ROASTED CHESTNUTS

A new experience for me has been to try my hand at roasting the harvest from our American Chestnut tree. I am happy to report it was a successful experiment and I now have a new recipe to share.The first step of the recipe requires scoring an X on the rounded side of the nut. This will allow moisture to escape and the hull to curl back for easy removal of the nutmeat. Easy removal is not as easy as I had hoped.
The oven was preheated to 400' and I filled the bottom of a cast iron skillet with course salt, I added some scored nuts and sprinkled Fennel seeds over all and did just a few nuts as suggested in the instructions. I also wasn't sure if we would like the taste and didn't want to prepared lots if we didn't like them. Scoring the X's wasn't all that simple and I was getting a hand cramp. Following the instructions to cover the pan and roast for 30 minutes was truly easy.

Removing the pan and wrapping the nuts in a wet towel to let them begin to cool down was the next step. Then to quote from the recipe "Let the chestnuts steam under damp towel until they are barely cool enough to handle, about 2 to 3 minutes. Don't wait too long; the cooler they get, the harder they are to peel." Truer words were never written.
As the nuts roasted the shell curled up at the X cut and the nutmeat became golden brown. I found peeling back the hull required fancy thumbnail work catching the hull under my nails and exerting pressure away from each other seemed my best technique. I did this on the east and west curls and then the other two. If I got the hull opened enough the nut just popped out.
As the shells cooled the task got harder and harder, till I was scraping out nut meal. I'm so glad I only prepared a small handful. Perhaps in time I'll be flipping out nutmeat at a more efficient pace and may be able to engage helpers who also have a taste for Roasted Chestnuts.

One very smart suggestion was to serve the nuts in a steaming towel at the middle of the table and allow the guests to 'skin' their own nuts and "they'll do all the work and sing your praises, to boot, particularly if the nuts are accompanied by a good red wine."
The roasted chestnut of tradition and song are indeed tasty and worth the effort. I found the instructions at an internet site entitled
Step-by-step guide to skinning a chestnut.

I'm not sure if we didn't have the nuts littering the ground under the trees that I would actually go to all the bother, but I did enjoy the challenge and will do it again.

SUNDAY STROLL - MORE ABUNDANT LIFE

I know that two weeks of rain have given the earth around us lush verdant life that almost overwhelms the senses. The animals are starting to enjoy the fruit of the winter storehouse of nuts and berries, here are the leftovers of a squirrels enjoyment of hickory nuts.
The Hearts-abursting will supply birds and small ground feeders as the fruit falls.

The green acorns must be tasty to the squirrels because there is plenty of evidence to confirm that opinion.

The creek that slows to a trickle in the summer is being replenished by the abundant rains.

I've brought you down to the labyrinth to show you a delightful result of a full rainy season.

The lichen and mosses seem to come into flower. I guess I didn't know they would flower.

Apparently moss likes orange flowers. Fascinating.

I think these orange fingers are the beginning of sponge style mushrooms.

I just had to add our gourmand cat Kiki savoring some grass at the center of the labyrinth.

It's time to cross over the bridge and return to the house. If you need more exercise head on over at Aisling's for a stroll with someone else.

GREAT GRANDDAD

This is actually my Great great grandparents William Kenner and Polly Hawkins who I want to use to illustrate this old cowboy song. They are the parents of several children one of whom was Philander, who in turn was the parent of many children of which my grandmother Ingie was one. One of her eleven children was my mother Juanita who only had two children, my brother and myself.

GREAT GRANDDAD

Great granddad, when the land was young barred his door with a wagon tongue.

The times were rough and the wilderness mocked,

and he said his prayers with his shotgun cocked;

He was a citizen tough and grim,

danger was like "duck soup" to him,

But his great grandson now falls asleep and fears no harm from the darkness deep,

for his great granddaddy fought and won and tamed the land for his great grandson.
Great granddaddy was a busy man, he cooked his food in a frying pan,

picked his teeth with a hunting knife, and wore the same suit all his life.

He ate cornbread and bacon fat, but great grandson would starve on that.

Great grandad was gaunt with toil, grimed and seamed with sun and soil,

But great grandson is fat and clean and rides to work in a Limousine.

Twenty-five children came to bless great granddad's home in the wilderness.

Laugh at that statement if you can, but great granddad was a busy man.

Twenty-five children, and they grew stout and tall on bacon, too.

Slept on the floor with the dogs and cats, shopped in the woods for a coonskin hat .

Freud was a mystery, so was Jazz, on giving their parents a scornful razz.

If they got fresh with great granddad, he tanned their hides with a hickory gad.

He raised them rough, but he raised them well,

and if they took hold of the ways of hell he filled them full of the fear of God,

and flailed their pants with an old ram-rod.

They grew strong of heart, and strong of hand,

The firm foundation of our land.

Twenty-five boys -- but his great grandson

to save his life can't manage one!

unknown author

SUNDAY STROLL under the Chestnut Tree

We are so glad to be helping foresters bring back the American Chestnut trees. I know I have mentioned the story of the almost total elimination of the trees from the American scene by a terrible blight. To refresh your memory, a few hardy trees have remained and for about one hundred years concerned people have been working to create a new blight resistant tree to repopulate the American Chestnut and restock the beautiful sturdy lumber that was used for building early America.

We have had these trees about 10 or 11 years, they started producing nuts at around 7 years and now we have a tree loaded and dropping fruit like nobody's business. My Dad warned me about the spiny hulls and told stories of barefoot boys walking across them without a second thought. As a child my Dad started walking the hills of Tennessee barefoot as early in spring as possible because new shoes were only bought for children once a year in the fall and little feet grew mighty fast.

Thus little feet were pretty tough by fall when gravels and burrs and all manner of rough surfaces were tramped across with no wincing or pain.

I look forward to finding a good recipe for roasted chestnuts. My Dad claimed they made a wonderful supper with cornbread and milk.

Other strollers are to be found at The Quiet Country House.

IS IT FALL YET?

Yes, the signs of fall are all around. The Dogwoods trees are taking on a bronzed leaf color and the berries are ripe and ready for the birds and squirrels to fatten up for winter. The Crepe Myrtle have been in bloom for some time and are actually starting to diminish.

Another sure sign we are fast approaching autumn are all the fall flowers. Here are the dried Hydrangea, some Black eyed Susans and the Autumn Clematis. I would love to hear from someone who knows the name of the plants that sport white or silver top leaves and flowers at this time of the year. I have been calling them Rabbit Tobacco but, I haven't confirmed that with my search of the Internet. Help?

The Queen Anne Lace is doing it's 'bird nesting' and I am feeling the cool changes in the air.

And of course I am now quilting seasonal things such as the Reverse Applique Harvest Grapes.

So all in all I am seeing, sensing and desiring the full pleasure of the crisp, ripe season of autumn.

Do you not say, "There are yet four more months, then comes the harvest? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest." John 4- 35

BEING CRAFTY

It's that time of year for me to bring out my autumn decorating touches. This tin of flowers has been here since spring and I really should have changed it as summer came on but here it is still at the front door. So I grabbed my grapevine wreath that I made a few years ago and did my embellishment's with bittersweet, silk flowers and a little scarecrow to call attention to the harvest season. You may want to double click on the wreath picture to actually see that the base is a grapevine.
Just for fun let me take you back to how I made the wreath.

There are plenty of wild grapevines in the woods and hedgerows. So I just stepped into the brush and cut a vine near the base of the plant and started pulling. Out it came from its entanglement of the other plants and trees.

Here is the start of a wreath.

As I was looking down at the vine I caught a glimpse of my pant leg.

Egads! As I stepped into the brush I was attacked by the insidious Beggerweed (Stick tight) plant. So I bent over and de-burred my socks and pant legs. It was just a minor diversion. The next step in wreath making was to break off the leaf brackets and then ---

starting at the tender and supple small end of the vine I began curling it into the wreath shape and size I wanted. I will need to gather more vine and keep looping it until it is as thick as I want and then you just sit it aside until it is dry. The next vine gets twisted and woven into the first and as it dries it will tighten and firm up quite nicely.

TRIBUTE

In loving memory

Shelly Avo Maynard York

July 9, 1921

August 29, 2009

This is my own Rosie the Riveter, my Aunt Shellie. She grew up here on the mountain and always called her family farm 'home' and today she is being buried in the mountain cemetery where most of her brothers and sister have already been laid to rest. In every sense of the word she has come home.

Like many young people of her time when World War ll happened she answered the call to duty by working at Briggs Aircraft in Detroit as a Riveter building planes. She was out of work when the men came home from war. The world hasn't been the same since these hardy women realized what they were capable in the world of industry.

Out of work Shellie headed to the southland and found work in Atlanta. She stayed in Georgia the rest of her life living, loving, raising a family and working at various jobs and ending her work career at the IRS.

She was a joy and delight to be around and will be missed by all who knew her.

Here Aunt Shellie sits at a reunion of the Hawkins family. (Her mother's family) She sits with Uncle James her brother and the last of the seven brothers. Shellie had three sisters, one of which was my mother. This picture was taken a couple of years ago.