If you build it, will they come?

The ducks, that is.  We're running late, but we wanted to get the duck pond and blind ready for the remainder of the duck season.  Once the second-crop rice harvest was out of the field, my buddy Gary stopped up the bottom cut and captured the rainwater from a recent rain.  The boys and I met him to work on flattening out the rice stubble to make a hole or clear area so that the ducks will see the water and land.  We initially tried with a four wheeler.  The four wheeler was pulling a plow normally used to make a food plot for deer.

Slinging mud in the duck pond

Unfortunately, the four wheeler almost got stuck several times in the big ruts caused by the combine tires.  The plow wasn't really turning over the ground and burying the rice straw either.  We decided to try again another day.

Not quite getting the job done.  We'll try again.

So we showed up and started building the duck blind by driving four t-posts into the ground and then encircled the area with hog wire.

The beginning of the duck blind

Russ and Benjamin and I began walking out on the levees and cutting down bitter weed and cane grass.  We carried that back to the blind and began weaving the weeds into the holes in the hog wire. It was slow work, but it was a beautiful day and it was nice to be out in the 70 degree weather.

Weaving the grass in the blind

Dad came with the tractor to try plan b.  We drug a cattle panel behind the tractor with some tires on top to provide weight.  He drove around in big circles to knock the rice stubble down and create a stinky muddy hole that ducks love.

Knocking down the rice stubble in the duck pond

The duck blind was really coming together, we all weaved grass into every hole in the fence that surrounded the blind.  Pretty soon, we had a really nice blind that will keep us hidden from the waterfowl that hopefully will land in our pond.

Adding a few final touches

As you can see, the tractor pulling the panel did a good job knocking down the rice straw, making a circular, watery spot in which we'll put out decoys.

Muddying up the duck pond

Finally, we were finished.  In all it took about an hour and a half.  All we need to do is put out the decoys now.

Russ & Benjamin (and a job well done)

Although we missed teal season and a part of the first split of 'big duck' season, we're going to do our best to put some ducks in the freezer for what remains.  We're in the west zone and have from November 15th - December 14th and then the second split from December 20th - January 18th. Hopefully, this stealthy blind that my boys built will assist us in having a good time and enjoying some mighty fine eating.

The Hay Man Delivered

The early freezes put the hurt on the pasture.  There's not much out there for the girls to eat on. Although we have 100 square bales tucked away in the hay loft in the barn, we ration that until later. We purchase the square bales from a neighbor down the road that grows it.  It is the good hay.  In fact, people who own race horses travel from far away to buy it.  We'll start feeding it to the girls during milking time at the start of December so that it will last throughout the winter until the Spring grass comes in.

We generally buy 24 or so round bales of hay from another friend that lives down the road.  He delivers it to us, 6 bales at a time.  I just call him and tell him that we're ready and he arrives.  I emailed him and asked him if he could reserve at least 24 round bales for us this year and asked him to please deliver the first batch of 6 bales.  He said, "Sure." The only problem was that he works offshore on a 14/14 hitch and was in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico until Thanksgiving.

No problem.  We started feeding the square bales early for about a week until he showed up.  The cows were getting impatient and hungry.  We put them in the sacrifice pasture and they devoured every blade of grass that remained.  The day after Thanksgiving the hay arrived!

The Hay Arrived!

Our hay man loads up a 16 foot trailer with round bales and pulls it with his tractor that has a receiver hitch with a ball on it.  He never has to get off of the tractor. Once he gets here, he drops the trailer, drives around and stabs each bale with a spear, carrying it to a location near the pasture where we store it until the cows are ready for it.

Unloading the bales

When we had five of the six bales in place, he asked if we'd like the final one put in the pasture. That would save us some time and work, so we said, "Yes!"  

The hay stockpile

I put a pallet down on the ground first.  Then the hay bale is placed on top of the pallet.  I'm trying this experiment this year to keep the hay off of the ground, hoping that this would keep us from losing the bottom of the bale to moisture and mud.  Then I quickly put the hay ring around it.  The cows were eyeing the trailer full of hay when my friend drove up.  They were ready to eat!  If I don't put the hay ring around the bale, the cows would waste as much as they eat.  They are horribly wasteful.

Hay in the Hay Ring

Daisy, Rosie, and Amy circled the bale, taking big bites of hay and if cows, smile, I think I saw them smiling.

Gather round, everybody.  It's time to eat.

The hens even climbed on top of the bale to add to the pastoral scene, showing that everyone likes when the hay gets delivered.

A nice barnyard scene

Oh, one more animal was glad to see the hay - Annie the Nubian Goat.  The goats are small enough to fit inside the hay ring, and they cause lots of mischief and mayhem.  As a matter of fact, tomorrow I'll pull out the blue tarp and cover the top of the bale.  I learned from experience that if you don't, the goats will climb up on top of the round bales and proceed to poo and pee onto the bale.  That's some pretty bad table manners, right there.

Trouble maker extraordinaire

We've found that a round bale will last about 6 days before it's time to put a fresh round bale out there for the animals to enjoy.  Round bales are out in the pasture for the animals to eat at will, unlike the square bales that we control access to.  If the animals could talk, they would tell you that today was a good day because the hay bales arrived.

The Thanksgiving Bonfire

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year and had the whole crew over for a big meal. The food was amazing.  I mean every dish was perfect.  After our Thanksgiving feast, we all waddled out to the pasture.  You know, that uncomfortable, "I ate too much and should have passed on the dessert" walk.  We walked out there to light up the bonfire. Since Spring, every time limbs fall out of the trees in the yard, we pile them up on our burn pile in the pasture near the barn. Over the course of months, the limbs pack down under the weight and they dry out.

We have a ten foot high by fifteen foot wide pile of dry sticks waiting to go ablaze on a chilly night. All it took was a couple of matches and some strategically placed newspaper and we had a little fire going that lit up the darkened area a little bit.  It was then that Benjamin reminded me that we had a water hose running right underneath the pile that we quickly pulled out of the way before we melted it.  The burn pile serves as a sanctuary for doves, for hens to run into when being chased by roosters and neighbor kids, and some other critters hide there as well.

C'mon baby light my fire!

It was pretty chilly and as the flames grew higher, we huddled closer to the fire to feel the warmth of the fire that radiated outward.

Flames growing a little higher

The curious cows approached the fire, too, accompanied by a couple of my nephews.

Cowboys

As the flames leapt higher, the entire family enjoyed watching the fire, talking, and warming up right next to it.

Family Bonfire

The fire lit up the night sky.  A couple of years ago when we lit it up, the fire department showed up, sirens wailing.  A neighbor thought our barn was on fire and called 911.  I had to go and thank them for coming anyway.  The heat grew along with the height of the flames and pretty soon, we had backed up as far as we could go against the barn and it was still uncomfortably hot.

Back it up

When we couldn't bear the heat anymore, we moved to the other side of the bonfire where we could back up to a comfortable distance.  It was generating a lot of heat.

A Roaring Blaze

Tongues of flame were dancing into the night sky - easily 25 feet into the air. Fortunately there was no wind blowing as that might have caused alarm for our barn filled with hay.

Tongues of fire

For perspective, you can see just how big the fire was against the two story barn. You can also see the double strand poly wire electric fence that I had to move back away from the fire so it wouldn't melt.  It was about this time where we saw something scurry out of the pile, run across the pasture and into the garden.  All the kids gave chase.  It looked like it was the size of a rabbit.  They stomped around in the garden and out he came.  A big ugly rat running like crazy, scared to death, followed by a herd of stomping, giggling, screaming kids.  And really, you just know that the fun at a bonfire has only just begun when a rat shows up.

It reminded me of the boys chasing the pigs in the book, The Lord of the Flies.   They cut off the rat's head, put it on a stick and paraded it around.  No, they really didn't do that.  The poor old rat was so frightened by the mob of kids chasing him, he ran out of the garden and right back into the fire!  

Now that's a fire!

He quickly determined that that wasn't a good move and ran back toward the garden.  Big mistake, Mr. Rat, for the tribe was awaiting that.  A few kicks and stomps and the enormous rat's life came to a tragic end.  Not counting the length of the tail, this guy was almost a foot long.  A quick election was held by the tribe of kids and they voted to cremate the rat in the bonfire.  We watched as the rat baked in the inferno.  They pulled out his charred and blackened remains after a bit and stuck a stick in him to check on his level of 'doneness,' and he was 'well-done.'  No one ate him, though.  We were still way too full from the Thanksgiving feast. 

Mr. Rat's remains prior to cremation

The fire consumed the huge burn pile and we circled it to kick sticks into the center. It was so hot, you couldn't stand it for long before you had to back away and cool off.  As the fire dwindled, so did the crowd.  One by one we made our way back inside.

Dwindling bonfire

We recruited the neighbor kid to stand on the bannister and take a picture of the entire family.  The whole 'smoke-smelling, rat-stomping, casserole-engorged' crew smiled for the camera as Xander snapped off quite a few photographs before we found one where everyone was relatively photogenic.

Happy Thanksgiving 2014!

The next morning I walked out to the pasture and here is all that was left of the burn pile.  Virtually every stick (and rat) went up in smoke and was gone.

The fire is gone...

All that remained was ashes... and good memories of another Thanksgiving.  

Fall Potatoes - A Review

In This Earlier Post we discussed our first ever Fall potato crop.  We talked about how this was an experiment for us to see if we could get two crops of potatoes.  The problem is, I waited about two weeks too late to get the seed potatoes that I had saved from the Spring crop into the ground.  I knew I was risking it, but also knew that even if we got an early freeze (and we did), I would still be able to harvest some new potatoes.

Well, the early freeze came and our potatoes were burned back by the cold.  They were droopy and the leaves were brown and crispy on the ends.

Freeze-burned potatoes

In hindsight I should have covered them up with a tarp prior to the freeze in order to try to keep them growing,  I didn't do that and so I'll have to dig them up.  Not a big deal.  I only planted a dozen seed potatoes, so this won't take me long at all.  I simply pulled back the hay that I mulched them with and gently pried upward on the plant with my shovel.

Digging up Potato Plants

The hay mulch kept the soil moist and easy to dig.  Each plant had several potatoes on it that averaged the size of a golf ball.  This wasn't the yield that we experienced in the Spring, but we only planted 12 seed potatoes.

Freshly Dug Potatoes

We roasted the potatoes with butter and rosemary alongside a rack of goat meat.  The goat meat melted in your mouth and the potatoes were a perfect accompaniment.

Although the bucket shown above is sort of sad looking, it's okay.  I learned through this experiment that when the planting guide says that the cut-off date for planting is September 10th, they're not joking.  That date is there for a reason.  Planting 13 days after that date was not a wise idea.  Next Fall I will definitely plant potatoes, only I'll plant many, many more and I'll plant a couple of weeks earlier.  This will enable us to eat potatoes until the Spring crop comes in.

Random Thanksgiving Thoughts

Image Credit

Give thanks to the LORD for He is good, His lovingkindness is everlasting.
From my distress I called upon the LORD;
The LORD answered me and put me in a large place.
The LORD is with me, I shall not fear.
What can man do to me? Psalm 118:1,5-6

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  Oh sure, anyone who knows me knows how much I love food and we began preparing a feast that we'll be consuming over the next several days - all our favorite stuff to eat.  But it's not really about food.  Our two college kids drove in and tonight when we said grace before the meal, we gave thanks that all five of us were once again under one roof.  It doesn't happen often and I relish every minute.  We laughed, talked, and played Scrabble in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace.  Quality time indeed.  I am thankful for our family.

This past week I spent some time with a gentleman who lost a son to cancer a couple years ago.  The pain of his loss was still evident as his voice cracked and tears welled up in his eyes when telling me about it.  Life with our loved ones is so precious.  We really don't know how much time we have on this earth.  Each day we wake up and inhale is a blessing.  I often take health for granted.  I am thankful for health.

This afternoon Tricia and I had a cup of coffee in the early afternoon.  It was a picture perfect day with the rays of the sun shining through the trees and a nice breeze blowing.  For some reason I began to think of how fortunate we are and remarked to my wife that we are surrounded by family that are so generous to us, supporting us, and praying for us. They are there in our times of need and they bless us much more than we deserve. We have a church family and friends that are so giving to us.  It is embarrassing how good God has been to us.  I am thankful for loved ones that God blessed us with.

{Honesty Alert} And yet, I complain about our lack.  I compare myself to others, I envy other peoples' lives, their experiences, position in life, and things, and it is shameful, really.  On Dave Ramsey's radio program, when he takes calls, people will ask, "How are you doing?"  And he always answers, "Better than I deserve!"  I can relate to that.  We always have been taken care of.  We've never gone hungry or lived in squalor.  We have a (new) roof over our heads, and (good) food in our bellies.  We're living the life.  I am thankful for provision.

My God is a good God.  He has so richly blessed us.  I am thankful for my God who reached out to me, forgave my sins and saved me.  1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us "In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

 

A New Roost

We haven't given a report on the chicks that are in the chicken tractor lately.  These are the birds that we hatched out in our incubator at the end of August.  They are growing nicely and just yesterday we heard the first awkward crowing coming from the tractor.  It is funny listening to young roosters learning to crow for the first time.  It is not the familiar 'cock-a-doodle-doo' that you are used to hearing.

As the birds grow they've outgrown their roost.  If you look in the picture below, you can see that there is a 2 x 4 support that runs down the middle of the tractor.  When the birds were smaller, they could all fit on the board that acted as a roost and they would all line up on it and sleep for the night. Now only about half of them fit and the rest pile up in a corner to sleep.  That's not a good thing. We've lost birds before because the suffocate each other when they pile up like that.

The existing roost

This particular morning I decided that I had to do something about that. In years past, I would purchase a 2 x 4 and rip it in half to make two 2 x 2's that I would fasten along the side braces to serve as roosts.  I have found that it is unnecessary to spend any money at all on chicken roosts.  All you really need to do is go out in the woods and cut some straight small trees that are about 2 1/2 inches in diameter.  Appropriately, I found a couple 'chicken trees' (Chinese tallow trees) that would fit perfectly, so I chopped them with my axe.

Above you can see the small trees I'm using.  I have them leaning inside the tractor.  I grabbed some nails, my cordless drill and bit and a hammer and climbed inside the tractor.  The first thing I noticed is that the birds seem to be mostly hens.  That is odd and a welcome sight since we're looking for more egg-layers.  Usually the percentage of hens/roosters is about 50-50%.  We'll allow the roosters to grow for a while longer before we butcher them and use them to make gumbo.  As far as the hens, well keep them to increase our egg production.

After measuring the width of the tractor and chopping the trees with my axe to fit, I drilled a couple of hole on the ends, inserted the nails and hammered them down.  This fastened down the new roosts on each side of the sloping braces.

Anchoring the roost

And here we have it: two new roosts in addition to the one existing roost.  Now we have capacity for all the birds to roost.  They were a little nervous with me being inside the tractor working, but as soon as I got out, they moved about curiously, checking out the new accessory.

New roosts

Later that evening I walked out to the chicken tractor and every single bird was roosting and not piling up on one another in the corner.  This was a quick project that the chickens appreciated.  It won't be long, though, before we move these chickens into another tractor and move the chicks that are in a brooder in the garage into this one. This time, though, we'll be ready for roosts for the new birds from Day 1.

We're not the only ones who dehydrate foods

The goats have been sneaking into the rye grass paddock and eating the tender shoots of ryegrass that are coming up.  We're saving that ryegrass for later in the winter and are trying to let it get lush and thick prior to putting the livestock in there.  So the first order of business today was to run a second strand of electrified poly-wire to attempt to keep those goats out.

As I was attaching the poly wire to the perimeter fence, something caught my eye on the top strand of barbed wire.  I walked closer and this was the macabre sight I observed:

Impaled on the barbed wire fence

It's kind of interesting that just yesterday we blogged about dehydrating bell peppers to preserve them and store them for later use.  Well, it seems we aren't the only creature that dries food to save it for later.  While this might look like there is some sadistic psycho on the loose that is torturing frogs by impaling them on the spikes of barbed wire, no human is responsible for this treachery.

Who is doing this?  I didn't see the perpetrator, but I google searched and found that there are at least two birds in Louisiana that do this - the loggerhead shrike and the butcherbird.  I'm not much of a bird watcher so I can't say that I know what those birds look like.  Who knows, it could be any number of birds.  It's gotta be a bird.  This frog didn't commit suicide.  But why do the birds do this?

Poor Kermit

This unfortunate fellow was a rain frog.  As kids we always called them "pee frogs" because if you catch them in your hand, they pee on you.  This rain frog met his unfortunate end at the hands (err... feet) of a bird that stuck him on the fence so that he could come back and enjoy his meal at a later time. I've also seen small garter snakes impaled on this same fence.

It's not easy being green!

It's not easy being green, indeed!  The frog sits on the barbed wire spike and dries in the sun.  He actually turns into 'frog jerky' and the bird will come back to eat him similar to the way we reach into our pantry to enjoy food we've preserved.

Drying Peppers (and a review of our new vacuum sealer)

Yesterday we picked a peck of frost-wrecked peppers.  What to do with them all? We cooked some of them.  We chopped and froze some more and today we'll dehydrate some peppers.  I like to diversify our storage methods to offer some 'insurance' in the event we lose power and as a result, lose everything in our freezer. That would not be good.

Dehydrating offers another method of preserving the harvest and a way to hold the fruits of your labor in a shelf-stable way.  Drying peppers is easy.  I guess the most time consuming part of the task is slicing the peppers to a 1/4 inch thickness.  I washed up the peppers, got out a knife and the cutting board and got busy.

Slicing Peppers

Once sliced to the appropriate thickness of 1/4 inch, we arranged them on the drying racks in the food dehydrator.  You can see the green color of the peppers as well as the red color and the deep brown color of the chocolate peppers.

Arranged on the drying racks and ready to dry

We set the dehydrator on the Vegetable Setting which blows air at a temperature of about 135 degrees Fahrenheit and turned it on.  According to the directions, you let it blow for anywhere between 4 and 12 hours or until the peppers feel "leathery." Here is a tray of leathery peppers all dried after staying in the dehydrator overnight. These dried peppers can be added to soups, gravies, or any other dish. They are packed with flavor and once re-hydrated and cooked, make a great addition to your meal.

Dehydrated Peppers

And that's all there is to it.  Except for, of course, storage.  You just have to make sure that the peppers are kept airtight and you can store them on a shelf in your pantry for whenever you are ready to cook with them.

This is a perfect opportunity to showcase our new vacuum-sealer.  This unit was relatively inexpensive and was easily to assemble.  It is an energy star appliance that actually uses no electric or hydrocarbon-based energy to operate.  Let's take a look at the vacuum sealer.  All you do is put the dehydrated peppers in a Ziploc bag and seal it tight except for one side on the end.  Insert a drinking straw and seal the ziploc seal tightly around the straw.

The Vacuum Pro Sealer XL

To operate the sealer one must put the straw into your mouth and inhale.  Hold the ziploc bag tightly around the straw and suck deeply.  This action turns the sealer on and you can observe the air being evacuated from the ziploc bag.  Once there is no more air to suck out of the bag, while you are still sucking on the straw, quickly pull the straw out of the bag and simultaneously seal the ziploc bag completely, preserving the vacuum.

Powering up the Seal-A-Meal

And there you have it, folks.  One tightly sealed bag of dehydrated peppers.  The bag is labeled and dated and will be stored in our pantry until ready for use in Tricia's kitchen.

The Finished Product

Our vacuum sealer is useful and comes recommended highly.  A few users of this product have complained about the lack of the bag to hold a vacuum, but that is more a function of a poor airlock on the bag and not a poor reflection on the operator of the sealer, also known as the sucker.  Ha Ha.

The First Freeze of Winter

Well, Jack Frost visited us a little early this year.  The average first frost date for our zone is November 21 - 31.  We had temperatures dipping down to 30 degrees on November 15th and again to 30 degrees on the 18th and 19th.  It gave us an opportunity to get a roaring fire burning in the fireplace and we sat in the den and enjoyed the cozy evening.  When the fireplace is roaring, I like to go outside and just smell the oak wood burning.  Smells great!

I actually like the cold weather.  It is a nice respite from the hot, muggy days of summer.  Some vegetables in the garden don't like it, though.  I walked out to survey the damage.  Our yellow squash plant's broad leaves were burnt by the cold. Those leaves acted as a broad blanket as they sheltered the younger foliage underneath it, but once the next freezes come, this plant is toast!

Frostbite

There was a number of young yellow squash that we were hoping to eat once they matured; however, we'll have to eat them as "baby squash."

Baby Squash

The Contender Green Beans didn't like the cold weather either.  The leaves and blooms on this row took a beating and are all curled and withered.

Cool Beans

There were some green beans ready for picking so I quickly snapped them off the plant.  The plants won't make it, but the beans will certainly make it into the pot for supper.

Mmmmm!

The volunteer tomato plants that grew up from seed from tomatoes that fell to the ground during Spring and Summer shrugged their shoulders and surrendered to the frost.  Never fear, I planted parsley right next to them and the parsley will overtake the area that the tomato occupied.  I snipped off a handful of parsley and cut it up to top a delicious bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo last night. Parsley really adds a nice fragrance and taste to a warm bowl of gumbo.

Tomato is gone, but here comes the parsley

On another row of beans I noticed a stark contrast between the large green bean leaves that were burnt by the freeze against the kelly green tender smaller leaves of the same plant.  I won't pull them up.  Maybe they'll produce a few more beans.  If not, their roots are still setting nitrogen in the soil. If the beans won't feed me, at least they'll feed the soil. 

I did meander down the rows and picked produce that was in danger of being lost. That's the thing about gardening - you've got to stay on top of it.  If you wait one day too late, you risk losing some of the items you grew.  We love homegrown vegetables too much to allow them to waste.  So I brought the colander out and picked a few green beans and baby yellow squash.  We won't see this again until Spring 2015, so we're going to savor every bite.

Fresh Picked Goodness from the Garden

I also picked 8 packed cups of basil leaves off the plants and turned it into pesto.  I froze it in individual family-sized servings as we've found that thawing out a container of pesto and boiling some pasta makes for a quick (and delicious) meal.

Washing basil leaves in the vegetable sink

Finally, I picked all the green bell peppers, chocolate bell peppers, cayenne peppers, and jalapeno peppers off the plants as those plants will be gone after the freeze. Tricia has been making stuffed bell peppers with rice and ground meat inside topped with homemade salsa and the whole family has been enjoying those things.

A peck of picked peppers

I'll show you something else we did with the remaining peppers tomorrow.  Even though some of our plants can't make it through the cold weather, we can!  Stay warm friends!