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FRUITFROMWASHINGTON.COM WEB-LETTER
April 2003
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Fruit From Washington April Fruit Subscription Variety is a 20-count gift box of Fuji Apples. Those who have signed up for the monthly Apple Subscription of our 15-count gift box of "strictly apples" will also receive Fuji Apples in April! For your subscription order, look for delivery mid-month.
Apple of the Month, in a 15-count gift box, 6-month subscription order, keeps your kitchen supplied with tasty and delicious, always the best of the lot, varieties of apples.

The 2002 crop of Bosc, a popular dessert pear, in wooden gift box of six or gift box of 15 is still available! (2002 Crop Sold Out)

Our selection of Apple Varieties includes: Gala apples in gift box of 15 and small wooden gift boxes.

Washington flag-apple Red Delicious: fancy wooden gift box or gift box of 15.

Fuji apples, - a new favorite -- great for eating and cooking -- gift box of 15 or wooden box with 6 Fujis. (2002 Crop Sold Out)

Golden Delicious is a versatile, creamy yellow jewel. Golden Delicious -- gift box of 15 or six in a wooden gift box.

Granny Smith apples are a tart, crisp apple, great for eating (if you like tart apples) and fabulous for pies! - 15 per box or wooden box with six.

Braeburns are a fine Washington apple - 15 per box or wooden box with six.

From the FruitFromWashington Mail Bag - “I had the distinct pleasure of walking around the office and distributing an apple to each person who has touched the Energy Trust project. They all really appreciated the gesture and the snack - they are exceptionally good, by the way...There was enough for everyone, with 3 left over.” J.W. - 3/18/03

See other Customers' Comments about the products and service from FruitFromWashington.com!

Order rustic outdoor furniture made in Ellensburg, Washington, from our online Classic Garden Catalog* such as this Redwood Garden Cart, made by FFW Manufacturing of Ellensburg, Washington, perfect for the serious gardener. Special Priced during April at $409.99 (including shipping*) Special price good through 4/30/03.

We offer other solidly constructed and beautiful retro-styled pieces including Picnic Tables and Planter Benches that are functional and attractive in any home setting. *Free shipping on furniture, UPS Ground to addresses in 48 contiguous states.

It's always easy to buy garden furniture, or gift boxes of Washington grown apples and pears from FruitFromWashington.com! For all phone orders, call toll-free 1-877-AT-FRUIT.

Read our Customer Satisfaction and Order Fulfillment policies as well as more information for business gift giving on our Corporate Gift Giving page!

The area forecast is for unstable air, another front approaches, showers continue then deep and cold upper low expected...looks like April. Urban reports that there will be an early bloom this year. We are busy getting the wind machines ready to run for frost control when temperatures drop below freezing. This month we move bee hives into the pear orchard blocks so pollinators can do their thing when blossoms open and the sun shines. For more about the weather, see our outstanding collection of northwest weather links.

Letter from an April 2002 trip to Long Beach, Washington—After my plate of oysters and eggs at the Boondocks Restaurant in So. Bend, I showed the waitress the giant oyster picture and asked for info. She showed it to an old, oldtimer who said the oysters never got that big. The cook said that they were multiple oysters. The Museum guy agreed (multiple oysters) and said that the Stony Point Oyster Co. had been out of business many years.

The first oysters were the native variety, harvested and sold locally. Then the Northern Pacific came to town and eastern seed oysters were planted for transcontinental shipment and sales. After that, it was the "Pacific" oysters (from Japan), which, if allowed to, grow large, but most are harvested while relatively small.

To follow up, I asked Bob Martinson (raised in Hoquiam) who dug all types of shellfish; Stan Tellvik, raised somewhere next to Salt Water, and Wilbur Miller who got up at 4 A.M. last Friday and dug razor clams (5 day opening season). They all agreed—multiple oysters in the picture. Clumps of oysters are not infrequent. That's all from the oyster front. Marty would probably say to accompany them with the wine of your choice. - D.R.Eberhart, 5/2/02

April Fool's - We saw this one in Family Fun Magazine. Janice Knapp of North Lawrence, Ohio suggests pulling an April Fool's Day prank on school aged kids by packing an apple in their lunch in which you've bored a hole and inserted a candy gummy worm!

Once upon a time our Grandpa Clare G. Boulton owned a tavern in the Pike Place Market in Seattle. The only Boulton's Place era photograph that we have is of Grandpa's brother, Darcy Boulton (far right) and brother-in-law, Jack Winn (second from right), standing behind the bar wearing white work aprons to protect their clothes. Aprons seem to have become less frequently used over the years. Every guy with a grill in the backyard will attest to having received a novelty, kiss-the-cook style apron at some time. But ask him where it is and you'll probably get a blank look in return. Maybe aprons went out with the end of class society (excuse me while I catch my breath from laughing here). Really, remember that old "Upstairs Downstairs" British television series? Everyone "downstairs" in the manor house wore an apron, with the exception of the chauffeur and butler. Cooks and maids are always tied to aprons, or rather the aprons are tied to them. In this decade which has brought back the fashions of the (heaven forbid) '70's, we find that aprons of the '40's, '50's and '60's are also making a nostalgic comeback trip. Believe it or not, there are even Vintage Apron websites, and we have discovered old aprons sell like hotcakes at that well known online auction place where virtual garage sale shoppers go.

Spring has sprung, the grass has ris’,
I wonder where the birdies is?
The birdies on the wing.
How absurd, the wing is on the bird. - Unknown
See Evan Morris, Word Detective column posted June 13, 2000 for the etymology of the word "spring".

On the topic of spring poems, Dee's school buddy, Les Sparks, writes—"Regarding the spring poems...remember the spring one that came out of Top-Hi in either the late thirties or early forties that pertained to the sugar beets? The way I remember its origin we had the wet beet pulp trucks going by the high school. As long as the weather was cold the drippings from the trucks were not that odoriferous, but when spring time came the smell was something else...the poem was in the school paper & went like this:

Spring has sprung
It bursts my lungs
For the air is sweet
With sugar beets.

Fortunately, if you remember, that awful smell stopped after the U&I factory dried the beet pulp before they sold it to the cattle feeders. - Les Sparks

April is National Poetry Month which peeves Charles Bernstein - A posting in the Georgia State University's Academe Today Daily Report for 4/8/99 provides an overview of Bernstein's comments.

"April is the cruellest month for poetry," writes the poet Charles Bernstein in a witty denunciation of the Academy of American Poets' annual National Poetry Month. The academy's activities, Mr. Bernstein says, attempt to direct its audience to poetry of the most generic and unoriginal sort -- watered-down tripe that the masses will presumably find both accessible and palatable. That encouragement of mainstream poetry has been to the detriment and outright exclusion of the innovative, Mr. Bernstein writes. "Safe poetry," he quips, "is the best prophylactic against aesthetic experience." Mr. Bernstein offers several alternatives to this month's events. He proposes changing National Poetry Month's name to National Mainstream Poetry Month for accuracy's sake, then creating a National Unpopular Poetry Month for the purpose of promoting neglected works. He further proposes an International Anti-Poetry Month, during which all uses of verse -- from Mother Goose to fast-food jingles to performances of Broadway musicals -- are banned. In the end, Mr. Bernstein concludes, pushing safe poetry is a meaningless act. For poetry "is very much alive when it finds ways of doing things in a media-saturated environment that only poetry can do, but very much dead when it just retreads the same old same old." - Reprinted from 4/8/99 Daily Report from ACADEME TODAY (posted 08 Apr 1999), Georgia State University.

“'You like poetry?' [asked Tweedledee]. 'Ye-es, pretty well--some poetry,' Alice said doubtfully... 'What shall I repeat to her?' said Tweedledee, looking round at Tweedledum with great solemn eyes... 'The Walrus and the Carpenter is the longest,' Tweedledum replied, giving his brother an affectionate hug. Tweedledee began instantly..." - Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

April is the cruelest month, so says T.S. Eliot in the first line of "The Wasteland". Perhaps now we can understand why.

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit - Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetic

Valuable lessons learned from the Dust Bowl years of the mid-1930's are in danger of being forgotten. A five-year drought from 1927-1933, contributed to the black-out dust storms commonly identified with the Great Depression. With grass and other ground cover gone, under windy conditions, soil eroded at an incredible rate. From 1934 to 1936, tremendous dust clouds formed, climbing to 6,500 feet and traveling a distance of 2,000 miles to the Atlantic Ocean.

Soil erosion was named a "national menace" by Hugh Bennett who came to be known as the "Father of Soil Conservation" and creator of the Soil Conservation Service.

"...some of the dust blew clear to Washington, D.C., dimming the sun, and helped Hugh Bennett of the Soil Erosion Service to sell President Franklin Roosevelt and Congress on the idea that something had to be done on a national scale, and at once. While the Soil Conservation Act was being debated before a Senate Committee in May 1934, Bennett delayed the hearing a day because he had been tracking a Southern Plains duststorm that was making its way up the Ohio Valley to the East Coast and Washington, D.C. When the duststorm arrived, during the hearing, they moved from the great mahogany table to the windows of the Senate Office building for a look. Bennett remarked: "Gentlemen, that is Kansas blowing by." Everything went nicely thereafter. Photos of huge "dusters" in Kansas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas convinced even doubters that more formal soil conservation actions were needed." - Source: Missouri Association of Soil and Water Conservation District History

ARC Identifier: 286155 "Comparison of gully, 1930 very eroded and 1934 after the gully had been planted with fast growing plants." (Department of Agriculture. Soil Conservation Service. Upper Mississippi Region. Missouri State Office. NARA's Central Plains Region, Kansas City, MO. (Accessed: 3/22/03)

The newly formed Civilian Conservation Corps began the "Great Plains Shelterbelt" project under the guidance of the Soil Conservation Service. An estimated 20,000 miles of windbreak trees were planted, consisting of more than 218 million trees on 30,000 farms. With windbreaks, wind speed could be reduced from 30 miles per hour to 8 mph. The farming landscape had changed. As these once sturdy windbreaks, planted in the 1930's, weaken with age, they are being removed and not replaced. The American agricultural landscape is changing back again and the problem of soil erosion looms once more.

The shrinking number of windbreaks in the American heartland is a huge concern—Last year the University of Nebraska's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources published a news story titled, "Windbreaks Can Put a Brake on Nebraska's Winds." Nebraska's windbreaks are disappearing. Dr. Scott Josiah, State Extension Forester with NU Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Lincoln, Nebraska, commented that, "The number of windbreaks has declined both in size and in length...A lot of landowners have bulldozed many windbreaks due to pivot irrigation systems, larger farms and larger farming equipment...windbreaks that were multiple rows in the 1930s can be replaced with only one or two rows of trees that will provide adequate wind protection." More from the University of Nebraska Extension Service on the Benefits of Field Windbreaks, Erosion Control and Crop Production.

“It just takes one dust storm to make us realize in a very short time we can lose a lot of topsoil...We don't want to go back to the dirty '30s. They called them the dirty '30s for a reason. People may have forgotten.”- Scott Josiah

In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.
- Edna St Vincent Millay's "Song of a Second April"

Quick Click Highlights for Spring
Calendar & Daybook • Garden Links • Cooking Links • Searchable recipe database • Calorie Search • Fruit Calorie Search • Classic Garden Furniture Catalog

The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted, With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset, Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate;
The melted snow of March—the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts; —For spring-time is here!
- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Warble for Lilac-Time)

Then and Now —The old style garden cart was originally designed to transport tools and gardening supplies out to the garden plot. Built much like a wheelbarrow, it could be trundled easily down the garden path. Today, the typical garden cart is more like a mobile home, built with wheels but not designed to go anywhere far or fast.

FFW Manufacturing Redwood Garden Cart is perfect for the serious gardener. It has wheels and a handle for easy maneuvering in the garden room or potting shed, or outside onto deck or patio. Its sturdy and functional design includes a built in bucket container.

It provides ample workspace for transplanting seedlings from flats to pots; or for creating lovely window boxes and other container plantings that will delight the eye throughout the season. A wide storage shelf beneath the workbench is a good place for bags of potting soil or other potting supplies. The top shelves are best for stacking smaller items, and also as a place to hang trowels and other hand tools.

Sophia notes, I wouldn't call myself an "avid gardener," but I am avidly interested in gardening. The few catalog orders I have placed since moving to our home in Northern Virginia three-and-some years ago have resulted in an ever-increasing number of mail-order garden catalogs coming our way. I always look through and usually save them. (The out-of-date ones make great "clipping" projects for little kids... home-made valentines, thank-you notes, etc. all benefit from the cutting and pasting of those gorgeous pics.)

Just this winter I found the Stark Brother's Nursery catalog in the mailbox and was thrilled to see that they sold the apple tree: Arkansas Black. I first saw these wonderfully dark red apples at a road-side fruit stand during an autumn sight-seeing trip to the Shenandoah's. The proprietor warned me that they were very hard and very sour, wouldn't start tasting good until December, but would easily keep 'til spring. "I'm not responsible if you break your teeth!" he said. So, I bought a whole case of them! That's my kind of cantankerous apple! I and one of my daughters were the only ones to enjoy them that fall, but as they mellowed everyone else joined in. We kept them in two cardboard boxes in the garage and dipped in at will all winter and into spring. Not one went rotten. Even the last to go (sometime in April) was still good enough to eat fresh. Each year since, I've yearned to go back... not for the famous Fall-Colors, but to find that fruit-stand again! My husband took care of that this year by ordering the tree for my birthday... though I had to dig the hole. Happy Arbor Day! - Sophia Eberhart, 3/27/03

See our garden links page for more nursery catalog websites including Raintree Nursery of Washington State which we recommend highly!

“Recently, there has been much interest in fruit-growing on the part of persons who desire to establish themselves on the land. The attractiveness of fruit appeals to them, and they think that the raising of it is not laborious and that the business is adaptable to beginners. This is one expression of amateurism. Fruit-growing entails continuous, active and often hard, disagreeable labor, and, in the case of most orchard fruits, it requires long waiting for perfect results. The business demands much special knowledge, quick action, and first-rate salesmanship. The competition is sharp. Persons should enter the business with caution, and only with a full comprehension of the elements of failure and success." - The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, L.H. Bailey (Vol II, p. 1291, Macmillan, NY 1941)

Some suggestions for selecting your Arbor Day tree—Take time and care in shopping for the tree or trees you plan to plant on Arbor Day or any time this early Spring. Read up on the growth habits of the trees that interest you, their seasonal characteristics, soil and climate requirements, before you decide which varieties to buy. An impulse purchase of a bareroot sale tree at the mega-mart during your post-church shopping on some sunny Sunday, may not offer the best odds of success. You will be able to improve the chances of establishing a healthy, flourishing tree in your yard or garden by starting with well-grown nursery stock that has not languished out of the ground for very long. A direct purchase from a local nursery or a mail-order shipment from a reputable nursery's catalog with a quick shipping option will increase your new planting's chance of success. Well kept trees have a lifespan of decades, even a century plus. Ancient trees are awesome and there is a chance that the one you plant will be around for hundreds of years. How cool is that?

“It is most unusual weather for the season: it is so every year. The delusion is complete, when, on a mild evening, the tree-toads open their brittle-brattle chorus on the edge of the pond. The citizen asks his neighbor, "Did you hear the frogs last night?" That seems to open the new world. One thinks of his childhood and its innocence, and of his first loves. It fills one with sentiment and a tender longing, this voice of the tree-toad. Man is a strange being. Deaf to the prayers of friends, to the sermons and warnings of the church, to the calls of duty, to the pleadings of his better nature, he is touched by the tree-toad." - How Spring Came in New England by Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900)

Make your garden hospitable to toads and bats. "Ooh, creepy," may be your first reaction to the idea of toads underfoot in the garden and bats flitting overhead at dusk, but seriously, they are a gardener's friends. Toads, the more terrestrially inclined relations of frogs, will hang out in a place that gives cover to protect them from predators. Bats will pass up a belfry for a wall-mounted bat house anytime. Toads and bats are both great insect eaters, and you can encourage their residency around your place by providing habitat. In fact, start your own "Habitat for Chiroptera" or "Habitat for Amphibia" project and if you build it (a proper bat house or toad shack, that is) surely they shall come and your garden will end up a "Field of Dreams" and not a "Field of Screams". Links to more information: Frog and Toad Info • Toad House Plans • Bat House Plans

Month of April Feature Recipe Poppy Seed Easter Cake Based on a recipe from a French-Canadian friend of Roberta Doucet of Scotland, Connecticut, as printed in The Christian Science Monitor 1 c. milk 1/4 c. poppy seeds 3 medium eggs, separated 1 1/2 c. sugar 3/4 c. vegetable oil or melted butter 2 t. baking powder 2 c. flour Soak poppy seeds in milk for 1/2 hour. Beat together egg yolks and sugar. Add oil slowly then add seeds with milk and mix well. Sift together flour and baking powder and add to the mixture gradually. Beat egg whites into stiff peaks and fold into mixture. Bake 30-35 minutes at 350°F in greased, floured, layer-cake tins. Cool, remove from tins. Best frosting orange or cream cheese. Grandma Violet's Favorite Cream Cheese Frosting Mash 1 package (3-oz.) cream cheese. Add 1 T. warm water and 1 tsp. vanilla. Then add gradually 3 c. sifted confectioners' sugar, beating until smooth and of spreading consistency. Makes enough frosting for tops and sides of 2 9" layers or one large tube cake. Cooking for a Seder Meal? Here's a link to Laura Brody's Bete Noir (gluten free)! For more dessert recipes (using Fruit From Washington apples, pears and other good fruits) see the FruitFromWashington Desserts Recipes page!

Send a Free Digital Spring or Easter Card from the early 1900's showing showers, fresh flowers, and cute little peepers!

Here is an easy and fun project that is just perfect for springtime when the sun is warming up the world and the windows can be opened to let in the sounds of birds chirping and flower-freshened air... the fresh air part is especially important with this project!

As always, feel free to experiment and alter any or all materials at your whim!

1. Purchase an assortment of cheap fingernail polish or gather together any extras you have hanging around home. (Have fingernail polish remover on hand just in case!) Also bring out all your marking pens and acrylic paints. I did not have good luck with glitter glue. After drying, it fell off the eggs.

2. Purchase a bag of craft-store eggs (usually plastic) of assorted colors. These can be pulled apart later and filled with candy.

3. Find things from around the home to set the eggs on to dry. I borrowed the plastic lids from some old hand lotion bottles. Inverted, these lids make little egg-stands. If you have quick-drying fingernail polish, this isn't really an issue.

4. Put old clothes or aprons on the kids and cover your work area with a protective layer of paper.

5. Open the windows to dissipate the fingernail polish fumes or set up the work area outside.

That's it. Have fun! - Sophia Eberhart, 3/27/03

More Household Easter Holiday Hints– Color Easter eggs with natural dyes. It's easy to do and the ingredients are readily available! To color Easter eggs, use white eggs (not brown). Place no more than six in a pan at one time. Layer on top of the eggs two cups of your vegetable dye material, such as fresh spinach leaves, raw shredded beets, red cabbage leaves, sliced red or yellow onion. You could even send the kids outside to gather two cups of dandelion flowers to use as the plant dye material. But be certain that they pick the dandelions from a wild or natural area (even if it's your lawn) that has not been sprayed or treated with herbicide.

Add 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar or 1 Tablespoon of cream of tartar to the pan and then cover eggs with water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover the pan and continue to simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and let the eggs continue to soak in dye for at least an hour. After removing the colorful eggs from the dye water, let dry and then coat with vegetable oil to create a shiny surface.

For robin's egg blue color, use one cup crushed blueberries (fresh or frozen) as the dye material and add one Tablespoon vinegar to the water bath; one cup of crushed raspberries will produce a rosy hue; and if you combine the blueberries with raspberries you will intensify the color! Experiment by drawing designs on the eggs with wax crayon that resists dye, and do multiple dye bath treatments for special effects.

Also, spices can be used to color eggs. To each cup of water, measure 1 Tablespoon of such spice as turmeric for a yellow dye, or cinnamon for a rosy brown. Check your cupboard and feel free to try dyeing eggs with other promising possibilities such as cloves or curry. You may be pleasantly surprised by the result! (Source: Adapted from Sarah Ban Breathnach's "Mrs. Sharp's Traditions: Reviving Victorian Family Celebrations of Comfort & Joy", The Simple Abundance Press, Scribners's, 2001)

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December 7, 2004

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