Cosmic Purple Carrot Harvest

We've always planted a number of colorful vegetables - partly for the novelty, partly for the variety, and partly because we've always read that brightly colored vegetables are healthier for you.  Cosmic Purple Carrots are one of those vegetables that we harvested this weekend.  They were big and beautiful.  They probably could have been harvested a couple of weeks ago, but that's okay.  This basket was picked and put in a basket for a photo op from Mr. McGregor's garden before Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter found them.

We gave some of these to a friend at church and he thought that the carrots had crossed with my beets.  Nope, I told him.  That's just the natural color of this variety.

I pulled all the greens off and fed them to the animals waiting on the opposite side of the fence.  They were ecstatic.  The 'green-less' carrots went into a basket after washing the topsoil off of the roots, and we brought the HEAVY basket inside.

We started a big pot of water boiling.  Our goal was to cube and blanch about 3/4 of the basket and save the remaining 1/4 for eating and giving away.  The carrots are too big to chop in our chopper without first cutting into manageable chunks, so that's what I started doing.  That process exposes the big secret of Cosmic Purple Carrots:  They aren't purple through and through.  It's just the purple wrapper that is purple.  The interior is orange like any other 'normal' carrot.

Those chunks were put onto the rack of our handy chopper and POW!  The chunks are quickly transformed into little cubes.  Tricia wears ear plugs when chopping as it gets quite loud.

It doesn't take long.  In three shakes of a cottontail rabbit's tail, the first batch of carrots is cubed and ready to be blanched.  Each batch is put into boiling water.  When the water returns to a boil, we set the timer for 2 minutes.  When the timer goes off, we transfer the cubed carrots into a sink of ice water to stop the cooking process.

When the carrots have cooled, we load into quart-sized zip loc bags.  When complete, we had 10 quart bags full of carrots that will go in the freezer.

These are perfect for thawing out and steaming with fresh parsley, or putting on a baking pan and roasting or making a Cream of Carrot soup with some of LuLu's fresh milk.

God Saw That it Was Good

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.  And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 

Genesis 1:11-12

In our Sunday School class, we're going through the Book of Genesis.  It is such an interesting study.  Eleven verses into the book, God caused the earth to sprout vegetation.  Remarkable!  In addition to creating plants and making them grow, He created a system in which plants would create its seed so that it would produce more of the same type of vegetation year after year.  He later enlisted the birds of the sky to help spread the seed and honeybees to pollinate.  So intricate.  The interdependencies and synergy.  I often wonder what the Garden of Eden looked like.  Prior to the introduction of sin and the curse that fell on the land, it must have been a sight to behold.

Thousands of years have passed, but if you're in the garden, you can still catch glimpses of God and His ordered plan.  I want to show you an example today.  This morning it was early.  The sun was not positioned high enough in the sky yet to begin to shine at an angle to touch the garden with direct light.  I was out on one of the garden rows looking at the broccoli and the tiny pearls of dew that covered the leaves.  At intervals, a breeze would blow pushing one dewdrop into a few others and the resulting weight of the dewdrop would roll down the leaf and onto the ground beneath the broccoli.  In a few short hours, the dew would all be burned off.

This row of broccoli has already been harvested one time.  By that, I mean that the big head of broccoli has been picked quite a while ago.  What you see below are the little florets of broccoli that come out all over the plant.

These florets must be picked every other day, especially as it warms up.  They grow so quickly!  What you are witnessing is God's plan enacted in Genesis 1:11 where he directed vegetation to make seed after its kind.  The broccoli, since the main head has been harvested, is working overtime to ensure that seed is dispersed to give the next generation of broccoli a chance to grow.

Those little florets will turn very quickly into a gazillion yellow flowers.  The honeybees will visit the flowers and do their thing.  Those flowers will eventually produce seeds in little pods.  Once the pods are dried, you can winnow them and save the seeds for next year, since these are non-hybrid seeds.  They produce SO many little black seeds.  I have lots of broccoli seeds saved and some purchased in envelopes, so we'll not save any this year.

Instead, we'll continue to pick florets every other day.  We eat a bunch fresh, but with these in this basket, we blanched them, quickly chilled them and put them in ziploc bags in the freezer.  This basket made two quart-sized bags full of blanched broccoli.  We'll enjoy that later.

If you look at about the "3 o'clock position" in the basket below, you can see a floret or two with flowers JUST ABOUT to open.  These were picked at the last possible moment!

God's handiwork in action in the garden.  Just like in that first garden so many years ago.  As I was thinking about propagation in the plant family, I was thinking about God's directive to Man to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it..."  I read that in 2021 the average woman in the U.S. gave birth for the first time at 27.3 years of age.  The average family in the U.S. has 1.94 kids.  As a society, we aren't exactly being fruitful and multiplying anymore.  We had 3 kids and Tricia and I often think about it wish that we would have had more children.  Obviously we are happy with the kids God blessed us with.

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD; The fruit of the womb is a reward.  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth.  Psalm 127: 3-4

 When God looked at His creation, God saw that it was good.  In Genesis 1:31 He saw all that He had made and behold, it was VERY good.

Fresh Milk from LuLu

LuLu gave birth to a little bull calf back in the hottest point of this summer in the middle of a drought with not much forage to eat.  Poor LuLu was so run down with the heat and rigors of labor and delivery that her condition deteriorated.  She got real skinny.  We babied her.  At several points, we didn't know if she was going to survive.  We drenched her with molasses, gave her minerals and supplements and what do you know?  'Ol LuLu pulled through.

She's not in terrific shape as the pasture went from full drought to dormancy for the fall/winter.  She's eating hay and a little sweet feed.  We have decided not to push her with daily milkings and have, instead, allowed her little bull calf to nurse on her at will.  Normally, we'd let them stay together and then separate the cow and calf overnight so we'd get the morning milk.  Instead, the calf has been getting all the milk and we haven't been milking.  This morning that changed.  We decided to slowly start milking.

Here is the bull calf.  We named him Nicky.  His daddy's name was Nick.  As we walked out this morning Nick was posing in his winter coat in front of the hay.  I nicknamed him "Nicky Hay-ley." 

We brought LuLu into the barn and quickly milked her while she ate her breakfast.  Since this is her first time in milk, she's a little nervous, but she doesn't kick while we milk her.  Tricia gets the two teats on the left and I sit on a stool on the right and get the two teats on that side.  In no time, we're done.

We milk into a stainless steel pail and use a muslin cloth as a filter to keep out the dust, hair, flies, hay, etc.  

Fresh, delicious, raw milk.  Tricia used some of this to make a big broccoli cheese soup using some of the broccoli florets we picked later in the afternoon.

The milk is still warm at this time as it just came out of the udder.  We pour it into half gallon sized mason jars and quickly chill it in the fridge.  LuLu isn't making a lot.  This morning we got just shy of a gallon of milk.

Once it has chilled for a bit, the cream rises to the top.  That is skimmed off and used for making butter, whipped cream to top homemade pies, or for coffee.

For years we milked every. single. morning.  It's been nice to have a break for a while.  But it's also nice to now have milk!  Funny thing is, fresh raw milk is, to us, a completely different product than the stuff from the store.  Good to have the real stuff back in our ice box!

Pre-Freeze Mini Harvest

One of the things I perhaps didn't explain in my summary of preparing for the freeze was a very quick mini-harvest of items that we knew from past experience would not make it through the temperature drop.  With that in mind, we had to harvest everything edible off the stalks, feed all the stalks to the animals and preserve the harvest.

I won't be able to show you everything tonight, but we'll make a start.  Sugar Snap Peas.  These little guys are a favorite of mine.  The greenery and blooms are beautiful, attracting honeybees and the occasional nozy goat that cranes its neck over the garden fence to rob goodies off the trellis.  These, we've learned, don't fare well when temps drop into the low 20's.

On a beautiful day just before the plunging temps, I brought a basket and walked near the trellis on both sides, plucking off the tender pods.  Of course I ate some raw just standing there.  Once I was sure I had gotten them all, I snipped off the vine and tossed to the livestock.  They quickly devoured it.  It's too bad, really.  Without this two day freeze, these would have produced and produced and produced.

Now we had already harvested several quarts (easy) of sugar snap peas up to this point, but we quickly filled another basket.  We'll stir fry these in butter, leaving a bright green color and a nice crunch to them.

But once I emptied the basket, I went out with Tricia and we picked every last tomato off of the tomato that had come up from seed in the garden in late summer.  I don't even know which heirloom variety it is.  If I had to guess, I would say Cherokee Purple.  All of these tomatoes were picked on January 14th from ONE TOMATO PLANT.

That's quite a haul from one plant!

We decided to weigh them just for grins to see what we had.  Unfortunately, we didn't zero out the scale.  The gross weight was 13 1/2 pounds of green tomatoes.

We put them in a box in an attempt to get them to ripen.  We'll cook with a bunch of them, too!  My Mom and Dad harvested some green tomatoes from their plants and had fried green tomatoes for supper.  That is some pretty good eating.  There's more coming out of the garden, but I've got to make room.  I am planning to plant the spring onion crop this weekend.

Prior to the Deep Freeze

The deep freeze that affected much of the fruited plain last week reached down into the deep south, too.  The freeze from the previous year killed some of our citrus and knocked all of it back so much that we cut numerous limbs off.  We had no blooms and no fruit last year, but we were hopeful for this year.  In fact, if you look at the navel orange tree below, you can spot blooms that were just about to open.  There's even some small fruit that had evaded my notice.

In only a week or two, the blossoms you see below would have opened and you would spot me out by the trees enjoying the great aroma.  The honeybees would have been all over them, too!  Why am I talking about them in the past tense?

Well, with freezes incoming that dip down in the low twenties and upper teens, I fear the blooms and fruit are gone.  We did our very best, piling mulch around the base of the trees, ensuring to insulate the area with the graft with thick layers of wood chip mulch.  Then we finished wrapping our trees in tarps before the cold north winds began to blow.  We also wrapped pipes, doing our due diligence to mitigate against broken pipes.

The next morning we had to go out to all the water troughs and break thick ice so that the cows, goats, and chickens could drink.  There were long icicles on the blooming camelia shrubs.

I had rolled out a fresh round bale of hay for the animals.  It's always important to give them plenty of hay to eat.  The animals didn't seem fazed by the temperatures.  Belle was watching them nonchalantly.

Her thick white coat apparently provided thick insulation to make her indifferent to the cold.  After sitting for a bit, she ran all throughout the pasture with reckless abandon.

Just prior to the freeze, we picked lots of broccoli, kohlrabi, peppers, sweet peas, snap beans, mustard greens, lettuce and kale.  We covered everything with tarps and anchored them down so that the plants would stay covered when the winds began to blow.

We anchored down the chicken tractor with laying birds with tie down stakes on all four corners.  The tractor was covered with a tarp and we ran an extension cord to power a heat lamp that would keep the hens warm.  It worked.  They were comfy.

With everything prepared as well as we could expect, we went inside.  The heater in the den was off and even ahead of the cold, temps had dropped to 53 in the house.

Time to change that.  With our firewood inventory in very good shape, we stoked up a nice fire and kept it burning for hours and hours.  It heated up our den and we enjoyed the warmth and ambiance that a fireplace provides.  We get plenty of use out of it.  I was toying around with putting some sort of a mechanism in the fireplace wall to hang a cast iron dutch oven and cook over the bed of coals?

Happy to say that the garden fared well, all the animals survived, too!  The jury is still out on our citrus.  All the trees are stressed, for sure.  I hope they make it.  If not, we'll have to start over.  Not ideal, but we'll push forward once more.

2023 Egg Totals - By the Numbers

Yesterday we looked at rainfall.  We had less rainfall in 2023 than we did in 2022 or any year since we began tracking.  Eggs were a different story.  We had MORE eggs in 2023 than we did in 2022.  This is mainly because we hatched out two batches of chicks that we raised.  We butchered all the roosters, except for two.  The pullets finally began laying.  Simple math.  If you have more birds, you're gonna collect more eggs.  But toward the end of the year, the minks began to take a toll on the older chickens, killing what we estimate to be 40-something birds.  Egg production took a hit toward the end of the year, for sure. 

Let's look at the eleven year trend in the trendline below.  In 2023, we collected 6,615 eggs.  What do we do with all those eggs?  We eat a BUNCH!  We give some away.  We sell some, too.  Our biggest month on egg production during 2023 was March and the lowest month was January.  Over the 11 year period, we averaged 8,053 eggs per year.  The biggest egg production month was May and the lowest was December.

Here is another little table below that breaks down egg production by month and converts to dozen.  Below that, it gives some fun data.

So we're picking up an average of 18 eggs per day.  A bird will lay an egg once every 2.76 days.  If we kept our chickens confined in a barn on a high protein diet with lights on all the time, we could boost those numbers up significantly.  The mink problem tempts me to do that!  But then they wouldn't be natural eggs.  We like the free ranging, pastured birds.  We intend on hatching out some additional chicks this spring to replenish the flock to replace the ones killed by predators.

Rainfall Totals - 2023

It's been quite a battle for the past few days and hence my "radio silence."  I developed a bad toothache.  It's the canine tooth on the front right side.  My face is swollen and am experiencing throbbing pain and although I'm taking antibiotics every 12 hours, there's no knocking this thing down.  The dentist can see me tomorrow morning at 10:15.  I am counting the hours...  But I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We'll try our best to power through this thing.

Let's change the subject and talk about rainfall for the previous year.  We keep detailed records by day and month, showing totals.  Here is the chart for 2023:

This was quite a shocking year for us, with only 45.63 inches of total rainfall!  August, in addition to being swelteringly hot, was desert-like dry.  We recorded 0.0 inches of precipitation in August.  The biggest rainfall we got was back in January, when we gladly accepted 8.9 inches.  In a weird thing we always record, you'll see that it NEVER rained on the 18th or the 19th day of any month in 2023.

Below is a summary, by month, showing rainfall.  The year was extraordinarily dry resulting in grass that did not grow, animals in poor condition and garden yields down.

The table below shows the trendline, based on a compilation of 11 years of data collected on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  The record annual rainfall in that period was 2017, when we received 79.9 inches.  The low annual rainfall record was set this year, with only 45.36 inches.  The 11 year average rainfall was 64.03 inches.  This means this year we were about 19 inches below the average.  Yep, a dry year.

We already talked about the driest and wettest months of 2023.  For a 11 year average, however, the wettest month has been May and the driest month has been March.  Just some interesting, albeit nerdy stuff we track.  We pray that the rainfall returns back into the normal range for 2024.

An Update on Benjamin on His 23rd Birthday

Today marked Benjamin's 23rd birthday.  On its own, it doesn't seem extraordinary.  23 trips around the sun.  It's a milestone, though, for him and our family.  Many of you have kept up with his progress since his accident on September 3, 2022 when he fell off the third level of a parking garage in Lake Charles, a 40 foot drop.  He landed on his feet, breaking both bones in both legs severely, fracturing his spine and fracturing his skull.

After numerous surgeries and hours of rehab, he has made remarkable progress.  We are so blessed to be able to celebrate his birthday.  It is because of God, gifted surgeons, nurses, therapists, and prayer warriors that he is able to stand and smile and celebrate the passage of another year.

From left to right: Russ, Benjamin, my Dad, my Mom, and Tricia

He requested a Tres Leches cake and we gathered around to watch him blow out the candles.  It was definitely a joyous occasion.  Words don't do justice to how grateful we are.  Benjamin continues physical therapy in Lake Charles twice a week, but he has also started back at his place of employment at a refinery in Westlake, LA where he is an electrical engineer.  He had only been there for two months and a week prior to the accident.  He should be cleared this week medically to once again go out into the field where he is working on his first real project.  He called last week so excited about the responsibility and satisfaction that he has in his job.  As he was preparing to blow out the candles, all these thoughts were racing through my head - how faithful God is, how undeserving we are, what a blessing to have a second chance after a life changing accident like this...

We packed away his walker, his wheelchair, his potty chair, along with all the other accoutrements of his recovery and put them in boxes and stored them in the attic.  The ramp for his wheelchair that a good family friend made still stands sentry at our back door, the last reminder of a 5 month journey to healing.  At some point we'll pack it away too.  He has even weaned himself off of the Gabapentin meds that he was on for nerve pain.

Not only is Benjamin walking, but he is driving.  Today we sent him off with the rest of the tres leches cake (I should have robbed one more slice, before sending it away) and other food so he would have lunches and breakfast already made this week.  He backed out of the driveway en route to the house he rents in Lake Charles with two other buddies.  We're so proud of his determination in working so hard to recover.

It's a weird feeling, to say the least, to see him drive off.  The baby bird leaving the nest for a second time.

And we're empty-nesters again.  God is so good!  Thank you for your faithfulness in prayer.  If you want to know a continued prayer issue or two for him:

He has a non-union in his right leg.  This means that the bones have not healed.  He is using a bone stimulator device to spur growth.  In 3 months, the orthopedic surgeon will look at it again.  If it hasn't healed, he'll schedule a surgery to remove all the hardware, reset the broken legs and start over.  Please pray for healing of the bones in his right leg.

He has trouble with his range of motion in his right foot and has no feeling in the bottom of his right foot, toes, and right hand and two fingers.  Pray for nerve healing that would bring back the feeling.

Thanks Again!

Are You Thinking About the Spring Garden Yet?

In South Louisiana we really don't have a fantastic show of fall colors.  The Chinese Tallow trees, Bradford pears and, like the photo below shows, the Japanese Maple.  We planted several of these in our landscaping many years ago.  Their leaves are gorgeous to look at this time of year, especially when the sunshine filters through their leaves, highlighting the yellow, brown and red colors.

We don't really get a real taste of all four seasons down here.  In fact, today it was 72 degrees!  I was in a short-sleeved shirt splitting firewood with an ax and completely wet my shirt with sweat.  But we've got to prepare.  Cold weather is on the way next week with temperatures as low as 17 degrees on Tuesday.  I want to make sure we have plenty of wood to burn in the fireplace.  I've got more to cut and split, but I think we'll be covered for this year at least.

But we're already thinking ahead for the spring.  On January 1st, as is our custom, we planted our tomato, pepper, and eggplant seeds.  We planted many different varieties.  Most seeds were seeds that we purchased, although some were seeds we saved.  My wife made a homemade greenhouse with a baker's rack fitted with a shower curtain fastened down with binder clips.  The little greenhouse, put in the sun, keeps the soil temperatures up and the soil moist to promote germination.  Of course, when the temperatures will be lower than 55, we bring the rack indoors.

Peek in the little greenhouse with me.  You can see the first tomato seedlings sprout.  The first variety to sprout this year was Cherokee Purple.

Ya'll have a great weekend!

Cutting Up Firewood with a New Tool (Review)

We have had a number of water oak trees die due to borer beetle damage.  I usually call a guy I know and he comes and puts the trees on the ground.  I then chop them up for firewood.  In the past, I've borrowed a chainsaw and also rented a chainsaw.  Borrowing doesn't cost anything.  I rented the chainsaw for $50 a day.  It always seemed to me that either of those options was more cost-effective than purchasing one.

However, I was out of firewood, and we have two trees on the ground that need cutting.  I figured it was time to buy a chainsaw.  Here's the problem:  We use a chainsaw so infrequently that I was concerned that it would be troublesome to keep a gas chainsaw running.  The guy that cuts our trees down told me that all that they have been using lately is battery powered chainsaws.

I did some researching and found a good deal on a Greenworks 80 volt 18" bar chainsaw and bought it back in July.  I charged up the battery and waited for cooler weather to try it out.  The cooler weather got here and I've been putting it through a workout.

I've got to report that I am very pleased with it.  It doesn't make near the noise that a gas-powered chainsaw puts out.  It obviously doesn't use gasoline or two stroke oil, but does use bar chain oil.  I had to work through a few bugs, though.  The bugs were with me, not the chainsaw.  After about 20 minutes of cutting, it shut down and started beeping.  I had no idea what that was about.  I read through the owner's manual and couldn't find out what happened.  I called the Greenworks help line and spoke to a technician who helped me troubleshoot.  I felt like a dingbat when, after 15 minutes of talking, I had to admit to the technician that the battery needed recharging!

I popped the battery out of the saw, walked inside and re-charged it.  It took less than an hour of charging before it had a full charge and I was able to resume cutting.  

Now, I have to tell you, I'm not cutting up little twigs.  This tree is about 30 inches in diameter.  When I say that I put the saw through a workout, I'm not kidding!  The chainsaw is a workhorse.  

Speaking of work, once I have the logs cut, I then use an ax and a sledgehammer and wedge to split up the firewood.  It was a nice day and it felt good to get out there and split wood.  I had to stop every 20 minutes and recharge the battery, but I needed a break and a glass of water at that time anyway.  The smart thing to do, and I think I'll do it, is to buy another 80V battery pack.  That way I can charge both and when one runs out of charge, I could use the second one while I put the first one on the charger. 

While it charged I split wood with the ax.  A lot of the wood had knots, so it was a slow process, but the pile of split firewood began to grow.  I often talk about instant gratification - doing something and being able to (almost) immediately see the fruits of your labors.  Such is the case here.  As the size of the felled log diminished, the pile of split firewood grew.

I filled up the area between two pecan trees that I usually store our firewood with split firewood.  It was actually more wood than you see below, as I filled up our firewood stack on the back patio.

I split it up in easy-to-handle sizes and it's all stacked up. 

I have a lot more to cut up and split, but this was enough for one day.  My shoulders were sore and I was tired.  I slept real good that night.  I love sitting in front of the fireplace on cold winter evenings.  It's nice to have a good inventory of firewood and more coming.

How relaxing!  In closing, I am very pleased so far with the Greenworks 80V 18" bar chainsaw.  I am glad I bought it.  It was well worth the money.  After used, I cleaned it all up, refilled the chain oil reservoir and re-charged the battery.  I also got out the 5/32 file and sharpened the chain.

I give two thumbs up for this chainsaw.  I would buy it again in a skinny minute and recommend it to anyone curious.  Five stars and two thumb's up!