Inaugural Meeting of the Jeff Davis Parish Homesteaders

Thursday afternoon at six the Jeff Davis Parish Homesteaders (we don't have an official name yet) convened for our inaugural meeting.  It was held five miles due east of our home in a shed.  The gentlemen in the khaki shirt with the phone in his pocket assembled a small group of like-minded people to discuss things of interest to all of us.  The attendees included an engineer, a physical therapist, a pipeline technician, a lawyer, a truck driver, a teacher, stay-at-home moms, an insurance adjuster, a car salesman and a baby!

What do we all have in common?  A love for the land, a desire to return to "old skills," a longing to learn more about regenerative agriculture and building good soil, a wish to be more self-sufficient, healthy and free.  It included folks who have been doing this for 20 years and those who have just started this adventure.  The meeting started at 6 PM and ended around 8:20 when the mosquitoes threatened to carry us all away after sucking most of our blood out.

We started by going around the table, introducing ourselves and explaining our origin story - how we embarked on this journey of homesteading.  The second topic going around the table, each individual discussed what they are producing off their homestead farms.  It included raw milk, beef cattle, yogurt, kombucha, cheese, butter, citrus, vegetables, goat kefir, honey, pastured poultry eggs, sour dough bread and many more items I can't remember.  We also talked about how we support other local homesteaders with purchasing or trading or sharing production we don't produce on our farms. 

Finally, we talked about goals.  What do we wish to achieve going forward?  We talked in depth about efforts and plans to restore the soil to health as most of us are on land whose fertility has been diminished from overuse, lack of rest, and years of chemical spraying (herbicides & pesticides).   

We all learn lots of new things on You Tube and from bloggers on the internet, but you take it to another level when you meet with local subject matter experts of a broad variety of homesteading topics such as pasture management, making elderberry cordials, growing vegetables, milking cows, marketing items off your farm, etc.  It was an impressive and informative first meeting.  We shared contact information and planned to meet again soon.

Even though both nightfall and swarms of mosquitoes fell upon us quickly and relentlessly, we continued talking with each other as we walked to our vehicles.  One more thing to love about living in the country - good people sharing information and enjoying visiting with each other.  The only thing missing was opening of the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and a Prayer (doggonit, we didn't do this!)  We also didn't have any food!  Perhaps we'll rectify that at our next meeting.

Gumbo Season!

Believe it or not, our high tomorrow will be 81 degrees and our low will be 53.  Now we're talking!  I think it's time.  Most people call it Fall.  Some call it Autumn.  We call it "gumbo weather."  First, you make a roux.  We had four blue-winged teal in the freezer from a recent hunt and some good locally made smoked sausage.  That'll be some proteins for a good teal and sausage gumbo to bring in our favorite time of year.  Don't get me wrong, gumbo is good any time, it's just so satisfying when there's a chill to the air.  It warms the heart and soul.

Tricia browned the teal on all sides and then patiently browned her roux a good long time, constantly stirring, until it was the color of dark chocolate.  With plenty of trinity (bell peppers, onions, and celery) cooked down and stock added along with seasonings, you've got a good meal coming right up.  It makes the whole house smell so good.  We enjoyed a bowl after church on Sunday and have been working on it each day since.  Gumbo gets better day after day as the flavors get deeper and richer.

I almost forgot to mention the rice.  I like a lot of rice in my gumbo.  We add green onions to the top for flavor and color.  We usually enjoy a big dollop of potato salad added to the bowl but didn't make any this time.

With four of us eating Sunday lunch (Tricia, me, Russ & Benjamin), we each got a teal in our bowl to eat.  It's a little messy to eat, but delicious.  It's important to have a plate nearby we call "the bone plate" to put your teal carcass once it's been cleaned up.

That's the first of many gumbos to come this fall.  We have plenty of okra put up in the freezer in ziploc bags, so for sure shrimp and okra gumbo will be on the menu.  The old standby, chicken and sausage gumbo, will certainly be made numerous times this fall.  Hopefully, we'll kill more ducks during 'big duck' season so we can have more duck gumbos, too.

35 Years Strong

Today, October 20th, my bride and I celebrated 35 years of marriage.  35 years and we've never had a fight (that I won).  My wife is a gift sent from God.  She makes me a better man.  I love this woman!  To celebrate, on Saturday morning we drove to Breaux Bridge, Louisiana for brunch at one of our favorite restaurants.  Arriving 15 minutes early, we walked one block east to overlook the muddy, slow-flowing waters of Bayou Teche.  In the background is the town's namesake.  With a four hour notice, they'll lift the bridge so that boats can pass underneath.

We've been coming to this restaurant for years.  It used to be called Cafe Des Amis and changed its name to Cafe Sydnie Mae.  The food is great, service is top-notch, and the atmosphere is wonderful.

A long time ago, they made coffins in the building and the hostess stands on the old elevator used to bring coffins up to the second floor for storage back in the old days.

We had reservations at 11 and were shown to our seats.  They had a card made out for us that the staff had signed.

We got the Atchafalaya Omelette which had lump crabmeat, shrimp and crawfish.  Cheese grits on the side with a buttermilk biscuit with strawberry preserves and Cane butter.  Wow!  So delicious.

For dessert they brought us some bread pudding to share as lagniappe!  I had to turn the 4 into a 3 with my fork as we are celebrating 35 years.  For Tricia it probably feels like 45.  We took off our rings and put them on the plate to add to the decorations.

We took our time eating as they had a live jazz band playing smooth, relaxing jazz.  We sat there for an hour and a half just enjoying the food, music, and of course, conversation with my beautiful bride.  We have a little routine that we do.  We walk down the street two blocks on the corner.  There's a cafe called 'Tante Marie's."  On Saturday mornings from 11 to 1 pm, local musicians bring their instruments and have a jam session.  There are accordions, all sorts of guitars, fiddles, and triangles.  Everyone just plays cajun music and they sing in French.  We have coffee while we listen to them play.  Click the arrow below and you can partake as well:

I almost forgot to tell you.  Breaux Bridge is full of little antique shops and gift shops line the street.  In very uncharacteristic fashion, I followed Tricia in a shop.  Something caught my eye and I bought it.  This is a Cypress Sinker from the Atchafalaya Swamp.  We're going to hang it over the french doors in our house.  Each year of marriage has gifts associated.  I didn't see a gift for 35.  We'll just say it's Cypress!  Neat thing is, it cost $35 - $1 for each year of marriage.  That's a bargain in my book.

On the way back, Tricia got a text from a friend group from her high school.  She has great friends and they stay in contact.  One friend sent Tricia a song called, "35 Years Strong."  Tricia thought, wow, how neat.  It was named 35 years strong and it started with a cajun fiddle playing, lyrics about Louisiana, farming and faith, and then it had our names!

Her friend Janie used an app to create an anniversary song for us and it is our new favorite country song!  It's so catchy and the words are perfect.  I've included the lyrics below, but you can click on the hyperlink (35 Years Strong) below to redirect to the website to listen to the video.  When it directs you to a website, click on the photo of the barn and sunflowers and it will play the wonderful song.  I think you'll enjoy.

35 Years Strong   (<--- Click right there)

[Verse 1] Thirty-five years, it’s been quite a ride, Through the Louisiana fields, side by side. With every sunrise, and every storm, Faith and love kept your hearts warm. [Prechorus] From the bayou nights to the morning dew, Every step's been a dance for two. [Chorus] Tricia and Kyle, thirty-five years strong, A love like yours, where faith belongs. Through family roots and southern skies, Together you've built a life that never dies.

[Verse 2] The kids grew up, the farm stayed true, Every plowed row had a piece of you. Sunday prayers and supper at eight, Y’all built a legacy no storm could break. [Prechorus] Through every harvest, through every tear, Your love just grows year after year. [Chorus] Tricia and Kyle, thirty-five years strong, A love like yours, where faith belongs. Through family roots and southern skies, Together you've built a life that never dies.

Happy Anniversary, Tricia. I love you!

Giving the Live Oaks a Haircut

As our high temperatures aren't in the 90's anymore, it's opened up some items on my to-do list that I didn't want to attempt in the sweltering heat.  One of those chores is trimming the live oaks.  I like to clean up the suckers that grow off of the horizontal limbs.  Doing so gives the tree a cleaner look.  The goats really like when I do this as I throw the branches into the pasture where they make quick work of the leaves.  

The main tool I use for this is a 10 foot extendable electric chainsaw with an 8 inch blade.  The hard part is getting up to the branches to trim, but that's accessible with a tall ladder.  Being that the chainsaw is electric, you don't have to worry about it not starting or the carburetor being gummed up.  The main thing is to keep the chain sharpened and I do that with a 'rat-tail' file.  It gets the job done on smaller branches.  This electric chainsaw cost me $69, and it has paid for itself time and again.  I can't say enough about how faithfully this saw has performed.

Once I got the smaller suckers removed, I began to look for the next low hanging fruit.  There was a big dead branch.  We have a concrete bench directly underneath it that seemed like a bad place to be sitting for when that big branch gave way.  Time to cut that down.  This branch is too big in diameter to do with a chainsaw with an 8 inch bar.  I precariously set a ladder so that I climb up and lean over and get in position to cut it off.  I try to do this type thing when Tricia is inside as she gets nervous when I'm up in the tree.

You can see the fresh, clean cut way up there.  I moved the bench and flowers so that I wouldn't crush them when the limb was felled.

Since this limb was bigger, it requires a bigger saw.  This is a Greenworks 80 volt battery powered saw with an 18 inch bar.  This thing cuts beautifully.  It's quiet and efficient.  The battery might last 20 minutes, but I have another battery inside charging as I drain the first one.  It keeps me cutting.  I've been pleased with this saw as well.  I had been sharpening each chain for years, but it was finally time to put new chains on both of the saws.  Wow!  What a difference it makes to have a new chain on it!

With a loud thud, the big dead branch landed on the ground.  It did crush Tricia's plant hanger and a decorative flag, but I did my best to straighten them up.

I recharged the 80 volt battery and quickly cut up the live oak logs into fireplace sized pieces.  I'll also give the logs time to season and then I'll split them.  These logs went into a wagon and were pulled back by the fire pit.

Coupling this with a ton of firewood leftover from last year and we're pretty much set for the fireplace this winter.

On-going Fall Harvest

I've just about gotten everything planted for the fall garden, with the exception of radishes, turnips, mustard greens and spinach.  We're still getting pretty strong bug and worm pressure right now, so we'd like to get some cooler weather that may dissuade them from nightly all-you-can-eat buffets in the garden before we plant.

Speaking of all-you-can-eat buffets, I came back from work the other day to find one of our goats named Popcorn had jumped over a weakened part of the garden fence and that dude was in the garden eating.  Fortunately, he only got to the sweet potato vines when I caught him.  I was still some kind of angry with him.  I had used landscape timbers as fence posts (bad decision) and they rotted.  The goats took advantage of this and pushed the post down and it enabled Popcorn to get in the garden.  Today I picked up 6 treated 8 foot 4x4s at the hardware store.  Mending the garden fence is my next project.  (Thank you, Popcorn.)

One thing that's really coming in strong right now is peppers.  They are in abundance, healthy, and colorful.  We bring baskets and baskets in and have started taking them to church to give away.  They'll continue producing until the first frost kills them.  The average first frost date for our area is November 10th.  That means lots more peppers forthcoming.

The photo below shows Anaheim peppers at top and right, bell peppers at bottom, lilac bell peppers at left and underneath them are sweet banana peppers.  Not pictured are the jalapenos.  We've been picking a bunch of those, halving them and coring/seeding them and freezing for making jalapeno poppers.  With the Anaheim peppers (mild) and bell peppers and banana peppers (sweet), we chop those up and freeze for cooking.

Around here there's something called the trinity of Cajun cooking.  That includes bell pepper, celery and onion.  When we were in the grocery business, one of our more popular selling items was Pictsweet Seasoning blend.  This was pre-cut and frozen Cajun trinity.  No chopping or work.  Cajun Trinity frozen in a bag.  Open the bag and dump in your skillet to cook down.  Easy peezy.  Although we don't freeze them all together.  We cut and freeze peppers, onions, and celery to use in cooking.  It's a great time saver in the kitchen.

The bright orange peppers below are called Datil peppers.  They are HOT!  We core these and put them on the dehydrator for drying.  Once completely dry, we put them in a food processor and make pepper for seasoning.  We learned you've got to be careful.  We've added a little too much to dishes and you had to have a glass of water handy while you ate!  The peppers on the right are Hot Banana Peppers.  Unlike their cousins, sweet banana peppers, these will start a five alarm fire in your mouth.  They look just like the sweet ones, too!  We normally pickle most of the banana peppers - both sweet and hot.

The last photo is okra.  The production of okra is certainly way down since the summer.  We grow several varieties (Louisiana longhorn, Burgundy okra, Beck's Big okra, and Clemson spineless).  We chop them up and cook down with onions and then freeze in quart freezer bags.  We'll freeze a lot of this to use in winter gumbos.  Once you have an inventory of all the garden harvest in the freezer, it makes cooking the meal that much easier and cuts out trips to the grocery store.

In a few weeks, I'll chop all the okra down and plant mustard greens, spinach, radishes and turnips between rows on the fallow ground between where the okra was planted.

Garlic is Up

Fourteen days ago we posted that we're giving garlic another shot, so we planted a bunch of it.  Let's check in and see how things are going.  I planted the Elephant Garlic in some molasses tubs full of homemade potting soil amended with leaves and chicken litter.  I've kept it watered each day.  October is one of our driest months and it's living up to its reputation.  From the looks of it, we've gotten a little better than 50% germination on the elephant garlic.  Maybe more will pop up in a few days.

In the garden in the side yard, I planted all of the softneck garlic.  The soil is heavily amended with composted mulch.  Like the others, I watered this bed heavily and a bunch of the garlic is popping up here as well.  I'd venture to say, so far, it's about a 70% germination rate.

Perhaps more will come up as time goes on.  This is a crop that teaches patience.  It's the longest crop to harvest that we grow - a full 210 days to maturity.

Garlic is worth the wait, though.  It's so delicious!

The Fall Flow is On

In fallow fields all around us at this time of year, you see a bright, happy yellow hue that radiates happiness.  To some, the sight of this radiates allergy problems because this is goldenrod.  Interestingly enough, the honeybees love this stuff.  All day long they forage for pollen and nectar in these yellow fields.

During the springtime, for spring honey, it is primarily made from the flowers of Chinese tallow trees, white Dutch clover, and privet.  We pulled all that honey in July.  For the fall crop of honey, it is almost entirely goldenrod honey.  Goldenrod honey has a very strange attribute.  It stinks.  Seriously.  It smells like a sweaty t-shirt that you took off after mowing and through into a hamper, maybe along with a pair of sweaty socks.  The sour smell is exactly what goldenrod honey smells like.  You walk around the hives and you can't miss it.  It is beneficial to your health, though, and so, this year for the first time, we are planning to pull fall honey.

It's time we inspect the hives to make sure the bees have enough space in the hive to put the stores of nectar they are bringing in.  We apply a little smoke to calm them down.  As soon as you open the telescoping lid, you hear a humming sound as they come up to greet you.

I pulled out a frame and it's heavy.  It's almost completely capped.  The uncapped cells have nectar in them and they'll be capped soon.  Almost all the frames are full of honey.  They are going to run out of room.  That means we'll need to add another medium super on the top to give them more room.  The rule of thumb is that when the box is 80% full of capped honey, add another box.  If you don't, you run the risk of them running out of room and leaving.

Before putting the top on, I put another swiffer sheet on top of the frames, to catch small hive beetles.

Before I put the empty box on top, let me pull it back off and show you how active the bees are.  This was at about 9 AM, so many of the bees are out in the goldenrod field already, foraging for nectar and pollen.

They are very busy and are not afraid to get in my face and let me know they mean business!  I am very thankful for my bee suit.

So all in all, once we added the empty supers on top of the full ones, we have nine total honey supers.  We'll be pulling honey in early November when the goldenrod blooms taper off.

We'll let you know how it goes next month.