*preparations under way

Turkey Day is coming swiftly around the corner and with today's weather it seems as if we are closer to mid February instead of first of November.  Both my dh and I have gotten several alerts on our phones today regarding a potential freeze tonight here in NW Florida.  Many of us are experiencing high, steady, breezy winds during this time as well due to the Hurricane Sandy.  Our winter preparations have come a bit sooner than normal, so today we were dutifully outside working in the barn to make tonight's temps more bearable for the livestock.  We normally make sweaters for our goats to wear during cold or freezing temps, but tonight extra hay bedding will have to do. Our chickens get their indoor coop enclosed with heavy canvas cloth tarps draping around to break the piercing winds that so unmercifully whisk through the barn.  The rabbits are more than happy to see the cooler weather, they actually do much better in this cold weather as opposed to the warmer days.  We have tried to make all of our creatures have the comforts of home when possible.  We recently "de-catted" our house, meaning we introduced our last two indoor cats to the grand outdoors.  We have a total of 5 cats, all now "out door" cats!  We have a heat lamp in a dog (cat for us) igloo up on the loft in the barn, hopefully they will be smart enough to run into it for warmth if needed.

Turns out, even cats like to make nests. Who would have thunk it?

A fresh new roll of  hay for winter bedding, were ready!

Speaking of Turkey Day, my dh and I butchered two turkeys a week or more ago.  Nothing different in butchering a turkey, if you have butchered a chicken. Just bigger scale, well - and for Heckle just GIGANTIC scale.  So this is how it went... Our first turkeys were Heckle and Jeckle, two BBB (Broad Breasted Bronze) which were to grow for a few months and then be butchered for the table or freezer.  Jeckle was butchered for Christmas last year and Heckle quickly became my dh's "pet".   The time had come for the friendship to end.  Let me just say, BBB Turkey's should NOT be allowed to grow past 4 months time.  We decided to go ahead and butcher one of our Spanish Black Turkeys (heritage breed) and Heckle (the BBB).   We got everything ready so the whole process would run smoothly as possible.   The Spanish Black was killed, butchered and dressed out at 10 pounds.  He was actually about a month ahead of his prime butchering time, so we are expecting our other turkeys to dress out somewhere between 12 and 15 pounds when we butcher in mid November.  NOW, Heckle on the other hand weighed 50 pounds before he was butchered, after and fully dressed he weighed 40 pounds. Yes, 40 pounds. Can you imagine cooking a 40 pound turkey in your oven for your family for Thanksgiving or any other day?  We have decided to saw him in half so we can have a 20 pound turkey at a time.   Now clearly we kept him way to long but he was only just starting to show signs of not being able to support his own weight. I would post a picture of him all dressed out, but I might lose a few readers (aka Lori, Kathy and others) if I do.. so I will pass.


Maybe you will enjoy this instead...
 (click on the holiday turkey for a great little show)

 

*canning in the cupboards, meat in the freezer

This past week Eric and I started our day off with the duties of a homesteader at the top of our list.  When you raise rabbits for meat that means there has to be a butchering day, or that you load them up and take them to a processor.  We do it all from the breeding to the freezing right her at Erilyn.  We have had our feeder pens full for a little while now, but time has just not presented itself for a butcher date as we might have liked.

We started our morning off with prepping.  Cutting instruments, clean towels, hot pots of water, trash can lined, with holding food from the ones who would be butchered on this day.. etc. I am sure you don't want all the details.   I must tell you though, that Eric and I operate as a fantastic team. He kills and I butcher. We rocked it and killed, butchered, prepared for freezer - 20 rabbits which dressed out at approximately 32 pounds of meat.  Thirty-Two pounds of the leanest cleanest white meat you will find!  It has been dubbed as "cute meat".  So if you are at my house and we are eating cute meat AKA rabbit, enjoy!

We have 5 more fryers that are finishing out which will likely take a month or so, then we will be able to butcher them too.  Other that that we are down to our two does (breeding stock) and our buck (breeding stock) and one new litter of 6 that was born just this past week.   We are so grateful for the opportunity to raise our own healthy lean meat for our table!

*frayja shouts out a hi!

Frayja, our Great Dane, turned two in March, it seems like yesterday that we added her to our family. She is growing and maturing more and more all the time. She has just gained the privilege to go back in the gardening area with us when we are working in that part of the property. She has also been introduced to the barnyard while the chickens and turkeys are out free ranging. She is so controlled while we are walking around in the barnyard, we are really proud of her good manners.  We are constantly marveled at the fact that we have a dog, a beastly sized dog in our home.  If you know us well, I am sure you are still marveling too!

 Just this week she begged me to wear her skirt that her cousin, Kierstyn, gave her. She also is hoping that Kierstyn is saving her other old swim suit skirts for her, she loves dressing up (NOT).

 This image looks familiar I am sure, she is here often and surely I have shared this view of her with you before!

 I love this profile picture of her with her buddy Julie, in the background. 

 This is Frayja's mom, isn't she a pretty lady?~!

 This is  Frayja's daddy with two of her siblings.  Her father was VERY tall and lanky.  Frayja has really gotten quite a bit of height over the last year. We think she has finally topped out in her growth.  Estimating her weight now about about 140lbs.  She has some body fat on her chest area, so we have cut her feedings back just a bit.  She normally gets 4 cups of food in the morning and 4 cups in the evening. Her night time feeding now consist of 2 cups instead of the 4. She gets plenty of snacks through out the day as well, so don't feel too sorry for her.

 Second from the left, is Fray! Aren't puppies adorable!

*chick-inn update

  Our buff laced polish chick - Fritter

Wendell and his girls.Oh and lets take a moment of silence for Rebels' sister, Ms Trump.  One morning this past week when I came out mid morning to sit in the swing under the big oak tree near the garden, I found Ms Trump laying in the watering hole. So sad. She had been well, no signs of distress on her body. We assume  she fell into the watering hole and couldn't get out for some reason this time..?

My beloved loves and his turkeys as well as the growing flock all over getting their morning treats from the kitchen bucket. 

Speaking of chickens, we have grown in numbers since I last brought you an update from Chick-Inn. We have our original chickens that we purchased two years ago January, many of which may or may not be laying on a regular basis. Some of them who are enjoying the plentiful lands to roam for food, enjoying supplemental grain feed when needed, as well as being placed in four walls of safety each night are NOT producing on a regular basis!  We have approximately 26 full sized laying hens, and we are only collecting on an average 15 eggs per day.  We are still able to fill our weekly orders so, we are good on that front. We are not in the business of keeping chickens just to keep chickens and while we picked up many of the hens to survey their vents in hopes of getting a clue as to who was laying and who wasn't.  Unfortunately we are not skilled enough to make the call and feel good about culling those who we have deemed non-layer. So for now we have started marking the legs of those who are laying with some thin colored tape.  This, as you can imagine, cause me to spend much time in  and around the barn.  The weather has been rather nice the last few days, so staying outside working in the garden and running back over to the barn to see who just announced the gift of an egg hasn't been hard to do. 

We have a hen who has 5 little pullets that are fully feathered out now. She is doing a great job taking care of these little chickens.  I am amazed at her leading, guiding and the care she provides for them.  Anytime we give scraps to them from the table, the mother hen will run over pick the food apart throwing it on the ground for her babies.  In fact, Eric and I are beginning to get a little concerned for her because she is light as a feather. She has visibly lost weight and we do all we can to encourage her to take food for herself.  (so that is 26 full grown hens, 5 pullets thus far)


We also have a hen who just hatched out 7 little baby chicks last week. They are so very cute! And this mother hen is showing wonderful protective mothering habits as well!  I have really enjoyed having chicks this time around because I do not have to do the work, the momma hen does it all. She teaches them to eat, to forage, she keeps them warm so a heat light is not even necessary. They are of course in a protective covering so no predators can get to them, but because they are not in a broody box with a light, I do not have to mess with wood shavings and cleaning out a poopy box daily! Now that is something to crow about!  (so this the total number of chickens.. ready?... 26 full size laying hens, 5 pullets with their sex yet waiting to be discovered, and 7 little chicks)  We will have to get our minds back on thinning the flock in the coming months...


 
 The turkeys are all doing great!  They love classical music, hard rock, whistling, twangy country music and probably a whole host of other music.  When we are in the barnyard, we play music for them at watch the toms puff up and show off. We have 4 sold, 7 that we are keeping for breeding purposes and several more that are available for someones Thanksgiving table!  If you are in the NW Florida area and looking for a heritage breed organically free range raised, we have a turkey for you!


 

*can it!

A week or so ago, I was sharing with you about my water bath canning experiences and I promised you that I would also share my first time pressure canning experience as well!  My dear husband has spent quite a bit of time researching pressure cookers/canners a while back and so we made the investment and purchased the 30 qt All American Pressure Cooker. I LOVE IT!

Let me back up just a little here and give you a bit of history. If you have been reading long enough you may recall that my parents were spring and fall gardeners. We processed and stored much of what came from the garden each season. We never had a pressure cooker that I can recall. I have always had a fear of a pressure canner due to talk that was heard around the big farm house in Southeast Georgia where my grand parents lived.  My mother had stories of when she was a young girl having seen peas all over the ceiling of their home, due to an exploded pressure cooker. So as you can imagine there was a bit of fear dancing around in me as we started to can our first jars of veggies a few weeks ago. 

We have canned 30 quarts of potatoes.  Early this spring we planted 75+ pounds of potatoe seeds and reaped quite a harvest. We have not purchased potatoes since that time.  We still have quite a stock, but many of them are starting to get "eyes" on them.  In order to continue our potatoe stock, we are slicing off the "eyes" with a portion of the potatoe, and planting them in our fall garden.  The other portion of the potatoes have been peeled, cubed and canned.   These can be used for potatoe salad, breakfast potatoes, mashed potatoes, stewed potatoes, or even in soups. 

 Yeh, so it is easy to see why there must be some care taken in order to properly use a pressure cooker. It isn't like throwing a pot of water on to boil with a boil control in the pot (*wink Franziska), but more like specific things that have to be done, which are NOT hard to do.   I encourage you, if you have a pressure cooker read the manual that came with it, and get busy following each step closely while you start canning with confidence.

As the pot started to heat up to the proper temperature, and pressure, these labels on the pot are staring your right in the eye.  These labels are not to be removed (per the All American company).  Listen when I say, it is really simple to can and even more safe in the newer pressure cookers that are now equipped with the safety pressure valve in case something goes haywire. 

We are looking forward to canning other things from our fall garden this year.  So, what have you canned lately?