Fresh Pressed Cider and other Glories Fall

Dew has been coating every outdoor surface for the last few weeks, the folks in town have experienced a couple of light frosts, trees have exploded with vibrant color, and my usual attire has been modified to include my waxed cotton fedora and rain jacket. Fall has arrived on the island my friends, and with it comes the annual apple harvest, a true treasure of the season. Fortunately for us, there is a local orchard that is just down the road, and on my route to and from work.




Apples are something that I was not expecting to find all that different. After all, an apple is an apple right? Well, I must admit, that was prior to tasting apples fresh from the tree. The apple season starts around the end of September with the earliest apples being the Jona’s Red. These apples are exceptionally juicy. When they are fresh picked, they are crunchy and sweet. They soften over 3 days by which time the juice can be seen running down chins as people enjoy them. Just about the time you are really getting used to having them fresh daily, their season is over and the Cortlands and Honeycrisps have arrived followed quickly by the Spartans and MacIntosh. It is apple heaven, and the arrival of the MacIntosh heralds the arrival of fresh pressed cider.




Let’s talk about cider for a moment. If your image of cider is from a large glass jug in the store, then you are as mistaken as I was regarding the joys of fresh cider. The cider from our neighborhood orchard is pressed and slightly filtered but not pasteurized. It is a blend of the late season apples and has a crisp sweet-tart flavor that is extremely refreshing. Like the apples, it is here for a short while and then gone again. It is like the harvest season, it arrives with a bang and is out the door almost as quickly.




The fall also marks the harvest season for the crops you have nurtured along all summer. Our little garden has treated us well, and with a little luck I can extend the season through until the snow flies. We have had plenty of broccoli, bell peppers, lettuce, and jalapenos from the garden for the last 2 months. I planted things in succession so the crops have arrived in a staggered fashion preventing us from being overwhelmed by any single crop (jalapenos excepted). The tomatoes have had a bit of a rough time, primarily due to my late planting and a cool wet summer. We have gotten some from the vines, but for the most part they have remained green and firm, teasing us with their unrealized potential. The carrots have gotten long and firm, growing deep into the loose soil, and I was genuinely surprised by the number of potatoes that I was able to harvest from four small plants. The corn looked great, but we let it sit out one night to many and the raccoons came through and helped themselves to every stalk, lesson learned. Thankfully, the local vegetable stand (Webb’s vegetables) had plenty of corn for us and they did not get raided by varmints. Their stand has gone from offering lettuce and corn to late season tomatoes and pumpkins. It is a popular spot on the main highway and they are always busy with customers dropping by for weekly produce for as long as Webb’s can keep it coming.

Of course another glory of the fall is the exuberant display of color the trees put on when the days begin to shorten. My favorite color has to be the vibrant red and fluorescent orange of the sugar maples. These line the roadway on my drive to work so I find that I must focus exceptionally hard on my driving so as not to be distracted by the show. It we are lucky and the winds do not blow too hard too soon, the color will stay around for a month. Like everything else, it will pass quickly so you have to enjoy the moment while it is here. That is the lesson of the island for us for the last year, and we are making the most of the moment while it is here.

Signs of Fall

The Lobster boats are out of the water and the potatoes are coming out of the field, these are sure signs that fall is in full swing on Prince Edward Island (PEI). It seems that every day the colors on the trees become deeper and the air is cooling off. The drive to and from work are some of the best times of the day to look at the color. The low angle light in the morning and the evening really bring out the colors in the trees which makes it more difficult to keep focused on the road as I drive. Likewise, if you were behind me watching you might think that I had a bit of a ‘tic’ as you watch my head swivel left and right trying to see everything. Everyone tells me to enjoy the colors because they are not long for the island and in a very short time the winds of winter will blow and all the color will carpet the lawn announcing the beginning of the hard cold winter.

Since PEI is such a small island you end up living very close to the land. Just down the road the lobster man has pulled out his boat and his lobster traps in preparation for winter. Our neighbor across the street has not pulled his boat yet, he still has some work this year. He is a fisherman, he fishes oysters in the early fall both wild and raised, then mussels in November, mackerel in December, and then the boat comes out of the water. He has his cultured oysters across the road from us in the bay, and he works them quite a bit right now. He starts by situating floating columns (called the clutch) over the oyster bed and as the oysters reproduce, the small larvae eventually seek a strong firm surface upon which to cling where they spend their first year on the clutch. In the fall he scrapes down the clutch so the maturing oysters fall into the bed where they continue to grow until they are two or more inches long (usually two years). In the fall, he scrapes down the clutch, and then uses the oyster tongs to harvest the oysters from the bottom. For any of the small oysters they get tossed back and only the big ones are kept. It is hard work, and when the wind is blowing, the rain is falling; it becomes very apparent that the fisherman is a tough fellow. There are two types of oyster fishermen for oysters, those that have a lease can harvest from one spot where they have enriched the supply. For others, they harvest form the wild. They find a spot, and work it all day, then move to another spot. On the first day of the season you can see many folks in one space harvesting the wild oysters, but after day one, the ‘Oyster Farmers’ head to their lease while the wild oystermen continue their work.

The fall harvest does not just contain the lobster and the oyster, it also contains the root crops-carrots and potatoes. We have a small potato field behind the house and we have been waiting for them to harvest the field. You see, when a field is harvested there are many potatoes that get left behind, and once the harvesters are out of the field, these leftover potatoes are free for the taking. They harvested the potatoes yesterday and so this morning Nancy was out in the field gathering the free potatoes. You have to get out there early so that you can get them before they start to turn green, and you have to be careful to pick those potatoes that are not cut or otherwise damaged. We picked up potatoes for the morning and have them spread out in the garage drying before we bag them into paper sacks and place them in the basement for winter storage. It is an island tradition, and the fresh potatoes are very good. The farmers harvest their potatoes, knock most of the dirt off of them, and then store them in a potato shed. These sheds remind me of barracks from the Marine Corps and they are filled floor to ceiling with potatoes. It is an interesting sight to see folks loading these sheds with potatoes. The farmers work morning till night and the days are often 18 hours long. The goal is to get the harvest in before the weather turns ugly and the rains come (effectively ruining the crop in the field). Just like the fishermen, the farmers work from before sun up until after sunset and so whenever I see them in the emergency room, it is usually either very early or very late.

If you have not taken a look at the photo pages lately, take a click on the slide show and enjoy the photos of fall as well as photos of the harvest and the local farmers market (where we are buying as much as we can). Stay tuned for a guest blog in the very near future.

What is he saying (Part II)???

Whenever you go to a new location you can expect that things are going to be different (see part I of what is he saying???). For instance, when you go to France you expect that things will be in French. Likewise, in China you expect Chinese, Korea , well Korean of course. So when you arrive in Canada you should expect to hear some Canadian.

Wait, I thought the Canadians spoke English and French?
You are in fact correct.
Then what is Canadian?
That is the version of English they speak.

Today I pay tribute to some noteworthy differences that I have picked up over the last month and a half. Some are in the way in which folks pronounce things, others in the adjectives and adverbs used to highlight the conversation. So, let’s go through my most recent examples of differences from our common language.

The first example comes from Nancy and her interaction with a car salesman. We have recently purchased a happy yellow Chevrolet Aveo and we enjoy it when it runs (and when it does not it goes back to the salesman to have it looked at and fixed….a completely separate post). It was during one of her visits to the dealer to pick up the car (again) that they got to talking about the color. She calls it happy yellow. This led to a conversation as follows (deckle rhymes with freckle).

Salesman: You ought to get a deckle for that car
Nancy: A what?
Salesman: A deckle of a nice yellow smiley face, there is a guy down the road who makes em, eh.
Nancy: Confused look on her face
Salesman: See he made all those deckles for my other cars, eh.
Nancy: Light bulb comes on and she realizes he
means Decal. Hmmm………

The second example comes from several patients I have heard over the last week. You see we have had a bit of stomach flu in our community (a gift from the return of the school year). So I have seen several people with the same basic complaints.

Doc: Hello Mr Whomever, what is going on today that brings you in?
Patient: I been sqwamish, terrible sqawmish.
Doc: I see (Puzzeled look on my face masking as concern)….Tell me a bit more about it.
Patient: I been wake up terrible sqwamish, can’t hear tell of eating, make me terrible sqwamish.
Doc: Have you been throwing up?
Patient: Only when the sqwamish gets terrible.

After several encounters I began to understand that sqwamish meant squeamish. It is an unusual way to describe nausea, but I guess it works. It certainly gets the point across once you understand what they are saying.

The last bit comes from differences in the way we describe the same things (taken from the medical setting).

Terrible = As an adjective such as a Terrible smart, Terrible big, Terrible pretty, Terrible sick, or Terrible tasty. In some parts of the country they would substitute the word wicked. In Texas you might hear the word powerful in place of terrible.

Getting a Needle = an injection of some kind
Freeze it up = Numb an area for something like a stitch or an excision
Prick, as in “ I had to prick her three times to get that IV started”. I am used to hearing the word stick in place of prick.

I will continue to listen for more curisities form the north.

Well for all of you that are sweating away in Texas, you will wish that you were here. The weather is glorious, and the fall colors are beyond anything I have seen . The leaves have an electric almost fluorescent color to them as they turn brilliant yellow, red and purple. Here is a link to the science behind the changing of the leaves. I only hope that Kyle does not blow them all away prior to getting some photos of them for everyone. For now head over the flickr site (click on the slideshow on the right) to see some new photos we posted form a trip last month to the north shore of the island.