If at First You Don't Succeed...

This is Billy Boy.  He's the Devon bull we've borrowed from a friend to breed two of our three cows.  Well, actually, to breed one cow and one heifer.  One of our Jersey heifers was bred (we think) by a registered Jersey bull that we borrowed from another friend.  She hasn't come back in cycle and if our calendar is right, she should be calving in August.

We watched Billy Boy romance both Rosie and Elsie.  We marked the calendar and began watching intently 18-21 days later.  Elsie did NOT come back in heat.  She's bred.  Rosie on the other hand did.  She was not bred.  She's 14 years old.  That's pretty old for Jersey cows we've owned.  I did read, however, that the record longevity for a Jersey cow was 37 years!!

Billy Boy, the Stud

So 21 days later, we're watching and see that Rosie came back in heat.  Billy Boy was on the scene and took care of business.  You can see by Rosie's crooked tail and the long string of mucous coming from her back side.  We've marked our calendar and will see what happens in 21 days.  Hopefully, she's bred this time.  If not, we'll have to send Billy Boy back home.  Our pasture doesn't have enough grass to support him and our cows, goats, and chickens.

Will the third time be a charm, Rosie?

Speaking of Jersey cows, they are a lot smaller than beef cattle and smaller than a Holstein.  We learned this during the livestock shows back when the kids showed.  In comparison to other animals, our Jerseys were small.  We also learned that after buying a head gate.  When trimming hooves, giving antibiotics, wormer or even for grooming and milking, it is important sometimes to have a head gate.

We purchased one and bolted it to a makeshift chute on the side of the barn.  We installed a gate on a hinge that we push to isolate the cows for treatment.  We learned quickly that the head gate was made for bigger cattle.  As soon as we closed the head gate, all three of the cows were able to wiggle and pull their heads back through!  This won't do.

I had a plan.  Time to invoke redneck engineering.  I ripped a 36" long 2 x 4 and made it a 2 x 2.  Then I purchased 6 carriage head bolts, nuts and washers.  I used my impact to drill holes in the galvanized vertical pipe that makes up the stationary side of the head gate and did the same to the 2 x 2.  Then I bolted it up.  When finished, it looked like this:

As you can see, I don't think they'll be able to wiggle out of the head gate now.  I was going to test it out on Elsie or LuLu (one of the two heifers) Sunday afternoon, but time got away from me. I think it will work.  The gap is much smaller now.

There's a walkway between the garage and the garden and pasture that we call the 'grove.'  A pecan tree and live oak trees create an area of perpetual shade.  The breeze blows in this area on even the stillest of days and I like to think it is a little cooler here than anywhere else on the homestead.

Tricia hung her hammock between the pecan tree and the Bradford pear.  That tree was a free tree I got from the Arbor day foundation.  I planted it temporarily in the yard, intending to move it to a better location one day.  By the time I tried to dig it up, its tap root was well established and I couldn't dig it up.  I let it stay where it was.  At least it serves a newfound purpose as an anchor for a hammock!  Tricia was relaxing...  On the ladder in the background, you can see a swarm trap I have set.  We are trying to catch swarm #3.  No success yet.

The next day when Tricia wasn't in the hammock, I figured I would see how relaxing it was.  I climbed in and was enjoying the comfort when...  Belle, our Great Pyrenees decided she wanted to jump in the hammock too.  The big galoot!

Perhaps tomorrow I can sneak back into the hammock without having 'company' join me.

Farm of the Future?

From a recent Wall Street Journal Article, entitled High-Tech Farm Startups Are Laid Low

by Financing Drought, Pests:

Startups that promised to make farming a high-tech business are withering, suffering from rising costs, tight financing, pests and other problems that have troubled traditional agriculture for centuries.

Investors poured billions of dollars into companies such as AppHarvest and Local Bounti that grow lettuce, tomatoes and other crops in indoor farms that use advanced technology such as sensors and robots to offset weather-related risks, use less water and produce more consistent crops.

Shares of the two companies are down more than 95% since they went public in 2021, and in recent months at least four companies in the sector have shut down or filed for bankruptcy.

Here is a photo of this "farm:"

Notice the verdant, pastoral landscape, the blue skies, chirping birds and brilliant sunshine.  I jest.  I am going to expose myself as being the old- fashioned, Luddite, backwards curmudgeon that I am, but folks, "That ain't no farm and what's going on in that hermetically sealed, antiseptic building ain't farming!"  That is a scientific laboratory.  I can only imagine what a tomato grown in a metal building without fresh air and sunshine tastes like.  I can see two "farm workers" laboring in "their fields" with masks on.  

I read that article and I have mixed feelings.  I wish no one ill will and want to see no one fail.  Their business venture that would have robots and sensors work the land, use less water, avoid pests and the vagaries of the weather to achieve more consistent crops and efficient production is failing.  The cost of the lighting alone is a detriment to profitability.  

On the other hand, if you go back to Genesis, this is not what God intended farming to be.  After the fall of Man, sin entered the world and a Curse fell upon creation.  Things were no longer going to be easy.  Thorns would arise.  Man must "toil by the sweat of his brow."  It seems that in all our humanist wisdom, we feel like we can break the curse.  God told man to be a husbandman, a steward of His Creation, a tiller of the soil.  And yet, here we are farming in metal buildings under LED lights, growing plants in soil-less containers.  There will be no sweat on the farm laborers' brows!

Truth be told, despite this article, modern agriculture is rushing headlong into this brave, new world in the remaining fields around us.  Farm labor, you see, is beneath the dignity of most Americans.  We must import workers to do this work that no one wants to do.  In fact, we don't need many workers anyway.  We have farm implements that drive themselves.  Smart machines that apply the correct amount of chemicals to the soil to kill the pests, eradicate the weeds, and encourage plant growth.

If you drive on gravel roads, you don't see many farmers anymore.  Who is stewarding the land?  In THIS ARTICLE, Farm Bureau lists these fast facts:

Farm and ranch families comprise less than 2% of the U.S. population.  Most families in America were once tied to Agriculture.

After accounting for input costs, farmers and ranchers receive only 8 cents out of every dollar spent on food at home and away from home. The rest goes for costs beyond the farm gate: wages and materials for production, processing, marketing, transportation and distribution.

From Wikipedia: By 2000, the biggest component of the Farm Bill was the Food Stamp program.

Farming is hard.  I know it all too well.  Input costs are high.  The amount of investment required and necessary to farm is paralyzing to even think about.  You are one weather disaster away from bankruptcy.  You are dependent upon government policies, regulations, and payments that change.  I remember when there was something called an LDP (loan deficiency payment).  Each Tuesday, the Government would change the payment.  When the LDP would increase by $0.20 per barrel, amazingly, the price the mill would buy your rice from you would drop by $0.20.  The payment meant for the farmer went to the middleman.  It seemed like the farmer takes on all the risk and gets very little of the reward.

Yes, farming is hard, but growing up on a farm was a great life.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.  One day each week, I'm going to try to commit to having a blog post describing memories of growing up on a farm in the 70's and 80's.  As our family farms get gobbled up by huge corporate farms and family farms dwindle, I think it is important to keep the memories of our farming heritage alive.  

The Flow

Beekeeping is our new project on the homestead.  We caught two swarms and have inspected and have laying queens in both boxes.  Let me correct that.  We actually caught three swarms, but one was not healthy and we ended up combining two hives into one.  We now have two.  Every couple of weeks, we open the top of the box and pull out frames and inspect.  It is very important to be observant.  If your bees rapidly expand and run out of space, they will split and you'll lose a queen and half of the colony as they'll swarm.  The rule we learned is when your box is about 80% full, you need to add another box on top to ensure that they have room.

Summer time is a time that you really want to stay cognizant of what is going on.  There is something called the "honey flow."  What that means is that when the weather gets nice and the flowers start blooming, there is plenty of access to nectar and good flying weather to go get it.  That's what's known as the flow.  People have weighed their hives and found that it is not unconceivable to have your hive increase in weight as much as 5 pounds per day.  You read that right!  Hundreds and hundreds of bees leave the hive and return full on nectar.  The brood nest grows and the honey production increases.  I like to sit outside the hives and watch the take-offs and landings.

In our area, the first thing to bloom is white dutch clover.  This has been blooming for quite some time.  The real big thing that makes the flow take place is the blooming of the Chinese Tallow Trees.  We have a lot of them in our area.  The tree was brought over for ornamental uses in the 1700's.  They spread over time and now are considered an invasive species.  I've always hated them.  They will take over pastureland in no time.  They make many seeds and birds will carry them and the tallow trees will sprout along fence lines.  In no time you have problems.  

Before this year, I could only think of one redeeming quality of the Chinese tallow tree.  For a very brief time in the fall, their leaves turn colors - from yellow to orange and then to red.  Beautiful!  But that's it.  However, bees love them.  They flower and the bees get nectar and make lots and lots of honey from the Chinese tallow tree.

We have some that border the fence line between us and the neighbor to the south and also in the little patch of woods directly behind the pasture.  You can see the Chinese tallow tree blooming below with its long yellow flowers.

The tallow tree has caused me considerable work over the years, trying to keep pasture land free of their invasion, so I've never even looked at their flowers.  It was always a nuisance tree.  Now I see that even dark clouds have silver linings.  Bees love them!

I captured a photo below of (perhaps) one of our honeybees collecting nectar off of this tallow tree's flower:

She'll take that nectar back to one of the hives and we'll hopefully make honey this year.  Since getting into beekeeping, I'm much more cognizant of making sure that the pollinators have flowers.  I've cut back substantially on mowing the grass.  I've also been planting more flowers in the area.  I planted a 40 foot row of Lemon Queen Sunflowers and they're starting to bloom now:

Can't wait to pull honey for the first time later this summer!

Canning Sweet Corn

We harvested the last half row of Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn.  We always know its ready when the silk turns dark brown.  The ears are snapped off of the stalk and the stalk is tossed over the fence where the cows, goats and chickens make quick work of the corn stalks.  I always eat one ear raw out in the garden.  So sweet and fresh!  The rest I brought inside.

We shuck the corn, trying to pull most of the silk off and put the shucks in a big bucket.  I use a knife to cut off some worm-damage, but really it's not much.  We'll throw the husks and parts of the cob to the animals as well.  What they don't eat, we compost.  Then I use a vegetable brush to brush off any remaining silk.  They're small ears, but they are pretty.  They taste sweet, too.

Here's the corn all ready to process.  Not a lot, but it'll be good for our purposes.

Using a sharp chef's knife, I cut the corn off the cob.  Then I use a butter knife to scrape the cob, getting the 'milk' and remaining corn off the cob.

A close up shot of the corn cut off the cob.

All the corn is put into a big pot and a cup of water is added for every 2 cups of corn.  We found a recipe for Mexican Style Corn and we'll be following it.

We cut up onions, tomatoes and jalapeno peppers and salt and added into the pot.  This is all stirred up and is brought to a boil.

We use a canning funnel and ladle the hot corn mixture into the 10 pint jars, filling them up while leaving 1 inch headspace.  The tops are cleaned and the lids are put on with the rings added, finger tight.

We added the pint jars to the pressure canner.  Ours fits all ten jars.  We did have a little remaining, but we froze a quart zip loc bag full.  We'll eat that as a side dish at some point.

We can it at 10 pounds of pressure for 85 minutes.  The timer is started once the little weight on top starts rocking.  Once 85 minutes is done and the timer goes off, the canner is removed from the heat.  The jars are pulled out when the pressure drops and the satisfying sound of the lids popping echoes in the kitchen as they cool.

We'll stack these up in the pantry.  First, we did try the Mexican Corn as this was our first time to make it.  The corn thickened up after cooking.  The onions gave it nice flavor, but the jalapeno peppers took the flavor up several notches!  I remember as a kid eating Mexican Corn.  I think Green Giant made it in little cans.  Always enjoyed it back then.  We'll enjoy it now when we open a jar of it!

A Late Harvest of Beets

I normally plant beets in the fall and harvest them in very early spring.  We really like beets around our house.  We plant two different varieties - Bull's Blood Beets and Detroit Red Beets.  In the past we've also planted Golden Beets and Chioggia Beets (looks like a peppermint candy when you cut it in half).  This year the beets were up and out of the ground when we got a really hard freeze.  The freeze pretty much wiped out half the crop.  We couldn't have that, now could we?  So we replanted.  We've been eating the surviving beets from the freeze by roasting them in the oven.  Now, the later planted beets are coming in as well.

Tricia picked a basket full the other day (along with a couple of big radishes).  We talked about pickling some beets so we can enjoy them later.  Growing up, when we would have family gatherings, there was always a table with different things for snacking.  Things like black olives, sliced pickles, a tiny whole pickle called a gherkin, pickled okra and, last but not least, pickled beets.  I always liked pickled beets.  They are so sweet and tangy with the vinegar and cloves in the recipe.

Beets are sweet by themselves, but most pickled beet recipes call for added sugar.  My wife is not a fan of added sugar.  In fact, if a cake or cookie recipe calls for a cup of sugar, she's only putting a half of cup, you can take that to the bank.  She always tells me, "See, it's still good."  And my response is, "Yeah, but it coulda been better!"

Well, lo and behold, she found a recipe for pickled beets with no added sugar.  I wasn't going to participate in that heresy, but I heard her banging around in the kitchen and heard the pop of the lids and she pickled the beets... with no added sugar.

We'll stock up the pantry with these deep red beets.

I will let you know how they taste when we open a lid to try them out.  We've been rotating the stock out of the pantry and just the other day, we popped the lid on a quart of pickled beets that had been in the pantry since 2017.  The color had faded.  They weren't the bright, deep red you see above.  They were a dull, faded purple color.  Not very appetizing looking.  But they were sealed up tight and I figured we'd try them.  They were delicious!  We will see how this fresh batch turns out.

The Recycled Goat Collar

And I have led you in the wilderness for forty years; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot.  Deuteronomy 29:5

It is very interesting to me that when God led the Israelites out of Egypt and on to Canaan that he miraculously made all their stuff last.  Their clothes and shoes never wore out!  Our stuff does.  Most every morning, we pray that things that we own will not break and that we're able to keep ahead of maintenance issues on our home and homestead.

We try to 'stretch' things to make them last.  We save things that break.  Before throwing away items, we rob any reusable parts off of them.  Tricia told me that her Dad was like that as well.  She came in today and told me, "My Dad would be proud of me if he was here."  I asked her why.  She said, "I'll show you."  She went outside and got a piece of a cow halter.  It had worn out, but there were still usable parts on it.  This piece below is part of the strap and buckle that went under the cow's jaw.  We cut that piece off.

Tricia told me that one of the goats (Mocha) did not have a collar.  Goats can be like bad kids.  You need to have a way to grab them and hold on to them and pull them one way or the other.  A goat collar runs somewhere between $4.99 to $13.00, depending on where you get it.  Tricia told me that we could make one for free.  (We had done it before).

A piece off of an old cow halter

Maybe you have a bowl or a jar like this?  This is on my work bench.  It contains a plethora of nuts, bolts, screws, springs, parts and pieces.  If you dig around in it long enough, you could find a wheel bearing for a 1957 John Deere tractor.

To put our reconfigured goat collar together, all I needed was to drill a hole in both ends of the old cow halter.  Then I fished out a carriage head bolt and nut from the 'junk bowl and fastened it together.  Then I got my grinder and ground off the end of the bolt that was sticking out.  This is some red neck engineering, for sure.

But it found a new life as a goat collar.  I put it on Mocha this afternoon, and I think she wears it well.

A repurposed collar for the goat.  Price: $0.00  I like that price point!

Sunday Night Weekend Rewind

It hadn't rained at our house in over a week and the ground was starting to dry up.  So much so, that I thought that I'd better get out the hose and start watering the garden as the zucchini and yellow squash was starting to wilt.  We did end up getting almost an inch of rain on Saturday.  That greened everything back up and made the garden very happy.

I ran the cows through the last part of the yard that they had not eaten on and then rolled up the electric fence and mowed what was left.  I think that sets a new record - May 19th for the latest first mow of the year!  I'll run the cows through the yard one more time, so I might not mow now until after the first week in June.

We dug all of the potatoes and now have pulled all of the onions.  All of them are curing on our 'curing wagon.'  A friend from church gave it to me after he built himself a bigger one.  I put the onions and potatoes on the racks and have the ceiling fan blowing from the top and two box fans blowing from beneath.  As the onion tops turn brown, I clip the tops and the roots off.  We check them closely because sometimes a few will turn soft.  Before they go bad, we bring the soft ones inside, cut off the bad parts and eat them.

We harvested the first half of the sweet corn crop.  I'm thinking about harvesting the remaining half early this week.  This variety was Stowell's Evergreen.  As opposed to previous years, most of the cobs were full.  I'm assuming the closer plant spacing we experimented with this year did the trick.  We had some worm damage, but that is a given.  I just cut the damaged pieces off.

We left the corn on the cobs, blanched it, and froze it in gallon zip loc bags.  For supper, we'll just grab what we need out of the bag in the freezer and cook.

We walked around the pasture this evening and talked about harvest plans for this week as well as food preservation.  When the harvest is coming in, it takes a lot of planning so that you preserve the harvest while the vegetables are at their peak.  We decided that for the next batch of corn, we'll cut it off the cobs and make corn macque choux and then freeze in individual containers.  That way when you cook a meal and need a healthy side dish, its all ready to go!

I read a blog post from the Art Of Manliness entitled "Be your own butler."  In it it tells you to allow your 'present self' to do things for your 'future self.'  In other words let your present self be your future self's butler.  Do things today and say, "Kyle is going to love this tomorrow!"  By putting up individual servings of fresh corn macque choux, our future self will be grateful.

An Electrical Experience

On Friday, May 12th, Benjamin, the youngest in the family graduated from McNeese State University with a BS in Electrical Engineering.  He's starting work in June with Phillips 66.  We're very proud of him.  If EE isn't a demanding enough curriculum, Benjamin's class had to endure two devastating hurricanes, leaving the area without power for weeks on end and the Covid craziness.

I'm not a big crier, but I got a little 'weepy' as 'ol boy walked across the stage and secured his diploma.  He's opening a new door in his life and has already moved out of the house, leaving a big vacancy in our home and I guess it opens a new chapter for us as well.  Just Tricia and I now in our house that once held five.  

Benjamin worked so hard.  He always kept a full schedule and worked almost full time throughout school working at a coin shop and worked full time jobs/internships during summer.  The smile you see on his face below is well-deserved.

from left: Laura Lee, me, Benjamin, Tricia, and Russ

My Mom and Dad attended and watched the last of our kids graduate from college.

One of Benjamin's classmates graciously took a photo of Benjamin's entourage.  Orlando and Deb (Tricia's oldest brother and his wife) drove in from Spring, TX to join in the celebration.  They're on the far left below:

The very next day we had a crawfish boil in which we boiled four sacks of crawfish.

They were just beautiful!

We poured the boiled crawfish, corn and potatoes across the table and everyone gathered round and ate the perfectly seasoned feast!  It was a beautiful day surrounded by a loving, supportive family.

God has richly blessed us and we are so proud of our electrifying graduate!

A Pleasant Surprise

In an earlier post, we lamented about the state of our potato crop.  The plants never grew tall and lush and green as in prior years.  They had a sickly yellowish color for the entire growing season, and they never bloomed.  I drove by other gardeners' potato crops and coveted the health and vigor of their plants.  I had mentioned I have a pretty good idea that I damaged them with the application of too much chicken litter.  Too much of a good thing is detrimental, when it comes to gardening.

It was hard to fathom that I had done this to my crop after it started off so well.  When I would walk outside, I would intentionally avert my eyes from the disaster in the side yard.  Today, I told my wife, "We are going to wait until the late afternoon when the sun casts long shadows and it's a little cooler.  Then we'll harvest what we can from the potatoes.

We started digging with a digging fork.  It's like a pitch fork, but with wide prongs.  It easily digs into the soil.  We lift the plant from the loosened soil and red potatoes dangle from the roots.  These potatoes are the LaSoda variety.  A variety that does well here.

We have a forty foot row in the side yard that I have planted with four plants per row all the way down.  In all, I had 122 potato plants.  They were mulched deep with wood chips to retain soil moisture and prohibit weed competition.  It also aids in mitigating soil compaction.  We worked our way down the row in the late afternoon.  The potatoes weren't plentiful, but they were better than I had anticipated.

At the end of the row, we had a decent amount in the wagon.

If the plants had been healthy, no telling how much we could have produced.  Most plants had two potatoes.  Some had only one and some had as many as five.

I decided I would weigh them.  First I weighed the empty bucket.  It was 2 pounds.  Then I filled the bucket with potatoes and weighed them and subtracted the weight of the empty bucket.  

When I had finished weighing, we had a grand total of 49 pounds of potatoes on 122 plants.  That's almost a half pound of potatoes per plant.  I googled and found that the average yield should be between 1 and 5 pounds per plant.  So a rather dismal harvest, BUT we choose to look on the bright side.  We thought we weren't going to get ANY!

I put them on the curing rack.  They are in the shade and under a fan on wire mesh (hardware cloth).  I'll leave them here for about 10 days and then I'll bring them inside and store them in the dark.

Next year, I promise to be more reserved in my use of chicken litter for fertilizer.  I'm thinking about taking a soil test as well.  We'll see if we can improve the yield next year over this year.

Here's to Mothers!

 

We had a big weekend!  We topped it off with a big celebration for Mother's Day today.  And you know what?  We were so busy visiting and eating, that not a single picture was taken.  I'm so disappointed!  How can this be?  Anyway, on Friday, we took photos that include two very important mothers in my life: my Mom (on right) and the Mother of my children (on the left).  Not pictured in my Mother-in-law, who is in Corpus Christi, Texas. 

As I sit and think about it, what in the world would I do without those women?  My mom raised me and my two siblings and put up with a lot of craziness from us.  I count myself to be so blessed and fortunate to have been reared in a two parent, loving, supportive home.  I cannot begin to imagine the sacrifices that mom made and continues to make for me.  There is no way to adequately thank her for it.  I love you, Mom!

And Tricia, the mother of my children.  I'm so blessed by God to have a spouse like her.  She has given so much to me and the kids.  She works tirelessly to give us her very best in all she does.  She is a Proverbs 31 woman.  I am also so fortunate to have a loving, supportive mother-in-law.  

Image Credit

I love you, Mom!  I love you, Tricia!  I love you, Mrs. Garcia!

About Time for Corn!

I have a row of corn that's planted densely.  I planted them twice as close as recommended.  The reason I did that was an experiment of sorts.  In some past years, when I would harvest the corn, there would be "blanks" in the kernels.  The somewhat empty heads were caused by poor pollination.  To try to mitigate that, I planted them very close, hoping that with more pollen in a smaller area, there would be a better likelihood of fertilization.  We'll see.  

There are two varieties of sweet corn planted on the 15 foot row.  One is Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn and the other, I think (I neglected to write it down), was Country Gentleman Corn.  As you can see, the corn is tasseling.

The corn tassel is the male reproductive organ of the corn.  You might remember this lesson from the movie, "Grease."  The pollen dangles from the tassel and the pollen falls down onto the silk of the ear.

Here is the silk.  When the pollen falls on the silk, the ear is fertilized.  Each strand of silk will produce a kernel of corn, if fertilized.  What you have to worry about is sometimes the corn will tassel before the silk is present.  Sometimes wind or weather affects pollination.  Some people, in order to ensure pollination, will cut the tassel off with scissors and will manually pollinate the ear, by rubbing the two together.   My garden is small enough to do that, but I figure the corn can do that on its own without me intervening.

Here are the tassels of another variety:

The silk on this variety is RED!

I wanted to show you something a little strange I saw in the corn patch.  Can you see the kernels of corn growing on the tassel itself?:

The phenomenon where the tassel and ear is on the same structure is called "tassel ear corn".  There are several reasons this happens: it can happen on the suckers when the growing point is damaged, or where there is low plant density (we know it's not this), or where the soil is compacted or too wet.

We will be watching for the tassels to turn brown.  At that point we will harvest and do our normal celebratory tradition of shucking and eating the first corn raw, standing in the corn row.