Saving it For Later

Canning.  Pickling.  Freezing.  Lacto-Fermentation.  Dehydrating.  Some of the ways that we preserve the harvest when we can't eat it all at once.  It's a good thing there are all these methods of preserving for us.  As it turns out, some things will save for later when it comes to the four-legged animals on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm - like hay.

October is historically a dry month, but this year so was July, August, and September.  The grass has died.  It crackles underfoot.  Normally, the grass is still growing, even if it has gone to seed.  The cows and goats rummage around out on the pasture and try to find something to eat, but there's nothing to be had.  Normally, there's grass out there for them until the first frost in late November.

Two months ago we picked up 75 square bales of hay that we put up in the barn loft.  The loft is like a pantry or a root cellar for the cows.  The hay sits up there until the cold fronts blow through.  The creaky sounds of the weathervane spinning up on the roof of the barn signals the arrival of fall or winter.  And then, at the urging of the gentle moo-ing of the cows, square bales are lowered from the loft into the stalls and rationed out over the winter.

We also purchase round bales, 10 per year to be precise.  We cover them with tarps to keep them dry as they sit right outside the pasture.  Actually, it's not really a tarp.  It's a used vinyl billboard that gets recycled when it fades and comes down off the big poles on the side of the interstate, and it works perfectly.  We just turn the tarp to the other side so the ad for the ambulance chasing lawyer is facing downward.

Normally, we don't roll out bales of hay until December or maybe even January, but this year?  Well, I've already rolled some out for the hungry cows and goats that can't get nourishment from a drought stricken pasture.  From the 10 bales we bought last year, there's four left.  I have called Mr. Broussard and reserved 10 more round bales for delivery in November or December.  The cows hear the creaky gate open and watch from afar as I roll a bale into the pasture.  Then they run as quickly as they can to the spot under the pecan trees where we feed hay.

I like to watch the cows with a new bale of hay.  When a fresh bale is out, they circle it, and then start rubbing against it with their necks.  Finally, they'll start eating from the very center of the bale.  I figure that to a cow, the center of the hay bale is like the center of a cinnamon roll for humans.  Yum!

There's an outside chance that we could get a rain shower or two that might perk up the grass and get some growing, but in the next 10 days, the forecast only shows 5% chance of precipitation.  It looks like from here on out, it will be round bales of hay, square bales of hay and the occasional trough of sweet feed.  Almost forgot, we'll be harvesting sweet potatoes soon and we'll feed them all of the sweet potato vines.  Cows absolutely love that!  I'm also going to be planting a large patch of turnips.  Once January comes, the cows will enjoy the turnip roots and greens.

Fall Family Fun Day

I normally post Sunday night, Monday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night.  Last Thursday night, I was 'radio silent.'  We had a big project going on that occupied my time and by the time I settled behind the computer, my eyes were heavy, and I headed to bed.  I'll tell you about what we had going on that required a lot of organization and planning tonight.

We attend a small country church outside of Jennings.  On any given Sunday, we'll have between 25-30 people - hardly a mega-church, more like a family of different people drawn together!  The demographics of our church represent a common issue across our nation in that we're aging.  We aren't being replaced by a large populations of active, involved young people willing to pick up the torch and serve.  To serve our community with good, wholesome family fun, we decided to put on Fall Family Fun Day on Saturday with all welcome and everything free.

We began praying that God would send us families that we could love on and minister to.  We launched a social media campaign to advertise the event and made up banners that we put up around town like at the Feed Store and community bulletin boards.  Of course we invited family, friends and neighbors.  We also made up signs, copying the Burma Shave roadside advertising done in the 20's, beckoning travelers with "Fun Jumps," "Free Sno-Cones," "Free Pony Rides," "Free Hot Dogs," and the last one a big arrow with the word HERE on it near the entrance of the church.  We erected the signs on the main road both north and south of the church.

The day finally arrived!  The event was scheduled from 10AM - 2PM, so we got there at 7AM to begin setting everything up.  It was a beautiful, blue-sky day with highs only in the 70's.  We were so busy, the following photos were mostly taken before the crowd showed up, because there was no time for photo taking with all that needed to be done.  We had a registration table and passed out tickets as we had door prizes that congregants made/bought to be given away including homemade pie, $25 gift cards, homemade gifts, local honey, toys, crafts, etc.  We offered prayer and information about the church and passed out tracts.  Popcorn was popping, sno-cones were being made along with hot dogs and drinks.

The wind was gusting at 20 mpg, so we were a little worried about the fun jumps.  Fortunately, they were anchored down securely with stakes and kids bounced with reckless abandon inside the bounce houses.  Games were scattered around and smiles and laughter were in no short supply!

Since our church is small and elderly, neighboring churches like East Ridge Baptist Church in Lake Charles (who sent their youth group), Immanuel Baptist Church in Lake Charles (who brought horses for pony rides), and Bethany Baptist in LeBleu Settlement who all arrived to help out.  It was a blessing to see the family of God helping out one another.  Kids got a kick out of the pony rides, being led around the church property in a slow walk.  You should have seen their faces, some riding time after time.

We had a sound system set up playing music and every hour we'd call the kids and adults to a central area for the door prize giveaways.  Each hour we had fun sermon illustrations where the Gospel was shared and we prayed with our guests.

We had over a hundred people in attendance, not counting the volunteers and church members.  When it was done, we gave thanks that we were able to pull this off.  We hope we were able to be a blessing to kids and adults in our community.  We give thanks to God and all the glory goes to Him!

Years ago, I followed a blog by Herrick Kimball called "The Deliberate Agrarian."  In THIS POST, Mr. Kimball laid out his Agrarian-Style Economic Self Defense Plan.  In this beautifully written essay, he laid out his plan.  The #7 item in his plan (the last but not the least in his list) stated the following:

Find community and get involved. Get yourself into a small rural church where folks care about and will help each other. Country people look out for and help each other. That’s always been the case. It’s not going to change when times get bad. But they won't be paying your mortgage for you.

And that's what we found at our little church (Cornerstone).  People love one another and pray for one another.  They bring food when you are sick.  Fresh vegetables are grown and brought to services and given away on our way out.  The Word is taught and a strong spirit of Christian charity is practiced.  Herrick was right!  I hope you can find the same!

2026 Meat Birds - Week Four

We're halfway there.  Cornish Cross Chickens take 8 weeks to mature for slaughter.  They go from being a chick weighing an ounce or so to a full grown behemoth weighing 8 pounds - all in 56 days.  I feed them three times a day, putting 18% protein chick grower in the two gutters you see below.  At night, I take the feed away and leave them only water and the occasional bug that flies in attracted by the heat lamp.  We still push them to fresh grass everyday.  By the time we move them the next morning, they've completed clipped the grass down to the dirt.

This evening I walked out to the chicken tractor as is our custom on weigh-in Wednesday, and picked out an average sized bird out of the 50 in there.  I took him to the garage.  He was heavy and hot to the touch.  

Let's put him up on the scale to see if they are putting on weight.  So far, week by week, here are the weights we observed:

At the end of week one:        8 ounces

At the end of week two:        20 ounces

At the end of week three:       33 ounces

And at the end of week 4:    49 ounces    (3 lbs. 1 oz.)

Last year at the end of the fourth week, they weighed 44 ounces, so we are a full 5 ounces ahead.

In four weeks we'll be butchering to put up our chicken in the freezer for a year's supply.  Hopefully, we'll get them there.  Today a neighbor told me that this week a mink wiped out his neighbor's entire flock of laying hens except for one.  I have the chicken tractor lined with chicken wire, but mink are cunning and vicious.  We learned about mink the hard way with our laying hens, you might remember.  I think I'll walk out and go check on our meat birds right now.

The Invisible Sign

One morning last month, Tricia and I were walking at the park.  We normally walk three laps and that gives us around 4,000 steps.  We talk, watch people fishing, and dodge the ducks that walk about by the lake waiting for people to come feed them.  They make a big mess on the walking trail and we get extra steps in as we maneuver around duck droppings.

I glanced up at the entrance ramp to I-10 westbound and noticed a pink Cadillac gliding toward the merging lanes.  "You know what that is?" I asked my wife.  "Yep, Mary Kay.  They award excellent salespeople with a pink Cadillac upon reaching a certain level in the company."  For the record, I don't purchase cosmetics.  I know nothing about cosmetics.  Somewhere in the past, I studied the founder, Mary Kay Ash.  Aside from running a very successful company, she has a quote that I like that shows so much wisdom:

"No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important. Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, "Make me feel important.  Not only will you succeed in sales.  You will succeed in life! Never forget this message when working with people.  "  Mary Kay Ash

 

Image Credit

In so many books about people, namely "How to Win Friends and Influence People," by Dale Carnegie, this same principle is taught.  People want to feel special, noticed.  You see it in your daily life.  In the rat race where you are a number, another cog in the wheel, people like to hear their name.  They value when people listen to them and take the time to get to know them.

I remember being a kid that my Mom & Dad told me that if there was one thing I learned it was to be considerate of other people.  Be kind.  Be gracious.  Be polite and genuinely interested in other people.  In a dog eat dog world, many people are concerned only with themselves.  That's why if you ask them questions about themselves and get to know them, you set yourself apart from the pack.

Now motive is important.  If you do this with bad intentions and ulterior motives, people can sniff that out in an instant.  That's what's called manipulation.  Jesus, on the other hand, taught, "So in everything, do unto others what you would have them do unto you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."  Matthew 7:12

How true.  Don't we all want to be treated with dignity and respect?  Don't we all want to feel important and noticed?  Of course we do.  Remember the invisible sign around people's necks.  Making people we come into contact with in our daily lives feel important may not win us a pink Cadillac (maybe it will), but it makes the world a better place and each of us better people.  It's also a testimony of the God we serve and He gets all the glory.

Let your light so shine before others, that they might see your good works and give glory to your Father in Heaven.  Matthew 5:16

Time For Another Go-Round

Betsy 

Over the past several months, due to the excessive heat and lack of rainfall, LuLu was suffering with heat exhaustion.  We stopped milking her to attempt to give her a break and allowed little Betsy to consume all the milk.  We doctored on LuLu, giving her drenches of molasses, apple cider vinegar and magnesium and sprayed her down with water to cool her body temperature.  During the break, Betsy has grown!  But we've been without milk.  A milk cow producing no milk for the family is not good.

Fortunately, over the past week, the temperatures have moderated with lows in the morning in the 60's and highs only reaching 90.  LuLu, although not back to normal, has rebounded somewhat.  We decided to begin separating the momma and baby at night and will be milking LuLu tomorrow morning.  It was quite a rodeo to get Betsy in the barn where we closed her up behind the gate.  LuLu will be making milk for us all night.

Betsy is not a happy camper!  She is used to nursing whenever she wants.  After watching "True Grit" tonight, I stepped outside to walk.  As I walked around the property, I could hear Betsy moo-ing in the barn.  Her bellowing echoed around the neighborhood.  I'm hoping the neighbors will be understanding.  Tomorrow morning we'll walk out and milk LuLu.  I'm sure her production will be down, but milking a cow is supply and demand.  We'll work and get her production back up.

It's not just us.  I read tonight on the Internet that Feliciana's Best Milk stopped delivering milk as did Southside Produce.  The explanation given is that the cows were hot and milk supply went way down.  They say with temperatures dropping, the supply of milk should return to normal soon.  We'll see.  The grass is pretty much finished and there's no rain in the forecast.  I've called and reserved 10 round bales to be delivered in December.  We still have 5 round bales left over from last year after rolling out one to the bull and one to the cows.  

Jersey cows just don't fare well in our hot, humid climate.  Better weather is on the way girls.  Hold tight.  Fresh milk tomorrow morning!

Mosquitoes - The Pesky Plague

 Ouch!  Slap, slap, slap...

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As summertime winds down slowly in South Louisiana, the heat and humidity is gradually getting bearable with morning temperatures in the upper 60's and highs only getting to around 90 degrees.  We welcome that!  One of the problems we still have is mosquitoes.  With the lack of rainfall we've had around here, you would think the population would drop off, since they need water to lay eggs but surprisingly they haven't.

There are several reasons for this, in my estimation.  We are surrounded by rice fields and crawfish ponds that are kept flooded by deep water wells.  The mosquitoes, despite the drought, still have plenty of places to lay their eggs.  Another reason is our water catchment project.  On the back side of the house for aesthetic reason, we have water barrels situated underneath the drip line of the roof and especially underneath the eaves.  With a minimal rainfall we can harvest hundreds of gallons of rainwater that we use to keep the animal's water troughs full.  Some of this is used to irrigate the garden and fruit trees and some of it the honeybees locate and line the barrels to drink water and bring it back to the hives.  They use a form of evaporative cooling to keep the temperature regulated in the hives.

In our parish, part of our property taxes go to fund the mosquito abatement project.  It is a two-phased approach to keeping the mosquito population in check.  First, they have mosquito trucks with a fogger on the back that drive on every road and back up down people's driveways and spray the chemical fog across the landscape.  They are supposed to do this only after nightfall.  Since honeybees don't fly at night, the thinking is that they are all in the hive and safe from the chemicals.  The problem is, the mosquito truck drivers want to get back home early, so many of them start fogging BEFORE its dark.  We've had to chase them off the property several times.  For that reason, we've gone to their offices and put our address on a NO SPRAY list.  Good in theory, but the drivers, covering miles every night aren't always diligent in checking addresses.  As you would assume, we don't want our honeybees killed by the chemicals and we don't want it getting into our honey either!

The second phase of this project is mosquito planes that fly overhead at night spraying over hundreds of acres with chemicals to kill the pesky pests.  They always fly at night and there is no real way to stop them from spraying overhead.  The mosquitoes are still really bad and one wonders how many there would be if they weren't spraying.  I often think about how difficult it was for the early settlers in Louisiana and how they dealt with the mosquitoes.  I guess they just slapped a lot as the pesky insects sucked their blood.  Screened in porches were a necessity.

People always say, "I can't wait for the cold weather to come in and kill these mosquitoes!"  I'm sure there is some truth to this, but I've been to Alaska and remember being in Anchorage and was surprised at how bad the mosquitoes were up there.  Cold weather must slow them down, but it doesn't stop them.  People sometimes say that hurricanes will blow all the mosquitoes away, but we've learned firsthand that this is simply not true.  Some of the worst times for mosquitoes are after hurricanes.  You're trying to clean up debris in your yard and those pesky critters just don't give you a break.

I'll be thankful for mosquito season to be over when it will be peaceful and relaxing to sit outside or work in the garden.

2026 Meat Birds - Week Three

It's weigh-in Wednesday!  Let's talk about our Cornish Cross meat birds.  There have been lots of changes going on since last week.  First, I removed the brooder to give them more room.  They are growing exponentially and the protective brooder while ideal for chicks, didn't leave them with enough elbow room once they start putting on weight.  I rolled it up and stored it back in the barn and now the birds have plenty of space to move around and eat grass and bugs inside the chicken tractor.

They bunched up at first, unfamiliar with their new-found freedom, but soon moved around liking the new surroundings and space.  They'll clip down the grass in the tractor with the quickness, so I'll roll the tractor to fresh grass each day.

You can see the second and third changes in the photo below.  First, I moved out the three small feeders that are designed for baby chicks.  While perfect at first, there is no longer room for them to gather around at the supper table at the little chick feeders.  To replace the small feeders, I moved in a 12 foot span of PVC gutters.  The gutter will be the new feeder and you can scroll up to the top photo to see the chicks breaking bread around the gutter.  There's now room, but I'll move in a second gutter in the upcoming weeks to give them even more room.

The third change is the waterers.  Up to now I have had two 1 gallon waterers in with the chicks, but these chickens drink a lot of water and I find myself filling the 1 gallon containers several times a day.  I installed a bell waterer to alleviate this.  You can see it hanging from the top of the tractor.  You can see a cascade of water flowing down from the top.

The water flows into the bell waterer from a plastic tube feeding off of a 5 gallon bucket filled with water.  I have the 5 gallon bucket full of water sitting atop 2 buckets to use gravity to flow the water through the tube and down into the bell waterer.  This year I have the buckets in a wagon so that when I roll the tractor, I'll just roll the water in the wagon as well.  This keeps me from having to enter the tractor to fill water.  I simply fill the yellow bucket with fresh water from outside.

Time to weigh!  Each Wednesday I grab one bird out of the flock - an average bird, not the biggest, not the smallest.  I think this gives us a good idea of their overall growth.  I carry it into the garage and place it on the kitchen scale.  It's not a little cute chick anymore.  It's a monster.  Big feet.  Ugly.  Sorry, but it's true.  Around Easter time, people give kids cute baby chicks.  You wouldn't want to give something that looks like this to a child.  It just looks mean.

Here is the bird looking at me warily standing on top of the scale.  The glare blocks the weight so scroll down to the next photo to see this week's weight.

At the end of week three, our bird weighs 2 pounds 1 ounce or 33 ounces.  That is a weight gain of 13 ounces over last week - almost a pound weight gain.

At the end of week three of last year, the bird weighed 29 ounces, so we're 4 ounces ahead of where we were same time last year.

We're right on track!  We still have 50 healthy birds 38% toward their projected slaughter date.  Everything is progressing nicely.  Tune in next Wednesday for the next weigh-in.

Breaking Betsy

The long hot summer and competing priorities have kept me from working with Betsy.  She'll be three months old in a few days and it's high time that I get the show on the road while I still can.  What I'm talking about is halter breaking her.  She's wild as a March hare and doesn't let us get near her.  When we do try, she runs with reckless abandon with her tail high in the air, kicking her feet.  So much energy!

One person can't corner her, but if there's two of us, we can kind of act like a cutting horse and get her cornered in the corral and catch her.  The other trick I've learned if I'm alone and she's sitting on the ground is to walk nonchalantly by her without making eye contact and then suddenly move to the side and catch her.  I then work the breaking halter on her and pull her to a post under the barn and tie her off.

She struggles and pulls.  The tighter she pulls, the more uncomfortable the halter gets.  Over time, she'll learn that it is futile to pull against an immovable object.  This is not a new thing.  In the Bible in Acts 26:14 it says: 

And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

Kicking against the goads was a figure of speech that meant that you're only hurting yourself by struggling against a stronger force.  Saul, in that passage, was being told that he was fighting a losing battle by trying to stop the message of Jesus.  Saul relented and trusted and was changed!  We're working on little Betsy in hopes that she gets the message. 

I'll leave her tied up for 30 minutes or so to pull to her little heart's content.  I always keep a close eye on her.  We have a friend that lost a calf doing this when the calf circled the post and choked herself!  After 30 minutes, I'll gently walk up to her, talking in a kind way.  She pulls hard and tries to get away, but it's no use. 

I'll continue talking to her and get a brush and begin to brush her on the neck, sides and belly.  She likes this!  I'm trying to gain her trust, for her to see that I'm not a threat to her.  I was going to bring her a handful of feed to build a positive association with me, but the other animals were around and that wasn't going to work today.  I'll try it at another time when the goats and other cows are out grazing.

The key to this is persistence.  Keep doing this daily and be patient.  Maybe I'll learn something in this process too!  After doing this for a while, I'll advance to untying from the pole and try to lead her.  She'll inevitably pull against me, but we'll keep working at it until she learns that it is easier to just walk along with me than fighting against me.  

Peter Rabbit in "Mr. McGregor's" Garden

A couple of weeks ago, I planted most of the fall crop with the exception of garlic, spinach and turnips.  Most everything except the lettuce has germinated.  It's still too early to determine if I'll need to replant anything.  Correction: I do need to re-plant an entire row of green beans.  Poor germination from saved seed, you ask?  No sir.

I had a whole row of green beans that popped up out of the ground.  I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that we had a 99% germination rate.  Green beans are one of my favorite garden crops due to the taste and the abundant harvest that you can have from a small piece of real estate.  As I surveyed the young plants, I licked my lips thinking about eating fresh green beans this fall.

Little did I know that there was someone else in the garden licking their lips, thinking about eating fresh green beans right now!  The next morning when I went out, good golly, something had eaten all but seven of our green bean plants

You can see where the creature snipped off every beanstalk on the row except the seven survivors.  I don't know whether he left those seven to mock me or if he just got full...

But I know full well who did it.  In the very back of the garden, I have a big compost pile.  I alternate throwing wood chips, cow poop, and garden trimmings on the pile and over time, it generates some good compost that I amend into the garden.  Unfortunately, our heirloom Louisiana sugar cane also grows back there and during the summer, the back portion gets overgrown.  Even though we have 4x4 wire fencing, Tricia and I noticed a little cottontail rabbit gaining entrance into the garden, hiding in the back near the compost pile.

I had to act fast to hope to save our garden.  Pretty soon, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, broccoli and a whole host of other crops will be springing forth from the ground and will be high on the menu choices for a hungry bunny.  First I cleaned up the jungle area, chopping most of the sugar cane and removing the louffa gourd vines.  I made a bunch of racket - my goal was to frighten the rabbit OUT of his hideout in the garden and back into the woods.  As soon as I was 100% positive he was evicted, I moved to phase II of the rabbit eradication plan.

My wife felt that I should set traps to catch him, but my counterpoint was that in the garden, there is a lot for a rabbit to eat.  I don't know how successful I'd be attracting him into a cage when he lines up at an All You Can Eat buffet on the green bean aisle every day.

I determined that I would build a wall, so to speak, to block entry of all undocumented rabbits into my garden.  In this case, the wall is a three foot high roll of chicken wire.  The plant was to run it around the outer perimeter fence of the garden, wiring it to the existing fence to hold it securely.

You can see how a young rabbit could fit through the 4x4 openings of the old garden fence.  You can also see how overlaying chicken wire on top of it presents a formidable obstacle for rabbits to continue with their nocturnal incursions into the garden.

It took me about half of a day to get the chicken wire in place and fastened.  Guess what?  This morning, the same seven green bean plants are still standing tall.  Not to be defeated, I replanted the remainder of the green bean row and watered it in.  I hope it worked!  No doubt, the rabbit is scheming and strategizing, plotting and planning new means of entry to the food sources in our garden.  What Peter Rabbit may not know is that rabbit season opened on October 3rd and I have no qualms about putting a little fat rabbit on our smoker.

Eyes Too Big For Your Stomach

Sitting at the supper table with a plate full of food that I couldn't finish, my Dad would tell me, "Your eyes too big for your stomach?"  What it means is that you thought you could eat more than you really could.  It was then that you would feel really guilty because you'd be told that "You're leaving all that food on your plate and there are starving kids in China."  I totally get it that you don't want to waste food, but if I finish all the food on my plate (or not), it's not going to help or hurt that hungry child in Beijing.  For the record, I now serve large quantities of food on my plate and always finish it all off.

On the back patio this morning, I ran into someone whose eyes were truly too big for his stomach.  There was a little garter snake, maybe 14 inches long, that approached the buffet table and picked out something that he just couldn't get down.  But he didn't give up!

It boggles my mind how this even happened.  Poor Kermit the Frog was likely napping and this harmless garter snake slithers up and, opening his mouth just as wide as it would go, attempted to eat him.  I've heard it said that snakes dislocate their jaws to fit things in their mouth, but that's not true.  Their jaws aren't fused like humans and instead are attached by ligaments that stretch to allow them to fit things in their mouths that seem physically impossible.

I know it's rude to watch someone while they are eating, but I was fascinated by this little snake's 'can-do' spirit.  I wish I could have caught the whole thing on camera until he had the entire frog in his stomach, but I had to go to work.  

I hope the snake was able to finally get Kermit in his stomach.  I've felt full after eating Thanksgiving dinner, but nowhere near as full as this snake is going to feel if he was successful in swallowing it.  He'll likely need to now eat a roll of Tums.

2026 Meat Birds - Week Two

Our birds experienced a few changes this week, namely growth.  They are getting bigger and as a result, I've expanded out the size of the brooder.  It is now double the circumference that it was last week.  The chicks are eating more and as a result, they are pooping more.  They quickly foul the ground and I don't want them standing in that mess, so I push the chicken tractor and move them to fresh grass twice a day.

I still feed them morning, noon and night.  I've added a third feed trough so they can all get around it and eat.  I also added a second gallon-sized waterer.  Although the coolest night we have so far has been 69 degrees, I turn the heat lamp on at night.  The light attracts mosquitoes and bugs and you can hear the chicks' beaks tapping against the sides of the brooder as they catch and eat bugs.  Good!

On Wednesdays, we call it weigh-in Wednesday.  I indiscriminately pick one bird out of the 50 that are there and bring him or her into the garage where I have our kitchen scale temporarily sitting on my workbench.  As you can see, more feathers are coming in and the only real peach fuzz remaining is on the bird's head and neck.

The fat little bird doesn't quite know what to think about this, but he behaved himself and didn't hop off or poop on Tricia's scale.

So let's see what the scale shows us:

At the end of week two, the bird weighed 1 pound 4 ounces or 20 oz.  Last week the birds weighed 8 ounces.  That's a weight gain of 12 oz in 7 days.

At the end of week two last year, the bird weighed 1 pound 2 ounces or 18 oz.  So we're ahead of last year's birds by two ounces.

Next Wednesday, we'll convene again for the Wednesday weigh-in.

Rotating the Onions

You know, it's about time to make our order with Dixondale Farms to order onion sets for the 2027 Onion crop.  I'm planning on getting the Short Day Sampler and Yellow Granex.  Once we get them in, we'll plant in January.  For the past several years, we've had bumper crops and Tricia has asked me to scale down my orders from 3 bunches to 2 bunches.  One bunch has a minimum of 48 onions in it.

Once we harvest and cure the onions inside, we eat a lot of them.  Lately we've enjoyed hamburger steaks smothered in onions, mushrooms and brown gravy!  Even as hot as it was today, we enjoyed a French Onion soup.  We chopped up gallons and gallons of them and froze them to cook with later.  We also slice them up and dehydrate them and then vacuum seal them in jars.

Getting toward the end of the 2026 onion crop

Here are some sliced onions that were dehydrated and then vacuum packed in jars.  We'll use the fresh and frozen ones first, but when we're out of those, we just rehydrate these.  They keep well.

Here are some dehydrated onions from 2021.  They're still sealed tightly.  It's always a good idea, I think, to rotate out your stock.  Our rule is to eat fresh first, then frozen, and then canned.  Our problem, if you want to call it that, is that we generally have so much coming in fresh, that we never get around to eating the canned.  So recently, we've made a concerted effort to rotate out the canned stuff.

It just so happens that Tricia was out of onion powder in her spice cabinet.  Well, not any longer.  She opened the vacuum-sealed jar and poured the dehydrated onions into the food processor and ran it until it was ground into a powder.

We'll go through all this at about the same time we get the onion sets in to plant in the garden.  Then we'll start the whole thing over again.

The Roof Needs Some Work

The live oak branches produce a canopy over parts of the house, keeping things shady and (hopefully) reducing our electricity bills somewhat.  Our hot, humid weather causes mold, mildew and algae to grow on the roof in those shady spots.  I was thinking about getting up on a ladder and use my garden sprayer to spray some bleach up there to try to kill it and restore the roof to it's normal color.

Tricia talked me out of that Saturday morning and we headed to the local hardware store to see if there was a product made to kill the mold, mildew and algae that grows on roofs.  Turns out, there is.  It is a product called Spray & Forget.  It's a little pricey at $44 per gallon, but if it works, that is reasonable.  You mix it 1 part S&F to 9 parts water into a garden sprayer and spray it on the roof in the offending areas.

Green algae on the roof

You leave it on the roof.  Green stains are supposed to disappear in 1-3 days and black stains over 3-6 months.  I shifted my ladder over as I went around the entire house spraying.  The worst areas were the east side, north side and west side.  The south side has mostly sunshine covering the roof most of the time, so mold & mildew is not a problem in the direct sunlight.

I patiently moved around getting good coverage of the chemical on the green areas.  When I finished, I still had half a gallon of the chemical left.  I guess I'll save it and will use it again, if needed, to get areas where it didn't wipe out the mold.

So far, we're 24 hours post initial application.  Although the product says that the green stains disappear after 1-3 days.  So far, I'm not seeing any reaction.  The stains are still there.  It's early yet.  I'll give it more time and report back with how this product works!

Getting a Trim

The neighbors have a flock of chickens that are in a chicken run.  Most of them are, anyway.  There are a few hens that like to fly up over the fence and meander over into our yard .  They make a beeline for the flower beds where they like to scratch all the mulch out of the bedding in search of worms.  We love our neighbors, but we don't love the hens scratching in the beds.  They also like to scratch the mulch out from around the citrus trees.

At some point we'll have over a half dozen chickens visiting in our yard.  Over the past several months, I've made it a challenge to catch each of the offending hens with a net, clip their wings and send them back to the chicken run where they won't be able to run to our yard ever again.  I've caught all but two of them.  Today, I saw one in the yard, so I got the net and clippers and ran her down until I cornered her where I could catch her.  She made a lot of racket!  She was not a happy bird.  Her freedom ended, but she should count her blessings.  She lived to see another day.

I used some tin snips to cut the feathers back on both wings.  Really, cutting them off of only one wing does the trick, but I wanted to make doubly sure she was grounded.  Feathers were flying and she was squawking.  All the noise riled up the rooster and the guineas in their yard.  They were empathizing their caught comrade.

With feathers clipped, I walked the perpetrator back over next door.

I dropped her over the fence and she scampered away.  Her pride was hurt, but she'll be okay tomorrow.

Now there's one more to catch and clip.  She's a smart bird, though.  Rather than allowing herself to get cornered like the others, she runs toward the neighbor's fence and with a running start, flies right over.  I'll have to think up another plan to try to outsmart the smart bird.  It's sort of like Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner!

2026 Meat Birds - Week One

Each Wednesday for the next 8 weeks, we'll bring you along as we watch our Cornish Cross meat birds mature until it is time for slaughter.  Last Wednesday we got 51 birds in and put them out in our makeshift brooder under a heat lamp.  We only turn it on at night as it is in the mid-90s during the day - no heat lamp needed.  

This week we lost one bird unexpectantly.  A rare rain came through in the afternoon and the heat lamp was off.  Some rain (not much) and thunder and lightning must have got them wet and scared and they piled up in a pile.  It didn't take me long to check on them, but one was laying dead at the bottom of the pile.  That was our lagniappe bird.  We ordered 50 and got 51.  Any others that die are on us!

After one week, I've expanded the circumference of the brooder as they are growing and need more space.  We're still feeding the Game Bird 24% protein feed, morning, noon and night.  I also swapped out the three quart sized waterers for a gallon-sized one.  They are drinking a lot of water, and it is easier to fill one than three.  We're still adding 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar per gallon of water.

Each year we have a little process we do on Wednesday night.  I reach down and scoop up one average sized bird and inspect it.  Although only a week old, you can see the white feathers coming in on the wingtips.  The rest of the body still has the yellow "peach fuzz."  That will be changing soon.

So each Wednesday night I'll get the kitchen scale out and put a sheet of paper on it.  I don't want the chick pooping on the scale.  The chick will be positioned on the scale and we'll do weekly weigh-ins to see how they are growing.  Here's the first chick on the first week's weigh in:

After one week the average chick weighs 8 ounces.  I looked in records from last year and at the one week time frame, it weighed in at 6 1/2 ounces.  So far we're a little bit ahead.  Remember our goal at week 8 is to have an 8 pound bird that will yield a 6 pound carcass.

See ya back next Wednesday night for the Week 2 Weigh-in!