It's one of those special days in the Ozarks

As they would say in the hills, "I think we have it whupped now!" They would be talking about spring and the shedding of winter. They would be taking to the woods carrying a poke (that's a sack) for the mushrooms that are akin to ghosts on the floor of the forest. (And ever so yummy.)

These photos from our morning walk are fresh. They depict a spring of 2011 that is still in its infancy, but coming on like gang busters.We were able, this morning, to catch dogwood blooms in stages of development. Soon those trees will appear like white smoke drifting through the pale green woodlands.

Guests in the cabins this morning are trying their hand at fishing in the river. We will await a report later today.

It is a rare day at Rock Eddy Bluff.

On our next foray we will be looking for mushrooms. We will let you know how that turns out.

The Hired Man and Missus

Check availability for spring. We have several openings for you..

Spring comfort

It is the time of year that the weather does not quite know what it is up to. It is erratic. It is like a teenager entering puberty. Things change day to day, hour by hour. It seems there is no reasoning with March weather.

Still, as the brown hills begin to awaken and dream of the coming green, there is comfort to be obtained during the lengthening days. Here is one: Fire. A gentle blaze is always a comfort here at Rock Eddy Bluff, but when cool March winds envelope the hills, a fire in the stove or fireplace is certain to provide a special comfort.

Here is a prescription for relaxation at The Bluff: A long walk in the woods and then a fire. Outside, the buds are swelling, daffodils are poking their shoots upward, while inside the cabin there is the crackle and the flicker of fire.

There is also comfort food. We now propose to add to your recipe collection for Pie. Coming through New Mexico recently, we stopped at Pie Town, a small, mostly abandoned village on the historic cattle drive route. There, the drovers could always depend upon pie for all the hands. “Get into Pie Town and bring us some Pie”, the foremen would command. So, we stopped there at the Daily Pie Café. A scrumptious breakfast was followed by a piece of New Mexican Apple Pie. It was top notch and slightly modified from ordinary apple pie. And, they were willing to divulge the recipe.

_________________________________________

New Mexican Apple Pie (From Daily Pie Café, Pie Town, NM)

Ingredients

4 large granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 c. sugar
4 T. flour
2 t. cinnamon
¾ t. nutmeg
2 ounces of New Mexican (Hatch) green chili, hot or mild or more! to taste
2 ounces of pinon nuts
1 T lemon juice

Peel, core and put apple slices into large mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients mix well.
Set aside to blend flavors while the crust is being prepared.

Pastry crust (makes four crusts)
This recipe will use two crusts.
The other two can be frozen for future use always handy and makes for a speedy pie.

3 cups of flour
¼ t. baking powder
1 t. salt
½ c. salted butter
½ c. shortening
1 egg
1 T. white vinegar
1/2 c. ice cold water

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter and shortening to pea sized pieces with pastry knife or fork and knife(do not use your hands yet). In separate bowl, mix egg, vinegar and water. Add wet mix to flour mixture small amounts at a time and blend with spoon or pastry cutter until dry ingredients are moist and form a ball (more or less water may have to be added depending on moisture content of flour).

Roll into a ball wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour. Divide dough into four sections. Roll out one section on a floured board to fit 9” pie pan. Put crust into pan. Place apple mix , mounded in the center. Top with one rolled section of crust. Flute edges, cut vent holes into top crust. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle natural sugar on top (optional). Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, turn, then 400 degrees for 45 minutes to an one hour. Pie is done when golden brown and juices bubble thickly around the outer edge. Serve with vanilla ice cream (highly suggested).

They say it is the little things in life...... The Hired Man

The Afterglow

Recently I wrote using the metaphor of estrus for the world of springtime flora here in the Ozark hills. (OK, estrus is commonly referred to as "heat" in animals, as in "my dog is in heat.") I thought the metaphor was apt, so I will continue it. Children cover your ears.

The stage we are now in I could describe as post-coital. Pollen has covered roofs, cars, decks and the interior of lungs for a couple of weeks now. The oak trees are spent. Catkins (see photo) litter the ground and clog gutters. They are everywhere, but then we are in the woods and have been surrounded by this sexual frenzy.

For the oak trees - the most dominant species here - I suspect the fun is complete and they are now to get down to the business of growing and photosynthesis. Perhaps it is the afterglow and time for a cigarette.

The transformation of the hills is nearly complete. Dull brown is changed to a brilliant green. This never fails to impresses me. Each year the surroundings here overlooking the valley and the hills are altered so dramatically. Our world is new.

An in hills turkey gobblers are strutting for the hens. Birds are nesting. Turtles are on the move. Maybe the fish are biting. It is a regular circus. Come see it. www.rockeddy.com

The wanderer awoke this morning

I am still afflicted. I want to wander the countryside. Heck, I am only one week back and I catch myself thinking about how things might be in some of my more popular places.

I believe there is new grass carpeting the Flint Hills of Kansas. It is a deluge of green with praire flowers and small tidy towns tucked down in the cottonwood draws. I would like to see it again....right now.

Another vision that surfaces is of the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The rolling hills, as if huge waves stretched onward on a sea of grass. Ranch houses and barns lost in the swells of green, down little track of roads, miles and miles from little "necessary" towns.

These are just my spring visions; they will change as the year progresses. I will think of other favorites in the summer. And in the fall I will move to the mountains, New England, the lake country.

In Maine, where a little me still lives, the winter is being forced out grudgingly by the gentle persistance of spring. And I can remember enough that I think I could still avoid the tourists running up highway 1 and locate some of the pictures that still swim in my mind.

And there are so many more that I will not discuss this morning. It is just that the wanderer in me just schook in his traces enough that I had to acknowlege him this morning. Ain't that typical! I should be discussing Mother's Day. Kathy is getting Mom's Day calls this morning while serving breakfast to the guests and I am back in this messy little room with the computer. I am sure it ain't right. I am certain that a more refined fella would do things differently.

Happy Mother's Day, The Hired Man http://www.rockeddy.com/

Going footloose for a while

It has been this way for many years. Since I was a kid I have appreciated the feeling one gets just before setting out on an extended journey. It is that way now. We leave today.

And, like many other trips, this time we are also a little weak on planning. We like it that way. We happen upon things and experiences without anticipating them. No schedule!

Here's how we plan: We mark off days on our calendar for travel days a full year ahead. We say, "We're gonna be gone here, on those days that have X's on them." Quite often don't know our destination until shortly before leaving. This time we knew only that we were going to take the RV (5th wheel trailer).

Then someone said, "how about we head down to the Natchez Trace?" We agreed that the direction was right, as we would be heading into the northward march of spring. We could piddle around on the Trace we figured, which is something like 440 miles long, take in some neat civil war battlefields while we were about it, and do some serious relaxing. And, since we have been on portions of the trace before, we know there are some interesting experiences to be had under spanish moss-laden trees. Oh yes, and then there are the birds, and flowers and flowering trees and gentle southern breezes.

We were arranging to meet our Canadian pal, Cathy Collins, on the Trace as she returned home from her usual winter in Mexico with her tiny Scamp trailer . But she learned at the last minute that her brother in Scotland had died and she had to beat a direct path home. We will miss her this year.

So, PeeVee (our dog) has had a bath, we are mostly packed, and before long I will hook the whole rig together and get it in traveling mode. Cell phones are wonderful as they allow us to transfer our land line to the cell and get all calls we normally woujld. A laptop with an "air card" usually gets us internet access as we move about. And with a solar (photovoltaic) system on the roof of the camper, we can stop and be quite comfortable virtually anywhere.

Gotta get going now. I'm gonna slap in a photo of some camping spot we have had in the past. We'll see!

The Hired Man, Missus, and dogpal PeeVee www.rockeddy.com

What happened to that big mushroom?

We ate it! We sliced it up, dipped it in an egg mixture then rolled it in flour. The frying pan did the rest. Now remember, the mushroom in question is a false morel, a fungus that the books say can cause some problems when eaten.


Didn't happen! The hired man and the missus at Rock Eddy Bluff Farm http://www.rockeddy.com/ ate their share. We were followed by our daughter, who was here at the time, and her two children (Ages 1 yr. and nearly 3 yrs.). There was no effect from the mushrooms.


That mushroom was delicious! As you can see from the picture, the mushroom fried up well. We actually ate it for breakfast, and, as I remember, we had little else until noon. The picture shows what was left.


We have found nine small common morels in our drive and will escort them to our digestive tracts soon. It occurs to me that with mushroom season coming on strong, you may like some reliable information. Here are a couple of websites: Mid-Missouri M0rels and Mushrooms and see what the Missouri Department of Conservation has to say.

We will be hunting the little morsels this spring. But we are headed to the Natchez trace in a couple of days. We'll send reports from there and also picts of any "scrooms" that we might happen upon.

Think Spring, The Hired Man and Missus

I can't help myself

Perhaps I can be forgiven for staying with a subject. It is just that the first rumblings of the new growing season seem so powerful to me. I will spare you all the talk about renewal and the flowery metaphors for spring. Better, I want to show what things look like this morning here in the Ozarks. The photos are only minutes old.

We discovered this mushroom yesterday and waited to harvest it. In the Ozark parlance, this is known as a "red one". The reason is that most native folk around here recognize only the two most common edible mushrooms. The call them red ones and white ones. The white ones are actually common morels. This "red one" is a false morel. They are larger than the white ones. Now, the experts say to be careful with eating the false morels. They say that sometimes eating them can cause serious illness in some people. However, everyone I know eats them without affect, and so do we (and so will be have this one for breakfast tomorrow).

Knowing that there was a remarkable glade of bluebell flowers under the bluffs at Clifty Creek, we ventured there to see. What we found was a treat; bluebells covering the ground beside the babbling creek, under the giant white skeletons of sycamore trees. There we also found our first view of Dutchman's Britches"

And looking up the creek we see the first hints of color arriving. Leaves the size of your pinkie fingernails are appearing, particularly in elm trees. Red bud trees are just beginning to bloom. So are dogwoods. For those who pay attention to the usual sequence of such things, this year has been odd. Every woodland early blooming tree appears to be in about the same stage: red bud, dogwood, service berry, and wild plump.

And perhaps March 31 is a little early for "red ones", but there it is. We are pumped up for spring. Hope you are too.

From the hills, The Hired Man and The Missus

Winter vs. Spring (March Madness)

The evil forces of winter are locked in battle with the gentle forces of spring. Or, at least that is the look of things at Rock Eddy Bluff Farm http://www.rockeddy.com/ right now. Actually, we love winter. It is just that, right now we are sick of it. Its kinda like a well-loved relative whose only fault is that he has overstayed his welcome. The same thing happens every March. We've come to expect it.

But, Geez, here it is the last of March and we are expecting snow this afternoon. Temps in the low thirties. We'll be covering up plants for the night.

We will sit by the fire this afternoon and reflect on the coming of spring. And, I'll consider a couple of snatches of poetry that always come to mind this time of year. I'll recall them from memory, so apologies in advance to Edna St. Vincent Millay and John Niehardt for the mistakes.

"Spring rides no horses down the hill/ But comes on foot, a goosegirl still./ And all the loveliest things there be/ Come simply, or so it seems to me" Edna St. Vincent Millay

The other slice of a long work comes from an epic poem , titled "The Upstream Men", about Ashley's Hundred, a group of explorers that went up the Missouri River in the early 1800's. They departed just as spring was moving into the countryside. (I have to admit that I went back to the book; my memory of this passage butchered it badly.)

"And so they say/ Went forth a hundred singing men that day;/ And girlish April went ahead of them. The music of her trailing garment hem/ Seemed scarce a league ahead. A little speed/ might yet almost surprise her in the deed/ Of sorcery; for, ever as they strove,/ A gray-green smudge in every poplar grove/ Proclaimed the recent kindling. Aye, it seemed/ That bird and bush and tree had only dreamed/ Of song and leaf and blossom, till they heard/ The young men's feet; when tree and bush and bird/ Unleased the whole conspiracy of awe!/ Pale green was every slough about the Kaw;/ About the Platte pale green was every slough;/ And still the pale green lingered at the Sioux,/ So close they trailed the marching of the South./ But when they reached the Niobrara's mouth/ The witchery of spring had taken flight/ And like a girl grown woman overnight,/ Young summer glowed." John G. Niehardt

So, this afternoon we will watch the fire and the snowflakes. We'll probably even watch some March Madness on the Telly.

'Til next time, The Hired Man

Mister Big and Me (Our pre-spring ride)

We heard spring scratchin around the hills yesterday and decided to take a ride. This was the first time all winter that old "Mister Big" has been under saddle. We had a good ride over local countryside but it was obvious that "big" had done a little back sliding since we did this last fall.

I am including a couple of photos from the ride. (It is a little difficult to photograph while the horse is moving)

One photo shows a neighbor farm (he is gone for the winter) It is an interesting old place because it was one of the first farms in this county (Maries County). The original owner had slaves back in the early 1800's. The original part of this barn (which you can't see) was built by slaves. It is made of massive logs that are pegged together. Many of the slaves are buried in unmarked graves up on the hill from the house.

We rode on. Saw deer and other wildlife and saw no one one a bout a 5 mile ride. One little fellow was this possum that seemed to think he was watching a parade and just looked at us wide-eyed.

Yesterday we heard spring stomping on the other side of the hill, wanting to get underway. It will happen soon. Then, she will sweep down the hill toward us, "babbling and strewing flowers."