Lazy and Grouchy

Sorry for the relatively long delay. My work schedule has been not exactly as I prefer it to be for the last month or so and this has resulted in extreme grouchiness on my part, which means no blogging. I usually work all my days in a row so I can have longer stretches off because I find it very hard to switch between days and nights (I work at night), so when I have only a few days off I do stuff like sleep until noon and then stumble around complaining about how the day is half gone for the next few hours and then I think 9:45 is an appropriate time to eat dinner. Also I try to cram a lot into my time off. And I get very grouchy about leaving. All of that make me feel like I don't have time to blog.

So for now you get some bullet-point style updates and that's it. But don't fret. I am back to my regular schedule and my glorious nine-day-off stretches starting Wednesday morning.

• We picked, canned, and froze almost 50 pounds of raspberries and Marion berries.
• In related news I had my first ever bee sting. It was dumb.
• I opened several aged cheeses. Some were good. One was quite good. Others not so much. I am frustrated and I am not sure exactly how to fix my mistakes.
• I made (and ate) pretty much butter from a friend's cow milk. I do love cream.
• I have tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers on a pretty regular basis now.
• We are wrapping up Grace's room construction.
• We ate another chicken.
• One of the baby goats had diarrhea, but I nursed him back to health and now he is perfect again.
• And those are the things. Pictures soon.

EXTREME EMERGENCY!!!

I mentioned in a previous post that I did not plant dill this year. I did go to some local nurseries but I could not locate any dill. There certainly is not enough time to grow some through seeds. So it appears that I am dill-less this year.

 This is sort of a big deal to me because I will soon be faced with about seven trillion pickling cucumbers. I must can pickles and if I have to buy dill at Safeway or something ridiculous like that I will, but I would like to save that for a worst case scenario. So this is a request for anyone who maybe planted too much dill or knows someone who did. Or maybe your neighbor did and you are comfortable with theft? Or maybe you know of someone in the area with dill for sale. Whatever works. If you can get me dill in any quantity I would appreciate it. I could trade you for pickles, cheese, milk, bread, eggs, money, praise.

Please help!

Thursday, July 14th

This week has been busy with house work. We had business, budget, and goal setting meetings early in the week (yes, we really operate this way) and with the garden chugging along and the goats growing and grazing away we are focusing all our energy (and money) on Grace's room remodel. We WILL finish before the start of school in late August. We are done with drywall and spackle now and we went supply shopping and got paint, primer, light fixtures, carpet, shelving, closet things, trim, and a few accessories. We are all set to get the room done in the next week or so and then we just need to get furniture, curtains, and a few more fancy bits and we will finally be done! We'll have pictures up soon! And then we'll be ready to start the next big project! What will it be? I know what it is, but I'm not telling.

Garden
We are eating out of the garden almost every day now! And our diet is getting more varied all the time. We have had greens and turnips galore of course, but now we are eating potatoes, broccoli, and cabbage too. We have had a pepper and a cucumber with plenty more of those just about ready as well as peas, beans, beets, summer squashes, carrots, and tomatoes coming soon. It seems so late in the year to be just getting some of these things, but remember, it was the wettest grayest summer in quite a long time and we got a late start. Plus with our climate it is about a month "earlier" here than it is in the valley, so we are not quite as behind as it seems.We have so many great improvements and expansions in the works too. Nothing is as good as having plenty of really good food all the time. And it's just so fun! We are taking with Grace's school about starting a school garden as well. Because we don't have enough to do.

Cheese
I have been taking a bit of a cheese break. I am mad at my cheese press and my aging box and am sulking about it. Plus I have been more excited about some other projects right now. It spite of that we have been just starting to eat some of the cheddars I put up a few months ago, and they have been pretty good. A little drier than I would like but very tasty. I will get my press and aging issues worked out soon and get back to work improving my cheeses. There is a ton of cheese ready to eat here soon, so I will have more of an idea of what I need to improve on.

Other Blog

Occasionally I write on another blog with some other rad ladies. I just posted about making some delicious feta cheese.

If you are interested here is the link:  http://ballsoutdomesticclub.blogspot.com/

There is also a link to it over there --> on the side bar.

PS: Let me know if you are interested in a taste of this feta! I have plenty to share with friendly friends. Like you!

Best Day

Mike got me a new phone. A fancy one that takes pictures and then uploads them to the internets. Probably through magic or something. So now I can take pictures and put them here so you can see the farm and how lovely it is, especially in the gorgeous summer! Here is my favorite sort of day:

Sassy

Pickle

Clean break

Just a few loaves . . .

A lovely day!

And then something awful and sort of embarrassing happened. I thought "the only thing missing is pickles!." So I went out to the garden and picked a few pickling cucumbers and went back to the kitchen to can just one little pint of pickles. Just to round out the day. I started some water boiling and went to get some pickling salt and spice and dill. DILL! I forgot to plant dill! Seriously? I planted NINE cucumber plants just for pickles and I FORGOT TO PLANT DILL! I will point out that I have dill seeds. I also found a drawing of my garden plan that includes "dill!" right there where I tucked in a few extra broccoli at the end of a row. Damn. I guess I will have to go to the nursery and buy some starts.

Thursday, July 7th

We had a great week playing Summer Vacation! At the start of the week we had decided to do no non-essential chores and have fun playing. And we did it! Mike and I both prefer to work and get very anxious when we don't have a project (or five) going, so this was an actual challenge for us. But we persevered and in the end we triumphed! The house is a mess! There is no new cheese! All construction stopped! I didn't even make bread! We did have a momentary lapse where we had a "meeting" to assess our progress from the last year, revise the "five-year" plan, and make very detailed six-month and one-year plans. I will write a separate post about that because I think it would be interesting for some of you to see where we have been and where we are going. Here is what we did instead:

We got the new goats of course. We made some new friends and connected with some old ones, attending a party at a near-by vegetable farm. Not like our farm. It's an actual farm where they grow stuff and sell it for a business. It was a fun evening and helped us narrow down our goals a little. Mike went fishing with some friends. Grace and I spent a few days with my mom. We watched the fireworks, went to a parade, and ate a ton of junk food. Grace went to a party at her friend's house. AND THEN we went to the water park in Mcminnville. (Recommended. It was super fun!) We also spent a fair amount of time skipping stones and napping. Plus the weather was gorgeous! So that's what we did instead of working! Don't worry we will be back to our natural state by Friday. Go!

Goodbye Chicken Rick

Today started as a beautiful day but unfortunately all Ricks that come to this farm become meat.  So today was the end for our first "Chicken Rick".  Just a warning, all Ricks that come to the farm are destined for the meat freezer.  If you are a Rick, friend of or family of a Rick I am sorry to tell you that if you or they come to our farm they risk the possibility of joining the rest of the Ricks in the freezer.  Just a warning. 

Rick had a hard time, he got his head stuck in some fencing early in his life.  Delilah let me know there was a problem in the chicken pen so I went and looked and Rick had her head stuck.  I was able to get her out of there but she suffered some damage but seemed ok.  Well, after a bit of time we noticed that Rick's beak was growing crooked and eventually he wasn't able to eat that easy.  We noticed that he wasn't growing much and looked pretty thin.  So instead of letting him suffer and dwindle away we decided to go ahead and butcher our first chicken.  

*Warning* Graphic Description Ahead!

The Butchering:

So, this is not my first harvest but it is my first chicken harvest.  I have felt confident I could accomplish this task for some time now.  I have read many books that deal with different methods for butchering chickens.  My favorite book so far is Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game it has detailed drawings and instructions on how to butcher most farm livestock. I also caught a quick video on youtube last night just to get my barrings.  

So this morning I got my butchering knives sharp and started to heat up my water to around 160* (we want the water around 140* for feathering) and bring it outside to sit in the sun.  I had a large plastic vinegar bottle that I screwed to a fence post.  I grabbed a bucket to catch the blood and throw the feathers in. 

I went in to get Rick from the coop, he was always the easy one to get.  I think he remembered I helped him.  If you hold the chickens upside down by its legs they calm down quite a bit.  I said my goodbyes to Rick and I performed the deed.  I was surprised how quick it was, he twitched a bit but he was restrained by the bottle.  I took him up to the house to take the feathers off. 

I wouldn't do this inside.  The smell is something different, not totally bad but something that would stick around for a while.  The feathers were a messy job but after a couple of dunks in the hot water they came off pretty easy.  The method I found to be the easiest is to just focus on an area and get it clean then move on from there.  Grabbing all over seemed to make a bigger mess than it was worth. 

Once all of the feathers are off (ok, some will still be around there but don't worry) it's time to gut it.  Like most animals you start at the anus and cut around it.  But at this point all you do is brake a couple bones and stick your hand in there and start scooping things out like ice cream.  This is a bit odd, mostly because it builds up suction in the cavity.  After everything is out you will need to cut off the head and use a torch/flame to burn off the excess feathers on the skin.  I used a propane tank that I use for soldering pipe.  Quick and easy, smelled like burnt hair.

Overall I thought it was a good experience.  It went super quick.  I think overall it was about 8 minutes start to finish.  Next time will go much smoother I am sure, and with more chickens it will cut that overall time way down.

Here's the finished product.  Again, she was small because she was so young but we will enjoy Chicken Rick tonight.

Update:

Chicken Rick was delicious.  We had him stuffed with onions and garlic.  Butter under the skin and topped with rosemary, S&P and olive oil.  Not quite as much chicken as you want for 3 people but  enough for 2 to share.

Chicken Rick Nude

Cooked Rick