The Bounty of the Harvest

Stuck in Cleveland waiting for a flight I thought I would do a short post which continues to show off my reputation in the neighborhood as Superdave! I am celebrating a bountiful harvest of luscious Raspberries, Apples, and Pears. When I moved into Dayton, having acreage allowed me to expand my options so the first order was raspberries. I love raspberries! These plants came from Ted Konkel, my sister-in-laws mother. They are ever bearing raspberries meaning they have 2 crops per year. The first crop begins to ripen during the last week in June. These berries are produced on 2nd year canes which have over wintered from the previous year. Along with these canes, new canes begin to grow in the spring. This new growth produces berries around the first to second week in September. Often people simply mow down the canes early in the season, making it easier to care for them however it means you do not get that first crop. I take the time to trim out the dead canes each spring setting myself up for both crops. This years second crop reacted marvelously to the August rains we had and are simply huge, juicy, and extremely flavorful. As well they seem to be about 2 weeks early. This time of year the berry patch is full of bee's, both large wild bumble bees and honey bees from my hives in the back. Picking can be somewhat nerve racking however the bees are really more interested in the flowers than you. A bonus are the hummingbirds that are visiting the raspberries. They are constantly flying around and will actually hover as close as 2 feet from your face, checking out the stranger in their mist. It is pretty cool for sure and I might post pictures later. In the past about half my late crop would freeze out. Hopefully our first frost holds off a little longer.

The next picture shows the wonderful pears that I have in my orchard. Sadly I cannot even remember what kind they are as 2 varieties were planted for proper pollination. My thinking is this one must be the Summer Crisp as my second tree is prolific but the pears are rather bland. I have a third pear tree however they are rather small and soft. The pears pictured are what I call supermarket size. They are a crisp pear variety, very sweet, and are at the peak of ripeness right now. Pear trees have bionic sucker growth especially where they had been previously trimmed. This new growth can sometimes exceed 8 feet per year. This creates a mess in the spring when one needs to clean up the trees for the coming growing season. They have an unusual growth pattern as well with the main branches hugging close to the main trunk. I swear that when pruning in the spring I cut off all the potential pear bearing limbs yet the amount of pears are mind boggling. The branches are so heavy with pears they hang to the ground. Earlier I lost a fairly large limb which could not hold the weight of the fruit.

The last picture is one of my Haralson Apple tree. Haralson's apples are a Minnesota original introduced in 1922 by the Minnesota Horticultural Research Center at the University of Minnesota. Minnesota is the home of many well known including the now popular Honeycrisp. This tree is also very prolific and produces a bumper crop of apples every year. They are fantastic by themselves, great in pie, as well make excellent cider and dried apples. These apples tend to ripen later allowing a more civilized harvest. Along with the Haralson I have Firesides, Honeygolds, McIntosh, Honeycrisp, and an unknown rouge tree that produces the largest apples I have ever seen! I prefer the Firesides and Honeygolds for eating as they are excellent. The Honeycrisp's are good but very hard to grow. I understand why they get $2.99 a pound in the store. If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, I should be good for a long time!

Boating With Dave, Superdave That Is

We have been blessed with a colder than usual July as seen by the surface temperatures of Mille Lacs Lake. It has basically been one cold front after another so the fishing has been up and down like a yo-yo. Saturday was the official breaking in of my neighbors new outdoor kitchen so I decided that Sunday would probably be the best day to head to the pond. My friend and neighbor Lory Brasel shared my boat as we pointed the truck north once again. We got a fairly late start and in addition to fishing I had promised my good friend Bill to help him with his new Apple Ipod touch. I am an Ipod addict and carry one with almost everywhere. They are especially useful for airline travel as a movie can take you to your destination in an instant. I have a 160 gig Ipod classic with over 13,000 songs and 96 movies loaded into it. One never runs out of things to watch or listen to that's for sure. Paired with my Bose Quiet Plus headphones one can disappear into your own world. A few pointers and some Coca Cola, we decided to launch out of Cove Bay. The gravel has been giving up a number of fish this year and I though I would try a new tactic. With really only a few hours left to fish it was worth a try and who knows what success we would experience. Well, not that great! We trolled around the 4 Mile and 5 Mile Gravel with nothing more than a relaxing boat ride to show for our efforts. The wind had almost died and it was a perfect day to be on the lake. As trolling proved to be fruitless we found a couple of deeper rock humps and tried bobber fishing. My good friend John Bathke had just called of their success on the flats earlier that day. One little bite was all we could muster. Our final effort was spent on Anderson Reef looking for some shallow water smallies. The water level is up nicely this year however the recent heavy rains have clouded the water. Sight fishing was out of the question and with zero hits after a tour of the reef we headed back. A quick stop at the Conoco Station for gas and a 2 scoop ice cream cone we called it a day. No fish but relaxing none the less. This is what fishing is supposed to be all about anyway, right?

Attached is a picture of a cauliflower I picked out of the garden on Saturday. It's a dandy and is the perfect prop to show the neighbors. See in our neighbor hood there is a nickname for almost everyone. There is Tim the Toolman, Botz, Przymus ( pronounced scha-moose), Petey, Limo Joe, Snap On Gary, and mine is SuperDave. Although a derivative of SuperDave Osborne, the crazy stuntman, it has more to do with my overall knowledge of everything good. I have a huge garden and the cauliflower just enhances my reputation in the hood. Besides this, the garden contains such delights as asparagus, potatoes, sweet corn, tons of raspberries, onions, blueberries, cucumbers, squash, peas, peppers (3 kinds), kale, tomatoes ( 3 kinds), dill, cilantro, cantaloupe, carrots, radishes, and if one looked hard a rouge horseradish plant or two. Mixed in with a few flowers, it looks pretty good. Along with this I have a small orchard with 10 mature apple trees of various varieties and 3 pear trees that surprisingly offers up delicious pears come the first of September. I also have an uncanny ability to trap pocket gophers. As a young man in the summer I would often ride my bike 3 - 4 miles in the country to trap these unwanted pests. They make large mounds of dirt from their tunneling activity and if in an alfalfa field, can be real hard on equipment that can hit these mounds while cutting. A good friend Jim Anderson (no relation) would give me $0.50 for each gopher and the county had another $0.50 bounty for each pair of front feet brought in. I used to make a lot of money for a 12 year old back then! All these things add up to the nickname Superdave and I try to live up to the expectation. I have more stories but will save them for the future.

Speaking of neighbors, a good friend of everyone passed away on Friday. Like the rest of us we had a name for Jim Olson, it was Pepsi Jim as he worked for Pepsi Cola. He was a great guy, never in a bad mood, and was often seen driving his restored Allis Chambers utility tractor around the neighborhood. Jim fought a tough fight against his cancer but lost the battle. We will miss him and his positive attitude. It is a reminder that everyday is precious and like fishing Sunday, it really doesn't matter if you catch any fish, what matters is that you are able to enjoy the moment. Jim passed away way too early in life, take advantage of what you have.