Springtime Madness Begins

"While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease." -Genesis 8:22 (ESV)

During the winter it's easy to forget God's works in nature because it's bare, cold and where I live it is snowy. What could possibly be happening? But, then the snow starts to melt and I know that even though there is an obscene amount of mud at first, the earth will drink it in and keep it for when the plants need it in the summer. At least that's what the wild plants can look forward to. As much as I like my raised beds, for our long term goals of food independence, the method is somewhat restrictive and expensive. After watching the Back to Eden film again and mentally taking stock of what we have available, the B2E method of gardening really seems to be the smartest approach. I just need to find a place for it on our lot! We have a pretty good pile of fully composted horse manure that will be the base and I will find some wood chips somewhere.

The seedling hotel
The greenhouse is back up and running at about 50%. I still have a couple beds including the big one to get watered up and ready for seeds. Two of the small beds have been seeded with peas and spinach so I am anxiously waiting for little seedlings to pop up! It got up to 68°F in the greenhouse on Sunday with full sun, so with a few more sunny days they should be up. In another week I will put the onion, cole crop and chard seedlings out during the day to start to harden so they can stay out full time.

Poorly germinated onion starts... see the big bauld space in the middle?

Speaking of seedlings, my onions had a really horrible germination rate this year! I thought perhaps it was my fault but when I went back on Fedco Seeds website to see if they had more available it had that variety discounted. So, I am thinking that they may be having general germination problems with it this year. I will email them to let them know my out come and will be ordering a different variety that is a cross of the Copra I have and another onion. These seeds are open pollinated or "heirloom" as most have come to know them as, so I will be able to save seed from them. As a side note: I fully support Fedco. They are a Maine company who get seed from real growers and this is a seed co-op which means they basically are sharing seeds with their customers! I am not at all upset by my onion seeds poor performance because I know they are real seeds that were collected by people who care. My cousin in Michigan gets her seeds from them and if she keeps going back then I know I'm in the right place! Prices are also great and I get free shipping because I am local.

Everything else is nice and healthy!

Along with my new onion seed I will be getting a few other things. I haven't quiet decided on them all but as of right now I am planning on a storage carrot and some winter spinach that I hope to nurse along in the greenhouse this winter with the lacinato kale. My large deep bed in there will get insulated and heavily mulched and hopefully with enough snow to insulate the actual greenhouse we will have greens all winter long. This is optimistic though because it will get down to -10°F at night in January at least a few times most years. Guess we will see!

Tomatoes

I am incredibly thankful for the abundance of eggs we have been getting! I have been selling eggs again and even used 5 dozen to get credit toward my feed cost last week (my feed store buys eggs from small farms to sell to customers at no profit to them). I just opened a new bag of feed for them Monday, so I am going to see how many days it takes for them to go through it and how many eggs in that amount of time to get an average cost per dozen. My hope is in another year or two to do what Paul from B2E does and feed the chickens on nothing but yard and garden waste/produce. My flock right now gets most of my kitchen vegetable waste so it will be a fairly easy transition for them I think. I will then use the compost they make in their run on the garden. I will likely then reduce the price of my eggs because they will basically be free to produce. My heart says to someday make good food easily accessible to those who need it and I truly want to make that happen! I have had that dream for a while, may the Lord make it so. :-)

Just waiting for the peppers now. They might need a few days near the wood stove to come up
Sorry this post is a few days late, but as the title says, the madness is beginning. More spring is ahead! Til next time!

Snow Makes Me Think Green

The first year I started my own seeds.


Not money green, foolish, seedling green! Here in Maine if you want a decent tomato crop before September you have to get those babies going early. But, you already knew that didn't you? See, you've redeemed yourself already. Well all this cold and snow has me craving to anxiously peer at the flats for signs of sprouts, brushing my hand across those tender little tops and spending an evening tucking delicate onion seedlings in individual cells. While I will be the first to admit that I am no master in the garden, I love it more and more each year. I dream big even if I grow small.


So dream big I shall! Well, with a hint of meticulous planning cause that's how I roll. In honor of the pre-garden season I will be doing a series on how to start your growing season off on the right foot. This year I really need to be super organized and stay on top of my chores because I have a young baby. He's a little time thief I tell ya! But, if he loves the outdoors as much as his big brother and sister, he will love just hanging out with me while I tend the beds. He hung out with me all last summer (ok, he had no choice because he was still in my uterus, but a mama can hope)! Back on track, this series will take you through what and when to organize with lists, seed selections, space allowance and how to be realistic with your time. That last one I am still working on because I have a bad case of optimism and always think things will take me less time than it really does. Like writing.

While you are waiting for the wisdom that is about to ensue, here are some posts from last season to hold you over:

Seed Tapes

Welcoming May

Managing the Small Greenhouse

How to Re-pot Onion Seedlings

Growth

Planting

Record Keeping


Til next time!

Looking Ahead: Calculating How Much to Grow to Feed Our Family

Starting seeds for herbs, fall cabbage and brussels sprouts.
I have a confession. I hate math but I love to calculate and budget things. Weird, I know, but I never said I wasn't a strange one! When Montana Man is away I like to keep myself busy in the evenings and lately I have been wrapping my head around how we can affordably, both with money and space, grow the majority of our food. If you were to look at our grocery receipts you would see I spend 80-90% of our food budget on produce (organic mostly), dairy products and animal protein most weeks. If I am re-stocking our gluten free pantry than this skews the ratio a bit... but you get my point. I can easily spend $20-$40 a week just on produce (or $1,040-$2,080 a year!). This year as I have seen positive fruits from my garden it has motivated me to solve the puzzle that is fitting all the plants we need into an affordable space within means I can actually achieve. I have now seen that properly managed intensive planting (more plants in less space) actually works and it has really encouraged me! So, I started my project with a list (of course) of all the veggies and legumes we eat regularly that I felt are practical for us to grow ourselves.

Our family eats in a year (approximately):

Tomatoes: 200 pounds
Onions: 108 pounds
Carrots: 48 pounds
Potatoes: 300 pounds
Green Beans: 30 pounds
Dry Beans: 20 pounds
Beets: 50 pounds -
Broccoli: 50 pounds
Brussels Sprouts: 10 pounds
Cabbage: 30 pounds
Butternut Squash: 50 pounds
Spaghetti Squash: 100 pounds
Pumpkin: 20 pounds
Zucchini: 20 pounds
Summer Squash: 10 pounds
Peas: 10 pounds
Peppers, Bell: 50 pounds
Peppers, Hot: 25 pounds
Parsnips: 20 pounds
Spinach: 50 pounds
Swiss Chard: 50 pounds
Kale: 25 pounds
Garlic: 50 bulbs
Cucumbers: 50 pounds

Chicken: 80 pounds +
Red Meat (beef, venison, moose, bison): 60 pounds
Pork: 50 pounds
Fish and Seafood: 50 pounds -/+
Eggs: 50 dozen+ (we already have a laying flock)

Milk: 100 gallons +
Cheese: 80 pounds
Yogurt: 20 quarts +
Other dairy: 20 pounds +

Apples: 50 pounds +
Berries: 50 pounds -/+
Stone Fruit: 25 -/+
Rhubarb: 15 pounds -/+
Bananas: 100 pounds -/+
Grapes: 20 pounds +
Melons: 50 pounds +

I am not going to list our grains simply because it is superfluous to this project, we will never have enough land or money to grow our own grains efficiently. And, honestly, we tend not to eat a grain based diet so I don't mind continuing to buy this category from the store or perhaps someday from a local mill or even online. If we were too look at this from a "survival" perspective, potatoes would be a fine replacement starch in our diet and cornmeal would once again be a staple as it was centuries ago. We would likely be healthier for it!

Each family is different and your list would likely look much different than mine. These amounts are also based on our current family size of two adults and two children who are eating real food. Once baby #3 starts eating solids as a main diet the amounts will likely increase slightly.

After printing graph paper to test fit and playing with companion and succession planting theories I concluded that with the available area with full sun around our house we can grow most of the vegetables we need in five 12' x 4' and two 3' x 20' raised beds. The two 20' beds will be along the southwest facing wall of the house and the other beds will be on the northeast side of the house beyond the house's shadow. I believe each spot gets at least six hours of sun but I will track it more carefully this summer to make sure. So, with these seven beds plus what I currently have that gives me 405 square feet. I'm sure many of more seasoned gardeners think that sounds completely ridiculous and way too small. If it is, then I guess I will find out and need to add on! But, here is how I broke it down:

12' x 4'

Bed 1:
48 potato plants (1 square foot per plant)

Bed 2:
3 zucchini
2 summer squash
4 pumpkins
4 butternut squash
4 spaghetti squash
(all have at least 24" square and vines are run over the sides, bush varieties in the middle)

Bed 3:
16 broccoli (18" square per plant)
96 pole beans (trellised, one row on each side, 3" spacing)
8 brussel sprouts (1 square foot per plant)

Bed 4:
16 broccoli (18" square per plant)
48 cucumbers (trellised, one row on each side, 6" spacing)
16 cabbage (18" square per plant)

Bed 5:
144 peas (trellised, one row on each side, 2" spacing)
108 onions (4" plant spacing, 6" row spacing)
360 carrots (2" plant spacing, 4" row spacing)- spring
48 beets (3" plant spacing, 1 row)- fall
144 spinach (3" plant spacing, 4" row spacing)- fall

20' x 3'

Bed 1:
13 tomatoes (18" x 24" per plant)
160 bush beans, for dry beans (3" plant spacing, 6" row spacing)

Bed 2:
13 tomatoes (18" x 24" per plant)
180 onions (4" plant spacing, 6" row spacing)

Four 3' x 2' beds:
swiss chard
kale
any experimental greens

7' x 3' bed:
spring spinach
miscellaneous fall/winter crops

Topsy Turvy planter(s):
all peppers
(I have 1 and would like to get 3 more)

I used a few online charts to give me rough ideas of crop yields and such (just Google 'vegetable yield per plant') and paired that with how much we eat of what and how frequent. Not rocket science but quite a mental chore especially for my pregnant brain! Of course all this calculating and planning is well and good, but the true test of whether I am right or not will come a year after we harvest. We will either have enough or not. I did list other food categories above but I am going to keep this post to just vegetables so it doesn't become a book! In the next few years we would like to add raising a pig every spring, a milk cow and raise her bull calves for meat but keep or sell heifers and hopefully our new chickens will be hatching chicks every year for our freezer and to replace old hens. This year we will are raising 32 roosters for meat and that will give us about 160 pounds of dressed meat which should see us through a year at least plus all the chicken stock I could ever need!

I've just started a few more seeds today for fall savoy cabbage and brussels sprouts as well as herbs that I had kinda forgotten about. I don't grow many herbs right now simply because I don't have a ton of room. At the house I will be making a dedicated perennial herb garden as well as grow more annual culinary herbs probably in pots. I do use a lot of herbs in my cooking so it would be nice to grow a surplus and dry them since most are fairly expensive now. I would also like to perhaps plant some garlic in the fall but this may depend on whether I have my raised beds in or if I want to sacrifice most of my large raised bed in the greenhouse... decisions, decisions!

Alright! That's enough for today, til next time!

This post was shared at Green Thumb Thursday Bloghop.

The Start of Our Sustainable Laying and Meat Flock

Light Brahma chick.

On Sunday I got a text notification that my chicks were on their way. Surprised, I immediately checked their shipping status knowing that they must have been sent out the day before. Normally chicks are shipped Monday and arrive to you on a Tuesday morning. The status said they were in Maine a few towns away. Of course it was Sunday and the USPS doesn't deliver on Sunday, it was hot and I was kind of panicking my poor chicks were suffocating and starving in a tiny little box! With nothing else to do, I just waited. Monday morning just before opening our town post office called to let me know my birds were there and very ready to be picked up! I could hear them peeping in the background so I knew most of them were in good condition. Montana man was heading up town anyway so he said he would get them for me. While he was gone I set up the brooder, in an old truck tool box no less, the only thing we had that was large enough for 40+ chicks without building something!

Again, I had bought an organic chick starter mash with which we had great success with our meat chicks. Typical chick starter from a feed store is medicated and many will try to tell you that without the antibiotics your chicks will most likely die. I had 100% success with organic feed and I thought our chicks were quite robust and lively. If you are raising chicks for meat or eggs and want the finished product to be 'organic' you really do need to start them on organic feed from day one.


When the chicks arrived home we both quickly but gently put them in their brooder an kept an eye for any that were in distress. All were alive thankfully, and soon the peeping sound in the brooder was making my ears ring! I usually teach them to drink as I take each one from the shipping box, but I forgot to tell that to MM and so I ended up teaching about half and the other half seemed to just learn from them. Everyone found the food in a hurry! I thought to look at the box sticker after I noticed our free rare chick (a bantam this time I believe). We were given a free extra Light Brahma male and extra Barred Rock male. So, 43 chicks total, 32 for the freezer in November!

You might notice their water is orange, no we do not have a rust problem! Because of the heat and prolonged time with shipping we got electrolytes for their water to give them a boost. My friend at American Family Now has a post on how they raise chicks and why they choose not to use any water additives. I do agree with her that chicks have survived thousands of years without, yet I find no harm in giving them an initial boost especially after less than ideal shipping period. I would not give additives to chicks hatched and cared for by an actual hen because their stress would likely be much less.

Feathered legs on one of the Light Brahmas, one of the reasons they are so cold hearty.
I don't have a light pictured over them in these pictures but I did put one in before I secured them for the night. Our last red heat bulb broke, knowing it wasn't going to be real cold I just replaced it with a regular 120 watt bulb. I might have gone to get another heat bulb but there are so many of them that a mass huddle seems to do the trick and the light is really more of a light 'blanketing' effect for them. Everyone was eating and drinking well this morning and I think this will be a hearty group!

We do have a barn cat and while he has not ever tried to get at our chicks before, we do take precautions against incidents. My brother's dog is a definite problem and because we do not have the brooder in the stall which has a door, we are keeping the garage door at the front of the barn closed all the time right now.

An old screen door makes a good cover for this hodge podge brooder!
I look forward to watching this colorful bunch grow! I may give away some of our Golden Comets in the fall to someone wanting to start their own small laying flock to keep the laying flock at a reasonable amount for the next year. It may also be advantageous to get rid of my two worst feather pickers who terrorize the rest including my rooster. While I am sure it will get better once they are in a much larger run and coop, it would still be a quick fix if it was still a problem after.

There are several blogs and articles out there on natural chicken keeping (may I just say some love their chickens a little too much!), and I do not feel the need to give a ton detail on mine! I will share our experience with raising heritage breeds for meat and our success or lack there of with having hen hatched chicks in the coming year. Like gardening, chickens take some learning and I am certainly still learning!

Til next time.

Thoughts For 2014

Ah, another year. I must be getting old because they fly by way to fast. Now, let's get one thing taken care of... I don't do resolutions. Many do and feel it is a meaningful part of life. Personally I find them a complete waste of time. I am always trying to save more and spend less, lose weight and attain rapidly evolving goals. I do not need a date on the calendar to signify I have begun or failed (cause lets face it, we all fail one or more of those resolutions). Nope, I just don't need that kind of pressure! But, I do enjoy and encourage making both a mindful and realistic picture of your coming year in your minds eye. This year a certain word comes to me when I think on it. Surrender. Oh, what a loaded word and one I struggle with so much. Surrendering to God and his will for our life as a family. Surrender to unknowns. Surrender to situations not in our control. Just surrender!

With this concept in mind, I will share some projects I am planning to work on this year. Notice I said work on not accomplish! If I accomplish them then I can grab a hard cider and kick my feet up in celebration. If not... eh.

photo creditA new garden! The joy of a new home. I have been working on this post for a couple days (because I have interruptions every 5 minutes) and in that time I have discovered a new style of gardening! Back to Eden gardening is a concept born of Creation. A man moved his family to a new home so he could grow their food but was faced with the challenge of not enough water. So through prayerful exploration and listening he was guided to 'covering' the soil and letting the Father do the rest. It's a fascinating and simple concept. For many reasons I want to use this method but the largest one is because I feel called! I have always worried about failing at growing, the hard work, the time, the weeds. Making this discovery was the Lord taking the worry out of my hands and replacing it with something I know will work... because He designed it, not me. Please watch the free film through the link above!

Housing for all animals. Ok... this might be a must. By next fall we would like to have the barn up and operational although that really depends on the progress of the house. By April we need to have shelter for the dairy goats which doesn't need to be fancy or large by any means so that is easily do able. We will build a good sized chicken coop so we can increase our flock and our horse will be using his trailer as a run in once again until he has a stall in the barn.

Increasing the chicken flock. Now that we have had chickens for the better part of a year now, I have learned a bit and think I can confidently say chicken do not come naturally to me as well as I do not enjoy them! Nevertheless I find them extremely useful and productive. After some more research I have decided on trying out a few different heavy breeds that have certain characteristics of broodiness, meat production, egg production and winter hardiness. Basically I want as much bang for my buck and not much to fuss with. My plan is to place an order with a couple of people who also want to order (so to split our shipping costs) and also get a large number in a straight run. This will allow me to add layers but have roosters to slaughter for meat in the fall. Then the following spring I can allow a few hens to brood the next generation and start all over again.

Learn to make cheese, yogurt and butter. As of April I will be milking one Nigerian Dwarf, two the following spring. Although we will be drinking most of what she gives us I would love to try my hand at making some cheeses and yogurt. I may wait on the butter given I need a cream separator to get a good yield. I will breed them both in November/December for spring kids!

Continue to increase our pantry stock. Currently we could comfortably live a month or two with what is in our pantry and not suffer nutritionally. I would be much more comfortable at a years worth or more. So, canning our garden's and local produce, raising chickens and pigs for meat, hunting, stocking grains and other dried goods and maybe? making a root cellar. The fun part about this is that I get to design and build a pantry in the basement to fit our needs and keep our stock safe from spoilage and theft.

Get my hunter safety certification. I have put this off for years and this year I am GOING to do it! One more odd to getting free meat. We as a family appreciate venison and pray every year someone will get a moose tag! The men may make a trip out to Montana to hunt in the fall. I hope they do! I would love a elk or caribou as well.

I could go on and on about the things I'd like to do. Again, though, I need to pace myself and stay within the realities of my season. Sure, I could bang out a bunch of stuff this year and I probably will! But, I will not let it get me down if I don't do everything right now. I am looking forward to this year!

Any of you care to share your hopes for your homes, lives, homesteads this year?

Til next time!

The Meat Chicks

See, I told you I was going to get meat chicks this fall. And, I ordered 15 of them (plus a free rare breed, more on that in a bit!) just before the cut off for the season until January! Hatcheries do not ship during holiday seasons for obvious reasons... chicks need to be in your hands within 24 hours of hatching. Mine I tracked and they left Minnesota around 7:00 pm Monday and were in my post office by 11:20 am Tuesday. I didn't get the call as soon as they came in (bad phone!) but I picked them up before closing at 4:30 pm. Everyone was healthy and well and driving the post office staff up a wall with hungry peeps. Puzzle Boy was so excited and could barely wait to get the little fuzz balls home! We stopped off at TSC to grab some Save-a-Chick probiotic and smaller feed and water attachments since all I have is the big gallon sized feeders. I have to say I looked at these little attachments and then looked at the bottles that go with them (but bought separately, why?) and thought a mason jar could probably screw right in those. I've got those! And, it worked. Smarty pants over here.

So! I got the chicks and the kids in the house which is tricky if you don't make multiple trips. After I got Mini Me settled and occupied I set up my indoor brooder and prepped the water. Chicks are not born knowing how to find water. I mean, were you? Jeez, give 'um a break! So don't just dump your chicks in the brooder (aka a cardboard box) and wish them luck. Very gently (they just got flown across the country, have sympathy), pick up each chick and dip the tip of it's beak in the water. This one dunk teaches them how to drink and where water is. Cool right? This would be a total pain if you ordered 100 chicks but for 16 it took all of one minute.

After they have mastered drinking let them practice that for a few minutes before you introduce food. Sprinkle the chick starter feed on the papers for them to peck at and then you can put the feeder in. Let's talk about feed for a minute. I am raising these birds on certified organic feed from day one. This means although I am not a certified organic farmer I technically am producing organic chicken that could be certified. The feed I am buying is produced only 2 states over in Vermont. Score. Yes, it's more expensive then the feed store special that is full of antibiotics and pesticides, but really? Why would you want that crap? Spend the money, you'll save it in doctors bills when you don't get cancer and can still fight off infections. You are what you eat!



I have now moved the chicks to the barn stall and the set up while a little hobbled together seems to work fairly well for the moment. I have turned on it's side my unfinished TV stand and hung the brooding lamp on a nail. Then I have it covered with an old ripped screen (just a small hole) with a piece of cardboard over one half to help keep the heat in but not suffocate them. Then I weighted the covering down with paint can (for lack of a better way) to keep the cat out of there. So far so good.

I ordered all females because they tend to be more tender and tasty in the end result, roosters can cause some off flavors if not castrated (and who has time for that!). In about 6-8 weeks they should be at slaughter size as Cornish Crosses are the franken-bird that is bred to grow like it's on roids. I am hoping for them to finish out at around 6-8 pounds. Based on the reviews I read on the breed, this is entirely realistic. While this is ideal for a quick end of the year meat production it's like buying hybrid seeds every year. There is no way to perpetuate the flock, they are a one time deal. I will be researching dual purpose breeds to hopefully develop a breeding flock that will serve as both meat and egg producers. A girl can dream anyway!

I will update weekly to share how fast these little buggers grow. Day 2 and some of them already have sprouted feathers! Crazy!

Oh yeah! The rare breed chick that was free with my order...

What the heck. They sent me a Modern Black Breasted Red Game chick. What do I even do with this?! I thought, hey, it's free maybe it will be something super cool. Not cool! I don't mean to sound ungrateful and mean but, I do not plan on cock fighting anytime soon (what this bird was bred for) so I find it as a foreseeable problem. Darn cute as a chick though!

Til next time!

Final (maybe) Canning Totals for 2013

I say maybe because I do have the temptation of make some soups and canning them just for fun and convenience. Yes, I really did just say that. Let's move on shall we?!

So this year was my first year canning more than jam or dilly beans and also my first time using a pressure canner! Let me assure all you who are scared of the pressure canner, it's not going to blow up, if you can read at a 5th grade level you will be able to follow the directions to safely can those low acid foods that are oh so delicious and nutritious. So relax! Get one.

Top shelf: piccalilli, pumpkin, pickled beets.
What is on my shelves right now is not exactly what I have canned this year. Some of it I have used to bartered for items or just given as gifts to friends just because or eaten because, let's face it, some stuff is just too good to wait for! This will give you a pretty go idea though.

Piccalilli (a green tomato relish): 9- half pints, 1- twelve ounce, 5- quarts
Pumpkin: 8- pints
Beets, pickles: 6- twenty-four ounce
Beets, plain: 7- pints, 2- quarts
Cucumber, pickles: 3- pints, 6- quarts
Dilly Beans (pickled green beans): 4- pints
Tomatoes, plain: 4-pints
Salsa: a lot of all sizes!
Carrots: 6 pints
Cayenne Pepper Sauce: 1- half pint (in use), 4- quarter pints
Banana Peppers, pickled: 1- half pint, 3- quarter pints
Jalapeno Peppers, pickles: 1- quarter pint
Chicken Stock: 7- quarts
Applesauce: 3- pints, 7- quarts
Blackberry Jelly: 7- half pints
Wild Grape Jelly: 10- half pints

Middle shelf: cucumber pickles, chicken stock, plain beets and applesauce.
No, it's not as much as some put up but honestly I think it's pretty impressive for the fact that most of it I bartered for as produce with my eggs. The rest either came from the greenhouse or local farms/farm stands.

Last shelf: carrots, plain beets, tomatoes, cucumber pickles and dilly beans, salsa, banana peppers, hot sauce, etc.
A few tips I have for storage:

1. Take the rings off. Not only will this help in showing you a spoiled jar sooner but it will also allow you to stack some jars easier. Ideally you wouldn't need to stack but we don't all have the ideal shelving that looks like this. Although, someday I'd like to! Maybe two jars deep though. Three deep starts getting annoying.

2. Store in a dark place with a fairly constant temperature. These are in the basement and I will store them in my basement in the new house as well. Light and temperature fluctuations will effect your nutrition values of the food. Sorry to squash your dreams of the sunlight sparkling on your pretty jars. The bare light bulb in your basement or pantry will have to do.

3. Check them over every so often. Is anything leaking or bulging? If it is then the contents need to be destroyed. By destroyed I mean either sealed up like hazardous material and thrown away or burned. Sound like over kill? It won't if you find your dog suffering from poisoning because he ate it in the garbage. Please take it seriously.

Well, that's pretty much it. Have a good weekend everyone!

Til next time.

Summer!

This afternoon has turned rainy (which I welcome heartily!) so I thought I would catch up and do a little blogging. I have not written for a while, for this I apologize. Life has kind of been coasting for a bit with not a lot of documentable change. But now I have a few things to share as summer takes off.

First is that the house will be started... really soon! We have as of now accumulated our refrigerator, range, bath tub, kitchen sink, kitchen cabinets (sitting in the barn), and a dishwasher that we have yet to pick up. We are almost ready to commit to a house plan and submit that plan to the town. We have decided to dig a well instead of drill it, and also due to major structural hurdles we are going to be building a slightly bigger house than we had planned, but it will be about 1000 square feet... small by most peoples standards! More on this in the future.

The chickens are still growing and maturing, we have about 6-8 weeks left until they will start to lay and I will greatly enjoy passing the egg section at the store when they do! When they get closer to laying I will switch them to an organic feed, currently they are on a standard growing feed. Next year I plan to add a few different breeds to spice up the flock, all the girls are the same! I would love some colored eggs to break up the brown as well as have enough to sell regularly.

Next up I have a trip planned to a local dairy goat farm where I am planning to buy my goats from! I will be buying 2 doe kids next spring to start a small milking herd. Ah, the thought of crossing off the dairy section of the grocery list is a sweet one! I would like to pasture them in the spring-fall seasons so we will get the great benefits of grass fed milk, but we will see what we have to work with. I will take pictures and do a post on the farm tour!

Today, as you can see from the picture above, I made planter boxes for the greenhouse to plant my tomatoes and peppers. This was an adventure for sure! I went to Home Depot with the kids this morning and picked up my materials and organic potting soil. After Mini was down for a nap and Puzzle Boy was playing well on his new swing set, I got busy with making the boxes. I cut everything to size and then assembled one box before PB wanted to go in for lunch. I got him settled with that then finished the rest of the boxes on the walkway so I could watch him in the house. Later, I carried them out, rearranged the greenhouse, lined the boxes with plastic (I used pressure treated wood, can't have the chemicals get in the soil), and filled them with the potting soil. Planted the tomatoes, peppers and two dill plants and then pruned all the tomatoes quite heavily. They have started blooming and need only a good 3-4 strong branches under the blooms to thrive, all other leaves are just a energy suck. I want tomatoes not leaves! After all the pruning I arranged my remaining plants on the spare table outside to catch the rain and cleaned up.

I am also focusing on knitting in my spare time and keep wanting to tackle the barn... although I think I have to resign to the fact that it might be best to wait until we move to bother.

Oh the anticipation of our future once we are in the house and can build up our own land with orchards, gardens and livestock! My dreams come true, to raise my kids in such a wholesome environment of life and nature! All it takes is constant puttering, haha! Ok, maybe a little money too. You get my point right?

Til next time!

Butchering the Ducks *Caution: Graphic Pictures*

So we did it! The weekend of the 18th we slaughtered the ducks. We did not save any, quite frankly they are gross and I didn't want to deal with their mess any longer. Selfish as that sounds, that's farming. Animals are not pets in the barn. Our ducks had a good life with pool time and food and fresh grass but they were intended for food. So anyway, I will get on with the post!

Below is the first duck that went. I guess I will explain how we did the killing seeing as most people are concerned with how 'humane' you do it. We thought it out carefully and decided that a good old fashioned stump chopping block and a very sharp machete were the way to go. After I retrieved a duck and brought it out of sight of the others Montana Man would quickly slip a small noose around the neck, I would gently let the duck down and he held its head up on the block and swung fast and hard. If you are wondering if the rope strangled the duck the answer is no. By the time I let the duck down it's head was already in striking position and it was really just to keep MM's other hand out of the way so he could swing hard without risk of chopping a finger off. It all happened in about 10 seconds.
As soon as the head was off it was my job to grab the now wildly flapping body and hold it upside down over a tub to let it bleed out properly. When it would "calm" we tied it by the feet up on a little stand and let it finish and relax.


By the time we got to the fourth duck to be dispatched, the first was ready to come down (there was only room for 3 on our stand) and we just kept going until all six were done. All this took about 20 minutes start to finish.




I did not take pictures of the plucking because ducks are hard to do by hand and I was on the clock to get them prepped and cooled down in a timely manner. I will say that I probably will send them to our local butcher next time or only do one or two in the same day because of the time it takes to pluck, even with proper scalding. It sucks. Gutting was the easy part, although stinky if you nick a bowel (I did it on only one). I would encourage anyone who has not butchered before to search out a more detailed blog post about it or get a book. I would try to explain but you really need pictures!

I did choose to vacuum seal my ducks and freeze all of them the next day. I borrowed a friend's vacuum sealer and bought bags (thank you friend!). Because we only raised 6 and ducks are kind of a long process to cook, they are for special occasions. I will be curious of the taste of homegrown though when the time comes!



There you have it! First animals we have raised for meat and many more to come.

An Unexpected Chance For Learning... Butchering a Wild Turkey

Well, I did not expect to have a turkey carried into the yard today! But I volunteered myself to help the handsome gentleman in the picture above (my brother... shhh, he doesn't want me writing about him, let's call him The Redneck) pluck and gut it. It was a very nice tom turkey. Since neither of us had done it before but I was the more educated on it by reading, I dictated how we should go about things. I was so excited to put my knowledge to work!

First we got a huge pot and heated water to about 140-150 degrees and poured it over the bird in a large metal tub outside. It took 2 pots of water to scald him good. Then we hung him up by his feet so we could both pluck him easily over plastic sheeting (makes clean up quicker). After he was plucked enough I cut the tips of his wings off buy going through the joints. Then we hung him by his neck and proceeded to gut. The Redneck did this part and I watched closely. Admittedly, I was still a bit unnerved about the warmth of the body. But I will be gutting 6 ducks soon so I will get over it!

We finished up by cutting the feet and neck off and rinsing it with the hose. It will sit in the fridge for a few days and then I believe he plans to fry it! Fun.

Evil as it sounds, I look forward to processing our ducks... these are survival skills and farm skills. Butchering is something I aim to be good at.

Night all!

Waiting for Warmer Weather

This time of year is almost harder than winter to be patient. Spring has been colder this year and it has been a bit frustrating for me! But, today made me feel better. We finally got our greenhouse up. It has been sitting waiting for the snow to melt and now we finally had a spot to put it. Now it just needs to be warm enough to keep a night temperature of about 50 degrees for us to be able to put the seedlings out... maybe only 35 degrees for the cabbages. I am praying for warmer weather soon!


Also, we got ducklings and chicks today!!! Hallelujah! I have waited my whole life to have chickens. We had a duck before but he was a pet (and a weasel got him a couple years ago). We now have 6 Pekin ducks (that are 3 weeks old) and 12 Golden Comet pullets that we bought from Tractor Supply. They have all adjusted well their new home and seem happy.



I plan to keep records of the cost to keep all the birds to see if we save any money and see how free ranging in a chicken tractor will help. The ducks will hopefully take to the pond when their feathers come in and enjoy the vegetation in it. The ducks will only be with us until fall, they are for meat... unless a female steps up and wants to make eggs!


Because we are not able to make a permanent coop for the chickens yet we will be making a tractor style coop to allow the chickens to "free range" yet be safe from dogs, cat and hawks. I will post about it when Montana Man builds it.



This will be a great learning experience for Puzzle Boy! He is fascinated by the little birds.



Even our Morgan horse Bub had to check out his new barn mates!



I had to share another picture of our beautiful stallion. He is quite plump right now from all his free choice hay ;-)


Today felt like such a leap toward our goals. The prospect on of our garden and now eggs and meat are such a triumph after years of inability. Now we are getting somewhere! Anyone want to share their spring adventures?