The Ever-Shrinking Wood Chip Pile

At the southernmost part of our garden lies a big pile.  In the past it was 50% bigger.  It was wood chips and over the last two years the wood chips have decomposed.  We got these chips from a company that was chipping up trees from electrical powerline right of ways.  The wood chips were free (other than for a few dozen eggs we gave the workers).

The wood chips were once trees.  Those trees pulled nutrients and minerals from the soil.  Now those same trees are slowly deteriorating and becoming soil from which they grew, returning fertility to the land.  The wood chip pile is not dead.  It is teeming with earthworms, bugs, and mushrooms.  Those living organisms help to break down the wood chips.

While you can still tell that there are wood chips in the pile, a good portion of the wood chips are broken down.

Some parts of the pile look almost entirely like dirt, soft, rich, and moist - a perfect medium for plants in a healthy garden.  As the seedlings grow, we rake a 4" layer of this around the plants to discourage weed growth and encourage the retention of soil moisture.

We also bury our compost in the pile.  This adds bacteria to speed up decomposition.  As evidence of the fertility of the wood chip pile, I have several healthy plants growing in the pile from seeds deposited along with the compost.  How about that?  Gardening in which you don't even have to plant the seeds!

Here we have a Butternut Squash and a Charleston Grey Watermelon.

Here we have a plethora of Muscadine Grapes growing.

Here we have a luffa gourd plant.

And finally, here are three peanut plants.

We'll check in on these plants to see if they are able to reach maturity.  As our inventory of wood chips morphs into rich soil, we'll have to keep our eyes open to accumulate more wood chips to keep the process going.

How the Cow Ate the Cabbage

I have been on hiatus for a few days with a toothache.  OUCH!  I wasn't feeling worth a hoot and didn't feel like doing anything but swishing out my mouth with warm salt water.  Hopefully, I'll be better soon.  Anyway, good to be back.

Have you ever heard the saying, "I'm gonna tell him how the cow ate the cabbage?"  What it means is that you're going to tell the whole truth regardless of the consequences.  It may hurt someone's feelings, but it needs to be said.  I often wonder how these sayings came to be.  Apparently, according to THIS LINK it originates from an old (somewhat gross) joke:

A circus came to a small town, and one of the elephants escaped. The elephant moseyed over to an elderly lady's garden.  The lady's eyesight wasn't quite up to snuff.  The elephant got into the garden and began pulling up her cabbage with its  trunk and eating them.  The old lady called the police, and said, “Officer, there’s a big cow in my garden pulling up my cabbages with its tail!” “What’s the cow doing with them?” he asked, to which the woman replied, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”

Sometimes, like in today's post, the translation is literal!  We are at the end of the fall garden and have been harvesting the last of the kale, carrots, and cabbage in order to make room for the spring garden.  We've picked some nice-sized cabbage, but the ones remaining are small - most are the size of softballs.  Cabbage, at this time of the season, gets bug damage, particularly snails and slugs, though.  It was time to pull them up.

Tricia and I began clipping them off the stem, removing the outer damaged leaves, and putting the heads in a crate.  We'll eat them!

When we finished the job of salvaging the 'runts' of the cabbage crop, here's what we had:

They don't look bad.  They're just about 1/3 the size of a regular cabbage.  We make use of everything!  And hey, they're bigger than brussel sprouts!

Honey, I shrunk the cabbage

But we weren't finished with the crop.  Rosie came sauntering up to the garden fence, begging and we obliged, tossing over all of the outer cabbage leaves we had removed.  What we don't eat - the cows and goats finish off happily.

Rosie showed us how the cow ate the cabbage.  She put them in her mouth!

Introducing "Elsie"

Clarabelle, our Jersey Milk Cow, was due to calve around April 10th according to our record-keeping.  As time stretched on during the nine month gestation period, we wondered from time to time if she was pregnant.  Over the past week or so, we could tell that she indeed was due to the "blossom" of her bag.  Yesterday Tricia said, "I bet it's gonna be tomorrow."  She was right!

Shortly after 1 pm she sent me the following photos with a text that said, "I think we have a heifer!"  And we do.  As I stated before, I had a stern talk with Clarabelle the other day.  Both she and Rosie have given us nothing but bulls the past several years.  It is time for a girl.  Clarabelle gave us one.  

We began thinking of a name for the little one.  First, due to her color, I thought 'Honey' would be a nice name, but I also call my wife that.  That would be confusing.  Tonight we began tossing around names.  I liked Buttercup, but Tricia said that had too many syllables.  We settled on "Elsie." Elsie was the spokeswoman mascot for Borden milk.  That seemed like a nice name for the little one.

It is always very important for the calf to get colostrum the first day for health and antibodies to give strength and fight off sickness.  

Elsie is a cute little thing - solid brown, with big liquid eyes.  She spends most of her time sleeping, but she was very quick to get up on her feet.

We are always very protective of our barnyard babies, nervous that the cows will accidentally step on them or the chickens will peck at them.  I always want to help with the labor and delivery, but nine times out of ten, it is best to just let the animals be.  God created them and He knows what He's doing.  

Clarabelle was very weak when she was born.  It was a challenge to make her nurse and hard to get her to even stand up.  Although strong, we are seeing some of the same things with Elsie.  We are keeping our eyes on her and will update you more about Elsie's progress on Sunday Night.

Popcorn For Sale

Matthew 25:31-46 King James Version

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

There comes a time of separation, of dividing, of judgment.  As Matthew 25 tells us, this will occur.  Nations, peoples will be separated in which the godly and the ungodly are distinguished and parted from one another.  Where previously, they had dwelt together, at that time a judgment will take place.  The sheep (an innocent, mild, docile animal) will go to the right (favored) and the goats (wild, unruly creature) will go to the left (disfavor).

On Our Maker's Acres Family Farm there is a less apocalytical time, in which we must separate some animals from others.  We only have 5 acres of land.  This means that in springtime when the goats kid and the cows calve, we discover we don't have the land capacity to handle all these creatures.  Not enough grass, not enough time to manage them.  So decisions must be made to cull the herd.

In this case, we've decided to sell Popcorn.  We don't mean that we will be going door to door selling Orville Reddenbacher's Best.  Popcorn is our baby buckling.  We are currently bottle feeding him since his momma (Annie) has mastitis-damaged bags that no longer produce milk.  Annie produces beautiful babies, but no milk.  Tricia will put Popcorn up for sale this week.

It will be sad to see him go.  We hope a good family purchases him.  He is spunky, full of energy, healthy and is always jumping around.  That's why we call him Popcorn.  Any time he sees us, he comes up to us and puts his front feet up on us to beg for another bottle.  

We'll miss him, but we still have the little doeling, "Cupcake."  I'll post about her a little later.  Popcorn, anyone?

Preserving the Harvest

Our carrot harvest for 2021 was a bumper crop.  Unbelievable!  We planted three rows of carrots this year.  Carrots will fool you.  The seeds are so tiny.  They are a little hard to plant.  In the fall when we sow the crop, I pinch some seeds between my thumb and forefinger and sprinkle them down the prepared seed bed.  They are hard to see, and I often overplant.  Once they are established, I struggle with the act of thinning them out for some reason.  This results in large carrots nestled by smaller carrots on the same row that were crowded out.

We posted earlier about how we harvested a lot of the big carrots and ate a bunch, blanched some, and gave a bunch away.  Carrots, with their vibrant green shoots are a gorgeous crop.  This weekend, I decided to go ahead and harvest a bunch more.  On two of the rows, some had grown too big and started to soften on the ends - some were not fit for eating (by us).  The cows, however, loved them!  Here are some of the crop all washed up and ready for processing.

Some of the shapes of the carrots are interesting.  We pulled some that had two "legs" that looked like someone running.  This carrot looks similar to a woman with an hourglass figure.  One of her legs is quite swollen, though.

We take them inside and cut off the tops and the bottom.

We save the tops and bottoms for the goats.  They are like candy to those goats.  They'll quickly eat them all and beg for more.  Nothing, and I mean nothing goes to waste.

Using my knife, I cut the carrots into chunks - not too big and not too small.  These are all placed in a tub for further processing.

Tricia bought this contraption years ago that speeds up the cubing process.  It has a sharp blade, so you must be very careful.  You lay the carrot cubes on the blade and pull a handle down with force.  This pushes the carrot through the blade and into the container below.

Quicker that you can say, "Peter Rabbit," the container is filled.  Then you repeat the process again and again.

These cubed carrots are poured into a pot of boiling water.  The timer is set for two minutes.  Once the timer goes off, the blanched carrots are poured into a colander and drained.  The water is returned to the pot and the process is started again for the next batch.

The blanched carrots are thrust into chilled water to stop the cooking process.  When they are cool, we pack them in quart-sized freezer bags for storage in the deep freeze.

When all was said and done, we had 29 quart bags of carrots to put into the freezer!  That's a big supply of carrots.  We'll be eating on carrots for quite some time.  And we still have half a row to harvest.  Note to self:  Next year only plant 1 row!!  

He Is Risen!

 Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Image Credit

What a beautiful day it was!  We worshipped at church with brothers and sisters in Christ and celebrated Jesus' victory over sin, death, and the grave.  Then we enjoyed a perfect day with family, spending time with one another and making memories. 

From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.  Matthew 16:21

  

Trying A New Thing

Exodus 12

21 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover.

22 And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.

23 For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.

24 And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever.

25 And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Lord will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service.

26 And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?

27 That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.

So each year for almost 20 years, we've celebrated Passover but from a Christian perspective.  We posted about it before - about how Jesus' blood atoned for our sins.  His Blood applied to the "doorposts of our hearts" frees us from the burden of sin.

We read from Scripture and feast.  One of the centerpieces of the meal is roasted lamb.  Normally we get a leg of lamb.  This year we had difficulties finding it and settled on a rack of lamb.  We had never roasted a rack of lamb.  'Twas a new experience for us.  First, we 'frenched' the rack by removing the fat from the rack, exposing the bones.  

Then we made criss-cross cuttings across the cap and rubbed liberally with olive oil.

Then we rubbed the rack with sea salt and pepper and sprinkled herbs like thyme and coriander over the top and sides.

Then we went and picked some fresh rosemary and chopped it up.  Our rosemary was once a small thing.  Now it is a big bush.  It is happy in our herb patch.  Rosemary atop the rack really smelled nice.  We rubbed that in as well while the oven pre-heated.

We covered the bones in foil so that the bones wouldn't burn, placed on a roasting pan and put in the oven.

When the meat tested 140 degrees, it was ready to eat.  We cut the rack into individual lamb chops.

And then we feasted!  We were so ready to eat, I didn't get photos of the sliced chops.

Passover is always a memorable event - a family tradition we look forward to each year.