Livestock count:
10 barred rock hens
7 assorted chickens (3 roosters, 4 hens)
1 peahen (looking for a peacock if you are out there and in the austin area)
7 guinea chicks (all hens --- at least that's what was promised)
8 goats (3 adults, 4 kids with moms and 1 kid with Mike as mom)
3 cats
1 dog
--
total count: 37.
April 29th -- Kristi writes: Well, Mike's gone and done it, given me a birthday present that few of you would ever even consider. Seven Guineas. No, not the monetary kind, the cute (until grown) kind that will wind up being our main source for grasshopper control (I hope). We picked them up last night and the little buggers won my heart -- squeaking their joy and picking at each others' feet. One of them picked up another guinea's foot as I watched... I think it must have looked like food. The squawking was noted by all except the one whose mouth was full of the other's foot.
Mike set up the brooder box, lid off, inside the chicken coop he built almost two years ago. This chicken coop is self-contained, stands on four posts and the 'ground floor' is about hip height. We painted the coop with the same colors used on our last house. In the barnyard, it IS the only thing that seems a little out of place for how nice it is. Mike put a heat lamp in the box, having first removed the pole on the side of the brooder box because it wouldn't fit into the coop. We found some cedar chips and a used feed bag and lined the box with them. I put the water container in, realizing that it was going to be filled with cedar chips and then I decided that it was necessary to elevate the container to avoid such things. I found a piece of flat concrete and stuck it underneath the waterer. All is well in Guinea world right now. We will probably move the chicken coop that contains said birds into the garden areas where the guineas can have an all-you-can eat bug buffet.
Our biggest cat, Eatz, was awfully curious about the little peeping sounds coming out of this coop and hung around, ears wide open and eyes highly attentive. Luckily, the coop closes safely and latches.
We prepped an area to start growing peppers, as we have over 130 tomato plants in progress in the fields and that's way too many. I need to plant more cilantro and put the peppers that are a few inches high, into the soil. It's time. We finally planted the watermelons in a mound -- although it looks funny and something out of Close Encounters of the Weird Kind.
A new, almost nightly ritual will be to un-hooter (for non-Texans, that means 'fix') our dog, Barbecue, by brushing all the stickerburs out of her coat. She's a magnet for them, with long white hair and a predisposition for rolling in the grass. We all should be so lucky.
The worm problem in the kitchen herb garden seems to be temporarily gone and this is a good thing, as I was about to wage a chemical war on the whole backyard. However, I used BT, a product that is a natural worm killer (doesn't bother earthworms). It's organic and works miracles. Mike sprayed the trees with this stuff two weekends ago and I think all the worms fell onto the herb garden from an oak that bends its branches toward the house.
We still have at least one goldfish left in the pond, but because of the algae and the lilypads, we can't really tell how many are in there. I'm hoping there's more than one and none of them have floated to the top, but we DO have cats and there are lots of birds hereabouts, so it would be surprising to see more than one. We started with eight tiny goldfish and the one we have been seeing seems to be about 3 inches long, so far. Who knows...
Life is good.
April 26th - Mike writes: The chickens are done. Finally. Last weekend was supposed to be dedicated to planting veggies but there were 6 chickens left to slaughter. They can't wait, SO..... We axed them and then set our sites on the roosters. The roosters are a problem. We have 5 roosters to go with 4 laying hens. The Barred Rock hens don't count here because they are not yet mature. For the number of hens we have 1 rooster is more than enough so we have too many. The traditional way to solve this problem is to make stock of the birds. Since we had our canner set up, the stock pots ready and the "processing" area set up we made our choice. Time for the roosters to go. The challange now is to catch them. Kristi got the net and some corn and we went hunting. Two we caught fairly easily. A big black roo with yellow fringe, pretty and useless. We had gotten used to how the Cornish hens reacted to being caught. A little flapping and little else. Well, the roo was different. Kristi put the footcuffs on him and I hung him gently from the 2x2 that is above the buckets that the blood drips onto. At this point the roo reminded us that he can still fly by flapping up to perch on the 2x2. Oops. This act hastened his end and as he hung there dripping we went in for another bird. After all we do these chickens by twos. We caught one of the annoying little Napoleons and he joined the other bird hanging. They got processesed and into the icebox with them. We set our sites on the remaining 3 males and went after them. Kristi caught one in the goat shed and I lost it trying to untangle it from the net. It ran off into the woods to live another day. After this fun we called an end to chasing roosters for the day. More stock was set to simmer
Friday, April 29, 2005
Friday, April 22, 2005
Taking Stock
Yesterday, I canned 21 quarts of chicken stock -- using parts and pieces of the birds we slaughtered on Wednesay (10) as well as the others from the weekend (24 birds). Chicken feet, necks and various parts... taking care not to put the chicken livers or the gizzards in, although both of these parts on the birds are huge. These parts tend to foul the fowl.
We also did the packing of the birds --using a foodsaver system that seems to work well in vacuum-packing the birds, even the huge ones that seemed too big. So now, we have 32 birds in the freezer (I gave away two to someone who has cancer and shouldn't be eating anything that's not grown properly) -- some of these birds are in parts and pieces. One day soon I'll again have a taste for chicken, but it 'is not this day!'
The corn is getting larger and we're going to have to find a way to keep the patch of dirt weeded until the stalks grow tall enough to block out the sunlight to the errant grasses and such that wants to grow faster than the plants themselves.
We have much to do, much to do. Most of the plants are too big for the greenhouse, now, so there is a chance a lot of the gourds, watermelons, peppers, (the rest of the) tomatos, flowers, etc... will not make it when transplanted. This is, however, year 1 and I look at everything as an experiment, a version One Point Oh, so to speak.
Too tired to type. As Frost said, "We have miles and miles to go before we sleep."
And so we do.
And so we do.
We also did the packing of the birds --using a foodsaver system that seems to work well in vacuum-packing the birds, even the huge ones that seemed too big. So now, we have 32 birds in the freezer (I gave away two to someone who has cancer and shouldn't be eating anything that's not grown properly) -- some of these birds are in parts and pieces. One day soon I'll again have a taste for chicken, but it 'is not this day!'
The corn is getting larger and we're going to have to find a way to keep the patch of dirt weeded until the stalks grow tall enough to block out the sunlight to the errant grasses and such that wants to grow faster than the plants themselves.
We have much to do, much to do. Most of the plants are too big for the greenhouse, now, so there is a chance a lot of the gourds, watermelons, peppers, (the rest of the) tomatos, flowers, etc... will not make it when transplanted. This is, however, year 1 and I look at everything as an experiment, a version One Point Oh, so to speak.
Too tired to type. As Frost said, "We have miles and miles to go before we sleep."
And so we do.
And so we do.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
More chickens and corn and dogs and work and stuf
10 more chickens met their doom last night. We're getting more efficient at this. Sunday we "harvested" 24 of our Cornish Cross meat birds between 10:00 and 7:00. Wednesday we did in 10 chickens in a little over two hours after work. We started by going to the grocery store for ice and some groceries. We got some sandwiches as we didn't feel like we'd be wanting to cook after "taking care of" the chickens. We were right. While Kristi brought out the hot water and fastened the feed bags that we use for collecting feathers and offal, I collected a couple of chickens from the barn, tied on our fancy footnooses and hung the birds over a couple of buckets. I promptly set the birds to bleeding out. This takes a few minutes and I could help Kristi get the ice in the buckets and coolers, filling up clean water dunking buckets, getting my eviscerate tray and knives etc. We got to it in ernest just as the thunder started. Kristi kept saying "it isn't going to rain". I don't know if she really has a sense about these things or if she just makes it up but she was more or less right. It only rained a little and not enough to soak our clothing. So now we're in production. Kristi dunks the now dead bird in the hot water for half a minute and then we commence plucking. I help her pluck until the first bird is feather free, then I start "cleaning out" the chicken. Once the innards are gone the bird is cleaned up and put on ice. I also culled the defective bird that I should have done 2 months ago. Live and learn. This chicken had a bad spinal curvature and could only walk in counterclockwise circles. It would have been better off if I had killed it and not wasted the feed. So now we have 6 birds left to process, but not tonight. Tonight's fun will be a final rinse and then vacuum packing and freezing.
Also on tonight's agenda is taking Barbecue, the dog to the vets. She is going to be celebrating her 6 month birthday by getting spayed. No more stray males hanging around like the last 2 weeks. We'll water the plants that need it, walk around and look at our fruit trees and if there's time, I'll mow the backyard as the weeds are almost knee high.
In other news, the corn is up! Hundreds of little corn plants are up as high as and inch and a half already. We planted them a week ago with the help of Kristi's seeder. This is a gadget that has 2 wheels and a seed holder. It makes a small furrow in tilled soil, drops a seed every so many inches, covers the seed with dirt and marks the next row as a guide. Nice tool. If we'd had to do it with a hoe it would have taken hours. Once the plants have grown a little more and the rows are clearly defined I'll put down soaker hoses for more efficient watering.
This weekend will be a vegetable intensive one. We have more tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, potatoes, squash and beans to get in the ground. Many are too big in the greenhouse already. So it will be a tilling and crawling around on our knees kind of weekend. This is what we signed up for in living here and we can hardly wait. Weird huh?
Also on tonight's agenda is taking Barbecue, the dog to the vets. She is going to be celebrating her 6 month birthday by getting spayed. No more stray males hanging around like the last 2 weeks. We'll water the plants that need it, walk around and look at our fruit trees and if there's time, I'll mow the backyard as the weeds are almost knee high.
In other news, the corn is up! Hundreds of little corn plants are up as high as and inch and a half already. We planted them a week ago with the help of Kristi's seeder. This is a gadget that has 2 wheels and a seed holder. It makes a small furrow in tilled soil, drops a seed every so many inches, covers the seed with dirt and marks the next row as a guide. Nice tool. If we'd had to do it with a hoe it would have taken hours. Once the plants have grown a little more and the rows are clearly defined I'll put down soaker hoses for more efficient watering.
This weekend will be a vegetable intensive one. We have more tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, potatoes, squash and beans to get in the ground. Many are too big in the greenhouse already. So it will be a tilling and crawling around on our knees kind of weekend. This is what we signed up for in living here and we can hardly wait. Weird huh?
Monday, April 18, 2005
the squawk about the slaughter
This past weekend has been a bit of a crazy one. Two poetry readings and then a chicken 'harvesting' (Mike says that's the PC way of saying 'slaughter'.) Also planted 34 more tomato plants.
But, then again, it's a typical weekend... working our asses off (isn't we supposed to be havin' a fiesta!) and making something of ourselves.
Then... there's the dog. The dog. No, not Barbecue, the other one. The one that's gone, now. The one that, when it saw my pellet gun aimed at its head, knew what it was and high-tailed it... a few times. But it always came back. Like I said, we were butchering chickens and Barbecue is in heat. These two seemingly disparate things are brought together by the fact that the stray dog not only had a piece of ass, but was looking to have some of that wonderful chicken flesh, as well.
Ah, the chicken slaughtering... errr, the butchering... errr, the HARVESTING process. What a thing this is. We went to Home Despot on Friday seeking a solution to the hanging of the chickens (upside down) so that they could bleed out. We bought these very expensive little doohickeys to do just that, but then Mike stayed up that night and figured out another way. And it was a better way. Slip knots on twine. Cheap, better, best, really.
But I'm the knot-maker, having come from a fishing background where, if it wasn't tied, tied up or tied down, it was gone in the wind or the water. I also had a fascination for crocheting as a kid, a hobby I was glad to give up for poetry or something else less useful. Nonetheless, the skill of tying knots has remained and so I did this. It was a trade-off. I did the knots, Mike did the evisceration of the chickens. I also plucked most of them and packed them in coolers and such.
On Saturday morning, I swear, I think we were both stalling and then we had to purchase ice (never do this from a convenience store) for which we paid a fortune. The second load of ice that Mike had to go get was a lot cheaper from the local grocery chain. We set everything up and started around 9:30. We did in 24 chickens from then until 4:30 in the afternoon, taking just a few breaks and getting rained on from time to time. Luckily, it was light rain and didn't last for very long. The goats hung around all morning and most of the afternoon, very curious about what we were doing. At one point, the main rooster strutted up to the table and squawked, seeing that two chickens were hanging upside down. He quickly returned to the barnyard and we didn't see him for another hour.
As the chickens hung upside-down, Mike slit their throats and let them bleed out into buckets - usually about a few tablespoons per bird. And these are LARGE birds. We fed them well.
The chickens, once upside-down, flapped around a while and I waited until they died then put them, one at a time, into the very hot water. We kept the burners on in the kitchen the whole day so that we would have a constant supply of hot water. Without the hot water, the feathers are extremely difficult to remove.
We did in two at a time, thinking that we would be able to handle five or six, but two was plenty. Mike would grab them out of the chicken area, bring them into the side yard where a ladder, a long table, buckets of ice and coolers were. I put the slipknots over their legs and tightened them, then he hung them over the buckets on a board attached to the ladder. It's funny, but after a while, the chickens stopped running to him when he would enter the coop area. Usually, he is the one who feeds them and they are HAPPY that he is there, but when he started removing them two at a time, I think they got suspicious. At least, as suspicious as they could get having little tiny chicken brains.
After we plucked them, Mike took the bile duct and anus out, then the lungs and the other parts of the chicken. He cut the head off and then when he was done, threw the main carcass into a bucket of ice, put the head and chicken feet into the same bucket and the liver and gizzards into a pot with ice.
After this was all done, we cleaned up and I used the feathers for my compost as well as the heavy blood in the buckets. Mike cleaned all the buckets up and I put things away.
We have a friend who is a little squeamish about the killing part, but I have to say that when Mike would slit their throats, he would say that he is sorry. Is that better?
My compost is happy and will be MUCH happier when we are done with the rest of the chickens (16 left to 'harvest') -- this means I get to have all the good poop from their area for my compost. The temperature of the pile was such that it was beginning to burn the stuff at the bottom. This is when you know the heat is there and the compost is working.
However, during the day, the whole 'harvesting' process left us not so hungry for lunch (each of us ate a half sandwich). It wasn't so bad after the first few chickens, but we ate dinner out that night. Mike had chicken flautas, but I couldn't stand the thought of it and had enchiladas. They had no chicken in them. It may be a while... at least for me. But the cornish crosses, after all that, look exactly like the chickens you get at the grocery store. And I know these don't have 'water added' and they are disease free. It won't take long before I get used to the idea of eating them again.
Such a graceful Saturday with planting tomatoes and so civilized at a poetry reading and then... SAVAGE SLAUGHTER of HELPLESS BEASTS! Really.. this is our life. The graceful and the grateful, the seedless and the seediness, the growth of new things and the death of others. Sometimes I wonder if it gets any better than this.
But, then again, it's a typical weekend... working our asses off (isn't we supposed to be havin' a fiesta!) and making something of ourselves.
Then... there's the dog. The dog. No, not Barbecue, the other one. The one that's gone, now. The one that, when it saw my pellet gun aimed at its head, knew what it was and high-tailed it... a few times. But it always came back. Like I said, we were butchering chickens and Barbecue is in heat. These two seemingly disparate things are brought together by the fact that the stray dog not only had a piece of ass, but was looking to have some of that wonderful chicken flesh, as well.
Ah, the chicken slaughtering... errr, the butchering... errr, the HARVESTING process. What a thing this is. We went to Home Despot on Friday seeking a solution to the hanging of the chickens (upside down) so that they could bleed out. We bought these very expensive little doohickeys to do just that, but then Mike stayed up that night and figured out another way. And it was a better way. Slip knots on twine. Cheap, better, best, really.
But I'm the knot-maker, having come from a fishing background where, if it wasn't tied, tied up or tied down, it was gone in the wind or the water. I also had a fascination for crocheting as a kid, a hobby I was glad to give up for poetry or something else less useful. Nonetheless, the skill of tying knots has remained and so I did this. It was a trade-off. I did the knots, Mike did the evisceration of the chickens. I also plucked most of them and packed them in coolers and such.
On Saturday morning, I swear, I think we were both stalling and then we had to purchase ice (never do this from a convenience store) for which we paid a fortune. The second load of ice that Mike had to go get was a lot cheaper from the local grocery chain. We set everything up and started around 9:30. We did in 24 chickens from then until 4:30 in the afternoon, taking just a few breaks and getting rained on from time to time. Luckily, it was light rain and didn't last for very long. The goats hung around all morning and most of the afternoon, very curious about what we were doing. At one point, the main rooster strutted up to the table and squawked, seeing that two chickens were hanging upside down. He quickly returned to the barnyard and we didn't see him for another hour.
As the chickens hung upside-down, Mike slit their throats and let them bleed out into buckets - usually about a few tablespoons per bird. And these are LARGE birds. We fed them well.
The chickens, once upside-down, flapped around a while and I waited until they died then put them, one at a time, into the very hot water. We kept the burners on in the kitchen the whole day so that we would have a constant supply of hot water. Without the hot water, the feathers are extremely difficult to remove.
We did in two at a time, thinking that we would be able to handle five or six, but two was plenty. Mike would grab them out of the chicken area, bring them into the side yard where a ladder, a long table, buckets of ice and coolers were. I put the slipknots over their legs and tightened them, then he hung them over the buckets on a board attached to the ladder. It's funny, but after a while, the chickens stopped running to him when he would enter the coop area. Usually, he is the one who feeds them and they are HAPPY that he is there, but when he started removing them two at a time, I think they got suspicious. At least, as suspicious as they could get having little tiny chicken brains.
After we plucked them, Mike took the bile duct and anus out, then the lungs and the other parts of the chicken. He cut the head off and then when he was done, threw the main carcass into a bucket of ice, put the head and chicken feet into the same bucket and the liver and gizzards into a pot with ice.
After this was all done, we cleaned up and I used the feathers for my compost as well as the heavy blood in the buckets. Mike cleaned all the buckets up and I put things away.
We have a friend who is a little squeamish about the killing part, but I have to say that when Mike would slit their throats, he would say that he is sorry. Is that better?
My compost is happy and will be MUCH happier when we are done with the rest of the chickens (16 left to 'harvest') -- this means I get to have all the good poop from their area for my compost. The temperature of the pile was such that it was beginning to burn the stuff at the bottom. This is when you know the heat is there and the compost is working.
However, during the day, the whole 'harvesting' process left us not so hungry for lunch (each of us ate a half sandwich). It wasn't so bad after the first few chickens, but we ate dinner out that night. Mike had chicken flautas, but I couldn't stand the thought of it and had enchiladas. They had no chicken in them. It may be a while... at least for me. But the cornish crosses, after all that, look exactly like the chickens you get at the grocery store. And I know these don't have 'water added' and they are disease free. It won't take long before I get used to the idea of eating them again.
Such a graceful Saturday with planting tomatoes and so civilized at a poetry reading and then... SAVAGE SLAUGHTER of HELPLESS BEASTS! Really.. this is our life. The graceful and the grateful, the seedless and the seediness, the growth of new things and the death of others. Sometimes I wonder if it gets any better than this.
Monday, April 04, 2005
From the other one...
I don't often get a chance to write or to voice my side of what we're doing out here on our Texas Farm, so it's time.
It's been a long weekend and I'm feeling it -- sunburned, sore muscled and tired beyond reason. But it's been a good weekend. I tilled the corn patch so that I would know how much room we'd have for other things... Mike thinks it's too big and I think it's too small. We are planning on using the corn to feed us as well as the all the livestock.
I also planted the asparagus, although it may be too late -- not seasonally too late, but the asparagus seems to be dead.. maybe it's dormant, but we bought it from Home Despot and believe me, they don't have the finest quality items. However, the guy from Bonnie Farms showed up at our little Bastrop Home Despot this past weekend and I found out that they have 17 greenhouses in Beeville and the rest of them are mostly in Alabama. The accent the guy was carrying kind of gave away the fact that he was from AL, too. At least the plants in our little Home Despot were grown in Texas. This makes me feel a little better.
Our compost isn't big enough for all the things we want to do with it and it's just now heating up properly. Massive amounts of coffee grounds as well as some organic fertilizer will hopefully restart the decomposition process.
The worms, formerly in our guest bathroom, are now in the compost area, but still in the plastic box I used to grow them. They're red worms. Good for loosening the dirt around plants and making wonderful, wonderful vermicultured compost. Black dirt.. texas tea... oh, don't get me started.
Today I will probably finish tilling in the composted leaves from our acreage that's forested. The tilling will be done in the corn area and maybe I can plant, now.
I still have a greenhouse full of plants but have not had time to put them into the soil. The soil temperature is about right at the moment and there won't really be any better time to do this.
I planted a bunch of dill in an area between the back yard and the shed -- as well as some catnip for which, I think, my cats will be truly grateful. I snipped some off and watched them all roll around happily drunk in the dirt. Silly cats.
The dog.. oh, the dog. Grrrr... If only she could not be so... dogged! She's really sweet, though.
And now the chickens are too big, so we might be doing some chicken killin' this evening. It depends on how each of our days have been and whether we're up to the chore tonight. Otherwise, the corn's goin' in. That's all there is to it.
Mike is NOT my slave... he does what he wants to do and that's all there is to THAT!
Now... where's my whip?
Signed --
The OTHER farmer at this location.
It's been a long weekend and I'm feeling it -- sunburned, sore muscled and tired beyond reason. But it's been a good weekend. I tilled the corn patch so that I would know how much room we'd have for other things... Mike thinks it's too big and I think it's too small. We are planning on using the corn to feed us as well as the all the livestock.
I also planted the asparagus, although it may be too late -- not seasonally too late, but the asparagus seems to be dead.. maybe it's dormant, but we bought it from Home Despot and believe me, they don't have the finest quality items. However, the guy from Bonnie Farms showed up at our little Bastrop Home Despot this past weekend and I found out that they have 17 greenhouses in Beeville and the rest of them are mostly in Alabama. The accent the guy was carrying kind of gave away the fact that he was from AL, too. At least the plants in our little Home Despot were grown in Texas. This makes me feel a little better.
Our compost isn't big enough for all the things we want to do with it and it's just now heating up properly. Massive amounts of coffee grounds as well as some organic fertilizer will hopefully restart the decomposition process.
The worms, formerly in our guest bathroom, are now in the compost area, but still in the plastic box I used to grow them. They're red worms. Good for loosening the dirt around plants and making wonderful, wonderful vermicultured compost. Black dirt.. texas tea... oh, don't get me started.
Today I will probably finish tilling in the composted leaves from our acreage that's forested. The tilling will be done in the corn area and maybe I can plant, now.
I still have a greenhouse full of plants but have not had time to put them into the soil. The soil temperature is about right at the moment and there won't really be any better time to do this.
I planted a bunch of dill in an area between the back yard and the shed -- as well as some catnip for which, I think, my cats will be truly grateful. I snipped some off and watched them all roll around happily drunk in the dirt. Silly cats.
The dog.. oh, the dog. Grrrr... If only she could not be so... dogged! She's really sweet, though.
And now the chickens are too big, so we might be doing some chicken killin' this evening. It depends on how each of our days have been and whether we're up to the chore tonight. Otherwise, the corn's goin' in. That's all there is to it.
Mike is NOT my slave... he does what he wants to do and that's all there is to THAT!
Now... where's my whip?
Signed --
The OTHER farmer at this location.
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