A Warm January So Far

A look at the 3-day forecast reveals that it's been unseasonably warm in our neck of the woods:

We have only lit the fireplace one night so far this winter.  I'm sure we'll get cooler weather before all is said and done, but the warm weather is causing the grass and plants to grow quickly.  Take, for instance, the broccoli.  The hotter than normal weather has caused the broccoli to grow quicker than normal.  I wasn't watching it as closely as I should have and I almost let the first big head of broccoli flower.  Had I not found it and waited one more day, it would be covered in yellow blooms and the honeybees would've been all over it.

When the head begins to spread apart like you see, you've let it go too long.  It'll still be fine for eating, but I would have liked to pick this one 3 days ago.  It's still a nice head.  I think Tricia was going to make a quiche with this and some kale in the near future.

After you harvest a big head of broccoli like this, it's not over.  The plant is desirous of producing seeds, so it will send forth a multitude of florets off every shoot of the plant.  If you're diligent and pick the florets every day, I think that you can harvest more broccoli from the little florets than you get from the big head of broccoli.  I haven't weighed the florets in comparison with the weight of the head to confidently say this, but I'm sure that's the case.

We'll be eating lots of broccoli as well as blanching and freezing it over the next month.  Right behind this will be the cabbage, carrot, and cauliflower harvest.  The warm weather will cause everything to ripen quicker this year, so I'll have to keep a close eye on things so as not to allow the crops to over-ripen.

A Ride to the Farm

(L to R: Benjamin, Tricia, Emery, Kristian, Russ, Mom & Dad)

Since most of the family was in for Christmas, we decided to load up and drove to the farm in Oberlin in the late afternoon after lunch.  It was a remarkably beautiful day, and we drove around and visited and brought up many good memories.  The farm is leased out to a farmer who grows rice and crawfish.  Dad still goes out every day and checks on the wells and changes the oil.

There have been lots of changes in farming over the past decade or so.  Many of the irrigation well engines are being converted from diesel power to electric.  Also, our farm borders the northern area of rice growing region in Louisiana.  Because of that the land isn't as flat as rice land further south.  An effort is being made to laser level the land and take out levees, resulting in larger, flatter cuts within the fields.  An instrument is used to level and large tractors with dirt buckets move mass quantities of dirt with precision.  When done, the land is as flat as a pool table.  This makes irrigation very efficient as you can pump exactly 3 inches of water across the entire field.  In old days, you may have 3 inches of water on one end and 9 inches on the other.

The size and cost of equipment will blow your mind.  It enables fewer people to work more acres, but it also means that your capital investment is very high, which presents serious problems when commodity prices are low.  One other change that we marveled at was that a farm just to the north of our land that we rented to farm was planted in pine trees and they've grown.  Fields that we planted soybeans and rice on are now forest land.  It's totally unrecognizable.  Time sure flies.  Nothing stays the same, it seems.

We passed by the old graveyard with the huge live oak where we'd park in the shade and eat our lunch each day while listening to Paul Harvey.  We drove down gravel roads where Louisiana iris grew wild in the ditches.  In the photo above directly behind us toward the woods was our first crawfish pond.  My grandpa bought me some traps and an aluminum boat that I would pull way back in the early 1980's before farm-raised crawfish (versus Atchafalaya Basin crawfish) took off.  We were early pioneers in the crawfish industry, catching and selling crawfish locally for boils.  Now the boats are primarily motorized and manned by labor brought in from foreign countries to run.

What memories!  As we rode around and talked, and so many sentences began with "Hey, remember in that field we..."  Some of the old landmarks are gone and much of the technology has changed, but our love for the land has not.  The farm is part of me and love for agriculture and all things pastoral and dealing with seeds and dirt flows in my veins and remains a integral part of who I am.

A Trip to Corpus Christi

We were out of pocket for a couple of days last week and didn't get to post Thursday night.  We don't have cows or goats in milk so it seemed like the perfect time to take a little trip.  Dad and Mom graciously agreed to come check on the animals and feed and water them, gather eggs, and generally make sure everything was okay on our little farm.  We left Thursday morning on a 6 hour drive to Tricia's hometown to visit her Mom and brothers that live there.  We stopped for lunch west of Houston at one of the two Czech BBQ joints we like to stop at - Mikeska's and Pracek's, and stopped on the way back at Bucc-ee's, of course, which is famous for it's clean bathrooms and snacks.

Tricia grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas.  It's really not a bad drive, west on I-10 through Houston and then south on 59, then south on 77 right into Corpus.  There's always lots of wind off the gulf and driving into Corpus, there are numerous windmills generating electricity.  It's wild to watch all those turbines spinning.  Corpus Christi is beautiful city sitting right on the bay.  It's now home to the USS Lexington, a naval air station and they just got a brand new harbor bridge.  You can see it in the distance in the photo below when the boys and I drove out to Cole park and walked out on the pier.

Corpus Christi was also the home of Farah Fawcett.  Who can forget Farah?!  The famous singer Selena was also from Corpus.  Freddy Fender, a singer I really liked from my youth lived in Corpus Christi as well.  He sang, "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" and "I'll be there before the next teardrop falls."  But the most important thing in Corpus is Tricia's Mom.  She's 88 and in great health and Tricia tries to go visit as often as she can.  This time, Russ and Benjamin and I accompanied her for the visit and I'm glad we did.  We enjoyed visiting with Mrs. Garcia and two of Tricia's brothers, Albert and David, as well as Albert's wife Janice and their kids, Michael and Celeste.

We laughed, played games and visited and had great fun.  In our neck of the woods, cooler weather is also called "gumbo weather," and we eat a lot of chicken and sausage gumbo and shrimp and okra gumbo.  In the Hispanic culture, there's another dish that's eaten, and we were introduced to menudo.  Tricia's brother, Albert is a good cook, and worked hard in the kitchen to make menudo.  Menudo is a soup made with chili powder, cumin and other spices along with hominy and tripe.  Tripe is the stomach lining of a cow.  In Mexican-American culture (as well as Cajun culture), when an animal is butchered, nothing is wasted.  Menudo is good and spicy and we enjoyed it!

We drove by the T-heads and watched the shrimp boats come in and admired the beautiful water.  Corpus Christi, despite being on the coast, has a water emergency.  They're running out of it, and water rationing is in effect!  They do get less than half the rainfall we do, averaging only 31.7 inches a year.  The reservoirs are low, but that's not the primary reason for the shortfall.  Industry is gobbling up most of the available water usage.  There is talk of water desalination plant construction, but the cost is high and prohibitive.  What are they going to do?  It reminds me of a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, that says, "Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink."

Russ & Benjamin

We like to work on projects while we're there.  Russ is a plumber and was able to take the reins and help install a new washing machine to replace a 1992 model that had worn out.  Actually, it was still working, but the selector switch had broken and parts are no longer available.  I'd say Mrs. Garcia got her money's worth out of it - 34 years!  Wow.  We talked about the fact that my brother still has an old International Harvester deep freezer that my grandmother had that still works.  To the best of our knowledge, that thing was manufactured in the late 40's or early 50's!  Things used to be made to last.  Unfortunately, in a disposable society, those days are gone.  Back to the washing machine, we made a quick trip to Home Depot for some new water lines and had the new or gently used washer in place in no time.

While at Home Depot, we picked up some paint for our next project.  We repainted Mrs. Garcia's shed.  We first applied some Ospho to eat away at some rust spots and then we put two coats of exterior paint on the shed.  It was like Mark Twain's "Adventures of Tom Sawyer" where Tom fooled Huck into painting the fence.  In this case, however, it WAS a privilege to do so.  The three of us tackled the project and had great fun in "quality control," pointing out spots that each other had missed, teasing and harassing each other relentlessly.  We actually ran out of daylight and painted the first coat by the lights from the head lamps of our SUV!  The next morning when the dew burned off, we quickly got the second coat on.  While not professional painters, by any stretch of the imagination, the finished product looked good!

The Painters (Benjamin and Russ)

Fueled by several cups of strong coffee along with egg, potato and chorizo taquitos for breakfast, we were adequately caffeinated and energized and got the second and final coat on in surprising speed.  We'll see how our work holds up to the test of time.

 

The painters and Mrs. Garcia

Tricia's mom was pleased with the completed work, but we were more pleased to be able to do something for her.  I snapped this photo of Tricia and her Mom in front of the freshly painted shed.

Mrs. Garcia and my bride

At half past 11 AM on Saturday, we loaded up and said farewell to Mrs. Garcia and Tricia's brother, Albert.  I tried my best to get Mrs. Garcia to come and stay with us for a while, but she said, "Maybe later."  We'll keep trying.  Hopefully, we can get her to come visit us soon.  Now, we're back home and have a lot of projects here on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm we'll be discussing with you in the upcoming days.  Happy New Year to all of you!  What type of projects do you have going on?  We'd be interested in hearing about them.

Happy New Year From Our Maker's Acres Family Farm

 

What a year!  We've had ups and downs, victories and defeats, joy and sadness, met goals and fell short.  But we've learned and grown and look forward to a new year, a fresh start, a clean slate.  We look forward to 2026 - a year to make memories.  May the Good Lord bless you and keep you, may His face shine upon you and give you strength!

Neat Things You Find on a Simple Walk

Each morning I wake about 6 am and walk out to the barn to do chores.  It involves feeding the dog and cat, chickens, goats and cows, opening up nesting boxes and making sure the water troughs are full of water.  I get the pitch fork and scoop up some piles of cow poop and throw it in piles on the wood chips that are stacked in the back of the garden.  I also check the round hay bale in the hay ring and make sure the bull and goats in the bull pen have hay to eat.  

As I walked back by the garden something caught my eye that was glittering in the morning sun.  Check it out!  Overnight, a spider had done a magical job of constructing an ornate spiderweb.  The dewdrops decorate the strands of web like jewels.  The intricacy of the web is amazing to me.  How long does the spider labor to build out this detailed structure?  No plans, no blueprints, no building codes or permits paid.  No YouTube video to learn how to do it.  Nope, God gave them the ability to do this wonderful craftmanship.  To top it off, the spider built this web at night!  After a few hours, the dew will burn off and the web will be almost invisible, allowing a fly or other insect to fly into the web and end up being supper for the industrious spider.

Next, I walked out to check on the four bee hives.  It's been warm in the mornings the past few days and the bees are active early, flying to the sasanqua camelias which are in full bloom to gather pollen and nectar to bring back to the hives.  In just a couple of months we'll be splitting the hives, hoping to turn four hives into eight.  It's good that the bees are building up their stores so they'll be ready to grow out come springtime.

While walking to the hives, I stopped at the base of an old willow tree that had died.  About six or eight months ago, I cut off the top and made a cross in the back yard.  It has since fallen apart, but the upright part of the cross still stands.  Dead willow trees are famous for their perfect environment that oyster mushrooms love to grow on.  And what do you know?  On this particular morning, there was a HUGE oyster mushroom feeding on the base of the decomposing willow tree.  I just had to cut it off and bring it inside.

Tricia washed it up and cut it into pieces.  It would go perfectly in the dish she was planning on cooking that evening - Shrimp Victoria.  Here is the recipe, if you're interested: Shrimp Victoria Recipe  We ate it over rice, but it goes equally well over pasta.  Those succulent gulf shrimp, accented by the fresh oyster mushrooms from the back yard was the perfect meal!

What We Do When Our Cows are Dry

We mentioned a few posts ago that all of our cows are dry.  We've no fresh milk.  A veterinarian came and palpated our cows to find that LuLu is two-month's pregnant and should be calving somewhere around July 2026.  With no cows currently in milk and the fact that we have dried up our goats from which we were getting fresh goat milk each day, a big question arises.  What do we do about milk for personal use?

In today's post, I'll show you.  Fortunately for us, we have good friends with cows in milk.  It is from these friends that we borrowed a bull to breed our cows.  Our little bull, Nicky, came from these friend's bull, Nick, that we brought to our farm to breed the cows.  Back to the story - these friends are 8.8 miles due north from us.  They have a PMA (Private Membership Association) that affords members to access directly farm products produced on site.  

These folks are wonderful Christian people and do things the right way.  Come along with us as we pick up a gallon of milk this week.  We put an ice chest in the back of the vehicle and in less than 10 minutes, we arrive at Grace Ranch.  They have a very nice building for members to pick up the many products they produce off their farm.

As we walk inside, everything is clean and orderly.  There are three coolers and freezers on the east wall loaded with fresh offerings: Eggs, kombucha, raw milk, raw cream, yogurt, broth, chocolate milk, and beef products.  No one is in the store.  It's honor system.  There's a notebook where you log the jars you return, the products you're picking up, and the amount of cash you're leaving.

A receipt taped to the jars details what's being held for you.  This week we have two half gallon jars of 100% Jersey milk waiting for us:

A professional label lists the product, the size, and (I like this!) the name of the cow providing this week's milk (Molly, in this case) and when it was produced.  It doesn't get much fresher than this!  Except, of course, when our Jersey cows are in milk.

As we leave, there's a posting of what Harvest of Grace stands for and their commitment to the families they serve:

Top-notch people producing quality products for local families interested in real food.  We support them and will continue to do so until sometime in July when LuLu calves and we are back in milk here at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  So what do we do when our cows are dry?  Well, we feel blessed to have friends that we can source raw milk from while our cows are not in milk production.  

Merry Christmas From Our Maker's Acres Family Farm

On Christmas Eve, most of our family was able to get together at my Mom & Dad's house.  The video below that lasts less than three minutes shows our family tradition.  It's a special time of recognizing the importance of Jesus, the One whom Christmas is all about.  As we listen to Luke 2 and the story of the birth of Christ while among family members we love, it underscores the fact that it's not what's under the tree, it's who is gathered around it.

We wish you the merriest of Christmas' and that you were able to enjoy the day with those you love.  Thank you Lord for sending your Son.