Howle’s Hints

BY JOHN HOWLE

SUMMER:

A SEASON FOR HARD WORK

“NEVER CONFUSE MOTION WITH ACTION.”

- BEN FRANKLIN

Summer is here, and this is the most active time of the year on the farm. This is the height of hay hauling season, tending and picking the garden, and taking care of livestock and chicken needs around the farm.

The work is hard, but it is satisfying. We all expect to get a reasonable rate of return on our investment of time, money and work. In addition, the things we do this time of year help make us and our neighbors more food independent and less reliant on the commercial food chain. Ben Franklin felt that just because we are moving doesn’t necessarily mean we are getting things done. Franklin created a great daily schedule when he was a young man and followed it

the rest of his life. His schedule is often used in the corporate world to train employees for sufficiency in time management.

In summary, Franklin would rise at five in the morning and ask the question, “What good shall I do today?” Following that, he would wash, say his prayers, take resolution of the day and eat breakfast. From eight to 12, he would complete a four-hour block of nonstop work. At noon, he would take a one-hour lunch to eat, read and look over his accounts. Next, he put in a second, four-hour block of work, and he spent the last part of the work block putting his tools back in their place followed by music, diversion, and conversation and a final examination of the day closing with this question, “What good have I done today?”

Even with this busy schedule, Franklin was able to get seven to eight hours of sleep each night. Some of his accomplishments were: Inventing bifocals, the Franklin Stove, the lighting rod, swimming fins, the first American political cartoons, and the glass harmonica.

Consider Canning

It is a rewarding experience to eat your own home grown vegetables and meat during the summertime. It is even more rewarding to be able to eat on these products into and through the winter months. You can freeze most produce for long-term storage, but what do you do if the power goes out and you are out of town? You could be looking at hundreds of dollars of produce spoiling. Using high pressure canning techniques allows you to store your harvest fully cooked in glass jars. If the jars are stored out of the sunlight in a constant temperature like a dark closet, you’ll have delicious food that can be stored for a few years. One of the best sources for canning with a typical 7-quart canner can be found on the Alabama Extension website at www.aces.edu. Type “canning” into the search box.

What’s that Thing? It Stings!

If you’ve ever had physical contact with a saddleback caterpillar, you won’t forget it. This time of year, you might find this one-inch long, brightly colored caterpillar with a saddle containing an oval, purplish-brown spot in the middle of a green patch on its back lined with poisonous spines. I was recently stung by one of these simply by brushing my bare arm across some leaves on an ornamental plant in the yard. The sting is comparable to a bee sting and a rash quickly appears around the stung

portion. In a couple of hours, the stinging sensation subsided, and by that night, the rash had gone away. Warn children to avoid these brightly colored caterpillars and be vigilant while gardening this summer. One of these stings can ruin the rest of your day.

Wicked Thorns

Getting stung during the summertime while being outdoors is a common occurrence, but you can also get stuck with invasive varieties of plant and woody forages. Trifoliate orange trees are sold as a yard ornamental, and they make fruit and gigantic thorns. It produces yellow, lemon-sized oranges. It’s often sold as a Flying Dragon tree because its curved, claw-like thorns look like dragons in flight.

The problem with this plant is that once the tree is old enough to bear fruit, animals eat the fruit and spread the plant’s multitude of seeds all over the place. I’ve been battling this dragon for years at our farm by cutting them and spraying the stumps with Remedy herbicide. About the only way to get close enough to the base of the plant is with a long-handled pole saw.

The wood is extremely hard and the thorns are strong enough to puncture a tractor tire. The tree in the photo from our farm has thorns up to 4 inches long. The leaves have a waxy coating which makes it difficult to control chemically, and if the tree hasn’t produced leaves yet, you may have to dig them up with a mattock. Try to get rid of the trees before they bear fruit at maturity, because once the fruit appear, cattle can eat the fruit and spread seeds everywhere through their manure.

From Thorns to Corn

Sweet corn is a great summertime crop to store long-term. Once you have picked all the fresh corn that you can eat during the growing season, you can freeze the corn or can it. To save space when freezing corn, you can get a lot more corn room in the freezer if you cut it off the cob. My favorite way to do this is with an old-style wooden corn cutter. You simply slide the ear across cutting teeth to remove the kernels and juices. If you don’t have an old style cutter, you can order one from www.lehmans.com and type in old-style wooden corn cutter. Current prices are $13.99.

This summer, stay active and productive as you tend your garden and your livestock. You will be glad you did at the end of the season when you have a plentiful harvest.