Ever come across a website that you just fall in love with? I’m not even sure where the link to this one came from yesterday, but ever since I clicked I’ve been slowly perusing all the posters and the descriptions.
It seems like such a different era, almost a different country. Can you even imagine asking the average American today to save and ration to support a larger cause? I can almost hear the complaints and whining now. Perhaps a bit of that sense of self and self-sufficiency is coming back – and perhaps it never left some parts of the country – but overall I can’t imagine many of the people in the metro area we live in buckling down and scrimping without a whole lot of persuasion.
All that said, these are a few of my favorite posters.
After weeks of the weather and other plans conspiring against me getting caught up in the garden, 8 hours with my hands in the dirt today has me feeling much better. Plus, the nights have been so cold and the days so rainy that I’m probably not as far behind as I feel like I am.
Everything is in except the cucumber, zucchini, basil, dill and artichokes. Mostly because my starts didn’t make it through the last few weeks of neglect. But a quick trip to the market/nursery tomorrow should put them in hand and then in the dirt.
It’s amazing how much you can get done when you’ve got uninterrupted work time an no where else to be.
Ever just get an impulse? I had one Monday night while looking at a horse. After two that have failed vet checks and had to go home, I decided to just risk it and buy a horse with no checks or guarantees because I just knew he was the one. Meet Travis, the strangely painted new resident here at the farmette.
He doesn’t have the most perfect conformation, but he’s got a great mind and personality and I think we’re going to love having him here at the farm. I took him for his first trail ride tonight and while he was a bit nervous about all the new horses, places and sights, he did really really well. Yay for having a horse again!
I’ll try to get better pictures of him this week, but in the meantime, here’s a video of how much he and Whiskey love each other. They’d no sooner been turned out together than they were each scratching the others itches!
Of course, it’s all a bit bittersweet as we learned yesterday that Whiskey’s lameness is going to make him permanently unsound. Apparently he had an injury years ago that has created significant arthritis and ligament damage in his right hind stifle (basically his knee) and at some point this winter he aggravated it horking around in the pasture. He’s significantly lame and at this point we’re just hoping to get him sound enough to make him comfortable hanging out in the pasture with Travis. Of course, this means that we’re likely on the hunt for a third horse – the drama never ends around here…
I’m sometimes at a loss as to what to show people when they come to visit. When it’s your youngest brother and his two dogs, it can make the decision even harder. On Monday, Sam and I took the three dogs (Sky, Jake and Marley) out to Whidbey Island for the day. We ended up spending more time in the car than we’d planned, but it was still great to hit a couple of beaches with them and take some short walks with views.
Bluff Trail at Fort Ebey, Whidbey Island
To the bluff, looking at the Olympic Mountains
who's got the stick?
After tromping around on the beach, we headed down to Coupeville to water the dogs and find some lunch. We ended up at Mosquito Fleet Galley with a view over the water and some seriously good local food. I indulged in clam chowder with the best corn muffin I’ve ever had (should have asked for a second) and Sam had a pulled pork sandwich on the most amazing bread. Wow, seriously worth the stop if you’re in the area. We’ll be going back soon!
Yesterday was the “great chicken harvest of 2010″. A fantastic mix of friends, family and acquaintances came together to butcher 99 broilers for our freezers. It’s amazing how much faster and more confident we’ve gotten in this process over the past two years – once we all got our “muscle memory” back, and got the few newbies up to speed on the steps, we were like a well oiled machine.
We’ve been on a path of continuous improvement, making minor changes to how we raise the birds and how we butcher them to improve both the size and the speed of processing. This year our biggest improvement came in the form of my grandfather’s old Pickwick Poultry Picker. Some families pass down china and silver as heirlooms, in our family it seems to be farm equipment.
My youngest brother Sam (I’ve got two brothers) volunteered to put the plucker on top of his car and drive it out to us from Minnesota. More than 1,700 miles, he did the drive alone in three days, arriving to our place Friday afternoon. He and Mike quickly put the motor and belt back on and tested it out. They replaced a few rubber fingers with the extras my grandpa stashed away at least 12 years ago, and I called my uncle Bruce for a quick “how-to” for attaching a hose and handling the birds. Both Sam and I had seen it used many many times, but neither of us had ever actually done it.
Wow – I’d forgotten just how fast a mechanical plucker can pick a chicken. Instead of a slow 10 minutes per bird just to get the main feathers off, Sam was able to pick them mostly clean in less than a minute.
It just revolutionized our chicken butchering process and experience. Instead of picking being our bottleneck, it turns out that those of us gutting had to step up our game! (whoops, that one in front got a little beat-up on the plucker – probably our scalding water was a bit too hot)
I’ve written about butchering before – so I won’t bore you too much with all the details. The other few pictures I took are here.
In the end, I think we were all pretty pleased with how the birds came out (average of 4 pounds 7 ounces), how quickly we were able to get it done, and the fact that once again we had quite a bit of fun (strange I know) sending the birds on their way. Our biggest rooster of the day was a whopping 6 pounds 6 ounces and, for the first time, our smallest hen was more than 3 pounds (by a single ounce). Our cost ended up at $14.40 per bird, or an average of $3.30 per pound for organic free range birds including all feed and consumables (bedding, heat lamp bulbs, grit, bags, etc).
There’s been some online conversation lately about Cornish X vs other breeds and which are best. I’m firmly in the camp that you should raise what works best for you and your set-up. This was our second year raising Slow Cornish from Privett Hatchery (a 12-13 week bird) and we’ve been really happy with the results. They do well in our set-up – 100 square foot shed with 600 square foot yard – and grow well on the whole grain organic feed we get from In Season Farms in Abbotsford.We did Red Broilers the first year, and while nice birds they cost the same amount to raise at the same time that they yielded smaller birds. I’m considering offering a couple of butchering classes this fall and trying a small round of Cornish X for them. Our neighbors grow them, they’re what we grew when I was growing up, and a farmer that I really respect has good luck with them.
I often get asked if we pasture our broilers, and the answer is no. We don’t have the dry level pasture space we’d need for tractors this early in the spring, and our predator problems make it hard to pasture them with just netting as protection. Instead we raise them on whole grains, lush grass until they’ve eaten down the yard, and then all the weeds we can haul to them from the garden. This year’s 100 birds may have been a few too many for the size of our broiler yard. Last year’s 80 worked better, but we may choose to expand the yard using electrified poultry netting next year instead of downsizing the number of birds. I guess it will all depend on what we want to invest in and what our priorities are.
In the meantime, I’ve got 29 broilers finishing aging in coolers that I need to go tend to. Some are going in the freezer as is, but the smallest birds are about to be quartered and vacuum packed to allow for smaller meals.
We had Mike’s mom up for dinner tonight and as the menu came together I realized that two of my favorite things were on it – artichokes and chive blossoms.
The artichokes were from California (oh no!) but since it’s choke season down there and we’re still months away I justified them because, you know, I love artichokes. In college I used to make a single large, $2 artichoke into a full meal by adding garlic butter to dip and then be soaked up by crusty bread. These days I’m still likely to indulge in one for a meal in itself on nights when Mike is gone (he’s not a huge fan) or we find ourselves eating separate meals. Luckily tonight we all shared in the indulgence, dipping those succulent leaves in a quick garlic/lemon/cayenne aoili and lemon/garlic butter. Mmmmm.
We’re days away from having lettuce from our garden again, but in the meantime local lettuce and radishes were topped with chive blossoms from the herb bed. I don’t know what it is about them, I’m not normally someone that gets excited about eating flowers, but chive blossoms make me grin. Perhaps it’s because they’re so pretty and delicate looking but have a strong allium bite hiding in there. I love being able to top salads with them this time of year.
Thanks to the fantastic Jessamyn of Food on the Brain, I’ll be at the Mt Vernon public library on Monday, May 17 to talk about keeping backyard chickens for an hour or so.
We’ll talk through common questions, basic needs and key things to know before you get your first hens. I’ll share some funny stories, maybe bring a hen or two to show off and answer all your burning questions. So come on out and join us for a lively discussion of all things chicken!
They're delivering our new washer/dryer today. Ironically our old dryer has started working again so we're just going to store them for now.
about 6 hours ago
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