WW: Winter haws

(Fruit of the hawthorn [Crataegus], these often persist into winter, where they add needed colour to the soggy North Coast landscape. After the leaves fall, the tree's bare branches remain heavily decorated with thousands of these tiny scarlet apples, which, when fresh, are a welcome amendment to jams, jellies, wines, and cider.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Pink hawthorn spray

(Crataegus sp. Our usual hawthorn blossoms are white.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Hawthorn blossoms

Hermitcraft: Hawthorn

(Some of this information originally appeared in my book, The Neighborhood Forager, Chelsea Green, 2000)

The neck of the woods where I've been staying has the most fabulous hawthorns (Crataegus) I've ever seen. In this harvest season they're as red as they are green, their branches clustered with fat crimson haws the size of small grapes. One is sorely tempted to put up a batch of jelly. (The fact that the same district is full of beautiful crabapples – the other ingredient, along with sugar, for perfect preserves – only makes it worse.)

Overlooked today, haws have a long history of culinary use. Most are fairly insipid when eaten raw, but their vibrant colour – red usually; sometimes yellow, orange, or purple – makes for visually stunning jams, jellies, and wines. Traditionally you run them with something else, such as crabapples, blackberries, sorbs (rowan berries), or sumac, that has better flavour. In a pinch you can simply add a teaspoon of lemon juice.

In times past, haws were pitched into a run of cider to give it body and a crimson sheen. Their association with apples, to which they are closely related, and with which they come ripe each year, also extends to use in apple pies and pastries, again largely for colour. (I suspect the reason the haws here-around are so big and beautiful is because they've cross-pollinated with the many apple trees in the area.)

Hawthorn itself is hard and strong, sands and oils well, and makes a fine walking stick, if a bit heavy. When I lived in Québec, where I did a lot of snowshoeing, I carried a long hawthorn walking stick that I could easily drive through snow and ice to probe for ground level, and which handily bore my entire weight when necessary, as it frequently was when climbing over obstacles or getting out of a tight spot. A hawthorn stick also tends to writhe and twist right and left, which gives it a poetical look and affords multiple varied handholds. (Again, I'm thinking of the hard winter service mine did.)

The same wood is useful for tool handles and mallet heads, and in fact any application requiring durable, inflexible service.

I've also pruned off the thorns of long-spined varieties, dried them steel-hard, and used them in cork and cardboard for thumbtacks and map pins. Dimensions vary tremendously from strain to strain, from short and fairly blunt through long and hypodermic. This is something to be aware of when scouting a hawthorn, both for the potential practicality and self-preservation.

If you've got hawthorns around (and thanks to the birds, you almost certainly have hawthorns around), and the fruit looks serviceable, try putting up a few jars of haw jelly. Its appearance alone is worth the effort.

Update: Ferns, Sticks, Trinity Tar

Here's some breaking news on subjects I've broached in the past, of no particular internal relevance and in no particular order.

Fiddleheads

In Hermitcraft: Fiddleheads I discussed the differences between Pteridium (bracken) shoots and those of other ferns, such as those pictured in the article. Here then is a photo of one such Pteridium shoot, for those who want to taste (or avoid) them. (Click to enlarge.) Where they occur, they typically occur en masse; one spring I took a walk during a 10 minute break in a community college course I was teaching, and came back with a mighty fistful of these.

Walking Stick

In A Brief History of the Stick I mentioned that I'd whipped the end of my walking stick and coated the cord with PVC cement. It didn't work, though it probably would have if I'd used urethane varnish. (The glue was an experiment.) I've since stripped off the whipping and replaced it with this brass plumbing fitting from the hardware store. The balance of the stick has changed a bit, but all in all it's working very nicely.

Hermitcraft: Ancestor Gong

This is an ancestor gong I made from an old saw blade I found in my grandfather's shop. Each time you ring it, it sings gratitude for those who went before and made this life possible. Starting with my grandparents, who built the house I'm living in.

The blade sings nicely (I chose the best ringer in the lot), and gongs of this type have deep meaning for Old Settlers; time was, all the muddy, isolated villages on the Green Side had a big, worn-out head saw blade hanging in the square, along with some random piece of busted ironmongery to beat on it. That's how you got people's attention for announcements, fires, celebrations, and so on. Where there was no church bell, it called folks to that, too.

The symbolism in this particular blade goes even deeper, as my grandfather, his roots gnarled deep in this glacial till, was a congenital, nay compulsive, woodworker and builder. With this very blade he put the roof over me and the walls around. So with each stroke, this gong pays homage to all my people, conceptual and concrete.

The striker is a piece of hawthorn I cut on the property. The photo at right shows what it looks like now. This was originally finished in classic trinity tar (linseed oil, turpentine, and vinegar), but that mildewed in the rain. So I took the beater back down, sanded off the first finish and re-tarred it, this time with linseed oil, paint thinner, and vinegar, with half a part of asphalt to darken it up. I like the result, and after about two dozen coats of that toxic, no-more-mister-nice-guy tar, well-rubbed and hardened over the woodstove for a month or so, it's looking good out there.

The lanyard is six strand kongo kumihimo: four strands of tarred seine twine, two of gold mason line.

I try to ring this gong every day at noon. I give it one han roll-down, striving for perfect symmetry and tone. It's become part of my mindfulness practice.

Update, 5 November, 2011: It turns out that the saw blade eventually loses the ability to ring in this climate, evidently because of the heavy coat of rust it acquires. Today I replaced the original blade with another from my grandfather's pile, but it too will gradually grow duller. It would be fine for an indoor chime, though.