To Put in Place

The days are long now.  Tricia and I have embarked on a new routine.  After we milk the cow and do the afternoon chores, we walk.  We take Belle with us.  Tricia sets a fast pace.  As you can tell, I've drifted behind.

I have a goal each day to walk 10,000 steps,  That equates to about 5 miles.  There is a step counter on my phone and that's how I track it.  The trick is to get your heart rate up, so you've got to try to do your walking all at once and briskly.  You burn between 250 and 600 calories in a walk of 10,000 steps, depending on your weight.  It is enjoyable.  Tricia and I talk about plans, goals, and sometimes I just ramble.

On days that Tricia doesn't walk with me, I generally will listen to a podcast.  I like listening to the Art of Manliness podcasts.  They are on a wide variety of topics that are really interesting to me.  The podcast lasts for about 45 minutes, which is perfect for the walk.  Yesterday I listened to one that discussed a concept called "Mises en place."  In French that means "to put in place."

It was about efficiency and the talk was from a chef who wrote a book based on how to tame the chaos that goes on in the kitchen of a restaurant.  Even though you may not work in a restaurant (I don't), it was an interesting talk.  First, mises en place.  Everything must be put in place.  A chef has everything prepped, everything within arms reach.  Everything is there so that you don't have to move your feet.  So, at your desk, if you are right handed, is your phone where you have to reach across your body?  Your pens?  Reorganize your workspace to make the most of your motion and effort.

Lists!  I am definitely a list guy.  Lists are good and chefs use lists.  However, have you ever found that of the seven things on your list for today, you only got four done.  The other three move to the next day, which already has nine things on it, so you are always chasing your tail?  Yeah, that's me.  The podcast explained that a list is nothing without a calendar and an element of time.  When you make a list, have a calendar and allocate time, schedule the item at a particular time, so it gets done.  

The call back.  The podcast says that in the kitchen of large restaurants it gets crazy.  Yelling, movement, clanging, banging...  Despite that, there is communication.  It's the call-back.  Someone comes in and says, "I need 3 filets medium rare and 2 chopped salads."  The meat guy calls back, "3 filets, medium rare," and the salad guy says, "2 chopped salads comin' up."  Once the orders are called back, the first person leaves, knowing his communication was retrieved and understood.  That's a good concept in business (or marriage!)

Clean as you go.  If a kitchen at a large restaurant is dirty, people can die!  Bacteria, cross-contamination.  It'll get you.  Cooks keep their work area clean - for safety, but also for clarity.  If the dishes and cutting boards, pots and pans are piling up, you can't think straight.  Once it piles up, it seems overwhelming, but if you clean as you go, it's manageable.

Lot's to think about.  Those concepts work in the kitchen, the homestead, or the workplace.  Tomorrow, I'll think some more about how to implement some of these ideas to tame the chaos.

Right now, I'll finish getting my steps in and enjoy the sunset.

Heat and Drought-Proof Gardening

It has been exceedingly hot and dry.  It always is this time of year, but even more so in 2022.  I haven't mowed the grass in a month.  We are watering everything in the garden and the landscape every other day just to keep things alive.  It is a good exercise to see what in the garden is able to survive and even thrive in the dog days of summer.

This garden plant wins the contest hands down.  Can you guess what it is?  I'll show you the flower as a hint:

It looks almost like a hibiscus.  That's because this heat and drought tolerant plant is in the hibiscus family.  That is an okra blossom.  Okra seem to really enjoy the heat.  I have a few inches of mulch around the base of the plants, and I'm sure that helps them, but I really hardly ever water them.

They keep producing.  The photo below shows okra at almost every stage.  You can see the blossom about to come out, small pods, and then finally pods that are ready for harvest.  The variety you are looking at are called Clemson Spineless.

The colorful okra you see below are called Burgundy okra.  They really stand out in the garden, but when you cook them, they lose their color.  The taste is the same as the others.

As I pick a pod off the plant, I cut the bottom-most leaf off and let it fall to the ground.  I call that "chop and drop" and learned that from a blogger named the Florida Survival Gardener.  Chop and drop employs the usage of the plants leaves to create mulch around the base of the plant.  It ultimately forms organic matter that adds fertility to the soil.

Here are the three varieties of okra that I plant (from left to right):

Beck's Big Okra
Clemson Spineless Okra

Burgundy Okra

All three are non-hybrid heirloom.  I save their seed every year and replant.  I end up with more saved seed that I can use.  This year, in a test, I planted some okra seed that I had saved from 10 years ago - the container was marked "Clemson Spineless - 2012," and they still germinated.

I have three rows of okra planted.  Every other day I go out with a bucket and a pair of clippers and harvest a bucket-ful.  It seems like the hotter it gets, the more they produce.  If it wasn't so hot, I would definitely be wearing long sleeves.  Okra always makes me itch something fierce!

Making More Cucumbers Than We Can Eat

A bumper crop of cucumbers is not a problem.  It's an opportunity.  Most everybody around gardens and has excess cucumbers.  We're eating cucumber and onion salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar every day.  We're also making tzatziki often.  We can't catch up and the cucumber supply continues to build.  So what do you do?  We make dill pickles!

First we brine them in salt water overnight.  These are organic Boston Pickling Cucumbers.

We rinse them off in a colander.

The canning jars, lids and rings are all sterilized.

The cut up cukes are packed tightly in the pint-sized canning jars along with garlic, peppers, dill, and herb and spices.

All the while we're boiling a vinegar solution on the stove with pickling spices.  A canning funnel is used to fill each of the jars with the pickling liquid and then the lids are placed on the jars and the rings tightened finger tight.

We place them in a big pot on the stove and ensure that the jars are submerged beneath the water at least a couple inches.  This is water bath canning - no pressure.  Once the water comes to a boil, we set the kitchen timer for 10 minutes.

When the timer goes off, we remove the jars from the pot of water and set on a cooling rack.  Then we listen.  Can you hear it?  One by one, the lids begin popping as the jars cool.  That means they're sealed.

I put them on the window sill while the morning sun was shining through.  Always a nice sight.  For now, we'll stack the jars of pickles in the pantry.

As our supply of pickles grow, we'll continue to make pickles and stack them up in the pantry.  It's always nice to have a good supply of pickles to pull out of the pantry, pop the lid open and snack on dill pickles.

The End of the Tomato Crop

The 2022 tomato crop started off like it always does on January 1st with planting all the different varieties in seed pots, germinating them indoors and putting under grow lights.  Except something went drastically wrong.  The plants germinated and started growing, but turned yellow and didn't grow taller than about 2 inches.  We were using a new grow light, and I think something happened.  We'll not use that light again.

We were able to save a few of them, but I ended up going to a local nursery here in town and purchased heirloom tomato plants from them.  It was the first time in years I've done that.  It's okay - I like to support our local businesses and Fred & Jennifer run a fantastic business.  By the time I had given up on the plants I grew from seed, I was behind.  I got all the tomatoes in the ground, but it got hot and dry real fast this year.  

The stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs and worm pressure was atrocious!  We picked a decent amount of fruit, but the ones we picked weren't pretty, for the most part.  They were scarred by the bugs and worms.  When the temps hit the mid-90's, the tomatoes were done!

 I got my clippers and started clipping the vines down.  It was sad to see them go, but it'll make room for something else to be planted.  Believe it or not, you can still plant another crop of okra and cow peas.  They thrive in the heat.  Also, the fall garden is right around the corner.  In a little more than a couple of months, I'll be planting the fall crop.  Right now, it's too hot to even think about.

The cows and goats and chickens were thrilled to see the tomato vines being tossed over the garden fence.  They munched on the vines and the little green tomatoes, too.  We'll be planting fall tomatoes this year in a couple months.  It's always a little tricky - too early and they bake in the sun.  Too late and they freeze before you have ripe tomatoes.

While we didn't can any tomatoes so far, we do have a lot left that we harvested.  We've eaten a bunch raw and in salads.  We've cooked a bunch of tomatoes down in recipes and stewed with okra and onions.  We've eaten a ton of them in homemade pico de gallo!

Many years ago, we were at the Kerrville Folk Music Festival and heard a group called Trout Fishing in America.  They sang a very catchy song that we still sing!  In it (in addition to humor), it has the recipe for delicious pico de gallo.  Here's the lyrics to the song and the recipe:

Pico de Gallo, You oughta give it a try-o,

Even if you're from Ohio, It'll get you by-o,

Don't get it in your eye-o, Unless you wanna cry-o,

So come on don't be shy-o, eat some pico de gallo.

It's got jalapenos, I reckon y'all have seen those

They're kinda hot for gringos and probably flamingos

Just add some tomatillos, onions and cilantro,

Lime juice and tomato, you got pico de gallo!

Don't get it in your eye

The Cattle Guard

I was driving on a back road near my house the other day and pulled in to a road leading in to a pasture.  There was a cattle guard that you had to cross to enter the property.  For those not familiar, a cattle guard is a means of keeping cattle from leaving the property.  It is normally constructed by a placing a grid of pipes welded across a grid over a ditch.  There is a fence on either side of the cattle guard.

The idea is that livestock walk up to the cattle guard and see that there isn't a way for them to cross it, so they stay in the pasture.  This particular cattle guard is constructed with railroad rails welded across some I-beams.  Cattle guards are a relatively old thing.  The first patent for one was issued back on January 15, 1915 in Nevada.  I read that you can even make a 'virtual' cattle guard by painting alternating dark and light lines across a road.  However, they say that once one animal discovers that they are being faked out and cross, all the other animals will as well.  Probably not safe to try to trick them.

You can drive across it with no problem.  Your vehicle's tires make a bumping noise as you go across.  Humans can walk across it with not much of a problem.  I remember as a kid trying to balance as I crossed a cattle guard.  Being small, I was a little scared that I'd lose my balance and fall, breaking my ankles in the process.  I made it across safely, however.

I vaguely remember a cattle guard somewhere at our farm, but don't remember where it was located.  It's long since been removed.  It may have been at the entrance to the old home place in front of the big live oak tree and pecan orchard.

Aside from keeping livestock from getting out, cattle guards are also great in one other regard.  If you are riding "shotgun" in a pickup truck, one of your duties is to get out and open the gate.  When the truck drives through, then you close the gate behind the truck and get back in the passenger seat.  Cattle guards make that job obsolete.  There's no need to close the gate.  You drive right on through.

Flour Power

Years back, we purchased a grain mill.  We poured wheat berries in and cranked and cranked until we had flour for bread-making.  We purchased our wheat berries from Azure Standard Co-op that came in 25 lb. bags.  We generally buy two types of wheat - Kamut and Spelt.  Here, I have a few grains of Spelt in my hand.

The grain mill has a hopper on top that we pour the wheat berries in.  In just a bit, they'll be turned into flour.

The flour comes out of the mill and fills a container that we put underneath it.  As I look at the photo below, there's a lot of activity going on in the background other than flour being made.  You can see onions on a drying rack that are curing in the kitchen as it is too hot and humid outside.  There are also tomatoes on a tray under a paper bag that are ripening inside, away from the stink bugs.

For years, we used 'elbow grease' to grind the wheat berries into flour.  The grain mill had a crank on it.  We could grind a cup of flour in exactly 3 minutes.  It wasn't a bad job.  Because of the novelty of it, we'd leave it loaded on the counter.  When we'd have guests, it always caught their eye.  They'd walk over to it and start cranking.  It was new for them and a challenge and fun, so our guests ended making a lot of flour for us.  Ha ha.  

After a few years, we purchased a small electric motor attachment that fits on it once you remove the crank.  Now, you plug it in and electricity does the job for you.  I guess we're getting soft and lazy!  Never fear, if the electricity ever goes out, we will put the crank back on the grain mill.

The flour has all the bran and germ on it.  It's healthy for you - not white, refined, and processed.

It makes GREAT bread and other things we love to eat.  For example, just this weekend, we had some extra cream.  Tricia made some butter and so she had some buttermilk.  She made homemade buttermilk pancakes made with the spelt flour with pecans in them.

Our grain mill has had many pounds of wheat berries and corn run through it.  One problem we're finding now, however, is that the wheat berries are getting harder to get your hands on.  They've been out at our co-op.  We've heard that wheat berries that are available are very pricey!  We're living in interesting times, for sure.

Oh, by the way, Happy Father's Day, all you Dads out there!

The Fruited Plain

I hope you have time to take a ride with me today.  We're not going anywhere in particular.  Let's just take a ride in the country.  We'll go off the beaten path and see rural America.  We'll see the landscape.  There's no traffic jams or road rage where we're going.  We'll wave at farmers on tractors and little old ladies walking to the mailbox.  We'll see people sitting in rocking chairs on their front porches having coffee before it gets too hot outside.

We'll see spacious skies.  Now, there are no purple mountain majesties here in South Louisiana - far from it.  The land is flat.  But there are amber waves of grain.  Here is a field of wheat waving in the gentle breeze.  It's ready for harvesting.

Would you look over there?  Some grateful soul painted a mural on the side of their barn that says, "God Bless our Farmers."  How about that?  It shows a combine harvesting rice and a farmer walking on the levee with his shovel resting on his shoulder.  Despite high prices, farmers are out doing what they need to do to keep America (and the rest of the world) fed.  God bless our farmers, indeed.

On the same building, there's an American flag painted on the side.  Can you see it?  The shrubs have almost taken over it.  In a metaphorical sense, some parts of the American dream, as well as the innocence and greatness of our country have almost been overtaken, but if you look closely, the pride and work ethic is still there.  I'm praying her greatness will be restored and the overgrowth of apathy and division will be pruned back.

Right down the road we see crop dusters busy taking off from landing strips, broadcasting fertilizer on the rice fields.  The drone of their engines wake you up in the morning as they fly over your house and continue all day.

Here's another barn in which some skilled painter painted a bold red rooster standing proud against the golden rays of morning sun.  It's time to get up and get to work, the rooster tells his rural neighbors.

Thousands of acres of crawfish ponds surround us and we watch as crawfishermen in their boats cross the flooded rice fields, emptying their traps.  Onion sacks full of crawfish will be caught and delivered to local restaurants and wholesalers who distribute crawfish nationwide.

Cattle lazily graze on tender grass.  They'll eat until it gets hot and then will meander over to a shade tree where they'll sit in the shade and swish flies with their tails and chew their cud.  In the evening, however, they'll head back out.  There's grass to be eaten.  That grass is turned into milk to feed their calves.

Rice fields are just receiving their first shot of nitrogen, boosting their growth and turning their foliage so green it's almost blue.

You can notice by the road noise, we've turned off the paved road.  We're on a gravel road heading back home.  The dust billows up behind us.  We pull up to the house just in time to see old Rosie eating grass as the sun tucks itself below the horizon.

Perspective is everything.  Sometimes it is just refreshing to see that there is still good out there.  All you gotta do is make a turn on the road less traveled.  It's been a relaxing drive today.  I'm glad you accompanied me.  

Making Tomato Candy

The tomato crop is about done for the summer.  The heat and the stinkbugs have the tomato plants throwing in the towel.  We had been picking them green, bringing them inside, and putting them in a brown paper bag for ripening.  You can't really vine ripen tomatoes around here once it warms up and the bug pressure gets bad.  Oh, we could solve the problem, I think, if we spray pesticides on the tomatoes, but I don't want to eat pesticides.  Next year, I will do my homework and see if there are any natural products (Neem Oil?) that work on stink bugs.

We still made a nice tomato crop this year and eat them most every day.  Today, we'll show you how we make a great tasting snack that we call "Tomato Candy."  It's very easy and very tasty.  We cut up the homegrown tomatoes into wedges and put them on the trays of the food dehydrator.

We sprinkle them with kosher salt and cracked black pepper.  Then we go to the herb patch and get some fresh rosemary and put the rosemary on top of the tomatoes.

After a few hours, the tomato candy is done.  You can tell that the tomatoes have been dehydrated.  All the water has been removed, leaving the tomatoes concentrated with flavor!

While they're not exactly sun-dried tomatoes, its the same concept.

We store the tomato candy in mason jars and snack on them until they're gone - which doesn't take long!

Time To Wean Elsie

We've reached a point well past the time for weaning.  We want to wean the calves and dry off the cows so that we can bring them to a neighbor down the road that has a registered Jersey bull.  There we'll have our cows bred, have them calve and allow them to freshen.  In about 6 months we'll do the same for our yearling calves - Elsie and LuLu.

So we're weaning Elsie first.  We use a weaning device.  We did use this one several years ago.  It is called a nose thorn.  That doesn't sound pleasant, does it?  You put it in the heifer's nose (ouch!)  The object of this device is that when the calf tries to nurse the momma cow, the pointed thorns poke her bag and she kicks the calf off of her udder and won't let her nurse.

We've also used this weaner.  It has the same general idea.  You put it in the calf's nose, pull the two pieces together and then tighten up a wing nut. You bend the pointed things outward and when they try to nurse, the pointed things poke the momma and she kicks her off.  Over time, the calf gets tired of getting pushed away and she stops trying - meanwhile the momma cow "dries up."

This was a new weaner available at the feed store.  It was a little more pricey than the other two, but we wanted to try this one out.  It works the same way the other two work.

With much fighting, we were able to get the weaner in Elsie's nose.  After much kicking, dust flying and rodeoing in the corral, we finally got the weaner in.  At this point, amidst all of the chaos, we didn't realize that we put it on BACKWARDS!  I tell you, they say you learn by your mistakes.  It seems like we should be really smart, because we make a lot of them.

If you could capture this photo, It'd say, "What did you just do to me and how am I supposed to eat??"

To answer the eating question, it is amazing how quickly they learn that you must stretch your head out, pull your head forward, and the weaner lays flat against the ground, allowing you to eat grass while pulling your head back to you.  In the photo below, Elsie's momma, Clarabelle, is wondering what that contraption is on her daughter's nose.

Elsie looked at us as we left the barn.  She had mischief on her mind.  She went out to the pasture.  The next morning we found her without her weaner on.  Tricia and I walked up and down the pasture until we found it laying on the ground.  She had apparently found a way to pry it out of her nose.

In losing the weaner, she was able to get to Clarabelle and drink all of her milk!  Oh no.  So, we resorted to the old tried and true weaner.  You'll see below, we have it installed.

We have this one installed properly!  So far she hasn't pried this one out of her nose.  We'll keep a close eye on old Elsie, though.  She is cunning and crafty.  If we can keep this in her nose, we'll be successful in weaning her.

Eating the Bounty from the Garden

Every day we're bringing in buckets of fresh produce from the garden.  We preserve some of it, and we will show you some of the ways we do that in posts this week.  We give some away.  We eat the rest of it.  One of the really fun things to do around this time of year is to find new and exciting ways to eat the produce.  We have 'old stand by' recipes that we make again and again.  One of those is Fresh Vegetable Pizza with nothing but produce from the garden.

We first make a nice pizza crust, incorporating rosemary and oregano into the crust to make an herb-infused crust.  Its rolled out onto a pizza stone. The crust is then drizzled with olive oil.

Instead of using a tomato sauce, we substitute pesto that we've made last year from the basil crop.  We spread it liberally over the top of the pizza.  Pesto is the best-o!  You've just got to be extra judicious in checking your teeth after eating it.  Pesto has a tendency to stick in your teeth and creating an embarrassing situation going in public with green stuff stuck in your teeth.

We then cut some fresh sweet corn off the cob and sprinkle it on top with some grated parmesan cheese.

Sliced tomatoes are put on as the final topper.

Mozzarella cheese is grated on top and it's popped in the oven.  When it comes out, we cut up fresh basil on top.

Talk about a fresh meal!  Even people who aren't as crazy about vegetables as we are can enjoy this.  We made another couple of pizzas this weekend and added Italian Sausage to have the best of both.

This is always a big hit at our house.