Wednesday's attempt at making a garden huckleberry pie

September 26, 2013 – Thursday

42 degrees/very foggy/calm

Pentoga Road

Today would have been Dad’s 86^th birthday. Strange, I had difficulty remembering it when he was alive, but just now, as I was posting the date above, it just popped into my head. I think I remembered it last year as well.

Why is it that as I get older and stand on the threshold of my twilight years, Dad and I become closer? He’s been gone for well over a decade, but as time comes and goes, we talk more and more. Our relationship has crossed from that of a father and son into being good friends. I like that. I like that very much.

Happy birthday, Dad. Keep the ukulele strings tuned, the steel guitar singing, and leave some fish for me to catch. I love you, Dad.

Wednesday was the day of the garden huckleberry. I’d never grown them before and had read where they are a good substitute for blueberries in pies and jams. I grew several bushes as an experiment.

Like the rest of the garden, they were slow in the beginning, but once warmer weather arrived, all thrived and in the end, became loaded with beautiful black berries.

Supposedly, they are much sweeter if one waits to harvest until after a hard frost. We’ve not only had frosts, we’ve had freezes. It was time to pick.

Andy and Mollie are to arrive on Sunday and I thought it would be fun to have a hot pie waiting for them. I wanted to bake a test pie, then if it was successful, make a fresh one Sunday morning.

I was almost gleeful as I dumped the berries into the sink, washed and stemmed all, then dumped them into a pot to simmer. They smelled good.

I attempted to make a piecrust from scratch, but we won’t talk about that. In the end, I used a commercial crust and was happy at the results.

The pie was finished. I gently carved my initials into the top crust and set it aside to be eaten for Wednesday night’s dessert.

It was time to take a trike ride and I was barely a mile down the road when one chain jumped the sprocket and became tightly tangled with the second. No amount of prying and pulling would see it free. I trudged back home pulling the machine by its back wheel. Thankfully, all the weight is in the front end.

I’ve made up my mind that I’ll be taking the trike back. I’m not going to purchase it and I’m scared to death that something will break. I’m relatively certain a trike will be purchased next spring, but this isn’t the one for me. It’s too expensive, too old, too heavy, and obviously, needs a good tune up.

Work began on the chimney for Brutus’s house. I hoped that possibly, ONE thing might be built for the structure that wouldn’t take days and days to complete. The chimney isn’t one of them. There’s the garage roof angle, then a completely different angle of the house roof. Still, it’s more than half finished and it should be completed today. Next will be the tv antenna. I’ve got the heavy wire from which to fashion it and I’m sure Brutus is anxious so he can watch more than one channel.

Brutus is still limping, but with the medication, his puppy-like personality has returned. Getting him to swallow his pills is a chore. I simply put one on the end of my middle finger and ram it down his throat up to my elbow so he can’t gag it back out. So far/so good.

Chewing that rawhide bone can be tiresome. 

Sargie works today then will be joining her sisters for a walk-a-thon in Marquette this weekend to benefit Alzheimer’s. Brutus and I will be doing guy things around here like cleaning the house in preparation for Andy and Mollie’s arrival on Sunday. I might even break out a cigar somewhere along the way.

Oh, back to the garden huckleberry pie. It was horrible. Tasting like overly-ripe garden vegetables that someone had covered with entirely too much pepper, we’ve decided that possibly, the bears will enjoy what remains in the dish. Scratch garden huckleberries off my list of things to grow for next season.

How anything can look so good and taste so terrible is beyond me

Time to move along here and greet the day. There are papers to read this morning and after, I’m going hop on the four wheeler and go into town to purchase some paint for the chimney and visit Yooper Brother Mark for a bit. We’ve not made connections for over a week.

But first, it’s time to get another cup of coffee and listen to the news. After all, a man’s work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road…

Ever on guard, Brutus is in his ceiling attack position... should any one attempt to invade from above.