Just another Day on the Farm

I like them.. the guinea fowl..

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, its offical, I like these birds, they are different then chickens, ducks or turkey’s, they truly do have their very own temperment and lifestyle..

They are very pack, family birds, where one goes, the others are sure to follow, they use sound to keep each other informed on what they should be doing.. the male is the clear leader, his girls are always busy, they are quick in their movements and their flightyness is very much like a leghorn for going up and out, but at the same time, they settle much faster..

They are attached to the farm! and that is awesome.. my big concern at this time is that they are laying but not sitting.. I think I might need to offer them a couple choices of nests in their pen, I will certianly let more of the chicks out once big enough to do well for tick control but I am not risking my breeding trio this year.. They can get limited free range and then they need to go back to their night/breeding pen.

now if they dress out reasonable and taste as good as the ones I have had in other’s meals, I will be very happy indeed.

Posted in Critters, farm | Tagged birds | 8 Comments

Dh’s New Blog! Getting a Word in Edgewise..

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

O, Oh, my man has crossed the line to the dark side.. yup.. he is starting his own blog, as those that have read some of his excellent stories on the blog here knows, he has skills that this old farmgal just can’t touch when it comes to the written word, I write with my own voice, and try an share knowledge and my love of life on my blog..

I have a feeling that those of you that choose to read his blog, will soon find themselves hooked, after all it was his writing that helped make his gal fall head over heels and agree to fly to a different province to meet a stranger in person.

Now on with the show as they say…

The many edges of Farmwriter

“The name of the blog isn’t just a matter of borrowing a popular phrase for the sake of convenience*.

See, I’ve heard from accomplished writers that I, as a writer, should be putting out three hundred words a day, every day. Under the right circumstances, I can do that in less than an hour. There’s just the minor complication that there are other priorities that can and must have my attention.

Foremost, of course, is my wife. Known on the blogosphere as Farmgal, she’s been the most important part of my life for fourteen years now. We met online, and in that initial period of getting to know each other’s interests, attitudes, and personalities, our communication was strictly through e-mail. Those first tentative e-mails were short and cautious, and we talked about reading. It happened that a major character in my current read of the time shared Farmgal’s name and two of her interests**. Soon enough, though, those e-mails grew in size and frequency until we were typing out voluminous love letters three or four times a day. It’s fair to say that our online courtship was the most important and rewarding writing I’ve ever done – and it lives on in a great big binder full of print-outs.

A second priority is my job. I’m a civil servant, and have been all my professional life – first as a geologist, then as a manager of geologists, and now as a policy wonk. Apart from the time commitment involved, the job itself can simply be draining at times. If I’ve spent all day writing and editing a briefing note or a policy paper, there’s a good chance I might not feel like more writing and editing in my down-time. If I’ve got homework, I might not even have the time for it.

A third priority is the farm. My wife doesn’t call herself Farmgal for giggles; we’ve got a small farm out in the sticks past Ottawa. Not a hobby farm, either – we raise enough livestock and grow enough fruit and vegetables that we’re bordering on self-sufficiency. That adds another mandatory time commitment, since gardens must be planted, and critters must be cared for. I normally spend forty-five minutes to an hour on chores each day, and that can double if the weather’s not cooperating or something has broken or whatever.

But…

There’s always time to write. During the pauses, the lulls, and the in-between times, opportunities present themselves.

Whatever else is happening, Farmgal will do what’s necessary to ensure I’ve got some down-time each day. We often hang out with our laptops in the living room or bedroom – she blogging or moderating her favorite discussion board, me writing; we visit, chatter, and vent while we’re typing. She pushed me to start submitting stories for publication, she critiques my work, and she’s pretty darn knowledgeable about this blogging thing, too.

As this post demonstrates, my lengthy commute to and from work offers an opportunity to write***. The sometimes inane nature of the job can spark ideas of satire. I can meet genuinely interesting people that inspire characters. If I’m lucky, I can travel to places or events that might appear as settings later on. Plus, of course, those late nights in hotels and long lay-overs in airports provide enforced down-time for writing.

Even the farm offers up opportunities. Obviously I can’t actually write while carrying water buckets or forking out manure, but there’s something almost zen-like about repetive manual labour. The body’s working, there’s no cultural distractions like music or the internet, and so the mind just says, “Dude, I’m gonna go wander off that way for a while”. So I contemplate troublesome scenes or dialogue, whether written or yet to be written, and I come up with new ideas.

So I do manage to get a word in edgewise.”

*Although it was that too.

**Farmgal did not also seem to share the interest of world conquest, but occasionally I wonder.

***If I’m not slumped against the side of the bus, sleeping

Posted in Family | 2 Comments

Wash the rooster update..

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

I don’t know if this rooster is a good example of his breed, given that the other rooster that was the same breed went for next to nothing and I had to pay top dollar for him, I expect that i got a good one but it was a gamble, which it always is when you get a new bird at the sale, and a bird from a breed you had never heard of, that’s a double gamble..

So far, I like him lots.. he is good with us, good with the hens,

And I like that he has small combs, this is a good thing for our cold winter weather..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Deep Fried Pork Balls with Spring Bitter Greens..

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

So simple, and so clean for a dish.. I had a pound of pork mince, and I spiced it up with a jerk seasoning mix, and deep fried them in lard, I was able to track down two big coming dandilion plants and picked fresh spring bitter greens, which were just wilted out by the heat of the hot fried balls, and I served with this with garlicly pickles..

Heavenly!!! I got pictures of the meatballs and then I chowed and didn’t realize that I didn’t get the greens, sorry about that.. Can you imagine how good this would be if you used Dandelion honey as a glaze on these!?

Posted in gardens, wild foods | Tagged Dandelion honey glaze for pork meat balls, Deep Fried pork balls, Spring Bitter Wild Forage Greens | 5 Comments

Hops..

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Its kinda funny that for someone who does not drink beer, I am so excited to have added in hops to the farm.

I am looking forward to using them as a mild amount of fodder, there are good solid studies that show that they are can be used at low percent rates in bird feed that will increase growth rates and increase gut health in the birds overall.

I like the idea of hops pillows and it can be used in few other ways that I have read and need to explore personally to see if any of it is true or not..

I am also very interested in trying the hops in the spring, when they are treated much like a early season aspergus, and the hops themselves can be cooked and eaten in a number of ways, but the most popular seems to be stuffed with cheeses and tampura batter deep fried..

Posted in Food Forest, gardens | Tagged hops | 2 Comments

Wordless Weds

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in Life moves on daily | Leave a comment

The next chapter..Showing Respect..

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Now this was interesting as I had a visit with my momma this morning, and we were talking about what is in the post before this and she felt that if I took the hide that I was just being disrespectful. I don’t agree..

I skinned with care and prayed while I did so, I was very pleased that the hover that I had felt the day before was gone today!

Its like I said to my mom, I will do this hide with extra care, love and I will pat it for years to come, always with a send to the devine with a thank you for this gift..

I don’t consider it disrespectful at all, I think using this part of the calf, which is the only part I can do so safely is in fact showing my respect and honor to it.. Without stretching it, its pretty close to 3 by 3 an half.

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

Rant Warning- Respect for life!

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

I had a moment yesterday where I was just stopped in my tracks and to be honest for bit, I was speechless and that is not a easy thing to happen to me..

I was over at a friends who had been offered the hides on some young calf’s that had passed away.. (I will back to my hide/calf in a bit) and I had asked if it would be possable for me to get one of the hides to which I was told yes, (thank you again for letting me!)

but when I “assumed” that these were calves that had died from their own cows but you know what assume means right??

Needless to say, I got the rest of the story and it was enough to leave me speechless and slack jawed, these sweet beautiful calves had been hauled in to the local auction and for nothing, they had been got and brought home to see if they could make it, different barns, different farmers, not wanted because they are made the mistake of being born male in a dairy..

Lets just say that skill is needed to keep one of these calves alive, and skill is lacking..

You know sometimes you allow those you work with to hide you from the truth.. you see I am used to Farmer R, it took me YEARS to get him to agree to sell me a calf, because he didn’t want to sell me a calf, ME not have skills and the calf die..

When I got Girl, he called me and said come get her, when I got to the barn, she was lightly scouring, and he was very unhappy, said, I didn’t need to take her, said, she had not been doing that when he had called and refused to let me pay for her for weeks just in case she died on me.. he will not let them go before they have a full week on the farm milk.

I babied her and made sure she got the best qualtiy milk replacer and I moved her into the small red shed so that if she did pass, I would not have spread the germs in my big main barn and as you are aware she is a big healthy fully grown 140o pd expecting girl now..

Marty was different, he was big and strong and never gave me a single moment of worry the whole time I had him, he was raised in a stall next to girl and had a granny sheep that was his Mom and buddy, I was able to steal a wad or two of girls cud and put it into marty to make sure his ruman got started off right.

But this, this well, these babies where treated in a way that twists me in the guts, it makes my eyes want to burn with unshed tears and my inner spirit cry out in pain and anger..

Worst yet, while two of the bodies are just blanks when it comes to that spark of a spirit that all living things have, one was not.. don’t get me wrong, he was not alive, but he was for lack of a better word haunted, or hovered..

I could not stop myself, I had to reach out and stroke his head and say from spirit to spirit, i’m sorry and please move on..

For anyone that is reading that does not believe in souls or the devine life force, this post is not for you and I respect your right to your choices, and I am going to ask you respect mine..

I believe everything has a spark of that devine life in them, if its alive, its part of the whole system of life.. as someone who raises animals and looks them in the eye when they first open it and who then takes their lives for their bodies uses, I feel that it should be done with RESPECT, I don’t care what culture you are from, or what prayer is offered, something should be murmered between your spirit and theirs..

That is what strike me deep inside on this one.. not that the babies calvies died, but that they were not treated well from the moment of their birth to the moment of their death.. that they were considered disposable, without value..

Is that really to much to ask for us to do.. If we are going to take them away from their momma’s for our own uses fine, but have respect for them, give them safety, warmth and food and if you can affection and a gentle voice and hand till the time comes..

I hear it all the time, so many folks live in town and the city that they have lost touch with the animals, but this shows me that, that touch that is being lost even in those that live on the land.. and it filled me with shame..

Shame for my fellow man.. I am sad and I will mourn for not just the loss of those calvies and the hundreds and thousands like them born each year, but I will mourn for that little part of me that had faith in my fellowman that died just a little more with them..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 8 Comments

Nose to tail eating Skills and the ick factor..

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, I’m going own up to something.. sometimes I wig myself out.. its really, really weird.. even as I am doing something and I am thinking with my logical half of my brain, I am wigging in my emotional/feeling part.

I think most folks are aware that we raise all our own meat at this point and that I do most of the butchering for our own home use, only sending the critters out that will end up for possable farm gate sales.

Right or wrongly, I can butcher out fowl without much of even a flinch and I am pretty sure its because I have done so! many over the years, and cause they are fowl..

Rabbits are slowly getting there to a point and in other ways, never will.. rabbits are just to sweet and friendly for me to ever truly get to the point of not wigging.

Now I have been working on nose to tail cooking for the past two years, trying to learn to cook, eat and find ways to serve up parts that at least in N.A. at this time tend to end up in either the compost or to the dogs.. I am will admit that as I have the hounds, I have just did the same as my folks and allowed them to help me do the clean up and if they didn’t want it, then into the compost pile or the chicken free food buckets its been going..

But then I decided that while I was not wasting per say, I was not learning how to use everything I could for us, and while there are times where I still don’t want to clean and cook chicken feet, I will just give the hounds a crunchy healthy treat, I do it often enough that I know the skills.

But my lastest wanted skill has me in full on wig mode, and I know that I need to get over it and I will and I will be sharing my knowledge as I work and learn on it.

So here it is.. I am trying to learn to do three things..

How to clean and use real intestines for sausage casings.

How to clean and use a stomach for stuffing and also for curing and drying to be used as either a water or cooking tool (old stone age knowledge on this one)

How to learn how to clean and perserve the first stomach for being able to make your own animal rennet (not the fowl kind)

Now on top of that, I have decided that I need to get back into making sure that all the hides are being kepts, cured and used for something, as that has been something I have just let my butcher keep when he does the lambs for me..

I still don’t have a clue what to do with as many hides as I am going to get, but I do know that I will at some point need to start consider making leather, instead of wool/hair on hides.

Ok, so back to the topic.. why do guts wig me.. I have been honestly giving it some thought, and the first part goes back to my own basic understanding of safe butchering, if I can I butcher to have the cleanest meat possable, if I do it right, I never! cut into or get any of the intestine on my meat, ( while I do soak my meat in salt water for pulling out blood and because its just part of my own process) I can honestly say that a properly done critter by me, I would know in a push come shove, that a rinse in cool water and cook it would be just as safe..

So there is a part of me that has trained and continues to train on how to clean out a critter so that I do not in any way shape or form get things on my meat itself..

but once its removed and I am just working with it, I have gotten to the point that I can check my organs and even learned how to look and see the beauty of the lungs, but those intestines.. ahhhhhh.. wig! Big old wig I tell ya..

I have not meet my match, I will figure this out but I have a very hard time with it.. I just can’t seem to get over the ick factor on this one at this time..

There I owned up to it.. ikkk, ikk, Double Ikkk YUKE< gag me…

But the issue is, I want to be able to eat chitlins, I want to be able to stop buying very! costly casings when I have casings right here on the farm, I want to be able to use every part of my animal, I want to honor their life by making sure I don’t disrespect any part of them..

Its a dilemma… one determined but wigged! out Farmgal!