It’s been quite a long time since an update on the wee homestead projects and activities; it’s hard to know where to start! How about, for consistency sake, I bitch about the weather for a bit, and then move along to better tidings.
Of course the geoengineered chem-filled skies continue, as does our Yo-Yo season (formerly known as winter). We are using the air conditioning now, it’s been 80 degrees for days.
Buttercup is especially sensitive to the YoYo, to the point of regular getting seizures at such times, also lethargic and losing her appetite.
Buttercup hiding in her box all day.
There was of course the lows not long ago in the 20s and I was very concerned for the newly planted citrus. We employed quite the set up of lights and covers and they faired very well, I’m happy to report.
Invasion of Asian beetles on the citrus cover
But there has been a bad invasion of these awful beetles, which we’re vacuuming off the ceiling multiple times a day. Not to be confused with the garden-friend, the lovely little lady bugs, NO, these little beasts are really nasty. They infest, as obvious from the photos, and they bite, and as if that’s not enough, they stink.
I don’t like when folks call them lady bugs, they are not at all ladylike, so I try to correct them anytime I hear complaints, which is more often than you might think. The reaction I get is much more open and accepting than when I inform them about the manufactured weather.
Old lettuce bolting, replacing with new lettuce started under lights indoors, along with broccoli and cauliflower.
It does keep us on our toes, dealing with the Yo-Yo. Lettuce and herbs bolt prematurely quite often, seedlings come up then freeze or wither. We never know from week to week what to expect or how to plan.
I don’t normally have such a fancy setup, but these trays were gifted to me and they’re working quite well germinating some lobelia and snap dragons.
My indoor lights and heating mats make things easier, as does the row cover in the garden, but it is constant juggling. And if I miss a beat, death. Like happened with the Mexican oregano I was so proud of. I forgot about it outside one night when it frosted. Very disappointing considering our long journey of discovery, and how long I babied those few little sprouts, trying to anticipate their every need, carting them inside for warmth, then outside for sun and wind, and just when they were getting their legs, gone. All my fault.
Well, except for the geoengineers, because I wouldn’t be doing this constant refrain if our weather was consistent or predictable or seasonal.
I’ve tried twice since then to sprout the herb again with no luck. I will succeed eventually, of course, we’ve come too far in our quest to fail. The Mexican oregano has a long tale in these parts. Failure is not an option. More on that in the last HH post, if you like. https://kenshohomestead.org/2024/11/14/homestead-happenings-43/
I’d like to say it was the same with the milk quest. Unfortunately, I’m not nearly as confident; I feel failure is probably inevitable and maybe even imminent. For the time being I’m counting my blessings I’ve found another (perhaps temporary) source. Last time I was complaining about the cost, this one is even more expensive at $15/gallon. At that price I’m not going to be experimenting with any new cheeses, that’s for sure. To make cheese at all is not really feasible, except for the most delicious of selections—Camembert. Otherwise the precious commodity goes toward morning coffee, ice cream, and buttermilk for recipes and the extended expiration date.
Camembert to be draining before salting
I’ve been doing continued research on the topic of raw milk and what’s available and in general, where’s the market vibe. I found one young entrepreneur with a private herdshare selling cheese for $25 a pound. (A Herdshare Agreement or a Grade A license from the state are the only ways to sell raw milk in Texas legally.).
With my new herdshare deal I can buy more milk for cheesemaking, if I’m willing to pay $15/gallon. Considering the hard cheeses I typically made were 5 gallons ideally (better for aging in less than optimal conditions), that’s a really expensive cheese.
Certainly what can be made on-site are far better cheeses than can be bought at the store; that’s why I started making cheese in the first place. But still, it’s really hard to justify all that work, and expense, when we can still buy organic cheese for about $8/pound.
I will splurge one time in late spring, if possible, when the grass is thick and so the milk most rich. And we do still have two goats, hopefully pregnant, so there’s a small hope of cheesemaking in my future, if all goes well.
Moving on to the garden, the garlic is going strong and I’ve just got the onions in, 3 big rows of each. The garlic we plant is elephant garlic which does so much better here than any other variety I’ve tried, and I’ve tried lots. These are local for over a decade now and their productivity has yet to disappoint.
The onions are from purchased sets and they normally do well, though some years are a bust, like last year. I also started some from seed under lights, to compare if they are more consistent and adaptable, because the sets have gotten pricey in recent years and it’s irritating to pay good money for possible failure. Onions do not like Yo-Yo weather, but then again, who or what really does?
At least some seem to tolerate it better than others. We’ve got a couple of ‘oyster trees’ that are bringing us regular tasty gifts.
I’ve also tried a couple new things that have been long on my list. There’s the soap that’s just now cured, a bit earlier than I’d read is typical. I’m really pleased with it! It lathers very well and the scent is rather sensuous. My intention was something earthy and erotic, and I think I succeeded.
I got the sensual part down, now I need to up the aesthetic! Trust me, looks are deceiving here, I just need better molds! Never underestimate the power of packaging, eh?
After finishing up slaughter season and chopping up downed trees for a month, Hubby has moved on to a far more desirable and needed project, according to me, our kitchen! Yippie!
We’ve needed new countertops badly for many years, ours have been well-worn in 40 years, especially since we’ve gotten here and the space went from softly used a few times a year, to a daily year-round assault. It’s actually pretty impressive the counters aren’t near dust by now, considering how quickly more modern materials fall apart.
New island done, now for the hard part.
Old, ugly, not square or plumb . . . Good times coming in Hubby’s near future!
New countertops got us on a roll and now we’re planning new light fixtures and maybe even a new paint job. Big ideas, perhaps not backed up by time or commitment.
Those big ideas, I’m full of ‘em! In my mind the kitchen’s already painted and my next project is to paint the table, which I’ve wanted (and once tried) to do for as long as we’ve had it. I can imagine I might have a table with a surface that looked something like this . . .
But I’d be perfectly willing to settle for this . . .
Or this . . .
So, after I repaint the kitchen in the few spare moments between juggling plants in YoYo season, I acquire the skills of an artist, and paint something I can really be proud of . . .
Whenever I’m finally able to manage that, y’all will be the first to know!
In the meantime, here’s where we were at in the last update . . .
The plot thickens, and twists. This time we learn from Wiki that after the Columbia Space Shuttle disintegrated re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, there were indeed body remains found after all. According to this source, the remains of all of the bodies of the astronauts were found. Someone should really share that info with Rich Husband’s people.
Kalpana Chawla, our next look at astronaut lore, was also a music lover. She served as the shuttle’s flight engineer. She was married to Jean-Pierre Harrison, who has written a book about her and is the president of two dubious-looking companies for which I was able to find no information.
“Steve Morse of the band Deep Purple released the song “Contact Lost” in 2003 in memory of the Columbia disaster.[50] Chawla took three Deep Purple albums on STS-107, using their song “Space Truckin’” as a wakeup call. One of their albums was found in the shuttle’s wreckage.”
Wow, so an entire album was discovered, as well as a CD. She had room for 3 albums, and clearly must have had a player for those. These space shuttles must be roomier than a magic bus! I wonder if they ever had arguments over who got to choose the ‘wake-up’ music. I know that much Deep Purple and I’d definitely be wishing for some disintegration.
She was accused of screwing up during the previous mission, but was given a second chance. On a YT video of day 4 of that mission we learn that one of her colleague’s favorite songs is from a popular Japanese television show about puppets in space.
“Chawla first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and robotic armoperator aboard STS-87. Her role in the flight caused some controversy due to the failed deployment of the Shuttle-Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy (“Spartan”) module. Chawla’s second flight was in 2003 on STS-107, the final flight of Columbia.”
In an interview about her previous mission the reporter writes:
“We’d be very foolish if we tried to second-guess or tried to figure out what the actual turn of events were without having all the information… We’re six folks up here, we know what happened on our side, we’ll get together with the folks on the ground and we’ll put the whole story together and make sure it never happens again. Sure, we’re always a bit disappointed if we don’t get the full mission accomplished, but we did retrieve the satellite, and so the important thing is we’re bringing Spartan back down to Earth and it’ll get to fly another day.”
It’ll get to fly another day. And so will Chawla, but apparently just the one.
She is now in Zion, her final resting place being Zion National Park, Utah.
Running To The Light, Columbia Space Shuttle, Modern Myths
I came across this photo on our nearby city map and found it so compelling I thought to do a few post about it. This is from Palestine, Texas. The Columbia Space Shuttle was reported to have exploded over this area of East Texas killing all these crew members.
Rick D. Husband, Commander; Kaplan’s Chawla, Mission Specialist; David M. Brown, Mission Specialist I; Williams C. McCool, Pilot; Michael P. Anderson, Payload Commander; Lian Ramon, Payload Specialist I; Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Mission Specialist 4.
We will start with the latter, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Mission Specialist 4 Wiki page:
The Scottish band Runrig pays tribute to Clark on the 2016 album The Story. The final track, “Somewhere”, ends with a recording of her voice.[18] Clark was a Runrig fan and had a wake up call with Runrig’s “Running to the Light”. She took their 2001 The Stamping Ground CD into space with her. When the shuttle disintegrated the CD was found back on Earth, and was presented to the band by her family.
Maclura pomifera (Moraceae family) has a great many common names besides Osage Orange: bois d’arc, bodark, horse apple, hedge apple, murier du Texas
It’s in the same family as mulberry and has a similar growth habitat and widespread adaptability.
For our ancestors it was a highly prized tree that went out of favor in late Colonial times after the widespread use of barbed wire and later heavy harvesting machinery. Before that time it had multiple crucial uses as a wind break, in preventing soil erosion and especially for creating living hedges for livestock containment. It was also used for it’s very hard but flexible wood in making bows and rot-resistant building materials.
It was also used as a rodent and insect repellant and many still use it for this purpose.
But here we are most interested in its many medicinal uses.
The seed is edible, and often enjoyed by squirrels, but not easily obtained.
“The fruit of M. pomífera has shown an effect on human cancer cells (kidney, lung, prostate, breast, melanoma, and colon) as an inhibitor of histone deacetylase (HDAC) via the prenylated flavonoid pomiferin, showing antiproliferative activity in the six cell lines evaluated [23]. In this sense, the compound pomiferin (contained in the fruit of M. pomífera) has been shown in tests with cancer cells to behave as an inhibitor of cancer stem cells from a human glioma [22], showing a reduction in the expression of genes associated with stamina (the ability of the cell to reproduce repeatedly and form stem cells). Also, M. pomífera has been helpful as a marker in the diagnosis of cancer since it allows the distinguishing of patients with prostate cancer from those patients who present benign prostatic diseases and normal subjects, this being through the high affinity of the sera of patients with prostate cancer towards the M. pomífera lectin [21].
Additionally, the fruit, bark, leaves, root, and seed have been reported to have a high content of oils, sugars, and compounds such as isoflavones, xanthones, triterpenes, and stilbenes, with isoflavones being the most representative [15].”
“The seeds are edible and the heartwood, bark and roots contain many extractives of actual and potential value in food processing, pesticide manufacturing, and dye-making. Various parts of the Maclura species are used in folkloric medicine worldwide. Decoction prepared from the roots of M. pomifera is used for the treatment of sore eyes by Comanche Indians in the North America (Carlson and Volney, 1940). The bark of Maclura tinctoria has been reported to be used against toothache by Kaiowa and Guarani indigenous people living in the Caarapo Reserve in Brazil as well as the in the other parts of Amazon region, it was also recorded to be used in Southern Ghana for dental health (Elvin-Lewis et al., 1980, Elvin-Lewis and Lewis, 1983, Bueno et al., 2005).
The fruit of M. pomifera is also well-known for its rich isoflavonoid content as well as a content of xanthones (Delle Monache et al., 1984, Delle Monache et al., 1994, Toker and Erdogan, 1998). Several biological activities of the plant were reported up to date including antimicrobial, estrogenic, anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activities (Mahmoud, 1981, Maier et al., 1995, Küpeli et al., 2006). Antioxidant activity of the major flavonoids of M. pomifera has also been studied (Tsao et al., 2003, Vesela et al., 2004).”
Native Americans used M. pomifera for the treatment of cancer [2]. In Bolivia, the plant sap is used for the treatment of tooth pain, and the bark and leaves are used for uterine hemorrhage [3]. Comanche Indians in North America used the Osage orange roots decoction to treat sore eyes [4]. M. pomifera and its components possess several biological activities including cytotoxic, antitumor, antibacterial, estrogenic, antifungal, antiviral, and antimalar-ial activities [5–13]. Recently, isofavones isolated from Osage orange have been demonstrated to protect brain cells, or neurons, from the toxic effects of amyloid beta peptide, which is believed to be responsible for the degeneration of neurons in Alzheimer’s disease patients.” M.pomifera produces several secondary metabolites belonging to diferent chemical classes including prenylated favonoids. Teprenylated favonoids possess diferent biological activities such as antifungal, antibacterial, antitumor, and antioxidant activities.”
We have a few still around in our area and I’ve been propagating them from seed in the hope of creating a living hedge. Unfortunately our summers have been so severe lately I’ve only managed one survivor, now 3 years old. I’ll keep trying!
A very old specimen at a neighbor’s house in East Texas.
A neighbor’s old Bois d’arc tree Spring 2023
A beautiful shade tree with so much to offer, I hope it becomes popular once again in our countryside.
A couple more impressive Bois d’arc photos from the Internet:
The chem-filled skies continue into our Yo-Yo Season, formerly known as fall and winter.
I suppose art students are now learning to draw filth-filled skies as fine and normal the way we used to draw puffy clouds as kids before the 90s.
Scientists will be taught that aluminum, barium, strontium are all to be expected in our snow and rain and soil.
We’ve been talking about it for a decade, providing all the proof we could get our hands on, and the government put their blinders on like good little minions and the greedy scientists and corporate media spinners did as they were told in order to keep collecting their paychecks and pensions.
And now it’s all coming out. Officially, finally. “Conspiracy theory” is no longer an out for them. IT’S OFFICIAL!
IT’S NOT JUST CONSPIRACY CRAZIES POSTING PHOTOS OF CONTRAILS. WOW!
SO THESE REALLY AREN’T JUST BEAUTIFUL SUNSETS AND FUN CLOUD FORMATIONS MADE BY THE WEATHER GODS FOR OUR ENJOYMENT?
WOW!
So now what? What does it all mean? Trump’s here to fix it all, right?
No silly! Now comes the part where we get Global Governance, through more war and manufactured disasters blamed on nature. The big reveal, the book Behind the Green Mask was published 13 years ago.
Looks like it’s all happening right on schedule. With the exact same people hiding information for the last 50 years leading the show.
22 November 2024 | ZeroGeoengineering.com | Planning, development, and implementation of weather interventions and atmospheric experimentation are funded by Congress and directed by interagency groups including those in partnership with the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP).
The USGCRP was established by Congress in 1990 to coordinate ‘global change research’ and collaboration with international and federal agencies.
Ending USGCRP interventions will require repealing federal laws including but not limited to, the National Weather Modification Policy Act, the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Authorization Act of 1992 and Trump’s Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 (Public Law No. 115-25, Title IV, sec. 402, 15 U.S.C. § 8542.
I’m sure our crafty disaster capitalists will be filled with hope and solutions. Anti-radiation suits. Fancy new protective devices.
I’m sure the high fashion industry and the home and garden gurus will have plenty of new high-tech solutions to save us all. And the ‘detox’ solutions, of course. So many solutions! Don’t worry!
“Did you know radiation is a central component of weather control?
At the heart of weather experimentation is NEXRAD, or NEXt-generation RADar and the transmission of microwave radiation pollution. The cell phone you hold in your hand and the cell phone towers it’s communicating with are transmitting and receiving microwave radiation. Shown below, definitions of pollution and pollutants from Verizon and AT&T”
It’s been a while since any update, but not because nothing is happening on the wee homestead. It’s still the same story—the biggest news-worthy thing is the one I’ve been avoiding writing about.
As usual, there are the latest piglets and chicks and harvests and garden woes and ‘unseasonable’ weather. Rest assured, we’ve had all that again this summer.
I did imagine if I ever run out of blogging content to share I could start a new quiz show . . . Here we are in East Texas folks, so let’s play Guess The Season!
Come on down, step right up, where your chances to win are a remarkable 1 in 4, WOW!
But it might be more challenging to win than you think. How about it, ready to give it a try?
The roses and geraniums and wildflowers are blooming, volunteer tomato plants are coming up, the lettuce is bolting and the dogs are shedding, what season is it?
Well, if you guessed springtime, tough luck loser!
Let me give you another clue, Rambo, Teaky and Papa Chop are horny, but the girls are all already knocked up. Poor fellas!
Rambo, still chasing the girls! If you look closely in the distance, past the downed tree, you’ll see Hubby’s recently finished ‘bridge to nowhere’.
What else is new, or not? We have entered slaughter season, my fall transplants are dying in the heat, the moles and voles and gophers have taken over the garden, and I have only two bee colonies which survived the summer, again.
An entire bed of baby broccoli, cauliflower and cabbages lost to rodents! Argh! 😖
It’s well past time to plant garlic, Hubby prepared the rows a month ago, but I don’t dare do the deed. It’s still far too warm. They will start growing too soon, putting all their energy into a fine green shoot that will then die when the inevitable frost comes again, and the remnants of the bulb will then likely rot in the ground.
Lots of elephant garlic (harvested in May) left for re-planting and enjoying through the YoYo season. Behind it is about 1/3 of our sweet potato harvest. Both did very well, though the Irish potatoes and the onions did terrible.
As far as general garden results for the year, a mixed bag, as is typical. The peppers did not do well and I had such high hopes. Last year we had amazing peppers all summer and fall, so I really have no idea why this year was so poor. It was my hope to experiment with spicy ferments and pimientos. No such luck. We have dismally few jalapeños and green peppers coming in, plus one prolific plant that magically survived, producing these beauties, which will hopefully ripen quickly. I had to pull off one entire branch, which is where these green ones originated, because it was overtopping its cage and becoming unruly.
The squashes also did not do well and I attribute this to the wet spring followed quickly by excessive heat and drought. I’ve heard from several nearby gardeners who had the same problem.
Very few squashes this year, not even luffa did well, and that’s usually easy and prolific. In the center are persimmons, we got about a dozen off the young tree. And, a surprise . . . Watermelon!
The cucumbers were another disappointment, but that was my own fault. My goal was to prolong the season by succession planting, so I planted fewer cucumbers than usual at peak time, thinking we’d have them fresh and fermented for the entire summer and fall, so no need for canning surplus.
Unfortunately, even the young plants could not thrive in our summer temps, so old ones which were past their main production, along with new but not yet producing, all died. Then I got lucky and some volunteers showed up in late August, so I nurtured them along, and right after they started producing, we got a super early frost, one night only. It killed them off.
Six ‘winter’ watermelons!
Surprisingly, the quick frost did not kill off the few remaining peppers, or the watermelons, which I planted late after starting them indoors, on a whim, because the best part of the summer garden this year was definitely the watermelons.
And now, we’ve got more!
Thanksgiving watermelons, that’s a first. There’s also a few volunteer tomatoes I’ll be digging up soon to move inside under lights.
Between the bolted Romaine, one of several tomato volunteers.
The baby citrus trees have all survived their first summer, I’m so hoping that’s a sign of continued success. They aren’t looking so good, but they’re hanging in there. I’ll take that as a win, as temporary as it may be.
The young citrus planted in early spring, not looking great, but still hanging in there!
I’ve also been babying a few graveyard treasures. Perhaps as a distraction from my misery, I’ve been visiting all the cemeteries in the area and have found in them a few spectacular specimens I want to grow.
There was the healthiest, largest Turk’s cap aka Mexican apple (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) I’ve ever seen, and in the middle of drought still bright and beautiful. I’ve been wanting one not only because they are drought-tolerant and attractive, but also because they are a popular medicinal and a perennial edible. (I’ll definitely be covering it in a future Herbal Explorations post.)
I did manage to get one cutting, out of 6, to take root. There’s also a wild pink rambling rose that I got rooted, and some gorgeous Magnolia trees, which I hope I can get started after stratification and scarification of their seeds.
A baby Turk’s Cap and a Mexican oregano (I hope!)
Plus, I’m excited that 1 of the 3 Mimosa trees I dug up from the gutter in early spring, and have been doting on all summer, is doing beautifully; I think she’s going to make it! Last year’s attempt failed by this time of year, I think because the spot I chose was too shady.
A young Mimosa tree recently transplanted after growing in a pot in part-sun all summer. Again in the distance, behind the sheep, Hubby’s ‘bridge to nowhere’.
Another noteworthy piece is we’ve had a mystery fruit invade the garden.
Mouse melons gone wild? I did plant store-bought mouse melon seed, also called cucamelon, for a couple of summers. I called it my ‘crop of the year’ in 2018.
They were a novelty item I thought I’d try, and while they are so cute and a fun addition to the summer produce, they are super tiny and tedious to harvest, so not a lot of bang for the buck.
Online stock photo: Mouse melons, about the size of my thumb nail.
Mouse melon from Wiki: Melothria scabra is native to Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela,where it grows in forests and thickets.
That is the closest fruit I can match to our mystery fruit, which does come with a more interesting backstory.
Two years ago I found five of these fruits on the road near the creek with no plant attached to them. I figured they were part of a squirrel’s stash that had flooded out, or had dropped from an unknown tree, a wild variety of something I’d never heard of before. I was so intrigued!
I looked all around for the potential tree and couldn’t find any. But, somehow I got it stuck in my head that I’d just found wild kumquats. When my local gardening friends laughed and told me that was impossible, I said, well, we will see.
The following spring I gave some of the seeds to a friend and planted some in our garden. Within two months I’d regretted it; it was no tree. The vines had very quickly begun to take over a large section of space with the most tenacious tendrils and prolific foliage I’d ever seen.
I told my friend to pull them out, immediately, as they were very invasive and she has very limited garden space. She laughed and said, “I told you they weren’t kumquats!” 😆
The vines are so tough they’re like pulling thick rope. They readily re-root from the vines as well, and I came to discover this year, re-seed with great abandon.
While I pulled them up that first year before seeing any fruits on them, there must’ve been some hidden, because this year another plant formed, rather late in the season, and in a spot where we could afford to leave it to its natural inclinations.
Wow, what a giant beast it grew into! In the dead of summer, in severe heat and drought, without any supplementary water, it grew, and grew, and has produced so many golf ball sized fruits I could’ve easily filled a wheelbarrow with them more than once.
Except the fruit is quite sour, exceptionally seedy and with tough skin. It was a labor intensive process, but after peeling and deseeding, I made a few ferments and I was impressed with the results.
Ferment with mouse melons and varied veggies and herbs.
But, the vines were taking over, moving into our pathways, climbing up fences, choking out everything in its path. So we started pulling it, mowing over it, and generally abusing it on a daily basis.
It lived on! All through the late summer and into our faux fall. It actually started regrowing under the brush pile of leaves and grass we piled on top of its last remaining vines.
While most of the fruit became pig fodder, I’m still impressed with its determination and tenacity and will be finding some wasted space to keep the mystery fruit in our summer rotation. Maybe with the okra, which we aren’t crazy about either, but keep growing as a ‘just in case’ survival crop.
There’s been another ancient garden mystery, which we may have finally solved. I mean ancient in the modern sense, that being over five years in the making. It concerns the herb popularly named ‘Mexican oregano’.
Many years ago I started looking to plant this herb, one of my all-time favorites in the kitchen, and that’s when the quest began.
Now, one would certainly think this herb to be readily available in these parts, considering every year I can find in the garden stores many different varieties of oregano—Greek, Italian, Cuban, Golden, variegated, ornamental, Syrian. Really, Syrian?
No Mexican. And yet, that’s right over our border, certainly a lot closer than Syria. Why can we not find seeds or plants of Mexican oregano?
Years ago this put a bee in my bonnet loud enough to get Hubby on the hunt. Between the two of us we’ve spent many hours calling around, searching online, trying to sift through the mounds of misinformation and redirection.
Yes, it would seem that’s happening not only in politics and history, but even in culinary herbs!
Once we were able to identify the basics of the problem, we honed in on the solution. There are actually two different types of (commercially unavailable) plants called Mexican oregano. We’ve been buying the herb in bulk for years without any problem, but we really want to be growing it ourselves.
~Mexican Bush Oregano (Poliomintha longiflora) Mint family
~Mexican Oregano (lippia graveolens) Verbena family
Of the 2 types, we want to grow the latter, lippia graveolens. It’s a marvelous oregano and not just in Mexican cuisine. The flavor is much less intense than Greek, more like marjoram, but with notes of citrus and thyme. It’s quite unique as far as oregano’s go, which makes sense, since it’s in the verbena family and not the mint family, as most are.
After discovering we cannot find plants or seeds anywhere around here or online, we were really wondering why this is. It’s a very popular herb after all, used in lots of Mexican dishes. We did come across a few sites that claimed to sell the seedlings and small plants, but they were always out of stock.
Finally, Hubby stumbled on a potential answer in an online forum. It was suggested that they don’t sell the seeds because they are too small. We had never thought of this! It was suggested to simply sprinkle some of the herb purchased from the store onto some soil! Wait, what . . . ?
So, I’ve been trying that a couple of times now, and I may have just gotten some positive results.
Baby Mexican Oregano? I’m hoping! Also rooting some lemon-scented geranium, which has done pretty well all summer.
Back to the bad news. We continue to lose trees, old and young, at a dismal rate. This one flashed out dead within one week in July. It’s one of four equally large ones that have come down just this summer. I honestly can’t imagine how that happens so quickly outside of being poisoned. The dead leaves continue to hang there, almost 3 months later, while branches full of dead leaves come down in the slightest wind.
Branches come down, but not the dead leaves.
The spring floods that forced Hubby to rebuild our culvert then turned into the two-month plus drought that made his efforts futile. Still, it had to be done, as the washout was really significant.
Big job for one old man and his old tractor!
The previous culvert was our first job when we bought this property. That time I was a big helper, right alongside Hubby, digging dirt and dragging debris. It was necessary in order to get the car to our camping spot, where we spent many months building the cabin. Hauling in water, no electricity, sleeping in a tent. Ah, the good ole days!
This time I didn’t lift a finger, not even to take photos. He was able to successfully replace the culvert with a structure which we call our ‘bridge to nowhere’.
But, it was still necessary even though we aren’t camping over there anymore, in order to get the tractor to the back half of the property for other reasons—fence repair, any necessary tree felling, or getting to the cabin that’s become an unusually attractive storage room. 😏
Hopefully this one will do the trick for another 15 years or so.
Slaughter season may not sound so appealing, but if you could smell our kitchen when Hubby is cooking up the meats and broths for canning, or making his marvelous split pea soup or sampling sausage mixes before freezing, I think you’d change your tune.
Which reminds me of a bit more news worth sharing. Canning potatoes has been a surprisingly good choice I’d not have expected. Fried potatoes are such a popular food and we eat them weekly. But it’s a pretty labor-intensive process to make good fried potatoes, because you’ve got to cook them twice to get them crisp. This is probably why so many folks rely on the wide variety of frozen French fries and other convenience potato products on the market.
A couple jars of Hubby’s pressure canned potatoes.
While we never get large potato harvests here (besides sweet potatoes that is) Hubby is an excellent sale shopper. When he spots them for really cheap, like they are now at just 19 cents a pound, he’ll buy a big load of them and get prepping.
By getting the first part of the potato prep done in bulk, these canned potatoes are so quick and versatile and delish. It does take a lot of initial time and effort—peeling, chopping, pressure canning, but it’s well worth it.
All you have to do then for perfectly crisp ‘fries’ is drain and rinse and dry a bit, then toss them in your hot oil or fat of choice and in minutes you’ve got a cheaper, healthier, quicker version than most convenience products.
And would you look at that! Such a long and newsy post which I managed without ever mentioning the elephant in my head.
That is the goats. My great summer sorrow. I lost 9 of them; there are just 4 left. And I still can’t face up to it without tearing up.
So, it seems I can be as avoidant, bypassing, stalling, redirecting, minimizing and gaslighting as the best of them, when it suits me. 🥲
Just protecting myself from facing reality, right? How very common.
I failed. I miss them. That dream became a nightmare.
But I can’t end on that sad note, not now. The summer has been hard on the sheep and the dogs, too. We lost several lambs and Hubby was once again nursing Shadow issues for weeks. That’s quite another story, for another time.
Suffice it to say, he’s doing fine now, hurrah!
Better watch out, Shadow’s in loop position, he’s about to pounce!
What an athlete!
And right back to lounge position.
There’s always Bubba, giving free hourly lessons in lounge.
Thanks for stopping by!
Do you have any idea what our mystery plant could be?
This is a ‘weed’ I’ve been wanting to learn more about for a long time. It’s a very popular plant for foragers, right up there with Mullein, but I first learned about it as a preferred late season food for the bees.
In East Texas it seems to prefer roadsides and creeks to open fields and often appears nearby mistflower (conoclinium coelestinium) both in the family asteraceae.
Goldenrod and mistflower growing by the creek October 2024
Surprisingly (or perhaps not) Wiki has little info on this popular medicinal, and it wasn’t listed on a longtime foraging go-to of mine, Merriwether of Foraging Texas.
I can’t imagine why not! It’s a well-known medicinal in many countries and is plentiful in Texas even during extremely hot and dry summers.
According to The Medicinal Flora of Britain and Northwestern Europe, ”It’s first reliable record of medicinal use dates from the Southern Europe of the 13th century. It became much prized in Tudor England but, being imported, was very expensive.” (Julian Barker)
“Goldenrod was formerly prized as a wound herb as it is, indeed, astringent and antiseptic. Its principal internal use is for the kidney and bladder. I have found some justification for the BHP recommendation against naso-pharayngeal catarrh (and chronic sinusitis) but some skepticism has been expressed against this use. I think much of the variability in its efficacy may be due to the extreme polymorphism of the species which will lead, I am sure to the future recognition of subspecies.
”The aromatic leaves of the American S.odora make a once popular drink known as Blue Mountain Tea.”
“The flowering tops are used medicinally. Their constituents include tannins, saponins, bitter compounds, an essential oil and flavonoids. These substances give Goldenrod diuretic, astringent, vulnerary, anti-inflammatory, expectorant, antispasmodic, and carminative properties. In herbal medicine an infusion is used to treat kidney and bladder disorders, to improve kidney and prostate function, for flatulence and indigestion, and for chronic bronchitis, coughs and asthma. Externally Godenrod is used in poultices, ointments and bath preparations for varicose ulcers, eczema and slow-healing wounds.”
Some of us have known for decades what’s coming. Actually, what is here, already here, has been here, and has been destroying families and communities for two centuries, at least.
You need look no further than the “Civil” war to see it.
Others are just coming face to face with this reality now. It’s a horrifying reality for such folks, not only has their reality bubble been burst, but now they must face such dire facts while trying to fight for their homes, their properties, and their lives. Just as happened to the Southerners. Just as happened to the ‘Native Americans’. Don’t believe the war propaganda; every day is Groundhog Day. Every land grab scheme has been played before, now they just have fancier weapons to do their dirty work.
Waking up is hard to do in the best of circumstances, so I can imagine the hell when attempting to do so in the worst of them.
It’s not just the weather! I know, I’ve been focused on the weather for so long, it’s been my obsession, because trying to deal with it on a daily basis is no picnic.
I’ve also felt like the manufactured weather is like a baby step, a gateway, if folks would get their minds around that fact, and the very serious implications of it, then they would be better able to face the far more dire situation we are in.
Now that the cyber world is finally facing up to the manmade weather chaos, I feel it’s time to take the next step, because in fact, the reality of the situation is FAR worse.
During the series of tests at the High Energy Laser System Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range, the Demonstrator Laser Weapon System (DLWS), acting as a ground-based test surrogate for the SHiELD system, was able to engage and shoot down several air launched missiles in flight. The demonstration is an important step of the SHiELD system development, by validating laser effectiveness against the target missiles.
DEW—Directed Energy Weapons—are that reality. This is not a conspiracy theory. Those in the know, those in the positions of power in this country, they understand very well these weapons are real, and they are being used against us in this country as in many others.
This book is from 2003.
“Several nations are engaging in development and production of directed energy weapons. Recent scientific advances now enable the production of lethal lasers and high-powered microwaves. The current growth and development in this emerging area strongly suggests that directed energy weapons of lethal power will reach the battlefield before 2010. Since proliferation of lower power laser weapons has already happened, it is likely that proliferation of high power or high energy weapons will occur as well. This paper expands on this development and posits potential impacts on a plausible future battlefield, developed in part from the Alternate Futures of AF 2025, where all comers deploy lethal directed energy technologies. From these impacts, which span doctrine, organization, force structure, and systems design, this paper recommends changes to better posture the United States for this potential future.”
Who you vote for will not change this. This is being carried out from above our political class. As I asked in a previous post: Who owns our airspace?
“The NOAA Project Report below includes information regarding “Weather Modification experiments through electromagnetism” starting 01/05/2023 through 01/01/2026. The submitted application includes a World Economic Forum Global Weather Modification Alliance STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING which discusses “manmade electro-magnetic storms which may render another region powerless to floods, extreme wildfires and hailstorms…”. The applicant states, “I created a Strategic Intelligence Map this year as well and sent it off to UNOOSA and the United Nations in hope to create a weather modification alliance…”
Who owns our airspace? Does this answer my question?
The ‘race for space’ is not about gifting the world with Internet. It’s the modern battlefield. All that sits below ‘space’ is the fallout zone. We are the fallout zone.
They don’t just want the most beautiful places either, the mountains and the coastlines. They want what is beneath our feet. In some cases, that means lithium and other desired minerals.
East Texas, along with a good chunk of the South is also lithium rich territory, not just our miserable neighbors living in the current hellscape called Appalachia.
“In this episode, we dive into a timely and fascinating topic: the growing importance of lithium extraction in the United States and what it means for mineral owners. In fact, long-time listener, Barb R. shared a news story about Standard Lithium Ltd’s discovery of the highest confirmed lithium grade brine in North America in Cass County, Texas. This discovery has sparked conversations about the ownership of lithium mineral rights and who owns the valuable minerals found in produced water and the potential impact on royalties. Whether you have minerals in the Smackover Formation or anywhere else in the United States, be sure to listen to learn how you can navigate this developing landscape to make sure you get paid for these valuable minerals.”
For those new to the topic of mineral rights here’s a noteworthy fact: Most mineral rights owners do not live on the property for which they own the mineral rights. And most land owners do not own mineral rights.
That means they, ordinary mineral owning Americans, profit, sometimes substantially, if the Public-Private partnerships drill on the land, even against the desire of the land owners.
Furthermore, if those mineral rights owners don’t know they own those rights (for example a death where those rights weren’t specified so the inheritor has no idea), or aren’t informed of the prospective drilling operations (because these international corporations are not always forthcoming), that money goes to the US federal government.
As the famous quote goes:
Thank you to The Tactical Hermit who has been covering the news of our fellows in our latest war zone. Follow link for more info.
Surface modification control stations and methods in a globally distributed array for dynamically adjusting the atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic properties
“Surface modification control stations and methods in a globally distributed array for dynamically adjusting the atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic properties. The control stations modify the humidity, currents, wind flows and heat removal rate of the surface and facilitate cooling and control of large area of global surface temperatures. This global system is made of arrays of multiple sub-systems that monitor climate and act locally on weather with dynamically generated local forcing & perturbations for guiding in a controlled manner aim at long-term modifications. The machineries are part of a large-scale system consisting of an array of many such machines put across the globe at locations called the control stations. These are then used in a coordinated manner to modify large area weather and the global climate as desired.”
Listen to the beginning of Dane’s broadcast this week where a man confronts the (supposedly ignorant) atmospheric terrorists and makes them squirm like the worms they are! 😆
Delving deep Diving sweet Sipping sublime Nectars divine
A one minute clip of Datura inoxia alive in the evening breeze covered in honeybees and dotted by the diving ‘tobacco hornworm’ moths (manducasexta) in a safe haven among the blossoms here on the wee homestead, of this ‘poison plant’ it loves so much, from the great many pesticide lovers who hate them so.
