The Paw Paw

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This week we planted a Paw Paw patch.

These plants were potted and we have now had them for over two months waiting to be transplanted. Because these were slated for a section close to our Biodome, we had been waiting to finish the construction of our dome and the cleaning up of the site.

Planting a Paw Paw patch

Why Paw Paws?

I'm not sure where we found out about the Paw Paw. But when we did, we found it intriguing. When we also discovered that a majority of the local folks know nothing about it or have never tasted it, we decided to plant some of these indigenous trees.

Although most folks are not acquainted with the Paw Paw, we were actually told that some wild trees still existed in the region and may be found in certain sites of the Niagara greenbelt.

The Paw Paw is a rather tropical looking plant with a fruit that resembles a Mango. The flesh of the fruit is creamy like that of an Avocado. The fruit also has large black seeds that are easily removed. The fruits were used by Native Americans and settlers alike.

The Paw Paw fruit

The kicker: some people say it tastes like Banana. In fact most recipes for the Paw Paw are Banana recipes.

We hand planted ten trees consisting of three fruit producing varieties....now it's a waiting game. We may have fruit in three years.

On the farming front, we continue to pick the remainder of our Blackberries, but as well our red and golden Raspberries. Although originally planted this Spring as a novelty item, the Golden Raspberry had become one of our favourites. We are now thinking of extending the coverage of this crop next year.

The Golden Raspberry continues to produce and has become a favourite

We have also taken advantage of weather conditions this week to finish some of the land clearing we started earlier this summer. With the help of Alois, we had reclaimed a large tract of farm land which originally had rows of raspberries. This meant cutting down Staghorn Sumac, Black Walnuts, Black Locust and Ash trees. Removing Wild Grapes, Virginia Creepers and Wild Roses.

We kept two mature Mulberry trees (for their fruits) and one mature Black Locust (for its edible flowers).

We are not certain of the raspberry variety that was originally planted on this site, but since they have survived in a rather wild state while still producing a small amount of fruit, we will try to preserve a few shoots.

The original Raspberry plants growing on this site

When we started out we could not walk this part of the land. Now things are starting to look dramatically different.

Cleared farm land that now needs serious cleaning

As a result, much of our work this week has been burning brush. The fair and almost windless weather proved to be a good opportunity to do so.

A week of burning brush

This also means we have had to remove dozens of old metal posts. Some we can re-use, others will go to metal recycling.

On the vegetable gardening front, it has been time to clean some of our raised beds. We took this opportunity to preserve some of our Sunchokes (those given to us a couple of weeks ago).

Chef has been using these for a soup, our intent was to also plant some of these tubers. Technically, these should be planted some 3 to 4 weeks before last frost, however the tubers do not keep well out of the soil. So we decided to use one of our cleaned raised beds to store them (and perhaps grow them next Spring).

We just planted the tubers 6 inches into the ground.

Sunchokes (or Jerusalem Artichokes) ready to go into the ground

With our consistent Tomato production, we continue to can and Chef has also joined the effort.

In fact, this week he has added an Old Fashioned Tomato Catsup to the line.

Chef's Old Fashioned Tomato Catsup

The local community continues to surprise us. We are getting used to people coming to see us, to discuss plants they grow or how to process certain foods. Some drop off their latest finds.

This week, we were surprised to find a bag full of beautiful Quinces at the barn door. We do not know where they came from or rather who dropped them off, but both Chef and I were salivating at the idea of producing Quince jelly.

From an "unknown benefactor", beautiful Quinces

I suspect a local blog reader has done this, so ... a big Thank You! We will definitely put these to good use.

I will finish the blog this week with another find. This one was brought in by our friend Carol.

Since becoming an avid blog reader, Carol keeps bringing in wild and strange fruits with the common question: is this edible?

This week it was an odd apple-sized round fruit with a significant amount of "bumps".

Carol's latest find

It took a while to identify, but it turns out to be Osanje Orange or Hedge Apple (not at all related to these two fruits).

It is actually a drupe. Edible yes....but definitely not tasty.

There is however one good use for this fruit.

In the old days, these were placed beneath the beds as a repellent to spiders and bugs. It turns out that this plant produce a compound which acts as an insect repellent and it is in fact much more effective than Deet!

We're Moving In

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Although we have lived in the old Victorian manor for over a year now, it had not yet become our home...until this week.

The interior work on the house is finally coming to an end. Our front door is complete and looks gorgeous.

A well fitted main door means we were able to remove an awkward storm door

As seen from the inside, the new stained glass picks up on the bay window's Art Nouveau pattern

Before, the old doors were salvaged, not properly fitted and with stain glass not representative of the times

What has really transformed our house though is the kitchen, the heart of any home. The kitchen is complete and we can now enjoy making our own dinners. Chef's cuisine was great, but we have tired of eating on the veranda of the Tea Room (particularly as the weather is cooling).

Finally, a functional kitchen

The original kitchen being dismantled some 3 months ago

This milestone meant that we could now also begin removing some of our belongings from a storage shed. It is amazing how much "stuff" people gather over the years and it is now time for us to seriously de-clutter. Much of this "stuff" has been  accumulating in the barn and this is not a long term solution.

As we empty our storage shed, it actually feels like we're moving in

We now have to organize our furnishings and do some decorative work. But it's also time to start another phase of this project: the manor's exterior.

This week was the beginning of the brick work. The walls are being washed. Some damaged bricks will then be replaced from our inventory of old bricks of the same period. The whole thing will then be sealed.

The outside refinishing begins with the brick work

While work on the house has progressed, Tristan and I have continued to make the final touches to our Biodome. This week entailed the installation of fan hood covers and the external installation of solar panels for our fans and a water pump.

Installing solar panels on our Biodome

This week, we have also had the opportunity to carry out a few food experiments.

The first entails the Concord grapes generously given to us by a neighbour. I was dismayed by the amount of green (unripened) grapes I was throwing out when de-stemming. After a completing a batch, it dawned on me that we could transform them into Verjus (litterally green grape juice).

Unripened (green) Concord grapes can be transformed into verjus

 We "crushed" these hard grapes by processing them in a blender. We then filtered the juice using a cloth. Although the Verjus is not as clear as I would like it to be (we could have used a finer filter). The results are exactly what we expected: a very tart juice that can be used wherever we would normally use lemon juice. Although tart, this juice still has a familiar grape finish, so it is perfect for dressings.

Our first bottle of Verjus

We also decided to carry out a foraging experiment this week. In this case, it concerned Highbush Cranberry. These we had identified earlier this Spring, now it was time to process them.

Highbush Cranberry

The Highbush Cranberry is not related to the well-known Cranberry people use for Thanksgiving dinner. It is more closely related to the Honeysuckle. These beautiful bushes generate bright red berries that can last well into the Winter.

The real problem is that there are three varieties of this plant in North America. They are difficult to differentiate, but all are edible, although one (a European native tree) is not very palatable.

The only way the discern them is to simply taste the berries. In our case, the berries were quite bitter. However, we also noted that much of the bitterness is from the seed so we decided to juice them anyway.

Beautiful Highbush Cranberries ready for steam juicing

The result was a very pleasant smelling juice (just about identical to Cranberry juice). However, it was still very bitter and now I fear we may only have the "unpalatable" European variety.

This has not deterred us however and we will definitely keep searching our land for a native tree.

Meanwhile, our vegetable garden continues to be bountiful. In particular, the tomatoes are amazing.

The tomatoes just keep coming

Although we sell some of our tomatoes and Chef uses quite a few, we still had to do quite a bit of canning. You can never have enough tomato sauce in the pantry...however this week we added salsa and tomato relish.

The relish was quite a pleasant surprise. We used our two large heirloom varieties for this (Cuostralee and Marizol Gold).

These tomatoes are so large, the Marizol slices look like pineapple

The recipe is simple. We sliced our tomatoes and some onions (ratio by volume amounts to 2 litres of tomatoes for 1 litre of onions). Combining them in  a bowl we salted them and waited until the next morning to drain all juices.

We placed this in a pot with one of our hot peppers (finely chopped). We covered the whole thing with white vinegar. We added some sugar (just less than half a litre). We brought this to a boil for 5 minutes and then added spices - in our case we used some 2 tablespoons of curry powder and a similar amount of mustard seeds.  We let the concoction simmer for an hour and then we were ready to can.

If the relish is a bit too liquid, it can be firmed up with just a bit of flour or corn starch.

We found the taste of this relish to be reminiscent of a good ketchup and I'm not sure our first batch will survive long...we'll probably have to make some more.

Our first batch of tomato relish

Once again this week, someone from the community and a regular patron of the Tea Room (Renee) brought something really special: Jerusalem Artichokes (or Sunchokes).

We had been meaning to plant some of these, but the rhizomes are actually hard to come by. This is surprising since it is a native plant that takes to the soil well and can be quite invasive once established.

Jerusalem Artichokes or Sunchokes

One rhizome can multiply 20 times in one year so it is a very productive plant...it is also quite a delicious root. So with this batch, I had enough to share with Chef who rapidly concocted for the restaurant a wonderful soup: Cream of Cauliflower, Jerusalem Artichokes and Potatoes.

Tristan's new favourite: cream of Cauliflower, Jerusalem Artichokes and Potatoes

Now that the summer season is over, things have quietened down at the restaurant. As such we've challenged Chef to use this time to develop his own line of canned goods.

This week we launched Chef Beck's line with two new preserves: Powidl (traditional stewed plums) and, Corn and Heirloom Tomato Relish.

Chef's new line: Powild and, Corn and Heirloom Tomato Relish

With the colder weather sneaking up on us every so often, this week Christine also had us transform a part of the market into an extension of the restaurant. Our guests can now enjoy Chef's cooking while protected from the elements.

The "sheltered" portion of our restaurant

Finally, I will conclude this week with a photo of some new guests to the Tea Room: baby snapping turtles.

So far this week, three of them have attempted to enter our store. In all cases, we have been returning them to the swamp or the pond hoping that they survive.

I'm not sure where they came from. The nest we reported on earlier this summer (by our raised beds) seems to be undisturbed and free of shells.

Why they would come to the store is a real mystery. Perhaps there is another nest not far away (?).

The third baby Snapping Turtle this week trying to enter our store.

It’s Nut Season

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With Autumn rapidly approaching, nuts are starting to drop...and this is a great time to forage.

Already a few weeks back, our neighbour John was quick to bring to us his Persian (or English) Walnuts. They have actually been dropping from his trees for quite a while now.

As he did last year, he brought us a bucketful; and as promised then, this time we were to clean them ourselves. Having had our nut processing experience last Fall, we were happy to dig in.

Processing Persian Walnuts

Now this is where I have a word of caution. We were fully aware of the staining properties of Black Walnuts. It turns out Persian Walnuts (and for that matter most Walnuts) are the same to a different degree. So since I did not wear any gloves, again I made a mess of my hands (as I did last year).

The second nut (and my favourite) to come this Season is the Shagbark Hickory. They are dropping from the trees now. We discovered these on the back property line last year and now every time we return we seem to find a new tree that has escaped our attention.

Christine on the hunt for Hickory nuts

Hoping for a much better harvest than last year, we were very early on the lookout for these distinctive nuts. This has not helped much!

I have read that individuals should be conscientious and leave sufficient nuts for the local wildlife. This, we certainly have no problem doing. It would help however if the wildlife left us a bit.  What we find is a lot of well opened and well shelled nuts by what seem to be a variety of small animals.

I guess this makes our take that much more valuable.

Our prized Hickory nuts

We have already harvested a few Black Walnuts very early in the summer for special processing. Soon, the fully mature nuts will be falling. Already some can be found on the ground. 

When it comes to the Black Walnut, we will definitely repeat last year’s effort since over the past twelve months, we have consumed our entire stockpile. We have used these at home, but Chef has also taken a liking to them.

The cracking of these nuts is quite a challenge and I was reminded of this by one of our customers. She had bought some un-shelled Black Walnuts locally and wanted to know how to process them. When I explained the process, I think I lost her when I mentioned the wire cutters.

The result is that she came back to give us her Black Walnuts. I promised to shell them and in return give her something we have processed with these nuts (hopefully before she returns to Florida for the Season).

So we were faced with shelling some Black Walnuts earlier than anticipated. The technique we adopted last year and reported on this blog worked out quite well (heavy hammer, concrete surface and wire cutters).

Once shelled, I decided to process a milk jam (something we discovered last Fall). This is akin to Dulce de Leche but in our case, I added very finally grated Black Walnuts in order to create Black Walnut Milk Jam.

Our latest and rather unique preserve: Black Walnut Milk Jam

Chef has also been using these nuts for his latest round of Biscotti, some of his sour dough breads and more recently an Apple Strudel which he is currently developing.

Another neighbour has also surprised us with a bag of nuts that are now falling from one of her trees. She had asked me to help identify them. The only thing I could think of is Butternut or White Walnut. Since their oblong shape is very similar to those we discovered on the farm this Spring. However, the bark of her tree is quite different. After doing some research, she believes that these nuts are Manchurian Walnuts. We are now eagerly waiting for the fruit to ripen so we can process them and hopefully clearly identify these nuts once and for all.

The two on the top may be different than the one on the bottom! Manchurian or White Walnut???

Finally, an avid blog reader was also keen to get us her latest find: Chestnut...and the edible kind. Having read our blog, she knew how passionate we are about the Chestnut (hence why we planted a small grove of 10 trees).

Although not yet ripe, this was a beautiful specimen and hopefully a great sign of things to come.

A wonderful example of an edible Chestnut 

The local community never ceases to amaze us. Whether customers, blog readers or neighbors, we are always surprised by the generosity of the local folk and their eagerness to help us.

I have not reported on our grapes so far, because frankly we have none! The lack of pruning meant that very few drupes developed. Once these ripened, they turned out to be a small feast for birds and very likely deer. This was quite a disappointment since we wanted to practice the processing of Concord grapes (juices and jellies).

This is where another neighbour (from about a block away) came to our rescue. Sadly, her husband had passed away last year and she was left with two rows of vines she could not upkeep (Concord and Niagara). She had pruned them so far back early in the Spring she had hoped to kill them! 

The reverse happened and she had a bounty of grapes which she did not want to waste....and this she offered to us.

Having been quite busy on the Biodome, we were a little late in beginning to harvest these grapes but this week we found some time to do so. What we did not realize is how much we would be collecting in our first attempt. 

One of two baskets of Concords...and we're only a quarter of the way done

The challenge was no longer getting grapes but rather how to process them. After spending some 8 hours cleaning and de-stemming the grapes. We decided on juicing and eventually making some jellies.

We used our trusty steam juicer and one half of our first harvest (one basket) produced 10 litres. After doing a bit of math, we really had to think long term about the production capacity of our own vines. These grapes will generate a significant amount of juice.

Being restricted on time, we decided to take the second batch and actually attempt to make a wine. Apparently, Concord grapes do not necessarily make a good wine but historically they have been used in the US to make some decent Kosher wines. So we had to give it a try since we had much of the equipment and an abundance of the key ingredient.

We crushed our grapes, placed them in one of our fermentation barrels and added some yeast. We expect to have to mix the mash regularly (ie. what the French call "battonage").

First mixing of our fermenting crushed grapes

Things are also evolving on the side of the restaurant. Chef has launched the new Autumn menu with a couple of hearty seasonal dish: a warm Lentil, Mushroom and Goat's Cheese salad with Bacon Vinaigrette, and a Cured Char with Potato Cakes, Horseradish Cream, Kale and Apple Salad. Both are delectable.

The cured Char is something that Ryan has developed in house.

Chef's Cured Arctic Char

In fact, Chef is returning to his Germanic roots as we also prepare for our next event: Oktoberfest.

We have decided to hold a special early evening dinner at the Tea Room on October 5th. This will feature beer from Silversmith Brewery in Niagara-on-the-Lake along with a traditional German meal of Pretzels, Sausages, Sauerkraut, Potatoes and Apple Strudel.

In anticipation, Chef has been fine-tuning his strudel making skills and has also started his home-made Sauerkraut. 

Chef grating cabbages for our own home made Sauerkraut

Finally, I leave you this week with a photo of our newly (and seasonally decorated barn)...thank you, Carol!

 

Fall is in the air....

Processing our Harvest

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With Fall rapidly approaching, we are inundated with fruits from the field and vegetables from our raised beds. We are selling as much as we can, freezing a lot, and we now have to consider canning. Of course we have been making jams and cordials for the store all summer long. Now we seem to have to redouble our efforts.

With summer vacations over, our student help is going back to school so we have decided to open the store and restaurant only five days a week (from Wednesday to Sunday). This first "weekend" has provided us with an opportunity to catch up.

It all starts really with the berries. One way to use them quite effectively is in the production of wine. For every 5 gallons of wine, we end up using some 2 1/2 gallons of berries. So far, our greatest success has been a dry Purple Raspberry wine. Served cold, we think this could become a regular product of the farm and an addition to the restaurant (once we are licensed of course).

A refreshing glass of chilled Raspberry wine

With this success under our belt, and the abundance of Blackberries, we've now moved on to process Blackberry wine. We've changed our process somewhat and have started to ferment the fruit from the very beginning (that is we do not produce mead first, but begin the process with both fruit, water and honey).

We have "racked" our first batch and our initial results are actually quite nice. The brew is a little cloudy but the wine is pleasant with a touch of tannin and not overly dry or tart.

Racking our first Blackberry wine

What has been a real surprise is the short amount of time necessary to complete fermentation. Within 4 weeks, it seems we have a reasonable wine with all sugars consumed by the bacterial culture. Although we are trying to obtain a sweeter version of our wines, this is becoming elusive. As a result, we are experimenting with different concentrations of honey and different times to fermentation. Since we are working in the barn, one variable over which we have no control is temperature and I fear this may be one of the more important parameters. To this end, we will likely have to move our production to the newly finished cellars of the old manor.

I did mention jamming and cordials as another use for our crops. These have been important products for the farm over the summer, particularly as we refine our recipes and processes.

These have helped us preserve a lot of the berry "goodness"  and most importantly the new crops that have surprised us: the Red and Golden Raspberries which were just planted this Spring. Even now that our Purple Raspberries are done, we continue to pick these two new varieties.

The red Raspberries have been transformed into jams, jellies and cordials.

The latest addition to our line of cordials: Rapsberry

A lot of folks ask us about the cordials...in particular what are they good for? The bottom line is that these light syrups make a wonderful drink (over ice and mixed with water or sparkling water).

They make a wonderful mixer, especially Kir. Kir is a French aperitif usually made with a Creme de Cassis (Black Currant liqueur) topped with white wine... but variations on the theme using Black Currant cordial or Raspberry cordial work just as well. A Royal Kir would involve topping with Champagne or a sparkling white wine.

They also make a great sweetener for tea, adding a fruity dimension to both black or green teas. They are excellent additions to iced tea (in fact all of the iced teas we have served in the restaurant use one of our cordials). Finally, you can also use them just as you would a syrup...on top of pancakes or crepes, on oatmeal, ice cream, etc...

Basically, these are very versatile.

On the Golden Raspberry front, we have also been surprised. Originally planted as a novelty, these Raspberries have their own unique taste and texture. They are "meatier" than the others and seem to have less seed. While a bit tart, it turns out they make a wonderful jam.

Our first Golden Raspberry Jam

Of course, we also continue to process some of our "wild" harvest. In particular, we have still found some Elderberries (overlooked by birds). We decided to transform these into cordial, but here I have to add a note to our new processes.

When making our earliest batches of Raspberry cordials, we used the traditional method (a "simple syrup" poured over Raspberries). The result was a beautiful pink cordial. However, when tasting the Raspberries left over from the process, it was clear that we were losing a lot of the flavour. So now we juice our fruits and make a "simple syrup" with the juice instead of water. The result is a more intense and darker cordial.

With the Elderberries, our last attempt to juicing was a miserable and time consuming method. This time around (instead of using a steam juicer), we decided to simmer the berries in water and then filter the berries. This proved much more productive.

Simmering Elderberries

Our garden and raised beds have also forced us to do much more processing. Even our Cabernet vine on the back of the house was ready to harvest.

Our Cabernet grapes

Regrettably,we do not have enough of these grapes to attempt a wine or even a juice or a jelly. The only idea for these was dehydration....basically turning them into raisins using our new Excalibur dehydrator.

The most important garden crop for us has been our tomatoes: the Ropreco Italian heirloom, Cuostralee French Heirloom and Marizol Gold German heirloom.

The latter two are simply huge (1-2 pounds) and make excellent eating; Chef likens the Marizol to Peaches and has been using both of these beauties in the restaurant. In fact, the family has just been enjoying these fresh in salads or simple tomato slices on buttered bread with a touch of salt and pepper.

A simple tomato salad: Marizol, Cuostralee, Basil, Olive oil, Ice Wine vinegar, salt and pepper (yummy!).

The processing bit comes with the Ropreco. Unlike the mealy Romas, these actually taste great fresh....but they are so productive, canning is a must.

Our solution is Tomato sauce (we learned last year you can never have enough). To do this, we blanch the tomato to peel and then seed. The Ropreco turns out to be a very easy tomato to peel.

Blanching our Ropreco

Then it's all a matter of personal taste and using what is available. We ended up using a lot of Garlic (because we like it) and Basil (because we like it and also because we had a lot of it). To this we added mushrooms. Variations on our sauce include additional herbs (parsley, sage, etc.) or wine for more body (we use my favourite local wine: Baco Noir).

Of course spices are important and what more could you ask for than chili peppers (something from the garden I've not reported on).

Our peppers ready to spice up one of our tomato sauces

The results will work with a variety of pastas or even Golumpki (Christine's Polish cabbage rolls).

Our cellar is slowly filling with our favourite: tomato sauces

We have so much of these canning tomatoes, we also decided to dehydrate some (basically our version of sun dried tomatoes).

The results were amazing. We actually decided to store some in Olive oil for the long term.

Dehydrated Ropreco Tomatoes in Olive oil

At this point, I should also report on our apples which for the most part were ready for picking. These are Empire and McIntosh varieties.

We have experimented with various organic sprays earlier this year and I have to report that although the apples look a bit better and certainly larger....they are still looking like "troll" apples.

The Apple crop is not apetizing

Although ugly, we decided to process them and in this way perform a "post mortem". It turns out that few Apples were internally damaged by worms or insects. They were also juicier than last year.

After doing further research I realized that the Neem oil I used was not applied at the right time and certainly not sufficiently.

We really need to work this out since we intend to plant a hundred heirloom Apple trees in the fall of next year...but we do have a trick up our sleeves that I hope to report on next Spring.

In any case, there was no use in disposing of these largely tasty apples ....so we turned them into Apple sauce.

Our "troll" Apples look much better this way.

Given everything that is coming to fruition, processing of our crops will keep a lot of our attention over the next few months. Even cabbages have been picked and now Chef is suggesting we make our own Sauerkraut...not a bad idea since we are now considering doing something special at the tea room for Oktoberfest.

Even some of our Cabbages are ready for picking

In fact, we even found that the odd stray seed has produced for us. I thought our Watermelon Radishes had failed...the reality is we probably tore some out thinking these were weeds.

In turns out one survived and it was a real shock to see one of these for the first time.

A "stray" Watermelon Radish

Actually, this odd looking specimen turns out to have been worth a try, to the point where next year we are determined to get these right.

Beautiful peppery Watermelon Radish slices...definitely worth a try

Meanwhile, Tristan and I continue to work on our "Biodome". Left with the most difficult task: outside taping and framing, we decided to bring in the "big guns". Our fear of heights (basically enhanced by the concept of waking bare foot on a sharply angled plastic panel) meant that we had to find a suitable solution...so we rented a "lift" (Matt and Alois are probably laughing at us right now!).

Using the "big guns" to finish off the outside of the dome

In the end, we did manage to get a lot of the taping done...however, we also ran into some major problems. The machine could not accommodate the terrain and the slope. This means that on one side we kept getting stuck and did not have the reach necessary to finish all panels.

We also ended up doing this in rather windy weather. This meant that the very, very sticky tape was flying everywhere. So in the end, this dome probably has the ugliest taping of any dome on the planet....thankfully we'll be covering it up with a metal frame (once we figure out how to address the top panels).

Among all of this activity, we also had time to forage. This week, it was Goldenrod.

It's Goldenrod season

It turns out that this plant is an edible, but most importantly a great medicinal herb and has been used as such for centuries

Apparently after the Boston Tea Party, Americans with no access to Tea decided to use Goldenrod...the resulting Tea was called Liberty Tea and proved so popular that at one time it was even exported to China.

For me, the taste of Goldenrod is a bit too "medicinal". However, it was worth harvesting and processing for two reasons. First, the tea is great for a variety of ailments including kidney stones and other urinary tract illnesses. All you need to do is cut the upper third of these plants and lay them out to dry in order to use the leaves and flowers for tea. We did this in our cellar.

Goldenrod drying for future use as a medicinal tea

The second use of this herb is as a topical. Native Americans used its astringent properties on open wounds. It is also supposed to provide relief to rheumatism and other aches and pains. So we created an infusion using a vegetable oil and coarsely chopped Goldenrod flowers and young leaves.

Should we need it, it will make for an interesting evaluation of this plant's medicinal properties.

 To close this week, I have to say that the land and this property have proven to be "magical". There are so many elements of natural beauty surrounding us that sometimes we forget...until a visitor or tourist decides to take pictures. Or until young couples shyly ask us if they can have their wedding pictures taken here.

And this was the case this past week....

Wedding photos at the Tea Room