Your Food Is Killing You!

Your food is indeed killing you.  I'm not only talking about the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) Movement even though we are generally proponents of MAHA and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  Today I'm talking specifically about out at our henhouse.  There are things in our henhouse, that if they are eaten, they can get you killed in one of two ways.

This seems to be a recurring theme on the blog each year once the temperatures start warming up.  Big rat snakes (we call them chicken snakes) slither out of the woods looking for a free meal.  Our henhouse seems to fit the bill for them.  They curl up in a nesting box and eat our eggs!  This is why I purchase chalk or ceramic eggs and place them in the nesting boxes after marking them with a Sharpie since they look identical to a real egg.

If the chicken snake eats the chalk egg, well, they get stopped up.  They cannot pass the chalk egg and get a case of constipation that a quart of Metamucil with a Dulcolax chaser couldn't clear up.  Having eaten a real egg, the snake crawls through a fence or rubs up against something to break the egg so they can digest it.  With chalk eggs, there's no breaking them, and the snake will die.

Here's one I found in the henhouse yesterday that was feasting on eggs.  I hit him with a pipe and through him out of the henhouse.  The chickens were nervously cackling, happy he had met his comeuppance.

From the looks of the snake's girth, it is a pretty good guess that he has two of our eggs in his belly.  Can you see them?

If they are chicken eggs, there's no way I'd ever recover and eat them.  However, if they are my chalk eggs, I want them back!  Time to find out.  I got a shovel and dissected the snake.  I used my Croc to coax the first egg out of the snake's belly.  Look!  It is a chalk egg.  You can see the black Sharpie mark I put around the egg so that I don't gather up the chalk eggs when I pick up regular eggs each day.

Then I squeezed the second egg out.  You can see the 'X's' I marked on the chalk egg to differentiate it.  The fake eggs were covered in snake ooze.  I'll let them dry out in the sun all day before picking them up and placing them back in the henhouse egg boxes.  They are doing their job!

Here is a photo of the entire crime scene so that you can see how I got our eggs back!

Your Food is killing you!  Especially, if you are a snake!  You get killed if you get caught in the henhouse.  You also get killed if you eat a chalk egg or two.  I left the dead snake as a memorial, a reminder to other snakes in the area to mind their manners.  There's plenty of rats to eat and I won't do a thing about them.  However, if the snakes come into the henhouse and begin eating eggs, they will pay a very steep price.

Almost May and the Fall Crop is Still Coming In

Today was the 27th of April and the outside temperature was 86 degrees already!  Things are heating up.  I have most of the spring garden in the ground and it is growing quickly.  However, there are still some holdouts from the fall garden that are still producing.

First, we have some beets.  We grow three varieties: Bull's Blood, Detroit Red, and Chioggia.  We've been roasting a lot of these and have given a bunch away.  One lady we gave them to told us that she's making baby food for her infant using the beets.  You can't "beet" that.  Here's a crate of fresh picked beets.

Even though we've picked quite a few beets, we still have a bunch left to harvest.  I like to harvest them when they are about the size of a tennis ball.  We've found if you let them get bigger, they can get tough and "woody."  Can I speak freely here?  We're old friends, aren't we?  When you eat a lot of beets, something happens that people don't mention in polite conversation: It can appear that you are 'passing blood' and can be quite frightening.  It's not blood, though.  Don't worry.  It's beets in your diet.

Next on the clock from the fall garden that will be ending soon are sugar snap peas.  These grow on a trellis and they'll soon be replaced by a second planting of cucumbers.  But for now, they are still blooming beautiful flowers:

And they're continuing to make sweet, tender pods.  We love to eat them raw, but my favorite way to eat them are stir fried in butter or cook them in fried rice.  I like to pick them on the young side before the peas in the pod get too big.

I picked a nice colander full of sugar snap peas and Tricia gave them all away to our oldest son, Russ!

Not to worry, there's more on the way that I'll pick tomorrow.

When One Door Closes...

How does that saying go?  When one door closes, another one opens.  That's it.  When we closed the door on the staining and polyurethaning (I don't think that's a word) on our front door at our home, an opportunity arose to do the same to the front door at Mom & Dad's home.  It's a mahogany door that faces the western sun, and that results in a lot of UV ray and weather damage.  It hadn't been sanded and restained in years and years.  No time like the present to get started.  We used an air compressor to blow the dust/grime off of the door before we got started.

Then using 150 grit sandpaper on a palm sander, we gave the entire door a good sanding.  We didn't want to get down to the bare wood, though, we just wanted to take the outermost layer of finish off.  In all the little nooks and crannies where the palm sander couldn't touch, we used a sheet of sand paper wrapped around a foam block.  Once the door was sanded, we blew all the dust off with the air compressor and then used damp rags to clean down the surface of the door.

Then we applied a coat of Min Wax Provincial stain using some foam craft brushes.  We just put one coat on.  Take a look at the hardware on the door.  It's a brass knob with a brass face plate.  Time takes its toll on us all and doorknobs are no exception.  The brass hardware is dull and tarnished.  How can we get that cleaned up?  More on that further below.

After an hour or two, we used rags to wipe off any excess stain from the door.

The photo below shows the door after one coat of polyurethane.  The door is noticeably shinier and don't forget the doorknob.  It looks a tad shinier as well.  We found an old can of "Brasso" that we shook up and using elbow grease, rubbed the Brasso on the door handle with an old athletic sock.  It seems to be working a little bit to restore some of the shine and lustre, but it needs lots of finessing to get it shiny.  It has to get shinier than this!

And finally, here's the finished product after 3 coats of polyurethane.   Not too shabby for some amateurs (Dad & I)  Also, look at how the brass door knob shines!  I discovered an old hack for polishing silver or brass.  If you add some fireplace ashes to the paste, it adds abrasive material that more effectively cleans up the tarnish and shines the brass so shiny, you could see your reflection in it.

Final finished product photo:  Mom & Dad in front of their newly refinished front door.

Woo hoo!  Looks mighty spiffy.  (The door and the parents,)

Awash in Squash!

The squash vine borer (SVB) is a terrible pest.  It's a red and black moth that lays eggs at the base of the squash.  The eggs hatch and the larvae bore into the stem, hollowing out the plant, depriving it of nutrition.  One day everything in the squash patch is wonderful.  The next day, you walk out and the big beautiful leaves are wilted and the squash plant is dead!

I wanted to get ahead of the squash vine borers, so I planted early.  An ill-timed frost wiped out the big leaves, but they grew back.  I administered some of my homegrown liquid fertilizer and they grew like bad weeds.  I even had to put up some barriers so they don't crowd out my tomatoes!  And the harvest is really coming in.  This is a daily haul!:  

We are giving them away left and right, but we're eating a bunch of them, too.  We always like to try new recipes.  I'll show you two things we did recently that were hits and will be added into our rotation of dishes we cook.  I'll post links of the recipes if you'd like to try them out for yourself.

The first is zucchini bread.  It has nuts and cinnamon along with 2 cups of shredded zucchini.  If you have kids or grandkids that are picky about vegetables, well here's a sure-fire way to "sneakily" get them to LOVE zucchini!

I cut a slice about 10 minutes after removing from the oven and slathered some butter on top.  Delicious.  Click on the link for the recipe: Zucchini Bread

We had a whole bunch of shredded zucchini left over since the zucchini bread recipe only called for two cups.  So tonight I made zucchini fritters with the rest of them, and I'll be darned if I didn't just about eat them all myself!  Just a few simple ingredients and easy to do.  Here they are frying in a cast iron skillet.  One note: Next time I'll use a smaller zucchini.  You can see the seeds in the fritters below and they can be a little tough.  Zucchini grow really fast, though, so you have to keep and eye on them or they'll get huge overnight.

I like to let them get dark brown and crispy.  They still retain the bright, colorful green.  Fresh stuff from the garden is so tasty and colorful.

You can put sour cream on top, but I poured some homemade hot sauce we made using Anaheim Peppers.  It was scrumptious!

Here is the recipe that I used: Zucchini Fritters Recipe   Unless the squash vine borers wipe us out, we'll have a bumper crop of both zucchini and yellow squash.  If we find any recipes that we like, we'll share.  Maybe a zucchini martini?  Or a zucchini milkshake?  Perhaps not.

Take it To the Limit

I hesitated telling this story for several reasons.  One, you might think I'm embellishing since this just doesn't happen.  Two, I don't want to disparage the town because of the, let's say, overzealous nature of one particular officer enforcing the law.  Three, I'm a 'back the blue' kind of guy.  I thought 'defund the police' was stupid.  I want police to enforce the laws and keep us safe in our communities. And Four, because I did something that sometimes happens in small towns when you know someone.  That'll be explained a little later.

It was a beautiful October day, 8:02 AM and I'm driving to my first stop for work heading west-bound on I-10.  The speed limit is 70 mph, and I'm abiding by the posted limit, traveling in the right hand lane.  As I approach a town that is notorious as a speed trap, I double check my speed.  All good.  I know the spot where they like to hide under the overpass and cite unsuspecting motorists, so my eyes are wide open.

It just so happens, I'm directly behind an 18 wheeler carrying totaled vehicles.  Bumper covers of wrecked vehicles are flapping violently in the wind.  They are not wrapped with mesh or crash wrap, so I'm concerned that some piece will fly off the truck and hit and damage my vehicle.  I routinely inspect vehicles that have been damaged by hitting obstructions on the highway or that have had unsecured items fly off of trucks and damage the vehicle, so my concern is not unwarranted.

I realize then that I'm in a pickle, though.  The truck was doing 70 mph.  If I speed up to pass and get around him, Barney Fife that is hiding in the bushes with his radar detector fired up will ticket me.  If I stay behind the truck, I'm confident my vehicle will be damaged.  I make a calculated decision and put my blinker on and get the the passing lane so I'm not hit by debris from the car carrier.  I maintain the speed limit of 70 mph in the passing lane until such time that I can safely pass the truck.  I waited until the police was a couple miles behind me, speed up to about 74 mph, pass the truck and get back in the right hand lane.  All is right with the world, right?  I made it through the gauntlet.

However, in my rear view mirror, I see blue flashing lights.  "Well," I say to myself, "the Town of _____ just made some more money from someone to buy a new Tahoe or a drone to surveil things around town."  And then he pulls behind me!  I pull over to the shoulder, gather my license, proof of insurance and registration and wait for him to sidle up to my window.

He introduced himself as Officer L____ and presents me with the following citation: 

Right in the middle of the ticket, you can see the infraction.  I was doing 69 mph in a 70 mph speed limit.  (You read that right)  He told me that I was impeding traffic, but there was no one behind me.  I thought of a million things to say, but then I bit a hole through my tongue while telling him thank you.  This is no joke, after handing me the citation for meritorious driving, he told me, "I hope your day gets better from here on out," as he strolled back to his cruiser.

I have a hard-headed streak in me as Tricia will attest.  I committed to myself right there on the shoulder that there is no way in hades that I was going to pay that ticket.  I would go to jail instead on principle.  I would never spend another penny in this nearby town so they wouldn't make any sales tax revenue from me for life.  In the end, after all, I spoke to someone who lived in the town, and they called someone they knew in city government and the ticket was cleared where I wouldn't need to pay it or show up at my court date.

All's well that ends well, I guess.  But every time I drive by there, I know that there is no grace, not even 1 mph over or UNDER, so I set my cruise to 70 mph.  It kinda reminds me of the old Eagles song with the following lyrics:

So put me on a highway, and show me a sign,  (like a speed limit sign?)
And take it to the limit one more time

I know this isn't what Randy Meisner of the Eagles was thinking when he wrote that song, but I would be remiss to warn you, if you are ever driving 10 miles or so west of Jennings on I-10, "take it to the limit one more time."  Take it right up to, but not over, the speed limit of 70. 

Now I'm gonna have that song stuck in my head! 

Homegrown Fertilizer

In a post back on April 5th entitled a "foul smelling concoction", we described how we're turning weeds and garden waste into liquid fertilizer by inoculating with cow manure, rainwater and letting it ferment in 5 gallon buckets in the sun.  Homegrown fertilizer.  It has proven itself.  We've never had bigger, healthier, more productive yellow squash and zucchini!

We have another way that we produce homegrown fertilizer.  It's derived in our henhouse.  You might call it a "fowl" smelling concoction as well.  It is in the hen house where the chickens roost at night on roosting bars on the eastern wall.  You can see the sun filtering in from the western sky as I stand in the doorway.  Over time, the poop piles up underneath the place where they roost.

If you allow it to pile up, the henhouse has a strong ammonia smell.  It reminds me of how they describe bat guano in caves.  Every so often, in order to gather fertilizer AND to freshen up the aroma in there, I shovel the chicken litter into a wagon and pull to the garden.

On this particular afternoon I was able to fill two 30 gallon molasses tubs with composted litter.  I'll cover with a lid to keep it sealed off and dry.  If you look closely at it, in addition to chicken poop, there is straw and feathers mixed in as well.

Chicken litter is high in nitrogen and must be composted or cooled down for about four months until it is "cooled off" enough for use around plants to ensure that you don't burn the plants.  The tricky part of this is that most of the chicken manure in the tub is composted.  However, some of it on the top layer under the roost is fresh.  What I've always been able to do is to mix the litter thoroughly in order to incorporate the fresher manure with the composted manure and then either top dress or incorporate in the soil before planting.  It's an inexact science and it could (pardon the pun) burn me, but up to this point, it hasn't bothered the plants in the garden.

Free fertilizer made right here on our little farm.  It beats the pants off of buying it!

An Easy Spring Dessert

We are right smack dab in the middle of the best strawberry harvest we've ever had.  Very early in the year I planted some bare root strawberries - a ten foot row of them in the very back of the garden by the sugar cane.  They have thrived!  In past years, we struggled because the slugs and snails would eat them before we could harvest them.  A nice lady from our church gave me a plastic shopping bag full of crushed up egg shells to sprinkle around the base of the plant (see below).  She told me that the sharp eggshells cut the slugs undersides when they slide to eat strawberries and die.  I did what she told me, and it appears to work!  

She then told me if the eggshells don't work, that there is another remedy for slugs.  Beer!  She told me to put plastic lids filled with beer around the strawberry plants.  The slimy critters are attracted to the scent, climb in and drown.  I have not tried this eradication option yet.  The last thing I need is a bunch of partying, drunken slugs and snails loitering in the garden.  That doesn't sound safe.

Each morning we can expect to get a handful like this.  I bring them in and Tricia makes us a nice strawberry breakfast smoothie with goat milk and our honey.

I'm going to share a new recipe we tried today that's a keeper: Honey-Lime Macerated Strawberries (a recipe from The School of Traditional Skills.)  Check 'em out!  

So macerated was a new vocabulary word for me.  It means softened while sitting in a liquid.  The acidity of the lime in this recipe pulls out the juice from the strawberries.  Here's what you need:

1 lb fresh strawberries

1 TBS Local Raw Honey

1 Lime zested and juiced

5-6 fresh mint leaves

Wash up the berries that just came out of the garden and pick the mint leaves and wash.

Cut up the strawberries in a glass bowl.  Drizzle the honey, lime juice and lime zest over the berries and stir to coat.

Here's where our new vocabulary word goes to work.  If you let the bowl of berries sit for 15-20 minutes at room temperature the berries soften and a bright red syrup will collect at the bottom of the bowl.  You might call it a maceration sensation.

When it's about time to serve, chiffonade your fresh mint leaves over the top and stir in.

After church we ate a nice meal and put coffee on.  We each fixed a little bowl with this easy spring dessert to go along with our coffee.

What a treat it was!  All the ingredients (except the limes, doggonit) were harvested right off of our land.  That makes it special - almost as special as the taste!  We'll keep this recipe and make more of this before the strawberry harvest ends.