Preserving peaches

I heard the peach harvest this year was exceptional, and from what I saw at the orchards it was not a lie or a marketing ploy. I made the drive to a local orchard my grandmother favored for peaches and brought home a half-bushel of Bounty. They were huge! 

This local orchard has been family-owned and operated for a few generations. I like to see that sort of stability. Anyway, I went and bought peaches. 

These peaches were, no lie, bigger than my fist. I'd never heard of Bounty peaches, but they looked and smelled wonderful, plus they're a freestone variety. I've since learned they were developed at the USDA peach breeding program at Kearneysville, West Virginia, which is just a tad more than half an hour from the manor. 

Once I had the peaches home, I immediately began to process them, canning them in pint jars. I got twenty-four pints of canned peaches and one batch of peach jelly. It was an intense two days but very much worth it.

With so many pints on the shelf, I won't need to can peaches again next year. I suspect it will take two pints to make a pie, but that's okay. I didn't want to process them in quarts and risk opening a jar to have peaches for dessert and not using the entire contents over the course of a few days. 

Home-canned fruit is good in the sealed jar on the shelf for at least eighteen months. I personally am not worried about fruit that is jarred longer so long as the seal is intact. 

And that's the key to safe consumption. The seal must remain intact. If you take a jar off the shelf and the lid falls or lifts off in your hand, throw the food out and sterilize the jar. Don't risk eating it. It rarely happens, but a seal can fail so be mindful of it. 

I'm looking forward to canning apples, but that won't be such as intense process. Apples keep longer than peaches so I won't need to do them all at once. I'll also be putting apples in quart jars. Some of the newer varieties such as Gala are available now, but I want Stayman or Winesap which are older varieties and will, I hope, capture the flavor of my grandmother's pies. 

Summer fruit and winter pies and cobblers. It's worth the work. 

If you want to learn more about canning, please visit the National Center for Home Food Preservation at https://nchfp.uga.edu/. This is your preserving bible. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

An unexpected and appropriate change

 

Yesterday afternoon, a visitor braved the drive into the woods to visit us. When he arrived, I smiled and said, "Welcome to my hideaway!" And that's when it hit me. I knew right then and there I needed to update the title of the blog. In the beginning, it seemed like Holly Tree Manor, because of all the holly trees, was a good name, I've not warmed to it the way I'd hoped. Those words, so easily spoken, resonated deeply. And so we make changes. 

The Holly Tree Manor blog has officially been renamed The Hideaway. 

Google Earth provided a good overhead photo of the manor and house. It clearly explains why the name change is so appropriate. I'm invisible on the ground level, but not from the air. 

Whenever I look at my woods, I'm reminded of the words of my favorite poet, Robert Frost: 
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, 

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

He's not alone. We all have miles to go.

The Lady of The Hideaway

Pantry prepping - canning ground beef

Yesterday, a trip to Walmart gave me a sticker shock. I was going to purchase a pack of 85/15 ground beef. I did not. Instead, I stopped at our local grocery and got it two dollars cheaper per pound. When a local store can undercut Walmart, I begin to think we may be in trouble. 

I bought thirteen pounds of 85/15 for $56.00. The same amount at Walmart would cost $71.00. 

What did I do with all that ground chuck? I pressure canned it. My Presto canner will hold sixteen wide-mouth pint jars. That's almost a pound a jar of shelf-stable meat in my pantry. I probably could have forced more into fewer jars, but I stuck to the amount of beef we typically use for spaghetti sauce. That's a good measure for us. Yours may be different. 

The National Center for Home Food Preservation gives instructions on how to safely can meats. If you want to can ANYTHING, that should be one of your "go-to" resources, along with the Ball book I've mentioned several times. Read and learn about the process so you do it correctly.

I even broke out the Ball lids for this project. I like the Tattler lids, but this was meat and I didn't want to risk operator error. 

I must confess I never thought I'd can any sort of meat, but times have changed. Inflation is running wild and all any of us can do is purchase wisely and practice whatever measures we feel necessary to save what we can. 

Will I go get more ground beef to can another batch? Not this weekend. Now I'll be on the watch for sales and then can another batch. 

Eat tomorrow at today's prices. Yep. That sounds like a good plan.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

It gets green in the woods

Brush piles happen. 

We are never without dead brush that needs to be burned. Air pollution, you cry! So are airplanes, I say! If you can pollute on your way to exotic vacations, I can burn brush. Didn't think of that, did you? 

My house and yard are an oasis surrounded by woods, which are part of my property. For many years the southwestern corner was designated as our "wilderness" area or sort of a bird sanctuary. Unfortunately, the local critters have become too comfortable being too close to the house. We've been waging a war with the local raccoon and we decided his cover has to go. We are cleaning up the wilderness area. 

This job wouldn't be possible if we hadn't gotten the Brush Crusher. The grapple is able to lift and carry large pieces of downed trees and drop them directly on the burn pile. It's amazing.  How different the manor would look if we'd had the tractor and grapple twenty-five years ago before cancer first entered our lives and his health began to decline. 

Google Earth view

But there is little to be gained wishing the past to be different. We are here today and we do what we can today. I look out the windows of my sunroom office and am amazed at the transformation taking shape after only two days. I'm very happy with it. We still need to do a little weed-whacking and move some large rocks to the stone fence, but it will get done. One of us will take the old Husquvarna mower in for a finer chopping of small sticks. This fall, I'll sow a lot of deep shade variety grass seed and see what we get in the spring. We'll finish our shooting range, but that's for another blog entry. 

The manor has long had a park-like feel to it, and this will add to our enjoyment of the property. Well, it won't make Rocket the Raccoon very happy to get the eviction notice, but I don't care. 

Take that! you little varmint!  

Or should we thank him for giving us the motivation to clear that section of the manor so WE can enjoy it? 

Nope. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Cowboy Candy - I've waited a year to make this!

I can put the blame on YouTube for my addiction to Cowboy Candy. It wasn't until I watched an episode of Living Traditions Homestead that I even heard about Cowboy Candy. I made a batch and it was down the rabbit hole from there. I processed several batches and enjoyed it over the long, cold winter. 

Cowboy Candy is great when mixed with cream cheese. I drain off the syrup, chop up the peppers, and mix. Crackers or raw veggies, the resulting spread packs just the right amount of punch to satisfy a snack craving. 

Earlier this year I started jalapeno peppers from seed and the result is that I have thirty-three plants all producing peppers. I anticipate being able to process multiple batches from my own garden. I'd like to make salsa, but we'll have to see how that goes. 

If you'd like to know a little more about Cowboy Candy and how I do it, check out my page here.  I do it about ninety percent by the Ball book, and about ten percent "rebel." 

Here's where I tell you to never go "rebel." The instructions to process food are in place for a reason, like so you don't die of botulism. My "rebel" is simply cooking the peppers a tad longer than required. 

Having home-canned food in the pantry is about more than just being prepared. It's about making some really tasty foods to enjoy. It's about preservative-free food and opening a jar of soup and having dinner ready in five minutes. It's worth a little bit of planning and a couple of hours here and there for a more varied menu. 

It definitely works for us. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor
 

Wildflowers

 Last summer, I built a wall. 

The small knee wall was something I always envisioned for a problematic area between the house and shed. It happens to be where I park the car and for decades it was an eyesore and a sore subject with me. I asked several men (ex-husband, a live-in boyfriend, the current spousal unit) and none of them was willing to do that much hard work. Ultimately, I did it myself.

Ultimately, the Lord of the Manor will never, I repeat NEVER, be absolved for not doing it. I ask for little, being quite self-sufficient, but I did ask for that. And he refused. It'll bite him in the ass one day, I assure you.

Last year I sprinkled the contents of a few cheap seed packets and got a bit of late summer bloom. This year, I bought a good quality pack of wildflower seeds and the wall is now exactly what I envisioned for so long. It's in full bloom and is gorgeous! I think next year I'll add a few herbs to the mix and see what happens. And next year I'll keep the seed envelope so I know what all the little flowers are because there are quite a few I don't recognize. 

It was worth an afternoon of very hard work and a lot of sweat to dry stack the rocks. Really, it was. I'm very pleased with the end result. But I can't help but think how much more it would mean if just one of those men had been willing to give me the gift of their time and strength. 

Apparently, not all of us are worth an afternoon.

No matter how pleased I am with the wall, it will always be tainted with my disappointment. It has made me examine other projects and figure in a factor for the same disappointment. I plan on doing things myself. 

So at what point does the man become nothing more than a millstone around the woman's neck? 

We are sometimes who we are forced to become, not the person we hoped to be. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Green and growing!

 We couldn't be happier with our little garden corral! Everything is green and growing and even producing blooms. We worry about the deer finding it, so we did put up a perimeter netting and so far <knock on wood> they're leaving it alone. 

I enjoy going out and watering it every day it doesn't rain. The tomatoes are in grow bags and those can dry out quickly. Next year, the plan is to get the tomatoes into five-gallon buckets. I didn't want to be a hoarder and purchase every food-safe bucket I could find, a notion that may bite me in the ass come next year, but there it is. 

Last year we started with five grow bags and had an encouraging harvest.  This year we've gone a bit bigger and instead of having just a few peppers, I hope to have enough for several batches of Cowboy Candy, pepper jelly, and more. We had enough cucumbers to eat and make a batch or two of refrigerator pickles, but not enough to store in the pantry. I love, love, love bread & butter pickles and hope this year to put my great-grandmother's recipe to good use. 

Then there are tomatoes. We seem to be cursed when it comes to tomatoes, but with over a dozen plants, we have hopes of some scrumptious tomato sandwiches. Considering we're growing old-fashioned Beefsteak tomatoes, it may happen. 

And so we wait and hope our little garden corral will do us proud. And we also hope our energy doesn't fail when it's time to preserve our harvest. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

How many stages will it take?

November 2020

 We've begun to do the work to clear the old tractor path. It's been a long time coming because it will be a lot of hard, physical labor, labor that I will need to do. The Lord of the Manor no longer has the physical capability and I thank God that I do. 

Last November, on a bright sunny day, we made our way to the edge of where the work started and did a few minor things - mostly assess what really needed to happen. That led us to the purchase of a Brush Crusher.  Brush Crusher is the brand name for a front-end grapple for the John Deere 1023.  We purchased ours from Good Works Tractor and had it shipped since we knew we were capable of the assembly. 

The grapple is able to lift heavy logs and hold them while I use the chain saw to cut them to length. It can also "bite" into the brambles, yank them out, and hold them firmly for a trip to the brush pile to be burned. Oh, if we'd had this thing twenty years ago! 

June 20, 2021

There is a massive amount of work involved with clearing the old tractor path. Deuce and I took a walk along the southwestern strip of it last winter. A short video of our walk, in the snow, can be found here. 

The path was clear back in my grandfather's day. The property he gave me was at one time a small apple orchard and a strawberry patch. I still have tiny wild strawberries grow each year. 

It may not look like we accomplished much, but we can at least see the stone fence again. Our next task is to finish cleaning up as much as we can before we move on to the next twenty to thirty feet. It may take us this entire season to clear the whole stretch, but we'll keep after it, a few hours at a time, until we reach the corner of the property.

Making the turn north will have to wait for next year. Maybe. The Brush Crusher is a true game-changer. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

A light harvest: dill and spearmint

I would love to have a true herb garden. Herbs are lovely, fragrant plants just on their own, but they have genuine uses, too. I have memories of accompanying my great-grandmother into the woods and watching her fill her apron with mysterious green leaves. My mother used to drive up the mountain to one particular spot and cut some sort of mint for summer tea. She tried to transplant some year after year but it wouldn't grow in her garden. My problem is the deer and how they nibble on everything. 

Spearmint grows around the edges of my patio and I confess, by the end of summer I'm yanking it out like it's a weed. But this time of year, I'm harvesting the leaves for my summer brews. I like nothing better than to put a few spearmint leaves, a slice of lemon, and a chunk of real ginger in a water bottle and drink it down. 

I noticed this morning that the dill has reached the point where it will bolt and set seed if not cut, and the spearmint looked ready to flower. It was time for a little harvest. 

Both are easy to dry. I use a dehydrator, but you don't really need one. Chop and spread the dill out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and it will likely dry fine. You could also put it in the oven with the light on overnight. That little lightbulb creates more heat than you'd think. You can also tie the stalks together and hang the bundle upside down to dry, but I've found the little dill leaves can drop off and make quite a mess. 

My mother cut and hung spearmint, and that works great. I take a shortcut and use a dehydrator. Once the dehydrator finishes, I put the leaves in a quart mason jar with a moisture absorbing pack, vacuum seal it with the food saver gizmo, and store it. How long does it keep? I doubt there's a good answer to that. I keep mine until when I open the jar the fragrance is gone. 

One day soon I'll plant a proper herb garden, but until then I'm happy to have made even this light harvest. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Acquaintances and grape jelly

Yesterday, I decided to make a run through the Walmart grocery store to stock up on a few things and obtain an out-of-season produce item. The Lord of the Manor needed... okay he didn't NEED grape jelly, but he wanted it. I knew my local grocery didn't have Concord grapes, but a quick online check said Walmart did. We do prefer to buy locally, but asking him to wait until fall for his next peanut butter and jelly sandwich would have made a grown man whimper.  

So I'm roaming the aisles at Walmart and encounter an acquaintance. Upon learning I'm on vacation and looking forward to retirement, the old gal dissed me. SHE is never going to retire. SHE likes working (i.e. living under the rule of another). SHE will never "bother" with a garden as long as she can shop at Walmart. 

Well, excuse ME! 

I have two takeaways from that meeting. One, don't shop at Walmart at 9:00am on a Friday because she may be there, and two, I'm not the crazy one. 

I was happy to get home, restock the pantry, and make a batch of grape jelly with no additives or preservatives. I followed the Sure-Jel recipe and the jelly set as it cooled. Sure-Jel has never failed if I've used their formula. I do need to get a canister of pectin for "rebel" recipes, though. 

It wasn't until I lined up the jars I'm putting in the pantry for a picture that I realized I'd lined them up like bowling pins. Subliminal? Yep.

The lids I used are the Tattler lids. Tattlers are reusable lids made in the USA. I like the idea that they can be used over and over for as long as the gasket is okay. If the gaskets start to wear out, you can purchase a bag of them separately. Tattler lids seal just as well as regular one-use metal lids. The initial investment sounds like a lot - $11.00 for a dozen lids and gaskets, but it's a one-time outlay of cash. Metal lids that are used once and discarded, which can't be found in any store around here in June of 2021, need to be purchased time after time. It just makes sense to me to buy a few boxes of Tattlers as I go along. 

The day awaits. We have a market not too far away called Ivy Hill Farm. We're coming up on cherry season and I happen to like cherry jelly. Maybe I can convince the Lord of the Manor to take a little drive today if they have some available. It may be time to order another box or two of lids. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Oh, yeah. Meatballs.

 

Continuing on with my journey into the world of pressure canning, this morning I turned six pounds of ground chuck into five quarts of meatballs in beef broth. I'd hoped to get six jars, but I didn't allow for the way hamburger shrinks when cooked. Trust me, I know better. 

This is more of an experiment than the chicken breast. We like meatballs but they don't figure high in our meal rotation. If these have a good flavor and texture, that could change. I do like the idea of opening a jar and having the meatballs ready as compared to pulling them out of the freezer and have to not only heat them but thaw them first. Plus, they tend to dry out in the freezer no matter how well the vacuum seal holds. The jarred meatballs will not have that problem. 

To process the meatballs, I first formed them and put them in the oven for thirty minutes to render out the fat. Then they went into the jars while hot, and I filled the jars with hot beef bouillon broth. Remember - hot food goes into hot jars goes into hot water in your canner. Three hots. Meat of any kind in quart jars is then pressure canned for ninety minutes. You need to pressure can meat for it to be safe to consume. Do not water bath meat. 

The Lord of the Manor hasn't said too much about the meat canning. I think he's withholding judgment until I open a jar and use it in a recipe. I'm sure the next time we have spaghetti, there will be meatballs in the sauce. Beyond that, meatballs with mashed potatoes and gravy was a staple in my mother's menu rotation. I'm also thinking of meatball sandwiches and Swedish meatballs. The poor, misguided man has come to terms that just because I'm in the final countdown to retire, it doesn't mean I plan to make cooking to feed him my life. 

I do know that if the meatballs turn out the way I hope, I'll process more. Canned meat is shelf-stable meat. If the electricity goes out, we can eat meatballs or chicken. They might be cold, but the food will be pre-cooked and ready to eat. That's a win I can really get behind. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Ugly chicken? Nope. Beautiful chicken.

 Last summer, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I knew it was time to get serious and become a prepper. Not a doomsday prepper, but a prepared pantry prepper. I decided to follow in the footsteps of my grandmother and practice home canning. Never having used a modern pressure canner, I did what a lot of people do - I clicked over to YouTube and started watching. It didn't take me long to settle on a 23-quart Presto canner. 

One of the channels I watch belongs to a lady in Minnesota. She has quite the prepper pantry and I'm sure she needs it, living in a more northern clime. She does a lot of canning and puts out a lot of videos with some really good ideas so I watch regularly. Chicken is one of the things she cans, and she calls it "ugly chicken."

I did, too, until this morning. 

This morning I jarred sixteen pints of chicken. This meat is now preserved and is shelf-stable. A power outage won't thaw it out and ruin it. It's fully cooked and ready to eat, add to soups, add to potpies or casseroles, or drain and make chicken salad. 

No, there's nothing ugly about this chicken. It's beautiful.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Outdoor living

I've always wanted to spend more time outdoors. I remember the summers of my youth when I was rarely indoors. My mother always had to come outside and bellow for me to come for what reason she had at the moment. My father instituted the porch light rule. I was to go nowhere in the neighborhood I couldn't see the porch light. When it came on, I was to come home. Yes, I grew up in a much different world - a country world. 

Adulthood stripped me of those carefree outdoor days, but retirement may just give them back. This is the year of some patio improvements. 

There are several reasons for installing an outdoor work/cook space. One - we can (yeah, that's a given). We enjoy grilling and since we screened the patio we can add eating outside. Before the screens, the insects kept us from truly enjoying outside dining. Another reason is so that I'll be able to do some of the canning outside and not risk damage to my solid surface stove. Our new work/cook station has a Formica countertop and that will be quite handy for all sorts of projects. Who doesn't love an easy clean work surface? 

And then there is the extra storage for a lot of gardening items and drawers for our outdoor grill implements, lids, oil, and more. 

I'm really looking forward to summer evenings on the patio this year. We may even break down and get a new television with a remote control that works. Of course, I'll need a good lounge chair if that happens. 

Somehow, I don't think that will be a problem.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Strange bedfellows

The Second Amendment provides a mechanism for the people to overthrow the government by allowing the common man to own and use firearms. The right to bears arms, as it's stated. 

I'm someone who likes to eat food that I've preserved because I know exactly what is in the jar (and it's NOT chemical preservatives). 

So here we are at the beginning of the summer of 2021 and I can't buy ammo or canning jar lids. Now if that's not the strangest combination of shortages, I don't know what is. What's even stranger is that Blogger REFUSED to load a picture I'd titled "ammo."  

Ah, but is it really strange? I do not think so. You can call me crazy but I really think the "little guy" is under attack from all sides. 

Blogger also refused to upload the picture of canning jar lids at first. I had to do a screen snip. What the hell is so dangerous about canning lids? 

I'm getting very suspicious about some of these shortages. I live in the country and we have copperhead snakes for neighbors. I need bullets. And as for not uploading a picture of a bullet, I don't think a PICTURE can harm anyone. People are fucking nuts these days. The gun doesn't pull its own trigger.

As for the jar lids, it makes no sense at all that I can purchase all the jars I want (the jars come with lids and rings) but I can't get just the lids. I have jars. MASON JARS don't even need to be recycled! Just wash and re-use. Is it a problem that I want to can fresh veggies, make and can homemade salsa, and cowboy candy? Boy, that's a subversive activity. 

This is why we country folk turn into preppers and even hoarders. Manufacturers have no clue as to what is really important to us. We don't need no stinkin' diamond rings, Ubers, or meal delivery. We need everyday items like canning jar lids. 

I think we're all being played by the government and the people pulling the strings behind the government. They're setting us up for something big. 

Just saying. You know...while I'm still free to say it... 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

A daily ritual

We utilize Google calendars, and a frequent topic of snark is about how long it will take for Google to either discontinue the service or make us pay for it and how much they will charge. If they do decide to charge for using the service, I'll need to reach deep into my pocket. Yeah, I have more than one calendar, plus we subscribe to the NASCAR calendars. One of the calendars we share keeps track of what we have for dinner. 

You can roll your eyes. It's okay. I get it. But without this calendar, I'd abandon all hope of having an idea of what to fix when it's my turn to cook. Same for him. It helps me know what's available in the pantry and the freezer. For dinners we really like, such as his chicken parm, we set the calendar for it to pop up in the rotation about every ten weeks on a weekend. 

It used to be the vogue for ladies in upper society to keep a daily diary. My Google calendar has become mine. I record appointments, birthdays, anniversaries, and anything of importance I did that day. It means very little to anyone other than myself, but that's the way diaries are supposed to be. 

As I ease into more gardening, I've found it very helpful to keep track of when seeds were planted, seedlings transplanted, and just general information. Getting older, my brain is already so full of things it's like a full glass of water. When I pour new information in, something old runs out the other side. So keeping track of things becomes important. Like Friday is payday. That's a good one to remember. Checking and updating my calendar every day has become second nature, and as an important part of my life journey as my blogs. 

Daily rituals may seem to some to be boring and using a calendar antiquated. I find it a quiet reassurance that all is going well in my world. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Then and now

 Then...they created a cute little photo op.

Now...her feet can reach the pedals...

At Holly Tree Manor, it's always time to have a little tractor fun.  That's me at about two years of age on my grandfather's Allis Chalmers tractor, and me today on my John Deere 1023.

I can still see in my mind's eye, my grandfather in his brown and white plaid CPO jacket on his orange Allis Chalmers. He had that tractor for over 50 years and I wish my mother and my uncle would have given my husband the chance to rebuild the engine. In a perfect world...

At least I come by my appreciation of the tractor as a vital country estate tool honestly. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor 

'Tis spring!

Spring is a busy season at Holly Tree Manor. The outside work ramps up and the inside of the house suffers from a lack of attention. Thankfully, we're both old enough to know a couple of dog fur dust bunnies won't harm us but tall grass harbors critters that may. This past week I talked with the cousin as he was removing a little, relatively harmless, hognose snake he found "sleeping" under his pickup. The theory is the little guy was drawn there by the residual heat off the engine. It's definitely time to watch where I put my feet when Deuce and I are in the woods. 

Last weekend, I got the mulching done around the patio and along the front porch. There is a bit more to do after I replace a rose bush that died over the winter. That will happen sometime later today. 

The plan for the new patio grilling/canning/storage area has been finalized, at least in my mind. With lumber prices being what they are, we're purchasing pre-made cabinets and countertops for a fraction of the cost of building them. It's unreal. 

Yesterday, I made a sweep around the yard and picked up those sticks large enough to damage the John Deers 370 and tossed them on the brush pile. I got the front yard mowed and decided the back could wait a day. I wanted to get soil into the food-safe five-gallon buckets in preparation for getting the pepper plants outside. After filling the buckets, we made a fast trip to the garden center for another bag of Black Kow, some peat moss, and vermiculite. Burpee's sent me an email saying my strawberries should ship soon and I need to have soil ready for them. 

One of my biggest concerns this year is digging a drainage swale in the backyard. Our property is about one-third the way up the side of a mountain and we get a lot of water flowing through during hard rains. The earth isn't static and something above has changed enough that we have a developing problem. There's no way to prevent the water from draining through so we can only attempt to manage it. Thank heavens for the John Deere 1023. 

The list of things to do goes on, seemingly into infinity. Crossing one thing off the list adds two more. It's good to stay busy but it's also good to stop and enjoy what has been accomplished. I'm sure that will happen in a few weeks when the air warms to the point that I don't need to be active to keep warm. 

Until then, spring has sprung and I'll enjoy ticking items off my to-do list and marveling at the many shades of green. 

And adding things to the list. I just noticed it's time to tie the peonies. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Walking season 2021

It seems like I've been waiting forever for the weather to turn spring-like, and today it happened. It seems appropriate as today is Easter 2021. It was 55F by about 9:30 AM so I loaded Deuce's carry bag with treats, my phone, the new video camera, and his leash, and off we went. Our destination was the pond loop. 

It's been several months since we last made that particular trek, December 13, 2020, to be precise. Unlike the last time, the creeks were running full and fast, and while I had to search for dryer crossings, Deuce was in Labrador Retriever heaven. Lots and lots of water in the creek hits his hot buttons and he jumps right in. His joy is my joy and it's wonderful to watch. Stare into Deuce's eyes and you know someone special is in there. 

Walking season 2021 will, I hope, see my journey to better health continued. Walking invigorates me, ergo, I tend to accomplish more of the things I like to do - like walking. It feeds my soul to get out in the woods away from the noise of the television, cars, and renter neighbors I wish would find another place to live. Easter Sunday is hardly a good day to terrorize the tax-paying homeowners with dirt bikes and ATVs. My family lives up here in solitude for a reason and it's called peace and quiet. But I digress...

Walking is good for me and for Deuce. The vet said he needs to lose two pounds and I'd like to lose at least ten this summer. So, off we will go. Shorter walks on workdays and longer walks on the weekends, weather permitting. The pond loop is almost three miles, and according to my Fitbit, has a lot of stairs. 

We have a new inexpensive video camera and I took it along on its maiden journey. The footage isn't very good but I learned a few things which was the point of the exercise. I'll be able to pull some still shots out and that will have to suffice. If I upload it to YouTube, it will be just to show the man of the manor, and I'll take it down after he's viewed it. It's that jumpy and jerky. Lesson one - turn on the control that helps stop the shaking. 

There were some things I didn't appreciate finding on my walk. The old trails have existed for over a hundred years and many have been commandeered by the Park Service for hiking trails. In and of itself this is not a problem, but people have no respect. The clean, unlittered trails of my girlhood are no longer unlittered. An empty Monster Energy can, a facemask, a plastic Mountian Dew bottle - you can't blame those on homesteaders forced by the State of Maryland to abandon their homes. 

This time of year it's easy to spot the old homesteads. The daffodils are blooming and it seems every old place had them. They live on, untended, and beautifully wild. They inspired me to separate a few clumps of my own daffs and replant the bulbs one-by-one in my own woods in the hope that in future years, they will remain, bright yellow and white on an Easter morning. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

A peep in the night

 What do you hear when you step outside after dark? Just yesterday I was thinking about the tiny peeper frogs that herald the arrival of spring and, lo and behold, last night I heard them singing for the first time in 2021. I think they are perhaps two or so weeks early, but I'm sure they know they're really right on time.

In the country, the sounds change with the seasons. Summer brings the sounds of noisy insects like cicadas and katydids, and the eerie bark of foxes. Autumn is the time when the little screech owls make their presence known as their calls join the rustling leaves. Winter’s sound is that of the cold wind whipping through the trees.  

And spring brings the chirping song of the tiny peeper frog.

It’s amazing such a tiny creature can create such a riotous cacophony of sound. They begin to sing as soon as whatever signal brings them out of their winter hibernation. One night, if you’re lucky, you’ll hear one or two crystal voices. Pause to enjoy it because the next time you hear the peepers, the sound will fill the night with such a din that identifying an individual voice is impossible.

In all my years I’ve not seen one of the nocturnal peepers. I don’t guess I ever will since I don’t plan to go out into the woods at night to locate their colony. (I'll leave that to the folks who took the picture.) But every year I step outside and listen because when the peepers sing, I know it is truly spring.

I dread the day I fear is coming when the peepers are no more. Our amphibians are threatened by the damage to and the shrinking of their habitat. We may be fortunate and become one of the few remaining enclaves for the peepers, salamanders, frogs, toads, and even the local reptile, the turtle. 

The night sounds are truly one of my favorite simple country pleasures. Nighttime in the country reveals, even as it conceals, a hidden kingdom. Long may it reign. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Cat and dog, dog and cat

A lot of my memories are tied to what dog I had at a particular time. There was Rebel, the dog of my childhood. Reba graced my teen years. Then there's a bit of a gap when I married for the first time and was absorbed in growing up. Then came the Callahan years - my companion after that first marriage ended and I lived without a human companion for many years. After Callahan, there's another short gap while I grieved the loss of a true and faithful friend. Life doesn't give you many of those, so treasure them. Then came the Jett years, and now we live in the time of Deuce. 

Ah, Deuce. Is it because he's with me now or because he IS so very special. He's far and away the most intelligent dog I've ever known. The philosophical may have to wait. 

Spring is finally here on the manor. It was above sixty degrees Fahrenheit when I arose at six o'clock this morning and that's a very good sign. I'll have to go outside after dark this evening and listen for the peeper frogs - the real harbingers of spring. 

Regardless of the season, mornings with Deuce don't vary. I get up and let him out and back in, then shower and dress. Once dressed, he and I head out for a short morning stroll during which he completes his outside activities for the morning. Being a warm morning, Loki accompanied us today. 

Loki is a fine little feline who believes he's a lion or at least a big cat. He's not. At only ten pounds, he's the smallest cat I've ever owned. But he is the most ferocious. 

We stopped long enough for me to snap a couple of pictures of the daffodils and snowglories, and Deuce and Loki put on a little show for me. I would have filmed it had I know they were about to perform, but they gave me no warning. Who knew Loki would leap from his perch and the dog would run? For about ten paces, and then the game got switched and Loki ended up in a maple tree. It may not amuse a city dweller, but my boys having fun gave me a good laugh to start the day. 

Thank you, dog and cat. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor