Blue car blues

When I bought my Volvo 240 wagon with 165,000 miles on it about 11 years ago, the guys at the local Volvo repair shop said "It'll go to 300,000 if you take care of it."

We'll the car is now at 297,000 miles and I think it would be a not fully accurate to say that "I've taken care of it", but I have invested a lot along the way and the car has been a good friend in return. This car has seen me, and us, through many miles and many adventures, from solo trips with my little sailboat in tow to Welfleet on the Cape, to romantic camping accommodations with my future wife, to escape-the-city trips out of Boston, to doubling as a can-do utility vehicle with hay bales on the roof and excessive amounts of timber weighting down the lot.

Its a truly great car, and if I were the king of car manufacturers, I'd decree that the Volvo 240 should be built and made available in perpetuity, with the one qualification that it aim for better gas mileage. They stopped making the 240 in 1993. A sad passing.

If all this sounds like an obituary, it might be, but then again it might not. For the last three weeks the car has been sitting in our yard, parked askew with a flat tire. For months, the shifting has been a bit rough, and reverse was getting progressively harder to engage, particularly for Nancy. One morning, Nance was having trouble getting it into reverse and I strutted out and thought I'd get it in gear as I always seem to have been able to. Well, this time was different. I couldn't get it. I tried and tried, even going forward onto the lawn a bit to see if that loosened things up--to no avail. Since we couldn't get it in reverse, we would need to tow the car backwards if we wanted to get it out the driveway.

So we left it there. In the meantime, the rear right tire went flat and we just got used to it.

Today, finally, Joe and I towed it back enough that we could point the bow up the driveway and park the car out of the way. Now we can go somewhere if we need to, as long as there is no backing up required. The tire is still an issue. The next move is to get it to a garage and see if maybe, just maybe, this car is worth getting to 300,000.

A day on a bicycle in Boston

Nancy had a day of work in Boston on Friday and I had the day to myself to do with whatever I wanted.

Having brought my bike, I parked in Cambridge just down the street from the new community center that replaced the old VFW, home to Thursday night contra dancing in Boston. The new building looks cool and was as good a starting point as anywhere. I headed into Harvard Square and then up Mass Ave towards Central Square, basically keeping an eye out for a non-corporate morning coffee place to settle into with the New York Times. Passing through MIT I crossed the river and headed down towards the South End. I knew I'd found the right spot when I came across the South End Buttery. With a neat little breakfast and a cup of coffee and settled into a window spot and indulged in a couple of hours of in-depth reading.

From my morning coffee I headed toward the Downtown Crossing area and searched around until I found Windsor Buttons, where I checked some cool sewing stuff, but walked away with some Bee buttons for Nancy.

Back up through Back Bay, I crossed back over the river and headed to the MIT press bookstore which is always a treat. I didn't buy anything, but enjoyed browsing. From there I went to the Cambridgeside Mall and bought a watch strap and some socks, having left the key in my bike lock while I was wandering around inside. Doh!

From the mall I headed up to Central Square, got a sandwich at the 1369 cafe and then crossed the street to browse around at Rodney's Bookstore. This place is extensive, but for whatever reason, I was challenged to find anything that really caught my attention. They have a really cool selection of vintage posters that are fun to check out. At this point it was getting on in the day, so I made a brief stop at the Broadway Bike School just to go in and check out the used parts and just be there for a minute since I think its such a cool place. Up through Harvard from there I then zig-zaged through Davis and Porter Squares and made my way up and around to the Fresh Pond area where I returned to the car.

It just felt wonderful to be on my bike for the first time in a long time and to enjoy the warm air, the fun of just wandering, and the invigoration of riding in the city amongst the lights, cars, cyclists, signs, sounds and traffic. Its a wide awake feeling that you just don't get around here.

Extracting Honey

On Saturday afternoon we decided deal with the super of honey that's been sitting in the middle of the yurt floor for the last month or so. (A "super" is the name of the stacked boxes that you see when you see a beehive.) Our pal Rebecca, who is thinking about getting bees, was here for the night and together we cleaned up the extractor and the various implements needed, such as uncapping knives and buckets and got set up. An additional crucial element in the process was heating up the yurt into the high 80's to make sure the honey was flowing easily.


The first step is uncapping. This means cutting off the thin layer of wax capping that encapsulates the honey contained in the cells that fill up the honey frame that we take out of the super. We have an electric knife that facilitates this, plus we have an "acoustic" one that just cuts with the serrated blade. Despite past experiences, the non-electric knife seemed to be as effective as the electric one.



Once the cappings are cut off the frames of honey we put them in our extractor, standing up with their broad side facing the wall of the extractor. When the extractor is full we put the top on and spin it, just a like a washing machine spins the wash to remove the water. It doesn't take long before the honey all flings out to the wall of the extractor and then runs down to the bottom. There is a spigot at the bottom of the extractor and once all the frames have been spun out on both sides, we open the tap and let the honey flow out through a double screen to remove bits of wax and dead bees and whatever else. Its an awe inspiring moment to see the golden flow pour out.



After that we take all the equipment outside and let the bees do all the cleaning. It takes very little time for word to get out and a pile of bees are gleaning any remaining honey. We got roughly 30 pounds of honey from this one super. There is the potential to get upwards of 100 pounds of honey per hive if everything works out just right, but so far we haven't come close to that. Maybe next year.

Musical interludes

Saturday night Nancy and I went to a 20's themed birthday party. Everyone was dressed for the occasion and it was easy to feel in the mode. The highlight of the evening was the musical entertainment. The hosts had seen these musicians playing on the street in southern France about 10 years ago, loved them, and always hoped to see them again on their occasional trip back to France. By chance they did encounter them again last year, and as a treat for the party, flew them over for the event. I don't know the name of the band, but they consisted of a soprano sax, clarinet, banjo, and bass, and they played, to my ear, a variant of gypsy jazz. I am not highly schooled in the subtleties of the the various jazz idioms, but this sounded pretty Django Reinhardt-like, but without guitar. In any event, they were tons of fun and we had a blast dancing to them. While they are here in Vermont they are playing a couple of gigs at other venues and I'm looking forward to seeing them again tomorrow night at the the Langdon Street Cafe.

Sunday our friend Joanne came over to check out the house and play a little music. Joanne and I met through Yestermorrow and she recently received a degree in architecture, so she had a fairly informed curiosity seeing the house and the various features, design decisions, etc... After our tour we sat down to play some music and had a great time, as always. I find my ability and my willingness to take little musical risks increases slowly but steadily, and that feels great. Making music is right up there with cycling, great food, hanging with my sweetness, dancing, and sailing. Food for the soul.

Applesauce and Olives

Our late season preserving continues with making a batch of applesauce made from the apples we gathered from around the property. There are thousands of apples and we spent an hour or so last weekend collecting a nice haul. Tonight Nance borrowed my mom's Squeeze-O to grind and smush the steamed apples into sauce. Its amazing how yummy and easy it is. Nance has been the project master while Joe and I have been employed cranking the Squeeze-O. Our friend Carlene gave us some applesauce she made which in turn inspired us to give it a go.

A few nights ago we spent some time cracking green olives that were sent from California. The olive season is in the fall and you can buy them fresh and uncured and then cure them yourself, which we've done for the last couple of years. Again, Joe and I were put to work with some little wooden mallets I made just for this project, cracking each olive. Once the olives are all cracked, the bucket they are in is filled with water and then the water is changed every day or so for a week, give or take, to remove the bitter flavor. Eventually they are stored for the long term in a salt brine with olive oil.

Recent Harvest

We went away last weekend and there was a frost in the forecast, so we harvested a bunch of stuff we didn't want to lose. Beyond what's shown in the photos we've got piles of onions, celariac, canned tomatoes, shallots, a bunch of herbs, potatoes, tons of basil (that is now pesto), carrots, squashes, and countless other excellent items that I can't recall at the moment.

We grew pie pumpkins for the first time this year. That's the orange/green squash-like stuff in crate on the left. The bin on the right contains our haul of sweet potatoes. We are particularly excited about the sweet potatoes since we've learned how to do a better job of keeping them warm and moist under plastic and row cover. Last year's take was okay, but nothing like what we got this year.


The garlic has been hanging to dry since early August. We took it down and cut off the stems. All told we've got about 40 pounds or so. This should last us through next spring with enough to plant this fall for next year's harvest.


Nance holding a couple of peppers.

Tomatillos.

We decided to go after some of the wild apples available all along the property line. They don't look very good, but boy, some of them are super yummy. We plan to make apple sauce with them.

A pile of sungolds. We slice these in half and then dry them in the food dehydrator. Yum.

Cyrus Pringle

There's big excitement around here lately regarding the advent of locally grown and milled white flour which my brother-in-law Randy is completely excited about.

To fill you in: Randy and his wife Liza (my sister) are the owners of the Red Hen Baking Company in Middlesex, Vermont. It has long been a hope that there could be wheat grown locally that would meet the complex requirements needed to produce a local loaf that could meet or exceed performance expectations. Red Hen incorporates Vermont whole wheat into its breads (sourced from Gleason's Grains), but there is very little (almost none) in-state production of white flour. Three years ago, a farmer in Charlotte planted 30 acres of red winter wheat as a test plot with the intention of milling the wheat into white flour. The first two years, the wheat was tested and found to lack enough protein for bread baking (protein gives a loaf its loft) so the wheat was sold as animal feed. Borrowing a technique used by wheat growers in Quebec, in this third year the wheat was harvested early and dried under controlled conditions. In the hot and dry Kansas climate, wheat can dry on the stalk in the fields. Not so here. This third batch of wheat was tested and found to have promising results. Within a week, Randy was experimenting, using the white flour to make bread. He was heard to utter these words: "giddy with excitement." Once some of the logistics are worked out (and there are surprisingly a number of them), Red Hen plans to roll out a new loaf made from 100% VT wheat.

Stepping back slightly: there have been efforts to find or develop a variety of wheat that can do well in the short, damp growing seasons of Vermont. UVM Extension Agent Heather Darby found heritage wheat seed (in a seed bank in Washington State) and she's been working with several farmers to trail and cross breed these wheat varieties that were in significant use in Vermont 100 years ago when the state was known as the bread basket of New England.

Once we find a suitable wheat, there is the need to have the milling infrastructure available to then turn Vermont wheat into white flour. Small farm-based mills exist that do a good job of milling whole wheat flour, but to get a white flour, a large "industrial" mill is required. Fortunately, Champlain Mills, an organic mill, is located in NY on the western shore of lake Champlain. There is no in-state mill that we know of that can produce white flour in volume.

Some of the heritage wheat in the field trials was originally developed by Cyrus Pringle (no relation to the familiar Pringles chips) who was born in Charlotte, VT in the 1800's. Pringle was a botanist and wheat breeder who cross bred potatoes and apples and became notable in his field. Beyond this, Pringle was a Quaker. He was drafted into the Union army during the Civil War and refused to participate in military duties. This led to harsh treatment; he was granted a reprieve from President Lincoln.

Randy's been searching around for a suitable name for this new loaf of bread and was familiar with Cyrus Pringle from a presentation given by Heather Darby. Randy then put it out there to family and friends and a number of possiblities have surfaced: Pringle's Pride, Cyrus' Honor, Cyrus Pringle, and recently, Pringle's Progress.