Land Flowing With Milk and Honey

The lights are burning in the barn.  LuLu has been in milk for 14 months now.  We've finally weaned her bull calf, Nick, and he's in the back pasture that we call "the bull pen."  As the cows go into heat, we run them into the bull pen to be with Nick until after they've finished with standing heat.  Our goal is to get Rosie and LuLu bred and the big heifer, Elsie, bred for the first time.  

We're milking LuLu in the morning and at night.  She's not making a whole lot of milk, but we're trying to keep her cleaned out so that she doesn't get mastitis.  LuLu has been a pretty good milker.  Since Nick was weaned, she's making SO much cream.  Sometimes almost half of the bucket is heavy cream!

Here is our inventory in the fridge of LuLu milk.  It's all dated and we use the First in, First out method to make sure it doesn't go bad.  We get real creative with different things to do with milk when we have a good supply like this.

Cream rises to the top, so you can see what I mean about the rich Jersey milk from LuLu.  We skim the cream off the top and shake up the rest.  So delicious!

Lately, we've been making lots of butter and stockpiling it.  Butter freezes nicely, so we're building up stores of butter in the freezer.

We also have more fresh-churned butter in the fridge ready to slather on piping hot sourdough bread.

At some point here pretty soon, we'll dry off LuLu and that means we'll have a break from milking until the cows calve and freshen.  We're still milking Agnes, the goat.  Tricia plans on freezing some of her milk to make some goat milk soap.  We talked about milk tonight.  I've a story to tell you about honey, but I'll save that for another night.

Hay Day Part II

In our post from last week, you might have watched as we moved 75 bales of Alicia Bermuda hay from our neighbor's barn into our garage.  We didn't want it to rain on the hay and we didn't have the manpower to hoist the bales up into the barn.  Although the words were not spoken aloud, there was some concern about the hay spontaneously combusting and burning down the house.  Fortunately, that didn't happen!

Since I'm still on a limitation for lifting heavy things as I recover from my surgery, my brother-in-law and sister offered to come help finish up the job and brought 3 of their 6 boys and Russ came over, too.  Dad and Mom came, and we used Dad's truck to load up the hay.  His truck is bigger than our red Toyota so we could fit more bales in it..  So Saturday morning after everyone was in from the teal pond, we met at 10 AM and got ready to work.  Loading the hay went very fast!  

We were able to get 17 bales max in the Toyota.  I wish we would have counted how many we were able to load Dad's Ford with.  He pulled away from the garage so we could throw more on top.  I say "we," but I didn't do much at all.  Tricia was cooking a lunch for the work crew and making homemade ice cream for the feed once the job was completed.

We had moved the cattle trailer earlier and rolled the round bales into one line in order to provide access to the gate to drive the truck laden with hay out to the barn.  It was a bluebird day, with low humidity and mild temperatures and the sun shone brightly through the trees.

The nosy cows (Rosie, Elsie, and LuLu) gathered round to inspect all the hoopla that was going on at the barn.  Shortly thereafter all 7 of the goats showed up as well.  It was too much!  I ran the goats into the barn.  They are just trouble - like a bunch of bad kids, just getting in the way and onto everyone's nerves.

Dad backed his truck up to the barn and we opened the doors to the loft and installed the pulley on the 4x4.  The hay bales are attached to the rope by bungee cord and then the rope is pulled through the pulley and each bale is hoisted up into the loft for stacking.

You can get an idea of the process from this shot from inside of the loft.  Once the bales were swung inside, the bales are slid on the floor to the back of the loft and stacked.  The 2x12's on the floor are worn smooth from pushing the bales on the floor year after year.

The bales are stacked 3 across and four high.  As more and more hay was brought up into the barn, the shorter the distance the hay had to be pushed as the loft filled up with hay that will sustain the livestock over the winter until the spring grass comes in.

Finally, the last bale was pulled up into the loft.  We figured we'd get a photo of the bale.  That's the one were were looking for to finish up the job!  The aroma of the fresh cured hay filled the barn.  It's a scent I associate with the anticipation of fall.

Top: Brett, Landry, Graham, Russ.  Bottom: Dad & Hayes

It really didn't take long at all with all the help.  We went inside, circled up, held hands and prayed.  Then we had nachos with ground meat and beans, cheese peppers, onions, lettuce, and sour cream with lots of visiting, telling stories and laughing, followed up by finishing off a cannister of homemade vanilla ice cream made with LuLu's heavy cream.  (It was her contribution for getting the hay for her to get her through the winter.)  We took one more photo with all the working hands:

L to R: Me, Landry, Brett, Jenny, Graham, Dad, Hayes & Russ.  Not pictured: Mom and Tricia who were photographers

Despite the work, we all had a wonderful time.  When you are laughing and cutting up and enjoying one another, time passes quickly.  I'll say this, I have been blessed by God to have an incredible family that supports you in your time of need, who prays for you without ceasing, who will drop everything and rush over to provide manual labor or encouragement when needed.  Thanking the Good Lord for all the blessings in our lives.  We are not worthy of all the blessings He's bestowed upon us.  Never, ever, ever, take family for granted.  Enjoy every precious moment you get to spend with them!

Observances on a Thursday

I walked outside to a cool (for us) morning.  Temperatures were in the low 60's and it felt GREAT!  Belle, our Great Pyrenees, seconded that motion.  With her long hair, she's ready for cooler weather.  She was alert and frisky and guarding her charge of cows, goats and chickens.  She doesn't guard the honeybees.  She says, "the heck with that."  They stung her before and whenever we work bees, Belles goes into hiding.  I don't blame her.

The Black Turtle Beans are blooming and putting on pods.  I'll let the beans ripen on the plant and I'll pick the dried pods and shell them for cooking.  We really like black beans.   A favorite simple meal of ours is to cook the black beans and refry them into a paste and then spread the refried black beans on a homemade flour tortilla, add some white cheese, fold in half and eat.  The blooms of the black beans are lavender-colored and pretty, attracting pollinators to the garden.  The black beans are more or less a bush bean, but in this case, they reached out and grabbed the cucumber trellis and they are taking off climbing it.

Here's something cool I saw in the garden.  I chased it and the brightly colored insect was moving fast.  It is a red velvet ant, but don't be deceived.  It is not an ant.  It is actually a wasp.  This one is a female since it doesn't have wings.  The males have wings.  I almost made the mistake of picking it up and boy, am I glad I didn't.  It's nickname is "Cow Killer" because of its painful sting, ranking as one of the worst stings on the sting pain index.  Don't pick these up!

One final insect I saw in the garden was this black bee pollinating the louffa gourd flowers.  The brightly-colored yellow flowers are prevalent in the back part of the garden where the louffa vines proliferate.  This is not a honeybee and it is not a bumblebee.  I was researching to see what it was and if I'm looking at it correctly, it is a black bee - a carpenter bee.

Well, well...  We wage war with the carpenter bees out at the barn.  They like to drill holes in the 2x4s that form up the rafters of the roof.  On both sides of the barn, we keep badminton rackets hanging on a nail - not to play badminton, but we've found that the rackets are great for popping carpenter bees.  We swing and pop them mid flight.  They fall to the ground stunned, and we run and stomp on them.  It's great fun.  We're easily entertained, as you can see.

I'm glad this bee is pollinating, but I don't want him drilling holes in our barn.  If he does and we catch him with the racket, this will be the last flower he sees.

Hay Day Part I

The day that I came home from the hospital, we got a call from our neighbor down the road that they were baling hay and asked if we could go pick up our order.  It's Bermuda hay and this year's price is $7 picked up in the field and $9 picked up in the barn.  Obviously, picking up 75 bales of hay was out of the question.  We normally pick it up in the field, but asked if they could stack it in the barn and we would pick it up once I was recuperated.

I got a call yesterday that they were cutting again and needed the space.  Our hay was in the way.  I'm not fully recuperated, but the hay had to be moved.  So, I called Russ and Benjamin to come by after work and we could tackle it together.  Russ said with me not being 100% and Benjamin not being fully healed from his accident, that we were like the "Island of misfit toys."  He called my Dad for assistance and Dad drove over from Kinder to pitch in.  What a sight we were!

We backed up the truck in their barn and began loading up the truck.  We had 75 bales to pick up and bring back to the house.  We're about a mile from their barn to our house and would have to make 6 to 7 trips.

In the first load, we stacked up 12 bales.  We quickly learned that by stacking the bales and interlocking them, we could fit 16 or 17 bales.  We had a little assembly line going and got better with each load.

It was hot and we worked hard.  So did the truck.  You can see it is squatted down pretty good.  I was hoping we wouldn't break the springs.  Russ and Benjamin rode up on top of the hay on the ride home where we backed up to the garage.

Normally, at this point, we back up to the barn and use a pulley to hoist the bales up into the loft.  We'll have to wait on that for another day when we have more help.  For now, so the hay doesn't get rained on, we stacked up the 75 bales in the garage.  

The car, for now, will sit outside.  It can get wet.  The hay cannot.  This is what will get the cows and goats through the winter.  I'm not convinced they realize the work and sacrifice that goes into feeding them!  Unloading the hay has Belle exhausted just watching the work!!  Can you see her in the bottom right corner?

Here is a side view of 75 square bales of bermuda hay.  Inflation has hit the hay field, too!

Ginger, our cat, doesn't seem to mind the hay in the garage.  It's given her a new place to nap.  Lazy cat!

Speaking of naps, I think I'll go take one myself.  Well show you Part II when we move all this up into the hayloft at the barn.

The Teal Hunt - Sep 2024

Mid September marks the start of teal season each year.  Duck season evokes the notion of cold weather, and although a teal is a small duck that migrates south, the cold weather never quite migrates south with the birds.  Teal season normally coincides with an influx of the thickest swarms of mosquitos mankind has witnessed.  But teal hunting is fun, and there's nothing quite like fresh harvested teal and sausage gumbo in the pot.  I purchased my Basic Hunting license, Resident waterfowl, and Federal Duck Stamp and set my alarm for early the next morning. 

My buddy Gary asked me to meet him on Saturday morning, and I was there at the appointed time.  We rode his four wheeler out to the blind where we sat down on 5 gallon buckets turned upside down and waited.  It was a beautiful morning, with a full moon overhead.  Decoys were set out just in front of us to lure the birds in to their final resting place.  We talked in muffled whispers about stuff that old friends discuss - our kids, work, projects that we are working on at home.  

We heard a volley of shots go off from several locations to our west, south and east.  We saw a group of ducks fly overhead.  They were high and their motors were running.  They were in a hurry to get somewhere and it wasn't our pond.  Two cat squirrels played in the fork of a sweet gum tree behind us, dropping acorns that they had robbed from another tree.  They were making a lot of racket, distracting us from the job before us.

Soon we heard the flutter of wings and a whistle.  Ducks coming in!  They cupped their wings and landed in the pond.  Unfortunately, they were wood ducks.  Wood ducks aren't in season yet.  Wood duck drakes are, in my opinion, the most beautiful bird on the planet.  They eat acorns and aside from looking nice, they taste splendid roasted in a cast iron dutch oven with a dark brown gravy.  These birds knew they were safe in our pond since they were out of season.  I watched one wink at me and laugh.  Try that in "big duck" season, partner, I told him.

Many, many more wood ducks flew past us, maybe 35 or 40 in total.  Some got really close.  I could see their colorful plumage reflected against the rising sun.  But we couldn't shoot them.  The teal were non-existent.  The few that we saw were out of range.

Even if we could have shot some teal, I wouldn't have been able to.  When my alarm went off the morning of the hunt, I found the following sticky note: "Remember, No shooting a Gun."  Tricia made me promise her that due to my heart surgery, I would not shoot a shotgun.  Darn it!

So the only shots I took were with the camera on my phone that I shared with you tonight.  I felt like a VEGAN hunter!  Hopefully soon I will be freed up to shoot my shotgun when big duck season opens.  There are some cocky wood ducks I know that have a reservation with my cast iron dutch oven.

Seeking Unity in the Barnyard

Earlier this summer we had some hens get broody.  We still have some hens that are broody.  Anyway, we let the hens set on a few eggs and the mama hens hatched out some little biddies.  We put the mamas and the babies in the chicken tractor so they would be safe from predators.  After a little bit, we moved the hens back into general population.  The biddies continued to grow.  Of the six, we have two cockrels and four pullets.  Perfect.  That will replace some hens lost to predation.  Minks, specifically, but I don't like to even mention that wicked animal by name!

The time finally came to bring the six birds and slowly incorporate them with the flock.  It's a tricky situation.  We clipped their wings so they won't fly over the perimeter fence and we brought them to the barn.  The plan goes like this:  We're going to leave them in the dog kennel for a couple of days to get them used to their new surroundings, but mostly to allow the other birds to get used to the "newcomers."

Then, we'll let them out.  The other birds pick on them a little bit and don't share their feed, so we have to be intentional about caring for the new birds.  You'll notice they are mixed breed since they were hatched out.  The white ones are Aracaunas and the red ones are a mix of Rhode Island Red and Golden Comet.  Here are the newbies next to their kennel.  They are nervous and scoping everything out.  It's a brave new world.

They stick close to the barn, which can be trouble.  Tricia is about to milk LuLu and if one of these birds got under LuLu's feet, well, it would be disastrous for the bird.  LuLu?  She wouldn't even notice.  It's still 90 degrees + in late September, so thank the Good Lord for the fans in the barn.  They keep us (and LuLu) cool and also blow the mosquitoes away.

Each night, the new birds instinctually roost atop the kennel.  We put them inside and lock the door so the minks don't get them.  Each morning they are freed.  They are getting braver and braver, extending their foraging farther away from the barn.

They instinctually scratch through the cow poop, looking for grain and other treasures.  The pullets have not started laying eggs yet, but we figure that should be coming in another month.

All is relatively peaceful and calm.  But it is the calm before the storm.  A battle is brewing.  Here is the king.  The cock of the walk.  The big kahuna.  He rules the barnyard.  A war broke out between he and the Barred Rock rooster and the barred rock lost.  He runs around scared, keeping his distance.  The Big Chief even killed the prior King Rooster, a beautiful Rhode Island Red.  They are vicious and brutal, but such is life.  It's survival of the fittest and the whole flock respects the process.

Soon.  When the young cockrels 'feel their oats' and challenge the king, there will be war in the barnyard.  I imagine it to be a showdown like in the movie Tombstone, where Kurt Russell played Wyatt Earp and said, "You tell 'em I'm comin'! And Hell's comin' with me, you hear? Hell's comin' with me!"  I can almost hear one of the roosters yelling that.  But for now, there's peace in the valley.

What to do With an Abundance of Hot Peppers

We love hot peppers and grow a bunch of them every year.  This year someone offered us some free hot banana peppers - five plants, actually.  We have the normal jalapenos and anaheims that we normally grow.  We had a strange arrival, too.  One of the seeds that was in the shishito package was NOT a shishito pepper.  It was a brilliant orange pepper and this bad boy was hot.  So what do you do with a bunch of peppers that are too hot to just eat plain?

Well, we'll show you what we do.  First we enjoy the electric colors of the hot peppers.  Makes a pretty basket, doesn't it?

Then, after washing them, I cut them in half and removed the seeds and the ribs.  This is the point at which you want to remember NOT to touch your eyes or your face.  Not even after washing your hands.  Ask me how I know!

Load onto the rack of the dehydrator and put on the 'vegetable mode' and run that baby until the peppers are shriveled up and dried completely.

Then we put the dried peppers in the food processor and run until the peppers have been ground into, well, ground pepper.  I wish you could smell this!  Wonderful, rich, aromatic!  Sprinkle just a dash onto your food and it livens up the dish nicely.

We always make Emeril's Essence Seasoning using the following RECIPE.  If you click that link, it will bring you to the recipe.  In place of the 1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper, we substituted our mystery hot orange pepper.  We'll call it Emeril's Very Hot Essence!  We'll be making a lot more as out pepper supply seems limitless this year.  That's a good problem to have.  Stay spicy, my friends!

The Best Thirst Quincher

On October 2, 1965 a thirst quencher was invented at the University of Florida called Gatorade.  It was named after the school's mascot, the Gators.  The doctors at the university were researching to try to create a product the combat heat-related illness among their athletes.  The original recipe contained salts, sugars and electrolytes.  The original flavor was lemon lime.  The rights were sold to Stokely-Van Camp for $25,000.  That's not a mis-print.  The sale allowed Gatorade to move from the laboratory to eventually store shelves.  The orange flavor was later added to the lemon-lime.  I still remember those glass bottles and the taste of the original recipe!  It was so salty.  I read that the football players at the University of Florida threw up after drinking it.  It was so bad!  But it worked in replenishing everything that the body loses when exerting yourself in physical activity in high heat.

As I was in the garden yesterday, I was watering a bunch of soil that I had just planted in broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, beets, lettuce, bok choy, snap beans and kohlrabi.  It was hot.  I stood there with my thumb over the end of the water hose.  The cool water on a hot day jettedran out of the end of the hose in a full, fat stream.  And it reminded me of my childhood.  Like Captain Kirk from Star Trek, I was transported back to my youth.

We were young boys, the whole neighborhood was there in the backyard.  The end zone and sidelines were marked off by shoes and t-shirts that we had shed for the backyard football game.  We hollered and ran and sweated and tackled one another.  There was a lot of spitting and some loss of blood.  From time to time there were tears.  Soon someone would call "time out" and we would run to the side of the house where a water hose was coiled up and connected to the spigot.

We turned on the hose and let it run for a while.  This was important.  Even though you were SO thirsty, you couldn't just turn the water on and begin drinking as the sun had heated the water in the hose to temperatures approaching that of liquid magma.  After what seemed like hours, the hose finally yielded the ultimate thirst quencher, water!  It was cool and refreshing.  We drank until our bellies were full and put the hose on our heads to cool us off for good measure.  There was one rule.  No one could put their lips on the end of the hose.  That was gross and was forbidden.

Soon the line behind the garden hose ended and we got back to the football game.  Good times!  As I finished watering the garden, I was smiling just thinking of those good memories.  Since then, I think we've been taught that it probably wasn't a good idea to drink from a rubber hose.  We know better now, don't we?  But yesterday afternoon, I shook myself from nostalgia and thought, "one little drink from the hose for the sake of reminiscing won't hurt me, will it?"  And after making sure the water was cool, I took a long, satisfying drink from the end of the hose.  I made sure not to let my lips touch the end of the hose, being courteous, even though no one was behind me in line.  Water from a garden hose, the original thirst quencher - pre-dating Gatorade.

Bumper Crop of Butternut Squash

Back on June 12th we picked our first batch of butternut squash.  The variety name is Waltham, I'm pretty sure.  These hold up pretty well if you don't refrigerate them.  Their flesh is a dark orange and the taste is rich and sweet, even if you cut them in half and just oven roast them.  A perfect side dish for any protein on your plate.

My favorite way to eat them is butternut squash soup.  It's so rich and creamy.  Down here in Louisiana, it's so hot.  It's hard for me to enjoy soup until the temperature drops or else you're eating it and dabbing your forehead to wipe the sweat off.  So our excitement intensified when a "cool front" rolled through.  I'm being generous with the term cool front.  By that, I mean that it was the first week in which the high temperatures didn't go over the 90 degree mark.  It's a judgment call, but we consulted with one another and determined that it could be decreed "gumbo weather."  That means that in our home, and by our rules, it is safe and legal to eat gumbo and/or soup.  

Using some fresh cream from LuLu, who generously donated some heavy cream to the butternut squash soup project, Tricia whipped up a pot full of soup.

After a long hot summer, the shallots have revived themselves.  I went out and cut some fresh shallots to put atop the butternut squash soup.  We also toasted some sourdough bread and drizzled some olive oil on top of the toast.  Even though it's not exactly cool enough outside, it was cool enough to enjoy our first bowl of butternut squash soup in many moons.

Here's the "money" shot.  Rich, creamy, smooth and flavorful!

Butternut squash soup.  There's plenty more of those to be made in the next several months!

My (Redneck) Garden Riddle

This is not what you expected.  I don't have a riddle for you in terms of a joke to guess.  A garden riddle is an old term for a soil sieve.  I need this to get a good growing medium for seedlings.  Many of the cole crops and lettuce seed are so small and they are only to be planted 1/8 of an inch deep.  Because of that you need a light, airy mix that they can grow in - something that isn't heavy and clumpy.

That's why I need a garden riddle.  I'll show you my redneck version.  The first thing that I got was a big landscape bucket full of composted wood chips.  These have been composting down in a pile for three or four years.  The pile (that was dropped of FREE!) has decomposed to about 1/3 the size that it originally was.  I shoveled the bucket full and carried it to the garden.  You can see that some of it looks like topsoil and you can see some sticks that haven't quite decomposed.  More on that later.

I'm going to be using this topsoil (wood chip compost) to plant broccoli and cauliflower in.  In order to filter out the sticks and matter that I don't want in the seed starting mix, I'll use a riddle or a soil sieve.  I'm going to build one, but time got away from me, but I did find something that will work.  We'll call it Kyle's Redneck Riddle.

It's actually the door to an old rabbit hutch.  I don't throw much away, always thinking that it will come in handy one day.  And it did!  Here's how it works:  I place the riddle (rabbit hutch door) over the bucket that I want to catch the filtered soil in.

This is a job where you get your hands dirty, but that's fun, isn't it?  You might use gloves, but I didn't.  I like to feel the sensation of fresh made compost in my hands.   I put a handful on top of the riddle.  The riddle has hardware cloth that is perfect for this job.  You rub the composted wood chips against the hardware cloth vigorously and the filtered soil falls into the bucket.

The remainder that won't go through the riddle is shown below.  It's just some sticks and chips that haven't rotted down yet.  I'll throw those back on the pile for additional "seasoning."  Then, I rinse, wash and repeat until I have a full bucket of sifted soil.

Look at this rich growing medium, would you?  If I was a seed, I would love to be nestled in this stuff.  I'd burst forth like a Fourth of July firework.  Think about the fertility in here.  Three or four years ago, this 'dirt' was cut from a tree and chipped.  The tree had sucked fertility and minerals from the soil and grown.  All that fertility and minerals were stored in the wood.  That wood was chipped and now decomposed.  Now, we're putting that right into our soil.  We're importing fertility!  And it was free!  What a deal...

I'll show you some photos as soon as the seeds start popping out.

Below is a FANCY garden riddle.  There's nothing redneck about it.  This is a You Tube video by one of my favorite bloggers, Herrick Kimball.  He's a master craftsman and in this video, he shows you how to build your own garden riddle.  It is a first class project - one I hope to do one day.  Until then, I'll continue to use the rabbit hutch door.  Click the arrow below to watch.  I think you'll enjoy!

Oh, what the heck.  I'll give you a garden riddle: Why did the tomato turn red?  Because he saw the salad dressing!

One of Hurricane Laura's Victims is No Longer With Us

Hurricane Laura was a category 4 storm that hit our area in August 2020.  A little more than four years after Hurricane Laura blew through Southwest Louisiana and we're looking at another one (Hurricane Francine).  This one yesterday showed coming directly for Jennings, LA, where we live.  With the latest update, it appears the storm is projected to hit somewhere around Morgan City at 7 PM tomorrow night.

For Hurricane prep, we always secure things in the yard and barn, make sure we have water and gasoline on hand, tie anything down that can blow and cause damage and prepare for power outages.  We're still preparing, but it looks like for now we are "outside the cone."  That's good news for us but bad news for whoever gets it.  One positive thing is that there is a strong ridge sitting right on the coast from a cool front.  Experts say that once the storm gets closer, wind shear will tear Hurricane Francine apart and she'll weaken in strength.  They project a category 1 storm with 90 mph sustained winds at landfall.

In Lake Charles, one monument still stood for four years as a testimony of the destructive force of Hurricane Laura.  I still call it the Calcasieu Marine Tower, but it changed to Hibernia Tower and I think most recently Capital One Tower.  Whatever its name, it had to come down.  It was an eyesore.  I was last in the building in 2017 when I had to go get a TWIC card for my job.  Other than the communication antennas on its roof, the building was empty.  Here is a photo I took of the building in July.  You can see all the windows that were blown out and had been patched with plywood.

Well, a demolition crew was hired and this past Saturday morning at 8 AM, the building was set to come down.  It was quite a sight.  You can click the arrow below and watch the demolition.  I came down perfectly.

That building was the skyline of Lake Charles, sitting right on the lake beside the Civic Center.  With it gone, it looks totally different.  As I understand, there are plans to revitalize the downtown area.  Hurricanes are a display of the might and destruction of nature.  We hope to not see anything like Hurricane Laura ever again!

Fiddling On the Roof

We have a steep pitched roof.  It is a 12/12.  That means that it rises 12 inches vertically for every 12 inches of horizontal run.  There are some advantages to this: There is more attic space and headroom that allows you to deck and have great storage.  The pitch allows the hot air to move up in the summer and not sit directly on top of you and that gives energy efficiency.  Finally, the steep pitch allows for rain to get off your roof quickly.

There's one problem, though.  In the spring when the live oaks tassel, they fall in thick mats.  Even on a steep roof, sometimes they stay in the valleys and pile up.  They catch leaves and sticks and before you know it, you have a bunch of debris on your roof and that's not good.  The steep pitch makes the roof impossible to walk on.  So how do I get the debris cleared?  Well, with a little redneck engineering, I've devised a method that works.

I wish I would've taken a photo of all the leaves, sticks and tassels before I started, but I was so focused I forgot to.  The photos that follow shows when I'm just about done, but you'll get the idea.  You can see some debris remaining and the remnants in the valley in the photo below.   I'll show you how we cleaned things up.

You can see several joints of PVC pipe I've fitted together and am pulling the debris off the roof.

Almost got the last bit off.  There was a LOT up there.  I was worried that if I left it any longer, it would damage the roof.  Even torrential rainfall has not knocked it down.

In the end of the 1/2 PVC pipe, I jammed a hand garden tool and taped it securely with a little duct tape.  I push the pvc pipe up the valley past the obstruction with the forks pointed upward so it slides.  Once I have it past the debris, I flip the pvc pipe over and now the prongs of the garden tool bite into the mat of debris.  Then, I pull downward.  Soon, after doing this task repeatedly, all of the stuff is cleared from the roof.

I do have to wait for an opportune time to do this task every year - When it is raining!  Why?  Because there is a colony of honeybees that live in the hollow fiberglass column that is mere feet from were I need to be on top of a ladder to execute this job.  I don't want to get attacked by angry bees when I'm standing atop an 8 foot ladder.  That's a long way down.  During rainfall, bees don't fly.  This afternoon, in a rainstorm, I quickly executed my plan, and it worked to perfection.

Here's a look at the finished product.  Once we get a nice rain, like I think I can hear as I'm typing this, it will clean the remaining leaves off the roof.

Fiddling on the Roof.  It's become an annual "Tradition!"