Smarties Bar & Grill #76

Are you a caterer as well as a farmer?

 

I found that they root best in water. At least they did for me. But even touching them made me feel funny.

 

I think the Angel Trumpet likes a warm, southern and protected area with lots of sun. The frost really takes its toll. I have seen them get smaller over a couple of years and then disappear.

 

Must be where we have recieved our unusual abundance of precipitation.

 

River is behind me about an eighth mile.. and you can not see it until you are on the bank.

Yeah.. you may have noticed I have a theme going.. AND I have many photos of old rusty abandoned machines and their pieces

 

Seem to recall reading somewhere that kudzu may help neutralize low level radioactive wastewater per some research somewhere.

 

I'm a.chef who lives on a farm.

 

That's because virtually nothing kills it, and it seems to thrive on abuse. If it got radioactive wastewater, it would likely grow at twice it's normal rate.

 

The best of both worlds.

 

farm to fork
Literally, in the case of the Suffolk Red Poll.

I really do appreciate being able to live in such a wildlife haven.
I've known the farmer for nearly 30 years because of a Greenpeace Fair that used to be held here. I came along with my 1956 Pemberton caravan converted to a kitchen to run the food stall and was hooked.
In 1999 I started the 11 day Bungay Balls Up juggling convention here which has been going ever since (bar 2 Covid shutdowns). This May was our 20th convention.
About 7 years ago I moved in temporarily to build my new motorhome and I'm still here.
The motorhome is nearly finished. Just the expensive final touches such as an oak floor to put in now.

My fully shuttered bedside window


My kitchen dresser under construction (now complete with American white oak boards across the front of the shelves)


One of the 2 old bits of oak I found in a skip (dumpster) at a near-by 14th century manor house that I used to make the worktop.

 

That is some impressive handi work.
You should keep visiting that dumpster just in case they throw out some more wood.
How wide are the pieces you found? In the picture it looks like they are fairly wide.

 

Oak? YEah you'd spend 100s to buy that in a yard. Got my crew back to working on the addition, we are going to finish something this round, either the project or the money. Ye hah!

Still raining daily, river flood warnings .. we had a 50 years flood in 2008, levies were near collapsing that time. When we get this much rain.. somewhere in east of here is getting flooded

 

Mosquitos everywhere, Unfortunately for me, one thing I detest more than mosquitos is the flying insect bug spray.

However, hunting them down before bedtime has become a husband and wife bonding ritual!

This time around ,, they are large black mosquitos..

 

always an optimist lol

 

we have mosquitos but our blackflies and brown tail moths will toughen you up lol

 

About 14'' wide and 2'' thick.
They were completely black with age but I could tell by the weight that they were oak.
It took a lot of sanding and many, many layers of beeswax to get the lovely colour and grain back.
I don't think they are as old as the building but they had probably been there for a hundred years or so.

 

The constant rap music is almost as bad as the bites.

 

Years ago before I was working I used to go dumpster hunting primarily for aluminum cans to scrap for a few bucks.... But I was not above searching for valuables..... I would always double check the scratch offs because finding winning scratch offs was a fairly common thing.

Once upon a time I found $2,867 cash money thrown out at the car wash.

 

I visit the local tractor place. They throw away the best stuff

 

Another magical plant. In my younger days of consuming mushrooms and other stranger psychedelics..... I never did do angels trumpets because I was too afraid of them.

Atropine and scopolamine are the main alkaloids. I'm told they make you trip for a very long time like days and you cannot tell if you're awake asleep or dreaming. So I took a pass on that one though I do find the plants very fascinating and I grow on myself. It's a sad little example of a cutting I took last fall that took off very well until the frost killed most of it. It is coming back but very slowly.

It's one of the most common type around here that has a white cream shaped flower with a pink tip

 

Just asked the farmer's son how much rain we've had on the farm as he has to keep records as part of a study into different types of thatching straw. 8mm last month which is less than 1/3''.
Supposed to get heavy rain and thunder tonight which will be the first real rain since May.


This is the thatch experiment. Ten 'A' frames made with two 6' wide panels. Rather than have them on the ground it was decided to mount them on top of two storage crates so as not to waste land. The experiment is aligned east to west so the panels face north and south.
Every 18'' along the 60' length of the roof is a different type of straw. Either a different variety of wheat or different soil conditions where it is grown.
Believe it or not this is the first long term (15 years) scientific study of its kind into thatching straw. The aim is to find the longest lasting thatch.
In return for recording things such as rainfall, moisture content of the straw, temperature, hours of sunshine etc the farmer's son gets £1000 a year for the 15 years of the experiment.
We also get an extremely pretty shed.

 

Kudzu in Alabama. Is it not invasive?

 

Back in the early Florida the Seminole Indians and probably others... Would thatch their shelters they made on a raised platform ( often in swampy areas ) with sable palmetto fronds.

That's the proper name but everyone in Florida calls them cabbage palms. They easily reach 30 foot at maturity but they yield an edible cabbage known as swamp cabbage from the heart of a tree that is around about 6 ft tall.... After that they become inedible.

The early Florida pioneers also thatched their roofs. People still do it but it's mostly a nostalgic thing to make tiki bars or something.

 

Well, I read that the stuff is a bummer. It is like the Scarecrow on Batman. Anyway, we would mix shrooms with unsweetened ice tea. The only way to take it down. Then I had to hold my nose. It was the best experience with the mind altering drugs. It was like being in a Peter Max painting.

 

I used to either eat them fresh and raw which in my opinion is the best way... And the ones I would not consume that day I would dry out on a screen.

And then for those who really found the taste objectionable, you could take the dried out ones and grind them up into small pieces, and stuff those into large empty gelatin capsules that you can get from health food stores for supplements.

I've done them hundreds of times but I never did do the tea. I also used to store dried ones in a jar of honey.

If they're dried in storage there is a noticeable decline in potency within say 90 days. And I believe that is due to oxidization and contact with the atmosphere. So I have a theory that if they are stored in honey they will stay good indefinitely.