Rambling Update

Broccoli! Saturday we set out 480 broccoli transplants. Rather than start them from seed, we purchased plants this time around. A lot less effort for about the same price as our "special" commercial pepper seeds. They look really good so far. 

Broccoli plants waiting in the garage

The same can be said for the lambs. We have weighed them a couple of times now, and they are right at 50 pounds and growing about a third of a pound each day. There is a lot of variability in the group, but overall they look good. 

The chicken on the hay feeder is one of two hens who flew the coop and have taken up residence in the barn. They have a stockpile of eggs, which I am hoping they will brood. I will give them a few more weeks, and if there is no evidence of setting, then I will have to clean up the old eggs and start gathering the fresh ones.

The pigs are also growing. They love getting sweet corn cobs as a treat and have started coming up to investigate us rather than running away at top speed. A friend suggested treating them with marshmallows, apparently pigs love them, but we have not tried that yet. We got four barrows this time, but they are all different colors. I can't pick a favorite because they are all adorable. But I notice I did take more pictures of the red one. The black spotted pig is a troublemaker who got out a couple of times a few weeks back. We seem to have gotten the fence right now and haven't had any escapes recently.

Our fall lambing experiment is just around the corner. Sunday I counted 10 Dorper ewes that have udders developing. I don't see any development on the Dorsets. We need to run them through the chute to separate out the Cheviot-Suffolk ewes and get a close look to see how many settled to the spring breeding and didn't slip lambs in all of this crazy heat. We should start lambing in about five weeks. 

The garden has really not been that productive this year. Between busy schedules and hot, dry weather, it is quite behind. We picked our first green beans of the season over the last 2 weeks. The first picking was just enough to eat, and I canned 11 quarts the second time around. First tomatoes of the summer this week too, yum! I also finally got some pictures of the garlic.

The larger bulb here is German Extra Hardy hard neck garlic, and this is an average bulb (the other pics are also of this variety). The smaller bulb is a California White, soft neck type, and this is the largest one we grew this year; most of the others are half this size. So, first year experimenting with hard neck...so far, so good. And it's delicious!

We have been doing a little pest management and harvesting deer under a damage control permit. What better way to use the meat than by corning and smoking some heavenly pastrami. Here are a few of the hams fresh from the smoker.

A pile of pastrami.

And my favorite way to eat this delicacy - pastrami slathered with coarse mustard and wrapped around a dilly bean. Now my mouth is watering.

 The deer aren't the only wildlife we've been seeing. This summer has been full of interesting visitors.

Brian found this beetle in the bed of the truck one morning. It was dead when he found it. It is huge! I think it is a female Eastern Hercules Beetle, which is a forest beetle. This is the first one we've ever seen.

I see the turkeys almost daily, amazing how much the little poults have grown!

We sent five cull ewes to New Holland Saturday. As we were loading them I got a good look at one who is the fattest sheep I have ever seen. She did not lamb two years in a row, and she's been in the barn eating free-choice alfalfa-grass hay since April. FAT. 

Brian has been traveling a lot the past two weeks and will be gone all week this week as well. In the meantime, I've been holding down the fort and dealing with only the occasional animal issue. One morning it was fishing a ewe out from underneath a truck, then chasing a wormy ewe around the field for a while. 

The ewe under the truck scared me at first because I figured she was dead, I mean why else would she be under there? As I got closer to her I saw she was quite alive, but when I tried to pull her out, she didn't come out easily. I stopped pulling and checked to be sure she didn't have her head caught on wire or her ear tag snagged on some mysterious metal. Nothing, so I grabbed her two front feet with one hand and her two back feet with the other and gave it another go. This time she popped out, and stood wobbling, looking at me a little dazedly. I think her legs must have been a bit numb, but she got herself together and teetered off to the water trough. 

A few days later I was moving sheep again and the wormy ewe was again at the tail end of the group. The fact she was still standing was very encouraging, as we have had very bad luck treating ewes once they are that far gone. We had wormed her a couple of weeks earlier, at which time she had very pale eye membranes, an indirect indication of worms. On the day of the truck incident she had clear symptoms of bottle jaw, a swelling of sorts under the lower jaw. But I could not catch her on my own, so she did not get wormed that day. Well, by the time a week had passed she had slowed down a bit. I moved the whole group of ewes from one field to the next without incident. Then I had to go after number 32 (the wormy one). Instead of running into the field she found a small opening between the tractor and the barn and got out into the yard. Where I proceeded to chase her in circles around the house. After a while I tired of the game, plus I had to run over to New Hope to feed the other ewes. So I left her in the lilac bush by the driveway and went to feed the others. By the time I got back it was almost dark, and my first glance around the yard revealed no sheep. I found her in the flower bed, chased her around the house once, and she ended up back near the lilac bush. She was worn out at this point and still refused to walk (I left that out, but that is why I had to leave her before, I finally caught up to her, wormed her and put on a halter, but she just wouldn't budge). I knew it was not a good idea to leave her out overnight. So I found a plastic feed sack and rolled her on it, keeping her on one hip and pulling her along by her upper body, using the feed sack as a sled of sorts. It worked beautifully, but I was going uphill backwards and I knew I couldn't get her all the way back to the barn like that. So I shut off the power to the fence, slid her over close to it, and put her front feet through. She leapt out of my arms and ran across the field to be with the other sheep. Two days later when we were moving the ewes to the barn so we could load them on the trailer and haul them to New Hope, she was again at the back of the pack and we had to help her through the fence. She didn't seem steady enough to go on the trailer, so she's convalescing in the barn for now. Poor thing, I do hope she can get her strength back as she seems to be quite the fighter.

Finally, a stroll through the flowers. I really need to update this more frequently as these photos are already behind what is actually happening outside. The dahlias are blooming quite a bit now and the sunflowers are in full bloom. The obedient plant has also just opened in the last few days. 

Dianthus - you can clearly see the beautiful petal edges that give these flowers their common name, pinks. I loved using the pinking shears as a little girl, so these are nostalgic flowers for me.

I am a flower fan. But if I had to pick just one flower (for summer any way!) it would be the sunflower. They are just so cheerful.

Mimosa tree in full bloom. The flowers attract droves of hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. We didn't see hummingbirds as early as usual, but there have been plenty of them here lately.

A pretty gladiolus in the shade of a butterfly bush.

Another cheerful summer favorite, marigolds planted in the garden.

Drama queen. I love that the hibiscus has these tropical, extravagant blooms. It is all done for this year, but what a spectacular show!

Delicious treats filling my shelves

 Dill relish; first time I've tried this, but I've already made two batches and I will be doing it again! Super-delicious treat on a home made sausage.

 Bread and butter pickles in the refrigerator.

 Beets!

Margherita hybrid tomatoes just after placing them in the dehydrator.

Summer is flying by

How is it August already? I completely missed July. It has been hot and humid now for weeks, with many days in the upper 90s and a few over 100. I have been very remiss in my blogging, so here's an update on recent activities.

Brian's family visited us the weekend of the Fourth, and we had a nice picnic, complete with coleslaw from our first head of cabbage. We butchered 73 chickens on July 9 with help from Pete and Austin. We only lost 5 of the original 78 birds, and they dressed out really well with an average weight of 5 pounds. All in all it was a very successful batch. The next set of chicks are supposed to arrive this week. Over the weekend we cleaned out the coop, and this morning I cleaned up all of the waterers and feeders, so we are ready for the phone call and a mad dash to the post office. July 10 I headed to New Orleans for the annual American Dairy Science Association meetings. It was a good trip and I enjoyed catching up with colleagues from around the world. And, at the airport I had the pleasure of chatting with an acquaintance and discovering that he and his wife raise sheep as well and he was headed home to start lambing; the wait for our plane went by in a flash! On July 18 Brian headed to Toronto for the Pioneer annual business conference. Meanwhile, I caught up from a week away. I froze the last of the broccoli (thanks the the hot weather we didn't get much, so I started some new plants Monday for a fall crop), made dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, and a batch of dill relish. I also took the wool to the extension office for the wool pool. Mid-States cooperative buys our wool, and there's one day each summer that they bring trucks and load up all of the wool in this area. The wool prices are much higher this year; still not enough to cover the cost of shearing, but at least it is a little closer. On July 21, Pioneer flew me up to Toronto too. They have an extended weekend for employees who meet their incentive goals and their spouses. It was a nice vacation (what's that?). We had a chartered salmon fishing excursion on Lake Ontario, a bus trip to Niagara Falls, and a dinner cruise on the lake. By Sunday of that weekend we were both ready to get out of the city and get back home, but we did snag a great lunch at Toula, including fabulous caprese towers (fresh mozzarella, basil and tomatoes stacked up in alternating layers). Last week was another week of catching up, more pickles (14-day sweets this time), more relish, 23 quarts of shredded cabbage, one night at Vacation Bible School, baling some second cutting alfalfa, and a whole day of moving sheep.

We weaned the lambs and moved the ewes to New Hope on July 26. This is almost a month later than we typically wean, but we didn't want to wean them and then be away for two weeks. It was a pretty low-stress event all things considered. It took three trips to get all the ewes and Tony hauled over to New Hope, but it went very well, including catching, loading, and unloading Tony. He actually behaved like he had been led onto a trailer before (he was supposedly a show llama in his younger years). We did not have time to weigh the lambs that day, but we need to get that done here soon. The extended lactation and super hot weather have been hard on the sheep. We have lost some lambs, although we are in line with previous years. It is depressing to lose them, and we are trying some different strategies. We will probably creep feed the lambs next year to see if we can help some of them get a better start. At least that may partially make up for mamas that have less milk and maybe we can reduce some of the variation in the size of our lambs.

I picked some blackberries on Monday. The sheep didn't eat them all, but the only ones left were the hardest ones to get! I'm still not sure it was worth all the scratches...especially when I have some thornless blackberries right here at the house. The red raspberries are producing huge, sweet berries again, and I think I'm going to stick with them until my thornless blackberries start producing. That may be a while though, the deer seem to really like them and continually clip off the canes. This is the first year they have even set fruit. Last night I canned some beets, plain not pickled. Last time we had beets I pickled them all and then discovered Brian didn't like them. So I was nice to him and didn't pickle them this go round. Except last night I found out he's never even tried pickled beets. Grr! Next time I'm doing half and half.

There are probably more cucumbers waiting for me and I know someday soon I will have to pick some shell beans. Tonight I'm going to start drying down some tomatoes. I had this idea last year to try sundried tomatoes, but I ran out of tomatoes before I thought about it. So I'm taking advantage of the smaller number that are ready at this point in the season.

Well, that pretty much brings us up to date. I have a bunch of photos to add, but don't have time right now to do it. Grand views of Niagara Falls and some gorgeous summer color in the flower beds will have to wait. That will give you something to look forward to in my next post!

Photo update, part 2

And now, photos of everything other than flowers!

Three-week-old broiler chicks hanging out in the starter house. Most of them have enough feathers now that they don't look too ugly. Yesterday we opened up the door and let them have access to pasture. We're thinking of not using our little huts this time around to make it easier to feed and water. The chickens will still have access to the outdoors, but they won't be rotated around. We'll see how that goes. These chickens are bred to do two things: eat and grow. As a result, they aren't the most active critters and they make a lot of manure. The biggest advantage to the huts is that the chickens move to clean grass twice a day.

The first year we were here we planted black and red raspberries and blackberries. We haven't had outstanding berry production so far, but this year they are finally coming into their own. I have picked black raspberries twice. We made custards and cobbler with the first batch. If the second batch doesn't get used tonight, they are going in the freezer so they don't go to waste. The red raspberries have produced just enough for eating straight off the plants - a super delicious treat!

 The garden is all planted and coming along nicely. I tied up the tomatoes again yesterday and they are looking really good; lots of blooms and some small fruits already. The beans in this picture look a little sad. This was about a week after planting, and the lima beans (in the middle three rows of this picture) didn't have the best emergence. I replanted them and they are looking much better now.

We have a lot of mint and every year I think I should make mint jelly. But I never get around to it. This year, I actually did it! I canned 9 half pints, which should go really well with lamb dishes. I also made some mint-infused ice cubes so we can enjoy minty additions to food in the middle of winter. The same evening I also picked oregano for drying. Usually I put this off until the end of the season. That works, but by then the leaves are all bug-eaten and the stems are really fibrous. This young oregano was tender and very easy to work with. I need to remember to pick early every year!

The butterflies are starting to appear more and more often. Saturday I spied this one, which I believe is a Zebra Swallowtail. I have never seen one of these before, but they are really striking with their vertical stripes and long, long tails.

I believe I mentioned a while back that we had been working on the basement. We haven't done much since that initial push, but here are two photos to show what we have accomplished so far. This first one is a little sample of what the basement looked like before we started. On one side this wooden shelf/bench ran the entire length of the house. It wasn't bad as a work surface, but it didn't provide much help for organizing and storing things. The walls were bare block, and the floor was bare concrete. Pretty much a blank slate. 

This is the corner that will become the basement kitchen, to be used for all of our various canning, meat processing, sausage making, beer and wine making, and so forth. Plus we will be building a pantry for storing canned food and storing all of the various pieces of equipment that go along with all of these ventures. We used a masonry paint to seal the wall and an epoxy floor coating. This picture was taken right after one of the epoxy coats was applied, so it looks uneven, but it dried to a perfect finish. Next step is framing in the two walls that will separate this room from the rest of the basement. Who knows when we'll get to that, but we will...eventually!

Whew! Now all the photos I've taken have been sorted, filed, and uploaded (if blog-worthy). It seems I haven't taken any lamb photos in quite some time, so I will have to remedy that.

Chicken stock

Convert chicken carcasses into chicken stock. Check.

I had to clear space out of the freezer to fit our recently butchered pigs, and the most obvious thing taking up space was the bags and bags of chicken parts that I saved for making stock. It took several days and several batches, but I am happy to report that there are no more "parts for stock" in the freezer.

The following pictures illustrate the process I use, sorry you can't smell the delicious aroma!

Ingredients:

4 pounds of chicken parts, mostly backs, necks, and wing tips

1 large onion, quartered

4 carrots, peeled and cut in half

4 ribs of celery, cut in half, use leaves too if they are healthy

10 sprigs fresh thyme

10 sprigs fresh parsley, stems too

2 bay leaves

10 whole peppercorns

2 whole cloves of garlic, peeled

2 gallons cold water

Put all of the ingredients into a large stock pot, and pour water over the top. I usually double or triple this batch, and often end up only having room for half of the water in the pot.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 6 to 8 hours, adding water as needed to keep everything submerged.

Strain stock and discard all bones, meat, and vegetable matter (I bury all the leftover material in the compost pile). Strain a second time through a tight mesh to remove tiny particles. Place strained stock in stock pot in a sink full of ice water to quickly cool it.

The fresh stock chilling in the sink. After it cools, place stock pot in the refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours to allow the fat to form a nice, firm layer on top.

Skim the fat off of the surface. You can then store it for a couple of days in the refrigerator or a few months in the freezer. I prefer to can it, because I need the freezer space for other stuff! I heat the stock to a rolling boil and then ladle the hot liquid into jars, leaving a generous head space (at least 1 inch). Process at 11 pounds of pressure, 20 minutes for pints or 25 minutes for quarts.

The finished product! I do not usually have room for all the water the recipe calls for, so my stock is double-strength. When I use it, I usually dilute it one to one with water. I love the rich brown color and full flavor of this stock!

All these days of work yielded 25 quarts of concentrated stock, 50 quarts once it's diluted. That seems to be about right compared to previous years, approximately 1 quart of stock per chicken that we butcher.