The Lily of the Valley

We sing a hymn in church called "Lily of the Valley."  It is such an upbeat and happy song, fast-paced and joyful.  It's not singing about flowers, but of one of the names of Jesus.  The Lily of the Valley is mentioned in Song of Solomon 2:1.  Here are the words to the first verse of the hymn.  Perhaps you sing it, too?

I have found a friend in Jesus-

He's ev'rything to me,

He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul;

The Lily of the Valley- in Him alone I see

All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole.

In sorrow He's my comfort, in trouble He's my stay,

He tells me ev'ry care on Him to roll;

He's the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star,

He's the greatest of ten thousand to my soul.

We have many flowers blooming in the yard right now.  I'll show you a few.  First, we have the amaryllis.  It is a beautiful flower that almost looks like it is not real:

Next, we have red lilies.  We've moved these around from place to place.  They are hardy and bloom every year in clusters:

Next, we have the show-stopper.  Louisiana Iris.  These things are stunning:

We have given some to our son and he's planted them at his home.  We've also moved some to a bed under the drip line by our back patio.  It all started here, though:

Approximately twenty-one years ago, I pulled my truck to the side of a gravel road by the "big well."  We have an irrigation well that pumps cool, fresh water from over a hundred feet beneath the surface to flood rice fields.  There is a ditch that always had water in it regardless how hot and dry the summer was.  This ditch was the perfect locale for Louisiana Iris to flourish.  They grew there wild.  I took out my shovel from the bed of my truck and dug a small shovelful of iris roots.  I took it home and planted it in a low place in the yard around an oak tree (above).  The iris is happy there and has multiplied.  Each year we enjoy walking by the blooming flowers and admire its beauty.

We're not the only ones who like the flowers.  Check out the dragonfly in the greenery of the iris!

And there is one other critter that likes the iris!  Tricia noticed that a Rhode Island Red hen was outside the fence the other day, scratching around the blueberry bushes and generally being a nuisance in the yard.  She chased the hen into the Louisiana Iris and discovered the hen's nest amongst the flowers.

He's the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star,
He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.

 

Taking the Time to Look Around

“And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”  Matthew 8:20 KJV

What a beautiful time it is right now!  The temperatures are nice, the skies blue, little humidity, no mosquitoes...  I feel like we're on borrowed time, though.  This doesn't last for long.  We need to enjoy it while it lasts.  Yesterday after church instead of eating lunch at the table, we pulled a picnic blanket out and ate our meals outside under the sprawling branches of a live oak tree.  It was peaceful and comfortable.  Later we held hands and walked around the yard barefoot, taking in the sights and sounds. 

There is so much going on around us.  If you are rushed and not observant, you'll miss things.  In the corner of the northern awning of the barn, I see a bird is building a nest.  She's very nervous, so I can't get too close. 

I zoomed in and it is a momma dove preparing a nest for her babies!  I was worried about her with Ginger, our cat, prowling around.  Sadly, we had some powerful weather blow through, and in the morning, strong winds had blown the nest away.  She'll find a better place, I'm sure.  Keep trying, momma dove.

In the side yard, the Irish potatoes are growing lush, green, and healthy.  In the first mowing of the yard, I mulched the leaves into small pieces and raked them around the growing plants.  They appear to like it.

The potato plants are blooming and I'm sure there are many potatoes developing beneath the surface.  Won't be long before we dig them up.  We're looking forward to some new potatoes cooked with fresh green beans and butter.

We'll be sure to show an update when we harvest.

Learning to Share

Through Him then, let’s continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips praising His name.  And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.  - Hebrews 13:15-16

I'm not a psychologist, but I firmly believe that the act of sharing is not a natural thing.  It is not the default.  As humans, we tend to gravitate toward selfishness.  It's sad, but true.  It is part of the human condition since the fall of Man and sin entered the world.  Now, we must be taught to share.  We are to love our neighbor as ourselves, right?

Believe it or not, animals need to be taught to share as well.  Just like humans, it is often against their will.  I'll show you our nightly ritual, in which we forcefully teach Elsie to share.  Elsie is our little Jersey heifer just born to Clarabelle.  Clarabelle produces more milk than Elsie can drink.  Clarabelle's production of milk is based on the principle of supply and demand.  

We keep milk cows so that we can drink the milk too.  In order for Elsie to get her milk and us to get some too, we've instituted a formal schedule.  Here's how it goes.  Ever since Elsie had been a week old and enjoyed the colostrum, Elsie has had full access to Clarabelle and her milk all day long.  In the evening, we bring both Clarabelle and Elsie into the barn.

Clarabelle is given hay and we milk her out completely.  Hopefully, Elsie has gotten all the milk she wanted because if not, she's going to bed without supper.

You can notice below that Clarabelle's bag is now empty after milking.  The next step is moving the bench, unhobbling Clarabell's leg, and leading her out of the barn.

We lead Clarabelle out rather quickly as Elsie wants to be with her momma.  We distract Elsie, lead her out and close the barn door.

And here is what happens next.  Poor Elsie sadly, longingly looks out of the gate.  She'll spend the night in the barn.  Her momma will spend the night outside the barn, making milk for us.

The first thing in the morning, we tie Elsie up, lead Clarabelle in and milk her out into a clean, stainless steel bucket.  Once done, we put them together for the day.  As Clarabelle makes milk, Elsie drinks it.  We share with one another and we BOTH benefit.  There are few win-win situations in life, but here's one of them.  

They're Back!

Over the years we've posted about a colony of honeybees that build a hive in the hollow fiberglass column that supports the roof above the side entrance to our home.  Each year they come and inhabit the column.  In the hot months of summer, the honey runs down the column and oozes out of the bottom onto the cement.  If you put your ear to the column, you can hear the buzzing vibrations of hundreds or thousands of bees.  Each year during the summer, the bees swarm, sending off new queens to start new colonies elsewhere.  Then, at some point, the bees leave.

I'm happy to have the bees here.  They pollinate the garden and fruit trees.  We've never been stung.  Tricia, however, is not as keen as I to have bees populating the area around the main entrance to our home.  "It's not very hospitable to our guests." she says.  After the bees leave, I'll take a 4x4 and a floor jack and will jack up the roof and remove the column.  I spray out all remnants of the honeycomb and hive with a pressure washer.  Then I coat the inside of the column with bleach, thinking that maybe they smell an attractant to lead them back.  Surely they won't find their way back next year.

Well...  I got a text at work the other day.  It had the photo below attached.  Her words on the text said, "Look closely...  What do you see?"

I immediately replied, "They're back!"  The swarming bees had found their way home.  I have no idea how they do this, but each year, they find their way back.  Swarming bees can be scary for some.  Look in the photo below, there is a green rain frog on the column.  He doesn't seem very concerned about the bees at all.

Once the bees get situated, they'll begin buzzing around and pollinating the garden and trees in the area.  Welcome Home, Bees!

Blow Your Horn

I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. - Daniel 7:8

In the Book of Daniel, the Prophet has visions.  One of them (the verse above) talks about horns.  They aren't literal horns, however.  These horns were plucked up by the roots. 

On Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, it was time we plucked up some horns by the roots - literal horns.  Little Elsie has some tiny horn buds that are starting to grow.  Before they get bigger, at about two weeks, it is time to pluck them out by the roots or at least kill the roots that grow the horns.  In the past we've used De-horning paste.  We've also gone the surgical route.  Recently, we've purchased a De-horning iron to be used for goats and calves.  It worked beautifully on the goats and it is time to see how it works on Elsie.

The first order of business is to catch Elsie, put a halter on her, bring her to the ground and sit on her in order to de-mobilize her, somewhat.  Then, I use clippers to clip the hair out of the way of the horns so that I can see the horn buds.

I am pointing to the horn bud.  You can barely see it, but shortly, it will get bigger and bigger.  For safety of us and the safety of other animals, we don't like our animals having horns.  Some people have different opinions on that, and I respect that, but for us, we've found it's better to remove them.  It is not a pleasant experience for us or the animal, but it must be done.

Once we've shaved the area around the horn buds, we plug in the Electric De-Horning Device.  The end of the iron gets hot.  It gets cherry red.  We wear gloves for this procedure.

While securely holding Elsie down, we hold the de-horning iron around the horn bud for about 3 seconds.  This will hurt initially, but will deaden the nerves for the remainder of the procedure.  We then hold it down for 8 - 10 seconds, until we see a copper colored circle around the horn bud.  This will kill the roots of the horn and inhibit any growth.  If not complete, we'll do it for a little longer.  Then we use the iron the burn the horn bud itself in the center.

Then we repeat the same thing on the other horn.  

She doesn't like it for sure, but in no time flat she's up at the side of her momma.

She's probably a little hot-headed, but by the morning, everything is normal and she'll grow up without horns - an unpleasant process that yields a pleasant outcome.

Soaking Okra and Checking out the Side Yard

My wife and I often talk about how strange it is that some years certain garden crops just absolutely produce so much that we can't eat or store it all.  We share the bounty with family and friends.  And then other years, when we do everything exactly the same, we experience crop failure or the crop may produce, but not very much.  It is very odd.  We try to examine the inputs to see what happened so that we don't repeat the error.  Oftentimes, we can't find what went wrong.

Last year our okra crop was lackluster at best.  The year before, we discovered a recipe for "Oven fried Okra" and this was a game-changer.  Previously, we ate okra primarily in gumbos or cooked down with tomatoes and onions or we had an okra curry recipe that we enjoyed.  The oven fried okra with panko bread crumbs was a favorite of ours and we ate it often.  

Okra is normally a big producer.  You have to pick it every day as it grows faster than kudzu.  Last year, our okra failed - big time.  We have no okra in the freezer.  This year things will be different.  This weekend I readied the seed.  I'm planting three of our favorite varieties: Clemson Spineless Okra - this is our old standby.  Dependable.  Hardy.  Prolific producer.  Next, we have Burgundy Okra - this variety is burgundy in color.  We like things with color.  It doesn't produce as much as Clemson and when you cook it, the color fades, but it it a nice variety.  Finally, we have Beck's Big Okra - a short, fat, variety with a number of ridges on the pods.

When I say 'readied the seed,' here's what I mean:  Okra seed is tough.  It is hard as a ball bearing.  If you would just put it in the ground, it would take a while for the seed coat to soften and germination to occur.  I began soaking my okra seed in warm water 24 hours in advance of planting:

By soaking the okra seed, you are jump-starting the germination process.  It speeds up the process and allows you to see sprouts in a couple of days after putting them in the ground.  After 24 hours, the seed is soft and the hard coating is swollen and coming off.  I dropped them in the ground.  In no time at all, okra sprouts are popping up out of the ground!

We will check back in on the okra later.  For now, let's mosey over into the side yard.  Right next to the Irish Potato patch, I have some Thornless blackberries planted.  The two varieties I have came out of Arkansas and are named after Native American tribes - Navajo and Arapahoe.  We've been pleased with these plants.  They produce berries almost as big as a man's thumb!

As you can witness from the photo above and below, they are full of flowers.  It won't be long before we'll be picking the sweet berries to eat!  One thing on my 'to - do list,' is to take some cuttings and plant more blackberry bushes to expand our berry territory.

Finally, the muscadine vines have put on lots of leaves, displaying a hopeful start to another good producing season.  

My camera wasn't focusing in right, but I believe you can still make out the tiny clusters of muscadines in the photo below.

We are hopeful for a good crop this year.  Regardless, we'll have a good time in the outdoors soaking up vitamin D and enjoying nature.

What in the world is wrong with this egg?

First, I'll answer the question and then we'll discuss further.  There is nothing "wrong with the egg.  The one I'm talking about is the small one below in the nesting box.  Can you see the one I'm talking about?  I went out to gather eggs the other afternoon and discovered a very small egg nestled in the nest.

It is the small egg right beneath the blue egg.  I've posted about these eggs before, but it's been a long time, so let's talk about it again.  The tiny egg is called a 'fart egg.'  I researched it and it is also called a 'fairy egg,' 'rooster egg,' or 'wind egg.'  They are simply eggs laid by some hens in the very early stages of their cycle.  I consider it "working the kinks out."  When you do anything for the first time, things won't be entirely right.  Same thing here.  We have a number of pullets that we just introduced to the rest of the flock.  This has created a change in the pecking order and lots of stress.  We like routine.  So do birds.    

These fart eggs are yolk-less and are created when a hen starts to form an egg before her body releases a yolk.  They are usually a little darker in color than the other eggs.  I think they are cool-looking.

Finding eggs like this are kind of rare.  When you do run across one, it is a strange occurrence.  They are cute.  We bring them inside, but never eat them.  We always wonder if they are okay to eat.  After reading about them, they are safe to eat.  There's no yolk, so they won't be as flavorful or nutritious, but they are fine to eat.  It will just take a whole bunch of fart eggs to make an omelet!!

I went ahead and put the fart egg in a carton so you can see the comparative size.  Now, I don't think a customer will be very happy buying a dozen eggs and having a fart egg in the package, so I removed it and replaced it with a standard-sized egg.

Many Choose to NOT sit in Pews

 I read with interest a recent Gallup Poll which saddened me:

IN THIS GALLUP POLL you can read all the details.  I will cut and paste some of the more pertinent take-aways below and then will discuss further below.

"Church membership is strongly correlated with age, as 66% of traditionalists -- U.S. adults born before 1946 -- belong to a church, compared with 58% of baby boomers, 50% of those in Generation X and 36% of millennials."

"The two major trends driving the drop in church membership -- more adults with no religious preference and falling rates of church membership among people who do have a religion -- are apparent in each of the generations over time."

"While precise numbers of church closures are elusive, a conservative estimate is that thousands of U.S. churches are closing each year."

I grew up attending church because (shamelessly robbing an old preacher joke) I had a drug problem - my parents drug me to church!  I attended Sunday School, VBS, learned all the songs like "Zacchaeus was a wee little man," "This little light of mine," "Deep and Wide," and "Jesus loves the little children."  We had "sword" drills, memorized Scripture and grew in the Faith.

We now attend a small country church.  Tricia and I drug our kids to church.  Forty people meeting regularly to worship God, pray, and be taught from the Bible.  It is an older congregation.  There are strong role models there.  Imperfect people serving a perfect God.  We rejoice in each others' victories and mourn in each others' losses.

Truth be told, the Gallup Poll is about church membership - not believers. Just because you are a member of a church does not mean you are a believer.  Heaven will have people who never joined a church.  However, we are admonished to "not forsake the assembling of yourselves together" in Scripture.  We are encouraged to meet to worship our King, be edified by sitting under strong Scriptural teaching, to pray for one another, to sing praises, and to fellowship with one another.  By doing this, your faith should grow as your Christian walk deepens.

Alternatively, Hell will have people who were church members:  

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Matthew 7:21-23

So looking at just church membership is not looking at the whole picture.  However, fewer people on the pews is sad.  That's potentially fewer people hearing the Gospel, fewer people being changed by Truth found in the Word of God, fewer people being encouraged to not conform to a darkened world, fewer people being equipped to bring the Light of Christ into that darkened world.  And as the Gallup poll showed, the trend shows decreasing church attendance with each generation.

It is my opinion that we are In the Last Days.  You can click that hyperlink to read what the Apostle Paul wrote about these times in II Timothy.  Things will get worse, but take heart.  If you know Christ, He will guide you through the storms that are sure to come.  Get to know Him if you don't!  Keep the Faith!  Find a strong Bible-believing church and attend and grow despite the trend the Gallup poll showed.

The Ever-Shrinking Wood Chip Pile

At the southernmost part of our garden lies a big pile.  In the past it was 50% bigger.  It was wood chips and over the last two years the wood chips have decomposed.  We got these chips from a company that was chipping up trees from electrical powerline right of ways.  The wood chips were free (other than for a few dozen eggs we gave the workers).

The wood chips were once trees.  Those trees pulled nutrients and minerals from the soil.  Now those same trees are slowly deteriorating and becoming soil from which they grew, returning fertility to the land.  The wood chip pile is not dead.  It is teeming with earthworms, bugs, and mushrooms.  Those living organisms help to break down the wood chips.

While you can still tell that there are wood chips in the pile, a good portion of the wood chips are broken down.

Some parts of the pile look almost entirely like dirt, soft, rich, and moist - a perfect medium for plants in a healthy garden.  As the seedlings grow, we rake a 4" layer of this around the plants to discourage weed growth and encourage the retention of soil moisture.

We also bury our compost in the pile.  This adds bacteria to speed up decomposition.  As evidence of the fertility of the wood chip pile, I have several healthy plants growing in the pile from seeds deposited along with the compost.  How about that?  Gardening in which you don't even have to plant the seeds!

Here we have a Butternut Squash and a Charleston Grey Watermelon.

Here we have a plethora of Muscadine Grapes growing.

Here we have a luffa gourd plant.

And finally, here are three peanut plants.

We'll check in on these plants to see if they are able to reach maturity.  As our inventory of wood chips morphs into rich soil, we'll have to keep our eyes open to accumulate more wood chips to keep the process going.

How the Cow Ate the Cabbage

I have been on hiatus for a few days with a toothache.  OUCH!  I wasn't feeling worth a hoot and didn't feel like doing anything but swishing out my mouth with warm salt water.  Hopefully, I'll be better soon.  Anyway, good to be back.

Have you ever heard the saying, "I'm gonna tell him how the cow ate the cabbage?"  What it means is that you're going to tell the whole truth regardless of the consequences.  It may hurt someone's feelings, but it needs to be said.  I often wonder how these sayings came to be.  Apparently, according to THIS LINK it originates from an old (somewhat gross) joke:

A circus came to a small town, and one of the elephants escaped. The elephant moseyed over to an elderly lady's garden.  The lady's eyesight wasn't quite up to snuff.  The elephant got into the garden and began pulling up her cabbage with its  trunk and eating them.  The old lady called the police, and said, “Officer, there’s a big cow in my garden pulling up my cabbages with its tail!” “What’s the cow doing with them?” he asked, to which the woman replied, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”

Sometimes, like in today's post, the translation is literal!  We are at the end of the fall garden and have been harvesting the last of the kale, carrots, and cabbage in order to make room for the spring garden.  We've picked some nice-sized cabbage, but the ones remaining are small - most are the size of softballs.  Cabbage, at this time of the season, gets bug damage, particularly snails and slugs, though.  It was time to pull them up.

Tricia and I began clipping them off the stem, removing the outer damaged leaves, and putting the heads in a crate.  We'll eat them!

When we finished the job of salvaging the 'runts' of the cabbage crop, here's what we had:

They don't look bad.  They're just about 1/3 the size of a regular cabbage.  We make use of everything!  And hey, they're bigger than brussel sprouts!

Honey, I shrunk the cabbage

But we weren't finished with the crop.  Rosie came sauntering up to the garden fence, begging and we obliged, tossing over all of the outer cabbage leaves we had removed.  What we don't eat - the cows and goats finish off happily.

Rosie showed us how the cow ate the cabbage.  She put them in her mouth!

Introducing "Elsie"

Clarabelle, our Jersey Milk Cow, was due to calve around April 10th according to our record-keeping.  As time stretched on during the nine month gestation period, we wondered from time to time if she was pregnant.  Over the past week or so, we could tell that she indeed was due to the "blossom" of her bag.  Yesterday Tricia said, "I bet it's gonna be tomorrow."  She was right!

Shortly after 1 pm she sent me the following photos with a text that said, "I think we have a heifer!"  And we do.  As I stated before, I had a stern talk with Clarabelle the other day.  Both she and Rosie have given us nothing but bulls the past several years.  It is time for a girl.  Clarabelle gave us one.  

We began thinking of a name for the little one.  First, due to her color, I thought 'Honey' would be a nice name, but I also call my wife that.  That would be confusing.  Tonight we began tossing around names.  I liked Buttercup, but Tricia said that had too many syllables.  We settled on "Elsie." Elsie was the spokeswoman mascot for Borden milk.  That seemed like a nice name for the little one.

It is always very important for the calf to get colostrum the first day for health and antibodies to give strength and fight off sickness.  

Elsie is a cute little thing - solid brown, with big liquid eyes.  She spends most of her time sleeping, but she was very quick to get up on her feet.

We are always very protective of our barnyard babies, nervous that the cows will accidentally step on them or the chickens will peck at them.  I always want to help with the labor and delivery, but nine times out of ten, it is best to just let the animals be.  God created them and He knows what He's doing.  

Clarabelle was very weak when she was born.  It was a challenge to make her nurse and hard to get her to even stand up.  Although strong, we are seeing some of the same things with Elsie.  We are keeping our eyes on her and will update you more about Elsie's progress on Sunday Night.

Popcorn For Sale

Matthew 25:31-46 King James Version

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

There comes a time of separation, of dividing, of judgment.  As Matthew 25 tells us, this will occur.  Nations, peoples will be separated in which the godly and the ungodly are distinguished and parted from one another.  Where previously, they had dwelt together, at that time a judgment will take place.  The sheep (an innocent, mild, docile animal) will go to the right (favored) and the goats (wild, unruly creature) will go to the left (disfavor).

On Our Maker's Acres Family Farm there is a less apocalytical time, in which we must separate some animals from others.  We only have 5 acres of land.  This means that in springtime when the goats kid and the cows calve, we discover we don't have the land capacity to handle all these creatures.  Not enough grass, not enough time to manage them.  So decisions must be made to cull the herd.

In this case, we've decided to sell Popcorn.  We don't mean that we will be going door to door selling Orville Reddenbacher's Best.  Popcorn is our baby buckling.  We are currently bottle feeding him since his momma (Annie) has mastitis-damaged bags that no longer produce milk.  Annie produces beautiful babies, but no milk.  Tricia will put Popcorn up for sale this week.

It will be sad to see him go.  We hope a good family purchases him.  He is spunky, full of energy, healthy and is always jumping around.  That's why we call him Popcorn.  Any time he sees us, he comes up to us and puts his front feet up on us to beg for another bottle.  

We'll miss him, but we still have the little doeling, "Cupcake."  I'll post about her a little later.  Popcorn, anyone?