Friday, January 8, 2016

A Tasty (Easy) Way to Prepare Turnips

I have had my eye on three big turnips that came up volunteer this year in the garden from seed from last year.  The foliage is huge and lush.  I wasn't the only one looking endearingly at the turnips.  The cows assembled by the garden fence to admire it as well.

The turnip greens are healthy
A quick tug brought the turnip root out of the soft, rich soil, yielding a fine looking turnip root, wider than my foot!

The turnip root is fat!
Now, in what might seem to be sacrilege to some, instead of cooking down the turnip greens and serving them and the pot liquor over hot buttered cornbread, I used my pocketknife to cut the turnip greens off and tossed them over the garden fence to the cows, goat and chickens, who promptly moo'd, baa'd and clucked approvingly of my generous offering.

Sharing the wealth with our animals
I brought the three big turnip roots inside, scrubbed the roots clean, and used Tricia's nifty QVC vegetable chopper to quickly dice the turnips into a uniform size. Those three roots filled the 'catch' container beneath the chopper almost 3/4 of the way.

Chop! Chop!
I poured about half of the bowl of diced turnip roots on a baking pan one layer deep.  Then I drizzled olive oil, salt, and cracked black pepper over the turnip roots and stirred them all up with a wooden spoon to coat the surfaces of the turnips with oil and salt & pepper.  Finally I spread them all out one layer deep and began preheating the oven to 400 degrees.

Olive oil, salt and pepper
Here is the "before" shot.  They look just like potatoes, don't they?  In fact, I toyed around with the idea of telling Benjamin that they were potatoes so that he would try them, but figured that was too deceptive!  Turnips have never been a real favorite of mine.  Probably for the reason that I'm fooled visually into thinking that they are potatoes.  When I eat them, in my opinion, they have a sharp finishing taste that is just too strong for me.  I've been looking for a way to prepare them where I'll like them.

Turnips - Before
When the oven had reached 400 degrees, I put them in.  Every so often, I would stir them.  To tell you the truth, I didn't even time how long I left them in the oven. When they had browned and were soft, I pulled them out and served them as a side dish to some spaghetti and salad.

Turnips - After
Here's the verdict: They were very tasty.  Actually, it is my favorite way (so far) to prepare them.  They were soft with a roasted flavor and the sharp taste that I found unpleasant was gone.  I finished the ones on my plate and brought the leftovers to work today.  This weekend I'll roast the remaining half bowl of diced turnips that I had left.

The two rows of turnips that I planted in the garden for the cows are still small - only about two inches high right now, but I'll harvest a few of those when ready and roast them for sure!

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Stuck on You

I drive a little Honda Civic that I use to commute to work each day.  It is a used car whose odometer is quickly approaching 200,000 miles.  It is not a glamorous vehicle, by any stretch of the imagination, it gets me from point A to point B, safely and economically.  The front grill fell off of the car on the way to work one day, the headliner has started to sag and fall, and the seats have burn marks in them and the car continues to smell like a smoker's car a full two years after purchasing it. Furthermore, there is a leak around the gasket on the windshield and it rains in the car, wetting the carpet.  This adds a complex musty-mildew smell to the stale cigarette permeated interior.

I noticed the other day that with 10 months left to go until re-inspection, that my vehicle inspection sticker has curled and unpeeled from the windshield.  I've never had that happen before.  I assumed that the humidity from evaporating wet carpet caused this to happen.

Coming Un-glued!
Since I sit at a desk all day long, I try to get as much exercise as I can so I employ several tricks like making it a habit to always stand up and walk around in the office when I'm on the phone.  Another one is that I park in almost the farthest parking spot possible away from the building I work in.  This makes me have to walk a decent distance in the morning and in the afternoon.

As I walked across the parking lot, I noticed, to my surprise, that many people's inspection stickers were peeling off in addition to mine!  What is going on?  Well, Google is your friend and I found the answer in THIS ARTICLE.  It seems that a defective batch of adhesive from the vendor supplying the inspection stickers has caused the paper backing to peel off.  Police Officers won't issue tickets for this unless the sticker is expired.  If the paper completely falls off (as mine has done since I took these pictures), motorists are told to keep the fallen sticker to show officers, if they do get stopped.  

There's good news, though - help is on the way in the form of new improved inspection stickers.  The new inspection stickers have this glitch corrected and upon re-inspection, your old sticker will be replaced by a new, better one.  As I walked to the office, I thought about this.  At the risk of being overly dramatic, I think that peeling sticker is just like me.  Defective. Wanting to peel away from what holds me, but desperately hanging on.  Falling apart before my "expiration date." Help is on the way for our fragile, defective human state as well, if you know the LORD:
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.                   1 Corinthians 15:42-44
Furthermore, there is coming a day, when all will be made new!  All the sorrows, frailty, pain and death will be no more!:
  
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”  And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”                       Revelation 21:1-5
Holding on for dear life
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.  1 Corinthians 15:58
In layman's terms, the Apostle Paul was saying this: "Yes, help is on the way.  Trust Him.  Hold on.  Don't give up.  Stick by Him.  He is Faithful."

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Feeding The Soil

Over the holidays I ate a lot.  The gumbos, rice & gravy, traditional holiday meals, not to mention the sweets and goodies that I always have trouble saying "No" to, have made my pants fit a little tighter than I'd like.  In addition to eating more 'comfort foods' during the winter months, the short days leave me with fewer daylight hours to work those additional calories off.  It is only in the spring with the longer days that I am able to bring some balance back into the "eat less and move around more" axiom of weight loss and health.

While I need to feed myself LESS, I'm always looking to feed my soil more and that opportunity presented itself recently.  A dear friend of ours had raked her yard. She's a big advocate of composting and put many bags of leaves into her flower beds, but had 18 bags of leaves left that were going to go to the dump.  She knew that I would be appreciative of them and called me.  You've never seen anyone more excited about bags of leaves!  Russ drove over in his pickup truck and loaded them in, strapping them down so they wouldn't blow out on Interstate 10.

I had the perfect spot picked out for the leaves.  The land slopes southward and the lower end of the garden stays muddy, despite the raised beds.  I determined that I would dig trenches between the rows of turnips and bury all of the leaves.  I've found that trench composting organic matter attracts earthworms and improves soil fertility.  In the summer, digging these trenches would have been a real chore, but with all of the rainfall, it was easy.

Digging a hole
I know the depth of the hole is hard to see in the photo above but I dug the trench about a foot deep and about two feet long, laying all the dirt on the side.  Then I dumped the contents of the bag into the hole.

Emptying the bag
The leaves billowed out of the hole, but I had a plan to fix that.  I jumped on top of the leaf pile like a kid, stomping the leaves down.  Like a compactor, I mashed the leaves down into the hole until they filled the 1 foot deep by 2 feet wide trench perfectly. 

Making them fit
Then while I was standing on the leaves in the hole, I grabbed my shovel and pulled the dirt over the top of the crushed leaves in the hole, filling it all in.  Then I moved over and began the hole err whole process again.  I repeated that down two 30 foot rows, filling in the space between the raised beds. Over the course of the next year those leaves will decompose and add organic matter to the soil.

Filling in the hole
Here is a photo of the finished process after I had completed the first row.  Then I moved to the row on the right.

One down, one to go!
Although it is a little hard to tell from the photo above, burying the leaves raised the level of the grown between the raised beds almost level with the rows.  In the past, the trenches between the raised rows held water during rains.  Now that water runs off into the pasture, eliminating scald damage by standing water that I had experienced previously.

Each year I rotate the position of my rows.  In year one I grown crops on a row.  In year two, the trench area becomes the row that I plant on.  This allows me to "rest the soil" each year in the same garden plot.  Next year the vegetables will send their roots down into decomposed leaves with a nice population of earthworms.  That will translate into nice vegetables for our table.  The leaves that were heading to the Landfill were used in my land fill.  Nice!

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

A Little Sunshine in a Half Pint Jar

A well known (albeit odd) song by the Beatles starts off with these weird lyrics:

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies

Now to be frank with you, while we do have tangerine trees as we talked about in This Post from Last Month, we do NOT have marmalade skies.  As a matter of fact, the skies lately have been slate grey and gloomy, especially early Saturday morning.  But the song got me thinking.  We can brighten the skies, so to speak, by making some Tangerine Marmalade.  I googled several different recipes and finally decided to use the one from This Blog Site. 

I picked a bucket of tangerines off of the tree and washed them, scrubbing them to remove grime and any dust/dirt.  This is important, since you are eating the entire fruit.  I was reading something yesterday during lunch about a guy who talked of his weird eating habits.  He said that he ate the entire apple - seeds, core and stem and also did the same thing with oranges and lemons.  He did mention that when eating bananas, he did NOT eat the banana peel.  Anyway, in making marmalade, you DO eat the peel of the tangerine, but you take out the seeds.  

I stacked the tangerines up on the scale to get the right weight for the recipe.  Just look at how these beautiful tangerines brighten up the room!:

Bright & Sunny
But let's back up a bit and look at the ingredients.  I doubled up the recipe in the above mentioned link, because I want to make some of this as gifts.  Here's what I used:

  • 6 pounds of tangerines (about 23 of them)
  • 2 huge Meyer lemons that we traded for some fresh milk
  • 3 cups water
  • 9 cups sugar (I know, I know.  That is a lot of sugar, but as I told my kids, that is what jelly, jam, preserves are: fruit and sugar)

The ingredients
If your olfactory system is in good working order, this part will make you happy and fill your kitchen with great citrus fragrance.  Take a sharp knife and cut the lemons and tangerines into thin slices.  I aimed for 1/4 inch thickness, but it was hard to do on the ends.  As I sliced I removed the seeds.  The seeds were the only item other than the stem end that went into the compost pile as you use the entire fruit for the recipe.  The juice burst from the cut citrus burning my fingers, but smelling so good.

The smell is great!
All of the sliced fruit goes into a big pot along with the water and you bring it to a quick boil.  

Bring it to a quick boil
Once you have a rolling boil, you can let it simmer for 5 minutes and then cover and take it off of the burner.  Allow it to sit in the pot for 12-18 hours.  I assume this gives the fruit flavor to really infuse the contents of the pot.

Quickly Boil and then Wait Patiently
The next morning I added the 9 cups of sugar to the pot and stirred it all up.

Sugar.  Lots of sugar
The contents of the pot are brought to a full boil.  While you are waiting for it to boil remember that "A watched pot never boils," so get another pot of water boiling and sterilize your jars, lids, rings, and gaskets, if you are using Tattler lids.  

Continue stirring constantly until the contents of the pot have almost reached a gelling point. 

Almost ready for the jars
Then ladle the hot mixture into your sterilized jars using a canning funnel.  I tasted a big chunk of lemon/tangerine at this point and it was good - really good.

Filling the jars
The lids, (gaskets) and rings are put on the jars and placed in a water bath canner.  When the water begins to boil, start your timer and allow to process for 15 minutes.

Splish Splash
Here is a spoonful of freshly made Tangerine Marmalade.  The marmalade was looking for a biscuit (or a girl with kaleidoscope eyes!), but alas, there were no biscuits to be found, so I put a slice of bread in the toaster to serve as the delivery mechanism to bring the spoonful of marmalade to my mouth.

Tangerine Marmalade
The taste was great and the jars seemed to have a light source all of its own - brightening up a dark corner of the kitchen while the jars cooled.

Cooling down on the cooling racks
I placed one of the jars on the window sill to contrast against the grey skies.  It was like sunshine in a half pint jar!

Here comes the sun!
Tangerine Marmalade!  We normally just make blackberry and grape jelly, so this was a new twist for us to spread on biscuits, toast, etc.  I also read that that it makes a delicious glaze to put on ribs, chicken, fish, ham, and to put on top of cake and cheesecake.  So many new things to try!

Monday, January 4, 2016

Putting up Fencing

Saturday January 2nd was a gray, chilly day - one of those gloomy winter-like days that is perfect for sitting in front of the fireplace, looking at seed catalogs, and planning the spring garden.  But there was work to be done.  At 10:30 a.m. Russ, Benjamin and I arrived at the farm in Oberlin.  Dad's rye grass field (which looks 100% better than ours) needed a little work.  Dad mixed wheat seed in with his rye grass and it is thick and healthy.

We always put a dividing fence right down the middle to separate the field into two large paddocks. The electric fence is then turned on and the cows are put into one half of the pasture to eat.  Later they are moved to the other side and in such fashion half of the field is 'resting' and growing.  If you left the cows in one side for too long, in their exuberance to eat the lush, green grass, they would walk around and mash all the grass into the mud, ruining a lot of it.  Rotational grazing prolongs the life of the pasture.

Lush, green pasture under a gloomy, grey sky
With the abundance of rain we've received lately, the field was saturated with water and muddy.  We had to put the Kubota ATV in four wheel drive to make it through the muck.  Dad stood at the other end of the field right in the middle and we drove to him.  Then we strung the electric wiring from one end to the other, pulling it tight.  Once the fence was pretty tight, we had the straight line traced to put in the T-posts, ensuring a straight fence.

Putting up fencing
We do this job every year at this time like clockwork.  The job is not for average folks, no sir.  This job requires a PhD - in this case that doesn't mean a Doctorate of Philosophy.  It means a Post Hole Driver.  My nephew and Russ and Benjamin split up the jobs.  Since I'm the oldest, I had the easy job.  I stepped off 15 steps and put a post in the ground.  Russ was the post driver, banging the T-post into the ground with a banger and Benjamin drove the Kubota, delivering the posts as we'd go along.  Conner would then attach the plastic insulator to the T-post and put the electric wire on the insulator.
Division of labor
Then we took a lunch break and headed to Oberlin.  Right down Main Street there is a grocery store called Landreneau's.  As you exit the vehicle in the parking lot, the aroma of smoking meats fills your nostrils.  The smokehouse is billowing out back and the scent beckons you inside.  They have a full service meat market and deli and their meat case is filled with fresh smoked sausage of all varieties, smoked rabbits stacked high, stuffed ponce, stuffed pork roast, a big pile of smoked pork ribs, and a wide assortment of other specialty meats like cream cheese and jalapeno pork pinwheels and bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers.  Landreneau's also has the best hamburger around.  Huge, freshly ground meat patties in a buttered bun, loaded with onions, pickles, lettuce and tomatoes.  You need both hands to hold this burger.  You need a big appetite to finish it, but we had that covered. The only hard part was going back to work after lunch!  I needed a nap instead.

With our fuel tanks topped off with the Landreneau burger, we were powered with sufficient energy to finish the task.

Gittin' it done!
In no time the task was complete.  In a day or two the happy cows will be turned into one half of the pasture and they'll eat to their heart's content on that green, green grass.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Looking Ahead And Looking Back a Little

Each and every year on December 31st we do the same old thing to bring in the New Year and celebrate Russ' birthday that happens to be on New Year's Eve.  We don't watch the ball drop and sometimes we don't even make it until midnight.  We do out to the pasture and light a big bonfire that is made up of all the limbs and branches that fall out of the trees throughout the year.  One year it was so big the fire trucks came to the house after someone called and reported that our barn was on fire!

Usually the bonfires are a lot bigger than the one we lit up this year.  We've had several smaller bonfires throughout the year that burned up some of the wood.  As much fun as gigantic bonfires are, huge piles of wood have their downside as well. Chickens like to roost in them and hide out and lay their eggs deep within the pile where you can't get to their eggs.  Then rats like to hide out in the large woodpiles, making their home and raising their rodent families.  One year we lit the pile up and rats began scurrying from their hot habitat.  In true redneck revelry, bonfire watchers began chasing rats and stomping them or hitting them with sticks.  That's fun for the whole family, I tell you.

The annual bonfires are held in our pasture and as the fire begins blazing, the cows come around and watch alongside us.  Just like us they are mesmerized by the flames.

Daisy and Russ staring into the fire
It was a chilly night so it felt good to have a large fire heating up the surrounding area.  Prior to starting the fire, we prepared our meal for the evening.  It was an old Boy Scout meal that we called foil meals or silver turtles.  It is very easy to make and easy to clean up afterwards.  Simply make a ground beef patty and season it. Then take a square of aluminum foil and arrange some sliced potatoes on the bottom.  Place your beef patty on top and then add sliced carrots, peppers, and lots of onions on top.  Finally fold up the aluminum foil securely and then wrap with another sheet of aluminum foil.

Daisy wishing Russ Happy Birthday
We waited patiently for the fire to burn down to where it was only coals.  At this point you place the foil meals directly on the coals and allow to cook for 15 minutes. Then flip the foil meal over and allow to cook for an additional 15 minutes.  Then it is ready to eat.  Pull them off of the coals and open up the foil.  You can eat with a fork directly from the foil and roll up your foil when finished eating for quick cleanup.

Eat Mor Chikn
The foil meals were delicious.  I must admit I felt a little guilty smelling the aroma of beef cooking and then eating beef while accompanied by our milk cows.  I thought they would come out with signs that said, "Eat Mor Chikn" or something! Later on Russ and Benjamin went to the local Fireworks tent and purchased a variety pack of fireworks for $20.  We popped fireworks in the backyard literally watching $20 bucks go up in smoke, but we had a good time.

The next day we continued with our fiery ways and started a fire in the fireplace. We got out photo albums and began looking at things we've done in the past as a family, looking back a little bit of time we shared together and good family times we've had over the past years.  I think it shows the importance of family and togetherness and sets the table for that basis of family times to be carried over into 2016 and years forward.

Looking in the past with eyes on the future
Hopefully, if the Good Lord's willing, we'll make more memories in 2016...

Friday, January 1, 2016

New Year Thoughts

Image Credit
Happy New Year, Everyone.  Another Year full of new beginnings, potential and promise.  I'm not real big on making New Year's Resolutions as I have a bad habit of setting some high and unachievable goals that I usually fail to reach.  Then I tend to dwell on the failures and regrets of the past year or years.  I think it is best to look ahead like this verse says:

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:13-14

As we were driving back home from our trip that I'll talk about a little bit later, I heard the following song by Rascal Flatts that has some great lyrics that (I think) are appropriate for New Years.  The song is essentially talking about a wish that a father has for his daughter, but it can really be a blessing - hopes that one has for the future.  I've posted the video of the song below that you can listen to if you click the button in the middle of the image below.  I also attached the lyrics below the video.  I think the words are powerful and inspirational.  I hope you enjoy. I hope you have a Happy New Year, too!


I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slow,
And each road leads you where you wanna go,
And if you're faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
And if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin' till you find the window,
If it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile.
But more than anything, more than anything

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

I hope you never look back, but you never forget,
All the ones who love you, in the place you live,
I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
And you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God's grace, in every mistake,
And always give more than you take.
But more than anything, yeah, more than anything

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish. Yeah, yeah.

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish (my wish, for you).

This is my wish (my wish, for you)
I hope you know somebody loves you (my wish, for you).
May all your dreams stay big (my wish, for you)
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