Surprise packages, winter produce, and a bit of canning

Weeks 14 & 15
12 November 2012

Well, guess our big surprise of the week? Yep, that's right. A new baby chicken was born this past week, ugly, covered with goo, and screaming like everything ... just like normal. This is Gus or Gussy depending on whether or not it's a girl or boy, which we won't know for a few months yet. I'm hoping girl because we need to start replacing layers.

After the last three sets of eggs we've had haven't hatched, we were beginning to think that maybe we should give up trying to use our homemade bators and wait until we could get a "real" one, but given the cost of commercially made ones it was going to be a long time before we could afford one. So, when we lost our beautiful duck, we still had some of her eggs and decided that we were just going to set all of the eggs we had to see if we could hatch some and just to fill up the bator I threw in some chicken eggs as well. We went 21 days (which is when chickens should hatch) and two of the three chicken eggs were no longer alive but this one was still moving around so I left it alone. I kept checking it everyday just to see what it was doing and everyday it was still moving. So the day it was born I had been busy busy and hadn't checked the bator all day. As I was getting ready to go to bed, I heard some peeping. At first I thought it was on the TV my husband was watching but then, as I realized he had the TV muted, I realized it was coming from the bator. My daughter and I opened up the door and this chick popped out of its egg.

Here it is at 24 hours old. Looks a lot better huh? Today it is all fluffy with a black spot on top of its head, eating and drinking and hopping around pecking at things. Of course, it thinks I am it's mother which might make the transition to yard life a little difficult later on, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Nice tomatoes, eh? My five tomato plants in my greenhouse are just loaded with these nuggets. Have I mentioned how excited this makes me? I am so stoked that I am growing tomatoes in November in northern Oklahoma. And not just tomatoes ... I also harvested a huge zucchini this week too and have several more on the plant as well as 2 quarts of green beans. We decided it was kind of funny that any more we get more harvest in the fall, winter and spring than we do in the traditional garden time of summer. If the summers continue to be 110 + degrees for weeks on end, it could save us a lot of hassle, water, and energy if we just plan to not grow stuff over the summer. Hmm, we'll have to think on that for a few weeks as we eagerly await the arrival of seed catalogs for 2013.

Pineapple anyone? We found a great sale for 99 cents a piece so we bought a bunch of pineapples and canned our own. Isn't it beautiful? It's so nice to be able to just grab a jar off the shelf and know exactly what is in it. We also canned another round of beans this week too, since we seem to eat them a lot as refried beans in burritos for lunches or as a side dish for a mexican meal. Next up ... canning chicken!

Rockets in the greenhouse, green beans for supper, and a dead duck

 RIP my little Blackberry. You were my favorite duck and much loved. I miss you every day.

 

Week 13
30 October 2012

So, we built a rocket in our greenhouse this week. It works great too! That whooshing sound when the engine lights up and begins to burn good is amazing to listen to. Okay, okay, okay ... so don't go calling NASA or anything, we aren't planning a trip to outer space or anything. The rocket we built is a rocket mass stove heater and it boggles my mind. You build a fire in it ... but the fire doesn't burn straight up like normal fires do ... and there's no smoke that comes out the chimney ... and you only use sticks ... and you can cook on it ... and the heavy mass of it retains the heat and releases it slowly during the cold nights to keep the plants nice toasty despite the freezing temps on the other side of the thin plastic sheet. No, don't ask me how it works, I don't really understand, but I know it does work. Somehow in the mechanism of it all the smoke is completely burned off so that all that is left is a little CO2 and some steam. I also know it gets really really hot. The steel can we have over the heat riser literally burned red hot during the burn time. It's a beautiful thing ... thank you my friend Debbie Norvelle Henderson for introducing me to them.

This is it at the moment because we ran out of clay for the cob covering. I'll post a pic later on when we get more clay on.

And speaking of the greenhouse ... we've already had three major hard freeze nights here in northern Oklahoma. Normally that would signal the end all of end alls to our gardening, but with our lump of a greenhouse, we actually ate fresh green beans for supper tonight. And the bean plants are still blooming! so I guess there's more of them on the way. Maybe we can have fresh green beans steamed with onions and bacon for Thanksgiving dinner along with our homegrown turkey. Wow, what a thought! We also have zucchini squash setting on nicely with no squash bugs to be seen and tomatoes. Yeah, tomatoes!!! We also have several types of brassicas growing - broccoli, cabbage, and brussel sprouts - plus an avocado tree, a ginger plant, lettuce, and a cucumber specially grown for greenhouse conditions. Our next trial is to try potatoes ... mainly because we have potatoes sprouting in the potato bin and we thought "why not?"

Fresh green beans for supper the end of October

One of several handfuls of tomatoes set on 5 plants

Last, but by no means least, is the sad sad loss of my beautiful duck Blackberry. I posted a pic of her as a baby which shows you exactly why I fell madly in love with this duck from the first day I saw her. She was one of a kind and her loss is felt by not only us but by her duck pals as well. I wish I knew what happened to her. I'll spare you the details of the discovery ... it wasn't pretty and frankly, I cried all the way to work that morning ... but she was killed by a predator of some kind. We're guessing it was the possum that killed our turkeys poults last spring that came back and got her but we aren't sure. So now the ducks get moved inside for the night to their new house. So far so good. We've had no new losses. And I quickly stuck all of the duck eggs we had gathered into the incubator to see if maybe, just maybe, we could hatch out another little Blackberry. Fingers crossed.

Incubators, dustbowls, and shooting guns

21 October 2012

Weeks 9 - 12

Wow. I've kind of gotten behind in my weekly summaries of life. Guess life has been ... too busy, maybe?

Let's see ... we've added 25 meat birds to the family and 4 more egg layer babies. The meat babies will keep us in chicken for between 4 and 6 months depending on how much we eat chicken, of course in the meantime we have to care for them until they are big enough to process. It's been somewhat of a chore as we chose to try a new feed method using fermented feed. Ugh, ugh, ugh! It was supposed to reduce the amount of feed you use, decrease the amount of poop and therefore the smell of the brooder, and give the birds a better quality of life. It didn't reduce the amount of feed they were consuming but it did reduce the amount of growth they had which meant we were going to be feeding them even longer than normal to get the same rate of growth we've had before. Nor did we find that it reduced the poo or smell. We were still cleaning out the brooder at least once a day if not twice. And as far as quality of life goes, well, our birds go outside everyday anyway and play in the grass and get sunshine and chase bugs and try to fly and find worms ... I'm not sure how much better quality of life can be for chickens. So, long story short, they are getting regular high protein feed now and growing along well. Last round we had 6 and 7 pound birds after they were processed, so we'll see how these turn out.

Meat birds ... the shirtless wonders!

 We also had to set up the greenhouse earlier than normal this year as we got an early frost right as the fall tomatoes and squash were beginning to set fruit. That took a load of time as we expanded this year to include another growing bed and a walkway down the length of it. We also made it taller so no more stooping to take care of things in there and added screening across the top to keep the poly covering from sagging under water and snow loads. When we finished ours we went to Stillwater and helped dad get his put up as well, and then breathed a huge sigh of relief that it was done for the year.

A respectable photo with mom and dad, hubby and kids, putting up dad's greenhouse.

And another photo of what really happens behind the scenes!

But the weather had it's own plans it seems. This past week brought us a dustbowl for a day with strong winds and blowing dust, and besides the 35 car pile up on the interstate just south of town which shut down the interstate and rerouted traffic through our sleepy little town, it blew the cover entirely off the greenhouse. We shuffled around and stowed the poly sheets where they wouldn't blow to kingdom come and waited until the winds died down. Of course, given the temperatures that night, we had to put it back up before we could go to bed which meant zip tying the poly back on in the dark. Although it will be a memorable experience, it is not one I care to repeat any time soon.

At least the last month hasn't been all work and no play. We took a day off and went to the Wildlife expo one Saturday. After picking up Zek at 8:00 am in Stillwater, we headed off to Guthrie and the Lazy E arena where we kayaked, ate wild boar stew, traversed rope bridges, shot clay pigeons with a shot gun, learned how to clean fish, shot a few arrows, threw an atlatal, and chewed on some bison jerky. After about three hours and lunch under the lift gate on the expedition in the rain, we headed back home. It was great to just do nothing that had anything to do with the farm or the house for a few hours.

So often our lives revolve around what has to be done ... feed the birds, water the animals, clean the bedding, cook a meal, go to work, plan school, etc ... and while it seems like we busy busy busy all the time, sometimes it seems we never get anything done. It's easy to start feeling down and overwhelmed by everything that has to get done. But slowly we are learning "how to eat the elephant". One bite at a time, one little piece done today, another little piece done tomorrow, and eventually it all seems to come together somehow. Like this recycled pantry shelf we built. It took about a week of doing small parts each day, but finally it was done and my kitchen is greatly appreciative of space that was freed up in the cabinets.

One of the things we've been trying to learn is how to incubate and raise our own succession of chickens and turkeys and ducks. Since we'd love to get into heritage bird farming and continue to raise birds to sell, incubating is an important skill for us ... but we just haven't been able to get it right yet. Our of three tries we've managed to hatch one bird. We seem to get them to grow until it's time to hatch and then they never hatch. Thinking we just couldn't manage to keep the temps and humidity constant enough with the small incubator we made, we built a bigger one. However, the same problems exist with it. None of our chicken eggs made it through the last cycle. Now we're waiting to see if the ducks do any better. Fingers crossed.

Mud pies and sand castles or pie in the sky dreams?

23 September 2012
Week Eight

Well, so much for building anticipation by showing all the steps and slowly explaining how we did this before revealing the completed work. Lol. I've never been one for surprises much and I really like how this turned out so I wanted this pic to be the top of the page. "Layer One - clay bread oven, Sept 2012"

Needless to say we spent the weekend in every (ok, most?) child's dream ... making mud pies and building sand castles ... squishing the clay and sand mix between our toes and under our feet, slapping it together with sticky grimy hands, splashing water on each other. And in the middle of it all we had to stop and build a giant wet sand dome shaped 'just so' to act as support for our clay walls. It was every bit as fun as playing in the big dirt pile when we were kids but a whole lot more rewarding in the end!! It's probably a good thing I didn't know about these ovens when I was a kid or my mom and dad would've had a whole yard full of them. As it was they has brick turtles pens and whole house plans built from walls of leaves ... me and cob would have been a nightmare!

So, anyway, here's a few more pics from our weekend adventure.

Good ol' Oklahoma Red Dirt

Our base layer

Breaking up the clay

Kneading the cob

The oven base and beginning of the walls

Mixing sand with water to form the dome

Sand dome covered with newspapers and walls going up

Finished first layer with door cut out

Honestly the only part that was a pain in the neck was forming the sand dome inside the clay base. It kept falling all over the place and judging how steep to make the walls and how high to build it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. But we finally got it done and then we had to fight to keep the wet newspapers stuck to it. They wanted to fly off in the wind. At one point I just gave up and started throwing clay on it so the inside of the oven may be kind of wrinkled-y but no one will see that part anyway. I'm already drooling over the bread and pizzas that are going to come out of this - chicken pesto, eggplant and onion, sourdough bouille, etc ...

Pie in the sky?? Well, in the midst of us playing in the mud and building with wet sand, we found out that the 26 acres of land that we have been drooling over for the last two years, which is only 30 miles from my parents, was dropped in price by half. Obviously they needed to come down in price given the land sat there for two years with no movement, but we never expected it to ever be in our price range. However, and this is where the pie-in-the-sky dream comes in, even though it's in our price range we can't even start to arrange financing for it until January when we pay off our car ... and we just don't imagine it will stay on the market for very long now. If it were only "money falling out of the sky" instead of "pie in the sky", we'd have it made. I guess what will be will be. I thought of starting a fund for donations ... I could call it the mud pie fund and everyone who donates gets to spend a weekend with us "living the farm life" and take home fresh eggs and veggies. It would only take 1,000 people giving us $75 each and we'd have it made ...

Ah, ... pie in the sky!

County fair, the golden egg, and mad chickens

17 September 2012
Week 7 (I think ...)

Well the county fair started last Tuesday with all of the frustration and turmoil it could muster. I'm sure most people think of the county fair as a celebration, a time to eat all the junk food their steel stomachs can handle and ride as many rides around and around and around in circles as they can without throwing up. But for those of us who enter items in the fair to be judged, it is a different place entirely. The weeks and months before are spent in preparation of jams and jellies, knitting sweaters, quilting together all manner of fabrics, raising chicks, and raising crops all for the chance to compete against our neighbors. Any more those neighbors for competing against are few and far between it seems.

When we first started entering things in the fair, it seemed like a foreign world and no one told us the rules, but we learned quickly. The first year we entered our sand plum jelly, thinking everyone in the county must enter sand plum jelly, and it was the only jar of it there. The next year we entered a new jar of that most native of foods and it stood next to one other jar listed in the "other" category. Ten years later sand plum jelly had it's own category and stood in competition to 56 other jars. This year, our jar had but 3 lonely companions.

There's always an ebb and flow to what people produce and enter into the county fair, however, last year the ebb and flow was seriously curtailed by a change in the manner of entry. Someone somewhere decided that the system of entering and tracking who, what, when, where, and how much at the fair in all the various categories could more effeciently be done on the computer instead of in the manner it had been done for the last 70 something years. It was an overwhelming failure. Most people, frustrated and confused by the lack of communication and organization of the "new and improved" system, just gave up and left without entering a single thing. And very few returned this year.

We, on the other hand, persevered and entered 28 jars of canned goods, 1 loaf of bread, 1 plate of sweet potatoes, 3 bantam chickens, 5 rabbits, 2 turkeys, and 4 ducks. And in the end came home with 32 first place ribbons, 7 second place ribbons, and 3 third place ribbons along with 2 Grand Champions, 2 Reserve Grand Champions, 4 Champions, 2 reserve Champions, and 3 Ball Canning Awards. All in all it wasn't a bad haul, however, our animals were highly stressed out by the end of the week.

Our silkie here was a little freaked out by all the noise and commotion of the animal barn and proceeded to bite anyone who came near unless I was holding him. He and the two girls next to him were probably the most talked about birds at the fair. Admittedly they are odd looking compared to other chickens.

But this little jewel was our biggest surprise of the week. A turkey egg, notable for it's spotted coloring!! One of our turkeys laid eggs last year for a few weeks but it wasn't until December and they weren't fertile. This year we have boys and girls but certainly weren't expecting eggs for another couple of months. We're not sure if the horrid hot weather we've had this year made them lay early or what. I guess we'll keep watch and see what happens over the next few weeks. I just can't imagine them hatching out babies in the cold as turkeys are hot weather birds.

Playing in the clay, duck eggs, and sprained ankles

10 September 2012
Week Six

Well, we finally did it. We went and got some soil to use for building the clay bread oven. I wish I had dancing smilies on her right now because I would be using them. I am so excited about this project. I've been planning it for so long now and we finally are at the moment of building it. Here's some of the pics from mixing test bricks, and testing the test bricks.

So, here is a mix of soil, water, and sand. We added different percentages of sand to the soil to make test bricks for our cob.

Here's the bricks that range in percentage of sand from 0% to 300%. After 300% the bricks just wouldn't hold together any more.

We left them to dry in the sun for two days, turning them over several times to make sure they dried evenly.

And here the bricks are dried for two days. If there ever is a next time we will let them dry for three days because a couple of the bricks weren't quite dry in the middle.

We took each brick and dropped it straight down. All but the last two, with the smallest amount of sand in them broke in some way, however, the first few actually crumbled when they hit and then the next two just broke cleanly.

We're going to use about a 25% mix of soil to sand for the inside layer of the oven to make sure it holds up to the heat. Then the outer layer(s) will be about 50% sand with straw added for strength. The very outer most layer will be straight clay as I plan on sculpting some decorations into the outside of this oven to make it mine and to make it something beautiful to look at. I can hardly wait to get to play in the mud!! My favorite thing ever!

And while the clay oven may be the most exciting thing to me that happened this week, it certainly wasn't all that happened. On Friday I sprained my ankle. Thankfully it wasn't too bad but it still required a little hobbling, ice packs, and rest before it started feeling better. The weather was just too beautiful though to pass by so I hobbled myself out to the garden and propped my foot up on a milk crate with lawn cushions and our kitten Monkey. (She is hands down THE friendliest cat in the world.)

We also got our first duck egg this week, and have had one every day since. We're not sure which duck is laying them but we're pretty sure both of our ducks eggs will be fertile once we decide to hatch them. That's a project for winter I think though when we're stuck inside twiddling our thumbs and dreaming about all the warm beautiful *cough cough* (read HOT and MUGGY) days of summer to come.

It really is enough ... so just stop right there

5 September 2012
Week 5

Yikes! Where did the time go? I've been trying to post on Sunday or Monday for a late but here it is Wednesday and I haven't even thought about what I'm blogging on this week ... or er, um, ... last week. I can't even remember what we did last week. It's all such a blur.

Let's see ...
1. killed a lot of squash bugs ... but there's still more everyday to kill. Where do they all come from?
2. got more garden planted ... here's a pic of Morgan planting beans for her gardening project.

3. built shelves in the garage out of free pallets from the local lumber yard but I forgot to take pics along the way so you'll have to use your imagination, I guess (kind of funny - free lumber from the lumber yard!)
4. Oh, yeah, I worked three days. That's where a lot of time went. How could I forget that?
5. We rehung the waterer in the coop so that it wasn't hanging by the doorway where they all crowd in and spill it everywhere. (now they just spill it in the middle of the floor instead ... sigh)
6. watered the garden a lot ... since it decided to get hot again
7. went to my mom's vocal concert in Stillwater ... not bad ... and that's all I'm willing to publish
8. son came home from college for the long weekend
9. went to the well and got water
10. went to the movie and saw BRAVE ... it was interesting but I'm not sure what the point was other than you have to be brave to face up to a bear. kind of knew that already only I always called it being stupid, rather than brave

That's ten things. Is that enough?

Of course that's not ALL we did. I also spent some time this week just scratching my head in wonder and throwing out the odd question or two on matters regarding Heirloom seeds, the bashing of anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with what's being said, and God.

I love this.

I don't know where it came from originally or who first posted it where. One of my "like" pages on facebook shared it and I passed it on. In this day and age when it seems like so many people are only concerned with loving those who agree with them or bashing those who don't agree with them ... whether that's politically or medically or educationally or religiously or environmentally ... THIS is how I feel. It's one thing to promote what you love and agree with and allow others who are like minded and interested to learn from you or share in your love. It's a whole different matter when people start bashing what they hate and pretending that is how they are promoting what they love.

If you love organic food, GREAT!! Go gagga over organic food and tell me everything and anything about organic food and it's greatness ... but don't start telling me I have to hate non-organic food.

If you love heirloom gardening, GREAT!! Go bananas and share the excitement you have over planting only heirlooms ... but don't tell me I can't plant a hybrid tomato and start posting every hate message about GMO's you've ever read.

The world is so full of hate and bashing and abuse of others who are "not like me". It's time for something new and something better for our world than that. Promote what you love ... and leave it at that. Just stop before you go that other step. It is enough to say "I like chocolate" without adding "but I hate strawberries". It really is enough.