More canning..

Sorry I have fallen off on my posting, I'll try to remember to get on here more often and write something.

I did some more canning this weekend, salsa and marinara sauce. I am going to pick up some quart jars and try making a "chili starter" type thing this week. I'll cook down a bunch of tomatoes into sauce and add all of my chili spices and some roasted hot peppers, then this winter I can just brown up some meat and add a quart or two of the sauce to it and have "instant" homemade chili. Seems like it should work, anyway. I'll let you know in a couple of months.

We sold a duck yesterday, that was nice, that was the first of our animals that was bought and paid for. I hope it tastes as good as the one we had a while back. I made an appointment today to have the hogs butchered, October 9th is their final day. The meat locker is only charging $20 to kill them, so I think I will just have them do it. It will be very different without our pigs around, but I am looking forward to that bacon! The turkeys I will be processing myself, probably the Monday of Thanksgiving week. That day is going to be a lot of hard work, but it will be worth it. I imagine the last of the ducks will meet their doom that day as well, so the farm will be free of livestock at that point.

The garden is nearly done. There are still dozens of tomatoes yet to ripen, I have just started harvesting some of the soybeans, and there are a few melons and squashes still growing, but that is about it. I harveted our first cantelope yesterday, it was smaller than a baseball! But it tasted pretty good, all 4 bites we got out of it. It looks like the soil in our garden patch was pretty poor after all, but we did the best we could and got quite a bit of food out of it, next year will be even better!

Pickling day

Yesterday we did a "test run" at pickling and canning. We did just a few jars of sweet pickles, sweet/spicy pickles, pickled kohlrabi, pickled beets, and spicy green beans. I also made a small jar of fresh salsa just to test the recipe. Hopefully we'll be borrowing a pressure canner in a week or so and start putting up some soups and stews. We are going to have bushels of ripe Roma tomatoes soon, so salsa and spaghetti sauce are on the agenda also.The pickled stuff all looks pretty good, can't wait to eat some of it.

All of the animals are doing well, the big pig is over 200lbs now. We might end up butchering the pigs sooner than I was originally planning. We were looking at late October, but late September may be possible now. The turkeys have really hit their stride, they look bigger every day.

We had a talk about what animals we might raise next year. We both agreed on turkeys, probably not more than a dozen of them due to space considerations. Nikki wants to try 4 or 5 chickens next spring, which is pretty funny because she was dead set against chickens earlier this year, but I guess after having ducks anything seems easy. We will probably raise a quick growing "meat bird" and if they aren't too much trouble we'll get 4 or 5 more during the summer. I haven't completely decided on pigs yet. If we do raise them, we will probably get 3. I'd like to get a different breed, something that isn't white so that they are better protected against the sun. I think that would probably be it.

Home again

I took a 4 days off last week and headed up to northern Wisconsin with some friends to drink a lot of beer and do a little fishing and successfully accomplished both things.

I came home to find that the turkeys looked like they had doubled in size and a garden that had sprung to life. Green beans have appeared, as have pods on the soybean plants. The Charentais melons are the size of a softball, there are a lot of large tomatoes with a hint of orange, and there are carrots in all different colors ready to be dug up when needed. I think I will dig up a parsnip this weekend and see how big they have grown.

Breakfast somehow got a cut right underneath the base of her tail, she must have scratched against something sharp, but it is healing well and it doesn't seem to bother her at all. The pigs are enormous and growing fast, they are getting pretty bossy around mealtimes, so we have been working on the best strategy on feeding them without getting knocked over or shoved around too much. I am afraid that one of them is going to hurt itself climbing up the fence or onto the other's back, trying to get their face into the buckets while we're filling them.

The 3 ducks are doing well, it is so unbelievably much easier to care for them now. I still don't think we'll ever raise ducks again, though. Around this time next month they should be capable of laying eggs, we shall see. .

And then there were 3..

I got the last 3 Pekins butchered on Sunday, with a little help from Nikki with the stubborn pinfeathers. So if you asked for a duck, they are ready for delivery. Now we have just the Mallard hen and the two Indian Runners. Makes the chores a LOT easier not having so many ducks around. It's quieter, too.

The turkeys have had another growth spurt, they are getting BIG. Still not anywhere near a thanksgiving turkey size, but for the first time I believe they will be a decent size bird by the time November rolls around.

Still no big slicing tomatoes from the garden, but I did get up there on Saturday and rig up a new support system for thje plants using some old cattle panels from down in the barn. We are starting to harvest onions and hot peppers now . I have never been very successful at raising onions but this year they did marvellously. Especially the red onions.

I am already getting excited about next year's garden. I have done a good job of keeping next year's plot weed-free using my rotating composting system, and all of that organic matter should really loosen up the clay in our soil. I'm hoping for tomatoes the size of volleyballs.

Some relief from the heat

As you can see, the sunflowers are doing pretty well! I am 6'4" and I believe the plant on the right side of the picture is almost twice as tall as I am by now. "What are you going to do with the sunflowers?", you ask? I have absolutely no idea. I just like them.

Some other new pictures are posted in the photobucket albums at the link, you can see how big the turkeys and pigs are getting.

Speaking of the turkeys, it looks like we have just one more left to sell as a pre-order for Thanksgiving. I want to keep a few turkeys as backups in case anything happens to any of the pre-ordered birds. It shouldn't be too hard to sell the extras the week before turkey day if it turns out that we have extras. I think all of the ducks are spoken for too. I have decided to try to keep a couple of the ducks to see if they will lay eggs, especially now that I discovered that at least one of my Runners is a female.

Yesterday I discovered that our Pekin ducks can fly! Well, that is they can fly if they get a running start. And if they are running downhill. With a headwind. Okay, they can jump pretty far while flapping their wings. It was slightly impressive. The mallard hen took right off but then looked slightly embarassed that she made it look so easy and landed just a little past her cousins. Luckily the ducks always travel in a group so I shouldn't have to worry about her taking off on me.

The garden is doing well, picking lots of cherry tomatoes now. It is definitely zucchini season, we had zucchini lasagna and fried zucchini slices for dinner last night. The weather is suposed to be nice and cooler this weekend so I should be able to get some work done on the lawn and in the garden. And I'll have to find time to butcher the last 3 Pekins for those that have asked for them. Should be a good busy weekend.

Comments

Sorry, but I had to turn on the feature that requires you to type in a verification word to post a comment. It isn't too much of a hassle and it (hopefully) keeps advertisers from making fake comments like the one posted yesterday.

Not much new to report. We are supposed to get a break from this heat tomorrow, so that will give me a chance to catch up on some things I was putting off due to the heat.
I did learn one thing yesterday, how to estimate the weight of a pig. All you need is about 5 feet of string and a calculator.

How To Measure A Pig:

Measure the length (in inches)of the pig from the top of it's head to the base of it's tail.

Then measure around the body right behind the front legs. (Note: throw some corn or other treat in front of the hog to distract it!)

Multiply length x girth x girth and divide by 400 and it gives you the approximate weight in pounds.

By this calculation Breakfast is around 180lbs and Lunch is about 164lbs right now!

Another heat wave

It has been crazy hot here again, as it is everywhere this week it seems.

I didn't get much done last weekend because I was having back problems, just starting to get better now. We went to the county fair on Sunday and had a good time looking at all of the 4-H animals and eating deep-fried food. Looks like we are doing just fine with our pastured pigs, they have the same general shape as the ones we saw at the fair. I'm guessing that Breakfast is pushing 200lbs now. I need to take some pictures and get them posted soon. The pigs are doing just fine in the heat. I fill up a big mudhole for them every morning and then I give them a nice cool shower with the hose when I get home from work.

The garden is going along pretty well, picked a few zucchinis already and some cherry and pear tomatoes. We almost have enough cukes picked to start pickling them. There are a few canteloupes getting started on the vine, no watermelons yet though. Seems late, but we'll see. I'm thinking about sticking a few more seeds in the garden yet for a late crop of radishes, carrots, beets and few more things maybe. Not until this heat backs off a little though.

Duck dinner redux (ha!)

We had roasted duck, haricots verts, and garlic wild rice for dinner last night and it was outstanding! I made a sauce with red wine and some berries and currants that I picked last weekend, but the duck didn't really need it. I was amazed at how light the meat was, it was just a bit darker than chicken breast. As someone who has eaten a lot of wild duck, I was expecting it to be much darker. One duck was just about perfect for two people, there was only a little bit left when we were done. It was very rich and very delicious, but I still don't think I will bother with ducks again. Maybe one or two....

Picked a couple of cherry tomatoes out of the garden last night and they were great, some of the Yellow Pear tomatoes are getting close to ripe and I can't tell when the Green Zebras will be ripe because they stay green! I guess it will be trial and error. It also looks like will be picking zucchinis this week. I heard someone once describing their neighborhood this way, and it also applies to our neck of the woods, I thought it was pretty funny : " No one locks their car doors around here, except during zucchini season!"

Duck dinner

EDITED FOR ALL OF THOSE SEARCHING FOR A DUCK PLUCKER:


Check out the photos here for an inexpensive home-made plucker: http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j227/Ardwyn_Farm/poultry/

Please email me at dougjonz@yahoo.com if you have any questions.


I like this picture, it looks like the turkeys are planning a raid on the ducks. Who on earth could have predicted, even just a few years ago, that we would have a scene like this in our yard? The unpredictable twists in the path are what makes life exciting I guess.

There are fewer ducks on the farm now than there are in that picture. I think we will have roast duck for dinner tomorrow night! I'll let you know how it is.

I got to use my "$6 Duck Plucker" yesterday and it worked like a charm. It is a simple contraption, just 3" rubber "fingers" cut from a bungee cord mounted around a 4" PVC end cap with a long carriage bolt as the driveshaft . I just chuck it into the drill, wire down the trigger and away she goes. Once I figured out how close to hold the bird to the spinning drum it was quick, maybe 3 minutes to completely defeather a duck. I'll post a picture of it if I remember.

In other news, it looks like the pigs may be completely sold, still waiting to hear back from someone on the last 1/4 of a pig. That is a relief, even if the last 1/4 doesn't sell we can just add it on to the 1/2 we were keeping for ourselves. More bacon for me!

Speaking of bacon, we'll be harvesting the first tomatoes this week and I can't wait for that first BLT! I told Nikki that I'm going to eat nothing but BLTs and sweet corn for a month. The rest of the garden is doing pretty good too. Some of the sunflowers are pushing 10' and they are just starting to get their heads.

If anyone is interested in a duck, shoot us an email or give us a call, we could probably spare a few.

Failure!

Since I posted an entry with the title "Success!" the other day, I thought I'd better share some of the failures so that people don't start thinking we're perfect!

Sweet corn. Total and complete failure, the tallest stalks are only about 3 feet tall and they are already starting to tassel out. I don't expect to harvest any corn from my 5 rows of corn, and since the stalks are so short the companion beans are going to need a different form of support or they will be a failure too. The only thing I can think of is that the soil is no good for corn, but nearly everything else is growing so well!

The pear tree. Hundreds of pears, but they have developed some type of scale or other disease. They are all undersized and ugly looking.They might still make good pig feed though.

Beets. The first planting of beets I did are stunted and don't appear to be growing. The second planting did great, however.

Ducks. Not really a failure as they are all healthy and happy and ducky, but I had a very romantic notion of ducks calmly wandering about the yard. Unfortunately the reality is they are loud, unfriendly, demanding and messy creatures.

We survived...

We survived the heat wave, all of the critters included. The swimming pool sure helped us, even though by Sunday afternoon the water temperature was up to 85°. A nice storm front came through yesterday evening and dropped the temp from 93° to 75° in about 20 minutes and it was very welcome. After it passed we sat down by the barn and just watched absolutely constant flashes of lightning filling the sky to the south for about half an hour. It was tremendous.

The pigs seemed to take the heat better than anyone on the farm, it actually stays pretty cool in the barn basement area that they have access to, and along with a big mudhole and a few soakings with the hose they were just fine. The ducks went through about 7 gallons of water on Saturday, luckily I thought up and built an automatic refilling waterer for them that holds just over 5 gallons, so it's a lot less work for me. I am pretty proud of that waterer, there are even some really bad pictures of it in the Poultry album.

Also in the Poultry album are some pics of the turkeys from this morning. No doubt about it, Whitey is a Royal Palm tom and is going to be a striking looking turkey when he is mature. We also have a Blue Slate tom (Ghost), a domestic Wild Turkey tom (Smarty), and 5 Bourbon Reds, at least one tom, maybe 2 (Brownie x 5). Whitey and Ghost are featured in today's picture.

HOT!

It is supposed to be really hot this weekend, mid 90s and muggy, so I am glad I finally have the pool straightened up, I might spend the whole weekend in it.

I found a really nice spot for a mud wallow in the barn, it doesn't dry out like the old spot did, so the pigs should be happy and cool. I've got another packet of Pig Gatorade on standby though in case they get stressed.

I believe the ducks are intentionally trying to aggravate me at this point. I go out to fill their kiddie pool every morning and if I walk away to do any other chores they come and stand on the sides of the pool, letting all of the water drain out over their feet. So I have to spend 15-20 minutes every morning standing there doing nothing, just to keep them away while it's refilling. I tried posting the dog by the pool but they just go stand on the other side. They also spend the night in the coop and sleep right next to the water faucet, so that there is always a nice giant accumulation of duck manure right where I have to walk.

We did have one moment of amusement from the ducks yesterday, one of them found an old bird nest and somehow got it entangled on it's bill, it looked like he had a big gray beard. This scared the daylights out of the other ducks, they started quacking like crazy and running away from the "bearded" duck and, since they always travel as a group, he went running right after them! Which made them run faster! It was pretty funny and also shows just how dumb they are.

A day no ducks would die

None of the ducks went to meet their maker last week. My neighbor stopped over and, in discussing the ducks, told me I'd be crazy to kill them now because I would be picking pinfeathers for hours, so I'm putting it off for a few weeks. They continue to be the least popular creatures on the farm, and their newfound interest in quacking their heads off is not winning them any points.

Grandma Jones and Leonard came by yesterday to see the place, they seemed to think we're doing OK . It was great having them over to see the place. We picked a couple of quarts of mulberries for my great-uncle Don, who is a big fan of mulberry pie. I hope Betty, my great-aunt, doesn't mind making one!

I picked and shelled peas on Saturday, looks like we will have enough to freeze some. I also harvested some carrots, trying to pry carrots out of our clay-heavy soil is a frustrating process. The ground just does not want to let go! Next year's garden soil should be a little fluffier with all of the organic matter we are adding to that patch. All of the tomato plants have little tomatolings growing on them now, so you can be sure that I am getting more and more restless every day , looking for that first sign of red.

In other news, the pool is open! Finally have it all filled up, balanced out and cleaned up, looks like this weekend is going to be a warm one so that will be nice. My nightmare now is that the ducks will find it, oh please, don't let the ducks find it!

Horror!

So I walked up the hill to the little woods to see if any of the wild black currants or gooseberries were ripe yet and, to my shock and horror, found a FOURTH mulberry tree growing on our property! I have decided that I am going to pretend it doesn't exist, I don't have the time to pick berries from yet another tree.

I got a LOT of weeding done in the garden yesterday and it needed it. The Yellow Pear tomatoes look like they are trying to take over the garden, they are very bushy plants. Zucchini has blossomed and so have the canteloupes and cucumbers. I also found a Napa Cabbage growing in the garden that I never planted and I do not even own those seeds, very odd .

The compost/deweeding plan for next year's garden bed seems to be working really well, hopefully it will result in much fewer weeds than in this year's garden. Basically I am hauling up the bedding from the hogs and birds and letting it compost in place in what will be next years garden. I let it sit for a week or so to kill the weeds underneath, then I turn it over into a new spot to kill the weeds there and encourage decomposition of the bedding material.

Happy Fourth of July

Hope everyone is having an enjoyable holiday. I got up this morning and read the Declaration of Independence and then got to work. I picked 4 more quarts of mulberries and a quart of black raspberries, still need to get the currants picked yet this afternoon, looks like we'll get 3 or 4 quarts of those too.

I took the day off yesterday and cleaned out the duck coop (yuck) and got a lot of weeding done in the garden. I also sharpened up the hatchet and made a special knife for dispatching poultry, at least 2 ducks are going to the freezer this week. Then I twisted my ankle and had to take a break so I spent most of the afternoon inside.

Anyway, happy Independence Day!

Mulberries

A few little-known facts about mulberries:

- Mulberry leaves are the sole food source of silkworms.

- The last Tuesday of May is International Mulberry Appreciation Day.

- The berries are very high in resveratrol, a substance from which anti-cancer, anti-viral, anti-aging, anti-inflammatory and life-prolonging effects have been reported.

- They have a very high sugar content, second only to grapes.

- We have them coming out of our metaphorical ears!

I started picking mulberries today. First, I made the annual Pact With The Robins. They are welcome to all of the mulberries at the tops of the trees if they stay away from our cars and drying laundry afterwards. I picked 2 quarts of them (pictured above) in about an hour today, just from one limb of one tree. We have 3 mulberry trees. PLEASE come and pick some mulberries to take home. I'll even provide latex gloves ( if you don't want to stain your hands purple) and cold beer. Take a duck home with you too! Hopefully I will figure out a local farmer's market to sell berries and some other produce at soon, things are just busy, busy, busy. Black raspberries are really starting to ripen and so are the currants, so I have to get as many mulberries in as I can before they distract me.

Everything else is doing well, have started to get some responses from localharvest, which is encouraging. Picked the first kohlrabi (or as I call it "the alien vegetable") today, carrots are getting to be harvestable size. Some of the turkeys are starting to strut around all macho-like, all 11 inches tall of them, it is funny to watch.

See you at the farm!

Come and get 'em

Start making your plans to visit the farm, and bring your ice-cream pails, because the berries are ripening. I picked a handful of black raspberries and mulberries yesterday, by next weekend we will be swimming in them.

We are going to be selling some berries this year, but there is no charge to come and pick them yourself, please feel free to do so.

Speaking of selling, we are now affiliated with LocalHarvest.org as a means of contacting even more potential purchasers. You can see our listing here:

http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M14200

You can also do a search and find other sources of fresh local food in your own area.

Lots of work ahead

We are just starting to see signs of ripening raspberries, mulberries, and blackberries. When they all get ripe it is going to be a LOT of berry picking, the raspberry bushes are absolutely astonishing in their bounty. I guess that's what happens when you clear out the old growth and prune them correctly. We are going to need friends and family to come over and pick berries too, there is no way we could eat all of the berries we are seeing grow right now.

In the garden my experiment in growing pole beans and corn next to each other is not working. The corn is growing too slowly to provide support for the bean vines. Next year I will try again but plant the beans 2 weeks after the corn, should be enough of a head start. I picked all of the radishes out of the garden yesterday, most of them were bigger than my thumb and wow, were they hot! Nikki and I are each giving them away to co-workers, there are just too many. That's what happens when the seed packet falls halfway out of your pocket and you unknowingly plant radishes throughout 1/4 of your garden.

All of the animals are doing well. The ducks are already big enough that I'm thinking of whacking a couple of them next week. They really are such a nuisance and so much work that I can't wait to be rid of them. Who would have thought that 7 ducks would be harder to care for and messier than 2 pigs?

Success

A while back I noted Nikki's comment that she would believe in growing vegetables from seed when she had her first salad completely from the garden. Well ,last night we had one. Butter lettuce, mesclun greens, radishes, peas, green onions and baby beets. It was great!

I took a few more pictures of the critters yesterday, they are growing so fast! The ducks are losing their down and feathers are just starting to show up, I bought them a kiddie pool to splash around in and they really enjoy it, there are pictures in the 'Poultry' album. The turkeys have been driving me batty, they are constantly escaping. They don't go far, they just sit outside the coop and yelp to their friends inside. But trying to keep track of them is a job. This morning I was cleaning out the duck's area and turned around to find 5 turkeys calmly walking around in the grass outside. So I caught them one by one and put them back in their enclosure and got back to the ducks.Two minutes later I look down and there are 2 turkeys standing in front of my shoes. So I put them back on their side of the coop and sat Cash right outside the gap between the fence and the building while I went down to the barn to get some fencing to close it up. I walk back up to the coop and Cash is still sitting there, but there are 3 turkeys outside the fence walking around him! I got the gap closed up and they were all still inside after going down to take care of the pigs, so I guess it worked.

A few new pictures of the pigs are in the 'Pigs' album at the link, they are growing fast too. I have the one picture of me with Lunch tucked under my arm that was taken just a few weeks ago, I don't think I could hold her up with one arm anymore, and I'm not sure I could pick Breakfast up at all.

The pic at the top is "Smarty", the bronze turkey. It looks like we have 4 different heritage breeds of turkey, I have my suspicions about which breeds they are but I'm waiting for more feathers before I commit to anything.

A sick pig

I went down to the barn Saturday morning to feed and water the pigs and noticed right away that Lunch wasn't interested in eating. Normally both of the pigs are crowding me as soon as I walk in the corral, looking for their food and a scratch behind the ears, but Lunch was still laying down in the barn. I tried offering her a pail of milk and when she wasn't even interested in that I started to worry. Saturday was a really hot day, so I hoped it was just the sudden heat wave that was making her listless. I made a big mud wallow in the back corner of the barn where it is always cooler and sprayed both pigs down with the hose every couple of hours. I also bought a vitamin and electrolyte mix to add to their water, basically Gatorade for pigs, and by 2 in the afternoon she was eating and walking around, by nightfall she appeared to have made a full recovery and has been fine since. That was a huge relief.

The birds are still doing fine, the ducks just keep getting bigger and bigger, I expect some of them to be at the 3 pound mark this week, and the mess they make has grown right along with them. It doesn't help that they appear to have no interest in being outdoors at all, even though they are free to move out into an enclosed pen at any time. The turkeys, in contrast, spend most of their time outside. I have the turkeys trained to come inside or outside at my whistle, another point against their supposed brainlessness. Yesterday was flight training day for the turkeys as they took turns making test flights, some of them about 12' long, up and down one of the enclosures.

The garden is still thriving, we had some friends over for dinner on Saturday evening and I forced them to take radishes home with them, I think we pulled just over 2 dozen giant radishes out of the ground that day.