Just another Day on the Farm

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!

Posted in Life moves on daily | 5 Comments

Hair sheep pelt

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

For you deb, a dry version..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Love this new tool for working hides..

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, so I got this tool for working on the beef hide and to be honest, it worked but it didn’t work well, no where near what I was expecting, I tried it this way and that way and still it didn’t do what so many folks had on the net said it would..

But today, I was working on a fresh hide and wow! Double Wow! o my goodness wow.. something that I normally sit and work on for a really good amount of time was able to be done with this tool in about ten to fifteen mins.. I just kinda sat there stunned!

Now to be fair on this, I also bought the biggest version as I wanted it for working bigger hides and as I was working an a two by two foot hide, I am sure that helped make it happen so much faster but still, even if you had the smaller tool that can be bought it was still awesome..

I am doing this hide in a new method, will report back on it when its done..and we see if its a success or failure.. it is a sheep hide but its no longer really wooly, its much more hair then wool at this point.. Its a lovely long blond hair..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

The storm…

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Winter is coming! No really, spring is coming but Jack Frost, Old Man Winter have got together and are messing with most of the area around me, and let me tell ya, they are tying one on!!

Cold Winds blowing, rain, sleet, freezing rain and snow, its all on the table and depending on where you are makes a difference in how it hits you but its that dreaded freezing rain that seems to do the most damage when combine with the winds, as it brings down the tree’s which is just so! dangerous!

Currently at the moment, we have snow, winds and now are starting into a light mix of sleet, freezing rain with itty bits of hail..

So for those still can, fill up some extra buckets of water, make sure your laundry is caught up, bring in the some extra wood for the stoves or if you don’t have that, crack out the sleepbags, check your supplies, if you need to, cook up some extra meat, hard boil some eggs, bake some fresh breads (make a double batch of pancakes) make a double batch of baking powder bisquits, unless you have the right wood stove and you know that you can bake that bread in a couple hours.

For those that are already out of power and have tree’s coming down.. know you are in my prayers! Keep safe!

Posted in Life moves on daily | 12 Comments

Teaching Brandy how to smile.. a work in progress..

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Sunflowers.. o the mighty sunflower!!!

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I have talked about it before that I have my fenced pulled back and have a 3 foot buffer zone around my little farm, the stripe is right around 3 feet, give or take a few inches depending on where the posts went in, the farmer has dug deep/fairly steep ditches on the edge my buffer zones and other then one year, my land is never directly sprayed on, and he try’s to set it to get the ditches but miss the buffer, we tend to mow the buffer down and or hand cut the buffer, but its just been allowed to naturalize

Tbis area works out to right around 5000 square feet of unused land at the moment.. I had a wild idea yesterday that I should seed this area out into these..

My first thought is wow, would that not be so pretty! Just take a moment and think about the joy of seeing those happy yellow faces, that lovely row of green.. just pretty!

Then my second thought was how many would that grow, so according to my research each sunflower ideally needs one sqaure foot, so that means that its very reasonable to grow 5000 sunflower plants, now even assuming that it has good conditions and it should, there is lots of water just down once they sink their roots in, they will have little to no issues with competing plant creep be it from the pasture or the farmers field, and once its well started, sunflowers are very able to handle low growing plants themselves..

I have the correct amount of growing days on any typical given year so that means that I have a good chance of a good crop, (we will talk about how great they would be for the local bee keeper in a bit but lets just say, they already cross over the creek to come to my farm and this would just bring them in droves) so being fair, that means that somewhere between 2500 to 4000 plus sunflower heads..

So of course my next thought was, well I can dry some of those heads and hang them in the big barns hay loft that I don’t use as it a massive space with great air flow and lots of ways to hang them from, but then I stopped and really thought about this, I might be able to hang and store several hundred heads but not more then that.. that leaves a possablity of several more thousands of heads, now I am sure that the wild birds would be very happy to help releave me of some of these but still..

hmmm, so I got to talking to my momma, and she started telling me about how my grandfather used these as animal fodder as soon as the seed pods started forming but way, way before we would consider them ready for drying and storing.. This was feed to the pigs, to the sheep, goats and cows.. interesting.

So I started doing some more reading.. turns out there have been good studies done on this and up, this is a great bird and cow fodder, they are very clear what percents are safe for feeding and how to use it, so that was very very helpful.

Assuming that I get a average size head (which full size can be upward of 5 pds on the kind I picked to plant) even if I take it down by half to 2.5 pds per head, it could produce between 12 to 15 thousands pds plus of heads.. Thats somewhere around six to eight tons of fodder for the farm critters!

The green leaves can be picked and used for bedding in a light way thoughout the growing season, which is a interesting idea.. once allowed to dry, the stalks get hard and strong..

They can be trimmed and used for poles for the next gardening season or for making a natural weaved fencing projects but the thing that surprised me to find out was this gem?

“Those who undertake to grow Sunflowers should, however, bear in mind that the ash obtained from the plants after the seed has been harvested is, owing to its richness in potash, a manure of considerable value, so that it is really wasteful to use up the dry stems merely on the domestic fire; it is of more advantage to make them up in heaps on the ground, burn them there and save the ash.

At the time of cutting, strip off the leaves and feed them to rabbits or poultry. When the stems are dry and after the seed crop has been gathered, choose a fine day to burn both stems and empty seed-heads.

Of the ash obtained from burning the Sunflower stems and heads (apart from seeds) 62 per cent consists of potash, and as an acre of Sunflowers produces from 2,500 to 4,000 lb. of top, the total yield of potash is considerable. Allowing 3,000 lb. of top, there would be produced 160 lb. of ashes per acre of crop, which should contain upwards of 50 lb. of potash.

The ash should either be spread at once or stored under cover; if left exposed to rain, the potash will be washed away and the ash rendered of little manurial value. It can be used with advantage for the potato or other root crop in the following year, being spread a little while before the crop is planted, at the rate of from 1/2 to 1 OZ. to the square yard”

So if this plan can be worked out, I will have something that will use marginal land on the farm, increase the amount of bee’s food on my land, be pretty, work to improve the soil itself, produce 6 to 8 tons of animal fodder, plus greens/bedding, plus the ability to have my own garden stocks for different products and the ability to produce my own potash for my farm use, thus once again closing a loop, making something that had to be reached out for to outside the farm and making it a on the farm! 0 mile potash..

Ok, now having shared all that with you, know I have to do it now right?? What a project, So what do you think???

Posted in gardens | Tagged sunflowers, sunflowers for animal fodder, sunflowers for bedding for animlas, sunflowers stems used for your own potash | 11 Comments

Sleepy Bella..

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

I’m amazed that her old age greying has now reached up and over her eyebrows..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

Thank you -Dear Reader!! What a great seedy surprise in my mail box!

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

I got the mail yesterday and wow! did I get mail! a lovely smaller package awaited me but what was inside.. promise.. promise of new life.. yup.. Seeds!

O but not any seeds, these are old fashion heritage seeds, most of the little packages were in sets of ten seeds, enough for any self-respecting gardener to be able to plant in two sets and get a few for trying to eat, enough to try them in a soup and to take the very best for keeping back a bounty for the couple two years worth of seeds for the garden and just a few to pass along to someone in the future.

That’s what home garderers and seed savers do…they are savers of the what will be..

but some of them, well they came with only four seeds, top hand harvested, hand sorted and top of the line seeds they are, but still only four! They will be planted out at the perfect time (no risking any early or lates on them) and they will be watched over and be the babies of the garden while see having that steely eye on them that say.. I will baby you for seed but I will be taking notes on if you are good or not! 🙂

So I say again.. thank you for this gift from one of my regular commentors! I will keep you posted! on how it all goes from start to harvest on the blog.

Posted in gardens | Tagged Bean seeds, Garden, Gift from regular reader of the blog, old hertiage seeds | 10 Comments

Piggy Plows rock..

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Now can you imagine the cry’s of NOOOOOooooooooo if this happened where you didn’t want it? but when you can use them effectively, o the joy of the snout! Those Piggy Plows can just rock it!

Whatsa up farmgal?

Look what Brandy left us.. interesting..

Better get down to work now..

Unplowed and plowed, no missing that..

This soil is amazing!, this is a area that we dumped a winters worth of bedding out of the sheep pens and have let it compost down and now the pigs are digging it though for us, rich, black gold, next will come the chickens, and then a whole heap of squash plants!