fresh turkey for thanksgiving!

way back last spring i decided that besides raising our meat birds, we would also get into the turkey business. i bought a few turkey eggs from our neighbor, and after hatching out a disappointing 4 poults, also bought baby turkeys from him, bringing our total turkey population to an even dozen.

they were raised in the chicken tractors, too. (or were they now turkey tractors?) time and the seasons marched steadily on, and soon it was November 23, their appointed day. above is A "givin' a little lovin' " to Mr. Tom Turkey.



each time we use our chicken plucker, we marvel to ourselves how we ever got along without it! it just strips the feathers right off those birds, until they are as naked as a jay bird. (or turkey)

this was our first time butchering in the summer kitchen, as well. just the night before, Dave had completed some final necessary tasks, and we were ready to go bright and early on Tuesday. it was so nice to have the cement floor, and everything under one roof! a big improvement over rickety card tables in the muddy yard!


the turkey next goes to G, who removes any pinfeathers and unsightliness from the bird. he also takes off the head, feet and crop.


next Mr. Tom Turkey comes to me, and i gut him, saving the giblets (neck, gizzard, heart and liver) after doing hundreds of chickens, it felt like i was touring the Grand Canyon to reach in the cavity and pull out all the insides!



a final rinse, tuck in his legs, and Mr. Tom Turkey is ready to grace the table of friends and family. we sold 10 of our birds, and had one 17.5lb turkey for our Thanksgiving table. (one turkey had mysteriously died in September)

it was the general an unanimous family consensus that Mr. Tom Turkey was the best we had ever eaten. we'll definitely raise turkeys again next year- and definitely keep better track of our expenses. we sold the turkeys for $2lb (with the butchering done for free), with the toms weighing in around 16lb and the hens around 10lb.

since our record keeping was less than stellar, we're not sure on the final cost. we raised these birds for 6 months, so we're pretty sure that WE paid our customers to come take their bird!

because now that summer is over, clearly, it's time to build the summer kitchen

the summer kitchen was on the to-do list, but it was very close to the bottom. however, after we were blessed with the gift of an industrial propane stove, we decided that we should build the summer kitchen sooner, rather than later, in order to be good stewards of God's provision.


Dave paced out the walls of the summer kitchen, making it a nice size. then we made it just a bit bigger, (14' x 14') since that's how things seem to go around here! (just last week, B told Dave he needed to make the tractor shed a little bit bigger! even though he built it 33% bigger than he originally intended, it's still too small!)

besides the wonderful blessing of our stove, i also wanted to get the kitchen done in time for turkey butchering November 23. it looks so much more professional to be butchering on stainless steel counters with a sink and running water, as opposed to working on a wobbly card table in the side yard...

Dave and G quickly got the posts set, and the framing done.

next was the rafters and green tin roof.

already we can see so many advantages to having this building- butchering pigs, chickens, deer and turkeys, canning/freezing, church picnics, and as a staging area for the produce both for the CSA and farmer's market.

here Dave and G are digging out the extra dirt, preparing for a layer of river bottom stone.

now, most people when they look at this window, would think that it's a wonderful idea to have a little window up high, for ventilation.

however, if you're like most people, you would be wrong. this little window is for shooting groundhogs. the view of this window is that of the lower garden, affording Dave a perfect spot to hide out and shoot those pesty little varmints!

A and B call this little attic/storage area their tree house. already they've had snack and play time up there.

of course the girls are happy to ride along with daddy in the tractor or wagon. the bucket on the tractor sure makes it handy to load those nice gravely stones. Dave and G spread the stones over the floor of the kitchen, making it a good base to pour the concrete onto.

lastly, Dave rented a tamper, and tamped the living daylights out of the stones on the floor. this way (in theory) the cement slab will not settle and crack.

tomorrow we have 4 yards of cement coming, along with 2 friends and their wheelbarrows to help pour the cement. along with fresh home made donuts and coffee, it should be a pretty interesting day!

renegade pumpkins...

most of the pumpkin seeds that i planted this year did not grow.


but we still had a good year, pumkinly speaking.

a feature of our pumpkins, both at farmer's market and in our CSA boxes, were the "pre-carved" variety.



early in the season, while the pumpkins are still green and tender, take a thick nail or ball point pen, and write in the skin of the pumpkin. i carved several phrases, mostly "welcome", "welcome to our home" and "welcome to the (name of the family participating on our CSA)'s.

these pumpkins were popular sellers, and appreciated gifts, too. another benefit is that you can still use them for pies, as they don't rot like the traditionally carved ones do. next year i plan on doing lots more like these, as it's "value added" for them. some of the pumpkins went for $10.

and besides, they're fun and they look great on the porch steps!

Baby B thinks Beets are the Best!

one of our more successful and popular crops this year was beets. as in Detroit dark red beets.


they were popular with the customers- both as beet greens and baby beets.


but most of all the beets were adored by B. she loves beets. LOVES. BEETS.

the first time i took her out to the garden to help me harvest beets, she had a great time. the look of wonder on her face when she pulled her first beet out of the ground is a look I'll never forget.

more amazingly, she had that same look of amazement every time she pulled out another beet. every. single. time.

we made a few quarts and pints of pickled beets for the winter, but B couldn't wait. she wanted a bowlful of buttered beets right away.




most people in our family don't like pickled beets, but rather the pickled eggs that traditionally go with them.

however, i think i should have done some more pickling of our produce this year. just yesterday B ate a whole pint of kosher dill spears- nearly single handedly!

next year i guess i should plan on planting more beets and cukes!

an abundant harvest!

last week we dusted off fixed the potato plow, and put it to good use! way back in May, we planted a total of 300 pounds of potatoes. (yes, you read that right!) and at the end of our season, still had about 75 pounds left to dig.

this year i got to drive the tractor. there were 3 rows to dig: almost a whole row of Superior, a white potato. there were also 2 complete rows of kennebec, a white keeper potato.

the ground was a tiny bit wet to be digging potatoes, but we dug in the opportune window between rain showers. (another variation of "make hay while the sun shines")

Dave and A rode on the back of the plow to keep an eye on things.

the rows in the lower garden are slightly longer than 100 feet. all the other rows ( we planted 8 other rows of potatos: the ill-fated blue, yukon gold, red Pontiac and another row of Superior) were dug by hand and sold; either in the CSA boxes, at the produce stand or the farmer's market.



the potato plow makes quick work of those 100 feet! the plow digs up the row, and scoops up the potatoes onto the first conveyor. the potatoes rattle along and plop down onto the second conveyor, and then gently tumble off the back: all in a nice, neat row.

we all helped pick up the potatoes, sorting as we went. all these crates are about 3/4 full of kennebec potatoes. we also got 4 crates of the superior, which we'll eat first. last year we had our own fresh potatoes until the middle of April, (we store them in the crates in the cellar) meaning that we were only on a "potato fast" from mid-April until early July, when we dug our first potatoes.

I'd say we're on track for that again this year.

and then some!

the amazing chicken factory!

one of our recent acquisitions was a chicken plucker. we were looking for a drum plucker, but when we found this one on Craig's list for $100, Dave decided that it would work just fine.

we did quite alot of work on it: new "fingers", new paint, motor, plug and switch. so, the final cost was somewhere around $don'tevenaskbecauseyoudon'treallywanttoknow.

however, it works like a charm! Dave is the only one who has run it so far, since it spins really fast, and you really have to hold onto that chicken! (or else he'll go flying and be spit out the back and bottom of the drum!)

first, the chicken needs to be scalded (it goes without saying that the chicken is already dead...) in water that is no more than 145 degrees. then Dave flops him (i keep saying "him" because if you'll remember, all the meat birds we raise are the Cornish cross cockerels) onto the plucker, and holds on for dear life! pretty soon, 97% of the feathers are removed.

next in our little assembly line is G, and he tidies up the bird, removes the feet, crop, tail and head. he also removes the neck, and then passes the bird onto me.

i gut him, do any final cleaning and then rinse him off for the final time. i tuck the chicken into a neat looking package, and then I'll weigh and bag him. (it makes it much easier to have the chickens weighed before the customers come to pick them up- it goes so much smoother and faster that way.)



the chicken plucker has saved us untold hours, and even earned us money. with the addition of the skins and neck (tucked into the cavity) our birds have consistently weighed slightly over 5 pounds, with a few even over 6 pounds!



our goal is to continue to improve our product and cut down our cost to raise them. the chicken plucker has at least helped with the first part of that objective!

i've run out of excuses, reasons and justifications...

if it weren't for my unexpected fore site in pre-uploading all the nativity posts last December, my blog would be sparse, indeed!

with the arrival of a frost this morning (and right on time, according to our preacher) the garden can almost be declared officially done.

however, the work cannot quite be declared done.

but we're getting there.

there are still plants, row covers and bulbs to pull and store or compost.

we still need to plant garlic.

and the high tunnel needs to be cleaned out, tilled and re-planted. as do the cold frames.

we still need to dig potatoes- white and sweet.

there are still peppers to process.

and a few scraggly chickens to butcher. (the old laying hens are not earning their keep- by any stretch of the imagination. and the new flock is still some weeks away from beginning to lay.)

and turkeys to butcher on the 23 of November. (fresh turkey for Thanksgiving, anyone? )

and don't forget the 2 pigs. they will be ready to butcher in December.

but the pace is definitely slowing down.

there is time to snuggle with the girls in the morning, time to linger over coffee, time to read books and wander to the playground. even time to clean and do laundry!

i, for one, am glad for the slower pace. it was a full and busy summer- and we sure learned alot! at our peak, we had 7 families for our CSA. i also was a grower/seller for the weekly farmer's market, and did tolerably well there, also. we sold over 120 chickens, with 7 turkeys pre-ordered for Thanksgiving.

it was about late July/early August that the garden reached its peak, and it truly took all 8 families to keep up with the relentless produce! there were days and weeks in a row where i was overwhelmed with all the produce to freeze or can for our family.

but our pantry and freezers are full, and despite the hard work that never seemed to end, we plan to continue and expand for next year.

this winter will be spend reading, researching and planning. we have lots of resources lined up, and even though i was just as weary as every one else, I'm looking forward with anticipation and growing excitement to next year's growing season.

i guess you can say I've officially got the disease.

farming !

preserving the summer's goodness ~ one jar at a time!

a few weeks ago i was blessed to have all 3 of my daughters help make pickles.

the little girls were happy to stuff the jars with the pickle slices that M and i cut for them.

while the jars were not stuffed as tightly as i could have done myself, the girls are learning what it is to can and preserve our summer's bounty for the winter.

and that's certainly more important than having prizewinning pickles!

I'm picking and picking, and canning and canning, and freezing and freezing, and still we can't keep up!

you'd think with 7 CSA boxes weekly, 4 pigs and numerous canning/freezing days a week we'd be able to keep up better.

but no.

so off to the hot kitchen i go again!

it's a wild and crazy ride, so hang on tight! (and don't forget to buckle your seatbelt!)

...just popping in for a moment to say "I'm still here! and hanging on for dear life!"

despite the total lack of rain for the third week straight, our garden is producing. i think that i can safely say that we've reached the point of relentlessness !

this morning alone, i picked a 5 gallon bucket of cucumbers. i thought that the cukes were pretty much petered out and done, but i guess after the thorough soaking that we gave them Saturday night and last night, they've made a miraculous comeback.

since today's agenda was already full with 3+ bushels of peaches, and 150 ears of corn, I'm not sure where we'll squeeze in the cucumbers. (and that's not counting the yellow beans that are ready to pick today!)

but squeeze we must, and squeeze we will. old man winter will be here far sooner than we think, if the speed with which this summer is galloping by is any indication.

wasn't it just last week that we were marveling that it was May first already?

we've been steadily harvesting, selling, canning, sharing and freezing our bounteous produce. what a satisfying feeling to see all the colorful jars lined up like soldiers on the cellar shelves!

I've updated the puttin' stuff up list on the sidebar.

I'll try to stop in again soon- i have some posts ready to go, including our latest chicken butchering escapade.

a {partial} snapshot of the bounty from our garden....

this picture is several weeks old, but this is one of the very first harvest of a variety of veggies: basil, beets, cherry bomb peppers, a yellow tomato, green cabbage, cilantro and yellow summer squash.



beets. who knew that they'd be so popular? aside from corn and tomatoes, they are our most requested vegetable. thankfully, i planted ALOT early in the season.

i will mention here, though, that beets do not like raised beds. they do their top beety thing quite nicely, but the main beety thing on the bottom? very disappointing.

the carrots have also made a respectable showing, although they are not nearly so popular. I'll take carrots to the farmer's market only one or two more times, and then pull them all to free up the raised beds for some fall plantings of lettuce, strawberries, spinach and broccoli.

here is part of our July 4th feast: red, white and blue potatoes.

we're glad that we grew the blue potatoes this year, but the yields are very disappointing. this will be the first AND last year that blue potatoes are grown on our little farm by the bridge. even though we started them quite early, (by most standards) it's obvious that the blues needed another month or more in the ground to size up nicely.

the red, white and blue potatoes did sell marginally well at the Farmer's market, and in our CSA boxes, so i guess it wasn't a total waste...

most of the onions are harvested, or on the list for this week. many sized up quite nicely, and i was not disappointed. after trimming the tops and roots, they are spread on newspapers in the mudroom to dry out.

again, the red and white onions are a staple at farmer's market, and for our boxes. surprisingly, the white seems to be just as popular as the red onions, which is not what i expected. i like to cook with the red onions, just for the added color they give.

and just in case you think that we don't take the time to stop and smell the roses ( or purple cone flowers, as the case may be...) i took this picture last week, right outside the back door in the perennial flower garden.

and this little surprise greeted G and me on our way to dunkin' donuts at 6AM last week. this curios and greedy little skunk got in *almost* over his head. he took a little dip and dive into the pig bucket and got stuck!

Dave dispatched him without incident.

although i will say, that it would have been MUCH better if Dave had removed the skunk AND bucket from OFF the BACK porch, as a DEAD skunk, EVEN though MOSTLY buried in a pig bucket, can STILL smell up a back porch.

AND mud room.