Feeling blessed to be alive.

to work with sunrise behind me and purple clouds west

What a beginning to fall. I'm loving the change in weather. New tasks, new foods, new colors. Windy. I like the wind. Makes you feel alive when it flies in my face.

Oyster Mushrooms - second flush from store-bought box.

The mushrooms we tried at home worked pretty well. We started this box way back in August when Zoe and Ivy were visiting for the summer, but under non-ideal conditions and with traveling, we didn't get the first fruits until a month later. Not knowing exactly how or when to harvest, I think we cut the first few caps a little early. Then the rest of the fruit started to shrink so we ate it. But so far we've gotten 2 full flushes and a third, extra flush from more holes that I poked in the side that wasn't meant to be opened. Thanks Phoenix for keeping an eye on it for me in Tennessee.

Turkey for dinner!

When the ladies came back from Tennessee last time, I cooked up some turkey from the freezer. (Thanks Darrell). This bird was a good size! A breast and a thigh each went into the slow cooker and oven roaster. I tried the typical rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley in the roaster and new spicy Asian-style in the slow cooker with basil, ginger, garlic, onion, and cayenne. Both turned out great, but I especially liked the drippings from the new one!

Silver Maple (Acer saccharninum)

It's got a red stem, but it's not a sugar maple! The sinuses (indents) are deep and the lobes (points) are pretty pronounced. Silver maple! We welcome a million little seedlings as one of the great shade trees in our front yard has reached old age and has started dropping branches. The wood peckers are a sign that there's not much time left and luckily they're not too close to the house. Silver maples also turn yellow in fall while other maples (sugar, red) turn different hues of red. I guess the silvers are like the cottonwoods in that they like the bottom lands, feet a little wet, drop leaves early and turn yellow in fall.

Smiley Building getting a new (used) metal roof

The yellow barn, orange corn crib, or smiley building (so called because there's a smiley drawn on the side) had half metal and half old, rotting shake roof when we came to moonCat. Earlier this year and last year, we patched the Wick building roof that had fiberglass pieces blowing off.  I acquired a bunch of used metal siding from a co-worker a couple years back and it has worked great so far. Krystal, Darrell and I all pitched in for a little roof repair this fall. Here we're half done, but Krystal finished the last 3 or so sheets by herself! Also to our benefit, the existing screw holes lined up well with boards underneath this time, even if some of the old boards did need to be replaced.

While hauling metal around the farm, I stopped to say hi and welcome to this monarch. Not so much loving the thistle, but that's a worry for another day when the butterflies play.

Monarch  (Danaus plexippus) on Thistle - probably Bull Thistle (Cirsium vulgare)

And who should we find when re-doing the roof?! A gray tree frog. Funny story about them. They have two color phases - gray as seen here and green. Sort of like a redneck chameleon. Story: so we heard a raccoon on the roof of the house when we first moved in. Several nights they screeched right outside our window. But we never heard anything on the roof and never saw anything when we went out to investigate. But we did find tree frogs! Turns out they screech like raccoons, or so we think. Ever since we've enjoyed watching them catch bugs on the kitchen window and chill in the gutters and rain barrel. Ask Phoenix some time how she gives them water slide rides.

Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor)

And no, I don't know the Latin for everything off the top of my head :) It's looked up for my education and included here for your pleasure! Cheers and happy fall.

Monmoth Food Forest Tour

This posting is mostly to keep my own notes, but why not share what I learned on a tour of a Food Forest? Enjoy and ask questions!

Gary Fernald started planting trees near Monmoth, IL in 1967. He was inspired by Pecans and they've become his expertise. He found there was a need to establish or re-establish locally verdant groves to nourish and thrill people. So he went looking.

Hazelnuts in the husk

Northern Pecans can be massive trees. Some were found on Adams Island near Clinton, IA. Also along Rock Creek and Pleasant Creek. These areas are closed in the fall (Sept. 15 to Jan) for waterfowl, but Gary was able to get a permit from Army Corps of Engineers and Fish and Wildlife to gather nuts to plant groves elsewhere in order to preserve and breed pecans. He planted groves north of Chestnut Mountain and by Muscatine, just by the lock and dam below the Gorham residence.

Gary has bred many trees and there are even some cultivars named after him for sale from tree catalogs. Two that we saw on our tour were Hark and Lucas.

Japanese Heartnut - this nut can be shelled whole.

More Notes:

The Hican (sp?) A cross between a hickory and pecan can occur naturally. Some pecans bear hickory (shagbark) traits. Not as productive as pecan, but can be more flavourful.

English Walnut

Regarding English Walnuts, they are hard to do. Some produce OK. They are also different (bearing) year to year. English walnuts are easier to crack and will fall out of husk onto ground. Chris Knows a tree that drops nuts onto a sidewalk in the Quad Cities and they just pop out of the shell! I should ask him for a graft...

Chestnut trees with their prickly husks.

Mulberry: Illinois ever-bearing might be one of the best species of mulberry – I need to graft this onto existing trees on the farm!

Pawpaw - unfortunately not ripe in time this year

Grafting: Keep grafts at 80F to “callous” use ~6” of scion (fruiting stock) with buds onto rootstock. Use a sharp knife or bench tool. Bench graft with pencil-sized stock. Bark graft several pencil-sized sticks into side of bark of 3-6” branch, trimmed of growth just above graft. Wrap with just about anything, electrical tape works well. Grafted (any) can produce in 3-5 years (walnut, pecan, etc.) Practice to get good at these techniques and let someone show you that knows what they are doing. Gary may have a workshop coming up! Butternut and English walnut can be grafted onto Black walnut!