Does Anyone Enjoy Weeding the Garden?

So is there anyone who enjoys weeding the garden?  The answer is a big, fat affirmative, but we'll get to that in a minute.  A beautiful Sunday afternoon found me in the garden, looking at winter weeds that have about taken over my patch of garlic that I planted back in October.  Garlic does not do well with weed pressure, so my goal was to weed the garden and then use hay as a mulch to discourage weed growth during the Spring and early Summer until the garlic harvest around the June time frame.

Garlic (Before)

If there's one thing I've learned, it is that weeds aren't going to pull themselves.  So let's do this.  Bending over straddling the row and pulling, being VERY careful not to pull up any garlic, I started my task.  In about 20 minutes, give or take a few, I had the weeds pretty much pulled.  Pretty big difference between the photo above and below, huh?

Garlic (After)

I don't have to pull every single weed, because I intend on sprinkling some chicken litter on the ground between the garlic and then putting out a nice, thick layer of hay all around the garlic.  I didn't have time for that today, but it is on my to do list. Maybe Wednesday or Thursday afternoon I'll fit this in.

Ready for some organic fertilizer and a layer of mulch

I can't say I enjoy pulling weeds, but the weather was nice and I had a crowd providing me encouragement. Here are the individuals that enjoy weeding time, because they are the recipients of the weeds.  See? Nothing goes to waste.  These girls will convert a waste product (weeds) into a value added one (delicious sweet, creamy milk)!

Jolly Jerseys

There's no playing around.  It's heads down work for these girls (and one guy, Bully, in the middle with the nose plate) come weeding time. They're bent over eating while I'm bent over weeding.  I'm glad someone gets enjoyment out of this.

More weeds, please...

The family cows aren't the only ones who enjoy weeding time, either.  The chickens absolutely love to eat weeds.  They rushed to where I was throwing weeds over the fence and began eating grass right alongside the cows.

We love weeds!

These hens have been anxiously waiting for the green of Spring.  Once the cows finished eating the weeds, the hens stayed on patrol until they had scratched the ground bare, leaving no trace of any of the weeds.

Competing with the cows for the feast

The chickens will take this green material and convert it into beautiful fresh eggs that have deep, orange, rich yolks, courtesy of the carotene in the grass.  We'll eat as much as we can and for the rest?  Well, I placed our sign by the roadside yesterday:

Better than any store-bought egg!

Since the goodness of these eggs come from the green grass in the pasture (and from the garden), I plopped the sign down smack dab in the middle of a patch of clover.  I figured it was appropriate.

Higher Ground

Lord, lift me up and let me stand,

By faith, on Heaven’s tableland,

A higher plane than I have found;

Lord, plant my feet on higher ground. 

That is the refrain from one of the hymns we sing at church.  It certainly rings true in the spiritual realm, but at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm this past week, it has been true in the natural as well.  Recent rains, coupled with overcast skies and cooler weather have contributed to a mucky, miry mess out on the pasture and around the barnyard.  We are all tired of the mud, man and beast alike.  

Where's the Higher Ground?

We always wear rubber boots out to the barn and slogging through six inch deep mud is a real workout. Yep, that is a view looking down at my feet in the mud.  To add insult to injury, sometimes the cows will lie down in the mud to sleep and I'll have to give them a bath before milkingthem.  Rosie is notorious for doing this and she and I had a long and animated discussion about this just this past week at about 4:30 in the morning.  I'm not sure she understood what I was trying to say.

Lord plant my feet on Higher Ground!

In another area of the pasture, though, things are looking better.  If you look below you can see some of the grass in the pasture is beginning to show a tinge of green amongst the mostly dull, brown, frost-killed landscape.  This is what I push the chicken tractor over so that the chickens can clip some of the new, green growth.

Green grass is coming on!

Here is a picture of the meat birds in the chicken tractor.  I have to push them one chicken tractor length every day, because their poop covers the green grass that I want them to eat.  That poop, however, will fertilize the pasture and cause lush, green grass to grow in this spot in a few weeks.  Even though it looks bad, the chickens do eat some of the grass, though, and we'll see evidence of that grass in their crops and gizzards next weekend when we butcher them.

Poop filled landscape after just a short time

The theme of today's post was about the ground in and around the pasture and I've got one more thing to mention.  Down below, you'll see Big Boy, our Great Pyrenees livestock guard dog manning his post in the pasture.

Big Boy

He is such a good dog, barking at varmints and taking very seriously his job of livestock protector.  We haven't lost a single bird to a predator since Big Boy has been on the farm.  We like having him around.

No varmint is getting by me, chief!

Every rose has its thorns, though.  Big Boy has a bad habit.  The photo below is not a crater left from an incoming mortar round.  It is one of Big Boy's many holes.  He likes to dig and I don't know how to make him stop.  Holes like this are not conducive for pushing a chicken tractor or walking in the pasture.

Pot holes in the pasture

I'll have to get these filled in come Spring.  If I could get Big Boy to stop digging holes, Rosie to stop laying down in the mud and the sun to shine and dry the rain saturated landscape, it sure would be nice, but those are all nuisances, not big problems to worry about.

Good Neighbors

It was around seven o'clock yesterday evening when I slogged through ankle deep mud to go milk Daisy and Rosie.  When it gets dark all of the chickens routinely go to their spot to roost for the night.  After a grueling day of pecking and scratching, they're ready to bed down for the night at the Motel 6.  There must have been a shake-up somewhere in the pecking order because I was greeted with seven birds roosting in a new spot - the gate to the barn.

We'll leave the light on for ya!

I looked and saw that there were two roosters - a Rhode Island Red in the middle facing the camera and a Barred Rock Rooster on the far right with his tail feathers hanging down.  There were also three barred rock hens and two Rhode Island Red hens.  This guy needs to get with the program, though, and turn around. The rest of the birds are facing south and he's got his head toward the foot of the bed.  An odd bird, indeed.

An odd bird

They're all different.  Different sexes.  Different breeds.  But they all get along when it is bedtime.  Good neighbors, you might say.

Milking two cows by hand takes me 45 minutes from back door to back door, so I've got plenty of time to pray and/or think.  After seeing the birds all lined up close together and getting along, I started thinking about neighbors.  We've been blessed to always have good neighbors.  Many times I see people that live close to each other erect big privacy fences.  I understand that completely.  Everyone needs some privacy.  I've talked to some people, though, who live like this and the fences are obstructions that keep you from meeting your neighbors - or maybe the fence isn't the problem, it's a symptom of the problem.  Some people can live for years right next door to someone and never know them.

Or I don't know, maybe they are just heeding a verse from the book of Proverbs that I always think is funny:

Proverbs 25:17 Let your foot rarely be in your neighbor's house, Or He will become weary of you and hate you.

Neighbors are indeed a blessing and we've been fortunate to have some real good ones.  They'll keep an eye on things when you're not around.  During hurricanes we've worked together cleaning up each others' yards after storms, mowed each others' lawns, and helped each other out with projects.  We'll share fruits, vegetables, and baked goods.  One of our neighbors has fish fries and invites us over or will bring over a big plate of whatever they're cooking. Another neighbor is originally from Scotland and out of the blue she'll bring over piping hot homemade shortbread cookies or banana bread.

Growing up on the farm, we had great farming neighbors - the Smiths and the Monceaux's.  We all had shops full of tools and we'd share tools, equipment, and welding machines.  If your tractor got bogged down in the mud, you could count on your neighbor to come with a tractor and a chain and pull you out and you'd do likewise for them.  When you were finished harvesting and your neighboring farmer was still cutting rice, you'd bring your combine, truck and cart and help him out until the work was done and the rice was in the bins.

We like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists, and we are to a certain extent. But it is true as John Donne once wrote:

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

 No man is an island.  We need each other in good times and we'll certainly need each other in bad times.  Thank God for good neighbors.

2014 Meat Birds at 9 Weeks Old

Okay, we're one week past the point at which we should have butchered these birds. The normal time frame for a Cornish Cross to reach maturity is 8 weeks.  Tonight we're at 9 weeks.  This old boy must feel like a convict who's on death row and has received a stay from his execution.  I picked him up from the chicken tractor, placed him in a blue plastic bucket, and carried him to the garage where we have the kitchen scale out on my workbench.  Then I put him on the garage floor, put the bucket on the scale and zeroed out the scale.

Weigh in time

He has grown and is filling the bucket.  If you compared him to the other 93 birds in the tractor, I would say he is on the larger side.

Cornish Cross Meat Bird

He felt noticeably larger than last week when I picked him up.  Let's see what the scale says.

Tipping the scale at...

Well, this week he weighs 5 pounds 6 ounces.  Last week he weighed 4 pounds 2 ounces.  He's gained 1 pound and a 1/4 in a week!  That's good.  

Getting close to our goal of 6 pounds

So that settles it for me.  We have been shooting for a 6 pound bird that will yield a 4.5 pound carcass on average.  For this bird, at least, we'll reach that goal and we will set next weekend, March 15th, as the butcher date.  We'll weigh in one final time next Friday night and then butcher them on Saturday.  I'll start setting up the equipment this week for 'boucherie poulets" next weekend.  We'll show you step by step how we do it in several blog posts shortly thereafter.  We'll be a couple weeks past the optimal butcher date, but better late than never.  

The Next Project Waiting in the Wings

After a colder than normal winter in which we burned a whole lot of firewood, I cleaned out the fireplace. This is a job that I put off because it takes a while to do. First you scoop the ashes out and put them in a bucket, then you remove the andirons and sweep the remaining ashes in a pile and scoop them out.  Ashes fly all over the place no matter how careful you are and a fine layer of ashes coats everything in the den.

Our fireplace was full and when I finished with the task, I had almost filled up the 30 gallon container shown below.  This container is one that was originally filled with molasses and minerals for the cows, but I now use it to catch rainwater from the drip line along the roof in the back, for putting hay in to carry to the hens' nesting boxes, for putting pecans in, and also for tasks like this.

A whole lot of ashes

These are all hardwood ashes, mostly water oak and pecan and that is a good thing because my project requires hardwood ashes.  The project I'm speaking of is making lye.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust...

I ain't gonna lye (pardon the play on words), we've never done this before, but there's a first time for everything.  Our goal is to make lye from our fireplace ashes and then make our own lye soap.  Now that I've gotten the raw ingredient for making lye, the work is mostly done.

Who knew that soap started from ashes?

All I need to do now is transfer this into a different container, run rainwater over the ashes, let it sit for a few days, and drain the water out and run it through again.  The result will be a liquid called caustic potash or potassium hydroxide, also known as lye and it will be the base for making lye soap.  We'll show you step by step how we do it as we have time to get this project going.

Firing up the Pit

Our son in college came home for the weekend and we decided to 'kill the fatted calf,' figuratively, of course. Russ really likes brisket, so I told Tricia that I would do a brisket this past weekend in celebration of the visit.  We are planning to round-up the cattle at the farm soon and send a steer to the slaughterhouse. Then we'll have a freezer full of grass fed beef - a goal we've been working towards for a long, long time.

For now though, to get our brisket, I had to make a trip to the store and while I was at the meat counter, I could not find a single whole brisket.  There were only a few small trimmed ones and they were expensive!  Wow - beef prices...  I normally purchase untrimmed brisket and cut off excess fat.  I usually leave some fat on the brisket, but didn't have the opportunity this time.  I purchased two of the trimmed briskets that were available and took them home to prepare them for the barbecue pit the following morning. The first thing I do is prepare a rub for the brisket.  Here is the recipe I use:

• 2 Tablespoons Kosher salt
• 3 Tablespoons Homemade Criolla Sella Ground Pepper
• 1 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
• 1 Tablespoon Paprika
• 2 teaspoons Dried Oregano Leaves
• 2 teaspoons Granulated Garlic
• 1 teaspoon Ground Cumin

I stir all this together in a bowl.  Then I place the brisket in a Pyrex baking dish and liberally coat the brisket with the rub, ensuring that the seasoning touches every square inch of the meat.  The rub smells fantastic.  I cover the dish with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator to allow the flavors to marinate overnight.

Brisket with the rub on it

Here's an admission that will undoubtedly cause my 'Man Card' to be removed from my wallet.  My wife is a better barbecuer than I am.  She is more patient and skilled at the BBQ pit.  There.  I said it.  But I finally have been able to do briskets where the family enjoys them and it is soooo very easy.  Here's what I do: After allowing the brisket to marinate in the fridge overnight with the rub,  I fire up the barbecue pit.  To the side of the briquettes, I lay some pecan sticks that I picked up in the yard and soaked in water.  These will smolder and smoke, giving a nice, sweet, smoky pecan flavoring to the brisket.

While the fire is still burning (before the coals glow), I put the brisket on the grill rack and sear all sides of the meat.  Once the searing is done, I cut back the air flow into the pit AND cut back the chimney smoke way back.  This keeps a lot of the smoke inside the pit and slows down the fire so that you can barbecue/smoke your brisket for a long period of time without having to add more charcoal.

You can see the pecan sticks on the right of the flame

I'll allow this to cook for a while and then I'll flip the brisket over so that the other side is close to the heat. At this point I taste the seasoning that is on the tongs I used to flip the brisket.  Mmmmm-mmm!

The aroma is so tempting.

Now I'll leave the brisket on the pit flipping 2 times total for about 2 and one half hours.  Here's what it looks like when I bring it inside:

Time to bring inside to finish it up

When I bring the brisket inside, I put the oven temperature at 275 Fahrenheit and let the oven get up to temperature.  Then I'll pour 3/4 cups of apple cider vinegar mixed with 3/4 cups water into a baking dish, place the brisket in the baking dish, cover it with aluminum foil and place it in the oven for about four hours.

The house will be smelling so good, you won't know what to do with yourself.  Pull the brisket out of the oven, get a sharp knife, and begin cutting against the grain of the meat.  You'll have a hovering flock of on-lookers at this point who have been drawn to the kitchen by the smell emanating throughout the house.

Notice the pink smoke ring.  That tells you that you have some good smoke flavoring in the meat.  Looking at the brisket, you might think from the black color that it is burnt.  It's not.  In fact the black 'burnt ends' are my favorite part.

Slicing up the brisket

Once it was all sliced, we paired it with some fresh broccoli and carrots from the garden and Tricia made some Mexican rice with chicken hearts from last years' meat birds, some iced tea and a glass of milk.

Ready to eat

No need to ring the dinner bell.  Everyone's here and the feast is ON!

King of the Hill

Queen of the Bale, to be more precise...

Sunday afternoon when I was harvesting carrots, I looked over the fence and there sat Nellie in all her glory. The pinkish hue that you see directly over her head is a peach tree that is absolutely covered in blooms. We had a freeze last night and today, so I hope it didn't ruin the peach crop.  Back to Nellie - she had one leg stretched out and was accompanied by an Aracauna hen.  She looked very comfortable and relaxed.  Now the cows don't particularly like her to be sitting up there as Nellie will poop little 'milk dud' looking things all over the hay.  If I was a cow, I wouldn't be appreciative of that either.  The cows and Nellie barely tolerate one another and the cows will rush after her and try to head butt her.  She scurries off and the bell around her neck rings defiantly as she gets away and jumps up on the woodpile to taunt them.

Nellie Chillin' Out on the round bale

As I got closer, she wasn't moving at all.  Her eyes were closed.  She was sleeping. This is what I should have been doing on a Sunday afternoon!

Nellie was "sawing logs"

While we're talking about goats, I wanted to update you on the progress of dehorning Annie.  Annie is Nellie's little kid that looks just like her.  In a previous post, we showed you how we were dehorning her with a Band Castrator.  This device is normally used to turn a bull into a steer.  (Ouch!)  Instead, we applied the band at the base of Annie's horns and in a few weeks, they were supposed to fall off.

Well, we've attained partial success!  One of Annie's horns has fallen off as the photo below shows.  Annie now looks like the legendary Unicorn, well, if it was centered in her head.  I've read up on it and I think I'll place another band on her remaining horn this evening as I learned that the original band tends to lose its elasticity from time to time.  I'm pleased with the one that fell off.  It is clean and almost bloodless and doesn't seem to cause the pain that dehorning an animal with dehorning paste or hot iron dehorning sometimes does. 

Amy, our little unicorn

I searched around in her stall and found the horn that fell off.  You can see the thick, green rubber band that constricted around the horn and made it fall off.  If it is that effective on something as hard as a horn, you can see how efficient it would be on a young bull's... ahem... 'manhood.'

One of Annie's horns

Biblestudytools.com says that:

The word "horn" is often used metaphorically to signify strength and honor, because horns are the chief weapons and ornaments of the animals which possess them; hence they are also used as a type of victory.

We didn't mean to cut off Annie's strength or honor.  We're simply trying to protect our eyes, our fences, and our goats as they are notorious for getting their horns stuck in fences, trees, etc.  As I was typing this, I remembered an instance in history to underscore the point that goats' horns get them into trouble sometimes. You'll remember it as well.  The Book of Genesis tells us that Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar when the LORD stopped him and had him look around.

Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.  Genesis 22:13

That's of great significance to us.  Just as the ram stood as an offering in place of Abraham's only son, Isaac, God's only son, Jesus did the same for you and me!  The Bible goes on to say that Abraham named that spot, Jehovah Jireh, or The LORD provides.  And he does.  He provides for you and me, both our immediate needs and our eternal ones, if we place our trust in Him.