Back at it

Hello again!

We are back at it this year, and things are going well so far. Here's the basics for this year:
2 Geese
3 pigs
4 turkeys
7 ducks
22 chickens and
1000 sq. ft. of garden.

We'll soon be selling the majority of the chickens, I only want to keep 6 or so. Also at least 4 of the ducklings.

The pigs this year came from our neighbor, Royal, and it was an interesting afternoon when I went to pick them up. We had my three in a crate and were just shooting the breeze when he asked me if I'd be willing to help him castrate all the little boars! Ended up being about two dozen of them. It was a lot of running around trying to catch the little boogers, but the most exciting moment was when the door to the shed we were in came bursting open and a 600lb mama sow came roaring in to see why here piglets were squealing so much! Royal yelled "Get out! NOW!" , but I was already halfway over the fence.

Garden is very full this year, looks like my first successful year at growing all of my tomatoes indoors from seed. Got some interesting heirloom melons from my friend Pat, one of them can grow as large as 22lbs, so that should be interesting.

Much more to come, just wanted to do a quick updte to let everyone know we are back "on the air"

Cheers,
Doug

Ordered up some birds

Looks like I wasn't a moment too soon. I placed our poultry order for 2009 and it sounds like they are doing a booming business. Theya re sold out of many breeds through the end of April, lucky for me I don't want our birds until the middle of May.

I also found they are not being as flexible about your order as they used to be. In years past you could usually add just a few birds of your choice to one of their standard assortments, now they are enforcing their minimum order numbers strictly. The result of that is that I am going to have about 10-12 more critters than I wanted.

If anyone out there is interested in a few chicks or ducklings in late May, let me know, we are going to have 8-10 chicks, 3-4 ducklings and maybe even 1-2 turkey poults too many.

What we ordered:
1 Barnyard assortment - 2 goslings, 7 ducks, and 7 turkeys. Hatchery picks the breeds, so it will be a surprise.
Buff Orpingtons - Brown egg laying hens - very pretty golden color
Barred Plymouth Rocks - Boys and girls, but I am only keeping one rooster - another very pretty bird.
Cornish Roasters - A fast-growing "meat" bird, all white feathers.

Wintertime blahs

Late February. You've been drooling over the pictures in the seed catalogs for a month now, all memories of weeding and watering and cursing the squash bugs are forgotten, you need to GARDEN! But it's still to early to start any seeds indoors, no really, it really is, stop thinking about it. Well, maybe just some marigolds?

So what is the cure for this affliction? I wish I knew. Move to Zone 6 or 7? Probably not going to happen. You can only read so many books on gardening before they start contradicting each other and turning your mind to mush.

I guess I have a couple ideas for those of you that, like me , are frustrated Northern gardeners.

-Did you know that you can take those fresh herbs at the grocery store and stick them in a bit of rooting gel? And they'll grow! Ta-da, you have a kitchen garden without waiting weeks to grow from seed.

- Ok I lied, that's the only idea I have. But maybe you have something to tide us over until spring? Please share!

Cheers,

Doug

Planning the garden for 2009

The beginning of the year always brings with it a flurry of seed catalogs. I think I have received 8 already and expecting a few more!

I started planning this summers garden since there isn't much else to do this time of year. Thanks to the generosity of friends, my seed buying will be reduced this year. I have an amazing variety of heirloom tomatoes and beans, as well as some popcorn seeds, arriving in the mail soon, all from fellow gardeners looking to share and exchange seeds.

Some of the more interesting plants for 2009 include:
Grosse Cotelee tomato
Hog Heart tomato
Chocolate Stripes tomato
Purple Queen beans (can't wait to try these, purple beans will be so much easier to see when picking, and then they turn green when you cook them!)
Tiger Eye beans
Turkey Craw beans (supposedly the original bean was found in a turkey's craw by a hunter and planted, back in the 1800s)

Been looking at the the hatchery catalogs as well, trying to pick which kinds of birds we'll have this year. I really want Buff Orpington chickens, and maybe some Plymouth Rocks, but we will see what happens. Here's what a Buff Orpington looks like, they are supposed to be good layers:







Not much else happening on the farm, bitter cold temperatures are expected for next week, a HIGH of 6 below on Thursday, makes me wish I could just hibernate.

Stories from a FedEx Driver

Somewhere in the area a FedEx driver is telling about the crazy farm he visited on Tuesday. I was in the barn cutting up the two deer I shot on opening weekend when I heard someone pull in the driveway and honk. I was in the middle of cutting off a front quarter, so I had a huge knife in my hand as I walked out of the barn, dressed in my blood-smeared jeans. The driver looked a little shocked, but the capper was when Cash the Dog then came running around the corner of the woodshed with an entire foreleg in his mouth. He must have stolen it when I wasn't paying attention and I had to fight the urge to laugh out loud.

I'm getting better at butchering, or at least faster. I got both deer finished in about 4 hours, including cutting some meat into cubes for chili and slices for stir-fry. I discovered that you can fold the foodsaver bags in half and put them in the sealer to make handy tubes that are the perfect size for a big slab of tenderloin.

Starting our planning for the farm next year, I'm looking into different assortments of birds. We want to downsize the flock from the last go-round, so I'm looking for 4-5 ducks, 4-5 turkeys, and a handful of egg chickens. Maybe I'll finally order from Tom at the feed mill, except we'd be stuck with plain old dumb white turkeys, we'll see.

Winter is coming

Hardly a leaf to be found on the trees now, must mean winter is close.

Put the plow on the farm truck last weekend when it was in the high 70s, it was a little shocking when I started the truck because one of the exhaust pipes broke since the last time I fired her up, so it was a bit loud!

Did some canning last weekend to help deal with the mega-pile of ground beef we got from our steer. We don't eat that much ground beef so it's hard to come up with uses for it other than your standard taco or spaghetti sauce. I made 8 quarts of a vegetable beef soup that my grandma used to make and I found out later it's actually her mom's recipe, so it's got some family history! We had a couple of the T-Bones and they were HUGE. Talked to Royal on Tuesday and found out that our beef came from his daughters prize steer from 4H, so it's good to know our dinner led a good life.

Today is cold and rainy, so I am avoiding going out and putting the finishing touches on the deer stand I'm building up in our woods, maybe I'll get at it tomorrow if it's nicer.

Okay, an update!

Sorry that it's been so long.

We still haven't bought any pork, just haven't got around to it, but I did pick up 1/4 of a steer yesterday from our neighbor. I can't believe the size of the ribeyes, we might have to buy bigger plates! All told it's just a bit over 200lbs of beef.

The garden is , for the most part, finished. Still have to harvest the last of the carrots and the parsnips, then hopefully I will have time to till everything under before the ground freezes.

Been doing a bit of duck hunting with below average success. It is finally getting chilly enough that I might climb a tree with my bow one of these evenings.

There is a "chili cook-off" later this month at work to raise money fro the United Way, I'm looking forward to winning it!

Not much else new, I'm a year older and somewhat less than a year wiser, enjoying the autumn and dreading the winter.

Cheers!