Quite a Saturday

We did a test run of chickens on Monday, but Saturday was our big day. Jonathan had his customers scheduled to pick up chickens in the afternoon, so we got going bright and early.

Our jobs were the same as on Monday. Andrew took photos this time, so we don't have one of him scalding chickens. It was tougher for him on Saturday because there was hardly a breeze and smoke from the wood fire underneath the scalder kept hitting him in the face. At one point he took the garden hose to his rubber boots because they were smoking! Guess he got too close to a burning log.

The first step was to take the chickens from their movable pen in the field and bring them over in the back of the pick up truck. It's amazing what that truck has been used for since the boys were given it!

On Monday I worked inside, but this time my work station was set up outside. I did "quality control," which involved removing anything the boys didn't remove, washing, weighing, bagging and recording. I then carried them to the freezers inside the main floor of the house. Quite the exercise! My back was a bit sore when we were finished from bending over the table. It's a bit tough to read the sheet, but these chickens averaged between seven and eight pounds! Lots of good meat.

This wasn't exactly David's favorite occupation, but he still managed to enjoy the day. David was our "go fer" and helped everyone with what they were doing. In the photo below he was helping Peter. Note the location of our horse in the background.

Thankfully the flies weren't a problem.

Jim was back to manning the chicken plucker. I was a bit worried before we got started, because last week he had injured his right knee and was hobbling around. A taller stool helped him to get the job done.

In the middle of the morning we viewed a crop duster as it flew over our house and took multiple swoops over the ridge and lake to spray a field to the south of us. It was kind of interesting to see it flying over and over again.

A few times the plane flew directly overhead, and I was hoping the sprayer was shut off. We don't do any spraying of our fields and wish our neighbors wouldn't, either.

Close to lunch time all the chickens were butchered and cleaned up, but the quality control lady was still at work. Everyone but I went into the house for lunch, and I kept working on the chickens that were remaining.

All of a sudden from behind me I heard a very loud whistling sound. I turned around and was shocked to see a huge B-52 bomber flying over our horse and gardens! To me it looked so low that I thought it was landing.

I had forgotten the camera was still outside, and yelled for the boys to come running. How often does a bomber fly over your house? Not that we want them to, but it was quite an experience. In Fargo we lived not too far from the airport/air guard base and had front row seats to watching the Blue Angels and other precision jets fly in formations over our house during the yearly air shows. We also had plenty of F-16's and commercial jets overhead, and couldn't wait to move to peace and quiet in the country.

Andrew took this photo below as the bomber was flying away toward Canada. I kicked myself because I could have taken a very close up view -- to the point that I felt as if I could have seen the pilot!

The bomber took a loop and came back over the house, heading south.

Later in the afternoon when a customer came over to pick up his chickens he told us he had also seen the bomber over his house. He said it had come from the Minot Air Force Base (approxomately 100 miles away), where they were having Northern Neighbors Day.

Jim had invited one of the families picking up chicken to stay for supper, and we had -- guess what? Chicken!

Back to Fall?

We had quite a bit of rain yesterday, making our driveway rather sloppy again. David and I delivered strawberries to someone, and almost went down the hill sideways with the station wagon. David thought that was great, but I sure didn't.

This morning Peter came in after milking and asked for a winter hat -- it's only in the lower 40's this morning with a very stiff wind. Originally the forecast predicted a high today of 60, but now they are saying possibly upper 60's. This has been a very different "summer" for us.

I thought I would hang my clothes out last night to save some time this morning. They should be very clean, as they probably received at least three extra rinses. We'll see how long it takes before they actually dry!

Chicken Time

Another busy day today, with chicken butchering on the agenda. We managed to take care of 75 so far, and hopefully we'll be able to do more later this week.

This is the Director of the North Dakota Home School Association's side job! And he does a good job of it at that!
I didn't take a photo of Jonathan doing his main job, which was doing in the chickens. This was the first time the deed was done in full view of my kitchen window, but I was too busy to think much about it.

These chickens are the result of Jonathan's diligent work in raising these broilers from chicks. It has taken 10 weeks.

Peter, doing the eviscerating, which is a fancy term for gutting a chicken. Notice how close Samson is laying to the box of scraps. He was very good about not helping himself.

David got the job of using the chicken plucker. We borrowed this one from a neighbor, but hope some day to make our own Whizbang Chicken Plucker.

We used to use the bottom of an old pressure canner to scald chickens, but this batch was too big for the pot. So, Jim cleaned out and heated water in a metal garbage can. Andrew did a very good job of dipping the chicken until they were ready to be plucked.

We had some trouble getting broiler bags ... Apparently some companies don't like dealing with checks instead of credit cards, and when Jonathan finally called them to see what was happening, they were just sitting on the check. It was a good thing he did give them a call, as the person on the line said they would begin processing our order. They have yet to arrive.

So, I volunteered my bread bags that I purchased through my friend Marci of Down on the Farm blog fame. She has a wonderful online store, and I was able to call her to see if she had more bags for us. She did, and they will soon be on their way. What a blessing. Marci told me these bags are what she uses to freeze her chickens.

When Jonathan produced his brochure in preparation for selling these chickens he stated they would probably weigh in between four to five pounds. However, partly due to waiting for the bags to arrive the chickens had a tremendous growth spurt and actually the dressed weight was more between six to a little over eight pounds! I am thrilled with that, since our family needs something like an eight pounder to feed my growing boys. Hopefully others will be thrilled with it as well.

We cooked one of our eight pounders tonight. I love my enamel covered cast iron baking pan; it helps to make things delicious. The only problem is getting the pan out of the oven!

Homestead Newcomers

I wanted to show my Mom some photos of my garden by the patio area. My delphiniums are starting to blossom, and I think they are so very pretty. I took these photos before the big storm the night before last, because I thought the flowers might not make it if the winds were going to be as strong as predicted. Thankfully they did fine.

Below are the Sweet Williams I transplanted out of the garden area near where my herbs are growing. They are also doing very well. I have some petunias in there, too, which were started from seed.

The delphiniums that have yet to blossom in this photo are a different shade of purple. Today they are open quite a bit more.

You can see our trusty house wrap in the background. Jim has been talking to a mill near Bemidji, MN to see if they would do rough pine boards for us for siding.

I walked outside about suppertime, and found something else in my garden:

These are Funny Face's kittens that were born the weekend the guys were participating in the Appleseed shoot. She had them in David's go cart, and when the boys wanted to start working on it they transferred them to underneath the goat's milking stand in the barn.

One day we showed Funny Face's kittens to a lady and her nephew who were interested in some barn cats, and picked out two for when they are weaned. Apparently Funny Face didn't like how we exposed her kittens, so that day she moved them to the woodpile in the big culvert we have at the edge of the woods. That made it very difficult to even get close to the kittens, since as soon as they heard or saw us they would scatter farther into the woodpile.

Today was the first day they ventured by the house. I have a feeling Funny Face is getting tired of feeding them (although last night I saw her bringing a mouse over there), so she brought them over to give us the opportunity. We soaked cat food in goat milk and let them at it. They ate like troopers!

Hopefully they will become more friendly, and soon will be ready to find new homes.

PS: Our family is hosting an Appleseed Project weekend on our farmstead, August 22-23. You are welcome to attend!

My Protector

We had quite a storm last night, starting a bit after midnight. This morning Jim said the rain gauge recorded 2-1/2 inches, but I'm wondering if there was some water in it before the storm which had collected from watering plants. Today was so fresh and the air very clear from all the activity during the night. The temperature was somewhere in the lower 70's.

I thoroughly enjoyed doing laundry today, since it meant I was outside hanging clothes on the line. There was quite a wind, but the clothes managed to stay on the lines.

I have a protector when I do laundry: Samson. For some reason, he takes it as his duty to walk with me over to the clotheslines and watch in the shade until I am ready to head back to the house. When he knows I am finished he either walks back with me or heads off to look for someone else.

Today we were also joined by our cat, Lena. She can be a bit of a pest, as she enjoys climbing into my laundry basket to check out how nice the clothes feel. While we were out there, Lena noticed a bird on the crossbar holding up the lines. The bird was facing the other direction and singing to its heart's content, so Lena decided she would try to snatch the poor thing. Samson was lounging in the shade, but I noticed that he suddenly picked up his head and was watching Lena. Just as she was about to spring he jumped for her and scared her out of her mission.

I doubt if Samson deliberately tried to keep the bird safe, but I do know he thoroughly enjoyed foiling Lena's plans.

Second Try

Peter, Andrew and David gave it another try today. Andrew used bigger bolts and some other things to hold the snowmobile engine onto the go cart frame. I was hanging clothes outside at the time, and it was quite a bit of noise! But, they got it going.

Peter, taking the go cart for another spin.

Unfortunately, by the time Andrew returned from his route they noticed a bolt had gotten loose and is now missing, and the engine was bouncing around again. So, it's back to the drawing board.

Jim has been coaching the boys, but they are responsible to figure out what to do next. Good homeschooling project for a warm, sunny day.

Company

Friends came to visit for the day yesterday. We have four sons, they have 5, so what do you do with all that energy?


David was given a go-cart from someone in the area and needed to get it going. Andrew installed a snowmobile engine on the cart, and yesterday the boys worked on it and got it going. They got it up to quite a speed, and then the engine fell off! Guess the bolts used weren't strong enough.

Now it's back to the drawing board to figure out how to bolt the engine to the frame. I'm not worried; Andrew will figure it out. He's quite the mechanic.

So, the boys had to find something else to do.

Everyone but Jonathan donned swimming gear and poled out to the deeper part of the lake. It was time for swimming! After a pep talk from Jim about keeping safety in mind and a quick prayer, off they went.

A fun time was had by all.

The only cloud on the day was when barefooted Peter was stepped on by our horse. Ouch! She got his big toe. Our friend is an EMT, and determined the toe wasn't broken, thankfully. We had Peter soak it in hot then cold water, and he went to bed.

This morning Peter told me he hardly slept last night, so he went back to bed after milking the goats. After more doctoring, Peter is sitting in the recliner with his feet up, enjoying a book that came in today's mail from interlibrary loan. Our family would have a hard time without that service!

I'm also including a photo of one of my rose bushes. It was much prettier before the wind blew away some of the rose petals, but still looks very nice.

Greening Up

Our gardens are looking pretty good, in spite of how cool our spring turned out to be this year. Our tomato plants that were planted in the hoop house are doing very well. That is a very good thing, since last year we hardly had any tomatoes that made it to maturity on the vines. Most of them had to be picked just before a killing frost and left to ripen in the upstairs of our house.

Above are our raspberry plants. The boys were complaining that they couldn't do any weeding in there because there are too many bees buzzing the plants! That is a very good thing, too.

We've had many occasions when there was rain in the forecast, but none came. This is what the clouds looked like on Friday afternoon. We thought for sure it would rain -- but there was only a brief period of showers.

From this photo you can tell the rain went north of us, and headed into Canada.

Today we actually had a good soaking rain. Since we've been skunked so many times the boys waited to get the animals into the barn, and the joke was on them. Everyone was soaked to the skin by the time they got back into the house. We are very thankful for every drop of rain.

We are in the beginning of our harvest of strawberries. They are so good! I'm not sure how we'll market them, but until then we are enjoying them ourselves.

I've been busy cleaning canning jars that weren't used last year for the harvest. We placed an ad in the local weekly newspaper for jars, and came up with quite a few. I didn't have time to do anything with the remaining jars, so for the past few days I've been cleaning and organizing them into boxes for water bath canning and pressure canning. It will be so nice to have them ready for me when it's time to begin.

Summer Days

It's amazing to me how our weather went from a very chilly spring to warm, sunny days. This weekend we had temperatures in the 80's, and our gardens are growing like crazy. The weeds are growing, too, and it's always a challenge to keep ahead of them.

On Saturday Jim, Jonathan and Peter headed to near Bismarck to attend the 7th annual Prairie Days, which is a weekend of fun, fellowship, and teaching of homesteading skills. A lot of our friends attend the event. This year Jonathan was asked to provide a workshop on survival skills, and then the three played bluegrass music during one of the shared meals.

Andrew, David and I stayed behind to take care of the home front. We were kept busy with chores ... Jonathan has a lot of chickens running around at various stages of development, so we kept busy keeping everybody happy.

There are broiler chickens and our egg layers in movable pens out in the field, and we made sure there was plenty of fresh water and food for them. The cow and horse are also located in this field.

Those bell waterers can be a challenge to maintain, since the filter can become clogged and then water doesn't refill the tray. We had to clean out a couple of them during our day of keeping watch over the chickens.

These are the chicks still growing in the chicken coop. I can't remember how old they are now, but they are certainly growing like the weeds in the gardens.

So, what do you do with old campaign signs? You create a raft!

Andrew designed and created a raft made out of four old barrels and scrap wood. I was so impressed with the job he did. He even kept a hole in the middle and added a ladder, so after jumping off the raft they can go under the raft and come up in the middle and climb back on.

Instead of anchoring the raft in the lake to be left there all summer they are using poles to push it out to the main part of the lake and then drop anchor and have some fun.

Yesterday I was talked into taking a spin on the raft with David and Andrew. I didn't swim, but enjoyed watching them having fun in the water. The lake isn't very deep, but we poled the raft to a spot where it was plenty deep for the boys. The weather was a bit warmer than when we took the above photo!

Once the boys were swimming we noticed that we were drifting more than we should have been -- turns out Andrew's knot didn't hold when tying the anchor rope to the raft. We were able to pole to where we noticed the rope floating in the water and retied it to the raft.

By then it was time to get back to shore for one more feeding of the chicks before their food was taken away for the night. It turned out to be quite a challenge to pole against the breeze to get back to shore.

Even our dog Samson got into the act of enjoying the water. We didn't allow him to go with us on the raft, so he decided to try to follow us on shore. Just as we were starting to pole back to shore, we noticed that Samson had decided to swim all the way across from one shore to the opposite one. Good thing he is a good swimmer, and made it home before we did. The guys had our camera down at Prairie Days, so I didn't get any photos of the day.

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PS: I don't know how to fix the problem of keeping my paragraphs where I want them to be. Whenever I use photos on a blog entry, it seems I am at the mercy of the Blogger program as to how the paragraphs and placement of the photos are arranged when I publish the post. It has been very frustrating to me. Does anyone else have this problem?

My Appleseed Project Weekend -- Chores

I thought I would give you an example of what it is like on the farm when I am left to do chores while everyone else leaves to attend an event. I don't know if it's because I'm unfamiliar with the inner workings of our farm (the boys don't always tell me about their misadventures or quirky animals) or if it's just that things happen. It sure makes life interesting!

Last weekend was a very busy one for me. Jim and the boys left by 6:00 a.m. to travel a couple of hours to where the Appleseed Project weekend would take place. I went back out to finish chores around 8:00, and then worked on some other projects around the house.

Around noon I checked on the broiler chicks located in the chicken barn. Those creatures sure can eat! Jonathan has boards blocking the chicks into one area of the barn, and when they saw me walk in they flocked to the other side of the gate. It was very hard not to step on them. I felt like I was constantly filling their feeding dishes.

This time I noticed the bell waterer had quit working, so the chicks weren't getting any water. I tried fiddling with the tube (there is a bucket of water that feeds the waterer), but nothing happened. I do not possess a mechanical mind and couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I walked up the hill and checked the internet.

From what I gathered, the filter on the waterer was most likely plugged, but it didn't tell me where the filter was located or how to access it! I decided to go back down and fill some small feeders Jonathan had left in the barn with water. That meant I had to go down every hour or so and refill the pans.

Later I went to check the egg layers located in movable pens a ways from the house and behind our raspberry bushes. In one pen I discovered a chicken close to death. The others had pecked her so badly that her intestines were out. By the time I got her out of the pen she was dead. I didn't have a clue why that had just happened.

Later in the day I knew the shoot would be over, so I called someone's cell phone and he gave the phone to Jonathan. He then was able to walk me through how to find and clean the filter on the waterer, and wonder of wonders -- it worked! I was so relieved, and I'm sure the chicks were as well.

I also discussed the dead chicken, and Jonathan asked me if that pen still had food in the feeder. I had thought so, but when I went back to check things I did notice the feeder was smaller than the other pens' feeders, and it was indeed short of feed. No wonder the chickens had found a victim to prey on.

I have a feeling our dog Samson decided so sneak over to the woods where I left the dead chicken, as he had a very guilty look on his face when I walked out of the house.

Jim had asked me to water the gardens; I tried, but couldn't figure out how to get the water to go to the sprinkler I wanted it to go to. I gave it up for the time being. This really made me wish I had paid closer attention to the times I watched the men work the sprinkler system.

In the evening I tucked everyone in for the night, and when I was down checking the cow and horse I heard a terrible ruckus. Three roosters were beating up on a fourth one. The night before one of the Buff Orpington roosters had been sitting on a pile of dirt in front of the house; his eyes were swollen shut and he hardly moved. In the morning he seemed better, but apparently the other roosters weren't finished with him yet. I grabbed a stick and smacked the attacking roosters and they finally left the injured one alone. He entered the barn, and I hoped he would have a chance to recover.

I also had to contend with our cat, Funny Face. She seems to have been pregnant forever, but I had a feeling she was in labor and wanted to deliver in the house. She has had her kittens outside in the past, and this time we wanted her to do that as well. Jim has an allergy to cats.

Funny Face followed me all over the farm and meowed constantly. I even walked over to the chicken tractors three times in a half hour, and she followed me every time! I don't know how she did it.

During evening chores I had to take the food away from the broiler chicks. We found out the hard way that they tend to eat themselves into problems and can have heart attacks from eating too much. So, they need to be without food for 12 hours each day. They weren't too happy with me when I took the feeders out for the night.

In the morning I was a welcome sight for the chicks, and it was quite a challenge to get the feeders back into their pen without setting them on somebody. They acted like I had starved them!

Another waterer in one of the egg layer's pen went out, and I was glad I had talked to Jonathan the night before so I knew what to do to fix it. I actually had to hold onto the top cover of the pen (there was a pretty stiff wind out there and I didn't want it flying off its hinges), climb in and repair the waterer, then get it hanging again on its nail. I was beginning to feel like Houdini!

At noon I went down to give the goats and large animals more hay. The guys have been letting the goats out to roam, but I thought that was a recipe for disaster with only me here so I kept them in the barnyard. They didn't like me for it, though. The cow is usually staked out for the day, but I wasn't going to tackle that or milking the goats.

Anyway, one of our yearling goats had gotten her head out of the fence and was stuck. I couldn't get her out, so I walked back up to the house and tried to think about what to do.

All of a sudden the stuck goat was screaming, and I ran down there to find the cow bashing her on her side. There was also a couple of other goats that were smashing into her as well. She was frantic. It's usually hard to tell any kind of emotion on a goat, but this time I could sure tell she was scared.

I filled the feeder so the other animals had something else do to than torment her, and they quit. I tried to get her head out of the fence, but she resisted anything I did.

I ran back up to the house and called a friend to come over and help. I got in the fence and she twisted the goat's head back while I pulled from behind, and the goat's head was pulled out. She was okay, but probably pretty sore from her ordeal.

At least the pigs were no trouble at all!

Funny Face did have her kittens that night, and the injured rooster disappeared.

I was also very thankful when Jim and the boys returned before evening chores on Sunday night.

Strange Weather

We'll see how we do Saturday night:

Saturday Night
Cloudy with chance of rain and slight chance of snow. Lows in the upper 30s. East winds 5 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 30 percent.

We have our potatoes planted, and just a few things left to go into the ground. I sure hope it doesn't snow!

Oh No, Not Again!

After a very cool spring, our family has attempted to get all of our vegetable plants in the ground. Then we receive another forecast like this:


Tonight
Mostly cloudy with slight chance of rain showers and isolated thunderstorms in the evening...then partly cloudy after midnight. Patchy frost late in the night. Lows in the upper 30s. North winds 5 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 20 percent.

Tuesday
Mostly sunny. Patchy frost in the morning. Highs in the lower 60s. North winds 5 to 15 mph.

Tuesday Night
Mostly clear. Lows in the upper 30s. Northwest winds 5 to 10 mph shifting to the southwest after midnight.

This forecast is for our nearest town; we live 15 miles away in a higher elevation, so who knows what we will receive as far as freezing temperatures. Our family was up at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday to get ready to leave for the Appleseed Project, and there was frost on the chicken barn roof.

Guess this is our year for keeping a sharp eye on the weather.