Goldfish fun

One of our goldfish survived last summer, the unexpected raccoon, the hunting talents of the cats, plus the steers’ stock tank (with a heater) all winter, and is back in the waterfall. Judging by goes he plays in the water, I think he’s enjoying himself.

At first, I thought he was dying and floating around half-flopped… but, no, he appears to be having fun with the falling water and the bubbles.

Tuna Lessons

I’ll tell you what, if you’ve never had the opportunity to dismantle a large fish with a skeptical but interested audience, can you truly say that you’ve fully experienced the process?

We started processing the second tuna this weekend. We did the first one a few weeks back; see that post here.

This time, we’re smoking part of it, and planning to can that (if we don’t eat it all first). I sort of offhandedly mentioned it to a friend, who promptly asked if she could come watch, learn, and help. The night before, the whole “I have a large fish, in three layers of plastic, defrosting in an ice chest in my bathtub” thing was just so bizarre, I posted it on Facebook with a comment that “We don’t do Normal very well around here”, which spurred another friend to ask if she could come. I ended up with two helpers plus Mr. Caffienated (who, honestly, did 80% of the work). One of my guests did a photo collage of the crazy.

It’s currently smoking with applewood on the back porch in the Big Chief smoker.

Thankfully, it’s not pouring down rain like it was yesterday!

Eggshell recycling

I occasionally get asked how I use eggshells here on the homestead, and what I do to prepare them for use.

I realized years ago that while hens are perfectly happy to eat eggshells, if they’re fed them in large pieces, they’ll recognize them as eggshells – and then they start eating their own eggs. I’ve experienced this even when they’ve got leftover food in their dish, while on pasture, and have come to the conclusion that they don’t eat their own eggs because they’re hungry; they eat them because they like the flavor. So the challenge is to include eggshells in their diet without them figuring it out.

Why feed hens eggshells? Because it’s the easiest way to get calcium into their diet, and prevent them from laying eggs with thin shells. Oyster shell works too; we have it out there for free feeding. But they absorb the calcium from their eggshells even better.

I keep a cookie sheet with a used piece of aluminum foil (from whatever my most recent baking project was) in my oven, and collect eggshells as I go.

Every time the oven gets preheated, the shells are in there during the preheat, getting nicely dried out. Moist eggshells will mold; this way, I know I’ve cooked any nasty bacteria to death and dried them all out at the same time. Over baking them doesn’t seem to be an issue. Calcium is a mineral, after all; do home ovens actually get hot enough to make it go bad?

I know they’re ready to crush when they’re dried (and often, slightly browned). Here are two shells from today; the one on the right has been through a couple of oven preheats (I pull them out when the food goes in), and the one on the left needs a bit more cooking.

I run them through my coffee grinder, although they could also crushed in a food processor, or blender, or with a rolling pin. The idea is to make them into small pieces.

They don’t have to be this fine. I also add them to my garden for my plants, and I figure the smaller the pieces, the faster they’ll break down. I’ve read that the experts don’t think eggshells can prevent blossom end rot on tomatoes and peppers because it takes a couple of years for the shells to decompose enough for plants to use them. However, I take the long view; I started adding eggshells to my compost and garden eight years ago, and continue to add them every year. They’ve had time to break down and start building up calcium reserves in my garden… and I haven’t seen blossom end rot on anything in over five years.

Getting them into the hens requires one more step. I mix them into whatever kitchen treats are moist, so they’ll stick and not just fall to the bottom of the feed dish. Today’s treats included a small pan of oatmeal that the kids decided they didn’t want to finish, and left congealing on the stove.

There was probably a cup of oatmeal. I added a couple tablespoons of shells, and stirred them in.

I decided that it could use a bit more, since hens seem to like added eggshells as much as my kids like cinnamon-and-sugar on their toast.

Another couple of tablespoons or so.

These are some chicken treats that the birds will enjoy!

We haven’t had any thin shells for a long time, either.

Progress

Things are growing like crazy, and I’m already looking at tomatoes that will have to go into gallon pots soon.

Appropriate

I feel that this impromptu still life, encompassing the pencils from homeschool, the fertilizer for the garden, the clock that I’m always running behind, the Kleenex for allergies, and the attempt to keep it all together, is a reasonably accurate reflection of my life at the moment.

At any rate, it’s more photogenic than the mess in my kitchen.

Tree Pruning Continues

This year, I have helpers.

Even the resident teenager is learning a bit.

He now has a skosh more sympathy when I say my shoulders hurt after pruning awhile.

Hooray for chainsaws! We had some big tree limbs that needed to come off.

That will make a nice piece of firewood next fall, too.

Starting Cool Season Plants Outdoors

I have lots of plant starts going in the house, but with the outdoor temps starting to climb into the 60’s and staying mostly above freezing at night (we’ve been seeing lows in the upper 30’s and lower 40’s)… it’s time and past time to start the cool season veggies.

The area in front of the compost bin, which gets a lot of sun right now, has been rototilled. We had the hens in the garden, and then spread compost, and I felt we needed to dig that into the top six inches of dirt.

I’m trying out some weed barrier cloth in between rows this year. The last couple of years, I’ve been fighting morning glory; this is the latest attempt to eradicate it without spraying Roundup in my vegetable garden.

The t-posts are there to support the row cloth that we’ll use to cover the plants if we have temperatures below 30° in the forecast.

Some people cut or burn holes in their weed barrier to plant in, but I’m planting a lot of radishes, lettuce and kale as well as broccoli and cauliflower, and it would be all hole… so I’m just leaving a gap where my plants will be.

Now to fetch the drip line for watering. We tie it up on the fence for the winter. The first year, we left it on the ground, and ants built colonies in it… tying it up keeps them out.

The faucet attachment got a new filter.

I’m running the drip line all the way to the stable to the frost free faucet that is pressurized year round; the garden faucets won’t be turned in until late April or May.

I’ve set it up so that every time the trough gets filled, the plants get water.

The water line is pinned to the ground with homemade garden stakes, cut from grape wire.

I reused a bunch of drip lines from the last few years’ gardens, and just pulled the fittings apart and cut things to fit.

When I did the test run, I discovered that my emitters were throwing water onto my weed cloth!

I turned them all so that they are soaking the dirt now.

Almost ready to plant some radishes, lettuce and broccoli!

Pruning Grapes

It’s time – past time – to prune the grapes. We have two types: Concord grapes (great for juice, jam and fruit leather) and green seedless table grapes that are really sugar bombs masquerading as a healthy snack.

This is a grape plant in need of a haircut.

It’s actually had a preliminary trimming; Mr. Caffeinated got out there and did the rough whack-it-back a month or so ago, so that I could actually get to the main vines. But there is still much to do if we’re not going to have an uncontrollable grape jungle this summer.

THIS is old growth. See how it’s a dark brown, and looks like it’s a snake shedding its skin? New growth comes from this and fruits, but this part of the plant is where the new vines grow from, not the grapes themselves.

THIS is new growth. It’s a lighter shade, less flaky, and has buds on it.

At each of those joints in the vine, there’s a bud. This is where the grapes will be coming from.

HERE is where the new growth has sprouted from the main (old) vine.

I’ve been told that I prune my grapes as if they were wine grapes rather than juice grapes: for quality versus sheer quantity. Given that we have hundreds of pounds more than we can use every year – I am pretty sure we gave away nearly a ton last year, and I’m not exaggerating – I can afford to prune for quality!

I leave two buds to fruit on each new growth vine that I leave on the plant.

First bud:

Second bud:

… then cut.

Note that this doesn’t leave a lot of vine. That’s perfectly ok; a healthy grape plant will proceed to grow yards more vines over the spring and summer. If they aren’t whacked back severely, they will take over and I’ll never see the main vine again.

I also take off any vine that looks spindly or is heading in the wrong direction completely off at the main vine. Even if they’re still alive – this one looks pretty dead, but was still green at the core – I really only want the healthiest, most robust vines to grow grapes, anyway.

This plant is pruned back pretty nicely. There’s plenty of healthy vines with a couple of buds to produce grapes – and they’re growing in all directions, since these are very old vines that haven’t been trained to set all the new growth in the same direction.

Every year, even though we invite friends to come and pick as much as they want, there’s still loads of grapes that go to waste. Last year, we certainly gave away more than 1000 pounds, but you can see that a lot of grapes fell on the ground and went to waste anyway.

So, if you’re offered a chance to go pick grapes at a friend’s house, and they say “take all you want; we’re done picking” – don’t be afraid to strip all the grapes you can see off the vines. These were gone over twice by different people, and you can see that plenty were missed!

Winter pruning helps keep the jungle under control, but there will still be lots of leaves and new growth on these grapes once summer arrives and they hit their stride. Grapes need a solid haircut every year, to keep them under control.

Nearly ready to plant

Mr. Caffeinated brought home a skidsteer, and has spent the last few hours emptying our compost bin and spreading the contents on the garden.

Our compost bin is 16’x8’x4′, and was about half full of composted manure, garden trimmings, etc. from the last couple of years.

It sits between the corral and the garden, and the sides are removable precisely for this kind of access.

With the sides off, you can drive equipment right through it, and into the garden. Mr. Caffeinated emptied the whole thing in about an hour this way.

Hydraulics are awesome, I gotta say. This would have been a whole lot more work with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

The hens are absolutely unfazed by the arrival of heavy equipment in their field. They can’t eat it; it isn’t chasing them, so they are 0% interested in it.

If we don’t move it out by tomorrow, they’ll probably find a way to lay eggs in it.

It may not look like much to the uninitiated, but that’s prime gardening soil, right there! The end closest to the composter will be seeded soon for cool weather plants such as lettuce, kale, and broccoli. The hens have been off of that side of the garden for 100 days, and the compost is even more aged than that, so I’m not concerned about bacteria transferring into our food. With all the nutrients that the animals and composted plant matter, plus the new Trifecta fertilizer I’m trying this year, I hope to get a good harvest.

Pruning the Ornamental Trees

This tree tries to tie itself into knots every year.

It’s old – I’m pretty sure it’s at least 40 – and some of the branches have major woodpecker and bug damage.

There are lots of new sprouts that are crossing other branches, or growing in weird directions. The key to healthy trees is to take out anything that’s crossing, growing straight up, growing back towards the center of the tree, and anything super close; the leaves need room to absorb sun and have good air circulation. I generally try to leave 6″ between branches, although this tree sometimes makes that difficult.

It would be easier, actually, if this were a fruiting tree. I’d take out a lot more branches. But – it’s ornamental, and I’m trying to let it be pretty… and I also don’t want to remove more than 1/4 of the total branches of the tree, and I took out a couple of huge limbs, so I’m being conservative for the rest of it.

A couple hours with a set of clippers and a chainsaw, and it looks a lot better.

What’s crazy is that this thing will put out so many new branches this year that I’ll have to prune it just as hard next year – without the removal of huge limbs, hopefully.

In a few weeks, it will be covered in beautiful pink blossoms, and will hopefully look like it “just happened” to grow that way!