Thomas W(h)ispered

I’ve been pretty busy as of late; grooming the weeds, putting up blueberries, working on the boat and busting my knuckles, back and ass on the Jeep and the brush-hog.

I took the brush-hog off of tractor the other day in order to move rolls of hay off of trailers and stack them in the hay barn.  Can’t do it with a 15 foot mass of metal on the back end, but no problem: I’ve put that hog on/off maybe a hundred times:  the trick has always been to configure the brush hog to go back on as you take it off.  

This time I decided that I’d be ‘the good farmer’ and perform a little preventative maintenance on it’s drive shaft before hooking the hog back up.  Essentially this is nothing more than extending the shaft by a 2 feet or so…clean it…apply grease.. and move on with life.  All is dandy unless you extend the shaft by more than a 2 feet (or so) and it pulls free from the female end, when that happens you have a 20lb, 5 foot in length, drive shaft attached to 40lb U Joint assembly. 

What I was able to figure out in the more-than-a-hour that it took to place it back together is that: that SOB was indeed ‘keyed’, grease on a 60 lb object makes for challenging times, and cursing God and his entire creation does not reassemble a keyed and greased drive shaft.

On the Jeep: I decided to put a little effort and Social Security money into my 2016 Wrangler JK and it turns out that while the costs were predictable/controllable, the ‘little effort’ component turned out to be unconstrained.  My efforts on the Jeep are to replace the front bumper so I can add a winch and improved lighting. 

Let me say at the outset that I’ve always viewed installation instructions as a guide and subject to both interpretation and available tooling.  In hindsight I suppose when you’re told that the installation requires an impact wrench/driver, get (beg/borrow) a fucking impact wrench.

There is nothing quite so iffy as tying off the end of a rope to a 18mm offset wrench in order to apply the pull needed to break a bolt free.   It took me 5 hours to remove the exist bumper and 1 hour to install the new one.

The first portion of the project is done; I’ve built out the platform for the winch and a light bar (Jeff B. tells me they will both be delivered next week).

I’ve ordered some (supposedly) super-duper blackish dye that is said to make faded vinyl come back to life.

Given that what ain’t sheet metal is plastic/vinyl I’m hoping that this is a viable remedy for the all of the fading.

Everything else that I’ve researched has the same basis for their claim of effectiveness as the Snake Oil of yesteryear.

We’ll see.

The blueberry bushes are really producing this year. It seems that the more they are neglected the better they do. . . not a good reflection on me I guess. I’ve been put 11 pints up in the last two days, and in another day the nearly ripe fruit on the plants will be ready for harvest.

Time is flying by. In a few days we will be at the longest day of the year (again) and then we’ll start the slow shortening of days into a colorful fall and brilliant winter. There are wonders all around us and if we can lift our heads and furrowed brows from the grease and stubborn bolts for just a little bit and look around we can see the glory of God’s creation.

Double rainbow around the sun.

Yesterday I finally wandered my fat azz into Huntsville and gathered ‘makins’ for Jerky and Kimchi. The meat ‘Top Round’ was $3.87 ($4.06 with ‘surcharge’) a pound at the commissary; it’s a little over $7 ($7.63 with tax) at Wallyworld. I bought just under 15 pounds so I saved about $45 on the meat. The marinade spices I use were .98 at the commissary and $1.38 at Walmart I saved 4 or 5 bucks.

The Napa cabbage ended up being $1 a pound at the International Market vs $4 at Walmart so another $18 saved.

OK, here is the secret to great jerky: McCormics, Kikkoman, and time. While I usually make four varieties, this go-round I made three varieties with each variety having two different ‘bites’. So I’ll end up (actually the kids and grand kids will end up) with 6 types of jerky; two versions each of Mesquite, Chipotle, and Mojito Lime. The fourth type I normally make is the ‘Honey Sriracha’.

I place the large slabs of beef in the freezer for 20 minutes or until they are about to freeze on the exterior most surface. This makes them so much easier to cut. I cut slices between 1/8 and 1/4 inch across the grain and throw them in a gallon freezer bag with the spices and Kikkoman to marinate for at least 12 hours. Drain them, space them out on the dehydrator racks and let them run at about 145 degrees for 4 hours.

Do yourself a favor and stick with the Kikkoman.

The X-rated (X=extra hot) jerky was made using a different heat source for each of the flavors: For the Mesquite I added cracked Super Asian pepper from my garden that I dehydrated last year. For the Chipotle I used a fermented Asian/Cayanne hot sauce blend I worked up a couple years ago (better now than then!).

For both versions of the Mojito I pealed and sliced fresh lime to go into the mix. the X version of Mojito was supercharged by adding a couple of diced fresh Habaneros. Remember if you play with the habs, they don’t play fair.

All of the bad weather has moved out of my little corner of the world and I was able to apply some machinery to cleaning up some of the mess and overdue mowing/trimming. All of my trees stayed in place but a large Cherry Tree fell across the road just east of me on Sunday and a kind soul, knowing it couldn’t be cleared ‘in place’ attached a chain or rope to the trunk and dragged to the nearest place it could be chopped and cleared from the road way. You guessed it, it ended up along the side of the road on my property. I spent a good part of the day yesterday cutting it down and loaded it on my trailer (three loads actually) to a burn pile of been cultivating.

Today I was able to tackle the mowing and trimming along the front edge of the place. It’s just under 1,500 feet along that portion.

Here’s the before (at the gate):

And the after:

There is nothing quite as satisfying as working with good tools on a lawn, fence line, or in the woods.

Now, I’m off to Huntsville AL to satisfy two needs: Kimchi making’s and beef. It’s worth the 100 mile round trip for a couple of reasons: first, the only place where good fresh Napa cabbage, Korean radish, and Chinese chives can be found nearby (if you consider 50 miles nearby) is at the ‘International Market’ in Huntsville. Wallyworld sells some pretty bad looking Napa cabbage for about 4 bucks a pound while the place in Hunstville has fresh (fresher) cabbage at 1.29 a pound.

The second reason is I want to make some beef jerky and I want to can up some beef stew. The meat I need can be had at the military commissary for 3 or 4 dollars a pound cheaper and is of a better quality than Walmart. It’s 5 or 6 dollars a pound cheaper than Publics. The kids and grandkids love the jerky and can shove away an amazing amount in short order. I’ve got some mid-heat peppers in the garden that may find their way into the flavorings I put on the jerky. We’ll see.

I often wondered why it is that the moon appears to rise over a different point in the sky. Sometimes it would rise near my equipment barn and other times it would be well south of that (as it did this evening). Turns out there’s a simple explanation that the pencil necks in the physics realm have made difficult.

“This change in the position of moonrise throughout a given month is due to three factors. First, the Earth’s rotational axis is tilted by about 23.5 degrees relative to the plane in which it orbits around the Sun. Second, the Moon orbits the Earth in a plane that is tilted by about 5.1 degrees relative to the plane in which the Earth orbits around the Sun. Since the Moon makes one complete orbit around the Earth in 28.5 days, you will see the position of the Moon’s rise on the horizon change by twice 23.5+5.1 degrees, or about 57.2 degrees, during one orbit of the Moon around the Sun. This is pretty close to the 118-65 = 53 degrees that you measured using a compass.”

See: told ya.

I’ve been playing catch-up on the yard work for the last couple of days but don’t think I’ll be ahead of the curve until mid-June or so.  The unpredictability of the weather is the cause of some of this and letting some areas around the farm go without tending at the close of last year has created challenges where I really didn’t need to be challenged. 

Yesterday I knocked out half of the trimming that needed to be done along a deep drainage area that intersects with the road in to my house.  Because I didn’t hit it at the end of last summer the chainsaw was needed to knock some of it down.  A large tree (about 6 feet in diameter) fell across a portion of it last year so I’ve been cutting on it in prep for a burn later this year.  I brush-hogged the back field this morning and trimmed along the houses and drainage areas leading to the creeks a couple of days ago so when this round of weather moves out (Monday?) I can finish the ditch area (a day’s work), mow and trim along the fence on the front of the property (a day’s work), clear, mow, and trim along the spring and creek (three days of effort). 

My little mini-garden is in.  Tomatoes, peppers, okra, cucumbers, beans, melon and zucchini mostly.  I know I’m not going to have the time to maintain much more than this and finish moving the fencing and other garden related infrastructure and play catch-up around the place.  I’ve got another 40 pepper seedlings I need to get into the ground in the next couple of days.  I’ve got to do better at recording what goes/went where though; the annotated diagram I had for the 7 varieties of tomatoes and 9 varieties of peppers already in the ground has disappeared.  Tomatoes won’t be a problem because two varieties are weird:  Atomic and Lemon

I’m growing advanced in years, but still know the difference between a Roma and a Beefsteak and the two varieties of cherry tomatoes (Besser and Tiny Tim) are easily distinguishable.  The last variety is a F1 slicer.

Peppers are another story altogether.  It’s going to be fun figuring out which of the three yellow peppers (aji lemon, Hungarian hot yellow, and banana) are which.  Also, given that an immature habanero and pepperoncini look much the same, caution is warranted.

All twelve of my apple grafts survived and they need to be planted/staked and caged.  All 10 of my pear grafts failed.  The root-stock appears to be good and is growing its own leaves/shoots so I think I may have cut the scion wood off of my three varieties to late in the year (I should have cut in December and did cut in late Feb).  I’ll plant the root-stock and then re-graft next winter.  All four of my existing pear trees are bearing fruit.  Of the 4 older apple trees (2x Yellow Delicious, 1 Fuji, 1 Red Delicious) three are fruiting.  Of the twelve new apple trees I grafted and planted last year, 11 survived.  True to form however, half the labels I placed on the tree have faded away and the annotated diagram of what was planted where has pass into oblivion.  The good news is I know what was planted!  I just don’t know where it was planted.   If this is what 70 is like, 80 is going to be a real adventure.

Everything hinges on the weather and the weather looks pretty friggin frightening for the next couple of days.  They are predicting bad ju-ju for Saturday and Sunday.  The last couple of times they projected bad blows this far out they materialized with a vengeance.  I’ll be alright, I’ll just walk around all puckered up. 

Before I retired and moved out into God’s country the weather didn’t play a big part in my life.  Even when I was in the Infantry the weather just ‘was’.  It didn’t really matter what it was or was going to be, when you’re a grunt all you can do is shrug and keep on keeping on.  Keep your heads down and your eyes open folks cause that bad weather looks to be running south of the Macon-Dixon line and packing a real punch.