Gobble, gobble, gobbled...

The day before Thanksgiving it was -5 (had been for days) and we resigned ourselves to the fact we were going to have to clean birds in the house again. It is so much messier so I was dreading it. Then our one local real-deal farmer Tim Meyers (if you ever get a chance check out Meyer's Farm) saved the day. He said to just kill them and bring them over. SWEET!

WARNING!!! If you are a reality check away from becoming a vegetarian you might want to skip the video clip.

(Also...if it ever turns out that my husband is a serial killer and I give any sort of interview where I am that shocked wife who says "I had no idea"...there are videos on this sight that may be used to prove otherwise. He is a good sport and only messes with farming because of me... but he really seems to like my Papaw's cleaver.)

Tim has one of the only basements in Bethel and had one set up for butchering turkeys and his older layers. He let us bring our turkeys over there and we got to clean them inside. Ron Reardon showed up and even helped. He looked more like a slasher in his butcher outfit than my hubby does! Ron grew up on a farm and really knows how to eviscerate a bird too. We were very thankful for the skilled help.

The trick with plucking is dipping the birds in water that is about 160 degrees for a minute or two and then the feathers just fall right off. Gutting is the nasty part. We have apparently always done it backwards. Ron showed us that we should start with cleaning out up around the neck. You get all the food out of the gullet and loosen the windpipe so it is easier to pull out when you get into the body cavity. He also showed us how to clean out the gizzard and peel off the tough (kind of icky) layer of skin on the inside. We had to cut the gland off the rear and he also showed us the stinky internal gland we should never puncture. It was a pretty good lesson. It is also not every day that you get to hang out in a basement (in a town with no basements) with a giant blood covered guy in a slasher outfit. Good times!

One curiosity we discovered on our white turkey was that he had a beard. It was coarse and on the neck. Definitely a Tom. 

After we were done we came home and I got the birds in brine. One old school and the other is still in one with more Asian flavors. The big white bird marinated over night then I pulled him, injected some butter and seasoning and then stuffed him to the brim in body and neck cavities. I make my own stuffing and while the germ-o-phobs don't like stuffing I am a fanatic. It seasons the meat from the inside out. And stuffing is sooooo much more delicious than dressing. I just flat leaf parsley, turkey stock, celery, a green apple, carrots, onions, rosemary and sage. Mix it in with good chunky bread crumbs and I am off and running.

I bake in a convection oven at 300 degrees. I also dip paper towel in butter and put it over the bird and make sure I cover the stuffing. I then tent with foil making sure to cover the ends of the legs and wings. I leave the towel and foil on until the internal temp hits about 125 or so then I pull it off so the skin browns. I use a digital thermometer and I cook to about 145-150...I know USDA says to cook to 160-175 but then you get your classic DRY cardboard turkey. Mine are so moist I will even eat the white meat. We were eating it within 24 hours of it running around the yard so I just take my chances.

I also did a smoked turkey (this was a store bird) that I brined for 3 days and then injected with cuban mojo sauce. I stuffed its body cavity with red onion and an orange. I smoked until I got a temp of 160 with the probe on my smoker. I used maple, apple and cherry wood. Also delicious.

Pleading for a reprieve...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LLgMwovBkc&feature=youtu.be

Above is the link to the youtube video posted below. It was taken the day we butchered the geese.

Ducks were in fact granted a reprieve.... For Now. I am sure my hubby will put his slasher outfit back on in a heartbeat and Callie is never far from her ninja-executioner gear. The cleaver is one my Papaw gave me and is a family heirloom.

Too funny.

On a practical note... we have never wintered over water fowl. If anyone has ever kept them over the winter in a truly cold climate I would really love to hear some tricks and tips. If I can I will keep them for eggs (the two Khaki Campbells are supposed to be excellent egg ducks) and assuming I have at least one male I can make more ducks next summer for eating.

I have them in the coop with the chickens now, but my coop is not heated so I am worried that their webbed feet will get damaged this winter and I will have to put them down anyway. My chickens pretty much just eat snow in winter and I have seen the ducks eating it so we are ok on hydration (water freezes in about 3 minutes...snow stays fluffy and delicious). I still may butcher them if they don't look like they are doing well.

It is cold and it is TIME!

Uh Oh... cold weather means the end of greens and time to start butchering. Geese and Ducks are first on the chopping block. Turkeys get a couple more weeks.

Butchering is not my favorite part of poultry raising. This is not because I really care about death (I raise them to eat them). It is more a matter of it is messy and tedious.

We had never raised or butchered water birds before. It is kind of cold so we beheaded the geese and let them bleed out upside down on the fence. Then we brought them inside for plucking and cleaning (not the best idea but it is 20 degrees outside). We did them one at a time. Each took about an hour start to finish and it is so tedious we wound up only doing the two voracious geese today. We will probably do turkeys next week and then we shall see about the ducks (I moved them to the chicken coop...kids lost one in the move and are still outside looking for it. It is one of my Khaki Campbells, which are the egg layers! If I only winter over two it would be those two. My stinkers better find her!)

My hubby put what he calls the "bird hook" in the middle of a door frame and we hung the bird upside down by its feet over a tote for plucking. I first dunked it in a stock pot of hot water to help loosen the feathers.

After plucking we used a torch to singe off the last of that downy under fluff and a few stray feathers (set off our smoke alarms...which is exciting because I bashed a couple off the ceiling in a rage while making toast and I was not sure we had any working ones left.)

After torching we gutted the birds and then put them into a cold salt bath. I saved the livers, hearts and gizzards. I'll try pate later.

Homebodies

GRRR!!!! I decided to huff it out to the pond with the ducks and geese so they could swim. If you have never walked across squishy tundra with thigh deep grass and shrubs...it is HARD work. I carried them out two at a time and each time three of them found each other the little stinks ran all the way back to the yard.

So much for worrying about not being able to get them to come home.

One group even came up the ditch between us and the neighbor's, looped around the front of the house, walked over the dirt pile and rendezvoused with the other birds in the back yard.

So now I am tired and just have to worry about keeping dogs out of the yard. Jinx must have a little of some kind of herding dog in her gangsta-mutt mix. She was the only one having a good time with all of this.

FREEDOM...for 30 minutes

The Ducks and Geese are HUGE and they poop a lot. I am still going back and forth about sending them out to the pond behind our house. It is a bit of a hike and I am afraid I will never be able to get them to come back. The pen they are in is getting increasingly smelly and muddy though so I need to make a decision one way or the other.

I let them get a taste of yard life tonight and it was not as crazy as I thought it would be. Our dog was fascinated and the geese did not care for her curiosity one bit. Too funny. I am in love with the hissing, wing waving geese. They are the BEST and the ducks just follow them around like they are the group bodyguards.

All the birds were so happy to be out and about and ate grass until they were bloated. I was really impressed that I managed to herd them back into their pen too. Not nearly the crazy scene I expected. Unfortunately this was probably because the kids and hubby were washing my truck (my truck has a sticker that reads "Do Not Wash: Conducting Scientific Dirt Experiment)...my truck was even nasty by my standards so it took them a while. I think the lack of screaming girls helped me calmly shoo them back to the pen.

I am debating between trying to teach them to come back to the pen with treats for a couple days or just turning them loose on the pond with the notion I will figure out how to get them back at the end of the summer...smart or lazy....hmmm.

Strut your stuff...turkey style

We got home after an eight day trip and before we even got into the house the girls were squealing about how big the turkeys had gotten. They nearly doubled their size in just over a week. Not the freak of nature growth we saw in the water fowl, but impressive all the same.

Turkeys are dumber, yet more personable than chickens. I think it is because they are hungrier since they are growing so fast. Whatever the reason they run to you the second they see you... sort of like obnoxious dogs. It is kind of hard to get them to leave you alone.

We have two that survived that early run of chick loss and they are frenimies. I catch them pecking at each other and picking their heads raw. But they are also always together and never out of each others sight. I am loving the mini-loud and proud displays the white one keeps doing. I can't wait to see him at it when he weighs 25+ pounds. The antics are just going to make him taste better...mmmm turkey!

Tropical Chickens??

We are in beautiful Kauai for the next week or so. I saw comments as I was planning from people complaining about chickens on the island. I figured it would not bother us in the least.

I had no idea!!! They are EVERYWHERE!!!

It is like our yard took over an island. They are more prevalent than squirrels in Florida. It is a hoot.

We definitely picked the right island and as we are stuck in slow traffic we shout out "chickens" every time we see one...it is sort of like a chant.

My hubby does now question the source of all chicken we eat in restaurants. I assure him that roadside chicken would surely be tougher than what we are eating. He is still dubious.

Love it!

Perennials -- a lazy gardeners best friend

Perennials are plants that come back every year without replanting. Once frost gets a tomato plant it is gone forever. Perennials die back and then magically reemerge in the spring. Awesome Opossum.
The fun trick for us out here in the bush is that it is really hard to find plants that actually will come back We are a zone 2-3 which means we have really cold winters where temperatures drop to -30 (not talking wind chill, I mean straight up -30). It is also windy and in recent years we do not get the snow cover we used to. Snow can act like and insulator to protect plants from a quick dip to crazy cold temperatures. We are also on permafrost (a frozen layer of soil/ice a few feet below the surface). Permafrost keeps the ground from ever truly warming up. Our soil is also silty, lacks much organic matter, and is usually acidic.

To sum it up we factor in the following...
Short growing season (rules out most fruit trees because they cannot grow fast enough)
Crappy soil (acidic glacial silt)
Cold soil (we sit on permafrost)
Cold winters (can kill off most perennials)

I love perennials. We have to do so much to garden that it is nice to have some sure things that I know will just grow no matter what. While options are limited I do have a couple tried and trues. I also invest a little each year and try out new plants each year.

      (Three of my rhubarb plants 3 weeks after our last frost...and I love my view)

Rhubarb is of course the easiest sure bet. I did a whole post on them. They grow in pretty much any soil. They are the first thing to come back. Most importantly they are BEAUTIFUL and tropical looking. Nothing else gets that big and green. The fact that they have full leaves out the second the snow melts is a bonus. 

Our family favorite plant is raspberries. Early in our gardening we made a raised bed just for raspberries. It took off like crazy. We loved it so much we decided to expand the bed. Since then we have not had the same success we used to. I have been adding root stock every year for the past 4-5 and we only get a couple plants to come back each year. I have found that Latham Raspberries are the variety that does best for us with our climate and conditions.

Raspberries are thorny and weed-like.You get berries off the stem once. While it is fruiting it sends off shoots that sprout up near it. The next summer those will be your berry producing shoots and this years stems will die off. I have heard that you are supposed to cut all the stems back to the ground each fall. I don't do it because I think they need the slight head start. I just cut back the dead stems at some point in the summer and leave the shoots. I don't weed much around them and just let them do their thing. This year we put a couple root stalks along the edge of the garden slope to see if they will take off there and give a little stability and barrier to the edge of the plot. If I try a different variety of raspberry I always go for the "early" producers. We still don't get berries until August.

Of all my "experimental" plants I have tried Currants have turned out to be the best. I have had this plant for 4-5 years and it comes back early and pretty every year. It is the first to flower and get fruit going. I think I may invest in a couple more. Currants make nice jam and wine. I only have this one plant so we really don't do much with the fruit, but if I get a couple more I can really have some fun with them.


Strawberries have been hit or miss for us, but I know a lot of people who have them come back like champs every year. I started planting them along the bottom of my garden slope a couple years ago where they stay nice and wet (my slope wicks up water from the pond at the base) and it is sunny. I had them coming back and then this year we accidentally buried them when we moved some beds to the base of the slope. I will get some more going next year. I usually go with a mix of early producers. I think I did Ft. Laramie and Honeoye.


Some of our experiments have been to transplant local plants to our beds. Our favorite local berry (berries grow like crazy on the tundra) is one called a Nagoon Berry. Raspberries are my hubby's favorite and these little stinkers are like raspberries on steroids. You can mix a handful of these with a quart of another berry and all you will taste is the Nagoon. My other theory is that they taste better because they are such a pain in the rear to gather. They grow under grass  or back in willow thickets. Basically you are crawling around on the ground in the buggiest spots you can imagine and they are small so a lot of work only nets you a few berries. We now have two spots where these are growing in the yard. I plan to try to expand. They grow one berry on a single stem sort of like a strawberry or salmonberry. The plants do come back but do not always produce fruit and we don't know why. They make pretty green ground cover with dark pink flowers and since they are local they should grow without much messing around with the soil too.

Failed experimental plants have included wild grapes (came back one year but never produced fruit), many varieties of mongolian/siberian/russian apricots/crab apples/choke cherries (you get the picture), blackberries, gooseberries, & non-local blueberries. I have four fruit tree starts out there this year and they are leafing up. They always leaf up the summer I plant them. They are right next to the dead weeping willow and siberian choke cherries from last year. There is some saying about learning from our mistakes...maybe one summer I will run into another gem like my currants though so I keep trying.

I have friends who have had luck with some local irises and some bulb flowers. I usually only mess with stuff I can eat so I have never gone there. I do have a couple bulbs I am trying this summer because my girls wanted more flowers. They are coming up and are a zone 2, but only winter will tell if they make it back or not.

For the Love of Rhubarb

Rhubarb is the best, most prolific, a monkey can do it, perennial for our harsh climate. I swear the second the snow melts I can see the plants getting ready to leaf up. The plants have big tropical giant leaves and are so pretty in a yard....especially a yard surrounded by tundra.

I decided to make a rhubarb fence a couple years ago and it is getting better each year. The back of my lot is lined with lush big leafed plants that I harvest and harvest and harvest. It is the first thing people comment on and they are dumb-dumb easy to maintain.

Basically you just plant a bulb-like start and they grow and grow and grow. Mine grow in crappy glacial-silt sand. I have one runty one but the rest are fabulous. Every year (or two) you can/should divide the "heads" with a shovel. You can see the divider spots and it is seriously hard to kill them once they are established. If you don't use a shovel to take off a couple heads every 3-4 years it can kill off the plant.

I have, and you can, start them from seed. It is slower going though. It takes about two seasons to get them off and running. I have had lightening in a bottle results with established roots that you can just plant straight away. 

The first year you should not harvest anything. Then the sky is the limit. In my short growing season I can usually get 4-6 harvests per year. I typically do not take all of the leaves at once. I more or less "prune" the plant. When it is getting cold and frost is eminent I take them all.

With Rhubarb only eat the stems. The leaves are actually poisonous. I turn the leaves into organic pesticide. They really are the best, easiest, most under-utilized plant in the gardening world.

My favorite use of rhubarb is a raspberry rhubarb pie with streussel topping. I usually don't use recipes but I will try to make one and post it at some point. Mine are kind of tart and I use coconut milk instead of butter. Yum!

The Chicken Chronicles - Eviction Day!

Within about 3 seconds of setting starts down in the greenhouse the chicks were trying to eat them. Ooo it made me mad. Since they were not going to be nice neighbors I decided it was time for eviction.

I fortified the chicken yard and blocked all the spots where there there is larger mesh fencing. I used the old door that was ripped off by the wind and some scrap lumber. It is trashy looking but works just fine.

Then I had the girls guard the greenhouse door while I chased chicks all over it. I had to catch them two at a time. It was a scene. I had to dodge my upside down tomato planters and I must have cracked my head 3 different times. I started them in the coop and they all seemed content to explore in there with the exception of one brave little Buff Orpington who thinks she is a big dog. What was odd was that the big birds sort of surrounded her. It may have been a coincidence but it looked a lot like a protective ring.

This morning all chicks were alive and hanging out in the yard. I came home for lunch and the big chickens were in the yard and chicks were back in the coop. I guess they are rotating. I am pleased that none of the stinkers has figured out how to get out of the fence and that so far they are all alive and kicking.

It is just a matter of time before we weed out a couple weak ones...

Upgrade! (maybe)

Summer is about as here as it is going to get and I need to get my garden going. I am usually planted by this time.

Ducks have been living in my Pea Bed and Chicks have been in the greenhouse. To get the garden planted we had to move them all around again yesterday. I began by shoveling 11 wheelbarrow loads of composted poo out of the pig pen.

I have all of it dumped onto my south-facing garden slope and will turn it into the dirt tomorrow. I was promised a couple loads of top soil when I had the back of our lot sloped for gardening, but he forgot so all I have is glacial silt sand. I have been lazy the last two summers and have not done much to it to get it in better shape. It desperately needs more organic matter mixed into it. Luckily a monkey can grow potatoes and it has not mattered much for that endeavor. The real problem is that in dry weather a good wind will make a big dust storm out of it and then we are scraping dirt out of our ears. Once I get more compost into it I am hoping it will both be better for the other things I grow and it will stay put better in a breeze. If it were up to my kids it would be their own giant private sand box to get filthy in all summer.

After taking my compost pike out of the pen my hubby dug a "pool" at one end that he lined with a tarp. We covered the ground and inside of the pen with fresh hay and turned the birds loose. They have a lot more room and this is a nice safe permanent home. They also have an actual shelter to hang out in. The weather will get nasty. It always gets nasty. They only had a lean-to in the Pea Bed.

In a couple weeks I will try teach them to spend their days out on the pond but I want them fully feathered out and I want the geese big and scary before I take the plunge into the wild.

UPDATE: I went to check the birds first thing this morning and found a dead duck floating in the "pool". The water level had dropped and left sort of a trough of water. I think it could not get out and eventually chilled and died. I am very disappointed. It weighed a good 4-5 pounds and was only 5 weeks old! I could have EATEN IT! Actually at work we debated whether we should go ahead and eat it anyway since we know how it died. I think I am going to pass...but it still stinks!

I have covered what water is left in the pool for today and we will rethink it tonight and see if we can upgrade it into a safer swimming hole. It had seemed perfect. :(

Kiddie Pool ... with kiddies

Ducks and geese are four weeks old today. It was warm by our standards…sunny and in the 60’s. So we decided to get out the new kiddie pool I ordered from Amazon.

The pool was less than $20, supersaver shipping, and has pop up sides rather than being a blow-up like our last one. This is nice because I did not have to make myself light headed, but it is not nearly as sturdy in the end either. If anyone leans on any side at all … like the dog who desperately wants to drink out of it and is not quite tall enough.. the side is going to collapse in and we will lose all the water. Since we live on tank water this would be catastrophic loss. We get 800 gallons a week and no more. Filling a kiddie pool is an extravagant use of water at our house.

Since it is such a luxury to have all that mosquito breeding water sitting around I told the girls I would let them play in it first. They were inside putting on suits faster than I thought possible. They splashed around and Tekoa squirted them with the hose. After 30 minutes or so we started capturing ducks so they could get a turn. 

The ducks were moved to my extra large pea-bed earlier in the week so they would have more room. While this has been a great move for the birds, the extra space makes it really really hard to catch them. There is a frame and some netting built onto the bed for growing peas. This really easy to get tangled in as you are reaching for birds. We used a rake and a bucket and finally caught all the stinkers.

The girls, because they are odd and mine, decided to continue to wade around in the pool with the birds. They also made sure to announce they were not going to sit in it because they did not want poo on their butts. Well thought out.

The last time I let the ducks swim was at school and they all became way too chilled. This time they had a freak out blast. The one goose kept taking dives under the water. They are still not feathered out so this was hilariously strange looking. Sort of like if a big plucked chicken gone torpedo.

We let them all swim for a good 20-30 minutes and then Chilly started looking like she had her fill. We caught them all and put them back in the pen with extra fresh dry grass. They all fluffed right back up and a few kept trying to swim in their water. I guess once they got a taste they realized swimming was the bomb.

Ducks:

3 mixed Brown and Black with little bank robber masks = Rouen Ducks Straight run

3 light with black spots on body and feet = Ancona Ducks Straight Run

2 small solid brown = Khaki Campbell Females

2 large solid light yellow = Embeden Geese Straight Run

The Chicken Chronicles - We have lost containment

Houston…we have lost containment

I woke up to my rooster being extra vocal because it was Sunday and sunny and he wanted us all to know what a fine day it was…at 6:30 am. I am sure all my neighbors were equally thrilled to get the news (update...my neighbors are really, really nice and told me they did not hear a thing. Eggs on the doorstep coming up!). That butt head’s days are becoming numbered. The crowing is increasing and he has been getting aggressive when I go out to get eggs. The thing about roosters is that they are irrational and they are cowards. They don’t come at you head on. They wait until your back is turned to take a run at you. We have a peck me and I eat you rule that is strictly enforced. Handsome out there is about to meet my husband the executioner.

After trying to ignore the crowing for two hours I finally conceded defeat and got up.  I instantly heard the chicks in my spare bedroom all a-chirping. This is not really unusual since by morning they have invariably dumped over and/or soiled all food and water I left them with before I went to bed. 

What was unusual was that when I went in there I found a turkey running (and probably crapping) around in the room. Catching said turkey is not nearly as entertaining as it would have been after my morning coffee. I still can’t figure out how the little turd got out of the box. It is tall and it is sitting on a wooden bed platform. So he got out of the box and off the platform without any apparent injury. Turkeys grow really fast and don’t even roost. They can’t even do the little bit of flying that chickens can muster. Turkeys make chickens seem like astrophysicists. I am pleasantly surprised he did not find a new and exciting way to off himself as a grand finale to his adventure.

It is the first sign that the chicks are nearing the end of their stench filled stay in the house.  I’ll give them two more weeks then we see how many survive the big yard.

Game on.

Big Night Out

(Pictures of my fortified outdoor Duck-Goose run...if a fox can get in there it deserved the feast)

At 2 weeks we started experimenting with putting the water birds outside. For the first few days I brought them in at night and kept them in a box in the porch. Weather was high 40’s during the day and right around freezing at night.

After the third day of them being fine outside I put a 250 watt heat lamp out in their run and fortified it. It is trailer trash chic. They are in a ½ sized raised planting bed that is 2 feet wide and 8 feet long. The planter is up against a larger planter giving it one side with a higher wall. I then put one of my “drying racks” (it is some sort of old construction junk I scored and brought home much to my hubby’s delight) along the other  edge. I put some scrap wood on the ends. I don’t think the ducks can get out of the  pen even before I fortified, but dogs and kids are a whole different story. 

The first night I decided to give it a try I further fortified by leaning pallets along the edge, chicken wire draped over the top and tomato cages on the ground all around it. It is now hard for me to even get near them. The tomato cages are really easy to get tangled in and you now have to be adult height to see down into the pen. From the outside it looks like a big uninviting pile of junk leaned up against my pea bed. 

A week later and all ducks are alive and they are HUGE. I swear they are bigger by the day. I will likely move them to a bigger pen in the next few days. I ordered them a little kiddie pool on amazon and once they feather out (I hear 4-5 weeks) I will move them to the old pig pen and deck it out with a pool. By the time we head out for a couple weeks in late June I hope they are spending their days out on our pond.

Of course this means I need to clean the pig pen and get my compost pile out of there and integrated into my garden beds. It is just that time of year.