Four Months Later than Normal

It's funny to mention the extreme (for us) cold weather right now when we are experiencing highs in the upper 90's, but this winter we had a cold snap that obliterated the beets, spinach and carrot seedlings that we had coming up.  They were at a tender stage and they just couldn't make it.  I replanted a couple of rows of Danvers Carrots in the early spring to replace those we lost.  Normally we're harvesting carrots in mid-February.  We're four months later than normal, but better late than never.

What I've found is that carrots grown in hotter conditions aren't quite as healthy as the early spring crop normally is.  The ones we harvest seem to be smaller and shorter.  When all was said and done, we had a nice big basket of carrots.

In keeping to the Back to Eden Gardening Method, as soon as we harvested the carrots, we quickly topped the soil with four inches of wood chips.  If you don't know about this method, you can check out more information on it here: Back To Eden Gardening Method Documentary

The wood chips mimic what happens in the forest, keeping the soil covered, reducing compaction, preserving soil moisture, discouraging weed growth, and putting nutrients back in the soil.

We ate lots of the carrots, but we also made a couple quarts of fermented ginger carrots.  It's a dish similar in some ways to Sauer Kraut.  We're about finished with our last jar of Sauer kraut.  We shredded the carrots in a food processor and added minced ginger to the bowl, added salt and whey and stirred.

This is an easy dish to throw together.  You can see the fresh carrots that get shredded.

The ingredients, once mixed are packed tightly into jars.  We like to "beat the carrots up" by pounding on them to release the juices.

Then we put caps on the jars and leave them at room temperature for 3 days.  After three days, we put the jars in the fridge.

We generally let the fermented carrots age in the fridge for a few months.  We find that the taste gets better with age.  Fermented Ginger Carrots has a tangy, cool, refreshing taste to it that is perfect for a side dish on a hot day.

Cast Your Net On the Other Side

My youngest, Benjamin, graduated from college and accepted employment with Phillips 66.  In one last bit of fun before starting work, I looked for a fishing guide service to take us fishing.  I had lots of good memories fishing with my grandpa on Toledo Bend Lake and found a guide service called "Living the Dream."  I scheduled it for last Monday and my Dad, Benjamin, Russ, and I went fishing.

We showed up at 7 AM and walked the gangplank down to the boat.  I saw this placard on the wall of Living the Dream.  My kind of folks...  Traditional values.

We would have a guide who led us to the fish.  He has tree tops sunk at several locations.  He would get us to those points and we would drop our lines.  His fish finder showed the depth and where the fish were.  The fish we would be catching are sacalait (bag of milk), crappie, or white perch.  All the same fish - different names, depending on where you're from.  Our bait was live shiners.

And here's the first mate, Benjamin, with the first fish!

We rode by Southern Leisure Landing and we saw where we used to launch 40 years ago when my grandpa would take us fishing for bream.  What memories!  I can still remember that he'd keep the fish we would catch in the same ice chest as the Shasta soft drinks.  When you'd pop the top on a Black Cherry Soda, it would smell and taste a little like slimy fish.  Yum!!  We put the top down and went under the Pendleton Bridge that connects Texas to Louisiana and we rode past a cove where we would water ski.  Here is Russ looking out over that area.

We were on a pontoon boat.  This one had 3 pontoons - a tri-toon.  It had a cover.  To get under the bridge, you have to put the top down.  There's a story about that I must tell you that is going to sound like a fish story or an excuse, but I promise it is true!  The guide put the net on top of the cover after catching some fish early in the day.  We forgot it up there and took off to the next spot.  The net blew off the top and promptly sunk 29 feet to the bottom of the lake.  We fished the rest of the day without a net and MISSED approximately 8-10 BIG fish that flopped off when we were trying to get them in the boat.  (The ones that got away!)

Once we caught 45 sacalait, 3 yellow bass, and 5 catfish, we headed back to the marina to call it a day.

Our guide, Captain Robert Lewis, took a photo of us.  He did a very good job of getting us on the fish and making sure we had a good time!

As he was fileting the fish, the turtles began swimming in.  The scraps get thrown to them and they get a free meal.  Who turns down a free meal, anyway?

There were more turtles than you could shake a stick at.

Then the big white herons began to swoop down and get the scraps before the turtles could get them.  It was a regular feeding frenzy.

We took a nice photo under the trophy bass on the wall of Living the Dream Guide Service.

What a great day!  We caught some nice fish AND made some great memories!  We'll be having a big fish fry soon...

Tomato Powder

Tomato Powder?  That sounds strange.  Never heard of it.  We'll talk a little about it tonight.  The tomato harvest was so plentiful this season, we ran out of jars!  They are still coming in and we are making and eating pico de gallo and many other tomato dishes as fast as we can, but they are still piling up.

Tricia is making a lot of dehydrated tomatoes with sea salt and rosemary and that gave her an idea.  She decided that we would dehydrate tomatoes and then blend into a powder and can it up.  First we had to purchase some additional trays for the dehydrator.  The silicone liners came in and Tricia made up a big batch of tomato sauce on the stove top.

This time instead of water bath canning the tomato sauce in jars, she poured into the new trays on the dehydrator and turned it on.  After a while, the tomato sauce looked like this:

I'm picking it up and it is dry.  The consistency is like that of Fruit Roll ups or fruit "leather."

The tomato "leather" was broken up and put in a blender where it turned into a rich, aromatic powder!

Here is a closer look at it:

What shall we do with tomato powder?  Well this table tells us:

If you mix equal parts powder and water, you get tomato paste.  1 part powder to 3 parts water, and you get tomato sauce.  You can also make soup and juice.  We are canning tomato powder up as well.  

Tomato Crop 2024

The tomatoes are finishing up.  We planted a number of heirloom varieties.  The only ones that are still making right now are the Chadwick Cherries.  With the heat intensifying, the fruit doesn't set and the stink bug and leaf-footed bugs are damaging the tomatoes that remain.  The birds, mockingbirds and blue jays, are pecking at the ones still on the vines.  For weeks, though, we were picking big beautiful baskets of tomatoes like this every day.

 I attribute the good crop this year to several factors.  First, we had a cooler than normal spring and it stayed cooler well into May.  That allowed the plants to stay healthy, without heat stress and bug pressure.  On top of that, though, the tomatoes were bigger and healthier than they've ever been when we transplanted them.  That gave them a big head start.

Here is a nice Pink Brandywine tomato.  It is heavy and unscarred by bugs.

It has green shoulders.

And  a nice profile!

Once we had around 18 pounds of tomatoes ready to go, we'd blanch them and core them and pull off the skins.

These are ready to go in the pot to cook.

We boil them and allow them to reduce down.  We made stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and salsa.  The times and recipes differed a bit depending on what we were making.

Once ready, we ladled into jars and then water-bath canned them.

When they were ready, we pulled them out and allowed them to cool on the kitchen counter.  It is a pleasing sound to hear the "POP" of the lids sealing.

 Finally, once they had cooled and sealed, we took the rings off and stored in the pantry.  We made pints, quarts and half pints.  When all was done, we counted them up.  We have 97 quart equivalents canned in the pantry.  That may hold us over until the next tomato crop!  We'll see how the inventory holds up.  We may not need to plant a fall crop.

Hay Day 2023

In prior years, we got a call from our neighbor down the road that they were making hay.  We'd drive down there with the truck and trailer and load up hay in the field behind the baler.  Picking up in the field, the price is $6 per bale.  If you pick it up in the barn, they have more cost involved, so the price is $7 per bale.  Unfortunately, we were otherwise occupied, so we couldn't pick up on that day.

Benjamin came in and helped us.  I think he pitied us a little, ha ha.  Putting up hay is a big job.  We arrived at around 3 pm in the afternoon.  It was very hot!  All the square bales were stacked up in the barn.  We backed the trailer up right next to the pile and put on our gloves.  Time to get busy.                   

Our order was for 75 bales.  That's a good number for us.  We still have 12 bales left from last year.  We keep round bales out for them to eat free choice.  This good Bermuda hay is like candy for them.  We ration it.

Benjamin would bring me the bales and I would stack in the trailer.  When the trailer was full, we stacked in the back of the truck.  Before long, we had thrown the last bale up on top and were finished!  The little red truck was loaded down.  We drove the one and a half miles back to the house very slowly.  Some of the bales on the truck were balancing precariously and we didn't want to lose them.

Benjamin and the hay

We put the animals away in a different pasture so they wouldn't cause trouble while we put the hay in the barn.  I backed the truck and trailer next to the doors to the hay loft, put the rope and pulley on the 4x4 and Benjamin would hook the bungee cords to the twine on the hay bales and I would hoist each bale up to the loft one by one.

I have a loop on the end of the rope that I put on a nail and then I unhook the bale and slide it down the loft and stack the bales.  The wood floors are smooth from hay running over them year after year.

Here is a better look at the process from up in the loft looking down

Here is a look at the loft all full of hay.  It reminded me a little of the story of the ant that works all summer, so that in the winter, he's ready.  We're ready!  In the winter the grass will be dead, but we'll have some good quality hay put up so that the cows will have something to eat.  They'll need it too, as they'll be calving.

We were soaking wet with sweat, but looking out of the loft at the empty truck and trailer, it was a joyful sight.  Yet another hear of putting up hay was done!

Putting up hay is a wake up call, of sorts.  We'll be both turning 57 years old this year, Tricia in July and me in October.  We thank the Good Lord for the health to still be able to do this.  We do wonder, however, if the Lord tarries, how many more summers of putting up hay do we have left in us?  I guess Plan B is forgetting about square bales and just purchasing round bales.  We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  For now, we'll cool off and relax.  We'll sleep good tonight!

Something Old, Something New

Let's start with something new.  When I'm traveling for work, I often pull off I-10 to fill up with gas at a station in the small town of Lacassine, Louisiana.  The station is local, new, clean, and the people running it are friendly.  There is a restaurant associated with it called, "The Dairy Barn," and they serve good food, like fried shrimp poboys, fried pickles and milkshakes.

Something caught my eye in the back of the station and I drove around back.  Something new, indeed.  A 16 bay charging station for electric vehicles.  I've not seen a bigger one, although I admit, I don't see that many charging stations around.  In my neck of the woods, there aren't a whole lot of Electric Vehicles on the road.

Progress, I guess.  Things keep moving forward and moving quickly.  I backed out of there and decided before driving home, I'd motor a few miles south.  Not far at all from the progress is a place I like to go where time almost seems to stand still.  Lorrain Bridge.

Lorrain Bridge is named after the Lorrain family that moved to the area from France.  In 1895 it was originally built as a wooden drawbridge.  It connects Jefferson Davis Parish and Calcasieu Parish and enabled farmers to bring their crops and cattle to market and to serve a local sawmill.  It is on the list to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The drawbridge was taken down in 1955 and was later put out of service in 1998.  In 2004 it was rebuilt, fortunately.  Many local people drive out to the bridge.  It is a favorite place to take graduation photos, Family Christmas Cards, and prom photos.

As quickly as time seems to move, I have a theory that some people have a nostalgic hankering for a time when things moved slow.  Lorrain Bridge is the place to find exactly that.  Bayou Lacassine lazily sits beneath it.  You can't really call it flowing.  Its murky and muddy waters slowly creep into the Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge.

You can look over the rails and see alligators waiting for lunch and watch the occasional catfish surface.  Spanish Moss drapes from the cypress trees that line the banks of the bayou.  There is a public boat launch and a park with picnic tables where you can slow things down a bit from the hurried pace of I-10 only a few miles to the north.

It's as if two worlds are colliding.  The paved super highway that never sleeps and the old dirt road just on the east side of the Lorrain Bridge.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."  -- Robert Frost

Father's Day 2023

On March 1, 1993 I became a father.  Laura Lee was born.  I remember feeling so ill-equipped, so humbled, yet so thankful.  I drove the car home from the hospital, slowly, carefully, like I was transporting priceless cargo.  I was.  Then came Russ and a little later, Benjamin.  Now, they are all grown up and on their own.  We are empty-nesters.

(l to r) Russ, Benjamin, Laura Lee

Parenting was a task like none other I had ever faced.  You can't just "wing it."  You can't delegate it to others.  You want to do a perfect job even though you know you are far from perfect.  On Father's Day I think of my Dad.  I'm thankful to God for him.  He provided a model.  He loved one woman and kept our family together.  He provided a safe, secure, and stable home.  He provided for us.  He ensured that we were in church and he and Mom gave us a home with an active prayer life and Bible reading.  For that I am so thankful.  Thanks Dad.  I love you!

Father's Day is tough as a father.  In times of reflection, I look back and wonder if we did a good job with the children that God blessed us with.  Did we prepare them?  Did we give them a solid Christian foundation prior to launching them into the world?  I think about regrets I have for things I did.  I think about regrets I have for things I didn't do.  Did I measure up as a good father?  As long as we still have breath, there is time to fix things, to heal.  

See, nothing else matters other than relationship with God and with family.  Money, job, accolades, worldly success.  All of it is but a fleeting vapor.  I love my God.  I love my wife.  I love my kids!

Happy Father's Day Everyone!

The Blustery Day

There was a Winnie the Pooh show that had the following dialogue in it: 

Gopher:    If I was you, I'd think about skedaddlin' out of here.

Winnie the Pooh:    Why?

Gopher:    'Cause it's "Winds-day."

It was Wednesday indeed and there were wind warnings on my phone.  A stiff south breeze was blowing. The wind chimes were chiming and dead limbs were falling in the yard.  The wife and I had been praying for RAIN, but none came.  Every day the forecast teases us with minute chances of the wet stuff.  We look to the horizon for darkened clouds, but none comes.

The grass continues to dry up.  The cows are looking for green grass.  You know, the stuff that's supposed to be greener on the other side of the fence.  I have been moving them into the yard to eat, and they are mowing it down fast.  The rain didn't come, but winds did.  I was walking in the yard, picking up fallen limbs.  I use the limbs for barbecuing.  The live oak and pecan branches make great coals on which to barbeque.

While picking up sticks, I stumbled across this dude:

In a foul (or fowl) mood

Apparently, the high winds blew that poor little bird and his brother, or sister, out of the nest.  Here is it's sibling:

They were both squawking and carrying on like you would expect if you fell out of the nest.  If you look closely at the wing tips, they're blue.  The color of the wings mixed with the shape of the angry little beak, clued me in that these were immature blue jays.  Blue jays are a vicious, yet beautiful bird.  They swoop down on you in the yard.  Some birds sing nice songs.  Not these, the squawk angrily.

Speaking of that sound, I looked directly up above me and I could spot the momma bird on the limb of the live oak.  Can you see her?  I can't speak "blue jay,"  but she was not happy.  I'd be upset, too.  What was going to happen to them?  In a happily-ever-after type movie, the mama bird swoops down, lifts the two babies on her back and they fly back up to the nest where they are tethered to the nest lest they fall.

But their odds to survive is about as strong as our chances of precipitation lately.  Ginger, the cat, is always on patrol.  If she finds these young paratroopers, well, their time on earth is done.  It's a tragic story, and yet, that is how life plays out in the animal kingdom in the aftermath of a blustery day.  The strongest survive.  

The Sunday Afternoon Drive

Sundays are generally a day of rest.  We wake up a little later, eat a big breakfast after morning chores and then get cleaned up for church.  Sunday School starts up at 10 AM sharp where we are studying the Book of Jeremiah.  Morning Worship begins at 10:45 and we are usually home by noon.  Sunday lunch is our big meal of the week.  Saturday night, Tricia made up some meatballs, made a roux, and added carrots, potatoes and onions and made a mighty fine meatball stew.  Served over rice, this is a meal that sticks to your ribs.

We sit around the table (Russ and Benjamin are usually with us) and we talk and then pour coffee.  We've been canning a lot of vegetables lately, so there was no dessert.  Usually we enjoy some dark chocolate truffles or some sort of homemade cake, brownies or pie, but it just felt like something was missing.  Sunday afternoon coffee without dessert is like rice without gravy or peas without carrots or James West without Artemus Gordon.  It's just not right!

I told the crew that I had an idea.  We'd do something old timey.  We'd pour our coffee into 'go cups' and go on a Sunday drive, stopping along the way and getting dessert.  I received a second to that motion.  All votes were in favor.  The motion carried.  As we were about to load up in the car, there was a knock at the door.  Our neighbors had picked mulberries and made homemade sweetdough mulberry pies.  They brought us four of them.  The Good Lord provided our dessert.  We love our neighbors!

We turned north on Highway 26 and enjoyed our sweetdough pies and coffee and just let the car wander around a bit.  Driving north out of Oberlin, we crossed over the Calcasieu River and looked down.  There seemed to be a few families sitting under canopies on the sand alongside the river.  We drove on.  Just north and west is another river called the Whiskey Chitto or Ouiska Chitto.  It is an Indian name, meaning "big cane."

The Whiskey Chitto is largely fed by springs, so the water is clearer than other rivers and bayous in the area and it has white sand beaches.  It runs for about 70 miles until it empties into the Calcasieu River around LeBlanc, Louisiana.  When wading in the Whiskey Chitto, you can actually see your feet!  We stopped, drove under the bridge, and took our shoes off.  We didn't bring towels, so we couldn't swim, but we waded and relaxed.

There was a family across the creek swinging on a rope swing and swimming.  Another family down the river was spraying each other with water guns.  A pickup truck under the bridge played Johnny Cash.  We watched a group of little minnows swim by.  Tricia and I then walked out on a big tree that had fallen and found a nice, shady relaxing spot to sit and watch the water run by.  Shall we gather by the river?  The beautiful, the beautiful river...

After a while, it was time to go, but as we drove back home on the 30 minute drive home, Tricia called to check on canoe rental service.  Just a mile down the road. there is a business that rents canoes.  They take up upstream and drop you off and then picks you up 4 or 5 hours later at a pickup point.  We're going to plan on doing that on an up-coming weekend.

Our evening services at church start at 5 PM, so we let the car wander on back home. It was a nice, relaxing Sunday afternoon.