Ranch Life – Page 25 – The Hermits' Rest

Black-eyed Peas at New Year’s

I was asked how I cook black-eyed peas for the big meal on New Year’s Day. Now, if you’re used to reading monetized blogs, you’re probably ready to have to read a long story, scroll past many repetitive ads, and suffer through much blathering to get to the recipe (or knitting/crochet pattern, etc.).

In 2021 I had added deviled eggs because a relative liked them.

This blog is for me and random people who care about nature, horses, and/or anxiety, so no monetizing will occur. And I just have a brief story about black-eyed peas at New Year’s.

I have mentioned that this is my favorite meal probably every year since 2018 and no doubt I mentioned it in my two earlier blogs as well. I like to blog and eat peas, usually not simultaneously. I love this meal for the flavors, but also because it’s one of the few connections I have with the past few generations of my family. Rural families in the Deep South always must have their peas for good luck and greens for money (the meaning varies).

In my family growing up, that meant black-eyed peas cooked with ham hock, rice to put the beans on (not cooked together), collard greens cooked with more ham hock or bacon, cornbread, and green onions sliced up for garnish. You were encouraged to put homemade hot pepper vinegar or something similar on the beans. I thought this was a gourmet meal, not very inexpensive ingredients combined to be delicious. I did realize it was also what Black people ate, since we exchanged dishes with black friends (in the 60s that was my grandmother’s maid and her extended family).

I still make the same meal, carefully passed down from grandmother to mother to older sister to me. Its ingredients vary depending on what’s available, but it’s always good. I do. Now I have to add a pork loin or ham for people who insist on a slab of meat at each meal. Traditions change! It’s all good. Okay, recipes, or guidelines:

Black-eyed Peas as I Make Them

Note: ideally start this the night before

Ingredients

1 package dried black-eyed peas
4 cups broth (your choice; we can’t use chicken unless one family member is absent)
1 onion chopped
1 smoked ham hock OR package genuine andouille sausage sliced up OR leftover Christmas ham OR bacon (least favorite option)
Cajun seasoning OR Oh Shit seasoning
Optional bay leaf if your spouse doesn’t hate it
Additional salt and pepper

Night before or early in the morning, rinse the peas and cover with a lot of water. Soak overnight in a large pot or at least four hours. Beans will expand.

Next day drain and rinse the peas and return to the pot. Cover with the broth (this adds flavor; vegetarians can use vegetable broth and skip the meat). You will probably have to add water to keep the peas (really beans) covered. Add onion, meat, and seasonings.

Bring the liquid to a boil. Do not be concerned if there’s scummy froth; just stir it back in. Turn down the heat and let cook until you have the right amount of delicious liquid in with the solids, then cover and simmer a long time.

The key is to cook them to the mushy stage. So I cook at least three hours. The longer it cooks, the more the flavors merge.

Serve over rice and top with green onions and any hot sauce you like. But taste it first. It’s so good.

Bonus: Collard Greens

2 or 3 bunches of collard greens. They have huge dark green leaves. Mustard greens are good, too, but more bitter.
One chopped onion
Broth to cook in )amount varies). I also use Better Than Bouillon sometimes.
Meat for seasoning—the same meat you used with the beans or something different. You don’t need much; add it to taste.
Salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar (my mom said to do this to cut bitterness)

Chop the greens. Important: slice off the thick stems. Fold the leaf over and you can quickly eliminate them, so your chickens can eat them. Greens are more pleasant to eat without stems. But some people like them. Chop them enough that people won’t get huge long strips of them on their forks.

My previous chicken flock with their stems. I didn’t take pictures yesterday.

This will look like a lot of greens. It isn’t. They shrink.

Put them and the onions in a pot big enough to cover them. Add 1-2 cups of liquid and cook covered on high, stirring a couple of times until they are wilted and you see there really aren’t that many.

Add the meat and seasonings. Simmer a ridiculously long time. You can eat them after an hour or so, but the flavors develop during the long cooking time.

Serve along with the peas and rice. Use cornbread to soak up extra cooking liquid (pot likker).

If you are lucky enough to have leftover cornbread and greens, pour warmed up liquid over a slice of cornbread and eat it for breakfast.

Yeah. That was concise…not really.

So Far, So Good

I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I love cooking traditional Southern US food at New Year’s. Today I cooked black-eyed peas, rice, collard/mustard greens, cornbread, and a pork loin (because Lee needs his meat).

Not this year’s meal. I forgot to take pictures.

I had my oldest friends and my family over for the meal, and it was just wonderful. I’ve missed our meals since I’ve been so depressed. We have vowed to do better from now on.

Maybe I’ll invite a few newer friends, too. It’s just so overwhelming with all the dogs and the mess around the house from our unpacking and such. Perhaps a potluck?

It was a good day of starting new things, like a new journal, a new temperature blanket (photos tomorrow), and new energy. I’m not sure where it came from. Maybe it’s Connie the turkey, or Apache’s new zippy mode.

I hope you had some good experiences today. Every good day is a treasure.

Zoom, There Went Another Year

Years really do zip by the older you get. I like that they’re all a blur now. It makes living in the present easier.

Calendars are human inventions, but years happen regardless of whether people are around or not. Years are “real.” Since this is the time my culture marks the start of another year, then, I’ll go ahead and say that I wish you all the best possible 2025 that our combined positive perspectives can create.

Hey look, Gemini can’t spell. I love these AI things.

I’ll rely a lot on small acts of kindness to keep me going. For example, today I was taking my morning walk when a pickup truck approached from behind me. This happens about every ten minutes here. To my surprise, the truck slowed down and stopped beside me. A young-ish man leaned over and told me he’d just stopped to wish me a good day from him and his daughter. A little girl said, “Have a good day!” from her car seat. How kind! I told them happy new year, and the little girl thanked me and waved hard as they left. Ah. That started my day off well.

The day remained good, too. I remarked to Lee that it was the first day in a couple of months that I felt free of anxiety. I’ll take an occasional day like that!

I was so calm I didn’t scare this Mockingbird.

Just little things cheered me up. I got some work done, then I got my journal ready for next year and tallied my December bird sightings. I felt so organized.

Of course I sat and listened to birds. White-crowned Sparrow.

I even got to go out a little earlier to work with the horses, and ended up having one of the best sessions with Apache that I’ve ever had. The stuff we are learning is sinking in! We both had fun and got exercise.

Neither of us wanted to go back to the pens when we were finished, so Apache got to eat good grass and endure my hugs for a while.

Oh, and Connie and the chickens are doing well. I fed them some fresh chickweed and curly dock, and they even stood near each other. I turned on their heat lamp, since it’s finally cooling off tonight. They will keep each other warm.

This has been a hard blog to write, because it’s New Year’s Eve and the locals are compelled to shoot off fireworks. That means Penney is trying to merge herself with me. Luckily she eventually crawled under the bed, so I didn’t have to fake a sneeze to send her away. I love her anyway.

Thanks for being here.

A New Avian Relationship

What relationships have a positive impact on you?

Sure, my relationships with many people have had a positive impact on me. But I don’t know how well I’d be doing right now if I didn’t have my relationships with animals.

Many humans have forged strong positive bonds with their dogs and cats, as have I. Our animal companions give as well as take love and more. Just being with our pack and seeing them interact makes me happy.

Goldie’s relationship with us is very special.

And the horses also have had a huge positive effect on me, as well as leading to some angst and doubt. But no relationship is 100% positive! I’m just glad to have the chance to be a part of the lives of these very different animals.

I think I was under the impression that humans didn’t really have relationships with birds, at least for much of my life. Birds were (and wild birds still are) for observing and keeping my distance.

After getting chickens, I began to see their distinct personalities and let myself get attached to them, which is why losing all my flock but Bianca was so hard. I really was attached to Bertie Lee and her friends.

I’m enjoying Bianca’s new friends, especially Clint, who is the friendliest of the current chickens.

But I’m trying to not let myself get smitten by our newest bird, Connie 182 Gobbler. She’s a turkey, a white meat turkey. 182 was one of a dozen turkeys my friend Heather’s son raised for FFA this fall. She was always very friendly and cuddly, even as a chick (poult).

I told Heather I’d take her when show season was over, since she was too small to show, but so sweet.

Today was the day of delivery, which had to be very confusing for 182. She had never left the barn before, never seen grass, etc. then she rode in the back of a truck! Then she was in a weird place where people kept trying to make her eat and drink.

We wanted to be sure she was okay. Um, and pet her.

Heather explains that she will like it here.

After doting on 182 and telling her that her name was now Connie (in honor of my friend whose mother said her face looked like a turkey egg when she had the measles), we left her alone. The first time I checked she was still in the coop, but walking around and eating chicken seed.

When I went to feed the horses I looked over and saw something large and white in the chicken run. It was Connie! She was walking in the part that used to have a bunch of plants in it when we only had Bianca and she was outside. That turkey was taste testing everything. She discovered millet on the stalk, wild melons, and burs. It was so much fun seeing her act like a wild turkey.

The chickens aren’t acting too upset, but they stay on whatever side of the pen Connie is not pecking away in. I’ll be interested to see if they develop their own positive relationship.

I’m completely charmed by Connie, myself. She’s so soft and warm, and she has such big eyes. I hope she sticks around!

Timely Political Question

How have your political views changed over time?

My political views haven’t changed much, though as I learn new information, there have been slight moves one way or another. My basic point of view is that I’d like everyone to have meaningful work, live somewhere safe and comfortable, and to be their authentic selves. I want people to be free from violence and to practice whatever spiritual path is meaningful in their culture. Old hippie me.

Over the years I’ve grown less fond of wars and bigotry, though I didn’t like them from the start. I have, however, come to respect the rights of people who want to live differently from me. I just can’t figure out how those of us who want to eliminate other religions or political groups can live with the people who don’t. It’s that paradox of tolerance everyone was talking about not too long ago.

Makes me want to fly away, like this guy.

Since I’ve always enjoyed meeting people from different places, cultures, and backgrounds, I know that everyone believes they are correct, and I think it’s worthwhile to take the perspective of people who differ from me. That’s been my focus lately. So, my political views have not shifted much, I am gaining insight into how people come to such radically different conclusions from me.

Or I could move far south like these Sandhill Cranes. They’re running late.

Currently I’m figuring out what will keep me relatively stable as I observe how the USA and other countries handle things. I’ll continue to do what I actually can do to help when I can.

Laughing at this guy helps. He’s chowing down on the food he’d rejected two minutes earlier, after realizing another horse wanted it. All that cantering works up an appetite.

Anyway, the weather has been weird, hot to cold rain to sunny to calm to windy. We lucked out and missed the latest round of unseasonable tornadoes. It feels like I’m living in science fiction from my childhood.

Apache Smoke Signal: Superstar

What? That’s my superstar horse’s whole name that he’s registered under. If I’d named him, it would have been something more culturally neutral, like Gary or Fred. He doesn’t care, though, and also answers to Patchy or Patch.

I digress. It’s been a long but good day. Life is back to normal, with my bird friends, my chickens, and business transactions taking up a lot of time. I’ll explain all that soon. I keep putting it off.

The rest of the day involved horses, mostly the 19-year-old superstar to whom I referred earlier. First, he will now take his new powdered medicine in “horse crack,” which he wouldn’t before. This is GOOD. If I can avoid the applesauce routine, I’ll be pleased.

I want to keep him healthy and pretty. Photo is not from bur season.

Second, he was incredibly patient as I got him ready for his lesson this afternoon. It has been rainy. That means muddy horses. The hay ran out. That means horses spending time looking for delicious grass among cockleburs. Ugh. I could not finish getting him cleaned up in the time I allotted, so I had to finish de-burring after we got to Tarrin’s. Luckily, I didn’t miss much of Sara and Aragorn’s lesson, which was interesting, because they were doing the same exercise Apache and I worked on last week.

Note burs in mane. It was much worse today.

But the reason I say Apache is a superstar is that he is doing so well with his development and cantering on the ground, and is really working well with me under saddle. It feels like we’re both learning at a similar pace, and doing well, despite our ages. I can’t believe how he is responding to my cues and that I’m capable of giving them! He is very close to being able to canter under saddle.

Yes, he should have been able to do that when he was young, but he, Sara, and I had to learn a lot before that could happen. Here we are now, though! We are both enjoying ourselves at last. That was my hope for us, to become partners and have fun.

I’m so full of gratitude that I’ve been able to go on this journey with my buddy, and that Tarrin’s patience and dedication to our success has paid off. Plus, I’m grateful that Sara let me have the opportunity to work with Apache.

It’s been fun learning together, at our very different levels.

Next? More cantering and slowing down/speeding up, plus continuing to get Drew back on track.

Drew: I’m happy just hanging out with my buds and collecting burs. Don’t mind me.

Tomorrow back to non-equine topics.

The Rural Internet Dilemma

It’s real. It’s a problem. The solution requires hard choices. Yes, if you need reliable high-speed internet and you don’t live near a major metropolitan area, your options are very limited.

It sounds so lovely to work from home at your lakeside cabin, your mountain retreat, or your horse farm in a sparsely populated area tantalizingly close to “real” towns (me). But when you’re watching that little ball go around and around while you’re trying to do a demo, or your download says it will take 36 hours, the romance fades.

Well at least that would take a while. image from Pexels.

It’s a choice to live here, and we knew it would not be easy. We’ve had some good years—I had a wired option from AT&T that worked fine until it broke and I was informed they no longer sold them. Using hotspots was okay, but Zoom ate up our allotted bandwidth very quickly.

So I got this satellite setup from Viasat. It does work, unless it’s raining. But it, too, had limits and would slow to a crawl. Honest. All I do is 2-3 hours of meetings everyday; otherwise not heavy use. We didn’t even dare stream television, to save the fast speeds for work.

For that reason, we had DirectTV satellite television. I’m not going to go over that fiasco again. After waiting weeks to get it fixed, it stopped working. Then the dish fell down. It’s canceled as of last week.

We started streaming for television when I found an unlimited plan on Viasat. All was well other than the slowdowns. They were infuriating. And this stuff isn’t cheap. And we checked all possible systems, but we have a hill nearby and it blocked the solution most folks I know use. Sigh. Much time has been spent on research, which I don’t particularly enjoy.

Spiders build webs faster than I can download a PowerPoint deck.

There was one final option. We just didn’t want to do it. For one thing, it started out very expensive. For another, we are not fond of the owner of the company that provided this really good service we can even take camping with us.

It’s a dilemma! StarLink works. It’s less expensive now. Everyone I know who has it loves it. But. But. I’ve NEVER been a fan of Elon Musk. I didn’t like him years before he became the next US President’s puppet master. And one of the few ways you can show your disapproval of the practices of corporations is to not buy their stuff. (There are some companies whose treatment of LGBTIA people or religious discrimination means they do not get my dollars.)

Lee finally made the decision to get the StarLink system. We will cut a lot of expenses, even with streaming subscriptions. And we can have entertainment while traveling when there’s bad weather and we don’t want to be outside.

But I’m torn, ethically. This is one of those times where there’s no “best” thing to do. We will have to deal with the bad karma we’re generating, I guess!

Droodles and I Have Skills

What skills or lessons have you learned recently?

Ooh! Ooh! I know the answer to this one, and it involves a certain bur-headed gray gelding in my life, Andrew “Droodles” Kendall. I’ve alluded to having anxiety and concerns that have been weighing me down recently. One was Drew.

Since getting kicked in the head by Fiona the mini-donkey followed by unexplained pain on his right side, this horse has been a challenge. To be honest, I haven’t been up for the challenge, for a couple of reasons. One is that, even if he were my only horse, my schedule won’t let me work him consistently almost every day, which helps him hurt less. The other is that his aggressive behavior made me wary of him and want to work with him less, not more, even with all I’ve learned about horses and how pain affects them.

I need special stuff. Mabel says she does, too.

I’d discussed options with my trainer (Tarrin) and neighbor (Sara), who are wise and honest.

I could find him a new home with a more assertive rider with more available saddle time. I’d just hope to get the money back for his saddle, not all his training.
I could stop working with him and let him be a pasture friend like Mabel and Dusty. I’d cut down on all those supplements and medication though!
Or I’d hope to get him to a point where I’d enjoy working with him and he’d enjoy learning. I’d hope to ride, it maybe groundwork or liberty could happen.

In the meantime, I’ve let him rest and have been observing him. In the past couple of weeks, he has been friendly and let me pet him without biting at me. He’s let me remove his tail burs and some mane burs. This made me a little optimistic when our next scheduled lesson came up today.

Both Drew and Apache were filthy from rolling in mud, both covered in burs, etc. I realized that I’ve finally learned to just do what I can to get ready in the amount of time I have. Yay. A lesson learned. I got them brushed and removed all Apache’s latest burs (not too many) and Droodles’s tail burs. I only got half his mane. But he was great about it. Just let me pick them out and chat with him, just like Apache does! I was pleased.

When we got to the lessons, I realized I’d left Drew’s girth in the tack room. So I couldn’t try to ride, with nothing to hold the saddle on. Maybe that was good, because we had a wonderful ground lesson. He did not act like he hurt anywhere, and was calm and willing to do whatever we asked, with no tail swishing or foot stamping. I realized he was coming to me to be petted when he’d stop an exercise. Nice!

Then we worked on a new skill. Tarrin started it but I finished. It involved walking while straddling a wooden pole. I’d watched Sara and Aragorn work on this one. It is a bit challenging.

I’m encouraging him to put the left rear hoof on the correct side of the pole.

Drew was very calm throughout the training, and seemed intent on learning to keep the feet on the correct side. Besides that, he was friendly and sweet. He nuzzled us nicely and even licked Tarrin.

He seemed as pleased as we were when he made it all the way to the end of the pole. It was like working with him just before he got hurt. Wow.

We were all so pleased! Tarrin posited that he might have had a virus in addition to hurting his right ride and neck. There’s no way to know, since horses can’t talk. But it looks like Drew and I have things we can do together! We will try riding next.

Oh yes, Apache had a lesson, too. Having them more frequently has helped him get back in shape, and he’s been a champ about working with me at home, eating at least some of his food, and slurping his powdered medicine mixed with applesauce.

In lessons, he’s been gaining new skills with speeds of walk and trot, and with moving off my leg. Maybe cantering will happen next year. We say that every year.

But he makes us laugh by having to pee after a lot of trotting and getting all lathered up in sweat on unseasonably warm winter days. I’m so glad he’s healthy and his feet are doing so well (thanks to Tarrin’s gradual trims).

So, I’ve learned that I need to give my animals time to heal and learn, Apache with his feet, and Drew with whatever was causing his irritability. I want them both healthy and content. I’ll just keep trying and extend my patience.

It took a lot of patience to get this image of a titmouse snacking on an old wasp nest.

The best news is that sadness about feeling I’d failed Drew is no longer weighing on me. I have hope in at least this part of life!

Pondering

It’s probably a luxury and sign of my privileged status that I’m able to ponder upon what to do in the near future to protect my more distant future. Still, people my age tend to be pondering about many age-related potential occurrences.

Sometimes I feel like an empty seed head, like I’ve fulfilled my purpose and am done now.

Do we work for pay every day until we die? Can we retire and finance our needs ourselves? Will we need help from children or other relatives as we age and decline in health? What’s the best strategy that will give us a comfortable old age?

Anita plans to get her advice from Goldie. She’s wise for her age.

Heck if I know. I thought we had things set up in one way, but things unexpectedly changed, and we have to pivot. Our neighbor, Sara, who I do my horse stuff with, is escaping Texas to start a regenerative farm business in Wisconsin with members of her family. This is exciting for them!

Apache will miss his lesson and show buddy.

But that’s meant we’ve had little choice but to sell the vast majority of the ranch, which we owned together. And the very nice people we are selling to also wanted some of the property we owned outright. With times being what they are, Lee wants to liquidate assets, so this is all going to happen.

If you’re wondering why my anxiety is high and I’m sad, well, this is part of it. I won’t own any of the creek or woods any longer. My plans for a consternation [hilarious typo; I meant conservation] easement are no longer possible. We could not afford to buy out the other half of the ranch to do that; we’d hoped to do it later.

We’d hoped for a few more years of Aragorn in Christmas tack.

The fact that we will soon only have a “ranchette” (not popular with the locals) does give us more options. So we have to ponder them. The agreement we made not to fence in the acres right behind the house means I can’t put in another pasture for the horses. It’s hard to support four horses on what we have.

It better support one attractive rooster!

So, lots to ponder, lots to keep me up at night, and that’s not even bringing in the unknown of the next four years and how it will affect us, right as we would need to start relying on Social Security and Medicare, which we’ve paid into since we were teenagers.

Change is inevitable; we all know that. I can deal with it in small doses with time to prepare. This stuff? I’ll remind myself to put one foot in front of the other and notice the good, the beauty, and the inspiration that occurs every day. Right?

I’m not planning to run away like this bunny!

Wossamotta U?

What’s your favorite cartoon?

Since I was young I just loved the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show. It probably started me down the road to my love of puns. Every single segment just cracked me up, even when I had to ask my parents about some of the humor.

Jay Ward, the creator of this weirdly wonderful cartoon show, was a genius. I had many serious scholars of his work as friends during my academic years, so I may have overdosed on the reruns and analysis, but I still chuckle if I see a clip. If you are young, look it up and read about it in the article linked above. Then binge on Moose and Squirrel, Boris and Natasha, Mr. Peabody, and Dudley Do-Right.

I’m still thinking about things and issues, but more kindnesses from neighbors and some pleasant weather helped a lot today. I got things done that are hard for a person whose brain is not firing on all cylinders.

Still, the three days of much-needed rain put me way behind on bur removal, with only Apache done. I’ll try to get someone else in the herd done before my lesson tomorrow—since the horses finally have a round bale again, they won’t be so invested in getting tidbits of grass from between cocklebur plants.