Small Town Rodeo

We live in a town that has a population of about 12,000 people.  It's plenty big for us.  Driving through town the other day, we saw on the town marquee that the Rodeo was coming to town on Friday and Saturday night at the Jeff Davis Parish Fairground Arena.  What fun!  We had gone to it before and had a good time, so we decided that we'd go again.  It is put on by the Cajun Rodeo Association.  

We arrived shortly after seven and the rodeo started at 7:30.  The stands were packed with people!  BBQ pits were stoked and the concession stands had burgers, fries and other goodies.  We took our seats and got ready for the greatest show on dirt.  The announcer had everyone stand and take off their hats and led us all in prayer, thanking God for the freedom that we enjoy.  We remained standing for the grand opening as Old Glory was paraded in on a white horse.  Proud Americans stood for their flag and their country.  Patriotism is far from dead.

Then the events started.  Ranch Style Bronc Riding and then tie-down roping.

Then there was Chute Dogging, Breakaway Roping, and Barrel Racing and Buddy Barrel Pickup.

Then they called all the young kids out of the stands for an event called "Mutton Busting."  They had sheep in the chute with a rope around their backs.  Kids would mount the sheep, they'd open the gates and the sheep would dart out of there with the kids hanging on for dear life!

This young man lost his cowboy hat but won the event.  The clowns raced to catch him, but he needed no help.  He was in it to win it!

Some fell off the bucking sheep, but they quickly dusted themselves off and got back up.

Two and a half hours later they got ready for the final event.  Bull Riding!  I find it interesting that a banner advertising our slaughterhouse is on the chute.

The chute was opened and out came the cowboy on a bucking bull.  He rode it for eight seconds!  The clowns bravely distracted the bull while the cowboy safely jumped over the fence.

There were plenty of young people involved, guaranteeing that this fun will be passed down to future generations.  We drove home grateful for a fun evening of country-style entertainment.

Seed Shortage Looming on the Horizon

We just received our 2022 Seed Catalog from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  We always like to purchase our seeds from them as the seeds are heirloom and open pollenated (non-hybrid) which means the seeds can be saved and used year after year.  You can't really do this with hybrid seeds.  I like to sit down, do a seed inventory, and then purchase seeds for the upcoming year.

Another reason I like Baker Creek is that the catalog is like a coffee table book.  The artwork is beautiful and put together with such artistry that it makes you want to buy everything.  I guess that is kind of the point with good marketing, right?

We also received an email from them on February 10th.  I'm cutting and pasting an excerpt below:

Seed and paper shortages update

​Dear Gardening Friends, 2022 has been a year of growth and challenges for our company. Thanks to you, we have had the largest volume of January sales in our company’s history. We want to make you aware of the current challenges we are facing:

1) Unbelievable demand for seeds is causing national shortages. Our growers and our in-house production team are redoubling their efforts to produce more rare seeds, but global demand is causing many items to be temporarily unavailable. We apologize that many popular items are again selling out.

2) The volume of orders have been a challenge for our packing and fulfillment teams, who now work 24 hours a day in three shifts. We are working harder than ever to ship a record amount of orders, and we apologize for any delays you may have experienced in the last month. 

3) Global paper shortages will greatly affect catalogs this year. We expect the paper costs for our 2023 catalogs to increase by 110%; we also face the possibility of having a supply shortage. The cost of seed packets, paper mailers, etc. is also quickly rising, and supplies are very short. We are currently out of both of our seed catalogs and copies for 2023 will again be limited!

4) Due to the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, about 20% of our staff has been on paid leave for part of the month of January, causing staff shortages and other issues. But through all the craziness, we have been blessed to have such wonderful customers, friends and staff members who have helped in so many ways! 

This is me again.  So, we learn the supply of seeds has diminished, resulting in the inability to fulfill orders, shortages of paper is increasing costs, and it is hard to staff positions to get work done.  We are living in crazy times.  I've always tried to save seeds such as tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, etc.  Last year I had great success saving spinach seeds.  Some are hard to save, some are a little easier.  I do have old vitamin containers stored away with seeds I've saved along with the dates.  One thing you have to be careful for is as the saved seeds age, some of the germination rates fall off.  This means that you need to plant a little more to make up for those that don't germinate.

Below you can see a big turnip that is going to seed.  It came up volunteer from last year.  I've had my eye on it, wanting to feed it to the cows on those cold days, but, to the cows' chagrin, I defeated the temptation.  Now it's going to seed.

I'll collect the seeds off of it once they are mature and save for next year.  All of our turnip crop was decimated by the freeze this year when I was unable to cover them up.  One neat thing you can see is that a honeybee from our bee colony has located the flower.  It is a great thing to have bees to pollenate.

If you haven't saved or ordered seeds, it might be a good idea to make an order to ensure you have some on-hand when you need them.  Won't be long now before we'll be planting.  Temperatures will be in the 80's this week!  Happy growing, everyone.  Get out there and get your hands dirty.

Let's Get Greauxing

Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.  Amos 7:1

Amos was the first prophetic book of the Bible, written in 750 BC.  Can you imagine?  That was a long time ago.  In the first verse of Chapter 7, we learn that they were making hay to feed their livestock.  As modern as we claim to be, we're still making hay like they did 2,772 years ago.  To clarify, they didn't have hay balers and tractors, but they were making hay.

When it came time for us to purchase hay this year, we did what we always do.  We purchased about 75 square bales of some good bermuda hay from a neighbor down the road.  You can read about that adventure HERE.  But we also roll out round bales, too.  I purchase those from another neighbor.  When I called him, he had bad news for me.  Covid and broken down tractor and baler prohibited him from making any hay.  Fortunately, a friend made hay and he delivered 8 bales to me.  Good, barn kept hay.  You can see the seven I have lined up next to the gate.  You can also see the animals circled around one of the bales that I rolled out.

Cows eat grass and hay, but we (the humans on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm) give them a run for their money in consuming vegetables.  Lately, we've been enjoying cabbage, kale, spinach, parsley, broccoli, cauliflower, and plenty of carrots and lettuce.  Here's a patch of carrots we've been pulling:

The carrots are fat and sweet.  We've been oven roasting them with olive oil.  Delicious!

We also have been eating them in salads.  We're expecting temps in the upper 70's next week, so the lettuce will be turning bitter soon.  You might be thinking those are beets in the colander, but they are actually Cosmic Purple Carrots.  They have a purple "wrapper" but the interior is orange.  I'll have to show you our Atomic Red Carrots.  They are red all the way through.

Spring is on its way.  In fact its right around the corner.  We planted over 100 seed potatoes the other day.  Next week I anticipate putting in a lot of other spring crops.  If you get a chance, pick up some seeds and start growing!  Food you grow at home always tastes better.  Let's Greaux!!

The Hunter and the Hunted

We have a cat, and her name is Ginger.  Ginger is fat.  She is an outdoor cat, but likes to come in.  She knows the window to our bedroom and will meow by our window to be let in.  Early in the morning when she sees the light go on in our Sun Room, she'll meow by that window to be let in.  Tricia opens the door and she'll go sit on her favorite chair and sleep for the better part of a day.  Ginger is lazy.

I am not much of a 'cat person.'  I'm not mean to Ginger, by any means but not a whole lot of warmth between us, either.  My wife keeps reminding me of the good things that Ginger does.  As if to put an exclamation mark on that thought, the other day Ginger proved her worth to me.  Our fat cat came around the corner in brisk pursuit of something.  She pounced into the Louisiana Iris that grows alongside the patio like a tiger chasing an antelope.

She brought out a mouse and paraded in front of me to show off her skills and prowess as a hunter.

She sat down and let the mouse go.  The mouse ran away, but Ginger was quickly on top of the mouse, toying with it with her paws.  She played with it until she got bored and killed it.

Ginger dismembered the mouse and left what she didn't eat by the back door.  We always have to be careful when stepping out so that we don't step on remains of Ginger's prey.  Okay, I'll be honest and admit it, Ginger > mice.

What to do With All These Radishes?

We grow French Breakfast Radishes in the garden.  Radishes are one of those crops you grow that is one of the fastest maturing things I can think of.  We cut them up in salads and we also enjoy them in a radish dip we make.  I highly recommend it.  The recipe is from a blog post back in 2017 you can see by clicking HERE. 

We still have a bunch of radishes in the garden.  We'll make another dip or two, but wanted to try our hand at lacto-fermenting some.  We have used lacto-fermentation in making Sauer kraut, kimchi, pickles, and gingered carrots.  Now, we'll do radishes.  This afternoon we picked a colander full.

We washed them up and scrubbed the dirt off of them with a stiff-bristled vegetable brush.

We wanted to see how much we picked.  A hair over 2 pounds.

I cut the bottom root off as well as the top.  In probably an unneeded step, but I like to follow directions, I peeled the radishes with a potato peeler.  By the way, I want to give credit, we're using a recipe from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon coupled with one from The Survival Gardener's Blog.

We cubed up the radishes and packed them in wide mouth quart sized jars.

The recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon of salt, 1/4 of whey and then fill with water.  A little backstory on the whey.  We make the whey as a byproduct of making kefir yogurt.  Whey is what drips off, leaving the curds behind.  Whey is a natural preservative.

The whey and salt and water are added and thoroughly mixed to ensure the salt dissolves.

Then the mixture is poured over the radishes in the jar until it fills.  You want to make sure the radishes are beneath the surface.  To accomplish this, you'll need a follower.  We don't have any followers, but we improvised.  In the jar on the left, we used a crystal napkin ring to weight down a pint size lid to hold all the radishes under the fermenting liquid.  A few cubes escaped.

For the jar on the right, I used a leaf of cabbage torn a little larger than the size of the jar to push all the radish cubes down.  This worked much better!

We'll allow to sit at room temperature for five days and will then place in the fridge where they'll last for months.  Anxious to try them!  They are supposed to be tart and tangy.  We'll report back if we were successful (if they are tasty).

I Learned a New Word Today...

I recently completed a three week training course for my new job.  It was intense, but very informative.  One of the things that I really enjoy about my new employer is their commitment to Family and Traditional Values.  At the end of the coursework for one of the days, they attached a pdf document entitled, "Good Habit Inventory."  It stated, "We really are creatures of habit.  If 80% of our productivity comes from habit, it is imperative that we monitor and change our non-productive habits."  It then proceeded to list out recommended habits - about half were work-related, but half were personal in nature.  I won't elaborate on each item as there were 29 of them.  I will, however, list a few:

• Read for pleasure two hours per week
• Read paper after the kids are in bed
• Congratulate one person each day
• Maximum of 3 cuss words per day
• Read the Bible daily
• Don't eat snacks after supper
• Do 25 sit-ups each day
• Spend 15 minutes each day in quiet time
• Hear what family members have to say
• Spend at least 20 minutes with each child each day
• Learn one new word three days each week

First observation is this: I've never worked for a company that was genuinely interested in helping their employees deepen the quality of their family time, personal time and their spiritual life.  It impressed my socks off.  In a dog-eat-dog world of modernity, where we all feel like we are cogs in a corporate wheel or 'just a number,' or merely a tool to be used to get the job done, it is refreshing to know that there is a company that is not afraid to recommend that their employees 'Read the Bible everyday' or spend time with their children!

So, along those same lines, I learned a new word today.  I like vocabulary.  I had never heard of this word before: Hiraeth.

That is my new favorite word!  Hiraeth.  If you've read the blog for any period of time, you know that I am a hopeless nostalgic.  Some of my ramblings about memories of the past read like Lamentations!  

Before I begin new ruminations about this topic, I want to preface it with the fact that I know and I'm fully aware that things in the past were not perfect.  The "good old days," in many respects, were not the good old days for everyone.  Many people were in poverty, the life expectancy wasn't what it is now, people worked HARD, and so on and so forth.  However, there are aspects of those days that I feel great hiraeth for.  The emotion, the longing for what has been lost is palpable as I look at old photos and black and white films that contain people that had next to nothing but had joy.  Their smiles and innocence and optimism despite truly hard times is inspiring.

Our nation was together.  Families stayed together.  People had dignity.  People worked hard.  They were proud of their country.  They worked with their hands.  They attended church together and prayed together.  The economy was such that the head of the household could earn a living to adequately support his family, and the wife, if she wanted to, could stay home and raise the kids.  What has happened?  

We very rarely eat out.  We grow most of our own food.  Wednesday night after church we joined some church members at Wendy's to be social.  Tricia had a salad and water.  I had a spicy chicken sandwich and a small drink.  The total was $18.95!  We had a GREAT visit with our brothers and sisters in Christ, but I left hungry and unsatisfied by the meal.  I want to be very honest with you when I say that this modern world has left me hungry and unsatisfied.  I want to retreat very far away from modernity.

There are help wanted signs at every place of business, but no one wants to work.  The churches are largely vacant.  People's heads are glued to their phones.  Manners are non-existent.  The people are entertained with Bread & Circuses while "Rome" burns.  History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.  The filth and pollution that fill the airways, television and Internet promotes culture that is bankrupt with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

What happened?  We have been robbed.  The global elites, politicians bought and paid for have sacrificed the American people, the moral rot and decay we willingly consume have corrupted our land.  I cannot blame it on outside forces, though.  We, like the children in The Pied Piper of Hamelin, have been lured away, never to be seen again, or at least, not resembling the people we once were.

Can we go back?  Is it too late?  Is there hope?  I have good news.  There is always hope in the LORD.  Things may get better for a season, but the Bible tells us that things will get worse.  We know how the story ends.  Judgment is coming!  There is a curse on the land since the fall of Adam.  The Bible tells us that creation groans for the curse to be broken.  Jesus died on the cross to break the curse of sin and death.  Trust in Him.  Read His Word.  Walk with Him.  Grow in Him.  It is time to turn to the "author and perfecter of our faith."

In speaking of our new vocabulary word of the day: HIRAETH, a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, I want to share some good news with you.  You CAN go to that home.  C.S. Lewis once said,

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

That other world is found by placing your faith in Jesus Christ.  

The Time That the Goats Don't Like

At about 10 days old should be a happy time being a baby goat, right?  The kids are so cute.  Long ears.  Spotted coat.  They run around jumping playfully.  We already introduced you to Callie (Short for Kaleidoscope)  We named her that because she has really wild spots and designs on her face.  The little one below is named Mocha, due to the coloration of the spots on her coat.  Her Mom has horns.  We didn't remove them and that was a mistake.  She is the only creature on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm that has horns.  She uses those horns to show her dominance, bullying the other animals.  We have to be careful around her as the horns are dangerous and can easily put out an eye.

So the other night Tricia asked, "Are you ready to take care of the little girls' horns tonight?"  I was, but I wasn't.  It is not a pleasant task.  The goats are in pain for a little bit, but they get better quickly.  Another danger to goats having horns is that they can get themselves caught in fences and hang themselves.  It just had to be done.

We marched out to the barn with the clippers.  Prior to de-horning, we shave the hair around the little horn buds so that we can see where to apply the de-horning iron.  This is the dehorning iron.

This is the de-horning iron after it has been plugged in for 10 minutes.  It is cherry red.  We test it by burning a 2 x 4.  Once it leaves a black circle on the wood, we know it is ready to go.

With Tricia sitting on top of the kids and holding their long, floppy ears out of the way, I apply the de-horning iron for a 5 second count.  The smoke pours, the base of the horn sizzles, and the babies cry.  Then I move to the next one.  Then I come back and get them again until I see a copper circle around the entire horn bud.  Next I put the hot iron on the top of the horn bud.  Then the job is done.

Then we de-horned the other goat.  By the time we left the barn, they were both running around like normal.  Especially the next morning, all was good.  We will keep an eye on them to ensure all was successful and the horn bud is killed.  Sometimes it doesn't work.  Sometimes, I don't want to hurt them and don't leave it long enough, and the horn will re-grow.  I think I got it this time, though.