Annual Trip to the Pear Trees

This morning started out with a round of beautiful fall weather.  The temperature was perfect.  Of course, our Oklahoma fall wind was coming in strong, but it was at least not cold.  We decided to take a nature hike and head to the pear trees.  We had not checked on the pears this year and were wondering just what we would find.  

Last year the pear were abundant (here is the post). However, this year...there was not a single pear to be had.  Out of the 3 trees in the grove, there were no pears in sight.  Now, we have the quest to try and solve the mystery of why.  Could it be the extreme drought? Maybe it was just a "sleeper" year for the trees. I am leaning more toward the drought because there was so much vegetation that was destroyed.  Our area was really hit hard.  

Anyway, we still have some pears from last year in the freezer so we just have to wait until next year to see if the pears return.

Catch of the day!

With the cooler weather, the whole family is spending the evenings out doors catching up for all the times we were heat bound over the last few months.  This evening, the kids decided they wanted to head up to the half of the pond that is left (because of the drought) and go fishing.  Of course, the prospect of digging up worms right now is about impossible so they decided that they would try fishing with hot dogs.  We had a half package of cheesy hot dogs left that they decided to use (the kids did not like the cheesy dogs).  They headed to the pond with the rods, hot dogs, and a bucket of water for all the fish they would catch.  I have to admit...I was not expecting much!

About 20-30 minutes after they left, we hear them screaming, "Come here!  You have to see this."  They yelled and yelled until Jason arrived at the pond (I followed a few minutes later.).  Savannah was beaming with excitement because she caught a huge fish.  It is by far the biggest fish we have pulled out of the pond yet.  We had been told by one of the guys who lived here previously that there were some really big fish in the pond, but we were skeptical.  Not any more!

After the moment of fame, we did decide to allow the fish to continue to grow.  We figured if he made it this far, he deserved to continue his life.  Dad transported the fish back to the pond, and everyone watched him swim away.

The kids fished until dark with JJ catching a fish of his own.  It was too late to clean it for dinner so he decided he is getting up early to go catch some breakfast and lunch tomorrow.

New Chickens,Better Eggs by Savannah Holman

The only chicken left from
the 1st batch, a Rhode Island Red.

I recently purchased some chickens from Atwoods. I was wanting to start a farm of my own. I started off with five baby chicks. They were alot of work but it was alot of fun to watch them grow. I had one dark and light brown Araucana chick, two Rode Island Red chicks, and two Barred Rock chicks.
The Araucana was my favorite one of them all. (You can watch a video of the type of  chicken she was at http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/araucana_americanas.html. It has a breed guide up at the corner )

The only Red Production
left from batch #2.

Later, I also bought two more younger chicks. Our new Chocolate Lab puppy Rocky (or Rocko) killed one of my chicks. Dad punished  him. When we had chickens before, Lucy did not seem to bother them. She almost killed one of them though.

One day  I was checking on my chickens and I discovered something was trying to get to my chickens by digging a hole under the door. Lucky for my chickens (and me), it was not able to get in. I saw a track just the moment before I stepped on it. I thought it was a fox but Mom and Dad said it was probably a raccoon or coyote.

One night, we ordered  pizza and rented Despicable Me. Earlier in the day my dad let my chickens out to roam around. Before we went to pick up the pizza, we did not even think about putting them up. I now regret that because after we finished the movie, I went to go put my chickens up. I was calling for my chickens, but they did not come. I ran back up to the house and told my dad to come help me find them. He brought out the spotlight, and we looked all over, but we only found two of them . My Araucana was gone. I ran back up to the house to tell my mom. At this point, I was crying. We did not find them, but I still had two chicks left.

Rocko - the chicken lover!

We went back to Atwoods and got four more chicks. Two of them were Australorps. The other two were a mixed breed. Rocko again killed two more.  At least I do not have to worry about my little chicks getting cold with my original 2 chicks (that are bigger now) around. They keep them warm.

My Araucana

Our neighbor ordered some Australorps from Atwoods, but she accidentallly got Barred Rocks instead. Yesterday, she let me buy some chickens from her, and I went over and bought six. She also had a full grown Araucana chicken that she said I could have. The  Araucana is already laying eggs.

Right: Store egg
Left: Fresh Araucana blue egg

Araucana eggs have a blue coloring to them.

Today my dad went out and checked on my chickens while I was doing school . He said my Araucana was acting weird, and I should go check on it. So I went out to her coop and there was an egg in her nesting box I was so exited.

The farm egg has a darker color to its yolk
than the store egg.

I decided to do a taste test with store bought eggs versus farm fresh eggs. Since I do not like eggs, I let Mom and J.J. do a taste test. Mom and J.J. both agreed that fresh eggs are better than store eggs.

JJ enjoying his Breakfast Egg
Burritos!

I love my chickens and am very glad to have them.

Some of you may remember a post that I had back in June (here's the link) about our crawdad getting out of its tank and actually biting our daughter while she was camped out on the bedroom floor.  Well, I wanted to just give a quick update on "Sebastian" (the crawdad).

Sebastian came to us early last summer.  He was the "pet" that my son decided to keep.  He was scouting around in our back watering hole in the field and found the little guy...and I mean little at the time - about 1 1/2 inches.  JJ kept him in an old dish pan with water, rocks, and a couple of other smaller crawdads.  Unfortunately, the other crawdads disappeared (I think they became lunch for Sebastian!).

We eventually bought an aquarium at a garage sale (around May 1st) so that Sebastian could have a more permanent home. At the time, we really did not think the crawdad would survive.  We bought some meal worms for his dinner.  Since then, we have also discovered that her prefers bologna, but he will also eat the meal worms.  (It is really interesting to watch him eat.) He has shed his exoskeleton several times, and he eats the skeleton when he is done.  We have placed snails in the tank and a couple of more baby crawdads...he eats those, too!

So...after all that food, he has grown quite big.  His body is probably about 4 to 4 1/2 inches long (I do not plan on picking him up to measure!), and his pincher's are about the size  he was when we first found him.

Here he is:

Sebastian the Crawdad

Sebastian eating his old skin
The picture is a little blurry!

A little closer

Success! Sweet Pears!

Well, we made our trip back to the pears Saturday (in the truck) in hopes of finding completely ripe, better tasting, sweeter pears, and we were not disappointed.  Success!  The pears had just reached their perfect ripeness.  We took the tuck so we could use the ladder since it seemed the larger pears were all really high up in the tree this time.

You have heard the saying "The grass always looks greener on the other side."  In this case, it was "the pears looked bigger on the other side."  There are 2 more pear trees about 20 feet from our pear tree across a barbed wire fence.  Those pears definitely looked bigger, so I sent the kids on over to check.  And,  They were bigger (quite a bit actually).  We all crossed over the barbed wire fence after pulling the larger pears from our tree.   Those pears were low enough that we did not even need a ladder.

We came home with 5 Wal-Mart sack full of pears.  Now, the fun part...pealing, coring, slicing, freezing.  Of course, I will use my "apple peeler, corer, slicer," but I found (after using it with the first batch) that it does not work as well on pears as with apples.  We have to cut away more of the core after using the machine, but it at least does most of the work.

Pears, Pears, Yummy Pears!

Fall brings the cooler weather, the falling leaves, and the ripening pears.  On the back edge of the field connected to the east of our property, there is a field that has a couple of pear trees.  Three years ago when the ranch foreman first told us about the pears, we were able to stock up on loads of pears.  The tree was literally sagging with sweet, juicy pears.  We cut and froze pears, baked pear pies and pear crisp, and ate all the fresh pears that we could ever want.

The following year, we went back hoping to have the pears again.  There wasn't a single pear on the tree!

A couple of weeks ago, we knew that it was pear time again.  We did not have much hopes of having any good pears to eat, but we decided to make the mile trek through the fields to find out.  We started down the winding path of tall grass and weeds.  There were definitely pears this year, but they were still a little bitter and not quite ripe.  We waited a couple of weeks more and our efforts were rewarded.  Jason took our weed trimmer out and semi-cleared us a path so we at least did not have to walk through waist high grass. I also have to add that the mile sees to be much when you start back with a backpack full of pears!

The pears are still not quite as sweet or abundant as they were the first year, but they are pretty good.  So far, we have made some dried pears, pear crisp, poached pears (we did not care for poached pears much!), and cut up fresh pear snacks.  We have also put up about 7-8 quart bags of bears that we will later use for cooked pears over biscuits or pancakes.  I can also use the frozen pears in pear pie.

Dried Pears

We are headed back to the pears today with our truck.  Jason went out today to cut out some of the branches to make the path for the truck a little less "scratchier."  Hopefully, the pears will be fully ready to be picked and preserved!

Dried Pears
Thinly Slice pears and dip them in lemon juice.  Use a dehydrator according to manufacture directions.  It took our dehydrator about 4-5 hours to make the dried (almost crispy) pears.  You can use the pears for a snack or you can store them an rehydrate them for use later in a cake, pie, etc.  I have to say that I have never rehydrated the pears so I can not offer any personal experience/suggestions for that.  We always just eat ours for a snack...they would never last long enough at our house to use at a later date!

Pear Crisp
4-5 ripe Pears
1/4 cup quick cook oats
1/8 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 to 3/4 cup butter (the more the better, right!)
Dash of nutmeg (optional)

Slice the pears (about 1/4 inch thick) and place them in a 9 inch baking dish.  Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.  Cut the stick of butter into pieces and use a pastry blender, fork, or 2 knives to cut the butter into the dry mixture.  Pour the mixture evenly over the pears.  Bake at 350 degrees until browned.  Serve hot with vanilla ice cream!

Country Life!

On the rarest of rare occasions, I think to myself...man, I wish we lived in town. Sometimes it would be nice to just take a walk down the sidewalk or ride a bike on a smooth surface and not have to eat  the dust from the gravel road....or maybe be able to run down the street to the grocery store instead of having to plan ahead and make a list for the next "trip to town."  But as I said, those "wanting to live in town moments" are very rare moments indeed.

Today was a reminder of why we love the country so much.  It is quiet and peaceful in the cool evenings sitting outside by our campfire.  We can let the kids take off to play in the field or run up the hill to go fishing in the pond.  We can even fish with them without having to worry about buying a license.    Also, we can buy the kids BB guns, and they have tons of space to shoot them in!

With the cooler weather recently, Jason got the BB gun out and took the kids for some target shooting.  JJ is finally old enough and big enough now that he can balance the gun on his shoulder without a problem.  Well, having to share 1 BB gun amongst 3-4 people calls for a lot of wait time.  So, Jason decided that JJ needed to get his own gun, and while we were there, he decided that Savannah would want one, too.

Surprise!  Red Ryder BB Guns!

JJ opened his first.

Then, it was Savannah's turn. We, of course, had to put them in different boxes so that they would not think they were getting the same things.

 I wasn't sure about her being too excited with the gun, but boy was I wrong.  She opened her package and her eyes lit up with the biggest "WOW!" expression.  We even gave her the option of returning her gun and getting something else if she wanted too, but she said, "No."

 Fully equipted with safety glasses!

We really had a fun day!  Glad to be in the country!