Hidden Picture

Can you find the pecans? Seriously, you can't walk without crunching one, but when you are harvesting you can't see them until you hear the crunch. When people come to the house, they rarely make it inside, not that I want anyone to see the mess. They stand in the yard, pick up pecans two by two and crack them, then eat - one of the pleasures of fall.

The chickens love them, too. As do the squirrels and crows.

Even so, we have collected bags full. We took one bag to the co-op and had it cracked. Now, every night we pick pecans, sitting on either side of a huge dishpan, competing, talking, thinking.

Vote!

I've voted. Here, there are no lines, few controversies, and no campaigning outside of the polling place. The only weirdness was that Roger Wicker, a Republican candidate for the Senate, printed out a sample ballot that made him appear to be a Democrat. I didn't get one, but they were around. I also got a text message that suggested that all Obama supporters should vote on Wednesday. Since Mississippi is sooo Republican, we are, for the most part, left to our devices. Thank goodness.

Anyway, I took my children to the polls. We voted for the environment, diplomacy, calm in the face of economic and military strife, and we voted for privacy. We voted for the best international representative for our country. We voted for the future.

Now, we wait to see how the rest of America voted. Go. Make your voice heard!

Sugaring, Southern Style

In the South, sugar cane is the source of most things sweet. The weather and natural tree selection prevents maple sugaring, so to satisfy the Southern sweet tooth, we grow sugar cane. Just so you know, there are several varieties. Most people here grow two - one for syrup and one for chewing. In the fall, traditionally the weekend after Thanksgiving, the cane is harvested, stripped of its foliage, and then pressed.

In the past the cane press was turned with mules - some still are. Last year my neighbors pressed and cooked the cane the old fashioned way with mules and a wood fire, but this year an old tractor and a huge belt was used to turn the press and a propane fire was used to cook the juice.


I hated to see the change, but training mules and donkeys to walk round and round for hours on end must be a lot of trouble. I also understand that a gas fire is easier to regulate than a wood fire, but you know how I am about the old ways. The second picture is the pulley that is attached to the tractor. Mr. W says they had a lot of technical difficulties early in the morning with the tractor, yet they mostly had it figured out.

Once you get the press turning, you feed the cane through the press without getting your fingers caught. The idea of being pulled into the press just gives me the all-overs. Can you hear my voice of caution warning my children when it was their turn to shove cane through? I'm turning into my mother. Help!!

When the cane comes out the other side it is mashed to pulp. The juice is extracted and is filtered through a burlap bag which will capture all the cane pieces that get left behind. From the bag the juice is stored in a big tub with a spigot. When enough juice is captured, it is released through a pipe into the cooking tray, which unfortunately no one thought to capture in a picture.
The juice is cooked and stirred, stirred and cooked until it is a perfect consistency. Then, it is released into syrup cans and sealed. Yum! Yum! If you continue cooking, you will have cane sugar, though it is a beautiful mocha brown color rather than the white of grocery store sugar. My neighbors buy their sugar, so stop at syrup.

Preparations for the Possible Cold

Even though it was 80° F today we have been slowly preparing for the predicted cold that will supposedly come on Wednesday. Last week I installed a new dryer vent that stifles air and rodent flow. That was one of those laughable projects that should have taken 15 to 20 minutes but took all afternoon and three trips to the hardware store because our 100+ year old house is not square, straight, even, or adaptable. You would have loved to see me squirming around in the mud after I accidentally disconnected the 4" drain pipe that carries the warm, moist air from the dryer to almost the edge of the house. I suppose the house was rejecting attempts at further modernization. That sounds silly, but I do sense that this old house has life. The old wood shrinks and expands with heat and humidity almost like breathing, the breeze running through the dog trot creates energy, and the past is captured like a memory in the hand prints on the 17 foot tall ceiling that have a story of their own. Have I lost my handful of readers yet?

Anyway, I'll get back to the point -maybe. Today, the children moved the lightard, which is a Southern country word, which means the aged stump of a pine tree that is a natural one match fire starter, that I've been using forever, but that I find, just today, is not a standard word and is in no dictionary, (This is when I really crave a set of the OED, not just the miniature set, but the full encyclopedic, book case crushing set.) and small pieces of wood to the front porch. Like that sentence? Very Faulknernesque, don't you think? Since I know about lightard, which is not a dictionary word does that make me a Snopes?

Are you still with me? Tomorrow, we will close the vents to keep the cold air from underneath the house. We'll start seasoning the wood heater with small fires tomorrow, still getting ready for Wednesday night when the temperatures are supposed to dip to fire weather.

Once the temperatures dip Wednesday night they will rise to our normal once again - maybe even to shorts and tee-shirt weather until after Thanksgiving. While some of the work we have done is for winter in general, there is much work involved in preparing for a possible one night frost and I haven't even told you about garden preparations. Sometimes, I think about how easy it would be to walk to a central air and heat panel and and push a button. Yet, I think this house would have felt violated if we had cut into her old, milled on the property, heart pine, tongue and groove, bead-board walls to install vents and intakes, closed the center hall, and lived modernly in this old house. Working with the rhythms of the house and seasons and living off the dead wood on the property seems better - more difficult, but more natural and more fitting.

Pecans

We had 63 pounds of pecans cracked at the Co-op last week and there are at least that many on the ground. Sounds like a lot of pecans, doesn't it? But it is only the beginning. The 63 lbs are only the first batch off the first two trees. We have another variety (four trees) that harvest a little later, and the two trees we collected are still throwing pecans at us when we walk outside.

This is a good pecan year. Why, I can't tell you since the early season drought almost killed the mature trees and did kill our 10 baby pecan trees. The two trees in the yard that produce the bigger, earlier pecans get water from the garden and from my children when they choose to do water experiments thereby flooding the yard. I cannot imagine how the others got enough moisture. Perhaps they thought the end was near and gave their last energy to reproduction and will kill over as soon as we get all the wood chopped from the last dead tree.

Anyway, every spare minute is spent picking out pecans. The Co-op didn't have the machine adjusted as well as they did last year and the picking is sloooow. The 63 lbs will be reduced to less than half that amount of pecan meats which is truly depressing, but there will be plenty for some pecan pies made with honey for Thanksgiving and lots for the freezer.

Do you think ballet moms would think I was crazy if brought pecans and picked them while I waited? I don't want to embarrass Princess.

The Truth about Cooler Weather

We've had unseasonal, for us, cooler weather lately and I love it, but not for the reasons you might think. Yes, the lower temperatures allow us in the deep South to move freely during the midday hours. Yes, the lower temperatures produce lush forage for our cows. Yes, the moderate temperatures are better for the environment since we don't need air conditioning to remain comfortable. Yes, the cool brisk air makes fall seem like fall. But the reason I love the cool weather is because I get to wear my favorite sweatshirt.

I have one favorite sweatshirt and two that aren't quite perfect, but are close. I've always been passionate about the perfect sweatshirt and when I find one that fits the criteria I wear it until nothing remains but stained, shredded tatters.

To attain favorite sweatshirt status, the shirt must be 100% cotton or at least 90% cotton, be over-sized, have a loose or non-existent bottom band, and be worn to a softness that can only be achieved by a year or more of wear. My favorite this year is the burnt orange, XL, pullover with a zippered neck and a collar that I got at the Stratford Festival in Canada a couple of years ago. I snuggled into it a few weeks ago and have done my best not to remove it since. If I have to make a more public than our small town appearance I will shed the shirt for however long it takes to do the errand, then change back into the shirt within 5 minutes of my arrival home. When the shirt is dirty, I make sure to push it to the top of my oppressive mound of laundry, then don it still warm from the dryer.

In order to always have the perfect sweatshirt, I must find and purchase a candidate each fall or winter so it will be properly broken in. I'm in the market for next year's and the following year's favorite.

Spider Lilies

Spider lilies are popping up all over the place. They are stunningly red, have an interesting feathery appearance, and provide autumn color. I should say autumn color that is not in a pot. There is just one tiny problem with the whole Spider Lily show - location. Location is of utmost importance in landscaping. A splash of color here, a little texture there makes all the difference in a well hewn landscape.

Notice that the Spider Lily has no leaves at this stage of the game. In other words, we had no idea that this specimen or any of the other 2o or so Spider Lilies blooming at this time existed until a bloom emerged. For the most part, once a bulb has been planted the flower reproduces in a close circle. Not the case here!

I suppose the flowers were originally planted in some centralized location, but we bulldozed the entire yard when we starting working on the place because we needed a tractor to get up the driveway when it rained. There was also the small problem of the driveway running two feet from the side of the house - fine in the city or town, but a bit out of place here. Anyway, we had a dozer person come and move the driveway, level the hill top a bit, and do other hard scape molding. A lot of dirt was moved. Apparently, a lot of Spider Lilies were moved, too!

Our yard is dotted with bright red this year. I don't know what happened last year because they didn't bloom, but this year we have single stems of Spider Lily every ten to fifteen feet. Sure, the children picked the first few, then we realized how interesting the yard could look if we left them randomly dabbing color over the place. I suppose I should go out and dig and move them while I know what and where they are, but then I would lose the color and the fun of seeing the yard with polka-dots!!!

Dots are in, right? I bet you're glad you aren't my neighbor.

CAW!

Caw! CAWW- CAWW! caw-CawW! aw-aw-aw-caw!

The crows have arrived. Every rooster crow is punctuated by a CAW. Every squeak of the gate is preceded by a caw-caw-caw. Every bark is interrupted by Caw-caw. Every step is accompanied the cacophony of caws.

Fall is here. The crow tells me.

No, the temperatures haven't dropped, not much anyway. Yes, the humidity is still oppressive. But early in the morning I feel what the crows tell me.

The crow says it is Fall - the time of collecting and preparing. Yet, they don't come because it's Fall per se, they come for a feast - a nutilicious feast. The pecans are full, yet still green and the crows show up in hordes to eat - to prepare for the winter.

Because the Summer is dead.