Black Cherry Jelly

I have been making a conscious effort to note the season ... when are the different berries ripening, what is blooming, what could I forage today.  This path, my MooseBoots journey, includes many indigenous skills such as tanning, hunting, and foraging.  I have been waiting patiently for the Black Cherries in the back yard to ripen.

Now, our Black Cherry tree does not produce delicious cherries that can be enjoyed right off of the tree.  Ours are a bit bitter.  So, this year, I thought I would try making Black Cherry jelly.  Nobody in the house was much interested, but ....

I carefully harvested cherries.  OK, I used the roof rake to knock them out of the tree into a sheet of plastic.  I only sustained a minor scratch in the process.  Still no interest ... who will help me harvest the Black Cherries?

 I brought them into the house and washed them.  Nope, no interest ... who will help we wash the cherries?

I painstakingly crushed them to extract the juice.  Now ... no interest ... who will help we crush the cherries?

I poured the juice through cheesecloth to separate out the chunks and into the pan to boil.  Anyone ... nope ...who will help we boil the cherries?  I added some sugar and let it boil down, until it was just right and then poured it into a jelly jar.

I sat in the refrigerator for a few days setting up.  Then, I put some of the thick jelly on a bagel.  It looked so good ... my mouth watered.  Who will help me eat this Black Cherry jelly?  One bite .... YUCK!  It is still bitter.  Of course, my philosophy is, and has been, that when you make something or take its life, you must eat it.  So, I finished the bagel.

I am pretty sure that there will not be anyone accompanying me on this particular leg of my MooseBoots path.  Maybe I need to spend a bit more time in Nature's Garden and see what Sam has to say.  I may just end up leaving the cherries for the birds, who seem to really enjoy them.

Queen Me

5My MooseBoots path sometimes takes unexpected turns for the worst.  As excited as I am about the bees, they are not doing well.  It was able to figure out that my hive had gone queen-less.  I don't know how it happened, it just did.  Of course, the real red flag was a dramatic drop in the number of bees.

So, I called around and found an apiary that had one last queen.  I promptly picked her up and installed the cage in the hive.  This all happened about 3 weeks ago.  I am waiting to see if the hive will recover.  I look in the window everyday.  I am really nervous how few bees there are.  Perhaps, I re-queened too late.  We will see.  Of course, if the hive does not survive this year, I will try again next ... I am still on the waiting list for New England raised bees.

These type of set-backs only reinforces that I have much to learn.  Really, is that not what life is all about?  My MooseBoots path continues....

What A Fun-Gi!

My journey, my MooseBoots path has provided a new lesson today.  It is about patience and letting nature run its course.  Lately, the lessons are about life and death.  What more is there when it comes to important stuff?  No, kids, your cell phones, facebook, clothing, hairdos, and favorite celebrities are not really important in the big scheme of things.  We have mushrooms!

Wayyyy back in June 2009, we inoculated several oak logs with shiitake mushroom spore.  Today, this is what we saw.

The funny thing is that I had given up on them.  I planned to cut the logs up this fall to burn.  Just in a nick of time ... poof ... mushrooms.  Perhaps, Gramzilla came by to offer some assistance in her new form.  (If so, could you please help the bees, too.  Thanks, Gramzilla.)  Being a newbie, however, I do not know the proper time, or method, to pick them.  So, any of you more experienced people, feel free to chime in.  I am thinking that I would also like to learn how to collect spore to seed new logs for future years.  Feel free to share if you have done that before, too.

So, this week, the universe has taught me a little about growth and a bit about dying.  Really, are they not a part of the whole process that we call life.  My MooseBoots journey has benefited, by having opportunities for personal development, by both events.