Tying Things Down for Autumn

 Tying Things Down for Autumn

The busy farm days of summer are behind us and these Autumn days we’re trying to use every decent weather day to finish up projects, winterize the farm animal homes, and generally tidy up the place.  

With that warm weather, I was able to finish painting the barn doors!  But as you can see, not the framing, so somethings still to look forward to this spring.  When the siding gets on, this home built barn will be a beauty! The sheep already call this space home, check it out on our post The Big Move to the Barn.

 

We’ve had a couple of bonfires, which was a great way to get rid of the piles of sticks and then all these Autumn leaves.

The three ducks have moved in with the older hens.  This is helpful for two reasons.  Justin completed his mouse proofing project on this coop, so we’ll save cost on grain. Secondly, it will be easier to water and feed this winter just two coops and the barn instead of three.  Check out our water feeder here.  This rubber bin filled with fresh water and a bottle of salt water floating in it, keeps the water from freezing.  We used 1/2 cup of salt in a 12 oz container.   We have already had some cold nights here at our backyard farm and when the regular waterers were frozen, these were not! I put a larger empty bin outside of the first bin to collect the over flow from the ducks splashing.

Justin re-built this entire coop this Fall with a lining of hardware cloth to mouse proof it.  You can see the ladies’ front porch is renovated and has an actual roof now with bonus storage for rakes and shovels that we use often off the back.

Our sweet new hens have started
laying eggs.  We’re getting three daily from them and they are small, but they’re just getting started.  Soon we’ll have fresh chicken eggs and duck eggs for sale! The ducks are consistently contributing their two daily eggs even after their winter move in with the hens... so we know they feel safe.

 

Comparison of duck egg to our newly laying chicken egg.  

Inky in the spotlight 

We’ve filled the barn with hay for the winter.

Carla the cat staying alert and ready to work.

I will be putting my creative energy into making art during the winter, so you will not be getting weekly posts over this time.  Check out our Virtual Craft Fair page.  I will be putting some prints up for sale.  We will update you with a fun post in February, when the lambs arrive!  

Mama sheep Dolly and Rosie; Southdown Sheep.

Nala the Katahdin sheep greeting Angus the rooster.

 I have appreciated all of you taking the time to visit our family farming blog and hope to see you back here soon.  If you haven’t yet, please take the time to mark yourself a follower on the upper right corner of the page.

What’s Two More?

I wasn’t born a farmer.  I didn’t dream of being one when I was a little girl.  It didn’t cross my mind while I was making my way through college.  It started as a slow growth like a seed being planted in the earth. First the large vegetable garden, then some blueberry bushes, and wouldn’t chickens be nice.  Our little seed of a farm grew to a seedling when some  years later  pigs seemed like a good addition, as they most certainly have. Now we have this growing herd of sheep.

Rosie and Dolly the Southdown sheep have joined our family farm.  They were both very shy their first night. We are expecting little lambs this February because they have been bred.  We can’t wait to update you when that happens.

It took a while for the new sheep to get friendly with our two Katahdins, but they did not fight or get aggressive as we expected.

They spent a lot of time in separate parts of the pasture.

Now they all spend more time together and are beginning to act like a herd.  

Justin’s staycation this October has been very fruitful.  A whole new pasture has been born behind the barn.  The sheep will have a pen in the big warm barn this winter.

Thank you for checking out our new additions and while you’re here, mark yourself a follower of our Castonguay This’N’That Family Farm.

Welcome Dolly and Rosie!

Raising Turkeys: the Possibilities

Raising Turkeys: the Possibilities

 Five Ideas for What to Do With All That Turkey Meat.

We usually start off our year with six turkey chicks.  On average, we’ve lost one turkey per year.  It is important not to let your turkeys grow too large or they risk death by heart attack. We learned that our first year raising turkeys. This year we harvested all six turkeys.  

1: Smoke And Slice the Turkey Breast

This is a delicious and cost savings way to use your turkey.  This cold cut turkey in the deli is $9/pound at least.  By packaging these in small portions and freezing, you will be able to enjoy it all year round.

2: Turkey Pot Pie

Find yourself a delicious recipe and cook up some turkey pot pies.  We have a large family and so we use full size aluminum casserole pans to freeze for ready made meals later in the year.  The nice thing is you could make these to whatever size your family needs. This is a great use of the extra turkey bones with meat that are harder to freeze in nice sized portions.  We make these the day the turkeys come back as meat.  Many times there is extra turkey broth from this project and that also could be frozen or even canned for later meals.

3: Frying a Turkey 

This is the first year we have tried this and it was fantastic for a whole family get together.  It was fried in peanut oil for one hour and then cooled here for a good 20 minutes prior to cutting and serving.

4: The Classic Thanksgiving Turkey 

We have enjoyed home grown thanksgiving turkey a few years now.  It feels wholesome and connects this family tradition to our history laden holiday in a deeper way.  Having this with our canned vegetables is very satisfying.

5: Selling or Bartering With Other Farmers

We are blessed to have a maple syrup farmer to trade a turkey for their delicious maple syrup.  This is a relationship that has been built and have continued for the same number of years that we have raised turkeys.  We would love to continue to network with other farmers to barter for other desired items.

 

Green Beans; A Plentiful Harvest

Canning That Produce

Picking those fresh green beans is a job for the whole family.

Preparing the green beans for canning by washing and snipping the ends.

Washing the canning jars and lids.

Stuffing the jars as full as possible.

Adding 1tsp of canning salt for a quart of green beans and water to the base of the rim.

Sterilizing the lids by boiling for two minutes.

Placing the complete cans in the pressure cooker.

Pressure cooking for 20 minutes.  It takes quite a while of boiling for the pressure cooker to build up enough pressure to be ready.  There is a pressure release valve that pops up when it is ready.  That’s when you start the 20 minute timer.

It takes a long time after the 20 minutes of time pressure cooking for the pressure to decrease to a safe level to open the pressure cooker.  The cans will then be moved to a towel and wrapped together to slow the cooling process.  

Once we canned enough green beans, we still had enough extra that we sold them in our virtual farm stand.  We had plenty to eat ourselves as well.  Fresh green beans are delicious and enjoying your own canned beans later in the year is very satisfying.  Beans are fairly easy to cultivate and a few plants give a lot of beans. Give it a try a provide for yourself a very healthy home grown food.

This is the photo Amelia submitted to 4H for their first virtual exhibit hall 2020.  Check out all of the 4H projects done by Amelia and her siblings at our 4H post.

Laying the overgrown beans out on some paper in the sun, helps the bean to dry up and be ready for storing.  When the bean is dry and firm, it is ready for cracking.  This is more then enough for next year’s planting. They can also be used from a family recipe of homemade brown beans..

 

Garden Living; Peas In a Pod

Garden Living; Peas In a Pod

How we grow and process our peas

Seedlings in the garden:

 

• We put up our posts and fencing first; you can also use a trellis.

• We plant 2 rows of peas, one on each side of the fence 1 inch apart and 1 inch deep.  

• Weed early to give your plants a chance to root.

Caring for the pea plants