It Costs A Lot To Die

 “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”

― Henry David Thoreau

Have you given any thought to dying?  From a spiritual standpoint, it is of paramount importance.  We will all spend eternity somewhere.  You want to nail down the fact that you will be spending eternity in the presence of God in Heaven.  There's only one way to get there and that's through faith in God's Son, Jesus Christ, believing that He's the Messiah and trusting in His finished work on the cross for your salvation.

Once you have that settled, there are some additional, unsavory things about death from a practical and financial standpoint that one must consider.  When I had heart surgery in August of last year, I sat down and wrote out my obituary.  What a project.  If things were to go south in the surgery, I wanted to save Tricia the time and trouble of writing that out.  She didn't end up needing it, but one day she will, and it's done.  But there are other things to consider.

The will is all done and filed away with other important documents.  The next thing to do is to think about the songs you want at your funeral, the pallbearers, singers, and other details of the service.  I haven't completed this yet, but it's next on my list.  Once done, I can put all that in a file and let Tricia know where to find it.  All it would take is a few minutes to read and make any necessary updates.

It seems like the only thing the USPS delivers to the mailbox anymore is junk mail.  Some days we don't get any mail.  However, I walked out to the mailbox the other day and there was a letter from a local funeral home offering a free consultation and funeral planning discussion.  That seemed like the logical next step in getting the planning squared away regarding "kicking the bucket."

I arrived at the funeral home and a professionally dressed woman led me to a well-appointed room.  We sat behind a large wood desk, and she passed the following folder across to me.

She went over a whole lot of information, regarding my wishes.  What I learned is this: "Dying is a doggone expensive proposition!"  Look at some of the costs below:

$7,360 for just the service.  We put a placeholder in for the casket as an average price of $4,000.  I did not bring up with her the thought I had of making my own.  That would be an interesting woodworking project, but where would you store it?  Could it double as a coffee table?  What a conversation starter!  The casket cost does not include the cement vault.  The total goods and services comes to $13,055.  But wait... there's more.  This doesn't include the real estate that your remains will be deposited on.  Local plots run between $500 and $800.

But where to be laid to rest?  We do have a family cemetery in Oberlin by the farm.  I always told my wife and kids that I wanted to be laid to rest beneath the old elm tree in the back yard.  They always respond, "Dad, we don't have an elm tree."  Louisiana law requires that one must be buried in an established cemetery, so I guess that removes my composting in the back from consideration.

Thinking about death is very important from both a spiritual and financial standpoint, and it makes a lot of sense to plan.  I'll continue to fine tune the plans, but thinking about dying reminds me that it is important to think about living, too.  We don't know how much time is still in our hour glass.  I want to make sure that I make every day count.

Investing in the Future

I've heard that egg prices at the grocery store are pretty high due to this bird flu thing.  Our birds are healthy, the days are getting longer, and today they laid 17 eggs.  We eat all we can, give some to the boys and sell the rest.  But, since the minks decimated the flock last year, we haven't really recovered.  We were down to 9 hens.  That's the lowest amount we ever had, I believe, since we started.  Fortunately, we had another batch of hens in the chicken tractor in our yard when the mink started their killing spree.  The ones in the yard were spared.  I think I counted 24 hens this afternoon.

I figure it is time to increase the numbers of the flock.  I searched the hatcheries online from whence we normally order day old chicks.  Holy Moly!  Straight run (probably 50-50 hen/rooster ratio) are $4 per chick, and all female chicks are $4.65 per chick.  That's steep.  We opted to save 42 eggs from our flock.  This means we forego eating them and forego selling them, but delayed gratification is where it's at.  After about 4 days, I had enough saved to fill the incubator.

42 eggs in all will fit in the incubator.  It will be a mixed bag, for sure.  We have Rhode Island Reds, Golden Comets, Aracaunas, and Barred Rock birds.  They are all mixed up, though.  No telling what we'll get.  Last time we hatched some out, we got a 74% hatch rate and about 50% were roosters.  The roosters are butchered and made into chicken and sausage gumbo.  The hens are incorporated into the flock and begin laying eggs at around 5 1/2 months from hatch.

I placed the eggs in the incubator and plugged it in.  The incubator has an egg turner that slowly shifts the eggs.  This is helpful as it keeps you from having to rotate them.  I added water into the reservoir at the bottom that serves to keep the humidity just right in the incubator.  The goal is to try to keep the eggs at 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  I had just turned it on, so it took a little while to warm it up, but we found that the thermostat was set perfectly.

So there is the scoreboard.  We know when they were put in the incubator and how many, and when the chicks should hatch out.

We've learned there is truth to the old adage, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."  In three weeks, we'll certainly check in on the chicks and report our hatch rate to you.

Eradicating Fire Ants in the Garden

The Red Imported Fire Ant (RIFA) or Solenopsis Invicta arrived on our fair shores in the 1930's in Mobile, Alabama from a cargo ship inbound from Argentina.  Since then, they've spread across the South and have ruined many a picnic.  Their bite is angry and it itches.  We've spent hundreds of dollars treating them in our yard.  They spread all over the place, making mounds of vicious little creatures that you don't want on your property.

You especially don't want them in your garden.  They seek the high ground during rains and the garden has been built up over the years and is a favorite home for them.  That presents a problem since we don't want to kill them with poison.  That poison may kill the ants in the garden, but it will also kill the beneficial insects and soil microbes that we want to keep.  Not only that, we don't want to eat vegetables laced with ant poison.  

So we've found a safe alternative fire ant killer.  We use Orange Oil, Agricultural Molasses and compost tea to make a safe and effective fire ant killer for the garden.

We wrote the recipe on the side of the gallon jug:

2 oz. orange oil  (this is pretty expensive at $34 for 32 oz. container)
2 oz. molasses
2 oz. compost tea

1 gallon water

We follow the recipe exactly and fill with rainwater and shake up real good.

You use 1 gallon per mound.  The directions are to pour it in the center of the mound and let it go down deep.  You're attempting to kill the queen.  Then you pour all around the mound, being careful not to let it run off.

Look what happens!  The ants are killed and the eggs are ruined.

When you pass by the mound an hour later, there's not an ant stirring.  We've obliterated the fire ants from the garden!

We will keep checking.  One must be vigilant in combatting fire ants.  They are relentless.  The orange oil is the active ingredient (L-limonene) found in orange peel.  It kills the ants by destroying the wax coating in the ant's respiratory system.  Deadly to fire ants, but it has a nice benefit for humans - it smells great!

A Time to Kill

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;  Ecclesiastes 3:1-3 KJV

Last year we let a few broody hens sit on some eggs and they ended up hatching out some chickens.  After they got big enough where we (thought we) could tell the pullets from the cockerels, we butchered the cockerels and put the hens out on the pasture with the others.  There was a problem with this plan.  We misjudged.  Two of the birds we thought were pullets were actually cockerels.  

This miscalculation was brought to our attention rather quickly.  With four other roosters on the flock, the addition of two more caused quite a ruckus.  A pecking order had to be worked out.  It's a vicious undertaking, to be sure, with fights and blood and intimidation.  Sometimes the roosters will kill one another.  Other times the victor rules and the defeated skulks around on the margins, trying to get food where he can and trying to keep from getting beat up by the bigger, more dominant roosters.

What will also happen is, well, we'll call it the "birds and the bees."  Roosters will seek out and breed hens in the flock.  The poor hens fall prey to this.  Lots of squawking.  Lots of feathers flying.  Two of them will be breeding and the rival rooster will appear and attack the romancing rooster in the middle of mating.  Shrill cries ring out across the barnyard.  Frightened, disheveled hens scurry off to find peace.

Tricia finally looked at me and said, "Kyle, it's time we help the hens.  Let's butcher those two white roosters that keep everything stirred up."  I agreed.  Saturday afternoon was the appointed time.  We walked to the barnyard and caught the raucous, romancing roosters.  We each carried a rooster to the chicken tractor from the back to the yard.  Tricia called it the "long walk."  The roosters did not know what was in store.  (Warning for the squeamish)

We tied them from twine in a tree and slit their throats, holding them over a bucket to catch the blood.  In a short time, their hearts pumped out the blood.

With one final flop of the wings, the roosters kicked the bucket, literally and figuratively.  Time of death: 1:52 pm.

We set the two formerly amorous birds aside while we waited for the water temperature in the scalder to reach 145 degrees.

Dishwashing liquid was added to the water and when it was 145 degrees (scalding), I began to dunk the birds beneath the water for about 2 minutes.  Up, down, up, down.  When you can pull on a long wing feather and a tail feather and they pull out easily, your bird is ready for plucking.  It's important that you monitor the temperature (hence the thermometer).  If the water is cooler than 145, the feathers won't come off in the plucker.  If the water is hotter than 145, you'll cook the birds.  We learned early on the hard way when we first started doing this years ago.

We toss one of our feathered friends in the plucker and spray with water as we turn on the plucker and the bird spins.  Soon, all of the feathers are gone.  It's an efficient process, much easier by hand, except it's a lot of mess and a lot of equipment to get out for only two birds.

Here is one of the roosters, devoid of feathers.  Minus all the feathers, the roosters are kind of skinny.  No where near the size of the Cornish Cross meat birds that we raise each spring for butcher.

The cavities are then opened and the birds are eviscerated.

Here is one of the roosters...  We're going to use the feet this year for the first time to make broth.

And here is the other.

Gizzards, livers, and hearts are lined up waiting for cleaning and packing up for freezing.

We cut up the roosters into pieces and put in bags for freezing.

With cold weather coming this week, Tricia is planning on making a big chicken and sausage gumbo.  Nothing like a good gumbo to warm you up on a very cold day.  One final note before I sign off tonight:  After these two roosters are now off the flock, you'd be surprised at how calm things are out at the barn.  There is no more shrieking, fighting, or violent breeding.  No more fearful hens running for their lives.  There is peace in the valley.

Getting Ready For More

When the single digit temperatures hit South Louisiana a few weeks ago, even though I had everything wrapped securely, we had one problem.  A ball valve on some PVC that I ran from the house out to the water troughs in the pasture, the garden, and the barn froze and burst the pipe.  After a couple of trips to the hardware store, I had everything I needed.  The line was dug up and put back together.  After a little time to cure, I pressured the system back up and... it held!  We're back in business.

Immediately following the arctic blast, we had weather in the 80's, literally 70 degrees warmer than the previous week.  It felt like spring.  But guess what?  According to the weather report, we'll be in the 20's again next Wednesday and Thursday.

Let's check in on the plants we're growing.  All these seedlings were planted on New Year's Day.  Most of the tomatoes are putting on their first true leaves.  That means I'll be hitting them with a diluted dose of fish emulsion to really get them jumping.

Here are a few more tomatoes, eggplant and peppers.  Their germination is a little slower, so they're behind the other, but they'll catch up.

I know I'm early on this, but the 80 degree weather got me raring to go.  I planted three different varieties of cucumbers, yellow squash, butternut squash, zucchini, and pasta squash.

Here is our homemade greenhouse for seedlings.  It's simply a baker's rack covered by a shower curtain.  That's it.  Nothing fancy, but it works.

But with the 20 degree weather coming, the greenhouse will be moving inside the house.  Once we get through the final cold weather, we'll harden these seedlings off and transplant in the garden.

What To Do With All That Spinach?

We have fresh spinach coming in right now.  The Galilee Spinach seed that I saved had bad germination, but the old standby variety that we like (Monstrueux De Viroflay) is really producing.  The spinach that Popeye would eat from a can cannot be compared to this stuff.  Popeye would never eat canned spinach again once he tried this variety.  Anyhow, for the recipe we'll be cooking up today, we needed 2 cups of spinach packed tightly.

We're cooking up some Pasta with tomatoes, spinach and ricotta.  We have some bowtie pasta cooking on the back burner.  Here we have the spinach cut up with 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 lb cocktail tomatoes and salt and pepper all sautéing in a pan.

The spinach is added last and is sautéed lightly.

1/3 cup of basil is added and then all of it is poured atop the cooked and drained bowtie pasta.

I don't know if you remember, but a couple of months ago, we made several batches of mozzarella cheese from several gallons of LuLu's milk.  When you make mozzarella, you get ricotta cheese as sort of a by product.  We had some of it frozen, so we thawed it out and added it to the pot.

To the top of that we added 1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

This is all stirred together and it's now ready to serve!

Delicious!  Creamy!  It's a great way to use some of the spinach that's coming in.  The next time we make it, we'll double the amount of spinach to 4 cups packed and also add more fresh basil and some minced garlic.  With all the spinach, and cooler weather coming in this week, we were talking about also making a Cream of Spinach soup.  Ravioli stuffed with spinach might be on the agenda as well.

Where Moths Doth Corrupt

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:”  Matthew 6:19

In our first year of beekeeping we were successful in catching four swarms of honeybees.  When you catch them like that, they're priced right - FREE.  As of right now, we have three of the four hives.  We lost one.  In 1787 Benjamin Franklin was asked about what form of government the founders were establishing.  He answered, "A republic, if you can keep it."  He was stating the obvious and something we are all too familiar with - A republic is hard to keep, and comes with a tall order for the citizens to have the responsibility to maintain it.

Similarly, we were gifted bees and they were ours - if we could keep them.  We learned firsthand about the responsibility to keep them.  Even doing our best, we lost one of them to WAX MOTHS.  The wax moth (Galleria mellonella) might have a fancy name, but they ruined one of our hives.  If you have a strong hive, they will keep these scavengers in check.  If you don't, they'll take over.  

Moths will enter the hive and lay eggs in a hidden place where the bees won't see them.  The larva hatches and eats through the comb and honey, spinning webs and cocoons.  They mature to a larva that's about an inch long.  Then they pupate and overwhelm and destroy the hive.   It's easy to blame the wax moths, but the real question to ask is, "Why was the hive so weak that it couldn't protect itself?"  It could be that they lost their queen.  Or perhaps she was just not laying enough eggs.  Maybe varroa mites weakened the colony.  

Whatever happened, all we can do is clean up the box and frames.  I put on my bee suit and went and got it.  I pulled off the top and you can see the damage immediately.  Can you see all the cocoons?  I started to scrape all that off with my hive tool.

They even ate into the wood.  I actually pulled out two larva that were still alive.  They weren't alive for long, though.

You can see how they decimated the frames and foundation, just destroying all the drawn comb.

The entire side of the box was almost completely covered with cocoons.

It took me a couple of hours of scraping, brushing and then using compressed air to blow out the mess.  Now that they're cleaned up, we we be able to use them again, but they'll only be used on strong hives in the event there are more alive that I didn't see.  In the future, if we see one hive getting weak, we'll stack those on top of a stronger hive.  Maybe we'll save it that way.

The "Eyes" Have It

I normally try to plant Irish Potatoes around Valentine's Day.  Tricia picked up a planting guide from the feed store that states for our gardening zone that the 1st planting date in Spring is Feb 10 - Feb 29.  I jumped the gun by two days and planted them on Feb 8th.  I mean, it was 81 degrees!  Time to get going.  But potatoes require a little preparing before you put them in the ground. 

We picked up some Red LaSoda seed potatoes from our local feed store.  I got 15 pounds of seed potatoes this year and it cost me a hair over $10.  This variety does really well for our area.  The first hurdle you must jump over is deciding to plant these rather than splitting them in half and cooking them in butter and adding some fresh parsley and green onions on top.

Delayed gratification is the name of the game here.  Sometimes that gamble doesn't work out.  This year is going to be a bumper crop for spuds, though.  Last year was not.  I figured out my problem, though.  My soil test showed that I was low on sulfur.  Wouldn't you know that potatoes need sulfur, so I purchased a bag and broadcast the fast-acting sulfur and watered it in.

Then Benjamin began helping me cut up the seed potatoes.  The planting guide calls for cutting the potatoes into 'egg-sized' pieces, ensuring that there is at least one eye on each piece.  I'll generally cut the smaller potatoes in half and the larger ones in quarters.  We cut them up and laid them in trays for good air circulation.

Here is what it looked like when we were done.  I counted 163 pieces, but my count may be off by 10 or 20.  I set these aside for a couple of days.  We'll come back and check on them.

Here's what we're looking for.  We want the potatoes to 'scab' over where they were cut.  Can you see what I'm talking about?  We don't want the potato to be moist.  If you don't allow them time to cure and put them directly in the ground, there is a chance that they might just rot on you.  These are in good shape and ready to be planted.

I got my nifty planting knife that Russ bought me.  It has measurements scored along the blade that make it real helpful.  The planting guide suggests that you plant the potatoes 4-6 inches deep and 12 inches apart from the others.  Digging the hole, it was evident that the soil was in good shape, loose and not compacted.

I dropped the potato in the hole and covered with soil, adding some composted chicken litter to give the young potatoes a turbo boost.  You can see the eyes on the potato in the above photo.  Potatoes are generally slow to come up.  I'll be watching closely.  When they pop up, I'll put a layer of mulch around them to crowd out any weed pressure.  We'll report our yield when we harvest in mid-May.

"I Know What I'm Gonna Do With My Money"

On Sunday afternoon, a young man that lives about a half mile away knocked on our door.  He and his friend like to come over and go out into the pasture and pet the cows and goats.  They like to help gather eggs.  Belle loves those boys and jumps all over them.  From time to time, they'll ask if we have any work to be done and tell us they are trying to make money.  I appreciate their work ethic.  The last time, I asked them what they were saving money for and they told me, "Christmas presents for our family."  I thought that was noble.  We usually do everything and don't need any work done, but I always try to figure out something for them to do.

It was only one of the boys at the door on Sunday and when he asked if I had any work, I told him to give me a couple of days to think about some jobs.  He came knocking again today.  I like the perseverance and persistence.  I put him to work with a pitchfork loading up wagons of mulch to move out near the potato patch in the side yard.  I want to fill up the area between the potato patch and the muscadines so I don't have to mow there and I'll eventually plant melons there when the mulch decomposes and turns to rich topsoil.  The young man got busy...

He told me that he is an athlete and in good shape, but he was winded and sweating a lot.  He took a little break.  Then he told me he wished he had brought some water.  It was then I realized what a lousy employer I am.  I'm running a literal sweat shop.  I went in and brought him out some ice water and we talked.  He told me he likes football.  I told him I appreciate his willingness to work and asked him what he was saving his money for.  He told me he didn't know.

About that time some people stopped in to buy some raw honey.  They saw our sign out on the road.  We visited and they asked many questions about the bees and homesteading.  They have chickens and want to get more into it.  They bought and paid for a pint jar of honey for $10 and said they'd be back for more.  I added that if they brought back their empty jar, I'd take it back as a deposit and the next jar would be only $9.

My hard-working employee passed by with another wagon load of mulch.  He told me he was rushing since he was running out of daylight and wanted to finish the job.  He'd been at it for an hour.

He was running with that wagon.  I complimented him on his energy.  He dumped his last load of mulch and finished the job.  He was proud of his accomplishment.  He is not the sort of guy who believes that farm labor is beneath him.  He's not too proud to work.  I appreciate that.  Sort of gives you hope for the next generation.

He came to me to collect his wages.  I went inside to get some cash, but before going in, he stopped me and said, "Sir, I figured out what I'm saving my money for."  "What is that?" I said.  He told me, "I want to trade my labor for a jar of your honey."  Then he added, "I like to buy local!!"  That made me belly laugh.  I went inside and told Tricia what he said.  She laughed, too.  I brought him a pint jar of honey.  Tricia told me to slip him a $5 bill, too.  He smiled real big.  He's gonna make it big one day.

What A Difference!

This afternoon on February 5, 2025, the temperatures topped 80 degrees Fahrenheit!  It warmed up!  The bees were flying.  The birds were chirping.  It feels like mid-May.  It is hard to imagine that just two weeks ago, the temperature was a whopping 74 degrees cooler.  That's difficult for us to reconcile.  It must be hard for the cows to comprehend it, too. Amazingly, the animals didn't seem fazed by it all.

We ventured out into the snow, but quickly came inside.  Our heat pump proved to be next to worthless as it kept freezing up and struggled to keep the house 63 degrees.  We burned a whole lot of firewood and kept warm in front of the fireplace, shelling pecans and reading.

Tricia had made some butter and had a quart jar of buttermilk, so she made some buttermilk biscuits.  We poured our cane syrup on top.  I went back for seconds and thirds.

To go along with our biscuits and syrup, the wife also made some homemade Mexican hot chocolate like her mother and grandmother made for her when she was a little girl.  So chocolatey and smooth with a nice cinnamon taste to it.

We continued to sit in front of the fireplace sipping hot chocolate and staying warm!

What a difference that was compared to today.  I was in the pasture working on fixing a PVC ball valve that goes to the cows' water trough in the pasture that had frozen.  Sweat was running down my back and dripping off my nose.  It's only February 5th so I know winter isn't over.  It is very tempting to start planting the spring garden and getting a head start, but I would be unwise to do so.  We are sure to get another freeze that would render that work all for naught.