I love Mike!

My hubby is the most practical and loving man.  He is so very special that I dedicate this post to him!  Thank you go putting up with me and my family for 32 years.  I love you!  Big hug and kiss, you are the most wonderful person in the world!

Deer invasion

My neighbor who recently died had a passion for all God's creatures (her description) and that included feeding the local deer.   We have experienced a population explosion due to the deer getting fed about 150 pounds of corn each week.   Due to my neighbor's death, the deer are now hungry since I refuse to feed the local wild critters.  However, my poor collard greens have been eaten leaving me little fresh produce for the table.  The two messes of collard greens I did get before my neighbor's death were out of the world good.  I always remain hopeful though.  I might get some fresh deer meat soon and that would be awesome too.

Rest in Peace, Mom, and thank you for everything!

My Step-Mom raised me from the time I was five years old.  Like any Mother-Daughter relationship we had our ups and downs.  She did things wrong as I did.  I had a smart mouth and she was quick to punish any sign of it.  She believed in corporal punishment and I was beaten regularly between the ages of five and thirteen.  I hated her for that.  Then at thirteen I discovered how to keep my mouth shut and she started to teach me to cook.  She was a superb German-style cook while I lean toward Italian-style cooking.  I so appreciate the skills she taught me.  I didn't realize until recently that I was a prep chef long before the popular cooking shows featured it.  Together we cooked for a large and extended family.  We were poor monetarily but my Dad hunted and fished and had a large garden every year.  "Mom" made fresh baked rolls that would melt in your mouth.  We never lacked for food because we grew it ourselves or Dad caught it.  One year she taught me how to can and another year taught me how to make jellies and jams.  Summertime at our house was very active preparing for the next winter.    She never learned to make decent saurkraut; it was her only failing.  Spoiled kraut is bad, very very bad in the house.  She also failed to can the fresh sausage correctly one year and it spoiled.  The smell was horrendous.  Everything else though was so good to eat.  I can not eat mediocre food because of her; she set the food standard in my life very high.  Here is a picture I snapped on my phone of her during one of her last "good" days.  Her mind was clear to the end but her body failed her.

Hello World

My Mother, Polly, passed away October 26th.  In one year I have lost my Father, my Mother, three Aunts, an Uncle and my neighbor of 25 years.  It has been a very long and very sad year.  I am seeing a counselor to deal with the sadness, anger and hurt I am experiencing at the loss of so many this year.  I think if I could dig and work in the dirt and tend to my animals that I'd heal much quicker.   Rest in Peace, Mom and Dad.  You loved and were loved in return.  Thank you for everything - I will love you forever!

My bee colony did well up until the Alabama summer sizzled.  In early August, as I was spending more time helping care for my Mother in all my spare time, my bees were invaded by a yet to be determined predator.  Their honeycombs were blackened by the fecal material of the worm invader.  Had I been home and available maybe it would not have happened and I could have saved the colony.  It is disheartening to report the loss of  a one-time flourishing colony.

I will be very glad to see the end of 2011.  I want to sit and make plans for a bigger and better garden in 2012, to establish a couple of new bee colonies and to continue my plans for more self sufficiency.  God's Blessing to all for a safe and wonderful Holiday Season!

Sundays

Sundays for me have always been a day of rest, reflection and food.  My Step Mom was a great cook - large quantities of germanic style cooking.  What the woman could do with cukes in sour cream and dill was amazing. We had german style potato salad - slathered in a vinegar and hot oil marinade - with bacon bits (real bacon) and green onions.  Pot roast for Sunday with carrots and red potatoes cooked in the beef's juices.  Homemade southern buttermilk biscuits and mustard greens.   So, so good.  Most of it homegrown.

For comfort food this week since both hubby and I are waylaid by a virus, I made tuna and mac casserole with a buttered crouton topping, collard greens simmered in chicken broth, a dab of cider vinegar and brown sugar with some ham hock, sweet potatoes baked slow and soft, everything but the kitchen sink soup (whatever is left over makes soup).  We have so many left over today that we eat when we want and as much as we want.

Ahhhh,  now for a nap and ballgames :>

Fall is in the Air

Everytime I work outside, I work with my Dad.  Images of him bending over his tractor and banging it when he got frustrated with it or cleaning his tools in an oil-soaked bucket of sand or just standing and looking out across his garden to the mountain in front of the house.  His eyes a brilliant surprising blue against a sun darkened face.  I loved my Dad so much and I miss him but I thank God for ending his life at the home he built with his own hands with his son and wife beside him when he breathed his last.  He was a good, good father and a good man.  He loved and was loved.  He gave me so much love of the land and nature.  God's Blessings to Art Oden this Sunday morning.  Love you Pop!


Getting over an ugly virus this weekend so I am staying inside and inactive as much as possible.  But I have my office window open and the breeze is blowing cool air into the house and I hear leaves falling and rustling.  Ah, Fall is in the air!


So, here is my Fall To-Do list:


Clean up the electric push mower and store it in the shed.  
  Make sure it is fully juiced for storing and then check each month until spring.
Clean out and organize the shed so something as large as the electric push mower can be stored in it.
  Make sure there are shelves and hangers aplenty.
Crack last year's black walnuts and hazelnuts to make a holiday nut torte (yum)
  and to provide space for this year's harvest of nuts
Move my farming equipment (including my beekeeping equipment) to my shed from wherever else it is on the property!
Put finished compost into garden
Plant clover for a nitrogen fix into garden soil
Mulch the fig bushes, blackberries and blueberries.  Apply some of the finished compost around these plants. 
Plant some ornamental dogwoods and fruit trees along our property line.  I want some pear trees for pear preserves in a few years.
Clip the chicken's wings.
Cull Prissy the white orphington and Pick the broody speckled sussex hen that is no longer laying from the flock.  We'll be down to two chickens for the winter but we'll have lots of good tasting chicken & dumplings.
Order next year's flock.
Start the mushroom logs
Find the copperhead snake that has taken up home around my shed and eliminate him. 
       Thought long and hard about this one as I hate to kill snakes but a copperhead is bitey critter - no warning, all bite.  It has to go before it gets me or one of my loved ones.
Get the big lawn tractor ready for winter storage.
Winterize the chicken coop for Peck and Penny and the new batch of pullets.
Start the bees on syrup for winter food.  Once started, I'll have to keep it up all winter.
Look for parasites in the beehive and treat.
Sharpen my garden tools
Clean up my flower gardens.
Open up the bluff from the rotten tree debris and put some sitting benches along the scenic overlook.
Find out the cost for livestock fencing around one acre (through the woods, down hill and uphill)
Reconsider building a "true" chicken house - I have the plans - just need to do it.


All these tasks will take me well into Winter.  I'll be lucky to have 1/2 of them done before fall is over.


My summer garden harvest was great.  Good year for cukes and cherry tomatos.  The heritage tomatoes I tried bombed.  I had lettuce almost all summer and it did not get bitter.  Next year we'll have a even better garden.

Updates

I've been away for a month or two trying to sort out  issues in my life that left me lethargic.  My father died in early April,  my step Mother fell at the end of April - a stroke and a broken hip.  My beloved Aunt succumbed to heart disease and heart failure in June.   I have some major life issues to address.  Went to my new-old doctor who  had been out of practice due to her own serious health issues.  Went to her after she sent a letter to her former patients saying she was back and was in full-time practice again.  I felt my current MD was not paying attention to my health issues.  So I went back to her saying I was depressed and that I had a rapid heart beat and general listlessness.  Rather than giving me anti depressants she did a full blood work up and it turns out that I have pernicious anemia. pernicious anemia is also termed Biermer's or Addison's anemia.  Thanks WebMD.com, I found out the following information:


"Pernicious anemia is due to an inability to absorb vitamin B-12 (also known as cobalamin or Cbl) from the gastrointestinal tract. Humans get vitamin B-12 from animal products; both meat and dairy products are dietary sources of vitamin B-12. The body is able to store vitamin B-12 for a long time, so inadequate dietary intake must persist for years before a true deficiency of vitamin B-12 is reached. Because of this, the symptoms of pernicious anemia usually do not appear for years. While pernicious anemia is most commonly diagnosed in adults with an average age of 60."

"Feelings of numbness, tingling, weakness, lack of coordination, clumsiness, impaired memory, and personality changes can all occur. Both sides of the body are usually affected, and the legs are typically more affected than the arms. A severe deficiency can result in more serious neurological symptoms, including severe weakness, spasticity, paraplegia, and fecal and urinary incontinence."

"As with other causes of anemia, symptoms related to decreased oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood can include tiredness and shortness of breath. Vitamin B-12 deficiency also interferes with the function of the nervous system, and symptoms due to nervous system damage may be apparent even before the anemia is discovered."  

"Symptoms of anemia are due to the reduced oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. Shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, and pale skin can all occur with anemia. In anemia, the heart is placed under stress since it has to work harder to deliver enough oxygen to body tissues. This can result in heart murmurs, fast heartbeats, arrhythmias, an enlarged heart (cardiomegaly), or even heart failure."

"Pernicious anemia is most common in Caucasian persons of northern European ancestry than in other racial groups. In this population, 10-20 people per 100,000 persons are diagnosed each year with pernicious anemia."

All of these symptoms are getting under control with weekly B12 shots, massive doses of calcium and vitamin D as well as just better health management. 

All this time to myself has me thinking about what to do next on the homestead - I had given my chickens a chit for life long support because I raised them as pets.  I had thought one could be a broody hen but that experiment failed grandly.  She did not take to the fertilized eggs. These pets eat roughly $30 per year of laying pellets plus require significant pasture and time to keep their coop clean - and they lay less and less.  So I'm thinking that with the cooler fall weather now in North Alabama it is time to cull the flock and then get a fresh batch of chickens for spring time laying.  If I proceed butchering the chickens, I need to do it now.