A Brief Furlough

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I'm going to be taking a little trip that may bring me away from Internet access, so it is safe to say that I'll be out of pocket for a little less than a week.  We'll have a lot to talk about when I return!

God With Us!

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18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. 19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.21 She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” Matthew 1:18-23

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

Touring the Spring Garden in Late December

It's not really spring, but it feels like it.  Let's take a look at the garden.

Today it was 77 degrees and tomorrow it will be 81,
Christmas Eve in the South underneath a hot, muggy sun,
In the photo below there's broccoli, bok choy and eggplant,
The broccoli and bok choy are starting to pant!

We picked some beautiful eggplant, purple and shiny,

They were huge - not in the least bit tiny.

Tricia cut them up and sauteed them with garlic, onions and butter,

They were so delicious, they made me stutter.

 

The Red Romaine was growing real nice,

I'll cover them up, if we ever get ice,

That doesn't seem likely as it is 80 degrees,

I'll have a nice tossed salad, if you please.

There's some Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce right down the row,

Healthy, green, and curly, don't you know?

As I survey the leafy lettuce, I'm starting to sweat,

I think I'll have this with a nice vinaigrette.

These types of lettuce are named Rocky Top Mix,

Blushing and pink - just for kicks,

So pretty to look at, you may not want to eat,

They're so colorful, fresh, healthy and sweet.

This last type of lettuce is called the Oak Leaf,

It pairs nicely with chicken or with beef,

The leaves of this type looks like its namesake,

But pick them with your fingers, not with a rake.

And here's a row of broccoli with a nice big head,

Eat a bunch of this and you won't soon be dead,

You can feast on the head and eat the leaves too,

Green and tasty and healthy for you.

Here's an odd cauliflower, and yes it is purple!,

Eat this for supper and it will cure your hirple,

The definition of hirple means "to limp",

If you eat purple cauliflower - you're no wimp!

And there you have it, girls and boys,

Fresh vegetables under the tree - not any toys!

And I heard him exclaim as he rode out of sight,

"Eat your veggies today or eat them tonight!"

Give Me Just Enough, Lord!

Wisdom.  Do you ever feel like you need more wisdom and understanding? Perhaps you have a big decision that you need to make and you really don't know what to do.  Maybe you, like me, just need guidance and direction to help you navigate through the "shark infested waters" present in normal, day-to-day life.

If you can relate to that, well, I've got great news for you.  The Good Book says the following:

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  James 1:5 (NASB)

All you have to do is ask!  As a family, we've started a new practice that we've incorporated into our daily lives to gain that wisdom that He gives.  It is a cool idea that I wish we would have done a long time ago.  Each night, we sit down at the supper table and thank God for His Provision.  We talk about what has gone on during the day and enjoy each other's company.  We've always done that.

But here is the new wrinkle that we added.  At the end of the meal, we pull out the Bible and turn to Proverbs.  It is a great Book - full of values, morals, and standards of right living.  It was written primarily by King Solomon.  You'll remember God told him that he could have whatever he wanted. Instead of asking for riches, revenge over his enemies, honor or long life, Solomon asked for wisdom. As a result God gave him all of the above!

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So here's what we do.  Proverbs has 31 chapters.  There is a chapter for every day of the month.  Each day we read one chapter.  Yesterday was December 21st so we read Proverbs 21.  We divide the total number of verses by the number of people eating with us - so it keeps our mathematics skills sharp, too!  Then each person reads their allocated verses.  We read them slow, because there is so much wisdom to be gleaned.  We repeat those that are particularly noteworthy and ruminate about them a little bit.

Some of them are even funny!:

It is better to live in a corner of a roof Than in a house shared with a contentious woman. Proverbs 21:9

A constant dripping on a day of steady rain And a contentious woman are alike.  Proverbs 27:15

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Some of the Proverbs are just loaded with great advice.  Take this one for example:

8 Keep deception and lies far from me,
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is my portion,
9 That I not be full and deny You and say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or that I not be in want and steal,
And profane the name of my God.  Proverbs 30:8-9 (NASB)

Give me just enough, LORD, the Proverbs asks.  Too little can be hard and too much can be ruinous. Our intention is to keep this going each day, reading over and over and over wisdom that will help us and sustain us throughout all the days of our lives.  Our aim is to leave the supper table filled with nutritious food, but also filled with wisdom.  Eating good meals and devouring wisdom as well. You are what you eat, you know?  I know I want to have a continual feast!:

All the days of the afflicted are bad, But a cheerful heart has a continual feast.  Proverbs 15:15

Teaching a Young Man How to tie a Necktie

As a young man grows up, there are many things that he must learn.  Some are easy and some are hard.  The other day, we talked about how 14 year old Benjamin was Learning How To Shave. We've also been teaching him to drive.  He is a good driver, too.  One thing that we've been working on is another skill that a young man must master - tying a necktie.

We got out one of my neckties and I began to show him the steps in tying a full windsor knot.  It is not a difficult task, but it can be a little daunting at first.  We positioned ourselves in front of the mirror and got started.  Funny thing is, I had to get a tie out for me to walk through all the steps with him!  We put the tie around his neck and crossed it.

Tying one on

Then the wide side comes underneath and back over.

A mirror image

Then the wide side goes behind the skinny side and then over.

You can do it!

Then the wide side is brought horizontally across the front, forming the front part of the knot.  It is brought behind and then tucked between the horizontal part and the skinny part.  Awful confusing trying to explain it in words, huh?

Getting close...

At this point you have some semblance of a knot, but you've got to spend a little time "gussying up" your knot to form it and shape it into a nice looking knot.

A Little fine tuning

Here is the finished product.  That is a good looking knot.  It even looks good with a 4-H t-shirt on! Of course he'll wear a proper shirt when he goes out in public.  We practiced each evening over the course of the next week.  He got better and better and before you know it, he didn't even need my direction again.  He could do it without me.  That's the point.

Mastery of his skill

I promised him that if he mastered it, we'd buy him a tie of his very own.  Tricia picked him out a very spiffy navy blue and green striped tie - a timeless classic.  I think it is a nice looking tie.  Benjamin tied the perfect knot to wear his new tie to church this past Sunday.

Dressed for Success!

It was just in time for him to wear it for the Youth Program at church where the Youth put on a program to celebrate the birth of Christ.  The program celebrated the Good News of Christ's birth by pretending to be a News Channel (CNN: Christ News Network - "News for Jews that you can use") back in the time of Christ's birth and acted out how the Birth of the Christ Child might have been told on the news if there were televisions back then.

Benjamin was the traffic reporter, reporting of massive traffic jams of donkeys on the road in to Bethlehem as everyone was making their way back to their city for Caesar's mandated census.  He warned people that they might want to take alternate routes on their donkey commute and to keep both hands on the pommel and to buckle up and watch out for the Roman Highway Patrol.  The Youth did a great job and put on a memorable performance.  He looked good, too.  He sounded like (and with his tie, he LOOKED LIKE) a professional.

Yeah, I got this.

The old boy was dressed for success and quite proud of himself for learning a new skill.  I was proud of him too!

Singing to Amy (How We Got Amy To Let Down Her Milk)

If you follow our blog, you'll know that Amy just had her first calf.  He's a little bull calf that we named "Chuck."  Chuck is a healthy little fellow and is doing just fine. Right now we leave Momma and baby together all day.  Soon we'll separate them in the evening and begin milking Amy in the morning. Right now, Chuck can't empty out all of Amy's milk, so I'm milking Amy out in the evening so Amy doesn't get mastitis.

30 minutes after 'Chuck' was born

Here is Chuck one day after being born.  Once he dried off, he's more of a brown color than a reddish-brown.  He has lots of personality.

Chuck at one day old

We have two stalls in the barn.  Each evening at about 5 pm, we bring the cows in the barn for feeding and we separate the calves from the Momma cows.  Clarabelle, Rosie's heifer, goes in the big stall for the evening:

And Luna, Daisy's heifer, goes into the little stall that we have the goat milking stanchion in.  If you look closely, you can still see the green ink on one of Luna's ears from when we tattooed her ears.  It will rub off soon.  You can also see one of the scabs on her head from where we recently de-horned her.  We've got to do the same with Chuck this weekend.

"Green-eared Luna!"

Speaking of Chuck, here he is.  We don't have another stall for him in the barn. We'll have to remedy that for when we start separating him, but that is on my project list.  Anyway, that was a long, rambling introduction to the reason for the post - milking Amy, and how we get her to drop her milk.

Poor Chuck - stranded outside (Rosie's glowing eyes in the background)

The first thing we do in the evening is to bring Amy into the barn, leaving Chuck outside.  This makes her a little nervous, but she's okay with it for the most part. Chuck will come up to the barn gate and look in and then he'll dash off, tail high in the air - funny to watch him run.

When Amy's in the barn, we clean her up and get ready to milk.  Initially, we hobbled one of her legs and she milked perfectly fine, but then began to kick. Fortunately, we have a device called Kow Kan't Kick.  We posted about it in this previous post.  You can click on that hyperlink to read details about the nifty contraption.  

Kow Kan't Kick in place

With the device in place, her udder cleaned up, and lubricant put on her teats, we're ready to start milking.  The Kow Kan't Kick tool makes it next to impossible for her to lift her leg.  Properly installed you don't have to worry about her kicking at all.

Ready to Go!

But there's one more problem.  As I start milking, the process of separating her from her baby along with the stress of clamping the device on her back, causes her to be filled with anxiety.  Cows like things to be serene, slow, and steady.  All the excitement has caused Amy to hold back her milk.  I discover that there's very little milk coming out.  Cows can be very cunning and hold back their milk for their babies.  You can do several things to get her to drop her milk.  First, you can clean her udder with warm water.  This will relax her.  Then, you can imitate the calf and bump her bag.  This bumping action is what the calf instinctively does with its head to cause the milk to drop.

Finally though, I found the thing that worked.  Alone in the barn, I began singing to Amy.  I picked the first song that came to mind, a country song by Tim McGraw called, "Just To See You Smile." As I belted out the chorus:

Just to see you smile

I'd do anything that you wanted me to

When all is said and done

I'd never count the cost

It's worth all that's lost

Just to see you smile

And then, an amazing thing started to happen - Amy's milk started dropping!  The more I sang, the more the milk dropped, filling her udder.

Amy let down her milk!

As I sang to a cow in the barn at 7pm at night, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at what someone would think if they came walking by.  You can't argue with success, though.  Singing to Amy made her milk drop, but I'm not sure if it made her smile...

Foraging for Oyster Mushrooms in South Louisiana

It has been raining an awful lot lately around our little homestead, transforming the barnyard area into a muddy mess.  The cows slog through the mud on the way to the barn for milking, and we slosh through it with our rubber boots on.  As soon as it dries up, I'm going to get a couple of loads of dirt delivered so that I can build up the area.  I'll also cut some ditches as well to drain any trapped rainwater toward the westward slope of the land.

One very positive thing that the rain brings forth is mushrooms.  In South Louisiana we have a couple of different types mushrooms that grow wild and we've learned to forage for them, identify them and then cook and devour them.  I found this painting on the Internet that I've credited the artist below.  I think it is a beautiful painting.  It shows people out foraging in the woods for those delectable mushrooms.

Franciszek Kostrzewski

After a rain the conditions are right for mushrooms to 'bloom'.  Mushrooms are the fruiting body of the fungus.  Just open your eyes as you walk through the woods. They are all around you.  The first thing you'll as is, "Is this one edible?"  Well, an old Czech quote says, "Every mushroom is edible, but some only once." That sounds ominous, and it's true.  Some mushrooms are toxic and can kill you or cause serious damage to you.  That's why we are careful to stick to eating only those that we can positively identify - for us, that's chanterelles and oyster mushrooms. In THIS PREVIOUS POST we showed you how we foraged for chanterelles, today we'll talk about oysters.

Yesterday Russ went walking in the small patch of woods behind the house and discovered a nice stash of oyster mushrooms growing in their favorite habitat - on the trunk of several dead willow trees.  Oyster mushrooms' scientific name is Pleurotus ostreatus.  We really like to eat these!

Oyster mushrooms have gills on the underneath side and are a whitish-light brown or grey color. Unlike many other types of mushrooms, they don't have much of a stalk at all.  They have a nice, "woodsy" scent to them.  We collect them in paper bags and then store them in paper bags in the fridge.  You want to preserve the moisture in the mushroom without introducing a lot of excess moisture.  They'll store well like that, but we seldom store them for long.  They don't last.  We eat them too fast.

They seem to grow in communities, with layers and layers of oysters all together, almost piling on top of each other.  They are a parasite and help to break down a tree.  Since we only remove the fruiting body, the mycelia (the vegetative part of the mushroom that is threadlike) is left in the decaying tree and will continue to produce mushrooms.  

When you've found where they are growing, you can continue to return time and time again to collect additional mushrooms.  Russ took many pictures of the immense quantity of mushrooms he harvested.  We tried, unsuccessfully, to inoculate an area in these woods with Chanterelle spores, but up to this point, we've been unsuccessful in getting Chanterelles to grow.  The oysters are doing just fine, though.  The trick is to make sure you check 'your spot' often, because some of these, like the ones on the bottom at the center right of the photo below are past their prime.  Russ just picked the ones that were in good condition.  We didn't weigh them, but he had a nice harvest.  (You can see our red barn in the background.) 

Russ brought them inside and cleaned them up.  Since they are in the woods, they'll have some sticks, leaves, and small bugs on them that you want to clean up before eating.  

Oysters ready for the skillet

Then he put them on a cutting board and cut them all up.

He promptly heated up a cast iron skillet and dropped some butter, garlic, onions, cream and some of our chopped fall tomatoes in and then added the fresh chopped up Oyster Mushrooms.  He ate the entire skillet by himself!  I didn't get to eat a single one!  Tricia made another batch for us tonight, though.

Freshly foraged Oyster mushrooms cooking

While the mushrooms were cooking, Tricia made some homemade pasta.  It is so much better!  When the mushrooms were done, the creamy mushrooms were spooned on top of the fresh pasta, with a side of some of the last green beans of the season until spring.  We thanked the Good Lord for providing great food for us to eat.  What a meal!

In yesterday's post, we talked about eating 'tuna' from a cactus and today we're eating oysters off of a tree!  "Seafood" from dry land!  It is so interesting how there are lots of edible goodies all around us - delicious treats right under our feet, just waiting to be found and eaten.  It's a garden you never have to water or weed.  How cool is that? 

My First Time Eating Tuna

Alright, not tuna fish.  This is another kind of tuna.  Stick with me and I'll explain. We've had a cactus growing in a terra cotta frog that was my grandmother's.  This cactus is the easiest thing to grow.  I never water it.  I never do anything to it.  It prospers growing out of the frog by the air conditioning units.  Each year it puts out the most beautiful flowers previously shown in this post and later puts forth beautiful red fruit.  The fruit on the cactus are called... you guessed it, tuna.

Tuna on the Opuntia ficus-indica

I've always wanted to taste the pears that grow on the cactus and this year was the year to do it.  I did some Google searching and found that the name of this cactus is Opuntia ficus-indica, but it goes by many names, including Indian fig opuntia, cactus pear, and prickly pear.  The fruit is red.  In the event that my cactus identification on Google is off, I quickly googled to see if any cactus are toxic. (Smile)  I found that all cactus fruit is edible, some might just be tastier than others.

I picked the tuna off of the cactus and brought them inside and chilled them in the fridge.  Google said that they taste like a sweet watermelon.  I also learned that they are full of vitamins and may even fight cancer.  Well what are we waiting for?

Chopped up tuna

I can remember my father-in-law telling me that in years of drought, ranchers in South Texas would use propane burners to burn the spines off the cactus and soften them.  Then the cows would eat the nopales (cactus pads) providing a bit of protein, but mostly moisture content for the animals.  They can also be used for 'people food,' too.  The nopales can be skinned and fried and cooked with eggs and jalapenos for breakfast.  They are said to taste like green beans.

So, here's what I thought: While beautiful in color, the taste was just 'okay.' Nothing special and certainly not like a sweet watermelon.  They definitely weren't bad, but I wouldn't put the tunas in the delicious category, either.  I ate the whole thing, skin and all.  One thing you want to be careful of are the seeds.  The tuna have hard seeds in them that would easily break a tooth if you aren't careful.

Watch out for the seeds!

After slicing them up and eating a few without experiencing hallucinations or any other side effects, I served one to my wife.  She thought the same thing.  I read that they make great jelly and if our cactus ever produces enough, I may try that.  It was an interesting experiment and it is good to know yet one more thing growing outside that is edible.  You never know.  If you ever run out of tuna in the can, there's always tuna growing on the cactus!

Planting Shallots

I planted a patch of green onions from seed a few weeks ago and then we mentioned in this post how we planted some from the roots of 'store-bought' green onions.  I thought with all of those planted, we'd be all good as far as green onions goes.  Well, we got some lagniappe the other day.  Lagniappe is "a little something extra" or "a little something for free."  Tricia went by our local feed store to pick up our weekly supply of Dairy Ration, and the store manager told her that he had some leftover shallots that didn't sell.  He asked her if she wanted them - for free?  Well, who turns down something for free?

Tricia brought home the bag of shallots and gave them to me.  I told her I'd find a place for them. Now, we always cook with green onions or onions- we never cook with shallots.  Why?  I don't know.  I guess we've just always seen green onions at local stores around here and have never really noticed shallots.  There is another type of onion that we don't normally use and that is scallions.  Scallions are almost identical to green onions, but scallions make a small bulb, whereas green onions don't.  What are shallots?

Well, this site says that:

Shallots, like onions and garlic, are a member of the allium family, but their flavor is richer, sweeter, yet more potent. Like garlic, they grow in clusters, with several bulbs attached at the base. You'll recognize them by their coppery skins and their off-white flesh, which is usually tinged with magenta. Shallots add a great depth of flavor to pan sautés, soups, sauces, and stews, and pair especially well with chicken and fish. To substitute one for the other in recipes, use half the amount of shallot that you would onion.

A handful of free shallots

Now some of the shallots were not in the best of shape and the garden area was full of winter weeds, so things weren't optimal, but hey, anything we get to grow is a real gift. I quickly worked up the garden soil with a hoe in an area of the garden that is fallow.  I separated the shallot sets into individual cloves and planted them big side down and about an inch deep (or just where the pointy tops are barely buried).  I left the copper-colored "paper" on the shallots as I planted them.  Shallots are similar to garlic in that, as they grow, you want to keep the area weeded and/or mulched as they don't like competition from weeds.

Planting the shallots

The sun was quickly sinking so I had to get the job done quickly.  Soon I had them all planted and covered and now we'll just wait for them to grow.  As they grow, you can use the green shoots just like you do with green onions.

Waiting for the shallots to pop up out of the ground

They'll mature in 90 - 120 days, and you know they are ready for harvest when the leaves start turning brown.  Each clove is supposed to give you 15 or so shallots. You cure them similar to garlic or onions and then store them as you would garlic. After reading about them, I can see why there can be confusion between green onions, scallions, and shallots.  All I know is I'm anxious to try shallots to add nice flavor to our food.

Our Maker's Acres Family Farm Tattoo Parlor

With 2 Jersey heifers (Clarabelle and Luna) born, there are things that must be done.  First, as early as possible, we de-horn them.  We completed that process on both of them.  Clarabelle's horn buds, or where they were, anyway, have totally healed up.  Luna's are in the process of healing.  Hopefully, the de-horning paste did the job.  Sometimes the horn will try to re-grow and then we have to bring them to the veterinarian for a surgical job.  They both look good so far.

We also have them genetically tested for A2/A2 genetics.  We did that early on and received postive results back for both of them (YES!!).  Then, somewhere after the four month old period, they can be vaccinated for Brucellosis, also known as Bang's disease.  We will be calling our veterinarian for a farm call shortly to come make a farm call and take care of that since Clarabelle is nearing 6 months old.

The item that is pressing right now is to have both of these girls registered with the American Jersey Cattle Association (AJCA).  It is a real quick process and we find that the nice folks at AJCA are very efficient and get all the information back promptly.  One of the things they need is permanent identification.  This can either be done with tamper-proof ear tags or ear tattoos.  We've always tattooed them and we'll show you how we do it.

First we use the clippers to trim some of the hair out of their ears.  We'll start with Clarabelle.  They don't like the noise of the clipper much, but Tricia holds her head firmly and I clip.  Before you know it, we're done.  

Clipping the ear hair

You can't have two animals with the same tattoo.  The tattoo must have at least one letter and one number.  We use Benjamin's first and middle initial, followed by a number.  Today, we will use BP4 and BP5.  That marks the fourth and fifth animal that we've registered under Benjamin's name. We've registered others under Russ' name.

Fortunately we don't have to purchase the tattooing device.  Our local LSU AgCenter Extension Office has everything we need and all we have to do is borrow it.  Pretty good deal.  Here is an example of one of the little plates used to tattoo.  This one below has a #1 on it:

#1

As I turn it around, you can see the 'business end' of the tattoo plate.  There are pointed spikes arranged, in this case, as the #1.  This will penetrate the ear. OUCH!!!

Pointed Spikes

You arrange the letters/number combination that you want your tattoo to be into the tattoo pliers in the proper order and tighten down on the plate that holds them in place.  You can see "BP4" below. Everything is ready to go.

BP4 - Clarabelle's tattoo

Here is a picture of the tattooing tool.  I don't know if you can tell or not, but I've tested it out by pressing through the piece of paper that the tattoo pliers are lying on just to make sure that the letters/numbers are in the correct order.  Looks good to me.

And here is little Clarabelle.  She knows something is about to go down.  They get nervous and start to poop, so we cleaned up the area got ready.  

Clarabelle

With the tattoo pliers loaded with BP4, there are two additional things that must be done.  First, Tricia cleans her ears with alcohol, ensuring things are nice and sanitary as we'll be piercing her ear. We don't want to introduce bacteria.  

Cleaning her ears

Then we take bright green ink that is included in the box with the pair of tattoo pliers and, using a rag, I apply a coating of green ink to Clarabelle's ears.  I'll put the ink right in the center of two of the ribs in her ears and I make sure that the ink is wide enough to encompass the area that the tattoo plates will pierce.

Marking the ears

My hands were busy with the pliers and Tricia's were busy holding Clarabelle, so we don't have an action shot of the actual tattoo, but you can imagine what happens. We place the pliers over the inked area with the ear between the pliers and press down.  Ouch!  Yep, it is probably painful, but just for a little while.  Clarabelle squirmed and Tricia held her and talked to her gently to settle her down.  I repeated on the other ear.  We always tattoo both ears in the event that one of them did not turn out good.  Once we have pierced the ear, I AGAIN apply fresh ink to the pierced area, rubbing in into the pierced area with a rag.

Then we do the exact same thing with little Luna:

Luna's turn!

Luna was real dramatic and collapsed once we tattooed her.  We quickly picked her back up and consoled the little girl.

Now that we have the animals tattooed, we'll complete the registration with the American Jersey Cattle Association, providing them with the following:

Permanent identification of the calf.

Birth date of the calf.

Name and registration number of the sire.

Name and registration number of the dam.

We also provide the AJCA with the name of the animal we are registering:

The first name is the farm’s name or your reserved prefix name. The second is the sire’s “common” name. The third is the cow family or barn name, which can start with the same letter as the dam’s name. Or, you can use a bird family, a flower family, the cow’s number or anything else you desire. The tattoo can also be used as the third name.  All names must be one-of-a-kind, so please indicate a second choice name.

So with the tattooing completed at Our Maker's Acres Tattoo Parlor, the girls are relieved and we'll get our registration forms in the mail shortly.