Farm News

But first, the results of the Heater Hunting Quiz:
2 of you voted for A. Wrong.
5 of you voted for B (shooting from a warm car along Hole in the Wall Road) – and you were CORRECT.
6 of you voted for C, a drinking game at Ralph Heater’s Pub - and I was gratified because I thought it was a very clever game. One suggestion was to use beer soaked spitballs in the straw shooters for extra flavor in the baked potato. BUT WRONG.
1 of you voted for D, which wasn’t even an option.

I thank you all.

And now the Farm News:
The bees are bringing in bright yellow pollen from the super tall sunflowers.
This should come as no surprise.
Even more interesting was to watch the bees (along with yellowjackets, bumble bees and even pollinating flies) collecting nectar from the porcelain berry flowers.
The porcelain berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata )has overgrown much of the field. At first I thought it was Wild Grape (Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris ) but it is not, because in fact Wild Grape looks a lot like a cultivated grape, and also is edible, which porcelain berry is not. Unless you are a bee. Then I thought it might be Jewelweed (a puzzling member of the Impatiens genus of the Balsaminiceae family), which is very good for alleviating the pain and itch of poison ivy. But it is not; jewel berry has a small yellow or orange flower that looks almost orchid-like.
My brain just wasn’t coming up with the right name. Then CSB suggested I Google “invasive vine on the Saw Mill Parkway” and ta-da, the porcelain berry it is. Extremely invasive, and having no merits except this important one: the bees love it in late August.

In Clucker Hall, the chickens are getting plumper and plumber. In order to encourage egg production (any day or week now) someone suggested placing a wooden egg in their nesting box to give them the right idea. I couldn’t find any wooden eggs in the pantry, but I did find three colored marble eggs that my grandmother used for some arcane purpose now forgotten. So I gingerly nestled them in the pine shavings lining the nesting boxes, and we await the big ovarian moment.

The less said about Dodder ( Cuscata and Grammica), the better.

The Heater Hunting Quiz

This year we went to the Pond earlier in August than in past years, so we missed the Woodsman’s Day (especially the Grannies’ Hatchet Hoot) as well as the Giant Pumpkin Competition at the Windsor Fair. This was of course dismaying.
But all was not lost. For the first time, I went to the Skowhegan State Fair and witnessed a first class Ladies Skillet Toss. A much bigger event than the Skillet Toss previously seen in Windsor, it was held in the Coliseum and had 3 age categories: 18-35; 36-55; 56 and up. In case you are thinking that the latter age group would be the easy one to beat (well, that’s what I thought), you would be wrong. I watched as the barefoot Darlene, last year’s champion, won the 18-25 year class with a 42’9” toss. The winner in the 26-35 year class was less impressive, with a 37’8” toss, and then the shocker: a gray-haired little old lady of at least six-plus decades won her class with a 39’9” toss. The first prizes in each category were $75 and a skillet.
Back at the pond, where cast iron skillets are in abundance, I practiced for next year, and it is clear that I will need a lot more practice.

Talk about a culinary disconnect: At the Skowhegan State Fair (the nation’s oldest continuously run agricultural fair) the food carts featured fried dough, and fried clams, and fried dough, and fried potatoes, and fried dough, and fried onions, and caramelized popcorn. A month earlier those same fairgrounds hosted the 4th annual Kneading Conference, where organic farmers and artisanal bakers gathered to celebrate the resurgence of locally grown grains.
But we did not go to the fair for the food.
CSB went for the Harness Racing. Like his father before him, CSB is not averse to wagering small sums on large horses pulling small carts bearing small jockeys in silk. He won $8 with Riot Act. And then he went to see the darlings in the building marked “SWINE”.

In other news from Skowhegan, from a very attractive cashier at Hannaford we learned about Heater Hunting. And what is heater hunting?
a. / A competition sponsored by the Maine Woodstove Association to seek out and identify the most perfect wood-burning stove in the state. Points are given for: visual appeal; warmth generated, in BTUs; efficiency; and ease of cleaning.
b. /Driving along Hole-in-the-Wall Road in Athens and shooting at startled partridges from the comfort of a (heated) car.
c. / A form of conceptual moose hunting, in which the participants gather at Ralph Heaters’ Pub and set up a course using beer bottles as trees, a baked potato as the prey, and straws as shooters. Then they proceed to stalk a bull moose. When you miss the moose you are required to drink the nearest bottle of beer, thus clearing the terrain for the next player. The winner gets all the baked potatoes he – or she - wants.

Please email me (Christine.lehner@gmail.com) or post your answer.

One last bit of news: the seven Merganser ducklings that were tiny hatchlings in July are now almost as big as their mother and their distinctive feathery reddish crests are developing nicely, thank you very much, imparting to them a permanent bedhead demeanor.