Shall We Gather at the River?

On Friday morning we arrived in Mittie, Louisiana for a day of family fun.  Right off LA Highway 26 is the Ouiska Chitto River.  As rivers go around here, the water is clear and cool as it is spring-fed.  The beaches along the shore are white-sand - what you see on Florida beaches.  We like to rent canoes and enjoy a leisurely paddle down the 8.8 mile river between the Hwy 26 concrete bridge and Carpenter's bridge.

Russ and Benjamin arrived at our house at around 9 AM and we loaded the ice chest with pizza and cut up cucumbers, cantaloupe, and oranges.  We packed along plenty of drinking water and some homemade peanut butter cookies.  We arrived at the canoe rental place around 10 AM.  Canoes rent for $45 per canoe.  They drop you off and pick you up.  It takes around 4 hours to paddle to the pickup, but we take a little longer as we normally stop off on sandbars to swim and snack.

About to cast off at the drop-off point under the Hwy 26 bridge

And we're off.  Tricia and I in the lead canoe and Russ and Benjamin following.

Water is a little low, but we never had to get out and carry the canoe like last time

In no time, the guys passed us up.  Since school started on Friday, we were the ONLY folks on the river.  I kid you not.  It was quiet and peaceful.  We didn't see another soul for 5 hours until we got to the end.

The "boys in the boat" overtook us

We kept a sharp eye out for sandbars in the shade.  We'd pull our canoes up and swim, relax and have good conversations with one another.

Russ on the log

Russ brought two pizzas that we had packed in zip loc bags.  We pulled up and ate them up.  The favorite was a Garlic Parmesan Spinach and Chicken pizza.  There was a gentle current in the river, and we would wade out and enjoy the cool water on a hot day.  Fortunately, we had sun screen on and escaped without sunburns.

Time for lunch

And we're off again.  I was nice enjoying the stillness - so peaceful and the scenery was beautiful.

There are lots of logs in the Ouiska Chitto.  The guy that dropped us off told me that from time to time, they have to ride the 8.8 miles in a boat with a chainsaw to keep the river passable.  After big rains, it takes a trackhoe to clean out the debris.  

Rolling on the river

The Ouiska Chitto is bordered by cypress trees and other big trees.  There's always shade to get under.

Looking Back when we reached the end

At last we reached Carpenter's Bridge.  This bridge used to be wooden and rickety.  They built a new concrete bridge a couple of years ago.

Russ, Benjamin, and Tricia

We called T&J Canoe Rentals to come pick us up and took more photos as we waited.

Tricia, Benjamin, and Russ

I can't close out this blog post without giving thanks to God for Benjamin.  It hasn't been that long since his accident.  He has two rods in each of his legs and rods in his back from when he fell and broke both legs and his back.  He sat in that canoe for hours, paddling with no pain.  All Glory to God!

Kyle, Benjamin & Russ

They'll close for the season some time in September.  Tricia has some friends coming in and she's thinking about doing this again with them.  If T&J is closed by then, we do have a 3-seater canoe of our own.  This is such a nice thing to do and only 30 minutes away from home.  We highly recommend canoeing the Ouiska Chitto!

It's Muscadine Time

While walking down our driveway to check the mail, Tricia and I noticed the skins from many grapes on the blacktop.  I immediately thought that the many birds in our yard (blue jays, cardinals, mockingbirds) had been eating our muscadines!  But upon closer inspection of the grape skins on the road, I realized that they were not muscadines but our neighbor's grapes that are on a trellis near our driveway.  Those birds have been plucking the grapes off their vines, then flying over and sitting in the limbs of our live oak trees while they eat.

Observing that reminded me that I needed to check on our muscadines.  The week prior when I inspected them, they were beginning to turn purple.  Close, but not ripe.  On the way back from the mailbox, we passed by the muscadine vine and looked in.  Some are now ready to pick.  Not all of them, but we'd better pick the ripe ones before the birds get them!

I began to prune back the branches with no fruit on them allowing us access to to the interior of the vine to pick all the purple fruit.  We had to keep a sharp eye for wasp nests in the vines.  Those things love to build their nests in there and then fly out to sting you if you don't kill them first.  Fortunately no wasps this time.  

As we pick, sometimes unripe ones come off with the ripe ones.

Tricia ate a few as she picked them.  Muscadines have 2 or 3 seeds in each one so there's a lot of spitting when eating these.  They are juicy and sweet.  Our first picking netted a good bit in a colander.

We'll snack on these and then head out in a few days for another muscadine picking session.

From the Field to the Loft

On Friday afternoon, I thought of one of Aesop's fables entitled the Ant and the Grasshopper that I used to read as a boy.  It taught of the virtues of hard work and expending effort now to plan for needs in the future.  I think that story is a good one.  The reason I was thinking of that fable was our task for the afternoon - picking up hay!

Right now, despite the heat and lack of rainfall, the cows and goats still have grass to eat.  That could quickly change if we don't get rain soon.  As insurance, I stopped mowing a portion of the yard so we will have some extra grass if the pasture peters out.  Putting in hard work now and planning now for the winter when there is no grass is always the smart play.

We have purchase hay from the same family down the road for a decade and a half now, and I got a call from out neighbor down the road that they'd be baling hay.  If we show up and pick up bales behind the baler, the price per bale is $8. If we pick it up from their barn after they collected it, the price is $9 per bale.  I told her we'd be picking up behind the baler.  They asked if we could be there shortly after lunch.

I checked the air in the tires of the old trailer.  I was doing the math on it, and I think my grandpa bought that thing in 1976, so it's 50 years old!  I also killed a couple of big wasp nests inside the trailer with some gas.  We hooked up the truck and drove a mile and a half down the road.  We drove down the long driveway and directly into the pasture.  They were busy baling.  The American Flag on the back of the baler was a nice touch.  God Bless America!

The hay had been cut and fluffed the previous day and today the baler was working, leaving square bales lying all over the field.

Tricia is the driver.  Her job description is to drive between the rows of hay and stop when the bales are lined up with the back of the trailer.

The rows are pretty close together so she has to be watchful.

When she stops, my job is to lift the bales into the trailer, stacking them up high and tight.  As I lift each bale I holler the current count of bales and Tricia repeats, so we keep accurate count.

It didn't take long before the trailer was full.  Then we started loading up the truck.  When we had 75 bales in, we called it a day.  The old truck had quite a load and I didn't want to risk breaking the springs.

We paid our neighbors (75 bales @ $8 per bale = $600) and visited with them for a bit.  We started off buying the hay from the Grandpa long ago.  He's passed away and now the daughter and grandson run the operation.  I told Danielle that her Daddy would be proud of them, keeping the family tradition going.  When we pulled out, the center part of the field was wide open.  It once was filled with square bales.  Now they're loaded up and heading a mile and a half east where we'll unload them.

That was hot, hard work, but the fun isn't done yet.  Our young men, Russ and Benjamin, volunteered to help us get the bales stored away in the hayloft in the barn.  This is old-fashioned, manual work!  We have a pulley and a rope on a 4x4.  The rope has a bungee cord on it.  Tricia and Russ unload the hay bales from the truck and trailer and hook them to the bungee cord.

Benjamin and I are up in the loft.  Benjamin pulls the hay up by tugging on the rope.  Each bale weighs around 50 pounds.  I guess I'll stop right here and tell you how good God is.  You are looking at a miracle.  Two years ago Benjamin broke his back and both bones in both legs.  He has titanium rods in both legs and in his back.  Yet here he is, doing work that lots of people can't do.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!!

As he pulls each bale up, I unhook it from the bungee cord and slide it down and stack it in the loft.  We both must be very careful to not bang our heads (it always happens!) on the rafters and to not fall through the hole in the floor where the ladder leads up.  That would be tragic.  I need to build a trap door.

We counted the bales, reminding each other when 25% of the bales were in the barn and so on and so forth.  When we finished up, we drank cold water and cooled off.  It always feels good to have this behind us.

The hay is in the barn!  There is something to be said about the satisfaction you get in having family together, working toward a common goal with good teamwork and completing the job.  The hay will sit here until December probably before we start feeding hay to the animals.  The ant works all summer in the fields gathering food for the winter months.  The grasshopper, on the other hand, sings and fiddles and dances all summer and makes fun of the ant for working.  But winter is coming.  We remind ourselves that we want to be like the ant and not the grasshopper.

Once the job is done, the ant also has the satisfaction of seeing a beautiful view looking out the opened doors of the hayloft at the top of the barn.

If the Good Lord is willing, we'll be doing the same thing next year at this same time.

Still Pickin'

There's only a few things still rockin' and rollin' in the garden as we're halfway through August.  It's hot and it's dry and most things are done.  We're waiting to plant or transplant all the fall items in the garden, but I've learned my lesson on that.  If you transplant now, there are lots of bugs and worms that consider your early planting a benevolent offering.  They quickly devour every seedling you transplant.  I'll wait them out for a while more.

One thing that's producing is our Blackeye Butterbeans.  This has become a favorite of mine.  It trellises nicely on the cattle panel and withstands the heat and drought very well.  Just yesterday I noticed that we had quite a few pods that were ready, so I got a basket and went out to pick Blackeye butterbeans.  They are like a blackeyed pea, but are butterbeans.

Here's what the pods look like.  They have three or four butterbeans in each one.  You can also pick them when they're green.  If you wait too long, the dried pods crack open and the butterbeans spill on the ground.  We can't have any of that foolishness.

I didn't take long to fill a basket with freshly harvested butterbeans.  I put the sprinkler on to water the sweet potatoes and peppers.  They are really suffering in the summer heat and dry spell.

It is a satisfying thing to shell peas.  It doesn't matter which kind.  You sit with the basket of butterbeans to be shelled, a bowl to put the butterbeans, and another to hold the pods.  At the end, you have a nice bowl of butterbeans that are ready to soak.  You can put a pot of rice on and then cook the butterbeans with some onions, peppers, and tasso.  A cast iron skillet with homemade cornbread slathered with butter really puts it over the top.

We cook most of what we pick and then save some of the biggest and prettiest for seed for next year.  

I like to pick 'em and I love to eat 'em!

Automatic or Standard?

 

Image Credit

About five years ago I was the manager at a bulk plant that distributed fuel and oil.  We had 16 drivers that drove Kenworth, Volvo and Freightliner trucks to get the product to our customers.  Every last one of the trucks except for the Freightliner had automatic transmissions.  In fact, I was surprised to learn that none of the younger drivers knew how to even drive a standard!

I did some quick research and found that over 99% of the vehicles sold today are automatic.  Obviously, that means that less than 1% have a manual transmission. What a shame!  I vividly remember my Dad buying a Datsun 280Z in 1978, I think?  The color of the paint job on that car was Persimmon.  It really stood out.  Other than the paint color, what made it really stand out was its speed and the sheer enjoyment it was to drive.  It would run like a spotted ape.

In a world of automatic everything with push buttons and touch screens, is there anything that makes you feel more connected, more alive than driving a car with a stick shift?  I can picture myself sitting in the comfortable bucket seats in that 280Z.  The interior is clean and all black.  There is a scent of Brut cologne from a spray bottle that sat in the glove box.  I crank the engine, put it in reverse, and it is as if a dance has begun - a dance that you don't have to count the steps - you just innately know them.

Every part of your body is in alignment, in sync, with the car.  You shift it into 1st gear, pressing the clutch with your left foot as you give it some gas with your right.  The car reacts to your coordinated actions.  The shift knob fits in the palm of your right hand so perfectly, it's like an extension of your hand.  You are using your eyes as you're watching the RPM gauge and using your ears while listening to the sound of the engine.  In perfect choreography, your feet and hands know exactly what to do as you let off the clutch, hit the gas, and repeat the process as you shift all the way up into 5th gear.  By now you're flying and the music is playing while you sing along and a smile breaks across your face.  

The only thing that frightened me in that car was to have someone pull up behind me while on an incline at a railroad crossing while waiting for a train to pass.  You look in your rear view mirror and estimate how close they are to your rear bumper.  You know you've got to get this just right.  You must push the clutch and get it in gear and let off the brake and hit the gas at just the right time to not roll back into him or have the car die.  Sweat beads on your forehead.  Somehow, it all works.  Driving that standard made you feel like Mario Andretti.  The King of the Road.  There was no stopping you.

And where are we today?  Self driving cars.  Automatic Transmissions.  Touchscreen dashboards and digital gauges.  Have we taken all the fun out of driving?  The newer vehicles won't even let you put it in gear if you aren't buckled up.  Holy Moly!

What does all this have to do with farming?  Well, in our society's quest for all things efficient and automated and easy and fast, there's something to be said about sitting down in the barn and milking a cow on a quiet morning as the sun is rising.  There's almost the same choreography and timing in milking: squeezing and pulling, opening your hands and closing them in a beautiful rhythm.  And it's relaxing and makes you feel alive and connected to something that's real.  In whatever you do today, do something real, something stimulating that involves your eyes and ears and hands and feet.  Something that gives you satisfaction.

Ecclesiastes 3:13: "That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God."

An Afternoon at the Water Park

Without rain in a while, I noticed the garden is struggling.  The sweet potatoes, peppers and eggplant look like they are about to wave the white flag.  I relented and turned the sprinkler on and just let it run for a couple of hours.  You could see a noticeable improvement in the crops as the slow soaking mist got down to the roots.  The sprinkler is in the very center of the photo below:

But it's not just the garden that is affected by the heat and the long, humid summer days.  The animals feel it, especially LuLu as she's in milk.  She sits in the shade with her tongue out, panting.  We'll go out and spray her off with the water hose to give her respite from the heat.  She really likes that.

Cows, to be quite honest, aren't the smartest of barnyard animals.  They'll look and look at a gate and can't quite figure how to go through it and have to be eventually led.  Low IQ moo for sure.  But I'll give LuLu credit when credit is due.  She saw the sprinkler on and figured out that there was a westerly breeze blowing and positioned herself on the east side of the garden where she could enjoy the cooling spray.

Not much of a chance of rain in the 10 day forecast, with highs in the upper 90's.  I guess I'll be turning the water sprinkler on to cool down Ol' LuLu for the next week or so.

Water Woes

We keep missing our rainfall and the grass is parched and thirsty.  Today, we had a 65% chance of the wet stuff, but we came out on the short end of the stick and got 0 rainfall at all.  On the north side of our barn, I positioned some water troughs to catch rainwater running off of the barn roof.  Normally, these stay full.  Very rarely do we have to turn on the faucet at our water trough under the pecan tree because they drink out of these three water troughs.

The water troughs are empty.  The cows use this opportunity to push the empty troughs around in the pasture.  I have to stay on my toes and push them buck under the drip line in the event we would catch a surprise shower like we got last week when 0.4 of an inch fell.  They've already finished all the rainwater we caught during that shower.

But there are other water woes.  Nicky, the bull would like to tell you about one that has affected his pasture that we call, "The bullpen."  Lean in close and he'll tell you about it.

Speaking of Nicky, he's little Betsy's father.  He is full of muscle and he's mean.  If you get around him, he's snorting and kicking up dust and making threatening gestures at you with his big old head.  It's time to bring him to the butcher shop and fill our freezer with meat.

I'll get back on topic.  The water woe in the bull pen was noticed a couple of afternoons ago when I looked out and saw a geyser spraying up into the air from the water trough in the bull pen.  I walked out to see that the plastic float valve had broken.  The float valve is very important as it allows the trough to fill until the water level pushes against the float and turns the water off.  This keeps the water from overflowing the trough.  When the plastic piece broke, it allowed water to spray into the air and make a big mud hole around the water trough.  There's no telling how long the water was flowing.

Fortunately, I got a new float valve and installed it.  That process wasn't without adventure.  Fire ants had built a big mound right where I needed to undo the old one and install the new one.  Those fire ants tore me up!  I got it all installed and turned the water back on only to find a leak in the threads.  I was rushing so fast to avoid the ant bites, and I forgot to put the teflon tape around the threads.  I had to go back and do it again!  But this time, I got it right.  No leaks.  It will, however, take a while for the water to soak in to the ground.  It's not good for animal health to have mud holes like this as it is a vector for parasites, mosquitoes and other things that plague good animal health.