Beef Liver Chocolate Bars

During the soviet union, russian children were given “Hematogen Bars” to combat iron deficiency. They were basically sweetened chocolate bars with cows blood mixed in. Though im not sure what they tasted like, they’re said to have been effective at raising iron levels. Ever since introducing wild game into my diet ive noticed that is the way my body prefers to consume creatine. I tolerate the wild game much better than i do the powders. I have more energy and less joint pain when i eat wild game. Recently i decided that i should probably do something about my eternally low iron levels due to my endometriosis and the fact that venison is the only red meat i eat. My body rejects proteins i ate and then didnt eat for twenty years but it seems okay with the idea of introducing new ones. I’d never tasted liver, so i wondered if i could get away with introducing that like a new food. If it went well i would later try introducing bone broth bit by bit, as i grew up eating chicken broth but havent yet had beef broth. My coworker makes it every other week from her own cattle bones.

Anyways, i found these sugar free dairy free chocolate bars full of grass fed beef liver in powder form. I decided it’d be easier to gradually increase the dose of the liver powder day after day with a chocolate bar rather than a capsule. So i bought a box of them. The good news is that my body has accepted them, as im now on day 4 of ramping up the dose and nothing terrible has happened. They do seem to give me more energy and im hoping they increase my iron levels, and while the taste is a bit sour and more chocolatey than sweet…i do not find the taste or the texture to be unpleasant at all. Its actually quite chocolatey and it smells of chocolate. ive come to look forward to my daily dose of the sour tasting chocolate brownie every day. I do think i will continue cutting the bars into thirds as there are nuts and oil in the bars and im just not sure i need a whole bar in one sitting, but i think with the wild game, the iron complex pills, and the liver powder chocolate…its a college try at righting the eternally crooked ship that is my health.

Birds on the Roof

Im listening to the tiny talons of song birds against the tin roof. my favorite thing about the tiny house is that you are aware at all times that there is just a thin layer between you and the outdoors. I live in a remodeled shed fitted with water and electricity. In a large brick house you would never know there was a bird on the roof but in my tiny house you can hear their talons loud and clear, follow their trajectory across the ceiling, and then watch them launch into flight from the bathroom window. I prefer to be in a place where you feel “in the middle” of nature vs sheltered from it.

The Ripening Mat

This is the ripening station. Theres a strip of cardboard that sits on top of Sili’s crate. In the summer it ripens plums, nectarines, figs, kiwi berries, and golden berries. Now, in October, the fruits arriving in the fedexed produce box are primarily pears and persimmons. Theres also the weekly avocados. Everything i want to ripen sits here because it seems to be a place the ants wont find it. On the counter they do find it. I’d like to place it on the other crate but i cant, for that crate belongs to Cashew, the australian shepherd, who bucks the fruit off like a rodeo bronco as soon as i go to work and apparently has strong feelings of negativity towards change. So at least for the next 8 years, the fruit must be ripened over the crate on the right side…directly in front of the air flow of the window unit. I feel blessed to have all this food on the ripening mat. during the first year of Covid, i did not have the opportunity for much fresh food. It is both nutritious and tasty. It also costs a good chunk of the paycheck so, every fruit, vegetable, or piece of wild game is to be cherished.

Buddy and the Fox

Buddy the Rooster has not wanted to get into the chicken coop at night. He has been sleeping on the roof. I dont love this as it leaves him vulnerable to predators. So far ive left him alone about it but when the hens started joining him i began grabbing them and putting them up at night because thats ridiculous. We’re not all gonna regress and sleep on the roof because the rooster does. Load up. Anyways, i sleep with one eye open because i know Buddy is out there alone. This morning i sat straight up in bed when i heard the scream of a fox very close to the house. I sprang out of bed and grabbed my head lamp. I struggled to get the dogs out of the way and flung the door open. The fox was still screaming to the left side of the yard in the direction of the chicken pens. i went to the pen and told Buddy i was here and id protect him. The fox circled the property and ended up in the direction of the driveway, then finally the noise came from the right side of the property, in the direction of the greenhouse. I couldnt leave him out there. The fox could probably smell him, and hear him since he’d been crowing off and on for an hour. He’d be like a sitting duck, as close to the fence as he preferred to sit there on the roof. He was the only nice rooster id ever had. I didnt want anything to happen to him before february when i could incubate his eggs. Then the fox screaming came in real loud. It had undoubtedly ventured in close to my setup, close to the house and the chicken pens, for me to hear it that loud, though i never saw it. I made an executive decision. Id been patient with him so far but integration had to happen. I grabbed Buddy like a football and opened the door to the coop. I put him in the coop with his hens and locked the door. Well, fighting ensued. It sounded like a bar-house brawl was going on in there. I felt a need to let him out, to separate and preserve everybody in pristine condition, but i fought the urge to open the door. I knew better. A fox could do more damage to my flock than they could to each other. After a couple of minutes the noise, commotion, and wing flapping settled down. They stopped hurling themselves into the walls. The new seating chart was decided upon. Though it made me nervous that i was going to wake up to a destroyed chicken coop, ripped apart at its seams, i left them together inside the coop and returned to the house, the fox still outside screaming its head off. I wanted all my hens and my rooster, Buddy, put up for the night and safe from whatever banshee was very nearby. The rifle remained loaded. I did do a walk around the area but the screamer didnt fancy a tangle with me as i never got a look at the producer of all that noise. I just knew from the sound of it that it was a fox. They can be cunning and sly and theres two that live in this area. My neighbor’s truce with me is that they are the favorite critters of his parents who live a couple properties over and they feed them and keep them so well fed that they wont want to hunt my chickens and i in turn dont shoot them. However, if they do try to take a chicken, i will shoot them. So, i dont know if they forgot to feed one of their two lovebird foxes or this was a new fox but i wasnt taking any chances. I hope the chickens and Buddy stay settled in and calm but i just couldnt risk losing Buddy so he had to learn to sleep in the coop with the hens tonight.

I used to fill the food dispensers and let the chickens gather round to pull food from there but during rainy years i just toss the scratch on the ground and the reason i do that is because each time it rains the food gets wet in the dispenser and becomes cement. Then i have to pick it all out of the bottom and the bottom of the inside compartment and let it dry completely before the food will descend properly. Its easier just to put the scratch on the ground when its wet or rainy and they’re just going to use their feet to put it on the ground anyways even when its in the dispenser.

Another For Sale Sign

Another for sale sign here, another there…the more farms and ranches that sell, the less cattle and hay bales there will be to look at. The land isnt bought by other ranchers that want to come in and raise sheep or plant crops. The land is bought by developers that want to create subdivisions we dont have the water to supply or niche shopping centers nobody has the money to spend at.

I see this view every year except once in a while when they give the land a break and just add more manure to the soil. I decided i had better stop taking this view for granted and take a photograph in case i dont get to see it again next year. The view is most amazing from the main road but its now become too busy with traffic for me to stop on the main road to take a picture from the front. The sun rises behind those trees every morning. When the light is just right sometimes the field is bathed in orange or pink. You root for your neighbors to do well because if they dont, you may find yourself homesteading in a city rather than country pretty soon. 🙁

A Bird Visits

Birds have always liked to stop and rest on the window unit hanging from the front window. Once they perceive their reflection in the window they usually stay for a while. They’ll chat a bit, posture, make a display with their feathers, and in the case of road runners, even peck at the window in an aggressive manner, as they think they’re having a conversation with and fighting another bird. In the summer i completely miss these interactions because on the A/C function, the blades are always turning and the air is always blowing, whether its just pulling in air from the outside or cooling that air. The A/C unit is so noisy. When i first got one after my dead split unit i had to learn to think with this ear booming background noise constantly going on. I also had to start watching youtube peoples court episodes on my cell phone rather than the laptop because the volume goes up louder. Nowadays i only use my laptop to edit books because the editing software is easier to manage on a laptop screen. All tv, radio, and podcast is consumed from the cell phone and my vhs tapes do very well with the window unit because the box television has a volume range that i have never had to test because the high end of that range would probably burst an eardrum and wake the neighbor 40 acres northeast of my house (proof that older things have always been manufactured better and as we embrace ‘progress’ we are just finding ways to become lazier so that less effort is required for each activity, build things shoddier so that they will break faster and cost more money, and narrow the range of choices with each new ‘upgrade’. Did you know refrigerators used to have turn table shelves and a temperature controlled butter compartment?). In the winter, when the heat is turned on, the blades only spin when the unit detects a drop in temperature in the air in the house and then it warms and funnels in new air. Otherwise it just sits, quietly, until it perceives it is needed. If the temperature is not in the 30s and it is sunny outside, this could result in large periods of time where the house is silent because the window unit blades are not moving. The silence is wonderful, and it allows me to hear when a bird drops in onto the window unit to fight its reflection. You hear all the chirping and the tick tick of its tiny feet against the metal as it hops around and postures at its reflection in the window. During this particular visit Cashew, my australian shepherd, was on house arrest after injuring her leg. She either fractured, sprained, or tore something, as an aging australian shepherd will. They go full send at everything they do in life whether their body can still withstand it or not. My older dog is 10 and spent the day outside because she is my couch potato and does not run, jump, climb, and launch herself into, up, and over things. However, Cashew was spending the day (and the next month) inside with me while her leg heals. She heard the little visitor arrive and followed me to the window as i carefully peeled the curtain back for her and i to look. She got some “bird tv” through the window this morning to keep her entertained during her house rest. The bird never saw us. It just continued to argue with the bird in the glass until it’d had enough and hopped down into the grass to look for bugs.

The First Hachiya Persimmon

I bought a hachiya persimmon tree last year. I spent years looking for one but every nursery just wanted to carry fuyu. Fuyu persimmons are great until you have a ripe hachiya. It’s like orange, pudding-consistency sugar in a spoon. If you are patient enough to wait for one….it is a treasure. To eat it early, even by a day, is to get a mouthful of chalk that sticks to everything and will not go away no matter how much water you drink. So you see, only to those who are patient and know what to look for are hachiya persimmons enjoyable. To all those who are impatient or dont know to wait, they appear inedible and terrible. So, people buy the fuyu, dont have to wait, and get mildly sweet apple consistency persimmons. Some people, however, have tasted that spoonful of orange sugar and end up chasing another until they find a nursery willing to buy one. Last year i found a nursery willing to buy a hachiya and i planted it. This year it put out 4 flowers which turned into 4 healthy looking green persimmons.

Each time we had a storm, one fell off the tree. First i had 4, then 3, then 2, and finally 1 persimmon. We were supposed to have 6 straight days of rain related to a tropical storm in the gulf. I decided the last remaining persimmon had to come off. Not only was i worried about it falling off the tree in the storm, grasshoppers had started to chew on it and made a big black spot on the end. It had started to turn orange. I researched and realized i could finish ripening it on the counter in a paper bag of bananas. I picked it and brought it inside the house before the rain started. I immediately put it in a bag with bananas but after two days i took it out because the black spot where it had been bug eaten had started to mold.

I set it on the cardboard on top of the dog crates and let it finish ripening there.

Once it was thoroughly smooshy all throughout i decided it was ripe and safe to eat.

I washed it and opened it to reveal that the black spot did not go all the way through. It was a surface blemish. There was a beautiful chunky mass of persimmon pulp on the inside, just like the ones that arrived in the misfits box last year. I had grown a persimmon on my own tree on my property.

It was a beautiful sight. If it flowered this year and i kept it alive through the winter, it would likely flower again next year.

I took a spoon and loaded some of the orange pudding-like sugar onto it. It did not disappoint. I cleaned every last morsel of the pulp from the skin with that plastic spoon. It was good to the last bit. I still cannot believe i grew a hachiya persimmon on my property. It feels like a dream. It was a dream for many years, and now with this one fruit, its real.

The Old Laundry Line

I hadnt used the laundry line i installed 7 years ago for regular laundry in some time but occasionally i used it for one or two things as i did this time for the dog towel, the leash, and the clothes i wore to bathe the dogs because i knew better than to put that laundry in with the rest of the laundry. I’d like to think i learned something from the last time i washed dog laundry in the machine, which i wrote about in a lengthy post titled “the funk”. The towel has been scrapped. The pants and shirt remain an ongoing project.

Update: after trying multiple things i resorted to putting the clothing inside the washer with a “uproot clean” washing machine cleaner turbo fur guard 5 enzyme blend tablet and pressing start on the highest heat setting possible. It did the trick. I then ran 2 back to back cycles with a tablet in the drum each time to defunkify the washer. If you ever find yourself with a pet odor problem in the washer…this stuff works pretty good and it took me a long time to find it. Its septic safe too. Its called “uproot clean”. Dont ask me why. Im sure there were more clever names to choose from but the important thing is: it works, and after my experience with “the funk” years ago where i basically replaced my entire wardrobe and have been putting baking soda in the drum with every load ever since….its really important that it works.

Sili and Cashew’s First Bath in Years

The dogs hadnt had a bath in years and half way through October, i was nearing the end of the days it would be warm enough to bathe the dogs outdoors. If i was going to do it i needed to hurry up and do it.

So unfortunately, this is all i can show you of Cashew’s first bath in years as Cashew is not a dog it would be wise to let go of in the middle of a bath to grab a phone and take a picture. One, the dog wouldnt be in the bath very long if you did so and two, there’s a good chance that the phone would either end up splashed or submerged. No, i gave Cashew her bath with her head trapped between my knees or pressed firmly against my chest throughout the entire thing. She made multiple attempts at escape, soaked me as thoroughly as i soaked her, and performed a convincing rendition of a drowning victim in hyperventilation until released from the bathtub.

Sili was a wee bit more cooperative.

Oh, the inhumanity. I got them wet and forced them to smell of coconut and papaya.

It was at precisely this moment that i realized we had just traded smells. With both dogs clean and smelling beautiful there was now the problem that myself as well as my clothes smelled very thoroughly of years worth of grime. It did seem after several attempts to remedy this problem that the clothes i wore to bathe the dogs may have to be thrown out, but i hadnt given up hope at this point and remained optimistic about the last ditch effort i knew to try…

Nana Pudding Lays a Double Yolker

Ive always had a variety of sizes of chicken, some big, some small, depending on who hogs most of the food and where everybody is on the totem pole, so i may have gotten double yolker eggs in the past and just not known it. However, this time my one americauna, nana pudding, laid a double yolker. So i knew it didnt just come out of the butt of a real big chicken, cuz nana pudding, my one blue egg layer, is the smallest chicken i have. Im not sure how she accomplished this. Her vent looks fine, i checked, but given how small a chicken she is i was immediately worried for her and went to find her and give her rear end an inspection, which she was not enthusiastic about. I am saving her giant egg for the 2.5 year old daughter of my coworker whose favorite color is blue and who is obsessed with nana pudding and her pastel blue eggs. Maybe she can help her mom crack it and see if theres two yolks in there.

Update: My coworker texted me this photograph about a week later with the caption: “Forgot to tell you, it was a double yolk. One was more formed than the other.”