Oh, The Humanity...

"...Oh, the humanity!..."

That phrase was uttered by Mr. Herbert Morrison, a radio reporter on May 6, 1937 as he watched in horror as the Hindenburg zeppelin burst into flames upon its arrival in New Jersey, killing 35 people in the airship and one on the ground.  As he witnessed the horrendous event, Mr. Morrison was overcome with emotion, shaken to his very core as the terrifying event played out before his very eyes.

Image Credit

I'll come back to that in a minute.

Yesterday I was listening to the radio on the way to work and heard the sad story of Cecil the lion. Certainly everyone has heard this story by now.  You cannot escape it. Then the very next news item on the radio was THIS STORY.  I'll post an excerpt from the link below:

Laura Gontchar loved the family of 11 Muscovy ducklings and their mother that lived near her home in Wellington, Fla. After the ducklings hatched, Gontchar and her family would leave food out for them and watch as the ducks ventured out of their lake to eat.

That’s exactly what Gontchar; her husband, Boyd Jentzsch; and their 7-year-old son, Kai, were doing on May 2, they said. That is, until Jason Falbo, a landscaper working his way through the yard on a riding lawnmower, started heading straight for the family of ducklings.

But according to the family, Falbo plowed right into the family of ducklings, then backed up his lawnmower to run them over again. All but two of the ducklings were killed; seven were killed in the lawnmower’s blades and two others were injured and drowned as what remained of the family escaped back to the safety of the lake.

On Wednesday, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office arrested and charged Falbo with nine counts of animal cruelty, according to the office’s inmate records. He’s being held on a $27,000 bond.

Jentzsch told authorities and the Sun Sentinel that Falbo was smiling as he made his second pass over the family of ducks:

“What are you doing to my ducks?” Kai wailed, his father remembers. “Why are you laughing?”

The boy, in tears, ran from the backyard and back into his house. Jentzsch and his wife were stunned.

“It was one of the most emotional things I’ve ever seen,” Jentzsch said. “It was just — wow.”

Someone please tell me, what kind of a person does this to defenseless animals? Seriously, what type of a sick individual engages his lawnmower and mows over a family of ducklings in front of a family including a 7 year old boy?  How does one dull his conscience so that they can mutilate baby ducklings with a riding lawnmower while smiling?  I don't want to know.

I would never be accused of being an animal rights activist or a vegan.  We routinely slaughter animals for food and hunt for ducks and squirrels.  We have a rule, however, that we don't EVER kill for sport.  We kill predatory animals and we kill for food.  That's it.

From the very beginning in Genesis 1:26 God placed man in dominion over the fish of the sea, birds of the sky, cattle, and over every creeping thing on the earth.  That can never be interpreted as giving us free reign to inflict harm and cruelty to these animals.  In fact, the Bible states otherwise:

A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal,
But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel. - Proverbs 12:10

 Know well the condition of your flocks, And pay attention to your herds; - Proverbs 27:23

 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely release it with him. - Exodus 23:5

 If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young; - Deuteronomy 22:6

His Eye is on the Sparrow

We care for the animals entrusted to us, spending much time taking care of them and ensuring that they are healthy, fed and watered.  We take that responsibility very seriously and we teach our kids the importance of being compassionate and tender toward them.  We've mourned the loss of several of our animals who have died.  It sickens me when I hear such stories of people with no conscience doing unspeakable things to innocent animals.

Rosie taking care of Clarabelle

So after listening to the story of Cecil the Lion that the dentist killed and the story of the person who ran over the ducklings with his lawnmower, I needed something uplifting and inspirational.  I switched to the Christian station just in time to learn that they had released the fourth undercover video of Planned Parenthood.  I'm not going to link it.  I don't know why I did it, but when I got to a computer, I searched it and watched it and I'll never get the images and dialogue out of my head.

As much as I feel compassion for innocent animals that are defenseless, I can't begin to describe how much more I feel about the harm of little babies.  And I want you to know that we feel compassion for those who have found themselves at a place in their lives that they feel that the services of places like Planned Parenthood are necessary. There is healing and forgiveness available for those mothers. Tricia has spent numerous hours counseling at crisis pregnancy centers, trying to help young girls out. This is not a political blog.  It is a blog about random observances and thoughts that relate to our very small family farm, our animals, our plants and the Mighty God whom we serve.  Life is so precious and we place a great value on it.

After watching the video, I wonder how we can call ourselves a civilized country where what I saw is legal and people can be so callous and crass toward human life. To further my puzzlement, I have trouble trying to reconcile the fact that in our state it is illegal to sell raw milk, but the practice I viewed is legal.  I wish I could rewind and un-see that video and all I can think about this disaster is the quote uttered by Mr. Morrison during another one:

"Oh, the humanity..."  (humanity indeed!)

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14

Better Late Than Never

Normally, in a building project, the first thing that is done after determining where your structure is going to be built is to haul dirt in and build the pad upon which the building will sit.  In building our barn, we went against conventional wisdom and erected our barn without bringing in dirt and building a pad.  I guess after milking in the open air in wind, rain, heat and cold for quite a while, we wanted to put up the barn quickly and omitted raising the level under the structure.  Hasty decisions are often poor ones, as I've come to learn.

Over the years, the hay/sawdust bedding we laid down in the barn, composted and raised the ground level.  In fact, it worked fine without dirt - until this year.  Above average rainfall amounts in the first five months of the year contributed to a very muddy barnyard area.  While the inside of the barn itself was high and dry due to the composted bedding, the area all around the barn was a muddy mess.  The cows and goat had to slog through ankle-deep mud to get to the barn.  It was a nasty mess for us too. The mud, on more than one occasion, caused our boots to stick and we stepped out of our boots in our sock-feet, wetting our socks.

As soon as the ground dried up, I had a load of fill-sand delivered to the house.  As it was still too wet around the barn to use a tractor to move the dirt, we did it the hard way - loading container after container with dirt by shovel, pulling the wagon to the barn, dumping it over and spreading it around the entire outer perimeter of the barn.

The Dirt Pile

It was high time (pardon the pun), to raise the ground level around the barn.  After a light rain, the dirt seemed to pack hard.  Because there was some clay in the pile, it was a little sticky, but there was a hard base as opposed to the ankle deep quicksand that was there previously.  You can view the built-up area around the north and west sides of the barn, providing a raised walkway and impeding rising water from entering the barn.

Raising the ground level around the barn

On the side of the barn with the gate, I raised the ground level about 8 feet out from the barn, providing firm footing for the animals coming inside for milking.  As with anything new, the animals were a little reluctant to walk on the dirt, wary of the change.  We stomped down the large 'clods' until they were compressed and are generally happy with the change.

Annie inspecting the new dirt pad

This shot gives you a "chicken's eye" perspective and I would estimate that the soil level was raised by about 4 or 5 inches around the outside of the barn and that should keep out the flowing rainwater that runs through the property during heavy rains.

We'll have to hold judgment until we get a big 'gully-washer to see if we'll need another load of dirt or not.  Regardless, it is much better than it was before.  If we ever have another construction project, we'll make sure to build a dirt pad at a sufficient height, especially if building at the lowest part of the property.

We've found a Remedy that Works!

Cows have ailments.  If you are going to keep livestock, from time to time animals struggle with various health care issues just like you and I.  Although a very good veterinarian is less than a mile from us as the crow flies, we like to try to take care of those minor ailments that arise ourselves.  You might call us "shade-tree" veterinarians, but we don't play around with our animals' health.  If we can't control or heal the issue ourselves in a short period of time, we won't hesitate in calling the veterinarian, and he makes house calls (farm calls).

While Rosie and Clarabelle look fine in the photo below, with Rosie chewing her cud and Clarabelle just finishing up her morning breakfast, things aren't 'Rosy.'  She's hurting.  Her front hooves are very tender as she has what is called hoof rot.  It sounds nasty, doesn't it?  It is a foot infection between her two 'toes.'  It is painful and she walks around gingerly.  As we've discussed previously, this is caused by bacteria in the soil called Fusobacterium.  This bacteria is present wherever there is fecal material and the cows usually pick this up around the round bales where wet, muddy, cow-poop is concentrated.  The cows usually pick this up in the Spring, but oddly enough, hot, humid, dry weather causes their feet to become dry and crack, providing a gateway for the bacteria to enter the foot.

Because we don't like to give our cows antibiotics by shot, we try numerous treatments like iodine applications.  We also put a 50-50 solution of bleach/water in a sprayer and spray the infected area. We've done this daily and had varied levels of success in controlling the problem.

My feet hurt!

This is one of Rosie's front hooves.  If you look at the very top between her hooves, you might be able to make out a little crack.  It doesn't smell good and she lets you know that she doesn't like you messing with her.  Obviously, I wasn't able to get pictures of the entire process, but I'll lift her foot and Tricia will brush off the dirt from the bottom of her hoof as well as between her hooves.  It's not an easy thing to do.

Treating Hoof Rot

I began searching on the Internet and found another remedy to try - Dr. Naylor's Hoof 'n Heel.  We use another product by Dr. Naylor to dehorn our calves.  It's called Dr. Naylor's Dehorning Paste.  It works, so I though I'd give this Dr. Naylor product for treating hoof rot a try.  A 16 ounce bottle costs $11.99.    

Dr. Naylor Hoof  'n Heel

The active ingredient is Zinc Sulfate and there is no withholding period for lactating cows.  The bottle has a squirt top, so after the hoof is brushed off an clean, I hold each hoof up and Tricia squirts Hoof 'n Heel into the affected area.  I hold the hoof up so that the solution gets full contact with the affected area and then we feed and milk her in the barn on a clean surface before putting her back out in the pasture to eat grass.  We treat her twice a day - in the morning and evening.  We've noticed great results and after only a few days, she's no longer limping or walking gingerly! 

My foot is getting better!

There is another remedy for Foot Rot called Coppertox that we were going to use if this didn't work, but we won't have to go that route now.  We're happy and I assure you, Rosie is too!

Checking in on the Late Summer Crops

The past few days have been brutally hot and humid.  There's just no sugar-coating it.  It's miserable. With temperatures nearing 100 degrees and around 106 with a heat index, one longs for the first cool front or at least signs of Fall approaching. Tough.  We have more than a month to go of the sweltering sauna that is South Louisiana in summer.

The poor cows sit in the shade all day long, panting, tongues literally hanging out. We spray them down with water to cool them down.  They're Jersey cows and not really acclimated to tropical weather.  In the late afternoons, they meander out to the pasture and eat grass until well after dark, squeezing in a day's worth of eating into a few frenzied hours of the coolest part of the day.

The garden is not immune to the effects of summer.  It has withered back in the heat with the cucumbers' brown, dead leaves and vines still clinging to the trellis reminding us of the numerous cucumbers we were picking each day just a few short weeks ago.  The squash plants, similarly, have melted into the ground, giving up the fight.  Seems as if the only thing thriving in the garden is the weeds, and I'll try to get the weed wacker to get those under control.  They'll be tossed over the fence as an appetizer to the cows slumbering in the shade.

Cucumber vines dried up and dead

I did plant a couple crops the other day - Southern Peas (cowpeas) and 3 varieties of pumpkins and I'll give a progress report.  Despite the scalding heat, a good soaking rain shortly after planting enabled the seeds to swell, sprout and pop out of the ground, healthy and green.  Let's take a look:

Cowpea leaves tracking the sun across the sky

We had a fairly decent germination rate and the peas that sprouted seem healthy and vigorous.

I like to deeply mulch our plants with hay as it provides several benefits:
1. It crowds out weed pressure, making weeding an obsolete job,
2. It helps to retain soil moisture, blocking out the moisture-depleting rays of the sun, and
3. The hay decomposes, providing organic matter to next year's crop that will grow here.

Cows are notoriously wasteful when it comes to hay.  They pull it out of the round bale, drop it on the ground, trampling it in poop and pee, ruining it as far as it being edible, but it's still good for mulching.  I rake it up and tenderly place it around the stems of the peas, covering the bare earth and small weeds with a nice layer of hay.

Mulched Cowpeas

The pumpkins were a little slower in germinating.

Pumpkins popping up

But they came along quickly, their leaves broadening.

Future pumpkin pies

If one has an active imagination, just walking past the row of pumpkins can evoke the warm, spicy aroma of a fresh pumpkin pie right out of the oven and one can almost feel the first cool, northern breezes of Fall.  If you listen you can hear the fire crackling in the fireplace and the exciting sounds of college football on the television.

Time to snap out of it, buddy!  Let's sweat a little and mulch around the pumpkins now that they're tall enough.  It will give those orange pumpkins a nice, soft bed to sit on while they grow.

Healthy, fully mulched pumpkins

Summer is in full force, but good things come to those who wait.  Fall is coming! (Or so I keep reminding myself.)

And A Cartridge in a Pear Tree

I can be a weird dude sometime, I'm not gonna lie.  When I get home from my office job, I visit with Tricia and Benjamin and then change into my 'work clothes' and start doing my afternoon chores and I have great fun doing them!  The chores can be classified into two categories:  routine things that must get done every day and items on my prioritized "knock-out" list.

Once I get that done, sometimes I'll just walk around and observe things.  In our fast-paced lives, we often overlook things if we don't make time to enjoy things - even mundane, unremarkable things. As I walked by the pear tree, I noticed one of the branches bending over due to weight of the ripening pears.  There were a couple of half-eaten pears laying on the ground beneath the tree.  I think the culprits were the numerous squirrels that inhabit our property.  Just to be silly, I hung a .12 gauge shell from the bending branch.

A cartridge in a pear tree

I began to think about This Post from last week about trying to grow some of your own food - vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, etc.  Birds and squirrels are two predators that you do need a firearm with which to protect your food, if you decide to grow it versus purchase it at the grocery store. Instead of having a partridge in a pear tree, you'd better be ready to have a cartridge in a pear tree or at least be ready to shoot one into your tree.  You can hang shiny objects like aluminum pie pans or rubber snakes or plastic owls to repel predators, but at some point, you'll need to go on the offensive to protect your crops.

The .12 gauge shell isn't the only thing of note hanging from the branch

But if you really want to protect your crops, you need to pull out the 'big guns' and by that, I mean what I was reminded of by the critter hanging on the bottom of one of the pears..  A Praying Mantis!

A praying mantis

If you really want a successful crop, you need to pray. Agrarian societies of old recognized the importance of humbling themselves before God and asking for His Blessings on their crops - and we should too!

A few pears for snacking on

I shook the pears to the ground and took them inside.  Pears will continue to ripen in the bowl in the kitchen.  Normally we'll cut up the pears and make a nice pear pie, but Russ ate a couple of them right out of the bowl and said they were crisp and delicious.

Another Reason to Grow (At Least Some Of) Your Own Food

As discussed before we love growing most of our own food.  There are numerous reasons for this like the exercise you get working in the garden, the amount of time you get to spend in the great outdoors, the pride and confidence you get growing your own delicious food, and the TASTE of homegrown versus store-bought food... The list is limitless.

I searched on the Internet and found a visual representation of homegrown versus store-bought tomatoes (see below).  The difference is stunning! Just look at that pink, tasteless thing on the right. It'll do in a pinch, but which would you rather eat? For me, it's not even up for debate.  Although they're both technically tomatoes, they are as far apart as Mercury is from Pluto.

Image credit (homegrown on left / store-bought on right)

But another BIG plus about growing at least some of your own food is it gives you some semblance of being self-sufficient.  Oh, I know the grocery store is fully-stocked and right around the corner, but will it always be open and fully stocked? Hmmm... We found out several years ago after several hurricanes that the fully stocked open store can become a closed, empty building in no time at all.  I remember the National Guard passing out MREs (meals ready to eat) and ice to our town's citizens shortly after the storm blew through.

The Supply Chain in our country fueled by "Just In Time (JIT)" delivery means that there are approximately 3 days worth of inventory in the grocery store if something (weather, natural disaster, war, terrorism) were to happen.  I contend that there's less than that should there be a "run" on food by a panicked populace. If something stops the 18 wheelers from rolling, it won't take long before the shelves look like the photo below.

Oh, that would never happen here!  This is America.  Well, I saw this in the news this morning:

Image Credit

The photo above is a grocery store in Venezuela.  This article from January 9, 2015 says:

(Bloomberg) -- Shoppers thronged grocery stores across Caracas today as deepening shortages led the government to put Venezuela’s food distribution under military protection.

Long lines, some stretching for blocks, formed outside grocery stores in the South American country’s capital as residents search for scarce basic items such as detergent and chicken.

Oh but don't worry, apparently everything is just hunky-dory.

“Don’t fall into desperation -- we have the capacity and products for everyone, with calmness and patience. The stores are full,” Interior Minister Carmen Melendez said yesterday on state television.

She sounds oddly reminiscent of this guy.  Remember Baghdad Bob?

Image Credit

So I wanted to see how things are in Venezuela now, six months later.  Have things stabilized?

This Article answers "That's a negative, Ghost Rider" by stating:

Venezuelan farmers ordered to hand over produce to state

As Venezuela's food shortages worsen, the president of the country's Food Industry Chamber has said that authorities ordered producers of milk, pasta, oil, rice, sugar and flour to supply their products to the state stores.

Venezuela's embattled government has taken the drastic step of forcing food producers to sell their produce to the state, in a bid to counter the ever-worsening shortages.

Farmers and manufacturers who produce milk, pasta, oil, rice, sugar and flour have been told to supply between 30 per cent and 100 per cent of their products to the state stores. Shortages, rationing and queues outside supermarkets have become a way of life for Venezuelans, as their isolated country battles against rigid currency controls and a shortage of US dollars – making it difficult for Venezuelans to find imported goods.

In March, Venezuelans were so worried about food shortages and diminishing stocks of basic goods, fingerprint scanners were installed in supermarkets in an attempt to crack down on hoarding.

Admittedly, the United States of America isn't Venezuela and we aren't there yet, BUT it is not an enviable position for anyone to be totally  dependent upon the grocery store for all of your food. Growing and preserving your own food and beginning to build an inventory of preserved food in your pantry is not something that you can do overnight, but you can begin to take immediate steps to grow at least some of your food and can it, keep a few chickens for meat and eggs and begin to learn different time-proven skills of self sufficiency.  It is like an insurance policy for your family.  I think that it is prudent.

Purple Hull Pea

It's good to have cash in the bank and emergency cash at home, but if some disaster strikes, I'm not sure that paper currency is nutritious or tastes good, but I know that row of purple hull peas out back is!  (And you don't have to wait in a long line at the grocery store to get it!)

A Strange Thing Popped up in the Garden That I Didn't Plant

In a portion of the garden that lies fallow this summer, there were several items that came up volunteer.  They certainly weren't intentionally planted by me and for the longest time, I thought that it was corn, so I let it continue growing to see what the mystery crop would be.  It is not uncommon to have seeds come up year after year. In fact, we don't even have to plant cilantro, basil, or sweet potatoes as they come up on their own each year.

After a time, the crop I thought was corn sent up a shoot with a head on it and I knew immediately that the mystery crop was grain sorghum or milo.

Corn?  Nope.

I'm trying to figure out how it got in the garden.  My first guess would be that the seed was carried by birds from a sorghum field, but there's no sorghum grown anywhere near our home that I know of. Perhaps sorghum is put in birdseed mixes and someone fed birds at their house and they flew over the garden, dropping the seeds?  I'm not sure.  I do know that birds LOVE to eat sorghum.  Yesterday, when I walked into the garden, a flock of doves quickly flew up and away.  They were really enjoying eating it!

The doves are tearing the sorghum up!

I can remember as a kid on the farm, we planted sorghum a year or two as an alternative to soybeans. The variety we planted was more of a red-colored grain.  I can remember that it was a really heavy crop and you couldn't fill your storage bins very full.  I also remember that unloading the sorghum into the bins kicked up some wicked dust.

So what am I going to do with this 'gift' growing in the garden?  I've decided that I'm going to save the seed off of it and plant it next year to produce at least some of our chicken feed on our little homestead.  I researched and read HERE that sorghum is an excellent protein source for poultry, exceeding that of corn.  It would be nice to be self sufficient for at least a portion of our chicken feed that they don't get by foraging for bugs, worms, grasses on our pasture.

Sorghum Head

As I was surveying the sorghum, I noticed a bunch of ants climbing the stalks and surmised that sorghum must really be a sweet crop.  Then I remembered that sorghum is not only used for grain and forage, but for making syrup.  I'm going to manually harvest and dry the sorghum soon and save the seed for next year to see if we can be successful in giving the hens a little variety in their diet.  We'll let you know if our experiment is successful! 

Fixing A Leak in the Water Trough With a New Product (For Us)

The water trough for the cows sits in a corner of the pasture.  A curious thing happens around water troughs.  When it rains or water overflows from the trough, it creates mud around the circumference of the tank.  Over time as cows gather around the tank to drink, mud gets between their hooves and they carry it off where it gets displaced in other areas of the pasture.  As that process repeats itself over the years, a hole or sunken depression is formed around the trough.

Low lying, muddy areas are not good for livestock.  They provide a great environment for bacteria to grow that can weaken or sicken your livestock.  Then, it is just unsightly to have a mud hole in the pasture.  I decided to do something about the eyesore, so I drained out the water trough, cleaned it and moved it out of the way.  Then we pulled in a load of dirt and built up the area, packed the dirt, and moved the water trough back in place and filled it with water.

Upon re-filling the trough, I noticed an issue that requires fixing - several leaks in the bottom.  The drip, drip, dripping over the course of the day was threatening to create another mud hole in the very place I had just fixed.  If you look closely, below you can see the fiberglass patching I used to fix this leak a while back and it lasted for quite a while.  Well, the leak has returned, and I'm assuming that when I emptied the trough and it dried out, the patching on the inside of the tank separated from the cracks it once covered.

Leaking water trough

I drained the water (again) and let the sun dry out the inside.  A quick tug released the fiberglass patching that was on the the inside.

Previous patch

I cleaned up the area where the stress fractures exist in the bottom of the trough. You can see the crack running horizontally where the bottom meets the sides.  I was going to use some more fiberglass patching, but then I remembered an advertisement of a spray on product I saw on TV for patching leaky boats.  It cost $19.99 a can, but after researching, I couldn't get any assurance that it was safe for drinking water.

In looking around, I found a product called WaterWeld, by J-B Weld that seemed perfectly suited for this situation.  In fact, it says on the label below: "Great for Potable Water Tanks."  I've used J-B Weld before (but not WaterWeld) and always thought it was a great product.  I think I paid $5.87 for the 2 ounce package below. 

WaterWeld

Application is simple.  You simply break off the amount that you need and knead it around in your fingers until the color is consistent, mixing the white color with the grey color product that is in the middle of the tube.  It has the consistency of a putty, but it begins to harden after a short while, so once you mix it, you need to be ready to apply it.

Kneading the 'dough'

Then, you just press in the putty, covering the crack, ensuring that the entire area has been coated.  

Applying WaterWeld over the cracks in the trough

The package said the set time is 20 minutes and it cures in an hour.  I performed the fix at around 8 pm at night and I wanted to be doubly sure that it hardened, so I let it cure overnight.  The first thing in the morning, at around 5:45 am, I turned on the hose and refilled the tank.  You can see the white WaterWeld patch at the bottom.

Filling the trough with water

And now for the test to see if the patching stopped the leaks.  I waited for a full day after filling the trough with water.  Annndddd....  No leaks!! Where the water was dripping from the bottom onto the wood prior to patching, now there are no more leaks.

The patching held

So far patching the leaking water trough with J-B Weld WaterWeld seems like a great success.  Only time will tell if it will hold for the duration, but the application was easy, quick, and put an end to the leaky trough.  

Wild Mushroom Soup

A friend of ours grows a number of things and sells them in a couple of Farmer's Markets in the area. We grow things for him like Bok Choy Asian Greens in the winter and also provide him with eggs. He has recently gotten into growing and harvesting mushrooms.  He dries them in a dehydrator and sells them at the market, and he gave us some to try last week.  I wish I could remember the name of the mushrooms, but I can't.  Needless to say, it is important to be able to differentiate the edible ones from the non-edible ones.

Dried Mushrooms

In order to rehydrate them, Tricia let them soak all day long in a bowl of water.

Soaking mushrooms

Using a slotted spoon, Tricia fished out the mushrooms, but don't throw away the 'mushroom broth,' that's the best part.  Once the mushrooms were out, Tricia cut them up, sauteed them in butter, added onions, garlic and celery and continued to saute them until they were all happy.

Sauteed mushrooms with onions, garlic, and celery

 Then add 1/4 cup of flour to the pot to thicken.

Thicken with some flour

Tricia lined a container with a coffee filter to strain out any sediment and poured the mushroom broth into the container.  Notice how rich and dark the mushroom broth is!  This is what makes the soup so flavorful.

Wild Mushroom Broth

Pour the mushroom broth into the pot of sauteed mushrooms & vegetables.

Adding the broth

Allow the soup to simmer for about 15 minutes then add some heavy cream that we skimmed off the top of the morning milk.

Wild Mushroom Soup is on!

A rich and flavorful wild mushroom soup made with nature's finest ingredients really hit the spot tonight!

Putting up a 5 Strand Barbed Wire Fence

At the farm in Oberlin where our family's beef cattle roam, the saying that "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," is often proven true to my Dad.  Cows are inquisitive creatures and even after we sold many of the cattle that liked to escape, other remaining cattle have taken up their bad habits of pushing their way through the perimeter fence to eat in the roadside ditches.

The older portion of the perimeter fence is constructed with hog wire.  Over the years it has rusted, deteriorated, and weakened so that the cows can poke their heads through.  Once their heads are through, they go ahead and figure how to get the rest of their bodies through to escape.  We planned a workday at the farm to replace the fence.  Russ came in from college, my nephew came with my Dad, and Benjamin and I drove in from Jennings.

The first order of business was to unhook the existing hog wire from the T-posts and corner posts and then roll up the wire.  Benjamin chopped the weeds in the way with his machete.  The cattle were right there in the pasture, so once the old fence was down, we were committed.  We couldn't leave for lunch so Dad went to town and picked up some big fat burgers and we sat under a tree and enjoyed our lunch.

Russ & Conner rolling up the fence

We opted to replace the hog wire with a 5 strand barbed wire fence.  According to This Link, Barbed wire was invented in 1867 by Lucien Smith of Ohio as a great new technology for restraining cattle. It is still widely used today.  We anchored one end of the wire to the corner post and put the spool of wire on the back of the All Terrain four wheel drive vehicle and unrolled it.

Unrolling the barbed wire

We started on the bottom strand and once we had it unrolled, we stretched it tight with a "Come Along" and once we had the desired tension, we fastened it to the corner post and used clips to anchor the wire to each T-post.

Working on the third strand

We repeated that process until we had the full fence completed.  Here are the workers admiring the finished product.  This fence is tight and secure and will keep the cows within the pasture.  However, cows will search out the next weakest place in the fence to break through.  We took a tour of the next portion of fence that needs to be fixed on the south side of the pasture on another Saturday.  Fence mending is a never ending job.

The completed fence

It was a blistering hot Saturday and the work crew was hot and tired once the day was done.  We drank lots of water to replenish liquids lost during the workday.

The Fence Menders

The fence builders got the job done.  There's more work to be done, but we'll schedule that on a cooler day.

Sunlight is the Greatest Disinfectant

"Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman." - Justice Louis D. Brandeis

I've always liked that quote.  Mr. Brandeis is talking about transparency and the fact that when things are kept in darkness, things fester, grow, and get worse.  It is only when you turn on the light switch and shine the light on it, that things can be seen openly, honest dialogue can occur, and remedies can be developed to heal the situation and right wrongs.

Mr. Brandeis was an associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. In reading a little about him HERE, this caught my eye:

"Among Brandeis's key themes was the conflict he saw between 19th-century values, with its culture of the small producer, and an emerging 20th-century age of big business and consumerist mass society. McCraw notes that Brandeis's "hostility to the new consumerism found vivid expression in his own behavior. Though himself a millionaire, he disliked most other wealthy persons, being profoundly disturbed by their ostentatious consumption." He never shopped for his own clothes, preferring to reorder the same suits that served him well, nor did he own a yacht like his friends, but was satisfied with his canoe.

But in general, Brandeis felt that consumers were becoming "servile, self-indulgent, indolent, [and] ignorant." The consumer, he said, "had abrogated his role as a countervailing power against bigness... He lies not only supine, but paralyzed, and deserves to suffer like others who take their lickings 'lying down.'" He was repelled by the flaunting materialism overtaking America, often denouncing conspicuous consumption."

Very interesting.  If he was repelled by materialism and consumerist mass society seventy-something years ago, well, he'd have a conniption today!

Sunlight - a great disinfectant

But back to the sunlight quote.  In a very literal sense, we find that sunlight is indeed a good disinfectant.  When we milk our cows, we tie a muslin cloth rag over the milking buckets and milk through the rag.  The clean rag serves as a filter, preventing pieces of hay, hair, flies, and other impurities from getting into the milk. When we get back to the house, we carefully untie the rag, soak it in a soapy water solution with a capful of bleach, wring it out, and put it on the clothesline outside to dry all day long.  The ultraviolet rays (UV) kills bacteria quite effectively.

I probably need to relocate our clothesline as the pecan tree has grown such that the clothesline doesn't get direct sunlight until around noon due to the shade that the pecan tree provides.  From noon until late afternoon the sunlight does its job.  When you pull the cloth off of the line and smell it, it smells fresh and clean.  That reminds me, sleeping on crisp, clean sheets that have been hung outside on a clothesline is a real treat.

One final thought about sunlight.  In addition to being a great disinfectant, it also keeps your whites, white.  Somehow it bleaches fabric.  It doesn't only bleach fabric. We notice the color of our Jersey cows lighten significantly during summer months, returning to their normal light brown and reddish color in the late fall.

Let the sunshine in - both literally AND figuratively!!

The Little Red Wagon

I remember several years ago driving to Camp Edgewood to pick up Benjamin from Boy Scout Camp.  It was hot.  We ate a meal in the un-air-conditioned mess hall and then the scouts swept and cleaned everything up.  Despite the heat and after sleeping in tents with mosquitoes for a week, the boys were all in great spirits.  I don't know if I ever saw Benjamin smile that much.  He had a blast at summer camp and learned a lot, too.

They began singing camp songs with hand motions with all joining in in unison. One of them was called "You can't ride in my little red wagon" and it went like this:

You can't ride in my little red wagon

The front wheel's broken and the axle's draggin'

You can't ride in my little red wagon anymore today HA HA HA!!

2nd verse same as the 1st but a whole lot louder and a whole lot worse!!

In fact, Miranda Lambert has a country song out right now that references that camp song.  Perhaps you've heard it or sang the song yourself at a summer camp.

Well, I had that camp song stuck in my head when the lyrics became reality this week.  We have a red utility wagon that was given to me by my neighbor about 12 years ago.  It has performed its job admirably over the years.  I cannot even begin to tell you how many loads of sticks, leaves, grass, hay and dirt this wagon has hauled.

The left front wheel finally gave out and broke on me.  It had been patched numerous times until no more patching would work.  I needed a new wheel and like the song the front wheel was broken and the axle, as you can see below, was dragging!

You can't ride in my little red wagon

It was a simple fix, though.  I pulled the cotter pin out with a pair of pliers, and pulled the wheel off.

A quick trip to Harbor Freight to purchase a new wheel, install it, grease it up, and I was back in business.

That enabled me to load it up with hay and get our job done.

The little red wagon's axle's not draggin' anymore.

We don't have much in the way of equipment, but little maintenance jobs to keep everything operating are always on-going.  So much so, that we must prioritize to determine which projects we'll undertake each week with limited time and budget. I'm sure you know how that goes!  Keeping things in good repair and running is very important.  You can't haul hay if your axle's dragging.