While Waiting on Our Fall Potatoes to Sprout

Our Fall crop of Irish Potatoes are in the ground.  We used small potatoes from our spring crop for the seed potatoes for the fall crop.  The spring crop has stored surprisingly well.  Firm.  No big growth from the eyes.  Beautiful.

So while we're waiting for the fall crop to grow, we might as well eat some of the spring crop, right?  Here's one of our favorite recipes using Irish Potatoes.  Years ago, I found the recipe for a side dish called Crash Hot Potatoes.  It quickly climbed to the top of the kid's favorite list.  It is simple and tasty.

15 potatoes
4 T extra virgin olive oil

Salt & Pepper

Fresh Rosemary

Heat your oven to 450 degrees.  Boil a pot of potatoes until they are tender, testing with a toothpick.  Put a little olive oil on the bottom of a baking dish and place potatoes in dish.  Get a potato masher and mash down on each potato until it barely breaks open and then turn the potato and mash again.  Drizzle the top of each potato with olive oil.  Add salt and pepper to the top of each "slightly mashed" potato and then put fresh rosemary on top.  Put in the oven for 25 minutes.

We had these for lunch after church on Sunday.  They were so good they made me want to holler.  That's something my grandmother would say if she were still around.

Perhaps by the time we eat the rest of the spring crop potatoes, the fall crop will be harvested.  That would be neat.  Year-round spuds.

Trying a New Thing with Okra

Our three rows of okra has really produced this year.  We've given a lot away.  We've eaten a lot - mostly oven fried okra, stewed okra with tomatoes and onions, okra with ground meat over rice, and pickled okra.  We began putting bags of cooked okra up in the freezer for "gumbo season."  We even eat some of it raw.

We never tried dehydrating it and thought we would try that out.  Here is a day's picking of the three varieties we grow: Clemson spineless, burgundy, and Beck's Big okra.

Prior to dehydrating, Tricia blanched the okra.  Notice how the burgundy okra loses its color:

She cut the okra in half and laid out on the trays of the dehydrator.  She dehydrated them on the vegetable setting for 12 hours.

And then they were dehydrated.  We ate a bunch of them.  Crunchy.  Tasty.

They are probably 1/3 or 1/4 the size of what they were when we put them in the dehydrator.

The remaining ones that we didn't eat were stored in a quart-sized mason jar.

We'll snack on them.  I like them.  I'll experiment and shake some salt and other seasonings in the jar to add a little "pop."

Something's Not Right With Clarabelle

This morning at feeding time, things were a little wild.  The two heifers, LuLu and Elsie were jumping all over each other.  Rosie and Clarabelle were getting in on the action as well.  This happens when they go into heat.  They will bellow and follow each other around and jump on one another.  800 - 1,000 pound animals doing this is not something you want to be around.  I quickly fed them, opened up the laying boxes for the hens and got out of there.  It was about time for church anyway.

This afternoon when I went out to do evening chores, something was amiss!  Rosie and Elsie and LuLu were all out eating in the pasture.  Clarabelle, however, was sitting in a grassy area near the barn.  It has been raining almost every day for the last two weeks.  It is exceedingly muddy everywhere.  I walked over to see what was going on with her.

She had been trying to get up with no success.  The ground was matted down and she was all muddy and out of breath from exertion.  I tried to help her get up, but it was of no use.

I went inside and got Tricia.  We first flipped her over to the other side to give her legs underneath her a break.  Then I gave her a drench of molasses and some sweet feed and hay to eat.  She ate it.  She appeared to have no fever and her ears were perky and erect.

I gave her an intra-muscular injection of 20 cc's of BoSe, a medication for selenium and Vitamin E deficiency.  It appears that it is something with her back legs - almost a paralysis.  She tries to get up, but her back legs aren't cooperating.

This was late afternoon on Sunday.  Tomorrow morning, if she's not up and feeling better, we'll make a call to our vet and see if he'll do a farm call and check her out.  Cows that are down are not a good thing.  We sat out with ol' Clarabelle and swatted mosquitoes and deer flies off of her and prayed that she'd get better.  We'll report back on the diagnosis/prognosis.

The Long(horn) Walk

After a VERY dry June, July and August got us back into the normal rainfall we get during those months.  I think we're still behind in rainfall year over year, but we have been catching up this week with rainfall every single day.  As I may have told you, Tricia and I embarked on a lifestyle change where we try to get out in the late afternoon and walk briskly to get our heart rates up.  

We use a step counter and our goal is 7,500 steps each day.  I try to beat that, though, and want to get the average up to 10,000 steps each day.  We normally walk around the perimeter fence in our pasture.  One lap is 700 steps.  With all the rain, walking in the pasture is an impossibility unless you wear rubber boots.  That's not conducive to walking!

So we've altered our routine and we walk down our country road.  It is paved for a good ways.  We take Belle, our Great Pyrenees with us.  She enjoys the walk and sets the pace.

Even though it is a country road, people drive too doggone fast!  We get off on the shoulder and let them pass.  About a half mile down the road is an interesting sight - at least for around here.  A farmer has a small herd of Longhorn cattle.  They are always right by the fence to greet us.  The big pink cumulus cloud in the background makes a nice shot.

The longhorn cattle look at us curiously as we walk by.  I always wonder how you work those cows in a chute.  It seems like their horns would not fit in a normal squeeze chute to work them or load them.  I guess there's another way to do it.

Looking at those cows remind me of watching The Dukes of Hazzard in my childhood.  Those horns on those cows look just like the ones mounted on Boss Hogg's 1970 Cadillac DeVille.  Just the good ol boys, never meanin' no harm...  Time to stop singing and get on home.  There's a big storm cloud brewing in the north.

Planting Snap Beans and Growing Your own Fertility

This week on my to do list was a note to plant snap beans for the fall crop.  One thing I always look forward to for our Thanksgiving feast is fresh green beans wrapped in bacon and cooked in the oven.  It is a tasty side dish.  Of course, anything wrapped in bacon makes  a tasty side dish.  Fresh picked snap beans from the garden are so delicious.  There's no comparison to canned beans.

I planted two varieties for the fall garden this year: Italian Roma II and Contenders.  I pulled back the 3 inch layer of wood chip mulch to expose the soil and worked up a thin line to mark a 25 foot row for each variety.  Then, using a piece of PVC pipe, I drug it across the worked up seedbed to make a 1 inch trench in which to plant the beans.

Both of these varieties are bush beans, meaning they bush out and don't vine up a pole.  I plant them about four inches apart.  I don't measure.  I simply eye-ball it.  

One thing that I forgot to mention is that I had two rows of green beans growing in the same general location for the spring crop.  I moved the row over about 6 inches from where the spring crop rows were for the fall crop.  Generally, I like to plant different crops in different areas in order to rotate the crops since different crops use different minerals.

In this case, I wanted to see if these green beans would benefit from growing near where the spring crop was.  Why is this?  Well, beans are legumes and legumes fix nitrogen in the soil.  How?  Well, I wasn't very good at all at chemistry, but I can repeat what I've learned.  80% of our atmosphere is made up of nitrogen (N2).  Beans have a bacteria called rhizobia that lives on or near the roots of the plant.  The bacteria live in nodules on the roots and convert N2 nitrogen into NH3 (ammonia form of nitrogen) that the plant can use to grow.  What a beneficial partnership!  Most of that is used by the plant but some leaches into the soil and can be used for fertility for other crops as long as the plants and nodules are incorporated into the soil.

As I was preparing the seed bed, I unearthed three good examples of nitrogen fixing nodules from the spring crop I wanted to show you.

Here's one:

And another.  Can you see the little nodules on the roots?:

And here's another with relatively large nodules:

I quickly buried them in the soil and went ahead and covered the two rows of newly planted green beans with homegrown nitrogen.  We'll see how they do.

We got a one inch rain and BOOM!  The beans are popping up out of the ground like popcorn.

Once we get some sunshine, they will grow quickly.  They'll feed us and the nitrogen fixing nodules will feed the plant and next year's crop to boot.

Muscadine Time!

It is raining here everyday.  The ground is saturated and the garden, grass, and landscaping is growing very quickly.  The muscadine vines have spread out this year farther than they have in years past.  I'm going to have to think about how to trellis them better.  Many of the muscadines are ripe and ready for picking.  The muscadines, heated in the summer sun, are sweet and rich and so tasty.  I poked my head under the canopy of the vines to begin picking.

I should have been more optimistic in my container size, though.  I filled up the little quart-sized container in no time at all.

I brought these in to Tricia in the kitchen as she was preparing supper.  She started munching on them.  The grapes are filled with seeds - three or four in each one, but the flavor and sweetness is intense.  I grabbed a bigger container and headed back out to our mini-vineyard to pick.

As I was reaching in the foliage and pulling out handfuls of grapes, all of a sudden, something caught my eye.  What in the world?  Wasps were flying all around me!!  I took off running, spilling my muscadines in the process.  It must have been a funny sight for the neighbors to see me high-stepping like that.  I never got stung, though.  I still have a little pep in my step.  Would you look at that wasp nest tucked away up there?:

Now, this was a dilemma.  I didn't want to get stung, but I didn't want to leave the muscadines unpicked.  I had to kill them.  But how?  A cup of gas would do the trick, but I don't want gas or any other poisons on our grapes.  Aha!  I went back inside and got a cupful of warm tap water and mixed Dawn dishwashing liquid in with the warm water in a thick solution.  Then I stirred it up.

By the time I got back out there, the wasps had settled down and were back on their nest, laughing, no doubt, about how they made me run and spill all my grapes.  I'll have the last laugh, though.  I crept up to the wasp nest and doused it with warm soapy water.  Bullseye!  The wasps couldn't fly with the thick soapy concoction on their wings.  They fell to the ground where I promptly squashed them.  I pulled the nest off of the vine and through it to the ground.

I flipped it over to view that red, bad boy.  He's dead.  

Now in peace, I was able to continue my muscadine picking.

There's a pretty good bit still left on the vines.  I'll need to harvest every afternoon.  I noticed that the birds have discovered the ripened grapes.  They leave the skins of the grapes on the ground beneath the vines.  We'll keep picking each day until they're all harvested.  Then I'll research on how to properly prune muscadine vines.

Why Would You Buy Fake Eggs?

On her way to the feed store on Saturday to get three 50 pound bags of chicken feed, I asked milkmaid Tricia if she would mind picking up some fake brown ceramic eggs while she was out.  Why would we purchase fake ceramic eggs?  There are several reasons, but I'll tell you ours - SNAKES!

Tricia came back with a package of four eggs below along with a funny story from the owner of the feed store.

The feed store owner is a very kind and out-going lady with a great personality.  When she saw Tricia's purchase of ceramic eggs, she asked, "Are you having trouble with snakes in the hen house, too?!"  She was very animated with hand expressions in her description of finding THREE snakes in the last week.  She had a dull shovel and it made the job of snake-killing hard.  She killed two of them, but had to call her son-in-law to come with a gun and shoot one down off of the rafters.

Yes, we've had the same problem lately.  When the rat snakes get in the hen house and begin eating eggs, we kill the snakes.  I hate to do it because they do a mighty fine job of keeping the rat population down, but they have an affinity for the eggs and that won't do.  When we catch them in the act, a shovel or a pipe or a board quickly and humanely dispenses of the offending reptile.

One other way we thin the population is with ceramic eggs.  We place a ceramic egg in the nesting boxes and when the snake gets in the box and swallows a ceramic egg, it has a fatal effect on the snake.  Unable to digest the egg, it gets an incurable case of constipation that kills him.  Over time our inventory of ceramic eggs disappears.  Sometimes we retrieve the egg from the snake's skeleton and we'll recycle them.  This time, with only 1 egg remaining, I had Tricia get four more.  The first thing I do is take a Sharpie and mark a big "X" on the ceramic eggs.  They look so real, if you aren't careful, you'll collect the fake egg and try to make an omelet with it.  The "X" alerts you to leave it in the nesting box.  It's for snakes to eat - not us!

Here is the last of the ceramic eggs alongside some fresh-laid REAL eggs.  See how real it looks?  It would be easy to confuse, and you can see why the snake eats them.

I stepped into the hen house to deposit a ceramic egg in each of the boxes on the side of the hen house that is adjacent to the woods.  Some of the hens had already laid their eggs and some were in the process of egg laying.  They fluffed up their feathers and made irritating noises to shoo me away from my task.

Hens like their privacy when laying and I was an intruder to their peaceful place.  It wouldn't take long.  I just needed to drop four eggs in four boxes.  This Aracauna let me know in no uncertain terms that I needed to leave.

My job was done and I was out the door.

Now, each box had a fake egg in it, and this will help with the snake problem.  There are five boxes on the other side, but the snakes always are on this side since it's closest to the woods.  I need to get the machete and clean out the ever-encroaching woods.  When it gets all grown up, it encourages snakes, possums, rats and other critters to visit Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.    

Putting Some Stuff in the Ground in August

We march forward toward September and the gradual reduction in temperature and humidity that will be welcomed with rejoicing by yours truly.  The okra continues to produce in abundant fashion.  As I write this, Tricia is 'cooking some okra and onions down' that she'll freeze and we'll use in gumbos throughout the winter months.  Cucumbers, believe it or not, have had a rebound and are producing once again.  

Speaking of cucumbers, I've got to tip my hat to an elderly gentleman who dropped by the house this spring and gave me some cucumber seeds.  They were of the Marketmore Heirloom variety, and I've got to report that they were the stars of the show, producing steadily throughout the hottest of months when my Boston Pickling and Suyo Long varieties faltered.

Anyhow, I planted a few seeds in some seed pots to get the fall garden underway.  Here are some zucchini and yellow crookneck squash:

And here are some spaghetti squash.

In a little experiment, I planted 12 Boston Pickling Cucumber seeds from some seeds I had saved back in 2016.  What do you know?  All 12 sprouted.  We achieved a 100% germination rate on some seeds we saved 6 years ago.  Not too shabby.

Having that all planted, I got out my Vegetable Planting Guide to see what else I could get my hands dirty with.  Well, it told me that it is time to plant Irish Potatoes.  Right now.

Our feed store does not sell seed potatoes for fall crops.  What we must do is save seed potatoes from our spring crop.  I dug through the bin of potatoes and picked out a dozen small red potatoes (Lasoda variety).  All of the potatoes from the spring are holding up good, stored in the dark in a well-ventilated hallway.

You can see that most of them have (at least one) nice eye growing on them.  That gives me optimism that we'll have spuds this fall.  It is always a risk, right?  The choice is, I could eat these 12 potatoes and really enjoy them.  Or, I could put them in the dirt and see if I could multiply a dozen potatoes four or fivefold?

I'm taking a chance.  I won't put them in the cooking pot.  I'll put them in the planting pot.  I'm trying an experiment this year.  Instead of putting them in the ground, we will try our hand at growing them in pots.  The area where I normally plant them is already populated with purple hull peas and blackeyed peas that are about to put on pods.  No room for potatoes out there.

I filled 12 nice sized landscape pots with the rich compost made from the rotted wood chips in our mulch pile.  It's black and moist and teeming with earthworms - a good medium to grow potatoes in.  Once the potatoes are up, I'll dose 'em up with some composted chicken litter.  Another plus is that, if we get an early freeze like the one that killed my potatoes a couple years ago, I can pick up the pots and bring them in the garage and save the spuds. 

Here are the potatoes planted before I put 3 1/2 to 4 inches fresh compost on top.  I'll be watching over the next several days to see when they sprout.

We have rain for the next 5 or 6 days forecast, but once that is past, I'll look to what else I can put in the ground.  I'm thinking it's time for a couple rows of snap beans.  Happy Gardening Fall Gardeners!

Making Homemade Pasta

We decided it was time to get the kitchen dirty.  It was pasta-making time!  Tricia pulled the pasta-making contraption out of the cabinet and mixed up some dough.  The pasta-roller has different settings.  She rolled out a ball of pasta dough and ran it through the press.  Each couple of passes, she adjusted the settings down a notch to make it thinner and thinner.

You can see how the dough not only gets thinner, but the dough gets longer and longer.  In the back left of the photo you can see the rolling pin and the balls of dough ready for processing into pasta.

We floured the island down so the pasta wouldn't stick and as the pasta got to the desired thickness and length, we laid it out to begin to dry a little bit.

Then we put the pasta cutting attachment onto the pasta roller.  In this case we were making fettucine.  As we run the pasta through the cutter, it is transformed from flat dough to fettucine.

The 'nests' of fettucine were pulled out and placed in clumps on the island to dry.

Soon we had processed all the fettucine.  I was all in a big pile.

Man, I love pasta!  Doesn't this stuff look good?

We got a pot of salted water boiling on the stove-top and put the past in.

Once done, we poured into a colander and drained.  Instead of taking the time to make a sauce, we decided to just eat it with garlic, butter, green onions, salt and pepper.

Just prior to eating, we grated some Parmesan cheese on top, sat down and enjoyed.

I tell you, it is delicious!  We're going to start making up pasta, drying and storing in plastic bags to enjoy a little later.