That’s Cheap!

Posted on July 18, 2013 by travismohrman

Now, I am firmly aware that the Fourth of July holiday just recently came and went.  Like me, most Americans probably spent all their extra money on blackjack and hookers.  I understand the financial straits this might have left you in and I want to help you!

Blackjack and hookers you say?

Blackjack and hookers you say?

My two books, Down the Path and Further: Down the Path 2 are on sale for only 99 pennies through Amazon for your kindle!  That’s a whole penny shy of a dollar.  It’s a little marketing scam I cooked up.  99 pennies sound like SO much less than a whole dollar, I’m hoping to trick you into thinking the same! This sale won’t last forever, or even until Monday the 22nd, so act fast!

Tell your friends, enemies, cousins, mothers, neighbors (except that dude who always fires up his leaf blower at 6 a.m.  Don’t tell him.  That guy’s a jackwagon and doesn’t deserve a bargain.)  If you have a talking bird, please quickly train it to say the first two paragraphs of this blog post and then send it out into the world.  Don’t worry, it’ll come back to you because you’re cool and have a talking bird.

If you pick up both, I’ll even throw in a FREE island!  A whole damn island.  Boom!  It’s yours, just like that.  I’ll tell you where the island is after you purchase both books.  Please remember that sometimes islands are very small and they’re almost always made out of rock.  Yes, I’m offering you a rock.  It will be a very nice rock though!  The kind of rock that you want to carry around in your pocket to show people.  The kind of rock you sometimes throw at that annoying bird that won’t shut up.  It’s an all purpose rock!

These are high quality rocks!

These are high quality rocks!

Let’s recap here because I know you’re all probably belching with excitement!

I’m offering two books for 2 bucks!  Even if you read fast, that’s over 6 hours of entertainment.  That’s cheaper entertainment than a cat and a laser pointer (those batteries only last about an hour and can get pricey, trust me).

Okay, okay, you twisted my arm. If you act now, I’ll have Amazon waive the sales tax (unless you live in a state with a distribution center) and I’ll see if they can deliver it to you for free using their propietary whispernet technology.  I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like someone whispers the book to you while you both chill out in a net.  Sounds like big fun, Right?  It’s as much fun as a dog floating on a raft with his tongue sticking out!

This is pretty fun!

This is pretty fun!

Here are some convenient links!

Down The Path

Further: Down the Path 2

Now starting thinking of a name for your new island!

I’ll Leave you with my favorite quote: “Space. It seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and the gorilla starts throwing barrels at you.” –Abraham Lincoln

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Makin’ Bacon!

Posted on June 19, 2013 by travismohrman

Bacon is delicious. This is known. Even if you don’t eat meat for any of the myriad (and valid) reasons, you know that bacon is delicious.  It hits all of our major pleasure centers at once.  It is salty, sweet, chewy, and fatty.  These are the things that make the hardwired lizard brain that rests atop your spinal column very happy.

The sad part is that so few people have ever even had REAL bacon (or remember it at least). Today, bacon takes a long dip in liquid smoke and is injected with water. Not cool. Not cool at all.

I realize that making your own can be a little intimidating.  I’ll tell you a story…

We bought a 5 pound slab of belly from a local farmer about seven years ago.  I wanted to make bacon with it because I had read about it in a book called “Charcuteri” by Michael Ruhlman (buy this book!).  That slab sat in my freezer for a solid two years.  The whole process intimidated me, you had to plan ahead and thaw it, then cure it for a week!  I couldn’t plan that far ahead.  Finally, after smoking a few things here and there on my buddies smoker, I pulled out this poorly packaged piece of belly.  It was freezer burned to all hell.  We turned it into bacon anyway, got the recipe wrong, smoked it too hot, then didn’t wait until it was cool to slice it.  STILL…this was the best bacon I had ever eaten at the time.  Even if you mess some things up, making bacon yourself will still forever alter your worldview.

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Capturing A Honeybee Swarm

Posted on June 16, 2013 by travismohrman

Spring time is swarm time.  Swarms are great ways to save money for a budding beekeeper or even an experienced one because swarms are free…after you catch them!

honeybees swarm for a number of reasons.  Sometimes a queen gets old and isn’t laying consistently, so the other bees kick her out (with ~10,000 of her closest supporters) and raise up a new queen.  Other times, the colony simply grows too large in the spring and the bees feel cramped so they split the hive up by swarming.  There are other reasons, but I don’t want to get bogged down in that at the moment.

Swarms are nothing to be afraid of.  They are a mass of bees relaxing, while the scouts are out looking for a new permanent home.  They generally form a tight ball around the queen.

A swarm attached to a branch on an oak tree.

A swarm attached to a branch on an oak tree.

Like I said, swarms are not something to be scared of, but if you go to capture one you should still wear a suit.  They don’t have a colony to protect so they are much more docile than your average grouping of thousands of bees, but I would bet a few are still looking for a fight.

Hi! I hate being stung!

Hi! I hate being stung!

Basically, to capture a swarm you just want to get that clump into some sort of container.  A bucket works great to capture the initial swarm.  You can either cut the branch or just hold the bucket under the clump and shake the hell out of it.  Your main goal is the get the queen into the bucket.  She will be in the middle of the clump, so if the bees on the edge don’t fall into the bucket it’s not a big deal.

Shake 'em like a polaroid picture, but with stingers, wings and danger.

Shake ’em like a polaroid picture, but with stingers, wings and danger.

Now, bees don’t want to live in that bucket.  We’re not talking about lightening bugs or caterpillars here.  When capturing a swarm, its important to have a deep hive body on hand.  Once you are confident you got the queen, just dump the bucket ‘o bees into the hive body.

Welcome to your new home.

Welcome to your new home.

Lots of bees will be flying around at this point.  That’s normal.  Once you dump the bees into the hive body, put the inner and outer lid on it.  At this point, you watch the entrance.  When you see bees lining up there and sticking their butts towards the outside world while fanning their wings, you know the queen is inside.  What these bees are doing is spreading the scent of the queen out into the world so all those bees that are flying around know where she is.

You can see the bees inside the circle fanning towards the outside.

You can see the bees inside the circle fanning towards the outside.

Once the fanning is apparent, pat yourself on the back, you just captured a swarm.  It is nice to be able to leave that hive body in that location over night.  This allows as many stragglers who were off scouting to make it back.  Sometimes these swarms form in a suburban backyard and the homeowner wants them gone immediately, that’s not a huge deal either.  Try to stall the homeowner for twenty minutes or so while more stragglers come in.  When you are ready to move the colony, shoo the bees off the “front porch” and inside the hive, then tape a piece of wood to block the entrance.  Move as you see fit.  Hooray!

Soon they will be making sweet sweet honey!

Soon they will be making sweet sweet honey!

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Raised Beds!

Posted on June 12, 2013 by travismohrman

Here in the foothills of the Missouri Ozarks, we’re not exactly known for our stellar soil.  Actually, the term “unctuous red clay” came from the soil around these withered old mountains.  So, unless you live in a river valley, most veggies don’t like the soil around here.

To fix this, we build raised beds.  Some folks just hill up some quality soil mixed with compost without any sort of defined boundaries, and that works.  Many, like myself, enjoy the cleaner look of a physical bed as well as the lower maintenance that goes along with it.  Raised beds also have excellent drainage, which is very important to happy, healthy plants.

Cutting the decking to the lengths I needed. These beds are all 4' x 8'.

Cutting the decking to the lengths I needed. These beds are all 4′ x 8′.

The inherent problem with raised beds is that they are frequently made of wood. The soil that’s inside the bed and pushed right up against the wood really likes the wood.  It likes it so much that in fairly short order, it converts that wood into soil (probably in an effort to be even closer friends)

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Chickens Have Returned!!

Posted on May 23, 2013 by travismohrman

Did you think this post was about birds?  Chickens don’t migrate, where would they have gone?  No, this post is about one of my favorite edible mushrooms, the chicken mushroom.  I found the first one of the year yesterday! There are two species, known as Laetiporus cincinnatus and Laetiporus sulfureus.  L.cincinnatus grows on the ground, typically near the base of a tree, and has a pearl white underside.  L. sulfureus grows on the trunk of a tree and is sulfur colored underneath.

From here on out, I will only be talking about L. cincinnatus because it is far more tender and delicious than the other one, although they are both rated as “choice” edibles.

Get in my belly!

Get in my belly!

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Dry Curing Salami

Posted on May 18, 2013 by travismohrman

One of our many hobbies is to cure meat.  Just seems like a good skill to have.  Dry cured sausage is shelf stable, needing no refrigeration  and it’s just damn tasty.
We talked about doing this for years until we finally just jumped in and gave it a rip.  I am going to outline a few methods, but I will leave it to you to come up with your own recipes.  I highly recommend Michael Ruhlman’s book Charcuteri for further information and inspiration.

First, you will need meat.  In the pic below we have 50% deer I killed, and 50% happy pig raised by a friend of mine on pasture.   We butcher and grind all our own meat, but it’s not a necessity for this operation, so I will skip that step.

This pig was treated very well in life and gets a hug from me in death.

This pig was treated very well in life and gets a hug from me in death.

This picture shows a 50 pound bowl o’ meat!  The device on the right is a meat mixer.  You can just use your hands though.  Even better option is to use someone else’s hands because the meat needs to stay very cold (gets just a little painful) through the whole process to keep the fat from running.

Stay Away!!

Stay Away!!

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Some words on reviews

Posted on May 14, 2013 by travismohrman
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pretty much like this

I have thanked folks for reviews many times.  I would like to do that again.  THANK YOU!!!  Reading a review, even a three star review, makes me so happy I want to roll around in a hedge of blueberry bushes.  To know that strangers have read a story of mine and taken the time out of their lives to tell other people “hey, this is worth the 3 bucks” is incredibly fulfilling.

Two years ago I had never written a review for a book (or anything else) on Amazon.  Then I read a story about sheep that live in a silo, except no sheep ever showed up. It was still a great story!  I purchased that book strictly because it had amazing reviews.  I was not let down in the least.  This  science fiction adventure about the knitting industry was amazing.  It already had a few hundred reviews, but I put one up anyway. Why not?  I wanted to join the chorus of people hollerin’ about this awesome book.
Since then I have reviewed every self-published book I have read, usually because the author asks for that in the back of the book.  These are not always four or five star reviews, some are three and I think I hit somebody with a  two star review one time.  I figure if i came across a book that was worth only one star, I would never finish reading it in the first place, making a review kind of moot.

Now, as a new author, I firmly understand why these reviews are so important.  Independent authors don’t have much of a voice in the old marketing department, at least newbies like myself. We rely on the good nature of people to want to tell their friends, or anyone else, that “Hey, this was worth my time and money”.  At the core, that’s why people look at reviews….just to see if it’s worth it.  Some reviewers go above and beyond and write a synopsis of the story.  In my case, those reviews sum up the story better than I do in the actual back cover synopsis!

Some books have hundreds of reviews, so people might think it is a waste of time to review it, the word is officially “out” at that point.  While this may be a true assessment, more reviews are always good.  In the least, you will brighten the author’s day.  I can almost guarantee you every author who reads good words written about their work by someone they don’t know has a big grin on their face when reading it, and isn’t it fun to know you have made someone’s entire day( or week) by doing something that only takes about 5 minutes?

Next time you read a self-pubbed or independent book, please think about tossing up a review.  The author probably has a note in the back of the book requesting one, and when you read it, picture the little face below…

"Excuse me human friend, but if you had time, reviews are super helpful."

“Excuse me human friend, but if you had time, reviews are super helpful.”

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So it begins….

Posted on May 8, 2013 by travismohrman

Hello and welcome to my new virtual hangout.  Homebrews on tap over in the back, various meads are chilled and waiting.  Grab a drink and plop down on the couch.  We’re all friends here. 

This is going to be a place where I can talk about my books as well as many of our different hobbies that folks have expressed interest in.  My wife and I have done and continue to do lots of weird stuff (we currently have meat fermenting).  
Many of these posts will be picture heavy because I like to see pictures and I think photos can clear up a great many questions.  
Feel free to ask as many questions as you have or suggest a topic that you would like to hear more about.  Most of the skills in the first two books are real techniques.  Yes, you really can tickle trout and pull them out of the water with your hands, with a whole lot of patience. 

Today, this beast is merely being set adrift, no real topic at all.  Here are some photos of the hounds. Enjoy!

 

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Bender as a wee pup.

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Fry after vanquishing a duck

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