Demo Of the Chicken Tractor

So now that we have a new chicken tractor built, the old chicken tractors out on the pasture need to be demolished.  It wasn't tops on the priority list, but needed to be done. The old chicken tractors are falling apart and are definitely eyesores.  If we lived in an area with a Homeowner's Association, we'd be fined or kicked out of the neighborhood for sure.  For this and other reasons.

I brought a hammer, a crowbar, and a drill and began taking one of the two apart.  I saved the nails and screws as I didn't want the cows or goats stepping on them or ingesting them. I don't want to experience hardware disease.  I stacked the tin on top of the other old chicken tractor that will be torn down later.  We can re-use the tin.  As far as the lumber is concerned, some of it is rotten, while some can still be used.  The rotten wood goes on the burn pile, but the good lumber goes in a stack to be reused.

The remaining chicken tractor will likely come down this week, weather permitting. I want to show you something up close, if you can see the photo below clearly. Right in the center is a big hole in the chicken wire.

You know what caused that?  Goats!  Mischievous goats are always getting into trouble. They always try to get where they are not allowed.  Seeing this, it accentuates the need to make sure that before I roll the new chicken tractor in the pasture, I have it protected.  I don't want the goats to break through the wire on the new chicken tractor trying to get to the chicken feed or trying to get in out of the rain.

With some roofing nails, some hardware cloth, and the salvageable lumber from the first chicken tractor we tore down, I was able to build a nifty drying apparatus for our onions. Things just keep being re-used around here until it can't be used for anything else.

Once the onions have cured, I'll take the onion drying rack apart and roll up the hardware cloth and we'll use it again later on.

KFC and the American Dream

Image Credit

I read an Alaska Dispatch News Article that made me smile and proud to live in America - the land of opportunity, where, believe it or not, one can still live the American Dream. I'll cut and paste some excerpts from the article below written by Charles Wohlforth, but I really recommend you clicking on the hyperlink above to read the whole thing.

Tuoi Yungbauer escaped Saigon days before the city fell to the North Vietnamese army in 1975. A year later, she got a job at the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant at Northern Lights Boulevard and C Street (in Anchorage).  She still works there.

I went to meet Yungbauer because I had never heard of anyone working 41 years at a fast-food counter. But instead of getting a story about an oddity, I learned about strength, perseverance and the promise of America.  Yungbauer can't help smiling. I watched at the end of a long shift as she greeted each customer with wide-eyed excitement. Her co-workers said she fires them up too.

Yungbauer bought a house in the 1980s, after the economy crashed and empty homes dotted Anchorage.  She had saved $20,000 from 10 years of fast-food wages. So she bought a $20,000 house. (Her pay started at $3.65 an hour; now she makes $10.50.) 

But at first she couldn't live in her cottage in Mountain View. The inside was wrecked, without insulation, needing a complete remodel.  Yungbauer borrowed a book about framing, drywall and roofing. She bought lumber one piece at a time and brought it home on her bicycle.  She figured out, with her small size, how to get heavy sheets of drywall to the ceiling. She textured it with a rainbow pattern.

Tuoi bought a 20-year-old Pontiac because Anchorage's bus system didn't run during some of her work hours. She paid $200 for the car and loves it.  She eats rice and homegrown vegetables. She still sews clothes. She has gone back to Vietnam for dental work and an eye operation to save money.

But while she and Albert don't have enough money to do anything for fun, they are fun. They laugh and tease. Albert has red hair, and Tuoi calls him "the volcano."

This is my favorite part:

Anchorage is home now. She became an American citizen in 1978. When she goes back to Vietnam, people tell her she speaks the language with an American accent.  She said most people in Anchorage are friendly, but she sometimes runs into bigots.
"They say, 'Why don't you go back home?' And I say, 'Hey, wait a minute, I didn't ask you for anything. I worked for my money,' " she said.  I told her that story made me angry. She said, "I think they're very insecure for themselves."
I grew up in Anchorage with every advantage. America gave me incredible opportunities and asked for next to nothing in return.

Tuoi is quite a hero!  I love reading stories like this about people who are small in stature (the article states she is 4'8"), but are actually larger than life.  A couple of years ago I was at an LSU football game and there was a large group of Vietnamese LSU Alumni that were tailgating next to us.  They invited us over to eat with them and we ate all sorts of delicious food.  They told us stories similar to Tuoi's about how they came over to the United States after the fall of Saigon.

They told us about how their families settled in South Louisiana and worked on shrimp boats and restaurants and how they went to LSU and got educated.  They introduced us to brothers, cousins and uncles who were now doctors, dentists, lawyers, and engineers. They LOVE America and the opportunity they were given to become successful.  I admire the work ethic, the dedication, and drive these wonderful Americans have.

I don't know who to attribute this saying to, but I think it holds true:

Hard times make strong men.

Strong men create good times.

Good times create weak men.

Weak men create hard times.

Putting up Tomatoes - June 2017

The tomato crop is coming in fast and furious.  Each day I'm picking a nice big bunch of heirloom tomatoes off of the many different varieties we grow.  In past years, I've waited until the tomatoes are red and ripe, but this year I've changed my strategy.  I'm never afraid of trying new things.  I learned that if I waited until they were ripe, the stink bugs damaged them so badly that they were ugly.  If the stink bugs didn't get them, then big black worms bored into them, ruining them.  Finally, if they were able to mature prior to the stink bugs and worms attacking them, then the squirrels and birds ransacked them.

Enough! I said.  Now my new strategy is to pick them off the vine when the begin to turn pink.  I bring them inside and allow them to ripen minus all the competition outside from bugs, worms, squirrels and birds.  In 2 or 3 days, they are ready to eat. So far I've met with success and will continue this process.  You live and learn.  For the past two years, we've eaten some and froze some, but we didn't really have enough to can.  Fortunately this year was different.

Due to the different varieties, the tomatoes are all different types and sizes.  I like the variety.

The plethora of delicious produce we have makes everyone smile...

The only problem with the tomato harvest is that we're producing more than we can keep up with.  I'll admit - this isn't really a problem as we put tomatoes up in the pantry.  Tricia put up a bunch of stewed tomatoes in pint jars the other day.  This weekend it was raining and we couldn't do anything outside so we made salsa.

In This Post from 2014 we showed the recipe and process for making homemade salsa.  We made a batch using 20 pounds of tomatoes.

It took us a while to process all the tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers and spices, but we finally did it and in so doing, we filled the biggest pot in the kitchen.

That looks delicious and it is not even done yet!

At long last we have a rolling boil and we'll just let it cook for a bit, reducing so that the flavors are concentrated and the consistency is right.

We canned 10 quarts of salsa when all was said and done.  In readying the pantry to stack these quarts of salsa up, we discovered some of the salsa we made back in 2014.  The seal was still good, so I popped one of the jars open.  Still delicious!  We made quick work of emptying the pint jar while talking in the kitchen.

Two and a half gallons of salsa!  It is nice to have this put away.  We'll enjoy eating all of this within the next year.  This batch is special as it is the first year we've made it with our homegrown onions as an ingredient.  Stewed tomatoes?  Check.  Salsa? Check.  We're eating lots of pico de gallo now.  We plan on drying some tomatoes next with rosemary.  Those came out great the last time we made it.

"Weighing" Luna

Luna, our little Jersey heifer, was born in late October 2015.  She is small in stature. We have a registered Jersey bull named "Chuck" on the herd, but we have had Luna separated from him until she was big enough to safely breed.  Chuck roams with Daisy and Rosie and Clarabelle.  We recently had our veterinarian make a farm call so that he could palpate the cows.  We found that Chuck had successfully bred both Rosie and Clarabelle.  Daisy was still 'open,' but we saw activity during Daisy's last cycle and think she was exposed.  Hopefully she is now bred.  We'll have to wait and see.

Here's the thing: Chuck is getting big and is starting to get mean and ornery.  He likes to hit you with his head when you walk out in the pasture.  Jersey bulls can be very dangerous and we don't want him on the pasture for much longer.  Our goal (and why we named him Chuck) is for him to breed all of our cows and then send him to the slaughterhouse.  This leads us back to the subject of this post - Luna.

As I was saying, she is small.  Tricia is concerned that she is too small to breed.  The only way to know for sure is to weigh her.  Since we don't have a scale, we use the next best thing - a weighing tape.  This tape has weight markings on it for Holsteins, Guernseys, and Jerseys.  The Jersey markings are the markings on the bottom row. If you look closely, the verbiage along the bottom says, "Lightest Jersey Breeding Weight."  The black line says that the lightest weight for Jerseys is 530 pounds.

You are supposed to put the weighing tape around her body right behind her front legs.  Then put the tape together and the weight is where the tape meets.  In this case, we see that Luna weighs 550 pounds.  She is 20 pounds heavier than the lightest Jersey breeding weight.  Although she is small, according to this, she can safely breed.

This is good news to us.  At some point next week, we will likely put all the cows and heifers together on the pasture.  The next time Luna comes in heat and if Daisy comes in heat again, Chuck can service them.  If successful, we'll have four baby Jersey calves within the next year, some coming as soon as in about 5 months.

Luna has been cordoned off it her own pasture up to this point.  Now that she is of calving age and size as confirmed by the weigh tape, we can introduce her to Chuck.

Leavin' On A Jet Plane...

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go, I'm standing here outside your door...

The year I was born (1966), John Denver wrote a song that was later sung by the trio Peter, Paul, and Mary and was a big hit.  The song, of course, was "Leavin' on a jet plane."  This past weekend our oldest daughter, Laura Lee, left on a jet plane en route to Capetown, South Africa, where she'll spend the summer on a mission trip with a group from her church.

Tricia and I drove her to Dallas where she boarded a British Airways flight that (much later) landed in London at Heathrow airport.  The next day she boarded another long flight to Johannesburg and then another to Capetown.  We kept track of all the flights on the flight tracking site, FlightAware.

Here we are in the airport waiting for another member of her group.  We made it to the airport after making only a few wrong turns.  We joked around, saying, "Maw & Paw come to the city!" Laura is actually joining the rest of the group a little late. Since she is a teacher, she couldn't leave until her school let out for the summer.

Laura met up with one of the members of her group, checked her two bags, and got ready to board.

She'll be coming back in mid to late July, so that she'll have a couple of days to get over jet lag before she has to report back to school to get ready for a new class of third graders to teach.

We told her goodbye and put her in God's hands.

So kiss me and smile for me

Tell me that you'll wait for me

Hold me like you'll never let me go

'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane

Don't know when I'll be back again

Oh babe, I hate to go

From Farm To Table

Farm to Table is easier said than done.  We talked about the tomatoes last week. This week we are battling the birds for our blueberries.  Tricia tried the old trick of tying pie pans from a string on the blueberry bushes to frighten the birds away. Actually I think I saw a bluejay picking blueberries and filling up one of the pans before flying away with it balanced on his head.  Maybe I didn't actually see that.

I also tried tying a white rubber snake to the blueberry bushes, but I'm not sure of the efficacy of this tactic since there probably aren't a lot of albino snakes in the area and birds wouldn't be afraid of it - especially one hanging by its neck.

We have also been peppering the birds from the back porch with .22 rifles. Benjamin ended the life of a blackbird this afternoon that had an affinity for our blueberries.  Thou Shalt Not Steal!

Anyway, we have been able to pick a good bit of blueberries so far and have a lot more to pick provided we keep the birds in check.  We eat a lot of them just snacking on them.  This morning before church, we made our favorite - blueberry pancakes!

We spoon a good sized bit of batter on the cast iron griddle and flatten it out a bit. Then we sprinkle a few fresh-picked blueberries atop the pancake batter.

I put a bit more batter on top to cover up the blueberries.

I flip them once so that they cook to perfection on both sides, and they come out golden brown.

There's only one problem with homemade blueberry pancakes made with blueberries grown right out in the backyard...

They don't last long around our house!

Something To Chew On

Do you ever go through times in your life where you find yourself in a rut?  Maybe you start comparing your position in life to others around you?  You look at your goals and where you thought you'd be at this particular station in life and you feel like you are running to stand still.  I think most people go through this and it was where I was just the other day.  A pity party, you might call it.

As I walked outside, a friend drove up.  This particular friend has had some serious health issues.  I asked him how he was doing and he said he feels so blessed by God.  He went on to tell me that he grew up in a 24 x 24 home with no interior walls and unfinished on the outside with only tar paper covering the exterior of the home. They had an outhouse in the back and used a 5 gallon bucket for a bathroom inside. He told me that he learned to use a cutting torch at 10 years old as their family collected scrap iron to sell, and he told me how rough his hands were from handling the junk iron, "scrapping."

This man went on to have a successful career, raising a family, putting a son through college and despite problems, he tries to focus on his blessings and not his troubles.  It was as if God had sent him to me with a message that I desperately needed to hear at exactly the time I needed to hear it. I thanked my friend for giving me a glimpse into his tough upbringing at a time that I needed to hear it.

Embarrassingly, I don't always count my blessings of things that God has given me.  Things like a loving wife, my three kids, a supportive Mom & Dad and family, good friends, a loving church family, and the prayers of all of those I mentioned.

We ALWAYS have good food on the table.  In fact, I walked inside the back door and I could smell fresh chanterelle mushrooms that a friend dropped off that he picked in the woods.  He blessed us with the 'shrooms' and we shared some potatoes and peppers with him.  The chanterelles were being sauteed in a cast iron skillet with onions and peppers.
 

Right next to it, I lifted the lid off of the cast enamel dutch oven to find smothered chicken with fresh tomatoes and yellow squash.

We sat down at the table and joined hands and sincerely thanked God for His provision.  We eat like kings and many across the world go to bed hungry.

He is Good.  He is Faithful and True.  His love endures forever.

In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  1 Thessalonians 5:18