Multiplying Like Rabbits!

This Post from last year chronicled the discovery of a black rabbit behind the hen house in the patch of woods that borders our property on the south side.  Last weekend something else happened.  I was doing my morning chores as usual, feeding goats and cows, scattering chicken scratch for the hens to eat and opening the laying boxes so that the hens can lay eggs in the fresh hay.  We close the boxes every night because if you don't, the hens will roost on the laying boxes and will poop in the hay.  That makes for dirty eggs!

Part of my daily routine while doing chores is to let our Great Pyrenees, Belle, run free in the pasture and around the barn.  She has a real good time.  Well, when I opened the hen house and began to open the nesting boxes, I was met with a surprise.  The black rabbit was in the hen house.  It ran quickly between my legs and before I could say Bugs Bunny, it was running out of the hen and into the barn area.

With Belle running around, this presented a big problem.  There is nothing Belle would like better for breakfast that a fresh rabbit.  I closed the gate to keep Belle out of the barn area and ran back to the house and got the net we use when we go crabbing.  Black Bunny was fast, but no match for my crab net.  I had the bunny captured.  I inspected and found the bunny was a female.  I took her inside and let Russ hold her.

Once the boys and Tricia got to see our new friend, I took her back to the barn and told her she needs to keep her distance from Belle.  I gently dropped her over the fence and continued my morning chores.  Before I headed back in to eat breakfast, I looked out over the fence to check on the black bunny.

I did a double take... literally.  I saw the black bunny.  But I also saw another one.  A white rabbit!  Oh man.  These rabbits need to be careful.  If you look at the barbed wire fence in the photo below, you can see some white hair.  That's Belle's hair.  She jumps OVER the fence routinely to explore.

So this is an odd occurrence indeed.  We do have cottontail rabbits around.  Lots of them.  We see them routinely.  But not these.  These rabbits are most definitely domesticated rabbits that either got loose or were turned loose.  I've seen the black one for over a month now.  And now a white one shows up, too!

Pink eyes.  Pink ears.  Cute.  Part of me wants to catch them both with my crabbing net and put them in a rabbit cage and raise them.  Maybe they'd have babies and raise a family.  But the other part of me wants them to be free and let them raise a family in the wild.

I had already lost sight of the black rabbit, but the white rabbit was easier to see as it jumped off into the woods.  It is highly visible with its bright white coat.

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That's what worries me about the safety of the rabbit.  The black one can blend in in the dark understory of the woods.  The white one has a big target on its back.  Be very careful, rabbits.  There are lots of predators that would like to catch you.

What to do With a Bunch of Sweet Potatoes

We have a lot of sweet potatoes from this year's harvest in the garden.  We've been baking a lot of them and making Thai curry sweet potato lentil soup and a Sweet Potato, kale and coconut milk soup.  During the holidays, we like to do something else with them I'll show you today.  My wife is Mexican-American and grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas.  

A tradition she brought to us was making sweet potato empanadas.  She uses a recipe from her mother that's been passed down.  For this dish, we wanted to use up some of our largest sweet potatoes.  I peeled and cut them up.

Tricia cooked them and then mashed them with a potato masher until it had a smooth consistency.  She added allspice and molasses to the sweet potatoes.

She made her normal dough for making flour tortillas, but then added some cinnamon to the dough, rolled them out and then we started loading the sweet potato filling onto the dough.

Then you fold the dough over and crimp the edges.  We also come back with a fork to "seal" the edges a little later.

The holiday baking is a true family affair.  We had an assembly line going in the kitchen with Tricia rolling out the dough and filling with sweet potato filling, Russ folding over and sealing the empanadas and arranging on the baking tray.  Benjamin rested up for his job.

Benjamin, well rested and exuberant was now ready for his job.  He brushed an egg wash onto the empanadas.

It is hard to estimate to get the amount of dough needed for the amount of sweet potato filling, but that's okay.  Leftover tortilla dough is not wasted!  We sprinkle cinnamon and sugar and bake just the dough.

We couldn't wait for the buzzer on the oven to go off, announcing the empanadas were done!  We pulled the golden brown pastries out of the oven and placed on a cooling rack.

And this is where my job comes into play.  I'm the official "taster" of the warm batch of empanadas.  I broke one in half and enjoyed the nice fragrance.  Then I took a bite!

Yeah, this one is delicious.  The entire batch of empanadas didn't last but a couple of days.  That's too bad.  However, empanadas aren't really just limited to a Christmas baking thing.  We have a bunch more sweet potatoes.  We'll have to make another batch of these again soon.

In The Woods Out Back

There is a little patch of woods directly to the south of our 5 acre property.  A family of seven siblings owns the land as best as we can figure.  They are never, ever around.  The woods is overgrown in privet, willow, chinaberry and tallow trees, but there are some nice live oak trees towering above the lower canopy.  The woods is a haven for possums, rats, birds and other critters.

When the kids were younger, they did what we did as kids - build forts in the woods.  This overgrown jungle is low-lying and fills with water after a decent-sized rain.  I walk back in the woods from time to time.  I use a machete to keep a 10 foot swath cleaned up between our fence line and the woods.  The privet tries admirably to reclaim the cleared pasture.  One day I'll be too old to chop it back and the privet will win the war, but not today.

About twenty yards into the woods is an old rice field irrigation well.  You can see the pulley has notches for 8 rubber belts that drove the pump.

The pump itself was built in nearby Welsh, Louisiana, by the Lo-lift Pump Company, established in 1895.  It is still in operation today.  The gentleman that owned it used to have quite a model train set that he would set up and run during Christmas time.  It was a nice thing to bring the kids to.

As you can tell, it has been years and years since this pump was in operation.  All the area around us was rice fields in the past.  A lot of the land has been replaced with homes and large trees now inhabit what were formerly rice fields.

This concrete basin sits at the front of the well.  You can see where a steel pipe came out of the well and directed water into the canal.  I can imagine this was a great place for farm kids to cool off on a hot summer day.  The cold, clear water is enough to take your breath away, even on the hottest of days.  I can remember swimming in the cold water in a pit just like this 30 or so miles north of this.  I can almost hear the deafening straight exhaust pipe of the V-8 engine, the smell of diesel and taste the metallic taste of the cold water as I look at the photo below.

So many years later, I can still spot one of the belts that drove the pulley on the well, converting the horsepower of the engine into energy that spun the well and delivered ground water to acres of rice fields.

On the other side, you can see large creosote posts that were the anchor point for a large engine that sat on top.  From the timber lying about, there was almost certainly a shed of some sort that covered the engine.

Although it's been years since the pump has produced water, I wonder several things when looking at it:  How many feet down does the well go before it hits water?  Jennings sits at an elevation of 16 ft.  You don't have to dig very far to hit water, but rice field irrigation wells are drilled deep.  I also wonder if you could still get water from this well or did the well sand up and stop producing?

It's kind of neat to walk back twenty yards in the woods and find relics of the past right there.

Before the Cold Blew Through

The last week of December, we had a cold front that blew through.  Other parts of the country get this type of weather and are quite accustomed to it.  We are not.  We were just recovering from the hard freeze a couple years ago and now we have to deal with it again.   Temperatures were projected to be 17 degrees with wind chills colder and it was going to stay below freezing for three days.  What to do?  What to do? 

First, I wrapped all of the pipes outside with pipe insulation and a bag of old t-shirts.  Then I brought ferns and tropical plants indoors and all other plants into the garage.  Then I got a heat lamp out of the attic that we normally use for baby chicks.  I set it up in the garage for Belle and Ginger to keep warm.  Belle has a thick winter coat.  She enjoys this type weather.  Here she is playing hide and seek in a hole that the cows ate out of the center of a round bale of hay.

First thing was to say goodbye to the tomatoes.  Three rows of beautiful, healthy plants full of tomatoes.  But it just wasn't meant to be.  We had harvested a handful of red ripe ones, but most are still green.

Some were big and plump and nearing maturity.

Others were smaller, but nice looking with no blemishes.

I filled up a big bucket full and we spread them out in several boxes to ripen.  We covered them with a paper bag and put a banana in the box.  Some are turning red.  Those that don't turn red, we'll eat fried green tomatoes or make green tomato sauce.

I filled another bucket with peppers.  Tons of Anaheims, jalapeno, lilac bell, horizon bell, emerald sweet bell, and criolla sella peppers.

The cole crops will generally handle a freeze, but I covered them anyway.  I also picked all the mature heads off of them.  Here's a nice PURPLE cauliflower that I harvested.

We cut this bad boy up and drizzled with olive oil and then tossed with salt and minced garlic and roasted.  When these come out of the oven, they disappear very quickly!

One final preparation before the cold weather blows through.  That's to sit down with a bowl of shrimp and okra gumbo.

Nothing warms the body and soul like a big bowl of gumbo!!

The Ozark Trail Family Vacation

Dad & Mom organized a big family vacation for Christmas this year.  They rented from Airbnb a five bedroom lodge between Yellville and Harriet, Arkansas.  They rented a 16 passenger van and Mom and Dad, my sister, her husband and her six boys, Tricia, me and Laura Lee, Russ, and Benjamin departed the morning after Christmas.  Unfortunately, my brother and his wife were unable to make the trip.

We live in flat country in South Louisiana.  There's not a rock in sight.  We were anxious to get into the Ozark Mountains and do a little hiking and have good family fun.  That afternoon late we arrived at our destination.  The lodge was absolutely perfect!  Here's Dad & Mom in front of the fireplace.  It was cold, but we brought firewood and kept a roaring fire burning.  We also lit a fire in a fire pit out back.  The first night, my brother-in-law cooked quail that he had raised and injector marinated.  They were delicious!

It was so relaxing.  We woke up early, read the Bible and prayed while watching the sunrise.  So spectacular!  It was peaceful.

We brought two 18 count packages of eggs from home and cooked big breakfasts of bacon and eggs, grits, ham, toast and bagels and lots of coffee.  There were wild turkey and deer at the bottom of the hill that the boys spotted.

The lodge had a game room with a pool table, foosball, and other games to keep the crew occupied.  We also played a big bingo game in the family room and worked on a puzzle at night.  There was a pond below the lodge that was completely frozen over.  We aren't used to ice being that thick that you could actually walk on.  The boys were running and sliding on it.

It was still cold, but warming up a little.  While we were standing on the ice a big crack went all across the pond.  Probably not a good idea to stand on it for too long!

Once everyone was fed, we loaded up in the van and headed to Buffalo Point where Mom & Dad hiked the Buffalo River Overlook Trail.  We hiked the Indian Rockhouse trail.  The scenery was gorgeous!

There were numerous caves and rock formations to explore.

The highlight of the trail was the Indian rock house.  This was a shelter for native Americans many years ago.  Archeologists excavated the cave and found all sorts of tools, food remains, and other relics.  The Indians used this as a shelter and meeting area.

There was a perfect chimney in a part of the roof of the rock house.

Not only were they protected from the elements, but a creek ran through the cave at the end.  They could get fresh water without leaving.  

It was the most perfect day for hiking.  The sky was blue, the sun shone brightly, and we all worked up a sweat on the hike that was about a 3.5 mile round trip.

This was a tree lined trail at the very end.  You can see that it had warmed up.  Tricia had her coat tied around her waist.

We brought lots of food on the trip and stopped in parks and made sandwiches, but on this day, we drove into Yellville and found a pizza joint and ordered 7 pizzas.  There was a large kitchen in the lodge where we did some cooking, too.  We made a big chili.  We enjoyed chili dogs and frito pie!

We organized a scavenger hunt at the lodge, breaking up the kids into two teams and set them out on an adventure to find local items.  Some of the more memorable items to find were: a piece of ice from the pond, fire, two different types of wild animal poop, photos of a live animal seen around the lodge, and another odd item for them to collect.  They had a real good time.

The next day we loaded up and went to Rush, Arkansas.  It is a ghost town of sorts.  During the first World War, there was a town here of approximately 5,000 people mining.  They built the smelter below hoping for silver, but found zinc.  They used it for the war effort.  It was called the Morning Star Mine.

Old entrances to the mine dotted the hills, but they were closed off.

At the base of the trail was the Buffalo River.  The water was crystal clear and cold.  In fact ice was floating in the river.  It didn't stop Russ from rolling up his pant legs and wading out there!  The boys skipped rocks across the river.

Just a beautiful sight!  Living in Louisiana, we aren't accustomed to seeing the bottom of the river.  Our water is MUDDY!

This little tributary was flowing into the Buffalo River.  I think its called Clabber Creek.

The next morning at 7AM we loaded up the van and headed back home.  It was sad to leave.  Arkansas is a beautiful state.

It was a relaxing vacation and we all made memories to last a lifetime!  Thanks Dad & Mom!!

Happy New Year! 2023

Happy New Year to All from the Sonnier's at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  We wish you and your family the very best in 2023.  We have been away for about a week on vacation.

We will be back tomorrow with lots to talk about.  May our Lord richly bless you this year!!