The Gravel Road

Jeff Foxworthy made the following quote somewhat famous:

"You might be a redneck if directions to your house include 'turn off the paved road.'"

Although the road directly in front of our house is paved, a little ways down, the paving abruptly ends and the road becomes a gravel road.  It is a road that you want to drive slowly on as there are no shoulders and a passing car is likely to throw a rock that will chip your windshield and even though it is gravel, it becomes slick when it rains that will fill your fender wells with clay and gravel.  When you get close to a stop sign on a gravel road, graders cause things we call "washboard."  Washboard will vibrate your vehicle so much that it will jar the fillings right out of your teeth.  In dry spells, roads like this will deposit a layer of dust so thick on your vehicle that it guarantees the local car washes stay in business.  So what good are gravel roads or dirt roads anyway?

Well, I posit that real America exists on these country roads.  There is a simplicity and honesty and lack of pretension here that is lacking in our 'civilized' culture.  Even though I was only 5 years old, I remember when John Denver sang a song called Country Roads that sang of this notion nostalgically, "Country Roads, Take Me Home, to a place I belong, West Virginia, Mountain Momma, Take Me Home, Country Roads..."  I had read somewhere that John Denver had never even been to West Virginia before he co-wrote that song. Anyway, there's something about getting off of the pavement (in any State) that is healing for the soul.

Gravel Road

The other day after a series of rains passed through the area, I took the boys and a neighbor's kid down the dirt road to a gully that eventually flows into Bayou Nezpique.  We come down here every once in a while to plink at cans that knuckleheads have thrown into the water with a .22 rifle.  Sometimes we'll catch some unsuspecting snakes basking in the sun on the mud and give them 'lead poisoning.'  This lazy afternoon we brought some fishing poles and some worms we dug up from the compost pile in the garden to see if we might catch some fish.

Anything biting?

When rains swell the gully, the fish swim out of the bayou, traveling upstream and the fishing can be pretty good.  On this day, however, it was not.  The previous day we had hooked a big catfish, brought him to the surface and then he promptly broke the line. We came back to try again, but on this day we were only successful in drowning some worms.

Our farm in Oberlin sits on either side of a gully similar to this one.  I can remember setting out a big fish trap in it each time it rained, catching different kinds of fish and turtles that would swim in and then be unable to get out of the funnels in the trap. It's really amazing to think how fast the gullies swell with water after a big rain and then how fast the waters recede.  You can see the water line 6 or 8 feet up in the trees on the bank if you look closely in the photos above and below.  

Oftentimes the water drops so suddenly that it will leave small perch stranded in puddles in the road.  When I was a young boy, I'd walk along the roadside and watch the iridescence of sun perch flipping in the shallow water in the sunshine, with the fishy smell heavy in the humid summer air.

Muddy water

If fishing isn't successful, the day isn't wasted, you can always throw rocks at turtles or snakes that inhabit the muddy water.  We ended up snagging a line on an underwater obstruction and lost a hook, sinker and bobber, but Benjamin was undeterred and claimed a hook, sinker, and bobber that a previous fisherman had lost in a tree (and didn't have the industriousness that Benjamin had to retrieve it), so it was a 'wash.'

Skipping rocks off the water

Our stringer of fish was fish-less, but we had an enjoyable time nonetheless.  

A bridge too far?

We loaded up the pickup truck and drove the mile or so back east down the gravel road before life became civilized once again when the gravel road converted into blacktop.  I have an unproven theory that the pharmaceutical industry could see a huge drop in anti-depressant sales if more people would take an hour or so out of their busy schedules and drive out on a country road with no set agenda but to kill a little time.  

I hear her voice in the morning hour she calls me,

The radio reminds me of my home far away,

And driving down the road I get a feeling that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday.

Country road, take me home, to the place I belong

West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home, country road... - John Denver 1971

Testing the Aged Cheese

Back in this blog post from December: Making Basic Cheese, we made some basic cheese, sealed it and have been aging it in our wine cooler for quite a while.  You can go back and read that post along with four others in the series to see how we did it if you missed it.  This week we decided that it was high time to pull it out and give it a try.  Here is a two pound wheel of cheese that we made almost eight months ago.

Pulling an aged wheel out of the cooler

When Tricia sealed this wheel of cheese with wax, she sealed a piece of paper in it with the date on it, so that we could track the amount of time that we aged the cheese.

Dated 11/14/2013

The cheese has been waxed to keep it from drying out.  Have you ever purchased a package of Kraft cheese at the grocery store and left it opened but unsealed in the refrigerator?  If you've done that, you know that the outer edges of the opened cheese will dry out and get hard and inedible.  That's why during the aging process, we wax it to keep that from happening.

Peeling off the wax

We'll save the wax and melt it to reuse the next time we make cheese.  Peeling the wax off is very simple and it comes off easily.

Now because of this next picture I almost titled this post "Tricia cut the cheese," but almost 24 years of marriage has taught me that that would not have been a wise decision and I would pay dearly for that momentary lapse in judgment.  So I resisted that temptation.  Tricia did, however, carve a slice of cheese out of the aged wheel to taste.  It was good.  Not great, but very good.  We're going to keep trying this and learning about it and getting better at it.  That's what it's all about.

Taking a slice out to try

One thing that we've learned is that while this cheese might not be the best cheese in the world for snacking on, it is fantastic for cooking with.  It is great in omelets, pasta, tacos. casseroles and other such dishes and we use it quite frequently for those type situations.  In fact, we haven't purchased cheese in quite a while.  I consider that a big plus.

Slice of homemade basic cheese from Our Maker's Acres

So we unwrapped the entire wheel and we have already put a big dent in it.  I'll show you one of the ways we used it in another post either tomorrow or the next day.

Basic cheese

While we certainly can't claim to be experts in the craft of artisan cheese makers, we're learning new things and finding new, exciting uses for the products that we make right here on our little homestead farm.

The Water Trough

In the pasture right next to the fence and adjacent to the garden, we have a 150 gallon water trough.  In the cool morning or late afternoon, the cows can always be found taking long, rejuvenating mouthfuls of water. One of the first things that I remembered learning when we purchased our cows is to never bother them when they are drinking water.  The book described their time at the water trough as "sacred time."

Cows, especially milk cows, need lots of fresh water.  Remarkably a Jersey cow drinks on average 30 gallons of water each day.  Apart from needing water for hydration just like you and me, she needs to drink 2 gallons of water to make one gallon of milk.  

At the water fountain

Looking at the cows lined up in front of the water fountain reminded me of standing in line at the water fountain in elementary school.  We'd come in from recess from playing football and we'd be all sweaty and smelling like dogs.  We would rush to the water fountain and stand in line waiting patiently for our turn.  The cool water was so refreshing.  I can remember it to this day.  We had three types of water fountains - one had a button that you would push down on to make the water come out, one had a foot pedal that you would stand on and another had a knob that you would turn to the right.

Some fountains would squirt the water higher than others and some fountains had water that was colder than others.  Those were the fountains that you wanted to drink from.  In other fountains the water would barely shoot above the nozzle, leading some people to almost put their lips on the nozzle.  Gross! We learned to steer clear of those.  Sometimes some uncouth people would spit their gum or other things in the drinking fountain drain, clogging up the works.  For some strange reason, and I guess it came from drinking long sips from the fountain while staring down into it, I can still remember the name of the drinking fountain as it was imprinted around the drain: Halsey Taylor.

Here is what I learned from the Halsey Taylor website (http://www.halseytaylor.com/about-ht.aspx):

In 1896, Halsey W. Taylor lost his father to typhoid fever caused by contaminated water. Years later, as a plant superintendent for the Packard Motor Car Company, Taylor noticed dysentery spreading quickly through the workers, and again suspected drinking water.

These personal experiences inspired Halsey W. Taylor to dedicate his life to providing a safe drink of water in public places. In 1912 he developed the Puritan Sanitary Fountain and began producing it at the original manufacturing site in Warren, Ohio.

That is very interesting.  Mr. Taylor had witnessed traumatic events caused by lack of clean, refreshing water and made it his life's work in supplying fresh drinking water for people, including young, sweaty boys waiting in lines after recess for a sip from a Halsey Taylor drinking fountain.  Thank you Mr. Taylor, my hat's off to you!

Now notice in the picture below, it is Rosie's turn to drink and she's standing there, no doubt annoying Daisy. She's also got some back-wash action dripping back into the trough from her mouth.  Not polite or sanitary, Rosie!

Gimme some water

When it gets above 85 degrees, the heat really saps the cows' energy.  You can watch them sitting in the shade panting.  They only eat in the early mornings and late afternoons after it has cooled off.  This will cause their milk production to fall off somewhat.  The heat really takes its toll on the old girls (me too!).  That is why it is so important to keep their water trough full of clean, fresh water.

Thank you for the water!

We make it a priority to fill the trough first with rainwater as long as we have it. We've experimented and believe it or not, the cows prefer rainwater to tap water and we theorize that they don't like the chlorination in tap water, so we sequester rainwater to fill the trough with.  Although they're not going to get the opportunity to drink from a Halsey Taylor drinking fountain like I did, we want to give them the next best thing.  

Happy Fourth of July

It is 12:01 am as I listen to fireworks still filling the night sky with sound and color. The Fourth of July.  The day we fly old Glory and think about Freedom.  We are about to lay our heads down on our pillows and sleep a restful night after spending a lazy afternoon eating barbecue, watermelon and brownies while the kids ran around with water balloons.  Before I go to bed, I want to give thanks to God for America. 

I love my country.  We have been blessed beyond measure and I count myself blessed to be born and live here.  It is not a perfect place, oh far from it, and I probably spend too much time lamenting over where I think we've gotten away from our spiritual and moral moorings, but I love freedom and the very fact that we can have differences with the way we're governed and we can speak out without fearing being locked up is a proof that we still have freedom. 

Image Credit

I pray for my Country and my Country's leaders and pray for a return to faith and morals, to honesty and integrity, to Truth and to justice.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD.  Psalm 33:12a

"We have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  John Adams (second President of the United States)

God Bless America                          

Making Tomato Sauce from Homegrown Tomatoes

Last week we put up 30 something pints of stewed tomatoes.  The tomato crop this year is one of our best so far and we're eating a whole lot, but it is time to put some more up.  This time we're going to make some tomato sauce, can it, and store away in the pantry.  We're starting out with 19 pounds of fresh tomatoes. We dunked them in boiling water for a brief time, pulled them out and put in cold water and then peeled the skin off and cored them.

As you can see by the tomatoes on the platter below, we have a wide assortment of heirloom tomatoes represented as we planted 14 different varieties.  Our personal favorite is Black Krim, but we'll mix them all up for making tomato sauce.

Skin-free and cored, ready to be pureed

We place handfuls of tomatoes into the food processor until it is full.  Many recipes call for using a food mill or food press, but we just use the food processor and it works fine.  Some of the heirloom tomatoes have what are called 'green shoulders' and we were a little concerned that it would affect the color of the tomato sauce, but you'll see in a minute that the color of the sauce was just fine.

Loading the food processor with fresh tomatoes

It is as easy as pressing a button and your nice tomatoes become tomato puree.

Tomatoes to Juice in a heartbeat

Now, you could pour this juice through a strainer to remove all the seeds from your tomato sauce, if you wish.  We like to make things as simple as possible, so our tomato sauce is going to have seeds in it.  We dump it all into a large pot on the stove top.

Many recipes call for adding garlic, basil, oregano or other seasonings or spices to the tomato sauce, but we're not going to do that as we want a neutral tomato sauce that we serve as a base for many meals that we'll season as we cook those meals.  Our tomato sauce will only contain tomatoes and two other ingredients that we'll add once it has finished cooking.  We'll get to that in a minute or two.

Pot of tomato sauce

We turn the stove on medium heat and will cook it for two hours, uncovered.  During that time the water will boil off in the form of steam, leaving you with a rich, reduced, high-flavor tomato sauce.

Now we're cookin'!

Special News Bulletin: Don't walk away from a pot of hot tomato sauce.  It will bubble over and make a big mess in your kitchen.  Let's just say I learned that lesson the hard way and leave it at that. You'll note that I have a wooden spoon laying across the top of the pot.  I read that doing so will keep the contents of a pot from boiling over and I wanted to test that theory to see if it was true.  Too bad I waited until after it had bubbled over or I could've reported if it is true or not. Supposedly the wooded spoon breaks the surface tension of the bubbles so it won't boil over.

A watched pot...

While your sauce is cooking down, you can wash up some 1/2 pint jars, reusable Tattler lids and gaskets, and rings. After two hours (or more... or less) or until the sauce has reached the thickness or consistency that you are looking for, Add 1/2 cup lemon juice and 2 teaspoons of salt to your sauce and stir it up.  Now all you have to do is get a ladle and get ready to go to work.  We actually used 1/2 pint as well as 3/4 pint jars.

Ladling the sauce

We use a canning funnel to direct the sauce into our jars.  

Using a funnel to fill jars

Once your jars are filled to within a half an inch from the top, use a rag to clean the rim.  You want to get a good seal. 

Cleaning off the rim of th jars

Affix your Tattler gasket to the rim and place the lid on top.

Rubber Gasket of the Tattler lid

So you've got your gasket on and your lid on.  Take your ring and tighten down and then back off, ever so slightly, about a quarter turn.  This is important as it allows the hot air to escape during processing!

Tightening (and loosening) the rings

Then place your filled jars into a water bath canner and begin heating up the water.

Adding the filled jars to the water

You'll want to process the jars in a water bath canner in boiling water for 30 minutes.

Processing the Tomato Sauce

Remove them from the water after 30 minutes and allow to cool on counter completely.

Homemade Tomato Sauce from Homegrown Tomatoes

Once they are completely cool, remove the rings and test for a good seal.  The way you do this is by picking up on the jars just by holding the white Tattler lid.  If it holds the weight - Great!  If not (and we had one that didn't seal), pour into a Ziploc bag and freeze it to use for later.  The rest will go into the pantry, right beside the stewed tomatoes.  In all we made 11 half pints and seven 3/4 pint containers of tomato sauce.

We did another batch the next day.  It was a lot of work, took a lot of time, and made a big mess in the kitchen.  One would wonder, is it worth it.  A quick price check showed that you can purchase Del Monte Organic Tomato Sauce for $0.45 per 8 oz can.  Honestly, if I factor in the value of my time, I can't make it any cheaper than that, but maybe my opinion of what my true cost of my time is inflated!

Nevertheless, the tomato sauce we made came fresh off of the land from vines on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm and was produced from tomatoes nurtured under the Jefferson Davis Parish sun and skies, nourished from bayou soils full of beneficial microbes and nutrients, and then selected and hand picked at the very zenith of their ripeness and flavor by loving hands before being gently and thoughtfully processed. Well, Del Monte can't do that, can they?

The Swing Blade

“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hmmm....  I'm not going to agree with ol' Ralph in this instance.  There is a sliver of land that abuts our property on the backside that grows up really tall in weeds.  The owner doesn't mow it and it can get to be overgrown, harboring thick clouds of mosquitoes that venture out from their weedy sanctuary to bite our ankles as we milk Daisy and Rosie.  For this reason, we'll often put the temporary electric fence up in what we call 'the sacrifice pasture' and allow the girls to mow down the tall weeds.

One problem though is that there are some invasive, bad weeds and grasses that I don't want growing seeds and populating our pasture.  One such weed that grows here is called the Tropical Soda Apple, I think.  It has long thorns on it and don't you ever make the mistake of grabbing it with your hands to try to uproot it. The thorns will stick you and pierce you to the bone.  Believe me.  I'd really rather not mow his property for him and one of my least favorite jobs is using the weed eater.  What to do?  What to do?

Weeds

Well, this seems like a job just meant for the old swing blade.  This is an old tool and I assume this implement was used prior to someone inventing the Weed Eater or String Trimmer.  I can remember many days in my youth using this bad boy out at the farm to clean up areas that surrounded plows and other equipment parked around the shop.

Behold the Swing Blade

Operating the swing blade doesn't take a lot of skill and you don't have to read an operator's manual to figure out what to do.  You simply grab the handle and swing it back and forth along the ground.  There is a blade that chops the weeds quickly and efficiently.  You never have to stop and change the string!  You do learn early on that it makes the job easier if you keep the blade sharpened on both sides.  Swinging the blade will turn a tall, weed-infested area into a somewhat manageable area (like below) in no time flat, if you don't mind a little sweat equity.  Once the weeds are out of the way, it will allow grasses to grow and crowd out any noxious weeds.  That's the goal, anyway.

Taming the jungle

It helps to wear gloves to use the swing blade.  This tool has no doubt spawned thousands of callouses throughout the ages since it was invented and gallons of the watery substance that filled the painful blisters, but that's not nice to think about. When Tricia and I first moved from Houston to the country, we didn't have a lawnmower yet, because we didn't need a lawnmower living in an apartment and a townhouse.  When we moved into a rent house and Tricia asked me how we were going to mow the yard, I handed her this very tool in my hand below.  For a split second, she believed me and thought that I expected her to mow the yard with it!

Get busy

So Saturday morning I walked around in the sacrifice pasture swinging the swing blade to eliminate the bad weeds that the cows won't eat.  If you don't mind some honest work, it is peaceful.  There is no loud, obnoxious noise of a weed eater, no strings to keep replacing, and no gas to burn other than your physical energy.  After a little while your t-shirt will be soaking wet with sweat, but you can get immediate gratification from your efforts as you see the swing blade taking gigantic swaths out of your weed problem with each swing.

Swish!  Swish!  Swish!

As you swing and get more practice, you find that you can give the ground a close 'shave' and can get right next to objects such as fences and trees without hitting them, but that does take some skill building with the tool.  You can see in the picture below, the old swing blade has been brazed and welded at least a couple of times in its long life.  The damage comes from hitting objects such as fence posts and stumps and whatnot. The swing blade is a survivor, though.  I would assume that many weed eaters have been thrown away during the life of this very tool, but the swing blade keeps right on running!  

I don't know if you can still purchase something like this.  I would assume the advent of weed eaters made this thing a relic only found in a cobweb filled corner your grandpa's garage or in a real old-time hardware store like Jenkin's Hardware in Oberlin, Louisiana.

Repair & Maintenance is sometimes, but rarely, needed.

The Swing Blade will run forever (literally) without needing to be refueled.  The operator of the swing blade, however, needs frequent refueling.  And that's when it is best to find a nice shade tree to lean the tool against and have a nice drink of cool water.

Water break

While drinking cold water, wiping the sweat from your forehead, catching your breath and listening to the birds sing, all seems right with the world.  In no time at all, the tool and the operator are swinging again, making significant dents in both the weed overgrowth and our sedentary lifestyles! 

From the Garden Plot to the Kitchen Pot

There is a really big push to buy local.  We like that.  Local could mean buying food grown by farmers in your town.  Or it could mean growing it yourself and walking right outside your backdoor, harvesting what you need, using mostly ingredients that you grew, and preparing a delicious meal.  We like to do that.  In fact, we'll do that today.  Come along as we walk out to the melon patch.

If you look in the center of the picture you'll see a yellow looking item.

What is it?

Well, this is a spaghetti squash and we'll show you in just a minute why it got its name.  The way you know that a spaghetti squash is ripe is if its skin is completely yellow with no green showing and if you can push your fingernail on the skin and it is hard and doesn't leave a mark.  This one passed the test, so we'll break it off and bring inside.

A ripened spaghetti squash

Let's prepare it for cooking.  Basically it is a simple task.  Cut off the stem and cut the spaghetti squash in half.  Then get a big spoon and scoop out all of the seeds from the center.

Halved spaghetti squash

Now you could just throw the refuse in the compost pile OR you could save the seeds, soak them and then bake them with some salt and spices.  We like to eat the seeds like this.  Alternatively, since these are open pollinated, heirloom seeds, you can save a few, dry them, and save them for seeds to grow another crop this fall since this is a winter squash.  

Scoopin' out the seeds

Put a little water in the bottom of a pan and place your squash 'meat side' down in the pan in the oven and bake at 375 for 1 hour.

Into the oven

Meanwhile, we'll prepare something to go on top of our spaghetti squash while we're waiting on it to cook. We select some red ripe tomatoes fresh-picked off the vine. They are heavy, bursting with juice and flavor and will be the perfect accompaniment to our spaghetti squash.

Fresh homegrown tomatoes

We're aiming for simplicity here.  We're using a recipe from the New York Times called 

Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce that we found: Here 

We select tomatoes that will yield 2 cups with the juices after they are cored and we put that in a cast iron pot.  Then we add 5 tablespoons butter.  Next we add one onion and salt.  That is it.  Now turn your stove top on medium heat and simmer uncovered for 45 minutes or so, stirring every once in a while to break up the chunks and incorporate the flavors.  Avoid the temptation to add anything else.

Our sauce for the spaghetti squash

While our sauce is simmering, the spaghetti squash will be done.  Pull out of the oven and grab a hot pad and a fork.

Start scraping

Work that fork scraping all of the insides of the squash into a serving dish.  Scrape down to the skin of the squash.

Getting the spaghetti out of the squash

If you ever wondered why it is called spaghetti squash, all you gotta do is look at the picture below.  Maybe it should have been named Angel Hair Pasta squash?

Can you see why it is called spaghetti squash?

Now, the dish would have a much darker, richer color, but we didn't follow the recipe to a 'T.'  The recipe calls for you to pull the onion out and discard.  We pureed the onion after cooking and reincorporated and it lightened the color of the sauce that negatively affected the visual appeal, I think.  But not the flavor!  We added a garnish of rosemary and spooned the sauce over the spaghetti squash. 

Grab a fork and sit down with us

We thanked the Good Lord for his provision and sat down to a nice meal.  From the garden plot to the kitchen pot all in less than 100 feet.  That's what I call a LOCAL meal!