Acadia...

Just got back from a week up north... stopped to see friends, but mostly spent time in Acadia National Park.  Just beautiful... but i'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Sunrise over the Atlantic from the top of Cadillac Mountain

Sandy Beach is just out of the picture on the left, but this chunk of granite is called The Beehive.  I hiked up Beehive a few days after this pic was taken.  The trail went up the face.  On the way down the backside, I heard talking and looked up.  Can you spot the 4 hikers?

Barnacles about eye height in Hunters Cove.  This a great little tucked away pebble beach with stones the size of your thumb nail to as big as ones head.  Many of the pebbles are from the granite that makes up some of the mountains... pink granite and white granite.  Pretty amazing the difference in colors.  Cadillac mountain is all pink granite, which is gorgeous in the sun.  Examples of Pink and White granite.

This is Bubble Pond.  A very tranquil, special place where we took a break and had lunch. 

Eagle Lake and Connors Nubble on the left, about half a mile, across the road from Bubble Pond.  A nubble is kinda a hill.

This is the creek that flows under Duck Pond Bridge.  The bridges, all 17 of them are amazing.  Each is different.  Bridges are another post in the future.  

Jordon Pond Gatehouse: Rockefeller built carriage roads for horse drawn  carriages and didn't want those new smoke belching automobiles on his roads or in his mountains.  Gates closed off his roads but the gatekeepers opened them for the carriages.  They lived in these houses.  Note stone shingles.

Overlooking Frenchman Bay and the Porcupine Islands while on the Precipice Trail, on the way up to the top of Champlain Mountain.  The coolest trail I hiked while there.  Yes, that is a 300ft or so drop off.  Yes, someone died this year.

This was taken by another hiker that was ahead of me.  He emailed it to me 2 weeks after I got back.  Totally forgot about it.  This shot is taken higher up the trail.  The trail narrows to about 24 inches on the horizontal ahead of me. 

This little pond was on top of Champlain Mountain 1,058 feet above sea level.  Never expected it.

This is Long Pond from the Beech Mountain Trail. 

This is the Big Heath area on the west side of the Park.  This is at sea level and is brackish water.  The mountain center is Bernard Mountain, and Beech Mountain is center right.  Long Pond is on the other side of those mountains.

Shells in a small tidal pool at the end of Wonderland Trail.  A short trail from the road to the beach at the southern end of the Park.  The trail ended up on a little rock outcropping in the Atlantic.  The next four pics are from the outcropping.

Thousands of snails hanging on the rocks.

Tail end of blooming wild roses just off the rock beach.

A small beach not of sand, or rocks, but snail shells.

And finally, a gnarly pine tree starting to change color.  What a cool trail.

Jordan Stream Trail coming back from Cobblestone Bridge.  That's Carol, a friend of a friend, and a local, that showed me a lot of places that I would have never seen.  She's a photo hound too.

And finally.... for this post... is Jordon Pond.  Sky was overcast (the only day during my whole trip) and it was lightly raining.  I wanted to get a pic with the rocks to the right in the forground, but there were kids playing on them.  Pemetic Mountain is to the right, South Bubble center, and North Bubble on the left.  Bubble Rock is a boulder that sits on the edge of a cliff on the other side of North Bubble, which was deposited there by the glaciers that went thru this area 10,000 years ago.  There was a great trail that climbed them.

Too many trails, too little time.  But there's always next year!!!!

Soup, Wine, Bees, Squash, and whatever...

Harvesting out of the garden... last week was a butternut squash that was begging to be picked.  The first of the season.  LG has a killer recipe... that starts with...

Curried Butternut Soup

8 cups cubed peeled butternut squash (about 3 small squash)
1 Tbs butter
2 cups chopped peeled tart apple (Granny Smith or similar)
1 1/4 cups finely chopped onion
1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
1 bay leaf
2 tsp curry powder
1 clove garlic minced
3 (14.5 oz) cans veggie broth
1/8 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Arrange squash in single layer on foil lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until tender.
3. Melt butter in a big pot.  Add apple, onion, ceelery, and bay leaf.  Saute for 10 minutes. Stir in curry and garlic.  Cook 1 minute stirring constantly.  Add squash, broth and salt. Stir well.
4. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.  Discard bay leaf and partially mash mixture with a potato masher until thick and chunky.  You can top with grated extra sharp white cheddar cheese.

This recipe made enough for me, 2 friends, and have some in the freezer.  Was telling my daughter about it, and she mentioned she's been telling me about a curried butternut soup she's been making for a long time... Duh.  She just texted me her recipe and it includes curry, cinnamon, nutmeg, and caramelized vidalia onion.  Yum!!!  She uses half and half and a blender to give a more creamy texture than mine.  And she grates her nutmeg and cinnamon fresh.  She didn't have a recipe... she cooks freelance.  She cooks great food!!!    :-)

The Black Raspberry Wine went into the secondary fermenter last week.  Ended up with a gallon and 12oz.  In a few weeks, I'll rack it again, leaving the sediment, or lees behind.  Will top it off with the extra 12 oz, and drink what's left of that.  Excellent color so far, and great taste.  Gonna have to sweeten it before bottling, as the yeast cooked off most of the sugar... thinking it's gonna end up around 12-14% abv.  What you see in the center is the must draining.  Never squeeze, makes stuff cloudy.  This drained for about 3 hours total.  Should get a little over 3 bottles, but gonna use 12oz bottles, cuz some of it is gonna be gifts.  Are you one of the lucky ones???  Have access to several 20lb buckets of frozen berries from my buddy Denny.  If the recipe is good, will make more.  Posted about the farm here.

My girls are doing well.  All 40,000 of them.  The hive is full, and they are starting to gather honey.  About time.  But i'll still have to feed them this winter... maybe.  They are building new comb, but seeing alot of drone cells.  Not sure why, and drones are kicked out in fall anyway.  Here's some pics.

In the above pic, the new comb is white.  New comb is comb that hasn't held honey or brood.  Earlier this year it was yellow.  That little tear shaped piece of comb lower right, i broke off and attached to the next bar.  I just pressed it on, and the bees take care of the rest.  Every comb has it's own bar, easier to work the hive.

A close up.  Notice the smashed cells in the center.  That is where I centered the comb on the bar, as it was going astray.  Bees build straight when the previous comb is straight, and because I want straight comb on the bars, I gotta straighten it.  Bees don't care.

Old dark comb that has held brood before.  Look closely and you will see larvae in about 60 of the open cells.  Queen lays an egg in a cell.  3 days later it hatches into a larva. For the next 5 days workers feed it.  Then they cap it and for 13 days the larva spins itself a cocoon and turns into a pupa.  The pupa then chews its way thru the cap and enters the world as a honey bee.  The cocoon it sheds gets plastered onto the sides of the cell, progressively making it darker the more it is used.  That was stages of a bee in 15 seconds.

Another pic of brood being capped.  Dead center is a partially capped cell, lower left uncapped.  Big bullet domed capped cells are drone brood.  They are bigger, and take about 3 more days to mature than the female worker bees.  Purpose of a drone, hook up with virgin queens, and be pampered till driven from the hive to certain death.

Capped honey in the center.  I will not take any honey out of this hive this year.  First year of a hive is all about building the hive and making comb.  They need all the honey they can get for the winter.  I'll get my share next year.

There she is.  Queen bee.  All she does is lay about 1400-1600 eggs a day.  Workers tell her when and where.

Cleaned up the garden this weekend.  Mostly the burial mound, where the squashes and a few rogue tomatoes were.  One tomato plant is left, with about 5 tomato's on it.  This was the harvest, minus 3 butternut and 2 acorn squashes.  The pumpkin was planted by LG.  She failed to tell me that.  We roasted it and made Pumpkin and Pear Quick Bread.  Did 2 pans of mini loaves.  Most are in the freezer.  Froze the rest of the pumpkin... enough for 12 more batches of bread, or whatever we wanna use it for.  I'll plant it, and the squashes again next year, and I wanna go vertical with them... just don't know how... yet.

Tomatoes.... picked what was left, and made a big pot of sauce with them.  LG and I split it.  Nothing fancy like what I canned late August.

This weekend.... Farm Aid Concert on Saturday, and headed north to Maine early Sunday.  No agenda, except seeing friends on the way up, camping in Acadia, meeting new people, and trying my first couchsurfing experience.

Good Times.

Hop Harvesting

It's easy... cut the vine, pick the hops.  Try not to get your arms and hands scratched to the point of bleeding.

Total take on 2 of 3 vines was 2 half full laundry baskets.  Not a good harvest according to Scott.  Last year was a total bust due to excessive wetness (ie flood), but the year before yeilded over 6 full baskets from the 3 vines.  He thinks they are still recovering from the drowning last year.  His wife gave me cutting to plant at my place early this spring, but only 1 of 6-7 plants survived, and the hops are only as big as my thumbnail.

A Little Local History

Spent Saturday afternoon in Marietta at a friends harvesting hops (another post).  Decided to head to the river for a few hours.  Next year is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.  A few days prior to the battle, Confederate troops were attempting to cross the Susquehanna River on route to Lancaster.  A small group of Union solders prevented the crossing by burning the Wrightsville-Columbia bridge.  It was at the time the longest wooden bridge in the world.  You can read about it here.

Columbia, Marietta, and Wrightsville across the river make up an area known as The River Towns.  Great place to spend a weekend.  Lots to do and see.

Here is an artists rendition of the fire, and an actual photograph of the bridge.  The photo is taken from the Wrightsville side of the river looking east.  The fire was started on this side.  The painting is from the Columbia side, looking west.  The smaller overhangs were for pedestrian and those on horseback.

 

The stone pillars still stand, overgrown with scrub grass and trees.  Every 5 years bonfires are lit on the top of each one to commemorate the burning.  Amazing the stonework, after 150 plus years.  It was completed in 1834 and is the second of 4 bridges that were to be constructed on these pillars.  You can read about them, and the other two bridges here. 

A new concrete bridge was built in the late 1920's, and you can see it in the background, and clearer in this view.  The pillars are on the other side in this pic.  Once a year, the bridge is shut down to traffic and vendors and artists line the mile long bridge.  It's called the Bridge Bust and is always the first Saturday in October.

It was a nice way to finish a hot afternoon.

Post Peaches

It's been a while since I posted.  So here's what happened the rest of the month.

More peaches.... bought another half bushel of peaches and made jam.... lots of jam... trying to perfect the recipe... which i think i did.... 4 cups of mashed peaches to 1 cup of honey.  Don't know why I don't have a picture, but I don't.  You can taste the honey, unlike using 1/2 cup.  It is a keeper.

Needed to clean out the freezer to be able to put more stuff in the freezer.  It was packed.  Strawberries, Blueberries, Black Raspberries, Sour Cherries, Rhubarb, and Chicken.  No, chicken is not a fruit.  Ended up making more jam

12 jars of strawberry jam back left with labels, 8 small jars of strawberry rhubarb, and front center is 9 small jars of black raspberry jelly.  The strawberry and raspberry jelly were using the 4 cups fruit/juice and 1 cup sugar.  It came out fantastic.  While I was cooking down the raspberries to get ready to strain it, the whole house smelled wonderful.  LG came up on the porch and could smell it from there.  The jelly tastes like nectar... totally delicious.  The strawberry rhubarb used 4 cups strawberry rhubarb 1:1 mixture and 1.5 cups of sugar.  Tart and excellent.

Ended up cleaning out the garden last week.  Pulled the beans and the brussel sprouts.  The sprouts never really developed.  The biggest ones were a little bigger than my thumb nail. 

The beans on the other hand rocked.  Several times a week when walking past i would pic a handful and munch.  I still had a bunch to freeze... now that i had a little room.  Unfortunately, the purple ones lose their pigment when blanched.  But, they look beautiful in a fresh salad.

Another project completed these last 2 weeks of August was the bottling of the strawberry wine.  It was absulutely clear and just dang purty in color.  Ended up with 18 bottles that will sit and age for a year, at least.  Came out dry and strong.  16% ABV.

The morning sun comes thru the window over the sink and hits the counter.  I put some bottles in the sun and this is the color on the counter top.  I just think it's cool.

Speaking of wine... Black Raspberry is in the primary fermenter.  Wine or Jelly, Wine or Jelly.... wine won out.  Started this on 8/29 and pitched the yeast yesterday.  SG was 1.084 which should end up approx 14% ABV and sweet.  Only making a gallon, but have access to 40lbs of frozen fruit if I wanna make a 5 gallon batch... which I probably will.  The fruit is in the white mash bag to keep all the setiment together.  I didn't use the bag when I made the strawberry, and wasted alot in the sediment.  Live and learn.

Tomatoes are the next topic.  Picked a half bushel and canned.  Peeled a bunch (scalding water trick) and canned them with clove of garlic, oregano, basil, and black pepper.  And did two types of sauce.  One had green pepper, onion, garlic, basil, oregano, and salt and pepper.  To the other, added an eggplant and red lentils.  That was LG's idea.  That's how she makes sauce.  The eggplant and lentils cook down and disappear in the sauce.  Ends up a very rich, thick sauce.... love it.  If you look close, you can see the garlic cloves in the quart jars.

Replanting the garden with fall crops.  Lettuce, spinach, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and an experiment with sugar snap peas.  I sprouted the peas to give them a head start.  Literally 2 days after putting them in the ground, they were starting to break the surface.  I was amazed.  Next year, presprouting all the beans... may even try the squashes too.

And finally, finishing up with some misc pics... , itty bitty tomatoes, lemon cukes, and sunflowers in the horseshoe pits (sorry stevo).