Roosters

Over the weekend I decided it was time to butcher two more roosters, a pair that started fighting recently.  They were on my "dinner invitation" list anyway, but I had planned on setting the date for next weekend, when the weather is supposed to be warmer. 

When I say supposed to, I mean I can't really believe it, because right now I feel like I'm trapped by Jadis, the White Witch, from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,"(fantastic movie and book, by the way)

who froze Narnia for one hundred years of Winter.  It's snowing like mad! Really, this winter is NEVER, EVER going to end... EVER. 

Back to the roosters. They began fighting. They continually argued over who was the better rooster. So being the great mediator I am, I settled the matter for them. 

                       
                       
I ordered them both to the corner. One to the corner of my freezer, and other to the corner of my fridge...
   

Thought Spot...

You have got to decide, look, this is who I am; this is my best, and i'm going to ride that horse to the finish line.  Not everybody will like it, but that's okay.  - Phil McGraw

Our truest life is when we are in dreams, awake. - Henry David Thoreau

If a horse has four legs and I'm riding it, I think I can win. - Charles Caleb Colton



I think life was much better when you got on your horse and rode two miles to talk to your neighbor.
- Laura Schlessinger

Don't worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon. - John Madden



A person with passion rides a horse that runs away with him.  - Unknown



Happy Spring?

Today is the first day of Spring. A lake effect snow advisory is in place, and it’s 28 degrees and snowing. Clearly, this proves “Punxsutawney Phil” was intoxicated the morning of February 2, 2013.

This is what Spring should look like...

And this is what it really looks like. At least it does here, in Northeast Ohio, where I live.

Spring begins with the vernal equinox at 7:02 A.M. (EDT) on March 20, 2013 in the Northern Hemisphere. The word equinox is derived from the Latin words meaning “equal night.” Days and nights are approximately equal everywhere and the Sun rises and sets due east and west. At the equinoxes, the tilt of Earth relative to the Sun is zero, which means that Earth’s axis neither points toward nor away from the Sun. 

Wow, I just sounded really smart there, didn't I?

According to folklore, you can stand a raw egg up on its end during the equinox. And a broom, too. If you’re a witch. Speaking of eggs, here’s a great recipe that uses four eggs. So, you could take your mind off this nasty weather for a moment; and practice your best egg-standing technique while making this recipe, and picturing Phil, the groundhog, passed out with a bottle of rum...
Coco-nutty, Egg-y Dessert

Ingredients:
4 Eggs
½ Stick melted butter
1 Cup of Milk
1 Cup of Cream
1 Cup of Sweet, Flaked Coconut
½ tsp Baking powder
¾ Cup of Sugar
½ Cup of Flour
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Combine all ingredients with a mixer. Blend until smooth. Pour into a buttered pie dish. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour. As soon as it is lightly browned and appears to be “set” in the middle its done. Let cool before cutting. Its extra good served with whipped cream, of course.

At the moment, I’m in love with this coco-nutty, egg-y dessert. Happy Spring?

Homemade Laundry Soap

This past weekend on the farm was pretty uneventful. The weather has been stuck in “winter mode” for the most part, with the exception of a couple days of nice weather two weeks ago. One of my items on the farm “to do” list was to go and pick up some bedding for the stalls on Saturday, but by the time I hitched up the trailer around 10:00 a.m. that morning, two inches of snow had already fallen. I made the attempt to head out anyway, only to have to turn back because the roads were too slick. I did manage make it out later that day, once the roads were cleared. I figured February on being the worst weather month, but so far March has proven to be just as nasty.

I’d been saving a ton of used coffee grounds for a few months, and I spread those onto the garden Sunday. Shortly after, I noticed all the chickens turning things up and doing their job at keeping the garden soil nicely worked. I wonder if they got a caffeine buzz from all the coffee grounds?

Another to-do list item was to make a batch of homemade laundry soap. Super easy to do and it makes the house smell like I actually cleaned it, though I didn’t.

I’m not sure if this recipe is the best. I’m certain there are many out there, but it’s easy and it works. The ingredients are all easy to find at your local grocery store or any place that sells cleaning supplies. 

Add one gallon of water to a large pot, and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat off once the water reaches boiling. Add one bar of grated Fells Naptha to the hot water and stir until dissolved. Add two cups of 20 Mule team Borax and stir that in too.

This part is optional, but I also like to add one ounce of Fabuloso (any scent) to the mix for the lovely smell it adds. Pour this into a large bucket and add two gallons of warm water. Mix it all together and it’s ready to go. Now you have three gallons of cheap laundry soap, which you can either store in one gallon jugs or the bucket. This stuff gels up a bit, but don’t let that concern you. Either shake or stir it up before use if that makes you feel better, but it isn’t necessary. I find about one half, to three quarters of a cup per load does the job.


Ready to use!



Poultry Restraining Cones (and cute baby chicks!)

Last Saturday and Sunday 17 little chicks hatched out and are now in the brooder peeping away.  Two died trying to hatch out, and two of the eggs never hatched (I gave them until late Monday).







That's about an 81% success rate - if my math is correct?  The chicks all seem very alert and healthy. I may give some to a friend, I might try to sell some on Craigslist, or I might just keep them all for myself.  We'll see.

The thought of keeping them all for myself led to the thought of butchering, which led to the thought of "Hey Farm girl, you really need to get one of those poultry restraining cone thingies so you can get the job done a little easier."  Did I just say "thingies?"  So then came a web search to find out how much those cones cost in the first place. Here's what I discovered:

www.coopsnmore.com  $23.99

www.cornerstone-farm.com  $25.00

www.mcmurrayhatchery.com  $26.00

www.countryhorizons.com  $33.99

www.meyerhatchery.com  $42.84

These prices were all for a standard, medium size poultry restraining cone. I also came across a site that offered a Do-it-Yourself solution to make your own at www.survivalfarm.wordpress.com but it called for a used, road construction cone, and I don't recall seeing too many of those lying around for the taking. But if you can find one, by all means recycle! I also thought about what I had at home that might work just as well. The only thing I could think of was to cut the corner from a 50 lb feed back and use that to restrain the chicken.  It would look similar to when you cut the tip off a pasty bag.  I think it might actually work.  If I get time I'm going to give it a try this weekend. So the lesson learned here is that it certainly pays to do a little research and shop around, doesn't it? But you knew already knew that. 

 

Farm Updates, and Good-bye February!

Its been kind of a typical week on the farm.  

I wormed the goat.  This is the first time she's ever been wormed. This month she turned one year old, so I thought it was time. The wormer came in a small bucket in pelleted form, which to my surprise she promptly devoured.  No problem there. And it's not like her to ever turn down a meal.

I walked the property and checked the fence lines.  Everything was secure. I thought about casting a line into the pond and trying for a fish or two.  But it was too cold out. Then I headed back up to the house and inspected the garden.  The garlic that I planted this past October has already sprouted, and so has the wild garlic on the southwest side of the house. 

I cleaned horse stalls, then visited a huge antique store on Saturday. I'd hoped to find an antique chicken egg basket.  I didn't find one, and so I didn't buy anything.

I stopped at an Amish lumber mill and checked pricing on bundles of slab wood.  I want to heat the house with firewood next season.  It's hard to start thinking about winter, when it still is winter, but now is the time to begin putting up wood so that it will be seasoned and ready to burn in December. The bundled slabs cost $15 each.  A great deal.  However, you have to hire a special truck to deliver them.  I still need to find out what the driver will charge.  Then, somehow, they have to be unloaded. The bundles are long, about seven to nine feet long.

I got a chance to look through some recent seed catalogs that came in the mail, and imagined what trees and vegetables I would like to plant this year.

I've taken the horses off the main pasture for the next three months to give it a break and a chance to grow some nice spring grass.  They'll only have access to a smaller, round paddock for the time being. Tomorrow one of the thoroughbreds will be shipped to Kentucky for spring training. 

And last, the 21 eggs I put into the incubator February 10th are due to hatch this Sunday.  This morning I moved them from the tray that automatically turns them throughout the day, to the floor of the incubator where they will lie flat until they hatch. 

They won't be turned anymore now, and this allows the chick time to position itself to hatch.  I covered the wire mesh floor of the incubator with cheese cloth.  I discovered that is makes clean-up a lot easier after the hatching is done.

Two of the eggs felt strange, and lighter than the others. So just for curiosity, I penciled an "X" on them so I would know if they did'nt hatch for some reason. Heck, they may be the only ones to hatch, you never know.  But wait! Stay tuned. Because we will know sometime around Sunday.

A Farm Girl’s Agenda

Being that Farm Girl is without her Vaquero for a while, more than half of these things won’t actually get done this weekend. But I like to make lists. And sometimes I’m lazy. And the weather, well, don’t get me started. Isn’t it nice to dream?

What has to be done:

Give the two racehorses a workout
Pick up stall bedding for the horses
Take inventory of our hay supply and decide when to order more
Make homemade laundry soap (I’m almost out!)
Prepare the chick brooder – 21 eggs are due to hatch March 3rd

What I’d also like to get done:

Visit a nearby antique mall that I’ve wanted to check out
Organize files and tax documents
Groom all four of the horses, or change their names to Mud, Muddier, Muddiest, Mud-Ugly…
Start a batch of apple/cranberry tea wine
Make a list of the garden seeds and fruit trees I want to order for spring planting
Chicken inventory (to see who’s eligible for the dinner invitation)
Pull out the change bucket and roll quarters to buy hay (yes it’s that bad)
An hour of training for the green-broke filly, and half-broke Farm Girl

On another note…

Breaking News: WASHINGTON (CNN Money) February 21, 2013

Millions of American families are bracing for the forced budget cuts that could kick in on March 1st.

“Beef and chicken to cost more and even face a shortage. A $51 million dollar cut to food safety programs means food inspectors will be furloughed and lead to closures of meat and poultry plants for up to 15 days. Americans will have to pay more and deal with shortages of chicken, eggs, pork and beef, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Food safety could be compromised," he said in a letter. There will have less food available -- by as much as 2 billion pounds of meat, 3 billion pounds of chicken, 200 million pounds of eggs.”

My thoughts? This won’t actually happen… And Wow! Holy chicken Batman! That’s a lot of eggs! But even if it does I remain somewhat un-panicked… believing, hopefully, that I will have plenty of chickens and eggs.

Thought Spot

The secret to inner peace?

Step 1. Burn your computer. Blow up your TV. Bludgeon your smart phone. (crazy, I know!)

Step 2. Hug one of your pets, or significant others, or both! Breathe deeply and smile. 

Wine Update

This is what "Wild Sweet Orange Tea" wine looks like on the fourth day of fermentation.  I bet your thinking it looks more like a milkshake than wine. Right?  Stay tuned, it will start to look pretty again, soon. I think... I hope...  But heck, if not, I will probably drink it anyway.



Those are RAISINS floating at the top, not Goat turds - honest!



Orange Tea Wine

I bet you’re wondering what this photograph is aren’t you? Hint: it’s not last week’s meteor exploding over Siberia.

I admit, in no way am I any good at the craft itself, but I like making wine. And I like drinking it even more. So when I read about winemakers making wine out of tea, of course my attention was had.

In honor of President's Day, and because I was bored with winter and tired of spending hard-earned money on wine that’s less than stellar anyway (and I can’t afford the good stuff), I set out to find a recipe for some wine, made from tea.

I just happened to have a stash of Tazo brand, Wild Sweet Orange tea on hand. No I didn’t. I “borrowed” it from the coffee / tea lounge at work. Don’t judge. I’m still going to drink it, just not in the form it was intended.

The tea’s Ingredients: Lemongrass, Blackberry Leaves, Rose Hips (yucky), Mint Leaves, Turmeric, Orange Peel, Hibiscus, Rose Petals, Ginger Root, Licorice Root, and Licorice Extract. Sounds fun enough to make wine from, right?

I had some wine yeast in the fridge dated 2011, so I was only half convinced that it might still be good. I used ICV K1V-116 Lalvin Brand wine yeast, otherwise known as “Saccharomyces cerevisiae.” Is that Latin? Anyway, if you care, or a nerd like me, here is a description of that strain of yeast and what it’s good for:

ICV K1V-1116 Selected by the Institut coopératif du vin in Montpellier among numerous killer strains isolated and studied by Pierre Barre at INRA, the K1V-1116 strain was the first competitive factor yeast to go into commercial production and has become one of the most widely used active dried wine yeasts in the world. The K1V-1116 strain is a rapid starter with a constant and complete fermentation between 10° and 35°C (50° and 95°F), capable of surviving a number of difficult conditions, such as low nutrient musts and high levels of sulfur dioxide (SO2) or sugar. Wines fermented with the K1V-1116 have very low volatile acidity, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and foam production. The K1V-1116 strain tends to express the freshness of white grape varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc and Seyval. The natural fresh fruit aromas are retained longer than with other standard yeast strains. Fruit wines and wines made from concentrates poor in nutrient balance benefit from the capacity of K1V-1116 to adapt to difficult fermentation conditions. Restarts stuck fermentations. Highly recommended for dry whites, aged reds, and late harvest wines. Blah, blah, blah….

When I pitched the yeast, it took off like somebody left the gate open and was bubbling away merrily within a few hours. I like that.

The Recipe…

Bring one quart of water to the boil. Remove from heat and add the tea bags. Let the tea steep for 20 minutes. Remove the tea bags and pour into the primary fermenting vessel.

Boil half the sugar in half a gallon of water for a minute or two. Add it to the tea. Coarsely chop the raisins, and add them to the fermenting vessel. Add a crushed campden tablet, stir and let sit covered overnight.

In the morning, stir in the yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme and acid blend. Then pitch the yeast. Cover your primary with a cloth or papertowel. At seven to ten days, rack into a clean carboy. Boil the rest of the sugar in the rest of the water. When it is cool, add it to the carboy. Make the volume up with water. Add an airlock and allow to ferment, racking when needed. When the wine has cleared, add potassium sorbate to stop fermentation, and then bottle.


A Gallon of Smiles (I hope)



Orange Tea Wine (Wild & Sweet?)

4 Wild Sweet Orange Herbal Tea Bags (I used TAZO brand)

28 oz sugar

3/4 gallon water

Montrachet (or other wine yeast)

1 handfull of raisins

3/4 tsp. pectic enzyme

1 tablespoon acid blend

1 campden tablet

1 teaspoon yeast nutrient

Now that hardest part of the recipe…waiting.

P.S.  I'm not a rocket scientist and therefore could not get my photos and paragraphs to line up right today.These things happen.

Let's Make Chickens!

Spring is on its way. Spring makes me think of Easter, and Easter makes me think of eggs.  And, well, eggs make me think it's time to hatch chickens.  Honestly, I admit, I'm really only thinking of hatching chicks because number one, I get a really big kick out of it! And number two, our flock is getting low.  Many chickens were invited to dinner over the winter months, and it's time to start succession planning.   In fact, I took inventory over the weekend and the count stands at five roosters and twenty-two hens (and two Pekin ducks).  Too many roosters for sure, but I haven't yet decided who's on the guest list for dinner.

So I pulled out my incubator, sanitized it, and loaded with twenty-one fresh eggs.

All of these eggs should be fertile. Four of my roosters are mating age.  They consist of a Turken (or "Naked Neck" if you prefer), a Black Copper Marans, and two others, which are a Black Copper Marans and Buff Brahma Bantam cross. The fifth little guy is also a Turken, but too young to mate.

The hatchlings from this new batch will be from any of the above fathers; and either a Turken, Buff Brahma Bantam, or Black Australorp mother. What a neat mix! I love suprises. And if we count twenty-one days from the date of incubation (February 10th), this should put us at a hatch date of about March 3rd.

A few tips I have read to ensure a successful hatch...

• Ideal pre-incubation storage temperature of 55 degrees and 75% relative humidity (I failed here, I like to keep my house a bit warmer than that.)
• Eggs should be turned daily and placed in the incubator within 4-7 days (did that)
• Store eggs with the pointed end down (yep - got it)
• A two week storage reduces the hatchability rate to 50% (these were only stored for 3 days)
• At three weeks, the chance of hatchability is nearly at zero (no chance any egg would last that long in my house)
• Run your incubator for 24 hours prior to placing the eggs in it to assure correct temperature is maintained. (did that)
• Warm your eggs at room temperature before placing them in the incubator to avoid condensation on the egg shell, which could lead to bacteria and disease (no problem there)
• Use only clean eggs. Do not wash and use eggs that were dirty. If you remove the bloom (the invisible barrier on the outside of the shell) you increase the chance of the egg not hatching, or hatching out a sick or deformed chick. (no dirty eggs here!)



I wonder how many will hatch?



Lima Bean Soup

The WWFarmstead purse strings are pulled tighter than a frog's butt lately, due to the Vaquero (mexican for "cowboy")  being without work for the past three months.  We've been getting creative and trying to eat as low cost as we can stand. 

So tonight's dinner is a quick, satisfying, mostly healthy and mostly frugal dinner.  It's my own recipe, and is now a "keeper" in our farm house - Lima Bean Soup. 

Okay, I get it.  Most people hate lima beans.  I adore them.  And, if you don't, use some other bean.  You won't hurt anyone's feelings. It's also nice to have some homemade bread (which we all should be making anyway) to serve along with it. 

Lima Bean Soup  (Pressure Cooker recipe)
Serves 4-6, depending on how hungry your Vaquero is...

1 lb. smoked kielbasa or andouille links, sliced thick
1 tsp hot pepper flakes (or less if you're afraid)
2 tsp chicken bouillon powder
1/2 tsp coarse ground, black pepper
2-3 carrots, peeled and sliced thick
2-3 celery stalks, sliced thick
1/2 half of a large yellow onion, chopped
5-6 cloves of fresh garlic, smashed and chopped
1 tbsp dried oregano
14 oz plain tomato sauce
6 cups of water
1 lb of Lima Beans, drained (must first be soaked for 8 hours!)

Do all of your peeling, slicing and chopping.  Drain off the soaking liquid from the Lima Beans.  Throw everything into the pressure cooker, secure the lid.  Pressure cook at 15 lbs pressure for 6 minutes.

Serve in bowls garnished with fresh cilantro or italian parsley, your choice.  Enjoy!

"Thought Spot"

Happiness and contentment come from creating.  Instead of always thinking about what you can buy, shift your thinking to focus on what you can create. True joy occurs when you produce something for yourself, rather than always relying on some other source.  Plant a garden or some fruit trees, raise a few chickens for eggs or meat, make a nice diner entirely from scratch, or bake your own bread.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  Start small, but just start!

Farm Goals

I'm not one of those people who enjoys "flying by the seat on their pants" so to speak.  That sort of thing could give me hives. Okay, I admit, lots of things give me hives...

Seriously though, I like to believe that I have some control in the direction of my life. So every year in January, the control-freak in me likes take time to plan out a list of things that I want to accomplish over the next twelve months. 

Here is the list (in no special order) of Mon Abri Farm goals for the New Year.  According to "Goal Experts," if I put them in writing they stand a higher chance of being accomplished.  So let's test that theory.  If we hit them all it will be a small miracle. But hey, miracles do happen, right? I'll post updates on our progress as the days pass.  Wish us luck. A lot of luck.

Goals for 2013

1. Sell $1,500 in farm-related products or services
2. Get a chest freezer (donations welcome!)
3. Hatch out 80-100 new baby chicks (for meat and eggs)
4. Sell some chicks
5. Plant and sell Pumpkins and gourds for the Fall season
6. Plant 4-6 fruit trees
7. Plant 3 pine trees
8. Build an outdoor arena (the goal I desperately want to be able to cross off the list in 2013!)
9. Save enough $$$ to build a second barn with 10-12 stalls
10. Establish / Create a logo for the farm and have a sign made for the driveway
11. Build a road-side produce stand / or run a Sunday only, mini-farm market
12. Get the rows and trellis put in to start a small vineyard
13. Construct 1 or 2 hoop houses to extend the gardening season
14. Keep the goat from eating everything

Did I mention it's a little cold here?

The Pressure Is On!

It's cold, soup is warm.  Let's make soup! Or is it stew? Whatever...
I have been desperately wanting a pressure cooker/canner for some time now.  And guess what? My good Mama gave me one for Christmas! So out of the box it came, and out of the barn came a hen for the pot.  Don't fret the hen's demise. She lived a peaceful, cage-free life here on the farm for the past ten months.

So, here is the first recipe I concocted for my new Presto 23-Quart Pressure Canner and Cooker...

Chicken and Vegetable Stew / Soup

1 whole, small chicken (2-3 lbs.) cut in half

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 medium onion, roughly chopped

1 Tbsp. of chicken bouillon powder (or 3 bouillon cubes)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

4 cups water

1 bay leaf

1 medium onion, quartered

3 carrots, 1-inch diameter, cut into 2-inch pieces

3 celery stalks, cut into 1-inch pieces

4 medium potatoes, cut into halves

3 tablespoons butter

Add the olive oil to the pressure cooker and heat to medium-high heat without the lid on. Brown your chicken on all sides. Pour water in cooker (make sure cooker has cooled down and is not excessively hot). Add all of the remaining ingredients to the pressure cooker.

Secure the pressure cooker lid in place. Place regulator on vent pipe and cook 20 minutes at 15 lbs pressure. Allow the cooker to cool to zero pressure on its own. Remove meat and separate from the bone and add back to the broth and vegetables. Throw in a little fresh chopped parsley. Test for seasoning, and thicken the broth with a little cornstarch if you’d like.

Delicious. Fast, hot and easy – just like I like my… Wow, where was I going with that one?

But what a great stew though. It can be thrown together in a flash and ready to eat on any of those nasty winter nights. The broth is heavenly. And don’t forget to shamelessly pour yourself some home brew and add a slice of crusty bread.

Low Stress Living...Make it Yourself!

Sometimes I think my life is a pretty busy one. After all, I work a regular office job putting in 40-50 hours per week, along with a two hour round-trip commute into the city five days a week. Where on earth can I find time to take care of a farm, let alone me and my husband, with 4 horses, two cats, two dogs, a goat and 30 some chickens? I’m not sure, but somehow it happens. And surprisingly it happens quite easily, and without much stress.

Things actually seem simpler now than they did when we lived in the city. Now, I can’t just jump in the car at a moment’s notice and drive off to the store for something I crave. That would take at least 30-60 minutes of my time. Instead, I make my own bread, laundry soap, pizza, salad dressing, pasta, etc. If we want chicken for dinner we can butcher one, or pull some from the freezer that we butchered earlier here on the farm. Eggs? The hens lay them every day! A trip into town for any other supplies (ahem, beer…) has to be well planned and thought out. This saves us a lot of money by the way. No more impulse junk food purchases during the week! I can’t even remember the last time I ate those artery-clogging, expensive pizza rolls?

Doesn’t doing all this stuff take more time than just jumping into the car? Nope. I can make or do any of the above things in mere minutes. And I guarantee it’s much healthier and less stressful than making a so called “quick” run to the store and back every time you need something for dinner.

You can do it too! Even if you can’t butcher your own chickens, give the other things a try, start slow, and you’ll see how much better your life can be because of it.



Fresh Homemade Bread