Wishful Thinking

As we near the last day of August, two things were on my mind.  #1 A prayer that we would make it through hurricane season unscathed.  Wouldn't it be nice to possibly see homeowner's insurance rates go down or hold steady for a change?  With each passing day, the temperature should cool off somewhat, cooling the Gulf waters that fuel the strength and fury of hurricanes that have wreaked such destruction on these parts.  #2 The countdown in my head of the remaining days of summer.  We look at the extended forecast and see that one day this week, we might see lows in the upper 60's and highs only in the lower 90's.  Tick Tock.  It's nice to look forward to more forgiving weather than our punishing summers.

The few days of fall and then winter will be upon us, and we need to be prepared.  I spent 30 minutes with a "rat-tail" file, sharpening my chainsaw blade.  The 80 volt battery powered chainsaw turned out to be a good purchase.  Whoever would've thought that a battery powered chainsaw would cut through 30 inch diameter water oak tree trunks, but it has gotten the job done.  With this saw, you don't need to worry about a carburetor.  I even learned a trick that you can use (cheaper) vegetable oil in place of (more expensive) bar & chain oil to keep the chainsaw blade lubricated.  It's a hack learned from a logger in the Pacific northwest that posted a YouTube video about it.

I charge one 80V battery while using the other and am able to keep the saw running while I cut the felled tree trunk in 2 1/2 foot sections.  Then I got my double edged ax, the sledgehammer and two splitting wedges and walked out to begin the hard part of the job.  Yes, I'll admit, there are easier ways to do this job.  They sell wood-splitters at Tractor Supply.  However, there's something to be said about swinging an ax and the sound of the sledgehammer making purchase with the splitting wedge.  The crack of the wood splitting in two is a pleasing sound to one's ears as the wedge disappears between the two pieces of tree trunk.

Before long the firewood is split into manageable pieces that we'll burn in our fireplace this winter.  I wet two t-shirts with sweat as my wife shook her head at me.  "There's cooler weather coming to do this work in." she says.  That's okay.  The job was done!  The chickens gathered around, scratching at the ground around the wood chips for the occasional beetle or grub worm that had taken up residence in the log, but was now exposed.

Now's the time to carry the wood and stack it up atop the woodpile.  I put sheets of tine on top, weighted down by river stone to keep rainwater off the top.  Upon just getting goats many years ago, I learned a valuable lesson in stacking firewood.  Back then, I stacked the wood right against the fence.  Those mischievous creatures jumped up on the woodpile, over the fence and all got out into the neighbor's yard.  We were able to get them all back in, but had to move the wood, restacking it away from the fence.  You live and you learn, they say.

The firewood we have split so far should get us through the winter easily, but I've got more wood to split.  We plan on getting a good inventory built up.  The bad news was that by the evening I was nursing several nice-sized blisters on my palm and fingers.  The good news was that I slept like a baby that evening partially because of the physical exertion from a day of swinging an ax and partly because it feels good to get a job done I've had on a to-do list.  We'll be nice and toasty as we keep our fireplace blazing with fire this fall/winter.

Don't Ever Eat a Rotten Egg

Ever since we cut down the big Water Oak tree that died, we've had a big pile of wood that I have been meaning to cut up and use for firewood next year.  It doesn't really bother me, and I'll get to it when I get to it, but it has created a good place for chickens to hide.  Hens are notorious for finding new places to nest.  

I happened to be walking past the wood pile this weekend and something caught my eye.  It was a nest that contained 11 eggs.  They were dirty and there was no telling how long they had been there. 

Normally, when I find nests like this, we feed them to the dogs.  Both Big Boy and Promise make quick work of fresh, or not so fresh, eggs.  At this time of the year, our hens aren't laying too many eggs, and I don't like feeding the eggs to the dogs.  I for sure don't want to risk eating an old egg found in a hidden nest! However, fortunately there is a trick for determining if an egg is fresh or old.  Now, let me preface this by saying I would never give or sell eggs found in a hidden nest.  These are for personal consumption only.

Testing an egg for freshness doesn't require any expense or testing equipment.  All you need is a 5 gallon bucket filled with water.
 

Gently place the eggs that you found in a hidden nest into the bucket of water.  If any of the eggs float, they are rotten!  Throw them away - better yet, bury them in the garden, being careful not to bust it before it is in the hole.  If the egg stays on the bottom, but one end tilts up, it is a little old, but not rotten.  If it lays flat on the bottom, it is a fresh egg.

As you can notice in the photo below, ALL of the eggs are lying flat on the bottom.  These eggs are fresh and our family will eat them up.

The reason this test works is that there is a small air pocket in the egg when it is laid.  As an egg ages, the porous eggshell allows fluid inside the egg to evaporate while simultaneously allowing more air into the egg and the air pocket in the egg expands.  As the air pocket expands with age, the egg will float off of the bottom.

Even though all these eggs are fresh, we'll still eat them first as putting them in water washes off the protective "bloom" that the hen coats the egg with that protects the contents of the egg from bacteria.  If you wash this off, the life of the egg will be diminished. 

So... if the egg won't sink, you'd better re-think (eating that egg!)