Local Farmer's Market, Strawberry Jam & Turkeys

Today our local Farmer's Market opened for the season.  McKayla, Taylor and I went over to see what was being offered.  There was someone selling Grass Fed Angus Beef (which we didn't need), someone selling plant starts (a bought a Cherrokee Purple Tomato and a few herbs), a local woman selling fresh baked goods (I got a rhubarb tart and got cookies for the girls) and then there were fresh strawberries.  Big geaurgous strawberries!  I bought four quarts of them.  The girls and I ate some of them right in the parking lot as we just couldn't wait until we got home to eat them.

Once home I made a quick batch of freezer jam with them.  I cleaned and sliced the strawberries...

Then I added in a package of freezer pectin and mashed it all up until it was the consistenacy I wanted for jam.

Finally, I spooned it into freezer containers and let it set for 30 minutes to gel before putting them in the freezer.  It made 11 half-pint jars.

This afternoon when McKayla and I were out walking around the farm we noticed a turkey hen with baby turkeys at her feet.  I always feel bad about taking babies from their moms but I know if I don't I will loose them all.  McKayla helped scoop them up while I got another brooder pen ready for them.  We caught up seven of them...

McKayla (with wet hair from the pool) holding all seven turkey poults.

Farm Happenings

We had a guy stop by the farm this morning looking for a turkey tom to buy for his hens. In luck I still had two toms that I haven't gotten around to butchering yet. So, Neil and I caught him up and off he went to his new home to be with his new girls. I love a happy ending!

What was not so happy is that today was the day that we needed to dis-bud our kid goats. It is our least favorite farm chore but one that needs to get done. The kids (of the human kind) helped us round up the three goat kids. Then Neil and I got them all dis-budded. It went really well and we got good copper burns on all the kids.

A lesson in Turkey Butchering

My friend Heather and her family came over this afternoon to learn how to butcher and dress out a turkey. They have a farm in Virginia and will be starting a CSA this year. They have been thinking about adding some turkeys to their farm but wanted to see if the end production was something they could do themselves.

I have three tom turkeys hanging out that needed to be processed so I invited them over to help out.

The process of butchering, scalding, feather plucking and dressing out went well and think Heather is comfortable with the idea of doing this in the future herself. But, we only ended up doing one of the toms today. After they left I continued butchering out the turkey. I didn't really want to keep it as a roasting bird so I opted to remove the meat from the bones.

I successfully removed 7+ pounds of both light and dark meat. I saved one nice piece of breast meat that weighed 1.3 pounds aside to cook for dinner later this week. The remainder of the meat was ground in my Kitchen Aide mixer grinder/pasta maker attachment. You can see below that after the first grind the light and dark meat is still quite distinctive from each other.

I put the meat through the grinder a second time and got a nice homogeneous mixture. I packaged up six 1 pound packages of ground meat for the freezer.

Final turkey done

Processed the last turkey for a customer today. Glad to be done for another year. Now I can enjoy my favorite holiday tomorrow.

More turkey processing

Most of my afternoon was taken up by the two more turkeys I dressed out today. It didn't help that it was raining all day. These two birds are actually going to a good friend of ours in Durham for her Thanksgiving feast. We will meet up tomorrow and do the exchange.

Life and Death

That is what farming is all about. Days like today remind me of that fact...

It was cold this morning, the water in the barn was frozen. I was almost done my morning barn chores. One of the last things I do on my routine is throw hay out to the cows into the circular hay feeder. Riona, our smaller Irish Dexter cow, can climb into the feeder to reach the center hay but often is not motivated to get back out again so I wasn't surprised to find her in the feeder waiting for me to rescue her and put more hay into it. I hefted up the round feeder on one side and let Riona walk under it to get out. As she passed by me I noticed her vulva was wet and bloody. Immediately my head popped up and started scanning the area for a calf. I didn't see one anywhere. I also didn't know how long Riona had been trapped in the hay feeder and separated from her new calf.

I gave the cows their hay then set out to find the calf... hopefully alive. We have seven acres of pasture here and after covering most of it I still couldn't locate the calf. Finally, toward the back of the pasture were it adjoins our neighbor's crop field I spotted a dark pile on the outside of the electric fence. Closer inspection told me it was a calf but it wasn't moving so I still couldn't determine if it was alive of not. Their is no gate here along our neighbor's field so I had to walk back up to the barn. I knew I couldn't carry a calf back all that way so I took the tractor around the outside of the fence to get it. I stopped a bit away from it as if it was alive I didn't want to spook it and have to catch it. Even as I stood over the calf it didn't move. I reached down to touch it and was surprised how warm it was as it lay there in the sun. It's head came up when I touched it and I quickly scooped it up and climbed back up on the tractor.

Driving with one hand with the calf on my lap was slow going. I hadn't said anything to Neil so as I drove up behind the garage where he and his Dad were working he came out to see what I was doing driving the tractor through the wood on that side of the pasture. I could see that he couldn't figure out what I was holding at first. As I shifted the calf on my lap Neil could see what it was but his Dad yelled out, "Is that a dog?" I responded, "No, it's a cow." lol

I drove up the gate near the hay feeder. Before I got down I lifted a leg to check if it was a bull or a heifer... it was a little bull. Neil opened the gate and I carried the little guy into see his mom. It was the first time I saw him on his feet and he eagerly started to nurse. She swung her head around to smell him then returned to her hay. All was well and we have a new calf!

Not sure of his color, he is very dark brown/black right now but that can change. His mom is dun and his sire is red.


Once I was satisfied that the calf was all set I finished up the remainder of my chores. I then had to get started on my next task of the day. I had a customer coming at 3pm to pick up her dressed out turkey for Thanksgiving. I went and got my butchering knife and put a big pot of water on the propane burner to simmer. I picked out one of the tom turkeys from this year and carried him behind the shed were I have my bleeding cones attached to the wall. I dispatched him quickly and once bled out I carried him up to the deck to scaled him and pluck his feathers out. I do most of that job outside to keep the mess out of the house. Once that is done I move into the kitchen where I wash the bird, remove any last feathers, remove the neck and legs, disembowel it, prepare the giblets and finally clean up. From start to finish the process takes a little over an hour. He was cooling in the freezer when the customer arrived to pick him up.

A full day and the beginning of a busy week.

Turkey season has arrived

Well, here it is, the weekend before Thanksgiving. The push to get the remainder of this year's turkeys sold has begun. I had two gentlemen come by the farm this morning to purchase a breeding pair each. Those were my last two hens for sale. I have one hen left that will be retained here on the farm as a breeder since I lost one of our hens this year.

One of the guys ended up also purchasing the four Brown Leghorn chickens that I mistakenly was sold this past spring. They just started laying so he was pleased to get them. I even threw in a Brown Leghorn rooster to boot. One less I have to process here!

Neil and his Dad got the exterior wall to the bedroom sided with cedar siding to match the rest of the house on that end. So, the French door removal project is pretty much done. Then Neil got most of the lawn mowed for the final time this season. Looks nice and tidy now.

It has been getting quite chilly for October in North Carolina. We have been piling on extra blankets at night to keep the chill away. So, this morning I decided it was time to get the first fire of the season going and chase the chill out of the house! It didn't take long for the living room to feel warm and toasty again.

My mother is such a help around the place. While I was doing the livestock chores this morning, she took the tractor into the woods and brought up several loads of cut up firewood to the house. McKayla and I split enough for a few days and stacked it up under the deck. Winter will be here soon.

Sold a young tom turkey to a local gentlemen as a mate for a lone hen he has. One more turkey saved from the holiday table. :)

Taxi!

This was what I saw out my kitchen window this afternoon...

This is our turkey hen that has been raising up its own single poult. The babies like to catch a ride now and then.

Independence Day Update #3

Between yesterday and today there are three new ducklings and two more turkey poults in the brooder. I expect a flush of ducklings in the new few days. Also, yesterday one of the oldest turkey poults that I had left with its mother found its way into the pasture and became a dog toy for our LGDs. When I found it in the barn I wasn't sure if it was still alive or not. It was missing feathers and wet from dog mouth. After I determined it was still breathing I put it with the young birds under the heat lamp in the brooder. In the afternoon it was dry and sitting up a bit. By this morning it was eating, drinking and looking BAR (bright, alert and responsive). It did not want to get up on its feet though... I wonder if it has a broken leg? They are not floppy at all so I have hope it will fully recover with a bit more rest but its days of free ranging with mom are over.

I spent some time in the garden this afternoon. Took the weed whacker around the outside of the raised beds. It looks so much tidier now. I haven't been able to plant in the 4x8 box that I cleaned out earlier this week as I hadn't figured out how to chicken proof it until today. I cut a 16 foot cattle panel in half to give me a 4x8 metal grid to lay on top of the box. Over the grid I will place a bird net for fruit trees. This should keep the birds from scratching up the bed and eating the seeds and disrupting any tender starts. I hope to get some lettuce, radishes, carrots and cukes planted in that box in the next few days.

Here is my update for the IDC this week.

Plant something - Mr. Stripy tomato, sweet yellow pepper, sweet orange pepper, sweet banana pepper, sweet potato.

Harvest something - Fresh free range eggs from our chickens.

Preserve something - Does feeding my sourdough count as something I am preserving? If so, it is something I do at least every other day to keep it alive.

Reduce Waste - Took our once a week trip to town to save on gas. Knitted up a reusable produce bag. No more plastic produce bags for me... YEAH! You can read about it here. Kitchen scraps went to the chickens and/or the compost bin.

Preparation and Storage - I scored a few more great items on the discount table at the local grocery store to have in the pantry. I am continuing to clean out garden beds when I have time and still keep up with the weeds in the boxes I already have planted. I am using newspaper with aged barn floor straw over it as mulch to keep the weeds at bay and the soil moist.

Our two oldest children have life insurance policies through Modern Woodmen of America. One of the many benefits that MWA offers to their policy holders is a free tree every year. This week I remembered to log onto their website and order our two free trees for this year. I don't expect them to come until the Fall for planting but it is something I got done this week! Oh, I ordered a Sugar Maple and a Redbud. The maple for Fall color and the redbud for Spring color!

Eat the Food - Made a Shrimp Scampi from shrimp from the freezer, pasta out of the pantry and served it with a loaf of sourdough bread, also out of the freezer. Brought a pan of Chicken Enchiladas, made with home grown chicken out of the freezer, over to the In-Laws for dinner Saturday night. Made more homemade granola and bagels this weekend for breakfasts.

It's pool time again!

The kids have been looking forward to today all Spring! Today Daddy set up the pool again!

The past two years here at the farm we have had an 18' pool (the kind with the inflatable rim). It was great to have for the kids to cool off with in the hot summer months. Unfortunately, last summer we had to chase and patch leaks constantly and by the end of the season it was determined it just wasn't going to make it through another year. So, this week Neil picked up a new 15' pool and this morning he set it up and started filling it before we had to head into town to do some errands.

When we returned home around 1:30pm the skies turned grey, the thunder boomed and the rain came down. About an hour later the storm moved off and the kids begged to go into the pool.

The post rain sky as seen from the deck.

Now the pool was being filled by the garden hose with water from our deep well... read that as ice cold water. I said "sure" thinking that they would put their toes in and quickly change their minds.

The new pool still filling up with water.

McKayla was the first to "go all in".

Evan took a bit longer to get in but then was all about swimming.

Never underestimate the power of the pool! Brrrr......

Out in the chicken coop I found a turkey poult under one of my broody chickens. The turkey hen that had been setting down in the unused pig house left 8 eggs in the nest when the other nine hatched out last week. When I discovered the eggs they were cold but I gathered them up and put them in a nest box in the coop next to one of the broody hens. I didn't expect anything to come of it but I figured it couldn't hurt. After a week had gone by and no more poults had hatched out I reached in a gave the eggs a gentle shake. Three of them sloshed when shaken so I removed them... for a moment I thought of just removing them all thinking they must all be spoiled by now but I left them in the end. And today there was a poult under the hen! There are still four more eggs so I will wait and see.

Oh, and I also discovered a tiny chicken chick under one of the ducks in the coop as well. Funny, it was marked just like the turkey poults... it must be an Americana chicken cross. Both the chick and the poult got moved into the box under the heat lamp in the brooder.

Duckling sales

Had a very nice family come to the farm today to see our Muscovy ducklings. They ended up taking 8 of them home.

That leaves us with 8 in the brooder... two of which the kids have requested we keep (the two largest yellow ducklings). We don't really need to add more ducks to the current number of breeders I keep but I think the one McKayla has asked to keep is going to be a drake and I would like to have a non-black drake so if that is the case he can stay here on the farm, and not for the table.

I hope to have plenty more ducklings in the next few weeks as well. I have two ducks on nests in the coop, two chickens on duck eggs in the coop, four ducks on eggs in the barn, one chicken on duck eggs in the barn, and just today I found a hidden duck nest in the goat buck barn as well.

Oh, and yesterday I found the turkey that was nesting in the old pig house out and about with 9 poults scurrying after her. I managed to catch 6 of them and get them in the brooder in the coop. That brings our turkey poult number to 16 in the brooder!

I also noticed that another of the turkey hens has started setting on a nest in the hostas on the front side of the house! I hopefully will have enough turkeys for the holiday orders this year. Last year was a bad year for the turkeys and I did not have enough to satisfy all my customers, which was terrible... I hope all goes well with these as they grow out.

Poultry update

Just a quick note to report on the poultry.

Found six more ducklings in the barn this morning. That brings the duckling count up to eleven. Then when I was out getting the tractor so I could move some hay up to the barn I noticed a turkey hen on the tree line behind the goat barn. I walked back to get a closer look and it was the mother turkey from Monday and she still had the two little poults under her! Yeah!

Quick update...

Two more ducklings hatched out in the barn today... a smokey grey one and one marked like a mallard duckling (those markings don't stay when the adult feathers come in). They have joined the turkeys and yesterday's duckling in the brooder. I will have to set up the third brooder soon as with the onslaught of ducklings to come the second brooder is going to get crowded soon.

I have looked around the farm, unsuccessfully, the past two days to see if I could locate the turkey hen that I left the 2-3 biddies with. I don't know where she is hiding... I guess she didn't like that I took her babies away from her. But, what I did discover was my fourth turkey hen is setting on a nest of about 20 eggs down in the woods inside one of the old corrugated steel pig shelters from the previous owners. It seems like a nice dry safe nest so I let her be. I will keep checking on her every few days though.

I got my Homestead tomatoes planted in the garden today. Which means that the kids and I had to first remove all the crab grass from that raised bed, fluff up the soil, give it a good heavy drink of water and then plant the tomato starts, install the supports, cover the rest of the bed with wet newspapers and top it all off with old straw/chicken manure raked up from the barn floor. It wouldn't have been that bad of a task, as it was a comfortable 83F outside today, but little 4 month old Taylor, who was sitting in the stroller the whole time ran out patience after I only planting the 3rd tomato plant. Still she was happy watching all the action up to that point so I really can't complain. The kids pushed her around the garden in the stroller while I finished up as quick as I could.

Taylor's debut photo on the blog.

I have three alpacas that I am expecting crias from anytime between May 1st and June 1st: GeeGee, Celtie and Joy. They were all living with our stud Novio out in the second pasture last spring/summer so I am not exactly sure of the breed dates. Celtie and Joy both have noticeably swollen bellies and I can see the cria moving in Celtie's abdomen quite often now. It will be the first crias for both of these females so I am a bit nervous about it... and Celtie happens to be my favorite as well. I will report in when the time comes!

First duckling of the season

McKayla holding the 1st duckling of the season.

I discovered the first Muscovy duckling of the season in the barn this morning. It was hatched out by our game hen that adopted us the Fall of 2007 after a neighbor moved. She is the best (aka meanest) mother hen we have. She is fiercely protective of her nest and her hatchlings. I was suspicious that one of the duck eggs she was sitting on had hatched after seeing some shell fragments outside the nest. She was not happy to be lifted and I have several red spots on my arm to remind me not to do it again. But, under her was a little yellow duckling. She was even more unhappy when I took it away from her! I have found that I loose a lot of young birds if I let them be raised by the hens... there are just too many dangers out there.

So, our duckling is now happily living with the 7 turkey keets in the brooder pen... which, I was happy to find, did just fine overnight.

The game hen setting on about 10 Muscovy duck eggs and 1 Americana chicken egg.

Turkey Poults!

I was thrilled to discover one of my four Narragansett turkey hens leading her newly hatched poults through the flower bed in front of the house. It is such a sight to behold... the hen chirping to the poults and tiny little babies racing through the tall plants trying to keep up with mom.

Then a sadness overcame me as I knew that I needed to take them from their mom and raise them in the brooder pen if I had any hope of them surviving to maturity. I would much prefer to raise all our animals naturally with the moms but I have learned that the free roaming birds just don't fair well with young hatchlings. Last year I lost every turkey poult that I didn't raise in the brooder myself. Hard lesson learned well.

So, I grabbed the closest box and started scooping up the poults. After 7 poults in the box I could see that there was at least 2 pouts still skittering about and the hen was quite stressed. Against anyone's better judgement I left the last of the pouts with the hen so she would be rewarded for all her hard work in setting and hatching the pouts out for me. I just hope they do ok.

The pouts in the box got moved into the brooder next to the 16 chicken chicks with food, water and heat lamp. They seemed to calm down fairly quickly.

This and that....

I managed to get three more roosters butchered off today. It would have been four but one of them escaped from the pen I had them in as I was trying to get hold of him. Now that all the roosters I had separated out are butchered I will start catching a few more this evening and put them into the pen so they can be easily caught during the day when I want to butcher more.

I also put our American Chinchilla rabbit buck in with our two does. I will leave him with the does for a few days. If all goes as it should we should have two litters of kits the middle of April.

The warm weather has definitely effected the birds as I found another duck egg today and the first turkey egg as well.

Neil and his Dad are still working away on the new garage. Today they are framing in the front wall that will have a car door, a people door and a window in it. Once it is all framed and sheathed I look forward to getting it painted like the barn so our farmyard will start having a cohesive look to it.

Berk, one of our LGDs, lazes about on this warm afternoon.

More turkey poults hatched

Neil had noticed a few weeks ago that one of the turkey hens was setting on a nest of eggs near the shed. This morning I saw that hen was strutting among the taller grass out behind the barn. When I caught up to her I could see two little puff balls following behind her. I had my usual mental struggle of should I leave them alone or to restrict their movement by putting them in the brooder where they would be safe. Today the brooder won out. I put mother turkey and the two poults in the brooder and also moved in the two little chicken chicks that were almost two weeks old (yet the same size as the newly hatched turkeys).

This, hopefully, gives us three turkeys for the holidays.

One thing off the "To Do List"

As with all small farms our To Do List is never ending it seems. But there are some jobs on it that are so miserable to even think about that they just keep getting pushed down the list. Today was our day to get one such job off our list.

In early Spring of 2007 Neil removed hundreds of feet of 5 wire electric fencing wire so we could install our new six foot woven wire fence for the alpacas. The wire was still fine to use but we had no immediate need for it so we left it lying on the lawn to roll up another day. (At this time we were not living on the farm yet and were only here on weekends. We couldn't use our limited time here to roll up the wire when there was so much more still to be done.) Then of course as things go we didn't get around to rolling up the wire and the grass under it needed to get mowed so the wire was pulled up into a tighter area so most of the lawn could be mowed at least. After a few months of that I got tired of the tall grass along the front of the pasture that is visible from the road so I hooked it onto the backhoe of the tractor and towed it down to the future garage platform so it wouldn't be on grass anymore. There it has sat for another 4-5 months untouched.

But yesterday, Neil decided something must be done with it finally. He spent several hours yesterday afternoon and most of today untangling the five wires from each other and rolling them up on a spool for later use. What a hot, miserable, tiring job that was. One we are very happy to finally have off our To Do List!

Oh, and Neil pointed out that one of the turkey hens was setting on a nest of eggs over by the tool shed again. I went to check her out and she seems safely tucked in among the items stored there. Hopefully, we will have more turkey chicks in a few weeks.

Yeah... new turkeys!

As I was getting ready this morning to go out to do chores the kids had already headed out to play outside. A few minutes later McKayla comes running in the house to tell me that the turkey eggs had hatched into turkey babies!

Wow! I had only discovered that the turkeys were setting on eggs in the blackberry bushes less then two weeks ago now. When I went out three of the turkey hens were over by the kids playground. The kids had taken some bricks and made a circle nest and filled it with hay. One of the hens was squatted over the nest and I could see several little poults sticking out for under her. As cute as that was, I was not willing to loose these poults like I had the few that were hatched out this past spring. I needed to move them and the hen into one of the brooder pens in the chicken coop.

I had my Wulsummer hens and rooster in one of the pens and I first needed to move them out to the hoop house instead. Once everyone was shifted around I collected the poults... there were five... and put them in the brooder. Then I got the hen and they all quickly settled into there new home.

Neil was home today as we had an appointment in Durham this afternoon. While I finished up morning chores, he took the weed whacker and cleared out from under the electric fence (it was turned off) all around the pastures. He then went back with the tractor and mowed around outside of the pastures to keep the weeds down. The tall weeds can short out the fence and make it so it doesn't work as efficiently on the animals. It looked really nice when he finished up.

We had just enough time to clean ourselves up and take the over an hour drive to the city for our appointment.