*meet the survivors

We hope your Thanksgiving was absolutely wonderful, ours was. This year's Thanksgiving looked a lot different than last year for sure!  We had a much smaller gathering this holiday and I must say I did miss all the hum of the large group that was here a year ago, but simple was good this year. I would love it if we could have Thanksgiving here every year, all my sisters with their families and our parents, as well as some friends but that is just not realistic. We celebrated and gave thanks with Robert, Henry and my mom. It was nice to have Mom here cooking alongside her on this traditional feasting day!

Over the past 7 months or so we have been raising heritage breed turkeys for the holiday season.  We were blessed to sell three of our healthy free ranged heritage breed turkeys to families this Thanksgiving. We have kept a pair of each breed so we can continue to breed and provide good clean meat for our table and others.  I was delighted to get emails and text telling me how delicious and clean the meat of their turkeys were on T-day!  That my friends was so rewarding.  That is the reason we do what we do!    We have a few more available for the Christmas holiday as well.

This year we cooked half, yes HALF of our 40 lb turkey for or feast and we processed the other half as ground turkey meat for tasty dishes that will be cooked up in the coming months. Mom and I  were able to get 11 pounds of ground turkey packaged and into the freezer.   We have one other turkey (Spanish Black Heritage) that we butchered which is set aside for ground turkey as well.  This is one more food item I don't have to buy from the food industry and that makes me happy! 

Is your mouth watering? I know mine is! These two pics of this beautifully smoked turkey is one that we raised!  One of our customers was kind enough to send us pics of this beaut that adorned their Thanksgiving table.

 

*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)

 

*saponification taking place

Lemongrass & Lavender blend

I am a soap maker, bet you didn't know that, did you? I haven't made soap in a year or more.  I love to create great recipes by pairing up different oils for a great bubbly lather and wonderful cleansing abilities.  I have had oils that I needed to mix with some caustic soda for some time now to replenish our personal supply as well as selling.  When I had my store open, All Natural Body Soaps, I was making soap every few months.  I have missed it!

Orange & Clove blend with pulverized orange peel

This one smelled like food when we first poured it in the mold to set.  The whole house smelled delicious! 

 

Franziska and I had a great time working on several things that needed to be done. She was just the motivator I needed to get the soap made, not to mention both she and I were out of soap!  A few weeks ago, I bought my first soap in about 5 years.  I hated having to purchase commercially made soap. It took me numerous  trips to the store (and washing with shampoo) before I put several bars into my shopping cart. 

I am not sure if I can wait the allotted time before use!  I make cold-process soap therefore we have to wait for it to go through a curing process before the lye has completely neutralized for safe use.  

~Lynnie