The Eager Beaver



The Woodchuck



Both love dinner salad!

Wow, those are some busy looking critters, who'd have guessed they ate a largely vegetarian diet?

Hi Sean,

Yeah. Oh ... My bad. They did each have 1/4 of a ham steak and some carrots. Good stuff. Much enjoyed.

Yumm

Shorts and a Tshirt ! Looks like nice weather for yard work . Maybe goats would keep it manageable for you and they'd be happy to stay and do it . This is actually the first year I haven't kept the river bank cleaned and trails neat in 20+ yrs. I did drop the blade on the tractor and push a trail open down to the river . But after the saw didn't start I just kinda blew it off . Time for carburater cleaning . ( this winter)
Food looks great too.

Thanks
Kurt

Gary and Kelly,
Nice shots of the ole homestead. I love the sun beaming through the woods. Here in South GA we finally had a day in the 60's for the first time since last winter/spring and a nice mild breeze. Absolutely beautiful. I have been busy at work but managed to harvest the tobacco plants the other night (in my work clothes... Er!) and now have 14 hands of Virginia Gold (old school seed) drying in the wreck room. It smells so good when you go in there. There is something about the change in seasons that is good for your soul! Thanks for the pictures but be careful... Weren't we talking about eating such critters just the other day in another post??? Enjoy the weather.
Later,
Jeff

Hard work and a nice meal.

Gardening tips from the Lonster:

Gas and Matches. You are suggesting we set the place on fire ... prior to cutting anything? Interesting. Perhaps I'm missing something in the details of your tip memo.


However; we do have two burn pits that quite a few tons of biomass have gone thru. About 8' round and 40" deep. We use wire mesh over them to protect from floating embers. We burn only when it hasn't been dry.

Foliage and smaller branches, we mostly run thru the chipper. Leafy matter flares up a lot, in a fire. The chipper sucks in a whole branch of leaves and ... Grrrrrr!!!! It's gone.

Larger stuff becomes firewood for the fireplace. Just add labor. It's a system!!!

Gary

Jeff, can you grow that tobacco in the Northeast? Would love to give it a try if possible. Gary, your eatin good, i've been going crazy making egg dishes of all sorts. The Chief of Police of all people has an egg stand right down the road from me. He's getting into the farming thing.

Hi Watchman,
There are so many varieties of tobacco now that it grows almost anywhere. It is all over the world and there are many more variety choices today than there were just a few years ago. Tobacco only needs about a 60 day growing period (outside) once it is transplanted and the growers in colder climates usually start the plants inside. Heck, they even do that in KY in about March. You need another 60 to 90 days for the seeds to germinate and the plants to get big enough to transplant, and if done inside the right light and temperature. The 60 day grow period above is if you let them get about a foot tall, or a bit more, before transplanting. If not figure about 90 days. My plants were about five feet tall when I harvested the last leaves.

I don't know where you live, but Connecticut is a famous tobacco growing state that is 'up east.' I grew up working in burley tobacco in Lexington, Kentucky. Burley is a hearty variety and was used for years as kind of a filler or bulk ingredient in various mixes. It was probably more of a direct relative of the natural plant that was used by the native Americans and 'discovered' by the Europeans when they arrived. It has come into it's own recently and dark fired burleys are all the rage in premium cigars and tinned pipe tobaccos right now.

When I was a kid (many, many years ago) we air cured burley in large multi story barns by opening and closing the long wooden shutters and controlling the air flow into the barn. It was only fire cured in a few small geographical locations. The virginias and 'wrapper' leaves were mostly/often 'flue cured' with heat (as I understand it). I am not a tobacco expert, but burley grew in good dark earth in KY and virginia was an early modification (maybe mid 1600 to 1700's plus or minus - I have forgotten a good part of the history) and was found to be able to grow in sandy bottom land on the east coast. Because of this it basically build and sustained Williamsburg and the early pioneer settlements. The tax impact of the plant is still being felt in the US and it was a prime revenue producer in the early years of the US!

I chose Virginia Gold to plant here as I have really sandy soil and I wanted a mild flavored tobacco. Growing the plant is one thing, but then you have to dry it and process it before you can blend it and smoke it. There are many ways to dry and cure it (two terms that get mixed up a lot!) and even more ways to blend the finished product. I make my own pipe tobacco (to compliment my commercial purchases - not to smoke exclusively) for fun and because it just amazes me how nice real tobacco can be. It has NONE of the fillers or chemicals or additives or flavoring that are often found in commercial tobaccos. Many people feel that it is also 'basically' safe; as far as those old anti tobacco arguments go. Pipe smokers, at least, seem to suffer little from their enjoyment of a bit of smoke. BTW, as for me, I have never ever even smoked a cigarette. Don't know why but I have no interest, and compared to pipe tobacco it just has no attraction. However, I will puff a good cigar on occassion if I find one.

I have been having a bit of trouble with pollination of my plants but finally attracted some bees. If I get any seed pods I will be sure and let you know and get some to you. I should know in another couple of weeks. Anyway, thanks for asking and I hope this helped some! Oh, and as far as the popo (I can say that as I was one, lol) down the road, you know a lot of people seem to be going back to some of the old ways/things. Maybe to see if we still can do them, or maybe because we miss them. Who knows?!?
Later,
Jeff

Thanks for the history lesson, very interesting. I'm in Mass and had no idea they grew in CT. Thanks for the offer on the seed pods as well, if you get them of course.

I love the way tobacco smells, as long as you don't burn the stuff. Coffee too, love the way it smells, but the taste is way too bitter for me. My grandpa used to smoke apple flavored pipe tobacco at times, but he was also a 3-5 pack a day man, probably why I can't stand cigarette smoke.

I do wonder if it would grow up here in AK, leaf crops like kale do well, hmmm....

Rotorhead I agree about the coffee thing. I love the smell and make myself get a jump start with it first thing in the morning and then don't have anymore all day. I really don't like the taste (Sooo sorry Gary!). I can't stand cigarette smoke either. However, there are a few pipe tobaccos that acutally smell like the tobacco. 'Aromatics' have flavors and smells added to them - think cherry and vanilla as examples - and (some) 'English' blends usually do not. I don't smoke aromatics at all as they are just not my thing. I do know people who like them a lot. I like to blend my own mix so I can control exactly what goes in it, and it is simply different amounts of different tobacco varieties. Even then, I can understand those who don't like it at all, and I try to be very considerate when I smoke. I usually only smoke a bowl or two a month and it is rare that I do in any kind of public venue. Maybe out camping around the fire, but then what the heck, there is smoke everywhere .

Watchman, my pleasure. I'll let you know.

Later,
Jeff

Sean
Your missing all the good parts .hehe Caffeine and nicotine keep me going . I have tried to quit smoking cigarettes many times and it was generally cost related $7.00 pack is wack . I hafta pay more for health insurance too but people who eat greasy chicken and bacon and sausage , they don't get penalized. Now I want to quit because of the effects I feel on my lung capacity .A brisk trudge up the side of a mountain is a chore and feel like I'm going to die . You would think that would be enough to make you quit .

So I say smoke em if you got em . And if you add alittle cream to your coffee it taste like it smells .

My first car was from my dad and he smoked a pipe . I think I had that 68 Pontiac Bonneville for at least 3 yrs till it blew up . It still smelled like vanilla when I burried it .

Thanks
Kurt

Enjoyable read guys.

Gary, glad you liked it .

Rotorhead, I don't know about AK, but if you have about 60 days with no freezing temps at night it just might make it. You would have to start it in a protected environment and maybe even keep it there longer than in another climate, but it is an amazingly hearty plant.

Kurt, You know a big amount of that $7.00 is tax cost... Grow you own and avoid the toll! Oh, and please pass the bacon .

Later,
Jeff

Jeff,

Now, if Sean used agitated water to freeze the ice cubes for his igloo, it might be clear enough to act as a greenhouse without glass. I know the First Nation peoples of Alaska, traded with the Ancient Egyptians for their Tobacco, up until about 3,000 BC.

Ok ... I think you guys have this one under control. I just wanted to clarify those points ...,

Gary

Hey Gary, thanks for the assist. Everyone is welcome hahahaha!

Gary
You know I used to be a chef at high end restaurants and country clubs many moons ago! I did ice carvings and we got our 300# blocks of ice from a supplier in Canada . Supposedly it had a very high mineral content that makes it freeze clear .
I think Sean can see Canada from his house .
Just tryin to help out HOHOHO

Thanks
Kurt

Can't quite make it out from the third floor, but maybe the roof...

Actually, here in SE Alaska it's pretty much impossible to drive anywhere without going through Canada, we're separated from the rest of the state by a little sliver of B.C. and a big chunk of the Yukon. The border is a bit over 40 miles up the (only) road from my other house in Haines. Even the kids end up with a passport there since you end up travelling through it so often. I've often thought that we should have traded the Canadians for the rest of the territory between SE and southcentral Alaska. I'd be willing to give up pretty much all of southern California in exchange, or maybe Washington DC, they're welcome to that. Probably too smart to take us up on either one though.