Stars, Bars and What Ever Became of...

Wow, just 367 days since my last post. I'm on a roll for sure! I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd give this another go. I do miss having a log of "what's happening" here on the homestead. We try keeping an actual pen and paper journal to note items of significance but even that hasn't been updated since June. I felt like I spent far too much time trying to write about what I actually needed to be doing. My niece turned me on to PicMonkey.com and that may make this whole thing a lot easier.

So here's today's post:

What ever became of that chicken in the crockpot? I'm sorry to report that none of the other eggs ever did hatch. However, the one chick we got lived for a time in a cat carrier in the laundry room. Then she graduated to a dog kennel in the chicken coop. Until finally the day came when she was big enough to hold her own and make her way into the flock pecking order.

Here she is this morning sitting in a nest box. I'm wondering if she's gone broody since she still seems to be sitting there this afternoon.

She's a beautiful bird. We don't know her provenance although I have a guess. There is one hen with a black body and gold head. And of course her paternity is pretty sure since there's only Cogburn roostering around here now. I don't like to name my chickens because I become too attached to them. I like to cycle through a few choice chicken names that I use as they come to mind on whatever chicken I may be addressing. But we often referred specifically to this bird since she was the "new chicken". In fact, I guess you could say that for a long time her name was "New Chicken". That got to be a bit much and I changed it to "NC". That one change put me on a slippery slope and soon she became "Nancy".

I don't think I could have avoided getting attached to her, though. She walked around my desk while I worked when she was just a chick. She's the one who squeezes through the fence to come see us in the front yard when they are out free-ranging. She's the nosiest, most curious, and often off-doing-her-own-thing chicken in the flock. She makes herself stand out. I'm pretty convinced it's because of her unconventional upbringing.

And why don't I like to name my chickens?

This is why...

"What's so wrong with that?" you might ask.

What's so wrong with all this fluffy cuteness? These are the stars and bars... one day old Red Stars and Barred Rocks.

 What's wrong is that these are my new laying flock. New suggests that there must be an "old" laying flock. And there is. And since I don't run a retirement village for chickens here, that also means they will soon be the "late" flock. Also known as "chicken and biscuits" or "chicken soup".

It's life and death here on the homestead. I invest a lot of myself into my layers. I treat them with kindness, tenderness and give them the best care I can. I like to see them happy. I like to see them running around the yard enjoying the day. Or cozy in a warm coop on a cold day. I make them flock blocks in the winter to relieve their boredom. I hurry vegetable peels and cuttings out to them to see them get excited. When they are injured I nurse their wounds. I protect them from predators and weather. I tramp out to the coop before sunrise through the dew and damp to open them up to their yard. I head back out at nightfall to tuck them in. I scrub gross waterers and shovel soiled bedding and clean nest boxes. None of it glamorous. I get a lot of joy out of happy chickens. But I always know that eventually, when they lay so few eggs that I can't justify the expense of feed with little to show for it, they will move to the freezer and from there to the dinner table.

It's very, very hard. I've been steeling myself for butchering day for a couple of weeks. We do the deed this weekend. And yet I also take satisfaction in knowing that they have had as good a life as I could give them. They have lived a life without want, with room to move and flap and chase and explore, with little stress and lots of fresh air. I'm going to eat chicken. As, likely, most folks reading this will. I figure I have two choices:

1. Anesthetize myself to the suffering that goes on in commercial meat production. Think about it as little as possible and just grab some plastic wrapped chicken from the meat case, think about my recipe and not what life the chicken had, think about putting a nice meal on the table and not about what kind of diet that meat had during its life. I could go on but my point is not to insult or make anyone feel bad. It's just that I can't do that anymore. I think especially not since we've been raising our own meat.

2. Get my meat wrapped in feathers and fur. Love it, give it back scratches, worry about whether it is comfortable in the heat/cold/rain/wind, and then humanely and quickly dispatch it and waste nothing that can be used.

I'm pretty certain that if I could no long raise my own meat or find a source of locally raised meat that I trusted, I would become a vegetarian out of necessity.

Wow, didn't mean to get long winded or depressing. Just something that I've come to know is now a part of who I am. And I get to have lots of fun and excitement along the way. Try doing that with a leaky package of drumsticks.

Chicken in the Crockpot

Admit it, you are expecting a recipe or a review of a delicious dish.

 

Well, this IS chicken in a crockpot but I hope you won't want to eat it. Let me first provide a brief history of how we got to this place...

 

We have a largish flock of Buff Orpington chickens and one of the reasons we selected this breed was because they are said to be more broody than some other breeds. We thought it would be nice if our flock could self-propagate. We recently, as in 'for a couple months now', have had a handful of broody hens at any given time. A few weeks ago we hatched the idea of letting a couple of the hens sit a clutch of eggs each. I could go on at some length about how not to go about doing this, which is exactly what we did. It was a whim more than a plan. And we watched as musical chickens took turns sitting the eggs. At all times, someone seemed to be shouldering the responsibility for warming and turning and we just thought we'd see what happened.

 

Forward to this late morning when I'm checking nest boxes for freshly laid cackleberries and I find a partially hatched chick. With a hen who seemed to think this soggy, weak, completely confused speck of a chicken was some sort of danger, I had to make a decision quickly and, for better or worse, I chose to remove the emerging chicklet and the other eggs to a different location. Like a crockpot on my dining room buffet. Oh, that does sound bad, doesn't it?

 

I've been cycling the crockpot on and off of the Keep Warm setting to maintain a warm enough but not too warm environment.

 

I decided to use a wait-and-see approach and let her continue to work her own way out of the shell. A friend arrived and took one look and said, "You DO know you need to keep them moist, right?" Well, if I DID know that, then they would probably have been moist at that point. I asked her to lend her expertise and she helped the chick out of the drying shell and membrane and it captured her heart. I don't know if the chick think's she's her mother, but my friend does.

 

Here's the newly released bird resting and drying out. My friend acted like a mother hen. Really. She kept fussing and making sure the warmth was at the right level, helping it to sips of electrolyte mix. The whole nine yards.

And it is now a fluffy and lively little chick that gets very excited each time my friend peeks in on it.

As for the other eggs - we're waiting to see if they will hatch as well. I'll keep you posted!

What Does "GF" Mean?

Just over six weeks ago I began a challenging dietary change. I took gluten, sugar and dairy right off my menu. I'd been feeling sick, fatigued, and depressed for some time. I needed to change something. I had never thought I had a gluten issue. I mean, I mill my own grains fresh and bake wonderful homemade bread. Real bread. Really good bread. Make your tongue slap your brain good. But I read a book called The Blood Sugar Solution and decided to try a six-week reset for my body. At that point, GF to me just meant gluten-free.

 

Eating gluten-free has been challenging on many levels. Not the least of which is because my family is not eating gluten-free. My husband and father continue to enjoy their favorites. Many of which I make for them. And darn it, I make some good gluteny food. Soft pretzels, bagels, biscuits, homemade bread, pasta, cookies, cakes, pies (savory and sweet) - the list goes on and on.

 

I am faced with changes in taste and texture. Nothing but gluten produces that spongy, elastic dough that is as smooth as silk and stretchy to boot. Things just aren't going to be the same.

 

And I need to find new recipes and learn a new way of making baked goods. Vinegar or lemon juice are added with soda or baking powder to get a rise out of doughs. I quickly determined that I didn't like the pasty, white GF breads make with flour of potato and tapioca starches. Not enough taste or structure.

And I'm learning to use coconut and almond flours. Very tasty and nutritious. I have finally found a pizza crust I like. And the thing that got me blogging again was this "bagel" recipe. Now if you're going to be hard-nosed, you can say these aren't bagels. But try going without for a month or two and you will likely find your definition and requirements blurring a bit.

I just had to shout from the blog-top when I had one of these! Yippee! It's so hard not to eat the whole batch. This recipe comes from Laura's Gluten-Free Pantry. I did swap out 1 cup of freshly milled millet for 1 cup of the almond flour. I love millet and almond flour is admittedly pricey. Hence the switch. And I used our honey in place of sugar. Then, as you can see, I topped them before baking with sesame seeds, poppy seeds, kosher salt and dried onion bits. I can't wait to toast my next one!

And you can see that these are not small. The recipe called for making them in a doughnut pan but I don't own one. However, I have lovely large English muffin rings my husband made for me. I buttered them and laid them on buttered parchment. Not a drop leaked out. And I only had six of them although the recipe says it will make seven. These are easily 1 1/2 inches thick and 3+ inches across. I'm just so tickled!!

And then I said to myself - it wouldn't be hard to make a GF cornbread. In fact, I just swapped GF flour for regular flour and again used our honey instead of sugar. It will be so nice to have some baked goods from time to time.

I'll try and share the coconut cookies recipe and multi-grain pizza crust recipe soon. Both gluten-free, of course!

So what does GF mean to me now? How about Good Foods or Great Feelings? Because that's what I'm eating and how I'm regaining my health!

Gobble Up Those Apples

Everybody likes apples, right? I know we do. And so do the woodchucks. And the rabbits. And the other morning I saw that wild turkeys do, too! I looked out the kitchen window (hence the less than stellar photos through the window screen) and saw what appeared to be a "family" flock. Multiple large turkeys as well as half-grown and in-between sized. I believe I counted 18.

I mentioned that the woodchucks and bunnies like the apples, too. Actually, I think the rabbits are just eating the grass under the apple tree. But the whistle pigs are stuffing apples in as fast as they can. And getting plumper by the day. It turns out that turkeys are similar to chickens. You see, in the picture below there is a bunny in the upper right corner. The turkeys were more than content to graze with said rabbit. But when the woodchuck came out, they chased it right back home.

My chickens will squawk and scream like they are being eaten by bears if they so much as see a woodchuck in the yard. And with all those apples around, you can well imagine that my backyard is frequently filled with the sounds of panicked chickens while the offending chucks eat their apples seemingly oblivious to the chaos they cause.

Isn't a wild turkey just a magnificent bird? There seems to be a very healthy population in the woods and fields around here. I enjoy seeing them pass through our yard and pasture from time to time. Last spring we enjoyed watching a mama turkey with her little brood. Maybe I should consider getting my license?

When the Cows Come Home

Which is about when both my readers thought I'd make another post. I will make no promises here - just consider this a random, semi-annual post. If more follow, then you and I will both be surprised.

 

The cows did come home. Several times. One of the last times was after a two day absence in which we recieved several reports of sightings and shenanigans. There were the neighbors we know who knocked on the door to say, "I think I just saw your cows all the way down by the next road." The neighbors we'd never met who knocked on the door to say, "Do you have two big black cows?! They are in our garden. Eating." I felt so bad. After reassuring her that they weren't dangerous and would flee if she approached them, I went and hung my head in shame. Eventually, after a multi-hour attempt at roping and leading them home failed, another neighbor saw them in the field next to our property and offered to help chase them back into their own pasture. Bless you JB. So the cows came home. I baked fresh blueberry muffins for both the neighbor with the egarden damage and JB. I wrote a note of thanks and one of apology. I offered to make it up to them... somehow.

 

And then I called my husband (who was at work during the cows return) and said, "Stop on your way home and buy these pastured bovines some cow crack! I want them to be dependent upon you as their drug dealer until the butcher can fit them in his schedule. There will be no more wayward steers!" He, much relieved to hear that they were, indeed, confined to their own pasture once again, stopped and bought them some corn. It didn't take much to get them hooked and they would stand at the fence all day looking for someone to bring them a scoop. (Insert sigh of relief.)

 

I called the processor and made an appointment. I called family and let them know, "Your beef will be on it's way soon - make room in your freezers."  And then I took my own advice.

 

I know my husband's penchant for cranberries with his turkey. You know, that pasture-raised turkey we put in our freezer and can? And he won't eat that jellied storebought stuff. No way. Turned out I had a lot of cranberries stashed in the freezer. Since you can't buy them year-round, in season I'm always snagging them when I see good berries for a good price. There must have been a lot of good prices. I believe I uncovered (between two large chest freezers) about 20 bags. Including a couple of monster-sized Costco bags.

 

 

I got inspired and decided to make up the cranberry conserve he liked and can it. Ready-to-eat. After studying the recipe I found it to be even more acidic than the recipe for basic cranberry relish in the Ball canning book so I didn't make any changes. Lots of fresh lemons, fresh oranges, fresh Granny Smiths and frozen cranberries later, we had significantly more room in the freezer. And 50 pints of Cranberry Conserve in the pantry. I won't encourage anybody to can something that isn't an official canning recipe but it is a very tasty dish. I will encourage you to try it with your next turkey. Or pork roast. Or roast chicken. Or come help us eat some. I left out the nuts from the recipe to add fresh and toasted on the day of use.

ANYWAY, I also canned frozen peach filling. Talk about making work for yourself. Freeze it and then can it. I was desperate for space. And I dehydrated frozen peas. And canned a couple of frozen turkeys.

The day came When the Cows Came Home. I had to laugh when my husband noted that he wouldn't have thought we could fit a steer in the Subaru. But we did and we hurried home to tuck all that frozen, vacuum-sealed, pasture-raised deliciousness in the freezer. We had managed to free up almost one entire chest freezer for this purpose. We organized, we applied our best Tetris skills, we used up every square inch we could. And it all fit!!

All except 63 pounds of ground meat. So I started canning. Are you starting to see what it is I do when food storage is in doubt? I can. I can all I can.
 

You can brown 10-12 pounds at a go when you use a roaster over two burners. Win!
 

And we chopped veggies, we browned meat, we formed meatballs, we cheated and used store-bought red sauce because, frankly, the kitchen was already a disaster site with the beef preservation. And we chipped away at 63 pounds of beef slowly defrosting in a large chest cooler in the dining room. If that isn't motivation to keep working, I don't know what is.

And when the dust settled, we had beef vegetable soup, meatballs in sauce, and ground beef for super-speedy dinners! Here are some of the jars of wonderfulness waiting to cool and head to the pantry.
 

I'm especially excited because for me, each of these jars represents a day with extra sewing time this late fall-winter-early spring. Yay! Dinners nearly done before I even get started. I see me finishing a quilt!
 

No promises but I think I may have another post or two in me at the moment...

Half the Work, Double the Results

Why didn't I start doing this years ago? In preparation for a busy time I have known was coming, I began to consider what I could put in the freezer for meal times.

Initially I felt like I was in for a lot more work so that I could be prepared. I'll be helping my husband with a project that will keep me in his shop for 8-10 hours a day. Since we try to cook from scratch, I regularly spend time in the kitchen preparing ingredients and healthy recipes. Time I won't have for awhile.

I steeled myself to fill the freezer even if it meant more time in the kitchen and more work. And then it occurred to me... my family of four already likes to eat. Every. Single. Day. What if I just make two of some things I'm already preparing and put them by? So I made two pans of cabbage rolls. The tools were out, I was already separating leaves for one batch. It wasn't much more effort at all to make enough for two meals. The next thing I knew, I had homemade cabbage rolls in the freezer.

Making one meatloaf? Why not two? It took a few extra seconds to shape a second loaf and wrap it for the freezer. Sometimes I grab two same sized pans and cook two of the same recipe side by side. Truly, for a few more minutes effort, I get twice the return. One for dinner (with leftovers for packing lunches) and one for the freezer.

And in short order (like two weeks) I have 12 complete meals: Meatloaf and scalloped potatoes, cheesy lasagna soup, cabbage rolls, sweet and sour pork, chicken enchiladas, vegetable and ham quiches, country bean casserole, chili and cornbread, scalloped potatoes and ham, ham and bean soup, along with various single serve items like individual pot pies, stew, and macaroni and cheese, personal pizza crusts, soft pretzels, and homemade bread. And thanks to my FoodSaver, I have it packaged in non-leaky, no-freezer-burn packages.

When I think of how I could have been doing this all winter and had a few extra hours every week to work on quilting or other projects. Sigh. But I am reclaiming my time from now on. In fact, I'm nearly giddy with excitement when I think of putting these meals on the dinner table with minimum fuss. My new motto is: If one if good, two is better!

Would you like to free up some time by cooking two dinners at once? Do you already use this method? Do you have additional tips to add? I'd love to hear from you.

 

 There are so many lovely ladies out there with great ideas and encouragement to offer. Today is link-up day for two sites I regularly frequent - I'm sure you'll find something there to make you smile or think... You can visit them at:

I Miss My Body

During this year's flu season, we opted to stay home from church to help protect Dad from getting ill. We are part of a friendly body and I didn't think he'd make it through the hugs and handshakes without succumbing. I also didn't want to see him getting that sick. So we opted, for a time, to have church at home. And that is the upside of flu season.

 

It's been many years since I had the privilege of sitting under my father's teaching in a "formal" way. He pastored Wilkins Church for many years and I got kind of spoiled by good preaching and teaching.

I suppose you could say that it's been my yardstick ever since. We followed the Standard Lesson Commentary,  just like our Sunday school classes and the sermons at our hometown church were using. That helped us feel connected even when we were apart.
 

 

Our services lasted a bit longer than some might be accustomed to. We were able to ask questions, too, which by necessity isn't typically part of Sunday morning services.

 

 

 

We had sweet communion together as well. It was a very special time for us as a family and I'm glad we had the opportunity to do this.

 

But no matter how much we enjoyed our times of home church, we really missed everyone at our hometown church. Since it would appear that the worst of flu season has run its course, we are excited now to return to worship with our regular church body - we can hardly wait until Sunday!