Prepping for the Winter Weather

As the cold weather approached, we took many precautions to protect our animals. Back in the Book of Genesis, Our Creator created us and then gave a very specific charge to Man:

Genesis 1:26
New King James Version (NKJV)

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Dominion means 'the power to rule over' or sovereignty.  We take this seriously and see it as a great responsibility.  As a result, we take care of our animals, and in turn, they take care of us by providing milk, meat, and eggs.

Once the chores were done for the evening, I began making sure that all was in order on the farm to ensure that our animals (and us) would be comfortable in the cold weather.  I moved firewood to the back porch, I insulated the chicken tractor with tarps to block the wind and put a bed of fresh hay down for the chicks and animals in the barn.

Peaceful Country Evening

Then I put a fresh round bale of hay out for the cows.  The cows will be burning calories to try and stay warm and they need plenty of energy that they receive by eating hay to fuel their 'heaters.'  A good friend let us borrow his tractor.  This makes the job of putting out hay much easier!

Putting out hay

Ordinarily, we'd roll the round bale out into place and then put a hay ring around it to attempt to thwart the waste.  Cows are notoriously wasteful in eating hay!

Letting the tractor do the work saves time and energy

We've unloaded a bale for the girls to eat on.  Now they are set.

This bale will last the girls for about a week

Now it is time to raid the garden to snag as much fresh produce as we can.  Broccoli can generally weather the cold, but I'm not taking any chances.  I plucked off some of the nice heads of broccoli.  

Broccoli

I filled a colander full and we made a nice Chicken and Broccoli Quiche with some fresh eggs that Benjamin had just come in with.  The addition of some slivered almonds gave the delicious dish a nice crunch. We'll also steam some and then blanch and freeze the rest.

Broccoli for several days

I also picked the very last of our lettuce crop.  This would be history after it froze, so I washed this up and we'll eat salads along with Tortilla soup that Tricia plans to make.

The last of the lettuce

Once all the work was done, it is time to enjoy some good food.  We had jambalaya along with a side of some steamed broccoli and cosmic purple carrots.

Goodness from the Garden

Our animals are taken care of and so are we!

2014 Meat Birds at Four Weeks Old

Okay, I blew it.  With getting everything secure for the winter storm, part 1 & 2, I was preoccupied and distracted and I missed taking a picture of the meat birds at 3 weeks old.  So we'll skip a week of their growth in our Meat Bird Documentary. Colonel Sanders would be dismayed.

But we'll keep moving forward.  The definition of success, as I see it, is falling down six times and getting up seven.  Let's get up.  Here is Benjamin holding the same bird we've been tracking.  He's the guy with a black spot over his left eye.

Benjamin and his Black-eyed Bird

The birds have been growing nicely and are eating and pooping, which is basically all these guys do.  They don't move around a whole lot.  Our egg layers run around the pasture chasing bugs and finding seeds and stuff to eat.  These, not so much.  Our layers are like well-conditioned athletes, while the meat birds are like couch potatoes that merely sit on the sofa all day playing video games, drinking soda and eating Twinkies.

Let's put this guy in the bucket to be weighed

Benjamin zeroed out the scale when we put the bucket on and we'll see what old Black-eye weighs...

And he tips the scales at...

1 1/2 pounds at four weeks old.  I use four weeks roughly.  He's actually 27 days old, so he is a little shy of four weeks, but he's still averaging almost an ounce a day in weight gain.  I thought he was going to weigh a little more, but maybe they were burning a few extra calories trying to stay warm during our arctic blasts.

1 1/2 pounds

We'll follow up again next week where we'll weigh old Black-eye at 5 weeks old. Remember we're shooting for a 6 pound bird at 8 weeks that will yield a 4 1/2 pound carcass.  And it's okay if we stretch it to nine weeks if we have to.

Tune in next week for our next update.  God Bless You!

Wintry weather on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm

Living in the Deep South, winters can sometimes be very mild.  I can remember wearing shorts in December many, many times.  This year was a little different.  We had two waves of Arctic-like weather that visited us and made life miserable for a few days.  We all wondered how in the world people who live up north can endure this for months on end.

Sleet/snow mix on the ground

My tubs that normally catch rainwater off of the roof was catching frozen precipitation.  I went around the outside of the house and wrapped the water spigots. Low temperatures got to 21 degrees and it didn't get over freezing temperatures for more than a day.  I attempted to drive in to work one day like a crazy man, but quickly realized my folly and came back home.

Ice in the bucket

Although cold, there is nothing as beautiful or pure as fresh snow/sleet as it starts to accumulate on the ground.  A couple of my college roommates were from Illinois and Michigan and they both told me that it is only beautiful for a few days.  Then it becomes grey and dirty and the long days of winter in the north are gloomy.  

Simply beautiful

Benjamin went outside and threw some snowballs.  Yes, even home-schooled kids get "Snow Days!"  He enjoyed sliding around on our icy driveway!

Ice skating on asphalt

He got his scooter out and slipped and slid up and down the driveway.

Slip Sliding on the scooter

Big Boy, our Great Pyrenees, has a nice winter coat that keeps him warm, but we brought him to the back patio to get out of the weather.  As for us, we kept a nice big fire burning continually in the fireplace.

Wintry Weather

When looking through a Jeffers catalog, I always marvel at the heated water troughs to keep the water in them from freezing so that the animals can drink freely.  I found out why people need those type troughs.

Hard for cows to get to the water...

I had to bust up the inch thick sheet of ice on top to get to the water underneath.  I broke a bucket in the process.

Breaking the ice!

With a nice layer of sleet and snow over everything, we were a little concerned about the animals.  We left the barn door open for them so they could get out of the elements.  Normally they aren't allowed to stay in the barn.  They aren't very good house keepers!  We made an exception to that rule with the cold weather. Rosie was shaking since a couple weeks prior we had clipped her for the livestock show.

A layer of wintry mix over everything

I guess we were most concerned about the 99 meat birds that we have out on the pasture.  I spent time prior to the weather moving in adjusting the four heat lamps we have hanging in the tractor.  I also added a nice layer of hay and then wrapped the chicken tractor in tarps.

They are about 3 weeks old right now and they are fat.  I told Tricia that if we lose power, we'd probably lose all of the birds.  I was prepared to butcher them all, should that be the case since they appear to be the same size as Cornish Hens.  So I apprehensively walked out to the chicken tractor, lifted the door on the top and found...

Frozen Roof

Chicken water reservoir froze

All of the birds were snug and warm.  The heat lamps were doing their job and the water in the bell waterer wasn't even frozen.  Those birds put off a lot of body heat.  I climbed inside and shut the door after me so that the warm air wouldn't escape and was amazed at how cozy it was in there.

Warm, albeit smelly, meat birds

This next photo shows how I have the heat lamps spaced evenly so that the 99 birds don't pile up on one another and get suffocated.  I was really surprised with how well the chicken tractor kept the birds warm and cozy.

Birds under heat lamps

As I check the weather forecast tonight, I see that it will be 72 degrees on Saturday. Wow, a 51 degree swing in 4 days.  We'll put away the flannel and sweaters and we'll be wearing shorts come Saturday!

Grinding Spelt into Flour

Tricia orders Spelt in 25 pound sacks from Azure Standard, a co-op that we belong to and it gets delivered to our town.  Spelt is a very interesting grain.  It is an ancient form of wheat that was a staple back in the Bronze Age and medieval times.  I learned on various websites that because spelt requires less fertilizers than normal bread wheat, it has gained a resurgence since the organic movement picked up steam.

Spelt is also mentioned a couple of times in the Bible:

 "Take also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils and millet, and spelt and put them in one vessel…" Ezekiel 4:9

Isaiah 28:25-27

New King James Version (NKJV)

25 When he has leveled its surface,
Does he not sow the black cummin
And scatter the cummin,
Plant the wheat in rows,
The barley in the appointed place,
And the spelt in its place?

Pretty cool, huh?

25 lb sack of spelt

It looks very similar to normal wheat berries.

Spelt berries

It would be most difficult to make bread with spelt berries.  You must turn it into flour first.  So we got our hand-cranked grain mill and attached it to the counter top and put some spelt berries in the hopper.  Me, Benjamin, and Tricia alternated cranking the handle and filling the hopper with spelt berries.  We cranked...

First a little pile

And cranked...

Then a bigger one...

And cranked...  You know what?  Even if you aren't hungry for bread when you start milling the spelt berries into flour, by the time you're finished, you will have worked up an appetite.

In not too terribly long, we had 5 lbs of spelt flour that we poured into a bag.  We'll use it to bake bread, make pancakes, waffles and biscuits, and even make pasta with it!  

Yes, it is much easier to purchase flour at the store instead of doing all this work.  We live in a world where everything is convenient and immediate.  You can go down to the corner store and satisfy your appetite for most anything without expending much time or effort.  Not only is grinding your own flour good exercise, but it is a good reminder that honest work is a blessing and you really appreciate good, wholesome food a little more when you put in some effort to prepare it. 

Making Satsuma Curd

Our neighbors have several satsuma trees on their property that load up with fruit every year.  So much so that they tell us to pick as much as we want-as often as we want.  Nice neighbors!!  Satsumas are a type of citrus that are super sweet and  very easy to peel.  We eat bags and bags of them because they are so delicious.  Here is a picture of one of their trees.  See how many satsumas?  It's amazing how much these trees produce.

Satsuma tree loaded with fruit

What else can you do with satsumas?  Well, a co-worker friend of mine told me in the past that she makes lemon curd.  I've never tasted lemon curd, but she tells me how good it is, so I figured you could probably do the same with satsumas.  I was able to find a couple of recipes for Satsuma Curd on the Internet and also found that you can make it with any citrus: Lemon, Lime, Grapefruit, Orange, Satsuma.

I'll show you how we did it.  First you zest one of the satsumas.

Satsuma Zest!

Then cut some satsumas in half and juice them.  The juice is a brilliant orange color and smells great.

Juicing Satsumas

They are so juicy and flavorful!  

More satsumas to juice

Keep juicing until you've captured 2/3 cup satsuma juice.  I think it took 3 satsumas for me to get this much.

Satsuma Juice

Add the satsuma zest, 1/2 cup sugar, and one stick of butter (chopped in small pieces) to a double boiler where you have water boiling in the bottom pot.  Turn to medium low and stir until ingredients have dissolved.

Stir up ingredients while heating

Once dissolved and water has stopped boiling, crack two eggs and slowly incorporate into mixture, stirring constantly. 

If you wanna make satsuma curd, you gotta break some eggs

Keep stirring for 10 minutes or until curd thickens.  You'll know it is ready when the mixture coats the back of your spoon.

Satsuma Curd thickening

Then pour into a half pint jar and allow to cool.  This will keep in the fridge for a week.

Sunshine in a jar!!

Tricia made some pancakes the next morning and we slathered satsuma curd on top of them.  Creamy, smooth, sweet, and delicious!!

This stuff is good.

In fact, it was so good, I went ahead and made orange curd with some of the navel oranges that we harvested off of our trees.  The color wasn't quite as pretty as the satsuma curd, but I'm sure it will be delicious as well.  I'll freeze both of these so we can take them out and enjoy as we're ready.  We've got to pace ourselves!

Behold, the Orange Curd

On Sunday morning, after the chores were completed and before church, Tricia whipped up some homemade biscuits.

Yum!

And I put a "little bit" of Satsuma Curd on top of a hot biscuit.

Satsuma Curd on top of a piping hot homemade biscuit.

Very nice!  Making Citrus Curd will definitely go into our rotation.  Easy and delicious.  You can use it for a cake or cupcake filling, on top of toast, or heck, just eat it out of the jar with a spoon.  You can't beat that with a stick.

Chickens moving in - Chickens moving out

For the last 3 weeks our garage has played host to 99 Cornish Cross Meat birds. We like to keep them protected from the elements until they get some feathers on them and are a little older and not as fragile.  I can't even begin to describe the smell in the garage.  It was high time for these birds to be out on pasture. Benjamin helped me and we loaded 15 birds at a time into an empty molasses tub and made numerous trips out to the chicken tractor. After a number of trips, we had all of them into their new home.  I think they liked having more room to spread out.  They had out-grown the brooders that they were in.

A big bucket of chicken

Our chicken tractor is nothing pretty to look at.  It is functional, however, and keeps the birds warm and out of the elements.  It is just not aesthetically appealing.  Just look at that thing.  Last year we lost a few birds to a predator.  This was prior to having Big Boy on duty to guard the flock.  This year Big Boy says that any predator has to come through him to get to the birds.  We'll see...

Big Boy guarding his flock

Looking inside the chicken tractor, you can see that we have moved the four heat lamps to the tractor to keep the chicks warm.  They'll have to do their jobs as we're expecting weather in the 20's again this week.  

99 birds in the chicken tractor out on pasture

Now prior to moving the chicks into the tractor, we had to move the chickens out that were living there.  If you recall from a blog post from back in November, we had a number of young chickens that were given to me that we were raising in this tractor until they were bigger.

Chickens can be very territorial.  There is a distinct "pecking order" that is established. New chickens must be carefully introduced to avoid chaos and bullying.  I learned that there is a trick to this.  In order to best introduce them, you do it at night when all the hens are on their roosts.  You put the new birds on the roost beside the older birds and supposedly, the older birds look over in the morning and say, "Oh, a chicken" and the acceptance of the new birds to the flock is done as opposed to just putting them all together during the middle of the day.

Snoozing Chickens

So that's what we did.  Benjamin and I moved the young chickens into the hen house and put them on the roosts right by the others.  Unfortunately, we woke up the old girls in the process and there was mass confusion and chaos.  Everyone's feathers got ruffled (literally).  We'll see how they are in the morning.

Not sure they are liking the new place to roost

So we have chickens in new places all over the pasture.  It's not easy for anyone to get acclimated to new surroundings.  In a few days I think everyone will be settled in and happy.  It just takes a little time.

Butter straight from the udder

Tricia was making butter earlier this week.  Usually we drink all the milk and make kefir and ice cream and use the cream for our coffee.  Real cream in coffee is fantastic.  Anyway, we also make butter as it is an easy process.  All you do is skim the cream off the top of the milk.  Put the cream into a quart jar and allow it to come to room temperature.  Put the cap on the jar and shake vigorously until the butter 'breaks', separating the butter from the buttermilk.  Pour off the buttermilk and then use a wooden spoon to squeeze off any excess buttermilk from the butter.  Salt the butter and mix it up.

We spoon the butter into round glass containers and either eat it or freeze it for later. Here is one of those containers of butter that Tricia made to show you the finished product:

Udder Butter

Did you know that butter will be a different color depending on what time of the year it is? Butter is somewhere between white and pale yellow during the Fall and Winter months when the cows are primarily eating hay.  In the Spring and Summer, when the cows are eating grass in the pasture, the butter is a rich yellow.  Tricia pulled one of the containers out of the freezer from the Spring to show you the comparison.  It is a striking contrast!

Winter butter versus Spring butter

What causes this?  Well, when cows are foraging on fresh grass, the cream will contain lots of beta carotene causing the butter to be yellow.  When the cows are on just hay or feed, the cream doesn't contain as much beta carotene and will be pale yellow.  Some dairies add color to their butter to give it a yellow color, because their cows are not on grass.  We don't add any color to our butter.  The rich yellow on the right is 100% natural.

Our cows aren't kept in a small confined area like a feedlot.  They have a nice area that they can roam around in and do what cows do - mainly eat grass and poop! They think Our Maker's Acres Family Farm is Heaven.  They give us good dairy products that we enjoy - like butter.  The pale yellow butter shown pictured above on the left is still delicious.  It's just not as full of beta carotene as the one on the right is.  

It also goes to show that there is a time and season for everything  People have tried to short circuit the seasons and have added artificial coloring to some butter so that it is always golden yellow.  In nature this simply isn't the case.  It is late January now and there is hardly a blade of green grass in the pasture.  It won't be long before the clover begins popping up, followed by the bahia and bermuda grass, transforming our dull, brown pasture into a lush verdant one, which will transform our pale white butter into golden yellow butter.