Jed and Rosie's Homestead

Failure: Stillbirth on the farm

2012-02-02T16:11:00.000-08:00

Both Rosie and I feel that in addition to chronicling our successes on our homestead we also need to hold our failures up to the light so that others can learn not just what do do but what not to do.

Yesterday Sheep #2 started to go into what we thought was labor but lasted much longer. In most cases sheep go threw less than 1 hour of labor prior to a birth if it lasts more than an hour something is often very wrong. #2's labor lasted threw the afternoon an into the night threw the morning and into midday. There was very little we could do to help her as she was not dilated nor was there any fetus presentation, all we could do was watch and wait. There was no doubt in our minds that something was wrong, but we did not know how bad it was going to be, would one fetus live? Both? Just her? Or would she have to be put down to end her suffering? We watched and waited.

This morning she began active labor with dilation and pushing, this lasted most of the morning. We kept a close eye on her but still no presentation. She would spend some time on her side yelling and pushing then stand and walk a little way before dropping to her side again and pushing. After quite a bit of that we began to see some fetus presentation, looking to be a head. I was able to keep her still and down while Rosie with Ivan in a backpack baby carrier helped to ease the fetus out, timing her help with the pushing of the ewe. It became obvious early on that this would be a stillbirth, then our goals changed and the life of the ewe was the primary goal. The first fetus was had brownish fur but was some what deformed in subtle ways and had a distinct odor of putrescence, this fetus had been dead for some time. We where able to assist the ewe delivering the first fetus with out much more trouble and the afterbirth followed shortly after. We where unable to detect another fetus but as ewes normally have twins we expected another fetus. Some time later Sheep #2 delivered the second stillborn lamb.

Sheep #2 is now back up on her feet and eating and drinking but exhausted. Both fetuses where buried in the orchard to give their life back to the earth. We will keep an eye on her for the next few days and see how she does.

So lessons learned;

We believe that the two fetuses where goat/sheep hybrids which almost never live to full term, so in the future we will need to be more careful keeping the buck away from the ewes when we have the goats breed. We also learned more about delivering animals out in the field and what to look for in an animals labor. So while it was a sad day there where lessons to be learned and knowledge to be taken way from the experience.

The tale of the potatoes

2012-01-24T19:24:00.000-08:00

Last year we received two shipments of potatoes from www.potatogarden.com (who we highly recommend) but both seemed to come to a sad bitter end due to animals. The batch planted in front of the house (including purple viking) where nomed by the neighborhood rabbits (who in turn where delicious, revenge is still best served with potatoes), provided a very small harvest most of which went for seed potatoes for next year. The patch planted in the back of the house grew well but the greens where all eaten by our birds during the hot months and their tale finally ended with the piggies digging them up and eating any spuds that had remained underground after the birds where done. Although we do not know the flavor of the spuds planted in the back, we know the few we where able to eat from the front patch where amazing and far and above beyond the flavor of store spuds.

And here is where their story continues. Rosie was able to plant all of the potatoes today, under the watchful eye of our new task master Ivan (7 months old). We look forward to a good potato year as we hope to mound up the plants properly and get a yield of around 10lbs per plant (that's our hope but we might just end up with more tiny potatoes again). I do hope to purchase more potatoes to plant in the back and hope that with better cover we will have a higher percent of plants survive the chickens, geese and ducks.

A few things we have learned about caring for potato plants;

1) Make sure you mound your plants up routinely.
2) Try not to use companion plants if you are using a raised bed.
3) Good netting, cloth or a plastic cover will do wonders for keeping animals out of your plants.
4) Heirloom potatoes are awesome in flavor and texture.
5) When harvesting your potatoes use your hands as tools can cut and damage your spuds.
6) When planning the next harvest pick the best looking potatoes (no bruising or scars) and set them aside for next years seed potatoes.
7) Never plant your potatoes in the same spot twice, give a plot at least 4 years before you plant potatoes there again. This will virtually eliminate any potato specific diseases from being harbored in your land, learn from the Irish potato famine.

!BACON!

2012-01-22T10:39:00.000-08:00

We have finally gotten our small smoker working, it was built from an old wine barrel and placed up on some blocks to allow room for a fire. I had to drill a number of 1 1/2" holes in the roof of the barrel in order to keep the temp low enough and we added a small hole to put a meat thermometer into so we could keep an eye on the temp. To hang the meat a friends daughter Becca helped me forge out some meat hooks that fasten to the roof of the barrel and the bacon hangs freely from the hooks. The overall cost of the smoker was around $0, a broken wine barrel for free and everything else I just had laying around the homestead. I start the smoking process by building a small fire and letting it burn down to coals. While that is burning I crawl inside the barrel and hang the meat on the hooks. In the future I will be adding a door to the smoker. Once the fire has burned down to coals I pick up the barrel and place it over the fire on the blocks and then add hard wood (elm and oak) that has been soaked in water over night to the fire and let the smoking begin. I have to keep an eye on the temp as we are trying to cold smoke our bacon and so you don't want to let the temp go over about 200 deg. When the temp rises up near the 200 deg mark I throw a ladle of water on the fire to drop down the temp and slow the fire. It is not the end of the world if the temp gets up over 200 but then you risk going into a hot smoked bacon which will not keep as long according to some sources (others disagree) but is also very good.

Rosie cured the bacon in a mix of salt, honey and let it sit in that mixture for about 1-3 weeks. Our friend Lisa brought us a couple of infused honeys to try including basil infused clover honey and tarragon infused sage honey, both are very very good. Make sure the the meat is entirely cover with the cure for an even cure and don't be temped to reuse your cure as the salt will be pulled our of the cure as it cures as the moisture exits so the left over cure is pretty useless. When you are curing your meat that is the time to add any spices or herbs to flavor your bacon if you want a more savory or sweet flavor.

The image on the top is the bacon after curing but before smoking, the next image is the bacon after the smoking but before the noming.

Rain

2012-01-21T13:02:00.000-08:00

This post has been deleted due to excessive whining on my part.

The goal of our blog is to inspire people to start their own homestead however they can and take control of their food source. What I don't want to do is have people read about me complaining about things I have no control over and that in the big scheme of things just don't really matter.

Sorry for the inconvenience and as way of an apology our next post is about every one's favorite topic BACON!

Fall and Winter

2012-01-08T20:27:00.000-08:00

By this time we're normally flooded and have to go out to make sure nothing has been swept away or drowned but this year we've had nothing but cold. This is the start of the second month of freezing temps. Most nights the lows are around 32 but we've had some stretches of 20's and even some teens so that our pipes have frozen more than a few times. The crops are taking longer to germinate with these temperatures. Our wood pile is quickly shrinking and we've had to fill up the propane tank again. We've been here 2 1/2 years and I'm finding it amusing that there is no such thing as normal. What happened the first two winters has not taken place at all. We'll just have to see how things play out to see how this winter treats us.

Waste

2012-01-03T09:30:00.001-08:00

I wanted to spend a little time in this new year discussing the topic of waste. Not the waste that you throw into your garbage can nor the normal practices of waste of our modern society, I wanted to talk about waste of land. Rosie and I are working on using the entirety of our property and even with the large number of things we are doing we are really only using about 1/3 of what we have but we have plans in the works for every square inch of our property. In our neighborhood there are a lot of 1 and 2 acre parcels that consist of: A house (1/6 - 1/4 acre), a horse they don't ride (1/8 acre pen) and a whole lot of nothing else (1/2-1 acre). In general people are using about 1/3 - 1/2 of what they own and the rest is being used to keep the thistle and weed population at its current healthy level. Do these people really need 2/3 acres of drive way? Would they not be happier with a mortgage payment much lower than what they have now and a smaller property?

In some cases people have the need to own an animal such as a horse but local laws require such an animal to be housed on a property no smaller than one acre, now the animal does not have to have access to the acre there just has to be an acre some where in the vicinity so a 1/8 acre pen on an acre of land is just fine according to the law. These laws need to be changed, they do nothing for animal welfare and serve only to limit the lifestyle choices of the citizens of the local areas.

In other cases people see a larger plot of land as a status symbol and their need to own acreage stems from a misplaced idea that your possessions dictate the quality of person you are, nothing could be further from the truth. Owning 10 acres of useless land does not make you 40 times better or more important than a person who owns a 1/4 acre of urban homestead. These people have been sadly deluded by our system of copious consumerism.

So you may be asking what my point is, other than to point out how un-cool some people are. If you are interested in our own homestead you can feed a small family on 1/4 acre of land. You can feed several families on 1 acre of land and you can feed a silly number of people on 10 acres of land. Take what you have and use it, use all of it and if you find yourself in our shoes and are still trying to use all you have then open up your land to your friends and family. We are lending out plots of land to our people to use as they wish, grow a garden, raise a goat, build a beehive, compost, grow hops for brewing, start a fish pond, what ever you want to do. We have more space than we can currently use and it would be very wrong for us to keep our land fallow rather than let others develop it into something beautiful.

What do we get out of this? Well other than the obvious benefit of helping people take control of their own food source we will have extra hands on site for the bigger projects. It takes more than two people to build the dairy, and more than two people to drink the milk, eat the cheese, and nom the yogurt that comes from our dairy. Help us build the dairy and you will help us eat the cheese. If your family comes out to plant a field of grain then we can all help to grind the wheat to bake the best bread anyone has ever eaten. Community is more than where you live, it is shared labor and shared triumph, none of our families will starve while we have food on our homestead.

So the offer stands open, if you dream what we dream and want what we want come and do what we do. Share our labors and we will share our land, teach, learn, plant, harvest, raise and slaughter. We have space and if you wish you had a garden or a small farm come share yours with us and we in turn will share ours with you, there is no sense in wasting what we have.

Night time check list

2011-12-06T11:05:00.001-08:00

I was getting read for bed the other night a began to realize the our evening and night time check list is probably a little different from other people we know. Here is a sample:

1) doors and windows locked (pretty normal)
2) Goats milked
3) All animals fed (birds, goats, cats, dog, pigs, sheep, etc)
4) wood stove burning good (to keep the chill out at night)
5) extra firewood in case it is really cold at night or in the morning
6) Glasses near the bed if I need to get up at night and see things
7) Guns loaded, spear/sword ready and flashlight on had in case I need to kill anything at night.

Number 7 is the one that caught my attention and the fact that I have several guns ready depending on what I may need to kill that night, after all there is no point in using the wrong caliber/weapon is there? In the past we have had a problem with nighttime predators preying on our livestock, so my answer was to be ready to kill any beastie that was in our fence line and after my families food. Now with Zuzu here and on guard it has not been a problem but I still have everything ready just in case Zuzu needs a hand with a pesky intruder.

Life on the homestead changes your thinking in some quite fundamental ways; you think less about what you need and more about what you have on hand, the weather lets you know what you will be eating, you think ahead more than a year at a time, you spend more time enjoying what IS and less time worrying about what may be, longevity is more highly valued in everything from clothing to tools, recycling is done on the property not in the bin, cycles are not just a way of life but are life its self and as such death is part of life no matter if it is the death of a carrot, a pig or a predator trying to steal food from my family.

Hope winter is treating you all well.

Polling

2011-11-29T12:39:00.000-08:00

Polling is the act of removing horns and the ability to grow horns from an animal while it is very young. This is generally done in three ways;

1)Polling bands (very small rubber bands) are placed on the nub of the horn and inhibit horn growth, this method is not very successful as the animal will often rub the band off.

2) An electric polling wand has a heating element (similar to a car cigarette lighter) that burns the incipient horn out of the animals skull and the resulting scar tissue keeps the horns from growing back.

3) A caustic chemical solution is used to burn the horns out similar to a polling wand.

As you can guess the animal in question does not enjoy any of these methods, imagine what having a section of your skull burned off would feel like. But the main reason most people poll their animals is that in order to "show" your animals in competition, they must be polled. The secondary reason is that people think that horns make the animal more dangerous.

Rosie and I do not poll our animals, frankly I can not see any legitimate reason to poll an animal on our homestead. We have one goat who's prior owners tried to poll her with a caustic chemical and failed, as they would not be able to she show her due to this failure she was sold to us at a discount. Little Lucy AKA Unigoat is our little pure bred toggenburg female and she is the only goat on our homestead that was polled. Due to the failed polling Lucy has one stunted but straight horn and one small horn cap, about 1" long. From time to time Lucy manages to snap off this horn cap leaving an open bleeding wound on her skull that has a direct line into her sinus cavity. Recently Lucy once again snapped off this cap and bled all over the place, so far we have been lucky and she has not gotten the open wound infected but we try and keep a close eye on her while she has that injury. A failed polling will haunt an animal for the rest of its life, causing reoccurring injury and associated pain.

So why am I talking about this? Well we have a fundamental belief on our homestead that our animals should be able to live in an environment as close to the one they evolved into as we are able to provide. Our chickens run around cage free, our pigs live on pasture and our goats and sheep don't get their skulls burned open at birth. Call us crazy, but we believe that animals are pretty smart and if you let them live like they are meant to live they will be healthy. Goats use their horns for two reasons;

1) Defense
2) Temperature regulation

Goats use the vascular structure of their horns to keep their temp from fluctuating in the weather and without their horns you need to be watchful of weather extremes that could make your goats sick. Goats (and their ancestors) have been developing horns for millions (sic) of years, there is probably a pretty good reason they needed to keep that evolutionary trait. Granted that not all ruminants have horns there are some naturally polled animals and while I am not a specialist in the anatomy of herbivores I would be willing to guess that naturally polled animals have other forms of temperature regulation not found in horn-growing breeds.

Some people claim that goats with horns are too dangerous and polling is meant to keep people safe. To that I would say "What are you doing to your goats that makes them want to gore you to death?" I move among our 500-700 lbs pigs with no fear, I push apart our rams and male goats with out getting hurt, I feed our roosters and ganders by hand, this is not magic. If you raise your animals to be friendly by treating them well and showing them respect and affection then you will not need to worry about them trampling you, biting you or goring you to death on a daily basis. Really, it works, try it.

The moral of all this?

If you animals are born with a trait normal to that breed there is probably a reason and you should let them be normal. To do otherwise is cruel and flies in the face of millions of years of experience and no matter how good you are I am guessing you don't have millions of years of experience.

Daily chores

2011-11-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

As our farm year progresses our daily chores increase and change. With the kidding of our goats we now have milking duties after the morning and evening feedings. This also adds the making of butter, cheese, and yogurt. We have some kefir grains (I know Guy they are not grains but yeast.) so we'll have a home stock of kefir soon. We also slaughtered Oreo so lard making and sausage stuffing is also added to the mix. As soon as I get the plans for the smoke shed we'll start smoking bacon and the insanely huge ham we got off Oreo.
On the plus side this all adds nicely with our egg retrieval and veggie harvesting. Slowly but surely we inch our way to a more self sufficient home.

Slaughter party - Oreo

2011-11-13T20:19:00.000-08:00

Until this weekend we had only slaughtered animals who had turned into jerks, but Oreo was a fabulous pig who had completed his mission. The day started off with getting the pig drunk on a mixture of really cheap vodka and sweet grains, being that Oreo was in the neighborhood of 500lbs to 700lbs this took about a gallon of vodka. After he sucked down his liquor ration we gave everything a few moments to set in. Due to the size of Oreo we chose to use a 410 slug rather than our usual 22 caliber. The initial shot had perfect placement and was nearly point blank, unfortunately it was not a fatal shot and Jed had to reload (single shot shotgun) and fire a second shot. This follow up shot dropped him and then Jed used a large knife that he forged in his shop to slit the throat, cutting the carotid arteries and finishing the job. Neither Jed or I was happy about having to use a second shot, we don't want to have any animals suffer on our farm but at times these things happen. On the plus side Jed was able to place the second shot threw the same hole as the first shot (on a moving target from a distance, not an easy shot) limiting further damage to the carcass. Then with 5 people pulling we where able to drag the carcass onto a working platform to begin dressing the carcass. With the weight and length of Oreo there was no possibility of hanging the carcass to dress it out, we had neither the strength of material or height of tower required to hang a 700lb 9ft long pig. Dressing on the ground was not easy and given the choice we would rather hang a pig to dress them. Really it was not fun. We attempted once more to scald the pig, buy turning up our hot water heater and running a hose from the washer hot line to a hose. The temp of the water was fine and mostly did its job but we tried to use a pressure washer to do the scraping and this did not work well at all. While the pressure washer did take off the outer layer of skin it did not remove the hair so scraping was required in any case. Also our hot water tank did not have the capacity to scald an entire 700lb pig so we ran out of hot water before we could finish, over all a scalding failure. As we knew that dressing that much pork would be a huge undertaking we elected to skin the carcass and go from there. With the amazing help of our work staff; Holly, Guy, Sharron, Sam, Brigid, Melody, Crystal and Rosie's Mom we where able to part out and package the meat in around 6 hours after 4 hours of slaughter and dressing. All in all it was around a 16 hour day for Rosie and I. But we where able to power threw it in no small part by the AMAZING Birria the Rosie's mom made for every one in our work party, really if you did not make it you really missed a great meal.

I don't know the total weight of meat we got from Oreo we don't have a scale in the house that goes that high and frankly there was not time to weigh it all but we did weigh a few pieces and the lay out was as follows:

Hams : 60 lbs each
Pork Belly (bacon) : 65 lbs
Forelegs (estimate) : 40 lbs each

and an untold amount of stew meat, roasts and ribs. In the end we ran out of space in our chest freezer and our house freezer and had to send our work force home with a nice selection of cuts (they deserved it after all the work they put in!) and then I was able to lean on the door of the freezer to get it to close. In all it was an amazing day and the help of our work force was in the finest traditions of community, we literally could not have done it with out them.

Some lessons we learned:

700 lbs is way too big for a pig slaughter weight, 200 lbs would be better.

We need a meat/bone saw

Your first shot may not drop your animal be ready for follow up shot (we where, Jed always keeps a second round in his pocket for just that reason).

We need better preparation for scalding; more hot water and a better scraping method.

Make sure your vacuum sealer works before you are ready to package (thank you Sam for running to the store for us).

Just like with Macaroon, slaughtering in the rain is a real pain.

Have more buckets on hand.

Over all the day was a success and above that it was fun for all involved, our night ended with laughter and jokes and meat for every one. Thank you to all who could make it and to any who could not, we will be doing more of this in the future so while you may have missed out this fall next fall there will be more pigs to slaughter and more help needed. Oh and sorry about the changes in tense in this post both of us helped to write it. We will see about posting images from the slaughter party in the near future.

Succinct nature of our posts

2011-11-11T00:04:00.001-08:00

As you might guess, having an infant around sometimes means we have to change tasks quickly. One day our posts might actually make sense again.... and speaking of changing tasks... The overlord Ivan calls.

Front garden update

2011-11-09T21:32:00.001-08:00

We found some borer holes on part of the almond out front so we'll have to trim heavily and apply something to make the borers shove off.
My front beds are under attack by chickens and cats. My first winter bed is growing well. I've managed to transplant the garlic to the back beds and the peas seem to be coming up nicely. Now if I can only convince the cats that flinging mice into my veggie beds is not a good idea then that would help. As more of the front beds are cleared more of the chickens find their way u front to scratch thoughtlessly through my just planted beds. I have not noticed any seedlings in one of the beds so I think they ate and/or killed them. I'll just have to plant that bed over again.
Next on my list - finish picking tomatoes and summer veggies, clear beds, plant winter crops, cut old berry stems and burn them, finish throwing away the star thistle and endless weeding. Yaaay for home grown veggies and food.

New baby goats and the last of Macaroon

2011-11-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

Well the birthing is done and now Little Bugger and Unigoat both have a single male offspring. Unigoat's birthing was easy and required no intervention from us. Little Bugger had a small amount of difficulty, her kid's head was trying to come out at the same time as his feet and he got stuck. In the wild this may have resulted in death for the kid as well as the dam but here on the homestead I just pulled his feet a little and he was freed up enough to slide right out. It has been a couple of days and every one seems to be doing well. Out temps have dropped below freezing a few nights and I was a little worried about the ability of the kids to survive that low of a temp so soon after birth but every one was up and playing this morning so all is well.

Also we have used up the last of the Macaroon meat (to make room for the next pig) and while Macaroon was not much in life she was a pretty good lard pig. Modern pig breeds are intended to produce large amounts of meat with very small amounts of fat owing to our current culture of lower fat cooking and the cheap cost of corn oil. In the past certain pigs breeds where used as "larders", pigs grown for lard production. Macaroon was certinly a larder and we are still cooking with the lard we rendered on that slaughter day and we still have a shopping bag full of fat that still needs to be rendered down into lard. Our next pig will certainly have some fat on him but nowhere near the ratio that Macaroon was carrying.

Milking my goats

2011-11-07T20:10:00.001-08:00

With the babies born the goats are now giving milk. If I have helpwith the milking I'm able to get about a quart fro each goat per milking. Of course art of this goes to my morning pajarete (mexican hot chocolate - scrape mexican hot chocolate into a cup with tequilla or rum and then milk into the cup to get a hot frothy chocolate) although i use plain unsweetened chocolate instead and hold the alcohol. In any case we are still able to have enough left over to make cheese and other dairy products. We'll see how we do once we wean the goats and start harvesting all the milk the produce.

Ivan is 5 months old today

2011-11-06T20:44:00.001-08:00

Can you believe it?? He's changed so much and I'm grateful that he needs to go walk with us outside at least twice a day. That makes it so much easier. I cannot trully imagine my life without him.

Giving thanks

2011-11-05T23:12:00.000-07:00

There are many things to be grateful for this year. Yes, I'm giving thanks before Thankgiving. Thank you to all our friends, know that you are always welcome in our hearts and home. Thank you to our families for their support while expand our own. For our jobs,crops, animals, and all the miscellaneous things that make our lives special. But especially to my husband Jed, thank you love for making this life so wonderful. I look forward to writing many more stories about farmer Jed. =)

I won - Unigoat kidded first

2011-11-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

The goats are still bastards

2011-10-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

Jed expanded the pasture yesterday and the goats promptly ate the crown of the walnut and many of the lower branches of the mulberry. We're still trying to figure out a way to keep the goats from eating all our trees. I'm thinking barbed wire fence with machine guns.
In other goat news we still don't have goat babies. They are showing all signs that they will kid soon but we're not sure how soon that will be. Luckily my mom arrives tonight so I'll have help when they do show up.

Daily accomplishments

2011-10-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

I usually feel as if I am unable to accomplish much on a day to day basis, but thinking about today let me realize that we do a lot on a daily basis.

Normal continuous tasks - feeding pigs, sheepies/goaties, poultry(x2), cleaning and filling water containers,watering plants, home cooking, and Ivan laundry.
In addition, today we were able to - pick tomatoes from frozen plants, rep two beds for new seed sowing, trimmed dead branches from almond tree, pulled corn stalks to feed piggies and sheepies/goaties, planted peas, extended pasture, fed watermelons to pigs, fenced and reinforced trees in pasture, drove out to Creston for more T stakes, picked up more piggy food, cleaned out duck pool, and cleaned out patio.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but now I don't feel like such a loser. Oh, and here is a picture of some of the tomatoes we harvested today. =) We ended up having to make fried chicken and fried green tomatoes. I must say that the fried green tomatoes were particularly tasty.

Cornish Pasties

2011-10-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

Jed grew up in the Nevada City area and so we are required to go out to pasties whenever we visit. But sometimes we just need pasties. We just found out about a place in SLO but we're not sure where they got their recipe from because it tasted nothing like any pasties we've tried before. So we did some research and tried out a new recipe we thought would work. It goes as follows:

Pre-heat oven to 450 f.

Filling:
2 lbs Beef rump roast cubed tiny or ground
1 large potato cubed tiny
1 large onion cubed tiny
1 med turnip cubed tiny
1 small handful of shredded carrots
1 handful of chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

combine all ingredients - ta da.

Dough:
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 large spoonful lard
1/2 cup cold butter
water

Cut lard and butter into flour and baking powder until all bits are the size of peas or smaller. Add a little bit of water then fold flour mixture until it is a firm dough. Roll out a portion of your dough and cut out 5-7inch rounds. Fill half with filling and then wet edge and fold. Crimp with fork to assure closure. Cut out a little vent hole. Brush with milk then place into preheated oven for 10 min. Lower temp to 350 and bake for another 35 min. Bring out and let cool. Serve with malt vinegar.

Planting garlic

2011-10-29T22:29:00.000-07:00

We were able to plant one bed of garlic today. After planting the first bed I realized that I don't have nearly as much space as I need to plant the 8lbs of garlic. We picked up some Spanish Roja, an early California softneck, a purple, and some misc garlic left over from last year. If we do manage to get the optimum return on our garlic we should end up with something like 80lbs of garlic next year. If we're very lucky we might have it ready to pick next summer and be able to save up 10lbs for a harvest of 100lbs the following year. And bringing it back to the present, I was able to plant one bed and then I had to go in because Ivan was hungry. I was able to go back outside a little while later and a good thing I did because the chickens had already unearthed a couple of my cloves of garlic. I covered the whole bed with a couple inches of straw, watered the bed, and then covered it so that the chickens won't have the opportunity to scratch. We'll see when I can finish planting the garlic so that I can move on to shallots, onions, and leeks.
We did some calculations on our alum consumption this year and I think we eat about 300lbs of onions, about 100lbs to 15o of garlic, about 7lbs of shallots and about 10lbs of leeks. The shallots and leeks have low numbers mostly because we do not have ample access to these delicious cousins of the garlic and onion. We were going to grow a bunch to see if we do end up consuming more.

Preparing for ...

2011-10-28T23:08:00.000-07:00

Many things actually. We hope to raise the frame for the goat hall tomorrow. And we have a long list of things we would like to get to fairly soon. I would like to build my milking stand, as well as a movable coop so that I can completely destroy the two "coops" we currently have. Also on this list is the new weatherproofing of the base to the bread oven with a new means to keep the weather off the actual oven. Jed just started the base for the fogon and we're looking into building something to go over it so that we can smoke some of Oreo. And speaking of Oreo, as we've never slaughtered/butchered anything as big as him we're going to have to prepare a working area for him. And, and, and... I'm not sure what it will look like to actually have our infrastructure all set up (I hope it doesn't hurt too much) but I think it might be a nice thing to just be working on daily chores rather than constructing everything from scratch. Catch me again in 5 years to see how we're doing.

Insanely efficient

2011-10-27T22:52:00.000-07:00

If your home gets cold when it freezes and you need something that is insanely efficient I would highly recommend a wood burning stove. We picked up our Morso shortly after we purchased our home and found out that our fireplace was a lookin' fireplace rather than a functional one. The Morso 2B is supposed to heat a max of 1200 sq ft but it heats our 1400+ sq ft home very well. As I said yesterday, it froze last night so I started a fire (while breastfeeding no less - thank you Jed and Aaron for those fire starting lessons!!) threw in a couple of pine logs, let it catch, then turned it down. I added a couple more this morning around 10am to keep the fire going. And to add to the awesomeness I just threw in a couple more logs and once again I started them with the coals from this morning's fire. When we returned this evening from visiting my little sister the house was at 70 degrees while the outside temp was in the 50s. Oh yeah, and you can cook on it as well and to make it uber awesome, the state of California is doing a tax rebate if you buy/install one as well as the fed, and if you're really lucky your county will be running a promotion as well. That is how Jed and I got a our stove for about a third of the original price. =) I loves me my Morso.

Homesteading with a baby

2011-10-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

I have a baby asleep in my arms as I type this. To tell the truth, homesteading is hard to begin with and it gets a whole lot harder when you add a baby. There are things that need to get done even if it's just me alone with Ivan. The animals still need to be fed and watered, the trees and plants still need to be irrigated, eggs need to be picked up, pregnant animals still need to be checked on, as well as normal chores like cooking and cleaning. There are also many projects that are in the works. Luckily, I've just started carrying the little guy in a hiking backpack baby carrier that frees up both my hands. Before I would have to do everything with one arm and have Ivan in the other. It was difficult, but things still need to get done.
And to add to all this...it's supposed to freeze tonight. What does this mean? It means I can now plant all the garlic and onions, it means I have to worry about water freezing the pipes or the animals no being warm enough, it means I have to have a fire going in the wood burning stove, I need to go out tonight while Ivan is asleep to cover the citrus, and to figure out a way to do all this and more while taking care of Ivan and making sure he is warm and protected.
I love my little guy, more than life itself, especially when he periodically cracks up in his sleep while I type, but he does seem to add a whole new level of complexity to trying to be self sufficient. I don't know how women of the past managed, but they have my admiration.

Still waiting on the baby goats

2011-10-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

I was able to see the baby goats move on both Lucy and Bugger. To tell the truth it looked a bit creepy. You see little hooves move around on their sides and it just looks... creepy. We're all anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new little goats. I feel a little bad because I see them walk around slowly and I know exactly how they feel.

In other news, we're still working on the goat hall. My mom is back in MX, which makes working on the farm that much more difficult with the little Ivan man. Luckily, we just discovered today that he travels well in the hiking back baby carrier so I'll be using that a lot more. I was able to climb over the fence to feed the goats with the little guy on my back.

Oh, and Mr. Pee-pee face next door keeps going and hanging out with my girls (on his side of the fence) and it's really annoying me. I know I should be glad I have access to a buck for free but he just freakin stinks and I'm afraid that my milk will taste like that too. Bastard goat!!! You better not taint the taste of my milk.

Goats need a Saxon hall

2011-10-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

Our girls (Bugger and Lucy) are both very pregnant. Bugger seems to be carrying twins while Lucy seems to be carrying just one. The sheepies are also looking pretty big but the goats seem to be the only ones who will let me milk them. The goats have figured out that when I come out with my bucket that it is time for them to get grain. This leads to an easy walk to our makeshift milking shed to get them used to going in there twice a day to get milked. Since they are pregnant we are just inspecting them and petting them while they eat their oats.

The makeshift shed is all right, but we're thinking about something a bit more permanent. Jed has started work on the goat hall and is done with all the cutting into the boards. We should be putting up the frame soon. That makes it a bit more exciting as we'll have a place for them to get out of the sun, to go get milked, and to protect them from the wind and the rain. We'll have to section off an area to put their food in so that they don't get in and eat it as well as a designated milking area. It's exciting to start the medieval village in the back and to set up the much needed milking shed/shelter that the animals need. We'll see how far along we get before the babies arrive.

Tomato harvest for today

2011-10-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

I think the picture speaks for itself. Tomatoes galore and homemade apple juice. =) I like Autumn and harvest time.

Just out of curiosity..

2011-10-12T23:08:00.000-07:00

How much would you pay for:

Pork that was primarily raised on organic veggies on a pasture setting?
Goat, beef, and lamb that were raised on their mother's milk with constant access to grass, hay, and alfalfa as well as veggies?
Free range chickens, ducks, turkeys, or geese?

Would you object to the farmer adding the cost of slaughtering on to the fee?
Would it seem reasonable to wave that fee if you were to help with the processing?

If you knew your meat was not coming from an FDA inspected facility but you knew the farmer, would you still participate?

Apple pie

2011-10-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here is the recipe for our apple pie:

For crust:
3 cups of flour
1 cup of cold butter (you can also use lard but do not use margarine)
cold water to appropriate consistency

Place butter and flour in a bowl. Using two butter knives (or a pastry cutter) cut the cold butter into your flour until it looks all crumbly. Try not to have any of your butter/lard pieces bigger than the size of a pea. Add a little cold water and start pressing down to form layers. As the flour blends bring up flour from the sides and the bottom to press down. Continue until the consistency is hard but blended. You do not want it to be wet or soft. If the butter/lard is getting warm place it back into the fridge and prepare your apples.

For filling:
4-5 good sized apples (enough to fill your pie pan) - firm and not mushy but not unripe
honey
cinnamon
ginger
nutmeg
mace

Peal, core, and thinly slice apples. Place apples in a small dish to marinate with other ingredients. Add honey (I add enough to coat all the apple pieces) and as much or as little of all spices. My normal quantity is more of cinnamon (about 1 tbsp), a little less of ginger (about 1 tsp), a little less of nutmeg (about 1/4 tsp), and just a sprinkle of mace. Cover and set aside to finish preparing pie crust.

Bring out your pie pan and preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Split dough in half and roll out first half on a floured surface. Make the crust big enough to cover all of the bottom of the pan and still have about a half an inch draping over the sides. You can do this by rolling out a large section, placing it in pie pan, and then cutting off any excess. Place your filling ingredients into your pie pan. Roll out the second half of the dough so that it covers the top of pie with another inch hanging over the sides. Again, you can do this by making it a little bigger then cutting it off to fit. Take the extra inch and tuck it into the pie pan so that your folding it in over the bottom crust. Once all of the crust is tucked in (it should be a little mounded along the whole outer edge) take your thumb and first finger of your left hand and the first knuckle of your right hand to seal the crusts together and the make a shaped edge. (place your first finger and your thumb of your left hand on your right first finger knuckle to make a <) Once edge is sealed make four cuts on your crust to let the excess bubble out. Add any decorations you would like to your crust using the left over crust.

Place in oven and bake until the crust starts to brown on top. Once it starts to brown lower the temp to 350 and bake for another 35 mins. Take out your pie and let cool. And then... enjoy!

Intro for our ram - Casanunda

2011-10-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

We've been thinking about breeding our sheep for a while since we like the thought of mutton and the wool is awesome (even though Ivan hasn't given me enough time to actually start processing it). Well, I found a 4 month old Shetland ram on craigslist for a very reasonable price so I went to go pick him up. The thing is... he's Shetland which is one of the smallest breeds. Mind you they are endangered and they are a heritage breed so we thought it was a win for us to help the species on a bit. Well, when I brought him home my first thought was... I'm going to need a step ladder for him. Really, he is that short. About 1/2 the height of the other sheep, granted that he is not full grown yet but if he does not put on few inches the other sheep will have to start laying down to breed. On the plus side he has a calm demeanor nice wool and cool black curly horns. Due to his short stature and his adoring affection he showers on the sheep we decided to call him Casanunda, after the dwarf character from Pratchett. If you are a disc world fan you will understand. So with any luck (and perhaps a step ladder) we will have some baby lambs running around the farm in the near future.

Welcome surprise - watermelons

2011-10-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

It turns out that watermelons love Paso summers. We had moon and star watermelons in the front and volunteers in the back that covered a whole great big area, gave us tons of watermelons and helped improve the soil. We'll be doing that again next year to have tons of nummy watermelons for the whole summer.

Front yard harvest

2011-10-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

As with last year, our front yard was able to produce a lot more than was allowed in our back yard. This year we were able to get a ton of cucumbers (Armenian and green), watermelons, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, bell peppers, different types of chiles, a dozen apples(there wasn't supposed to be any... I tried to cut them all off so that the tree could just grow this year), lots of black raspberries that I didn't get to can because I kept eating them, a bunch of grapes, tons of artichokes and asparagus and some other things... now that I look back on it, we actually did pretty good. I was starting to feel like a failure for not being able to plant out as much as I wanted... but I guess we actually did pretty well.

We also have corn that is ripening and some eggplant coming in. Zucchini is also coming in and some of the beans survived the great bunny devastation. We've harvested basil for pesto and herbs for cooking.

On the possibility of baby goats

2011-10-03T11:50:00.001-07:00

We bred Bugger to Mr. Pee-pee face in late spring/early summer. At first she seemed to be carrying, but then it looked as if she wasn't so we just assumed that she wasn't pregnant. But as Jed and I noticed yesterday, her utters seemed to have elongated and her milk ducts seem to be filling in. Sooo, our little girl might be pregnant and she might be getting to deliver some time soon. If so, that means milk (Yaaay! even though I would be unable to drink any due to Ivan.) and more baby goats. We haven't noticed any difference in Uni-goat so we'll see if we might just have to get her bred again. And as an update for those who don't get to visit often. Here is the update on our goats: Big goat - eaten, Ramses - eaten, Rosie - donated to neighbors for letting us breed our goats to their Mr. Pee-pee face, Bugger - still on the homestead and possibly pregnant, and Uni-goat (previously Lucy) who is probably not pregnant but who we hope to breed soon. We've also decided that we wish to keep our number of goats on the property pretty low as they have a tendency to be the most destructive to our plant life. So we'll be keeping our number down to 2 does, depending on how much milk they give us.

Homemade pectin

2011-10-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

I was able to pick a lot of unripe apples from my brother's trees during their early drop. These apples are great for making home pectin for when all the fruits are ready to be canned. Here is a recipe for making homemade pectin.

For pectin:
Ingredients:
Unripe apples

Take your unripe apples and quarter them. Make sure there aren't any worms or borers in your fruit. You don't need to wash them if they were in a good environment. If you're not sure what kind of an environment they were in I would suggest your at least rinse them. Place in pot and add water until it is about 1 inch from the top of the apples. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, bring it down to a simmer and let cook until the meat of the apples is separating from the skins. Let cool completely, then mash. Put through a strainer or use a towel. Squeeze most of the meat out as you need the liquid and the meat.

Just make sure that your liquid is cloudy and you now have pectin. Store in a container in the fridge or use.

LET MY PIGGIES GO!!!!!!

2011-09-05T15:02:00.001-07:00

Said Piggy Moses to Farmer Pharaoh....

Anyway....

I read recently from someone that animals on a farm can not be happy because they are not in the wild.

Now let me say I agree with this 100%!
I have included a picture of two of our pigs to prove this point.

Now let me point out the bigger pig (Digger) notice the rolls of fat under her chin and behind her leg, obviously a condition relating to her chronic starvation and cruelly high level of stress. I mean seriously, how long can one pig stand to spend her days eating, sleeping and lounging in her mud wallow?!

Now on to our next image of animal cruelty, the little pig (Squeaker AKA Little Squeaks). Don't let her napping fool you, that one cocked ear is always on guard for the cruel farmer coming to unfairly load food into her trough or even (dare I say it?!) scratch her on the back and behind the ears. Note the piggy smile on her face, this smile comes from the satisfaction of knowing that someday in the piggy afterlife her sadist masters will have to answer for their abominable crimes and suffer the endless torments of piggy hell.

Sarcasm off.

I hope I have made my point, saying that animals can only be happy in the wild is like saying that humans (also animals) can only be happy living half way to starvation in caves and running from leopards while dying of infection (our natural state). There is nothing wrong with animals in the wild, but to idealize "The Wild" as some sort of non-stop animal nirvana is the utmost of ignorance. Living in "The Wild" means a harsh, short, painful life of kill or be killed and that is why humans (as I said before, also animals) live in houses and cultivate our own food. The animals on our farm have the opportunity to benefit from our civilization; they receive more food than they would in the wild, better housing, better medical care, no predators and more often than not an opportunity to pass on their DNA.....Jeeze farm life is tough for our animals.

We value our animals as part of our family and as such give them every opportunity to live the happiest life we can give them. If you doubt our animals are happy and content, I would invite you over to the farm to see for your self. Granted you may get bowled over by the friendly 200lb dog, mobbed by the turkeys looking for a snack, charged by goats looking for a little petting, savaged by pigs who want a back scratch, or have your shoulder ravaged by a chicken hopping up on it to see what you are doing. But if you have the fortitude to stand all that, we will pour you a glass of home brew, fire up the BBQ and the bread oven and you can spend all day trying to find the unhappy animals. Ya.... Good luck with that.....

Crop failure 2011

2011-08-31T19:42:00.000-07:00

It seems as if every year we manage to have one crop that totally flops or just gets ruined. Last year our poor trees kept on getting nommed, this year - our potatoes.

I planted three different types of potatoes in the front (one of which was the purple viking) and we were able to get those to produce some but that all came to a tragic end when the uppity bunnies decided to eat my plants and the cats decided to try to use the raised potatoes as a kitty litter and dig up my potatoes. So in an effort to save those we dug them up and we got a small harvest of about maybe 7lbs of potatoes from just 3 lbs. So not a good return, but we saved some of those that we harvested to plant for next season.

In the back we planted 4 different types of potatoes with zero return because the poultry all decided that they just had to eat our potatoes. We had also planted some organic sweet potatoes. About all that they all managed to do was sprout, get mounded up once before the birds all descended on them and left nothing but open trenches where potatoes used to be.

I did have some non-organic sweet potatoes sprout in the drawer. I planted those in the front yard and they seem to be growing well. We'll see if we get any by the time the cool weather really sets in. Hopefully next year will prove better for our potatoes.

Granola Recipe

2011-08-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

One of our most valued foods at our homestead is granola. We make it in big batches but we never seem to make enough. Since we eat so much of it we're going to have produce all the items needed for it. So far we are growing most but we still have a way to go but we're getting there. There are many different granola recipes but here is mine.

Pre-heat oven to 275 degrees

Mix in a large container -
Two bins of old fashioned oats
1/2 lb each of rolled wheat, rye, and spelt (or bag of mixed rolled grains)
1/2 lb of almonds
1/2 lb of pecans
sesame seeds
dried coconut
(any other seeds or dried ingredients you would like to add)
some of the following: cinnamon, dried ginger, and nutmeg.

In a smaller bowl-
Add about 3-4 cups of your dry mix
pour 1/3 cup honey (more will give you granola bar consistency)on dry ingredients
pour 1tsp vanilla on honey

Using a plastic mixing spatula mix all ingredients then evenly distribute on cookie sheet or a flat cooking pan.

Put in oven for 15 min. Mix to evenly toast and put in for another 15 min.Once cool add raisins and sultanas (or any other dried fruit) and your all set. Enjoy!

Seasons

2011-08-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

I was standing in our kitchen pickling a few pounds of our outrageous cucumber harvest (Armenian and standard green) and while I was writing the date on pieces of tape to affix to the tops of the jars I began to realize that it is only 4 months till Xmas. Not that big of a deal for most people I guess but for us on the homestead the coming of winter changes the tempo of our days and heralds in a new set of tasks. Some of the things we need to start getting in line;

Make sure there is enough wood seasoned/cut/stacked to keep the house warm as we use a wood burning stove to keep our house heated.

Start the canning, pickling and preserving of anything that will not be eaten in the next few months.

Keep an eye on the gardens and harvest anything that will be ruined by an early freeze.

Pick out what animals will be slaughtered for food this winter.

Prepare new garden plots and figure out the layout for the winter fruits and vegetables.

Fix any house items that need to be taken care of before the rain and the cold start (insulation, concrete, well, chimney)

Fix any farm items that need to be addressed before the rain and the cold set in (animal shelters, stream and pond maintenance, fencing)

Make sure we have what we need inside the house for a good winter, lay down our thick carpets, bring out the warmer blankets, wash and clean our outdoor winter work clothing.

Lay down a new batch of cider and mead for long winter nights/parties.

The list goes on and on but with each season comes new tasks and with the new tasks come new joys. We have come to enjoy each of our seasons; the heat of Summer that helps you nap threw the hottest part of the day and the warm lazy nights, the crispness of Fall with the dropping of the leaves and harvest of the pumpkins, the cold freezes of winter and sitting in front of a warm fire on a dark night with stew cooking on the wood burning stove, the explosion of life in spring with the down pouring rain and thick green grasses and all the hilarity of the new born animals learning how to run and play. Each season has its own jobs dictated to us by the needs of a lifestyle that rolls with the changing of the plants, animals, weather and the land. We strive not to fight the seasons with central air and food shipped from afar but to adapt to the season and enjoy the gifts each one brings.

On the other hand........ I hate being cold, the mud drives me crazy, when the stream floods and I get water in my boots I want to curse. And let me tell you you don't know fun until you are up BEFORE DAWN in temps firmly in the lower teens to break the ice on the animal waters and do the morning feeding. Oh and did I mention the thrills of lighting wet firewood in the stove when it is so cold you can barely feel your fingers? Ah and lets not forget the joys of frozen water pipes (no shower, no coffee, no indoor plumbing) before you head off to work. Ya.... Winter.... Just dandy......

Making Mistakes...... AND learning from them

2011-07-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

Rosie and I where having a conversation about our trials and tribulations on the homestead and we wanted to shatter some ideas people have about how awesome we are.

Rosie and I learn a lot by trial and error, OK mostly by error. While we may give the impression to the unenlightened that we are akin to homesteading gods and we need merely wave our dirt stained hands to cause mead and cider to flow from the rocks and manna to fall from heaven in the form of delicious goat and pig meat. In reality we screw up just about every project attempt. But in doing so we learn what works and what does not work, our success are built on the smoking ruins of our failures. If you are thinking about starting a little homestead or just trying to take more control of your food source I hope you are able to learn from our mistakes and emulate our victories. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake, even a really big one, as long as you are willing to learn from that experience and keep working at the tasks ahead.

Here are some of the lessons we have learned:

1) Goats are bastards, they would rather eat your new trees than all the weeds in the world.

2) Build the fence THEN bring home the animals. Lest the animals smash threw the temporary housing and lay waste Visigoth style to your homestead before you are able to build them a cute little chicken/goat/pig/sheep/duck house.

3) If it may go bad, it WILL go bad. Plan accordingly.

4) You will never know what can or can not grown on your land until you dig a hole and plant the seeds yourself and see what happens.

5) The best lazy garden is made by pigs; they do all the digging, composting, ferilizing, and planting themselves.

6) It is NEVER too late in the season or in life to start a garden.

7) Rack off your home brew at least twice before bottling.

8) Rabbits are jerks and eat your garden but are delicious breaded and fried along side mashed potatoes and collared greens.

9) No matter how abused your trees or shrubs are, with a little care they can be brought back

10) There will ALWAYS be more to do, take a little time out to relax.

There is nothing wrong with making a mistake or doing something badly at first, the only way to never fail is to never try.

Goat meat

2011-07-24T21:15:00.000-07:00

Goat meat has recently become somewhat of a staple of our diet here on the homestead and I am frequently asked "What does goat taste like?"

Well goat tastes like ...um.... Goat.

Here we use the highest quality goat meat from organic, free range, happy goats (yes, happy changes the flavor). If you look to the image on the left you can see the meat is a dark red color due to the goats getting exercise outdoors and living as goats should live. The meat is well marbled and quite tender and moist. Goat has a distinct and very pleasant flavor. If I had to describe it I would say that is it like a mild and tender venison. There is a good meaty flavor without the strong "wild" or gamey flavor deer often gets. Also due to the sedate lives our goats live the meat is very tender. Our goats run and play for their exercise and unlike deer, our goats never need to run for their lives and they always have enough to eat.

The goat in this image was used for a Muslim style yellow curry served over rice. Be sad you missed it.

Rural Culture on the Homestead

2011-07-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

I wanted to talk a little about the misconception of rural culture and life on our little farm . There is frequently a perception that farm life requires you to be a slack-jawed, hay-chewing, redneck, inbred, quasi-idiot, this is far from the truth. At our homestead culture abounds, there is no country music playing 24-7, there are no velvet paintings, deer antlers and mounted heads do not feature heavily in our house and we have yet to paint a mural of a bald eagle an American flag or a cowboy.

So what do we have? Simple decorations fowling the precepts of feng shui. Books feature heavily in every room, and plants help keep the air calm. At our last slaughter party after the day of work we served tea in the middle eastern fashion alongside home brewed cider and mead and had a discussion on the utopian/dystopian cultures fetured in books such as 1984, Brave New World and Ferinheight 451. Not exactly a beer swilling redneck ho-down.

People will be drawn to the culture that speaks most strongly to them and here we cultivate a culture of respect and intelligence. While we may describe ourselves as "Redneck-geek-hippies" it would be a gross mistake to define ourselves or our people that way. So for those who do not know us well or those who just happen to stumble into our company; Any one can be a modern homesteader, all you really need is respect for yourself, a love for others and a desire to live the best life possible.

Of course a good pair of boots helps too.

Goats VS Pigs

2011-07-07T20:16:00.000-07:00

The other week we had another slaughter party, this time we slaughtered a goat who had started to become too aggressive with the other animals and with some people as well. We are really getting a pretty good system going for our slaughters and the entire process is becoming quicker and quicker, here is a quick out line:

We bring the animal from the pen and over to the slaughter area. We try and remove any stressful possibility's from the slaughter area as a calm animal is far easier to deal with. The animal is restrained either with alcohol for a pig or by holding the horns for a goat. Then we use a .22 magnum round point blank to the head to drop the animal instantly. Then I use a good sharp knife to slash the throat and allow the blood to drain. If you cut the throat quickly after the killing the animals hear is still beating and the bleeding is very fast. You need to watch out for some postmortem neurological activity (generally expressed by kicking) as the hooves of both pigs and goats can slice you pretty bad. Then we hang the carcass on some hooks and begin to dress and split the body. After than the two halves are brought into the kitchen and we butcher the carcass into cuts of meat.

This last week the entire process from start to freezer took about 2 hours for one good sized goat with three people working.

I wanted to do a little comparison between goats and pigs from the point of view of a modern homesteader.

Lets start with the goats, Goats are herbivorous ruminants (plant eaters who chew their cud) who can and will eat nearly anything that they can get to. If you have a good large pasture of mixed plants a small herd of goats will clear it in just a few days or weeks. The goats will eat everything down to the nub and turn your brambles and bushes into desert. In fact in Africa goats are referred to as "Desert Makers" because they will eat and kill all plant life in the immediate area. Goats will not only eat grasses and bushes but they will chew the bark off of adult trees and kill the trees, if confined in too small a space goats are very destructive. Goats do need a good variety of plants to eat to maintain a healthy diet, most goat breeds will not do well on just grass, they need shrubs, bushes and trees to eat as well. On the plus side goats are not very picky about what they eat so they eat everything. Goats also produce good quality milk, meat and generally produce offspring with no difficulty. Goat hides can produce some very nice leather. Goats are also quite easy to slaughter, producing a nice lean meat.

Pigs are true omnivores, they will eat veg, meat and unlike humans, grasses. Pigs are easy to feed as they will eat nearly anything and much of human history has been fueled by the eating of pork fed off of the cast of food of people. Pigs can be destructive but unlike goats they will not eat everything they will just "play" with it, until it breaks so keep your pigs penned up. Pigs are a little more difficult to slaughter than as goat as a pig has a lot more fat on it than a goat and that fat needs to be rendered down into lard for cooking and/or burning as a fuel. Pigs require less space than a goat and will produce more meat with less food than a goat. Pigs also will get much bigger than any goat and this is something to keep in mind for slaughtering, a big goat may weigh 100lbs where as a big pig can weigh up to 800lbs. I could slaughter a big goat without help if necessary but there is simply no way for one person to process a big pig alone. Pigs also breed faster than goats and this can be very important if you plan on providing all your own food. Pig can give a littler of 10-20 piglets twice a year, where as a goat will kid up to two kids once a year. If you are not careful you can find your self up to your eyeballs in pigs in no time. Pig meat can be well marbled and takes to smoking and brining better than goat meat and thus can be stored longer.

Over all I lean more toward pigs for the modern homesteader, the take more work but they provide a disproportionately larger pay off than a goat. More work but more meat and easier to feed. Pigs can also be raised in much smaller places than goats as pigs to not need to graze to maintain healthy weight. When you look to history (with the exception of Muslim and Jewish cultures) pigs played a bigger roll in the production of food than goats. While the production of milk from a herd of goats can not be minimized you may get better production from a single dairy cow and have less impact on your pasture than a herd of goats.

If you are thinking about a pig or two let me give you a few pointers. If you can choose between a pure bred pig and a mutt go with the mutt every time. Mutts will be cheaper and easier to raise, pure breeds tend to be too inbred and loose some of their health and vitality through poor genetics. Also avoid any pig that is light colored, pigs can get awful sunburns if they have white or pink skin so stick to blacks/browns/reds. Stay away from potbelly pigs, they will get just a big as any other pig and with their short legs they have trouble keeping warm and dry in the winter. This sounds silly but be nice to your pig, feed them by hand when they are little and maybe even sit in the pen with your piglets and read a book every once in a while. Socializing your pigs from a young age will make them more friendly and safer to be around, it will also make slaughter time quicker as the pigs will not be jumpy when your are around and a relaxed pig is easier and quicker to kill. A quick kill is a more professional kill and a more humane kill.

Hope to see some of you at the next slaughter party.

More house bacon

2011-06-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

So the other morning I was cooking breakfast for every one and pulled out a new package of our house bacon and was pleasantly surprised with it. Now granted that I really screwed up the ratio of salt to meat in our brine (our smoke house is not built yet) to this stuff is pretty salty but I wanted to show every one what real bacon should look like. Now notice the wide strip of marbled meat in the middle of the bacon, not a dyed red strip (most meat gets sprayed with a food dye during packaging to make it look more appetizing) with the nice thick fatty coating. Real Bacon. One of the misconseptions about pork that has been perpetuated by the industrial meat companies is that pork is "The Other White Meat". Well here is a bombshell for you;

Pork is not a white meat

Let me be more specific; happy pigs who live in the outdoors running around and eating good food and living like pigs have evolved to live do not give white meat. White pork comes from cruelly raised, malnourished, pigs who live a life not too unlike that of a WWII concentration camp prisoner, that kind of pig gives a white meat. When I cut into a pork shoulder from my pigs it has a rich red color most people would mistake for beef, it is also well marbled and has a distinct rich flavor along with a firm texture. Now compare that to a factory pork shoulder that is pale pink or white with a slimy feel and no flavor at all, in fact you have to cover it in spices and sauces to make it palatable at all. What would you rather eat?

Want to raise your own pigs? Pigs are pretty easy once you have the right pen set up (see our posts about the pigs of evil). Pigs will eat nearly anything, they are true omnivores and will eat veggies, meat, and grasses. And pigs don't take up much room, we are raising our three pigs in a pen that measures 48ft X 32ft and that is about 2-3 times bigger than what they really need. We use our pigs as plows and composters, we move their pen onto land we want to plant and allow the pigs to churn up the soil, stamp in the plant matter and mix their manure with everything. After a few months our pig pen is ready to be turned into a garden. If you are a budding homesteader it would be well worth your time to look into raising some pigs, a couple of weaned baby pigs wont run you much and are pretty fun to watch and latter they are delicious to eat. Not to mention that a couple of pigs will cut your garbage in half as they will eat all the trimmings from your kitchen and all the leftovers that you would otherwise throw out. So really, pigs... Think about it.

Busy Busy Busy

2011-06-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry we have not posted in a few weeks, on 6/6/11 Rosie gave birth to our Son, Ivan Clyde Depew. So we have been up to our eyeballs in work around here. Not only do we have all the new tasks of raising our first child but the farm does not go on pause when you are busy with other things. One person feeds and hold Ivan while the other builds fences, feeds livestock, plants, harvest, waters, digs, and maintains the farm. But all is good, Rosie is doing very well and so is Ivan.

Zoozoo

2011-06-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

Well, the big dog showed up and is with us. He's a dog version of McGee in that he loves to be lazy and just lounge around. The down side to that is that we lost another dozen chickens and 2 turkeys. We're working with his owner to figure out what we can do to make him see the poultry as his to protect.

One thing we've noticed is that Einstein the goose will not let him get near that area but she will not protect the chickens either, so unfortunately we've asked her owner to come pick her up so that we can have Zoozoo protect that livestock that needs protecting.

All in all, he's a big lovey and Jed likes him. Zoozoo has a tendency to give me the sad puppy face because I don't let him get away with what he knows he should not be doing. I think he's just training me for the kid.

Nesting and thoughts on clutter

2011-06-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

Our roommate just moved out because the baby is just around the corner. This means I have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off so that I can get everything ready. My mom is set to join us at the end of the week. Jed and I were able to get to the baby room last week, which meant we have not had the chance to spend all the time we would like with the garden, livestock, and repair work.

I was able to change this a little today since I was able to get a hold of a guy who picks up scrap metal for free. He came out and picked up the old pressure tank, all the old sink curly cues, and the scrap metal from our roommate's projects. It was nice just to get all that stuff out of the back. I told him I would call him back when we clean the garage.

A ton of things were also posted on Freecycle. Tomorrow we should have most of the things posted removed from our home. Yaaay! I keep thinking of more things to add to it and it's amazing that there are so many people out there that can use it. I love it! If you haven't heard of Freecycle go onto Yahoo and look up your local group. You post things that you're offering and things you want and people will get a hold of you. It helps you and it keeps things from just taking up space in landfills.

When we were living in Morro Bay we decided that if we have not touched of thought of an object for 2 years then we're obviously not using it and can hand it off to someone else or just get rid of it. We were able to de-clutter our home very well that way. We did that before we moved out and before we moved into our home. It's going to be 2 years again and we're getting to that point again. One of the things I would like to chance is to change how I work on projects. We have a tendency to accumulate fabric and although there are projects that I cannot get to at the moment I hate the thought of hording for the sake of having it. I plan on having a mad sewing workshop (if any of you are interested feel free to get a hold of me) to get as much fabric out of the house, whether that be as new outfits for Jed, myself, the baby, clothing for our friends, or just as loaner gear for our new people. I've allotted a smaller area for fabric and our stash cannot go beyond that point. I hope this helps keep our detritus under control. The same will apply to other crafts. If I have multiples of things and don't need them then I will gladly pass them on to someone who would like to learn or who can use it.

Sometimes it's hard to get into that mindframe, but I hope that this helps the house feel more like home. Now that we have the library back we're looking into ways to combine the craft room and the library and use the space to our advantage. We'll see how that goes and where my mom would like to stay. =)

Bees

2011-05-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

Our backyard bees are all set up, but Jed noticed another set of bees set up in a new location. He called me one day and asked me to come look at what he was seeing. What he was seeing was a bunch of bees coming in and out of the bottom hole of a clay pot. The pot was turned over so that only the drainage hole was showing at the top and that is where they decided to make a colony. We've decided to leave them in their new home so that brings us up to 3 hives on our property. =) I'll see about taking pictures when I can.

Chickies

2011-05-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

As always, when it gets busy we have a tendency not to post as much. Although in a perfect world, the busier we were the more we should post to keep up with what we're doing.

Well, the last chickie count was 10 inside and 3 outside. Then the Sumatra hatched out her chicks which moved the count to 23 inside and 3 outside. We had one chick get trampled by the rest (we have them in two separate brooders) and so we had to separate him and try to bring him back to full health. That was working but in the mean time the mama Sumatra was dragging her chicks all over the place and had one injured chick. We called him Rolly and brought him in. Tended to his wounds and had him sleep and eat as much as he wanted. Melody called the trampled chick Derp, so that stuck. Unfortunately, Derp ended up passing one night, so although he looked as if he was getting better he was not able to get over all the trauma caused by it.

And after chasing chicks all around the baby room I asked one of our neighbor if he still wanted chicks and as soon as he said yes I came back in the house and grabbed all the polish chicks I could find and the smaller ones and brought 6 chicks in a box to him. Rolly did go with this group since most of his energy had gone into healing and not into growing. We'll see how he does.

On to sad news - there is a Giant that has sat on her nest for a while and I keep finding dead babies. I'm not sure what is causing it as I've never seen anything like it. I'm going to ask some of our local farmers as well as some of our online community to see what they think. The same thing happened to the geese. All the babies were dead in the eggs. They were fully developed, but not alive. Depressing, but we'll see what we can do for next year.

Chickie count

2011-05-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

We now have 10 indoor chicks with the 3 indoor poults. I saw 3 baby chicks with the geese today and I heard one other outside that I was unable to find. Though I will look for it tomorrow. If the turkeys and the geese keep hatching out chickens we'll probably never have an issue with raising our own... now if we can only convince them to hatch their own.

Our fearless huntress

2011-05-05T11:15:00.001-07:00

Trouble is very good at catching prey. In fact, the other night I heard a loud thunk when she climbed in through the screen door and then some crunching, which made me ask Jed to see what she was feeding on. It turns out that she had killed a gopher, climbed the screen door with it in her mouth and then brought it in to feast on right in our entry way. The only thing of note on this is that the gopher was as big if not bigger than her. So how was she able to climb with a gopher in her mouth and then fling it in between the loose screen and the door? I have no clue but she was having a blast and munching away. We ended up having to warn Aaron about the blood stain on the entry way.

I've also found mice that she's brought in to eat. I think Calvin did a great job of teaching her how to hunt. Now if we could only get her to bring down a coyote or a fox.

Chickens and baby chicks

2011-05-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

Last time I posted about our sumatra she had 3 chicks, well the coyotes struck and ended up eating not only her babies but her as well. That has left us a little peeved, but at least some of our other birds are broody.

On Tuesday night we took the piggies their food after fighter practice and heard some baby chirping. We walked over to the old coop and found a baby chick on the floor flailing around. I picked him up and took him into the house and placed him with the turkeys. I brought him food and water with some apple cider vinegar and had him drink a little bit. He then laid there and looked really sad. We weren't sure if he was going to make it. Jed worked in the morning so I made sure to go check on the chick and the old coop in the morning. The chick looked content as it was surrounded by the turkeys. The turkeys had all jumped from their roosts on top of the box and kept him warm. I found another baby chick on the floor of the coop in the morning and I took him in and did the same with food and water.

After getting home from work I went straight out to the coop to see if there were any others. I found three live chicks huddled together and one dead chick off to the side. =( I picked up the live chicks and noticed that there was a chick with the geese. It was a cute fluffy grey chick. I was huddled with the goose so I couldn't go and just pick it up. I brought them in and gave them food and water. I walked out after that and went back outside to see another baby chick fall out from under the turkey to the ground. I picked it up and brought it in. In all we ended up with 9 inside, but unfortunately one drowned. =( I'm not sure what I could have done as it was shallower then any of our chick water dispensers. On the plus side it was the only chick that looked to be a cross with the polish so I guess it was just fate that it would not grow up to breed. I ended up planting it at the base of one of the elderberries this morning.

We're going to see if one of our neighbors is still looking for baby chicks and see if he would like to pick out some of our little guys. So to re-cap we have 8 healthy happy chicks inside, one confused chick outside that was hatched by a turkey and thinks it's a goose and our two sad chicks that were laid to rest with trees. We'll see how our other chickens do.

A-hole goat = birria

2011-05-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

When we brought the goats back home after their run with the law Melody and Lucy mentioned that Ramses as trying to butt people. That put us on alert and we watched his actions.

Well, he's being a complete a-hole that's what he's doing. I've found him trampling, butting, kicking, and trying to gouge the smaller goats and frankly a pregnant woman running across the field to kick him is not really a nice sight. I've had to run over because he waits until they have their head through the fence to eat grass and then he keeps attacking them. I've had to clean up Lucy (Unigoat) and Bugger a couple of times because they were bleeding because of his actions. Melody also mentioned that that he tried attacking different people when he was at their house. Well, as many of you know, that is not acceptable. Good personality counts for a lot in this homestead.

We moved Rosie, Lucy, and Bugger over to a friend's house to eat the weeds over there and have Ramses at the house. We're planning on slaughtering him this Friday before Ginger gets home so that we won't have to deal with any more comments. If you're available, feel free to stop on by to help. We'll see if we can make some birria for this weekend.

As my co-worker mentioned... it will be interesting for our child to grow up in a house where if you're mean or don't keep up with the contract you are eaten. =) I hope our little one gets a clue.

Amused

2011-04-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

Today had its good moments and its frustrating moments (all of which had to do with lame insurance). Luckily, all the amusing and good moments had to do with happy farm things.

I was woken up around 4 to loud chirping coming from the turkey room. I found that all three of the turkeys had escaped their box and were somewhere in the room. The room is currently filled with baby, turkey, and armour making items so to find three baby turkeys while only using the light of the heat lamp made for an interesting Where's Waldo sort of feel. I found the last one hiding under a spanish book about a hippo who can't find it's peanut butter sandwich.

After work I was able to drive down and pick up a scythe that a gentleman had posted on craigslist and of course we immediately started talking about gardening. Luckily, we both had time to kill so we spent some time talking about different plants we were trying out this year and how last year went with our crops.

I stopped by Jed's work to see if I could drop off food for him but he was out on a call so I ended up dropping off his food and was going to leave when I noticed that there was a bucket near the car. I walked over and it turned out to be the spent grains that his co-worker had used for his beer making. I took this over to the van and dumped the spent grains in the pig bucket to take home. (Yes, I actually carry a pig bucket almost everywhere I go... you never know when you'll find something very numy for the piggies to eat.)

At home I unloaded the pig bucket into the wheelbarrow and I took it out to the pigs. As soon as I started filling up their trough Squeaker jumped into the spent grain and starting eating enthusiastically while biting the snouts of the others if they tried to get near the beer grains. I couldn't help but laugh and wish that I had a camera on me to take a picture of my poor abused piggies. Aaron came out to help and ended up giving Squeaker her full name: Squeaker McSqueakums

When I came back in to the house I checked on the baby turkeys (actually called poults) again and found that one had escaped again. I couldn't figure out where it had gone and was following the faint peeps. I finally heard some scratching and figured that it wasn't in a box somewhere. It turned out that it had somehow jumped into the 25lb bag of chick food and was going through it with all the gusto a tiny chick could muster. It looked a bit disappointed when I placed it back with the others.

It's days like these that I really enjoy living where we live. =) I wouldn't trade it for anything else.

Nightly disturbances

2011-04-27T12:04:00.001-07:00

We've had something come in at night and kill our chickens, not as much as before, but still enough. Last night (4am) we were woken up by a chicken doing an impersonation of Hamlet's death as it screamed its distress for the last part of the 4th act. Jed and I got up and went out looking for the culprit but were unable to find any signs. The ducks were all talkative about what was going on, the remaining chickens and pigs were sleeping, Al the gander was attentive and protecting the old coop, the sheep and goats were awake and running around (probably because the predator ran away through the pasture) and so looked around, calmed the rest of the animals and then tried to get back to sleep.

We'll have to see about what new safety measure we can take to catch the predator. we've noticed coyote and fox tracks in the stream bed. We'll see if we end up with some new furs or if we just make it as unappealing to come back to our place.

Food Freedom

2011-04-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

Nezzeta gave us a great shirt that has the words "Support your local farmer" with a woodcut image on the front. I love that shirt because it helps remind me that with agriculture we've been able to move so far beyond that state in society. Food makes the world go round, and it keeps us moving.

Jed and I recently were introduced to the local Grange, through a purchase of some of our latest sheep. We've attended two meetings and it reminded me of another society that we're in. Most of the members are in their 80's and we're considered the "young crowd" by most of their standards. There were more people last night than at the open house night, but that was mostly because the state president of the CA Grange was attending to discuss writing up a proposal for the food freedom act.

What is this Food Freedom you ask? Well, some towns in Maine have passed propositions to allow for what they are Food Freedoms. This means that you can buy your produce from any local farmer. If I would like to purchase raw milk from a local dairy I would be able to go to a local farmer and just purchase it without them having to go through all the regulations and building code enforcements in order to provide me with that milk. Likewise if I would like to go to one of my neighbors and purchase corn from them, I would be able to go over and just purchase the produce from him. This all sounds like common sense, but it is against the law, locally, state wide, and federally. Because there could be a possibility of contamination or disease we as gardeners would not be able to provide or gift people with our produce. It makes sense in a big picture sort of way, but it also looks ridiculous if you start thinking that we're unable to give friends or family any eggs, fruit, vegetables, or meat because then we would be in violation of our laws.

What can be done? The local Granges are currently recruiting and looking for people who are interested in promoting gardening, farming, and ranching, or even if you're just food sympathetic. We would like to get the word out that we should have control of where we get our food. That we can even *gasp* grow our own food and be able to share with those we love and would like to share our bounty with. As an added plus, if you join the Grange in April then it is a free yearly membership (normally $30) so that you can have a free year to see if you like the organization.

Even if you don't want to join, help out your local farmers, learn how you can start your own garden, raise your own chickens, supplement your produce with things that you helped grow, or just help those that are working towards those goals. Learn about where your food comes from and how it effects your health.

Just do me a favor and for one day look at the food you are eating and think about where it came from, what it took to get it to your plate, and how that is affecting your world.

Joel Salatin

2011-04-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

A week or two ago I went to go see a lecture by Joel Salatin at Calpoly, Rosie was unable to make it due to work. For those who are not familiar with Mr. Salatin, he is an advocate for local grown organic food and runs a ranch in Virgina (Polyface farm). To paraphrase Mr. Salatin's philosophy about his livestock raising; Animals are smart and if you raise animals in their natural environment they will be healthy. Rosie and I have been working toward this as much as we are able and with one exception had no illness on our farm and that illness came from taking an animal out of its natural setting by feeding it something other than what its species had been developed to eat. Over all the lecture was good but a little disappointing on a personal level and I will explain why. Rosie and I are already doing everything Mr. Salatin recommends and further our classes on local food production and the people we have inspired to grown their own food is in the realms of "The next step". Frankly I did not want to go to a lecture to be told I am doing stuff right, I wanted to go to a lecture and be inspired to do more and do it better. So it was a good lecture but I was hoping to be more challenged by Mr. Salatin's philosophy.

So what can our loyal readers (all 10 of you) do to learn from Mr. Salatin? Well let me cover his most basic points:

1) Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Say WHAT? Let me explain, no there is no time let me sum up (ten points if you know the reference). If you try and wait until you know everything about home food production and are all set up and ready to do everything perfectly you will never ever get to the starting point. It is better to jump in with both feet and fail epicly than to put off trying for years at a time. As long as you are learning from your mistakes then they are mistakes worth making. Go buy some seed, some dirt and get planting. Success or failure, the effort will start you on your path.

2) Animals (and plants) are smart and want to be happy, and happy animals (and plants) are healthy. Pigs did not evolve to live packed nose to tail in a warehouse. Cows did not evolve to eat corn while up to their knees in filth on a feed lot. Tomatoes did not evolve to be shipped across the country in trucks. Do a little research and see what the natural environment and species is and then raise your plants and animals in as close to their natural environment as possible. The crap food you can buy in the mega-stores is developed for fast growth and easy transport; Flavor, nutrients, texture and toxicity are not a consideration in modern food production. Grow some heritage peas and compare them to a store bought pea, raise a chicken and compare the egg to a store bought egg. Good food is better for you and better for the life producing the food for you.

3) Buy local, buy responsible and live better. Not every one has the opportunity to raise their own live stock and feed their family from their land but if you have to buy then buy local responsibly raised food you will get better food and be healthier for it. Buying food from a local factory farm is no better than buying food from a massive factory farm some where else. Try and buy your food from repsonceable sources that "Respect the pigness of the pig" to quote Mrs. Salatin and you will help make the world a better place.

4) All revolutions start at the ground level. No one else will make the world a better place for you, the responsibility rests solely on your shoulders. As Mahatma Gandhi said "You must be the change you wish to see in the world". Do what you can, when you can and the powers of the world will fall to their knees in fear at your might, eat well, live well and be happy my friends.

And then there are some days...

2011-04-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

that remind me that I don't know how to shoot but I'm pretty sure that I'd be good at it after killing all the animals... except the sheep.

I did have a nice relaxing morning. I was able to sleep in and enjoy eating pancakes with strawberry jam. I was able to water the berries and the trees and enjoyed watching Al, the gander take a bath in a bucket of water. I even laughed when he tried to attack a bucket because he confused it for a chicken trying to get to his water.

What changed the day was sitting down and watching Ramses hit Lucy over and over for the fun of it. I went outside to keep him from hurting her any more (anyone interested in another slaughter day?) and to fill up their water when I heard oinking behind me. Digger had convinced Oreo to lift up the corner of the fence and then we had three free range piggies... again. I had to finish giving the goats water and watering the walnut so that I could go fix the pig enclosure.

After fixing the section that they had lifted and reinforcing it I tried to open up another panel just to have the nut get stuck and I had to reinforce that section too. Stanko was running around trying to mate with the chickens and kicked up the box with all the clamps and they were sent sailing into the grass. I had to find them in order to continue with the fence. After that was done I finally found a corner that I could open up. By this time the pigs had finished eating most of the chicken food they had knocked over, had finished eating random things around the backyard, and were inspecting the horse gate to get to the front yard. I forgot to mention that since they had knocked over the chicken food all the bird ran over to eat and were in the process of having a fight with the pigs over the food. The geese were attacking their ears while the pigs kept pushing the chickens and ducks out of the way. All in all they were just making a ton of noise. With the open pig fence and armed with a box of apples I went to catch the piggies. They completely ignored me so I started just throwing apples at them to get their attention. After leading them back into the pen with small portions of apples I placed the box down and let them eat the remaining 20lbs of apples. I was able to close up the clamps on the fence right as they were finishing eating the apples. They walked around testing the fence and I kept pace to make sure that they couldn't get out and to see where the fence needed to be reinforced.

At the moment they are still in, but as a pregnant lady... I could do without all the drama.

Berries are in

2011-04-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Jed helped me plant the remaining raspberries in the backyard. I'm really greatful that Jed is able to help me because otherwise I'm totally out of breath and cannot even get enough energy to dig. I had to take multiple breaks while placing the seedlings in the ground. Hopefully the chickens will not dig these up as they did with the poplar trees and the blackberries. I'll have to keep a close eye on them. I like visualizing what the backyard will look like in a few years. I can just imagine the berries covering that whole part of the fence. The trees growing in and providing shade as well as a shield from the surrounding properties. The open land full of crops for humans and animals. =) It's just such a happy visual that I get all excited just thinking about it. If only I can take a nap so that I have more energy.

Outlaw Goats

2011-04-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

Tuesday is our normal practice night in San Luis Obispo and so Jed and I were out there having a blast with Gar and the guys. Well, Jed and I have a tendency to talk about home stuff when we're on drives to see what we can do better, what we can organize, or to make to-do lists. This Tuesday we were talking about how much we enjoy the things we do, but to continue on a conversation we had before, we have a tendency not to have that much time since we currently have something like 3.5 full time jobs. Taking care of the animals and plants takes a lot of time and energy. The rewards are breathtaking, but still it is the reward of many hours of labor and much work.

The ironic part of this conversation is that when we got home at 9pm we walked in to hear the phone ringing. Jed picks up says a few words and then says, "We'll be there in 15 minutes." Automatically I think: goats. Our goats were at a friend's house in Atascadero trying to eat down their weeds.

We get back in the car and Jed lets me know that the goats busted the fence, were running around the neighbors property and/or possibly the neighborhood and that the cops were there. We couldn't help but start laughing at the fact that we were driving to go pick up goats at 9pm because they had become outlaws. I was hoping that we'd get cute mugshots that I could bring home and add to the blog, but no such luck.

When we arrived the goats were already corraled into the front so we went and looked at the gate - something we'll have to go back and help fix- (We still need to find out if the goats caused any damage to the neighbors property so that we can fix that too) and made up our minds to bring them home that night as we could not easily fix the gate in the dark. We loaded the now fat goats into the van and brought them back home. They are now trying to beat up the sheep and are complaining about their loss of new bushes and trees that they were eating at Melody and Lucy's.

Waste Stream

2011-04-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

A concept talked about by Novella Carpenter is that of the "Waste Stream", the steady stream of garbage that is produced by us as a people. Novella (if I may presume to refer to her by her first name) would access this waste stream in downtown Oakland to feed her pigs, she would dumpster dive to pull day old bread, fish offal, vegetable scraps and what not which she would then take home to her pigs (with much piggy squealing and delight). The Waste Stream diverted to feed animals and thus people.

A second story of the Waste Stream was related to my by a teacher of mine, a former marine about his time in Vietnam. After each meal on the base he was stationed at all the food waste would be scraped into 55 gallon drums and set aside beyond the perimeter of the base. A long line of Vietnamese poor would stand in line for hours to be allowed to fill a bucket with this slop to bring home to their families for their consumption. Without going into the moral and political ramifications of this practice, these people (both soldiers and natives) recognized the wasted energy available in this castoff food. The Waste Stream diverted to feed people directly.

And most recently, a person I know is looking into starting a micro-brewery and one of the issues that had to be addressed was the disposal of the grains after the brewing process. These spent grains can not be placed into the city sewer system as they can have a disastrous effect on a municipal sewer system. This local Waste Stream will now be diverted into compost and feed for our piggies, who already love beer and wold no doubt love a good bucket of proto-beer. Problem solved.

So what is my point?

As a people we are producing more waste than we can deal with, there is an island of garbage in the pacific ocean twice the size of Texas. Land fills are meeting capacity faster than they can be built, garbage scows drift up and down our national waterways packed with tons of waste that has no destination. Though we may not see it (or choose not to see it) we are drowning in our own garbage. We are choking out the very life forms that we need to keep our species alive with the accumulation of our Waste Stream.

The answer?

Frankly I don't know, the problem has become systemic to our society. Waste generation is such an ingrained part of our industry that we don't even really think about it. I am just some geeky guys with a bunch of animals, I am a nobody and alone I can not fix the Waste Stream. But perhaps we can all do a little to make the possibility of our species surviving a good one. Recycle when you can, compost when you are able and watch what you buy. If enough of us take a look at our personal Waste Stream perhaps the human race will stand a chance of moving beyond this pervasive problem.

As John Seymour said "On the self-sufficient homestead the rubbish man should never need call". Not a bad goal to shoot for at all.

New bees

2011-04-09T21:49:00.001-07:00

Today I went out to go check on the bees after Jed let me know that the whole bee condo was just humming and that they were zooming around the place. The bees were in fact zooming around and exploring their new digs. They did not appreciate the taste of the chicken food, but you can see them trying out everything to see what the new location was at. It was cute to watch the zoom this way and that; you could practically hear the scream "Righteous!!" I'm looking forward to the pollination plants to come up so that they can have some extra fun. At the moment they have Eucalyptus and mustard going for them.

Bacon

2011-04-09T21:39:00.001-07:00

Jed ended up brineing some bacon last Saturday so we were to leave it in the fridge until today and then bake it. He made four different batches with a total of about 32 lbs of bacon in all. Today I pre-heated the oven to 200 degrees and then put two batches of bacon in with a sheet at the bottom to catch all the drippings. It took about 2 hours for the center to be at 150 degrees and I was able to take out the bacon and let it cool down to room temp. I then sliced it and cooked up a couple of pieces to try. The first to be prepared was recipe #2 and it turned out well. The bacon was a little salty for me but Jed liked it. I think next time we'll rinse it out a bit more, place it in cold water with potatoes to take some of the brine out, or just alter the recipe to use less salt.

Digger and Squeaker (not official name)

2011-04-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

This is Digger asleep with Squeaker between her two front legs; you can just make out her little snout next to Diggers chest and her little ear near the front foot.

Bee condo and Bees!!

2011-04-08T23:37:00.000-07:00

A lovely SCA friend also works with bees. His family owns one of the prominent bee companies in the area. When he heard about the death of my bees he let me know that he was going to get additional bees this Spring and if I would like any. Of course I jumped on the chance and ended up ordering two 3# boxes of Italians.

They arrived last night after a long day of being driven around in the rain and sat in the garage. I was tempted to put up a sign that read "Warning: over 60,000 pissed off females - Do not enter" but I settled with just telling the guys that I had my bees in the garage. As posted yesterday we had freakish weather yesterday with rain and hail, which made me not want to put the bees out just yet. I decided to wait until the morning to see if it was warm enough to put them out there. After waking up and seeing everything outside frozen I decided to leave the in the garage a bit longer.

Jed finished the bee condo today so that we can have it completely separated from the goats. We were debating waiting a little longer to put the girls in but we figured we might as well just go for it. I picked out comb with honey and for new baby bees for the girls and then we took two separate supers in for the girls. We set up the boxes and then I came back to get the boxes with the girls in them. I put on my impromptu pregnant bee suit, which Jed lovingly let me know that I looked very rolly pollie like, and then separated the boxes and carried a box of bees over to the condo at a time. By the time both the boxes were out there I was tired and hot. I tried to pry the sugar jar from the first box but just managed to keep pissing off the bees. Jed was kind enough to go turn on my smoker as I was failing at taking the jar out without making everyone mad. After he brought it out I took the jar out, then the queen, set her up between two frames and then dumped the bees in. They immediately started doing their happy butt dance and slobbering all over the honey frames. I think they liked their new home. After that one was sorted out I tried a new trick with the second box. As much as I enjoyed pissing off my girls I thought I better change things a little to keep me from dropping the sugar jar on the multiple times. I leaned the box slightly so that when I pried the jar up a bit gravity wouldn't just pull it out of my hands. This worked so much better and I was able to get the jar, queen, and girls out in less than 3 minutes, as opposed to the 15+ minutes it took me with the first box.

All in all the girls were in their new homes and ready by the time the rain showed up tonight. I'll check on them in the morning, but I think they'll be happy in their new homes. =) I like happy bees.

Hail and random weather

2011-04-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I get to check on the hops tomorrow and see how they are doing but I'm not sure after the freakish weather today. We had fog, clouds, rain, hail, lighting, and thunder. And it just kept on cycling through them throughout the whole day. Here are some images of the hail in the back yard. Notice how pretty much all the animals are not in the images.. that is because they are all under shelter.

Hops planted!

2011-04-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

Jed bought me a present: fuggle hops. =) We planted the rhyzomes last night so that they can start growing. We'll see how many male and female plants we end up with. Hopefully in a year or two we'll be able to start a home beer production.

Gardening jitters

2011-04-05T09:16:00.001-07:00

I just need to be out there. I have all these plans for plots and plants and I just can't find enough time in the day to be out there. I guess I'm going to have to see about possibly getting up earlier to be able to dig and plant the things I need to, to stay up later than necessary to go ahead and plant the veggies and fruit, or to stop doing some things after work to get more things done. On the down side, I am just starting my childbirthing classes and other baby related things so it's not like if I can just blow that whole thing off. There are speakers I would like to go see and there are projects I want to help with. Raarrr! I need more minions. I can't wait until this baby can hold a shovel.

Eggs

2011-04-03T20:56:00.001-07:00

Can you tell which ones are turkey, duck, and chicken eggs?

Piggy!!

2011-04-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

So we need a new name for this little girl, any suggestions?

New Churros! - not cinnamon

2011-04-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

So Rosie math kind of struck again, but Jed was there so I blame him. Jim ended up bringing three sheep over for us to choose from, so it was really his fault. In the end I ended up with two Navajo-Churro sheep running around the back yard and we're going to need to sheer them soon. Anyone up for helping us sheer?

Smart chickies

2011-04-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

When we first received our batch of chickens I was a little hesitant with the Sumatras. Sure they looked sexy but everything I had read about them had them as loud, flighty, and unable to brood or raise their young. Well, as it turns out it was a little Sumatra that was the first and only one to stay broody and hatch her young. Yesterday I walked out to give her food and water and found two tiny chicks in there with her. She was still sitting on her eggs so it seems as if she's waiting on a few more before she moves. As soon as most if not all are hatched then we're going to go ahead and move her with her young to a secure area so that they can run around and learn how to survive on their own.

Navajo-Churro Baby!!

2011-03-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

Jed and I have been looking for Navajo-churro sheep for a while. They were the original sheep brought over to the Americas by the Spanish. And finally I found some on craigslist. I just got a call this morning and we're going to see about getting a sheep for our little farm! We'll see if we can rent a ram so that the Tunis sheep can also take and then we'll have baby sheep on the way for our farm. Yahoo!!!

Plant update

2011-03-30T21:08:00.000-07:00

The garlic in the front is taking off, so are the artichokes, asparagus, favas, and onions. The rain did the strawberries good. We'll see if the rabbits left any carrots. They did enjoy the celery. Which reminds me, I haven't seen any rabbits so I'm thinking one of the neighbors poisoned them. That thought creeps me out because I would hate to think that there is poison out there that could get into my animal's water or food supply. Moving on, the order of plants came in and the raspberries all look like if they are taking off, which means I just need to plant all 18 of them and 5 of the blackberries. I only received 75 of my 100 strawberries and it appears that 25 of them were moldy and dead. =( So I'll be emailing the company to return them since I cannot use them. Hopefully my last package will come in without any damage.

Farmwork while pregnant

2011-03-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

Pregnancy seems to be short bursts of energy punctuated with bouts of utter fail. Today I'm so tired but was able to feed the animals and con Aaron into helping me move the huge mound of green waste in the front to the back where it can feed the goats. Aaron was able to move large quantities of the green waste by tying it up with a rope and walking back to the goats. He looked like those little old people in old paintings carrying something many times their size on their backs. I wish I could have taken a picture. After a bit I was totally worn out and had to take a break. I laid down for a bit but the baby just kept kicking which made it difficult to actually sleep.

I finally got up and made some dinner then went out front to move the last bits of green waste. After flinging most of the big pieces over the horse gate I started moving the nice mulch over to the veggie beds in the front. I also placed some under the front gate where the chickens keep on getting out. I also watered the strawberry bed and I plan on placing some of the mulch in that bed after they're a bit more developed.

I then came inside to continue the lard process. I was able to move dirty dishes to the sink, wipe off counters, and put things away when I became insanely tired again. =( I'm now back in bed trying to type while laying down. I wish that my fits of energy would last a little longer. We'll see what it will be like when the little one gets here.

On a happy note, the remaining goose was sitting on the eggs today. =) It made me happy. I'll go out and check on the little broody hen tomorrow morning and put up some cardboard so that if the chicks hatch soon they won't fall down.

I think I just need more minions...

The passing of a goose

2011-03-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I found the mama goose dead behind the old coop. She looked like if she just walked back there to hide and then slipped into death. She didn't thrash just layed down and died. =(

She left a full nest of eggs that she had been sitting on. I don't want to disturb them, but if her daughter sits on them then they should be fine. If not, then we lost all the goslings. Tough call and it doesn't seem as if I'll be able to end up with a good outcome. We'll just see how things go.

I know that the male and the young female are breeding and that she started a nest, but I'm not sure how that is going. We'll just have to see how things go.

Neighbor frustrations

2011-03-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

We research killing our animals very thoroughly, we take the time to see what is the fastest and safest way to slaughter them so that they won't suffer. Whenever we slaughter larger animals we always shoot in the head (to kill instantly) and then we slit the throat to have them bleed out faster. We make sure that they go swiftly. That is part of what we owe the animals.

On Sunday, Ginger called me over, not 3 minutes after Jed had fired the shot and started telling me that we needed to find a more humane way to slaughter our animals because she saw that pig thrashing for 15 minutes after we shot it. That she's around death all the time and she knows what suffering is. That it wasn't funny and that we needed to do something about it and then she just walked away.

Firstly, we put up boards so that the other pigs could not see, so where the heck was she that she could see Macaroon all the way from her porch. Second, 15 minutes had not passed. Third we make sure that they go quickly. Fourth, all animals twitch after death and this especially is true for pigs who are known to thrash after death. Fifth, wtf?

I was very, very frustrated and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was very insulted and wanted to know why she was offering this input if she has absolutely no knowledge of what we are doing. I was up contemplating saving up just to put up a tall fence on her side of the property just so that she wouldn't have to "deal" with us any more. The feedback I received from people is that she would only want to spy on us some more because we sould obviously have something to hide from her if we put up a fence. I'm not sure how to deal with it, but I'm just so frustrated with being insulted by her. I'm probably going to take one of my friend's advise and if she tries to talk to me I'm just going to let her know that I do not feel comfortable talking to her and I would rather go back to a "neighborly" relationship where we just wave and say hi but do not have anything to do with talking to each other. =\ I'm still miffed.

Piggy Parts

2011-03-29T12:21:00.001-07:00

Sunday after the Slaughter Party Guy was able to take me to the store to pick up some more salt for curing the bacon and then we continued to make more lard.

After he left I started working on other things then went back to the piggy parts. The head and skin was brought in and is ready to be processed, the meat and organs were ground and mixed with spices to make the garlic sausages and the fat continued to be processed. I also was able to get all the leaf lard and to process it. Not as pearly white as the first few batches of lard, but still has a different consistency. The lard processing continues and I'm not sure when I can finish it all. =)

The bacon curing is on going and we'll try on different types of recipes to see what we like. The remaineder of the piggy parts will be put into the ground to help compost and to add to the soil nutrients for the future patch of watermelons that will be put in where Macaroon was staying. It looks like spring is here and it's just the beginning of all the work.

Slaughter Party Update

2011-03-27T18:12:00.000-07:00

Due to rain and other events we ended up having a pretty small turnout, but luckily enough to go ahead and slaughter Macaroon and several roosters. Jed and Guy did a ton of prep work on Friday getting things set up so that Macaroon was separated from the other piggies, built a bridge, moved our washed out bridge back to where it needed to be, fed the animals, built the structure for scalding her, picked up some extra straw to soak up the blood, built a little platform under the hanging area, and re-enforced the structure that we were going to hang Macaroon off of.

Saturday started early with getting the piggies nice and drunk. They mixed up cob with molasses and two quarts of vodka, which all the pigs promptly ate. Macaroon simply fell asleep, but Digger and Oreo got goofy drunk and started staggering around and doing silly things. Digger began digging like mad then staggering into things. Oreo began trying to put a blue tarp around him and swayed as if to dance. It was my task to distract the piggies so I took some of the rice crispy treats that I had made for Jed, some left over waffles, and some pumpkins and walked out towards the piggies. I moved them to the farthest part of the paddock and enticed them with unspeakable goodies. They loved the rice crispy treats and the waffles, and they even found the pumpkins delicious. Jed let me know that he was going to shoot so I gave them some more pumpkins and when the shot was fired they got a little startled but didn't let it distract the from the food. I kept them busy for a little bit longer and left pumpkins there for them. Our neighbor ended up calling me over and just frustrated the hell out of me (story for another post) so that when I walked back to the group I was in a bad mood.

We tried scalding her but we didn't have enough water and the temp of 150 wasn't working so well. Guy and I skinned her and then I went ahead and took out the organs. After that Jed split her in half and we were able to take her in to finish the cuts. Guy and Jed jointed her and then Holly, Brighid, and Melody helped vaccum seal the cuts. Holy Brighid, and Melody also helped cut up pieces of fat so that I could start making tallow.

Soon after Lucy and Alex showed up and then they went out to slaughter some chickens. In all we ended up slaughtering about 6-8 chicken/roosters. The roosters just had to go and so did the Frizzles, which Holly lovingly called them zombie chickens. We were able to start grinding the left over "stew meat" to make into sausage making and I cut out the intestines and started cleaning them while dinner was served. We had corned beef and cabbage and then were able to send people home with some honey, eggs, lard, and chickens. =) All in all, a good day, but we'll need a lot more help when we do Oreo.

New plants

2011-03-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

Earlier on this month I went hog wild and ordered a whole mess of plants... what would I call a whole mess of plants? (I think Jed would call this Rosie math)
A whole mess of plants = 100 strawberry, 18 raspberry (3 early, 3 late, 3 everbearing, 3 yellow, 3 black, 3 red), 5 blackberry, 1 gooseberry, 1 red currant, 1 black current, 1 elderberry, 6 poplar, 2 aspen, 3 birch... I think that's all.
Well, yesterday I received my first shipment, but my poor aspens were broken in three different places. =( I'll see about planting the strawberries in the fabulous bed that Sharon dug out for me. I think I'll probably call it the Sharon berry bed.

When it rains, it pours

2011-03-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty interesting weekend with epic wind gusts and interesting rainfall. As of Friday I believe we are now at some insane number as in 5inches as of this moment. I call this insane because the normal for the year is around 13 inches of rain in this area. When we had the flooding in Dec/Jan - we received 7 inches in that storm. The weather is also interesting because right now I'm looking out the window are sunny blue skies while there is heavy rains falling on us. The streets are flooding and it seems a bit comical. On Sunday morning Jed was able to go out and wade in knee deep water to move debris out of the path of the "river" running through our back yard. The ducks and geese loved it, but all the other animals were pretty upset. The chickens had to play hop-scotch from little island to island so that they could move to a grassy area with out flowing water. The bridge was swept off the base and everything is pretty much floating around the back yard. As soon as the water starts to recede then it starts raining again and the whole process starts all over again. =) Forecast calls for not rain this weekend so we should be able to slaughter, and then more rain all of next week. We'll see how all this plays out.

Spring = broody time

2011-03-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

At the moment we have a broody chicken that has been on her eggs for over a week. I just found a goose nest yesterday and other chickens are starting to keep the eggs warm... Hopefully things will work out well and we'll end up with a gagillion baby chicks running around. More food for us. I hope the goslings hatch because I'm looking forward to a Xmas goose... with gooseberry jam on it. The turkeys are also desperately trying to mate and hatch out chicks, but as we do not have a male for them, it makes it very difficult for them to actually be able to make any new baby turkeys. We might put some chicken eggs under them to see if that works.

Also, Bugger will be ready to breed at the end of this month, Lucy aka Unigoat at the end of April, the sheepies are ready to go, and Digger is ready to breed. Sheesh... It's like the Discovery Channel around here.

I guess it makes it even weirder that our baby is due at the end of June... there is obviously a theme going on this year. We'll see if the ducks join in the celebration.

Teasing turkeys

2011-03-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

We had a fabulous weekend with our friend, Sharon coming down to visit. I have mixed feelings because I know she came down to help us on the farm, but I still feel bad because we're putting her to work. But I suppose my personal gain outweighs my guilt. Yaaay!
Friday night we had an armour workshop so we had people over to work on projects and so we just hung out and ate tacos. Sharon came in from the back yard and said that the turkeys were really tired because they kept laying down and that she was able to pet them. =D That night I asked Sharon if the turkeys laid down when she got close or if they were already laying down. I wanted to warn her that all the turkeys were broody and were hoping that she would mount them.
Saturday we started off by eating quesadillas with scrambled eggs, yogurt, fruit, and snackies and then we went out to trim goat and sheepy hoofies. The goats were fine as they are really easy to walk up to and to hold on to. I believe the only one that gave us trouble was Lucy, which we have been calling Unigoat due to her one horn. After that we tried "wrangling" the sheep but that was just futile. We moved on to other projects which included the dismanteling (aka: demolishing) of the old guinea coop and the old pig pen. While dismanteling the pig pen we found that we had a ton of pumpkin seeds growing. Hopefully they'll be able to grow and provide a nice pumpkin crop this year. The only surprise is that we have absolutely no clue what types of pumpkins or if they are other types of plants that we fed to the piggies.
And as it turns out, Sharon was curious to see if the turkeys actually wanted to mate with her so she began to pet the turkeys and then ask how they were able to mate if their tails stayed down. I told her that the tom usually mounts on top and then and when he penetrates that the tail raises. So she proceeded to try to press on different parts of the turkey's back to get the tail to flip up. Now the turkeys make cooing noises when she's around and automatically drop into position when she's around. =D
After destruction we had food and then took a nap before heading back out to trim one of the sheepies hoofs. We were able to get Sheepie #1 but not #2. Their wools is ready to be sheered as well so we'll see when we can do that. We also worked a little in the front and were able to scythe some of the front parking area so that cars can actually park closer to the gate. Jed took the grass and clippings to the back and threw them on the pigs so that we had green pigs running around.
On Sunday Jed took off to work but Sharon helped me set up the new strawberry bed so she dug and broke up clumps as well as helped place the bricks around the bed. It looks a lot better and I look forward to having my strawberry plants come in so that we can have year round strawberries.
In short it was a fabulous weekend and we really enjoyed having friends over to chat and work on things. We look forward to the slaughter party and hope to have an enjoyable weekend then as well.

Animal Auction

2011-03-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

So Rosie and I attended our first animal auction the other day, it was.....Well interesting.

There where a number of rude people who seemed to think that coming into the auction 20 min late means that you get to stand in the view of people who arrived on time. I mean REALLY? Who does that?

The animals where interesting and while we did not see anything we felt the need to bid on the prices that animals went for was very reasonable. We talked a little about teaching a class at a latter date "Swine to Sausage, how to slaughter and part out your pig" and getting a pig at the auction and finishing it off at home would be far more realistic than raising it up our selves for a class. Also if people where interested in spit roasting a whole pig, the auction is the way to go.

One interesting thing that we realized is the actual weight of our pigs. We saw some bigger pigs that weighed in at around 650 lbs. and they where quite a bit smaller than Oreo. SO the pig I have been referring to as a 500 pound pig is more like a 700 pound to 800 pound pig. Really, he is THAT big. So our small pig Digger is about 250-300 pounds Macaroon is about 250-300 pounds and Oreo is about 700 pounds. Yup that's right we have about 1200 pounds of pork in the yard. Bacon any one?

Honey harvesting

2011-03-02T21:44:00.001-08:00

As many frames were already crystalized we went ahead and just cut out the frames and Jed eats them fromt he fridge as medieval candy. I sometimes find him chewing furiuosly to keep me from seeing that he's eating more of the honey and comb. =)
We did have a few frames with liquid honey in it, but not enough to get a significant amount of liquid honey. =( Those we placed on a plate and we've been using the honey as we go along. The new honey extractor worked really well, but the cleaning process is interesting. Also, I would not recommend using it if the frames have been knocked into the ground and covered in mud... then you just get muddy honey and that's just wrong.
I placed the drawn out comb in the freezer and will save the frames for future bees. I should be able to get some more in April and I'm looking forward to seeing the girls out and about.

Slaughter Party!

2011-02-23T11:19:00.001-08:00

Well it is that time, time to say good buy to some of our animals. Rosie and I are planning a slaughter day for the 26th of march, we will be slaughtering one pig and if we get enough people to help a goat as well and perhaps a few roosters. If you are interested in participating in the slaughter day drop us a email or message and we will let you know more details. Just a word of warning, slaughtering animals is messy, smelly, bloody and can be psychologically traumatizing for some people. A quick outline of the process:

We will start by shooting the pig in the head then immediately slashing its throat to let the blood drain out. Then the carcass will be scalded in hot water and scrapped to get the outer layer of skin and hair off. Then we will split the carcass and begin to part it out. Any organs and extra bits of meat will be used that evening to make sausage. The skin will be dried and used for leather. We will use everything but the oink. This is a lot of work and will take all day.

If that sounds good to you, we would love to have you help. We will have some homebrew on hand and can offer some crash space if needed. Hope to see some of you there.

Bee Catastrophe

2011-02-21T13:34:00.000-08:00

It had been raining on and off all of Thursday and when I got home I decided to go check on the animals and see if I can set up some shelters for them. I put some boards for the piggies and set some up for the goats. When I walked over to the bee enclosure I saw that the goats had been playing in there and had unfortunately knocked over all the hives. The supports were still standing so they had just knocked them over. =( There were no bees to be found.

With Aaron's help we were able to bring in all the boxes and I started to ectract the honey that I could and the honey that had already crystalized I just cut up into blocks and put them in the freezer. I'll go ahead and put the rest of the good frames in the freezer to save them for any future bees. I still have boxes all over the living room, but hopefully I'll be able to sort out tonight. Not a good ending to my bee year, but we'll know more for next year.

I founds me some rhubarb!

2011-02-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

Last night while picking up supplies to finish some projects around the house I found some rhubarb. Yaaay! I've been looking for some for a few years. It's of the Victoria veriety and I'll be planting it in the front to go with the rest of the perennial plants in the front yard. Now if I could only find some comfrey....

Ice cream!

2011-02-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

What happens when a pregnant lady craves ice cream? She researches how ice cream is made and then goes home and makes some home made ice cream. =) You don't need anything fancy to make your own batch of ice cream. All you need is a bowl, some ingredients, a whisk (or something to stir with) and a place to freeze your concoctions.

Basic Honey Vanilla recipe:

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup honey
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Place ingredients into a bowl (that can go into the freezer) and whisk until it is as fluffy/thick as you want it. Place bowl into freezer for 30 minutes. Take bowl out and whisk everything again until it is all well blended. Place bowl in freezer for another 30 minutes. Go through this pattern 3 times and then leave in freezer until fully frozen - about 2 hours. And now you have honey ice cream!

For Jed's mint ice cream we did it slighly different.

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp mint extract

Place ingrients into a medium pot and stir over medium heat until starting to boil. Take off heat and cool mixture in an ice bath or in the fridge. Pour into bowl and whisk until as fluffy as you want. Place bowl into freezer for 30 minutes. Take out bowl and whisk until all well blended. Go through this pattern at least 3 times then leave bowl in freezer until cream fully frozen - about 2 hours. And now you have sugar ice cream!

We'll post up recipes as we experiment with other ice cream flavors. Enjoy!

When blacksmiths get hungry

2011-02-15T08:15:00.000-08:00

So I have been trying to work threw my backlog of blacksmithing commissions, and there are a LOT of them. Frankly I am over my head with work. This is the reason I don't take anything up front for my work, I don't want that kinda pressure when I am working. So any way I was working up a storm one day and was getting pretty hungry, which is really saying something as I often forget to eat when I am working (Once I forgot to eat more than a bowl of rice in two days, figured it out when I was getting dizzy and feeling like I would pass-out) so rather than do the smart thing and take a break and have a snack I figured I could combine food with forging. I used what I call my "battle fork", (a high carbon steel fork) to roast some linguica sausages over a lovely 2300-3000 deg. flame. Now normally 2300 deg. is not what you would call a cooking temp. but if you keep a sharp eye out and keep everything moving it comes out pretty darn good. In the future I want to see about getting a coffee pot attachment for my forge and perhaps a small grilling plate.......

The Feast of St. Thomas Valentine

2011-02-15T07:53:00.000-08:00

OK not really, but it was a feast on Valentine's day and we did feast on Tom. So I roasted tom in a pretty standard way, a little salt and a little butter/olive oil over the top to baste while cooking and stuffed with chopped onions. Final weight for tom was about 13 lbs and it took about 2.5 hours to cook at around 325 deg. A few things about tom that where a little different from your normal store turkey;

Length: tom was quite a bit longer than a store turkey and a bit narrower. Not a big deal but I had to change my carving technique as the breast was almost 12 inches long.

Fat: tom had a large fat deposit on the upper part of his breast near where the neck is. A very large fatty area, after cooking it was almost 2 inches thick and went from one wing to the other and about 5-6 inches up the breast from the neck. This will go in the pig bucket with the rest of the stripped carcass. Happy piggies tonight!

Flavor: tom was amazingly rich in flavor but not gamy. I was only able to eat one drumstick and Rosie was unable to eat more than a small-ish serving of white meat. The flavor was so wonderful that turkey will continue to be a meat source on our farm for all time.

Texture: I was expecting tom to be much like our chickens, excellent flavor but a little tougher. I was wrong on the latter count. The meat was tender but firm with an excellent texture, I don't think I have ever eaten fowl with such a good texture. Also the meat was very moist (in part from the fat layer I am sure) with none of the dryness some have come to expect from a roast turkey.

The other parts of our feast where mashed potatoes with turkey gravy (made from the turkey neck) sauteed asparagus, Rosie made biscuits and home made ice cream for afters. So in all our first yard turkey was a grand success and we will certinly be having more holliday turkeys in the future. Now I am off to have some leftovers.

Home soap give-away!

2011-02-13T21:51:00.000-08:00

Howdy all - I know there aren't many of us on here, but if you would like some home made soap made from the lard taken from our slaughtered piggies (mixed with cloves and cinnamon so you don't have a lard smell) I'll be glad to mail some out to the first 3 people who post. Let me know so that I can send some your way. Cheers! Or if you would rather have a small jar of mustard we can do that too. =) Sharing the love!

Thoughts on planting

2011-02-13T21:44:00.000-08:00

There is so much work to be done in regards to the garden in the front and the back. I just want to be able to go and fix the destruction that the animals caused so that I can just plant something again. We do have the artichokes growing in the front, but I would love to have more items that are permanent so that the front doesn't necessarily look like a war zone. I think I'll be looking through my copy of The Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency to see what he recommends. The book was written for Britain, but some perennials should be fun to grow over here.
I'm also thinking about planting the three sisters where the pigs have mucked up. That might help the soil over there. I noticed that some of the seeds that I threw out did sprout so we'll see if we get vetch, clover, and alfalfa growing in the back.
The waterlogged area that the pigs mixed up really well would work fabulously for the outmost layer of the bread over so I think that after it gets soft I'm going to pile it all up around the bread oven and probably decide to use all of the god forsaken rocks we have in the back to make designs on the bread oven. I cannot think what else to do with a few truckloads full of smallish rocks. Any suggestions for designs?

Progress on the list

2011-02-13T21:35:00.000-08:00

Between one thing or another, neither Jed nor I have been able to get much done around the house but yesterday and today we were able to go through a lot of things on our list. Mind you, Tom was not on our list but got added anyways. Dishes are done, laundry is done, kitchen is cleaned(counters cleaned, microwave cleaned, stove and oven cleaned, floors swept), bread is baked, xmas tree was taken down and put outside, xmas ornaments were put away, picked up a new mop, picked up parts to hang the curtains in the bedroom, bottled the mead, picked up some of the front yard, swept dining room, and some others! As soon as I donate items to the good will the living room will be looking a lot more like its old self.
We still have a lot on our list of projects, but just the fact that some of the things are being accomplished is making me feel more productive and happy.
We're supposed to have another week of rain so we'll see how that goes and if it will help out the ground or flood it. We'll most likely have to make some make-shift homes for the sheep and the goats, as well as the pigs, so we'll see what we can do. Yaaay for productiveness!

Dead Tom is dead, Long John shot him!

2011-02-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

Uh.... Dead Tom has always been dead, that's why he's called Dead Tom.

Bonus points if you know the reference.

So as others have done before, Tom crossed the line. Tom had been getting more and more aggressive toward Rosie and I over the last few months and the other day it came to a head. I was out feeding the chickens and Tom thought it would be a good time to take a flying leap attack at my head.

That was the last mistake he will ever make.

Now don't get me wrong Tom was not killed out of vengeance or out of anger, Tom had reached a point where Rosie was a little worried about small children in the yard and as you know, at our house personality counts for a lot. So Tom was grabbed and placed on the chopping block, neck placed in the noose and we used a machete to cut off his head. He went quickly with a single chop from a sharp blade. We then dunked his carcass in a tub of hot water (about 120 deg.) to scald him and make the plucking easier. With the exception of the large wing pin feathers the plucking was very easy, much easier than a chicken or a duck. In a little less than an hour Tom went from an angry attacking turkey to slaughtered, plucked and dressed in the fridge with a carcass weight of about 12-15lbs. So for Valentines day Rosie and I will be dining on a roast turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy, home made rolls, and a nice veggie side. I will get some images up in the next few days of Toms' journey from diner to dinner so you can all see the process. I will also see about getting some images up of the lovely roast turkey coming out of the oven, YUM.

The functionality of Tom

2011-02-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

So we have this gorgeous Royal Palm tom which Jed cunningly named... Tom. We felt sorry for him because the turkey hens would either beat him up or just ignore him, but he grew on us. The turkeys finally allowed him to sit where they sat and just lately we've seen him trying to mount one of the hens. Unfortunately his idea of mounting consists of standing on top of the hen and not doing anything practical with his male parts. The other day we saw him doing a mating dance... to the bread oven, while the hens just walked away from him. The seemed to be a little embarrassed by him and gave us this look of - Don't mind him, he'll be back to normal in no time. That in itself would have been all right, we can live with poor genetic material as all we want is the personality and intelligence of the hens.. but we need the male in order to get it. Well, lately Tom has decided that he needs to attack children and myself. He tried rushing at Jed the other day just to get smacked on the head hard enough to turn him all the way around. Tom's gotten into the habit of trying to attack me, I can only assume that it is because his hens hang out with me and eat out of my hand, but that doesn't seem to be working out well for him. He keeps on getting beat down and then he cries to the other turkeys because I must be killing him. The other turkeys have to rush over to try to protect him with this disgusted look on their faces and just wait until he decides that he doesn't really want to attack me. I would love to have baby turkeys (aka: Thanksgiving turkeys) but I'm not sure how much longer I can put up with this antics. We'll see how it goes, but as soon as we have baby turkeys... he's on the list with Ramses and Macaroon... and all the roosters.

Uppity Rabbits

2011-02-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

I pulled into the driveway tonight to find two rabbits lounging on the spot where I was trying to park. They watched me the whole time I was inching forward but at no time did they ever move. Darn uppity rabbits! I put it in park and just walked to the front door with them watching me the whole time while they chewed some straw.... I hope they have babies soon so that I can eat them.

Piggy parade

2011-02-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

When the piggies were still free range they found a way to get into the front yard. Digger was the first to figure it out as she dug her way under the horse gate and decided to dig in the front yard.. then Macaroon squeezed under and ate the strawberries... and then Oreo felt left out after a few days of this so he decided we didn't really need the horse gate and so he just lifted the whole thing off the post and moved it aside so that he could eat and dig up my artichokes, asparagus, and other perennial veggies. As this point it is 3 minutes after I should have left for work in the morning so I did the only thing a rushed pregnant woman could have done.. I grabbed some pumpkins and led them to the back of the yard. I had three skipping piggies following after me; the weight of which ranged from about 400lbs down to 150lbs... I had a neighbor driving by while this was happening and he actually stopped to watch me lead the pigs around the side of the house. I got the piggies to stay in the back and eat the pumpkins while I tried to lift up the horse gate. I can honestly say that I cannot put the horse gate back on the post all by my self so the best thing I could do is just lean it up against the post. Apparently, Jed found them in the front later on that day and decided it was time to make a new pen since they had thrashed everything in the front.

Piggy personalities

2011-02-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

Oreo is kind of a simple pig.. he runs around, wags his tale when he's happy, chases chickens, runs to meet you because he's excited to see you, and will try to eat everything in his view.

The one surprise has been Digger.. she's not that simple. She has figured out a way to manipulate her surroundings and Oreo as well.

The other day when I was taking apples out to them Digger was the first one to run over to me and took an apple in her mouth and found out that she really liked the taste. I proceeded to throw apples around their area while Oreo ran over. At that point I threw an apple on the left side of Digger and she turned to Oreo and then pointed to the opposite direction of the apple with a squeal. I swear you could have heard her yell - Look! An idiot! Oreo turns in the direction she's pointing and he runs off in search of the apple. Digger runs back to her apple and runs off to the opposite corner to finish chewing.

*shakes head*

If

2011-02-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

The word "if" has a lot of weight around here... frankly I think it has a lot of weight with many farm/ranches...

We were able to plant all our trees and our currants and they looked fabulous... but there's this goat that just figured out how to escape the fenced in area and decided that they are the most delicious things in this world.. what does this mean to my medieval orchard? It means that it is very heavily pruned and that I'm having to coerce them to grow in a very distinctly different form. What does this mean for the goat? Well, since it's Ramses and he's not really doing anything.. I think it might be time for another goat slaughter. Jed likes him, but he is more mad at him for eating my "special" trees.

We'll keep you posted.. we're about ready to just have a mass slaughtering party as the weather is still cold and we're getting fed up with having to make to many accommodations.

Trees are in!

2011-01-28T01:30:00.000-08:00

We picked up my order from Trees of Antiquities this last Saturday. With the help of many naps we were able to get all trees and currant bushes in the ground. With any luck the trees will thrive and we'll be able to have our little medieval orchard.