Horsie Camp

Is only a few weeks away! Preparations are mighty with no expenses spared. Has anyone seen big containers of Horsie Sparkle Spray or Hoof Polish? Say, oh, fifty gallons or so?

Here's Bubbles, tacking up for her lesson yesterday (no sparkles though):

Growing Geese and Canine Considerations

The girls are getting quite big now and pretty much free range full time, if it can be called that indoors. Left to their own devices they'll stay in their room, or hang out on the porch. Their room has a giant soft bed in front of a fireplace, and all their toys. The porch has the irresistable attraction of a water feature.

They are growing into their clothes and look very nice with a big bow attached for special occasions. They've made a few tiny little honks, they'll need to work on that if they want to be heard over the Dynamic Duo's incessant barking.

In other news, it's been determined that Rufous is very possibly an American Staffordshire Terrier. You can see him, and a googled example below. What do you think? (Rufous is not the one with a pink bow, just in case there was a question).

The Great Hog Hunt

Begins tomorrow night, well, hopefully a couple of hours before dark, as cleaning pigs by lantern light sucks.

We have major feral hog population problems here, enough that it's now open season year round, really, officially. They are terribly destructive and there are increasing numbers of people being attacked by boars. Since they have no natural predators and sows can have a dozen or more babies per year, their numbers are growing exponentially. There's no effective means of control.

Well, except shooting them. I prefer a rifle, but some use a pistol. Hogs are very tough; any pistol used should be large caliber, and you'd best be a darn good shot-they will take a **** of a hit, get up and come after you (much like a cottonmouth). I use an AR (lots of pigs, lots of bullets), or a 30.06, hit them anywhere in the right zip code and they're down for good. Any larger caliber will do; I always take The Judge as back up.

The challenge is being ready when they show up. The batch that just spurred this post has been around for several days, tearing up our pasture, and will likely return tomorrow at about the same time. They'll make excellent eating.

Here's a couple of pictures of live pigs at some one else's place. The babies are very cute, but in just a few weeks they'll be able to destroy a quarter acre each, within an hour or so. I'll try to post some shots of their handy work here tomorrow, along with the score card-so far it's Hogs-0, Me-4.



Update: Added photo of Pig Plowed Patch

Monday Harvest

I saw this topic on a bunch of garden blogs recently, except the produce is usually all weighed and measured and assigned cash value. Well here's the salad I picked today, priceless:

Happy Earth Day!

As usual, it's all about food around here, however only a select few will grasp this powerful message.


Since we can't have Snowball Cake anymore (long story of a failed recipe) here's the answer:

Climate Change Cake!

Flowers and Things

It's very busy but we're catching up a bit lately, sort of.

Yesterday we got the now empty onion beds ready for planting and today the summer squash, eggplant, melon, and pumpkin seeds will go in. There are also additional beds for either popcorn or sunflowers, or both.

We had to buy pepper transplants this year; for some reason that bed had almost complete germination failure. The seeds were from a variety of reliable sources, and all types grown here previously, planted at the proper time in the correct fashion .This failure is clearly George Bush's Fault.. At any rate, we should have peppers soon.

I really like flowers, there just isn't much time for them. Still, here's a couple of arrangements made from cuttings from the yard-they'll get better as more blooms become available, and yes, I need a better vase, it's on the list. There's no catnip in these but this little cross eyed kitty is convinced its there, somewhere (she truly is cross eyed):

Goose Girls II

Okay, so Mistakes Were Made. When the girls diapers were ordered, the wrong sizes were obtained-how many times have you sized goosie undergarments? Right. So they've just grown into them and now are just trying them out for the first time. It's been overall much easier than dressing chickens, at least so far. Mostly it means they're much closer to getting out of their box and enjoying a much improved quality of life.

Eventually they'll have a fancy house and pond outside, but for now this is a great step forward.

Goose Girls

There is monsoonal rain, continuous lightning, and roiling thunder right now. The Noble Steeds will have a late breakfast today. Horses are a furry variety of lightning rod after all.

So, here's the girls in their Bigger Better pool, on the porch, with all the dogs and cats. They have a great time and are very excited to hang out with us for hours at a time.

Berry Picking Time

Today I my own self pulled up about 200# of onions. Oddly, the 1015's didn't seem to do as well as garden variety Granex. Southern Belle (red variety) out performed 2:1 easily, but that's s hybrid after all. We are still in a high state of lettuce and hanging around the tomatoes trying to ripen them by force of will.

Mostly though it's dewberry time. There's not a lot of them, and they are hard to pick being on the ground, with bugs and snakes, but they're worth it. They have a bit of raspberry like flavor that the more common blackberry doesn't. We've had a couple of cobblers and I was able to make some jam in the very early morning. The dewberry is pretty much for us, there just isn't enough to share. And after all, blackberries will be along in a couple of weeks...and there's lot's of them, plenty to go around.

In Other News...

The chicks have been variously dispersed into the environment, ours integrated a bit early due to an injured hen that needed to convalesce in the Baby House. It was a big injury , too graphic for these pages, but she'll be fine other than possibly blind in the affected eye.

Up in The Garden the corn is about six inches high. It's Merit, a hybrid. We'll see. There's probably tomatillos, maters soon to follow. Squash and eggplant are next, then melons and punkin's. With luck of course; so far so good.

The Goose Girls do seem to be girls and shall be Anastasia and Tatiana. Unless they are boys, then they'll be Ani and Tater. Of course.

The Littlest Girls are sitting on Five Boxes of Honey. We have no bottles, no foundation, and only one or two hive boxes; we have no freezer space either, so I guess the rest of it doesn't matter all that much LoL.

(Oh, there's of course the obligatory dessert photo too.)

Cooking Class: Asparagus a la Lamaii

It's busy here, but my feet hurt, so here's an easy recipe. Pick or buy a bunch of asparagus; it's often recommended that it be blanched. I never do. Prosciutto is Italian bacon, it's paper thin, nothing like real bacon. It's a bit spendy, but a little goes a long way; real bacon takes to long to cook, just buy the prosciutto, trust me. You can use any sort of cream cheese type product, they all work.


Asparagus a la Lamaii

Makes Lots

One or Two bunches of Asparagus
Prosciutto, one package
Cream cheese, one container

1) Trim the woody ends off the asparagus, rinse and pat dry;

2). Cut a slice of $$, I mean prosciutto, in half;

3). Spread one of the pieces with a modest amount of cheese, about a tablespoon (others would probably call it generous, not so much, hmm?)

4). Wrap several spears with the cheesy bacon, it varies with size, so use your judgement here as to how how many spears to wrap. The prosciutto will stick to itself, just like real bacon.

5). Repeat with remaining ingredients;

6). Arrange on a heat proof tray;

7). Broil on high until just browned on the edges, or until it otherwise looks tasty to you. We usually go about five minutes.

8). Smile and serve: