Projects, projects and MORE projects

Howdy, long-suffering blog fans!  Please forgive me for not posting for several weeks. We've been so busy with different projects around the ranch that I haven't had time for writing! 

The first big undertaking was some demo work.

Remember this old pig pen? 

It's in our West pasture and is so ramshackle that it's unusable. It's a hazard with all that old wood, nails and wire and had to come down. 

Our friend Richard came up from Albuquerque for the week to help us with projects such as this. In addition to being an all-around nice guy, Richard has a very broad and useful skill set. If we had the means to do so, we'd try to hire him on full time as our ranch manager!  Even so, we're very grateful for his help this past week. He and G.W. got quite a bit done around here.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...Richard started on the pig pen by removing the woven wire fence that had been used to keep horses out of the pen. The wire is still good and worth saving, so staple by staple, Richard took it down. After taking apart the wood fence, he used the Bobcat to push over the posts.

 This was a full day's hard work! I sure am happy to see this thing apart. 

The wood from the pig pen is too far gone to be reused for anything structural. 

But we are going to save it for "artistic" projects....signs, picture frames, etc. G.W. has some good ideas for the wood. Nice winter time, indoor projects!

And here is all the woven wire that Richard so carefully saved for us.

While dismantling it, Richard found some old, hand-forged nails. 

We've used fence panels to block off the entire area until we can get the wood removed and go over the area with a metal detector and magnet. 

That's a project in and of itself. A project within a project!

This is just the first of a half dozen or so articles on all we've been working on here at Crossed Sabers. I'm burning the midnight oil to write the rest! 

Modern Homestead Barbie

I think I'm going to contact the people at Mattel because they need to make a new Barbie doll. She's "Modern Homestead Barbie" and comes with cast iron pans and a cordless drill. That idea came to me while I was building six new beds for my Square Foot Garden. I think it's high time they made Barbies a little more like real women!

Most of the snow from the May 1st storm has melted and it was nearly 60 degrees today. Beautiful day to work outside.

Here's what the garden looked like before adding the new beds. 

I built four 4' x 8' beds and two 4' x 10' beds. They're made from untreated two by twelves. Remember, do not use pressure treated lumber for vegetable or herb beds because chemicals can leech into the soil and into the produce you'll eat. Yuck!

G.W. helped me get all this lumber home in his big truck.

While I was hard at work, this is what was going on over in the corral. Nap time.  They're so darned cute!

These garden beds went together like the others...I drilled all the pilot holes first.  The pilot holes take the longest. 

Once they're done, the beds go together in about 15 minutes each.  It's simple to do.  The toughest part is moving the boards and partially completed beds around to work on. That's heavy lumber!

I'm going to recommend that Mattel give Modern Homestead Barbie a Dewalt cordless drill. It's a workhorse. Lordy, I hope they don't decide to make it pink!

Here's the garden after the addition of the new beds. I'll fine tune their placement when I'm ready to fill them with the Square Foot planting mix.  

Yes, it's a huge garden, especially for the intensive Square Foot  method.  I've got just over 400 square feet of garden space!  My eventual goal is to grow the majority of our own food. That will come gradually. This first year is mainly about building the structures. Another project for this year is installing a drip irrigation system. 

Over the next few years, I'll learn by trial and error which vegetables will grow in my climate. We live at high altitude and have a short growing season. We're either in a warm Zone 3 or a cold Zone 4. It's going to be a challenge to produce longer season veggies like tomatoes, eggplant and corn. Using the hoop houses may extend the season just enough.  Time will tell.

Meanwhile, over at the corral....still napping!

One last thing...Modern Homestead Barbie should also come with a large bottle of Advil. Her back's going to ache a lot!

A Little Slice of Smokey Heaven

OK, it was more like a big slab of smokey heaven. On Monday, I tried my hand at smoking a brisket. Brisket always intimidated me, since it's not an easy hunk of meat to cook. But this one turned out "company worthy" on the first try!

If you'd like to try it, be sure to allow all day for the cooking. This is not something you rush. (although I will tell you about a little short cut you can take near the end of the cooking process.)

Here's how I did it.

This is an 8 pound piece of brisket. I rubbed it with some corn oil then Montreal Steak Seasoning. I put the seasoning on fairly thick.

The plan was to refrigerate it overnight then smoke it. But life gets a little crazy around Crossed Sabers sometimes, and I did not have time for it the next day. It sat in the refrigerator for about 48 hours and didn't seem to suffer any for it.

Before popping it into the smoker I injected it with about a cup of beef broth. Nothing fancy, just broth straight out of one of the boxes you buy at the supermarket. 

Remember that the key to success is a digital thermometer with a probe. It's impossible to tell if it's done unless you know the internal temperature.  Your target temperature for brisket is 203 degrees. 

Into the smoker it went. I had some assorted hardwood bisquettes for the Bradley smoker, so I just loaded up the chute with  oak, hickory, pecan and Bradley's 'special blend' bisquettes. 

I kept the smoker at about 225 degrees. 

After 4 hours I opened up a couple cans of regular ol' pork and beans, dumped them into a cast iron skillet and put them right underneath the brisket in the smoker. That way, all the fat melting off the brisket could drip down into the beans. 

Yup, I did that. I cook with reckless abandon and sometimes with a complete disregard for fat and calories. This is one of those times. 

At six hours, the brisket hit what's called "the stall". That's when the evaporating liquid from the meat cools the meat enough that the temperature refuses to budge for what seems like an eternity. If you've got all day you can just wait out the stall. Eventually the excess moisture is gone and the meat temperature will begin to rise again.

This is what it all looked like at "the stall".

However, if you have a hungry husband (or dinner guests) on the way, three horses to feed and a corral to muck, you can employ a little short cut called a Texas Crutch. Take the brisket out of the smoker, put it in a roasting pan along with about a half cup of beef broth. Wrap the pan tightly with aluminum foil and put it in a 225 degree oven. Leave the thermometer probe in the meat. You still are waiting for that magical 203 degrees. What you're doing now is braising the meat.

You'll also want to remove the pan of baked beans from the smoker now, too. Just cover them up and let them wait for the brisket.

The brisket's going to take another few hours in the oven. Be patient. 

When the internal temperature of the brisket is at 203 degrees, remove it from the oven. Leave it covered with foil and let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes. While it's resting (it's tired after all that smoking), put the skillet with the beans into the oven. Leave it covered with foil so they don't dry out.

Once the beans are hot, start slicing the brisket. Be sure to slice against the grain. 

We like to serve our brisket very plainly....just a little BBQ sauce and some buttered bread and of course the pork and beans.  

The beans undergo a sublime transformation in that smoker. They were not at all greasy even with the brisket fat showering down on them. Eating them was like a little party in your mouth! 

Your mouth's watering now, isn't it? Yes it is! What are you waiting for? Go try this out yourself. It's easy!

Snow. Again. On May 1st!

I'd commented in a previous post that around here, spring is a fickle thing. Boy howdy is that a true statement! Two days ago it was in the 70's and beautifully sunny.

Today.....

No, I'm not teasing you and posting a photo from January. 

This is for real, happening now on May 1.

And look what I caught on film!  I've never seen a hummingbird in the snow before. I'll bet this little guy wishes he waited a few weeks before heading north!

When I saw him out there, I whipped up a fresh batch of sugar water and put it out for him while it was still slightly warm.

Crazy, huh? 

At this rate, I'll be planting my tomatoes outside sometime in July. Heavens! My growing season is probably 15 days long!

It's not a Hoop House, it's an igloo! It wouldn't surprise me one bit to wake up tomorrow and see penguins in my garden!