The Pecan Crop - 2024

We have husband and wife pecan trees in our yard.  A husband and wife tree is an old custom from New England where a (you guessed it) husband and a wife would plant two identical trees side by side by the entrance of their home, and they would grow together as a testimony of their love and fidelity.  I don't know who planted our husband and wife trees, but they are quite large.  Their boughs have grown together such that their outline is as one large tree instead of two.  

The two trees make great pecans (puh CAHNS), but they are small.  They are, however, good and rich because they're full of oil.  They're just hard to crack, so we generally take them to the feed store in town where they have a pecan cracking machine that cracks them.  We then take them home and sit in front of the fireplace all winter shelling them for pecan pies!

Mom and Dad came over the other day and we laid out a blanket and walked around the trees, filling up a 5 gallon bucket.  From those trees, we've picked 4 1/2 five gallon buckets of pecans.  We also have a wagon filled with pecans as well that Ginger, our cat, has decided is a nice place to lounge throughout the day after hunting all night.

Our neighbors had made a coconut dessert Sunday afternoon and wanted to share a couple of slices with us.  They walked over and we visited.  They are real busy with a construction project.  So busy, in fact, that they don't have time to pick up pecans.  They offered that we could pick up all we could and were going to leave their "pecan-picker-upper" out by the tree.

That contraption is a back-saver.  As you get older, I've learned, you come to appreciate things like this so you don't have to constantly bend over.  This is like the slinky we used to play with as kids,  you roll it and the pecans go inside until its full.

It's so easy, it almost feels like you're cheating.

Tricia was using an older model of the same device.  This one, I think, was my great-grandmother's.  When it's full, you simply pull back the wires and allow the pecans to tumble out.  We began to quickly fill the wagon...

Our neighbor's pecan trees are LARGE pecans.  I'm telling you, we felt kind of funny picking these compared to ours.  Tricia said, "Man, our pecans are about 1/3 the size of theirs!"  It's true.  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's pecans, came to mind.

The neighbor's pecans on the left.  The largest of our pecans on the right.

We will let the pecans sit for a couple of weeks and after a cold front comes through, we'll begin shelling them.  I enjoy sitting and shelling pecans.  It is an enjoyable pastime in the fall.  Pecans freeze well, so we'll freeze them, but we'll turn many into pies and will roast and salt others.  The neighbors have a recipe with cinnamon and sugar pecans.  Looking forward to all of that!

Fall is the Time for Persimmons

The other day we were having coffee in the late afternoon when a visitor drove up.  It was a gentleman from our church.  He is an interesting fellow.  He was a boat captain for years and years piloting boats up and down the river from his base in West Memphis, Arkansas.  On this fine day he came walking up to our door with a plastic bag.  He said, "I have a little something for you."  He had been to his brother's house.

His brother had a persimmon tree that was loaded.  He said, "You'd better get 'em before the crows and coons get 'em all."  So he filled a plastic shopping bag with persimmons and wanted to split them with us.  You'll remember our postings about the wild persimmons that grow in our yard.  We've processed and froze a bunch of them.  These persimmons are three times the size and twice as sweet!

We put them in a cardboard box to further ripen and as they got soft, Tricia froze them whole.

As opposed to the wild persimmons that have around nine seeds per fruit, these have none!  We ran them through the food mill to liquify the persimmons for freezing in zip loc bags.

The persimmon flesh is fluorescent orange in color.  It almost looks like egg yolks!

But the sweetness!  Let me tell you about the sweetness.  We're already planning to make a persimmon cake using these persimmons.  We also talked about making persimmon ice cream.  Finally, we talked about making persimmon popsicles.  In this area persimmons are a ubiquitous fall fruit.  We've very thankful a generous gentleman dropped some off at our house.  Tricia's gonna make him a cake!

The Fat Cows

It hasn't rained since September 11 and even on that day, it only rained 3/10ths of an inch.  It's dry.  I water the garden every single day.  The rain barrels that I sequester rainwater from are all dry and have been dry for several weeks.  The grass in the yard is dead or dying.  The pasture, up to this point has held up nicely, but when I walked in the pasture today, the bermuda and bahai grass is thirsting for some rain.

There is a chance on Thursday and Friday of this week for precipitation.  We are watching that very closely and praying for Showers of Blessing.  With the grass in the pasture on its way out and the onset of cooler temps of winter coming, we begin to think of the cows.  How will they fare through the winter?  We do give them a little sweet feed and alfalfa, but mostly they're on grass throughout the spring and summer.

For the fall and winter, we've put up 75 bales of premium bermuda hay in the hay loft.  We actually still have four bales of last year's hay that we're giving them each day.  We also purchase round bales of hay that we roll out and allow the cows (and goats) to eat free choice on.  We've found that one round bale will last about a week.  We have an inventory of nine round bales covered in tarps and ready to roll out when needed.  The cows have some grass to clean up in the pasture.  In the next few weeks they'll eat that all up.

It's important that the cows are in good condition going into the winter, and I have to say that this year, the cows are well fit, perhaps in the best condition they've ever been in at this point.  I really couldn't tell you what the difference is.  Here's Rosie.  Rosie is 15 years and 8 months old!  That's OLD for a Jersey cow.  She just went into heat last week.  We put her with the bull and witnessed her in standing heat.  We think he bred her, but we'll check in a few weeks to see if she goes back into heat.  We have the date on the calendar.  The bull is still young and he's short.  We don't know if he was able to reach.  Only time will tell, but it sure would be nice to get another calf out of Rosie.  She's been such a good girl.

And here's Elsie.  I don't have a way to show perspective, but this heifer is huge.  She's big and fat!  And she is rambunctious.  She runs around like her tail's on fire.  It's actually dangerous to be around her.  You have to keep your head on a swivel.  She did not get bred last year.  The vet found a cyst on her ovary and took care of it.  We are trying to have Nicky the bull breed her this year.

We put them together and hopefully it took.  We've been watching for her to come back in heat, but so far nothing.  Hopefully, that means she's carrying a calf.  That's good for a number of reasons.  First, we need calves and we need more milk as we're about to dry up LuLu.  Second, if she calves, we're hoping that will mellow her out and she'll stop being crazy.  Finally, if she isn't able to get pregnant, she's going to go into our freezer.  I hate to be so harsh, but we just can't have an animal unable to calve or give milk continue to just eat grass.  Elsie, you're on the clock!

LuLu, on the other hand is a little skinny (I don't have a current photo of her), but she's been in milk for over a year and a half.  It's about time to dry her up and allow her to build up again.  We put her together with Nicky when she came in heat and we'll see if she comes back in heat.  It sure would be nice to have 3 spring calves!

Thirsty

The message Sunday morning in church was from II Samuel 23.  David was in a cave with his warriors.  It was hot and there was no water.  They were thirsty.  David, speaking to himself, said, "Oh, that I wish that I could have a drink of water I remember as a boy from the well in Bethlehem."  His loyal "mighty men" overheard him and traveled 12 miles to Bethlehem, breaking through the enemy lines of the Philistines, dropped a bucket into the well, and drew it back up.  They ran 12 miles back to David in the cave and surprised him.  He was so overwhelmed and astonished at their kind deed, risking their lives to please their leader, that he couldn't drink it.  He poured it out on the ground as a drink offering to the Lord.

I began thinking of the water of my childhood.  You may say, "Water is water," but it's not.  Water, in different locales, is different.  The water of my childhood was from the town of Kinder.  It was distinctive.  People (creatively) called it "Kinder water."  It was BROWN!  If you drew a tub of bathwater, it looked like it was dirty.  If you poured yourself a cup of it, it looked like tea.  People said that it was stained by the roots of the cypress trees in the sand near the Calcasieu River.  I don't know if that was true or not.  It was very soft.  Visitors that would come to visit would all complain that it took forever to get the soap off their bodies or shampoo from their hair.

We moved out of town and had our own water well in the country.  The water was clear, but it had a distinctive taste to it.  Then there was the water from the rice irrigation wells at the farm.  It was clear and COLD.  The canal banks were coated in an orange-colored rust from the pipes bringing the water to the surface from 180 feet (give or take) down.  It was so refreshing to drink, but had a metallic taste to it.  Do you remember the differences in the water in various places that you lived?

On a separate, but adjacent topic of beverages, there is an Old Time Country Store in a neighboring town called "Mr. Clint's."  He sells all sorts of old fashioned candy, gifts and country items.  My sons passed by there and, for my birthday, brought me some gourmet soft drinks and candy.  He has a wide variety of interesting sodas.  I'll show you two of them:

The first is Sprecher Maple Root Beer.  I love root beer and this one was so good.  I poured it in a glass of chopped ice and a thick head of foam covered the top.  I smelled it, and it smelled wonderful.

It has real maple syrup in it!  I like tasting and enjoying different things and this was a good one!

Speaking of trying different things, the next one was quite different.  This one is called "Martian Poop Soda."  It is brewed from droppings left behind by alien Martians at Area 51.  Actually, I'm not telling the truth.  If you read the label, although its named Martian Poop Soda, there is no Martian poop in it.  The flavor of it is marionberry.  To be honest, I had to research what a marionberry is.  It is a cultivar of a blackberry grown in Oregon.

It did, after reflecting, have a nice berry flavor to it.  Despite the Martian poop graphics on the label, it was good.  In fact, I enjoyed them both.  I'm no longer thirsty.

Growing Frijoles Negros

To this day beans and rice is a favorite meal of mine.  It's such a simple dish, but so filling, healthy and satisfying!  As a youngster, my favorite was Red Beans & Rice and sausage with cornbread on the side. Before you served the beans over rice, it was very important that you would mash up a bunch of the beans.  This thickens the dish and makes what I call a bean "gravy" or roux. 

You might say that beans are beans, but my Mom and everyone I knew were partial toward a specific brand of Red Beans and bought them with the sort of brand loyalty that you would thing only exists with diehard Chevy or Ford folks.  Camellia Red Kidney Beans.  They came wrapped in a clear cellophane bag so that you could inspect every perfect, shiny red kidney bean inside the bag.  

At one point I was going to attempt to try to grow our own red kidney beans.  Up to this point, I haven't done it, but if I might buy some Camellia Red beans and see if they'll germinate.  For the past several years, though, I've planted Black Beans.  They are called Black Turtle Beans, to be specific.  Black Beans or frijoles negros are a special dish in Latin America and Mexico.  Mainly, Tricia cooks them like you would refried beans.  As a treat, we put the refried black beans in a fresh flour tortilla, fold and eat.  It's a simple, tasty meal.

So let's go out to the garden, where our black beans are slowly ripening.  I only have one row of them and the dry, dry month of October is not doing the yield any favors, but my goal is to grow them and watch them closely as they mature.

The black beans have lots of pods, and they are ripening.  My goal is to allow them to mostly ripen on the stalk until they are almost totally dry and the pods have turned yellowish-brown.  You don't want the pods to get dry and crack open, though, as you'll lose the beans when the pop onto the ground.

Each day I check the beans and pick those that have dried.  I carry them to our fancy black bean dryer apparatus for the finishing touches on drying.  I lay them in the sun on our expanded metal patio table.  The sun completes the drying process and the table allows maximum air flow.

When the pods are dry and 'crinkly' to the touch, we pop open the pods and collect the black beans in a bowl.  We just started the harvesting process and have a lot left to go, but here's what we have so far.

We'll eat most everything we pick but will save some for planting for next year.  The Black Turtle Beans I buy are non-hybrid and come from rareseeds.com, so they are perfect for seed saving.  Perhaps 2025 is the year that I'll grow Red Beans!

34 Years

October 20, 1990.  That's when Tricia and I were married in Corpus Christi, Texas.  It's been a long time.  My wife happened to be out of town on the day of our anniversary as she was visiting her Mom in Corpus Christi and her brother who is in the hospital in Houston.  We agreed to celebrate the day after.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect.  Blue skies, brilliant sunshine, crisp air with almost no humidity - a rarity in our locale.

We are creatures of habit, so we decided to do what we've done for the past 3 years.  It's simple, but enjoyable, and in these inflationary times, affordable.  After my work was done, we drove from Jennings to Lafayette at around 3pm.  There's a grocery store there that we like called, The Fresh Market.  We get a little shopping cart and push it around looking at all of the gourmet food items.

The store markets their specialty items well, and you are hard pressed to not throw everything in your basket.  Our goal was to put together a nice picnic basket with some items that looked good.  We got some Olipop Soft Drinks, strawberry vanilla and orange squeeze and a non-alcoholic Ginger Beer from Australia.  For appetizers we got shrimp cocktail and a container of Kalamata olives, feta cheese and marinated artichoke hearts.

We each got a bistro meal with sides and for dessert, a chocolate tuxedo napolean.  We spread out the picnic blankets, kicked off our shoes, asked a blessing on the food, made a toast and enjoyed the afternoon.  So good!  All of it.

We made our way to Girard Park.  It's next to the campus of University of Louisiana.  Cypress trees line the edge of ponds and people walked on walking trails.  We settled in the St. Augustine grass under a live oak tree.

We exchanged cards to each other and talked about lots of things, taking a long time to eat and enjoy the food, the weather and the time with one another.  Many times we rush through meals, but not today.

We talked about plans and goals and life in general.  We counted our blessings, thankful for what the Good Lord has given us.

We were so full when we finished eating!  We probably should have brought half the Napoleon home rather than finishing it off!

At last, knowing there were eggs to gather, chickens to put up, goats to feed, and a cow to milk waiting for us, we packed up and headed home.  What a nice day!

Another Layer of Wood Chips

Many years ago we implemented an "easier" way to garden.  It involves no tilling, minimal watering, and minimal weeding.  It's called The Back To Eden gardening method and is patterned after the way that soil is created naturally (by God) in the forests.  A brief summary is that the soil is never exposed.  The forest continually rains down leaves that decay, trees that rot and other organic matter that decomposes on the forest floor, creating topsoil and a haven for fungi, earthworms and other critters.  

We do the same by seeking out wood chips from crews clearing power line right-of-ways in the area.  They drop off load after load of wood chips at our house.  The price is right.  It's FREE!  Over the years, we've gotten between 50-100 loads.  The wood chip piles sit and decompose and shrink.  By the third year, it becomes rich topsoil.

With the newest mulch that hasn't turned to topsoil, Russ helped me and we began moving it to the garden.  In late August/early September, we plant the fall crop of vegetables.  We use a rock rake to pull back a minimal amount of existing wood chips, leaving maybe 6 inches of soil exposed.  We plant our seeds into a very narrow seed bed we've furrowed and then we cover with topsoil from totally decomposed wood chips we've run through our garden riddle. 

When those plants are about 5 or 6 inches tall, we move wagon loads of wood chip mulch and completely cover the existing chips and 6 inch strip of exposed soil around the young plants.  We aim for a 4 inch layer, ensuring that the wood chips completely surround the plants.  By doing so, the soil retains moisture, needing minimal irrigation.  The wood chips crowd out any weeds that might want to grow because the soil is covered by 4 inches of mulch and no sunlight can reach the soil where any weed seed might be.  Finally, the layer of mulch decomposes and by the next year, the mulch has become part of the topsoil in the garden, adding nutrients, organic matter and fertility.

Here's a peak at a portion of the garden that is completely mulched.

I have more wood chips to move, but the carrots and spinach is not tall enough yet, and I still need to plant radishes, turnips, and mustard greens.  I highly recommend Back to Eden gardening for anyone!

Trouble in One of the Hives

On the second Thursday of each month, the Bayou Beekeepers Club meets at Green's Cafe in Jennings.  The meeting starts at 6pm where we order food (generally fried shrimp or cheeseburgers) and we visit for an hour while we eat.  At 7pm sharp the meeting is called to order.  We stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and then we are led in prayer.  

The meeting generally goes on for about an hour and a half.  We discuss things we should be doing in our hives and learn about events that we should prepare for during each month.  Questions are asked and answered by members of the club.  Reports are given about things that people are seeing or experiencing with their bees.  The funny thing about beekeepers is everyone does things a little differently.  One person will tell you to do something and the next says, "Never do that!"  People have their own way of doing things and it works for them.  We have some very large commercial beekeepers as well as hobbyists who only have one hive.  

The club wants to raise up a new generation of beekeepers so we sponsor Hathaway High School.  In their Ag Department (FFA) they now have a number of hives and have gotten a grant to buy bee suits and equipment.  They recently pulled honey and are selling it and have made a lot of money to help the program.  We're now starting another neighboring town's ag department with bees.  The students really enjoy learning about bees and working in the hives.

Bayou Beekeepers Club in Jennings, LA

There is a funky smell coming from our hives.  The bees are making Golden rod honey and the honey really stinks - just like sweaty gym socks.  If you just walk by the hives, you can smell it.  Our goal is to pull some of this honey before too long as it is supposed to be really good for you.  

But there is trouble in one of the hives.  I noticed when walking past one just last week.  If you look, you'll see honeycomb and honey and devastation coming out of one of the boxes.  "What is it,?"  I asked the president of our beekeeper's club as I showed him a photo of what you see below.

Infestation of wax moths!  We've lost one of the hives.  Wax moths move into a weak hive.  A weak hive is one where the population of bees is down.  It could be caused by a queen not laying as many eggs as she should or other problems resulting in a weak hive.  A strong hive repels and pushes away predators.  In a weak hive, a wax moth comes in and lays eggs in the comb.  The larvae eat the comb, the pollen, the honey and destroy the entire colony.

We'll have to clean the entire box out as we've lost all the bees and this spring, we'll either make a split or we'll catch another swarm to replace this one.  It is unfortunate, but we were told that we need to have more than one box of bees, because sooner or later, we'll lose some.  So how do we keep this from happening again?  That is the big question.

We make sure each colony is strong.  If one gets weak, we may combine two hives so that they have the number to fight off wax moths.  I've read that wax moths hate mint.  I'm looking into planting mint all around the hives.  All I know is that we have quite a mess to clean up in this box so that we can be prepared for the spring.  I don't want wax moths to move in and decimate another hive, so I'm going to learn more about combatting them.

Mid-October Garden

In one word: DRY.  Of course, that's no surprise.  October is normally the driest of months.  By today's tally, it's been a month and six days since the last rainfall.  There's really no chance to speak of in the 10 day forecast.  I'm all out of the rain water that I sequester in buckets and barrels beneath the drip line behind the house.  All except for one barrel that the honeybees use to drink from.  So I've been running the sprinkler every day.  This is a sprinkler that Mom & Dad got me and we have really put some mileage on it.  We move it from one location to the other in the garden to get moisture in the soil.  This is a photo from a few weeks ago.  Even despite the lack of rainfall, the plants have grown nicely since then.

Amazingly, even as hot as it's been, the bug pressure hasn't been bad at all on the bok choy.  We've clipped all of this and eaten it since I took the photo.  It grows back quickly.  We usually cook these down like you would with any greens, but Tricia adds some ginger, lime juice and grated parmesan to the top of them.  They are really good.  This isn't something I grew up eating, for sure.  In fact, I would have turned my nose up at it, but now, I like it.

We like to plant a big variety of lettuce in the fall.  Even if we get a freeze, if we cover it, we've been successful in saving most of it.  I want to show you a new variety of lettuce we're trying out from Baker Creek (rareseeds.com).  This is called "Flashy Butter Gem" lettuce.  First time we've tried it and we achieved a phenomenal germination rate on it.  We won't know how it tastes for a week or two, though.

The leaves are a nice green color with what appears to be bloodstains on them.  I guess I'll overlook that trait.  Sure is lovely looking, though, with the morning dew beading up on the leaves before the sun evaporates it.  Just a beautiful lettuce.

But you need more than lettuce for a salad.  How about some cucumbers?  We've got some coming!  These cucumber plants looked atrocious the other day as some worms were feasting on the leaves and actually killed two plants.  That's when I dosed them up with some Neem Oil.  I'm impressed with that product.  It killed the pests and the cucumber plants quickly put on fresh new growth.

Lots of blooms coming, too!  I'm excited about some fall cucumbers for the salad.  I've got a few other garden reports coming in the next few days.  Stay tuned (and get out and enjoy this nice weather - it was 52 degrees here last night!)

The Sun in the Sky And Homemade Pie

 

From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord's name is to be praised.  Psalm 113:3 KJV

Coming out of the garage looking due east in the morning, a few things catch your eye.  First, the sunrise really stands out.  The sun's rays at first yield a pinkish hue and then, as if to catch everyone's attention and announce, "It's morning.  Get a move on!" The yellow-red beams shine brightly.  They light up a bazillion acorns that have fallen overnight from the live oaks overhead.  It is amazing how many acorns are on the ground.  

The squirrels are going to be SO fat.  There are two less squirrels in the population.  My neighbor popped two out of the live oaks in the front.  It's squirrel season and we'll be thinning out their number.  I'm okay with them eating acorns, but when they get in the pecan trees, that's another story, entirely.

The Toyota Tacoma is in really good shape for a 2000 model, but it is in dire need of a polish.  We've done it before, but it seems to fade quickly.  That's my project for the fall.  I'm going to watch some You Tube videos on how to make your paint job come alive again and I'll use compound and a rotary buffer and then wax to make it look like new again.

It was my birthday on the 12th.  Tricia asked me what kind of cake I wanted.  Instead of a birthday cake, I chose a birthday pie.  There is nothing like homemade pie and a cup of coffee.  She asked me what kind and I answered, "Chocolate pie with meringue."  She surprised me with two pies!

The first is chocolate pie with homemade crust and meringue.  Look at the peaks on it!  It was so doggone good.  We finished it up tonight.

The second pie, the lagniappe pie, was a homemade pecan pie.  The pecans were from our trees and they were harvested before the squirrels got them.  So good and the crust was buttery and flaky.

In the late afternoon, I took a walk to check the mail at the mailbox and kept walking out into a field in front of the house and took a photo of the painting that God was doing on the canvas of the western sky.  Breathtaking!

We are so blessed.  We may not have everything we want, but we have everything we need.  Yes, from the rising to the setting sun, His Name is to be praised.

Everyone Loves Goat Milk

When I managed the family grocery store, we stocked canned goat milk.  I always wondered, "Who buys this stuff?"  I found out later.  Many people who have lactose intolerance and other problems digesting cow's milk have no problem with goat milk.  Goat milk is easily digestible, especially good for babies.  

We have a whole herd of dairy goats, Nubians, to be specific.  They've all been weaned.  Only Agnes is still in milk.  We are drying her off.  Tricia has frozen a lot of her milk in ice cube trays and we'll use that eventually to make goat milk soap.  We still milk her each day and night so that she doesn't get mastitis and we feed her milk to our laying hens.

We are hoping that the extra protein they get from the goat's milk will boost their egg laying numbers.  They are only laying about 10 eggs per day.  We've had to turn customers away, but that's normal this time a year.  As the number of daylight hours decrease, so does the hen's egg production.  They absolutely love the goat milk and immediately surround the bowl that I pour it into and drink it until it's gone.

Only one problem - Belle loves goat milk, too.  She comes rushing into the barn area, tail wagging and the chickens run off, feathers flying.  Some of the hens are missing their feathers as they are molting.  That has nothing to do with Belle.  She used to play with the chickens too roughly when she was a puppy and would kill them accidentally.  She's so big and doesn't know her strength. We are so glad she outgrew that stage.  (So are the hens.)

Belle sits there and laps up the milk vigorously.  I snapped the photo and then quickly ushered her out of the pasture so that the chickens can have the milk that Belle left behind.

Goat milk is good!  It is smooth and sweet.  Unfortunately for Belle, it's for the hens and not for her.

Zooming In (On Goldenrod)

I like mysteries and action films.  Spy movies.  At some point I remember watching a movie that showed a series of photos taken from a satellite.  The first photo showed the earth from outer space, a big beautiful orb.  The next showed a photo from space of the United States.  The next, a photo from the same satellite zoomed in on buildings outlined in a city.  The next showed, from the same satellite, of the outline of a man sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper.  Finally, the next photo showed the headlines of the newspaper the man on the park bench was reading.

Whether or not that is possible, I don't know.  I do know that our idea of privacy we once held is a distant memory.  Let me get back on track here.  Today I want to do something similar, but I don't have a satellite or even a drone.  You'll understand when I get to the end.  This photograph is the column on our side porch, and it is home to a colony (we call it our columny) of bees.  They've lived here for about a decade.  Sometimes they move out and then move right back in.  The entrance is at the very top.  If you look closely, you can see them coming in and out.  Our other four hives are in boxes on the other side of the house.

In the second photography, you can see the bees flying in the column, but you can see off in the distance, with the camera looking north and east, across the grape trellis and the persimmon tree.

The next photo shows large live oak trees across LA Highway 26.  Below them in the foreground is a telephone pole and something yellow running horizontally.

Behind the lines of the previous photo is a field of yellow.  That's what you could see from the bee hive in the column on our side porch.

Let's look a little closer.  What is it?  Well, in year's past, I would have just called them weeds.  Bad weeds, in fact, for these are Goldenrod, and Goldenrod cause lots of people with allergies a whole lot of problems.

But now, I look at them different.  The honeybees love goldenrod.  In fact, they are making a beeline (sorry) from the column and our four hives to this field of goldenrod.  They are getting pollen and nectar and bringing it back to their hives.  Most bees gather within a mile or two of the hive, but I've read that they can fly up to 5 or 6 miles away!

In the fall, you know when your bees are gathering pollen and nectar from goldenrod.  The way you can tell is from the smell.  Or shall I say, stench.  Golden rod honey smells like sweaty gym socks.  The first time we smelled it walking in the door to our side porch, we thought that the honey in the column had soured.  Then we learned more about it.

A lot of people don't like it because they don't like the smell, but it is supposed to be really beneficial and healthy for you and will actually HELP your allergies.  We can't get honey from the column, but from our bee boxes, our goal is to pull fall honey this year, which will largely be goldenrod honey.  We can't wait to try it.

So that was my lame attempt at a "spy blog" zeroing in on the target from a long way away.  Instead of 007's Goldeneye, we'll call it Goldenrod.

Patricia Picked a Peck of Peppers

When I got in from work I didn't see Tricia and didn't know where she was until I went out and began filling the cow and goat water troughs with water.  Then I saw her.  She was in the garden with her baskets.  She came inside after a little bit with a nice-sized harvest of various peppers.  From October until December or the first freeze is our best time for pepper production.  Although we didn't weigh them, it's a pretty good haul.  We've already picked and eaten and pickled and dehydrated a bunch and there are a bunch more on the way.  This doesn't count the jalapenos.

This basket are our Hot Banana Peppers.  I have these planted in a row far from the others as I didn't want them crossing with the mild banana peppers.  These boogers will surprise you.  You expect them to be a regular banana pepper and bite into it and it's not!

These are the regular banana peppers.  They are mild and crunchy.  We have pickled (lacto-fermented) quarts and quarts of these this year with many more to go.  We like eating them as a side dish at lunch.

Here are the Anaheim Peppers.  We like cooking with these and often use them instead of bell peppers.  They have a little bite to them - not as hot as a jalapeno, but more spice than a sweet bell pepper.  They add some good flavor to the pot.

And here is a mystery pepper.  I think it is some sort of habenero cross.  It sends you scrambling for milk to put out the fire in your mouth!  We've resorted to dehydrating these and then grinding into a fine powder for making a homemade creole seasoning blend.  It's very good.  You just have to be careful that you don't overdo it.

The jalapenos should be producing more and more now.  We eat those as fast as we pull them.  The shishito peppers, a new variety we planted this year, were a big hit, and we enjoyed blistering them and eating with some lime juice and kosher salt with grated cheese on top.  Sadly, all three of the plants all died at the same time.  We'll definitely plant more of those this spring.

What are your favorite peppers?