Jefferson Island Salt Dome Accident

There was an accident in a salt mine on Avery Island (where Tabasco Sauce is made) earlier this month in which two salt miners lost their lives when the roof of the mine collapsed.  It got me to thinking about an event nearby this that occurred back in 1980.  On Jefferson Island, out on Lake Peigneur, a Texaco oil rig was drilling.  Apparently, an engineering mistake was made that caused the 14 inch drill bit to puncture the shaft of the salt dome.  This resulted in Lake Peigneur being sucked down into the earth.  This area is absolutely gorgeous.  Live Oak Gardens boasts ancient live oak trees draped in Spanish Moss and lush gardens.

Amazingly, no one lost their lives in this tragedy despite miners being 1300 feet beneath the earth's surface when the mine began filling with water, pulling the drilling rig, barges, and a tug boat down into the hole.  I've posted a video below that describes and shows the accident.  I especially enjoy the story that Mr. Viator tells of being on the lake fishing for catfish when the whirlpool started sucking his small boat into the vortex.

Click the arrow on the photo below to watch a very interesting VIDEO showing the event:

The Pasta Plant

I coworker fried for years would tell me about the "zoodles" he and his wife would make.  It sounded interesting.  Instead of using pasta in dishes like spaghetti, they opted for vegetable noodles.  They bought a vegetable spiralizer and would run zucchini through it to make their noodles.  He said it was much more healthy for you.  I can see that, but I love pasta (and rice, and potatoes, and bread).

I briefly looked on the Internet for spiralizers and found them ranging from $9 to $55.  Thing is, you don't need another kitchen appliance if you grow Spaghetti Squash.  This is a strange squash, but is pretty easy to grow.  I planted ours late, but didn't have room in the main garden until this fall.  We have them planted in the side yard bed.  They have done quite well and there are a number of spaghetti squash on the vine.

The problem is that we've had several nights that dipped to about 30 degrees and several others where the temps hovered right at freezing.  Those temperatures spell doom to the squash, so I figured we should begin harvesting a few and eating them before the freeze kills them.

You can tell when they are ripe by pushing your fingernail into the outer rind.  When it is hard and doesn't leave a mark, it is ready to pull.

We've grown bigger ones, but this one is okay.  I need to keep amending the soil in this bed and add compost and chicken litter to boost fertility.  We'll take this one inside and cook it.  To cook it, we cut them in half, take the seeds out, turn the squash upside down on a stone baking tray with water in the bottom and put it in the oven.

When done you pull out of the oven and use a fork to 'fluff' the spaghetti squash up.  The "noodles" are roughly comparable to angel hair pasta.  You can add butter to it and eat it as is.  We've done that.

But we also like to make up some spaghetti meat sauce and serve it over a bed of Spaghetti Squash.

We thoroughly enjoyed eating it and have several more waiting in the wings.  If a freeze is imminent, I'll cover the plant with a tarp as they still need to grow a little bit.

Making Tamales - A Christmas Tradition

My bride is from Corpus Christi, Texas and while my heritage is Cajun, hers is Mexican-American.  A family tradition that she opened my eyes to was making homemade tamales around Christmas-time.  It was something that she grew up doing and she taught us to do.  (She didn't need to teach me to eat them.  I was pretty good at that already!)

Tricia grew up making pork/venison tamales.  This year she decided to make beef/chicken tamales.  She seasoned and cooked a Chuck roast and then sliced it up until it was pretty much shredded.

And she did the same with a chicken. Then she added broth to moisten and added chili powder, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper to season it up.  That will sit for a while as we put everything else together.

Corn husks are an essential in the tamale-making process.  Fortunately, we were able to get all the ingredients locally.  We soaked the corn husks in water to make them pliable.  Tricia mixed up some masa with broth to get the consistency right and added to that coconut oil, tallow and butter as the fat.  To season, she added chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper to the masa.

Once the masa is the right consistency for spreading, it is time to begin putting the tamales together.  You need a butter knife.  Simply get a knife-ful and spread it evenly on about half of the corn husk.

There is a 'front' and a 'back' to the corn husk.  The back has ridges.  The front is smooth.  Spread the masa on the front side.  

Benjamin and I got into the action.  Once you get a few helpers, you can train them in the process and get an assembly line of sorts going.

Once we get a bunch of the corn husks with masa spread on them, we begin putting the meat on them, adding a tablespoon of the meat mixture on the tamales.

Folding the tamales up is the next step.  Tricia is a pro at this and she quickly folds them all up into neat, little packages of deliciousness.

In just a little while we have Nine and a half dozen of them put together and ready for cooking.

Tricia tied them up into bundles of six tamales and stood them up in a pot for cooking.  The tamales are steamed for 2 1/2 hours until done.

Now is the time to test them out.  We take them out of the corn husks, place on a plate and spoon a little tomato sauce on top.

DELICIOUS!  We'll eat them and then share these with family and friends.  The nice thing about tamales is that they freeze so well.  We can pop a dozen out to thaw as we have a tamale craving and can enjoy homemade tamales.

Merry Christmas

Now all this took place so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: 23 “Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name Him Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”  Matthew 1:22-23

A (Very) Fresh Salad

We have a patch of various types of lettuce in the garden.  They are absolutely perfect right now and each night we've been enjoying a bowl of fresh salad with our meal.  We have a number of varieties in the garden, including Black Seeded Simpson, Oak Leaf, Lollo Rossa, Red Romaine, Rocky Top Mix and Red Wing Mix.

It is fun to go out and pick different types and make up a gourmet salad bowl with various lettuces freshly picked.

On some days, you can catch it just after a rain and pick it.  This saves a little time because then you don't even have to wash it.  The rainwater is beaded up on the lettuce leaves.  Clean. Fresh. Delicious.  The lettuce this year are thick, lush, and healthy.

Here are a few of the different types of lettuce below.  It is cool outside and the lettuce is young, so there is no bitterness at all.  We like to pick different types and mix them all up.

Before we show you the finished salad bowl, I'll show you something we like to put on top of the salad that kicks the salad up a notch or two.  Olive Salad Mix.  This is the stuff that is on muffulettas.  It is delicious on a salad, too.  It has olive oil, olives, cauliflower, sweet peppers, jalapenos, carrots, and celery in it.

And here is the finished product.  We also added some cut up fresh radish and fresh zucchini on top.

We'll have salad for as long as we want to eat it.  As long as it is not a hard freeze, it'll be okay.  I've covered it with a tarp in the last couple of light freezes, it they haven't been phased at all.  

And Then There Were Two...

Now that Aussie and Clarabull are gone, that leaves only two cows left on our homestead farm - Rosie and Clarabelle.  For the past couple of years we've have five Jersey cows on our little pasture.  To be honest, that was a strain - a strain on us and a strain on the land.  By employing rotational grazing you can increase the number of head of livestock on a pasture, but we have learned that five animals is too much, especially when that pasture is also shared by a flock of goats and chickens.

Feeding time now is less of a 'rodeo,' trying to separate animals all trying to eat at once.  It is just the two old faithful milk cows, still bossy, but overall gentle and easy-going.

Both Rosie and Clarabelle should be bred.  We haven't had them palpated yet, but we're pretty sure that they'll both be dropping calves next year.  With fewer animals on the pasture, the carrying capacity will greatly improve, leaving more green grass for all.  Additionally, the animals won't eat the grass down as far to the ground.  This will reduce the parasite load and eliminate or greatly reduce the need for worming.  The pasture will be healthier and, as a result, the cows will be overall better conditioned and healthier.

Since November when we started feeding hay, the five cows and four goats were consuming a round bale of hay anywhere between 4 - 6 days.  Now, the bales of hay will last longer!  We buy a minimal amount of feed (just sweet feed - we buy no dairy ration when the cows are dry), but our feed bill will go down.  Overall, things will be more manageable, and for that, we are happy.

Pasture management is key.  We may like to think that we are raising animals, but what we really are, when you think about it, is grass farmers.  For the health of the pasture is what the health of the cattle is dependent upon.  This upcoming year, with fewer cows on the pasture, I want to aim to improve the health of the soil of the pasture so that we can grow better grass and sustain our animals.  I have got to figure a way to lime the soil.  

That'll be on the list for 2021.  I wonder how many other people have "Lime the pasture soil" as a New Year's Resolution?  Crazy, I know.

The Freezer Has an Echo

Opening our deep freeze lately tells a story.  In the compartment to the far right which you can't see, it is full of chickens we butchered early this summer.  The chickens will last us until next summer.  However, as you can see below, the two beef compartments are empty.  There is 1 two-pound pack of ground meat - the last of it, two briskets, and not much else.  The deep freeze is so empty it has an echo.

Fortunately, we are blessed to have two bulls in the pasture.  With the Covid-19 craziness, people have been concerned about disruptions to the supply chain and lack of supply of beef.  As a result, many locals are having their animals slaughtered to have provisions on-hand in the event of an emergency.  Months ago, we called to get an appointment to have our two bulls butchered.  We found it was a four month waiting list!!  Anyhow, December 19th was our date.

The first step was separating Rosie and Clarabelle from the two bulls, Aussie and Clarabull.  The two bulls are not halter broken.  Clarabull does not have a halter on at all.  Getting them into trailer was going to involve trickery, deception, slight of hand, and raw will.  

We lured them to the gate with buckets of sweet feed.  They walked to the end of the trailer and stretched their necks out.  The bucket was placed just out of reach.  Coaxing the bull with a taste here and there, we got one foot up, then another and then pushed from behind and pulled from his halter until Aussie was up!

Clarabull required a bit more time and effort.  He fell getting in the trailer, but we were finally successful.

We closed the divider in the trailer to push them all the way to the front.  They finished off the sweet feed that we used as a lure to bait them into the trailer.

My best guess is that each bull weighs about 750 pounds, but I can't tell for sure.  Their weight sure made the truck sit down in the back, with the weight of both bulls on the tongue of the old trailer.  The trailer looks rough, I know.  It is a 1978 model that belonged to my grandfather.  I have been patching up rust holes in it with Bondo and fibreglass patching kits.  I will soon sand, prime and paint it.  I'm thinking about a navy blue color.

We drove through Jennings, Mermentau, Midland and Morse and arrived at Elliott's Slaughter House.  It sits in the country in the middle of pasture lands, rice fields, and crawfish ponds.  We watched a crawfisherman in his boat baiting up his traps.

The building itself is unimpressive.  It is a plain, white cinderblock construction.  Nothing fancy about it.  What we did notice is that on a Saturday morning, IT WAS PACKED with people.  The parking lot was full.  The interior had a line of people buying fresh meat.  You can't get it much fresher than this.

We unloaded the two bulls into the corral.  The attendant filled the water trough.  These guys will be butchered on Monday.  The meat will age for a while in coolers, and then they will grind and cut up the meat.  We will be called when it is all packaged and labeled and we'll go pick it up.

Here is a photo of the Cutting Instructions that they get from us.  I'll explain further below:

First thing is that when you bring an animal, it is ALL YOURS.  You can have everything you want, except the moo.  This sheet shows you what we get:

We want everything cut to 3/4 inch thickness.  For the front: We want the neck and chuck steaks made into ground meat, we want shoulder steaks, seven steaks, rib steaks, short ribs and brisket.

For the back: We want 3-4 lb roasts, T-bone, sirloin steaks, round steaks, shank.  We want them packed 2-3 steaks per package.  We want ground beef in 2 pound packages, the tenderloin whole.  We want the flank/skirt steaks for fajita meat.

For the debris:  We want the liver, but no kidney.  I'm not interested in the "Rocky Mountain Oysters."  We do, however, want the fat for soap-making and the bones for making beef broth.  We opted to not get the hide.  I'm sure that the items we decline, they will have a market for it all.

Upon getting a call in a couple of weeks, we'll journey back to the slaughterhouse and pick up the meat.  It will be all packaged, labeled and frozen.  We'll carry it home and re-fill the freezer.  The deep freeze will no longer echo, but will be full of grass-fed, hormone-free, fresh, natural, non-medicated beef.  The good stuff.

Specialty Soda Pop Stop

There is a small Mom & Pop type shop in a small town near us called "Mr. Clint's."  I think I've posted about it last year.  Mr. Clint's had a big plate glass window that was blown out in Hurricane Laura.  It is still boarded up with a big plywood patch over the broken window.  Despite Covid-19 and two hurricanes, Mr. Clint's is still open for business.

We have committed to supporting local businesses and buying "American."  Even if it costs a little more (sometimes it doesn't), the quality is better, and we want to support our friends and neighbors and buy locally.  Tricia went into Mr. Clint's the other day and bought some longneck specialty soft drinks.  Mr. Clint's has a variety of specialty sodas that he purchases from across the country.  Tricia bought a mix and match four pack.  This weekend we opened them up and tried them and shared them with each other to have a taste test to determine which we thought was the best.  Here are three of the four.  Laura came in from Baton Rouge and tried a Hank's Gourmet Vanilla Creme.

So the three left to right are Boylan Bottling Co.'s Birch Beer, Avery's Totally Gross Zombie Brain Juice Strawberry Orange, and Triple XXX Root Beer.  A little info on each and then... the winner!

Boylan Bottling Co. Birch Beer: First it is not beer.  It is similar to root beer.  Distinctively minty and sharp with strong notes of sweet birch and wintergreen oil.  It is made from herbal extracts and birch bark.  It was originally made from oak and pine sap.  The sap is extracted and then distilled to make birch oil.  Boylan is located in New York City.  (New York City?)

Avery's Zombie Brain Juice Strawberry Orange: "They are SODAsgusting!"  (Their marketing slogan - not mine.)  It looks weird and has a strange name, but was very tasty.  Avery's is located in Connecticut.

Triple XXX Root Beer: Let me first say I didn't want to research anything on the internet with Triple XXX in the title!  This root beer is a historic Texas Root Beer made at the Galveston Brewing Company in the early 1900's.  The brewery was closed in 1916 due to Prohibition. The brewery was converted to producing soft drinks under the Triple XXX name - root beer, ginger ale, lemon, orange, chocolate, cream soda, grape and apple juice.  In 2008 a couple from West Lafayette, Indiana purchased the name and recipe.  A pretty cool history, I must say.

Taste tests were done and secured voting (no mail in ballots allowed) was counted and recounted.  And the winner is...  Triple XXX Root Beer!  You wouldn't go wrong purchasing any of the three, however.  It was a fun taste test.  We'll have to visit Mr. Clint's and select another four to try!

Redfish on the Half-Shell

Yesterday's post was about catching fish.  Today's post is about eating fish!  Our neighbors were looking to make some room in their deep freeze and asked if we'd like some fish?  How could we say no?  We thawed out the red fish and in the late afternoon, we built a nice fire in our fire pit with some pecan wood and let the wood burn down to make a nice coal bed. 

Once the fish were thawed out we seasoned them up with Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, butter and lemon juice.  Here they are - redfish on the half-shell:

The reason they are called Red fish on the half-shell is that they are filleted but one side still has the scales on it.

The "shell" makes it perfect for just laying the fish right on the grill.  It doesn't stick.  It's hard to burn.  We sliced up some onions, mushrooms, squash, and peppers and put them on the grill, too.  Soon, the fish were cooking.  We sat outside around the firepit and visited while the fish finished up.

We monitored the temp on the fish until they were done.  The smaller fish cooked quicker, so we allowed the bigger ones to continue cooking while we went inside and began to eat while all the food was hot.

The fish were DELICIOUS!  Even though the weather is getting a little cool.  The mosquitoes aren't as bad as during the spring and summer and cooking out is relaxing and enjoyable - something that we'll be doing more often.

The Neighbor's Nets

 The preacher man says it's the end of time

And the Mississippi River she's a-goin' dry

The interest is up and the Stock Market's down

And you only get mugged if you go downtown

I live back in the woods, you see

My woman and the kids, and the dogs, and me

I got a shotgun, a rifle, and a 4-wheel drive

And a country boy can survive

Country folks can survive...

we can skin a buck; we can run a trotline

And a country boy can survive

- Hank Jr.

Listening to the lyrics of that country song, I often thing that Ol' Hank knows my neighbors.  We have really good neighbors.  While we have farm animals and grow crops for most of our food, our neighbors hunt, fish, trap for theirs.  They truly live off the land.  They are accomplished sportsmen.  This weekend I saw a big project underway next door, and I walked over to see what was on the agenda.  I was greeted by a powerful smell - like black tar or creosote.  They had a plastic children's swimming pool and were pouring pails of the black substance into the pool.

For quite some time they were building hoop nets in their barn, attaching netting around fiberglass hoops.  Now that they had the nets all built, they were applying a coating to the nets to protect them from rot and the elements.  Once they coated all the nets, they stretched them out to allow them to dry.

The hoop nets were all different sizes.  I asked what the price would be if you wanted to buy one.  They told me about $450.  My neighbors primarily put the hoop nets out in Bayou Nezpique and the Mermentau River.  They catch lots and lots of catfish and buffalo (carp) and gar fish.  Any other sport fish (bass, sacalait) must be released.  Their plan is to place nets in the Atchafalaya River and also the Sabine River.  They've secured a deal in which they sell all the fish they catch to fish markets and sell any buffalo they catch for crawfish bait.  

They have built a number of different sizes and styles of nets - all with different goals in mind.  The traps are dropped in the river and are weighted down with weights/anchors.  A GPS marker marks the spot of each net.  (You don't want anyone else knowing where your nets are!)  The nets are dropped with the opening faced upstream.  Since fish swim upstream, they swim right into the "funnel" which appears to be a big, dark log.  There the biggest fish remain in the net, while the smaller ones swim right through the openings.

The nets are run daily by dropping a big hook that hooks onto the rope you see below in front of the net.  The net is pulled into the boat.  The hoops telescope onto one another and the fish fall into the bottom of the boat.  Desirable fish are kept and the others are tossed back to continue growing.

My neighbors have always done this, but now as they are reaching retirement age, they are stepping up their game and have made more nets to catch plenty of fish to fill their freezers as well as sell to fish markets.  They look forward to putting the nets in the water.  The catch will be slow at first, but at the end of February and into the Spring, they anticipate filling their boat with fish.  They've invited me along, and when I go, I'll be sure to chronicle the outing.

'Cause you can't starve us out and you can't make us run

'Cause we're them old boys raised on shotgun

And we say "grace" and we say "Ma'am"

And if you ain't into that we don't give a damn darn.  ;)

The Only Healthy Way to Live Life

Simplicity.  A simple life.  That's a recurring theme on our family blog.  Don't get me wrong, we enjoy nice things.  We can appreciate the finer things in life.  It's just that I like the slow pace in the country.  I am so glad I don't live in a city.  We don't have privacy fences.  Our neighbors come visit, and we know them all very well.  I like the honesty that's found in rural folk.  We sell all of the excess eggs that our hens lay that we can't eat.  We put dozens of eggs in a fridge in our garage and customers/friends drive up and take what they want and leave money and empty egg cartons behind.  We've never had to worry about eggs disappearing - never even considered worrying about it.

I enjoy the freedom that country life gives you.  Sometimes... (gasp), on weekends, I'll go out to the barn to feed the animals and open the hen's nest boxes while wearing a bathrobe or even my boxer shorts and a cup of coffee.  That doesn't mean I've never been embarrassed.  I catch myself whistling a lot and singing a lot.  (I am NOT a good singer.  I can't carry a tune and don't read music and have never played an instrument, but that doesn't stop me from singing.)  My wife tells me my voice "carries," though.  One time I was on the back patio singing and when I got to the end of the song, the neighbors who live probably 100 yards away, began to clap, and whooping and hollering, making fun of me, I know.  Boy, was I embarrassed!

Enjoying the benefits of country life, appreciating a good cup of coffee, reading a good book, listening to music, piddling around in the garden, doing little home improvement projects, eating a delicious homecooked meal from ingredients off our land, taking a ride on a gravel road, laughing at a good joke or being told a good story.  Those are simple things I find satisfying and they bring me great enjoyment.  What brings you happiness?

Oftentimes, things we THINK will bring us happiness, do not.  In probably my favorite movie of all time, "Lonesome Dove," Gus explains this very thing to Lorie:  (I think it is time to watch that movie again!)

Gus lays out a prescription for Lorie’s future happiness. She is obsessed with going to San Francisco, and he wants her to understand that that dream is likely a misguided one.

“You see, life in San Francisco is still just life. If you want any one thing too badly, it’s likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to learn to like all the little everyday things – like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself.”

A Few More Garden Notes

One more look at the garden from the picket fence gate.  This photo emphasizes one of the nicest things about the Back to Eden Gardening Method - weeds are minimal.  Thick layers of wood chip mulch crowds most all the weeds out, leaving clean walk paths between the rows of vegetables.  This has been a real plus.  

The next photo shows the remains of the purple hull peas that the freeze last week knocked out.  It melted them to the ground!  It's okay.  We have numerous quarts of shelled purple hull peas in the deep freeze.

I did try to cover our green beans up with a tarp the night before the freeze.  The green beans were lush, beautiful, healthy and full of blooms.  I put the tarp over them and weighted down either side with t-posts.  Once it warmed up the next day, Tricia unrolled the tarp.

You can see that the leaves touching the tarp experienced some damage, but the leaves underneath are healthy and will continue to grow.

There are small green beans under the canopy of leaves, so hopefully, we will get a nice harvest of fresh green beans prior to the next freeze.

One thing that wasn't affected by the freeze at all was the mustard greens.  They are healthy and ready to be harvested again.

And that's what's going on in the garden right now.

I Walked Through the Garden Alone

 I walked through the garden alone,

    While the dew is still on the roses broccoli.

It's a beautiful old hymn that I took the liberty of changing to match what I actually saw.  I don't have roses in our garden, although Tricia has some pretty ones by the back patio.  On the weekends, I walk out to the hen house to open the nesting boxes.  I like to do that early otherwise the hens will lay their eggs in the strangest of places.  My walk to the hen house leads me through the garden.  The sun is still rising over the horizon and the scenery in the garden is always nice.  

Here's a quick tour:  (Dewdrops bedazzling a big, healthy broccoli leaf)

Turnips!  I planted them overly thick.  We eat the turnip greens and slice the turnip roots to give to the cows.  They love them.

French Breakfast Radishes in the foreground with brussels sprouts and garlic chives further back.  We have a great Radish Dip recipe that we always have around in a bowl this time of year.

Berlicum carrots marking the rows.  These were the slowest growing this year, but they've willed themselves to sprout up through the mulch and are in a growth spurt now.  As you can tell, the oxalis is also coming up in the carrot row despite the thick mulch.  We'll have to weed those out.

The lettuce patch.  We have several varieties growing, including Black-Seeded Simpson, Oak Leaf, Lollo Rossa, Rocky Top Mix, and Red Romaine.  We're pinching off the fresh new growth for salads every night.

 

Galilee Spinach.  This variety comes from Israel.  We like to make homemade Cream of Spinach Soup with this on cold, gloomy, drizzly nights.  It'll put the warmth back in your bones.

Bull's Blood Beets between two more rows of carrots.  As both the beets and carrots grow, the variation in color will light up this section of the garden.  I made it a point this year to widen the paths between the rows.  The mulch really helps to keep down weed growth in the walkways.  (More on this later)

Sugar Snap Peas.  The first pods are ready for picking with blooms starting to fill the trellis.

Starting right to left, we have Dinosaur Kale, three varieties of cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli. I should have allowed more space for a walkway between crops, ha ha!  They've shaded out between the rows, so we don't have to worry about weeds, but it will be a challenge to harvest!  They are very healthy!  Can't wait for harvest time!