Don't Forget the Avos

Just last night Jill and I were talking about braving the winter weather and making an avocado run. 

The Aztecs invented guacamole. “Avocado” comes from the Aztec word “ahuacatl,” a derivative of the word for testicle, based on how the fruit grows droopy and in pairs.  

Super Sunday is peak day for avocado consumption in the US with more than 65 million avocados made into guacamole.  

More fascinating factoids about this prehistoric fruit here…

 

 

Free Bird

If you’re like me the iconic image in your mind of the bald eagle is probably a majestic and noble raptor - a soaring patriotic symbol of freedom, liberty and America.   

For the inhabitants of the sleepy fishing village of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, the 500 or so bald eagles that they live with are nothing but pests.    Our great nation’s national symbol is a thief.  They steal bait from the fishermen, pick through trash, and snatch grocery bags from unsuspecting pedestrians.  The locals refer to them as Dutch Harbor pigeons.   

I think a good start to ending this bad bird behavior is to cease encouraging them.  Raising a toast to Lynyrd Skynyrd....

Keynote Address

DEAR WOODLAND OWNER.

Join us for the 29th annual Southeast

Wisconsin Woodland Owners

Conference at the Waukesha County

Technical College in Pewaukee.

Our topics include:

·         Managed Forest Law Update

·         Forest Exploration Center

·         Invasives — 10 Most Wanted

·         Ticks

·         Timber Sale Basics/Marketing

·         Invasives Control

·         Web Tools for your Woods

·         Drones with Forest Management

Plus enjoy an array of exhibitors showcasing an exciting variety of forest-related products and services. Come learn the latest about woodland management from experienced resource professionals and other woodland owners.

 

Terrific turn-out, timely information, all-around great conference.  I hear the Keynote Speaker whose presentation included an update on the Forest Exploration Center was pretty good.

 

Raising a toast to sustainable Forestry...

 

 

Bottled Sunshine

Just about every family has an eccentric or even a crazy uncle.  You know – the kind of uncle that is a couple cards short of a full deck.  The uncle you dread appearing at thanksgiving dinner with his wild conspiracy theories and fringe politics.  The sort of embarrassing uncle you wish would just stay away.  Then there is the favorite uncle.  Most families have a favorite uncle or two.  These are the elder statesmen, the role models, the guy that you identify-with and have an affinity-for.  

Uncle Dick's family and mine grew-up at opposite ends of the block.  We were close.  It was almost like having brothers and sisters that lived in a house of their own.  Richard was my pop's little brother and my favorite uncle.  He's been gone thirty-eight years now and I still think about him from time to time.  Especially when making homemade tomato juice. 

One of my fondest childhood memories is of my favorite Uncle Dick making tomato juice.  That's an odd memory for sure isn't it?  Growing-up in the 1960s I think most every family had a Foley Food Mill for grinding-up all sorts of stuff like apples and tomatoes.  I recently discarded the ancestral food mill that had been languishing in the basement.  It was dented and rusty and the paint was flaking from the wooden handles – likely lead-based paint too.  I have a newer, stainless model of the Foley mill that I purchased at Fleet Farm.  The home canning aficionado's all-purpose resource - Fleet Farm has everything you need.  But I digress. 

About the juice. 

There is no written record of Uncle Dick's tomato juice recipe but since I’ve been making the stuff for about a dozen years it does exist out here on the interweb because I blog about it from time to time.  Other than that it’s a simple and failsafe process that you can do from memory. 

I fetched a bunch of jars of canned tomatoes from last year's garden.  The tomatoes have already been peeled and cooked when they were canned a half a year ago.  Simply pop the lid, dump them into the mill and go about grinding them into juice.  The mill can easily handle up to a couple of quarts at a time.  It's old-school as far as juicing goes but it works just fine. 



Do you have any idea how lip-smacking yummy canned homegrown tomatoes are when you open a jar?  WOW!  It sends you right back to August and September. 

As you process your home-grown, canned tomatoes thru the mill all you have to do is periodically removing the residual pulp and seeds for the compost bin. 

 

 

Grinding away I filled my largest stainless stock pot. 

The canned tomatoes already had salt but I added some additional kosher salt along with a dash or white pepper and garlic salt for taste.   Gently raise the heat until just shy of a boil and fill sterilized quart jars with the hot juice leaving 3/4 inch of headspace.  Top with lids and bands. 

  
Process in the canner for another twenty minutes, remove and set aside to cool.  When the lids pop they're good to go.  You have a shelf-stable pasteurized juice product.  No need to refrigerate unless you wish to chill before serving or you have an opened and unfinished jar. 

Sixteen quarts of bottled sunshine. 

Thanks for the inspiration Uncle Dick - you're the best! 




* A word about the jars and lids.  Sterilize your jars by immersing them in boiling water or running them through the dishwasher on the 'sanitize' cycle.  Lids are easy - in the microwave heat a Pyrex measurer full of water to a boil. Drop your lids in the hot water.  Fish them out with a sterile tongs.

Never Grab a Groundhog

 

 

This post was originally published on the Gas Pains Blog back in 2010.

Groundhog Day is a big event every year on this day over in Gobblers Knob, Pennsylvania.

Someone provokes a hibernating woodchuck named Punxsutawney Phil to come out of his hole and predict the arrival of spring.

Even I can do that.  Provoked by the alarm clock I crawled out of a perfectly warm bed this morning at 5:30 AM, poured myself a steaming cuppa joe and fetched the news from the warming glow of my computer monitor.  It was a perfectly tropical 9 degrees at sunrise.  I therefore concluded more winter before the arrival of spring.

The man in the photo is making a grave mistake.  You should never grab a groundhog - especially if you are going to wave it around in the air over your head. 

From the Algonquian wuchak.  Also known as the whistle pig – Marmota monax belongs to the vast squirrel family. They are big rodents.

They are also sinister-looking with their small ears, beady black eyes and very sharp teeth to go with all of their claws.  I wouldn’t grab a groundhog any sooner than I'd make a grab for a beaver or a porcupine. They are all much too dangerous.

Trust me.  I know this.

I have had to deal with multiple critter infestations under my barn. This includes everything from bunnies, to raccoons to kittens.  One year I had a groundhog.  And that bugger was burrowing furiously.

Groundhogs are well adapted miners.  They have short but powerful legs and very sharp claws.  They are capable of excavating hundreds of pounds of dirt.   And this fella was chucking enough dirt that it wouldn’t be long before he seriously undermined the structural integrity of the barn foundation.

Shooting a woodchuck is against the law in Wisconsin. Yep. They’re protected – just like badgers and wolves.  Not wanting to draw the attention of the local game warden and pleading a landowner exception I opted for the old reliable method.

Mothballs.

I poured a box of mothballs down the woodchuck’s hole.  Oh sure, your barn will smell like grandma for awhile but critters cannot stand mothballs.  And it worked almost immediately for me.

I was puttering in the machine shed when old Phil (smelling strangely of naphthalene) waddled his way into the shed and gave me the hairy eyeball.  He was not happy.  Actually, he was angry to the point of provocation because he reared-up on his hind legs and gave me a nasty bark.

Taking a machete from the peg board I waved it menacingly and told him to get the heck out of my shed.

He scurried away retreating behind a sheet of plywood leaning against the wall.

I grabbed a garden rake and thrust it in his face.

He snorted and whistled and parried back with his claws.

Claw for claw - back and forth we went. Parry and thrust. I was gaining the upper hand and Phil was losing ground.

Finally forced from the shed he scurried a safe distance from the crazy guy with the rake, turned and gave me a dirty look and waddled-off in the direction of a neighboring farm.

Nasty attitude the groundhog has.

Dangerous too.

Friday Music

The American jazz-rock band - Steely Dan – was founded in 1972 by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.  Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals) were backed by a rotating collection of session musicians.  The band received some critical and commercial success yet in 1974 discontinued any live performances to become a studio-only band.  Reelin' In the Years was released as the second single from their 1972 album - Can't Buy a Thrill. It reached number 11 in the Billboard charts.  Every time I hear it I have a flashback to my senior year in High school.

Wile E. Coyote

Canis latrans - smaller than a wolf, pointed ears, plush winter coat and a black-tipped tail.  They're ubiquitous but stealthy.

click on images for a better look