I’m back from the northwoods.
Getting away creates a very welcome break in the usual routine. That’s why you didn’t hear from me all week. I was avoiding the computer and focusing on important things like sitting in the lake, watching finches, hummingbirds and chipmunks chase each other around the bird feeder, and keeping an eye on the bald eagle as it tormented the loons and their baby. I was way too busy to blog.
The northern Midwest is the land of perfect lawns carved out of the woods and the brightest petunias you’ve ever seen – they know they only have 90 days to show their color before cold weather comes back.
Flying into the tiny airport in the Wisconsin woods, I watched the landscape change. It reminded me of the ‘mixed use’ landscapes in permaculture textbooks. Lakes for fishing, trees for timber and hunting, edge areas for berries and wildlife, opening to green contours filled with small patches of sweet corn, dairy cows, potatoes, and ’sweet corn stands’.
That was our first stop after the airport … a roadside sweet corn stand. Big ears of yellow/white corn, handfuls of green beans, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes … we didn’t ask where the farmer grew these huge, perfect veggies, but her truck had Wisconsin plates, close enough.
Second stop … a supperclub. These dot the northwoods landscape in almost as much abundance as lakes and pine trees. A throwback to somewhere back in time. Log cabin-ish buildings with fireplaces and bartenders mixing highballs behind the bar. Deer antlers and taxidermied fish on the walls, next to photos of black bears strolling through the parking lot. This is where you find walleye … unless you are a fisherman, which I’m not. Walleye is the state fish of Minnesota. Funny, no one outside of the northwoods ever seems to have eaten walleye. It’s a super tasty white fish that is still pretty much line caught and is definitely the local fare at the supperclubs. Other local fishy delights include Lake Trout, Whitefish (clever name), and Bluegill. I didn’t dine on any bluegill this trip, hard to believe. Every freezer in the northwoods probably has a frozen chunk of tiny bluegill ready to go into a buttery frying pan.
Eating local in the UP (upper peninsula of Michigan) is really pretty easy in the summer. Nearly every meal included sweet corn or green beans and tomatoes. I learned that the big clearing down the lake was once a huge vegetable garden. Probably grew turnips, rutabagas, and potatoes for the pasties. Wild blueberries, raspberries, hazelnuts and thimbleberries are everywhere, if you have the patience to pick … they’re tiny here. I had planned to smuggle blueberries back in my suitcase, but we ate every last one of our harvest (the ones that didn’t get eaten on the boat ride back from ‘blueberry point’ across the lake) on cereal for breakfast.
Grocery stores in the UP are few and far between, like almost everything. They sell the basics … like blue jello. I think that’s been outlawed in many states, am I wrong ?? But they do sell Jilbert’s Dairy products. A local dairy, nice! And no rBST. Jilbert’s hand scooped ice cream cones are easier to find than mosquitos, they’re served at every bait shop, gas station and small town bar (?) … right next to the post cards. Mackinaw Island Fudge is my flavor. And a ‘one-scoop’ is more like a 3-scoop. I usually gain weight when I’m in the UP.
As I packed up to leave the woods, rain and cold weather were settling in … the short summer is trying to end already, and Mom is searching old Martha Stewart mags for that recipe that uses blue jello.
Its always hard to leave the woods, but I’m back and my garden has been busily producing zucchini for me while I was away.
Next … how I’m restocking my empty fridge.
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