2016 Meat Birds at 5 Weeks Old

So here we are at five weeks old.  As I walked out to the chicken tractor with my bucket in hand tonight, I was thankful that we didn't lose any birds last night.  We had quite a storm!  The wind blew ferociously, knocking down limbs all over the yard.  I have hinges on the roof of the chicken tractor and each day I open the roof, bend down, and pour chick grower into the gutters I use as feed troughs for the birds.  Wouldn't you know that yesterday, I neglected to latch the roof.  The wind caught one half of the roof, picked it up and blew it backward with such force that it broke.  Fortunately the birds were all safe and sound.

I got into the chicken tractor and searched for our two birds that I have marked with zip ties on their feet.  I found them finally and placed them in the bucket and brought them into the garage for the weigh-in.  I had pushed them to fresh grass earlier in the afternoon, so they were still foraging around eating blades of grass.  By tomorrow the grass will be picked over pretty good and FULL of chicken poop.

Clean, green grass... For Now

Here's a side by side shot.  The Cornish Cross on the left is head and shoulders (literally) above the Red Ranger at the five week mark.  Notice I have an empty feed bag on top of my workbench so the birds don't poop on it.  I've learned this from experience.

Facing off before the weigh-in

First up on the scale this week is the Cornish Cross.  You can see that his crop is full, even though it was after 9 pm in this picture and I fed them at 5 pm.  He's a monster.  Let's see what he weighs...

Cornish X

Exactly 4 pounds this week.

4 pounds

Here is our comparison in weight, first comparing this week with last week and then this week with same week last year.  We've seen significant increases on both with gains of 1 pound and 1 ounce over last week and a whopping 1 pound and 12 ounces over the same week last year.  Whereas we butchered the Cornish Cross meat birds last year at 10 weeks, I think these may be ready at the 8 week point this year.  We'll see.

Oh, I almost forgot.  I read today that Cornish Cross hens are butchered at the 4 to 5 week time frame to be sold as "Cornish Hens."  That is pretty interesting.  I always wondered about Cornish Hens and where they came from.  Those fat little tasty birds are merely these birds butchered in four or five weeks instead of 8.

Now let's look at the Red Ranger by comparison.  The Red Ranger is a leaner bird and he roams around a lot more than the Cornish Cross who just lazily waddles around and plops down on the ground, even to eat.

Red Ranger on the scale

1 pound 9 ounces this week...

1 pound 9 ounces

Here's the table comparing weights over several time frames for the Red Ranger. While the Red Ranger is growing, it is clear to see that it is on a much smaller (and more natural) scale (pardon the pun) than the Cornish Cross monster.

A lot can change between now and butchering time, but I'm guessing the Red Ranger is going to take every bit of 12 weeks to mature, if not more.  We'll check in on their progress next week at this time.  See you then!

An Update on the Kids

Annie’s kids – the buckling, Buckwheat and the two doelings, Darla and Jane, are four weeks old now and continue to grow.  Tricia likes to just sit outside and watch them play.  They are rambunctious and funny!  They also get into trouble.  In the mornings when Tricia and I are milking the cows, they’ll squeeze through the holes in the cattle panel and come jump up on the milking stool beside me.  It would be fine if they’d just stay there, but they inevitably hop down and play between the legs of the cows.  That’s just an invitation for the cows to kick them or stomp on them.  So Tricia will generally stop milking, scoop them up in her hands, and put them in the feed room. 

The feed room is enclosed with no way for them to escape, but that doesn’t mean they behave themselves.  They bleat constantly, crying for their freedom.  When we’re finished milking and open the feed room, they rush out, leaving behind them a feed room in disarray.  We pick up everything that the bad kids have knocked down.  It is hard to be angry with them, though.

We have been keeping a close eye on them to ensure that they are getting proper nutrition.  Goats have two teats.  Three kids on two teats mean that someone is going to get left out.

Hungry Kids!

As we watch Annie letting them nurse, we noticed that they will all run to her and she will let them nurse for 10 – 15 seconds and then she lifts her legs and walks away from them.  We inspect her bag from time to time after they nurse and find that one side is empty while the other is full.  She’s not letting them nurse very long at all on her right side.  We checked for mastitis and found that the bag is not hard and there are no lumps in the milk, so that's a good sign.  No mastitis, but she does have some cuts from the kids’ sharp little teeth.  I guess they are being rough when the three fight for position near her two “milk spigots” and she’s not allowing them to empty the sensitive side.

That can present problems if she’s not emptied, so Tricia went to the store and purchased 3 baby bottles.  While we feed Annie, Tricia carefully milks out the sensitive side into a quart sized mason jar and then pours equal amounts into the three bottles.  Then, like babies, the kids get their bottle of milk!

Sometimes they sit in her lap.

Hittin' the Bottle

 Sometimes they’ll stand up on their hind legs to drink!

Getting Every Last Drop

Russ even got involved with giving bottles to the babies when he was in from college on Spring Break.

Some drink - some beg...

When we pick them up, Jane seems to be the heaviest.  She must be getting most of the milk and Buckwheat and Darla “pick up the scraps.”  Supplemental bottle feedings, even some we’ve given with cows’ milk, will keep the kids growing and healthy until we wean them at 3 months old.  At that point, we’ll finally have goat milk for making kefir and soap-making.  Right now, the kids have a monopoly on all of Annie’s milk production.

A Little Essay with a Big Message

I stumbled across a wonderful essay by my favorite agrarian author, Wendell Berry.  You can read it in its entirety HERE.  The 14 page essay was from A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural & Agricultural and was reprinted in the Whole Earth Catalog back in 1969.  It is still very timely today.  I highly recommend clicking the link above and reading the entire thing.  Wendell Berry eloquently speaks about some weighty issues. 

Something to Crow About

The essay goes against the grain in that most people want to do something BIG.  We are always told to dream BIG, have BIG plans, brainstorm BIG ideas, and accomplish BIG things.  In fact, success is many times defined by BIG changes or impacts.  Although we are faced with some mighty big challenges, some which we don’t even know how to begin solving, Wendell Berry exhorts the reader to ‘think little’, understanding that taking small steps right where you are builds momentum, encourages others, and creates change.  Even small changes accumulate quickly and yield BIG results.

I’m going to post a few excerpts from Mr. Berry’s essay below without comment.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did: 

“What we are up against in this country, in any attempt to invoke private responsibility, is that we have nearly destroyed private life. Our people have given up their independence in return for the cheap seductions and the shoddy merchandise of so-called "affluence." We have delegated all our vital functions and responsibilities to salesmen and agents and bureaus and experts of all sorts. We cannot feed or clothe ourselves, or entertain ourselves, or communicate with each other, or be charitable or neighborly or loving, or even respect ourselves, without recourse to a merchant or a corporation or a public-service organization or an agency of the government or a style-setter or an expert.”

 “In this state of total consumerism - which is to say a state of helpless dependence on things and services and ideas and motives that we have forgotten how to provide ourselves - all meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken. We do not understand the earth in terms either of what it offers us or of what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand.”

“For an index of our loss of contact with the earth we need only look at the condition of the American farmer - who must in our society, as in every society, enact man's dependence on the land, and his responsibility to it. In an age of unparalleled affluence and leisure, the American farmer is harder pressed and harder worked than ever before; his margin of profit is small, his hours are long; his outlays for land and equipment and the expenses of maintenance and operation are growing rapidly greater; he cannot compete with industry for labor; he is being forced more and more to depend on the use of destructive chemicals and on the wasteful methods of haste and anxiety. As a class, farmers are one of the despised minorities. So far as I can see, farming is considered marginal or incidental to the economy of the country, and farmers, when they are thought of at all, are thought of as hicks and yokels, whose lives do not fit into the modem scene. The average American farmer is now an old man whose sons have moved away to the cities. His knowledge, and his intimate connection with the land, are about to be lost. The small independent farmer is going the way of the small independent craftsmen and storekeepers. He is being forced off the land into the cities, his place taken by absentee owners, corporations, and machines. Some would justify all this in the name of efficiency.”

“As I see it, it is an enormous social and economic and cultural blunder. For the small farmers who lived on their farms cared about their land. And given their established connection to their land - which was often hereditary and traditional as well as economic - they could have been encouraged to care for it more competently than they have so far. The corporations and machines that replace them will never be bound to the land by the sense of birthright and continuity, or by the love that enforces care. They will be bound by the rule of efficiency, which takes thought only of the volume of the year's produce, and takes no thought of the slow increment of the life of the land, not measurable in pounds or dollars, which will assure the livelihood and the health of the coming generations.”

“For most of the history of this country our motto, implied or spoken, has been Think Big. I have come to believe that a better motto, and an essential one now, is Think Little. That implies the necessary change of thinking and feeling, and suggests the necessary work. Thinking Big has led us to the two biggest and cheapest political dodges of our time: plan-making and lawmaking. The lotus-eaters of this era are in Washington, D.C., Thinking Big. Somebody comes up with a problem, and somebody in the government comes up with a plan or a law. The result, mostly, has been the persistence of the problem, and the enlargement and enrichment of the government.”

“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating. The food he grows will be fresher, more nutritious, less contaminated by poisons and preservatives and dyes than what he can buy at a store. He is reducing the trash problem; a garden is not a disposable container, and it will digest and re-use its own wastes. If he enjoys working in his garden, then he is less dependent on an automobile or a merchant for his pleasure. He is involving himself directly in the work of feeding people.”

“A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has set his mind decisively against what is wrong with us. He is helping himself in a way that dignifies him and that is rich in meaning and pleasure. But he is doing something else that is more important: he is making vital contact with the soil and the weather on which his life depends.”

It is Springtime – Eggcellent news!

Spring officially began on March 20^th and there are numerous signs of it all around.  My favorite sign of spring is that the hens begin laying eggs again.  One day we go out and pick up 5 eggs, the next day, 24 eggs, and the next day 54 eggs!  That tells us that spring has sprung...

Benjamin's wire basket full of eggs

During the dreary fall/winter, egg production becomes few and far between.  With about 65 hens, we barely have enough eggs to provide our family. 

Why is this?  The egg case in the grocery store looks always stocked up, regardless of the season.  Here’s the answer:  Store-bought eggs are kept in an artificial environment, an egg factory, if you will.  The temperature is kept at a constant setting, their food rations are kept at a constant amount and quality, and the lighting in the hen factory warehouse is constant.

In real life, in a pastured setting, things aren’t that ordered and routine.  Pastured poultry are subject to the cyclical nature of the seasons.  Due to the seasonal changes, their egg production drops way off.  As the days get shorter, there is not enough daylight for a bird to produce an egg.  Eggsperts (experts) tell us that it takes at least 14 hour of daylight for a hen to produce an egg.  We could run electricity to the hen house and simulate daylight, but we figure that the hens, like us, need a break sometime.  Allowing this time of rest for the hens, will extend their usable lives, since a hen has a finite amount of eggs inside of her.  I suppose there’s nothing wrong with lighting your hen house, we just want to give our girls a little rest.

Springtime Eggs

Next, another thing that changes in springtime is an abundance of insects, worms, and other critters that were dormant during the winter.  Why is that important?  Because that is food for the hens.  Our hens roam around on 3 acres, foraging, searching, and hunting for any tasty morsel they can find.  They’ll scratch, jump, peck for protein.  A hen needs a certain amount of calories each day.  Although we supplement their feed in the fall/winter (each hen requires ¼ pound of 17% protein feed each day), this extra nutrition provided “for free” by the Creator each spring, gives them the needed boost to begin churning out eggs again.

Finally, and this is somewhat related to nutrition, another thing I notice about spring is the hens’ demand for oyster shells.  I keep a container of oyster shells in the hen house.  When they come in from the pasture to lay their eggs in one of the nesting boxes, the oyster shell container is right there handy for them.  During winter months, when they aren’t laying many eggs, I hardly have to fill the container.  In springtime, however, I continually fill it almost every other day.  You see, laying eggs quickly depletes the hens’ store of calcium.  They must replenish that calcium and that’s where the oyster shells come in.

We’re enjoying springtime and its many beautiful sights, weather, and benefits – one of them being the hens’ egg-laying extravagance. 

Fresh Eggs and blooming bougainvillea

We'll have plenty to eat now and a few to sell, too!  Let us know if you need any pastured eggs.

Resurrection Sunday

Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.  1 Corinthians 15:12-19

Image Credit

Last night we were preparing for a Resurrection Day Drama that our Youth Group was putting on during Worship Services today.  Tricia was sewing some tunics for Russ (Simon Peter) and Benjamin (Doubting Thomas) to wear.  I was painting a cardboard stone that was rolled away from the empty tomb.  While we were working on it, "The Ten Commandments" was on TV.

I watched as Moses knelt before the burning bush and the LORD said "I have seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.  I am come to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them to a good land - a land flowing with milk and honey."

Image Credit

It struck me how, like the Israelites, we are in bondage - bondage to the cruel taskmaster of sin.  We are cursed from sin that first entered into the world from back in the Garden with Adam and Eve. That sin broke the fellowship with Almighty God, separating us from a Holy God.  But thanks be to God for His indescribable Gift. He sent His Son Jesus to die a cruel death on a cross and shed His Blood for my sin and yours.  But it didn't end there.  On the third day He arose. He Lives! There are no bones in that empty Tomb. Because of His finished work on the cross, He saved those who put their trust in Him from death.  We have victory in Jesus!

Happy Resurrection Day!

2016 Meat Birds at 4 Weeks Old

The meat birds turned four weeks old today.  I walked out to the chicken tractor on the pasture with a bucket to pick out our two birds marked with zip ties around their ankles and carried them into the garage where I had the scale set up.  While I zeroed out the scale, I placed the two birds side by side so that you could see the difference in both breeds.

You'll remember that the Cornish Cross on the right matures at 8-10 weeks old and the Red Ranger matures at 10-12 weeks old.  You can tell be the picture below that the Cornish Cross has a big size advantage over his buddy.

Red Ranger (left) and Cornish Cross (right)

As I placed the Cornish Cross on the scale, one thing that I noticed is that his crop is full.  Can you see it bulging in the picture?  That means that he's just eaten.  In fact he's always eating!  The Cornish Crosses act as if they never get full.

The Cornish X tipping the scales

Drum roll please...  The Cornish Cross at 4 weeks old weighs in at 2 pounds and 15 ounces. Remember that we are aiming for a 6 pound bird at 8 weeks old.  Seems like it is possible that we'll make it on the Cornish Crosses.

Halfway there!

So let's take a closer look.  Last week the Cornish X weighed 1 lb. 15 ounces, so that fellow gained exactly a pound in a week.  If you compare the birds at four weeks old last year, we are WAY ahead of where we were - 1 pound 11 ounces to be exact.  I attribute that to better weather this year and healthier overall birds.

The tale of the tape

Let's have a look at the Red Ranger.  He's a broad, good looking bird, but just not as stocky and meaty as the Cornish Cross.

Red Ranger on the scale

And, this week the Red Ranger weighs 1 pound 5 ounces.

Red Ranger on the scale

Although the Red Ranger doesn't grow as quickly as the Cornish X, he's still growing.  He weights 6 ounces more than last week and 9 ounces more than the same week last year.

They're both growing.  I feel confident that the Cornish Cross, if they keep it up, will be ready for butchering at 8 weeks.  At this point (and things could certainly change), it looks like it is going to take the full 12 weeks for the Red Ranger to be mature.

One thing I wanted to share about feed troughs for the birds is that you want to make sure that all of your birds can fit around the trough to feed if they want to.  I actually found that a 10 foot vinyl gutter works great as a feed trough.  It is inexpensive and indestructible.  It allows all the chickens to get in there and eat when I bring them their Chick Grower.  Some of the birds are civilized and just line up nice and orderly to eat.  Others have no couth and actually stand up in the gutter.

In the gutter

I've been pushing the tractor to fresh grass each day and the birds seem to be doing well, eating grass and growing.  We are about empty of meat birds in our freezer, so in 4 or 5 weeks, it ought be be time to replenish the inventory.  One thing about pushing them is that the cows come running to eat on spilled feed leftover on the ground.  I don't like them to eat that close to the ground where the potential is high for them to pick up a parasite.  So as soon as I push the tractor, I lay down a tarp on the ground weighted down by a few bricks to keep the cows from eating on the ground.

Next week we'll take a look at where we are in our journey to 6 pounds... 

Things are Spiraling Out of Control!

What to do?   What to do?  Let me clarify.  I’m about finished harvesting our Romanesco.  Romanesco is also called Romanesco Broccoli or Roman Cauliflower.  It’s called this because it originated in Italy.  This is the second year I’ve planted it, and it is a prolific producer!  Not only does it produce well, but it is simply striking to look at!

A nice head of Romanesco

Romanesco is chartreuse in color and really stands out in the garden as it contrasts against the other green items.  Apart from the eye-catching color, there’s another thing that makes you do a double-take.  Romanesco is made up of spirals – logarithmic spirals.  What I mean is, each bud is a spiral made up of other buds which are spirals which are made up of other buds which are spirals, which are…  Well, you get the point…

Spirals upon spirals upon spirals...

Since it is a brassica, it is a close relative of the broccoli and cauliflower.  I find Romanesco to be a little crunchier than a cauliflower, with a taste approximating a cross between broccoli and cauliflower.  I walked out to the garden with a sharp knife and a large stainless steel colander.  In no time, I more than filled the colander up!

I need a bigger bucket!

As I was walking back in to bring them to the kitchen, I was looking at the bounty from “le jardin,” and I just had to set the colander down and admire the color.  The sunlight filtering through the blooming pear tree just made the Romaneso light up like a neon sign.  I’m sure my old camera didn’t really do it justice, but at least you can see a little bit of what I’m talking about:

Beautiful Chartreuse Romanesco

I’ve talked a lot about what the Romanesco looks like, but very little about what it tastes like.  It tastes great!  We normally cut it up, stems and all, and arrange it on a baking sheet, drizzle with oil and chopped garlic, and then roast in the oven.  Talk about good!  You can eat the leaves of the Romanesco as well, roasted in the same fashion.  However, the cows were begging by the fence and I obliged them with the leaves of the vegetables.  They were very appreciative.

Roasted Romanesco

If you are interested in trying this psychedelic vegetable in your garden and watching things around you spiral out of control, this is where I purchase my seeds: http://www.rareseeds.com/romanesco-italia-broccoli/  

Cut off the Horns of the Wicked

Psalm 75:10 (KJV) All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off; but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.

A commentary tells me that in this Bible verse, horns are literal, not figurative, and what it means is that the horns are defined as the “power, the might, the glory, the haughtiness” of the wicked and will be brought down, while the power of the righteous will be lifted up.

We’ve found that there are times on our little homestead where literal horns must be cut off.  Case in point is Chuck, our Jersey bull.

Young Chuck sitting on the ground (Ground Chuck?)

As with all of our animals, within the first couple weeks of their lives, we use dehorning paste to kill the little horn buds, so that their horns won’t ever develop.  Horns are dangerous to people, to other animals in the barnyard, and horns also wreak havoc on fences.  There are times in which for one reason or another, things don’t go as planned.  We put the same de-horning paste on Luna and her horns were killed.  For Chuck, however, one didn’t grow, but the other started to grow.  This presents a problem.

It’s too big now to use de-horning paste.  We’d have to load him into a trailer and bring him to the veterinarian to undergo surgery to remove it.  That is costly and time-consuming.  There is another option…

There is a device called an electric dehorner.  It essentially is a circular heating iron that heats up, and you apply it to the entire area encircling the horn bud.  It will kill the horn bud.  A friend of ours owns an electric dehorner and agreed to let us borrow it.  Actually, he was in the area and came by and took care of the procedure for us.

I’m not going to show pictures of the process.  We tied him up tight where he couldn’t thrash around.  Then we put the nose pliers in his nose to make him compliant.  Finally the cherry red heating element was used (similar to a brand).  The barn filled with smoke when the heating iron was applied, but Chuck was only uncomfortable for a minute.  He was running around acting normal in no time, although I’m sure his head was sore.

In checking in on him a few days later, you can see the round ring that the heating element made around his horn bud.  You can also see where the little horn is about to fall off.  With this method of horn removal, there’s no bleeding.  The ‘roots’ of the horn are dead and will not grow, ensuring the safety of us, other animals and our fences.

Ouch!

And that brings a gentle reminder to me that we need to decide what to do about the triplet’s horns.  Do we want to remove them?  If so, by what method?  We tried using a castrator band on Annie’s horns.  While it worked, scurs (partial horns) grew back and we’ll likely look to another method.  The electric de-horner for a calf looks to be way too large to use on a baby goat.  They make electric dehorners for goats.  Maybe we’ll let Chuck weigh in with his opinion?

"Don't Get me Started..."

Well, maybe not…

Where There's a Will, There's a WHEY (to make Ginger Carrots)!

In an earlier post where we were talking about separating curds from whey and how whey is a natural preservative, I promised that I would show how we use whey to preserve foods.  Lacto fermentation is a good alternative to freezing or canning.  We like to use a combination of all three food storage methods.  We generally ferment vegetables and make sauerkraut with cabbage and kimchi with bok choy.  Those are both good.  But my favorite lacto-fermented food item (and it's not even close) is Ginger Carrots.  We make this every year when the carrot crop comes in.

                                                                          

The recipe comes from Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions Cook book and it is very easy to make.  This dish is chock full of beneficial bacteria.  The bacteria that aids in digestion.  So what you are supposed to do is eat a bit of this just prior to your meal.  It’s also great for snacking on.  It is cool and tangy.  The ingredients to make 1 quart is as follows:

4 cups of grated carrots

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

2 teaspoons sea salt

4 Tablespoons Whey

We generally make a gallon at a time.  .  So here’s what you do:

First, cut the tops off of your carrots and peel the skins off.  This is a good use for all the ‘baby carrots’ that we harvested this year.

Getting the baby carrots ready

 Then process the carrots in a food processer with the grating blade on.

Processing the Carrots

We love ginger, so we grate the fresh ginger into the big mixing bowl where we have dumped our grated carrots.

Grating fresh ginger root

We add some sea salt…

(If you don't have whey, you can simply add more salt)

And then we add the whey that we reserved from the curds the other day.  We generally have a jar of whey in a jar in the back of the fridge for this purpose.

Adding the whey...

Now comes the fun part.  After mixing the shredded carrots, grated ginger, sea salt and whey up, we use the head to a tenderizing hammer to ‘bruise’ the carrots.  We pound and pound and pound.  It is a great stress reliever and exercise.  Pounding on the carrots cause the juices of the carrots to flow.

Pounding it out

Next we spoon the carrots into quart-size mason jars and tightly pack it into the jars until the carrot mixture is an inch below the top of the jars.  We put the lids and rings on the jars and set aside on the counter tops out of the way.  The orange color lights up the kitchen!

Beautiful!  But now we have to wait - 3 days, then 2 to 3 months.  (Patience is a virtue!)

We label the top of one of the jars with a sticky note.  You want to leave the jars at room temperature for 3 days and then we move them into the refrigerator.  The sticky note reminds us when to put them in the fridge.

A helpful reminder

We’ll ‘forget about them’ for a couple of months.  We find that they are at the peak flavor at around the 2-3 month timeframe, so at that time we’ll pull a jar out of the fridge and have a serving as a side dish or salad prior to every meal.  I never would have thought that I would’ve liked this, but I do!

Drying Dill

Since taking this picture a couple of weeks ago, the dill that is behind the lettuce has grown by leaps and bounds.  It smells so good!  We've been picking a bunch of it to make ranch dressing and dip and also to cook along with some fresh-picked carrots.

Fresh Dill

Tricia decided to pick a nice bit of it to put it in the dehydrator.  She wants to be able to put some aside for flavoring salad dressings and dips and also for making dill pickles later on in the spring.  I'll likely be planting cucumbers this week.  Our dill and our pickles won't be ripening at the same time.

First, Tricia washed the fresh dill in the sink in order to get little critters off of the dill.

Washing the Dill

Then she cut the dill into sizes that will fit onto the dehydrator and began loading the many trays.

Cutting the Dill to Fit

Upon loading, the dill is bright green, healthy looking and fluffy.

Let's Make a Dill

After a day or two the dill is dry.  The color is a darker green and it lays flat on the tray.  We pick the dill up and store it in zip loc bags for later use.

Dried Dill

And here is the final product.  We put it in a storage bag, put a drinking straw in the bag and sucked all of the air out of the bag and then quickly pulled the straw out and sealed the bag.

The dried dill smells very strong.  I guess all of the water has been removed and the dill flavor is concentrated in what's remaining.  We'll likely get another batch or two drying before the dill is finished.  I'll try to save some of the seeds and replant for next year.  Perhaps I can get another plant growing this year that will coincide with the cucumber crop.

216 Disappearing Beetles

Around this time each year beetles descend upon us by the millions.  Maybe I should say ascend since I think they come up from burrows in the ground.  I’m unsure of the name of the beetle.  They look like a June bug, but smaller and black in color.  They fly and end up in your hair, under your shirt, all over the place.  It’s like a plague.  They are especially prevalent at night and are attracted to our outside lights. 

Porch Light Attracting Beetles

They cling to the bricks and cover the sidewalks.  And that’s okay with me, believe it or not.  I’ve been going outside before bed with a bucket and begin filling the bucket with beetles I pick up.  It’s kind of tricky since the beetles try to fly out of the bucket, so I have to continually shake the bucket to keep them off-balance.  I also have to be very careful because our honeybees are attracted to the lights as well.  I don't want to pick up bees along with my beetles.  That would be painful.  Benjamin helps me pick them all up and put them in the bucket.  Last night I picked up 216 beetles.  Yep, I counted them, but I didn’t throw them away.  I carried them out to the meat birds in the chicken tractor out on the pasture.

The Beetle Bucket

Since this is about the fourth night I’ve done it, the chickens are kind of waiting on me.  As I open the door to the chicken tractor, they begin chirping, excitedly, licking their lips.  Wait, chickens don’t have lips.  Anyway, and then…  It’s on!

Come and Get It!

The birds frantically run around, each of them grabbing a beetle in their beaks, running around excitedly.

They try to get away from the other birds so they can eat the beetle without having to worry about others trying to steal their prized beetle snack.  Some seek out corners in which to eat their beetle in peace.  The poor beetles try to fly, but the acrobatic birds are like heat-seeking missiles.  They leap into the air and devour their prey.

A quiet table in the corner, please

Not only does ‘beetle-pickin’ clean the many beetles off the house, but it provides the growing meat birds with great nutrition.  A quick google search tells me that the protein % of beetles is around 50%!  That’s much higher than the 18% Chick Grower I’m feeding them.  Much cheaper, too…  To the meat birds, these beetles are like manna from heaven.