American choppers and jalapeno poppers

This morning the heat and humidity was back.  Just when we were getting comfortable the muggies are back upon us.  Oh well.  We had a big day planned so we got to the chores early.  I might amend that statement by saying that Tricia got started on the chores early.  I woke up and she was already out at the barn milking Daisy.  I brought my coffee out to the barn and visited with her for a bit before feeding the chickens and the pullets and filling up all the animals' water.  While it was cool, I walked around and just sort of inspected things.  I see we have an infestation of bag worms in a peach tree.
 

Bag worms

You can see from the picture that they build a "bag" and eat all the leaves off of the plant and you can see a gazillion worms inside the bag.  I can remember as a small boy going out to the pecan orchard at the farm and there would be infestations of bag worms.  My grandfather would take newspapers and tie them onto the end of a long cane pole, set the newspaper on fire and lift it up and burn the bag worms.  If left unchecked, they'll defoliate a tree.

A neighbor then called me over to inspect a bunch of catfish he caught on the intracoastal last night.  He made "jug-lines" and baited them and caught some nice fish.  As I was admiring the fish, a good friend showed up with a chainsaw and offered to help me cut up a large pecan limb that had fallen out of a tree in the front yard.  In no time, we had it cut up, loaded and moved to the back.


Getting ready to cut up the limb

Benjamin held a piece of lumber that is the exact size we want the logs to be cut against the limb.  This guide is used so the logs will fit in the fireplace.  Our friend would cut up the logs and we'd load the logs on the trailer. 

Lumberjacks at work

 

Almost done!

Once we had it all cut up and loaded, Benjamin and Russ started up the lawnmower and mowed the grass that was under the limb that we had been unable to reach with the mower.  Thank the Good Lord for good friends!  We have a sledge and a wedge, an axe and a maul and I'm going to show the boys how to split up all this wood for the fireplace and wood for barbecuing.  Pecan wood adds really good flavor to meats.

Speaking of BBQ, we fired up the grill and put a nice steak and one of our fresh chickens on the pit.

Seasoned up home-grown chicken



Time to eat!

We also picked some fresh jalapenos from the garden.


Jalapeno peppers ready for picking

I cut each of them in half and put cube of mozzarella cheese in the halved, cored peppers.

And then put them in a cast iron skillet with a little bit of oil and let them heat up.  Something about heating them up gives them a mild, almost sweet flavor.  Russ and I ate them all right out of the skillet and ended up making another batch!


We had a productive day and even got a lot of gardening done.  Let's discuss that tomorrow.  Good night!