Extension News: September 2007 Archives

A pair of white ducks appeared in our neighborhood pond in August. Each time we drove by, we saw them reveling in their element, bottoms up, foraging for food or just swimming around unimpeded in the pond.

It was obvious these weren’t wild ducks, accustomed to the seasonal comings and goings of nature’s cycles. They were domestic ducks, unable to fly or to defend themselves from predators. Still, they survived happily in the pond in late summer.

As fall approached, several of the neighbors joined us in concern for their fate. My grandsons, with their mother, brought food and the ducks welcomed them and even seemed to anticipate the children’s visits complete with handouts. These ducks were used to human beings. No doubt they had been adorable, fluffy ducklings at Easter time. But by the end of summer, the charming babies had grown to full grown ducks, perhaps a bit aggressive and needing accommodations that some suburban family couldn’t provide. Were they then abandoned to fend for themselves, without thought for their ultimate fate? Did parents persuade their children, and perhaps themselves, that the ducks would live happily ever after in our neighborhood pond?

September passed, and then as October moved on, the neighborhood became increasingly concerned. The ducks themselves grew more dependent on the children’s provisions. We all knew if we did nothing these two couldn’t survive once the pond froze over. They would become dinner for someone, if not for Mr. Fox, then for the coyotes or a fisher.

So, one day the children and their mother arrived at our barn with the ducks in the back of the Subaru. The female had been easily captured, but the drake was skittish. The timely arrival of a neighbor saved the day and the pair came to their adopted home in a pen by the barn.

We wondered how they would get on with our ancient Chinese geese noisy creatures but otherwise harmless. A single Indian runner drake shares their pen. (His mate succumbed to a weasel last winter I found her headless carcass in the pen one snowy morning.) What would they think of these new arrivals?

As it turned out, the ducks were welcomed and moved in without incident. They may have missed the freedom of the pond, but they were glad to have food and shelter as winter approached and the cold intensified. Each morning I broke the ice in their water pans, and all drank gratefully.

No sooner had the days begun noticeably to lengthen, in late February or early March, than a white egg appeared in the shelter. Every day, through the spring and early summer, Mrs. Duck produced a single egg. We used them in various ways they are rich and tasty. We saved a half dozen for the nearby Montessori pre school that likes to hatch some chicks or ducks each spring in their incubator. Some of these orphans come back to our farm, either to lay eggs or to find their way to the freezer in the fall.

Sure enough, after 28 days of incubation, the duck eggs hatched, producing four fluffy ducklings. School was over, so home they came to our “nursery.” When they outgrew the small nursery pen, we introduced them to the ducks and geese at the barn. Mrs. Goose decided on motherhood so enthusiastically that she crushed one of them. Another succumbed to her over protective instincts; she was too big and her size overwhelmed them. The others were returned to a safer pen, and after a few weeks we tried again to integrate the little flock of water fowl. This time the Indian Runner drake proved such an ardent lover that the poor ducklings were tattered and thoroughly intimidated by his attentions. So they are back in a safe haven for now, and we shall have roast duck in the fall.

Such a responsibility we assume for our fellow creatures even if we will eventually eat them! And the parent ducks, rescued from the pond, will survive another winter to produce eggs. The children at the Montessori school can again experience the miracle of tiny ducklings emerging from their shells. We’ll make egg salad of the rest.

By Carolyn Baldwin, Community Tree Steward

One of the delights and rewards of gardening is garden gluttony eating fruits and vegetables straight from the bush or vine. The cherry tomatoes I ate by the handful today were warm from the sun and sweet as candy. Earlier in the summer I pigged out on raspberries that went right from the bushes into my mouth, again warm and sweet.

I just returned from a visit to another garden where fall raspberries were just ripening again straight into the mouth. In fact this is the moment when I realized new meaning for the expression “hand to mouth.” In this case, hardly poverty and subsistence, but luxury and indulgence.

It’s difficult to choose the most prized “hand to mouth” food in the garden gluttony menu; blueberries are right up there. But homegrown peas eaten from the pods in early summer are a true delicacy, too. They are less common, as few people bother with the fuss of growing them. I grow them mostly to eat in the garden, a reward to keep me at the tedious gardening chores.

Growing up in the fruit belt along Lake Ontario north of Niagara Falls, I remember climbing the sweet cherry tree out back with my younger brothers, where we would balance precariously to reach to the furthest branches for the prized cherries before the birds got them. I’m sure my mother allowed this wonderful adventure because she realized it was easier than picking them herself. She also taught us how to pop the grapes into our mouths by pinching and slipping the skins off the Niagara and Concord grapes, leaving a trail of skins on the ground next to the vines. Again she put no limits on quantity consumed!

But things got even better. When I was about seven, Dad left his job as an Extension Agent and became a fruit farmer. The immediate and most obvious change was the introduction of a pick-up truck in our driveway (we didn’t move to the farm). We got to ride in the back!

Bushels of fruit came home in the truck. I can remember the peaches huge, fuzzy, brightly colored and juicy. Again no limit, except I remember the fuzz being irritating. Mother laid creamy, luscious pears out on newspapers in the basement to ripen. And then the apples arrived, so many kinds we hardly got excited. Mother made every apple dessert imaginable.

But in addition to the fruit there was a corn garden. During the season, Dad brought corn home every night and Mom presented huge, steaming platters to us five children. My two older teenage brothers had appropriate teen appetites and now I appreciate how relieved Mom was that she could fill them up on corn. I think I can remember dinners when that was all we ate, along with platters of tomatoes. Who needed meat and potatoes!

All this abundance and bounty wasn’t quite as wonderful for my mother who canned enough produce to feed the family all winter. Peaches ripen during the hottest days of August. We knew enough to stay out of the way when the canning days were in progress a hot, horrible job. The kitchen looked like a steam bath! Grandma sometimes came from far away to help. But Mom seemed proud of all the jars of peaches, pears, and tomatoes stashed away in the “canning closet” in the basement.

When we asked her what Labor Day was all about, we got the line about how that was just a contrived day of luxury for people who didn’t really work. Dad and my older brothers spent Labor Day at the farm harvesting peaches. That work didn’t look so bad to me my brother got to drive in the trailer loads of peaches.

One year we three little kids were taken to the farm during sour cherry picking a day off for Mom. Dad plunked us by a loaded cherry tree with branches drooping to the ground, and he showed us how to pull off the clusters of juicy red cherries he said something about picking clean and not leaving any and was gone. In no time it was obvious that this wasn’t fun. Sour cherries aren’t great eating from the tree. Furthermore the cherry juice was sticky and got all over our hands. Then it began running down our elbows...ugh!  We probably lasted an hour or so, but it seemed like a very long morning. I think we were taken down to the lake to swim and clean up at noon.

Back in the old days while we practiced hand-to-mouth garden gluttony, we were playing hard all summer long, and all of us were skinny from the non-stop exercise and stuffing ourselves with fresh from the vine fruits and vegetables.

By Anne Krantz, Tree Steward & Master Gardener

It happened about two weeks ago. My husband and I, our two grown sons, and their young families were standing around the kitchen, preparing a weekend meal, when out the kitchen window I saw a sign from above: the chaff from pine cones and needles now spent with the summer’s heat and rain, slowly drifting down to the lawn and forest floor behind our 1800’s farmhouse.

Everyone agreed, if you could do nothing else but look out the window, you would know: no longer high summer, not autumn yet, but late summer. Perhaps a time to regret opportunities missed before school begins and chilling weather becomes the norm, but for others, time to get out and garden!

In the garden, cooler days mean you don’t feel dehydrated and burned to a crisp by end of day; fewer insects mean less aggravation; you can count on more regular rains. Fewer weeds need pulling—a few hours’ work and a perennial bed returned to a weed-free condition does the gardener’s soul good. Newly planted perennials have time to develop good root systems to make it through the winter. A few more weeks and bulbs will become another item on the list of things to plant, but not yet. Late summer.

The nights have become cooler, dipping into the 50s after weeks of temperatures in the 80s and 90s, a delicious change. Time to dispense with fans and air conditioners, light blankets, and thin cotton pajamas. Time to throw open the windows, pull up an extra blanket, and don the predecessors to the flannels of winter, not quite so thick and warm, but longer and useful when you, the first one up, need warmth to keep you from running back to bed.

The days warm quickly, and often require removing a layer of clothing to keep up with the more summer-like temperatures of the afternoon, but at night, it all goes back to that cool of the evening we associate with this time of year.

Listen! The insects of night also make different sounds: the crickets croon instead of chirp; the saw-whet owl’s raspy metallic call has become more intense somehow; in some areas, the whippoorwill startles you out of sleep, now that fans and such no longer hum a soothing lullaby.

The ferns start to turn; their fronds change from green to gold and bronze. Mosses green and lush have taken over vast areas of our yard, something I never mind. The thick, velvety surfaces make

By Helen Downing, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener