Severe Drought on the Farm

After an abnormally wet Spring, we have had a dry summer - a very dry summer. We received only 1.6 inches of rain in July and only 1 tenth of an inch so far in August.  The local weather showed that we are in a 'Severe Drought.'  That sounds bad, but as the legend below shows, there are two other classifications that are worse.  We are located just a tad north of the I-10 logo below on the map below, exactly 3 miles north of the Interstate.

Image from KPLCtv.com

The combination of no appreciable rainfall and very high temperatures have taken their toll on our primary crop (grass) at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  The grass in the pasture and in the yard is brown with only a few green patches.  A lot of it has begun to die.  It is 'crispy' when you walk on it. The grass in the pasture is needed for the cows and the chickens.  I've been watering our fruit trees to keep them from dropping the fruit.  Most importantly, we've been praying for much needed rain.  A few months ago we were praying for it to stop raining; now we've come full circle...

Dead grass

In the late spring and summer, even though we have round bales of hay that the cows can snack on at will, they pretty much ignore it as they have a plethora of tasty grass in the pasture to consume.  A sure sign that we are in a drought is the sight below - Daisy was standing around the hay ring eating hay.  That lets you know that the remaining grass in the pasture is not worth eating.

Daisy is still in very good condition and that is an important thing.  She will be calving at the end of October/beginning of November, and we need to keep a close eye on her conditioning.  In fact, we'll be drying her off toward the end of the month so that she can devote 100% of her energy to the growth of her calf in the last two months of her pregnancy versus producing milk.

Eating hay instead of grass

We have one more round bale in inventory, and I'll likely roll it out in a few days. Then I'll have to call the gentleman who provides me with round bales and ask him to deliver 6 or 8 more bales.  We keep the round bales covered with a tarpaulin to protect it from the weather.  With little rainfall, the tarp is really not needed right now.  Hopefully, though, the rains will come and produce fresh new growth in the pasture that will satisfy their appetites.  It won't be very long until we plant rye grass on part of the pasture. 

One more round bale in inventory

But Sunday afternoon we heard a rumbling in the distance.  The clouds darkened and the winds began to blow.  The cows stood up from their slumbering place in the shade between the barns in anticipation of what was on the way - RAIN!  A slow rain began to fall, bringing nourishment to the land.

9/10s of an inch - We'll take it!!

It was cool after the rain passed.  It almost felt like fall.  I wish it would have rained all night.  When the rain passed, I walked out to the rain gauge to see how much rain we had received.  Although it rained for a while, there was no water standing. The dry, parched land soaked up every drop.  I was surprised to see that we had almost received an inch of rain!  This definitely helps, but we could really use a slow soaking rain to drop an inch or two more.  We have a 40% chance of precipitation for the next few days, so perhaps we'll get it.  Thank the Good Lord for the nourishing rain!

Another World

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

― C.S. Lewis

It seems that so much of our time is spent seeking experiences that will entertain us, making purchases that will satisfy us, reading self-help books to make us better, learning new skills that will make us feel more useful, networking and making contacts to give us a sense of importance, and working harder to make our lives seem like it has purpose.  Lots of time is spent looking for the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and it is an endless chase, like a dog chasing its tail.

Nothing seems to satisfy us in this world.  Was C.S. Lewis right?

Aliens?

But still we continue in this quest.  We might see a "life coach," talk to a therapist, and use other methods to help us 'find ourselves.'  Yet, we only find ourselves hopelessly lost.

Take me to your leader.

As the seconds tick off of the clock of our life and the pages of our daily calendars are torn off and accumulate like autumn leaves, we wonder what am I here for? What was I created to do?  What was I created for?  That is a question that is as old as dirt.

Russ exiting his alien spacecraft

I've asked these questions many times and as a Christian, I go to the Bible to find answers and there I find that I was created by Him to do good works:

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

And then I learn that we were created to praise Him:

Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For He commanded and they were created.
Psalm 148:5

Doing good works and praising Him - that's our purpose.  That doesn't sound like the things that most people spend their lives doing.  If that sounds 'alien' that's because that's exactly what we are: ALIENS.

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. 1 Peter 2:11

So C.S. Lewis was right.  We were made for another world.  He has promised that although we are currently aliens, strangers, and exiles, one day we'll be HOME!:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

Aliens at the Oasis

The photos of the alien ship above were taken at The Oasis, a restaurant that sits above Lake Travis in Austin, Texas.  Aliens and strangers are always looking for an oasis while wandering, aren't they?

Riding in the Back of the Truck

The other day I posted about Tricia and I taking Benjamin and his cousin Vincent down to the bayou to go fishing.  They had a good time and caught some catfish. Since I don't have a pickup truck, we all loaded up in the Honda Civic I use to commute back and forth to work in.  It is good on gas mileage, but not so good for carrying people down to a fishing hole.  Into that little car in almost clown-car fashion, we packed in fishermen (and a fisher woman), fishing poles, tackle boxes, a container of night crawlers and a BB gun.  It was quite a sight.

It made me think of different things we would do in car trips when piling in a vehicle growing up. We had an Oldsmobile station wagon in which you could lay the back seat down, and it would form a perfect platform on which to lay out sleeping bags and rest on long family vacations.  We also had an Oldsmobile Delta 88 and found that there was a flat place behind the back seat beneath the window that you could stretch out on and take a nap.  Seat belts weren't really thought of and somehow we made it to adulthood.

Growing up on a farm and traveling on dirt roads in rural Louisiana, we spent a lot of time riding in the back of a pickup truck.  Riding in the bed of a truck was the best!  According to THIS LINK, that activity is now illegal if you are under the age of 12.  First they took away lawn darts and now this!

Pickup Trucks (R.S. 32:284) - Under 12 years of age may not ride in an open truck bed or trailer.

After doing farm work, we would jump into the bed of my Dad or my Grandpa's pickup truck, and we would ride down the road with the summer breeze blowing through our hair.  We would  turn our faces toward the wind, opening our mouths and letting the wind blow into our mouths like a dog does, laughing hysterically at each other's funny faces.  Sometimes if you weren't careful in doing this, you'd end up eating a bug or two!  Although the photo below is just one I found on the Internet and not one of us, it brings back memories.

Image Credit

While we're on the subject, another thing we'd do is put the tailgate down and ride sitting on the tailgate, tapping our feet on the gravel road beneath us as we drove down country roads. We would spit out of the back to see how far we could spit.  We would search for dirt clods, pine cones, or rocks in the back of the truck and try to hit road signs as we drove past them.

Image Credit

Riding in the back of the truck allowed you to connect more with your surroundings.  I would assume that this also partially drives the allure of motorcycle riding.  When you are riding in the back of the truck, you can smell the scent of ligustrums blooming when you rode past a farmhouse.  When you rode underneath the shady canopy of the oak trees that covered the road, you could feel the temperature of a hot Louisiana summer drop by 10 degrees.  After a thunderstorm, as you enjoyed the coolness of the wind blowing through your hair, you could smell the freshness of rain and see the steam rising from the blacktop road as anticipated the Dr. Pepper and honey bun that we would soon enjoy when we arrived at the country store.

Riding in the back of the truck was one of those simple pleasures of growing up in the country and as I think about it, it brings back fond memories.

Drying Bloody Butcher Seed Corn

This year in addition to planting a couple of varieties of heirloom sweet corn we planted a new variety of field corn or dent corn.  Field corn is not as sweet as sweet corn and is primarily used for making cornmeal, grits, flour, or for roasting.  Bloody Butcher Corn has a very colorful name due to the color of the kernels, resembling blood.  In reading about its origins, it came about in the 1800's when corn from the Indians mixed with the early settler's seed corn.

I had obtained the seeds from a seed exchange at a sustainable agriculture conference, so I didn't have very many to plant.  I decided to try growing some and if they produced, I could dry it and save the seed for next year.  I was thinking that it would be really neat to grow plenty of this next year, grind it for corn meal or grits.  It would be pretty cool to have a reddish-pink bowl of grits.  In reading about it, I learned that it has a great corn flavor, not to mention the ornamental aspects.

So rather than picking this corn when it is ripe like we would with sweet corn, we leave this on the stalks to dry.  The stalk will turn brown and die and some of the drying ears will turn downward. The husks serve as a form of protection from the weather and from birds, but when I noticed ants climbing up the stalks, I figured I had better pick them and bring them to the back patio for further drying.

Drying Corn Stalks

I peeled back the husks, removed the silk and placed them on a table on the patio to allow the corn to dry further.  I'm thinking that I'll hang it to let it dry further, but I haven't quite gotten around to that yet.

Getting Bloody Butcher seed corn ready to dry further

The corn is very pretty.  I noticed that I had some damage to some of the kernels from ants, but if I can successfully dry what I have, I'll have enough for a nice inventory of seed corn for next Spring. The photo below shows why its also called dent corn.  Can you see the 'dent' on the top of each kernel?

This corn is nowhere near dry yet.  You are supposed to allow it to dry between 60 and 90 days.  Due to our humidity, I'll likely allow it to dry for at least 90 days and possibly more.

Beautiful red color!

Once the corn is fully dry, if you twist the cob in your hand, the kernels will pop off with ease into a paper bag.  You can then store the seed corn in a jar until it is planting time.  We'll update you in November and report if our Bloody Butcher seed saving experiment was successful or not.

One note: We did eat one cob of Bloody Butcher corn just to see what it tasted like. Obviously, it wasn't sweet, but it had a rich, nice taste to it, and I bet it will make some fantastic tasting grits!

A Late Summer Look at the Garden

On my lunch break today, I googled "weather 70546" (our zip code) and the following came up:

That is hot.  Really hot.  Fall is on the way.  That is what I stay focused on.  The animals are really struggling and the garden has gone into late summer dormancy due to the heat and lack of rainfall, except for our cowpeas. basil, and pumpkins which we've discussed in previous posts.

Today we'll look at a few items that are still battling on.  First thing is our okra.  A substandard germination rate from some seeds that we got at a seed exchange means that we haven't really harvested a bunch to eat yet, but they'll produce into December for us, so I'll withhold judgment.  The variety of okra is a new one for us. It is called Beck's Big Buck Snapping Okra.  Normally, we've always planted Clemson Spineless and Burgundy.  Beck's is indeed big.  They are fat okra - much fatter than Clemson spineless with more defined ridges.  They are called 'snapping' okra because when they are about 3 inches long, they are easily snapped off the stalk - unlike Clemson Spineless okra.

I've always thought that the okra flower is a beautiful one.  If it looks sort of like a hibiscus, that is because the okra and the hibiscus are related to one another. Hibiscus flowers can be used to make tea, so I was wondering if okra flowers are edible.  After searching I found that although okra flowers are lacking in taste, they can provide color to salads.  If it doesn't have taste, I'm not sure I'll add them to a salad and will likely let it develop into an okra pod.

An (edible) Okra Flower

I wish I would have put a penny against the okra pod, so that you can get an idea of the scale, but I didn't.  At first I was thinking that because it was called "Big" okra that it was going to get long and I allowed a couple of pods to get too big and they got 'woody' and inedible, but now I know when they are ready and have been harvesting accordingly.  Turns out Beck's Big Okra is a German heirloom variety that comes indirectly from Comal County, Texas (near San Antonio) and was smuggled out of Germany by a neighbor.

Plump Okra Pod

In a disappointing turn of events, our Black Beauty Eggplant grown from seed has been a big flop. When someone wears jeans, cowboy boots, cowboy hat, and a belt buckle trying to look the part, but aren't really "country," people describe them as being "All hat and no cattle."  That reminds me of our 2015 Eggplant crop.  Oh, they have grown tall and have had lots of foliage but have produced few flowers and not a single fruit up to this point.  Some research revealed that that can be caused by not enough sunlight, too much heat causing pollen to become sticky, or nutritional problems.  Who knows?

All hat - no cattle eggplant

Finally, our Malabar Spinach produces prolifically.  It has climbed all over the trellis and produced many leaves for eating.  Its purple vine and shiny flowers really catch your eye.

Malabar Spinach

They are currently flowering and producing the little fruits that will turn purple and contain the seeds - hundreds of which will fall to the ground and propagate for next year's crop.  Once you get this started, you don't need to save seeds to plant for next year as they come up on their own.  I wasted my time saving its seeds several years ago and now have a container full of Malabar spinach seeds that I'll never use.  Let me know if you'd like some and I can give you some.

Malabar spinach flowers and seeds

The leaves of the Malabar Spinach are shiny, fleshy, and pretty.  We snap them off and eat them as a lettuce substitute on sandwiches or in tacos and we've also steamed them.  Not bad eating at all.

Healthy leaves of the Malabar Spinach 

It is really not a spinach, although it tastes like it when cooked.  It is a perennial vine that originated in India and Bangladesh, so that solves the mystery of why it thrives in hot climates.  That ends the update of the late summer garden. Hopefully, we'll get rain soon and then we can start checking our seed inventory and begin thinking about the fall garden.  

Gotta Pull it Together

In THIS POST we talked about a big old live oak tree that had split in half during a storm several years ago.  We didn't want to lose the tree, but we also didn't want to spend a bunch of money on getting an arborist to come work on the tree.  A neighbor and I climbed high into the tree with a powerful drill, a very long drill bit, a threaded rod with an eye bolt on one side and a washer and nut on the other.

After drilling holes in four large branches high up in the tree, we inserted the rods into each of the four holes and tightened the nuts on the backside of the limbs with the eye bolts facing inside.  We then looped a 5/8 inch cable through each of the eye bolts and fastened the cable back down with two cable clamps.  Using a turnbuckle we tightened the cable until it pulled the split tree back together.  It was frightening work, way up high in the treetops, but it did the trick.  Over several years, the tree, where it was split, grew back together, healing itself with lots of new growth over the crack. Amazingly, we were able to save the tree!

About a year or so ago, we had a thunderstorm that came through, bringing with it straight line winds of 60 mph or so.  The force of the wind was so strong, one of the cables broke.  I've had it on my to do list to fix it and this weekend I got it done. Climbing up on the eastern limb, I ran a new cable through the eye bolt and looped it back down on itself and using a socket wrench, tightened it down with two cable clamps.

One side done

I tied a rope onto the other end of the cable and threw it to the ladder that I had propped up against the limb containing the eye bolt that we were going to pull against.  Then I climbed way up to the top with the boys holding the bottom steady.

The other side

I made a loop through one end of the turnbuckle and tightened down with two cable clamps.  The other end of the turnbuckle has a hook and that was hooked into the eye bolt on the tree.  At this point the work was pretty much done and all that remained was was to tighten down the turnbuckle.  By holding the end on the left while turning the middle piece, the cable got tighter and tighter and pretty soon the cable was taut.

Turnbuckle is ready to tighten

It is hard to see in the photo below, but the work is done.  Two cables fastened to four limbs provide stability for when the high winds blow.  The tree has already healed, so the cables just support the limbs, preventing them from opening up the portion that was split.

Criss-crossed cables

Hopefully we won't have any hurricanes this year or strong winds, but if the high winds blow, we've done all we can to protect the big old oak that provides lots of shade for us - a valuable commodity during south Louisiana summers.

We'll keep our eye on the tree, ensuring the cables stay in place and hold things together.  If something goes awry, it will be time for the amateur arborists to spring back into action!

The Far Side of the Farm

We, like many people, talk to our animals as if they understand us.  We treat them almost like members of the family and ascribe human characteristics and tendencies to them.  Very often, Tricia and I will ask one another if the animals like us.  The answer is always, "Probably not - they just like the food that we give them."

Then we lovingly laugh at the fact that the cows just aren't that smart.  They can't figure out things like getting around a gate or how to get into or out of an enclosure, although they have somehow figured out which bedroom window is ours and on weekends when we sleep in a little later, they will bellow and bawl until we go out and milk them.  Darn cows!  If you look on a list of the relative intelligence of animals, you'll see animals like chimpanzees, pigs, bottlenose dolphins, parrots, and whales rounding out the top 5. 

It is of extreme embarrassment to the bovines on our little family farm that the cow did not even make the top 25 list of intelligent animals.  Even sheep made the list! Notice that the pig is #2 on the list and that's probably why George Orwell used the pigs as the leaders of the farm in his book, "Animal Farm."  The cows, if you'll recall, played a minor role.  In fact, the pigs learn to milk the cows and steal their milk.

Rosie - a giant compared to our other animals - just not a mental giant!

This Article discusses farm animal intelligence, admittedly rank cows pretty low on the scale, but gives them a little credit for their social characteristics in the excerpt below:

While I admire cows, I’ll admit they’re not the brightest bulbs in the ceiling. However, in their defense, cows interact with one another in socially complex ways. They develop friendships, form social hierarchies, and can hold grudges against other cows. A dairy cow in a herd of a hundred knows exactly where her place is in line at the milking parlor, and range cattle never forget where the best grazing can be found.  And if feeding time is 5 p.m., a herd of bawling cows will let you know if you’re even a few minutes late with their supper.

We have witnessed each characteristic from the above list and can vouch for the authenticity of the claims.  Each of our animals (well, maybe not the chickens) has a distinct personality and interacts with with us differently.  We're not the only people who find humor in animals and like to imagine them taking on "human" mannerisms.  Gary Larson, my favorite cartoonist of all time, did that in most every cartoon, and I laughed time after time until he retired 20 years ago in 1995.  (How can 1995 be 20 years ago!)

Here are a couple of my favorite 'cow cartoons' by Mr. Larson:

Sometimes I sneak up on our cows to see if I can catch them speaking in English or standing on two feet, but so far, no luck.  That may only prove that they are smarter than I think!