Rolling Out the First Bale - DEC 2025

On December 7th we rolled out the first round bale for the cows and goats.  They were happy to see the gate open.  Thanks to the lime, our pasture held up really good this year.  We had a fair amount of grass, even when neighboring ranchers' grass was poor.  I give the lime application the credit.  We'll do it again this spring.  By December, however, the animals had eaten the grass down and were anxious for the hay they know we have stockpiled for the winter fight outside the fence.

Each year we purchase 10 round bales from a gentleman who delivers them to our home for $40 per bale.  We roll them out in a double row on the property line between our house and the neighbor to the east of us.  We cover it with a tarp.  We noticed that we need to buy a new tarp as ours are in rough shape and did a mediocre job of protecting the quality of the hay.  We were using a really old repurposed outdoor advertising vinyl billboard sign and also a tarp from Harbor Freight that disintegrated.  I'm making calls to Lamar Outdoor Advertising to see if they have any old vinyl signs for sale that I can use as a tarp.

The hay ring is a must to try to keep the hay protected and attempts to keep waste to a minimum.  However, the cows and goats are especially messy eaters.  They waste about a quarter of each bale, pulling it out, dropping it on the ground, stepping on it and then pooping and peeing on it.  The goats, once about half of the bale is eaten, like to hop on top of the bale and sleep.  Of course, they poop on it and then the cows and goats won't eat it.  I'm thinking about putting up a gate and only allow them access to the hay for short periods during the day, so that they only eat and don't lounge around.

We have about 68 square bales in inventory in the hay loft and (now) nine round bales in inventory for the winter.  I'll be calling the gentleman who sells us the round bales for another order of 10 bales in a month or two.  We've found that a round bale lasts about six days before they animals have finished as much as they are going to eat.  We feed them a little sweet feed over the winter, but if they're not in milk, we generally just make sure they have hay to eat.  I do have plenty of turnips planted in the garden to feed them as well.

A River Runs Through It

Last week I took an interesting drive that I wanted to share.  The drive started west of Oberlin, Louisiana in a town called Mittie.  Mittie boasts the Ouiska Chitto Creek where several canoe outfitters launch canoes and kayaks.  We grew up canoeing on this creek.  The water is as clear as you're going to get in south Louisiana.  The sand is the whitest you'll find in our area, too.

The photo you see below was taken a few weeks prior.  I'll pull in on the side of the bridge from time to time and walk down to the water.  It is peaceful.  The bridge you see is Highway 26 that runs between Oberlin and then intersects with Hwy 171 near DeRidder.  Just beyond the bluff behind the rope swings is the launch point for several of the canoe outfitters.  During summertime and especially on weekends, this area is bustling with activity. 

The pickup point is at Carpenter's Bridge in Kinder, LA and that's roughly 8 miles away.  The canoe trip, depending on current and how often you pull up on a sandbar to picnic or swim, will take you between 4 and 7 hours.  Carpenter's Bridge was an old, rickety wooden bridge, as I remember from my childhood.  It had fallen into disrepair and the local, rural budgets could not support rebuilding.  In fact, the bridge stayed closed for about two years, only reopening in September 2024.  I had never driven over the new bridge and decided to take a little road trip while working in the area.  Here's the new bridge in all its glory!

This view off the bridge shows the canoe pickup point.  That sandbar, in summer, has tired canoers lined up ready to load up in an old school bus for a ride back to where their vehicles are parked.

And here is the other side of the bridge.  The creek flows until it meets up with the Calcasieu River near LeBlanc, Louisiana.

It's a nice spot, for sure.

I drove over the bridge toward Kinder.  It is a long, winding rural two lane road that eventually ends up in Kinder.  I'm passing over the Calcasieu River bridge in Kinder now.

Right alongside the bridge and the river, you'll see a large corrugated tin barn.  There's a big engine in that barn for it houses a large pump used to re-lift water out of the Calcasieu River.

That water is pumped into Kinder Canal Company's canal system that flows for miles and miles.  Rice farmers with land positioned alongside the canal in Allen Parish to Jefferson Davis Parish use the water to irrigate their crops.  What you're seeing in the photo below is 'the pump,' which was a very popular swimming hole for years and years.

It was a nice, relaxing drive that brought back a lot of memories.  I love a good road trip!

Trimming the Tree

Nope, this post has nothing to do with Christmas trees even though it's that time of year.  I know that "Tis the season to be jolly," but jolly wasn't the emotion the other day.  I've posted about this long ago, but let me give you a little back story to set the stage for this event.

My Dad graduated from USL in Lafayette.  The University of Southwestern Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns.  They've since changed the name to UL.  Back when Dad graduated from college, they had the neatest thing ever at USL.  As you walked across the stage to shake the University president's hand and receive your diploma, they would give you a coffee can with some dirt in it and a live oak seedling from one of the old live oaks on campus.

Being in his early 20's, Dad wasn't enthusiastic about this 'gift' or understand the importance of the memories of this little tree.  He brought it home, gave it to his grandmother and forgot about it.  Well, my great-grandmother lived right smack dab in the middle of the town of Kinder at the intersection of Highway 165 and US 190 right across from the police station.  She planted it right in her yard.  And it grew, and GREW, AND GREW.

Sixty years later, it is a big live oak tree, providing beauty and shade.  My great-grandmother's home is long gone, but the tree remains.  Kinder has changed a lot in 60 years.  It boasts a couple more red lights, an overpass over the railroad tracks, a McDonald's and a casino now, but the tree remains the same standing in all it's stately glory, anchoring down the past, holding tightly to nostalgic memories while pointing confidently to the future.

Until last week...

No, the tree didn't get cut down.  It's not ALL gone, but it got one heck of a hair cut.  I remember being in elementary school and getting a haircut that I didn't like.  I was embarrassed to go to school.  I ran and hid - under a car, if I remember correctly.  How long would it take for my haircut to grow out?  Well, the old oak tree got a bad hair cut - a massacre, a butchering, you might say.

You see, there is a sign in the foreground and a larger outdoor advertising sign in the background.  The tree had grown to block the view of the signs.  A big miscommunication happened and someone had Dad's tree trimmed without his permission.  Branches were stacked alongside Highway 165 four feet high.  The tree trimmers gouged a big chunk out of the middle of the tree before passersby in town stopped the crew and asked if they had permission to be doing that since the tree is on private property.  It caused quite a stir.  Telephone calls were made and sincere apologies given, but the damage was done.

The tree is okay, and the bad haircut will eventually grow out - albeit a little longer than it takes for us.  Oh, live oak tree, Oh, live oak tree, how lovely are your branches...

A Postscript on the Bees

A few final notes following the pulling of fall honey from our hives.  We had mentioned a while back about small hive beetles and the damage that they can do in a hive.  If you have a strong colony, the bees will do a good job of fighting them off.  The guard bees run them out of the frames.  We help the bees out a little bit.  We learned a trick from our bee club that is doing the trick.

Swiffer sheets.  Yep, you heard me right.  Those sheets that you put on a dust mop to clean your kitchen floors have a dual purpose.  They will catch and kill small hive beetles.  We put a sheet on the top of the frames. The bees run the small hive beetles out of the hive and up to the top.  When they run across the Swiffer sheets, their little feet get caught in the microfibers and they are stuck together like velcro.  They end up dying.  Look at all the small hive beetle carcasses on the Swiffer sheets!: 

Tricia began rendering the beeswax from the cappings from our fall honey pull.  It only consisted of 21 frames, but we still save every bit we can.  Tricia puts all the cappings along with some water into a crock pot and lets it all liquefy.  This is then poured through a muslin cloth that acts as a filter.  We do this process twice to get a lot of impurities out of the beeswax.  It looks like a brick of gold.

We're saving all this beeswax for candle-making and making lip balm.  We are getting quite an inventory of beeswax and there are so many uses for it.

Once the beeswax has been filtered and removed from the crock pot, what remains is some honey that was trapped in the wax.  That honey, however, is mixed with water.  We tend to feed all this back to the bees.  In very early spring, we'll pull this out of the freeze and feed the bees.

So many uses of all the by products in honeycomb.  Not much goes to waste.

A Hit Or Miss Type Deal

Growing tomatoes in the fall is a hit or miss thing.  You are in a race with time and if you hit it right, it's a lot of fun.  Spring tomatoes can be good, but the battle with stink bugs, heat and humidity take a lot of luster off of the undertaking.  Fall tomatoes can be heartbreaking, too.  Several years ago we had a beautiful crop of big, healthy fruit on the vines... and then an early hard freeze came in November and dashed our hopes.  We ended up canning many jars of green tomato sauce that year.

This year the crop looked good.  No hard freezes to date and we've been picking lots of tomatoes.  Between what we've harvested and what's left on the vines, we could actually see a better harvest this fall than we did this summer.  In late summer I planted about nine varieties of tomatoes from seed.  We also had some that came up volunteer that I potted and nurtured throughout the dog days of summer.

One variety that has been SO productive are Chadwick Cherry tomatoes.  I didn't order these.  They came as a packet of FREE seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds.  Boy, am I glad I planted them.  Every day we pick them.  The fruit are larger than the normal cherry tomato you think of.

Chadwick Cherry

We also have larger tomatoes as well coming in: Creoles, Black Krim, Black Tomatoes, Cherokee Purple, Campari, Pink Brandywine.  Just this afternoon, we cut these up and made some Pico de Gallo that we promptly devoured with some chips.

Along with eating them, we're also putting some up for later.  With the Chadwick Cherry's, Tricia washes them up and freezes them whole.  She finds them easy and delicious to quickly thaw out and use as a base for cooking sauces for pasta.

The vibrant red color of the tomatoes really pop!

Today we talked about processing some of the tomato harvest and canning a bunch of jars of tomato sauce or perhaps, salsa as we still have a lot of tomatoes on the vine.  I think the 10 day forecast isn't anticipating any freezes.  If things hold up like they ought to, we'll put up a bunch of jars of tomatoes in our storage pantry this year.  And in just 30 more days, I'll be planting the spring tomato crop by seeds.  How nice to stretch out the tomato harvest almost year-round!

We Dig Sweet Potatoes

Just prior to Thanksgiving, I got busy digging up sweet potatoes from the "jungle" that grows up each and every year.  Well over a decade ago it all started with a Beauregard sweet potato thrown in the compost pile.  Since that time they have come up on their own every year.  At some point, maybe 10 years ago, I planted some Golden Wonder heirloom sweet potatoes that I got from a guy named the barefoot farmer up in Tennessee at a sustainable agriculture conference.  Those things were prolific.  They ended up crowding out all of our Beauregards.

Golden Wonders are smaller sweet potatoes, but they are delicious.  I told Tricia next year I'm going to get the Beauregards reestablished in the garden.  Here is a photo of all the sweet potato vines just prior to our digging.

Years ago, I dug up the whole sweet potato patch with a shovel, but I learned quickly that some garden forks do the job better and easier.  The only thing you really have to watch out for is forking right through the middle of a big, fat sweet potato.  

This is the standard size of a Golden Wonder.  The flesh is a light orange color.  The Beauregard is a bigger sweet potato with a deep dark orange color.

I generally begin digging on the south end of the patch and dig in three foot swaths, putting the sweet potatoes in a wagon and the vines in a big blue tub that I toss over to the cows.  The LOVE sweet potato vines.

Pretty soon, after some back-breaking labor, the sweet potato patch has been completely dug up.

We then sort the sweet potatoes.  The huge ones on the left.  The large to average sized ones in the middle.  The small to tiny sized one in the red bucket.  The ones in the red bucket will be fed to the cows.

Finally, I got the rock rake and leveled out the freshly dug earth.  This will be planted this week with spinach, mustard greens, radishes and turnips.

Overall, it was an average crop.  I'm not going to complain.  We used several nice ones to make the "Ruth's Chris Steakhouse sweet potato casserole" recipe for Thanksgiving.  It was a tasty side dish for sure.

Thanksgiving 2025

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  It puts things into perspective.  Things may not be perfect.  They aren't.  In fact, they never are.  However, pausing to count your blessings and name them one by one is a good exercise.  Focusing on the blessings you have instead of the imperfections, trials, and disappointments we all experience in our lives takes the emphasis off of us and instead directs it toward the Giver of all good gifts.

The Flannel Channel

We had (and I hope you have too) a wonderful day with beautiful weather, delicious food and fellowship with those we love.  Material things depreciate.  I always think that junkyards and landfills are full of items that were once assets that held the potential to bring happiness and joy.  Maybe they did, temporarily, and now they are rusting out in the corner of a weed-filled lot and forgotten as we shifted to new shiny things we hope will make us happy.  They never do, do they?

Russ, Tricia, Benjamin... and Belle

One of the things that don't depreciate, but instead appreciate in value is memories of time spent with family and friends.  I began to think today of people that have made a difference in my life.  True friends that have been there and remained close, even though we may be distant in miles.  Kind words said, encouragement given, lessons about life taught, time spent that made a real difference.  We gathered around the kitchen, as is tradition, circle up, hold hands and offer sincere thanks to our benevolent God for the many blessings He's given us.  He's given us things and love we didn't deserve.

A feast!

Twenty four years ago, we stenciled Proverbs 15:15 above our kitchen table that says, "The cheerful heart has a continual feast."  It's true!  There are people that are hungry tonight, people that don't have a close family, those without friends, people that are lonely, and people who are sad.  It makes me humble and even guilty, because I have been so blessed.  God is so good!  I'm so thankful for a loving wife.  A true Proverbs 31 woman.  I pray our three kids will find a faithful, Christian spouse like He gave me.

My smiling wife

God's also given us time.  As a child, when we were sick and stayed home from school, we'd watch Bob Barker and "The Price is Right."  Then around lunchtime, the 'stories' would come on TV.  You know, the soap operas.  There was one called Days of Our Lives.  It started out saying, "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."  Oh, how those sands flow quickly.  In fact, we don't know when the last grain of sand will fall.

I read a novel the other day that had a quote in it that was meaningful.  I kind of collect quotes I like.  It said: "Life is short.  Love who you are.  Love what you do.  Make everyday count."  I'm reminded that God has blessed us with time of undetermined length and we would be wise to be good stewards of it.  We should tell people we love them and appreciate them.

Family is important - so important.  I'm so thankful for Mom & Dad.  People who loved sacrificially and supported us even when we were... turds (ha ha!)  I'm grateful for good examples in my Mom and Dad.  They modeled the good life and gave us a target to shoot for, to aspire to, and for that, I'm appreciative.

As Thanksgiving 2025 comes to an end, I feel I'm drinking from my saucer, 'cause my cup has overflowed.  Thank you, Lord, for your blessings on me!  Thank you for Jesus.  May God give you assurance of salvation through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ!