The Newest Feline Residents

The other day I promised to share some more of what is Happening at the Hyatt House later. So let me keep that promise and share a story.

Any good story one must start at the beginning. It was Christmas morning 2009 when a cat showed up at a neighbor’s home. They named her Chrissy (because of the day she first appeared) and started feeding her. A few months later she had a litter of kittens, three of which have survived and are now 9 months old. My neighbors are elderly and on a fixed income. Just the cost of feeding all these kittens has been financial hardship, so spaying all four cats was out of the question.

I have mice. This past summer I have caught in traps at least 3 mice in my bathroom. I can honestly say having to remove dead mice from my bathroom is not something I enjoy at all. I want them gone. The best way to keep mice away is to have a barn cat. My neighbor has offered me kittens. There has just been one problem. I do not want to have a kitty population explosion here and getting four cats spayed is expensive. It would just be wrong to take a couple kittens and have only those spayed, letting my neighbors deal with a population explosion. So I have only thought about this problem, nothing more.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving I returned home, passing through Kerrville (like I always do) and noticed tents. I instantly realized it must be Market Days and decided to stop and take a look. Market Days happens monthly and allows crafters and others to display their wares for sale. I saw lots of booths, wasted money on a food treat, and spoke to lots of people. One booth I stopped at had a program of spaying/neutering feral cats and returning them to where they were found. So I asked someone manning that booth how much does it cost to spay a cat. She pointed me to the booth next door, Freeman-Fritts Animal Clinic & Shelter. So I walked over to that booth and told the story of the kitties and asked about the cost of spaying. I never got an answer. Instead the woman I spoke to said I might be eligible for a grant. She took my name and number and I left.

The next week she called me at home and informed me there was grant money available and all four cats would get spayed and a rabies shot for free. An appointment was made for the following week. I was thrilled beyond measure and so were my neighbors when I told them. This was a huge blessing. Having to get up before 5am in order to get the cats to Kerrville was a small sacrifice to make on my part. I was just thrilled to be able to help us both out.

It has now been almost a week since the kitties’ surgery. Everyone is doing very well. Chrissy and one of the kittens, Yeller, are back home enjoying being barn cats. The other two kittens, Tiger and Little Bit, are with me. It took some time but I and a friend finally were able to make a home for them inside the cabin. They need to stay enclosed until they become attached to me and decide this is a good place to live. Since they were born only a few miles away this is a more difficult task compared to if they had come here on their own. So every day, several times a day, I go check on them and spend time petting and talking to them. Hopefully when they are released they will stick around here and start killing those unwanted mice.

Breakfast Sausage

okA lot has been going on this past couple months which I plan to share in future blogs when I have more time. Right now though I only have the time to share what I am doing right now, this is making Turkey Breakfast Sausage. I first came across this recipe more than a decade ago in The Yeast Connection Cookbook, by William G. Crook, M.D. and Marjorie Hurt Jones, R.N.

1 pound Ground Turkey
¾ teaspoon sea salt
¼-1/2 Teaspoon black pepper
½ -1 teaspoon dried sage
0r
10-12 fresh sage leaves

Mix all the ingredients together, using a fork or a food processor. Shape into 6 thin patties or links. Fry until brown. Leftovers can be frozen.

I find it just as easy to use my hands. I also have found a big round cookie cutter helps me get the patties a more uniform size. I also add other ingredients. I personally like fennel seed. I buy the seeds and use my blender (or you can use a seed or coffee grinder) to grind up the fennel. Sometimes I am in the mood for spicy sausage so I add red pepper flakes. I also leave the salt out, just don’t need it. Basically, you can do whatever you want when you are making your own sausage. And if you prefer pork sausage, just look for ground pork or ask your butcher to make you some. If you are allergic to sage, then just leave it out and find something else you really like in sausage. Be creative.

I love those egg and sausage sandwiches sold at most fast food restaurants, and even in the freezer dept. of most grocery stores. But they are so expensive and commercial sausage usually contains MSG, nitrates, nitrites, and other ingredients’ harmful to our health. But I love those sandwiches, so I make my own. I make them with mini bagels, which usually are found on the bottom shelf in the bread isle beneath the bigger size bagels. I just toast the bagel, add my sausage patty, and an egg. I personally do not like cheese on my breakfast sandwich so I leave it off, but when you are making a sandwich from scratch you can do whatever you want. I found at Wal-Mart an egg poacher for the microwave, making it very easy to prepare the egg for my sandwich. To reheat my sausages, I just pop one into the microwave for a few minutes. Use the reheat button and don’t let it stay in the microwave to long or it will turn hard.

The final tip I have it buy large containers of ground turkey. Some brands add Natural Flavorings (which is a method used to hide MSG in product). I spend a little more money and get a huge container of ground turkey. I used half of it the other day to make a batch of sausage and finished the package today. Today’s batch will go in the freezer.

If you have been avoiding sausage but miss it, why not make your own. It is so easy to do.

More Photos of Scenes I Enjoy All The Time

Pictures taken around 6pm. Full moon is to the Northeast of house. Sunset is to the Southwest of house. When the moon is full it is so bright outside it is like I have street lamps.

Benefits of Country Living

Sunrises two days in a row.
Right: Nov. 14. Below: Nov. 15

Vegetable Garden and What To Do With All Those Rocks

When I think about the folks that settled this land I often wonder about their ruggedness. Homesteading was not easy no matter where they settled, but it must have been much tougher on the Edwards Plateau. It amazes me how different the weather is here compared to San Antonio. Because of the elevation I get a lot more wind. As I write the wind is gusting outside. I recently bought a little weather station that included a wind speed indicator with storm detection ability just to find out how windy it is outside.

Wind is not the biggest problem out here, it is rocks. Rocks are a major asset and a major pain in the neck. There are rocks everywhere. I have lived in areas before considered to have a lot of rocks but nothing compares to this place. I can look out of any window in the house and see hundreds of rocks. They latterly dot the landscape.

One of the goals I had for this land was to grow food. In most parts of the world if you want to plant a vegetable garden you simply rototill the land, plant some seeds and water. Not here. Sometime last spring I started clearing the rocks from an 8 by 12 foot area of land. Once the larger rocks were relocated, I began the tedious process of digging up the grass and small rocks. I soon learned that a hoe works much better at digging up the rocks then a shovel does, but both tools were needed. Once the top layer of rocks and grasses were removed, I slowly, layer by layer, started “hoeing” up rocks. When there was enough gravel and dirt accumulated I would shovel it onto a metal window screen positioned over a wheel barrow. Of course specks of rocks would fall through the screen but the majority of the small rocks and gravel would remain while most of the dirt would fall through into the wheel barrow. The soil here has a high clay content and most of the clumps of clay were too big to fall through the screen.

When I started the work on the first garden plot I had hoped to finish in time to plant some vegetable seeds but the work was slow and tedious. Frequent trips to San Antonio and Kerrville also slowed the work down. But mostly it was all those rocks that made the work so slow. I am guessing I removed over a million rocks, of all sizes, from that 8 by 12 foot plot of land. In the end I was able to dig down about 5 to 6 inches before reaching solid rock.

I started working on this garden plot last spring. I finished the first phase today. This morning I removed my last rock from the garden plot. There is no more digging to be done. I may not have finished in time for the 2010 growing season but I will be ready to plant in the spring.

As I removed the rocks from the dirt I needed a place to put the dirt, so as I finished one side of the plot I returned the dirt to that side. But I also added grass, some prickly pear, and other items to form a compost bed. I am hoping come spring it will all have turned into compost, turning the dirt into fertile soil. This morning I poured several buckets of water on the heap, along with compost starter.

A good foot of soil is needed to grow vegetables so I plan on building up the sides of the garden plot by about 6 inches using rocks. Then I will have a raised vegetable garden. I will have to purchase some good black soil to fill in the plot, but that can wait tell next year. For now I am just celebrating my accomplishment. In years to come I plan on building more vegetable plots so that even more food is grown. The more vegetables that are grown the less have to be purchased at the store.

All those rocks I removed from the ground are being put to use. After pricing how much it will cost to wrap a deck around the house, I decided to reduce the size of that deck and instead make a rock walkway in front of the house. After removing the grass from between the front door and the pipe to the septic system, I placed wagon loads of the small pebbles, gravel, and cliché (clay) so that people will be able to walk to the front door without having to step over the septic pipe and/or walk in mud. Today I basically finished that segment of the walk, though in the future I will probably add some stepping stones. But first a rock wall (skirt) around the mobile home needs to be installed.

I have also been using the gravel and cliché to fill in pot holes down the road from me. This land is located on a road the county does not maintain. Since all the other land owners on this road are absentee, meaning they actually live somewhere else, it is basically up to me to fill in the pot holes.

Even though I did not finish the garden plot in time for the 2010 growing season, I did grow some vegetables. Five large pots full of good black soil were left in front of the house by the previous owner. I have grown lettuce and zucchini in those pots. The tomato plant did not do very well. Neither did the first zucchini plant. Someone ate it one night, leaving barely an inch of stems. So I had to plant new seeds late in the year. That is one danger of having an unfenced garden—critters will help themselves. So a fence is going to have to be built around the garden plot I just completed today. I enjoy seeing the wild animals out here but I do not enjoy sharing the vegetables I work hard to grow with them.


Top Picture: garden plot (the front is filled with dirt, dead grass, and other stuff for composting).
Middle Picture: walk way between stairs and septic pipe.
Bottom Picture: I placed most, but not all, of the large rocks outside the the garden plot as I removed them. The medium size rocks I located elsewhere.

Renewable Energy Roundup and Green Living Fair

I am currently sitting at my friend's computer here in San Antonio. It has been a very busy week, which started last Saturday when I drove to Fredericksburg, TX, to attend the annual Renewable Energy Roundup and Green Living Fair. I have attended several times before and always walk away learning something new. This year I attended two workshops.

The first was on solar cooking, which is a great way to cook for people all around the world who live in sunny environments. There are several non-profit groups trying to provide solar cookers to folks in Africa where coal and wood for cooking is expensive and hard to come by. But more and more folks here in the US are using solar cookers to prepare some or all of their food. It is great for camping too. It is an efficient way to prepare food and once the cooker is made or purchased there is no more expense. The only must have ingredient is patience. There is tons of free sun at The Ranch and so I intend to purchase a solar cooker in the near future. I heard the prices really drop in winter, so I am waiting for cold weather to make my purchase.

The second workshop I attended was on solar water heating. The presenter first discussed all the different technologies available for heating water, pointing out the good and the bad of each technology.
When he finally got to solar water heaters, he discussed the different technologies out there and again discussed the problems and benefits to each one. Since he lives and works in Texas his talk was focused on our needs, which is very hard water but tons of sun. I walked away with valuable information.

Just walking around looking at all the booths is always educational too. This year I learned about a toilet technology, The Enviro Loo, that is legal in Texas and does not need a septic system for disposal. Composting toilets are illegal, but installing septic tanks is not only extremely expensive but difficult in the rocky terrain of Edwards County. The septic tank on The Ranch is only partially buried. This product looks like it could be a great way to provide bathroom facilities for folks living at The Ranch. Of course more study is required.

After leaving the fair I drove straight to San Antonio. I had decided to come on Saturday instead of Monday to save gas, but coming early turned out to be a blessing. Mary fell on Sunday requiring seven stitches in her hand. Mary helped me out when I broke my foot and again last March when I had surgery. It was nice to be here to help her out.

On Tuesday Mary flew to Omaha for a college friend's reunion. I am house sitting for Mary and had my six month checkup with the surgeon on Tuesday and my annual eye exam on Wednesday. Both appointments went well and I got excellent reports. Both doctors want to see me in one year.

This afternoon I will go pick Mary up from the airport. Then tomorrow I plan to return home with a friend who wants to see the bats before they return to Mexico. People come from all over the world to visit the Devil's Sinkhole, a large cavern or collapsed cave, where millions of bats sleep each day and exit at night to go eat trillions of bugs. My friend's car is in need of repair so I said I would take her with me when I return home and bring her back early next week.

It has been a busy week and I will have another busy weekend but every moment has been worth it.

Women's Prayer International

Every year Women’s Prayer International (WPI) has a celebration dinner, which is part fundraiser and part educational. It is a time where members can invite friends to learn more about this important and life changing ministry. WPI is women coming together once a month to pray for our families, our schools, our communities, our government (all levels), our military, our pastors, and more. We meet once a month in a neighbor’s home. We are Catholics and Protestants. We come from mainline denominational churches and non-denominational churches.

I had decided not to attend the dinner because of expense and time. The last week of September I have to be in San Antonio for doctor appointments so it did not make since to come just for an expensive dinner on September 17. But then the founder, Joan Bond-Courtney called and asked me to share my testimony. Last year I had written her a letter and it was that story she wanted me to share. So I changed my mind and last Wednesday drove to San Antonio, returning home on Saturday.

The testimony I shared at the WPI Celebration Dinner:

I became acquainted with Women’s Prayer International after attending a city wide prayer gathering. There was a woman signing up people who wanted to be part of a prayer group. I signed up, but it turned out there were no groups in my neighborhood, so I was assigned to a group quite a distance to the west of me. At the time I did not have a car and therefore was depended on the bus system to get around. God knew, but I am sure Joan and the volunteers did not know, that bus route 90 passed only 2 blocks from my apartment and went directly to the home where that group met.

Last September a friend and I decided to attend the Renewable Energy Fair, which is held in the Texas Hill Country annually. We drove up there Saturday afternoon and shared a motel room.

I tend to be an early riser and found myself wide awake by 5am. My friend on the other hand was still sound to sleep. Since I did not want to wake her up, turning on the light or TV was not an option. So I started praying. I prayed for my own needs and anyone else I could think of. About 10 minutes later I ran out of friends to pray for. Not wanting to lay in the bed bored, I asked God for help. Immediately the president and government popped into my head. So I started praying for my government officials and any related issues that came to my mind. After I had exhausted that topic, I once again asked God for help, and immediately another topic came to mind. I kept up this pattern until after awhile it suddenly occurred to me I was praying the WPI prayer guide categories I pray monthly with my neighborhood group. I was just praying the categories in a different order. Later when I arrived home I checked and I had prayed every single category on the list.

The last thing I shared with the audience is I now live in Edwards County and while I am excavating rocks, clearing out Mountain Cedar branches and other mindless activities, I often will think of one of the WPI prayer topics and start praying.

In closing I just want to add that I use to find it impossible to pray for an hour so I assumed I could not. I tried methods such as ACTS, but without success. But I learned last year that I can pray for an hour, I just needed the right guide to help me. I have found it. You do not have to be part of a prayer group in order to follow the WPI prayer guide (or prayer focus). You can download a copy of the prayer guide and simply follow the suggestions.