19th Annual Pine Country Gem and Mineral Show

The 19th annual Pine Country Gem and Mineral show in Jasper Texas Aug. 24 & 25

I never had much interest in this type of event until I moved here and even now my interest is in learning about what can be found locally. I would like to talk to local gem hunters to find out what to look for so the kids and I can go gem hunting.

Bottle Hunt Part Two

       Inspired by my first creek find I decided to head back to the creek and walk a longer section.  I couldn't resist, the weather the last couple years has been so dry we I could have plenty of chances to hike the creek, but even a little rain would make this a much harder journey.  Even now, between the downed trees and small pools of water I had to hop op onto the bank to get through certain areas. Up on the bank the brush is so thick that without the machete I would have had to turn around.  Amazingly this trip I didn't see a single snake.  Monday I saw one Copper Head, but  the snake was up ahead of me and moving fast. As often is the case for me I found the only really good find on my first trip.

       I picked up these three even though they weren't that interesting and all of them were screw tops. If it hadn't been on our property I probably would have left them, but I will drop notes in them saying when and where I picked them up and add the three to our collection.  Since getting through the creek is rough going I picked them up in order to get a chance to clean them up.  When the bottles are covered in dirt it is hard to see if there is any embossing on them.  The jug only says Half Gallon and my wife thinks it is probably a syrup bottle from the 70's.  The brown bottle says W92 Purex on the bottom, but I couldn't see it until I washed off the dirt.  I didn't expect to find bottles these large on my hike and was unprepared for there size and weight.

• Machete
• Backpack
• Plastic Grocery Bags
• Canvas Shoulder bag
• Water
• Shotgun with Shoulder Strap
• Small Trowel

       There is probably more I would bring next time, but this is my revised list of things to bring while bottle hunting in a creek bed.  I took a machete, a shotgun and a plastic grocery sack. The machete has a sheath to hang on my belt so carrying the shotgun wasn't a problem until I had to hack through some brush.  In my excitement I had hoped to find more small medicine bottles so I hadn't planned on finding anything large and filled with sand. After carrying around the jug for a while the grocery bag ripped and I found my self carrying three bottles and a 20 gauge through the terrain which of course got thicker as soon as I found myself in this situation. If I had a pistol I would bring it instead just in case I stumble upon some wild pigs which is why I brought the shotgun.  I am happy to have found anything and I am glad I went, because any day the rains could refill the creek and cover everything.

Bottle Hunting the Creek

       Since we moved here to East Texas I have been collecting old bottles.  My interest is really only in collecting from this area and I collect bottles the same way I collect coins, if I find one I keep it, but I don't buy any. I have gathered bottles form all over our property and have a couple good spots to hunt, but rarely get a chance to go because they are down by the gulf.  In the way of advice for the beginning collector I have only two words, Low Tide.  Look for places where people congregate near water and search that area when the water level is low. I found my best place while we were crab fishing with the kids down by the gulf.  You need some good rubber boots, a small shovel and willingness to tromp through some mud that smells rotten eggs. Bring a bag to put the boots in or the drive home will unnecessarily stinky.

         For a while now I have wanted to search the small creek branch that runs behind our house but haven't had the chance.  With almost no rain again this summer I finally had a chance yesterday.  The branch is completely dry except for two spots with slightly deeper holes, so after bringing my wife home from the hospital I hopped in the dry bed and walked the section that is on our property.  Right on top of the sand was the bottle of Chamberlin's Colic Cholera and Diarrhea Remedy.  Still corked I am guessing the liquid inside is just creek water that has soaked through, but there may be a bit this miracle treatment left behind.   Next time I get a bad case of the Cholera I will check it out.

         This bottle can sell between three and thirty dollars on Ebay, which is the only pricing guide any collector seems to need and great source of info.  One of these bottles that sold on Ebay had the original pamphlet and a label on the neck listing the ingredients; 59% alcohol, 19 minims of chloroform, and six grains of opium, so it would get you high long enough for the snake oil salesman to get out of town.   Now a hundred years later we can't even buy cold medicne without showing our ID.  For me the excitement is  imagining the history of the bottle I found. Did the person who bought this bottle pass away from  cholera or did he just get high on the snake oil and wait out a bad case of diarrhea. Either way it amazes me that it could be in our creek a hundred years later still corked and unbroken.

Everyone Loves Treasure

       Living out here in the woods I can't help imagine this land as it was before Europeans came and settled here, displacing the native population.  The old growth pines trees would have created many areas where the forest would great provide great hunting and nice shade in the summer time.  One thing I am dying to do is find an arrow head or other stone tools.  I know that they are here somewhere, but so far I have been unable to locate anything.  This site has a great collection of artifacts and information, and make me want to run out right now and start searching.

East Texas Indian Artifacts

Battling the Southern Army Worm

 

        This  morning as I searched through the tomatoes I pulled this one because the side I was looking at looked just about ripe, but when I pulled it this critter was hanging on the back. Unfortunately for this guy his fate was sealed and he perished shortly after being photographed. According to Google, this seems to be a southern army worm.  After identification I searched "what to do about Southern Armyworm" of course the first result is link to Bayer Crop Science  and their Belt® insecticide.  Uh, no thanks, besides my general distrust of insecticides I once rear ended a guy in a Corvette who gave me his business card while we were exchanging insurance info.  Below the line that read "Vice-President Bio-Technical Division Bayer Corporation" I am pretty sure it said something to the effect of  "I have enough money to have you killed".

       

         So rather than turn to science or even the bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis) that some recommend, I just can't bring by self to spray food my kids are going to eat with pesticide, I go all organic and just smoosh the little guy. Then  I remove a large portion of the tomatoes to ripen inside. This has made me realize that I need to find ways to fight these pests in the garden. This year my main bug control was simply to keep things as neat and nicely weeded as I could, but I will have to break down and spray with a little soap and water.  From here I need to work to increasing the beneficial insects like worms and ladybugs.

The Seeds of Doomsday

              Summer is more than half over, but in East Texas the heat is capable of lingering for a long time and we have been able to wear shorts on Christmas more than once.  I am trying to get another round of summer and fall veggies planted,  hoping the weather will be right for a second harvest.  I pulled up my green beans two days ago and my cucumbers have take a a very quick turn downward.  This has happened before where I am ready to throw a few things in the ground, but the seeds aren't carried locally because the store have cleared out isle space for school supplies. Being the ultra cheap perpetually broke gardener that I am, I have broken into the sealed pouch of  survival seeds I was given to write about by Hometownseeds.com.  I wrote about these a couple years ago when I first started gardening and blogging in a sponsored post.  Now four years later I will bust them open and use them for my mid summer and fall planting.

          

Pickling day

In order to take full advantage of the harvest vegtables have to be process and preserved for  later consumption.  We always pickle cucumbers and in the past have pickled squash, zucchini, green beans, and tomatoes.  I say we, but really this is the first year I have been heavily involved in the pickling process.  My wife grew up out here in the country and has pickled and canned food since childhood. Today were making Garlic Dill Pickles and Pepperoncini's.

 Garlic Dill Pickles:

1. 3-4 cups 4-inch cucumbers
2. 4 cups water
3. 2 cups white vinegar
4. 1/2 cup pickling salt
5. 1/2 teaspoon of alum (1/8 teaspoon per jar)
6. 2 tablespoons of dill seed (1/2 tablespoon per jar) 
7. 2 heads of garlic (4-5 cloves per jar)

 Wash cucumbers, if they were picked a few over the course of a few days soak them in cold water for about a half hour.Put on a large pot of water and start it to boiling. While they are soaking place the alum, dill seed, and garlic cloves in the sterile jars this recipe makes four jars. Pack the the jars with cucumbers holding the jar sideways and trying to get them as tight as possible in order to ensure that you have enough brine. Combine the vinegar, water and salt in a sauce pan and bring to boil. When brine is boiling pour into jars over cucumbers leaving about a  half inch of air at top of jar. Take lid out of simmering pot and  screw into place.  Place jars into large pot of boiling water making sure water covers jar completely. Take out after ten minutes and listen for the satisfying ping sound the jars make as they cool.

  Pepperoncini's -recipe in progress.

1. 4 teaspoons of alum (1 per jar) 
2.  4 tablespoons peppercorns (1per jar)
3. 4 teaspoons of red pepper flakes (1 per jar)
4. 1 head of garlic (3-4 per jar)
5. Same brine as above

The first jars of Pepperoncini's we made tasted great, but did not get crispy so we are trying again with more alum in the recipe and we boiled the jar for slightly less time after it was packed with brine. The banana peppers seem to grow in abundance here no matter the weather so we need to perfect this process.  When each plant represents back breaking labor, waste is not an option.
Both recipies are for four jars, but if your jars are very tightly packed you may have enough brine for more.  We made six jars of pickles and one jar of pepperoncini's with a little brine left over. 

A Hard Garden

         Right now I have a good garden going with yellow squash, cucumbers, green beans, corn, tomatoes, okra, watermelons, pumpkins, banana peppers, pablano peppers, bell peppers and zucchini all in different stages of growth.  The first plants I start withed were cherry tomatoes and zucchini which have been big producers for us until this year the cherry tomatoes have done extremely poorly producing only a few tomatoes. The zucchini have been mostly unpollinated so the fruit would stop growing, turn yellow and fall off.  Six zucchini plants only produced three edible vegetables.  The lack of bees has been extremely noticeable this year.  Normally we have an abundance of every type of stinging insect and during the main growing season my garden is usually has an audible hum.  This year it has been very quiet with only the occasional bee floating around the garden, even now when the hum has returned there are not nearly in the numbers they were in years past.  The eves of my house are often plagued with carpenter bees that bore into the wood.  These bees are loud and hover right above head height there absence is extremely noticeable.  Even the wasps which are normally building summertime nests have been lower in numbers.  Bee keeping may be in my future.

         Getting this years garden started had its own challenges as my tiller is broken and I never seemed to have the time or money to get it fixed. Without a tiller I started growing in two raised beds we put in a couple years ago. This is where I planted the cherry tomatoes and zucchini that failed to produce. In order to fence this part I removed a section of fence from the main garden which was a mistake because the lack of bees has been offset by an over abundance of ravenous bunny rabbits that have shown a display  persistence previously unseen in my garden. The rabbits did some damage to my green beans, corn, and peppers eating the leaves off and leaving a stump behind, some plants rebounded, some had to be replaced.   Eventually I unfenced the the unproductive raised beds and put a complete fence around the main garden to keep them out.  Unfortunately this was all occurring while my wife was in the process of having surgery, then needing another surgery to help her recover from the first surgery, and spending a week in the hospital. So time which should have been garden intensive was practice in speed gardening during trips home to feed the dog.

        This red wagon and old garden hoe have been my main tools this season. The garden which was almost entirely unused last summer had reverted to a field of tall weeds and thick mats of tough grass with deep roots.  Busting up the soil was been a tough process in the stifling heat, after a couple hours all of my clothes will be completely soaked as if I just took a shower fully dressed. This process however has provided a sort of a natural flow to my planting. By the time one section is planted, time has come to plant something else.  This way after one thing is slowing on production something else is about to ready, today I need to pull my green beans and replant something else, but some corn should be ready to eat  in a few days.  The wagon has been my means of transporting the pine straw that I have been using as mulch throughout my garden.   I have been collecting from the woods and from the piles I swept off the roof and used it to lay a thick mulch through out the garden this has cut down on weeds significantly and hopefully will lead to healthier soil in the long term.