...And Now THIS!

  Sometimes it seems like God is having more fun coming up with things in our yard, just to surprise us. Squash invasions. Kitty cat invasions. Doves roosting and raising their young'uns right outside our back door. Giant banana spiders in close proximity to the bird nest...spiders almost big enough to catch the wee baby doves (but not). Odd. Weird, quirky, but fun stuff. Always something.
  Peg took Master Gardeners classes, but none of those lessons prepared us for what tricks The "Master Gardener" holds up His sleeve. Maybe because, no matter what He's given us, we have always been truly grateful, so He keeps tossing odd things into the mix for us to enjoy. 
   Well, one of the things we learned from the Master Gardener's class is that when a tree is stressed, it goes into survival mode and tries hard to reproduce itself, usually in the form of leaves or blooms out of season. We've begun to nickname our Yum Yum tree, "Twitchy", after one of the more nervous characters in our book, "Space Freighter, First Dock: Neo-Eden". (...yes, we take any opportunity to advertise...forgive us) The poor tree has been tossed around in the winds, been frozen from harder than normal weather, its roots covered over again as it was leaned sideways again from sitting high in the soil, having been planted that way by us, knowing it also hates wet feet. Every other week, whether in the heat of Summer or dead Winter, there's high-strung Twitchy, holding out one or two spindly branches, waving about five or so bright pink flowers into the wind, that we know will never produce fruit...not in those weather conditions, or in the oncoming weeks, either. There have been years when about twenty fruit were fully ripe, but then the birds pounced on them, so we barely got a nibble of Twitchy's yummy Yum Yums. The poor thing seems like it's always stressed about something. But it is trying.
    All the trees and plants in the yard are 'in the same boat', tho'. Nobody else seemed to be complaining, but last Spring a strong thunderstorm blew through our yard just as our Satsuma orange trees were in full bloom. The bees never got a chance to pollinate the gorgeous white flowers, because the wind took off with almost every single petal, scattering them all over the neighborhood. It soon it became obvious that we would have very few, if any of these luscious little oranges come Fall.  
   That was sad, because they are the first oranges to ripen, are so easy to peel, (like a tangerine) and we love going out for a stroll in the yard and eating one or two as we go. What's kind of cute to us, is that often we'll see a few of the rinds along the road, where one of our neighbors, apparently out for a walk, had stopped to pick one and enjoyed it on the spot. That's fine with us because we always share them with the neighbors, anyhow. Often, they'll find a plastic bag of them hanging on their front door knob. Our satsumas are usually an overly abundant crop. 
    Because of the strange winter, too, this year, even our navel oranges suffered somewhat, prematurely rotting and falling to the ground before they were quite 'right'. The thunderstorm hadn't affected their flowers, since it has a later blooming season, but the extra dry weather, followed by extra wet, extra cold, then by extra warm bothered their production. The grapefruit and lemons, thank the Maker, both seemed to do quite well and as a result, we have a bumper crop of both this year.
   We consider ourselves truly blest because of this and in all the joy and juicy-ness of the grapefruits and lemons, we almost forgot about the Satsuma tree way out in the corner of the yard.  The other day on the way home from the store, as we were passing along the street, I noticed a hint of orange in the tree and was amazed to see around a dozen ripening fruit that had survived. This was very unusual, because, here it is March, but harvest time for Satsuma oranges is in the early Fall, months and months ago.  The tree should be in hibernation. What in the world's going on over there? I marched over and had a look. On closer inspection I was very surprised to see what the tree had been up to. It has faithfully given us fruit every year for well over a decade. It had definitely been stressed last Spring and by all accounts, should not been able to give us anything this year. We had given up on it, but fed it its 13-13-13 a few weeks ago. It apparently hadn't given up on us. Come wind or high water, it was going to give us something. Some THINGS is what it gave us, alright. 

It seemed as if the fruit had quit growing, but the skin kept going.  Looking for all the world like some mutant squashy orange mix breed, I was sort of concerned, but I picked them anyway. (see the short video:)

I shared a few with our neighbor and they looked at them kind of skeptically, but said they would try them.  They taste delicious and juicy, just like they always have.

      We thought we had some kind of mutant Satsuma on our hands.  We still think so. It's kind of confusing, but now more so, since Peg was wandering around Whole Foods and was aghast to find this: a whole display of them! And they call them "SUMO" oranges.  

So, our satsuma tree used all that stress, must be in the same way a body builder uses stress and built himself up into a SUMO orange tree. (take note, Twitchy) We wonder what this enterprising tree is going to produce next year. Regular or SUMO sized? Only The True Master Gardener knows, but either way, ORANGE you happy for us?

Giving our Yard...uh..."Fertilizer!"

  It's been so long ago that I don't remember where we learned about this job of feeding our fruit trees.  It was probably from the LSU Agriculture Department, or maybe from our County Agent, who we dragged over here one time to have a look at some stuff growing on the bark of one of our trees. (was nothing serious) Maybe we learned it from Peggy's Master Gardeners class years ago, or someplace else but, anyhow, for us, the "F" word in February stands for "fertilizer" and not what some Yankees may have to say about conditions in February.  
   So, here that month has rolled around again, and like every year, we put down 13-13-13 ("triple thirteen" they call it) in 1 lb. doses around all our fruit and nut producing trees.  Our yard is quite fertile, so trees like the Crepe Myrtles, Ligustrums and River Birches do fine, but we always give back to the fruit bearing trees 'cause we figure they work harder producing good things for us. 
     We are certain that the thirty few dollers we spend for 100 lbs. of fertilizer pays us back in fruits and tree health, not to mention the exercise of puttin' it in the ground...whew.  We put 1 lb. of fertilizer every 6 feet or so along the outer drip line of each tree. We were told that they should get one pound for each year old they are.  Some small bushes, like our newly acquired blueberry bushes only get 1 lb.  Some smaller trees get 2 or 4 lbs.   It takes 12 lbs. to go all the way around our big Japanese plum trees.  To be sure, the citrus trees all take up a good share, but still, even doing something nice for 'em, ya still gotta watch out for those sharp thorns!
    It is now, like we said, February, so much of the yard is still kind of asleep and in need of tending to and weeding, but this is the time we need to feed the trees; when they are dormant.
    Here is a very short video of the last hole, showing how we do it and how glad I was to be done with this month's major "F" chore.

Our Family Mardi Gras Party 2016

  We were supposed to be writing this Mardi Gras blog post from our camper, either over at Toledo Bend or Chico State Park, but our poor ol' dawg, MarkyBear, did not enjoy his Christmas camping adventure, causing us to pack up the next day @ 2 A.M. and head for home, and thus, has kept us from heading out camping again. We love the old guy and want him to be comfortable, so, we stayed home...for now, til' we can plan on how we can go about it.
   Since our plans were now defunct, and we hadn't been to Lafayette with the family for Mardi Gras for a few years, we gladly jumped at the chance to go catch up with family! For many years now our family meets in Lafayette on the Saturday before Mardi Gras to party and watch the Saturday Children's parades.  This tradition started years ago, and the reason originally was to watch the family kids marching down the street in the parades.  Well, those kids now have kids of their own and the tradition continues.

    Since it is still four days before 'real' Mardi Gras, it is easy for the family to get together even if they have other plans for "Fat Tuesday" (Mardi Gras).  

   We always meet in the same church parking lot and have a tailgate-style roadside wonderful get-together, visiting, eating, and catching up with family and friends.

 Two 55 gallon drum bbq pits stay hot for four or more hours, and the family pitmasters cook anything anyone brings along with them.

 This year there were several different styles of bacon wrapped snacks, burgers sausages, boudin, and pork done several different ways, including the pork steaks I had brought along, all doctored up with my special spices. (A couple of the pork steaks followed us back home and ended up in a Super Bowl Jambalaya the next day) There were all manner of snacks and 'sides', including dirty rice and such.  There must have been ten different flavors of King Cakes and believe me, I did manage to sample some of them!

 We had a great time and Peggy put together a nice video of the day. 
Peggy here; I was FREEZING that day. I had on my long, heavy black leather coat with a hood, jeans, gloves, heavy socks and thick hiking boots, and I still couldn't get warm. You'd think, being an ex-Yankee, from upstate New York, that I wouldn't have shamed myself in such a way. You'd think that these Southern folks would be the ones who couldn't tolerate the cold, but Noooooo....look at Emily...the young beauty on the right in the photo above...short sleeves!! Watch the short video and you'll see plenty of others in Short Sleeeves!!! There aren't many cold, COLD days down here in South Louisiana, but the ones we get...this cold...it's a wet cold, this COLD goes right through you, to the bone. (lower 50's and wind)
  Speaking of Emily; she is a one woman welcoming committee. She's the first one to run and give us a big welcoming huggg. So sweet and so very much appreciated.
  And another thing: I took most of the photos and videos. If you'll notice, they are all mostly taken from behind, around, or near the bbq pit...where it was somewhat warm. I didn't get as many up close photos of family and friends as we needed and I'm sorry for that. So many wonderful people, like Aunt Bonnie, Aunt Margaret, Cousin Kim, Cousin Bernie, Lynn and Chris, Cousin Jennifer, etc....I KNOW I'm missing names, too. We heard Brian Robin was around, but we didn't see him, either. I should have invaded the warmth of Uncle Maurice and Aunt Margaret's "Rock Star Bus", as Cappy calls it, sitting temptingly over there.
   It was a great day and we were glad that we got to go. We left earlier than we wanted to, or should have, but I had been up most of the night with our pore ol' dawg, MarkyBear, who was sick and...

 well...not the life of the party anymore, it seems, but we love the boy DEARLY and worried about him, so we wanted to get back home and check on him. (I wanted to get warm.)
  This video is short by our standards, but it gives the flavor of a small home town Family Friendly (not BIG TIME New Orleans, for sure) Mardi Gras.

Lemony Pickin's; a Series of Unfortunate (AND Fortunate) Events

                                    
   Our Lemon Monster has been standing out in our backyard, hands on his hips and impatiently tapping one foot, while his beautiful, plump, bright yellow fruit heavily dangle from his branches. He was just 'asking for it'. Each year we think he looks forward to the tussle between us, whereby he fights to see how many 'digs' he can get in, per lemon that we purloin from his branches. We fight him over every lemon, but then make it up to him a couple of weeks later with a very nice extra special, extra expensive dousing of 13-13-13, which we hollow out ~ about 15 or so holes all around his drip-line and fill each with approximately one cup of this particular blend of fertilizer. He seems to love it, since he thrives on it, rewarding us with such great harvests...the Grump. And, away we go again.
   This year, due to an extra nice winter, the fray took place a few weeks earlier than normal.

Our dear Yankee, "snowbird" friends, Mr. Ed and Mrs. Jean from Rochester, New York and  Florida had only heard about our lemon picking escapades, and on occasion, had been given some of the lemons and bottled juice, but had never been here to witness what the process entailed.  

    Mr. Ed loves working up north, harvesting buckets and buckets of Maple sap and then standing over his syrup stove for hours on end, patiently boiling down his 'liquid gold' maple syrup. As a matter of fact, he's one of these fellas that's interested in a myriad of subjects and is always on the go, and open for adventure. His brother-in-law's house was destroyed by a tornado, so he and Mrs. Jean loaded up his chain saws and drove hundreds of miles to the rescue; he went out on a fishing vessel to learn how to deep sea commercial fish, they've traveled world wide to experience life on many levels and to learn new things.  (So, Peg and I thought "maybe...")

     We called them with the promise of gallons of lemon juice (Mr. Ed LOVES lemons and Mrs. Jean LOVES making all kinds of jelly)...and as much citrus as they wanted, if they'd like to come and take part in the harvesting of the Lemon Monster. They talked it over and decided it sounded like a fun project, so they loaded up and drove twelve hours from their place in Florida all the way over to help us. 

 They showed up Sunday evening, the last day in January, and early the next (foggy) morning, Mr. Ed and I began pickin' on the Lemon Monster.

With a li'l ceremony and much enthusiasm, we placed the first ripe, juicy lemon into the big blue wheelbarrow. That was fun. 

       THEN...for the next hour we stooped and stretched and groaned and clawed our way into the tree, harvesting about 90% of the lemons, with no help from the Lemon Monster, who fought us tooth and especially "nail!".  He 'got' us several times.

     We always leave some hanging there for future use, like when we want a bit of fresh lemon zest, or for a neighbor, etc.

With quite some effort from both of us, we got the heavy wheelbarrow of fruit shoved and dragged over to the back door, brought out a dishpan,

and loaded it up,

 then dumped it into the sink to be rinsed and scrubbed by Mrs. Jean to get off any dust or residue accumulated on them over the growing season.

Once Mrs. Jean had washed them, stacked them in another dishpan, Peg, Mr. Ed and I dove into the job, slicing them forever, it seemed, into quarters, peeling them for hours, (which made for stings here and there, and eventually "prune-y" fingers). I manned our wooden fruit press, struggling to turn the crank, squeezing and squeezing, then finally after a very long day,  we were all exhausted, never wanting to look another miserable lemon in the face again, we got it bottled.  

    It was all worth it, though. This year's haul was 6 gallon jugs and 20 water bottles full of 16 oz. of pure, raw lemon juice. That's about 9 gallons all together. A pretty good year for our beloved Lemon Monster.  

Below, find the weary lemon crew at the end of a long day.  (Pegody, being the photographer and editor; the behind-the-scene's all around gopher and helper, did as much as any of us, but, since she wasn't in any of the pictures, she can claim she was 'whooped', too.) (Oh yes I was! Peggy smiling here) 

Now, as those of you who follow our Blog, here and also cappyandpegody's channel on youtube, you are painfully aware, when me and Mr. Ed get together, there is often a video of our shenanigans, and this lemon picking event is no different, so sit back and enjoy two friends 'cut up' and get 'cut up' having a ball wrestling the dreaded, but much loved Lemon Monster, for "his" prized possessions. To "him" we say, "Lemon tree...when life hands you lemons...Hand 'em over!!!!"

 click on this photo to start the video!

The second video, below, shows our next step in the process of juicing our lemons. We have to admit that our setup looks like a bit of a Rube Goldberg kind of deal, but we did what we had to do to get the juice into the jugs. We always plan to rig up a better way to do it each year, but then in the heat of battle, we forget and just 'gitter done'. 

click on this photo to start the video.

We Thank God for such a bountiful harvest and for the friends who gave up so much to come join us in tackling this time-consuming job and we also pray for the strength and spunk to be able to take on our scrappy Lemon Monster again next year, should he challenge us afresh, once more leading us up the garden path with his lemony wiles. But alas, in the end, it's always a 'win-win' situation for all.

Although It's Been Said, Many Times, Many Ways, Merry Christmas to YOU and Yours!

     Every year we send out our homemade Christmas cards. This year we sent out over a hundred and sixty of them. If you did not receive one, here is your copy, just as filled with love as the ones sent by mail. Truly. We hope this Christmas finds you and your loved ones happy, healthy and richly Blest by The Lord.

"So far, so good...I'll try to stay out of trouble...Mom and Dad will let you know how that works out, I'm sure."

The New and Better Cover

Since we published our book, Space Freighter First Dock: Neo-Eden last August 8th, a little more than four months ago, initially it didn't 'take off', as far as sales. Folks commented that they didn't like the cover which I, Peggy, had quickly put together, (seen below),

so, we opted to hire a much awarded book cover artist, Tatiana Villa. As you can see, she did an amazing job and it has made a big difference in our sales. While as yet, we haven't actually 'launched' our advertising campaign, it has been selling, and a few of the readers have been nice enough to take the time to give us reviews. 

  We are thrilled that every review has received 5 stars! This has so encouraged us that we have been busily working on the next book in the (what we hope to be) a series. This next leg of our adventure will be to the airless 'rock' called "Oer". As of yet, we have no working title.

Although I have friends who tell me that they aren't fond of science fiction, I let them know that while it's always not been the kind of subject I like reading, either, Cappy and I 'write like we write'. We write our books in the same style as we write our blog here: Once't ya get past Cappy's highly scientific information that's needed to put our readers where they need to be in time and space, the story blooms and the characters come to life.

We just thought we should give you an update, because, actually, many of you, our readers, have encouraged us for years, to "write a book...write a book!" So to this we say, "Well, there ya go!"

Merry Christmas from Cappy Claus

I have been really enjoying wishing folks a Merry Christmas and asking God to Bless yall and everyone I see as I go around town on my Christmas errands.  Here I am with my beloved ol' rusty "sleigh", Tinker Bayl, run by horsepower instead of reindeer, pullin' her along.

I go around, "Ho! Ho! Ho!-ing" and smiling, and passing out candy canes to the very young and old, who seem to appreciate the gesture.

So with a hearty "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Here's wishing you and yours the most joyous and Blessed of Christmases.

From Cappy Claus

The "Get Well" Gumbo

When we usta come down with the winter sniffles, Mama would make what she called her 'get well gumbo'.  It starts with a full 5 lbs. of yellow onions julienned, and a full head of garlic in a stock pot of water.  She seasoned it with her own special blend of Cajun Seasoning, a lot of powdered cayenne pepper and 2 tablespoons (!) of Zatarain's concentrated liquid crab boil.  
  When she got all this to boiling, she added a big baking hen that the butcher had cut into "gumbo pieces", being that, even the bones are sawed open, exposing the rich marrow. To all this, she added sliced smoked Cajun sausage and also special South Louisiana Andouille sausage. 
    As part of her larder, there were quarts of smothered okra lining the shelves of her pantry, so she'd open one and put that in to help thicken her gumbo.
   Well, seeing as Peg has had a bad case of tonsillitis, has been running a fever and aching all over, I followed my Mom's 'prescription', as laid out above.
    After it had been merrily boiling away for a of couple hours, I added green onion sliced and parsley, both from our garden and let it boil some more. 
   The fiery spicy hot soup with the overdose of onion and garlic is supposed to be healthy and good for your cold; apparently the germs can't take the heat.   

Next time, I need to remember to make this amazing 'medicinal' soup, but not wait for someone to be sick before I decide to cook it.  It's truly is an amazing soup and as Mama usta say, "It's good for what ails ya."

   ...Now, this particular pot of gumbo is the most special pot of "get well gumbo" that we have ever made.  Rooting around in our freezer, I came across a pack of Andouille sausage that our recently dearly departed friend, Todd had given us this time last year. Peggy and I both were in tears when we realized that it hadn't been that long ago that Todd had been alive and busy making sausage, boudin, wine...so alive enjoying his whole world and sharing it with everybody. Todd was so popular and poured out his life helping others, and he was a highly esteemed critical care nurse. He had chosen his profession well.

  So, here I was, alone in the kitchen making a gumbo to make Peggy get well, but...I wasn't alone, because Todd, even from Heaven was helping me minister to Peggy, nursing her back to health. (She's feeling much better now)

    God Rest ye, merry Gentleman, and thank you again, so very, very much!

Bonfires on the Mississippi River Levee; a Cajun Christmas Tradition

I have been told that the lighting of the bonfires on Christmas Eve to light Santa's way along the banks of the Mississippi River is the oldest local Christmas tradition in the country.  I am not sure if this is true, but "Laura, a Creole Plantation" has this wonderful picture in its archives:  

When I was a youngster, the origin of the tradition was explained to me in the form of a story:

     Years ago, families living along the River who wanted to trade merchandise or do business, and such, or, those who intended to get on board one of the vessels for travel, and needing the steamships to stop, would signal the Riverboat captains with a bonfire.  Naturally, as Christmas neared, people needed the steamboats to transport presents and Christmas cheer up and down the River, so many signal fires burned every night leading up to the holidays.

    Legend has it that a young child stood on the river bank with his parents, watching as they lit a fire to signal the boats.  The child asked, "Papa, why are there so many fires on the river tonight?"

  The quick thinking parent answered, "Mah, Cher, das so Papa Noel can find his way up da River bringing presents to all the good little children along the way." 

  And, maybe it was kind of true; after all, the steamboats were loaded with Christmas gifts and Holiday travelers.  

    This is the story I was told about how the tradition started and of the legend of Papa Noel finding his way along the River in the dark of night and seeing the bonfires, he knew where to stop so that he could deliver presents to the good little children's homes.

    And thus, the legend of the signal fire was born.  True or not, the tradition has been celebrated for over a hundred years in the little towns of Gramercy and Lutcher, Louisiana, who are right next door to each other.  

   Two years ago, Christmas Eve, Peggy and I crossed the Mississippi Veteran's bridge to take in all the intricate and beautiful bonfire structures atop the levee as folks were putting their finishing touches on them, in preparation for the lighting of the bonfires that night, after dark.  We made two back-to-back videos of our trip, and apologize for the sound on both. But...if you manage to "ride along" with us for the duration, a little more than half an hour, total,  you will get a good idea about the festivities that take place in our 'neck of the woods' on Christmas Eve, as though you were here along with 

 us. You'll need to click the lower right hand square kind of icon...the four corners with the sides of the 'square' missing, to enlarge the screen to get a better view of your 'ride'! (Next time we'll wash the car windows before we leave.)

After this first video, we attended Christmas Eve Mass, then,  

after Mass we began a slow wonderful trip home enjoying the bonfires in all their Christmas Eve glory.  This video does not give justice to this amazing colorful Christmas tradition, but we tried to capture it for you. We were in almost standstill bumper-to-bumper traffic, but we think it's the best way to see it all, not driving down the road in a rush. As you can tell by the diversity of loud music along the ride, the New Orleans area is truly a melting pot of cultures, and all joyously enjoying the celebration of the Season.  

  If you ever find yourself in South Louisiana around Christmas time, you really owe it to yourself to experience this unique Christmas tradition.  Until then, grab a glass of eggnog and come along with us as we ride along River Road, slowly making our way home enjoying this yearly Christmas Eve burning of the bonfires.

Under Construction

A note to those of you are already curious about this years Christmas card.  They are under construction.

Each one, and this is around a third or less of them, thoughtfully  highlighted and prayed over and lovingly stuffed and addressed and stamped as our gift to family and friends.