Things I have said ABOUT poultry

 A freight train could go by five feet from the coop and the ducks wouldn't care as long as it happened at the same time every day. But if I wear a new hat they loose their little minds.

Drakes are gross. Just don't think about it too hard and do not google it.

I once used a different color bedding in the duck hut and they were pretty sure it was going to eat them.

Chickens lack empathy. It's just how God made them.

It's not their fault they're stupid, their wild ancestors got by on fear and rage instead.

There are too many perfectly nice roosters in the world to put up with a human aggressive one. CROCKPOT.

Garden lessons

 I have been gardening harder than usual this year, due to (gestures at entire world) stressing me out and finding gardening soothing. While I am not exactly a skilled gardener, I've been at it since I was a teenager, so I have finally killed enough plants that I can (usually) keep them alive. Still, this year has had some unexpected lessons:

I am now she who walks behind the rows.

1. Squash bugs have a very distinct smell when you squish them. This is probably why so few birds eat them. They are also full of powder blue goop which I would not want to eat either so, fair enough birds.
2. If you find frass (caterpillar poop) but no caterpillars, this does not always mean that something ate the little bastards. It often does though.
3. Black swallowtail caterpillars like carrots.
4. DUCKS WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING. They also eat slugs.
5. It is INCREDIBLY satisfying to squish a clutch of bean beetle eggs. Dear squash bugs: please take notes. Your eggs suck.
6. If you do three sisters beds, put the squash on the OUTSIDE. Whoever came up with putting the squash on the inside has someone else reaching through a jungle of corn and beans to get to the squash for them.
7. Ducks will not eat squash bugs.
8. Bean vines are grippy - like velcro. This makes it very uncomfortable to take one across the face.
9. Pole beans are more than capable of pulling down corn stalks. And bamboo poles. And step in fence posts.
10. Chickens will not eat squash bugs.
11. The squash is all dead, but the pumpkins, which are also technically squash, are doing great. ???

The cabbage did pretty good though. Ignore the caterpillar holes.

In conclusion, I want to know what the hell squash bugs eat when they can't get squash, and how they magically appear any time a squash plant is present. They are clear evidence for the spontaneous generation of life from inanimate objects.

The myth of unskilled labor

 So hay making happened. Because balers are expensive (like five digits kind of expensive), and the neighbor's industrial machines don't fit our gate, we put up our hay loose. This has some advantages - we can put it up a little wetter, and it's way less likely to spontaneously combust.

The disadvantage is the amount of time and effort we spend out there with pitch forks picking up hay, putting it in the trailer, packing it down, driving to the barn, picking it up AGAIN, throwing it in the barn, and packing it down (again). For this reason we always put out word amongst our friends, church, neighbors, customers, ANYBODY to try to get a little help. Many hands make light work and all that. Which is where I come to my point.

You would think that this is the DEFINITION of "unskilled" labor. You pick it up, you put it down where you're told. But somehow it doesn't work that way.

My youngest two kids are the best at packing the hay down in the wagon - because they've been doing this since they were 6-8 years old.

My second to oldest is the best at packing the hay down in the barn - because they've been doing it with my husband since they were 10.

My oldest kid is the best at driving the trailer from the field to the barn and back, with all the turn arounds involved - because that's how she learned how to drive in the first place.

And all of us are faster and more efficient at picking up loose hay and putting it down than the random teens from church we had over this year, because we've been doing it for YEARS. We pick up more at a time, spill less, and move more efficiently, because THIS IS NOT UNSKILLED LABOR.

And the few tasks we've managed to mechanize? TRAINED PERSONELLE ONLY.

And then we were all showed up by a nice guy that grew up near farmland in Africa, who showed us all up without even using a pitchfork, just his powerful, skilled arms. WAY TO GO GUY. You've probably been doing similar tasks since you were six and we appreciate the hell out of you. 

We also appreciate the hell out of literally anybody who shows up. Because even inefficient, unskilled helpers make things go a little faster, and when you have to pick up a ton of hay twice, little bits still count.

A tale of two quail jails

 As you may have noticed if you've been around my house, now that the weather is nice the quail a get to go outside.

It is just the cocks for now, because a) I have too many of them, b) the hens are kind of important because they're the ones who pay rent, and c) most of them were in horny jail anyway. Initially, I just took the two quail jails outside, regular horny jail mode but with a pan for a roof/shade, and witnessed mass chaos.

Quail do this thing where when something scares them they jump straight up in the air. It's called popping and is common to game birds. The quail jails were a veritable jiffy pop out there, and we had a few split scalps, which look far worse than they are. I had to bring Marshie inside because I was afraid he was concussed. Turns out that white feathers just make every little injury look WORSE, but he continues to be Second House Cock due to not fighting with Onyx and also inertia.

That said, after a couple of days getting used to the routine, there was actually dramatically less fighting! Success! I have distracted the walking testicles with the enrichment of being on grass and looking at ducks!

So I thought to myself, if all the cocks were in one quail jail, some of the girls could take turns going out in the other quail jail. It would be good for them! The cocks are getting along great! 

Spoiler: the cocks did not get along great. Things we have learned since then:

• Quincy hates Scrambles with the passion of a much larger bird, and is also the larger bird between the two of them. 
• Scrambles tries to phase through the bars whenever he's in the same jail as Quincy.
• Bob doesn't think other cocks should exist.
• According to Bob, Quailliam is a hen.
• Quailliam just wants to eat crumble and run laps, but is willing to stop to harass Nugget.
• Nugget is terrified of Scrambles for no discernable reason.

Things I have said to goats

 STOP SHOUTING AND EAT YOUR FOOD

That's not your mama stop stealing!

I know that's not your baby stop chasing!

WHAT DID YOU DO

WHERE DID YOU FIND THAT

DON'T EAT THAT

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EAR

You're doing this on purpose aren't you.

LET ME HELP YOU

*undifferentiated screaming*

Get your feet out of my pocket!

If you love the squeaky thing you need to FEED the squeaky thing! That's your baby!

NO SIT ON BABBY

Stop kicking your baby in the face! She needs to touch your boobs to get milk! (first fresheners: they have no idea what's going on)

DON'T DRINK THAT wash water is not delicious!

A list of things I have said to poultry

 "Stop that! It's not his fault he exists and has testicles!"

"There has been too much duck crime today! No more crime until tomorrow!"

"I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE"

"TAKE IT TO THE HOUSE" (almost every day, when I want them to go back in the damn coop)

"STOP EATING MY TREES THEY ARE BABIES"

"Capes are not in fashion! Get out of the feed sacks!"

"WHERE DID YOU GET THAT"

"YOU DISGUST ME"

"That's not where eggs go!"

"STOP POOPING ON ME I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU OW YOU HAVE SHARP TALONS"

"Stop shouting and eat your food!"

"Who's blood is this?!"

"Puddle water is not delicious! I just filled the waterer!"

Lambing =/= Kidding

 Two days! Two ewes! Two lambs! I'm glad that Limu and Flo at least coordinated, but also wild shenanigans abounded.

RELEASE US

1. Of course they both lambed out in the field, not conveniently in the barn. No problem! I know to use the lamb to lure the ewe where I want her to be once she's got it mostly clean. This lead to Flo getting confused, going back to where she had him, and deciding that clearly Sif had disappeared her lamb somehow... even though he was hollering for her in the barn. Lesson learned: BACK away from the ewe, keeping the lamb between her and you. If the lamb leaves her line of site for even a fraction of a second she forgets where it is and panics.
2. Lambs are really quite stoic. When I dip a goat kid's navel (a process that involves turning them on their backs for good coverage), they holler, which draw's mom's attention. Lambs are just like "welp this is my life now," once again causing the ewe to be confused, because wait where did my baby just go? Oh wait there it is!
3. Lambs get up MUCH FASTER than at least my goats do. This leads to a toddling lamb looking for the milk bar while mama is trying to wash its face. They kind of circle each other. This is adorable.
4. Ewes have TINY LITTLE NIPPLES. Is the baby nursing or is it just sucking the side of her udder? I'm not sure. Shine a flashlight under there. Now the baby is confused because it got bright all of a sudden and it was just born.
5. With both ewes in stalls with their lambs, Jake from State Farm can no longer find his ladies like 95% of the time. Where did they go? Are they lost? Ram screm ensues. He sounds like he smokes a pack a day, more so than usual.
6. Sheep are follow mammals - their babies follow them very closely from day one. Goats are cache mammals - they hide their babies and go back to feed them until they're strong enough to keep up. This makes finding the babies both very easy (they're with mama!) and very difficult (mama could be anywhere!).
7. If I pick up a lamb, the ewe does not know where it went. The lamb, still stoic, says "welp this is my life now" again. The ewe runs around in a panic calling for her baby. Sheep, turns out, do not look up.

NYOOOOOOM

They are extremely cute and I look forward to them frolicking in the pasture, and also, Soay ewes generally blow their fleece shortly after lambing... so also FLEEEEEECE. They're so soft and allowing more scritches than ever before!!!

I'm all alone...

The problem with wool

 So Jake from State Farm got shorn. He feels much better.

Release me! I see ladies!

This means that I get a fleece! I really enjoy Jacob fleece, but you can't just spin wool, even the nicest wool, straight off the sheep. Well you could but it's not a GREAT idea, because sheep are dirty little grease balls. So we've got some prep steps:

The skirting floor, ie my front room.

1. Skirt the fleece. This means you lie it out flat and pick off the gross parts at the edges... poopy bits, felted bits, in the case of Jacob sheep, hair.
2. Wash (scour) the fleece. Yes you just took out the gross parts. All the other parts are also a LITTLE BIT gross. And did I mention greasy? Lanolin folks - it comes from sheep! There are multiple methods to wash a fleece, but I personally put it in a giant mesh laundry bag, fill the bathtub with hot water and dish soap, and slowly, GENTLY soak the fleece. Heat + agitation = felt. Heat is also the easiest way to get the grease out. I usually do two soap soaks and three or four rinse soaks.
   
3. Dry the fleece. Getting all the water out take BLOODY FOREVER. I squish it out in the tub, then roll it up in towels and stomp on it, then spread it out as far as I can under a full blast ceiling fan. Usually on my bed. This is the part where my husband becomes concerned. He shouldn't be because I am very smart and spread it out on a sheet, so I can roll it up and move it if we need to sleep. He is wonderful but does not understand my madness.
4. Card/comb the fleece. This is where you have some more choices, which are primarily dictated by what tools you have access to. Someday I will have all the tools. SOMEDAY. But right now I have a drum carder and hand cards. The drum carder usually wins, because hand cards take ages and I'm the "card it all before I spin any of it" type - mostly because having to stop spinning to card some more fills me with rage.

Now you have wool ready to spin! I'm asked regularly whether spinning my own yarn is a money saver versus using commercial yarn, and it definitely is not. But you have to figure in all the bonus entertainment value of all of this STUFF. Learn to spin! You will never "have nothing to do" again!

I desire friendship. Sheep desire NOT THAT.

 So I am trying to make friends with my new sheep.

They come from a fairly large herd and are not dairy animals, which means they are mostly accustomed to being handled if they need medicine or something - so, not great associations. Also the ewes are Soays.

You have nothing we desire, human.

Soay sheep "developed" from feral/wild sheep on the Scottish island of Soay (hence the name), and at that time their experience with humans was "those weird things that come get our wool once a year." They are not even shorn, they shed their wool out in the spring. So they are smart for sheep and have fairly good survival instincts, as well as being extremely hardy.

The survival instincts are becoming a problem, actually, because those instincts do not include "the human and the dogs will keep me safe." Fortunately we were making progress (the secret to sheep friendship is animal crackers), when we had a flood and the electric fence between our pasture and the neighbor's pasture was no longer zappy for awhile.

If I wanted to be in that field I would already be there.

Sheep, it turns out, are stupid enough to continue testing the fence, smart enough to figure out that their wool insulates them once it turns back on again, and filled with desire to trespass. Limu, in particular, is the "smart one" and ring leader.

You offend us! You offend our ancestors!

Things that we have attempted to break them of their crime habits:

1. Keep them off that field for a week so they'll "forget" that they can get through that fence. They did not forget. I spent hours cleaning the wool off the fence wires for NOTHING.
2. Shear Jake from State Farm (who needed it anyway) in hopes that one being trapped would keep them all close. JfSF screamed for awhile and then figured out how to crawl through anyway.
3. Triangle collars made of PVC pipe. Flo removed hers within an hour. By morning all sheep were naked and trespassing. Limu took off her collar IN THE NEIGHBOR'S FIELD.
4. Give up. The sheep vanished without a trace and were found an hour later way down behind the bend of the creek.
5. Keep them off the front field again and just let the goats up there at night, with the sheep on the back, because the goats need more field but also need hay and giving them both at once causes Sheep Crime.
6. Triangle collars PART TWO. With holes drilled in the PVC. And even more zip ties. And swearing. We haven't actually done this yet because I'm tired.

But lady they LEFT ME!

Meanwhile the girls are beginning to breast boobily about the pasture, making containment more important than ever - because if they drop lambs in not my field somewhere I will loose my mind.

Buy stock in animal crackers. We're going through a lot of them.

A diary of an old lady goat who just wants some respect dammit

 So I brought home two lovely aged does this weekend, Lily (7, in milk) and Champagne (9, bred), who have impeccable pedigrees and production records and will be tremendous assets to the herd. They have ideas about this.

Sunday afternoon: Lily and Champagne are happy to come out of the barn. They are suspicious of getting in the car but definitely too lazy to put up too much fuss. Is that hay in there? Get this puppy out of my way I am too old for this. (The puppy was very cute and received many pats.)

This new barn smells funny.

Still Sunday afternoon: Lily - whyyyyyyyyy I'm too oooooooold for this!!! Champagne - zzzzzzz

Finally home, Sunday evening: We have arrived just in time for everybody to be fed and milked. Champagne walks into the milk room and jumps on a milk stand like she owns the place. Lily converts into 160 pounds of rage and stomping. She does like the grain though.

Lily - I'M LEAVING THIS PLACE IS TERRIBLE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. Sif - don't worry mama I'll make sure she stays safe!

I'll find my own herd! With PROPER STAFF!

Monday morning, milking: Lily - I DEMAND TO SPEAK WITH A MANAGER. AND MY PREVIOUS STAFF. I WILL GIVE THEM SUCH A TELLING OFF. Champagne - (chewing peacefully). Milk goes everywhere. Everything is wet. Nogoaty else wants to use the milk stand after that.

Are you sure you are qualified to do this?

All goats are released. Champagne finds the babies. Happy old lady goat noises commence.

They will come around and everything will be fine, but if you enjoy drama, bring home an aged doe. You've apparently got a 50/50 chance.

Maybe don't quit your sysadmin job

FIRST BLOG POST IN YEARS BABY!!! I am still alive Facebook and Twitter are just easier to keep up with. That said, one of my friends sent me this lovely list of reasons you should quit your sysadmin job and become a goat farmer: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4l7kjd/found_a_text_file_at_work_titled_why_should_i/

And as a goat farmer who works in tech (although I am a PM, not an engineer) I have a few rebuttals. Quotes in bold because I'm too tired to deal with prettier formatting.

• Left alone, Billy goats and Nanny goats do what they're supposed to do. You don't need to format them, monitor them, be on-call for them, step, trace or inspect registers.

• Indeed they will, but you will also probably be frantically drying kids in the middle of a blizzard if you don't at least enforce a schedule on them. 

• Goats don't page you.

• They are better at screaming than most stakeholders though.

• When it comes to "software" (food), EVERYTHING is compatible with a goat.

• No it isn't. Their requirements list for hay is as extensive as it is unknowable. And GOD HELP YOU if you package their software in a new or unexpected way because this is not what they asked for, expected, or need. Also, sometimes they eat plants that are literally poison. Apparently to keep you on your toes.

• You don't need to call a staff meeting to make sure everyone's milking goats the same way.

• Only if you find goat shenanigans funny or hate your substitute milk maids. Goats will enforce your daily schedule more intensely than the most anal retentive product owner on the planet, and they will do so by screaming, becoming boneless, and generally acting like you are killing them when you ask them to do things they do literally every day.

• You don't need to sign in with the front desk if you need to milk a goat on a weekend. You don't need to use a badge to open a front gate. If you find an empty coffee pot burning on the machine on a Saturday, you just yell at your wife.

• But you might need to sign in with the livestock guardian dogs, who are highly suspicious of any change of schedule. It is after all their job to enforce security policy.

• You deliver applications to goats. Goats do not deliver applications to you.

• Isn't that what kids are?

• Goat security is applied completely, thoroughly, and with all the features you'll ever need, using a stake and a rope.

• Also an electric fence, gates (no taller gates), 24/7 canine monitoring, and additional after hours electronic monitoring (if you're lucky, if not, physical monitoring) during high stress periods (kidding). They still get out sometimes and your neighbor asks if that's your goat in the road.

• You do not need to buy anything to "uninstall" a goat. Maybe a gun or a knife.

• Sometimes people pay money for the privilege of uninstalling the goat from your property for you!

• No meetings.

• Yes meetings. Daily (milking, feeding, watering), weekly (barn cleanup, worm checks), monthly (more barn cleanup), quarterly (minerals), and annual (breeding, kidding, vaccines) schedules strictly enforced by screaming and/or death.

• All your stuff will still work when you buy your 100th goat, and your 256th goat, and your 65,536th goat..

• Unless the previous goats broke it in new and exciting ways. That said, bailer twine fixes most of that, and the rest is a replace/upgrade scenario. No dev budget required unless you feel like getting fancy.

• Nobody can go through your goat and get you in trouble for what they find in there.

• Yes they can, selling a goat into the slaughter pipeline that you gave an unapproved patch (medication) without express permission from an admin (vet), with paperwork, will indeed get you in a lot of trouble. Because they will go through the goat. They will find out.

Would I quit my tech job to goat farm full time again in approximately two seconds if I didn't have to worry about money? Yes. But do goats have a surprising amount in common with most stakeholders? Also yes.

Many mama duck styles

So as many of you know we got livestock guardian dogs this year.  While Heimdall and Sobek are still being dumb puppies (BIRDS ARE FRIENDS NOT TOYS), they are also already so good at their jobs that I can actually let the mama Muscovies raise their ducklings and I don't loose half of them to vanishing the first week.  This is super amazing because brooder ducklings suck (they're wet and stinky!).  But also interesting because of all the different mama duck styles we turn out to have.

White belly mama wants to take her ducklings as far away from the other ducks as she can possibly get them, as soon as their little legs are strong enough for them to follow her.  This is a little bit of a problem because she wants to take them into the cow pasture next door, and cows will step on ducklings and not even notice.  Still raised them all as far as I can tell though.

The white mamas always go in on a nest together, and seem mildly confused as to why these ducklings are following them.  They will cuddle the babies if they huddle up, but seem to want to know why crying ducklings are making that noise.

This is as close as I could get to black mama duck, because she will attack you if you look at ducklings funny.  Not just her ducklings, but ANY ducklings.  She stops mothering them a lot earlier than the other hens do, but makes it up in sheer determination to make you BLEED.

One of the blue hens has a nest that should hatch soon, that will be the last ducklings of the year, so help me.  I might have too many ducks.  But mothering ability is a good thing to decide which to keep based on, so I have an excuse to keep them a little longer.

Support your local feed mill!

So I love our feed mill.  They're like fifth generation, family owned and operated, and their feed is the best I can find anywhere.  I always haul feed in my van with the back seats out, because I would rather stab myself with a fork than back up a trailer.  This leads to some "that's a funny looking truck, wink!" commentary but it certainly isn't the strangest thing they've loaded feed into.

So today they were loading me up with feed, and I notice that one of my front tires is obviously short on air.  Yipes.  I have an emergency pump, but that thing takes about three years to work.  No worries, says toothless feed store guy (I don't know any of their names work with me here).  You can use our air pump.

The other one looks a bit low too, says current manager.  Best top it up first.  So we do that.  Then we try to do the other side.

AND IT EXPLODED.

Like kaboom and gravel flew everywhere it didn't just blow out it blew up.  And we all just stare at it for a second.

"Do you have a spare, darlin'?"

I realize that calling people darling or sweetie or whatever is kind of a southern thing, but I really hate it.  Makes me want to punch the dang guy in the mouth.  But the speed with which a swarm of feed mill dudes descended upon my car, pulled all the feed out, got the spare out from under the car, found a better jack, jacked up my car, and switched that tire out makes me very glad that I never have.  I surely could have done that myself, but it would have taken me at least an hour longer, and I would have been metaphorically dead afterwards.  As it was I still had enough energy to get the feed back out of the van and put up so we can take it to its appointment at the tire place tomorrow.

So support your local feed mill, darlings.  And if you're local to me, go to Big Spring Mill in Elliston.  They will save your bacon when your car explodes.

And in the fall, we have shenanigans.

So yes I realize it is not technically fall yet.  But the bucks are starting to do buck things (aka standing around testing the equipment and peeing on themselves), and that means the does will be coming into heat soon, which means fall to me, even if it's still so hot I can barely move.

Hey LADIES...

I do not want January kids again.  Which means that the bucks need to go into lock down.  And the growing doe kids have been using the buck hut as a house.  You can probably guess where I'm going with this.

So I shut the does into the loafing shed, shut the bucks OUT of the barn yard (so they were stuck in the pasture), and brought the doe kids down into the barn yard.  This was the easy part, as they are still in that "follow mom she will protect and feed us" stage.  They almost tripped me like ten times but they didn't run away.  Baby girls safe, check.

The bucks on the other hand will wander around eating things if I don't keep a firm handle on them, so I was going to take them one at a time.  This was a great plan until Roosevelt starting freaking the hell out because he was "alone"... which Sobek the LGD puppy though was a really fun game.  For Sobek.  Roosevelt started running around screaming like he was being murdered.  Chocula is a pretty calm boy so I had my eleven year old daughter hold his collar while I put the puppy on a tie out.

This was Chocula's cue to slip his collar.  We are fairly fortunate that there was honeysuckle right there and he didn't go far.  Got the collar back on him and push/pull/dragged him up to the front.  Got the collar back and repeated the procedure for Roosevelt, who was much better behaved given that we were moving toward his buddy and not away.

But wait it's not over yet!  For ease of access to all the gates I had taken down the temporary fencing (it needed moved anyway).  It is now one o'clock in the afternoon, and hotter/more humid than hell.  But the fence has to go up.  I managed three lines before I felt like I was going to pass out - good enough to hold grown does.  So I plugged it in and let them out.  The babies are now screaming because they want out, too, but I need to cool off and get a drink.  One more line and, fortunately, it turns out that freeing them (at least into a little strip of pasture) was enough to get P. Bubbs to shut her hay hole.

So fingers crossed that a) nobody escapes, b) the dogs continue to behave, and c) I figure out how to integrate the baby does with the big does.  That would return the shenanigans to a reasonable level.  As long as I ignore the ducks...

It's the little things, I guess.

So in addition to insane roosters, we have been dealing with "something is wrong with the milk machine" for the last couple of days.  It was just not sucking as much as it was supposed to, which really sucked.  I took off all the hoses and submerged them in water to check for leaks.  I drained and cleaned the overflow tank (there wasn't actually anything in there but air).  I knocked on the pulsator.  Don't laugh that is literally a step on the trouble shooting flow chart for my milk machine.  Nothing.  Slow death.  Hour long milking sessions.  Frustrated goats.  Dammit Pansy what have you done.

Then I took apart the hose that connects the pump to the pulsator.  Did you know that the screw together doodad in the middle of that hose isn't just for converting from small size tube to larger size tube, it has a filter in it?  A filter that is basically two tiny pieces of cheap Scotch Brite scrubby pads on top of each other?

Yeah a week of freaking out because I thought my milk machine was dying, and it needed like a $.001 part.  It works now!  Unfortunately now the suction is too high and I have to remember what the previous setting was.  I have it written down in this user manual somewhere.  And hey, in the morning I won't have frustrated goats... but I might have surprised goats.  Not sure if that is an immediate improvement, but I'll take it.

About six miles of tubes... all leak free.  Today.

Chickens are possibly insane.

So today was the day we had scheduled for breaking up the breeding pens and letting all the poultry (except for the grow outs, which live in the tractor) range together.  This will dramatically simplify management and chick sales blow chunks this year anyway (thanks, Rural King!), so it was time.  The birds have never been out of sight of each other - they could see and interact with all the birds through the fences.  So I thought that this would be fairly trauma free.

I forgot about roosters.

First Hendrix had to fight Norris.  Then he had to fight Jones.  Then Jones and Norris had to fight.  Doesn't matter that Jones and Norris had been in the same pen this entire time, during which Norris had been the Boss Rooster from day 1.  No, they had to resort everything.

Did you know that comb and wattle injuries bleed?  A lot?  Like, more blood than you think a chicken could reasonably loose without passing out or something?  So if any of you are around here in the next week or so, please remember that there are no secret cock fighting rings at 4Farthings.  Just a bunch of asshole roosters who occasionally loose their ever loving minds and become psychotic comb biting jerks.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go put Blu Coat on everything.

Our first hive get

So, funny story about our first two hives.  We bought them as nucs (nucleus hives) from one of the other members of the local beekeeping association.  He was really cool about it, and built the nucs right in our own boxes - so we would not even have to move the frames to install them, just bring them home and open up the doors!

Due to scheduling, Mark went to get the hives early in the morning.  Since the best time to let out new bees is evening, we placed the closed up hives in the shade and waited.  They were full of angry bees that wanted OUT OUT OUT!  But we were patient.  So patient.  Finally the time came to put them on their new stands and take off the travel screens to free the bees.  We put the hives on the stands and went to put feeders on top of the hives.  Which of course leaked all over the place because we were noobs.  So we decided to just take the screens off, release the bees, and place feeders later.  We took off the first screen.

And then we realized that we had not lit the smoker.

Several very awkward minutes of being chased by newly freed bees later, both hives were open and the bees (still very angry) were able to do some orienting flights and clean up some of the spilled syrup.  And that's how we learned to never again approach a hive without a lit and smoking smoker.

Apple Sauce

Aside from the usual fall shenanigans (NO Chocula, she's not to get bred until NEXT month and NOT BY YOU), I got a screaming deal on seconds apples by the bushel.  My husband talked me down so I only bought two bushels of apples (about 100 lbs), which was probably smart.  I do nothing half way, which is the nice way of saying I'm really good at over committing.

I also discovered that this year narrow mouth quart jars are two dollars less than wide mouth jars.  Two whole dollars!  My family is going to have to cope with narrow mouth jars.

But all that is to say that I've been making lots of apple sauce.  The nice thing about apples is they have enough acid and enough sugar on their own to be pretty canning safe, so you don't have to worry too much about following a recipe.  As such, my apple sauce recipe is actually more of a method.  If you wanted to try this with other similar fruits (like pears), it would probably work, and you should tell me how it turned out.

How to Can Apple Sauce

First, acquire a large number of apples.  They cook down so don't mess around with this part.  The best kinds are fairly firm (Red Delicious sucks) and moderately tart, in my opinion.  This year we're using Rome apples.

Core the apples and cut out any weird bits.  I leave the skins on, partially because I am lazy, and partially because the internet told me that that's where all the nutrition is.  But the seeds need to come out, as do the blossom ends, stems, and any icky bits.  You can use an apple cutter/corer if you want.

Put all the apples in a big ol' pot with a couple of inches of water in the bottom.  You can add some cinnamon sticks at this point if you're into that sort of thing.  Put the whole mess on low heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until everything is mushy.

Run the apples (skins and all!) and apple liquid through your food processor or powerful blender in batches until it's all the consistency you expect from apple sauce.  Or if you're a bum who doesn't like skins in their applesauce you can use a food mill.  Put it back in the big pot and have a taste.  Is it sweet enough?  Not enough cinnamon?  Season to taste with sugar, molasses (yum!), cinnamon, or what have you.  I usually add cinnamon and a small amount of black strap molasses.  Keep it simmering!  If your sauce is too watery you can also let it cook down some more.

Ladle your finished applesauce into sterilized jars and process in a boiling water bath canner for twenty minutes.  Remove canner from heat and allow jars to stand in hot water for ten minutes more.

Tah-dah!  Apple sauce!  And you didn't even have to measure anything.

Rendering

The pigs are gone!  Or rather, the pigs are in the freezer!  This is quite a relief as, with the cooler weather and shorter days, the pasture isn't growing as well as it was.  And that means it was becoming increasingly impossible to prevent the pigs from turning the pasture into one gigantic mud hole.  One of the great things about buying meat by the whole animal (or raising your own) is that you get all the extra weird parts of the animal, many of which are really quite good.  Case in point: lard.

Our butcher isn't accustomed to people asking for all the fat off their pig back, but they did remember to bag it up for me (even if I did have to make a second trip, as they left it in the freezer the first go around).  This is the amount we got back from two year old American Guinea Hogs.

This is the back fat (fat from off of the pig's topline) and leaf lard (fat from around the pig's kidneys) mixed together, because I forgot to ask them to separate it out.  If you remember, it's nice to have the leaf lard separate, as it is rather different.  It's softer and less likely to have a pork smell/taste, and therefor nicer for things like pastries.

You can see it's in pretty big chunks - which is fine.  You are going to have to either cut it into small pieces (like about one inch cubes), or run it through a meat grinder.  I use the coarse disk on mine, and it's very helpful because then I only have to cut it small enough to fit in the meat grinder.

All that mess goes in the crock pot with a quarter cup of water.  The water keeps the fat from burning until some fat liquefies, and will cook off.

Set the crock pot low, and come by and stir every now and again.  As the fat comes to the surface, you can ladle it off and strain it through a large handkerchief.  The trick is to filter off all of the fat before the solid bits (cracklings) turn brown.  If you wait until it's all brown, you will get more lard, but the fat will be brownish and smell like bacon.  But if you get it all out while the solids are still soft and whitish, the fat will be white and odorless.

Out of all that fat, we got two gallons and a quart of lovely white lard.  Fabulous for making biscuits and all sorts of pastry, as well as for frying.  Of course... isn't lard bad for you?

KIND OF!  Of course too much fat isn't good for you.  But the difference between this fat and the lard you buy at the store is twofold.  First, the store lard is hydrogenated.  That stuff is BAD for you.  Of course it does have better shelf life, so keep the home rendered stuff in the refrigerator.  The second difference is what the pigs were eating.  Store pigs are raised in confinement (unless you purposefully buy pastured pork) and don't get to eat things like grass or do things like lie in the sun.  My pigs did that ALL THE TIME.  So lard from pastured pigs is actually a pretty good source of fat soluble vitamins, including Vitamin D.  There's also a bunch of science about how pastured pigs have different kinds of fatty acids than confinement pigs and that makes it better, but every time I turn around it seems they've decided a new kind of fat is THE healthy fat so I don't pay too much attention to that.  Too complicated.  The point is that you shouldn't be afraid of a little lard as long as it comes from pasture raised pigs, and isn't hydrogenated.  Also: it's delicious!

Hot Sauce

Fall canning is in full swing around here!  Unfortunately I am not what you call a great gardener, so what I have to can is somewhat random.  This year the bumper crop appears to be habenero peppers, and there's exactly one thing to do with those: make hot sauce!  If you have an abundance of hot peppers like me, here is my favorite recipe.

• 10 Habenero peppers (or similar volume of other hot peppers)
• 2 large yellow peaches
• 2 medium tomatoes (I use romas)
• 1 medium onion
• 1/2 cup lime juice
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 8 cloves garlic
• generous dash of salt

Peel and quarter onion.  I use yellow onions, but other kinds would also work.  Pit and quarter peaches.  I prefer yellow peaches because the finished sauce is prettier than the white ones.  My husband is always after me to try apricots in this recipe but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  You can increase the volume of fruit as much as you want, but do not decrease.  Peel garlic.  Cut the stems off of peppers (WEAR GLOVES).  You can decrease the number of peppers if you prefer milder hot sauce, but if you increase them you might want to check the pH of your sauce to make sure it is safe for canning.  Quarter tomatoes (no need to peel or core them).  Put everything into your powerful blender (we have a Vitamix) or food processor and set to "liquify."  Work in batches if needs be.  Dump all your proto-sauce into a heavy bottomed pot and simmer for half an hour.  Pour into sterilized jars (I like half pints for hot sauce) and process in a boiling water bath canner for half an hour.  Sealed jars keep as well as anything home canned, but should be kept in the refrigerator after opening.

Note that this is pretty darn hot sauce, and while it is simmering your kitchen will smell like burning and it may make your eyes water.  The "simmer" stage is however necessary for making the flavors blend, and making it thicken up a bit and get "saucy."  We usually pour opened jars into an empty clean sriracha bottle for easy dispensing.