Annnnddddd... We're Back!

Our Maker's Acres Family Farm has continued to operate (slowly), but Tricia and I have been on hiatus for over a week now.  A year and a half into this pandemic, we both tested positive for Covid-19, possibly the Delta Variant, although they're not really sure.  We both signed up for a free drive through test at our local Walgreens.  We drove up, got the test, shoved the stick deep into our nose and wiggled it until our eyes watered and gave it back.  In thirty minutes we checked our email account and got the results:

We both had different symptoms.  I had a splitting headache, but no fever or difficulty breathing - a feeling of light-headedness.  I just wanted to sleep all day - for days.  Tricia had a headache, fever, body aches and some shortness of breath.  

Now, I'll show you what we did.  As soon as symptoms showed up, we acted quickly.  We used the protocol by FLCCC Alliance (Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care):

• Ivermectin (0.4 mg/kg one dose daily)
• Vitamin D3 (4,000 IU/day)
• Vitamin C (1,000 mg twice a day
• Quercetin (250 mg twice a day)
• Zinc (100 mg/day)
• Aspirin (325 mg/day)

My preparedness-minded wife had stocked up on the Ivermectin from our local feed store.  You measure out the dosage into a spoon and choke the paste down - like a horse.  It doesn't taste good, but it doesn't taste bad either - just kind of strange.

Over 5-6 days of dosages, we went through a lot of it.  I tell people I have a craving for alfalfa and a desire to gallop around the house and winnie.  I assume those side effects will pass in time.

We feel like the protocol kept this thing at bay.  The other thing we did was the use of Nebulized Hydrogen Peroxide Tricia learned from Dr. Mercola.  We purchased a nebulizer and administered a solution of 0.1% hydrogen peroxide for 10-15 minutes hourly, breathing it deeply into our lungs through the nose.

We monitored our temperature, heart rate, and most importantly pulse ox to ensure we weren't getting into trouble.

There was a day (Day 6 for me and Day 8 for Tricia) we went to the local hospital out-patient room for an infusion (Regeneron).  I woke up with pleurisy and didn't want things to progress.  The doctor felt the infusion would bind the virus replication and not allow things to get any worse.  Tricia did the same thing two days later.

We will be on Day 10 of this thing tomorrow and feel mostly recovered.  Glad to have this behind us and blessed to have antibodies and T-cells that will give us immunity from Covid-19.

Fresh, Homemade Pico de Gallo

Pico de Gallo means "the beak of the rooster" in Spanish.  It does not contain the beaks of roosters.  I always wondered how it got that name.  After researching, there are a couple of theories - some say it is because you eat it with your thumb and index finger (like a rooster's beak).  But we always eat it with chips.  Some say it is because the serrano peppers look like a rooster's beak.  I don't know about that.  All I know is that it tastes great, and we can wipe out a bowl of it in no time flat.  That is quite a feat when I don't like raw tomatoes!

We have most everything fresh from the garden to make fresh, homemade pico de gallo right now, so we are eating plenty of it.  First, we have homegrown heirloom tomatoes in many different varieties and colors.  It makes for an interesting looking dish.  Then, we have just harvested onions and jalapenos.  We also have cilantro, but it is all store-bought right now as ours all bolted to seed.  A couple of limes are store-bought as well.

So here Tricia is assembling it.  We've chopped up jalapenos and have begun to core the tomatoes.  She's selected a molcajete to put the seeds and cuttings into and a talavera bowl that we'll serve the pico de gallo in.  Talavera is pottery that originated in Spain and was brought to Mexico.  A lot of it is made in Puebla, because of the fine clays needed to make it is found there.  There are six colors permitted: blue, yellow, black, green, orange and mauve and all those colors are from natural pigments.

It is a simple dish with few ingredients.  The flavors of everything mixed seem to really compliment each other.  We have chopped up tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro, onions and are ready to add them all together.

Everything is mixed all together in the bowl and then salt and pepper is added.  Then the juice of two limes is squeezed on top and everything is mixed together.

The longer you let it sit in the fridge, the better it tastes, but we never let it sit for long.  We bust open a bag of chips and it is like magic.  We can make the whole bowl disappear!

I even like when we're at the bottom of the bowl.  I like to crumble up the chips and let them soak up the lime/tomato flavors and eat it up with a spoon.

Hit And Run (Our Maker's Acres Edition)

Belle is our dog.  She's a good dog, no doubt.  Look at those eyes.  It's like she can do not wrong, right?

Wrong.  Having Belle is like owning a excavator or a backhoe, or a bulldozer that turns itself on by itself and digs up the property at will.  She's done this in the last few days:

What a mess!  That was after getting bored digging this.

She digs the holes and then we fill them.  She's recently dug up a bed full of lilies that encircled a pecan tree.  I don't know what we're going to do with her.  

But recently evidence of additional digging has been found that is not from Belle.  It appears to be damage from an armadillo.  Several weeks ago, Tricia and I ran around at night with a spot light and a rifle and killed an armadillo that was digging in the front yard.  But now another one?  It has dug some holes underneath the smoker and various other spots in the yard.  Not that we've ever been concerned with having a manicured lawn, but this is ridiculous between Belle and the armadillos.

Country living is great, but there's always another item to put on the to do list that probably most people don't have.  Anyhow, I made a mental note to add "Kill armadillo" on the to do list.  Friday morning started out like any other Friday morning.  I woke up, showered, poured coffee and headed out the door at 5:18 am.  I started the car and backed out of the garage, turned on the headlights, put the car in drive and began driving down the driveway.

That's when I spotted the perp.  There was a beady eyed armadillo about 10 yards in front of me on the driveway.  Like a madman, I gunned the motor and, with a wicked gleam in my eye, sped toward the armored villain.  I could hear the animal hit the underneath of my car, possibly the oil pan.  Then, I felt a pleasing "thwunck" noise as my back tire passed over the body of the offending animal.  Three hours later, I called Tricia to see if she could walk out in the yard and located the prey.  She found it!  I was successful in my hit & run event.

When I got home later, I was in charge of disposing of the remains.  Here is the flat dude right here.  His digging days are done.

An autopsy was not performed; I know how he died.  However, you can see those powerful claws he uses for digging.

I got a pitchfork and carried him across the road and pitched him into the middle of a field.  I didn't even give him a proper burial.  I will save my energy with the shovel for filling in the holes he dug.

A Wet Summer

It has been quite a rainy summer.  It's always wet.  We average almost 70 inches of rainfall (almost 6 feet!) of rain annually.  This year, we are on pace to break rainfall records.  It rains every day.  It is a muddy mess.  Let's look at the positives, though.  We have plenty of water catchment containers.  On the back of the house, I have empty 30 gallon tubs on the drip line.  After a one inch rain, I can catch 300 gallons of rainwater just from there.

I also have big water troughs that catch rainwater falling off the barn roof:

It doesn't take much of a rainfall to fill them up.  The cows and goats drink from them.  

The chickens will fly up to the trough, stand on the edge and drink water.  It gets dangerous, though, and we check the troughs every day.  When the level gets low, the chickens sometimes fall in.  We have to rescue them from time to time.

These are the 30 gallon tubs I was telling you about that line the back of the house.   I'll take a couple of five gallon buckets and transfer the water from the tubs and to the water trough in the pasture.  I just pour it over the fence to re-fill the trough.  Cows will drink about 18 gallons of water each day.

Amazingly, I've never had to turn on the water to the animals this year!  They have survived just on rainwater.  That's never happened before.

Rubber boots are a must-have necessity around Our Maker's Acres Family Farm!

It'll dry up eventually, but you can tell the cows, goats, and chickens really don't like slogging and sloshing through the mud all day.

The Narrow Gate OR the Broad Gate

Matthew 7:13-14

New American Standard Bible

The Narrow and Wide Gates

13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

The gate leading to our pasture has a latch on it to keep the barnyard animals in.  The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, as they say, and given their own devices, the cows, goats and chickens would be roaming outside and getting into all sorts of mischief and causing beaucoup mayhem.

Many years ago, after thinking about it, I painted the first part of Matthew 7:13 on the latch.  I just repainted it as it had faded with time.  It is there as a constant visual reminder.  Funny thing, one time we had a cow that needed veterinary services so our vet and a helper came out for a farm call.  The vet's helper was about to go through the gate and then looked at it and wondered where the narrow gate was that he should go through.  He thought that it was the wrong gate he was about to go through.  The veterinarian explained to him that it was a Bible verse, and he was the right gate after all. 

It's a very important one passage in Scripture.  In America, we pride ourselves on being free.  In God's Kingdom, we also have freedom to choose.  We have free will.  We can believe in Christ for salvation OR tragically, we can reject Him and do our own thing.  The thing is, there are two gates.  Jesus explains that the narrow gate leads to (eternal) life and the wide gate leads to destruction.  It is interesting that the gate/path leading to destruction is wide and many populate that path.  Conversely, the gate/path leading to life is narrow and only trod by a few.

As I think about it, only 8 people got on the Ark and it was only Noah's family.  There were only four that left Sodom and Gomorrah and only three of those made it.  The reminder painted on our gate I see everyday tells me all I need to know.  Salvation is not hard.  However, most times it doesn't mean following the crowd.  Trust in Jesus' finished work on the cross, and not my good works, not church attendance, not trying to be a "good person" and so on. Christ's Blood paid my sin debt and my belief in the sinless Son's sacrifice provides reconciliation with a Holy God.  

Enter by the Narrow Gate!

The "Besto" Pesto

Welcome to the Jungle!  In July, the sweet potato vines always engulf this section of the garden.  If one were to stand for too long in one location, you are in danger of the vines encircling your body and tying you down.  The vines are knee high and very healthy with all the rain we've gotten.

Barely holding its own in the middle of the vines are two Sweet Basil Plants like you see below:

And two Genovese Basil plants like you see below:

We really like fresh basil in cooking various dishes and love fresh pesto on pizzas with homegrown tomatoes, corn and mozzarella.  But today we're making pesto.  While standing in the vines, I pull off the healthiest leaves and fill a big measuring cup that I've brought with me that will hold 8 cups.  Once I get 8 cups of basil leaves packed down, I bring them inside and soak them in water.  We don't like bugs in our pesto!

We start grating Parmesan cheese as the recipe calls for 2 cups.

In fact, I've assembled all the ingredients.  You will need:

8 cups basil leaves

2 cups freshly grated Parmesan Cheese

2 cups extra virgin olive oil

1 1/3 cup cashew pieces

12 garlic cloves, minced

Salt and pepper

Process the basil leaves by pulsing until the leaves are uniformly chopped.  It smells great!

Add the cashew pieces and process until mixed.

Mince the garlic and pulse again until mixed.

Pour the 2 cups of olive oil into the mixture while it is on.  Once done, I scrape the sides of the food processor down with a spatula to ensure all is properly mixed.

Now is the time to add the grated Parmesan Cheese:

Pesto freezes remarkably well, so we spoon the pesto into Daisy Sour Cream containers that hold 16 ounces each.  Of course I taste it.  It is delicious!

I made two batches of pesto as described above.  I ended up with Five Pounds of pesto.  I labeled it with a Sharpie and freezer tape.

And that's it.  So simple to put together a quick meal.  Just thaw out a container of pesto and put some pasta on.  Voila!  Pesto Pasta for lunch after church.  Everyone loves it.  Pro tip: Be sure to check your teeth before going out.  Pesto tends to stick in the corner of your teeth.  That can be embarrassing!  That's experience speaking...

Truth in Advertising - Cajun Edition

A few weeks ago I went to the Piggly Wiggly in our town.  Actually, 'the Pig' changed its name to Lyons' Market.  It is a local supermarket, we know the owner, and I like doing business locally.  Although, I'll go, I'm not a fan of the size and of the crowds of Wally World and honestly, I do less than 2% of our family's grocery shopping.  Anyhow, I was looking for some charcoal.  Lately, I like using real lump charcoal, rather than the briquettes.  

After looking down the charcoal aisle at the different types of lump charcoal.  This non-descript brown bag of charcoal caught my eye:

A Little Goes a Long Way, it says.  Check.  Efficient.  Thrifty.  Economical.  My kind of product.

Environmentally Friendly.  Check.  We want to take care of God's creation.

No Chemical Additives.  Check.  We don't want our food cooked over chemicals or poison obviously.

Quality Cajun Products, it boasts.  Excellent.  Boudreaux & Thibodeaux have a business making charcoal.  As I like supporting local, this purchase seemed to be a no-brainer.  I carried the 10 pound bag to the check-out, paid for my purchase, and was on my way.

Once home, I unloaded it in the garage.  I flipped the bag over.  Wait a doggone minute.  The instructions for the charcoal were in English and Spanish.  Cajun Products in Spanish.  Que?  It would seem that Boudreaux and Thibodeaux would have instructions in Cajun French, no?

And then, I noticed it, in small print at the bottom of the bag:

Product of Mexico.  This was a scam!  Cajuns, in the diaspora, migrated (were exiled) from Nova Scotia to South Louisiana, not Mexico.  Here I was trying to support my people, and they just slapped the Cajun name on it to fool me.  No Truth in Advertising on this purchase, unfortunately.  I'll read the fine print while I'm in the store next time.  This was pas bon!

The Red, White, and Blue

 

We watch very little television at our house, so we sometimes aren't completely up to date on current events, but I have seen some reports about growing numbers of athletes and other malcontents that are ashamed of our country and are not proud of America.  Some are even wanting to do away with Old Glory, our flag, and replace it with another.

This saddens me greatly.  While people certainly have freedom to have opposing viewpoints, I couldn't feel more differently.  I am proud of the United States of America.  We fly the American Flag every day at our house and so do many of our neighbors.  We stand for the national anthem.  My grandfather fought in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII to preserve freedom that we hold so dear in this great country.

Does America have warts?  Of course!  But what country doesn't?  We are all fallible humans born with a sinful nature, so of course we're going to have a past.  But we have freedom!  And opportunity!  And Self-determination!  There are forces that wish to divide us and the cracks of division appear to be growing.  We should not fall prey to this tactic.  United we stand.  Divided we fall.

We will always fly the flag.  We will always pray that God may Bless America and that we will turn our hearts back to Him.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.  Psalm 33:12

An Update on Elsie

Elsie is our little Jersey heifer that Clarabelle has on April 7th.  Today she is three months old. She is a pretty little calf and is officially registered with the American Jersey Cattle Association.  At two weeks old, we dehorned her with an electric de-horning iron.  At 3 months old you cannot even tell at all where the horns were.

Elsie is the tamest calf, but we've worked with her methodically every night putting a breaking halter on her and tying her up to a post.  We brush her and gently talk to her.  Over time, she's come to trust us and is very gentle.  Elsie is the calf in the back with the halter on.  In front of her, with no halter, is LuLu.  She's Rosie's heifer.  We'll start working with her soon.

Elsie and LuLu are half sisters and are partners in crime.  They run around the barnyard helter-skelter, with their tails high in the air, chasing chickens with dust and feathers flying.  They kick their heels in the air mischievously kicking the barn with a loud "thwack" sound that echoes across the pasture.  

Elsie is a growing calf.  She drinks all of Clarabelle's milk and then proceeds to go and share Rosie's milk with LuLu.  LuLu better be careful or she won't get enough!  We weigh Elsie by using a measuring tape that converts inches in girth to pounds. 

At about a month, she was 31 1/2 inches in girth, or 92 lbs.

At two months, she was 175 lbs.

At three months, Elsie was 42" in girth, or 240 lbs!

We'll keep you updates with how things are going.  I guess the next milestone for her will be when we wean her. 

Random Photos and Thoughts

First things first.  I fixed the link on the Independence Day post from yesterday.  If you were unable to open it, I added a hyperlink that you can click on to view the video.  It is from Paul Harvey and it's very interesting.

Now, today's post is a little different.  I'll show a few photos and explain what's going on.  Normally, posts are topic-driven, but tonight is an outlier.  As the cucumber crop comes to a screeching halt with the high heat, we've been eating the harvested cukes in the vegetable crisper.  Most are eaten raw with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and sea salt and pepper, but Tricia did make a jar of lacto-fermented pickles.  It's simply cut up cucumbers pickled in whey.

Our pecan trees haven't made pecans in a couple of years.  I don't know if they are missing some nutrient or fertility or if the darned squirrels are just eating them all.  I do see little pecans in the trees.  Maybe we'll get some this year!  I will try to keep my eyes open for the squirrels, though.  It may turn out that I'll have to harvest a bunch of squirrels if I want to harvest a bunch of pecans.

Tricia made tacos the other night with homemade corn tortillas and sautéed garden squash on the side.  The squash weren't actually from our garden.  Our squash gave up the ghost after all the rain last month.  The tacos and squash were delicious! 

These weren't just any tacos.  They were lengua tacos - Beef Tongue from our bulls we had slaughtered.  They were very good.  They are tender and tasty.   

The eggplant are ready for picking.  We like to eat them fried and also make caponata with them.  They are pretty and purple. 

Finally, here is a Beauregard Sweet Potato in bloom.  You can't see anything above ground except for a lot of vines, but underground is where the work is getting done.  Sweet potato tubers are growing and they'll be ready for harvest this fall.

Just a few random photos tonight.  I hope all is well with your family.

Risking It All - Happy Independence Day!

I am proud to be an American.  I am grateful that the founders of this great country valued liberty over security.  I ran across this video below.  It is 9 minutes and 54 seconds and is a history lesson taught by the beloved Paul Harvey.  I miss that man.  This is worth your time.  The Founding Fathers of our country risked it all.  They pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

Happy Independence Day to you and yours.  Paul Harvey

The Birdhouse Gourd Arbor

Our wood chip pile at the south end of the garden has been invaded!  Heirloom Louisiana Ribbon Sugar cane grows in there, but so does luffa gourds, watermelon, cantaloupe, Tahitian Melon Squash, butternut squash, and lastly, birdhouse gourds.  The birdhouse gourd vines are prolific - almost like kudzu.  They grow everywhere and at night, their white blooms decorate the wood chip pile.

This year I decided to make an arbor or a trellis with an old piece of reinforcement fencing that I normally use for a cucumber trellis.  Except this time I made it into an arch in order to make a tunnel of sorts to walk through.  We have a pathway down the eastern side of the garden that opens to a gate leading to the barn.  Each day we walk this path several times.  

The tendrils of the birdhouse gourds grasp anything in their way, clinging tightly.  The tendrils have "springs" that allow it to flex as the winds blow.

The big leaves of the vine are growing and as the vines stretch out, they will eventually shade out the area.  I like that idea.  Tricia is a little concerned that snakes might lurk in the birdhouse gourd arbor and fall down on her as she passes beneath it.  That would not be good.  I would never hear the end of it.

The birdhouse gourd gets its name because, once dried, you can drill a hole and make a nice birdhouse.  We made several of these in prior years.  Unfortunately, the birds were slow on the take and wasps found that they were perfect places in which to build nests.  We will try again this year.  Tricia has painted some of them different colors and hangs them from tree branches like ornaments.  They are full of seeds and when shaken, they can be a musical instrument.  Finally you can cut them in half and make a dipper for getting water to drink out of a bucket.

As the trellis fills out with leaves and the gourd crop comes in, we'll update you on the progress.