Blackberry Crisp

I love wild blackberries. We had some in the very back of our 1/2 acre property while I was growing up. I was always back there, munching on those things. Best part of late summer. So, I was happy to see that there were lots of blackberries when we were looking to buy our current place in 2000. Actually, there were too many blackberry bushes. The previous owners had let them grow along the creek, between the creek and the lawn. They had horses that they let roam the yard to graze, and they wanted to keep them from going down to the creek. Fortunately, the blackberries weren't that hard to get rid of. Every so often, a vine will pop up, however, and we have to nip it in the bud. ;-)

What is great, is the section of land between the highway and our driveway, which all run parallel to each other. It's a slope probably about 15 feet in width, and maybe 100 feet in length (I'm horrible at guessing distances). About half of it is covered in blackberries. It keeps them nicely in their spot, they can't roam.

We don't even water them, which I know we should because we would get much better blackberries. This year, the long cool wet spring seemed to make them very happy, and we had a lot of good blackberries.

I got it into my head that I should gather a bunch, and make a blackberry crisp. I love crisps, and I love baking. But I think I've only baked once or twice in the past few years, because of my health. But I bit the bullet and Kaelan and I went out and picked and picked and picked. And then picked some more, because there didn't seem to be enough when I put it in the pan.

I took a couple good looking recipes from the internet, and picked what I liked from them and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I have problems with eating crisps in general, as the topping doesn't ever seem to be good enough. It's either too dry, or too bland, or something.  My standards are too high, because I love crisps SO MUCH.  But this one was just right. And amazingly enough, I barely noticed the blackberry seeds in the crisp.

Unfortunately, I'm writing this post much later, so I don't quite remember what my recipe turned out to be. I was going to write it down immediately, but of course I didn't. I'm going to try to put it in this post, to the best of my recollection.

Blackberry Crisp (or Crumble)

Filling:

8 cups fresh blackberries
1/4 to 1/2 cups sugar (depending on the sweetness of the blackberries)
2 TB cornstarch
2 TB flour

Topping: (this is where it gets a bit fuzzy, things can be adjusted as you like)

3/4 C whole wheat flour
3/4 C all purpose flour
1 1/2 (generous) old fashioned rolled oats
1 C Brown Sugar
1 tsp (generous) cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
pinch of cloves
1 tsp powdered vanilla
1/2 C (1 stick) butter

Preheat oven to 375.

For the filling:

Place the blackberries in a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix the sugar, flour, and cornstarch together. Then, pour over the blackberries, and gently combine with a spatula until blackberries are coated.

Spray a 13X9 pan with cooking spray, and pour berry mixture into pan. Place the pan in the oven for 20 minutes.

Topping:

While the blackberries are cooking in the oven, cut the butter into 1/2 inch cubes. In a medium bowl, add the flours, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, vanilla and butter. Stir together with your fingers, until the mixture is crumbly.

After 20 minutes, take the blackberries out of the oven. Evenly sprinkle the topping over the berry mixture.

Return the pan into the oven for 30 minutes, or until the topping is a golden brown, and the berry mixture is bubbly.

A very peaceful spot by the creek:


Well, about 3 weeks after the fire, I've finally come back to the house. My husband has been here often, but I have not. Too much for me to handle, mostly for physical reasons. Anyway, the beautiful late spring weather has been very healing. It's been extra rainy for this time of year. Yes, it is always rainy and cloudy off and on until the cherries are picked (sadly ironic, as the rain can ruin crops by splitting the cherries). As soon as cherry season is over, it gets hot and sunny for good.

I feel guilty for enjoying all this extra rain, because of the orchardists, but I absolutely LOVE rain and stormy weather, something that isn't as common here where we get 300 days of sunshine a year. :-p



Native Redtwig Dogwood by the creek (I missed the biggest bloom, but there are a few flowers left):


Pouring down rain:

Just a bit toasty

Well, I don't feel like posting a big thingy here (edit-oops, too late, I ended up posting a lot), but I wanted to mention what has been happening in our household for the past week and a half. We have had a fire in our house. Fortunately, the structure itself is alright. But the downstairs is shot, and the upstairs is full of smoke and soot damage. The entire house contents are going to have to come out, most of it is unsalvagable, and all of the walls, ceilings and carpet/linoleum etc. is going to have to be taken out. The house has the most awful smell I've ever smelled. The closest thing I can compare it to, is when you burn plastic. But it's so much worse, like a rancid chemically nasty plactic burn smell that gets in your nostrils and won't go away. It's soaked into every possible thing in the house that is permeable. So, everything's going down to the bare bones, and then we have to build it back up. Fortunately, we have good insurance and that will be a big help. But our family is in a hotel right now, and hopefully will get to a rental soon. It will probably be a minimum of a half a year before we can live there again (but hey, it took us a year to remodal our bathroom, so I don't have a lot of faith in the system!). Very stressfull on the fam.

I had been planning on getting some plants and stuff this spring, and working on our property in preparation for my husband and I having our renewal of vows on the property next summer (15 years!). I don't see all that preparation happening now. I'm hoping that our plants hold up to the neglect and/or trampeling from work crews. :-( I'm praying that everything will work out in the end. Hopefully, despite the sad state of the yard, our renewals can be a time of reflection, gratefullness to God's mercy and hope for the future.

This happened right at the anniversary of our finding this property 10 years ago, which is ironic. Sad on one hand, but on the other hand, it makes you reavaluate and count your blessings when you go through an ordeal like this.

Several things happened the day of the fire, that were miracles from God:

My husband was out by the road when the fire started, and our great (loud!) heat alarm in the basement alerted him to the fire.

I was taking a nap, with ear plugs in, and never woke up to the alarms, even when the smoke alarm in my bedroom went off with the smoke pouring into my room. My husband came into the bedroom and got me out the window. It took me a long while to fully wake up and realize what was happening. I'm wondering if the smoke inhalation and lack of oxygen was already getting to me (?). Later, I found several big bruises on my inner knees and lower calves, from where I went out the window. I don't remember it being that energetic at the time. :-p

Our area is serviced by a volunteer fire station. This means that it is not manned, but that volunteers keep an ear out to fires with their radios, and have to come in from their homes (they live near the station), work or wherever they are if they're close enough. Then they have to get the engines out and respond. Fire engines also come in from the manned stations in town, which are about 10-15 minutes away (volunteer station is about 2-3 minutes away). The day of the fire, they were doing a work bee at the station. I'm sure they do work bees there at other times, but in the 10 years I've lived at this house, I've never seen one done before. They had maybe 10-15 (it's hard to count, I just remember tons of them going in and out of our house with their SCBA's on - great training for them!) strapping young men there working, with some extra engines. What wonderful timing God has.

Our indoor kitty, Angel, happened to be in my bedroom, so we were able to grab her and put her in our truck. She was so upset and confused by everything. She's now at my MIL's apartment, next to our house.

My husband (who is an ex-fire fighter), said that the fire in our downstairs living room looks like it was just moments away from a flashover. I believe, that without our excellent alarm system (my husband has a business selling these USA made quality alarms), and the extra fire fighters at the end of the road, I wouldn't be alive now, and our house would have been burned much more than the smallish portion that it ended up being burned in the end.

My dad is a volunteer firefighter, EMT and first responder for our area. My poor parents found out about our fire from the scanner. My mom is always worried about us, when she hears about accidents on our road, she'll call us and make sure that we're safe. I'm sure that hearing about our fire like that was her worst fears realized!

This is a difficult time for our family, and all the prayers and support from family and friends is wonderful. In the end, God provides, and reminds us of what is truly important.

I'll post more pictures here when I'm up to it. I'll try and keep up with updates on the house, throughout our renovations.

This was the first truck to arrive. You can see the haziness in the air, from the smoke:


A couple ambulances, park up on the road for room. The paramedic walked down and checked us out while I was sitting in our Suburban. Picture is a bit darker in the upper left hand corner, because I'm taking it through the windshield, although there was a storm skirting around the edge (never hit us):


A Wenatchee World newspaper reporter up on the road looking down at us. I guess that he decided that our house fire was too boring, because he didn't seem to take (nor post) any pictures:


Angel, on the dash of our truck. She was trying to get as close to us as possible, and was quite distraught, and meowing. If we got close, she'd act like we were petting her, although it was only the glass. You can see the firefighters in the background, and the firetruck reflected in the windshield:




Firefighters going into the house. You can see his mask and SCBA tank:


After everything was contained, there was a lot of congragating outside of the front door. About 2/3rds of the firefighters are standing in this group, waiting to make sure there aren't any hotspots left. My dad is on the farthest left, in the darker yellow (he's wearing his brush suit):




Wrapping up:


My sweet son wanted to get in the truck with Angel, to comfort her. For a while, I kept saying no, because I was afraid that as soon as we opened the door she would bolt, with all the confusion and fear. Here he is, giving me puppy dog eyes (is she giving me kitty eyes?):






The Red Cross Truck, trying to turn around, while leaving:






The soot and smoke poured out of the vents into the upstairs:

a walk through spring

This is a post that I started last year but never finished, so here it is (forward posted 3/22/10):

I took a long walk in the garden today, and enjoyed all the signs of spring. This is the first day where it all feels truly like spring is here!

The hill behind our house:

A close up of the hill behind our house, with giant pondorosas (they look small from this perspective:


The hillside behind our house, and our neighbour's poperty. Notice the bright colors of the dogwood, riverbirch, and willows by the creek:


We planted some plants around our front entrance, around the mailbox, etc. last summer. It was hard for the plants to get through the hot summer and we lost a couple, but it's gratifying to see them growing prettily this spring. The next four pictures are from our mailbox bed.

A purple Aubrieta flower:


White Aubrieta:


A view from above of our mailbox bed. There are a few Aubrietas, 'Karl Forester' grass, and Butterfly Bush:


Purple and white Aubrieta, nestled against the stone border:


A panorama from behind our neighbour's house:


The hillside just down the road from our house, with beautiful geological features:


All41, playing with Abby:




River Birch tassles by the creek:


Sleeping grapevines:




An old sage, that has grown floppy and woody. I decided to chop the heck out of it and see what happened. The next few pictures show how sad it looks (it grew lots of full leaves after this, cool!):






Abby's watching me longingly from her enclosure:


Close ups of our cherry tree's flower buds and unfurling leaves:






Daffodil by the house:


We have lots of violets growing next to the house, and into the grass:


The next two pics are of dogwood flower buds. One is pink, and one is white (can't remember which is which):




Ornamental Maple buds:


Double white Lilac leaf buds (took this out of the yard of an elderly lady who died and her house was used as a training place for the Master Gardeners. The silly thing hasn't bloomed yet, after years of happily growing in my yard. Ah well, some day:


English Walnut leaf buds:


English Walnut leaf buds and the beginning of a tassle:


Feverfew:


Jonesy loves to snuggle in the leaves under the Crambe in the bed in front of the house:


Close up of Catmint leaves (This is a start from my husband's aunt's garden, I believe it is Nepeta grandiflora):