The Rabb's Farm Life Adventures

Have you ever had a muscadine?  How about a scuppernong?  I hadn't either until earlier this week.  John went with my dad to a friends house and he had a full crop of fruit that he wasn't going to harvest.  He told John to help himself, so he came home with a 5 gallon bucket almost full of muscadines and scuppernongs.   The dark ones are muscadines and the lighter ones are scuppernongs.  Muscadines and scuppernongs are wild grapes.  Muscadines are like concord grapes and scuppernongs like white or green grapes.  You don't eat the skin, it is very bitter.  You pop the fruit open and your mouth is filled with a sweet jell like ball, oh, and watch out for the seeds, they are very bitter.  I didn't want to freeze that much fruit so we decided to use the day to make jelly.  We ended up with about 27 jars (mostly 1/2 pints) of delicious jelly.   It was a long day, there are many steps in making jelly.   We have a lo...

I always loved coming to the farm to visit my grandparents, when I was a kid.  There seemed to be so many cows.  This farm was a dairy farm for quite a long time.  I remember going into the milking room and being fascinated by the operation.  The cows walked into the milking room and went to the feeding troughs and got ready to go to work.  Well, I understand now, they just wanted the feed.  I also remember my granddaddy dipping an old plastic measuring cup into this huge refrigerated box thing, where the milk was stored until ready for delivery I guess, and sharing the most delicious milk on the planet with me.  I didn't drink much milk as a child, I didn't like store bought milk, but when I got to drink the milk from the farm out of that measuring cup, I was very happy. The milking room. We don't milk the cows anymore.  They aren't working cows, they have a great life, a very relaxed life. I enjoy watching them wonder through the pasture ...

Geese that is.  I think we understand a lot more about geese now than we did a few weeks ago.  The terms, "lost as a goose," and "goosed," have a lot better meaning to us now.   No, we don't own or raise geese.  A few years ago some geese began coming to the farm and enjoying the front pond.  My parents are truly animal lovers so they began feeding the geese corn.  For several years now, the geese have returned.  Some have even raised babies here on the farm.  Some years there have been a lot of geese and some years not as many.  This year we have had  a large flock.  We have begun feeding them closer to the house near the large oak trees that the cows absolutely love.  Zach went outside last night and convinced a group of the geese to come all the way back here from the front of the pasture to eat the corn he was throwing out.   I am not much of an animal lover.  I would prefer not to have a dog in the ho...

The first wall has been tackled.  The latest project is turning the old dining room into the laundry room. John removed the sheet rock from one wall, and revealed the original framing.  We weren't surprised to see that there isn't any insulation in the walls.  Our first electric bill reflected that too!  This room used to be at the end of the house and there were two windows on this wall.  My mom remembered that there was one window bud didn't remember the other one.  She said they used to have a fan in the window fan in the one on the right to pull air down the hall to keep it cool, especially at night.  I can't even begin to imagine living in Louisiana in the summer with no air conditioning.  Mom said that it wasn't too bad when they had never experienced AC, but when the stores began getting it and they had to come home to window fans and all that mugginess, they really knew what they were missing.  We did get an estimate to install centra...

We all have stuff, right?  Some of us have lots of stuff, some, not as much.  I know when I was a young mother of two, we didn't have much stuff.  We didn't have much money to buy stuff either.  When John and I got married we had four kids, by virtue of having so many people in our household, we had a lot of stuff.  When we moved to Colorado we still had four kids at home.  When the military moved us it didn't seem to matter how much stuff we had when it came time to move, because someone else would be moving all of that stuff.  I usually thought twice about that once we arrived at our new destination and had to unpack all of that stuff.  I even allowed the moving company to unpack everything for me a couple of times, but their way of unpacking and mine are a little different.  They just opened up the boxes and dumped everything in the middle the room.  Well, maybe they didn't dump everything, but it sure looked like it when they left. ...

Sand the floor Danielson... Daniel sanding the floor and wondering what was up with that crazy old man. Mr. Miyagi training Daniel. Mr. Miyagi said it best, with that gruff Japanese accent.  When I try to say it, you hear my southern accent coming back with a vengeance.  Sand the floor John Rabb.  Okay, so I said it really nicely in a playful sort of way, but man this has been one challenge after another.   Our town is small.  Not a lot of shopping options.  Yes, we have a Wal-Mart, but we no longer have a K-Mart, Safeway or Piggly Wiggly   We have a couple of clothing stores, a small JC Penney, (where I find really good bargains every chance I get), a few local restaurants and we even have some fast food restaurants, including, McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King and Wendy's.  None of those were located here yet when I started high school.  We were very happy teenagers when that McDonald's opened.  Needless to say, Lowe's...

Have you ever heard of Vermicomposting?  That is our newest adventure.  So what is it?  Worms.   They turn compost material into dirt.  And this is where it will all happen.  A Rubbermaid tub.  Well at least it better, I am excited about the worms making compost, but I want them to stay in this tub to do it.  I am not excited about them doing it anywhere else, especially on my living room floor! Our first Vermicompost bed without worms Ok, so to be honest, I had never heard of Vermicomposting until a few weeks ago.  This farm was a dairy farm when I was a kid.  There were cows and chickens and dogs.  No other animals that I remember.  I am not sure Granny would have allowed any other animals.  My granny was very particular, I am still a little surprised that she would drive through the pasture each day knowing that some of "that stuff" would end up on her vehicle.  Those of our friends who have come to visit hav...

Life on the farm is what John and I have longed for.  Specifically, the farm in Louisiana owned by my parents.  Of course we had to move in during the hottest part of the year.  So, after a wonderful vacation to celebrate Stephanie's high school graduation we arrived in Louisiana, greeted by unseasonably comfortable temperatures, (that didn't last long), ready to begin our adventure July 14, 2012. The house we now call home, belonged to my mom's parents, John H. and Virgie Carroll.  They built the house in the 50's and called it home the rest of their lives.  My mom grew up in this house, well sort of.  I learned recently that she lived with her grandmother until she was 8.  They owned a general store in Ludington after moving here from Fullerton, LA, a logging town that was no more after all the timber was gone.  Her grandmother had a stroke and was no longer able to care for her so she had to move to the home her parents had built.  They ...