Real quick update on the seedlings we started indoors on January 1st. We always plant numerous varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. It's a new year and time to get things off on a new start. So we start seeds. We had great germination and everything was up and growing. In fact, the tomatoes were getting 'leggy,' so we got some new grow lights at Lowe's. They are LED lights. We had always used fluorescent lights in the past. Well, I didn't read the directions and I put the lights too close to the plants. The weirdest thing happened. Some of the tomato plants got very sick - so much so that I may lose them.
Some of them, however, are mostly unaffected. We've moved them out from under the lights and have put them in the window sill. Hopefully, they'll recover.
The peppers and eggplant take longer to germinate and seem to be relatively unaffected by their proximity to the grow light.
Our plan is to get these in the ground as soon as the fear of frost is gone. In looking at our forecast, I will wait for a couple of weeks. This weekend we have some unusually cold weather moving in, with weather on Monday projected to have a high of 34 and a low of 19. That doesn't happen often in South Louisiana. B-r-r-r-r-r! I may re-pot the tomatoes in a bigger pot, though, this weekend. This will give me an opportunity to separate them and give them a dose of fish emulsion foliar feeding to perk them up.
There was much happiness, love, joy, and celebration going on. Benjamin's dorm is still closed due to damages from Hurricane Laura, but we just moved him into an apartment. Our 'little bird has flown from the nest' and is in a nest of his own now. The family wanted to show him that we love the old dude.
Belle celebrated her birthday with reckless abandon, running through the den, with huge tail wagging. Her birthday would have been perfect if she would have been allowed to go chase our chickens or goats or eat a turtle or roll around on a dead animal in the road. Those are all fun things for dogs, to be sure, but she still had a mediocre time with us.
The night was topped off by enjoying a delicious cake that Tricia made for Benjamin. It is a mint chocolate chip chocolate cake topped with chocolate ganache and whipped cream and garnished with an Andes chocolate mint.
Goodness gracious! My blood sugar is spiking just looking at that plate of deliciousness. Happy Birthday again, Benjamin and Belle!
Here are most of our pullets that currently reside in our chicken tractor. We've shown them to you before. Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds lay the brown eggs and the Easter Eggers lay blue, green and pink eggs. On January 25th, we posted about how they started to lay their first eggs. Tiny eggs slightly larger than a golf ball at first, but they'll get to normal size soon. I call these first eggs, "Pullet Bullets."
I tried to put some nesting boxes in the tractor full of hay, but the pullets (young hens) would have nothing to do with them. In fact, they scratched all the hay out of the boxes and now they just lay their eggs all over the ground. I'll have to work on a solution for this. You can see the four brown eggs from either the barred rocks or Rhode Island Reds lying on the grass.
And there is a blue egg from an Easter Egger near the nesting box (egg crate). I had a nice nest of soft hay for them to lay their eggs in, but nope. She said, I'll just lay it straight on the ground, she says.
Take a look at the photo below. This is a zoom-in of the door to the chicken tractor. You can see the latch on the outside. It is hanging down right underneath the leaf caught in the chicken wire. That latch is the door latch on the outside that must be opened to enter. Let me tell you the reason for the installation of the new shiny latch on the INSIDE of the tractor.
One afternoon last week, Tricia went out to feed the pullets. She entered the door like she always does and began to feed them. The Easter Egger birds are wild. They get spooked easily and they fly about the cage in a rampage. Tricia had closed the door, but there was no way to latch it from the inside. The wild birds flew into the door knocking it wide open. Then every single bird escaped.
Tricia was by herself. She went and got a net and trying to corral them back in. She got a few in, but then she had to open the door to let others in and they all got out again. Tricia told me that she was convinced that the neighbors were watching her and laughing at her follies, running about like a chicken with her head cut off. Finally, Benjamin showed up and was able to help his Mom get them back in. Tricia asked me to see if I could figure out something to fix the problem. I installed a latch on the inside and now the hens, though they mount up with wings like eagles, they won't be able to escape!
But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
We've talked about Mr. Clint's in Welsh, Louisiana before. It is a neat Mercantile on Main Street that has neat gifts, old fashioned candies, and specialty sodas. We like to pop in there (get it?) and get a few interesting soda pops. He gets them sent in from all over the place. It is fun to get a weird ones we haven't tasted before and have a taste test to see which ones we like and which ones are just odd! Here is the panel for tasteful submissions to our sampling.
Then we have Good ol' Moxie! Distinctively different, it says. This is the oldest continually produced soft drink in America, produced since 1884. It is made with gentian root extract and is the state drink of Maine.
Next on the lineup is Brownie Caramel Cream Root Beer. Delicious, rich. You can really taste the caramel.
Here is a Wisconsin Maple Root Beer made with maple syrup. It tastes like a pancake to me.
I'm trying to re-focus. 2021 started with such promise and high hopes. And then, well, here we are. Frustration, Uncertainty, False allegations, Discouragement. I was thinking tonight about the movie, "Facing the Giants," in which a coach was trying to turn around a beleaguered football team. He told the team that although they wanted to win, they would Give their very best and "Praise God if they won, and Praise Him if they lost."
The Bible is full of stories of great men and women who trusted Him through it all. They walked by faith and not by sight. In fact, a preacher of a church we were members of when we lived in Houston once said that "Faith is confident obedience in the Word of God regardless of circumstance or consequence."
I opened my Bible tonight and immediately thought of growing up in church. I can remember that we had "sword drills" in which the teacher called out a Scripture verse and the first person to find it would stand up and read it. We were sitting in metal chairs and there was quite a racket of chairs scraping across the floor as students located the passage and jumped out of their chairs to read. Bibles that had the Books marked were not allowed! It really taught us where the books of the Bible were located.
We quickly learned that the Book of Psalms was in the middle of the Bible. Tonight I turned to Psalm 118. I have written something in the margin of the passage that you can see below:
I was told (I have no way to prove or disprove this) that if you took all the books and chapters of the Bible and numbered the verses from Genesis 1:1 all the way to Revelation 22:21, the very center of the Bible is Psalm 118:8 which says:
What a good bit of wisdom. It makes you focus on the fact that regardless your circumstance, God is your refuge, your protector, your rock, your salvation, your provider. NOT Man.
We like to grow some strange things in the garden most years. Not really strange, but things with lots of color. I wanted to show some Purple of Sicily Cauliflower. For some reason, they didn't make the big heads like normal white cauliflower. They look more like broccoli, in fact. But one thing is for certain, they're PURPLE!
Every night we have been taking them and breaking them apart and putting them on a baking sheet with minced garlic, butter and olive oil with kosher salt and roasting them in the oven. I tell you, if you've never eaten broccoli or cauliflower like this, you are missing out! It is our family's favorite. Even Benjamin, who is not wild about certain vegetables, will eat these. Look how pretty the Purple of Sicily Cauliflower looks in all its glory.
The bad thing about growing colorful vegetables, is that it makes growing "normal" vegetables somewhat mundane and boring in comparison. Look at this poor, pale cauliflower.
One thing is for sure, they all taste great, despite the color. Here is one more photo of a "bouquet" of purple cauliflower and green broccoli. The only thing missing is something Yellow, and there would be all the colors of Mardi Gras.
