As It Turns Out... Sunday April 2, 2010

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There was another puppy. The neighbor found it. It had missed being road kill, but that might have been merciful.

He kills them. There are three ways he goes about doing this; either by drowning, using them for target practice, or dog training - meaning they become prey.

Spay and neuter, please?

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It was a warm and muggy day here. Early in the morning a turkey hen made her way nearly up to the lawn. She must be still looking for a mate. She comes out of the woods down by the compost bins, and this time walked all the way up through the orchard before veering off into the meadow by the fence charging unit.





Speaking of the fence charging unit...

Saturday we had storms expected, so we did what was advised in the manual, we unplugged the fence before we went to bed, and then got up this morning to plug it in again. Before we made our way to town, I made a quick check of the garden, only to find that there were horse tracks ALL over the whole place! The vegetable garden, the herb garden, the orchard - all around the perimeter of the enclosed pasture for the horses.






The horses were both inside the pasture. Apparently Ginny had jumped out, and then jumped back in again. I've never seen her jump before, much less a fence! Two scary things - she knows exactly when the fence is not electrified, and she now jumps. So we were running a little late by the time we'd finished checking that out.

We were kept amply busy with two office cleanings and a window washing job. We were pretty tired through the whole thing, and we didn't make it to church.

We sufficed it by listening to some really great messages on our iPods while we worked. Sometimes I do like technology.

Coming home late in the evening we added another strand to the fence, bringing the top to about her eye-level. I hope that discourages her enough.





We've had a broody hen for a while and some of her and her friends' eggs have begun to hatch.

She was up here on the wall nests, which obviously need more hay.





So Michael moved her down into this cage. If we hadn't locked her in, she'd have left her eggs and tried to go back into the wall nest to sit there. Chickens are creatures of habit.









Looking forward to seeing those chicks running around the chicken yard!

~Faith

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Randomness and the Inadvertent Charmer

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Yesterday was supposed to be partly sunny and up to nearly 60 degrees.

It remained cloudy, in the low 50s, and mischievously sliced by a light, icy breeze.

And that's what made meeting a friend for a BBQ picnic at the local park just a bit on the nippy side. But it was great fun anyhow and it always makes you look forward even more to nice fires and hot chocolate.

The morning began with a donation from one of our hens; a double yolk egg. I always love these. It's like a surprise gift.





And this is Bob. He loves me.





I was almost done sewing leg trim on my pantaloons yesterday morning, when my machine began malfunctioning. Needles keep breaking and catching on something down below.

Well, the little old man at the sewing shop is such a kick. You can't leave there without buying something from the sweet guy. We all compared notes one day, and found that every single one of us had left the shop having purchased some of his 'very good quality German machine needles'.

He called someone in our group and left a 5 minute message on their machine. It is still there to this day.

What an inadvertent charmer.

~Faith

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Adventures Take Many Shapes and Forms.

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What began as a beautiful Friday morning...









Quickly took a nasty turn.

The air, when you stepped outside, had that magical quality to it. Michael had gone down to get in some time on the trampoline, "Perfect weather for jumping, Mom". I was chatting on the phone with a friend. I went to hang the phone up and saw a man in the pasture with Michael.





It took me a few seconds to recognize the man I am married to.

I wanted to do a lot of things. But I did nothing except get on my knees and pray. I did make a call to my attorney, to see what my rights were. You see, this man has not been here for 18 months, is completely ignoring a court order of support against him, has not utilized the designated child visitation that was given to him at all, but decided to show up and muscle Michael, alone out in the field.

He spoke to Michael for 20 or 30 minutes, slandering my character and Michael's, and leaving Michael with a feeling of disgust. He told Michael he didn't care what any court order said, even if it meant he had to go to jail, and that he would come here any time he felt like it. Michael was respectful, but told him exactly how he felt. Even through all this Michael was thinking of me. When his dad left, Michael remained where he was standing instead of coming into the house, in case his dad decided to follow him.

I was a bit frazzled for the rest of the day. We had office cleaning and a get-together in town to do that night. Michael in much better shape than I was. But I am learning to let go and rest in the Lord earlier and earlier in crisis situations.

Saturday I would have liked to have taken the day completely off, but since I'd not done the work in the kitchen on my 'frazzled' day, we worked sporadically.

Our spring hens have come into lay. YAY! We have enough eggs to share now. This was two day's worth.





The broom corn vase.





Michael, taking care of worship music business for church this weekend.





How kefired milk looks before you swish it around to mix the curds and whey together and strain out the grains.





Here is three day's worth of growth on the Kombucha SCOBY. The mother has risen to the top and you can see it bumping up underneath the filmy growth of the baby SCOBY. It's doing fine.





Seth, the dog, went nuts and we took this photo of a small equine entourage passing by. Whoever they are, they like to come out in the Autumn, not much other times. Seems like the time of year for it.





No, I don't talk about our horses much, because that aspect of my life is a little frustrating to me, not having time to work with them. But I have them, I love them, and they have always been a formulating factor in the foundation of who I am. I always dreamed of how wonderful it would be to have sets of draft horses. I'd love to ride a Percheron. I even went window shopping a couple of weeks ago online. Google is a lovely place to waste time.

Another office to clean this morning, and windows to wash this afternoon. I hope I can make it to church with Michael.

Better get busy!

~Faith

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Chicken Butchering Day

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I will preface this with a short blurb on butchering. I am tenderhearted and have always hated butchering days, from my youth through today. As a child, I ran off and hid as much as I was able. Though I love meat, I am always sad about death of any creature. I am no hypocrite, I just want it done as humanely as possible, and I take no joy in it. So the day was mixed for me. Something I have to do. I never know when times might get so rough that being able to butcher an animal to feed my child becomes a matter of survival.

So, with that said, we focused on learning new tasks, helping friends, and enjoying time together.

The day dawned beautifully. We did school and Bible study and household chores. Then we loaded up the three birds we were going to butcher yesterday. Two roosters are in the cage, and one hen was in the box. She was picked on mercilessly by the roosters, I have never seen that happen before. She also stopped laying. So she was boxed separately.





Got on our work clothes.





And turned out of our driveway to head out.





Arriving a little after noon, we unloaded at their shed, where they were just about ready to begin.





And here were their 20 or so birds they needed to process. Most of them were Cornish or White Rocks, I think. I'm not positive as I've not seen them outside of catalogs. These are the fastest growing meat birds you can buy. They are not the healthiest of birds, due to the breeding and have a lot of trouble with organ failure and walking, as they are meant to be butchered out before they are many months old.





Boys. Always running off to do something.





More help arrives!





Dressed appropriately...





This is not the way we butchered chickens while I was growing up, but this is how they did it, and we were glad to be there to help them and learn another way of doing things.

They set up 5 stations.

The killing cone and sand bucket.
The scalding vat.
The plucking machine.
The evisceration table.
The cooling bin.

Here is a rooster, he is not dead, he has simply been placed into the cone. The bucket of sand below. We have always used an ax, then immediately hung the bird upside down. Once the head is cut off, the nerves in the body continue to cause movement, so the blood is pumped out while the bird moves and especially if hung upside down.





The plan here, in this killing cone, is to quickly go in with a knife and, with one flick, go through the skin and pierce the jugular vein, causing the bird to lose blood and drift off. However, stuff happens, it did not go as planned, and I did not spend a lot of time at that station. I can now say I definitely prefer the axe.





The second station was the scalding pot. What a dream to use! We used to carry out 5 gallon buckets, over and over, of boiling water for this job. When you dip the freshly killed chicken in water of about 165 degrees, several times, the feathers come off much more quickly. With this propane-fueled scalder, the work was eliminated a great deal.









The next station was a wonder as well. The tabletop plucker. Boy, do I wish we'd had one of the these when I was a kid! I hated being made to pluck the chickens!





Michael ended up working here for most of the time.









Then came the evisceration table. I kicked myself for not bringing our butchering knives. They did not have many sharp ones, so the job was lengthy. This is where I spent most of my time.





This was also different than I was used to. My folks would hand the birds upside down with wire on the legs and a bucket below, and stand to do the job.





We had one sharp knife. I found it. What is it with me and sharp instruments?





And the last outdoor station was the ice water bath to cool the chickens.





Once cool, after about 20 minutes, they were taken inside, rinsed and cleaned of any remaining feathers, bagged and placed into refrigeration for 2 days before going into the freezer.

We needed to leave the job early, before the last 4 were done, for a last practice before Michael's demonstration on Saturday. So with blood on my jeans and shoes, we headed off for that, and missed the ice cream fun that was to follow. I got Michael a McFlurry while in town. Those Oreo crumbles are good stuff!

Because days like these need to have humor inserted into them or they become unbearable, the next few pictures will show us lightening the atmosphere with silliness, or just some interesting facts from the day.

We found that most of the processed chickens made a squeaky-toy noise when you bounced them on the table. So several times we had dancing chickens, quacking at us.









Some of the meat birds our friends were doing in were hens in full lay. They have all their yolks for a lifetime produced already, and each day a yolk is brought to size, surrounded in albumen, encased in a shell, and laid. Some will even have an egg ready to lay, as one hen yesterday did. Here we set one hen's yolks in a row according to the days she would have laid them.





Apparently someone had not eaten lunch before arriving!





What I could probably get millions from the government for by calling it art.





So another day of friends, dear to our hearts, and adventures of trying new things was had.

Hey, you guys! How was the DQ?

~Faith

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Sewing, Mowing, Canning!

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Today was our Civil War sewing meeting. On our way past the neighbors' house, we dropped off a quart of blackberry pie filling and a dozen eggs from our chickens. The eggs are getting a little dirty, as the hens have decided to forgo the roosts and sleep in the nests. So we've changed out the straw and locked up the nest boxes at night again. Looking forward to sparkly eggs tomorrow. :)

I have almost finished my replacement corset, but got stalled due to the bones I had ordered not fitting.





Gladly, we were able to use them for a dear friend of mine, Elaine. So I spent the whole morning being able to help others.

I must be getting better at sewing, because last week I pulled up some fabric, and spent an hour whipping up an extra corset for Elaine. I amazed myself. My first corset took 4 weeks and 4 people to help me. :-P

After the meeting I made a trip to the hardware store for bones. Yes, extra long and strong zip-ties, or tie-wraps.





I should be able to get those in, then put in the grommets for the lacing next week.

We came home and attempted to get mowing done but, once again, the storms have come and watered us out. The grass is a good 8 inches high and going to seed, so I want to be really careful where that seed goes when we are mowing next to crops and beds.





Yesterday we had managed to mow at least around the house and greenhouse, but had to rake up all the cut grass. Very time consuming.









By this evening we had two of these trailer loads of cut grass. Some went to the compost pile, but I think I will use a lot of it as mulch to cut down on weeding time in the herb and flower beds.





We've still got the crop areas to do and, frankly, it scares me.

Michael began yesterday morning by picking produce again. It's become a daily ritual the last week or so; Michael picks, and I work to do something with it in the kitchen.

So I began working on a blackberry pie filling recipe.









And, in trying to juggle freezer contents, put an old, frozen, half-price pot roast in the crock pot...





With a variety of found veggies, carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, and green beans from the garden, along with one of my favorite seasonings - mesquite.





We've been eating on this now for two days. :)

Here are the peppers from the morning. I would love to can some, but I don't quite have enough of them to justify running the canner, so I'm being more creative.





The summer squash, which has finally slowed down, went into the dehydrator again, and the cucumbers went into my first effort at canned pickle relish.





Michael also tried his hand at first time melon picking. Always an art form, we figure he might as well begin learning now how to pick them. He hit the jackpot with this first one, I believe it is a Prescott Fond Blanc.













Not so well with his first watermelon. He'll get better quickly.





My first inclination was to dice the veggies for the pickle relish. I soon tired of that; after about one cucumber, as a matter of fact.





So the 3 quarts of cucumbers, 3 onions, and 6 bell peppers went into the food processor, and then were to be soaked in 2 quarts of ice water and 3/4 cups of pickling salt for 4 hours.





When that 4 hours was up, I drained and resoaked them in plain ice water for an hour, drained them and then poured 6 cups of boiling apple cider vinegar with a mixture of 2 cups of sugar, 4 tsp celery seed, 4 tsp mustard seed, 2 tsp ground allspice, and 2 tsp turmeric over them. That whole mixture is in the fridge now, marinating and waiting for me to can it tomorrow morning.

It tastes like pickle relish, so it must be right.

Meanwhile, for a mid-morning snack we eliminated the jalapenos by stuffing them with cream cheese, diced jack cheese and powdered garlic and onion.





They were delicious. But we discovered that, though the smooth green ones are perfect, the older jalapenos, with the cracked skins are hotter than we appreciate.





Another picking, is an unripe spaghetti squash. The best way to learn is to make mistakes, so I know Michael is learning much more quickly by bringing his hard work up, and cutting into it. He's doing great! :)





Adding in freshly picked green beans to the stew...





And back to working on the blackberry pie filling. I got out all our frozen blackberries and there were not quite enough, so I filled in the rest of the berry need with raspberries and blueberries from the freezer as well.





This was my first use of Clear Jell. I got this at the Mennonite market for a good price.





And while I mixed that with sugar and spices...





I went to wave to Michael and see how he was doing.





Stirring the water into the Clear Jell mixture and bringing it to a low boil to thicken it.





And here is the pickle relish, ready to marinate for 36 hours in the fridge. I did not have any red peppers, so it looks a little bland, but the flavor is great.





Putting by a large garden's worth of produce is new to me. I am looking forward to when I can do these things without having to think so hard about them and am much quicker.

By this time it was nearly dark, Michael came in for shower and we enjoyed stew together as we relaxed.

I'll let you know how the relish turns out tomorrow!

~Faith

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