Communism, Pizza & Castles: 11/20

 

 

Park Zoo Baths: 11/19

cannibal crow

clones

hungarian playgrounds are AWESOME

movie set

Szent István-bazilika

bathing in the electronic glow

magyar heroes

giraffe

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hippos

Vajdahunyad Castle

gilded ceiling Széchenyi Medicinal Baths

bookworm in the baths

superman whirlpool

Beastmaster

második nap/the second day: 11/18

April in the Aztek Choxolat courtyard

Széchenyi lánchíd (Chain Bridge)

Szent István-bazilika (St. Stephen's Basilica)

Andrassy Ut twilight

Sweet, spicy paprika in 3 of its many forms

golden balcony

kövér rendőr (fat policeman)

moustachioed

mommy's got a new man, matilda looks away

Charlotte to Munich, First Day in Budapest: 11/16-11/17

stop-over in Munich

The Beast & dad catch a few zzzs on the short hop from Budapest to Munich

Matilda and her kitty settle in for our first night dinner at Karma

Hungarian pride mural

Great Market Hall

Meat

working the euro scarfs

quiet side-street on a late November afternoon

April & Matilda's shadows

sexy bearded Hungarian statue

Ghosts & Goblins & To-Do Lists

First thing on the to-do list: update this blog which has languished in limbo since early August.  Ideas for a new post included Matilda's first birthday party, Matilda learns to walk & Matilda does P90x.  It is amazing how quickly this turned from a blog about farm life into a scrapbook on our daughter's development.  The focus on MatildaBeast coincided with the least productive, most dissapointing growing season since we moved to Cardinal Ridge.  The apples never appeared on the apple trees.  This time of year it usually is impossible to get any traction with the riding mower on the orchard hill.  With so many fallen apples laying in the grass, it's a bit like driving over fermenting, green marbles.  No trouble at all this year, nary a single rotting apple amidst the drying grass and leaves.  Same story with the peach trees, I remember walking back to the peach orchard in early June and smelling the sweet perfume of the young fruits ripening on the trees, nearing delicious maturity.  The peaches were set heavy on the branches this year and I had no time to thin them to allow the most promising fruits more time to develop.  When I went back to check on them the very next weekend, an assault force of beetles, wasps & flies had ravaged every tree.  I gingerly plucked bitten and oozing peaches off the trees and ate around the wound, but the joy of biting into a ripe peach and tasting the explosion of juice and flavor that runs down your face was just not to be found this year.  Our incredibly mild winter last year never allowed the trees to really go dormant, the mercury never dipped down below freezing long enough to kill off the legion of insects waiting to consume everything we cultivate either.  The warm winter was a fickle mistress, in March not longer after the fruit trees had set their blossom flowers we had a bitter freeze that killed off much of the new growth.  Each bud only can produce one blossom, so that set the season off to a poor start we never recovered from.

Up in the raised beds we had cut down on the varieties of tomatoes we grow, replacing some of the finnicky heirloom types like Cherokee Purple with low-maintenance varieties like Roma and Yellow Sunshine.  We ended up with blossom end rot for the first time in our tomato patch, brought on by heavy rains followed by hot dry weather.  We lost nearly all of the first crop of tomatoes.  April finally cured the rot with a generous application of calcium, using the oyster shell pieces we add to the chicken feed to make their egg shells tougher.  The persian eggplants I was so excited for never showed up on their vines.  Only a single pear hung from the droopy limbs of our pear tree.  I plucked it too early, while it was still hard and it tasted of tofu-esque nothingness, devoid of any of the sweet goodess that had once inspired preserve flavors like Caramel Apple Pear & Lemon Ginger Pear.  Japanese Beetles set up shop in the grape vines and munched through untold numbers of leaves like an irridescent green buzzsaw.  No amount of neem oil or pyrethrum could halt their orgy of devastation.  Then black rot moved in for the win, shrivelling the succulent orbs of ripe grapes into wrinkled black raisins overnight.  It was an agricultural apocalypse, a total farming fiasco.

One of the few bright spots were the bullet-proof, goliath carrots that produced all summer long.  They stayed ripe in the ground until we finally pulled the last few out of the raised bed last week.  The blackberries and raspberries were prolific, nearly every delicious berry met its end in the maw of the MatildaBeast.  24 of our 27 baby chicks survived to see young adulthood.  Due to their late hatch in May none has started laying yet and with the start of cold weather I don't think we will be seeing any eggs from them until next spring.  It has been a much less deadly year for our birds with regards to predators, knock on wood.  I have been able to free range the flock without any losses in over 3 months.  I'm not sure if Clyde has stepped up his game or if I have just been real lucky.  Our Blue Heeler will let the deers frolic in the front pasture for hours without doing a thing but he is pretty good about streaking out towards the coop barking like a madman without any provocation.  I guess I have to give that chubby bastard a little credit.  The older gals have started to molt and egg production is way down, we barely have enough eggs for ourselves let alone enough to sell.  As the girls have gotten older their egg shells have gotten flimsier and we have to take special care now washing them so they don't break.  One of the biggest sucesses this year has been our automatic chicken watering system comprised of a 50 gallon rain barrel set up on a stump that feeds a water bowl with a gravity valve.  We still keep some 5 and 7 gallon waterers in the coop as a backup but it has cut down the number of times we have to refill those from daily to once a week.  Once we are looking at a good freeze, I will need to drain the rain barrel so it doesn't crack and bring in the hose as well.  I thought of putting an electric coil heater in the rain barrel but I don't like the idea of having electric wire exposed to the winter elements and a hot coil in a plastic barrel.  So it looks like it will be back to filling the waterers the old fashioned way, trying not to splash the ice cold water on my flannel pajama bottoms.  I am looking at going to an automated coop door opener as well, which would allow us to take overnight trips without worrying about a raccon or possum getting into the coop.  It isn't cheap but I've learned from the automatic waterer that dollars spent making chores easier are dollars well spent.   The farmer' almanac is calling for a colder than average winter with much more snow than we had last year so I am also considering putting in a few more lights up since the ladies may be cooped up for extended periods.

The never ending to do list has entered its winter preperation phase which includes such favorites as stacking firewood on the front porch, cleaning the gutters, mulching up leaves on the riding mower, cutting down some dead trees and covering the berries and asparagus with hay.  I always look forward to the fall because I think there will be so much less to do, but I suppose it's just doing different things that I am looking forward to.  It may be trite but I really enjoy experiencing the changing seasons and knowing what time of year it is just by looking at the leaves or by what chores I am doing.  With April and I both working again, we have been dreaming of some rennovations on our old brick pirate ship of a house.  First on the list would be a bathroom remodel, then we'd like to paint the brick exterior white and replace the windows, trim & gutters, eventually we will replace the ceiling tiles with drywall and maybe put in some built in bookshelves and cabinets for our ever growing collection of books & stuff.   All in good time.

That's the current state of affairs up on Cardinal Ridge.  We'll surely make some time to go for a hike or two with the dogs and to rake up a big leaf pile for Matilda to play in.  There will hopefully be some apples to pick and hot donuts to eat out at the Apple Hill Orchard & Cider Mill outside of Morganton.  We'll be rooting for South Caldwell High School's football team to stay undefeated and make some noise in the playoffs this year.  And we'll probably go back to annoying our friends by posting way too many pictures and stories about the MatildaBeast on Facebook and this blog.  Happy Halloween!

Overheard at the Petting Zoo

Please don't feed the children

Woman in line to buy treats for her kids to feed the animals in the petting zoo:

Remember these ain't for you 'uns to eat!

The Fabric of our Lies

Man turns to his son and points out a white, wooly lamb:

Look Josh, that's where cotton comes from!

Damn you & your sunshine, fresh air & deadly flying insects Mother Nature

The Jacob family spends their Sunday evening relaxing on the lawn; a few days after April was stung by a wasp in the laundry room...

April shrieks and swats her arms frantically as wasp zooms nearby:

That's it!  I'm going inside!  This is unacceptable!

Jon looks up from watching Matilda swim in her kiddie pool:

What is?  Nature?

Snake Eyes

It's been a hot summer so far up here on Cardinal Ridge.  Temperatures have stayed near 100 degrees for the last couple of weeks and rain has been scarce.  We've kept the garden on life support with some sprinkler drenchings after the sun goes down and learned how chickens look when they pant.  The dogs are lazier than ever.  We can't leave Otto outside for longer than a few minutes without him taking a field trip down to the creek and coming back with his undercarriage filthy with mud.  The dry heat seems to keep the grass growing a little slower so I have been able to spend more time playing on the floor with Matilda under the ceiling fan.

the thicket

The berries were especially bountiful this year.  A big thicket of wild blackberries rose up at the bottom of the apple orchard along the driveway.  We were able to fill 4 buckets full, but as slow and thorny as that work is, I think blackberries should rival gold in price per oz.  We snacked on the tart, seedy little treats while they were fresh and then put up 6 jars of blackberry preserves.  Matilda is a big fan of the blackberry, but her favorite berry is definitely the raspberry.

blackberry beast

We planted a thornless raspberry bush next the garage when we moved in and two years later we finally got a decent harvest this year.  Every night when April arrives home with Matilda we walk over and pick all the ripe raspberries for her, enjoying listening to her as she happily chomps down and coos, "MMMMNNNN!"  Two blueberry bushes we planted in whiskey barrels also hit their stride this year producing a nice bounty; but we lost one of the two bushes we planted in the ground due to the heat.

putting up blackberry preserves

The apples and peaches have suffered this year.  They both need a good number of days with below freezing temps in the winter to go dormant and conserve energy for the spring and summer.  This winter was mild and short so they never really shut down; spring came early and was really wet.  The apple trees are covered in water spouts,  thickly leafed with very few apples.  Cedar apple rust has covered many of the leaves with golden raised scabs, inhibiting photosynthesis and reducing yields.  The peaches are almost a total loss.  We haven't harvested a single one and it's not looking like we will.  The cytospora canker has worn them down;  the wet spring & brutal heat are just the nails in the coffin  Matilda seems to enjoy munching on the few apples we have, even though they are still really tart and weeks from fully ripe.  There's always next year...

Our raised beds are doing great.  The heavy rains in March and April got the tomatoes, tomatillos and hot peppers off to a roaring start and they have continued to thrive through the long, sun-drenched days of May & June.  We'll be getting back to  making our spicy golden tomatillo salsa this after focusing mostly on the red tomato based stuff last year due to a dearth of tomatillos.  We spent Fourth of July pulling carrots and beets out of the lowest raised bed and April found an awesome recipe for Moroccan raw carrot salad.  It sounds like the last thing you would want to pair with hot dogs and hamburgers to celebrate American independence, but Morocco was the first country to recognize the new United States in 1777.  Think grated carrots, lemon, cilantro, garlic, olive oil & spices.  It's surprisingly awesome and the full recipe can be found here(we left out the cinnamon and substituted jalapenos for the harissa).  We steamed some beets,  threw a few links on the grill and enjoyed a mellow 4th on the porch.

making Moroccan carrot salad & Chioggia beets

There is a strange cycle of dominance with our roosters that is both fascinating and heartbreaking.  The current King of the Coop is Chet who usurped that position from Bad Bird.   Bad Bird had been hyper-aggressive towards April, Clyde, and I before a duel with Chet that left him near death when I found him gasping for air deep in the woods.  I separated him from the flock and nursed him back to health with another sick hen in the barn next to the coop.  One morning, I went to check on the convalescing duo and discovered a pile of feathers on the dirt floor.  Bad Bird had repelled an assault by either a raccoon or possum on the hen and somehow survived the fight.  That was when I fell in love with Bad Bird and we became inseparable.  He began to follow April and me around the garden and orchards.  Where he once would strike aggressive postures and charge, he just meekly hung around and pecked for bugs.  Even his beef with Clyde was put on ice once he lost his crown. It was amazing how the new pecking order seemed to be recognized across inter-species lines.  Clyde and Bad Bird began to co-exist peacefully once there was nothing left to prove with regards to dominance.

Saturday: I walked out into the soupy humidity to find the two previously submissive roosters attacking and pecking the living crap out of Chet.  My first thought was to find some gloves.  Chet would never allow me to pick him up without some serious resistance from beak and spurs.  After donning gloves, I got between Chet and Wang, the Sumatran fighting cock.  Turns out I didn't need those gloves.  I recognized the same labored, raspy breathing in Chet as when I had found Bad Bird in the woods.  His comb was tattered and bloody.  I scooped him up and held him in my arms for the first time.  Chet was docile as I put him in the other side of the coop where the little biddies had been living.  I got him some fresh water and made sure he drank a bit, then I left him to recover in a dark corner of the coop.  The king had been usurped.

Sunday morning: I walk out into 90 degrees before 9 am.  The kind of heat that sucks the energy from you and sticks to your skin like sweaty syrup.  The day did not begin well.  I let the big birds out and then opened the door to the chick's side of the coop.  A Blue Andalusian lay prone in the sawdust; stiff with rigor mortis.  I picked up the pullet and saw the entire body was intact, no obvious wounds or bites.  The head was still attached and the vent had not been gnawed out, this was not a weasel or possum casualty.  What caught my eye was the matted, damp feathers from the head down to the neck, the beak had been slightly crushed, there were shallow cuts along the trachea.  It looked like something tried to swallow the chick and got hung up on the body, the chick was too big to eat whole and had suffocated while the predator tried to cram it down its throat.  A snake.

The other chicks had crowded around Chet, I believe he attacked the snake and drove it out of the coop. A snake will usually never leave the scene of the crime especially with more victims readily available.  Chet looked even more torn up than he did the day before, there were fresh wounds on his comb.  I walked back to the house hurting from the heat and the loss of the baby bird.  I told April I wanted to move all the chicks over to the other side of the coop where the other roosters might provide more protection.  After breakfast, we walked back out to the coop and commenced Operation Relocation.  I caught the pullets one by one, handing them off to April who placed them into the other side of the coop.  Once we were finished, I told April I wanted to dig up the corpse of the Blue Andalusian from the compost pile to get her medical opinion on what had killed it.  Before I could  plant the shovel into the pile of wood chips, April was shouting, "SNAKE! SNAKE!"  April does not like snakes.  I looked down around my flip flopped feet and saw nothing.  She pointed up around shoulder level, toward the gate to the coop and I saw this:

black snake caught in the bird netting

My first instinct was for revenge.  I wanted to shoot that snake straight through its head with the Ruger 10/22 or my Daisy Red Ryder,  avenging the chick without blasting the coop to pieces.  As I examined the snake, I saw its considerable girth somehow wound through tiny openings in the plastic bird netting, the thin black nylon cutting deeper and deeper into its scaled hide.  I thought about the reptilian brain; cold, remorseless; a killing machine that feels no pain.  At that point, I believed the snake was sure to die.  Doomed to slice itself to pieces writhing against the netting in the heat until it expired, a death not befitting a warrior.  I felt it would be right and merciful to kill it quickly with a couple shots to the head.  April retrieved my BB gun and I loaded it and test fired a few shots against a stump.  I don't know what came over me next.  I just could not stand to kill the snake without trying to save him.  He did not deserve salvation, not after killing a chick.  But death had already visited the ridge that morning and I would be damned if it returned by my hand.  Life is too precious, even the life of a black snake.  I hatched a plan to cut the snake free and throw him into a chicken feed bag; relocate him to the back acreage by the cabin a long ways from the coop.  It took almost an hour of slow, methodical cuts to loose the snake.  The serpent never got aggressive towards me, even as the knife slid under its scales into its corpus into order to cut the netting.  I swear I saw an almost human gratitude in its eyes as it regained freedom of movement with each cut.  My mistake was to not get a firm grip on him behind his neck before I sawed the last strands binding him to the netting.  The snake slid off like a black rocket towards the entrance to the coop.  I panicked.  I could not lose any more chicks.  I grabbed a hoe rested at the entrance to the coop, walked into the coop, measured the distance and swung; decapitating the snake I had worked so hard to save.  It took several more swings before I was satisfied that the wounds were mortal.  I scooped the snake's body onto a pitchfork and buried him as far from the chick as possible in the compost pile.  I can not explain the feelings you experience going from savior to executioner in seconds flat.  The moral dilemma of the gentleman farmer.