A HUGE thank you to Susan and the Shepherding Camp crew who came out to help put up fencing and to learn why you should never, ever buy a property that isn’t already cleared and fenced, even if all you’re putting out there is a vegetable garden and a dog.
Although we lose an hour of daylight in the evenings now I am thankful the weather has helped out this effort by being so very beautiful this weekend.
I could use a month of days like this.
We spent the calm after the storm getting ready for a very much anticipated holiday. Halloween is a big deal around here.
This year was a little less festive than previous years – we’ve been very farm focused (and HEY! All of our fencing posts are in the ground as of today!) and also my friend Elizabeth did not host her annual party, as her husband has a broken leg.
But no matter! Some traditions carry on.
Today we watched:
The Nightmare Before Christmas, Scary Godmother, Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, and The Village.
School work for today was fun Halloween coloring and making our pumpkins.
Everyone chose their patterns and spent several hours cleaning out and carving their pumpkins.
Gulliver pitched in as well.
All of the pumpkin guts went out to the chickens, who greedily ate up their fall treat.
For dinner I whipped up a Tomato – Cheese Soup and some lovely little witch – hat – shaped parmesan and dijon in puff pastry.
Left to right: Neve’s Kitty in a Tree, Oona’s Kitty, Emily’s Jack Skellington, and Maddie’s Doctor Who.
Tomorrow night it’s Halloween craft and movie marathon day for school and then it’s off to my friend Jessie’s for trick or treating.
Happy Haunting!
For the Parmesan Puffs I bought some frozen puff pastry and rolled it out a bit once it softened up. I spread some Dijon mustard and some paprika on the bottom layer and then covered that with parmesan cheese (FRESH!!). I placed the second piece of puff pastry on top, brushed it with melted butter and popped it in the oven at 375 for about 15 minutes.
If you live on the east coast, chances are you are waiting for “Frankenstorm” to hit.
We made sure all of our vehicles had gas, went grocery shopping and did all of our dishes and laundry.
Fortunately (for us) it looks like the storm will be hitting a bit north of us, so we likely won’t have to worry about much weather, but better safe than sorry, right?
We spent some time putting posts in the ground and plotting out the fence line yesterday, making sure that whatever tree trunks and brush that is still out there won’t interfere.
Today is pretty grey and windy, but so far no rain. Paul is working on more posts while he can, and I am enjoying some rare quiet time in the house.
Oona has been sick with some sort of virus that makes her tired and irritable, and she has spent a large portion of the day asleep on the couch with Gully.
So really we are in a state of “Watch and wait” to see what will happen with the storm. I made pumpkin bread from a Trader Joe’s mix that Susan gave me (I added pumpkin seeds to the top – delicious!).
I worked on Emily’s Haloween costume a bit (sneak peak of her wig….)
And I have been working on the second sock of my Halloween pumpkin socks.
Hopefully we won’t lose power, but if we do, there’s plenty of candles and fuel for the fireplace. Either way, we’re all cozy and toasty and enjoying a lazy fall SUnday.
Happy weekend!
It took me awhile to work up to this post. I had planned on blogging the same day we processed our meat chickens, but have been having trouble wanting to do it. Now that it is said and done I didn’t want to think about it anymore, and we definitely won’t be doing it again.
You see, originally there were 2 other people involved with this whole venture. I agreed to buy and feed the chickens and keep them healthy until slaughter. The other 2 people would take care of building a plucker and help with processing, since they had experience.
They backed out in September. Paul and I were left with 45 birds that were going to need to be killed, plucked and processed. On top of all the other stuff we have going on.
Paul gamely built a tabletop plucker. It took a few weeks of work, but it’s a beauty and it works like a dream. I found a whole TWO volunteers to help out (my mother and my friend Theresa saved our bacon that day!).
I had trouble dispatching bird number one. The kill didn’t go as neatly or quickly as I remembered from the class I took. I ended up nearly in tears and Paul had to finish it. After that, he had to take care of that part. (and was very sweet about it – he stroked them to calm them and told them he promised to make it quick. He even asked each one of it was “ready”)
Then there was trial and error finding a rhythm that worked for us. I had to show how the birds were to be eviscerated. It was slow going, and we had issues with the differing temps required to scald the birds and then package them in shrink bags. My OCD and anxiety about contamination were working overtime, and I was terribly relieved that everyone else was as mindful of it as well. I think we did a spectacular job of keeping it all clean.
By the time dusk was settling in we had finally managed to get our groove going (not without the help of Theresa’s famous margaritas I should add) but we had only processed 19 birds when it was all said and done.
We had a huge mess to clean up (feathers and small blood droplets went EVERYWHERE from the plucker) and we were tired, both physically and mentally.
I took to calling each bird I grabbed a “tribute” (have y’all read The Hunger Games?) and I am now the owner of a bloody shirt I will forever call the “murder shirt”.
We sold 6 birds to the people that showed up, gave some away to our lovely volunteers and have a few left for our freezer. Not what we expected, but better than nothing.
Clean-up actually went quite well – and quick.
But we still had about 2 dozen live birds left, and no one wanted to repeat the process a second time.
Even though it ended up being a massive money loss, we posted the remaining birds on craigslist for free. A gentleman who raises meat birds down the road a ways responded and said he’d take them off our hands.
Turns out he usually sets aside a dozen or so to give to needy families, and ours would bolster that number. That sounded perfect to me. A loss of that kind of money doesn’t hurt so much if it went to a worthy cause. ($50 a week in feed for 14 weeks, not counting the cost to make the plucker and buy packaging supplies).
We learned a lot about the process and about ourselves (we will survive the zombie apocalypse, for example) but it was a lot of work and a lot of expense and we aren’t sure we want to take that energy and time in that way again. We’d rather focus on other things (like perfecting our vegetable growing? )
From now on we will just buy our chickens from the farmer’s market from a local farmer and be happy we don’t have to do it ourselves.
The upside to all of this is that we do have some lovely chickens in our freezer right now.
I roasted one for dinner last night and it was outstanding. The carcass is simmering away to make stock.
And we are all reminded where our food comes from, and are much more grateful to have it.
Saturday was Juniper Moon Farm’s Fall Shearing and Magazine Launch party.
There was locally – raised pork barbecue courtesy of our friends Will and Lisa, pies, hot apple cider, bluegrass music, and the Shearer Extraordinaire, Emily Chamelin.
I recently got my hot little hands on a copy of the very first issue, so I was thrilled to help Susan celebrate the premier of her By Hand Magazine.
If you are at all interested in DIY (cooking, crafting, building, gardening….) and haven’t had a chance to check out By Hand yet, what are you waiting for?
Taking pictures of the animals never gets old, either. These three have a bit of attitude. In fact, I agreed to take them off Susan’s hands once we are ready. They have been getting a bit too aggressive with the sheep and goats lately, and I could use them for patrolling for snakes.
Sweet Mr. Orzo. He is such a love. But he’s very much a puppy also. I’ll be making time to do some serious training with him before long.
Check out this little cutie’s Hunter Boots! Her mother is our awesome friend (and JMF’s web designer), Michelle.
The always lovely Shirra!
Peggy and George started off the square dance after dinner.
My friends Diana and Keith enjoying the shearing and some cider.
Lucy, the self – appointed farm ambassador.
Cookie tree!
You won’t see many pictures of Susan and I together; neither one of us particularly likes getting our picture taken.
Our adorable and very pregnant friend Lisa.
Fall Shearings are always my favorite, and this was exceptional. We stayed late under the lights and banners and stars, enjoying the brisk air, the smell of cider and the warmth and company of good friends.
I cannot believe it is already October, can you?
I wish I could say there’s something to report other than burning, burning, and more burning.
The good news is that instead of a giant pile of brush preventing us from installing the fencing, we now have a small pile of smoking ash and small chunks of trees.
Today was rainy and chilly (a perfect start to October, if I do say so) so we didn’t start mapping out the fence line.
We did have school, nap, and watched old episodes of Warehouse 13.
I made Butternut Squash and Apple Soup (but this time I slow roasted the squash and apples in butter before pureeing them).
I worked some more on my Halloween socks, and the kids got a little stir crazy.
You can tell by the pretty princess wings Gulliver’s been sporting.
I am finding that there’s something oddly addictive about burning brush and building up a big bonfire. I think it speaks to something primal in our collective subconscious. Something about our beginnings as a species and our first experience with flame.
Then there’s the layers embedded in our own individual memories; nostalgia for campfires and parties in the summer, or huddling around a big fire in the colder months, maybe with a mug of hot cider.
It’s cozy and wild at the same time. At night after a long day of working at clearing the land it’s been mesmerizing watching the flames and the sparks dancing up into the sky. (it also makes me happy to think that this means progress, that we are closer to our animals coming home).
With the air beginning to chill the smell of the woodsmoke is the perfect thing to make it feel like fall.
The Harvest Moon is September 29th this year. I can think of no better place to enjoy it than right by this big, beautiful fire.
When you start clearing out woods and burning brush piles and moving things around and well, just being outside more – you are bound to see more of the wild things that also call your land their home.
Sometimes these are lovely little encounters, like the snails and the praying mantis we’ve been seeing.
Furble unfortunately also found this guy – and ate him. She also recently left us part of a wild bunny. The kids weren’t too thrilled.
Sometimes it can be quite amusing – now that the culvert is in and the stream is running through it we are seeing a proliferation of frogs and tadpoles. I love walking down to the bridge and hearing the various cries of “Eep!” followed by a splash as the frogs all try to avoid me.
And sometimes, it’s just creepy.
This copperhead snake tried to escape a brush pile we were burning. He didn’t make it, and we are glad of that because it saved us the trouble of having to kill this very poisonous creature. This time of year the snakes are looking for dens in which to spend the winter – usually with other snakes. We are keeping this in mind as we continue to burn brush piles and clean out the debris from the stream, because there are sure to be more where this guy came from.
So.
Meat birds.
Birds that are engineered by us humans to grow at an alarming rate so that they are ready for “harvest” by about 8 weeks of age.
Mine are now 14 weeks old and they are still not ready for harvest.
I have to admit, I was getting really, really worried about this. We’re spending WAY more on feed than expected and it has been feeling like we’ll never get these birds into the freezer.
Internet to the rescue!
I found some message boards for chicken farmers talking about this very thing.
You see, I’ve been feeding a combination of commercially – prepared and processed feeds along with fresh pasture. We don’t generally leave just a huge feed bin out constantly full of food. If you do, they won’t forage. We wanted a better tasting, healthier bird. Less commercial stuff. Apparently, when you limit the processed grain and turn them out onto fresh grasses regularly, they grow a lot slower. Their mortality rate is much lower. And – get this – they end up tasting better.
I am feeling a lot better about these birds, if not poorer, given that we’ve fed them several weeks longer than anticipated!
I’ve also recently been spending more time over at Juniper Moon Farm. As you may have read, Susan has been ill so I have been helping out. It’s been wonderful spending some quiet time in the mornings and the evenings with the animals.
Only the dogs seemed to want to cooperate for photos, however. Everyone else was too busy taking advantage of the cooler temperatures and dewy grasses.
Oh great, not the paparazzi again. Can’t you see I am eating here???
I have been trying to make friends with little Stella, as well, but is has been mostly in vain. Her mother is so friendly and approachable, but Stella is much more of a tease. She looks all sweet and cute and cuddly in the pasture, but try to approach her and she runs off to mama, tail between her legs. She doesn’t look back until there’s a giant Luna safely between me and her.
Nanny nanny poo poo, you can’t catch me!!!!
Merry Magpie Farm 