A Recycled Foundation

My son Russ lives in a neighboring town.  He had a sidewalk leading from his front door to the street that was cracking due to an oak tree in the yard.  The insurance company warned that a cracked sidewalk was a liability issue, so the sidewalk had to come up.  Russ rented a saw from a rental place in Lake Charles and in half a day we had the entire sidewalk chopped up and hauled to the back of his house.  He filled in where the sidewalk was with topsoil and the St. Augustine grass is quickly filling it in.  Russ attempted to get the town to take the big pieces of concrete to stop erosion in canals or ditches in the area, but they were not interested.  So, what are we going to do?

We poured a little sidewalk linking his old sidewalk to the driveway

I went one afternoon before it got too hot and, using a sledgehammer, I cracked the old pieces of sidewalk into pieces that would be manageable to handle.  The old sidewalk was at least four inches think.  After propping the pieces up on another chunk of concrete, I was able to crack them up pretty easily.

With our recent goat barn renovation, I had a brainstorm.  The goat barn sits in a low area.  We didn't think things through when we built the barn there.  Over the years we've hauled loads of dirt to build up the area.  Unfortunately, the goat barn area was never built up - until this week!  I moved several loads of clay into the barn and leveled it out.  Then we moved several loads of the old sidewalk ten miles east and north to our place.  I arranged them on top of the clay as best as I could so that the pieces fit as close together as I could get them.

The problem with that is the cracks between the sidewalk chunks.  What to do?!  Then we remembered that our neighbor had given us 20 bags of sand that he no longer needed.  I poured the sand in the cracks and let the animals walk on it.  As they walked and the concrete moved, the sand settled.  I added more.  This time the concrete is more firm.  I'll need a few more pieces of the sidewalk to be put in place and then sand poured in the cracks.  Then I'll spray it with water to really set in in good.

This 'recycled foundation' lifted the level of the floor by about five inches, ensuring that the goats will be high and dry.  An added bonus is the concrete will help the condition of their hooves.  They'll be on a firm foundation.  When the town refused Russ' concrete, he made two loads to the landfill to dump the old sidewalk.  I'm glad we were able to get the rest of it!  Always nice to recycle something that's no longer useful into something that is useable and an upgrade.

Searching for Accuracy

We like to sit around and ask 'Ice breaker' questions.  It's good for conversation and to exercise a rusty brain.  We went around the table this time answering the question, "If you could improve a hobby that you have, what would it be?"  Tricia's answer was sewing.  She sews pretty good but would like to improve her skills.  As I thought about mine, I answered, "Woodworking."  I've no problem building things.  Things that I build are functional.  They just aren't pretty!  Most of the time I'm building things at the barn or the garden or something for the animals or the bees.  Animals and to a lesser extent, bees, aren't picky about things being cut square.

I have a disability and that is math.  The reason I can't cut things square is because my math skills are severely... lacking.  I'm fine cutting 1/2 inch increments or even 1/4 inch increments.  For some reason, once I get to 1/8 or certainly 1/16, I lose the ability to accurately cut.  I generally just say, "Ah, it's close enough."  As a result, things aren't square and they aren't pretty.  It bothers me, though, because things need to be accurate and not only in woodworking.

Each year for the last decade and a half or so, we've chart rainfall.  I've used the old rain gauge shown below mounted (crookedly) to a post in the garden.  Years in the sun and weather have aged the old rain gauge, much like our human bodies.  It's yellowed and is hard to read.

I began searching for a new one and found one.  It was advertised as being 'accurate.'  Sounds like what I was after, so I ordered it and installed it before a decent-sized rainfall last week.  See how clean and easy to read the new one is?:

As an experiment, I left them both up.  The old rain gauge measured 2.65 inches.  The new one measured 2.9 inches.  If the new one is indeed more accurate, and I think it is, over the course of a year, my rain measurement has been lower than it actually is - not by much, but over a year, it is significantly off.  It's high time we correct that.  Maybe one day, I'll be able to improve the accuracy of my rudimentary woodworking skills, but that's not going to be as simple as solving the rain gauge accuracy issue!

A Day to Honor Mothers

 

Top: (Brooks, Graham, Dad, Mom, Kristian, me, Russ, Tricia, Benjamin)
Bottom: (Hayes, Hannah, Jessie, Jenny, Landry, Carson)

A short post today, after a long, happy day spent with family to honor, serve and love the moms in our lives.  We sat around the table and visited and laughed and remembered and planned and, oh yeah, we ate!  We circled up, held hands and prayed before eating, asking blessings on the food we were about to eat and the time we were to spend with one another.  But first, I'll rewind about two hours earlier to the sermon at our little church.  The text was 1 Samuel that introduces us to a woman named Hannah.  Hannah was in an unfortunate situation.  You see, Hannah was married, but there was another woman in the picture.  She shared her husband with another woman.  If that wasn't a hard enough situation, it was made doubly worse because the Lord had closed Hannah's womb - she couldn't have children and she desperately wanted a son.  Her adversary, the other woman, would tease her and make fun of her because Hannah was barren.  You might think that Hannah would grow bitter, but you'd be wrong.

Hannah prayed and prayed, pleading with the Lord to give her a son.  She made a vow that if God answered her prayer, she would give her son back to God.  God heard Hannah's prayer and gave her a son.  She named her son Samuel - an appropriate name for it meant "God has heard."  Once Hannah had weaned Samuel, she made good on her vow, taking her three year old son to the priest, Eli.  She handed him over to Eli saying, "I have dedicated him to the LORD, as long as he lives, he is dedicated to the LORD."  Hannah was faithful and obedient.

That's not the end of the story.  God had great plans for Samuel.  He went on to be a prophet of the Lord.  He became a judge, speaking on behalf of God, turning the people of Israel back to God.  Samuel anointed Israel's first king - Saul.  Later, he would anoint Israel's greatest king - David.  When Samuel died, the whole nation of Israel mourned.  

Looking back, it must have been incredibly difficult for Hannah to follow through with her vow, but think of all that happened because a woman was faithful to the God she served.  We may not understand it, but God does indeed have a plan for everyone's life.  What should we do?  We should pray, and we should trust God for His will to be done in our lives and... in the lives of our children.

God has placed a great mother in my life.  A mom who lived a life of sacrifice.  A mom who is faithful to God.  A mom who pointed us to Christ.  A mom I deeply love.  He has also put into my life a loving wife who has been a great mother to our children.  A mom who prays and trusts God with her whole being.  I thank God for blessing me with a great Mom and for putting a wife in my life that is a great mom to our children.  Thank God for Mothers!  I hope you had a wonderful day celebrating (or remembering) your mother.

Onions Coming in

At around this time each year like clockwork, the onion harvest begins.  It's a good thing.  We're out of onions and have been purchasing them.  To be fair, we like onions and cook with them often.  In harvesting the onions, it is a process that takes a little while to get them where we want them - inside and/or cut up and in the freezer.  Here's a shot from about a month ago, of our onions slowly ripening, all lined up like soldiers.

And here we are again at the tail end of April in the same onion patch.  They don't look quite as lush.  Some are ready to be pulled.

The photo below shows how you know which ones are ripe.  The neck of the onion folds over and the weight of the onion tops causes it to bend to the ground.  It's as if to say, "I give up.  I can't do this anymore."

Once it bends over, it's time to pull it from the ground.  Many people let them dry in the sun in the garden after pulling them.  Here is a photo of a big, fat Yellow Granex Onion.  This is a sweet onion, the ones marketed as Vidalia onions.  I think this is my favorite variety!  We also grow Early Texas White, Texas 1015 Sweet, and Red Creole Onions.

Because it gets so hot and humid here so very quickly, I like to pull them and put them on an expanded metal patio table so that the air can flow around them and begin drying them out.  After two days here, I'll get some clippers and snip off the onion top about an inch from the onion.  I'll let it continue to dry out on the table for a day or two more.

Then we bring them into our onion drying room.  Actually, it is our parlor, or living room that I've taken over momentarily, spreading a blue tarp on the floor to catch onion skins and dirt.  We lay them on a baker's rack for drying.

We keep a fan going all day to allow for good air flow.  Sometimes, if you don't, the onions will get soft and go bad on you.  We can't have that going on!

This is about half of the crop so far.  Each day more fall over and I pull them and put them on the table.  They'll eventually move here.  No more buying onions for quite a while.  We'll eat all of these and we will also chop some of these up and freeze in ziploc bags for cooking with.  Dixondale Farms, the company we purchase the onion starts from, just sent out a recipe for Carmelized Onion Quiche.  It sounds like something we'd like to try out.  I'll pick out a few of the Yellow Granex onions and get them chopped up to make that quiche!

Live From the Hive

Back in THIS POST we discussed our attempts to make splits.  We explained that we currently have four hives and how you can make splits from existing hives to expand your colonies of bees.  We attempted to split into a deep box and also a small nuc box that I made.  Well, it's been almost a month ago and today was the day we had marked on our calendars to check to see if the splits were successful.

When we pull the top off, we'll be looking real quickly to see if we can see a queen or eggs or larvae.  If we see any of the above, we have a laying queen and will have expanded our boxes from four to six.  If we don't see any of the above, we'll restack the boxes on top of where they came from.  Tricia and I put our bee suits on and headed out to the hives.  Lots of activity from all of the boxes - bees coming in and out.  Bees carrying pollen going in.  That's a good sign!

Using the smoker to calm them down, we opened up the deep box.  Here's the moment of truth!  It's windy today, so I'm going to be looking real fast.  I don't want our new queen, if we have one, to fly off.  Once I see the queen, eggs or larvae, I'm closing it up as we will know the split was successful.

There's a pretty decent amount of bees on the first frame and the cells are heavy and full of nectar.

We didn't see the queen; however, if you look at the very center of the frame below and to the right, you'll see white larvae in some of the cells that look like the letter "c".  There are also a few capped brood cells.  Even though we saw no queen, the larvae and capped brood evidence the fact we have a laying queen.  It's a successful split!

Let's check out the split in the nuc.  Only five frames in here, but there was a pretty decent population of bees in it.

A quick look.  This frame has nectar in it.  You can see the reflection in the bottom of the photo below:

I do a quick scan on one side and flip it over to see the opposite side.

As in the other box, we were unable to find the queen, but if you look in the very center of the photo below and to the right, you'll see larvae!

Another successful split!  We added a queen excluder and then put a medium box on top.  That will keep the queen out of the honey supers.  I moved the brick from crossways to straight.  That's my note to tell me that we have a laying queen in this box.  In the photo at the very top, you'll see that the bricks in the split hives BEFORE we checked them today had the bricks crossways.

We started with four hives - now we have six!  There's a story to the box on the far right with the top cracked.  Why is the top cracked?  That split hive was the one that was in the nuc.  The nuc was a homemade box made with 1x12 lumber.  It wasn't exactly square, so the lid didn't seal perfectly.  The bees in the nuc never used the front door.  They would go in and out through the gap between the top and the nuc.

When we moved the frames from the nuc to a deep box so they'd have room to grow, bees coming in from foraging couldn't figure out how to get in the box.  They were congregating at the corner where the nuc had a crack for going in and out.  What to do!  I've got to get the bees back in the box!  I had an idea!  I'll crack the telescoping top.  It worked!  The bees coming in went right in the box.  Bees don't fly at night, so after dark when all the bees were safely at home, I went out and closed the top.  Tomorrow morning when they go out the front door, they'll recalibrate and find their way back home.

From four hives to six

What good news!  We expanded our hives by two boxes.  It's important to do this as it is not uncommon to lose a hive or two every year for one reason or another.  Making splits and/or catching wild swarms is a good way to "insure" your beekeeping operation. Should you lose a box or two to wax moths, varroa mites, small hive beetles, or any other reason, you've added a couple boxes by making splits.

The Renovation of The Old Goat Barn

I call it a renovation or a remodel, but it was really a demolition and replacement and upgrade of the old structure while using the same old heavy gauge tin.  My Dad and I and a fellow named Red built the goat barn 20 years ago.  The kids were young and in 4-H, and we wanted to get them involved showing livestock - Boer Goats, to be specific, in order to teach them responsibility.  I also wanted them to be involved in something I had taken part in as a young boy and thoroughly enjoyed.  This was before we got our milk cows and even the chickens.  

Twenty-something years ago we put up the goat barn using landscape timbers as the corner posts and some home cut lumber made from a large pine tree from my parent's home that we had cut into lumber.  The barn served its purpose well and, to be honest, it was a sentimental thing tearing it down.  It may sound funny to be nostalgic over an old structure, but I have may good memories with the kids that surround this barn as well as with my Dad and Red in building it.

I began the demolition project mainly with a hammer and crowbar, but it took a grinder to remove some of the screws that held the tin to the old 2x4 lumber that was rotten in most places.  The old lumber was filled with cobwebs, roaches and a big rat!  The cobwebs reminded me of a time when we de-horned a heifer.  

She was in the goat barn and we checked on her and she was bleeding and bleeding from the horns.  We called an old veterinarian in the middle of the night worried.  He asked us if we had any cobwebs.  Of course we do!  He told us to get a bunch of the cobwebs and poke them in the holes where the bleeding was coming from.  The cobwebs worked to completely stop the bleeding.  How you may ask?:  Well, Google tells us: "the cobwebs provide a dense network for rapid blood clotting (coagulation), act as an antiseptic to prevent infection, and contain vitamin K, which enhances the clotting process. Their large surface area and fibrous structure mimic fibrin, allowing them to act as a natural bandage."  How about that!

The rafters supporting the roof had completely broken due to rot.  It still served as some sort of protection from the elements in heavy rains.  Heck, even the cows would crowd in the goat barn for some reason in thunderstorms even though they had the main barn overhangs to keep them dry.

You can see the old feed trough for the goats on the wall.  I know what you may be thinking:  How would a goat reach the trough?  Well, there was a ramp that they would climb up to the trough while eating.  The purpose of that was to build muscle, which is important for a meat goat.  For humans, it would be akin to having to do push ups or sit ups in order to eat!  This photo also shows the sad state of affairs for the condition of the roof.

My plan was to come off of the existing barn roof overhang.  I put in treated 4x4's for the corner posts and cemented them in and then affixed the treated 2x4s to the existing roof.  Things started coming together nicely.  It was a beautiful day.  A fat hen was supervising the process.

Soon I had framed up the walls and hung the sides and ran 1x4's along the roof to support the roof tin.

One key part was the American Flag.  I wanted to save Old Glory that I had painted so many years ago.  The side of the goat barn does need to be washed to restore the Stars & Stripes that are tattered somewhat.  Fortunately, we were successful in saving the flag.

I got the roof on and even hung the horseshoe over the door that was on the old goat barn!

Here's the view from west to east.  I'll need to bring some fill dirt in to raise the floor level up a bit so the animals aren't standing in water when it rains heavily.  That'll come a little later.

And here's a look from north looking south.  I added a little window so when we're in the barn, we can look toward the house to see if we have company.  

We got the new, refurbished goat barn completed in two days.  It's a good thing it's done.  Callie, one of our Nubian goats, is big and pregnant.  This barn may be her labor and delivery room along with the nursery once she kids.  It'll be a good place to put her in a solitary environment with her baby or babies when they come.  The cows get real curious when new animals are welcomed to the barnyard.  We always get a little nervous with a 1,000 pound cow or three being nosy around a tiny goat.

Hopefully, the new goat barn will stand for twenty something years like the old one did!

Flower Power

Many things are blooming all over the yard.  I'll show you two items that are growing in the back yard and have a strange, but beautiful quality to them.  The first is a cactus.  Check out the beautiful yellow flower!  I'll show you a better picture further down.

Each year, Tricia harvests the 'paddles' off this cactus, cutting the sharp little spines off that cover it, and cooks it.  Nopalitos, they're called.  It makes a slime, sort of like okra does and you cook it with corn.  We always enjoy it.  The flower on this cactus is just stunning!

A friend gave me this plant and I put it out near the honeybees.  It is called the Coralbean, but here in Louisiana, it's called Mamou.  Would you just look at the "electric" red blooms on this plant!  I watched hummingbirds visiting it a couple of days ago.

Here is a close up of the Mamou blooms!  They are so bright it almost hurts your eyes.

In addition to the beautiful flowers, this plant is used as a medicinal plant and is known for treating anxiety, insomnia and muscle aches.  The roots are anti-microbial.  Seminole tribes used its bark to make a tea to help with pain and digestive issues.  According to what I've read, the seeds to this Mamou plant are very toxic!  They are used in Mexico as a rat poison.  Interestingly, if you boil the flowers, the resulting tea has narcotic properties.  I think we'll just enjoy looking at the flowers!