Our small plot continues to produce Blackberries (to our great surprise). We are now anticipating the next pickings. For next week, we have our eyes on Crab Apples. We have a small but ancient tree on our front lawn which has been fruiting and looks quite bountiful.
Aside from picking Blackberries, we continue to prepare the land and the vines for next year. My key objective was the proper weeding of our Purple Raspberries...which brings me to the "bug of the week". On my very last row, I walked into a hornets' nest....literally. The bug in question turned out to be a Bald Faced Hornet (looking a bit like a very large black bee with white markings on its legs and lower abdomen). Inadvertently, I was trimming a large bush/weed and damaged their nest. The nest turns out to look like a football in both shape and size and is made of paper with a surface texture resembling a brain-like structure. They sting repeatedly and are quite aggressive in defending their nests.... believe me I now know first hand....luckily I did not turn out to be allergic to the stings.
At first, we were going to try to get rid of the nest, but aside from being minor pollinators, these hornets feed on other insects, some being pests in our vines. In the end we decided to let them be...besides they only occupy their nests for a year and move on (hopefully next year in a place less susceptible to human intervention).
Following our experiences with the grapes a week ago, we ordered an old fashioned fruit crusher and press (www.pleasanthillgrain.com). This week we had the opportunity to pick it up in Buffalo (to benefit from their free shipping policy....only in the US). After a bit of assembly, this thing which is built like a tank had to be experimented with.
Looking to test this hardware out we decided to pick our "Troll Apples" (Morgan's name for some very bad looking MacIntosh Apples next to our raised beds). Because these apple trees were never pruned or never sprayed the apples were small and badly attacked by viruses and pests (somewhere along the line we will need to concoct an organic spray).
This led Tristan and I on a search for more fruit to try our press with. We hit the "jackpot" with again more wild grapes. After struggling through a field of poison ivy (unlike the girls both Tristan and I are somewhat immune to it and do not blister) we found some old vines with a production of great sweet grapes (it seems a combination of Concord and some thick skinned wine grapes). Of course like most vines in what I now call our "Canadian Jungle", we had to climb a tree to get to the most bountiful branches!
After picking only a small percentage of what we could find (after all we had to truck these things back to the farm house), we decided we would continue to harvest these grapes and when the weather cools a bit try our hand at making "Wild Grape Jelly".
Now for the subject title of this blog: Heavy Equipment.
This week saw continued work around the house. With the cleaning up Tristan and I are doing on the land (and the intended demolition of a large ancient chicken coop), with the renovations going on inside the house (under Christine's leadership) and with the intended gutting and stripping of parts of the barn, I had to order our first major "eye sore" (strategically located behind the barn): an industrial construction site waste bin....after two days it was already half full!
The use of heavy machinery continued throughout the week as we also started work on a new electricity set up in the house. The house was fed via two fuse panels of 60 Amps. We decided to up this to a modern panel of 200 Amps (which eventually we want to feed with solar panels). We took this opportunity to bore a hole to the house and eliminate some overhead wires which are precariously going through the canopy of our prized European Copper Beech tree. The result is that the house and the barn were surrounded with some pretty high tech drilling gear for the better part of one morning.
This all led to more drama than I cared to have on an early morning. Access to the farm land including our corn was blocked off and of course the Mexican workers that usually pick the corn use our access road...now blocked. In an effort to squeeze between the barn and our Raspberry canes, I heard a massive crash and effectively noticed that one of the Mexican workers had actually fallen through the septic tank access panel (an old rotting floor board)! Luckily he was in his pick up truck....unluckily he couldn't get out (even with the help of five of his buddies). This is where I was rather happy we got Tristan the tractor...it performed marvelously. Now I have some major concerns about the septic system.
I close this week with something we have not discussed much: the Tea Room. Our barn is rented out during the summer season as a tea house. It never ceases to amaze me how popular it has become over the years. Many times our parking lot was completely filled and cars were lined up in the street. This is the last week of operation for the Berry Patch Tea Room (http://www.berrypatchtearoom.com/). They will be closing for the season next Monday. We now need to make plans for a better and bigger Season next year....with some serious work on the barn.
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