Into the Woods – Page 211 – Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere

Creecy greens (and roadside produce stands)

A mess of creecy greens, probably from South Carolina

Creecy greens have a long history in America. They grew wild, and they appeared in late winter, often when there was still snow on the ground. My dad, who grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, used to say that after a long winter the mountain people developed a strong hunger for something fresh and green. So when the first creecies appeared, they were a feast.

Around here creecy greens can be bought this time of year from roadside markets. I bought these from a roadside produce stand on U.S. 601 near Mocksville. They were relatively pricey — $1.29 a pound. For comparison, cabbage was 39 cents a pound at the same market. The woman who runs the produce stand said she thinks the creecies came from South Carolina. Creecy greens are of the order brassicales, so they are related to cabbage and mustard.

Wintered-over cabbage, 39 cents a pound

Speaking of cabbage, the mountains just to the north of here are cabbage country. Carroll County, Virginia, long known for its cabbage, is diversifying into broccoli as well. I have not yet had a chance to try Carroll County broccoli. Though I have had excellent cabbage in California, there is a tendency in California for cabbage to be pale and fluffy. Proper cabbage should have dark green outer leaves, and it should be as dense and hard as a piece of marble (attention, San Francisco Chronicle food department: you need to do a piece on the dignity, selection, and use of cabbage).

There is only one device I’ve ever seen that chops cabbage quickly and easily for coleslaw, and I’ve tried everything, from blenders to food processors to chopping knives to mandolins. The device is the Wear-Ever salad maker. We had one when I was young. Last month my sister found one in the Goodwill Store at Mocksville, and she was kind enough to let me buy it (I think she wanted it, too). It makes fine slaw, fast, without making a mess and without a lot of waste. It’s a very handy thing to have, because the winter diet here calls for cabbage in some form almost every day.

A Wear-Ever salad maker. They were made in Oakland, California, in the 1950s and 1960s, and maybe earlier for all I know. You might be able to find one on eBay.

The 50-mile rule for local eating is a nice goal (and it might even be possible in a lot of places at some times of year), but for many Americans it’s not workable. I propose as an alternative the 50-year rule: if people in the same place had it 50 years ago, it probably makes economic sense to have it now. I’m no expert on the history of this, but having lived in these parts 50 years ago, it’s clear that the winter foods that were available then are the cheapest and best winter foods available now. This includes Florida oranges, cabbage (from Virginia?), pintos beans (South Carolina? Georgia? Texas?), onions, and potatoes. Fifty years ago, of course, was before the Interstate highway system. I suspect much of this produce came up U.S. Route 1 and went onward to New York and New England. Locally, it probably came by U.S. 601, which is a spur of U.S. Route 1.

Update, 5:50 p.m.:

The finished winter supper: creecy greens with a sweet-and-sour treatment (vinegar, olive oil, and a touch of turbinado sugar); warmed-over pinto beans (with sliced onion); fresh hot flaxseed pone; and salmon cakes. The salmon cakes certainly violate the 50-mile rule, but they don’t violate the 50-year rule. My mother used to make salmon cakes fairly often from canned salmon. This was a premium brand of wild red sockeye salmon from Whole Foods in a 7.5 ounce can. If you’re shipping food from Alaska, canned is the cheapest, which probably means it takes less energy than fresh or frozen salmon. And I admit it. I like fish burgers. This is a low-carb, high-protein, healthy country supper.

Creecy greens, pinto beans, flaxseed pone, and salmon cakes from wild sockeye salmon

More heavy machinery…

The evil machine at rest. It started raining as stone was brought to the driveway, and work had to stop. So the bulldozer waits in place for the ground to dry.

Is there anything uglier than a ditch? I spent hours today working on starting grass in it.

This has been a stressful week. I had far from recovered from having logging machinery on my land. But the septic tank guy and others convinced me that I had no choice but to remove the stumps and that the time to remove them all is now. I found someone nearby with heavy machinery, including a track hoe and a bulldozer. He said he’d prefer to use the bulldozer for the job. He promised that the stump removal would not take away my precious topsoil. We agreed that he would recut the drainage ditch along the road that was crushed by the loggers. And we agreed that he would make a driveway, which he said needed to have a wide enough turnout and wide enough culvert that heavy trucks bringing building materials wouldn’t crush the culvert or run off the driveway. He said he could hide all the removed stumps and brush out of sight beside a ravine at my back property line. He said that it would be a two-day job. The arguments for bringing in a bulldozer are about making a temporary mess now for a better-looking and more productive outcome later.

We agreed on a price, and he started on Monday. By mid-afternoon Tuesday, he was done with everything but hauling the three truckloads of stone for the driveway. Just as the truck arrived with the first load of stone, it started to rain, hard.

I got dripping wet trying to spread annual ryegrass seed on my exposed topsoil. I more or less got it covered, though. The stumps and brush had as he promised magically disappeared. I drove back to Yadkin in heavy rain, certain that the downpour was washing gullies all across the acre that the bulldozer reworked. I took the day off on Wednesday and didn’t go to Stokes. It wasn’t raining, but I knew the ground would be too wet for me to work, and I resisted the temptation to go all the way to Stokes just to see what the rain had done.

Thursday morning I got my first look at everything since the bulldozer and the rain. A miracle: no gullies, no messy runoff, and the little stream was running clear. What a relief. I spent the rest of the day sowing ryegrass and fescue on the ditch beside the road. I spread a straw blanket over the entire ditch. It’s 200 feet long. I put a bale of in front of the culvert. The ditch is unlikely to wash out now. I hope the grass will grow.

As soon as weather permits (more rain is forecast for tomorrow) I’ll give the same straw-blanket treatment to the exposed earth beside the driveway.

The crew that is to put the pump in the well has been delayed. Now they say they’ll be out Monday or Tuesday of next week.

I can already see that I’ll be spending a lot of time this spring getting grass and wildflowers to grow. I’ve decided not to plant the apple trees until fall.

More on flaxseed pones…

I’ve made a lot of flaxseed pones in the last couple of weeks, and I’ve learned from my mistakes. Most important: Don’t put too much liquid into the batter. If the batter is too wet and runny, the pone will never finish baking, and the texture will be gooey and disgusting. Keep the batter thick, so that it stands up when you put it into the baking pan. If the batter is so thin that it runs out to the edges of the pan, then the batter is too thin. Don’t worry if the batter mounds up in the baking pan. It will fill out once it starts to rise in the oven. I don’t quite understand the chemistry of this, because the opposite is true of biscuits. For a proper texture, biscuit dough needs to be as moist as possible. But flaxseed pone batter needs to be thick, thick, thick.

A second hint: Though I think there is no nutritional difference between golden flaxseed and brown flaxseed, the golden flaxseed makes a much prettier pone, the same color as corn bread. In fact, if you get your batter recipe right, many casual eaters of flaxseed pone would think they’re eating cornbread. It’s that good, and the texture of the bread is totally agreeable, in spite of the fact that flaxseed meal is much more like psyllium seed meal than corn meal.

Experienced makers of cornbread already know this, but for the newbies: Well-seasoned cast iron skillets are best for making pones. Get the skillet hot in the oven before adding the batter. If you’re making a supper pone, add some finely chopped onions to the skillet when you put the skillet into the oven to preheat. Half butter and half olive oil in the bottom of the skillet, with the onions sizzling during the preheating of the skillet, will make a fine crust for a supper pone. For a breakfast pone, omit the onions. Onions or not, the batter should sizzle when you pour it into the hot skillet.

The late-winter diet here in North Carolina is starting to change a bit. The Florida oranges seem to be getting more expensive and a bit more dry. But some fine turnip greens are showing up in the stores, cheap and fresh. And I still can’t get over how much better the onions are here than they are in California.

Here’s my earlier post on flaxseed pones.

Also, some Californians don’t seem to know what a skillet is (Hi, Clint and Joshua).

Electricity!, mystery magnolia, and more cleanup

Pulling the wire to the power post

Energy United came out today and lit up my power post. I now have electricity! Which means that I can get a pump in the well and have water soon.

The finished power post

The newly installed electric meter reads 0000 kilowatt hours. There are two 220-volt outlets, a special outlet for the trailer, and four 110-volt outlets.

The trailer will be parked where the Jeep is sitting. It’s a pretty nice campsite if I do say so myself.

I had the tree guys, with their chainsaws and chipper machine, back for a second day. Things look much better, but I still have a lot of brush to deal with. Still, all the chainsaw work is done. The “downer” logs are sawed up and ready to cart off, and all the little injured trees that were sticking up in the air and looking pathetic have been cut down. We used some of the wood chips to pave an area for the trailer and Jeep.

The mystery magnolia now has room to grow.

I have no idea how there came to be a magnolia tree in the middle of the pine woods. It was crowded by brush and honeysuckle, and it wasn’t getting much light because of the pine trees overhead, so it’s a bit spindly. Still, it appears healthy and absolutely determined to grow. We cleaned out all the competition. I’ll feed it. It’s got lots of light and space now, so we’ll see if it will fill out and take off.

… and still more cleanup

Chipping away at the brush pile

To the loggers there were three grades of wood: good logs for the sawmill, sorry logs for pulpwood (but hauled away, at least), and the sorriest logs of all which were left behind for me to saw into firewood.

Two guys and a chipping machine (with a little help from me) spent seven hours today cleaning up after the loggers. We made a dent in it, but much work remains. We’ll spend another day at it tomorrow and see how things look.

The electrician has finished the temporary power post. The county inspector has approved it. As soon as Energy United lights it up, I’ll have electricity. Once I have electricity, I’ll get a pump in the well — and have water! — as soon as possible. Energy United, by the way, is an electric co-op. I haven’t had a chance to look into how their service and rates compare with their competitor, Duke Energy.

This is a 6″x6″x16′ post. It supports 100 amps of service, with lots of outlets, both 110-volt and 200-volt. It wasn’t cheap.

Cleanup, cleanup, and more cleanup…

Evan, my great-nephew, helps me gather brush.

Cleaning up after the loggers is the next priority. I hope the tree guy will be able to bring the brush-chipping machine this week, but I’ve got to work around his other jobs, and the weather. Rain is forecast for Tuesday. I also need to find out if the septic tank man can go ahead and install the septic tank, or whether he needs some stumps removed first. I’d like to get the septic tank done right away, if possible.

Flaxseed: A healthy, low-carb quick bread

This morning’s flaxseed pone.

I frequently say that, after a certain age, we all should eat like diabetics even if we’re not. Bread is the hardest thing to cut down on. On the glycemic index, whole grain bread is no better than white bread. Cornbread also is no better than white bread. But hot bread is essential with the local winter diet, which revolves around (or revolved around, 50 years ago, but it’s still the best and cheapest winter food) pinto beans, cabbage in some form, and onions.

For a while I’d meant to experiment with flaxseed meal, having heard of its many virtues. But I had assumed that it would be difficult to work with. One Internet recipe I came across, for example, used five eggs. Why in the world (I thought) would someone put five eggs in a quickbread unless it was nearly impossible to get it to rise. It turns out that the five-egg recipe was just a stupid recipe.

Flaxseed meal will do anything cornmeal will do. A well-beaten egg definitely helps the batter and texture of the bread, but if you leave the egg out and use a bit of unbleached white flour, the flaxseed bread will rise just fine. I don’t use recipes for quickbreads, nor do you need one if you’re accustomed to making cornbread. The basic ingredients for flaxseed bread are flaxseed meal, a small amount of unbleached white flour, baking powder, and buttermilk. If you substitute flaxseed meal one-for-one for cornmeal in your favorite cornbread recipe, you’ll probably be fine.

The virtues of flaxseed meal are incredible. It’s low carb, high-protein, and low on the glycemic index. Plus, flaxseed is the richest vegetable source of omega-3 oil, almost as rich as fish oil. Flaxseed meal also has the same virtue as psyllium seed.

I’m getting rid of cornmeal and switching to flaxseed meal.

This link is for the Californians who don’t know what a pone is. And by the way, East Coast onions are better than California onions. I haven’t yet figured out why. Georgia?

Cleaning up the mess

The Jeep has become a beast of burden.

The loggers are gone. They left behind a big pile of brush, plus tree-limb litter all over my top acre. There also are a bunch of “spikes,” small trees they ran over that are too injured to live and that look really bad. Fortunately the loggers didn’t disturb much topsoil. There’s an exposed area of soil of about 2,000 square feet where the skidder ran back and forth to the loader, and there’s a spot on the lower end where the skidder got stuck and spun its wheels to get out. It could be worse. They did almost no damage to the road. That’s good, because it means the neighbors won’t be mad at me.

I hauled 12 bales of straw and put straw over the exposed soil. I got a 50-pound bag of annual rye grass seed and spread the seed with an old-fashioned hand-cranked seed spreader, which I bought at the hardware store in Germanton. Next steps: Get a guy with a chipper to give me an estimate on how much it will cost to turn the brush pile into mulch, and get my great-nephew to help me gather up the downed limbs and trim out the spikes. When the litter is picked up and some rye grass is growing, things will look much better.

I’ve been thinking hard about how best to heal and use the upper acre. Right now the plan is to get some wildflower seed in bulk and fling the wildflower seed in April after the danger of frost has passed. Then, at tree-planting time in the fall, I start a little hillside orchard. The area looks bad now, but it would make a beautiful little hillside orchard. The slope and light are perfect for that.

Also yesterday, the electrician brought the temporary power post out, and I helped him put it up. It’s ready for inspection by the county. As soon as the inspection is done, the power company will light up the post, and I’ll have electricity. Once I have electricity, I can put the pump in the well. I think I’ve got to get rid of some stumps before the septic tank can go in, but I’ll talk with the septic guy next week.

Bye-bye, pine trees…

The skidder pulls logs to the loader. (Until today I didn’t know what a skidder is.)

Off to the sawmill.

The view opens up: Behind the pines, beautiful hardwood trees that I won’t touch. The hardwoods will look really nice when the leaves grow out in a couple of months. Californians: the oak, hickory, beech, poplar, and maple trees are de-cid-u-ous, meaning that they grow leaves in the spring and lose them in the fall. Not much of that in coastal California. The tree to the right is called, locally, a cedar, but I believe it technically is a juniper. Junipers, like oak and hickory, are untouchable to a tree-hugger like me and must be left alone.

It’s scary for a tree-hugger to condemn a bunch of pines to the sawmill and see heavy equipment arriving. The loader, they say, weighs 50,000 pounds. The skidder has huge tires filled with fluid. The logger guys have been great, though. They worked very hard to honor my request not to disturb the topsoil any more than absolutely necessary and to avoid damaging the non-pine trees that I want to keep.

By the end of the day today, almost all the pines were down. I’m sure they’ll finish tomorrow. The soil is exposed in the area where the skidder had to run back and forth dragging logs to the loader, but the soil was pretty dry today, and having spent several hours watching them I don’t see how they could have done it any neater than they did. These machines are not exactly small and delicate.

Ready to sell some pine trees…

I met with a timber guy today. He’s going to buy pretty much all my pine trees and get them out of my way. I’ll even make a little money off the deal — a few hundred dollars. I explained that I’m not trying to make money off the trees, that I only want to get the pines off the upper acre so that I can build there and so the young poplars and maples underneath the pines can have light and room to grow.

The aerial photo above is a winter shot. The lower end of the triangle is all hardwood. The green in the upper corner is pine. I’ll be getting rid of most of the pine in the upper corner.

The timber guy agreed to minimize the mess and to disturb the topsoil as little as possible. He’ll strip the limbs off the trees and leave the limbs in a single pile. I’ll need to get a chipper to come in and make a big pile of mulch out of the brush.

The tree work may start next week if we don’t get too much rain.