Quick Update April 12 2023

It's been a busy spring.  We have the garden all put in.  Once the onions are harvested, I'll likely plant some additional sweet corn and snap beans as well as cowpeas.  We have caught two swarms of honeybees and have two boxes set up.  We have been inspecting them every other week.  In hive one (the one with the brick on top), we have a laying queen.  A week ago we saw eggs.  The queen can lay 2,000 eggs per day.  On Monday of this week, we saw larvae!  Hive 1 appears to be good.  In Hive 2, we still don't see eggs, but we caught that swarm a week and a half later.  We'll inspect next week and hopefully we'll see eggs.  Regardless, we're going to put out another swarm trap or two this weekend.

The snap beans are blooming like crazy and are tall and healthy.  Two varieties of sweet corn flank the snap beans.  I can see the tassels about to come out.  It's all progressing nicely.

This bean variety is a new one for us on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  It's called the purple teepee bean.  It's blooming beautiful purple flowers and setting small pods.

This is a photo of what the harvested beans will look like from the seed catalog photo that I ordered them from: Rareseeds.com.

Image Credit: Rareseeds.com

I'm anxious to check this out and see if they taste as good as they are pretty.  Lot's going on in the garden and in the chicken tractor.  I'll have more updates later to share.

Look What I Found in the Driveway

We were heading to Kinder yesterday to meet the family for the Resurrection Sunday meal when something made me stop in my tracks on the driveway.  Tricia asked what I was doing as I got out of the car.  Look what was in the driveway in the middle of the yard.

A snapping turtle!  We recently had 4 inches of rain and the surrounding rice fields and crawfish ponds are good environments for the turtles.  I guess this one was out moving around and decided to come visit.  Turtle soup?  We didn't have time.  I picked him up by the tail to move him into a big bucket.  He was heavy and fat!

When I was farming in Oberlin, we would catch a bunch of them when we were water leveling rice fields.  They were easy to spot, swimming in the muddy water.  We'd get out of the tractor with our boots and wade out and catch them.  I kept the ones that were big enough and would bring them back to the tractor where they would ride with me in the cab until lunch.  You might not know it, but turtles stink!  As they get bigger, they let out a musk smell that is atrocious!  You want to stay far away from that, trust me.

My Dad would bring the turtles we caught to his cousin, named Blanc.  Blanc would clean the turtles and make a turtle gravy over rice.  We'd go over when we knocked off for lunch and eat a big turtle feast.  While not entirely appetizing to look down in the pot and see turtle claws, turtle meat itself is delicious!

This afternoon when I got in from work, I decided to go ahead and let this snapping turtle go.  I picked him up and walked him down to the ditch and set him free.  

I kept my distance from his opened mouth.  That beak he has is sharp and his jaws are powerful.  I bet he could snap off a finger, but I'm not going to test out that theory.  Old-timers say that once they clamp down, they won't let go until thunder rolls.  I'm not going to test the validity of that either.  This turtle wasn't all that big.  If I catch a bigger one, then we'd probably eat him.

Resurrection Sunday 2023

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.  Matthew 28:6

Image Credit

Resurrection Sunday.  This is what it's all about. It’s about Jesus and His victory over sin and death.  And it’s about how His atoning sacrifice made a way for us to be restored to the Father.  Resurrection Sunday is a celebration of the greatest event in human history.  On Resurrection Sunday, we want to proclaim that HE IS RISEN.  The empty tomb echoes throughout eternity the victory we have in Jesus.  In Christ we have Hope.  In Christ, we have Life.  In Christ we have freedom and purpose and fulfillment!  This world offers nothing that can compare.

I trust that your worship services went great!  We had a worshipful service and drove to Kinder and met with family.  We thanked God for His Son, Jesus and for family and the good food we were about to eat.  We enjoyed a wonderful meal and enjoyed visiting.  After the meal, all the grandchildren (even though some are in their 20's) hunted for eggs.

After the meal, we sat in the TV room and watched old home movies from when mom was 12 years old that had been converted to DVD.   They showed family vacations they took in the early to mid '50's.  We got to see Mom's grandparents.  It was neat to watch the simpler times, to look at how people dressed, and the vehicles they drove.  It was very interesting to see what it was like in those times.  

We hope you had a great Resurrection Sunday and spent valuable time with the ones you love!

Root Vegetables from the Garden

The cold weather finished off a lot of our winter crop.  Spinach - gone.  Turnips - gone.  Mustard Greens - gone.  Beets - mostly gone.  Many of the winter crop was just too small when the cold weather hit and they couldn't survive.  At least some of the beets survived.  We've been slowly picking them and eating them.  The Bull's Blood beets had to be replanted.  I think in another couple of weeks, we may have some that will be ready.  Here are some nice Detroit Red beets.

Then there's the carrots.  I replanted a couple of rows of carrots.  The existing carrots were hurt, but are just now maturing.  Atomic Red Carrots and Cosmic Purple Carrots.  For supper last night, I pulled some Danvers Carrots and some Uzbek Yellow Carrots.

We sliced them up, tossed them in olive oil, roasted them in the oven and sprinkled fresh cut parsley on top.  

What a feast!  We could eat this every night and not get tired of them!

Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch (Part II)

Our first batch of chicks are five weeks old and are growing and very active.  They are out in the chicken tractor.  We decided to get a second batch going on the incubator to replace those in our existing flock that were lost to predators or just old age.  So on March 10th we put 42 eggs in the incubator from eggs collected on the 9th and 10th.  That meant on March 31st, we'd have our next hatch as long as we kept the incubator at 100.5 F and the humidity right by keeping water in the reservoir.

Two days before the hatch, we were to remove the egg rotation tray and set the eggs flat on the floor of the incubator.  BUT, one chick decided to hatch out early.  Tricia quickly removed the rotator.  If you don't remove it, you run the risk of the tray crushing the baby chicks.  On the 30th and 31st, the chicks started breaking out of their shells.

As they dried off, we'd put them in a box and bring them outside to the brooder and set them under a heat lamp.  We originally had Barred Rock chickens.  Then we got some Rhode Island Reds and then Aracaunas.  Then we purchased some Golden Comet hens from one of Benjamin's friends.  Golden Comets are a cross between Rhode Island Reds and White Leghorns.  They are prolific layers of brown eggs.  Now, our flock is Heinz 57!  There is a lot of diversity out there.  

Here is one little hen, we hope.  It looks like a Golden Comet.

Here is one of the Golden Comets from the first batch.  We're only going to keep the hens.  We will butcher and eat the roosters.

Statistics from the first hatch:  (42 eggs)

Put in incubator            Hatch Date        Hatch        Lived

2/6/2023                    2/27/2023                25                19

3/10/2023                    3/30/2023              27                26

With the second hatch, we took the 15 eggs that did not hatch and went out to the compost pile.  We busted them open to see what happened.  Of the 15 that didn't hatch, only 4 were not fertile.  10 were fully developed, but did not make it out of the egg, for some reason.  1 was not fully developed.

Our neighbor came over and talked to us.  He raised quail at one time and would hatch out thousands of quail.  He told us that he swore by setting them in the incubator based on the stages of the moon.  He also mentioned that the time of day you set them in the incubator determines to a large extent the sex of the chicks.  I'm not sure about that.  I couldn't find anything to back that up.

However, I did find in the Farmer's Almanac that chicks that hatch just before a full moon would be stronger and have a better chance at survival.  It even had the best dates for setting eggs.  March 7, 8, and 9 were the best days.  Well, we set them ALMOST exactly on that date.  I checked back to the best February dates and we set them ALMOST on the best date, too.  For some reason, we're only achieving roughly a 60-64% hatch rate.

Hopefully we'll be able to get most of these to maturity - either for egg layers for for gumbo!

High Noon

In the closing chapter of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul is giving practical advice about giving, opportunities, and people.  And then in verse 13, he tells us the following:

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.   1 Corinthians 16:13 KJV

Act like a man!  Be brave!  Good advice for this present age.

We've been watching a lot of old movies lately.  If they are black and white, all the better.  Last weekend we watched "High Noon" with Gary Cooper(Kane), Grace Kelly (Amy), and Lloyd Bridges.  Excellent movie.  The classic epic showdown between good and evil.  Gary Cooper is the marshal in town and he marries Grace Kelly.  He's resigning his post as marshal and they are leaving after the wedding to move to another town and open a store.

As they are about to leave, three guys ride into town on horseback.  Bad looking dudes.  Shifty eyes.  Tough rascals.  They go down to the train station to wait on a train coming in at noon.  The train is carrying their buddy who has just been released from prison.  He's coming back into town to settle a score.  He and the three scoundrels vow to kill the marshal and the judge.

The townspeople tell the marshal to leave.  They can handle it.  The new marshal will be in town tomorrow.  The happy couple leave to start their new life.  The get down the road a ways in their carriage and Kane turns around.  He tells Amy that he has a responsibility.  Amy tells him his responsibility is to his new wife.  She tells him he doesn't have to play the hero.  

He tells her that he's not trying to be the hero and that she's crazy if she thinks he enjoys this.  He feels a sense of duty to do what's right AND, if he doesn't take care of business now, they'd never be able to have a life.  The bad guys would follow them wherever they went and their lives would be ruined.

He tries to get help.  Everyone has an excuse and turns him down.  The judge is packing up and leaving town before the pardoned murderer arrives at high noon.  Kane asks everyone - even his best friend.  No one will help him.  He even goes into the church service and asks the congregants to help.  They can't.  A shootout would be bad for business, they say.

He has to face the four by himself.  Amy is heartbroken.  She thinks she is going to be made a widow on her wedding day.  She's getting on the train to leave.  The convicted murderer arrives and the four begin going through town.  The town is deserted now.  All the cowardly townsfolk have barred their doors and are hiding.  Kane, however, is on the street, with his sidearm.  Doing his duty.  Acting like a man in an hour when mature leadership is needed.

It is high noon and the stakes are high.  What will happen?  You'll have to watch the movie to find out.  I highly recommend it.  It's high noon in our nation.  It's time for men to Watch, Stand firm, Act like men and be brave.  What will happen?  Pray.  We will find out soon enough. 

The Garden in the Side Yard

Years ago after running out of room in the garden, I incorporated part of the lawn into what I call "the garden in the side yard."  I've been amending lots and lots of composted leaves and wood chip mulch and have improved the soil immensely.  We have 112 potato plants growing in this patch along with watermelons, cantaloupes and butternut squash on the very end where they can vine out.  You can't see them yet as they are just germinating, but I planted some Lemon Queen sunflowers in a long row alongside the potatoes.  The flowers are for the bees.  To the left, we have our muscadines and our thornless blackberries.

Just to the south is a small raised bed we call our herb garden.  It did not fare so well in our big freeze.  Our rosemary was probably at least 5 years old.  It is dead.  I've already planted another in its place since this photo was taken.

We thought the oregano was finished as well, but we were surprised and happy to see it coming back!

One thing that's not coming back is our Lemongrass.  The freeze finished it off, for sure.  It had made it for years and years, coming back in the spring, but not this spring.  I replanted some from some seed I had saved but none germinated.  I'm trying again with some purchased seed.  We'll see if we can get it growing.  We made a lot of lemongrass tea from this plant.  Hoping we can get another growing to take its place.

The two plants in the background are parsley that came up from seed.  It's very healthy and we use it often in cooking.  When it bolts, we'll let it go to seed again.  Then maybe it will come up again next year from seed.  

The two plants in the foreground are celery that Tricia started from the base of a store bought celery.

Finally, this plant.  This is an herb that is new to us.  We planted it from seed last year and it came up on its own again this spring.  It's French Sorrel.  I had never eaten it.  We really are enjoying it and eat some almost every day.

We'll pick about 10 leaves off of it and put on a slice of toasted homemade sour dough bread.  We then put a fried egg on top with a slice of provolone cheese topped with sliced avocado and another slice of sour dough bread.  It makes a great sandwich!