Frozen Fruit Trees

In the deep freeze of 2021 we struggled in tropical south Louisiana.  We did our best to cover the garden with tarps to protect the vegetables.  Largely, we were successful and our spring harvest was pretty much unaffected.  The fruit trees, on the other hand, were dealt a ferocious blow.  A couple weeks ago, I cut down a big navel orange tree that initially showed signs of coming back, but then kicked the bucket.

Our navel orange tree in the back yard lost all its leaves and was barren for a long time.  Russ, our horticulture major son, advised me to give it time.  I did, and he was right.  Slowly, little shoots of green emerged from brown, seemingly brown limbs.  Once the tree showed recovery, a began to prune off the completely dead branches.  I still need to get a ladder to prune off the top branches, but I'll get 'em.

This orange tree has yielded us hundreds of pounds of fruit each year.  Sadly, we figured that our orange harvest would have to come from the produce section of the grocery store this year.  Until...  Well, would you look at there?  Orange blossoms!  Five months late, but they are there!

Those blooms turn into fruit.  Granted, it won't be the harvest of previous years, but we are blessed to get some fruit after the hard freeze.

In looking at our three tangerine trees, I had to chop one down.  It succumbed to the freeze and just never came back.  We still have two in our back yard.  They are putting on leaves, albeit slow.  One thing I was careful to observe was to ensure that the growth was coming back ABOVE the graft.  Any thing below the graft is from the root stock and would not give good fruit.  Everything coming back is above the graft.  Now, I'm not seeing any blooms on the tangerines.  We probably won't have any tangerines this year.

The grapefruit tree took a roundhouse kick to the chin from the freeze.  Despite mulching it deep, it still took a beating.  It is, however, coming back, but it sort of looks like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree!  It sacrificed a bunch of limbs.  Perhaps without any fruit, the tree will put forth its energy in growing big limbs to support a huge grapefruit crop for next year!

Rosie, You're on the Clock

Clarabelle, had her little heifer, Elsie, two months ago tomorrow.  She's a healthy little thing, for sure.  Elsie is our first heifer in several years.  For some reason we hit a spell where every baby was a boy!  So now, Rosie is on the clock.  To the best of our knowledge, her due date is June 18th.  Below you can see the daily procession in the evening as Clarabelle heads to the barn for feeding, followed by Elsie, and then Rosie bringing up the rear.

Speaking of rears, Rosie's rear is fat and her girth is wide.  She must have a big ol' baby in her.  Tricia and I were talking about the ol' girl.  Rosie is twelve years old and to the best of our recollection, she's given us seven calves. 

We gave her half a scoop of sweet feed in her stall in the barn.  We have a rule that you only get fed an appreciable amount when you're in milk.  Otherwise, you are on grass and hay.  After her feeding, we put her back outside the barn.  In this photo, you can see a couple things: #1 is that she is FAT! #2 is that she is beginning to bag up.  What you can't see in the photo is that on her back end, she is starting to have some mucous leak out.  All signs of calving coming soon.

Ol' Rosie has been a good momma cow for us.  Hopefully, she'll give us a heifer.  Regardless, it'll be fun to have two little calves frolicking out on the pasture, kicking up their heels and running with their tails high in the air!

SOON!

Cupcake Earned a Nickname!

“Or if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, come to his knowledge; he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a male without blemish:”  Leviticus 4:23

I've often thought about the magnitude of slaughtered farm animals in Old Testament times under the sacrificial system.  The amount of blood, dead animals, flies.  I am so thankful that we don't live in those times any more!  If you read the book of Leviticus, there were very strict rules for the types of sacrifices, how the sacrifices should be made and what were acceptable sacrifices.  For one thing, sacrifices must be males, the firstborn, and those without blemish.

Cupcake is Agnes' firstborn goat.  However, she would be fortunate had she lived in Old Testament times, for she is a female AND she is blemished.  She would NOT have been put on an altar - however she may have been eaten.  From birth, both of Cupcake's front legs have been handicapped.  It is a condition where the tendons are super-tight and as such, she is unable to straighten her legs.

The poor critter crawled around on her knees.  It was very sad to watch her.  My wife decided to take Cupcake under her wing and give her physical therapy.  We talked about this in previous posts.  Here's an update:  Tricia cut paint rollers in half and made splints.  Then, using a tape called "Dragon Skin," each day she would tighten the splint on each legs to pull the leg closer to the straight position.  In a few weeks, one of the legs is straight, and the other is getting pretty close.

Cupcake is able now to stand up.  When she falls down, however, she is unable to get back up on her own.  The poor creature scratches a big hole trying desperately to get up.  She is able to walk, sort of.  She takes steps with her splinted left leg, but drags her slightly bent right leg behind her.

Now if you take the splints off, her legs are very weak.  This is going to be a long-term project, but little Cupcake has made improvement and we're proud of her.  You may be able to see the look of pride in Cupcake's face as well.  She is happy to not be crawling around on the ground anymore.

Watching her walk around on her "peg-legs" this evening, I began to call her "Peg" or "Peggy."  Who knows, "Peggy" might stick.

 

“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.” – Wendell Berry

Gardening is something I really love to do.  Although it is a hobby requiring labor, it is a lot less work now that we're several years into the "Back to Eden" Gardening method.  I look forward to planting things in the ground and watching the miracle of life bursting forth in germination from a 'dead' seed.

One of the things that is rewarding is the redemptive nature of it.  The garden, at one time, was in what formerly was a rice field and pasture land.  The soil was hard and compacted with no earthworms and not much organic matter.  Over years of amending the soil, it has changed.  It is teeming with earthworms, beneficial bacteria, and is healthy.  I often joke that I could never sell our 5 acres and move unless I could take the soil with us since we've worked so hard in building it!

Another rewarding aspect of gardening is the satisfaction of growing most of your own food.    We enjoy looking down at our plates at supper most nights and knowing that everything on our plates and cup was raised right here on the land.  It is fresh, good and delicious.  It is tempting, at times, to say, "We are eating like kings.  Look what we did."  But here's the other thing:

Gardening can be extremely humbling!  One year you might have a bumper crop and run out of room to store everything you grew.  You are tempted to think you've got it all figured out.  And then the next year, you do the exact same thing and experience crop failure.  This year the garden looked fantastic!  And then we got almost a foot of rain in a few days and it sickened half of our peppers, tomatoes and green beans.  A hurricane, an early freeze, a torrential downpour, a plague of stink bugs or worm, or a thunderstorm can ruin a perfectly good crop.

Gardening teaches persistence, a love for the land, and a healthy respect for the Creator.  What's in your garden?  What are you learning from your gardening experiences?

Freedom

"If liberty is to be saved, it will not be by doubters, men of science, or materialists; it will be by religious conviction, by the faith of the individuals who believe that God wills men to be free." -- Henri Amiel, Swiss philosopher 

Freedom.  What a beautiful thing.  On Memorial Day yesterday, we sat in the back yard and barbecued some chicken raised on Our Maker's Acres and enjoyed some peaceful family time together.  I hope you did the same.  We talked about the soldiers who gave their lives so that freedom and the American way of life might be preserved.  What bravery!  What courage!  What conviction!

We talked about how differently things might be today had America not mobilized its forces and fought against the evil of the Nazis and Japan.  The entire country unified and worked shoulder to shoulder to support the war effort.  Rationing took place. Victory Gardens were planted.  Civilian industry quickly switched gears to begin manufacturing wartime supplies.  Would this take place today?  Do we have the steely resolve we once had?

It is easy to ask these rhetorical questions.  It is easy to look outward instead of inward.  I read Eleanor Roosevelt's prayer, and thought it was thought provoking:

Dear Lord, Lest I continue My complacent way, Help me to remember that somewhere, Somehow out there A man died for me today. As long as there be war, I then must Ask and answer Am I worth dying for? – Eleanor Roosevelt’s Wartime Prayer

That is a sobering thought!  And it makes me want to be a better person.  Great men's blood seeped into the soil of foreign lands in a supreme sacrifice.  I am proud to be an American.  It is the greatest land on earth.

As I think of Freedom, I would be remiss to not mention the greatest sacrifice ever made.  That of Jesus dying on the cross - for me.  For you.  But He rose from the dead and defeated sin and the grave!

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  2 Corinthians 3:17 

The freedom spoken of in that verse is above and beyond the freedom we've talked about.  No, this freedom conveys freedom from the yoke of sin, freedom from former blindness to the things of God, freedom from the fear of Hell.

May the blinders come off.  May we come to know Him.  May we walk in that Freedom as Christ intended!

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  - John Adams

 

Bumby's Beet Salad

We had a bumper crop of beets from the fall garden this past year.  The variety we plant is called "Bull's Blood" because even the leaves of the plant have dark red leaves, similar to the color of bull's blood, I suppose. This past week we harvested our last one.  We have been slicing them and roasting them in the oven on most nights.  So good!  We love beets, and they are supposed to be really good for you.

We have also pickled the beets, made beet kvaas, and borscht, but we were looking for other recipes to use up our bumper crop of beets. Tricia was talking to my Mom on the phone and got a recipe for a beet salad.  This beet salad brought back a lot of memories for us and we thought we'd share.  My maternal grandmother (we affectionately called her Bumby) always made this salad.  She was big on different types of salads: cucumber salad, plates with olives, pickled okra, pickled beets, peppers, etc. Her beet salad was one of my favorites.

We will call them "Bumby Beet Salad".

Peel, cut up, and boil beets with salt and pepper.  Drain them.  Then cover beets with white vinegar and boil again - add more pepper, if needed. 

Then set aside to cool.  This essentially pickles the beets quickly.  Tear up some lettuce in a bowl.

Add thinly sliced red or white onion and add cut up slices or chunks of beets.

Put it all in a bowl.

Mix with 1 or 2 Tablespoons of mayonnaise (blechhh! - I don't like mayo at all, but this salad is still good - I just don't think about the fact that I know it's in there!).

Stir it up and add additional seasoning, if needed.

The tangy pickled beets stand in contrast with the crunchy flavorful onions and crisp lettuce and provide a really nice side salad for any meal.  We have made several of these and have really enjoyed them.  Reminds me of Sunday meals after church at Bumby's house and puts a nostalgic smile on my face!

Elsie, the Heifer, At a Month and Three Weeks Old

I thought we'd catch you up to date on Elsie, our little heifer.  She's almost two months old.  We have had quite a few calves over the years, but we think she may be the prettiest.  Rosie and Clarabelle may beg to differ.  Elsie is inquisitive and frisky.  We watch her jump around the pasture, playing with the goats.  Then she lifts her tail high in the air and runs as fast as she can.  Our neighbor has told us that she enjoys watching all the animal activity.  Here's Clarabelle and Elsie in the pasture on a sunny afternoon recently.  The grass in the pasture still hasn't really taken off.  We are still supplementing with hay, but with the warm days, the grass will soon outpace the animals' eating.

Elsie is getting plenty of Clarabelle's good milk to drink.  In the late afternoon, we call the cows to the barn so that we can separate Elsie from her momma.  About a week ago, we would have to milk Clarabelle out as Elsie wasn't drinking everything.  Not anymore.  That girl is growing!  She's now drinking it all.  We separate and all night long Clarabelle is able to make milk for us.  In the morning we milk (Tricia during the week and I do it on weekends) and then put Elsie back with Clarabelle.  We don't milk hard in order to leave a little for Elsie, but Clarabelle holds back some.

When we open the gate, hungry Elsie rushes out and begin to ravenously suck on each of Clarabelle's four teats, switching from one to another until they are all empty.

Right now, Elsie is drinking primarily milk.  Her rumen is not fully functional yet.  Her rumen is a fermentation vat where her body breaks down food.  In about four months her rumen will be developed and then she'll be able to digest grass.

Until then, she'll continue to nurse, drinking Clarabelle's sweet milk.