And it’s all ice……   let’s start with the beautiful:

Glorious color and line!

And then, the good:  my favorite tree in the whole 11 acres, an OLD apple tree alongside the driveway that still bears a lot of fruit (not great for eating off the tree, but good for baking or feeding the wildlife), is in good shape—this is the tree that must become a quilt:

Hallelujah: at least this, my favorite tree, is safe! I so love the lines of this tree, the architecture of it, and only one small branch broke off…wooohooo!

And the bad–the birch broke more over the night.  Broke beyond salvation I think.   Sigh.  I would replace it, the bark is glorious, but I fear it would suffer the same fate.  Maybe a crabapple–lower down, fruit for the birds, the wild turkeys clean up the mess that falls, flowers in spring, entertainment watching the critters……..sigh.   At least we enjoyed it for three years:

The river birch is toast. Sigh. It was so beautiful. I’m hoping I can salvage some of the bark and use it somehow in a collage or mixed media piece. So beautiful. Well, it was.

And the expensive–Asst. Coach True Bragg has a tree business, so his brother Max is coming over with a chainsaw so we can get off the property.  There are three spots where trees need to come down or get whacked back so we can get out.

Just one of the trees that is down, this one only partially blocking the drive.

To give you an idea of how much ice…..

Currently it is raining, despite an air temp of 25 degrees.  Water is dripping off the roof, running down the crust of ice on the snow in rivulets (which is better than rivers).  I only hope the rain is warm enough it will melt some of the ice on the driveway instead of creating more ice on the driveway–I need to buy food for Christmas!  I figure one trip to town later today and I can hole up until at least Thursday!

So I’ll leave you with more pictures that illustrate “the tree that does not bend will break” and some winter beauty.   Heard a big crack and thump when I was out of a large limb breaking across the road, and expect there will be quite a lot of that in the coming days.  Not sure if I want wind or not.  It would cause more damage, but at least it would shake a lot of the ice off (I hope) and prevent some, too.  We shall see what the days bring.

Close-up….might make a good thermofax screen.  This is my beloved apple tree.

A shrubby “weed tree” that will get a serious pruning today. This would also be a cool thermofax screen. Our plow guy had to cut some branches just to get his sand truck up the driveway!

The tree that does not bend……

On that bent over tree, the branches look like coral, except in ice. Another hand picture to give a sense of how MUCH ice there is.

Pine needles laden with ice.

This could make a good small art quilt, too….

Another thermofax screen? I can see fiddling with this one in Photoshop, outlining the ice in a fine line of black, then the branches.  This is another of the old apple trees, quite a tall one with lots of gnarly growth and twigginess.

The birch on the right is almost as tall as the one to the left–when it isn’t iced and bent to the ground! Don’t know if it will make it, but at least it isn’t in the driveway.

And a last bit of beauty..looking to the woods on the left of the drive at the bend in the driveway—beautiful.  I’d say it would be a good day to hike/snowshoe (which I have never done b ut always wanted to do), except that the snow is like a skating rink also.  The crust is thick enough to support you for just a moment, before you crash through.   Guess not, eh?

Beautiful!!!

For today’s Christmas carol, we’re heading overseas.  In high school, Mme. Tuomala (as you might guess she was our French teacher at San Domenico School) taught us French carols, and I always loved Il est ne le divin enfant (the holy child is born).  I have a version that includes Ca Bergers (sorry, don’t know how to make the cedille and the accents in French on my laptop), sung by Kate and Anna McGarrigle.  Here is a version on Youtube; skip to the 2 minute point where the singing begins.

Mme. Tuomala met a US soldier during World War 2 whom she married and then immigrated to the U.S.  Her mother, Mme. Peyrol, also came and also taught at San Domenico.  I remember my classes and Mme. Tuomala (who was always Mme. Tuomala and never Violette to me).  I learned so much from her that I went straight into Advanced French in college and tested well when I entered the Foreign Service.  She was from Provence, and maybe some day I will get to visit her native home.  I can still remember her telling the story of her dog, alerting him to an intruder in the yard:  “Chat! Chat!” and watching him go berserk yapping at the cat on the other side of the sliding door!

As we approach solstice, I think we can all relate to the idea of lighting a candle in the dark (well, here in the Northern Hemisphere anyway!).  As Arlo Guthrie noted on a favorite album, Precious Friend, you can’t have a light without a dark to put it in.   Though this song comes from the tradition of lighting the candles at Hannukah, it is a light that we all share.

One of my holiday traditions is to watch my DVD (started with casssette tape, added the CD, then the DVD) of the Peter Paul and Mary Holiday Concert.  If my family is lucky, I do this when I am alone out in the house, because I belt out many of the songs as loud as my not-so-great voice can!

And another favorite from that concert–The Magi:

Yesterday on Facebook I posted a youtube link to a favorite carol.  Then I decided it might be fun to post here, as well, and every day for the coming week share one of my favorite carols from my Christmas Vocals playlist.  I have more pieces that are instrumentals, but I’ve decided that while the instrumentals are great in the background (like at Christmas dinner), I prefer SONGS–the kind with words where I can join along (at least when alone in the car so I don’t break someone’s ears!).   Today’s carol is a new one, by quilting’s own Ricky Tims.  I’ve lived in small towns since 1998, and I can’t imaging going back to living in a city (even a small one) or suburbs.   Love the scale of life, the pace of life, the unexpected joy of running in to someone I know.

And photos from yesterday and this morning.  We have a glorious lot of snow this year before Christmas, so yesterday I walked the dog down our driveway (which is long, 3/10 mile) to the mailbox so I could shovel out the plow heap and get mail.  This was the view along the way down:

Walking down the driveway. Our house is in the middle of a large rectangle. The other lots are on the outside, ours is in the middle, so we have a 3/10 mile driveway that is a narrow strip between the two neighbors, then it makes an “L” around the bottom of our lot up to the house. This is on the bottom of the L, looking to the straight part between the log house on the right and the other one (hidden) in the woods on the left.  The willows had grown from shrub to Godzilla (each one) and were threatening the swallow cars on the driveway, so they got a major buzz cut recently.  LOVE the look of the stubs (and fear not, they will recover and grow with wild abandon again).

After clearing the plow pile by the mailbox, on the way back up the sunlight streamed through the woods (now on the right as you walk back uphill) and lit the beech leaves. I LOVE how the leaves refuse to let go all winter, only dropping when new growth pushes them off.  There is a quilt in the tenacity of the beech tree.

My favorite tree, a very old, prolific apple. It is on the right as you walk uphill (left looking down, as here). This tree is SO going to be a quilt!  Maybe this winter if I don’t goof off!

And this row of evergreens (opposite my beloved apple tree) planted by the former owner on the property line. Usually we have wind with the snow, so don’t have the frosted look too often.

And taking a step or two beyond the apple tree and looking uphill, you see the big meadow, the hedgerow/stone wall in the middle left, there’s another meadow (i.e. not-mown place) and the house at the crest of the hill (just to the left of the sun). Midday in Maine as we approach the solstice.

And this morning from Route 131 in Appleton, looking southeast. Isn’t that sky and sun and rays glorious? When I was about 4, we returned to the US from Argentina and stayed with my gramma a while. I had to go to Sunday school and learned all about angels. I also saw escalators for the first time (early 60s) and was enchanted as they didn’t have those where I had lived in Argentina. I wondered how angels got from Heaven to Earth, then saw the sun rays and figured they must be escalators for the angels. So forever after, Angel Escalators–even my kids know that’s what they are.

Enjoy your holidays.  Don’t let the hustle and bustle of the season distract you from the beauty around you and the joy of being in a place and with the people who make life wonderful.

And for those of you not on FaceBook yesterday, here is yesterday’s, Emmanuel God With Us by Amy Grant, which my dear friend Deborah Boschert shared with me years ago and has become a favorite.

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Guess what I did today? And yes, that is a 7 cubic yard cart behind the lawn tractor nearly full of apples. From just two trees. That still have more apples.

It’s all about apples.   The prep work for teaching in  Houston is nearly done, and the last of the apple trees are seriously laden.  They won’t last until AFTER going to International Quilt Festival in Houston, so I figured I’d best harvest today.

This tree is so old, and I love the architecture of the tree. In winter when it is bare, the branches are like sculpture. In spring the blossoms are a soft pink, and in summer and fall the apples grow and grow. This year we had these unbelievable clusters, and some of the apples are as large as grocery store apples, not the usual apricot size on most of the 20+ old trees on our property.

This all started in early 2011 when the owner of this property (which became ours in February 2011) told me the previous summer he had harvested 52 **bushels** of apples and had them made into cider.  Let’s be honest:  I have NO interest in being a farmer, harvesting 52 bushels of anything, let alone turning it all into cider.  But….How could I let all those good apples this year go to the critters and bugs?  I have to do something with them….

I filled this big bucket about halfway with the red apples and twice with the red-green ones. 

This year we had a bumper crop of apples and peaches.  We had maybe 30 peaches (the previous two summers our maximum was 3, yep, three) and a gazillion apples and even a tree-full of pears, tho the latter never got above 2 inches long (if that).

Back when rhubarb started growing, fellow Frayed Edges member Kate Cutko made us a rhubarb crumble that was delicious–and really easy:  Ch0p fruit.  Make a crumble topping.  Make a slurry of water, cornstarch and sugar.  Put half of crumble in bottom of baking dish, add fruit, top with remaining crumble, pour sweet slurry on top of everything, and bake.  Then EAT.

I figured I could try that recipe with apples instead, and it worked!   The only problem was that our apples are SMALL–some no larger than an apricot (and not the honking big ones they now grow, but regular apricots), which meant a lot of peeling.  So I boiled ’em a few minutes until it was easy to peel (turns out the peel is thick, these were clearly apples meant for animal feed a century-plus ago!).  Sliced up fruit, etc.  Both Kate’s and my recipes are at the end of this post.  ENJOY!

Here is what I learned today:

• You really can shake the apple tree.  Well, sort of.  Our trees are not on dwarf stock like you-pick orchards.  They are 20 or more feet tall, and I’m lucky if I can jump up and snag the lowest branch.  So I grabbed the rake and used it to “grab” a branch and shake as many apples loose as I could.  Then I switched to a different branch.

• It is possible to shake the old apple tree and not get pelted, for the most part.  However it is advisable to look down in case an apple hits you.  Eyeglasses are expensive.   Fortunately, I thought of this before getting whacked.

• If you shake an apple tree where it hangs over the crumbling old stone wall, any apples that land on it will split open.  BUMMERS.

• If you shake an apple tree over bare ground it is much easier to retrieve the apples than if they fall into the thicket under the trees.  Next year I will learn how to use the bushwhacker (a weed whacker on steroids) and will use it to clear under the trees FIRST.  Then I will shake.

If you are going to shake the apple tree, it is better when the apples land on dirt. Not so good when they land on the rocks.

• Our wild turkeys are  thorough, effective groundskeepers. If apples fall, and they can reach them (there were some old windfall apples in the crevices in the falling rock wall), they will eat them.  All of them.  Do not delay in picking up fallen apples.

We have two clans of wild turkeys this year. One is about nine, the other about 19. The babies are now nearly full-grown. That’s a lot of turkey! The bunch of them moving through the woods is surprisingly  noisy. And I know they like apples because they were rather startled from a tasty meal the other day as I walked pas with Pigwidgeon.

• From the deer scat, it appears our deer are also very effective groundskeepers.  We almost never see them other than hoofprints in the driveway (or snow), but they are clearly here.  Recently.  Pooping.  The apples will be VERY WELL WASHED.  Very well.

• If the turkeys and deer don’t eat the apples, the slugs and bugs will.

• It’s a good thing we have an old spare fridge in the basement.  And it works.  It’s the kind with the plastic freezer compartment inside.  It is now filled with apples.  The smallest ones are in the built-in egg spots.  Every available space if filled:  the door shelves, the whole thing.  Full.  I will be busy when I get back from Houston!

• Homemade apple crumble is really good.  Ice cream or just plain heavy cream poured on it is delectable.

After moving to Maine, I learned that a barn is just a two-horse (or even one-horse) garage of yesteryear.  And I learned that every farm had at least two apple trees.  We now live in Hope, one half mile from Appleton (as in AppleTown).  Everywhere in Maine you see in the re-grown forests apple trees, still living on for decades after those who planted them died and the farms disappeared.

And recently from Fedco Garden Supplies, I learned that most of those apples were used for animal feed and cider.  Guess there’s a reason why the previous owner had ’em made into cider!  Fedco has a totally cool page about old Maine apples here and more information on how to prune and revitalize old trees.   Wonder how much it would cost to have True (Bragg, Eli’s wrestling coach who has a tree business) come prune these two trees?  But only after I take more photos.  That tree needs to be a quilt!

I’m planning on turning some of the apples into applesauce.  The others will become fixin’s for crumble.  I think I’ll slice up and freeze the larger apples.  Then I’ll make a batch of crumble, and just bake up one portion at a time.  However, I can attest that if you make an entire crumble and no one else in the house will eat it (what is WRONG with them?), your crumble will keep up to a week and re-heat very nicely in an oven-proof bowl in the toaster oven.   Good with cream.  YUM! Next time I’ll take pictures before I eat it all.  Ahem. I have no one to blame for my tight pants but me, but at the moment I’d eat a bowl in a nano-second!

Here’s Kate’s recipe (which is Jane’s Recipe):

Janes rhubarb Crumble

1 c brown sugar
1 c oats
1 c flour
1 stick butter

Mix all together and spread half of the mixture in the bottom of a greased 9×11 pan.
Over that, spread 3-4 cups of chopped rhubarb.  Top with remaining crumble mix.

In a small saucepan, mix
1 c water
1 c sugar
1 heaping Tbl. Cornstarch.
Heat until thickened. Pour over rhubarb\crumble.
Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes.
Best served with vanilla ice cream or yogurt.

And my variation:

Topping:

• 1 c brown sugar
• 1 c oats
• 1 c flour
• 1 stick butter
• Cinnamon, cardamom and any other spices you like…I think I used 1 tsp. (heaping?) cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom and a pinch of ground cloves.  Next time I’ll add a bit of ginger and a bit more cardamom, cloves, and maybe some fresh-ground nutmeg.

Mix all topping ingredients together and spread half of the mixture in the bottom of a greased round casserole dish.

Liquids:

• In a small pyrex measuring cup, mix
• 1/2 c water
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 heaping Tbl. Cornstarch.
• Heat in Microwave for 1-2 minutes until thick.
• I think I added a bit of cinnamon and cardamom here, too.

Peel, core and slice apples.  Toss with thickened liquid. Place in pan.  I used a round souffle / casserole dish–probably 3 inches deep, 9 across, and I filled it nearly to the top with apples.

Add remaining topping to (well duh!) the top.

Bake at 375 degrees (sorry, haven’t a clue what this would be in Europe…we bake cakes at 325 to 350 degrees, so just a bit warmer temp).

I forgot/misread Kate’s recipe, so I put the liquids on the apples instead of on the top (I thought the crumble would get soggy).  I think next time I will try it on top as the crumble was powdery from the flour.  Or I’ll pulse the crumble in the mini food processor to get the butter into much smaller pieces.