Dolgo Crabapples are Ripe (Blog 458)

The highlight of my dining week was Elaine fixing Dolgo Crabapple Cobbler several days ago. Folks have no idea how good crabapples can be in breads, pies, cobblers, cookies, and jelly. Our tree produced fairly well this year, but not in an epic way as it did two years ago. In 2017, the tree truly produced gallons of fruit.

I am going to pick again this weekend. This time my goal is for a pie. As is true with crabapple cobbler, crabapple pie tastes very similar to a sour cherry pie. It's even better with vanilla ice cream.

The Delights of Rome Apple Walnut Bread (Bog 457)

One of the simple joys of life is eating the many good things that my wife Elaine cooks. Our Rome apple tree didn't produce much fruit this year, but I was able to pick enough apples for Elaine to cook something.

Rome apples aren't known as a great eating out-of-hand apple, but they are superb cooked. So I asked Elaine to make a bread from them. What "made" the bread were the walnuts that she added to it.

Our next harvest will be the fruit from our Dolgo crab apple tree. We have an article on all the ways     crab apples can be prepared in the current issue of Grit magazine. In about two weeks, the first of these fruits should be ready to pick. And ready for Elaine to turn into something scrumptious.

American Barberry Found on our Johns Creek Land (Blog 456)

Monday evening neighbor John Hudson and I went on a photography foray in Botetourt and Craig counties in Virginia. We stopped first on Elaine's and my 30-acre parcel on Johns Creek in Craig County. I wanted to determine if the oaks had produced acorns with deer season approaching.

When John and I were leaving, we took photos of various plants on the way back to the vehicle. I took some shots of interesting looking plants with bristle-tipped leaves that were growing in small colonies. When I arrived back home, it occurred to me that the plant was American barberry, a native Southern Appalachian plant that is endangered.

I sent a photo of  the plant to friend James Hancock who confirmed that it was indeed an American barberry. That identification is one more reason I'm glad that Elaine and I put the land under a conservation easement with the Virginia Outdoors Foundations and the Blue Ridge Land Conservancy. We have a vernal pool on the land, a spring, and the land also adjoins Johns Creek - so there is much to preserve about the land, now, including, an endangered plant. Also, in the November/December issue of Virginia Wildlife, I am supposed to have a story on conservation easements and their importance to hunters, anglers, birders, and anyone who values wildlife and wildlife habitat.

Wild Turkey Poults Spotted This Morning (Blog 455)

This is the first week of school where I live in Botetourt County, Virginia, so I have been walking earlier than usual in the morning. This morning while doing so, I spotted four mother hens and approximately 16 poults bugging for grasshoppers in a field. No doubt they were eating a wide variety of wild plants as well.

Yesterday after school, Elaine and I released our two mother hens with their eight chicks and watched them bug and search for clover. Once again I was reminded how similar the behavior of chickens and turkeys is. After all, they are both gallinaceous birds. They scratch the same way, flock and roost in similar fashions and have a shared passion for bugs, clover, and dandelions. The hens even share joint mothering duties, as was evident in the turkey flock I observed this morning, and the actions of the two mother hens in our run.

Cockerel Behavior (Blog 454)

The eight chicks that our hens Mary and Wednesday have been nurturing are all about six to seven weeks old now. As is usually the case, half are cockerels and half are pullets. The truth and reality are that we can't keep all four of the cockerels in the run but a month or so longer. Posturing and small skirmishes are daily events for the four young roosters, but before too much longer, these skirmishes will likely become more intense and more disruptive to the overall flock.

We already have two good roosters, four-year-old Don, the patriarch of the flock and one of his offspring, Friday, who will be a year old in October. We really don't need a third rooster since we only have two pens. Elaine and I  have named the biggest of the four cockerels, appropriately enough, Mr. Big. The other three will remain nameless and will be eaten by the end of August. Whether we will keep Mr. Big beyond Labor Day is the point worth pondering.