Merry Christmas To All

From the Farm of Hale

Happy Christmas

I thought I would share some entertainment related christmas things with all of you. First of all, I am sure you have all heard it, but here is the funniest rendition of a Christmas song I have ever heard. Click here to listen, it gets funnier as it goes along.

I also thought I would make a list of my top 10 favorite Christmas movies. I also put clips from the movies in case you want to watch. Feel free to leave me a comment about your favorite Christmas movies in case they are different than mine.

10. The Nightmare Before Christmas



9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original)



8. Scrooged



7. A Christmas Carol



6. A Christmas Story



5. Home Alone



4. Elf



3. It's a Wonderful Life



2. Love Actually



1. Christmas Vacation

Cabinet Maker

I finished a project a week or so ago and I am finally getting around to posting about it. I built us a cabinet to put in our kitchen. We have had a metal stand in the kitchen by the back door that held pots and pans and had the microwave on the top. We don't have that much cabinet space or countertop space in the kitchen. I was tired of the cheap metal stand look so I decided to build a cabinet to put there instead. My plan was to build a cabinet that matched our other cabinets so it looked like it was there originally. This did not work out. First of all, our countertops are formica. I called the company to see if I could get a top to put on my cabinet so it would match but unfortunately they stopped making that color in 2006. I decided just to make the top out of the same wood as the rest of the cabinet. By the way, our cabinets are cedar. I had a hard time finding a cedar that matched the cedar the other cabinets are made with. I found a cedar (western cedar) that I thought was it so I built the cabinet out of it. After finishing the cabinet and finishing it, it turns out that it is not the exact some color as the others. I am not sure if it is due to the wood, the age of the wood, or the finish I put on it. Since it did not turn out to color match exactly I was a little unsure if I wanted to install it or not, even after all the work. Margo (with a little help from Adam) finally talked me into believing it would be fine and better than what we already had. So, I finally got it installed. It does not look too bad, and it has more space in it which is nice. Here are the pics.

Here is the old stand. It served it's purpose. If anyone wants it, I will make you a great deal on it. It has two adjustable shelves and a wood top, I think it is Martha Stewart brand.




Here is the newly completed cabinet.

Long Week

As you can tell from our lack of posting, we have been very busy this week. We have had lots of activities going on from razorback basketball games to broadway shows to hanging out with friends. The only evening we have been home all week was on Monday. I also had to take a class at work the past two days called ACLS that I was a little stressed out about, so I spent all my spare time this week studying for it. Basically ACLS is a step beyond basic CPR training. You will all be happy to know that I passed and I can now shock the crap out of you if you have cardiac arrest. Clear. One of the things we did on Thursday night was go to a show at the Walton Arts Center. The show was Spamalot which was a part of their broadway series this year. Spamalot is based on the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the broadway show won the Tony Award for best musical a few years ago. I really like Monty Python and especially Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was one of my favorite movies in junior high and high school, I used to watch it all the time and I still quote it all the time. I think I may quote it as much or more than any other movie. In fact, in my high school drama class, my good friend Travis and I reenacted a scene from the movie for one of our assignments. Anyway, the show on Thursday night was really good. It had some added stuff and was a little different from the movie but was still very funny and we really enjoyed it. I would recommend it to any of you if it comes to your town. As a side note, the girl who plays the lady of the lake on the North American tour is from Fayetteville. I will try to get back to more regular farm posting soon. Until then, enjoy this clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Christmas related post #2-Gifts

I posted about this last year on the blog so you might remember it. I just wanted to give some ideas to all of you for Christmas gifts.

First of all, consider purchasing fair trade products. For those of you who are not familiar with Fair Trade here is a quick description...

Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based model of international trade which promotes the payment of a fair price as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production of a wide variety of goods. The movement focuses in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries, most notably handicrafts and agricultural products. Fair trade's strategic intent is to deliberately work with marginalized producers and workers in order to help them move from a position of vulnerability to security and economic self-sufficiency.

There are several websites devoted to selling these products. Some of our good friends Dylan and Molly have a company that sells some products from India online. It is called Asha Imports and they have products that are made by poor people in India to enable them get out of the slums and out of the sex trade. Their products are really cool. You should also check out all the fair trade product websites below and consider buying some of their products for your friends and family this Christmas. By purchasing fair trade products, your helping to free more and more people from impoverished circumstances. If you live in Northwest Arkansas, the gift shop up at the Mt Sequoyah Conference Center sells lots of fair trade items.

www.ashaimports.com

www.worldofgood.com

www.saribari.com

www.tenthousandvillages.com

Another great thing would be to donate to a non-profit that helps people in need like LifeSource. They help families in need in Northwest Arkansas. Or you could donate to a non-profit in your area. You could also give to a missionary to help them continue to be able to spread the good news. If you don't know any missionaries, we know several we can recommend.

Another great thing you can do this Christmas is to give to World Vision or Heifer International. You can go on their website and buy practical things for impoverished individuals in other countries. Things like livestock, clothing, medical kits, etc. You can even buy a goat for an impoverished family, in honor of the Farm of Hale.

For any of you wanting to get Margo or I a gift, these kinds of things would mean more to us than anything else. Why not consider helping those less fortunate this year for Christmas.

Which Came First

When we got baby chicks back in the spring a couple of them turned out to be roosters even though we ordered all hens. I don't want a rooster because they make a lot of noise (crowing at 5am which is annoying) and I don't need one. For those non-farm people out there, you don't need a rooster to get eggs from the hens. The only thing the rooster does is make the egg fertilized (kind of like people) so you can make baby chicks. But back to my story....So the chicks are now grown and I still had one rooster left driving me crazy crowing at 5am. I finally decided to do something about it today. I have never butchered chickens before but I thought I would give it a try. There are two ways to do it, one is to pluck them which involves putting the chicken in boiling water and plucking out all the feathers and from what I hear is not fun at all and stinky. The other way is to skin them like you would any other animal when you butcher it. This is the method I chose. It actually was not too hard to do and turned out pretty good I think. First I cut off it's head, then let the blood drain, cut off the legs, tail, and part of the wings. I then skinned it and gutted it. Here are a few pics, don't worry they are not very graphic.

Here he is, he has no idea what awaits him.


Here he is after cutting his head off, he flopped around quite a bit and then I hung him up to drain the blood.


And here is the finished product. I think we will boil him up and make a big pot of chicken and dumplings. My favorite.

Funny Animals

Not much going on around the farm these days. Winter is a slower time for things to happen that are blog worthy. I am working on some projects currently that I will post about soon. Until then I thought I would post a video to keep you the reader interested and coming back. Margo and I saw these a while back and thought they were funny and who doesn't like funny animal videos. I especially love the second one of the panda. I don't know why but it kills me every time I see it, I can't stop laughing for several minutes.

ADVENTure

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that I usually write a post every year around this time that has to do with Christmas. It usually has to do with celebrating the real meaning of Christmas, how it is over commercialized, trying to be less materialistic, and trying to do more to help others. I may have another post later on that has to do with some of that but for this one I want to focus a little on celebrating the real meaning of Christmas. In case you don't know the real meaning, just look at the first 6 letters of the word and you can figure it out. It is the celebration of Jesus birth. I am not going to get into a lot of religious talk here but I wanted to tell you about something our church is recommending people do to help celebrate the holiday right. They recommended celebrating advent and doing advent readings. I had never heard of this before but Margo had. None of the churches I have attended before had ever talked about this and Margo said it had been a long time since she had heard it talked about. I am sure some of you may know about it and you may participate which is awesome. Here is what it is in case you don't know. Advent is a season in the Christian church in which we celebrate Jesus birth and at the same time, look forward to his second coming. It is a a season of joyous expectation as well as a a time for serious reflections as we prepare for Christ's return. The most common way to celebrate advent is by following a schedule of advent readings. You can also light a advent candle wreath. I think this is a great way to help celebrate Christmas for the right reason. If you are interested in this and want to do the advent readings there is a link to an advent calender on our church's website, just click here to get to it and you can print it out if you want. You better act fast though because the first reading started today.

Thanksgivin'

For Thanksgiving this year Margo and I went to my Aunt Freddie's house in Waldron (Arkansas). She is my dad's older sister and her and my uncle recently moved down there. My cousin (her daughter) Cindy and her husband also live down there. My other cousin Tim and his family were there from Atlanta as well. We thought it would be a good chance to see this part of the family (especially since we don't get to see Tim and his family very often). Anyway, we spent Thursday down there visiting and eating. It was a very nice time. After lunch all the cousins went for a drive out in the country, and when I say country I mean out in the middle of no where. I was born and raised in the country in Arkansas and some of the places we passed were scary to me. I think they might have filmed part of Deliverance in this area, seriously.


We drove to a recreational area called Knoppers Ford. It was a very pleasant area with a nice creek. We hung out there for a little bit and took some pictures. I thought I would share some of the pics of everyone. Sadly, I did not get a picture of my Aunt and Uncle.

From back to front, here is Tim, Elizabeth, Grace, and Vivian


Here is left to right, Justin, Larry, Cindy, and Whitney


And here is Margo and I reenacting engagement pictures

Feed My Sheep

We have been keeping the sheep separate from the goats on the farm lately, just like in the Bible. We had to start feeding hay since the grass has died for the winter. The goats aren't very good at sharing with the sheep and tend to pick on them. It is not a fair fight because the goats have weapons (horns) and the sheep don't. So, I decided to keep them separate for a while. This will also allow me to try to tame the sheep down a little more while they are separated from the goats. Anyway, since I am feeding the sheep separate, I decided I needed to build them a hay feeder. I built a nice one last year for the goats and cow that I am still using. Goats and sheep tend to waste hay because they will lay in it and use the bathroom in it and then not eat it. The hay feeder helps keep them from doing that. I just needed something small for the sheep because there are only 3 of them, so I just put something together real quick, nothing fancy. I ended up using one of my tomato cages to hold the hay and it sits in a box I built. This helps conserve hay by having a place to hold it instead of putting it on the ground and as they are eating it the loose stuff falls into the box and they can eat out of there as well. I can also move it around easily.

Here it is. I told you it is nothing fancy, but the sheep seem to like it just fine.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 28th Birthday Josh!

Ha Ha

This past Saturday Margo and I went and saw some comedians at the Walton Arts Center. It was the Bob and Tom Comedy All Stars Tour. Bob and Tom is a nationwide syndicated morning radio show. They have lots of different comedians on there every morning. Margo and I listen to it every day on the way to work, it is really funny. You should definitely listen to it on a radio station in your area. They do a comedy tour around the nation that features some of the comedians they have on their show. I have been waiting for them to come close to us and they finally came to Fayetteville on Saturday night. The show lasted 2.5 hours and featured the comedians Costaki Economopoulos, Henry Phillips, Greg Warren, Donnie Baker, Bob Zany, Greg Hahn, and Drew Hastings. They were all really, really funny. It is so hard to pick the one I liked the best they were all so good. But my favorites were probably Bob Zany, Greg Warren, and Greg Hahn. I highly recommend that if this comedy tour comes to a city near you that you go, it is worth every penny. Just be aware that they are a little raunchy and foul mouthed. I found some videos online of a couple of the guys that I thought I would share, there may or may not be some cussing in the videos.

This one is of Greg Warren



This one is of Drew Hastings, he did some funny farm stuff which we related to.



And these two are of Greg Hahn, I think I laughed the most during his routine. If anyone has ADHD, this guy definitely does. He was going crazy the whole time he was up there.

Our Asian Ladies

I wanted to share some info about an pest we have here on the farm. It is the Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis). They look a lot like a Ladybug but are different; their color and spot pattern vary from the Ladybug. They were first introduced in the United States in the early 1900's but did not take hold until the 1980's. The reason they were brought here was to control aphids that destroy crops. They actually do this really well and are a very good bug for crop farmers and gardeners so they are not a pest to them. They are more of a house pest. Let me explain....In the winter they try to find a warm place to stay. One of the main places they like to go is into houses, they will get in the siding and around windows and doors and usually find their way indoors no matter how airtight you think your house is. They aren't destructive to houses or anything, they just fly around in the house and crawl all over the inside walls and windows. It is pretty annoying. We had never known about them or had problems with them until we moved out to the farm. Some of you that came to our house last winter may remember seeing them inside and seeing us vacuum them up trying to get rid of them. That is one of the best ways to get them out once they are in the house, vacuum them up. The only problem with our house is we have like 20 foot high walls and it is impossible to reach the high part of the walls and ceilings to get to them. So, during the winter they are always buzzing around inside and it is annoying. A week or so ago when it was really warm one day I noticed that the beetles were swarming on the outside of the house and starting to work their way in. I did some quick research online and one of the ways they recommended to control them is spray insecticide on the outside of your house which will keep them away. The insecticide they recommended is ones with permethrin. I just happened to have some of this because that is what I use to spray the animals to control flies. So, I sprayed it on the outside of the house. I think it did the trick because since that time I have not seen anymore of them coming inside. This makes us really happy.

Deer Camp

Margo and I went hunting this past weekend. Margo's family (on her mom's side) owns a lot of timberland (some of which we hope to inherit one day) down is south Arkansas near Fordyce in a little community called Jacinto. They have a deer camp down there that everyone uses as the home base. There is a central building with a kitchen and bathroom and everyone brings their RVs to stay in and parks them around the building. There are a bunch of people at this deer camp, maybe around 20-30 people but not everyone hunts. This is like our fourth time to go down there and it is a lot of fun. Most of the people there are older and have good stories. The stands we hunt out of are permanent stands and are semi enclosed and have roofs which is nice. There is at least one stand that I saw that even has a recliner in it. Unfortunately though I did not bring home a deer. I did shoot one and I am 99% sure I hit it but I could not find a blood trail nor could I find the dead deer. When I shot it, it jumped strait up and was flailing around it's right front leg like I had shot it in the shoulder, and then it ran off. I am guessing the bullet did not go all the way through and that is the reason there was no blood trail. It was very disappointing. Several other people got deer, I think there had been 11 killed so far when we left. The biggest one killed was an 8 point and there were a few of those. So I did get my fill of gutting deer, although they have a fancy contraption that makes it really easy to skin them. Overall, it was an enjoyable weekend. Here are some pics from the weekend but I will warn you some are kind of graphic.

Here is the little central building at the camp


Here is people's RVs and the outdoor fire pit


Here is a picture taken from the stand I was in. The picture isn't great quality because I took it with my cell phone


Here is another pic from the stand, you can see a food plot in the distance in the trees


Here is Margo's Uncle Ed with a deer he killed. He is one of my favorite people to be around because he is really nice and always has good stories and funny things to say.


Here is Margo's dad and one of the deer he killed


Here is the fancy skinning contraption. Basically all you have to do is cut around the deer's neck and hook it up to this machine and crank it and it pulls the hide completely off with very little work or cutting. It is really pretty cool, if any of you hunters would like to know more about it just let me know, I have more pictures of it.


Here is me cutting around one of the deer's necks to get it ready to be skinned


Here is the walk in cooler they have to hang up the carcases

Accessories

As I talked about in my last post, because we got the ATV so cheap, I have been able to buy some useful accessories for it.

First of all, I bought a small trailer to pull behind it. I needed something to haul wood, rocks, dirt, hay, and other things in. I put an ad on craigslist under the wanted section and a guy called me about one he had. I ended up buying it from him. It is a homemade trailer but is well built and sturdy. It is about 4 feet long by 3 feet wide. It sits pretty high off the ground so it will go over stumps and rocks and stuff. The best thing was it only cost me $30 which is really cheap compared to the ones for sale at the stores.

Here it is inaction hauling wood


I also got a 3 way ball hitch. It has a ball on it to hook a normal trailer to like my bigger trailer, a hole for a pin to go through like what the new trailer uses, and a loop to hook other stuff to.


I also wanted a basket of some sort on the front to carry stuff in like tools or what have you. The ones they sell at stores are metal pipe or mesh and run anywhere from $50-$150. I decided to build my own out of wood (2x6's) because I figured it would work just as good. It turned out good and is really solid, and it only cost me $5 to build. You will also notice some Y shaped bracket type things mounted on top of the rack. They are gun and/or tool holders that I bought. You just set your gun or shovel or whatever in there and there are little straps that hold it in there. They are handy little things.

New Farm Toy

A few posts ago when talking about our good farm week I alluded to another good thing that happened that week that I would save for another post. Well, this is that post. I wanted to wait to talk about until I found out just how good of a thing it was. Since moving out on the farm, Margo and I have talked about how nice it would be to have a 4 wheeler (I will from here on out refer to it as an ATV). We could use it to go around and check on stuff, haul wood or rocks or hay, take it deer hunting, and many other tasks. The past 2 years we have been using the truck to haul wood out which is hard on my truck and I want it to last for a long time and not tear it up. We use the wheelbarrow to haul rocks, dirt, or hay. When we were putting up fence, I had to carry the big wood posts and metal posts up the hill behind our house by hand to the back of the property because I had no other way to get them there. So you can see how nice it would be to have an atv to do a lot of that stuff with. The main reason we had not got one yet is they are expensive (even used) and we did not have the money to spend on one. Over the past 2 years we have been saving any money we make on the farm whether it is by selling wood or selling goats. We have been putting that money in a "farm" savings account to use on some large item we needed to buy for the farm at some point. We decided a while back we wanted to use this money to buy a used atv. We looked for a couple months and realized that even a decent used atv was expensive and cost more than the amount of money we wanted to spend on one, but we kept looking hoping that God might smile on us and we would find a good one we could afford. Well, one came along a couple weeks ago. It was really cheap, but it did need some work. It is always scary buying something used especially when you know it has some problems but don't know what they are or how much it will cost to get them fixed. We decided to go out on a limb and go ahead and get it. It was kind of funny because we were the first ones to look at it and there were 2 guys there staring at us that wanted to buy it if we didn't. So we got it, and then we took it to a dealer to have them check it over and fix any problems it had. We finally got it back this week. They had to put a new starter, solenoid, belt, and adjust the clutch and now it works great. After buying it and paying to have it fixed we came in under what we had planned on spending on one (which means we can buy some accessories like a small trailer to pull behind it) and it is better than anything we thought we would be able to afford. In fact based on the money we have in it, we got it for less than half the price of what kelley blue book says it is worth. We are very excited. This post is getting long so I will cut to the chase and tell you what it is exactly and show you pics.

The Specs:
2003 Polaris Sportsman 500HO 4x4
liquid cooled engine
push button 4 wheel drive
independent rear suspension
Towing capacity 1200lbs, almost as much as Margo's CRV
ground clearance 11.25 inches, that's just crazy
up to 60mph which is way to fast on an atv for me, I had it up to 40 today on the county road and it was just cruising along but I think that will be my max speed.
engine braking system- this means the engine will slow itself down if you let off the accelerator even when going down a hill. I tried it out on our really steep hill on the county road. I was going down at about 20mph and let off the accelerator and it immediately started slowing it down to about 3 mph and kept it there all the way down the hill.

Magical Fruit

Question. What fruit can you both eat and predict the winter weather with? Answer. The Persimmon. Let me explain about the winter weather part for all you yankees out there. What you do in order to know how bad the winter is going to be is take a persimmon seed in cut it in half long ways. Inside the persimmon seed there will be an outline of either a fork, a spoon, or a knife. If it is a fork that means it is going to be a mild winter and not much snow and ice. A spoon means that you are going to be shoveling lots of snow. A knife means it is going to be terribly cold and icy and the wind will cut through you like a knife. So yesterday, I picked some persimmons from the few persimmon trees that I have and I cut a seed open. It showed a spoon which means lots of snow. I love snow, so it is perfect. As I mentioned, you can also eat persimmons. Just wait for them to ripen and get soft in the fall, you don't want to try one when they are green. That is a favorite prank of my dad's, tricking people to eat green persimmons when they don't know any better. It is actually pretty funny. They taste pretty good when ripe but there is not a lot to them. This year, I decided I wanted to try out a recipe that uses persimmons so I made some persimmon cookies. They turned out very good but I can barely taste the persimmon so I think next time I will put more persimmons in them. And the cookies are all mine to eat because Margo won't eat them because they have cinnamon in them.

Here are the persimmons


Here is the seed cut in half so you can see the spoon


Here are the yummy cookies

Help me, Help my garden

I think fall has officially sprung. I think fall might be my favorite season. The weather has turned kind of cold. If fact tonight we made our first fire in the wood stove. Having a fire inside means we can have smores whenever we want. Very Nice. Another great thing about fall is the leaves changing which brings me to my main point. Have you ever asked yourself....How can I help the Farm of Hale? The answer is simple: donate. Donate leaves. I use lots of leaves for mulch in my garden. I have a chipper/shredder that I run them through and put them in a big pile until I am ready to use them. I have lots of leaves out here on the farm to use but that requires me raking them which I don't mind doing if I have to. But I know that a lot of people rake their leaves to make their yards look nice and then they bag them and have them hauled off. If any of you who read this do rake and bag your leaves and live close to Fayetteville, I would like to have them. I will come get them. Or you are welcome to bring them out here to us and in exchange I will give you a free personal tour of the farm and maybe a free meal (if it is meal time).

The bad and the ugly

On our blog I tend to mostly share the good things that are going on, or the projects that we completed successfully. I thought for once I would post something that we tried that did not work out, so that you all would know that not everything works out perfect here on the Farm of Hale... I know that may be shocking to some of you. We decided to try making soap, goatmilk lye soap to be exact. We thought it would be cool to try out and see how it worked. The recipe we had called for lye, goat milk, lard, honey, and oatmeal. It was actually pretty easy to go through all the steps to making it. The hardest thing was trying to find someone that sells lye.

Here is Margo stirring ingredients, it's looking good so far.



Here it is after we had mixed it all up and poured it in the soap molds, still looks pretty good at this point. It has to sit for 2 days to harden up before you take it out of the molds. Then it has to cure for 4-6 weeks


After 2 days this is what it looks like and it is even worse looking in person. We think we may have had too much lard or somehow the ingredients did not bind together or whatever. If you are an old person who reads this blog and has made soap before or any other person who has made soap before maybe you will help us out and tell us what we did wrong.


So, this little project did not turn out so well. We are going to try it one more time and see what happens. If it does not work the next time we may abandon our great soap making plans.

A Good Farm Week

Last week was one of our better weeks for the farm. A few really good things happened. I will tell you about two of them in this post and save another one for a later post. The first good thing that happened is we sold all of our wood. We had sold 4 of the 12 ricks of wood so far and had not had many calls the past week or two which is weird because last year we sold out in a few days. We had advertised on craigslist and in the local newspaper classifieds. Then on Thursday I had a guy call me and want to come look at the wood. He liked it and decided to buy the 8 ricks that I had left. So, we sold all our wood which is good for us. Then, I guess since it is starting to get a lot colder, I had like 6 calls on Saturday of people wanting to buy wood. I wish I had more to sell them but I am pretty much done cutting wood to sell. The next big thing that happened is we sold 3 of our calves at the Fayetteville livestock auction last week. If you remember we bought 4 calves in the spring to raise and get bigger in order to sell in the fall. We put them on our neighbors' land because they did not have any livestock over there and it would help them not have to mow and it would help us make some money... hopefully. One of the calves we are going to keep until next year to butcher. The other 3 we sold and our plan was to hopefully make enough off of the 3 we sold to cover the cost of the one we were keeping so we would not be out any money for a cow to butcher this year. But, we ended up having a problem with the calves during the summer. They contracted pinkeye around the time we went on vacation to Ohio and we did not discover it until we got back home and by that point it had become really bad. We had to give them antibiotics to treat it and I put eyepatches on their affected eye to protect it from dust and sunlight so it would heal quicker. We had pirate cows. The pinkeye went away put they still had white spots on their eyes which is pretty common after a cow has pinkeye. At livestock sales, if a cow has these white spots than they don't bring as much money. Bad for us. We were really worried that we were going to have a hard time even making our money back on those three because of this. Anyway, we sold them last week and they did sell for less- about 80 cents a pound instead of $1-$1.15 a pound. But they ended up being a lot heavier than we thought they would be. When we got them they were around 250 pounds and when we sold them they averaged 455 pounds. This equaled out to them gaining over 1.25 pounds per day, just eating grass. That is pretty good. So it ended up that even though we made less per pound than what we wanted, their weight helped us to make more money and we ended up making enough off the three we sold to cover the cost of what we paid for the one we are keeping, and we had money left over. We were really excited. Now we just have one calf that we will keep until next year sometime. I think his name will be GOB (pronounced like Job from the bible).

Rockin' Video

As I have mention on here before, one of my good buddies has a band called Heypenny. They are really good. Their live show is excellent, so if they are ever playing in your area you should definitely check them out. They are working on a new album currently, but in the meantime they have made a music video of one of their current songs that I thought I would share on here, it is funny. It just got released the other day. They also released the song as an official single on itunes and I think it is being promoted on the radio. The only thing is, you have to live in the UK to get it. That is kind of where they are trying to get promoted real big so for now you can only buy the song on itunes in the UK. But you can listen to it and other songs on their myspace by clicking here. And here is the video for all of you to check out.

1492

Being federal employees, we did not have to work today for the holiday. We decided to take a little weekend trip. Friday night we drove down to Mena (my (Josh) hometown) and stayed with some good friends, Steve and Kathy. We had a really good time hanging out with them Friday night and Saturday. Friday night we tried out a amazing new beer called Samichlaus (thanks for recommending it Justin) that I highly recommend to all you beer drinkers out there (it is a little difficult to find). We also had some really good wine that Steve and Kathy had discovered on their recent trip to California wine country. On Saturday we drove around Mena a little, not much has changed since I moved away almost 10 years ago. Wow, it is crazy that is has been almost 10 years. We also got to see some of their latest works of art. Steve fixes up awesome old cars and Kathy makes pottery in their shop. They are both really good at their respective arts. Although I was unable to acquire an antique car from Steve, Kathy was more generous with her pottery and gave us a couple pieces. The pots are really awesome.

kitchen utensil holder


Garlic pot


That's right Sarah, Annie, and Molly, I moving in on the pottery, that's what you get for moving far, far away.

After parting ways with Steve and Kathy, we drove up to Queen Wilhelmina State Park, which is on Rich Mountain, which is the second tallest mountain in Arkansas. It is only a few minutes drive from Mena and has awesome views. Unfortunately it was a little hazy on Saturday so I couldn't get many good pictures, but it was still a great drive. I highly recommend taking a trip there if you have not been, especially now that the leaf colors are starting to change. Here is one pic I did get, You can see the road winding along the top of the mountain.


Our next stop on our little trip was Waldron which is just north of Mena. My cousin and aunt have recently moved there so we went to see them and spent Saturday night with my aunt and uncle and went to church with my cousin on Sunday. I have a lot of kin folks on my dad's side that live near Waldron in a little community named Haletown. That's right there is a little town in Arkansas named after my family. We had a nice relaxing visit with all of them, it was nice to see family we have not seen in a while.

That concludes the tour of our weekend. The whole weekend was really great. Thanks Chris.

Exfoliating

I am sure I have mentioned it previously this summer, but I grew luffa this year. It was my fun think to grow in the garden this year to see if I could and see how it turned out. Luffa are the sponge like things people use to scrub with in the shower and other places. A lot of people don't know that luffa is a gourd, it is in the cucumber family. They grow in vine form and the vine gets really big. I grew them on a hooped cattle panel and they took up all the space on it and then started spreading over the garden. The vine was really pretty and made nice yellow flowers, that attracted not so nice bees. Here is a little photo tour of the progression of the luffa throughout the summer.

This is the vine growing on the cattle panel


This is the luffa gourd growing on the vine


After they mature, they turn brown and dry out on the vine and that is when you harvest them. We have been harvesting 2-3 every few days for the past few weeks. It took me a few times picking to figure out when the best time to harvest was. Here is what they look like when you harvest them.


To get to the sponge, you peel the skin off kind of like a banana (b-a-n-a-n-a-s). Then you wash it with a water hose with a strong stream to get all the sap like stuff out. And here is what you get.



You can put them in some bleach water for a few minutes after peeling them and then rinse them if you want them to look nice and like they do in the store or you can leave them natural which is a little more brown color and has some spots and stuff. To cure them you leave them in the sunlight for a few days until they harden up. Most individual gourd make two sponges, we probably have 14 or so sponges so far and will have at least that many more. Here is some of the finished products.



Here is Margo demonstrating the use of the luffa.


Some of you might be getting one of these as a gift. I guess you could interpret getting one two ways. Either we think you are a friend or we think you need to take a bath.

Keep the vampires at bay

As some of you may remember I planted way to much garlic this year. We used some of it in our salsa and spaghetti sauce canning. I also used some to plant for next year. But we still have lots and lots left, more than we will ever use before we harvest next summer. So, I thought I would offer it to you my loyal readers if you want any. The best time to plant it in my opinion is in the fall and probably sometime in the next couple weeks. You can also plant it in the early spring but I don't think it gets as big. If any of you want some to plant for next year in your garden or flower beds let me know. You can come and get it or I can bring it to you.

Goodbye to Another Great One

As I am sure all of you have heard, Paul Newman died last Friday. It is very sad. He was a great actor and did some really great stuff. Besides making good movies he also donated all the money he made from his line of food products (Newman's Own) to charity (over $220 million), and he served in WWII. I have not seen all his movies but two of my favorites are Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I can watch these movies over and over.

Here is one of my favorite scenes from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. This scene seems a little out of place for a outlaw type movie but maybe that is why I like it, it is just such a feel-good scene.

Hay is for horses, but not on this farm.

Winter is approaching, and I completed one more task in preparation. Yesterday, we hauled the last bit of hay that we need to feed the animals through the winter. Hauling hay is not one of my favorite farm duties, as I have talked about in previous posts, but it is necessary. I actually don't mind it so much if it is not super hot outside and I am not hauling several hundred bales. Yesterday was one of the times it was not so bad. We did it in the morning so the temperature outside was like 60 degrees, we were getting it out of a barn so I didn't have to haul it out of the field, and I only needed around 40 bales to complete what I needed for winter. Altogether this summer we got about 130 square bales for the winter. I will probably get a couple round bales to put out as well when we are going to be gone and can't be here to feed hay everyday. I wish I could do all round bales but I don't have a tractor and I am not quite strong enough to lift a round bale.....yet. If any of you have a tractor sitting around that you are not using, I would gladly take it off your hands. It will still be a while before I have to start feeding hay but I am glad to have what I need for the year. It won't be long though, there are already some leaves starting to change and fall. I love this time of year.

It's That Time Of Year Again

It is officially fall and the weather is starting to get a little cooler. That means it is almost time to start having fires in the wood stoves and fireplaces all across this great land of ours. And you know what you need in order to do that......wood. And guess who has wood? That's right, yours truly. I thought I would give all of you, my loyal readers, the first chance at buying some. I will probably put it on craigslist tomorrow. Anyway, I have 12 ricks of wood for sell at $40 each and I don't deliver. Some of it is seasoned and some is green. It is mostly oak but there is also a little bit of hickory in there as well. Last year it sold in about a week after I advertised it in the paper so if you want some you better come get it. First come, first served.

From Farm of Hale

B to the third power.

In case any of you don't know this week (Wednesday-Saturday) is Bikes, Blues, and BBQ in Fayetteville. BBB is estimated to now be the third biggest bike rally in the U.S. and it is the fastest growing bike rally in the U.S. They don't have official numbers but somewhere around 300,000-400,000 people come to it and over 100,000 motorcycles. It is considered the most family friendly of all the bike rallies. They have Dickson Street closed off and all the bikers park their bikes along the street and it is wall to wall people. There are tons of vendors south of town at the university track center and they have the state barbecue cook off. There are also several stages set up with music going. There is a big concert every year inside the indoor track building, this year it is the Allman Brothers. It is lots of fun to go down and see everything and be around tons of bikers and other people and eat some good food. I wanted to make sure you all know about it and hope that you will all go check it out if you live around the area, it is a really good experience. We love going down there every year. If any of you want to go but would rather go with someone, Margo and I will be going down there on Friday for sure and maybe another night as well.

How do you like them apples?

I made an awesome apple pie tonight. We were given some fresh picked apples last week. A friend of mine from work brought them to me. They are the kind of smaller, tart apples that are perfect for pies. I decided to make it tonight because we were having some friends over and the wife of this couple does not like chocolate. Yes, you read correctly, it is not a typo. She does not like chocolate. It literally blows my mind. Anyway, I thought it would be the perfect time to make my pie. I have made apple pies before but I tend not to always use the same recipe when I cook. And a lot of times I even make up recipes which Margo does not always like so much. One thing I always forget to do is write down the recipe that I use or make up and then I end up forgetting it even if it was really good. This pie turned out really good so I thought I would share the recipe with all of you and at the same time it would be a way of saving the recipe so I can use it again and not forget it. I did not make up this recipe completely. I took things from several different recipes and put them together to make my own recipe. It turned out really good, one of the better apple pies I have had and I am not being partial just because I made it. So here is the recipe...

Crust:
I decided to use store bought crust this time. The kind that comes with two in a box that you roll out. I have made crusts before but these already ready crusts are good and easy. If you do make your own crust I would recommend using one that calls for using Crisco, it makes it much better.

Filling:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup bourbon
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
8 apples - peeled, cored and sliced (you may need more or less apples depending on size of apple)

Directions:
1. Melt butter in a sauce pan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add white sugar, brown sugar and bourbon; bring to a boil. Reduce temperature, and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add cinnamon
2. Meanwhile, place the bottom crust in your pan. Mix pecans with apples and fill crust with apples, mounded slightly. Pour the sugar and butter liquid over the apples. Cover with top crust or a lattice work of crust. Cut a few small slits for steam release.
3. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees F. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F, and continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes. (to check for doneness stick a tooth pick in and if it goes in easy it is done, if you meet resistance then the apples aren't done and it needs to cook for a few more minutes)
*If you want a pretty brown crust on top you can brush lightly with egg before cooking.