Five-hundred fifty apples

Photo of organic jonagold apples by Floodllama, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Sometimes we just yearn to see things that aren't in our region. This weekend is the Harvest Festival at Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, and I'm a little envious that my friend G. is going.

After all, Seed Savers is an organization that preserves and showcases heirloom seed types, and on their 890-acre property in northeastern Iowa's limestone hills, they have 550 types of apples. That's a mind-boggling number of apples, for those of us who are impressed when we see, say, 25 types at a farmer's market.

Seed Savers has apples with names such as Fameuse, ‘Minkler Molasses, Swayzie, and Knobbed Russet. Isn't that worth the trip alone?

I've been interested in Seed Savers since I read Gathering: A Memoir, about the couple who started Seed Savers in their house in the late 1970s.

I'm hoping that G. will bring back some photos of apples! If anyone else is in the area, let me know about it!

Vine maple color; Sitka Mountain-ash berries

Photo of vine maples by Yaquina, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Sunday’s hike was golden in many ways. Its drive was overly long, and a foot was sprained on root-y trails. But it involved an isolated alpine lake, fall color bursting from rocky slopes, and the round, un-glossy delights of farm-stand apples brought from the town of Sultan.

The hike was to Hope Lake, in the Cascades near Stevens Pass. In less than two miles each way, we climbed over 1400 feet in elevation.  This meant it was fairly steep, and traversed narrow stretches of eroding trail above steep hillsides.

The colors were startling, though. On hillsides above us, vine maples raced across the landscape in yellow and red.

Photo of vine maples against forest by David Patte, USFW, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Expecting the dense, dark woods of the typical Northwest hike, I’d forgotten that we might be dazzled by the light and color changes of autumn. Some ferns and airy huckleberry bushes had also turned vividly yellow and orange.

As we hiked the narrow incline, we passed out-of-season bushes bare of thimbleberries and salmonberries, and I noted them for later. That said, those two are nearly everywhere in the region. But the raspberry-like thimbleberries are especially nice. I also like them because they remind me of the flat, wide buttons on 1950s coats.

Along the ground, bunchberry plants bore their red berries atop the four leaves. I ate one – only my second ever – and noted that this time, the grainy taste went down easier. This one tasted deeper and more sun-warmed, and I thought to myself that they'd be fine added to other berries to make jam.

Photo of bunchberries in dew by Pellaea, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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In Samuel Thayer’s book Nature’s Garden, one of my favorite foraging guides, he talks fondly of bunchberry. The berries grow in cool, northern forests, including Thayer's native Great Lakes region.

We reached Hope Lake, which is really a pond. It appears shallow, and is backed by tall evergreens  -- probably hemlocks and Douglas-firs. Hope seemed more peaceful than the other lakes I’d seen in the Cascades’ Alpine Lakes Wilderness. This was the first time that the lakeshore was silent; no one was there, nor calling out as they ate their lunches.

Lakes in the backcountry of Yellowstone are quiet like this, too. This pond in the Cascades was like Grebe Lake or others circled by huckleberry bushes that I saw when I was a new hiker, a kid from a hot climate working at the park during college summers.  At the time, my heart raced when I saw fields of berries at a remote lake. Where were the bears? Were they watching?

Photo of Sitka mountain-ash turning color, by heystax, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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At Hope Lake, two weeks had passed since I'd been to one of the Alpine Lakes. Before, we'd seen only green and somber woods, but now, red and yellow huckleberry bushes and Sitka mountain-ash crowded the lakeshore, their colors splashed across the water surface.

Even late in the season, when most of the huckleberries had been picked clean of their fairy bushes, the mountain-ash was laden with bunches of red berries.

Sitka mountain-ash berries can make wine, I hear -- alhough I haven't tried it yet. It was great to see such plenty, to know that for every departed salmonberry, thimbleberry, or huckleberry, something new came with fall: something bright and wonderful.

   

 Photo of Sitka mountain-ash by Tim Green, Flickr Creative Commons.
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Rediscovering a friend on a bus; gooseberries

  

 

Photo of red currants by Liz West (Muffet), Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Yesterday on a bus to Seattle’s Eastside suburbs, there was something familiar about the older woman sitting next to me, and the copy of the New Yorker that she was poring over.

Surreptiously, I checked out her eye-glasses. Had I seen them before? Had her hair been that exact shade?
 

I wasn’t sure, you see, whether she was the lady whose seat I'd shared a month and a half before, on the return trip from an Eastside park where I’d gathered a bag of golden plums so ripe that some fell off their pits en route. 

On that bus ride, my new buddy and I had talked avidly about politics, Harper’s magazine articles after 9/11, her war-protest activities downtown, and gathering edible plants. We had even exchanged email addresses, but I couldn’t recall whether I’d contacted her. It had slipped between the cracks of looking for possible roommates, considering whether to relocate to a sunnier city, and finishing out the field notebook I'd been using that week.
 

Yesterday, I decided I would lose out if I kept silent. When she had turned away from her New Yorker pages to look at me, her face changed and she smiled. “Well,” she said in her slight English accent, “Can we believe this?” We had indeed met on that previous bus trip, going the opposite direction.
 

It was great to see her again. This is what I like about talking with people about plants and gathering: Standing alongside a trail in any quiet park, I’ve met inquiring people who can either tell me more about the plants I see, or about the land where we stand, or who have questions for me. In every case, I have felt the sparkle of exchanging vital, life-giving information with another person -- and learning a bit about them.

 

Was I gathering plums again? my friend asked on the bus, then smiled to acknowledge that she had remembered: Right, plums were no longer around, weeks later.

 

Not this time, I said: Going hiking. As I flipped through a field guide I’d brought, Trees & Shrubs of Washington, by C.P. Lyons (Lone Pine Publishing, 1999), my friend said that she’d like to see gooseberries around, that she missed the days when they were considered standard pie material, especially in England.
 

I'd also like to see gooseberry pie early and often. Gooseberries and currants are about and they're being used, I said – although it’s true that they’re not the commonplace pastry material they once were. These days they aren’t standard; they’re pleasingly retro.

 

Still, I’d seen both berry types sold at mid-summer in the standard grocery store near my house. The farm name on the boxes, when Googled, turned out to be in Washington’s Yakima Valley.  It's an area known for its berry farms. The farms, it turns out, are supported by a network of irrigation systems that carry water from mountain snow-melt.

  

At a farmers’ market I’d talked with another farmer from the Yakima Valley, who said that his family grew blueberries in the soil, which was rich from age-old volcanic activity in the area. “The blueberries love it,” he assured me, shaking his head. I imagine that the gooseberries and currants do, too.
 

On the bus, my friend and I looked at photos of gooseberry and currant bushes in Trees & Shrubs of Washington. “That’s it!” she said happily.

In the same park where I’d picked the golden plums, I’d gathered a few currants and gooseberries that grew nearly pushed out by over-eager blueberies, I told her. I grew up in a warm climate, one with its warmer types of berries, like dewberries -- so I had been excited about picking blueberries, and especially marveled at the currants and gooseberries. 
 

It was a fine bus ride to have before a hike: Rediscovering gooseberries. My friend said, "Have a good hike," as I headed off. We decided we'd meet again.
 

Photo of black currants in a bowl (these are like the ones I found in the Eastside park, though mine were smaller) by Glen Fleishman, Flickr Creative Commons license.

Host a Fall Food Swap? Fundraiser for Food Swap Network

Photo of orange marmalade in jars by Comedy_nose, on Flickr Creative Commons license
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So, ever attended a food swap? I plan to go to my first swap this fall. Pals here in Seattle gather with friends to swap their canned goods, baked items, and other goodies (beer, elderberry wine, infused alcohol, truffles, you name it). It's also a great way to share garden excess, by bringing along a basket of zucchini or whatever's left. It sounds great.

I became aware of food swaps a few years ago, when I joined the Facebook group for Food in Jars and began hearing about swaps in Philadelphia. Because I lived in Philadelphia for the summer of 2005 and I liked it a lot, I always pay attention to Philly news. It was great to hear swaps were active there, though I wasn't surprised.

Now I hear from Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking that the Food Swap Network (which spans the U.S., Canada, and overseas) is holding a fundraiser, and we can help out by hosting (or attending) a swap before November 30th. Swap hosts are asked to collect donations from swappers for the network. 

Kate Payne, Hip Girl's blogger, lists handy suggestions for swaps here: Annette’s Urban Farm Handbook challenge post.

Here's some background information: The Food Swap Network currently has 90 swaps and is growing every day. The fundraiser will help cover the costs of creating a network site and making it a functional and attractive resource for existing and new swappers. Plan is, the fundraiser will cover five years of operations for the network. 

Here's how to help: Host or attend a fall swap! Swaps can take place anytime before November 30th. Swap hosts are asked to collect donations from swappers. If every swap raises at least $45, which is about $2.50 per person for a small swap, the network will make its goal.  In any case, any amount swappers provide will help to reach the goal. 

Donations can be sent by PayPal after you've had your swap, or contact the network if you'd like to mail FSN a check. Here’s a link to contribute directly to Food Swap Network if you are unable to host or attend a swap this fall.

A last note from FSN:

"Thank you for helping us fill up our swap basket so we can continue to share that feeling of going home with a full basket of homemade goods!"

 

And, ah, isn't that a fine, fine feeling? Yes, I think so too.

Found: Berries and Salal on trail to Annette Lake

 

Photo of mountain lake by Henofthewood on Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Saturday, a hike to Annette Lake in the Cascades with my friend E. We snacked along the way on clustered salal berries – and the occasional dusky blue or lightly red huckleberry on airy bushes.

The day was glorious: The last weekend in September, and still dry and sunny. This is unusual in the Northwest, but we’ll take it!

Back to berries, though. Admission: Until now, I’ve never really valued salal. Apparently that’s because I’d never had them fully, tip-top ripened to a dark navy, and on a sunny Cascade hillside.

They're an acquired taste: I asked E. what she thought, and she said questioningly, “Grainy, rough?”

Salal aren’t blueberries, I had to admit. They lack the easy charisma and bright flavor of more popular berries.

 

But in this case, to me, they were downright flavorful. There was a depth to them, a sun-warmed richness. I wanted pots full of them, I wanted pies and crumbles.

 

I was content with snacking, though. I gathered handfuls, each with its slightly hairy bulb and knobby end.

 

They were ugly enough to be left on their leathery leaf-branches for me to find on a sunny fall hike, and I loved them for it.

Photo of salal berries by Nordique on Flickr Creative Commons license
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The berries provided moisture, Vitamins C and A, and the usual antioxidants as we headed up the 1600 feet of elevation change between the trail head and Annette Lake.

 

I found them refreshing, and I was grateful: When I arrived in Washington state, I often walked past these and other berries, not knowing what they were. My past is full of the slight irritation of not knowing berries or fruits on trees, of feeling as I pass them that I could be wasting something valuable that will go bad on the branch.

Eating the berries gave me the “I’m a hardy hiker, I’m like Heidi with the goats in the Swiss mountains,” thought pattern that I alternate with “I’m like Grizzly Adams; I can survive!” when I’m flattering myself. And yet, it was a little bit true.

After a good many switchbacks and walking past many majestic firs and spruce, E. and I made it to Annette Lake. It is a lovely lake, surrounded by wooded hillsides. I always like the peace of arriving at a mountain lake after a long hike, finding the cove in the woods that opens with light, spotlighted by the sun as a rare place, a place of water that attracts all of us: animals, humans, birds.

We had our lunches there, E. with her tuna sandwich and shelled pistachios and fruit leather, and me with my peanut-butter-and-banana pita, HoneyCrisp apple, and dark chocolate squares.

We sat in the sun on the grainy beach, facing the light of the water, watching circles form on the surface and talking about relationships and life and work, and listening to the calling voices of the fewer than 10 other people on other shores of the lake as they threw balls to retrievers and talked about we knew not what.

The water, just to fill you in, was probably pretty cold. Maybe surprisingly, I didn’t go in!

The sky was overcast when we arrived, and I had the recent memory of swimming two weeks ago in Mason Lake here in the Cascades, and finding that the water was not just limpid and chill, but downright bone-chilling.

I’d learned that although I’ll swim in large bodies of water in any temperature, in mountain lakes I prefer to dip when they are sun-warmed and it is high summer. Call me particular, call me someone who doesn't want to be chilled before a long hike in falling light, and you will be right.

Another thing we found: A king bolete mushroom, or porcini. Not exactly a feast, but we also talked to the Forest Service officers about logging roads that are handy for berries (and presumably for mushrooms).

There will be return trips, after all!

 

Rose hips and herb nerds with brown paper bags

Photo of rose hips by Audreyjm529, Flickr Creative Commons License.
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Today I've been collecting sun-softened, ripe rose hips into a brown paper bag that I begged off a counter-person at Rainbow Naturals, an apothecary that mixes its own herbs on Capitol Hill in Seattle. When I asked her for somewhere to transfer my bristly handful of rose hips, each the beating color of internal organs, she rustled out the bag and said in an undertone, "We're all herb nerds here, so I understand."

It was good. I wonder what Rainbow Naturals does with their rose hips, and I'll have to ask.

Meanwhile, I have a brown lunch bag lined with their rosy rounded forms, each with its autumnal, prickly leaf-stem. Lovely, what a dying rose leaves behind. If this is recycling, then I like it.

I'd always seen the bright orange hips, seemingly in such abundance on bare fall shrubs. But I never knew that they were things that ripened, that grew soft and tore at the edge when unhinged from the stem, so that each tear resembles a gash in a tomato.

So far, I'm just peeping at them proprietarily every so often. Tonight I'll settle on whether to make jelly, puree, chutney -- or even rose hip and vegetable curry.

What do you think?

Hawthorns and clippings of small presses from 2009

Photo of hawthorns (European) by Maura McDonnell, Flickr Creative Commons License
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Lately, hawthorns have been my quarry, though I've only gathered a 2-pound margarine container full of them and left them in the refrigerator, so far. What can I say? I was expecting to have to move this week! I was knee-high in boxes and making decisions about papers and treasured clippings about small presses in New Jersey from 2009.

Why is it that every review of our small items makes me think that a) I should become a hard-core Buddhist and relinquish all material items, going from door to door with a proffered hat and never again thinking about Comcast and (b) that every piece of paper, each wing-nut from a project and each pearlized button is irreplaceable and that I must keep it for all time to remind me of the fall of 2010?

Did I say that I did not move? Not yet, at least. I gave notice, then thought about whether I'm ready to go flying off to another time zone to live on a couch until I am able to find a peaceful share with a like-minded person who (hopefully) does not come in at 2:30 a.m. and cook aromatic soups of chicken and spices, at the very least. Because one of my former roommates in New Jersey did just that, and the scent was tempting enough to get a person out of bed and rubbing her eyes.

It is just the beginning of October, hawthorn and rose-hip season. Our weather here in Seattle is still bright and sunny, and sometimes I swear that we all are living in a waking dream in which we think that it is June. Honestly, I get confused, although on the nippier days (which I love), I notice that the evenings come earlier now as our planet tilts.

The reason for thinking of moving was partly weather. I'm a person who loves sunlight, or at least loves it in its indirect forms: dappled, glowing into a room at the window, emerging through tree branches, on a light and breezy summer day, and in its amber-bright autumnal glory.

Often, in late summer, I can hardly stand to think that the sharp concentrations of color that we see here in Seattle in August and early September might change. That said, I am happiest when I live near (by which I mean, keep aware of) the plants and air changes of season.

That is, knowing which plants are now in season -- hawthorns, rose-hips, the last of the huckleberries at high elevations -- it makes me notice the days better, to walk with a quickness of step.

So, how shall I prepare those hawthorns? I'm thinking of making a kind of apple sauce, having boiled and mashed and strained them, then adding cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.

Late summer and fall, free from a tree. Good start!