Coming to a Close

In just a few days the New Hampshire phase of Our Year will come to a close. We'll say goodbye to the animals we've cared for, the people we've bonded with, the gardens we've tended to and the bounty of fresh, delicious foods we've enjoyed. For a big city girl like me, my time here has been a pleasantly enriching surprise.

 

Beautiful Lake Willoughby, in northern Vermont.

 I learned quite a bit. For example:

-David has many talents...

He can also juggle despite my valiant attempts to distract him.

He can communicate with chickens, even though this one is stonewalling him.

-I like dogs. Especially this sweet one - a welcome part of our house sitting duties.

- I'm not too bad at lawn games. Croquet and bacci ball are particularly fun with a refreshments cart (even if the house is but steps away).

- It's important to keep an eye on the zucchini, especially after a good rain. We found quite a few submarine sized veggies in the garden.

- In the case of an impending storm, stay home. A pleasant mountain hike can quickly derail when the lightning begins.

My summer in New Hampshire was rather different than I envisioned. With the absence of television, and the distractions of urban life came the opportunity to read, to learn, to cook, to reflect and ultimately to connect. Acworth truly marks the beginning of Our Year for me. I'm excited about whatever else may be in store.

Harvesting Vegetables

Later in our New Hampshire stay we had training in house-sitting, looking over the estate of our good friends the Lords for two weeks in August. They left for vacation right as many parts of their garden were producing, so we were tasked with using as many veggies as we could. Fresh cukes, zukes, squash, all were good, but the enormous bounty of green beans offered more preserving opportunities. We tried our hand at one of our favorites to eat, dilled green beans. The recipe came from an excellent book on preservation, Putting Food By.  Find the recipe for Dilly Beans in our recipe page. We also learned about the onions, garlic, broccoli and greens we were able to harvest and enjoy. The onions and garlic we dried out for storage, while we briefly flash-boiled the broccoli before freezing it, which is a good technique for freezing many types of vegetables. We paid the Lords back with some dilly beans, who will hopefully report on how they turned out. Not soggy we hope.

Dilly Beans ingredient rundown: deluxe glacial himilayan salt, red pepper flakes, fresh dill heads, fresh garlic, and crisp green beans. All fresh, and if we count this guy and ourselves as part of a global community, then all local.

Pint Jars in boiling water bath (10 minutes max!); 'bout two inches of space above tops of the jars

Killer mason jar tongs allow for easy extraction. Guy Fieri sponsors our equipment line.

A trip to the Bog

During our stay in South Acworth, we had two friends come visit us from NY. Angela and Jamilah had a genuine camping experience as our tent guests for two nights, and for a local excursion we went to the Philbrick-Cricenti Bog.

It is a nearby natural wonder, a funky and creepy place to learn all kinds of hands-on stuff about a bog. It is great to see the local groups that have organized to preserve the space.  

For me, the word bog conjures scenes from fantasy novels filled with misty forests, bubbling dark pools and nebulous forces. And while there's something disconcerting about stepping onto the spongy moss, the bog we visited was not quite the dark and sinister Fire Swamp I had imagined.

Angela, David, Jamilah and I set out to explore the Philbrook, Cricenti Bog in New London, New Hampshire.

Remember, you must stay on the path.

Why? Pull up the stick...

...below you are 20 feet of water. There are whole cows and horses down there, probably pretty well-preserved.

The Quaking Loop

The ground shakes and jiggles beneath you like a waterbed. A path two planks wide provides support.

Jamilah, David & Angela... all staying on the path.

California Practice

We spent two weeks in Oakland visiting Chris and Tania, my (Dave's) brother and sister-in-law. We had a fantastic time with them, enjoying the local scenery around Almeda and Berkeley. Their neighborhood is really quite nice despite some rougher elements and we spent a great deal of time at their newly purchased house, helping them in the early phases of lawn construction and exterior tweaking. Several of our anticipated workstays will involve similar kind of labor during parts of our days, so we welcomed the elementary carpentry work that was done to enclose their washroom, as well as the rubble clearing and brick retrieval that cleared the way for their ultimate dream patio. 

We look forward to seeing what happens in the final execution but it was great to be there and contribute to Chris and Tania's home. We're hoping to entice them into a visit at some point later in the visit so look for them to show up again in these pages.

Dave and Christina, wedding reception-ready

At right, the man of the hour Evan Jones, plus some of his wedding party, plus Bradts

Aforementioned Bradts, thoughtful and capable.

Orienting ourselves on an Oakland freeway; I was thinking The Matrix Reloaded but Christina went with The Scream 

Wook and Bradt construction, Door 1

Wook and Bradt construction, Door 2

Laying groundwork for brick laying

New Hampshire Training

We began to train for the work ahead once we arrived in beautiful Acworth, New Hampshire. Though some distinction can be made between South Acworth (our home during the summer stay) and the more unsightly North Acworth, the overall town is an active and welcoming place to be in the summer season. Check out the online guide to Acworth, not to mention it's best source of local political information, at the Acworthian.org.

We were present during the middle stages of the growing season and saw many fruit and vegetable crops come to harvest, while also learning how to make savory and useful preserves so as to extend the surplus of ripening produce that can quickly seem overwhelming. We made some basic raspberry preserves, gathering berries from a Elsesser Blueberries, a local pick-your-own treasure. After getting about four pints of juicy raspberries, we ground them through the food mill to separate some of the seeds, added 1.5 cups of sugar to the roughly 2 cups of raspberry juice (a 0.75:1 ratio), then simmered for about an hour until thickened. Proper recipe and instructions can be found in our Recipes Page. At a later trip we also harvested too many pints of plump blueberries and had to find means to store them after having our fill of blueberry pies and pancakes for three days. We settled on a Spiced Blueberry Recipe that has a nice, savory sweetness to it. Apparently it goes well on everything from toast to ice cream to pork roasts. Vegetable harvests will later offer their own sort of preserving wisdom, but for now the trip and it's lessons have begun.

Christina and Mama Bradt gathering volunteers

4 pints picked, about 1 eaten

Already Dave is assimilating into the natural world

Christina and Dave dispatching of evidence, ala Fargo

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