Selling the house

Well, we listed our house yesterday. It's kinda wierd and it produces a fairly generous amount of anxiety for me because now I have to keep the house 'hotel room' clean for goodness knows how long with three kids running around! It'll take awhile I imagine, unless God's just gonna be really good to us and send someone along right quick.

My wife has a new job with Lifeline as a flight nurse and she's going to be stationed in Lafayette, IN. She wants to move closer to her parents so she can be around to help out as they get older. So, we've been looking a lot online. The place near Anderson we looked at won't work for two reasons. 1)It's in Anderson and not nearer to Lafayette (it'd be about an hour and a half drive!), and 2) the appraisal of that house came back a lot higher than anyone thought it would.

So there's a little place in Sheridan we found that sits on 10 acres, has fruit trees already and could be really great. Problem is, the house has two small bedrooms and only 1.5 baths. We'd have to build on at some point, and it would require quite a change in lifestyle until then. But 10 acres! Wow. So we're gonna look at it next weekend.

I had originally thought about posting several longer posts about what I did last summer and all, but that's just crazy at this point. Needless to say, I did a lot of canning!

I've checked, and good for me, I will be able to order chicks way into the summer, so if we get moved by June or July (I hope), I'll still be able to have chickens this year! Call me crazy, but I can't wait!

I'm still knitting. I'm currently working on a shawl for my Mother-in-law. The pattern is called "The Wool Peddler's Shawl" from the book, Folk Shawls, by Cheryl Oberle.

Sheesh, I gotta get off of here and get started on school with the kids... More later.

Roosters

Up until recently, I'd never considered the possibility of raising/owning a rooster or two. Fact is, I was set against it. Of course, I don't even own chickens - yet. But I was thinking about the future when I do. I didn't want the bother of having to watch out for the old boy so he didn't flog me. Because none of the eggs the hens would lay would be fertile, I'd have to order new chicks every year to raise for meat.

Not very sustainable, is it?

I like the site, http://www.homestead.org/. They have some forums on which I posted a question about aggressive roosters. Was it possible to have a rooster that wasn't a menace? How many hens per rooster? BOY did I get some responses! This thread is still getting responses a week or more after I posted it. People have given me all kinds of advice on rooster-to-hen ratio and what to do with a mean rooster, as well as some stories of their own adventures. If you'd like to read the thread, click here.

So what's the verdict? Well, first of all, I need to read up and select a breed that is typically known for gentleness. Buff Orps are a good start. However, chickens all have different personalities just like we do. So even the gentlest breed of bird can have its crack-pot. Some would advocate a good quick grab of the neck and shake for any roo that showed his colors with me. Others say a mean roo is a tasty roo and never tried to flog anybody when it came out of the stewpot.

I think I will try it. I figure if I can get three broody hens to sit on clutches of 5 to 8 eggs, once a year, I could quite easily raise enough meat to put into my freezer. Why spend money, time, and effort with a brooder and chicks, when a momma hen will do all the work for me, not only hatching the eggs, but raising the babies too? Of course, I am very idealistic at times.

FYI. The rooster in the picture above is a Dorking. This ancient breed was brought to England by the Romans. It is a heavy bird with a large, square frame, single or rose comb, and fifth toe. The American Poultry Association recognizes Silver-Gray, Colored, Red, and White Dorkings. The British also recognize a Cuckoo variety (from Feathersite.com). They are a decent layer of medium white eggs and are a dual purpose breed (meet and eggs). I know, I know... more than you cared to know.

On another note, Grant, my youngest, has been sick the past two days. Some vomiting and a little fever the other night. He's acting fine now (which means loud and playful), but he was acting that way yesterday too, before he got sick twice last night. Yech.

Got some flurries here the past two days but the sun's shining now. It's supposed to get really cold in the next week. Yep, it's January.

I think this is just FUNNY!

I had seen this comic a long time ago and thought it was amusing then. Now, after having discovered my affinity for poultry, and having recently helped kill and clean some, I think it's hilarious!

Actually, what got me looking for it again was my need to send a thank you to the guy that 'took me under his wing' and showed me how to process chickens. I thought of this picture and knew I had to find it. It just says it all.....

Peachy Eggs

For those who don't know, I organize a local fresh-egg group (for lack of a better way of saying it). It's kind of like an egg CSA (consumer supported agriculture). I'm writing this post for those in the group that would like to know a little more about where their eggs come from. But of course, anyone can read along.

We get our eggs from an Amish man and his wife in Parke County, Indiana. There's a pretty good sized community of Amish up that way. His name is Mr. Peachy. So yes, they are literally Peachy eggs.

Mr. Peachy has approximately 320 Golden Comet hens. That's one in the picture above. Isn't she pretty? Golden Comets are a decent sized bird, known for their cold hardiness, and prolific laying of large, brown eggs. These birds belong to a breed of chickens known as sex-link chickens. Ok, before you get worried, this is totally on the up and up... Sex-link chickens are breeds of birds developed by crossing two different breeds for various reasons. One reason may be simply to obtain the best characteristics of both parent bird breeds in the new breed. Another, more common reason for developing sex-link breeds is that you can tell a pullet (female) from a cockerel (male) just about as soon as their down dries after they hatch. The sex of the bird is linked to their down color - sex-linked. These chicks are born with the males and females having different colored down. This is a great thing if you work in a hatchery and need to fill orders for nothing but pullets. It saves both time and money. Most non sex-linked chicks all look the same, so you have to pay a professional chicken sexer (how would you like that job?) to look at each chick to determine it's sex. And that's not an easy thing to do! So, Golden Comets are a cross between a Rhode Island Red and a White Leghorn - or 'Legern' as some country folks might say.

Mr. Peachy uses very organic, sustainable methods for raising his chickens. During warmer months, the chickens are pastured on grass by means of a chicken tractor, sometimes called a chicken ark. A WHAT? Yes, a chicken tractor. Here's a picture of a dad moving his nice looking tractor....




Chicken tractors come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are quite small and one person could move them easily. Some are very large, have wheels, and require a real tractor to move them. The purpose of these contraptions is to house the birds safely, while being able to provide them with as much natural food as possible. This usually requires that the tractor be moved a couple of times a day for smaller models, to only two or three times a week for larger models with more 'pasture' area. Mr. Peachy has a larger tractor and movable electric poultry netting (solar powered I'm sure). Yes, there is such a thing as electric poultry netting and it works the same as electric fence. The voltage is lower, but then again, the chickens aren't as big as a cow. Mr. P. says he moved the birds a couple of times a week. For more pictures of chicken tractors, click here.

Now that winter is setting in, our farmer says he's moving the birds into a large greenhouse he has. It has a dirt floor that he'll cover with wood shavings or other bedding. This is the first year to try this, but there are several benefits to it. Chickens need sunlight in order to lay eggs. During the winter, they typically slow down their egg production simply because there isn't as much sunlight. But in a greenhouse, what light there is will be completely available to the birds. Further, it will help keep them warm. Yet another benefit is that, though they won't have grass to eat, the warmth will encourage insects to work their way up through the ground and the chickens will eat them. Any other feed the chickens get is organic as well. Mr. Peachy assures me that the birds will each have several square feet per bird to move around. More than in a traditional egg production CAFO.

For anyone who's never had one of these eggs... wow, are they something! Golden yolks that make your food look like you surely must have added food coloring. They're rich and very delicious. Of course, this color might not be as bright during the winter, as the birds will have fewer, if any, greens to eat. Mr. Peachy thinks the chlorophyll in the grass is what gives the egg yolks their deep color.

Mr. Peachy also sells whole chickens, ready for the roasting pan or the freezer. Organic, pastured, healthy, no antibiotics.

So now you know a little bit more about where our Peachy Eggs come from and the methods used to get them. Hope it's been informative and helpful!

NOT for the Squeemish!

Today, thanks to some home school friends, Audrey and Eric Beachy, I had the awesome experience of learning how to butcher a chicken! So be warned, this isn't gonna be pretty!

I got to their house at around 8:20 a.m. and accompanied Eric to the hen house. After looking over the flock, he and his kids caught the few birds they were going to keep. The others, we took by the legs and carried to the edge of the garden... where waited a board with two nails sticking up about an inch apart. Each bird, in turn, was held by the legs and wings and their head placed between the nails. Then the axe. Quick. Done. I even used the axe quite deftly. Below is what is left, after the birds bleed out, which was done while we held them, so they wouldn't run all over in their 'death throws'. I warned you, it isn't pretty!
Next came the part that most people really hate. The scalding and plucking. For the 'farm challenged' among my small readership, scalding a bird in hot water helps relax the skin so that the feathers come out nice and easy. Usually there are some small, almost hairlike, feathers left that you burn off by passing the bird over a small flame. Unfortunately, these birds are in the process of molting and had numerous pin-feathers that we had to scrape off with the back of a knife. Grossed out yet? Here's a pic of Eric dipping a bird in the water before plucking.

After that, it gets messy. Yes, chicken butchery is as smelly as you've been told. I almost lost it once, but I bucked up and just backed away from 'the bucket' a bit. This was the tricky part. Eric had to show me how he wanted the birds cut up and how to gut them. I've cut up a chicken before, but I've never gutted one. So that was a really new experience. Let me tell you, not pretty. Put simply... gall bladder bile is very green indeed, and the gizzard is an incredibly tough, muscular organ - it's amazing. I also saw undeveloped eggs, which was pretty cool.

In all, we butchered 7 birds: 2 roosters and 5 hens. Below is a photo of the chickens we left to cluck and scratch another day. The rooster in front is an Austrolorp/Phoenix cross, five hens, and one itty-bitty little peep. See it there behind the brown Buff Orpington? The little whitish spot....

So... would I ever do this again? Yes, I would. Why on Earth would a person do all of that? Well, there's something to be said for knowing where your food came from. Knowing that it lived a healthy, happy life, full of sunshine, fresh grass, lots of juicy bugs... for a chicken, that's a good life. No antibiotics or hormones either.

Before I went over today, I had had little interaction with Eric, who is a doctor. But through the course of the day, I found a man who is something of a kindred spirit. He gardens, raises chickens, is thinking about goats, just planted a bunch of fruit trees yesterday... He's a homesteader. On top of that, he's a father of four, a husband, and a committed Christian. We had a very good day working together and talking about life, homeschooling, parenting, animals, gardening, bees, property... oh, just everything that came to mind. It was really a blessing to me to be able to spend a large part of the day there. So I'm thankful.

Oh, and about a half hour before I left, Ethan, the 8 year old son, shot and killed a squirrel with his dad's .22. That was his second squirrel. I understand it takes about two to make a good pot pie. But, since I was there, and it had to be done anyway, I got to watch as Eric cleaned the squirrel, so I learned that too. Melora about gagged when I mentioned the thought of hunting squirrel. She says they're rodents and she just can't do it. Sigh. Oh well.

I have more to say than I originally thought!

Well, just an update on life.

There's been a rash of sinus infections going around the town here lately. Neighbors, friends, and family all have had it. And this one seems to be ugly, it hangs on for several weeks. My sister is currently under the weather, significantly, with pneumonia and has been getting sicker, leading up to this current bout, for a few weeks. I caught the sinus infection and still have remnants, three weeks on now. It moved to my chest a couple of weeks ago and I STILL can hear myself wheezing in the night. I've been taking Xopenex that we got for my son last year. I only take it when I need it. It's a nebulizer med and it works. Of course, that indicates that I have asthma. So I wake up in the morning and cough up all sorts of happiness. Yech.

On another note... If something doesn't change, I'm only gonna have one kid left come Spring, cause I'm a gonna knock at least two of 'em in the head! And it's only November. They get kinda antsy, teasing each other, tormenting... gets on my nerves BAD. I didn't have siblings young enough, or close enough in age to have this experience with, so it's new to me. And it's making me crazy. Which leads me to the following.

There's a man at our church that has two grown sons. I've been praying for a long time for a mentor, someone that can help me along this pathway of fatherhood. This man is well spoken of - very well spoken of. I'm told his relationship with his sons is very good and he's quite a godly man. PLUS he has a dairy farm! How awesome would that be? He runs a grass-fed production, which is what I hope to do someday with my milk cow. So not only could he help me be a better dad, but boy could I learn a lot. His extended family hails from Switzerland and he's been over there to visit distant relatives. Anyway, he has a real dairy operation... they make cheese, butter, etc. It's goooood stuff. I was hoping to get to his place and help him make cheese, but my schedule just won't coincide. My plan was to spend the time with him, get to know him a little, then ask him to consider being a mentor. But now I think I'm just gonna drop him an email and lay it out and ask him that way. Nothing else is working out. We'll see how that goes.

Today was a busy day. In addition to doing school with Anna, I put up some veggies. Yesterday was the last delivery of the season for our CSA (consumer supported agriculture) group. We got a head of cabbage, carrots, celery, potatoes, cauliflower, parsley, turnips, and celeriac (it smells just like celery, but it's a root like a carrot). Not only do I have my box of veggies, but there were three more not picked up. Anything left is mine to keep, and I usually end up with an extra box every week or so. Anyway, we split our share with a friend, so she gets a whole box and I get one, plus two of the others. So, I cleaned, cut, blanched, and froze celery (yuck, Baldwin food service ruined Melora and I on that stuff - celery salad sandwiches), cauliflower, carrots, turnips, and celeriac. I'm dehydrating the three bunches of parsley. We had a bunch of potatoes from previous drops. I've put them all in a cardboard box with newspaper around them to 'cellar' them for the winter in the garage. We'll see how that goes. I did the same thing with 9 heads of cabbage. Yeah, we're eating it. I cut up a head a week ago or so and cooked it up with green beans and some ham bits. It was good. I feel like such a real homesteader, it's just really rewarding.

I also am making meals stretch. I bought a small ham loaf last week and baked it with cloves, honey and pineapple. What we didn't eat I froze. It was only one of those small loaf things, but I used some for a batch of ham salad for lunch Monday. I made ham and cheese quiche tonight (love that), and I still have a portion to use later, probably in the crock pot with pinto beans. My kids'll eat just about anything. Four meals from one nine dollar ham! I also bought two roaster chickens at KMart on sale a couple of weeks ago and made one. We don't eat a whole chicken, ever. So I cut the second breast off and froze it and will use it in stir-fry tomorrow night. The rest of it went into a pot and cooked down into broth and meat. It also had onions, garlic, and rosemary which it was originally stuffed and baked with. It'll make some yummy chicken and noodles. Also, don't ever throw out that last tablespoon or two of veggies that nobody eats at dinner. Collect it all in a freezer bag and, when the bag is filled, put it in a pot, add water or broth, herbs, etc. and you've got some great veggie soup. Or add meat to it if you want. THEN you can throw out what doesn't get eaten.

And finally, I just (literally) got a phone call from a man I met through the home school co-op. He's a doctor, has four kids. They have chickens and he's gonna butcher some. I told his wife two Monday's ago that I wanted to learn how to do all that and would love to help. She told her husband and he just called and set up the time and date. I get to help kill chickens. I'm so excited! Now how crazy is that? I'm so easily entertained, huh? But really, it's a skill I will need some day. Just like cleaning fish, which I learned to do this summer.

You know, all this said, I used to feel kinda badly because I'm such a 'Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none'. I know a little about a lot of things. Have some experience with a lot of things, but don't master anything. That used to get me down. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that just maybe God made me that way so I'd be cut out for homesteading and do it relatively well. I'm finding some solace in that.

I'm homesteading in suburbia. Have a great rest of the week!

Chickens 'n such

Well, I don't have anything exciting going on. I AM going today to pick up a Kimbal Spinet piano that we're getting for free. It needs some TLC (crayon on the keys, scratches, water stains), and it's been sitting in a garage for goodness-knows-how-long. But we're getting it free and it can be tuned (let's hope). Now all I have to do is figure out a way to tell my mom that we don't want her to teach my daughter how to play. See, she tried to teach me... and I can't play. Get it? Besides, if Anna were to get upset with Mom because Mom's pushing her or something, that wouldn't be good. Better for her to be upset with someone unrelated. Sheesh, what a pain.

But I digress. Let's talk about chickens for a moment, shall we? OK!

The beautiful bird in the picture is a Barred Plymouth Rock rooster. Plymouth Rocks are dual purpose birds, meaning they are good egg layers and good meat birds.

Did you know that it is unnecessary to have a rooster in order for the hens to lay eggs? Yes, it's true! No need for the obnoxious, living alarm-clock with spurs. You can have a whole flock of chickens and not one rooster and still get a bunch of eggs. This is good news for the person who thinks they'd like a small backyard flock, even in town. They can have 3 or 5 hens to give them a nice supply of eggs (and fertilizer) and not have to worry about annoying their neighbors with a rooster crowing. Indeed, most towns will allow small backyard flocks, but ban roosters. Some towns require a permit or written consent from the neighbors before you build your coop.

A young female chicken is called a pullet and a young male, a cockerel. They don't become hens and roosters until they're a year old or a little more. A capon is a neutered male chicken - it's been caponized.

As for the rooster's crow... Well, you can't teach it not to crow. However, I think there is a surgery to remove the rooster's voice box. But really, I mean c'mon - you got money to spend on that? There are some breeds of roosters that are somewhat more quiet than others, but they all make noise. A hen isn't exactly quiet either. She will cackle and make a racket when she lays her egg, when something startles her, or when she's excited about some tidbit she's found to eat.

While there's no scientifically based nutritional difference between white eggs and brown, there are a lot of people that will swear by one or the other as being far superior. Me? I like browns. Don't know why. Well, ok, maybe it's because I grew up with white eggs from the store and using brown eggs makes me feel further from the store and closer to the farm. Yeah, that's probably it. You can usually tell what color egg a chicken will lay by looking at it's ears, located just behind and a little south of its eye. A white or light colored ear usually indicates white eggs. A red ear means brown eggs. There are eggceptions, though (sorry, couldn't help it). The breeds of chickens know as Araucanas, and Ameracaunas are sometimes called "Easter Eggers" because they lay egg with shell ranging in color from pink, to light green to blue, with shades in between. Again, no nutritional difference. BTW, Araucanas are just about the oldest breed of chicken in the Americas.

There are several words used in association with keeping chickens: Hen house, run/yard, coop, pasture.... A hen house is just that. It's the building the birds are kept in at night or in bad weather. It's where they sleep and lay eggs. The yard or run is an attached, usually fenced in area where the chickens can go outside and get some air, scratch around, take a dust bath. Both the run and the hen house comprise the chicken coop. Pasture is just that. It's any area where the chickens have more freedom of movement outside and can forage for food.

But how do I raise chickens, you ask? There's several ways. The old timers, and some folks nowadays, free range their chickens. Usually they have a small flock and they let them roam at will about the property. Chickens won't go too far afield, away from their roost and nests. Others pasture their chickens either with a chicken tractor or a largish pasture attached to the coop and house. A chicken tractor is a hen house on wheels or sleds that can be moved every so often (usually daily) so that the chickens, confined in a movable fenced yard, can graze over new grass and spread their fertilizer around the place. The advantage to these types of chicken management is that the birds forage and do most of their own food acquisition. Yet another way to keep the birds is in confinement. Either in a small house and run, or kept completely in a barn or house. This is generally not good for the birds, as it prevents them from getting much natural forage (if any), prevents them from getting the sunlight they need for vitamin D production, limits their exercise and can lead to feather pulling, picking, and fighting - out of sheer boredom. Also, it requires the farmer to supply all of the chicken's food.

Most breeds of chickens you can buy these days from a hatchery have been bred for egg or meat production. Through careful selection, the natural tendency for a hen to want to sit on eggs and raise them - called 'brooding', or 'going broody'- has been mostly bred out. There are certain species that still tend to go broody a little more than others. In all breeds, you'll sometimes find an old cackle that decides she wants to hatch her eggs.

I could write so much more, but that's probably already more than you ever cared to know about chickens... if you've read this far. Maybe I'll do some writing about cows......