Farewell to Luna

On November 7th we posted about Luna giving birth to a stillborn calf.  We estimate it was two months premature.  We don't know what caused this to happen.  Luna was fat and healthy.  She delivered the calf and placenta and acted normally... until about a week later.  She began to stiffen and then she lost her appetite.  Her jaws appeared to lock tight!  We called the veterinarian to come take a look at her.  His diagnosis was tetanus.

Tetanus is an infection caused by a bacteria that spreads from the nerves to the brain.  It occurs many times after calving.  The symptoms are stiffening, a protruding tail, unsteady gait, and lockjaw.  This is not good.

The veterinarian prescribed an antibiotic...

A steroid and thiamine which we injected into the muscle on Luna's neck twice a day. 

We diligently cared for Luna day after day, giving her the injections, trying to get her to eat, drenching molasses water into her clenched jaws, but in the end, Luna's recovery just wasn't to be.  Saturday morning when I went out to do the morning chores,  Luna was down.  

When cows go down like this, it is almost never a happy ending.  We tried to push her, to pull her to her feet again.  Her neck was stiffened to the side.  She would kick, wanting to get up, but her body, ravaged by the infection, would not obey.  She wanted to eat and to drink, but her body would not comply as it was damaged by the toxins created by the tetanus.   

Rosie came to Luna's side, trying to encourage her, nudging her with her head to get up.  When Rosie saw it wasn't to be, she began to lick her.  It was a sad day.  Sunday afternoon at about 3:15 PM, Luna breathed her last and succumbed to tetanus.

The rainy, dreary day became even more dreary.  We'll miss ol' Luna, but this is life (and death) on the farm.  You work hard.  You play hard.  You rejoice in victories and you come to accept defeat at times.  2020 has been a rough year in many, many ways.  

But as the Good Book says, "Though the sorrow may last for a night, His Joy comes in the morning."  There is death, but there will also be new life.  This spring (hopefully) Rosie and Clarabelle will calf, ushering in new life to our little acreage.  Farewell, Luna, we'll miss you.

The Rains Come Down and the Crawfish Come Up

On Saturday morning we put together the church bulletin for Sunday Morning Worship Services.  We select the hymns, update the prayer list, edit announcements, and print it.  Then we drive over to church to make copies.  Our church is out in the country with farmland all around it.  It is less than a mile from our house.  The land directly east of the church is a rice field that also is a crawfish pond.  The farmer catches crawfish commercially and sells his catch.

In July, the farmer will slowly drain his pond as the oxygen content in the water drops due to the heat and the catch falls off.  Slowly draining the pond signals the crawfish to burrow down into the ground, reaching the water table.  There they will live for a few months until the weather cools off and it either rains a great deal or the farmer begins pumping his pond back up with fresh water.

Once it rains, the crawfish emerge from their holes.  The females will be carrying their little ones on their tails.  It is quite a sight!  When we drove up to the church, I noticed many crawfish in the parking lot.  They were lifting their pinchers up in the air aggressively, as if to say, "Get back!"

Russ and I stopped and picked them up and turned them over.  Sure enough, they were females and had maybe a hundred babies clinging to their tails:  You can zoom in and see the little ones!

This is a good sign for the neighboring crawfish farmer.  The old cajuns used to say, "You gotta wait for a good thundering to get them up outta da ground."  Sure enough, it thundered and rained 3.7 inches and the crawfish are all over the place.  The farmers around here need a good crop of rice and crawfish to make up for a dismal 2020.  Soon they'll put their traps out once again to catch and people around here will be anxious to boil them up. 

A Grateful Thanksgiving

 

Thanksgiving has to be one of my favorite holidays.  It is a time where we gather together and enjoy each other's company.  Before asking a blessing on the food and eating, my Dad read Psalm 100, A Thanksgiving Psalm:

100 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

We then held hands in a circle and prayed, thanking Almighty God for the many blessings in our lives.  To be totally frank, 2020 has been a hard year, Covid-19, two devastating hurricanes, politics, civil unrest, financial uncertainties, stress and anxiety.  I could go on and on, but you understand, you have lived it too.

As a person with many faults, I easily fall into discouragement, especially in the upheaval that has defined 2020.  The Psalm my Dad read and the overall theme of the holiday of Thanksgiving tells us to look beyond our circumstances and to our King.  He sits on the throne and is in control.  We are blessed beyond measure.  He is God and He is Good.  

Happy Thanksgiving All!

A Few (Odd) Recollections

This weekend we went out to eat at a restaurant in a neighboring town.  It was a classic Louisiana fried seafood restaurant.  The food was good.  Russ and Benjamin were with us.  We started with seafood stuffed fried mushrooms.  For the main course, I had a fried shrimp platter and so did Tricia.  Russ got the Fried Shrimp & Catfish Platter and Benjamin got the 1/2 and 1/2 platter (Half fried Shrimp/Half Shrimp Etouffe).  The meals all came with a salad and a side.  I opted for onion rings.  We all split a Triple chocolate cheesecake for dessert.  We wobbled back to the car, stuffed and satisfied.

It was a nice family time.  As we waited for our meal, we talked and planned, laughed and teased one another playfully as families are apt to do.  As I sat there, it reminded me of meals like this eaten as a kid.  The fried shrimp platter was my favorite even back then.  It always came on an oval white plate with a heaping side of fries, maybe a couple of hushpuppies too.  We always poured way too much ketchup on the plate.  Sometimes, if lucky, there were small dishes of cocktail sauce.  The platters had a couple of lemon wedges to squeeze over the shrimp and a clump of parsley to add some color to the plate, I guess.  We were not allowed to have straws with our drinks as we often spilled our root beer all over the table, trying to pull the straw to our mouths.  A coordinated bunch, we were not.

I can remember having very little patience waiting for the food to arrive.  But all was not lost.  There was always an oblong basket of individually wrapped Captain's Wafers on the table.  They were buttery and delicious.  A plate with little containers of whipped butter or little foil squares of butter accompanied them.  We destroyed the basket, smoothing creamy butter on the crackers with the butter knife until all that was left were the cellophane cracker wrappers which stuck to our wrists from either static electricity or butter.  When the Captain's Wafers were gone, then the Melba toasts in the basket were then wiped out.  The Wheat Captain's Wafers were the last thing left. Ha Ha.

Image Credit

When the waitress brought out the food, she set the platter down on a fold-out stand and distributed our much-anticipated food.  First, she had to clear out all of our butter knives, cracker wrappers and plates.  We always enjoyed our meals.  On the way out the door, though, we always partook of the chocolate peppermint patties.  They were either free or cost a nickel.  They were creamy and cool - a perfect topper after a great meal.  We balled up the aluminum foil peppermint candy wrapper and deposited them between the seats.  Somewhere in a junk yard, there is an Oldsmobile Station Wagon with simulated wood grain siding with dozens of balled up aluminum foil wrappers behind the seat.

Image Credit

Odd recollections, I know.  Isn't it strange how the littlest things can make an impression on a child's mind.  I guess I'm still a child at heart.  Do you remember the oddest little things, too?

 

Simple Saturday in the South

On Saturday in Late November 2020, we woke up to a beautiful day.  We took care of a couple of items on our project list that we've been wanting to knock off the list.  Although the weather was beautiful, it was still a little warm with the temperature being 77 degrees.  That doesn't exactly seem like fall, but oh well.

Right after lunch we decided to get in the pickup truck and drive out to the farm.  It's a 30 minute drive to the farm.  We live in the country on our little homestead, but Oberlin, Louisiana is even further in the country.  On the way, we stopped off in a small town called Elton.  Elton boasts a good little specialty meat market called "Mr. T's."  We got some smoked boudin and boudin balls and some root beer and continued on our journey.

Upon arriving at the farm, we filled the water trough for the cows and walked across the pasture to the gully and watched a bunch of striped-head turtles swim in the muddy water.  The irrigation well droned on in the background, pumping water to fill the crawfish ponds.  It was quiet.  We walked through the old pecan orchard that my great-grandfather planted.  One of the old pecan trees succumbed to Hurricane Laura.

It lay tragically on its side, uprooted by the strong south winds of the hurricane's fury.  I have on my list of things to buy is a good chainsaw.  Once I make that purchase, we'll cut the tree up and split the wood for firewood.  It'll keep us stocked up for years.  Sad, though.  These trees stood tall and strong for years and years.

There is another old tree, however, that remains standing - the old live oak tree.  It is literally hundreds of years old.  I reckon this tree could probably tell some stories about the changes it's seen and storms it has weathered.  Its strong limbs stretch out, coming close to the ground and then reach back upward again.  Some of the limbs have bark that is smooth like grass.  The cows like to rub their backs on the limbs, polishing the bark in the process to a glossy shine.

Benjamin had climbed high up into the tree like I used to do when I was his age and much younger.

The live oak has a hole on one side and has been like this for as long as I can remember.  It doesn't appear to have weakened the tree.  At one time, I remember, a momma red fox had a den at the base of this tree and raised some little ones.

The cows came running to meet us - all 16 momma cows and 15 calves.  They're pretty tame.  They were expecting some feed, but we didn't bring any with us.  Mom and Dad drove up in Dad's pickup truck.  We let the tailgates down and sat down and visited for a long time, waving as people drove by slowly on the country road in front of the old home place.  It seemed everyone had the same idea.  It was a nice afternoon to relax and not do anything in particular.

As the afternoon faded into late afternoon, the sun cast long shadows across the landscape, taking in the beauty of God's creation made me thankful a full five days prior to Thanksgiving.

I'm thankful for a simple country life - thankful for a place to enjoy the afternoon without Covid, without politics, without stress, without phones ringing - just peace, quiet, and simplicity.  My kinda place.

Ground I Grew Up On

We don't watch much TV at all - haven't done so in years, so we missed the fact that a young man from Livingston, Louisiana named Laine Hardy won American Idol in 2019.  Livingston is 121 miles away from where we live.  I guess you can't really say that's local, but it's pretty close to us.  Livingston is a small town with approximately 1,931 people living there.  

Although Laine Hardy didn't come from our town, I appreciate his values and love of the land and pride in his simple upbringing in an age where traditional values and being from "the country" is looked down upon by many.  I want to share with you a video and song by this young man entitled "The Ground I Grew Up On."  The video is shot in Livingston, Louisiana.  It is a nice song.  Click the arrow to watch.  I've cut & pasted some of the lyrics below:  (Enjoy!)

Ground I Grew Up On

That ain't just dirt

That ain't just dust blowin'

That ain't just nothin' but an old fishin' hole

Ain't just some rooster crowin'

It's where I learned how to be a boy

Washed in the blood and red dirt mud

Kinda glad I didn't have a choice

So girl just kick back in that shotgun

Let me show you where I'm from

Girl, where I'm from

Might look like nothin' but gravel roads

And tractors rollin' over them fields

And prayin' that we get a little rain soon

And cuttin' loose in hand me down wheels

And knockin' them Friday night beers back

By the train tracks and thinkin' that

I'd never miss this place when I got gone

But that's the ground I grew up on

Yeah, that's the ground I grew up on

Girl, don't blink

You might miss it all

It's where I could fix anything I broke but the law

It was hard to leave

Girl, that's the truth

But you know if I'd stuck around

This little town, I'd have never found you

Might look like nothin' but gravel roads

And tractors rollin' over them fields

And prayin' that we get a little rain soon

And cuttin' loose in hand me down wheels

And knockin' them Friday night beers back

By the train tracks and thinkin' that

I'd never miss this place when I got gone

But that's ground I grew up on

Yeah, that's the ground I grew up on

Where the tales are as tall as the corn grows

Baby, who knows if we're lucky?

Maybe one day at our back door

Might look like nothin' but gravel roads

And tractors rollin' over them fields

And prayin' that we get a little rain soon

And cuttin' loose in hand me down wheels

And knockin' them Friday night beers back

By the train tracks and thinkin' that

I'd never miss this place when I got gone

But lookin' back I couldn't have been more wrong

'Cause that's the ground I grew up on

Yeah that's the ground I grew up on

Pointing Toward Heaven

During Hurricane Laura, strong south winds pushed our church steeple, breaking two of the four anchor bolts out of the roof, allowing the steeple to bend over sideways.  The resulting rainfall swept through the holes in the roof and flood through the ceiling over the baptistry, significantly damaging the church in the process.  But that is why you diligently pay insurance premiums each year, for storms or mayhem.

First things first, a blue tarp was put over the roof to protect the church from further damage.  Then it was determined that a new roof needed to be installed.  We contacted roofers, received a favorable quote and ordered materials.  Prior to roofing, however, the steeple needed to come down.  This was no small task.  We arranged for a crane to lift it off the roof.  I arrived early to unbolt the two remaining bolts from the roof.

The Piddler on the Roof

Some steeples serve as bell towers and have a bell in them that rings as a Call to Worship.  Ours does not.  There is an entryway - a door that can be unscrewed to allow entry.

Once I gained entry, I climbed inside and got to work loosening nuts off of the rusty bolts that had held the steeple in place since 1981.

Just as I got them loose, I heard the crane drive up.  The crane company was not sending any riggers - only a crane operator.  The operator quickly got his piece of equipment ready and instructed me on how to properly attach the slings and clevices so the steeple could be safely lifted without toppling over.

He extended his boom and pointed directions to me as we worked beneath a beautiful blue sky.

In no time at all we had the steeple snugly secured and we were ready for lift-off.

I backed away as the steeple was lifted.  It teetered for a minute, but was quickly stabilized as the crane operator expertly did his job.

He swung it around and laid it on its side in the grass.  The steeple does have some damage and we'll have to show it to the adjuster to see if repairs can be made to it.  What a sad ending for the steeple?  After seeing it pointing toward Heaven, it now lies on its side, broken on the grass.  An inglorious end, one might say.

I read a little about the history of church steeples.  In Europe church steeples were grand, towering over the countryside.  When the settlers came to the new world, they wanted their churches to be like the churches in Europe.  The architects designed the churches to have steeples that would be the highest thing in town.  Places of worship would be easily recognizable from all around due to the high visibility of the church steeples.  The steeples would point the way to Christ, His Word, His Worship.

That is why it is so tragic to see the photo above.  But take heart!  The Church is much more than the physical building.  The Body of Christ is the Believers.  Despite the condition of our steeples, it is the Believer's job to point the way to Christ.  Metaphorically, we should not be lying in the grass, broken and on our side.  We should be lifting up Jesus and pointing the way to the Son.

A Quick Look At the Garden

Most of my first planting of the fall garden was wiped out in Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta, but as the old saying goes, "If at first (or second) you don't succeed, try, try again."  So we replanted.  The cooler temperatures and decrease in insect pressure have helped the garden catch up.  Let's walk through and take a quick look.  

First the Contender Green Beans.  They are very healthy with lots of green growth.  These weren't fertilized at all.  However, they are growing right on top of a previous crop of legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil.  This photo doesn't really show, but just beneath the leaf canopy are a whole bunch of blooms.  We may have fresh green beans for Thanksgiving after all.  

This bed is planted thickly with turnips.  I'm not a big turnip fan, but our cows are.  We'll feed most of the turnip roots to the cows this winter and we will eat the turnip greens.

These are English Breakfast Radishes.  I've just pulled the mulch closely around them to discourage weed growth.  That same mulch will eventually decompose and turn in to rich garden soil.

Carrots always start slow, but once they get a foothold, they really take off.  Eventually, I'll pull the mulch around them to crowd out weed growth.  The oxalis is already threatening.

This is our lettuce bed.  We have a number of different varieties of leaf lettuce.  We like to harvest a mixture of lettuce leaves for a nice tossed salad.  The various colors of the different types of lettuce paint a nice portrait in the garden.

Here is a row of Detroit Beets.  I also have two rows of Bull's Blood beets.  I figure in another week, I'll pull the mulch closely around them as well.  In the meantime, we walk the rows and weed, but that will end once the mulch is pulled around them.

Always one of the first items we're harvesting is kale.  This is a fast growing plant that produces new leaves in record time.  It will produce for months - right up until it gets warm in the spring.

We also have Rainbow Swiss Chard at various stages of development.  The veins of the rainbow chard light up the garden with vivid color.

Here is another type of kale - Dinosaur kale or lacinato kale is a relatively new variety for us.  

Here is a big patch of cilantro that has come up on its own volunteer after seeding from the crop last spring.  We allowed it to go to seed and the plant reproduced itself many times over this year.  The cool weather will keep it from bolting and we will enjoy it with scrambled eggs for many breakfasts to come.

The Sugar Snap peas are beginning to trellis up the cattle panels I have for them to climb on.  They are planted thickly and will soon completely cover the trellis, producing crisp, sweet pods for snacking on.

I'll show you some of the rest of the garden in Part II of the premature garden tour coming up early next week.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today was my Dad's Birthday.  He turned 78!  I can't believe it.  He looks (and acts) a lot younger.  After church we took off to Kinder where we gathered to celebrate.  My mom made a huge pot of crawfish etouffe, asparagus, salad with homegrown lettuce and rolls.  We feasted like kings.  Then Mom pulled out a homemade coconut pie with meringue for dessert.  It's Dad's favorite pie.  We put a candle in it and sang to him.  Once the carnage was done, there was only 1 slice left in the pie pan.

We sat around the table just talking until after 4 pm.  It is nice to stretch out a meal/celebration like that and just enjoy good food and each other's company.  We need to get together and do this more often.  

When it was about time to go, we took a family photo on the patio.  Dad told us a story about how when Mom opened the umbrella you see in the photo below, a big chicken snake was coiled around the umbrella supports and dangled down.  I'll bet that was a sight to behold!  No snake today, just a good celebration of Dad's birthday.

Happy Birthday, Dad.  We love you!

The Perfect Scrub for the Tub

Every couple of years, I'll plant three luffa gourd seeds in a hill and let them trellis on some cattle panels I have stacked one on top of the other.  They vine like crazy, with big leaves, big beautiful yellow blooms and before long dozens of gourds hang from the trellis.  The yellow flowers attract honey bees.  We welcome them to the garden.

The gourds mature and dry on the vine and I usually pick them off when they are at this point:

This is how they look when they are almost fully developed.  Once they reach this point, they'll begin to turn yellow and then brown and will dry up.

The brown, outer-skin will need to bee peeled off.  This exposes the inner fibrous sponge.  The first time you see it, you wonder how this was grown and not manufactured.  

When you turn it to the bottom, you see NUMEROUS black seeds.  I begin gently batting the luffa gourd and all the seeds begin to fall out.

The seeds you see below are just from one of the gourds.  It is amazing how many seeds they produce.  I have a big container full of them.  If anyone is interested in seeds, just let me know.  You can have all you want.

Once I have all the luffa skins removed, I mix a bleach/water solution in a 5 gallon bucket and soak the luffa gourds for 10 minutes and then flip them over.  This cleans them up.

At this point your luffas are ready to use.  We use them as a wash rag in the tub or shower.  The luffa is a little too big, so we cut them in half.  Pour some shower gel on the luffa or rub some soap on it and scrub.  It exfoliates your skin and cleans you up nicely.

Or you can give them away as gifts.  They make a nice present.

Believe it or not, they last for a long time.  Freshen them up from time to time by soaking them in bleach.  Rub a Dub Dub.

A Sad Day for Luna

Saturday while we were putting the hay in the loft, I noticed something not quite right.  Luna, one of our Jersey milk cows, was not acting as she normally should.  She was hunched over and when I walked around her, there was a long thread of blood mucous.  Then it became obvious.  She's in labor!  But it can't be.  She's not due until January.  I called Tricia over to check things out.

At that moment, Tricia told me that she could see a nose and a tongue.  In a few minutes of pushing, the head was out.  But something was dreadfully wrong.  The feet weren't coming out and the baby calf did not appear to be breathing.

Warning: Unsavory photos follow

Tricia got on the phone with the veterinarian to see if she could find one on call.  Luna had just gone into labor and would push and periodically get up and walk around and then sit back down again.  She had plenty of strength.  We decided to let her continue to push versus pulling the calf or calling the veterinarian out on a farm call.

In just a moment, Luna delivered the calf - a little heifer.  Dead.  Two months premature.  We don't know what happened.  This is the second calf that Luna delivered dead.  We are going to run some tests to try to figure out the issue.

Calving is normally a very happy, exciting time and this time, it was a time of sadness.  We watched over the next few hours as Luna came and looked for her baby, walking back and forth, bellowing loud, melancholy moos, calling for her little girl.  We were so anticipating a heifer.  We've had nothing but bulls lately, but it was not meant to be.

Cows that deliver calves, regardless if they live or not, produce milk.  Here we go again.  Later that evening, we found ourselves in the barn, milking the colostrum out of Luna and feeding it to the hens.  Luna kicked at me briefly while I was milking her, so I hobbled her leg.  She'll settle down, poor girl.

Our other two cows, Rosie and Clarabelle, should also be bred.  Hopefully, we see a happier outcome.  Meanwhile, on the bright side, we'll have fresh milk again.