Turning over the Soil and its effects on Earthworms and other thoughts

I don’t have a tiller.  Instead, I have a shovel and I like to use it.  During my 50 minute commute to work, I sit on my behind.  During the hours of the day on my “real” job, I sit on my behind.  During my 50 minute commute back home, I sit on my behind.  That’s a lot of sitting and that’s not good for you.  When I get home, I can’t wait to get outside, get off my behind and do some manual labor and get some dirt underneath my fingernails.

A friend called me on the way home yesterday and asked me my thoughts on the no-till garden philosophy.  I have evolved a little in my thinking a little on this topic.  There are pros and cons to tillage versus no-till.  I used to think that I should not till, but then I began to think about this:

Proverbs 20:4

The sluggard does not plow after the autumn,

So he begs during the harvest and has nothing.

And this:

Jeremiah 4:3

For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,

Break up your fallow ground,

And do not sow among thorns.

And then this:

Deuteronomy 22:10

You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

I’m no theologian or Bible scholar, but I think that if the Good Lord didn’t want you to plow, He wouldn’t have those verses (along with others) in his Holy Word.  All that to say that the practice I now employ is that I turn over the soil one time per season with a shovel as I don’t want to unnecessarily disturb the soil structure.  I use a hoe to work up that worked ground into rows.  I work compost, leaves, and manure into the soil using trench composting, and I can see the improvement in the soil year after year.  I know someone who runs his tiller over and over and over in his garden.  His seedbed is beautiful, but the soil is almost the consistency of powder.  When a hard rain comes, the soil becomes compacted and hard – like a concrete parking lot and then it must be hoed and loosened up.  I think moderation is key, whether you use a tiller, shovel, or hoe.

When I work the soil to get ready to plant, I’ll turn one spade full of soil over and chop it several times to break it up and keep going until the row is turned.  There is a problem with this process, though.  When I do this, there is bloody carnage.  I see writhing, squirming earthworms cut in half from my shovel.  These little guys are working for me, improving my soil, aerating my soil and fertilizing my soil.  I don’t like killing them.  When I think about this, I always think about my grandfather we called "Poppy."  Poppy used to tell me the story of Albert Schweitzer and his reverence for life – all life.  The story I remember him telling is that Albert Schweitzer would walk around ants on a sidewalk so as not to kill them.  I’m not necessarily a pacifist, but I certainly don’t want to kill earthworms who are helping me improve my garden soil.

So I researched more about earthworms and found this article.  Some people erroneously think that an earthworm cut in half will regenerate into two new worms.  This is not true.  However, an earthworm cut in half will not necessarily die.  I’m sure you’ve seen an earthworm and seen a band around it.  The head of the worm is on the end closest to the band.  That band is called the clitellum.  If the worm is cut behind the clitellum, it stands a very good chance of regenerating the tail that was cut off.  The original tail will die, however, but some will undoubtedly survive and will continue working in the garden.  All is not lost when you turn over the soil.  In fact, minimal tillage allows you to break up compacted soil, turn over weeds, and work in organic matter. 

In Genesis 2:15 it says “Then the LORD God took the man and put in into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.”  Cultivating and keeping a garden is a learning experience.  It is an exercise of labor and trial.  It can also yield immeasurable joy and pleasure in addition to nutritious vegetables.  It can also be a temple in which to observe His Creation and then worship the One who created it all.

2016 Meat Birds at 7 Weeks Old

Here we are at seven weeks since birth of our meat birds.  It seems like a long time ago since we got the telephone call from the post office telling us to go pick up a box full of chirping day-old chicks, but really it wasn't that long ago.  There's a lot of work that goes into growing these birds.  Each day we walk out to the chicken tractor and push it one length to fresh grass.  We feed them three times a day and keep them supplied with fresh, clean drinking water.

Remember our goal is a 6 pound bird as experience has taught us that this gross weight yields a 4 1/2 pound carcass - the perfect size in our opinion.  In a perfect situation, the Cornish Cross is ready for butchering at 8 - 10 weeks and the slower growing Red Ranger is ready for processing at 12 - 14 weeks.  Enough with the rambling, let's look at results!

I walked out and opened the doors of the chicken tractor and peered down.  The birds are just beautiful, white, healthy, and large - the best we've ever had.  I attribute this to the stellar weather we've had this year.  You can see that the white (Cornish Cross) birds are larger and more aggressive and get to the feed trough faster than their Red Ranger counterparts.

2016 Meat Birds

I climbed into the tractor and searched for the two chickens with the zip ties around their legs.  I put them in a five gallon bucket to bring them to the scale.  They don't much like being put in a bucket.

A bucket of chicken

I always place them on top of the workbench so that we can see a comparison in their size. Remember they are the same age.  The Red Ranger must have been a little traumatized by being in the same bucket as that big white monster.

Big Fella

So the Cornish Cross goes on top of the scale first.  He is a nice looking bird and stands up tall with great posture.

Big Daddy

This week the Cornish Cross weighs 5 pounds 14 ounces.  He is right at the the six pound goal a week early!  

5 pounds 14 ounces

Let's check in on the Red Ranger.  He's not real big on standing up tonight and just lazily sits on the scale.

I'm gonna sit this one out

The Red Ranger weighs 2 pounds and 10 ounces this week.

Red Ranger - 2 lbs 10 oz.

Let's break this down into details:

The Cornish Cross gained 13 ounces since last week.  At 5 pounds 14 ounces, he's a full two pounds and 5 ounces heavier than the birds at this stage last year.  The Red Ranger gained 7 ounces since last week.  At 2 pounds 10 ounces, he's almost a pound heavier than the birds at this stage last year.

Here's the plan:  Next Saturday we'll butcher all of the Cornish Cross birds.  Then the Red Rangers will have all the food to themselves.  I would assume that we'll butcher them three weeks from next Saturday.  

We'll check in again next week for the Cornish Cross' last weigh in.  Oh, one more thing, as I put the two birds back into the tractor, I noticed that we have selected some good sample birds to weigh as they are average-sized among their peers, with some larger and some smaller.  We won't know the actual average weight until butchering, but we'll compile all the data at that time and report.  

Colorful Campfire

Yesterday we talked about the beautiful bright red color of Bull’s Blood Beets.  It got me to thinking about a recent fire we built in our fire pit in the backyard.  Quite often we will gather up all the sticks that fall out of the trees in our yard and we'll burn them in our fire pit.  We will place our patio chairs around the pit, light it up and enjoy just sitting around the fire, visiting and staring into the flames.

But why did the bright color of Bull's Blood Beets get me thinking about a fire in the fire pit? 

Benjamin stoking the fire

Benjamin collects metals of all kinds, including aluminum, brass, and copper.  He'll gather up a bunch of it and take it to a recycling center in Lake Charles to redeem for cash.  If you look at the 3 o'clock position on the fire pit below you'll see a coiled up piece of copper.  That's not part of a moonshine still.  He was seeing if he could make the copper melt, but we determined that copper melts at 1,984 degrees Fahrenheit.  A campfire will only get about 930 degrees.  So while he found that he couldn't melt the copper, he could sure get it soft enough to hammer it all out flat.

Heating up copper

As he heated the copper we started to notice something odd, though.

See anything strange?

First a little bit...

Green Flames

And then a lot!  The flames leaping up out of the fire pit above where he had laid the pieces of copper were a beautiful green color!

Why is this happening?  Why does burning copper cause green flames?  Well, Google told me that green flames are caused by burning copper.  Now I barely remember these terms from high school chemistry, but apparently when you burn copper, you free valence electrons and make ions.  The energy that the electron gives off in this process is emitted as a photon in the color of green.

It sure was pretty, but I'm not going to pretend I still remember what an ion or photon is!  Sure is pretty though.

Harvesting Bulls Blood Beets - 2016

This weekend we transplanted our tomatoes into the garden that we had grown from seed.  It was nice to get that done.  The only thing we have left to plant is peanuts and then to transplant our yellow squash, zucchini squash, and cucumbers that we have grown from seed.  BUT, before we do that, we need to make room in the garden.  That means harvesting an existing crop.

Fortunately we have a row of Bull's Blood Beets that are ready to pull out of the ground.  They have become a favorite variety of ours.  They are a little different from other beets in that the greens are a dark red color that resembles the color of blood.  Here are some of the bull's blood beet greens:

Bull's Blood Beet foliage

A quick tug and the fat beet is out of the ground, fitting nicely into the palm of my hand.  It is plump and about the size of a tennis ball.

Perfect size!

I pulled up about half of the row, filling a colander with a bountiful portion of what will become one of tonight's side dishes.

Beautiful!

I take them in and but off the greens and then use a potato peeler to skin the beetroot.  The deep red color almost hurts your eyes to look at.  Food nutritionists always say that the bright colored crops are the healthiest for you.  If that is so, eating this ought to really add years to your lifespan...

The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

I slice up the skinned beets and toss with olive oil, sea salt, and coarse ground pepper.

Ready for the roasting pan

But what about the greens?  Don't throw those away!  We share a few with the cows, but we cook these down just like you would mustard greens, kale, chard or spinach. With beets, we eat everything except the skin and the dirt that was on the skin.  

Although we remove the skins before roasting, you can also roast them whole.  Once they are cooked, the skins slide easily off of the beetroot, leaving a nice red root for you to slice.  

Beet greens washed and ready to cook

And here are some of the beets, hot right out of the oven.  Roasting beets, and any root vegetable, for that matter, is a great way to prepare them.  The sweetness seems to be concentrated in the roasted beets.  Delicious, tasty, nutritious.

A (somewhat embarrassing) word of caution about beets that you should be aware of when eating a bunch of beets like we do at this time of the year:  That beautiful, bright red color you see in the beets?  Well, that bright red color works its way through your digestive system and bladder.  If you aren't prepared, I'm trying to state this subtly and delicately, you can be surprised and scared that you have a significant health problem and are passing blood.  Fear not.  Nothing's wrong.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Eating Bull's Blood Beets is very healthy for you and very flavorful as well.   

Leaving the Nest

I’m not much of a bird-watcher, but I do genuinely enjoy and appreciate all things in nature.  God's creation is really something to marvel at.  For this reason, we’ve been keeping a close watch on a cozy nestful of baby birds.  Tricia mentioned to me the other evening that a little bird was trapped in the garage.  We lifted the garage door and she flew out.  Only the next day she was back.  Odd.  We saw her again the following day and the day thereafter.

Then came the little tweeting sounds and after tracing the sounds, we discovered the nest.  A nestful of baby birds.  We counted five of them.

Baby Birds

Let me zoom out a little.  The momma bird placed her nest in a warm, dry, protective place.  If not for the sound of the chirping and the momma bird’s consistently flying in and out of the garage, we would not have located the nest at all as it was completely hidden from view.

Hidden Nest

Let me zoom back a little more.  The bird built her nest right above the front support of our canoe (The SS Garfish) that is stored overturned on the garage ceiling.  You can barely see it if you look right above the wooden support in the picture below.

The momma bird was very resourceful.  Even though we keep the garage doors closed, she discovered that there is a slight opening under the door that resulted from the threshold rotting.  (I’ve got to get that fixed!)  She deftly maneuvered herself underneath the door to bring her babies meals, proving that momma’s love their babies and seek to protect them, nurture them, and lovingly care for them even though it might not be easy.

Well, those babies grew and grew.  We put a ladder under the canoe and would check on their growth daily.  The other day when Benjamin climbed up to see the babies, one hopped out.  Unable to fly, Benjamin quickly scooped up the bird and gently placed it back in the nest.

Fast forward a few days to Saturday and when we woke up and went into the garage, there were five babies awkwardly hopping/flying around the garage.  There was also a nervous momma bird coaching them and scolding us while putting the young aviators through flight school.  One of the birds kept flying up on the window sill in the garage, thinking that she could fly through the window.  She would flutter against the window, not quite understanding why she couldn’t get outside when she could see outside clearly.

Freedom is in Sight

The momma bird sat on the hedge of Confederate Jasmine visible to her baby and chirped encouragement while her youngster looked at her through the closed window.  The baby was exhausted.

So close, but yet so far...

I guess I should have just opened the window, but I was afraid the little bird would fall into my rain collection buckets right outside the window.  So I scooped up the baby in my hand and sat her on top of the garbage can.

We get by with a little help from our friends.

This is a horrible picture, but the momma sat on the just budding branch of a pecan tree as she chirped incessantly, watching me handling her little one.

C'mon little one...

The next thing I knew the baby and the momma bird flew off!  They grow up so fast!  Just like human babies.  One day they are totally dependent on you and the next thing you know, they are flying (driving)off, leaving the nest, and out on their own, leaving nervous mommas (and daddies) behind, praying we did everything possible to give them the best foundation so their ‘flight’ will be a safe one - a successful one.  We do our best and leave it in God's hands and trust Him.

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.  But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.  - Matthew 10:29-31

P.S.  I later found out from a friend that these were Carolina wrens.  I had previously assumed that even though it wasn’t yellow, it must be in the canary family – A canoery.  Sorry, What a bad, corny joke…

What we do with an Abundance of Eggplant

Well, our eggplant have survived over the winter and are full of blooms and continue to produce big beautiful fruit.  I’ve had peppers survive for a second year but never eggplant.  They are Black Beauty variety and I picked a nice load of them the other day. 

Fresh Picked Eggplant

Tricia sautéed a batch of them and enjoyed them for lunch.  Of course we like to fry them.  We also like to make delicious Italian dishes with them and will sometimes use eggplant in place of meat in those dishes even though I’m about the furthest thing from vegetarian that you can get.  One of our favorite snack-type dishes or appetizers is caponata.  We’ve posted about it before, but it bears repeating.  It is a Sicilian dish and there are numerous variations.  We use a recipe from Pirates’ Pantry Cookbook.  It is a local cookbook put together by the Junior League of Lake Charles.  It is quick and easy to make.  Let’s do it:

The recipe calls for:

·         2 pounds eggplant

·         ¾ cup olive oil

·         2 ½ cups onions

·         1 cup celery

·         2 cans tomato sauce

·         1 cup dry red wine

·         2 Tablespoons sugar

·         ½ bottle salad olives

·         ½ jar capers

·         Salt & Pepper

I used a sharp knife to remove the purple skin and stem from the eggplant.

Skinning the Eggplant

 Then I cut up the eggplant into little cubes.  There’s no sense in measuring the size – just nice little cubes.

Cutting into cubes

I poured ½ cup of the olive oil in a pot and heat, adding the cubed eggplant and then saute it in the oil, stirring constantly until the eggplant has softened and has a nice golden brown color.  Then I remove the eggplant into a separate bowl, add the remaining oil and saute our onion and celery.

Eggplant sauteed.  Now time to saute the onions and celery

Add the eggplant back into the pot and then add the tomato sauce and bring to a boil.  Then you can lower your heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Getting close

At this point you can add your remaining ingredients like wine…

Olives…

And all the rest.  Stir everything together, cover and cook for an additional 20 minutes.  Then we put it into a big bowl with a spoon in it.  Caponata never really makes it into a fancy serving dish.  It sits in the container on the island and we have a box of crackers out.  We’ll pass by throughout the day and fill crackers with the tasty caponata.

Yum

 Caponata!  What a wonderful dish.  It disappears far too fast, but fortunately, we have a bumper crop of eggplant that will continue to bless our table.  

2016 Meat Birds at 6 Weeks Old

Like at Weight Watchers, we gather at the scale every Thursday evening with a sharp eye on the scale.  One difference, however.  We are hoping for weight GAIN - in our chickens, that is.  We're tracking the weight on our meat birds.  We have had stellar spring weather, and I think the birds are really benefiting from sunshine, dry pasture grounds and the corresponding growth of pasture grass to snack on, supplementing their 18% Chick Grower.

We are watching 1 Cornish Cross closely.  He seems to be experiencing some genetic leg issues that are very common with the breed due to rapid weight gain. The bird is wobbly, rocking back and forth.  To be honest, I don't like to see this in an animal.  While totally healthy otherwise, I don't want to see him struggle like this for another two weeks as the problem will only get worse as he eats more and grows bigger.  I think that I'll butcher him this weekend and put him in the freezer.  Other than that one bird, the flock is the healthiest we've ever had.

Let's see if the proof is in the pudding.  Do the facts bear that out?  Here are our two marked birds side by side.  Yes, the Cornish Cross is noticeably larger, but that is expected.

Red Ranger and Cornish Cross side by side

First up, the Cornish Cross.  He flaps his wings and steps on the scale, his large frame filling the top of the kitchen scale.

The Biggest Loser?  No, he was the winner...

He weighs 5 pounds 1 ounce this week.

Tipping the scales at a tad over 5 pounds

This old boy gained 1 pound and one ounce over the last week and compared with the same week last year, he weighs a whopping 2 pounds and 8 ounces more!

Let's see what the slower growing Red Ranger did this week in the weight gain department.  He is a "rangier," more active bird.  I put him in the bucket to bring him into the garage and he promptly flew out and I had to catch him again.  The Cornish Cross?  He couldn't do that to save his life!

 

Lean, but active and growing

The Red Ranger weighs 2 pounds and 3 ounces this week.

Breaking the 2 pound threshold

So to get down to brass tacks, he's gained 10 ounces since last week.  That's pretty good for the Red Ranger.  He is almost a pound heavier than the Red Rangers at the same time last year.

Plans for this weekend include putting down another feed container for them.  They have outgrown the gutter I use as a feed trough.  As they get bigger and bigger, there's simply not enough room around the "supper table" for all of them.  I'll remedy that this weekend, so no one skips a meal.

 

Needing more elbow room

It appears we're right on track to butcher the Cornish Cross meat birds at 8 weeks if things continue to progress.