided up to the hotel dock where captain and crew (a man, woman and two dogs) performed a slick bit of seamanship—neatly docking with nary a bump. We felt a connection to home when we saw the ship was the Ingrid Princess, homeport Friday Harbor. As we strolled back to the hotel, we stopped to watch three teen boys who we’d earlier seen fishing beneath the Hood River toll bridge. Now they were struggling with a fishing pole bent nearly double. The eldest of the three was helping the younger fisherman land some large fish. I videoed the struggle and recorded their catch as they pulled a four foot sturgeon from the water. “Congratulations,” the older boy said to the younger, “You just caught your first sturgeon!” He was more than happy to hold the big fish up in full view to be photographed. When asked if the fish would be served up for dinner, we were told it was a catch and release candidate. That made sense, I thought…a four foot Columbia River sturgeon? Well, it was still a fingerling, wasn’t it?

When you stay at a nice hotel, there’s always the ethical question about what amenities are yours to take—you paid for them, right?  A part of the deal? Those tightly wrapped bars of perfumed soap…they’re yours. The little bottles of fragrant shampoo…they’ll make the trip home with you, too. The complimentary de-caf coffee pouch (the caffeine pouch is your first coffee of the morning)? Pack it away to serve to guests later at home. The on-the-house tea bags? Same thing. The plush bath towel that could easily absorb a gallon of water? Better leave it for the maids. And the thick terry cloth pool robes? Don’t you dare…they know where to find you! But there are some gray areas that seem to defy ethics. What does the Golden Rule say about those two fruit-laden apple trees on the hotel’s riverside lawn? (Wasn’t there something a while back about apples and temptation?) What do you do when those big, green globes hang there beckoning? What did I do? I pocketed two to munch along the banks of the Deschutes. The other ten? Well, I’ve always longed for a Hood River apple pie!

A Crow in the Wilderness: From the Archives…

Today Gladys and I were cruising along the lower Loop road just approaching the wooden bridge over Riley Slough when I was startled by a sound so unfamiliar I immediately brought my ride to a screeching halt. Given the rush of slipstream as we blazed along, it was difficult to discern not only the location of the noise but its source. As we squealed to a halt a good forty feet later, I heard the sound again. It was a sound so strange I’m at a loss for words to describe it. The Ripple, however, will dive deeply into its ample word vault and strive to surface with a general description of what we heard. Let me say, first of all, whatever made the sound was determined to be heard, was emphatic about it even, and like an annoying car alarm, persisted to vocalize. First impression was a crow in distress pleading for help (I have no idea what sort of distress cry issues from a crow). I even entertained the thought the sound might have come from some unfortunate in distress, some poor soul being sucked down into Riley’s murkiness or floundering in the thorns of a blackberry covert. Somewhere in the rambling bramble greenbelt on the banks of the slough was some sort of critter crying out for attention.

He certainly got mine, the rooster did, for that’s what it was that broke the silence of the sleepy slough—a rooster braying his cock-a-doodle head off in an ecstasy of fowl exuberance. It’s not unusual in the Valley, especially in spring to hear a Chinese pheasant rooster, some plucky survivor of last year’s hunting season, sound off from the middle of a field somewhere, but to hear a sound associated with the barnyard, coop, and henhouse issuing from the wilds of the slough was a curious surprise. That healthy-sounding domesticated fowl (shall we call him Riley?) in full voice crowing in the wilderness brought back the past and the memory of another rooster that strayed the safety of the chicken yard and went forth to seek his fortune. And thereon hangs a tale.

The story of Fred and Ginger did not end well. If the principals were not poultry, theirs would be one of epic or saga proportions. In fact if chickens had a “fatal flaw” of character their story would make for a classic Greek tragedy. But perhaps Fred did have a personality flaw—if wanderlust can be considered a flaw in chicken nature--a quirk of some sort that made him seek greener pastures.

One day Fred and his soul mate Ginger showed up in our yard. I suspect they ran away from home, home being the corner domestic menagerie belonging to one Mrs. Caroline Peters. I suspect as well that competition for food was fierce in Peters’ chicken yard, since way too many friends of feather flocked together in a space much too small for such a large flock. Fred and his missus decided to strike out on their own, simply flew the coop and took up residence on and around our place. By day they foraged for bugs and grubs under the trees and bushes about the yard, pecking and scratching their way through the landscape. Nightly they roosted in the big Norway spruce in the front yard. We soon became accustomed to their presence although the pair were always wary of us.

Fred was a stately-looking rooster, white and cream-colored with a lovely tail, a medley of black, white and creamy feathers. At night among the dark branches of the spruce, Fred glowed like a dimly lit lantern. Ginger…well, she was dowdy, a drab, swarthy dinginess. But Fred doted on her as if she were of the finest Plymouth Rock stock. Oftentimes he would cackle and cluck over some juicy bug, hold it hostage until Ginger came running to devour it. Both birds were most likely offspring of some banty line, several hybridizations removed. They were inseparable, Fred and Ginger, and thus we named them: Fred after the talented actor and dancer Fred Astaire, Ginger, after his graceful dancing partner Ginger Rogers.

And so they came to stay and a rooster’s crow at dawn (and quite an early dawn, too, I might add) punctuated the morning traffic rush but with much less annoyance. Romance bloomed that summer, just a couple of banty newlyweds; their love affair we enjoyed watching. Midsummer Ginger disappeared for some time and we were afraid she’d been plucked from the place by a coyote, raccoon or some other varmint. One day the little hen mysteriously appeared, but this time she was not alone. Darting to and fro around her were five little fluff ball chicks. Ginger had been in the broody way and now she and her little family joined father Fred in the yard.

At this point in their history Fred and Ginger’s story starts its spiral into misfortune. In the next couple of weeks the little flock dwindled. One chick I found lying dead beneath a hedge. As the days went by, four chicks became three, then two. Predators were picking them off one by one. Our hope the last little chick would somehow survive sank, too. One day only Fred and Ginger remained. The yard seemed a sadder place.

In mid summer Ginger disappeared a second time. “She’s begun a second settin,” I thought, “setting a clutch of eggs somewhere, hidden herself,” and waited hopefully for Ginger and her second family to emerge from the shrubbery. Fred, too, appeared anxious for his mate to return. One day I noticed a faint shadowy ring at the edge of the yard and went to investigate. The blotch was a pool of drab feathers, neatly arranged in a circle, as if by design…all that remained of Ginger was that sad pile of plumage.

Fred didn’t seem to know he was now a widower and continued on as before. I wondered if in his little chicken brain he still believed Ginger would rejoin him any day. Perhaps his chicken heart refused to give up hope. Fred did seem aware that he was now winging it on his own. As if he couldn’t bear the memory of his nightly cuddling place with Ginger, he changed his roost to a low sweeping branch on a neighboring fir tree.

Fall arrived. Fred’s morning wakeup call came later now. He went to roost earlier in the evenings, a splotch of white like a plastic shopping bag caught up in the branch. As the days grew shorter and the summer bounty of insects dwindled, I was concerned about Fred’s food supply and thought he must have to do some serious foraging to sustain himself. On the lawn by our flagpole I set a square of plywood for a feeding platform and purchased a sack of cracked corn. For a day or two the rooster eyed the feeding station warily, but eventually the corn scratch was gone evenings when I went to check it. Whatever grief Fred bore hadn’t affected his appetite in the least. This routine continued a couple weeks before Fred felt comfortable with his new feeding arrangement. I would throw a couple handfuls of corn on the plywood and Fred would appear out of nowhere and hover impatiently until I scattered his meal. He still hung back, however, and waited for me to retreat before he approached the board. After a few days visiting the feeding station, Fred associated me with his evening meal and would come running to the board the moment he heard the kernels hit the wood. Soon his appetite took precedent over my presence; I might as well have been invisible.

Mid-October. Late afternoons were quick to turn into twilight. Fred’s dinner hour conflicted with his roosting urge. One day I returned home later than usual (a boring faculty meeting I suspect). As I slowed for our driveway I noticed a white plastic bag on the right of way and was about to vent my wrath on some thoughtless litterbug when I saw some movement on the bag: a large raptor (I believe a rough-legged hawk) perched victorious on that white heap. I parked the truck and ran to the right of way. There clasped in the talons of that rough-legged murderer was Fred. I shooed the hawk from his carcass and the killer leisurely flapped its way to a maple tree across the road where in indignation it proceeded to curse me in hawk language. Fred lay there in a halo of pale feathers. The hawk had plucked him from the fir bough like a ripe plum, eviscerated him, ripped open his gullet, and picked it clean. I carried Fred’s shredded carcass to the garden and solemnly buried him in the tomato patch.

The next morning was sadly quiet. No wake up clarion crow at dawn from the neighboring fir tree. I just about overslept. With Fred there had been no such thing as a snooze alarm.

A glooming peace this morning with it brings,

The sun for sorrow will not show his head.

                            *          *          *          *

For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Ginger and her Romeo.