Each Little World

No foolin'

Many parts of the country have suffered through a long, cold, very snowy winter. Unfortunately we count ourselves among that group. Though the temps have risen significantly and we've seen a fair amount of sunshine, the snow is lingering to say the least. You can get a sense of what I mean in this group of photos that comprise a brief tour of our front and back gardens. I wish it were an April Fool's joke but we're not laughing!

Looking west from the driveway:

Looking towards the house from the street:

A tighter shot of the same view shows how dirty, hard and crusty the snow is at the end of the season. Nothing pretty about it. The brown leaves you see on the left are Acers that hold their leaves all winter.

Looking from the east edge of our lot line where you can see our neighbor's bags of chopped leaves in his annual Maginot Line of demarcation:

We've come around the east side of the house and are now looking up the dry stream and across the pond (in the center) to the tea house:

Snow or no, we did grill out on Easter yesterday. Looking west across the deck:

If you enlarge this photo, you can see the clump of bamboo is righting itself after being buried under snow since Dec. 19. Pretty amazing recovery. This view is looking southwest from the front edge of the deck:

The next three images were all taken in the southwest corner of the garden where the big Austrian pine came down in December and took out two other trees. You can see sawdust, logs, the big stump and broken tree trunks:

The stump in the background (above) is a crabapple that we took out a number of years ago. The one sign of Spring that has me excited is the arrival of the first snowdrops. These are all doubles growing next to the cement foundation of the house on the south side. I picked my first bouquet to put on the kitchen windowsill for Easter. 

Warming comfort food

December's snow and the current very cold snap we're in the midst of here, have got me cooking non-stop. There's nothing like a hot oven and a kitchen filled with good smells to take the chill out of winter. Last fall I bought a new cookbook — "Long Nights and Log Fires: Warming Comfort Food for Family and Friends." I found it at Cluck The Chicken Store, which I wrote about not too long ago. 

The book is published by Ryland, Peters & Small and is not a title I've seen elsewhere, so I was happy to discover it at Cluck. The photos that accompany almost every recipe made the book an easy sell for me. A cookbook is not one of those things that I would buy online, sight unseen. I want to read the recipes and get a sense of the content before I plunk down my money.

Ever since I brought "Long Nights" home, it's been sitting by my favorite reading spot where I can dip into it when I'm wondering what to make for dinner. The soups are one of the strongest sections of the book. I've made a number of them, all delicious: "roasted tomato soup with rarebit toasts," "slow-cooked onion and cider soup, and "monkfish, fennel and saffron bourride with harissa aioli." The cider soup was interesting because it uses veggie stock instead of beef (which is how I've usually made it), plus hard sweet cider and egg yolks which gives it a lighter color and a more subtle flavor.

I've also made a hearty "smokey sausage and bean casserole" with chipotle sausages, cannellii beans, smoked paprika and maple syrup. The next recipe I want to try is an entree: "sticky pork tenderloin with a pecorino crust, mustard mash and balsamic onions." Doesn't that sound yummy? At least to those of you who eat meat.

The dishes illustrated in the photo above (clockwise from bottom left) are: "goat cheese, leek and walnut tart," "egg, bacon and spinach pie," and "real treacle tart with carmelized bananas."

A new year and a new garden

This is not about what you probably think based on the above heading. We just had the worst storm-related damage that we've experienced in our garden since we started creating it in 1997. This view of the driveway — after we'd spent the better part of two days clearing it out — gives you an idea of the volume of snow we had.

As a result of the Dec. 20th snowstorm, a 60-year-old Austrian pine came down and took out two other trees — the mainstays of my most successful shade garden, formerly known as The Sacred Grove. I won't know how much shade I still have in this garden until Spring when the snow is gone and we can really assess the damage. We are pretty sure that a lot of evergreen shrubs were affected as well.

Sixteen inches of wet, heavy snow with high winds, falling branches and trees played havoc in almost every area of the garden. Not to mention the utility guys clomping around repairing the wires the trees took down. The snow was lovely when you weren't hearing the branches as they broke. 

Our Pagoda dogwood, planted just off the deck in 1997, suffered at least four major broken branches in the center of the tree. After pruning, it will really have that wedding cake look; actually more like a cake with a layer missing! 

A big old lilac had its limbs tossed all over the garden. If you didn't know better you would think it was the top of a shrub buried in the snow instead of the top of a tree.

The evergreen tree in the center of the picture below is an Austrian pine, one of a group of three that were all planted around the time the house was built in 1954. This one lost its leader early on and a secondary branch clearly took over as the new leader. The positive result was a wonderful curving silhouette that added a nice visual punch to the garden.

The negative result is the fact that this growth pattern weakened the tree and made it susceptible to twisting — and breaking — in December's big storm, as you can in the picture below. This image was taken the day after the worst of the snow. Look closely and you can see the break in the trunk in the right side of the picture about 8-10' above ground.

This next picture gives a clearer view of the damage. It was taken from the same location as the photo above but a couple of weeks later, after Mark and a friend had done some pruning and much of the snow had melted. You can see how the trunk is secured by ropes to a neighboring tree. This is to keep is from dropping on a Pagoda dogwood that is growing beneath it.

Amazingly the tree did not damage the fence and gate since its many branches kept most of the tree elevated above ground, hinged in place where the trunk had not completely broken.

Mark took the following shot from the ladder and it gives you a view of the bare trunks of the 15-year-old Washington Hawthorn that the pine took out when it fell. This area is planted with ferns, Hellebores, primroses, dwarf conifers and on and on. The loss of the pine, the Hawthorne and a Magnolia sieboldii may spell the end for this garden which faces south but was always nicely shaded.

Mark bought the orange sled to haul the branches and logs down to the curb where the city told residents to pile their storm debris to have it picked up. After he finished hauling brush over a number of days, he sat down and slid down the 200' of sloping paths he'd created from the back garden down to the curb. 

Our lot is about 100' feet wide and the debris from our downed trees was piled the width of it and about 3' deep. We watched the city worker picking it all up with big claws on the end of an articulated arm and dropping everything into his big dump-type  truck. Mark went out to thank him for his great work and he was really taken aback. Folks are more likely to complain than compliment him, he said. He also noted that he lives outside Madison and that folks in his community don't get the kind of municipal services we have in Madison. We pay a lot in taxes in Madison but we definitely get Cadillac services, worth every penny. 

Now that I've had almost a month to get used to the loss of these trees, I'm beginning to calm down and accept the fact that a big change is coming to the garden. It's too densely planted in that area where the trees came down and too inaccessible to just put in another big tree. I am most likely going to just enjoy my plants when they come up this year and then pack them up for the plant sales. I think this area is about to become a low maintenance sun garden: a few peonies, some evergreen shrubs and groundcovers — and great memories of the glories that won't come again. 

It's raining . . .

and has been doing so since some time after midnight Friday. We've had 2.56" so far, including .75" in just a little over two hours this morning. Enough rain that it may have been able to penetrate our bone dry soil. Definitely enough to penetrate our basement where Mark got to try out his new shop vac.

After watching (via the library window) our dry stream come roaring to life (above), Mark grabbed an umbrella and went outdoors to shoot the fall color in our garden which looks beautiful glazed with rainwater (below).

This is the most significant rain we've had since July 18. We're down at least 10" for the year, so it will take a lot more before the garden is in ideal condition for winter!  

Fall baking

Back-to-back pot-luck parties made me turn on the oven for the first time in weeks. I made two batches of my old standby brownies. And then I tried a recipe that I had pulled out of Martha's magazine back in March: Irish-Coffee Blondies. 

Since I had to carry the cookies to the party locations, I pulled out a couple of tins from a collection that I've amassed over the years and use to store/transport cookies rather than a traditional cookie jar. The two pictured above are among my favorites and have held a lot of treats over the years. Churchill was a gift from a long-ago boyfriend. I bought the tin commemorating Queen Elizabeth's Silver Anniversary while I was in Chicago for a day on a job interview in 1977. 

Here I am, pulling the bars out of their travel tins and arranging them on a serving tray. I always cut brownies into "fingers" so I get a few more bars out of the recipe, but also so they are the right size for everyone who just wants a sweet "bite" of dessert. The Blondies are supposed to be cut into 2-inch squares but I cut them in half again — on the diagonal — and that smaller size seemed just right to me.

You can click on the link at the top for Marth's recipe for Blondies and here's mine for Brownies.

BEST BROWNIES I EVER TASTED 

(I gave them this name after I requested the recipe having enjoyed them at a party.)

Melt 2 squares of unsweetened baking chocolate and 1 stick butter (8 Tablespoons) in a medium saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in 1 cup granulated sugan, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and the finely grated rind of a large orange. When this mix is cool, stir in 2 eggs (one at a time). Mix well and add 3/4 cup of flour.

Pour into a 8-inch square pan lined with parchment paper and bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees. You can cook them a bit longer for a cakier texture. I like the brownies in the center of the pan to have the consistency of chocolate truffles: solid but soft, so I always cook them the shorter time. I test with my finger and consider them done when a light touch no longer leaves an impression. And then I double check with a broom straw.

Cut into 24-32 pieces and dust with powdered sugar. The orange rind adds a touch of sophistication to the brownies and is always a surprise that gets lots of rave reviews.

Here's the view from the screened porch at the country party where these photos were all taken. The hosts had big stacks of china and cutlery gathered from thrift stores which you can see silhouetted and long tables covered with bright green fabric where all the pot-luck offerings were assembled. We had a wonderful time and I also picked up lots of great party organizing ideas! 

Obama gets his groove back in Madison

POTUS was in Madison yesterday and spoke to a crowd of 30,000 on UW's Bascom Hill. He was the Obama who was missing in action Wednesday night at the debate. Here's a report from The Progressive magazine and a great set of photos from Isthmus. And here's one of the things he said:

 

September at ACG

Last week I visited Allen Centennial Gardens on the UW-Madison campus with Julie Siegel, a Chicago-area garden designer, blogger and friend. The garden is a teaching garden for the university but it is also free and open to the public. It was a perfect day for a visit with blue skies and few clouds, evidenced by this shot of the decorative details on the house once used by the Deans of the Ag School. 

On the ground, however, it was a bit sunny for capturing the best photos. I took this shot of Geranium dalmaticum to remind me that mine is planted in the wrong spot in my garden judging by how happy it seems to be here.

Every time I visit ACG I discover something that is completely new to me — like this seedpod of Datura. I've seen this plant growing in many gardens but never at this season when it has these huge pods along with its last few flowers.

Ed Lyon, the director of ACG, always creates exciting mixes of edibles and ornamentals.  

And he's an expert when it comes to color in the garden: whether it's flower and foliage combinations or art objects that he adds for emphasis. Every one of the following images offers ideas for home gardeners looking to do something a little different. (These tubes are painted PVC).

I particularly like blues that have a touch of gray or green as accent colors in the garden, and Ed must also judging by all the ways he employs it at ACG.

When I was at ACG at the end of June, I was taken with the clumps of peachy-pink hollyhocks that picked up the trim color of the Dean's house. This visit, it was the seedheads that matched the Cream City bricks.

Cluck. The Chicken Store.

The mere name of this new little shopping emporium (see above and below) makes me start humming that song from The Music Man: "Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little, cheep, cheep, cheep." Somehow I never pictured myself falling in love with a business that caters to chickens and their fanciers, and yet there I was: out in Paoli admiring chicken coops. 

And though Cluck caters to chickens, they're only one part of the vision of owner Susan Troller. I am admitting right here that I am a friend of Troller's as well as her former editor, and I know from personal experience that whatever she turns her hand to, it will be well worth my attention. Cluck is no exception.

Cluck is the latest tenant in a hundred-year-old building that has housed everything from a blacksmith to a gas station. The original curved ceiling trusses still bear the painted warning "no credit." You can tell from this view of the shop's interior that Cluck is about more than chickens. While Troller is a lover of many kinds of animals and a "chicken wrangler" with a laying flock of six on her family's farm in New Glarus, Cluck is a much needed new home for all of us would-be domestic divas. Pull up a chair, sit down and peruse Troller's nicely "curated" displays, as the shelter mags like to say. 

The front half of the store is a gallery-cum-gift shop with chicken and country-themed art, old and new. Merchandise ranges from witty tea towels, stuffed pillows, mugs and sets of dessert plates, to vintage ice cream molds and a gorgeous cabbage-shaped soup tureen.  

There are books for kids, practical tomes for those who want to raise chickens (or bees!) and a tantalizing array of titles for the rest of us. I snapped up one on natural home decor and also a delcious cookbook of fall and winter dishes. Both titles are from a UK publisher and a nice change from what I find at B&N these days.  

 "Cluck," Troller's own book published by Wisconsin's Itchy Cat Press, is also for sale as is the new 2013 Wisconsin Local Foods Journal/Calendar.

And for those of us who still can't figure out why chickens are the fastest growing hobby in America, Troller has some adorable peeps in the shop. While they are not for sale, she'll help anyone who's serious abut chickens get started with advice, information, chicken feed and more. Live chickens are one of the few things Troller doesn't stock!

The chickens above are known as Lavender Orpingtons, and while they are beautiful, I fell for this rubber chicken coin purse. There are also full-size versions which are equally tempting. The big ones would also work to carry knitting or whatever project you might be schlepping around. 

Cluck's decor includes this feed sack from Troller's grandfather, Irvin Johnson.

There are chicken coops for sale that are as pretty as they are well made. Cluck will be hosting a meet the coop builders event on Sat. Sept. 29th.

Among the assorted artworks were a series of nicely-framed black and white illustrated covers from a British poultry publication called "The Feathered World." They'd be perfect for adding a spot of color to a kitchen or a touch of history to a library or den.

And perhaps my favorite find at Cluck, this pile of fluff from the British toy company, Jellycat. A young friend of Troller's recommended "Matilda Hen," with the pronouncement that "children love this toy." Matilda and her friends will charm more than children. 

Cluck is open every day but Monday. For times, events and blog posts visit Cluck's website. 

Southwestern Wisconsin: An early morning walk

A day in the country

Saturday afternoon we drove out into the Wisconsin countryside for a Harvest celebration hosted by friends. On our way we stopped to see painter Chuck Bauer who was exhibiting his work in his "Hen House Gallery" as part of the 14 South Artists annual tour. We've known Chuck for many years but I'd never been out to the farm to see his paintings in the location where many of them were painted — including "My Front Yard and Road" — which came home with us as souvenir of a perfect autum afternoon.