We Got Skunked!

            A group of striped skunks have invaded out neighborhood. We noticed them one night as they emerged to eat the seeds dropped from our bird feeders. Earlier, I had seen holes scattered around our yard where they had dug for insects, mushrooms, earthworms, grasshoppers, beetles and grubs. I later found out they eat wasps and honeybees as well.

Skunks will eat honeybees.

Skunks are adept at digging.

The striped skunk range covers most of the continental United States from Canada to Mexico. A group of skunks is called a surfeit, and they travel no more than two miles from their dens or from a water source. They have poor eyesight, but excellent hearing and smell. In the wild, they live from 2-4 years and weight 6-10 pounds.

Best known for their black fur coat with a white stripe running up their back, these mammals are nocturnal—active at night—and for the most part, are generally solitary creatures that live and forge alone. However, they are known to hibernate during the coldest months in winter where they gather in communal dens for warmth.

Mating season is one of the only other times when they tend to socialize. The females have litters of one to seven young kits in late April through early June.

Skilled little diggers? You bet. They are proficient excavators with five clawed toes and can damage foundations when they tunnel underneath a home or a building to take up residence. A burrow can reach three to four feet below ground and six to twenty feet long, ending in round chambers lined with leaves and grass. Our furry Pepe Le Pews dug their burrows under the cement foundation of one of our pole buildings.

Everyone knows skunks are notorious for the foul odor of their spray, but did you know that they are almost predator-free creatures with only the great horned owl as an enemy? Their defense mechanism—their sulfuric spray—is capable of reaching 10 feet and the odor can be detected up to 1.5 miles away.

Although skunks may appear to be cute and furry, they carry many diseases including leptospirosis, canine distemper, canine hepatitis, intestinal roundworm, and rabies.

How do you rid your yard of them?  Professional trappers are the easiest means. To date, five have been removed from our yard and our neighbor’s property.

I’m hoping they will all be removed… and long-lost relatives do not show up for a late summer visit. 

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE:    

https://www.amazon.com/Judy-Ann-Davis/e/B006GXN502/

BON APPETITE - August is SALSA Month!

It's that time of the year when the tomatoes are ripening faster than we can eat them. This is an ideal time to make salsa.

FRESH SALSA

• 4 cups chopped peeled fresh tomatoes
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt - optional
• 1 jalapeno pepper, chopped find - optional

In a bowl, combine all ingredients; mix well. Let stand for about 1 hour. Serve at room temperature. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator. Yield: 3-1/2 cups. You can substitute lime juice instead of vinegar.

ICE CREAM . . .in a cone, please.

Wafer Cones

July is the month to enjoy special summer treats like watermelon, key lime and peach pie, blueberry cobbler, strawberry shortcake—and ice cream, my favorite of all! Whether it’s a waffle cone, sugar cone or wafer cone, as long as it’s filled with ice cream, I’m in summer dessert heaven.

The first ice cream cone was produced in 1896 by Italo Marchiony, who emigrated from Italy in the late 1800s and invented his ice cream cone in New York City. He was granted a patent in December 1903, although July 23, 1904, is credited as the day and year the cone was invented.

  

Waffle Cone

A similar creation was independently introduced in 1904 at St. Louis World's Fair by Ernest A. Hamwi, a Syrian concessionaire. Hamwi was selling a crisp, waffle-like pastry called zalabis, in a booth right next to an ice cream vendor. When the ice cream vendor ran out of dishes, Hamwi saw an easy solution to the problem. He rolled one of his wafer-like waffles in the shape of a cone, or cornucopia, and gave it to the ice cream vendor. The cone cooled in a few seconds. The ice cream vendor loaded it with ice cream. The customers were happy. And the idea of an edible cone came into existence as part of our staple desserts in America.

 

Soon thereafter, ice cream cone businesses and factories sprung up creating all types of cones from the rolled cone which was  baked as a waffle to the batter-made molded ones.

What followed next were the many, many flavors of ice cream created to fill those wonderful, walk-around, funnel-like inventions. So when you buy or fill a cone with your favorite ice cream this summer, you’re eating a piece of history dating back over a century ago.

I have to admit, vanilla is still my favorite flavor of ice cream, followed by butter pecan—heaped in a sugar waffle cone. When you’re trying to beat the summer heat, do you have a favorite flavor and a special kind of cone you like the best?

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE:    

https://www.amazon.com/Judy-Ann-Davis/e/B006GXN502/

FEATURED AUTHOR - Pamela Thibodeaux - "Tempered Hearts"

I pleased to have Pamela S. Thibodeaux on my blog with her book, “Tempered Hearts.” Pamela hails from Southwest Louisiana and writes “Inspirational with an Edge” fiction and creative nonfiction. Her favorite thing to do to relax is read.

I asked her who introduced her to the love of reading and she told me her mother and oldest brother were avid readers. “Both influenced me, but mama’s passion bore the most effect on my becoming a reader for life,” she said. When asked to list three adjectives to describe herself, she lists: strong, sensitive, and kind.

Here is the blurb from “Tempered Hearts” 
Rancher Craig Harris and veterinarian Tamera Collins clash from the moment they meet.  Innocence is pitted against arrogance as tempers rise and passions ignite to form a love as pure as the finest gold, fresh from the crucible and as strong as steel.  Thrown together amid tragedy and unsated passion, Tamera and Craig share a strong attraction that neither accepts as the first stages of love.  Torn between desire and dislike, they must make peace with their pasts and God in order to open up to the love blossoming between them.  It is a love that nothing can destroy when they come to understand that only when hearts are tempered, minds are opened and wills are softened can man discern the will of God for his life.

Book Purchase Links:

Audible: http://bit.ly/THAudio2

Amazon Print: http://amzn.to/1Elwhpx

Kindlehttp://amzn.to/1rdBRzW

B&N Print: http://bit.ly/1WpcBIp

Nook: http://bit.ly/1OdQyhT

Smashwords: http://bit.ly/16sLHL9

       Author Bio

Award-winning author, Pamela S. Thibodeaux is the Co-Founder and a lifetime member of Bayou Writers Group in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Multi-published in romantic fiction as well as creative non-fiction, her writing has been tagged as, “Inspirational with an Edge!” ™ and reviewed as “steamier and grittier than the typical Christian novel without decreasing the message.” Sign up to receive Pam’s newsletter and get a FREE short story!

Links:

Website address: http://www.pamelathibodeaux.com

Blog: http://pamswildroseblog.blogspot.com

Face Book Profile: http://facebook.com/pamelasthibodeaux

FB Author Page https://www.facebook.com/pamelasthibodeauxauthor

 Pamela is giving away one free 

audio copy from the list of  comments.

BARN DAY - JULY 14th

Our Family Bank Barn

The second Sunday in July is designated “barn day,” when the importance of barns in the farming communities in the United States is observed. Throughout our lands, there are many different styles of barns, built and designed to reflect the type of farming that occurred there.

In Northeastern Pennsylvania, where I grew up, our dairy barn was a bank barn which meant it was built into a bank allowing for easy ground access to both the upper and lower floors. The upper floors accommodated haylofts where first loose hay and later baled hay were stored for the cattle housed on the lower floor.

Most barns in Northeastern Pennsylvania were constructed of hemlock, a very hardy wood which seasons to a light gray color. The eastern hemlock is the state tree of Pennsylvania, and large plentiful stands existed in the 1800s.  

Old Hay Loader

By design, our barn was fashioned after a style called the Dutch Barn with its hip or gambrel roof which had two symmetrical slopes on two sides with the lower slope steeper than the upper one. However, the barn itself was more rectangular, like the English and German barns, and the broad expansive side had wide doors on tracks that opened and allowed for wagons to enter directly into hay loft, making unloading the hay easier.  

Double Harpoon Hay Forks

How did they get the hay into the loft or mow? A long rail or track ran along the inside length of the roof, from peak to peak, and accommodated a double harpoon hay fork, pulleys, and trip rope. Once the fork, with its two giant tines, was secured into a bundle of hay, a horse—and later a tractor—pulled the stack of hay up and onto the track. After delivering it to the proper location, a yank on an attached rope would trip the hay fork to release its load. I often worked the mow. Using a pitch fork, I dragged layers of hay to the far corner and edges of the loft to even it out.

Old Stonewall

Because we found newspapers from the Civil War, used as insulation in the attic, we suspected the house, and probably the barn as well, were built before 1861. However, we also knew the Irish Potato famine of 1845-49 brought many skilled Irish immigrants looking for work when they arrived in the United States. It was said they went from farm to farm, seeking shelter and food—and in return, cleared stone from fields and built the stonewalls in Northeastern Pennsylvania. We have many of these sturdy walls still standing on the family property today.

So what do you do on Barn Day? Why not take a ride in the country and go looking for old barns? They are a disappearing structure on our rural landscape as the farming industry has slowly faded over the years and the barns have gone to disrepair.

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE:    

https://www.amazon.com/Judy-Ann-Davis/e/B006GXN502/