Merry Christmas to All!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.    Isaiah 9:6

 

What a great day!  Merry Christmas everyone.  Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, so we had abbreviated services at our little church.  No Sunday School - just Morning Worship at 10 AM.  I hope you were able to make it to Services to honor our Savior.  We opened the service reading about the birth of Jesus Christ from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2 along with prayer and special music: "Sweet Little Jesus Boy."

We sang a few carols - Silent Night, Joy to the World and Beautiful Star of Bethlehem.  It was a beautiful time of corporate worship.  Jesus is truly that Light that shines brighter and brighter even in this darkened world.  Over 25 years ago, this tree of light was made and we light it up with candles.  Each family comes up and takes turns lighting up the tree. 

It takes quite a while to light it all up, but once its done, it is a sight to behold!

It was truly a good time of worship together.  We had a number of members that were out today, but we had a number of guests to join us in praising God.

Once the tree was all lit up, we sang, "There's Something About That Name."

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, There's just something about that name.

Master, Savior, Jesus, Like the fragrance after the rain,

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth proclaim.

Kings and Kingdoms will all pass away,

But there's something about that name.

The Sonnier Family at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm wish you and yours the very best Christmas and a blessed and Happy New Year.

Picking the Low Hanging Fruit

We had a big freeze a couple of years ago that really hurt our citrus trees.  In fact, I thought they all perished.  But they came back.  Although we got zero fruit last year, this year they bloomed and produced fruit again - not as much as before the big freeze, but fruit nonetheless.

However, the weather forecast showed a big chill moving in.  The wind is howling outside as I type this.  The temps were in the 50's today.  Right now it is 34 and by morning it will be 19.  No telling what the wind chill will be.  One of the things on the list today was doing a better job of protecting the citrus trees in advance of the freeze.  I didn't wrap them last freeze.  I did my best to get a tarp over them.  I also, as you can see below, piled wood chip mulch high around the trunk, well above the graft.  Next task was to pick the fruit and then cover with a tarp.  

This is a grapefruit tree - a small one.  It has four grapefruit on it.  Because of its size, it was an easy one to wrap in a tarp.  I tied the tarp on tight as the winds were gusting 40 mph all night.

While I could stand on the ground and pick the grapefruit, the tangerines were a different story.  I had to get the ladder out for the rest of the citrus - 2 tangerines and 1 navel orange tree.  First, I (literally) picked all the low hanging fruit.  You can see that I picked everything that was easy.  Many people use the phrase "picking the low hanging fruit" as a description of doing the easy things first.  That's exactly what I did. 

Then I got on a ladder and hung a 5 gallon bucket on the ladder where a paint bucket normally would hang if I was painting.  I picked every single tangerine off of the tree.

Tangerines are such a beautiful color, so orange it's almost fluorescent.  They are so tasty, sweet and tart.  Once I picked all of them off of the tree, I moved to the second tangerine tree and picked it clean.

Finally, I moved to the navel orange tree.  There was a lot of big fruit on this tree.  As I was picking, I saw a wasp nest as big around as a softball.  It was cold, so they were all gone, fortunately.                       

Most of the fruit is baseball-sized, but about a third of them are the size of softballs.  We like to cut these in wedges and eat them chilled.  We'll also make fresh-squeezed orange juice.  So good.

We picked three buckets of tangerines and four buckets of navel oranges.  We brought these inside and then I went back out and did the best job I could of protecting the trees with a tarp.  Hopefully, I'll be able to save them!

Then we went over to the neighbors and picked 2 five gallon buckets of satsumas.  We wanted to get them all off before the freeze.  We'll let you know if our mulching and tarping of the citrus trees was able to save them.  I hope we're successful.  We do love our citrus.

A Strange Visitor Behind the Barn

Just behind our barn right beyond the perimeter fence that borders our little 5 acre property on the south is a little patch of woods.  We don't own it.  It is overgrown with privet, ragweed, Chinaberry trees, and dewberries and briars.  It's home to a bunch of squirrels, possums, snakes, and other critters.  Every year I go out back and chop a 5 foot clearing to keep the wilderness from encroaching.  

Things, as we see all around us, move from order to disorder.  The Second Law of Thermodynamics or Law of Entropy states that when left alone in natural states, eventually everything goes back to disorder.  We see that played out in society, in our possessions, and heck, even our bodies.  Clearing a swath beyond the fence is a small way to keep wildness at bay.  It may even keep critters from coming onto our land as they're exposed to hawks and other birds of prey.

I always glance out back.  There's no telling what you might see.  Yesterday, I saw a strange sight indeed!

I couldn't believe my eyes!  A black rabbit!!  Now we have our share of cotton tail rabbits.  We've talked about them from time to time.  They got into the garden one year and mowed down all of our snap beans.  But this rabbit was different.  I've never seen a black rabbit in the wild before.  I showed Tricia the photos and she actually saw it again today.

The rabbit is big and fat and healthy.  We even wonder if it was a domesticated rabbit that somehow got away or was turned loose, but none of our neighbors have rabbits.  I looked up on the Internet to try to learn about black rabbits.  They apparently are extremely rare.  There's even a lot of superstitious talk of black rabbits, but I'm not superstitious.

I stood there and watched the fellow (or gal) for a long time.  The rabbit was nibbling on some of the fresh growth I had chopped down.  As I tried to move closer, the bunny hopped away.  What a gorgeous sight to see.

As strange as it is, I like having this strange black rabbit around.  I hope the rabbit stays out of the clearing, though, as the black rabbit is not quite as camouflaged as the brown cotton tails are.  It would be easy to see by the hawks and owls that patrol the skies near the patch of woods.  As it hopped away, I noticed that it does NOT have a cotton tail.  It is jet black, except for one foot that was white, as if it had a sock on.   

Le Temps Apres Finis

 

3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.  8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.  2 Peter 3:3-9

I wanted to share something with you that I hope you enjoy.  At our little church, we had special music last Sunday in which 3 members sang a song in Cajun French.  In our little dot on the map, many people's parents spoke French (mainly so the kids wouldn't know what they were saying!) and many people's grandparents spoke French as their first language.  It is part of our heritage that is slowly dying out.  We still often hear Cajun French words incorporated into everyday language and many know the vocabulary, but few passed this along to their kids.  They were heavily discouraged in school against speaking French.

We had a treat last Sunday morning when a trio at our church sang "Le Temps Apres Finis" as special music.  The song title means The Times are finishing or The time is nearly done.  Click on the two-minute You Tube video below to hear it:  (I have the words translated into English below the video.)

 Chorus:    The time, the time, the time is nearly done (3x)

Verse 1:    I read in my Bible the time is nearly done (3x)

Verse 2:    We must watch and pray as Jesus recommends (3x)

Verse 3:    Why not come to God, before it is too late (3x)

Fall Spuds: The Good and the Bad

Earlier this fall, IN THIS POST we introduced an experiment we were trying for the first time: Fall potatoes in pots.  We'd never done this before as we normally plant them in the ground.  This year, I figured, due to lack of space in the garden, we would plant in pots.  This would enable us to move the pots in the event of an early frost.  We learned that lesson from an early freeze years before in which we lost our crop before they were ready.  

We harvested all of our potatoes this past week.  We'll show you the results today.  If you click the link above, you'll note that we planted 12 potatoes that we had stored successfully from the spring crop.  Those 12 potatoes were planted in 12 landscape pots under rich mulch that had composted down from 3 year old wood chip mulch.  I incorporated some composted chicken litter from the hen house for fertilizer.

Here is one of the plants we harvested.  You'll notice a brown material right at the base of the plant.  Those are coffee grounds.  I'll tell you a little story about that.  We read somewhere a natural remedy for fire ants is to spread some used coffee grounds.  The grounds provide compost as well as repel fire ants.  Or so they say.  This did NOT work in our Potato Pots.  It may have even caffeinated them, making them more aggressive in reproduction and growth. 

Back to the potato harvest.  I simply turned the pots over in a wagon to capture the mulch and then sifted through the mulch to pull out the potatoes.  (This resulted in being bit by the ants numerous times.)  Here are a few of the potatoes:

They were nice looking, new potatoes and we'll eat them up.  The photo below shows you the extensive fire any colony that was in the bottom of the pot.  The fire ants are always looking for high ground.  In times of rain and wet soil, the highest ground proved to be the soil in our Potato Pots.  We'll have to think this through better next time.

Here are a few more of the potatoes that we harvested as they are shown stored on our drying wagon.  This allows air flow to get around them and it is shady and cool, perfect conditions to store potatoes.

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I wish I would have weighed or counted the potatoes, but I forgot.  I was hoping for a better yield.  Oh, we definitely got more than the 12 potatoes that we planted, but if I had to guess, I'd say we got 36 nice sized potatoes and a bunch more small ones.  If I would have waited a couple more weeks, the small ones you see may have grown to golf-ball sized potatoes, but the ant infestation made me wonder if there were even going to be any potatoes.  In hindsight, I should have waited until the plants died or frost killed them.  In summary, a disappointing harvest, but we'll do it again next fall.  I have another nine months or so to learn about killing fire ants without pesticides.  It's probably not a good idea to eat potatoes laced with Amdro or Spectracide.  We've tried boiling water as an organic fire ant mound treatment option.  That works, but it would also kill the potato plants.

The Sad Plight of Small Town USA

My job takes me on the road a lot.  I drive through the country and am able to take in lots of sights of rural, pastoral landscape.  There are rolling hills, pine trees, farmland and livestock grazing on emerald green rye grass.  I go into the city, too, but I like driving in the country and meeting and visiting with folks that grew up in the backwoods and would have it no other way.  They often offer me coffee or a soft drink for the road.  It restores trust in your fellow man and bolsters optimism of American strength, work ethic and old time values.

There are times, however, that I take in sights that are sad, discouraging and downright depressing.  Sorry to be a "Debbie downer," but today I'm going to share a couple of those sights.  In a neighboring town that I'm very familiar with, I drove by the first of two things I'll talk about.  Here's the first:

A church with a For Sale sign out in front.  This was a small Methodist Church.  I'm seeing more and more of this, and I'm sure you are too.  I know some of the people that attended services here.  The doors are locked and the lights are off.  As I passed by today, I had to stop and take a photo.  I lingered with a deep sadness, possibly amplified by a gloomy, grey day and thought about what must have occurred.  I'm not positive on the details, but I'm sure something close to it took place.

Families raised their kids in services here.  Vacation Bible School was teeming with kids.  Hymns like "Amazing Grace" and "A Mighty Fortress is our God" and "This is My Father's World" were sung with reverence and awe.  Christmas services were held with candles that dripped wax.  There was a paper ring surrounding the candle, but kids always found a way to play with the melting wax and get it on the wooden pews.  Then those kids grew up, graduated, went off to college and were lured away to cities where opportunity existed.  The church, now more silent without the sounds of kids and running feet, still pressed on with the older parishioners still faithful in attendance, but without younger people to provide a continued leadership and adding new generations of faith to the old wooden pews, the congregants looked around with sadness, knowing the clock was ticking.

Then one day there was a funeral, followed by another and another.  The church echoed more.  Sunday mornings were different without the old fellow and his wife that had sat in that old wooden pew, the third from the back on the right hand side, for four decades.  Without the injection of the next generation, the handwriting was on the wall.  Soon there was no one to play the piano anymore.  A preacher, I'm sure, who traveled from town to town, bringing spiritual instruction to the little flock, before long found himself talking to one of the few still in attendance as the tithes collected were no longer covering the cost to pay the electricity bill.  Tough decisions were made and one Sunday services were no longer held and instead the doors were locked and a For Sale sign was erected.  Whew, that was a little tough to write!

I drove approximately one half mile, over the railroad tracks and down Main Street toward the Court House and looked to my left:

This was the Hardware store that was a fixture on Main Street.  We knew the proprietor well.  He was always there.  You walked in the door and a bell on the door announced your arrival.  The owner greeted you and asked if he could help you find something.  (Imagine getting that in a big box store!)  Anything you could ever want could be found in this little hardware store, from pea shellers to brooms and rat traps, to nuts and bolts and fittings, to new screen to put on the screen door and even cast iron cookware.

Wal Mart moved in and built stores in neighboring towns in the 80's and then big box hardware stores with larger assortments and lower prices due to buying in bulk.  People stopped fixing things.  It was easier and more affordable to just dispose of broken things and replace them with cheap, imported goods.  A more mobile society made it easier for folks to make trips to "the city" where they purchased their items.  The bell on the door of the old hardware store on Main Street rang less and less.  

And here we are.  The light is still on above the door, but there are no more shoppers and the proprietor who once greeted you by name has passed away.  The store has been closed for years.  The old Main Street that once was busy has as many boarded up storefronts as businesses that are open.  A once busy, bustling and thriving Main Street in Small Town USA is trying to look to the future.  How can it survive?  

A good question, indeed.  I have no answers.  I'm a nostalgic guy, and I realize this is a dismal, gloomy post.  What is playing out in this town is happening all across the fruited plain.  We have decided to make a conscious effort to try to support small town businesses, mom & pop shops, with our small budget.  I believe there is hope.  I see many towns trying to revitalize and build on the past while looking to the future and that's a very good thing.  There has to be opportunity for young folks to stay in small towns and raise their families there and be the recipients of the benefits of knowing your neighbor.  The wonderful people that make their homes in small towns and the quality of life found in places like this are amazing and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to be raised in one.

The Herb Patch

In all our years posting, I don't know if we've ever shown you our little herb patch.  Many years ago, we constructed a raised bed in the side yard with 2x12's and filled it with topsoil.  The idea was to plant herbs in one location to not take space out of the main garden.  We've kept this herb patch going for quite a while now.  We have a lot of different items in this bed.  We'll oftentimes come out and cut what we need and it's not that far of a walk back inside to the kitchen where the meal is being prepared.

Below you're looking at three separate celery plants.  They seem to be really happy and healthy.

Here is a close-up photo of the healthiest of the three.  If you've been following us, we planted these from store-bought celery stalks that we had eaten everything except a small 3 inch section of the base.  We rooted it in a cup of water and then transplanted it out here.  It's doing quite well.  We might get a bunch of celery after all.  This is our first time doing this.  

These two plants have similar leaves, but aren't celery.  These are flat Italian parsley.  These come in handy for gumbos.  We'll pick a bunch and the plants continue to re-grow.  We didn't plant these from seed.  They came up volunteer from last year's parsley plant that we allowed to go to seed.

This is French Sorrel and is two years old.  It continues to thrive.  I like to eat the leaves raw.  It has a unique taste.  We also put in salads.

This is lemon grass.  This group of plants was started from seed about three years ago.  We cut off bunches of it to make tea - either iced or hot.  It's delicious and has a real nice fragrance.  We aim to try to cook with it.  Lemon grass is used in lots of dishes, but we haven't tried any recipes yet.

Here is a pretty large rosemary plant.  It's four years old, I'm guessing.  We use rosemary quite often in cooking.  I love the fragrance.

Here is some ginger.  It is two years old.  The leaves look a little beat up.  I think it got hurt a little by the frost we had a couple of weeks ago.  I guess we'll need to dig it up.

And finally, here is what's left of the oregano.  This plant used to be quite large, but the drought this year really hurt the plant.  Where it used to fill up almost 1/4 of the entire bed, it's now just these small stragglers hanging on.  Hopefully it will recover.  We like its flavor in Italian dishes.

And that's a quick tour of the herb garden.  We'll plant some additional items in here in the spring.

Peppers and Plans

December 8th here and it hit 80 degrees Fahrenheit today.  Lots of fog in the morning, too, that didn't burn off until around 10 AM.  The plants are really growing.  A few days ago, I had the opportunity to plant some mustard greens and two rows of spinach.  The only thing I've left to plant is turnips.  I'll get that done this weekend.  I also dug up the rest of the sweet potatoes.  That will give us room for the onion crop for next year that I'll be planting in January.

The peppers have been producing nicely.  Here are some Lilac Bell Peppers showing off with their snazzy colors!

This year we've had a nice pepper crop and have frozen some, eaten a bunch, dehydrated some, processed some into dried peppers.  Since it hasn't frozen, they continue to produce and produce.

I mentioned plans.  We're planning for a new homestead venture this spring.  We'll be getting a couple of boxes of honeybees.  We've kept bees for the past 7 or 8 years, but they live in the hollow column by our side entrance.  We cannot access their honey, but they do pollinate our garden and fruit trees.  Once we get some bees in boxes, we'll get pollination and will also be able to get the benefits of honey.  Can't wait.

But we don't know much about beekeeping.  In order to learn, we were invited to join the local beekeeping club.  They meet the second Thursday of each month at 7 pm at a local diner here in town.  We went to our first meeting tonight.  There were about a dozen people in attendance.  We had a fried shrimp po-boy and fries and listed and learned.  The beekeepers were friendly and knowledgeable and willing to answer our questions.  Some have only a couple of boxes, while others in the club have 100 boxes.

It was very interesting learning about feeding, splitting hives, supplies you need, hive placement, how to not lose your bees, swarming, etc.  They are very motivated to get more people involved with beekeeping and aim to get beekeeping into the Ag departments at 3 local high schools.  Hathaway High School, the school Benjamin graduated from already has 8 bee boxes.  We are going to have the students come to a meeting and tell us what they've been learning.  

It's nice to have helpful folks like this to help get us involved in this new undertaking.  We are excited about learning something new to add to our homestead.  We plan to learn as much as we can for the next couple of months and purchase supplies and equipment we need and then will jump into this new endeavor this spring.  That's our plan, anyway.

Shading Out

I want to show you something in the garden that made me think about the term "shading out" that we would use on the farm.  First, take a look at the cole crop patch below.  From left to right (two different varieties of cabbage, cauliflower, two varieties of broccoli, and then kohlrabi, kale and bok choy.

They are growing nicely and are healthy.  It is late afternoon and the sun was shining in my face.  I walked around to the west side of the garden to take the following photo.  As you can see, the rows have about grown together so that it is almost hard to differentiate one row from another.  It almost looks like one big swath of green, verdant growth.

That's what reminded me of the term "shading out."  About 45 years ago, give or take we were growing soybeans on the Cottongin Road in Oberlin.  We weren't using a drill to plant at that time.  Instead, we were row cropping.  This required getting in the field with a cultivator to turn the ground over between the rows to stay ahead of weed growth.  You had to REALLY pay close attention or you'd run over the soybeans.  This had to be done until the soybeans "shaded out."

When the young soybean plants grew tall enough that you couldn't see the dirt between the rows, you were very happy!  You didn't have to cultivate anymore because the soybean plants had grown together.  The shade prevented any sunlight from getting to any weeds under the canopy of soybeans and this prohibited any weeds to grow and compete for nutrition.

As I looked at the winter crops in the garden, it made me happy.  Although I don't use a cultivator in my garden, it brought back some nice memories.  We've almost shaded out!

If the cows just over the fence could get in the garden, they would certainly "cultivate" my crop with the quickness!

Bee Healthy - Eat Bee Pollen

We've been learning about bee pollen and its benefits in order to learn how to perhaps be healthier.  Bee pollen, research has shown, decreases inflammation and boosts the immune system.  It is full on minerals, vitamins and antioxidants.  

It is an interesting journey on how bee pollen is collected.  Pollen is formed on the male part of flowers.  Bees fly through the air and build a positive charge on their bodies.  When they visit a plant, the negatively charged pollen sticks to their bodies.  They fly from plant to plant, getting a variety of pollen on their foraging journey.

The honeybees groom themselves and get all the pollen off their body.  They spit up honey and mix it with the pollen grains.  These grains, now stuck together, are put in "pollen baskets" and are brought back to the hive.  It is used to feed the young bees.

So how do humans collect pollen to consume for its health benefits.  That was my question.  Beekeepers install pollen traps over the entrance to the hives.  Essentially, it is a small opening just large enough for the bees.  When they squeeze through, the pollen falls off of their legs and into a trap, where it is collected daily by the beekeeper.

Since this pollen is vital to the colony for nutrition, beekeepers only leave the traps set for a short period of time.  If they didn't, it could severely hurt the colony.  Our colony of bees resides in a hollow column outside our side door.  We don't have a way to get to the honey or the pollen.  For now, we purchase our bee pollen from an organic co-op called Azure Standard.  Here is a bag of bee pollen that we keep in the freezer.

As you can see, there's only one ingredient - bee pollen.  I look at that bag and think how very hard the honeybees worked to get that.  How many miles did they fly?  It is amazing.  I've read that they will fly 4 miles from the hive to collect pollen and nectar.

So each day we take 1/4 teaspoon as a supplement.

It has a sweet taste and is slightly spongy in texture.  Bees are the only insect that create food eaten by humans - honey, and now, bee pollen.  This spring, we plan on purchasing a colony of bees to put in a bee box.  That way we can collect honey and bee pollen.

Feeding Plan for the Winter

With the bull back at his home, our hay inventory might last a bit longer.  That dude was big and could put down some hay.  Our three cows and herd of goats could go through a round bale in about a week.  With Nick, the bull, added to the animal family, the bale was gone in about 4 days!  In the past month, we've had some light frosts that effectively ended any new growth of grass in the pasture.  The cows and goats have methodically gone over the pasture, cleaning up little tufts of grass still remaining along the fence lines.  There's really not much left.

We rolled out the last of our round bales that were left over from last year and the cows knocked that out in no time.  I called for some more bales and the Monday after Thanksgiving, the gentleman who sells us hay showed up at the house with 10 round bales on the back of his trailer for $40 per bale, delivered.  I think that is very reasonable.  It is clean hay, stored in a barn.  We rolled it off of his trailer and then I covered it up with a tarp to keep it out of the rain.  The cows saw this process unfolding and ran, bellowing, to the gate.

The best I can figure, we have about 10 weeks of hay inventory on hand before we re-order.  Warm weather extends things a bit.  Cows can handle the cold and they can handle rain, but both cold and rain together is not a good combination.  They need the calories to keep them warm.  We've had weather approaching the 80's for the past couple of days.  The cows aren't even around the hay much.  They are sitting out in the pasture chewing their cud.

We do have the 75 bales of good Jiggs bermuda square bales up in the loft.  We haven't even touched that yet.  We generally ration that and feed a half a bale a day of this in addition to the round bale as it gets colder.  We also feed them some sweet feed and salt.

For the goats (and cows to a smaller extent), I jumped over the south fence two days ago with a machete and went to work on the privet and other weeds, tossing it over the fence for them to eat.  They absolutely love eating on this browse and the chickens gather around as bugs and worms are always on the stuff I throw over.  I'll do that from time to time throughout the winter and it serves a double purpose.  It gives them something to eat AND it cleans up a buffer zone between our property and the woods.  I'm guessing that may discourage some varmints from visiting as they have to pass through a cleaned out area to get to our pasture and that exposes them to hawks and other predators.

We keep a close eye on the animals' conditioning during the winter months.  Sometimes I'll get the lead rope and get them out of the pasture to eat on winter grasses in the surrounding ditches and fence rows.  Which reminds me, I need to quickly plant a big plot of turnips.  The cows LOVE to eat big, fat turnips and turnip greens in February and March.

Termite Troubles in the Barn

We got a call yesterday to alert us that the pest control folks would be here to do their annual termite inspection.  They have monitoring station/bait traps set up around the perimeter of our home.  The technician checked and could find no sign of termites around our home.  That is welcome news to us.  He couldn't find a few of the stations, but put out more to take their place.  All in all, we got a report that we wanted to hear.

Out in our barn, however, is another matter entirely.  In year's past, we've put out our own termite bait stations around the barn.  This station at the southwest corner of the barn is something that you don't want to see.  It means the termites have eaten through the bait and the fluorescent probe pops up to ruin your day and alert you that those terrible wood eaters are present.

A few years ago, the termites ate a hole in the floor of the feed room.  That was some good 2 x 12 treated lumber.  What a mess!  This winter, while it is cool, I'll try to re-deck the feed room.  The problem is, of course, that lumber is very expensive right now.

The hungry termites eat through the wood, like you see right here.  The piece of wood I'm holding is lighter than a piece of cork.  When I stepped through the floor and found the problem, I got some termite spray and killed all of them that I could find.  You just know there's more though.

I definitely don't want the barn to fall down, so we've got to do something about the infestation.  Tricia let me know that we had 5 more bait stations left over from the last time we treated.  Time to get these in the ground.

I see some signs of the termites eating in some of the support beams that frame up the barn.

The termite killer comes with a hand auger with which you use to drill the holes to set the termite stakes.

You simply turn the auger by hand until it's all the way in and then you pull up, leaving a hole.

Then you insert the bait station in the hole, and you check it periodically for the telltale signs of activity.

We had our barn built with used materials from other barns that were being torn down.  If I had to guess, we might have imported a termite problem with some of those building materials.  We'll do our best to combat the termites as we like our barn.  Unfortunately, the termites like our barn too!

Sweet Potato Harvest Part II

 

About a month ago we harvested about one third of our sweet potato crop.  We allowed the rest to grow and then a couple of days ago, I enlisted the help of my sweet potato digger/wife.  We have a segregation of duties.  I clip the vines and toss them to the cows, and she finds where the sweet potatoes are and digs them up, trying not to disturb the soil.  She puts the sweet potatoes in a bucket and has another bucket for the small sweet potato roots to feed the cows.  As you can see, they gather around the fence to eat.

As soon as we finish a section, I prepare the seedbed by pulling back the wood chip mulch to expose the soil.  Then I work up soil for planting with a hoe.  I planted a row of Monstrueux de Viroflay Spinach.  It is an heirloom spinach from France that dates back to 1866.  Then I planted a row of Galilee spinach from Israel that I saved from seed from last year.  Finally I planted a half row of mustard greens and a half row of a new crop I got as a Free Seed from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds.  It's called mizuna, a Japanese mustard.  I've never heard of it.  We'll see how it grows and how it tastes.  It's supposed to be like mustard greens, but peppery.

Here is an example of some of the harvest.  You can see that these are Beauregard sweet potatoes.  The majority of the crop that we have harvested is the Golden Wonder heirloom.  Tricia suggested that we try to pull up the heirloom and keep only the Beauregard sweet potatoes for next year's crop.  The Beauregard sweet potatoes are larger and prettier.

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As you can see in the photo below, we've been curing the ones we dug up a month ago by hanging them from onion sacks in the garage for a month.  We graded them and have four sacks like this hanging.

Since we harvested last, we have a new method of curing sweet potatoes (and potatoes, onions, peas, etc.)  A gentleman from our church dropped off a drying wagon that he made.  He made himself a larger one and offered to give this one to us!  

It has casters and wheels and a trailer hitch so we can pull it around.  

The frame is lined with hardware cloth so that it promotes good airflow around the potatoes. 

This will come in handy.  Once we harvest the rest of the sweet potatoes, we'll weigh them up to see the total weight of the sweet potato harvest for 2022.  The ones we dug last month ought to be cured and sweet and ready to eat!