International edible gardening

OK; I happen to have a bit of military training from way back and I did as you say and stood at 'Attention' and still am unenlightened. Should I have been breathing a particular way? Should I also have focused my mind totally on 'Attentioness'?

So today is just wandering about dreading doing the paperwork that I am avoiding with great dread. Yesterday I had a time of paperwork - I have taken over a house and had to get all the insurance in order and found it has been mostly uninsured for the last 4 years with a kind of sporadic getting a policy here and there and then having it canceled for missing payments. The insurance agent, who knows me well, spent half a day on this project (the owner had used him too.) So this is on a flood zone and to see how insurance right on the coast is like:

Homeowner insurance; fire and some basic liability - $90,000 coverage, deductible, $2000. 1 Year = $525

Federal flood (subsisted by the Gov), $40,000 coverage, deductible $1500. 1 year $421

Windstorm, Mississippi State flood pool, subsidized by the state - only required for right on the coast, $70,000 coverage, deductible for named storm, 2% - not named storm $2500, 1 year $738.

Total per year = $1684 for just insurance. And that is heavily subsidized - and they are attempting to remove subsidies and the coast will be uninsurable. They say that very cheap house worth about $50,000 would be about $12,000 to $20,000 to insure if that happened. The higher coverage amounts is based on cost of re-building the structure, this is the minimum they will insure or I would have less coverage for less money. (This house is a couple miles away but is near water.)

My house insurance if over twice that and I cannot afford to insure my cottage. But I built the cottage for full hurricane hits - forty foot marine pilings driven twenty foot into the ground. Massive bolts and steel strapping everywhere. All the house from the pilings to the roof peak are strapped to each other with steel straps; not just nails. 120 mph steel roof, some windows are bullet proof glass.



Putting in the cottage pilings



Looking down from the porch - 26 foot from the floor decking to the water



Insurance is the big thing on coastal living - sets what a house is worth. Many places right now - the insurance is as much as the house payment. A house built on the ground 40 years ago when the flood height was 13 foot above mean tide - now it is 19 foot, higher for actually on the water, is worth almost nothing except as a cash deal for rental (and so uninsured by the owner). So those are 6 foot below flood - flood insurance is terribly high for houses below flood and on a grandfather clause to even exist.

The bayou is beautiful, otters, herons, king fishers, ospreys, grebes, fish, crabs, shrimp, but it has its issues.

 

Thanks for that detailed account of the pros and cons of bayou life. Do you have a midge problem Colne? I get bitten relentlessly if I'm in that type of place and end up very scabby; too much fat and good living I expect,
Jenny

 

We do, but mostly in the spring, they are out in numbers or not at all, but they will not enter a building, unlike a mosquito - not a regular thing. My wife reacts badly to them - like all biting bugs I just ignore them. Till I am getting swarmed I never use sprays - I have been bitten hundreds of thousands of times, buy all manner of things - I used to recon under 100 mosquito bites a day was not enough for putting on repellant. I worked in wasp country a couple times and would get swarmed at least once a day for months on end and now they hardly bother me. I will dig in a fire ant mound with my hands if I move fast (planting something) and do not even bother with getting a metal tool if I will only get a couple bites. I am actually a bit more macho than I come across on here, I do not worry about discomfort or pain much.

But something has cut my Asian Beans down. I was taking a video walk to see them because they look so funny hanging down over the path and they were cut! And my creatures are turning on my tomatoes wildly...... I do not plan on waging war on the creatures here, I have gardens in the woods so what are you going to do? Actually in the cold months I would trap and eat some of them (I used to make a good opossum chili), but in the hot months one usually does not.


I am in having an iced tea - really annoying, now it is dry enough to use my big mower I have a pulled hamstring. I have a bad habit of getting injured, always something; still getting over my torn rotator cuffs - the doctor recons they are shot anyway from those years of throwing steel overhead.

Red is on her second day of full isolation - yesterday one egg was cracked but it did not really look like a pecking...... Today I will leave the eggs out all day to see if anyone pecks one, thus paroling red - this far no eggs pecked. Red is mostly Rhode Island Red, an ornery breed. She will peck you, even enough to draw a tiny bit of blood if she gets a knuckle, if you reach under wile she is sitting on the nest. I do not think I Would attempt to cook her - two/three years old is too much I suspect. An amazingly low numbers of animals headed for the pot here, and a large number who deserve to. I am becoming too lazy.

 

Your attitude to your crops being 'raided' amazes me Colne. I know you have to cope with the animal population around your place but I would be so frustrated and probably have given up by now. Either that or construct something like a huge poly tunnel frame with netting over it.

 

Part two is posted now, and part 3 downloading. My wife has just come home from donating blood (I cannot because of Mad Cow, this is true, USA will not take blood that was in UK in the 1980's)

And she says it is raccoon curry time.



It does not bother me, creatures just being creatures, but she has a good point.

 

Do you own a cockerel Colne? If not, how are the hens' eggs fertilised that you are going to hatch?
My knowledge on such matters is lamentable,sorry,
Jenny

 

Two roosters - one is the Banti, the red one, and his son, the white one. they crow and yodel all day - and stir the hens up to a flock wailing you can probably hear for a mile. Everyone around here knows there are chickens back in those woods, Orphingtons are very vocal.



See the red and white roosters?

So my wife says we should have what ever we catch. A neighbor near us kept chickens for years but finally gave it up because the raccoons would keep getting them - a raccoon loves to kill a chicken and eat some of it. Wile I was off in England last fall they got 8 of mine because the person watching them never found the way they were getting in. My pen is very stout and except for that one failure in the wire has worked well. Anyway the neighbor used to trap 20-30 coons and opossums a year and I think that kept the local population in check. I keep letting my chickens sit eggs because here I always lose lots to predators - several dozens in all. Also we saw a native bob cat two days ago (I know my animals)

When I first posted here I said I may make a video of how to butcher a chicken very quickly and easily for the small keeper. The official response was that no videos of 'Butchery' (a very loaded word) were appropriate here. If we decide to begin eating the local possums and raccoons I will certainly do a video of processing them - and then making chili or gumbo out of them. It is just part of the great wheel of life and death and is as normal as breathing, nothing cruel or negative about it.

The most cruel thing is taking the trapped animal elsewhere and releasing it. The other spot has full occupancy all ready - so it gets attacked and run off to another territory where it has to fight the locals again. Or the locals are displaced to die, or the released one is driven here to there to die finally of want. It is not a kindness to go into the forest and release a common animal. Best a bullet between the ears - and skinning, quartering, dredging the parts in flour and brown it in oil, stew it with okra, peppers, tomatoes, beans, smoked sausage, and then file gumbo seasoning and small whole crabs and shrimp for Gumbo - or chili peppers and cumin for chili, or curry powder, coconut cream, ginger, cardamom pods, yoghurt, dried orange peel and such for a curry.

I set 4 traps last night, two snap rat traps, the small cage trap and the large one.

 

OK, I get the non response - but here is Jack, the little savage, who was so happy he almost was squealing when the deed was done, dogs love a butchering.



Not much gardening today, I marked a couple wild flowers in woods for collecting later - I think they may be an orchid and will do a quick look to see they are not protected and then move them here. They are surrounded by a nasty grass with a bayonet point so must be careful.

 

Hi, Jenny, sorry to not answer but I have cockerels - and here are the dogs wile not being little savages - this is them mostly



And I have a theory that one of the worst ripe tomatoe attackers is woodpeckers - I watched them and they kept coming and going - I did not see the actual act, but they are the reason I never get grapes. This year I hope to put bags on the Grape bunches. My other theory is that the bean plants being cut is the work of flying squirrels. There are plenty of them here, nocturnal so you almost never see them, but they chatter a lot so I hear them out flying about.

I baited some live mouse traps with peanut butter and did not get 1 taker but found a pile of green tomato peelings cut into tiny chips, in a neat pile - and no tomato. No idea what did that. Tonight I bait my big trap with red tomato - I used green ones last night, and they are all around so was a bad idea. The reason is I only want to catch the guilty party. I could use sardines for bait and get raccoons and opossums easily - but I do not want them if they are just going about their business.

 

seen the 2 roosters thanks Colne. It's a miracle you ever find enough to make a meal with some days. Still, you must have a forest teaming with grateful spongers,
Jenny

 

I live in a town, in the actual limits, but in a very large bit of very low forest, hundreds of acres - one people are smart enough to not build in. The highest land back in the woods where you see my chickens and garden is 7 foot above mean tide. One must build at 21 foot! So they would have to be 14 foot off the ground - and under the house may not be walled in either, and no plumbing or anything but water taps. The flood water must be allowed to go through by law. And you have to get everything up for every good storm, get your vehicles to higher ground, tie everything else down..........

The water is solid pogies now, I need to video it. this is an incredible wildlife spot. I have 5 kinds of herons, otters, native bobcats, fox, raccoon, opossum, king fishers, ospreys, and all manner of small birds and rodents. Then we are a way point in the migrations to and from Central America - this is where they mass to fly over the Gulf - or just to winter, or just to be in the summer and go elsewhere for the winter. We get some massive insect migrations, 2 kinds of butterflies and several kinds of dragonfly. (the longest insect migration - and lots of them migrate huge distances every year, is a dragonfly that crosses much of the Indian Ocean.)

Years ago I would blog on the wildlife, I could write a page every day the way it changed, but wound down from that. Then I spent the energy and attention on watching nature that I now spend on gardening - so I now talk of gardening, but I still see the nature - just not nearly as much as I did, it takes a lot of work to actually see nature, hours a day. You are not watching nature if you cannot tell someone what the moon phase is.

An old photo off my porch - pelicans and otters



But today I have lots of work but am thawing these as we are out of fresh fruit for dessert - see how they turned red when frozen? And that is a gallon (4 l) bag - look at how huge the berries are. I had to pick them when they just turned purple of they were eaten - so are sour and the flavor is not all it could be - but still good!

 

Well I am inside again - just dashed out to set 4 rat traps around the tomatoes - and had a run in with one and the naughty Jack dog. He had been really spending time in one spot in the woods so I finally went over and he was eating a rat - had eaten 2/3 of it. So I took it from him and put it down to get a flower pot to put it in (I was holding Jack) and Flora dog had wandered over and swallowed the rest in one gulp.

But I am going after the rats - they have almost totally eaten the pond hill tomatoes, my main bunch.

So I made the lady fingers - simplest thing in the world - separate 4 eggs, get 1/3 cup sugar ready, 1/2 cup sifted flour ready dash vanilla. Whisk the yolks with most of the sugar and a dash vanilla till very creamy and thickening. Whisk the 4 whites, add in the last sugar when they are soft peak - whisk till stiff peaks - add the yolk mixture to one side of that bowl, add the flour over it all - fold in, divide on paper covered baking pans and into 400f oven for 9 minutes.

I would have piped them with a pastry bag if I owned one so just made flattened blobs, they are merely a vehicle for fruit and cream anyway.



And they are without added fat - the pot has 4 pounds of blackberries and 3 1/3 pounds sugar and will be syrup - I will make jam later.

 

I am in for some iced tea, a steamy day after thunderstorms last night.

Well, all of you wondering - No Rats trapped last night! One snap trap set off, the live traps ignored (including a rat sized one, and the big one baited with tomato); they are fixated on green tomatoes on the bushes. I am seriously considering building a shooting platform out there. Hunting deer in USA is mostly by ambush. One uses a climbing tree stand, goes up the tree, sits quietly and motionless and the deer will not see you. Animals almost never look up. I shot well over a hundred rats from my porch when I used to keep Jungle Fowl for years and fed them next to the house.

This is the kind of tree stand my wife always used when we hunted deer a lot - I always just stood on the ground. (you have to scout and find the trails first) You climb the tree by standing up, then sitting on the seat, you face the tree, and lift your feet which are in straps on the bottom part raising it. Then stand up and the bottom bites the trunk and you lift the seat portion. Do it again till you are as high in the tree as you wish. Like an inch worm.



And I am thinking of buying some lumber ($60 should do it) and making a seat up in the air to relax on, and to shoot those rats from. Just 7 foot up or so, a simple thing, and then the grapes can cover it too. I have some scrap lumber, nails and screws, really just need a little concrete to set the posts in and 4 posts. I think 12 foot long 4 X 4 pressure treated would be right; 3 foot in the ground, 9 foot in the air. I would like to make a ships stair instead of a ladder - but will have to see what old lumber I can come up with. I have a couple 12 foot marine pilings - but those are too heavy for me - I wonder if I could rip them in half lengthwise? That would be a job. Ripping (means cutting with the grain and is much harder than cutting cross grain) with a hand saw only goes 2 1/2 inch deep so ripping both sides gives 5 inches cut. These are 8 inch pilings. I wish I had my old maul and wedges and I would soon split them after the cuts. Oh, well - have to think on it.

The rats have almost done in the tomatoes completely.

 

I think you need to grow Toms in a secure cage( Fort Knox) to ensure your rightful harvest Colne,
I would quickly become demoralised by that lot!
Jenny

 

Jenny, I like my rats. I always have like rodents - my wife does not though - and is actually angry at them for destroying our canning tomato bed........But rats and mice, I have been amongst them, sometimes, under rare circumstances, their population explodes, which is called a 'rat plague' or 'mouse plague'; I have been in both.

For a wile, wile backpacking in France, in wheat country, I would sleep at night between the hedgerows and the wheat field where the tall stalks would lean over to the hedges under the weight of the grain heads - making a sort of living tunnel. A perfect place to tuck into to be out of sight and mind of anyone for a nights sleep. And the rodents were massed to unbelievable numbers. All night they would climb the stalks and get the grain and noisily eat it, above, beside, and on you. I loved this incredible effect; the sound of grains being chewed - it was like waves, like how night frog sound join together to make clear rhythms and finally sound like musical waves on a beach, a sound permeating the whole existence, of tiny gnawing rising and falling into one of natures unusual songs. I would fall asleep to it, holding my sleeping bag tight to my neck to discourage them from climbing in.

Here is Jack dog with his very first ratty kill, see how proud he is. And the little bit of apprehension in his face that I will take it from him (ears back); I am calling him to come and give it to me. And I do take it by finally picking him up and opening his jaws - a dogs first rat is a big deal for them - and I fling it into the bayou as I have a hundred times before from my other dogs.