Deer!

Family, Nature, WV, ,

On May 27, Emily and the kids witnessed a baby deer walk wobbly down into our yard.  The deer was all legs and was clearly very newly born.  The mother deer was nearby for awhile but we didn’t see where they went so assumed they left.  A little later, Abigail yelled, “I see a deer!”  I didn’t believe her at first but I followed her anyhow.  There, under a tree lay a baby deer all curled up.  The mother was no where to be found so we assumed she had abandoned her fawn.  We decided to wait it out a bit down on our patio.  Just a few minutes later, the fawn decided to come check us out.  It was so friendly that we couldn’t help but touch it.  I was concerned that we had ruined any chance of the mother accepting the baby again.  Still, we decided to wait it out, this time inside the house since the fawn curled up under our patio furniture.  Eventually (a long time later!), the mother came back through and picked up her fawn.  We hadn’t seen them in awhile but the other day, we saw them (or another family of deer?) in the yard.  This time, there were 2 fawns with the doe.  I was relieved to see that all was well!

The hard thing for me to believe is that there are so many deer in Charleston.  It was quite a thrill to see this all unfold.  We see deer several times a week eating apples at the neighbors’ apple trees or the new leaves on my raspberries.  I think we see more wild life here than we ever expected we would see in the city.  There are goods and bads about that but, I love that we get to see the deer so close!

New fawn

Isaac and the fawn

fawn knocking on the door

naptime for fawn

Fawns

Family of deer

Smoked Ribs!

Food

Smoker in action!
We had some friends over last night and decided to smoke some ribs on the smoker. We were gifted this smoker by a neighbor in TN. Anyhow, Emily bought 2 full racks of ribs which we covered with a dry rub. We used to get a rub mix in TN called “Butt Rub” but got something else here in WV. Anyhow, we rubbed the meat with it and waited for the charcoal to get ready. I always apply a generous dose of lighter fluid to the charcoal before I light it. I wait for it to burn down and then add another generous dose (don’t try this at home…I now have significantly less hair on my right leg as compared to my left leg). Once that flare up burns down, I add a pan of water, the meat racks and the meat. Ribs take around 5 hours to smoke if all goes well. I add hickory chips pretty often but not obsessively so. Sometimes I soak them overnight and sometimes I don’t. I don’t see too much difference really. Anyhow, the fire never needs tending…except to add more hickory now and then. We smoke a lot of different meats including whole chickens, salmon, pork chops, and steak. I haven’t found anything I don’t like on it. The meat is never dry (that’s why we add the pan of water) or tough. Most times, it falls right off the bones in fact. The only downside is that it takes a long time to cook, it can be hard to start a fire in the rain, and neighborhood dogs may become curious (who can blame them?)Smoked Ribs!

We had a debate last night regarding the benefits of dry rub versus wet sauce. We definitely prefer dry rub as it just seems more civilized. Ribs are pretty messy anyhow, but wet ribs are the worst. The compromise we worked out last night was to provide bbq sauce for anyone who wanted it (the uncivilized few!)

 

Sauerkraut!

Canning, Garden,

cabbage for kraut

Cabbage was done so we started a batch of sauerkraut yesterday morning.  Emily’s granddad picked the cabbage

Shredded cabbage

and her grandmother and I shredded 6 heads.  Our recipe said to work with 5 lbs of cabbage at a time so we shredded and weighed it head at a time.  Kraut is really simple to make…or at least set up.  We had a few stone crocks into which we packed 1/3 of the 5 lbs of cabbage, followed by 1 tbsp of salt.  I rolled the salt and cabbage together in the crock until it was mixed and the water was drawn out of the cabbage.  We repeated until we had 10 pounds of cabbage in the crock.  It as amazing how much water was stored in the cabbage.  By the time we got 10 lbs in, water covered the cabbage and had allowed the cabbage itself to pack down significantly.  We put a plate on top of the crock of kraut

cabbage and weighed it down with mason jars full of water.  I will check it every day for 3-4 weeks to remove scum that may buildup.  Our basement is 75 degrees which should allow the cabbage to ferment pretty quickly.  We’ll (hopefully) have good kraut to can at the end.weighted kraut

Chanterelle mushrooms!

Canning, Garden, WV, ,

We decided to venture into the woods a little last night to hunt for some mushrooms.  There are tons of mushrooms growing on the leaf-bed in the forest we wisited.  Some I know are edible like the chanterelles we harvested.  There are some that I know are not safe to eat and there are a lot I don’t know about.  A friend is teaching me about mushrooms because I want to be an old mushroom eater!  I took a bunch more pictures when I went mushroom hunting with her on July 4th.  Anyhow, last night Isaac, Emily and I hiked only a short distance before Isaac found a patch of wild blueberries so he remained occupied with that.  After gathering mushrooms, we found a patch of blackberries so we picked a bunch of them and made 9 more half-pints of jam.  I am amazed, now that I am looking, how much food is growing around us here in the Charleston city-limits…I am also amazed at how poison ivy grows around here!

More blackberries

Canning, Garden, WV, ,

The blackberries are aplenty right now. We picked 2 1/2 qrts on Sunday, 4 qrts on Tuesday, and 4 more qrts tonight. The kids’ excitement has completely worn off by now though. Isaac brought a book while Abigail brought her positive outlook ;). My Dad (and sometimes I) used to pick blackberries along the logging roads near the house when I was younger. I am sure I always had a positive attitude. Anyhow, we have canned 27 half-pints of jam and 5 pints of syrup so far!  I think we will make a bunch more into syrup for pancakes since we probably have enough jam to last until next year. I see some blackberry homemade ice cream in our future too!  Speaking of that, Isaac and I discovered that a little jam (before pectin) tastes awesome on ice cream. I don’t care much for ice cream so I just get a little dab of ice cream and a heap of syrup. I don’t know what we are going to do if the picking continues to be as strong. I just can’t bear to see the food go to waste.  For the first time, we noticed how much poison ivy is in the berry patch.  I am not sure how we missed it before but we are hoping that we didn’t bring any of it home with us as well.

 

 

 

 

Rain!

Family, WV, ,

Isaac and Abigail’s aunt and uncle got them a rain guage for Christmas this year and they have been fascinated by it ever since.  Abigail in particular checks it for rainfall and then empties it everyday on our way to school.  Well, this has been an active year for her to say the least.  I looked at the NOAA site for information on how much rain we have gotten this year.  Charleston averages 44.05 inches of rain per year and July is typically the wettest month with an average of 4.86 inches.  From January 1 until June 30, we got 26.28 inches, above the average of 21.98 inches for the same period. Last year we only got 15.65 inches in the first half of the year.  July is looking like it will continue this year’s wet trend.  Our rain guage measured 1.7 inches from yesterday’s rainfall though the official measurement for the day was 1.16 (officially we got 1.54 the day before also).  Anyhow, it seems so strange to get so much rain since we have been pretty dry (it seems) the last bunch of years.  I prefer the green grass compared to the brown grass of last year but it is not welcome inside my house.  The basement has some wet spots.  Fortunately, it has floor drains too!

Domain name chaos

Technology

As you may have experienced, my initial domain name, buzz-honey.com has been up and down and generally all screwed up.  I registered the domain with yahoo in 2005 and had been chugging along with them just paying $8.95 per year to keep the site/name active.  This year, I noticed that they planned to raise the rate to $34.95 per year.  I decided to transfer my registration to another service which is supposed to be an easy process.  I signed up with namecheap.com to transfer my domain and crossed my fingers.  I had to get the transfer password from yahoo so I called them and asked what to do.  They said I needed to cancel my service with yahoo in order for the transfer to take place.  I argued with the technician thinking that it can’t be a good thing to cancel with them.  He assured me that it was the only way to make the transfer happen and that my site would continue to exist as-is until the transfer.  Foolishly, I cancelled my yahoo account and within 2 hours, buzz-honey was down.  Only slightly irritated, I called yahoo back and asked them what happened.  The next technician said that cancelling the yahoo account made them drop the domain and move it to melbourne-it, the company in Australia that they use to register domains.  I gave this technician the name of the first technician and asked him to inform/reprimand him.  Anyhow, I then began the chore of contacting melbourne-it.  Not wanting to make an international phone call, I foolishly decided to send them an email…and then another…and then another.  I got no response until 3 days later.  Even then, the response was a canned blurb.  I was pretty irritated by this point so I purchased the new domain name for this blog from namecheap.com hoping to get something back up and running.  Nameheap did a great job, was quick to respond, had online chat support, etc.  I definitely recommend them.  Anyhow, 6 days passed between domain transfer initiation to  completetion.  Apparently that is not too bad as I have read stories of transfers taking much longer.  Still, it is unacceptable for a domain name transfer to be this much of a problem.  Take heed!

Blackberries

Canning, Family, Garden,

Blackberries are going full steam right now. Late this afternoon, we headed for the berry patch. Most of us went to pick. Isaac informed us he was not there to pick…he

was there to eat. I think he ate his fill because he pitched in and picked a bunch of berries as well. Both kids were a tremendous help in the berry patch. We intend to return to it on Tuesday evening and every couple of days as long as the berries hold out.

After about an hour of picking, we got 4 and a half quarts of berries. As soon as we got home, Abigail, Emily and I started making jam. We got a total of 9 half-pint jars of jam. We’re really enjoying canning our harvest. Emily and I both have a lot of fun doing it and have decided it is our favorite hobby to do together.

We saw a couple of cool things while at the berry patch too. When we first walked up, we happened upon a deer eating OUR BERRIES!. Isaac scared her off of course. The other cool thing we saw was a 6-foot black snake. Isaac wanted to pet it but the snake had other plans. We’ll keep an eye out for him next time!

Rain? Water?

Family

We went swimming with some friends at the Charleston Tennis Club today. We’d never been to their facilities before but the pool area is very nice. Anyhow, about 15 minutes after we got there, we heard thunder and had to clear the pool. We grabbed some snacks and decided to wait it out. We tried the water again and were cleared by thunder before our teeth began to chatter. At the end of this storm, a young hawk flew in and landed on the diving board. We were able to walk to within arms length of it which was pretty neat. Eventually, he just flew off and we hit the pool again. A third round of thunder came through and we decided to heard for the house. Somehow we were able to get sunburned so it wasn’t a total wash. Speaking of wash, we couldn’t when we got home. The feeder line that serves our road was leaking like crazy. The water company was able to fix it pretty quickly but we were without water for an hour or two. Water was our problem today!

Independence Day

Family, Garden,

What an Independence Day! Isaac and I walked in the woods with some friends this morning and had a lot of fun discovering all sorts of things while Emily and Abigail worked around the house. We started some ribs smoking around lunch in preparation for a 4th of July feast at supper time. Bud and Donna came over and ate ribs and corn and salad and taters and Hinora’s Stuff with us. Hmm…what is Hinora’s stuff? Here’s the core recipe (add whatever else is garden fresh): 

 

Hinora’s Stuff

1 diced, unpeeled potato per person

1 green pepper

3 small green onions

1 tbsp butter

2-3 jalapenos

1 yellow squash

2 cloves of garlic

half a small head of cabbage

1 green tomato

Cut it all up, pitch it in a skillet and fry till tender. It sounds so-so and looks so-so but tastes SO, SO good!

We messed around after eating until the city fireworks started. We headed outside and watched about 5 minutes’ worth until the rain poured. Some of us endured the rain and viewed it as a much needed shower. As the finale wrapped up, our teeth reached full chatter, our boots were filled with water and the rain stopped…perfect timing as usual!