Apples Take a Turn

Oddly sweet crab apple tree on left,
sweet pink & yellow apples on the right

Flown Piggies Farm has zero pigs, with or without wings, but what it does have is apples - and lots of them. 

There are uh.... like maybe ten apple trees and the size and taste of each apple type varies wildly. There are ensy red 'crab' apples that actually taste pretty good. There are humongous yellow and pink apples in the rear of the cottage. This year, that particular tree only put out about half the number of apples it normally does. In a good year it produces hundreds of apples, but this year it yielded just short of 100 apples. No surprise, each tree's yield depends when the fruit trees bloom in the spring, and how many honey bees, bumblebees and other insects are available then to fertilize the tree's flowers. Spring weather and number of flower fertilizing insects can vary wildly from year to year.

The entire crop of one of the apple trees

There is one tree that the past 2 years didn't produce a single fruit. Didn't think it was an apple tree.  Now this year, it managed to produce - a single fruit. Not sure what the tree's problem is, but its lone apple was  pretty, sweet and crunchy. Yum! Hope I get a second apple next year...

Now what happened with this year's apple crop of  Flown Piggies Farmj apples? Some apples were eaten as is. Not a single apple made it into the many pies, tarts, Danishes, puff pastry, or apple sauce that I dreamed of making last year when the entire crop of apples fell from the trees virtually overnight. That was due to a storm and not a single apple was gathered by a human, although the local deer made out like the bandits they are. 

Yeah buddy... Got my eye on you, sneaking over to the apple orchard
 trying to look all innocent like you don't have apple scented breath

Not to brag, but this year many apples this year made it into the dehydrator so SCORE for that! 

Pear Harvest Time

One of the red pears

It's that time of year again, the orchard fruit are fat and ripe or nearly so. The apples outnumber the pears, the latter being favorites. The pears do not store well, but I'm not going to can any. Yes, my 'country gal' persona ends where the real work begins. 

My first year on Flown Piggies Farm lots of pear desserts were made, and yes, many lbs were gained. (Oh shut up, you'd have gone nuts with a glut of fresh fruit too!). Last year, 2021 the pears and apples fell from the trees so fast - literally overnight - that not a single piece of fruit was enjoyed, except by my neighborhood's population of chubby deer. 

Flown Piggies Farm boasts 3 pear trees. The closest tree to my house has  Bartlett type pears. They might be Anjou pears but would not a pear by any other name still taste like one or the other? 

The second pear tree is itsy bitsy at perhaps 10 feet tall, and it bears small red pears - which are my favorite. This year the dinky tree yielded a whopping seven pears!  To be fair to the tree, it being so small, it is possible that many of its fruit were taken early on by deer, who stand on their hind legs like trained poodles, and pluck fruit. Stupid deer. 

The massive Bosc Pear Tree, sans Partridge

The third pear tree is around 20 feet high and has what I am 99 44/100% sure are Bosc pears. The fruit are brownish gold, large, fat and they have skinny necks. The Bosc are a week or two, if not three

weeks from ripening. There's no clue what to do with them when they do ripen. The tree has hundreds and hundreds of fruit on it. I do know they are the preferred pear for fancy desserts like pears poached in wine. I can feel my jeans tightening just thinking about it. 

And more Bosc...

                                                                                                                                                            I'm bummed that pears can not be stored in the manner of apples. Apples you buy in grocery stores may be as old a year. And pioneers used to be able to store fresh apples in cold cellars, but pears are not so obliging. My neighbor Nita decided that the crop of 2022 was not going to go to waste. She has her own pear tree but it is a couple of weeks behind my trees in fruit ripening. 

Nita picking the bartlett pears

Nita brought over her orchard ladder and and we (OK, mostly she) picked a nice load of pears. 

I picked all the red pears off the little tree and soon we were hauling a big box of bartlett pears into my kitchen. 

The pears are lined up for ripening, one precious globe at a time. 

Ready for drying

A number of pears were ready to go and Nita again came to the rescue. She loaned me one of her dehydrators as well as a slicer (a mandolin) and we set to work, slicing up the ripest pears and settling them on the dehydrator trays. Thanks to the mandolin, we also each in our own kitchens, sliced up our thumbs. Ouch!

Below is a bowl of the resulting dried pears. They look ghastly in the picture, but they are sweet and tasty. I currently have a zillion or so bags of dried pears. I've practically handed them out to whomever comes within a quarter mile of my home. Gotta get that fruit eaten before next year!

Dried pears which resemble dried ears (I know... EEEW!)

They Grow Up So Fast

A while back, a couple of bird nesting boxes were set up here at Flown Piggies Farm. One of the boxes was quickly taken over as 'Home Sweet Home' by a pair of Tree Swallows. I only peered into the box once, to make sure the little family was doing OK. The box (shown above) was obviously occupied by Tree Swallows as the nest was quite feather-full. The feathers used to line the nest were duck feathers, Mallard duck feathers to be precise. I marvel how far the birds would have gone to acquire such soft nest lining. At that time there were as yet, no eggs in the little house.  

As the weeks flew by, I could view the Tree Swallows busily flying in and out of their box. In a matter of weeks loud squawks and demands could be heard if anywhere near the box. The new chicks were demanded their chow. So proud to hear the fussing baby swallows, and so happy it wasn't my job to feed the noisy things. 

Young Violet-green on 2nd floor railing

Meanwhile, I noticed the Violet-green Swallows, that nested in a ventilation hole above my bedroom balcony weren't slouches in the chick rearing department. Their youngsters were already out of the nest. The fledged chicks liked to rest on the patio railing above the garage. I often had the door to the playroom open and could hear and watch the young swallows. 

This is a view of the patio with setting swallows (I think those are a youngster and an weary-of-feeding-its-brats adult bird). 

Only the past couple of days I woke to the sound of chirping on my bedroom balcony. I peeked out and WHOA, there sat Tree Swallow chicks. There were two, busily calling back and forth to each other. Any time an adult flew by the chicks peeped plaintively, but I never saw the adults approach them with food. The chicks were back on the balcony this morning so I assume they're either getting fed or are attempting to feed themselves. Yesterday, later in the morning there were 4 baby Tree Swallows up on the telephone lines so I guess the adult birds got the job done.

New Tenants at Flown Piggies Farm

 

Violet-green Swallow on balcony

Huzzah! One of the 2 bird boxes put out a couple of weeks ago. The boxes are between 5 & 6 feet off the ground, within easy flapping distance of shrubs or trees. They face open meadow for birdie convivence. I expected, that like the Violet-green Swallow shown above, it would be additional Violet-greens that would go for the boxes. Nope!

Westernmost bird box, with a Tree swallow (on right) swooping by

It was Tree Swallows that adopted a bird box. If you look at the swallow at the top of the blog, you can see this Tree Swallow doesn't have white feathers above its eye. In Sacramento I used to enjoy peeking into Tree Swallow dens, to see the nestlings cuddled up in cozy tree cavities. Bird boxes recreate the 'tree hole' experience for the birds.

Tree Swallow perched at box

Because a pair of Swallows take on a nesting box, does not guarantee they will be successful in raising a clutch of itty-bitties.  Other bird species might try to evicting swallows. Most likely such species would be House Sparrows, which I'm happy to state, aren't found at Flying Piggies Farm... thus far anwway.  Sometimes evil wasps get into the boxes, or perhaps the magic just doesn't happen for the Swallows. To keep out the instances I can do something about, I'm required to check each nesting box about once per week. I feel a little timid about doing so, but I must be a good landlord to my feathered tenants. 

The happy Tree Swallow couple

Nice house... but where's the hot tub?

Piggy Progress

Flown Piggies Farm sign, with bird house post in the rear

My handyman Jim and his wife bought a big ole home in Alabama, so they could be near their kids and grandkiddies. I am happy for them, but now I have to find a new handyman - who needn't be named Jim III. Meanwhile, I engaged Ingrid's fence building guy, Tom. In the past month he installed the 'Catio' in back of the cottage which keeps friend Barbara's 2 kitties from devouring the local birdlife, while being able to go onto their custom Catio and take in the sun.

Swallow's Apartment

On completing the Catio I asked Tom if he might look at my plans for hanging the Flown Piggies Farm sign, which I bought a year ago. He did a wonderful job framing and hanging the sign, and I couldn't be happier with the results. He also put up 2 posts, with one little Western Bluebird/Swallow box per post. No takers for the nesting boxes as yet. Meanwhile, the same Violet-green Swallows that nested in the ventilation hole over my bedroom balcony are nesting there yet again this year. I wonder if they nested there the years prior to my moving into the farm house? No reason to assume they didn't.

A friend in Port Angeles gave me a potted Flowering Currant, a native species. It will be planted behind the Flown Piggies sign. That is, it will be planted as soon as I figure how to dig a hole in the gawdawful clay soil that is like set cement to dig in. Might put a raised bed around the sign to make planting easier.... Yeah, that's the ticket!

Hummingbird dining at Flowering Currant shrub

The Orchard of Flown Piggies Farm

View, west from dining Room Window

Just to the west of my farmhouse, just across the driveway stands my (can't believe it's actually 'mine')  orchard. 

North (Canadian) Facing View of Orchard

That's a total bonus as I've always wished I'd had fruit trees, but sadly, I was always too discombobulated to plant any. Shortly after I moved into the house at the end of April, I noticed the trees were in bloom.

I knew there were both apples and pear trees, as the previous tenant of the cottage told me the deer love to come by and eat the fallen pears. I also could have guessed as apple trees are as common as sparrows in Washington. A week or two later, there were ensy little fruits forming where the flowers had been. 

Mini-fruit in Mid May

Additional mini-pears

There are about a dozen apple and pear trees on the 1.9 acres here. I get excited because as the fruit began to grow I could see there are more than one variety here, although I do not know what varieties are present. But I can guess!

The fat pears by the driveway look like Anjou type pears... 

Pears on a neighboring tree at least superficially resemble Bosc type pears

And this tree, also in the circular driveway area, are perhaps my favorite 'red' pear variety

But wait, there's more! Aside from several pear trees (my favorite hand fruit) there are the ever present Washington Apple trees. 

Mystery Apples with red freckled & green skin

Apples, Red as Cherries

The red apples have me a tiny bit over-excited. My housemate Curt, from when I was staying at Ingrid's house, brought us a few deeply ruby apples, and the thrill was that fruit had red flesh! I was so intrigued, never having seen apples with anything other than yellow or white interior flesh. 

Then a couple of days ago, Curt was on Flown Piggies mowing and weed wacking, and he brought with him, a gift of tiny red apples with red interiors. Unlike the previous red-fleshed apples, these apples were quite tiny, no bigger than ping pong balls. 

Teeny Tiny Red fleshed Apples

Ruby Red interiors

I was so happy to get a second sampling of these unique fruits. In flavor, they were tart and mildly sweet. Because of their tart flavor and small size, my friend/neighbor Barbara - who got her share of the tiny treasures - think the red fruit might not be totally ripe as yet. 

So all that need be done now is to wait for the apples and pears in the orchard to finish ripening. They seem so huge to look at them, but when you sniff them, they haven't any odor at all and are rock hard. They might be HUMONGOUS when they are done with the ripening process. 

While we humans wait for the ripening fruit, the local deer seem unperturbed by such details as ripeness, and they are enjoying the windfall fruit now. Video below shows one of the more polite piggies... erm, does, 'nibbling' at a windfall pear. Come for the nibbles, keep watching to see the doe in the background, standing on her hind legs to get at better bits in an apple tree.

UPDATE: My red orchard apples have regular yellow/white flesh, not red. Rats.