Daily Musings

Another bitter cold (for NC anyway) and windy day here. Still, I got a few things done. I recovered the hoop house in the chicken pen that the turkeys and ducks tend to spend a lot of time in. The old tarp had become completely tattered from the chickens and turkeys roosting on the top of it and the hole in the top was bigger then what was still being covered. It didn't provide much shelter for the birds anymore. So, yesterday, I had picked up a new heavy duty 12x16 tarp to recover the house with. After I finished getting the new tarp in place it was amazing the temperature difference inside of the house just by getting out of the wind. Wind chill is what kills most livestock. Give them a place to get out of the wind and they will be quite happy.

I also got my daily tractor bucket load of firewood cut and stacked.

I got some exciting news today too. I heard from the farm in CO, Fossil Ridge Alpacas, that has been breeding and boarding one of our female alpacas, Eloise. She was picked up by the livestock transporter this morning and is due to arrive here on Sunday afternoon! I am quite excited to have her here at last.

New record: 16 eggs today. Three which were green from my easter egger chickens.

What's that smell?

Went down to the barn this morning to feed the animals as usual... as soon as I entered the door to the barn I could smell it. Skunk! Not overpowering so I don't think it was in the barn. More likely one of the animals got hit out in the pasture overnight and carried the scent into the barn with them. My first guess was the LGDs.. but no, they didn't smell once I got close to them. It seemed to be strongest on the other side of the barn near the cow and donkey pen. After giving everyone a good whiff I determined that it was the donkeys that got hit. And of coarse they just wanted to rub all over me looking for their morning cookies! Yuck! A lovely way to start my day.

Other then a little skunk odder the day was pretty uneventful. Morning chores, cut and stacked a tractor bucket full of wood for the woodstove, cleaned up paca beans, cleaned the kitchen, tended the woodstove, played with the kids, evening chores, made dinner, etc.

The chickens gave 11 eggs today.

The woodstove is in!

We finally have heat! Neil and his dad (who was up here for the holiday weekend) got our new wood stove installed today. It was a bit more of a chore then Neil thought it was going to be. We had planned on installing the stove in our fireplace opening and running the smokestack that comes off the top of the stove straight up the flue. Unfortunately, due to the built in smoke chase in the brick chimney everything didn't line up. Neil ended up with a hammer breaking out the bricks at the back of the chimney so the stove could get pushed back into the opening another 6-7 inches. Once that was done both of them had to go up on the roof to drop the new Zero clearance chimney liners down the old brick chimney. Finally, Neil framed in the smoke stack, installed the chimney cap and mortared it all in place to divert the rain. But by late afternoon we had a fire burning in the wood stove! Yeah!

What a feast!

Well, today was our Turkey Day. Neil's parents arrived in town last night and came by to take us out to dinner before heading to the hotel for the night. This morning they arrived back at the farm.

We had a nice visit. The kids were very excited to have company again. I spent most of the morning cooking for our turkey dinner. Good thing I like to cook! This was our meal this year:

Heritage turkey with maple-rosemary glaze
Sausage, apple and cranberry stuffing
Mashed potatoes
Turkey gravy
Rosemary baked onions w/ cream
Peas
Cranberry sauce
Sweet dinner rolls
with
Apple pie for dessert

It was a wonderful day and a wonderful meal!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! This is my very favorite holiday; family, friends and good food is what it is all about!

Here on the farm we are not celebrating until Saturday when Neil's parents will come up for a few days from SC. So, today, Neil and I were out in the pasture setting new fence posts for the new male alpaca pasture we need to put Finley into. It didn't take too long to get the posts set as we spaced them about 50 feet apart. This will be an interior 3 strand electric fence so we are not too concerned about security. We got all the posts set today and one line of the electric string installed... we ran out of electric string and the store is not open today as it is Thanksgiving!

We will finish it up in the morning hopefully.

Phew... got it done!

I ended up having two of my turkey customers show up in the morning back to back and both wanted tours of the farm. It was fun visiting with them and discussing the proper way to cook a heritage bird (to make sure they enjoyed their bird). But, it was 11:30am by the time everyone left and I still had one more turkey to butcher for my last customer that could be showing up at any momment!

I wasted no time and went down to the barn to get the tom I planned on butchering. About an hour later I was almost done plucking the last of the pin feathers out when the phone rang. It was my last customer. They live in Durham, NC and would be there in 40 minutes! Great... that gave me just enough time to get the turkey done and cooling in an ice bath by the time they arrived. By the time they toured the farm the turkey was cooled down and ready to go. Perfect timing!

Then it was time to rest!

Turkey Butchering

Today was the day I needed to butcher three of our heritage turkeys for customers to pick up tomorrow for their Thanksgiving dinners. I had done my research and read up on butchering turkeys this past weekend. It is pretty much the same as butchering out the chickens I have been doing all summer and fall but the scald time is different and I picked up a few other pointers that I hoped would make things go more smoothly. All the accounts I read said it took about an hour to properly dress out a turkey so I was prepared for a long morning.

Unlike the chickens that were just for us to eat here at the farm these turkeys were for others and I wanted them to be carefully prepared and beautifully presented birds.

Well, first thing I needed to do was to create a larger "killing cone" as these 30lb live weight turkeys were just not going to fit into the cut off gallon milk jug I use for the chickens. I found a 5 gallon bucket and cut a triangular opening in the bottom. I then screwed it the wall behind the tool shed next to the chicken sized cone... but lower so I didn't have to lift the 30lb bird so high to get in into the cone. Once that was done, I went up to the house and got my hot water scalding pot ready on the outside grill burner. Grabbed my knife and headed down to the chicken coop to get the first of the toms. Well, not to give awful details but it took me two hours from start to finish before I was happy enough with it. It dressed out at 13lbs. Phew... only two more to go!

Since I do have two young kids I couldn't go right into the second one plus my feet needed a break. I had to feed the kids and just spend some time with them as they had been really good while I was working. By the time I started on turkey number 2 it was 1pm. This one only took about an hour and a half and dressed out at 12lbs.

Still, my fingers were soar from pulling pin feathers so I took a chance and decided to do the third turkey in the morning. A real risk in case all three customers come first thing in the morning. We will have to see.

10 eggs today.