Bathroom Remodel Progress...

Here are a few of the BEFORE pictures.  Everything was very worn, pretty grungy, and dated.  There were holes in the sheetrock from the door knob, many holes from old towel bars no longer there, an old mouse hole in the corner,  mildew in 2 small areas inside the wall, and outdated lighting.

Sunshine has been working on refinishing the antique washstand to use as the new vanity.  We wanted something unique and interesting to use as the vanity and not just a stock vanity from the local Home Depot.  It has a curved front and some fun details that help add some character.  I let Sunshine take the initiative on refinishing it.  She is learning a lot and I think she has caught the "upcycling" bug after working on this project.  She has gotten the old finish stripped off, sanded it down, and painted it a nice barn red color.  She is really good at painting things like this, she has the patience and attention to the little things to deal with all the details on this piece.  We distressed some of the high wear areas and added stain over the top of the paint.  It added the rustic look we were shooting for.  

Here are some pictures from the progress on the remodel of the bathroom.

We still have to pick out the hardware and figure out the countertop choices for the vanity.  We are actually leaning towards a unique penny countertop.  Here is a picture of it laid out on a portion of the top to get an idea of how it might look.  We'd cover the pennies with an epoxy finish so it would be smooth and easy to clean.  It is growing on me.

Here is the enthusiastic demo crew.  Actually they LOVE to do demolition.  Here Spud Man is wishing I'd quit taking pictures and hop out of the way so he could get this piece out the door and Tobers is in the background.  It was only the 100th picture of the day, I am not sure why he was getting annoyed. haha

Until the next update!

Bee Update...

We have really enjoyed having the honeybees on our property this year.  Even more so when we came home one day to a box of honey sitting on our front porch!  We ended up with a gallon and a half of honey.  The kids have been enjoying honey, in moderation, on many things ever since.  It was funny, shortly after we got the honey, the kids all commented how they just don't think they could go back to store bought honey, we are spoiled now.  They said store honey tastes artificial somehow and that our honey tastes richer.  Interesting observation.

The honey we got likely wasn't from only our bees on the property, it was probably a combination of many hives from the local area but still it has to be better at least being this local than what you can get in the stores.

We had very few negative interactions with the bees the entire time they were here May-October.  We respected their space and they left us alone for the most part.   I really enjoyed seeing them on all kinds of blossoms in the garden, in fact that is probably why we had such great yields of a lot of the crops.

Someday I'd like to learn to keep bees, but this arrangement worked out perfectly for us!  Free honey, and the education in watching them tend to the bees.   I'd like to learn more, for instance, where do they store them over winter?  How often do they collect honey and how do they know how much to leave the bees to get through winter?

I haven't heard if they plan to bring more back next spring.  I sure hope they do, we look forward to more tasty honey!

Nature's Beauty...

The longer we live here the more blessed I feel.  I love that God blesses us with His creation on a daily basis, sometimes I overlook it or take it for granted, some days I sit in awe of it.

This photo was taken by Sunshine, it's just over our back fence in the CRP field bordering our property.  Every afternoon we have a resident herd of mule deer that cross our fence and head to nearby pine trees to hang out.  I grumble and complain about these guys tearing up my fruits trees, but then they show me their awesome display of competition.  I can't hold a grudge too long...but I can build better fences and tree protection to make sure they don't ruin the trees again!

When trying to photograph any sunset I am always reminded of how with many things in life I tend to take for granted or put off...now is the time to cherish the moments in our lives that deserve our focus.  As with a sunset the moments come and go so quickly and if I don't stop and intentionally capture it either with a camera like trying to capture the sunset or with our hearts like with in a family memory the moment is lost.  So many times I end up of putting it off for in a minute or taking for granted there will be a next time.  As I try to capture a sunset picture and realize the small window of time there is to grab the camera, find the right vantage point, and capture the moment it has already faded from it's original glorious state that caught my attention in the first place.

Slowly I am learning to stop quicker, and pay attention to the moment when it comes along.  Gradually, life seems much richer and more fulfilling somehow.

Oceans and sunsets make me feel closer to the Lord on challenging days.

Pastured Poultry Production Improvement Ideas...

I reviewed all the notes from 2013's pastured poultry project as well as the receipts and sales and came up with some tips for next year to make it easier, more of a positive experience, and or more efficient.

Our happy and healthy pastured chickens.

* Add wheels to the portable pens!  We meant to do this last year and never got around to it.  It is pretty awkward to pull them around by dragging them across the ground using rope handles and I am afraid someone is going to hurt their back if we don't make sure to get some wheels on it. It will save us time and energy having an easier way to move the portable pens which will make for happier helpers and more positive thoughts overall about raising meat chickens.

This pen is 8' x 10' and is a little heavy to be dragging on the ground, 

it's doable but wheels would make it much easier!

* Design a more effective brooder.  A brooder is where we house the little chicks before they are ready to go onto pasture.   The size of our brooder facility meets the general recommendations for the amount of chicks we raise in each batch, but I honestly want them to have more room, especially as they grow that 2nd and 3rd week of life.  I want the option to keep them in the brooder another week or so just in case the weather is really bad and we need to delay their move to the pasture pens.  I also would like to add more windows for natural light and ventilation.  I haven't decided if I want to just remodel the current coop we use, or build a portable pen we can sit right on the ground.  I am leaning towards building a new structure simply because the coop we have been using really is meant to be used for our laying hens and I wouldn't mind keeping that just for the layers and not having to move the hens to a different pen.  I'd also like to build an additional small structure within the brooder facility to hold the heat lamps for more even heat and less heat loss than with a standard hanging heat lamp.  I read about it as neat DIY project on Morning Joy Farm Blog, you can visit that post here.

* We need to try to buy feed in larger bulk quantities.  I think we can save at least 10% by purchasing the feed by the ton.  We don't currently have a pickup or trailer suited for this type of hauling, let alone machinery to move 1 ton of feed at a time if it were in a large bulk bag and not in 50# sacks that we could move individually. Finding somewhere that the feed will stay dry, cool, and rodent-proof will be a challenge, but surely we can figure out a solution.  We have also found a source for organic feed, I hope to try this out this year and hopefully our growth rates won't change too much with this food rather than the non-medicated feed we used last year.  I was really happy with the results using the feed we did last year so if the organic source doesn't work out I would be happy to do that again this year as well.  Also, with that feed I can get 10% by buying one ton of the 50# bags at a time, and I can save an additional 10% buy purchasing on a Tuesday discount day.  I do want to offer our customers the non-GMO organically fed chickens, because we did have a few customers ask about that last year.  There has to be a balance between being able to offer a reasonably priced product and a modest return for our extra hassle and expense in obtaining organic feeds (we have to drive 2+ hours one way to get the feed).  Ideally I'd like to raise equal amounts of each type of bird both non-medicated traditionally fed and the organic, non-GMO, no-corn, and no-soy fed.  Our family would be happy with the non-medicated traditionally fed birds honestly.  I think our birds raised on pasture are far and away superior to anything you can get from the store that is grown commercially and it is enough of an improvement for us personally.  However, we want to offer the organic option to those that feel that is important as well.

Chicks in the brooder with fresh shavings and heat lamp.

* Shavings/Bedding for the brooder phase.  We need to buy by the truckload instead of in the smaller bales from feed store at $7/bale.  An entire load cost us about $25, and we still have some left.  We'd have to lay it out to dry some before we used it each time because the pile is a little damp but that would be a posssible way to be able to save money.  We typically went through at least 3 bales per batch of 100 chicks, and we are planning to run 4 batches of chicks this year.  So we'd be saving roughly  $55+ on that part alone, plus we'd have extra to use in the horse and hog shelters as well.

*  Grit for the chickens digestion.  We've bought chick grit several times and it is quite expensive and heavy to transport in a bag.  We plan to gather a couple buckets full from a creek to feed the chicks.  We believe this will likely be healthier for the chicks rather than the over-processed stripped down chick grit available in feed stores.  This will save us $30+ from each year's production costs.

*  Ice for the processing stage.  Ice is the largest expense and hassle of the processing day (we usually don't have room for 12 bags of ice in the freezer at any one time so we have to go buy 6 bags in the morning and 6 more bags in the afternoon).  We buy roughly 12 bags of ice for each 100 chickens processed.  We don't want to take any changes of not getting the chickens chilled down quickly for the absolute safest food possible.  We don't skimp on ice in the least.  12 bags of ice costs roughly $25.  We need to start making ice in earnest and bagging it in the freezer as we have space to store it leading up to our processing date so that we can reduce the amount of purchased ice.  This will take some diligence and time but the savings will hopefully help us keep the cost of raising the chickens reasonable so we can extend that to our customers.  We hope to save 50% by trying to stockpile ice.  First, we need to fix the ice maker or get some serious amounts of ice trays to use!  We've looked into a commercial ice machine but since our ice needs are so inconsistent (one month we need very little, one day we need 20 bags) this would likely not help us save any money for a very long time due to the initial cost of the ice machine.

*  Shrink bags for once the chickens are processed.  We want a nice looking finished product that will store well in the freezer and maintain freshness as long as possible.  Shrink bags are a really easy way to accomplish this.  The bags cost us roughly 40 cents each.  We could reduce this cost if we were to buy them by the 1000 at 25 cents per bag and sell smaller packages of 25 or 50 at  40 cents per bag.  By doing this we can reduce our costs to possibly only 10 cents per bag or even less if we sell roughly 50% of the 1000 bags.  It would take extra time to list the extra bags for sale and to package and ship them off once they do sell, but it would be a valid way we can reduce the production costs and not have to cut corners on quality.

*  Order and schedule all the chicks at the beginning of the season.  The hatchery will know how many chicks to incubate for our needs and when to ship them and I won't have to worry about availability as much as when I waited to order until closer to when I needed them shipped.  Sometimes our shipments got delayed and our production season went longer than we'd have preferred.  One time we had 3 batches at a time instead of only 2 and we needed extra waterers and feeders and heat lamps and we are never doing that again!  If I could schedule all the shipments and make sure we had the chicks we needed available it would greatly reduce stress and possibly give us a quantity discount we wouldn't have qualified for when ordering smaller batches at different times.

*  Larger/Longer feeders for each pen.  The pen with the longest feeder last year produced larger birds, even though there were more birds overall in the pen.  We will give each pen one additional feeder to help give each bird more feeder space in case that helps them have equal access to feed.

*  That we don't want to go too long into summer with raising chickens for both our sake and the chickens'.  They don't handle heat well when it gets around 100 degrees and we want to have the summer more free for camping and fun anyway.  We like to be done by mid July at the latest.

*  Customer pick up schedules.  I need to find ways to make it simple for customers to come get their product.  It is hard to know exactly when the chickens will be ready  for pickup due to many variables on processing day (how long it takes to catch and haul the birds to where we are processing, to if the chicken plucker is working correctly, or if we are waiting for large pots of water to come to proper temperature to be able to dunk them for scalding before plucking etc).  There are so many variables and we have yet to perfect it.  Yet once we are done with the first 50 chickens we really need customers to pick up quickly so we can continue processing and get the remaining 50 done for the day.  We only have 2 very large coolers to store finished birds in.  If we had a way to store more chickens easily without having to buy a ton of ice to keep them cool it would help.  We have an extra frig we normally use, but it isn't big enough to be able to store more than about 40 chickens in at any one time and it is a pain to transport 40 chickens from processing area to the inside frig.  There have even been times where we have to store birds for a day to wait for a customer to come get them.  We aren't sure if we will need to set up a minimum order amount, deposits when taking orders, or more strict pick up times if we can provide that at some point or a person dedicated to the customer to be able to contact them and take care of the customers on processing day. because trying to focus on processing chickens AND customers coming at all times can be really hard.  I feel torn, I want to get to know our customers and visit and take time to give a tour or spend time with them, but we also have more chickens we need to get chilled and ready to go for the next customer too.   So ideas to help in this area are an additional person on customer details (make calls/texts with updates on how processing is coming along and when to pick up and to take money and make change).  Buying an additional extra frig to store processed chickens in until customers come to pick up (we could leave it unplugged except before and during processing days).  We could buy or borrow extra coolers and deal with the extra expense of ice to keep them chilled.  We have options we just need to put some thought into it.

* We need more buckets, water nipples, and food scoops.  Buckets are very useful!  We need back up buckets for us to install waterer nipples into in case the current waterer spigots get clogged or the bucket gets broken and buckets to haul feed and supplies.  Buckets are used for anything and everything.  Also feed scoops are so handy but oh so mysterious in how they seem to disappear around here!

Things we really like about how last year went production wise.

* We LOVE the DIY chicken plucker our brother-in-law built for us!  It makes processing day such a breeze compared to hand plucking!  Whew.

* We really like the movable pasture pens and that the chickens get to have fresh areas to roam and eat fresh greens each day, and sometimes several times per day.  We feel great about how our chickens live, that breezes and fresh air are all around them, that they have shade from hot sun, shelter from strong winds, and that they seem to thrive in this type of setting.

* We love producing a product that not many have time or space to grow yet many people want and or need.  I've always had a hard time feeling ok with selling anything I've made or grown.  Even though I honestly believe we have a great product that has value I feel uncomfortable "trying" to sell anything.  It needs to be able to sell itself or I feel really uncomfortable.  That might make me a not very good business person but it's just how I feel when it comes down to it.  I am not a salesperson in the least.

* We like how seasonal this project is.  We love the flurry of production and activity, for a time.  We couldn't do this all year....it would be WAY too overwhelming and too much work to sustain long term for us.  We like that winter can be a time of planning, figuring and resting.  Spring is a busy time of planting, growing chickens, piglets and baby chicks, and farm improvement projects.  Summer is a time of maintaining the farm and garden and eventually harvesting the bounty of things as well as the chicken operation wrapping up, the irrigation season for the hay field comes into full swing, hay harvests are coming along, and food preservation is keeping us all busy.  Fall means pumpkin patches, hunting seasons, lots of harvests, canning and freezing, battening down the farm for winter, and the hope of a slower season of rest coming.   I love each season and how different the tasks are each season.

I hope you learned something from our tips and review of how the 2013 chicken production went.

Fall Happenings...

Time for a little fall season catch up session!  

Buck season went well, as you can see.  Sunshine and Mr Wonderful tagged out, Spud Man enjoyed his first year buck hunting, but wasn't able to bag a buck this year.

Sunshine grew lots of gourds this summer and she managed to sell close to $100 worth!  They made great fall decor and were a big seller on our local classifieds page.

Beautiful shapes and colors!

We've been enjoying some of our pastured meat chickens.  We rub them down with olive oil and add rosemary, sage and other seasonings...then we smoke them for a couple hours and roast them in the roaster.  Oh my goodness they smell and taste amazing.  Really need to keep more for ourselves next year.  Mmmm mmm.

I enjoyed all the fall colors before the winds picked up and blew every leaf away.  No raking leaves here!

The kids and I spotted this buck during elk season and managed to snap a quick picture of him before he took off.

Spud Man wrapped up a successful year of growing hogs.  He raised 7 in all, 2 of his own that he paid for.  We pay for the feed for his hog in exchange for him caring for the rest of the hogs we bought for our own supply and to sell.  It was a good arrangement and he is pretty excited about having money to give, save, and spend!

That is a small sampling of everything going on these past couple months.  Life is very good at Summerfield Acres!  We are finally getting some much needed family time, rest, and even a few projects worked on.  

Winter Projects...

We are excited to have Mr Wonderful home more these days.  Which in turn means more family quality time and more project time!  We have a few projects we hope to complete this winter.

First of all we are working on a bathroom remodel.  I so wisely decided that a few weeks before hunting season was a good time to demo the kids bathroom.  Someone should have reminded me of this little sign before I went and let the kids rip out the bathroom.


I've been thinking seriously about buying this sign off Etsy for our fall decor!  Check it out here .

Anyway, on with the story.  So the bathroom was demolished, down to the studs, wires and plumbing.  To ease the eye sore we put the shower curtain up along the bathroom wall to hide the mess.  I have to give myself some credit here, we did leave the toilet functional until this last week when we needed to get some demo done behind it.   There it sat a disaster.....the tub was still partially full of yet to be hauled away sheetrock pieces for a couple months.  Hmmm, well my patience got a work out as we progressed through 4 hunting seasons, weddings, hog butchering process, more hunting (you get the idea)!  Then finally, slowly but surely, progress has started in the right direction on the bathroom remodel.

So that is the #1 goal for this immediate time, get back to 2 fully functioning bathrooms...because Sunday mornings are interesting with 6 people sharing 1 bathroom!

#2 Goal~ Finish all the trim work in the kitchen.  We still have a custom range hood to design and install, lots of crown molding on the tops of cabinets, window trim, base cabinet end caps and snack bar trim work to complete.  It won't take long once we get all the wood stained and ready and a free weekend to get it completed.

#3 Start work on the shop project, even if it is just getting the plans figured out and footings dug!  We NEED a more enclosed shop.  I am afraid our investment in tools is going down the drain as they get weathered each month that passes.  Having them under a roof is good, but walls around them would be much better, especially on those wind/rain/snow days!  We need a secure place to keep our tools and supplies and it is beyond time to have a place to keep the extra freezers and frig.  Having 2 large freezers and an extra frig in the house is proving to be a little noisy at night and not very aesthetically pleasing to look at.  What is supposed to be the dining or breakfast nook in our house is full of appliances instead!  This project might have to be something we do in stages to be able to afford getting it done.  Slab first, walls/windows/doors second, wiring third etc.

#4 Fencing projects.  We need to get a few fences more fortified around here.  The back property line fence needs some serious work, the deer have really torn it up and broken every hot wire we've try to put up.  So we need something stronger, taller, and more imposing to discourage the pesky deer from using the orchard trees to remove the velvet from their horns next fall!  grrrr  We'd like to work on some more defined corrals and possibly shelters for the horses, add a couple more pens to be able to board more horses for additional income or for our own horse one day.

#5 Find my go get'em energy and motivation to do a lot of it with the kids so Mr. Wonderful won't have all the burden of trying to work on projects.

That should bring us into spring projects and I can't even think about those yet, so we will focus on getting these few things done first, heck even getting started on some of these winter projects would be good!

Power to the Chicken Coop...

The chicken coop needed power to it.  Coiling up an extension cord every time we needed to mow was a real pain.  So we decided to dig a ditch to run electricity to the coop.  We offered the boys a per linear foot price to dig the ditch for us and Tobers took us up on the offer.  He diligently dug that ditch and got it done for us.  

It will be so nice to be able to plug in the heat lamps for the chicks and keep the water defrosted with the poultry water heater.  Spud Man also dug a ditch to the main pasture gate where we have the electric fence charger.  Having those power outlets available outside will be so nice for years to come!

2013 Goals Recap....How'd We Do?

Well as this year comes to a close I'd like to take a look at our goals again and see how we did for our 2013 "farming" year.

Dolly loves to play in the snow.

Here is a quick review of those goals from a previous post:

#1  Bless others.  By Sharing experiences and time, making memories with people, and sharing the bounty in various ways.  We'd like to donate to our local food pantry, and to give some of the bounty to family and friends.  We'd also like to incorporate a form of ministry into our efforts: fellowship, discipleship and giving.:)  Value of this goal= Priceless.

#2  Put food in the freezer/pantry at low or no cost.  Pork, chicken, green beans, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, salsa, pickles, canned pumpkin, ground zucchini, frozen corn, frozen broccoli, plus fresh produce over summer too.  Value of this goal= $1,700+

#3  Earn enough from farm to pay property taxes and home owner's insurance. This would also allow us to maintain our farm deferral status for the property taxes.  Value of this goal= $2,600

#4  Have enough $ in the farm account from all of 2013 farm projects to cover the start-up of 2014 farm projects.  This prevents us from dipping into the normal monthly budget to start up the farm projects.  We will need roughly $900 to start up the meat chickens next year (to cover feed, chick costs etc for the first 1.5 batches) until we can sell some to pay the expenses.  For pigs, we will need approximately $725 to purchase the feed and piglets for the year.  Garden, we'd need $200 to cover supplies, seeds etc.  For the hay, we need minimum of $300 to have the 1st cutting of hay custom cut.  Laying hens we'd need $300+ to cover the cost of the chicks and feed to get them to laying age if we want to go into more egg production with a few more hens next year.  As you can see these projects really add up and put a tremendous strain on the budget as we go along in the spring.  It would be nice to not have that strain on the finances as we are getting started for the year.   Value of this goal= $2,700++.

Let's go through them one by one and see how we did.

#1 Bless others.  We were able to share a lot of garden produce and other farm goodies this year.  We managed to put together only a couple boxes of food for the food pantry, I wish we'd have been more regular with this.  There is so much more we could have done.   We do hope we were able to offer others useful advice, humor, skills, and things they needed.  We enjoyed fellowship with others and sharing in the experiences together.  We were even blessed to hear several of the friends we asked to come care for the animals for us while we were gone were happy to come do chores and get a taste of country life as well.  As hard as it is to ask someone to come here and do chores for us it is nice to hear when they enjoy it!

We did have plenty of pork to supply the meat for Mr Wonderful's sister's wedding reception.  It seemed to be a big hit with the wedding guests and we were happy to do that as our gift to the happy couple.  We ended up with a total of 3 hogs this year to keep for ourselves. I think it was a good thing, it sets us up to be able to be more generous or to feed a work crew some awesome pulled pork when we go to start spring projects around here!

We've really tried to share the bounty that has been provided to us and I think we did accomplish this goal this year, BUT in all honestly I think we could have done SO MUCH MORE.

#2  Put food in the freezer/pantry at low or no cost.  We nailed this one many times over!  Our freezer is so packed, we even bought another large upright freezer and that one is full too!  We put up a lot of food this year from the garden and we were pleased that we were able to draw several tags for hunting which did a lot for the freezer filling process!   Our only regret was not keeping more of those tasty pastured chickens for ourselves.   We kept the 3 hogs, 30 or 40 chickens, 2 large turkeys, about 60 quart bags of frozen broccoli, 10 bags of cauliflower, shredded zucchini, 30+ quarts of green beans (had some left over from last year too), canned corn, frozen strawberries and so much more!  One crop failure we had was tomatoes....we hoped to can all kinds of salsa and diced tomatoes and while the vines were loaded with green tomatoes they never ripened well and the ones we tried to ripen inside didn't taste very good and we never had enough to preserve.  Overall though, it was a great year and we are very blessed in the food department!  

#3  Earn enough from the farm to pay property taxes and home owner's insurance.   We did managed to meet this goal, barely.   Boarding the horses here brings in the bulk of the taxes and the profit from the meat chickens brought in the rest.  I really like that the place is somewhat self supporting at least in some small way.  At least it helps to make some of those unexpected expenses a little less frustrating.

#4  Have enough $ in the farm account from all of 2013 farm projects to cover the start-up of 2014 farm projects.  This one is a little tougher to swallow.  I had grand plans of a nice plump savings account by this time that we'd be able to cruise into spring with.  That has not happened.  While there is some in the farm savings account it won't be enough for most of the goals I had set for this category.  We could say we partially met this goal.  We had several expensive learning curves as we finished out this year....#1 we had to feed the hogs longer than expected (with expensive commercial feeds because we ran out of the cheaper feed sources we had earlier in the summer)....and because I was naive and didn't think to schedule the butcher!  What was I thinking?  Anyway that mistake alone cost us several hundred dollars!  We also had to use some of the farm money just to play catch up from some of the months that we were shelling out serious cash to feed 100+ meat chickens!  We'd ignored some expenses while we focused on getting those birds raised and I needed to replenish some of the sinking funds (earmarked savings categories for things like bulk foods when we go buy several hundred pounds of fruits to can for winter etc).   So while most of the projects did pretty well for themselves this year profit-wise we needed the funds for basic things and we don't have those balances in the farm account where we hoped to have them...however we do have a nice full pantry so I say it was worth it!

We have to look at our goals and finances for 2014 and decide how to move forward.  Will we charge a deposit when we take orders for meat chickens?  Will we do a deposit and monthly payment system for the hogs we raise so there won't be so much longer term upfront costs to raising them (this idea might make it easier for people to purchase a whole hog too)?  Will we use some of the tax returns to buy feed and order chicks?  These are all things we will need to decide.  I think there are all kinds of ways to accomplish our goals and provide these products to those who want them.

Miss Maggie dog and Dolly in the background.

It has been an amazingly blessed year.  In looking back, I do admit we took on a little too much for one year.  When we made many of these goals we didn't know that Mr. Wonderful would be working away from home during the work week for 7 months and that our time together and time available to work on projects would be severely limited.  I have to say, I've overdone it some, especially with Mr. Wonderful gone so much.  I find myself in a bit of "recovery" mode these past few months.  Taking a breath to step back from commitments, chores and "busy"ness has been important.  I am going to keep this feeling in mind as we work on a plan for 2014 farm projects for sure!

Thanks to everyone who followed along with us on this adventure this year!  It has been a blast and I can't wait for next year......after a long winter's nap that is.

It Was Time...

Well we finally had to butcher the turkeys.  They were getting to be too damaging to the garden produce and they especially loved cucumbers.  We had fence wire around all the cucumber plants that we could and they would still stick their necks way in the fence wire and peck at as many cucumbers as they could reach.

Then came a new problem.  We have a nice herd of good looking bucks hanging around our property.  These bucks decided that our orchard was the perfect place to rub off all the velvet off their antlers.  The kids alerted me that I might want to come take a look in the orchard the other day....and what I found was at least 2 trees snapped off within a foot of the ground, and about 8 other trees that had been badly scarred and many branches broken off (many are lop-sided trees now).   I am sure we are going to have to replant about a quarter to half of the trees next spring.

We thought our 6 foot fence was enough, we had 6+ strands of hot wire but they just jump right through it.   We could hear the twang of the wire as they jump right on through. We will have to go back and add considerably expense with 2"x4" wire mesh.    We have talked about a 6' fence around our entire 5 acres since that would make the most sense to keep all deer out of the property at all times since someday we might want a 1/4 acre of blueberries or a full acre of strawberries or corn for a corn maze etc.  That might be something we have to consider more seriously now.  It won't take long for the fence to pay for itself if we can avoid replanting fruit trees and prevent garden and landscape crops from being ruined as well.

This picture makes me sick, after all the time we took to prune, inspect, pamper these trees all year we were so upset to see them all damaged like this.  I've been cranky every since I found them this way...

Until we have a chance to protect the trees (in the next couple days) we are letting the kids camp out in the tent in the orchard (they love an excuse to camp out).....when the kids camp out the dogs stay with them.  The dogs hear the deer approaching and chase them off.  It is working well, but we really need to get those cages for the trees done before too long.

The tree in this picture is in the best condition after the damage, it only lost 2 main branches and got a few more skinned up.  It was the prettiest and largest tree we had, it is a nectarine tree.

We needed fencing to be able to surround each tree with a circle of wire mesh to keep the deer from rubbing on them.  All the fencing pieces we had available were being used on the cucumber plants to protect them from the turkeys.  It made me quite sad to butcher the turkeys, but when we thought about the reason we had grown them in the first place (for meat) we decided it was time.  They were full grown and the female, Butterball, had started to lay eggs a couple weeks ago.  At first it seemed like she might want to sit on a nest, but she was a nest deserter and never did sit on it longer than 1 day.

From two turkeys we were able to get 17 lbs of meat, that weight which doesn't include any bones at all!  I thought that was a great amount of meat from just two birds.  We are going to keep the breasts and try to marinate and smoke them for deli meat, and we will grind the rest into turkey burger.  I am excited to have a nice stash of turkey burger.  Helps to round out the protein sources some.

I am really excited about hopefully getting some red meat in the freezer this fall with the hunting tags we have for elk and deer (maybe we will even get a bear for some more tasty breakfast sausage).  We are running quite low on red meat and it will be comforting to have that replenished if possible.  We need to work on purchasing an upright freezer so we can move some of the veggies and other items we need often to the upright and store the meats and longer term storage items in the chest freezer.  

This last weekend we managed to get half of the pears canned (a few we dried too).  We have 3 more boxes to go this evening.  We move on to applesauce, pumpkin puree, diced tomatoes, salsa, a little more corn, dill pickles, and a few odds and end batches of things to close out the canning season.

We have just a few more weeks of the growing season left.  I am pretty sure I am going to try out a hoop house for a season extender to get a little more broccoli, carrots, and lettuce mature before the coldest months of winter hit.  It will be an experiment to see if this type of thing is possible with the winds we get here etc.

I am really going to miss the turkeys following us around and the cute sounds they make, but I won't miss the stress of keeping them from following people walking on the road in front of our house, and the hassle of trying to keep them out of the strawberries and cucumbers.  Oh and I won't miss the gigantic sized poop all over where they like to roost at night!  It was time for a little simplicity to or busy lives around here.  Things will get even simpler once the garden is "bedded" down for the winter too.  It will all happen soon enough I am sure.

Some of the canning so far.

Canning Season...

Last Friday we went on our almost annual trip to pick fruit and prepare for the busiest canning week of our entire year.  We were able to pick 2 varieties of peaches, nectarines, pears, and a few gala apples for fresh eating over the next few weeks.

We had a nice time on the outing, it amazes us every year how little time it takes to pick over 600 lbs of fruit.  We saved our fruit boxes from years past so they all stacked uniformly in the car and had a nice gentle ride home without bruising too badly.

We canned 63 quarts of peaches the next day.  We got all the ones that were ripe done, now we are waiting for the other half to ripen enough to can, hopefully that will be tomorrow.  The canning process goes efficiently and quickly with our skilled helpers and 2 canners going at once.  We had one set up outside on the propane camp stove and one inside.

We keep work time fun and entertaining!

Before we started the peaches we got one batch of green beans canned so we could reclaim the refrigerator space they had been taking up.  After we canned peaches, we did one canner load of corn and also a batch of dill pickles.  Oh and Mr. Wonderful didn't want the peach juice to go to waste so he canned that into a jam/jelly of sorts.:)   It tastes pretty good!

I really enjoy this time of year, few things top that feeling of being prepared for winter and tighter finances that no doubt will be coming.  Knowing we've put in the hard work and that we have healthy foods for our family is comforting.  We like that we got to make some silly memories and that the kids are learning some great skills at the same time.

Socially speaking, it can be a little hard because we feel isolated while we focus on all this food preservation (partly because we are so busy, and partly because it feels like most people don't understand our desire for doing this sort of thing), but at the same time it is enjoyable enough work, it isn't so bad. I look forward to getting back to doing a little more with friends and family soon though.  I am already brainstorming an idea for a possible fall party of some kind.  Maybe, we shall see.

No More Messy Boil Overs...

I received a really cool gift for my recent birthday from a dear friend of mine.  I had to share about it because it works too well to keep to myself.

It is a silicone lid that prevents things from boiling over.  As you can imagine, on any given day I have a few things going on simultaneously and I get distracted from things on the stove on occasion.  Just the week before I received this gift I had accidentally let a pot of sweet pickle syrup boil over (really really sugary syrup I might add)!!!!  It was a huge sticky mess!  I had to lift the top of the stove and wipe it all up from under the burners, then I unplugged the burner and took out the drip bowl and washed and dried it as well.  With that time consuming mess freshly on my mind, it is safe to say, I was pretty excited to receive this gift!

Doesn't this look daring having a pot so full?  This is a tall pot of corn I am boiling to hot pack into jars for canning.  It is almost ready to boil over now!

I placed the fancy lid over it and waited, wondering if it could possibly work with the pot this full!

Here is a close up of the name of it.  Kuhn Rikon made in Switzerland.  I really like the colors too!

Here it is starting to boil hard and the foam is coming up through the center softer silicone "petals".  The "petals" almost flap the bubble down a little like it is giving it a talking to about settling down and not making a mess.:)

Here it is several minutes still on high heat when by now without the lid we'd have had a HUGE mess to clean up without this handy lid on there.  The foam never amounted to more than this even when I left it longer.  This is going to be a very handy item to have in my kitchen for sure!

A heartfelt THANK YOU to my dear friend who thought of me and got this great gift for me.  I feel loved!

If you'd like one of these handy lids, they are available HERE and they have several sizes and colors to choose from.(I receive no incentive, I am just pleased with this item!)  I am sure they are available in other places as well. 

The Busy Season...

We are entering into one of our busiest seasons yet!  Homeschool has started up in full swing and currently takes up most of my available hours in the day at least 4 days per week.  The food preservation processes are in full swing with the garden produce and with the local harvests of fruits and things.  Pretty soon activities are going to be starting back up more in church/community and we want to try to take part in some of them.  Then of course Mr. Wonderful's work schedule is fuller than ever as he tries to meet deadlines on his latest construction/excavation project.   Finally, hunting seasons will be gearing up before we know it!  Like I said, busy!

Things are very productive on the home-front lately!  This week, on top of everything else, I am crunching numbers to determine what all we need to preserve for the year's worth of food (the stuff we can reasonably preserve). We try to do the math and stick to the most productive and financially reasonably items to focus our time on for the most part.  If there is something we use a lot of that someone else can produce better or much cheaper, we save ourselves the work, and we buy in bulk instead or directly from the producer when possible.

One evening's harvest for dinner...

Pickles and sweet relish that Sunshine made!

Fresh picked corn...

Keeping the mess outside!  

Whippersnapper took pictures for me and got corn juice all over the lens....hence the soft focus effect!

Shucking corn...

Have you ever pondered about how much your family consumes per year in basic food items?  For instance we have about 8 or 9 main veggies we enjoy to have cooked or fresh most of the year.  Those would normally be zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, potatoes, onions, carrots, and lettuce/greens etc. Then there is of course corn, which always confuses me....we eat it like a vegetable, but it really isn't is it?   Do you think about how much you'd likely eat of each particular item?  I never used to!

This year, I just started thinking in general terms.  I asked myself simple questions like...."How often do we tend to buy and eat frozen or fresh broccoli from the store?" and  "If we could get it really cheap, would we eat even more than we do now?"  Then I started to break it down from there to figure out how much we need  to get put up for "winter" (really all year until we can harvest again from the garden next summer)!  I set a goal of 40 quart bags of frozen broccoli because it wasn't likely we'd have it once per week normally if I was buying it from the store.  Then as the season rolled on we realized we were able to surpass the goal of those 40 quart bags.  Yet, the broccoli was still going strong.  So we upped it to 60 quarts.  This worked out really well because the green beans are not producing like we'd hoped and we will have to make up for that with something extra in the veggies category, like broccoli!  Plus with extra broccoli we can enjoy a little more broccoli cheese soup than we might have normally, mmmm mmm. Once we hit that goal, we will be happy to give lots away (we've already given quite a bit away), and maybe sell some as well to help re-coop the costs of the seed starting supplies in the spring.  Money is always tight that time of year, yet getting those starts going is important for the later crops to flourish and produce the next year's food supply.

Then we have the fruits we enjoy, we LOVE fruit and consume quite a lot as a family~

Peaches~ Mostly we enjoy canned and eaten fresh when in season of course.

Pears~  Canned pear slices, as well as pearsauce which is like applesauce, and dried pears too.

Apples~ Canned applesauce (LOTS!) and apple butter and maybe a few jars of apple pie filling.

Cherries~  We enjoy them mostly fresh, but 2nd best is frozen like mini lollipops, and 3rd best canned.

Grapes~  Again the best is frozen and eaten while still frozen, that is even better than fresh for us!  We are known to buy 15++ lbs of grapes when they are in season and rock bottom priced and freeze them in a big container and snack on them during schooling or movies for weeks!

Berries of many kinds~  Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, black berries for jams, jellies, cobblers, smoothies, etc.  We like to flash freeze some on a cookie sheet and package them in bags loosely so we can take out a few here and there for muffins or smoothies without defrosting an entire quart bag of frozen berries at a time.  We eat blueberries frozen like popcorn for a snack!

Of course we enjoy other fruits fresh and canned weekly from the store that we don't have to preserve, thank goodness!  These would be bananas, mangos, grapefruits (LOTS), oranges, fresh apples, mandarin oranges in light syrup, fruit cocktail in fruit juice, applesauce (when we run out of homemade) and pineapple tidbits in fruit juice.

Those are just the fruits.  I will probably talk about veggies in a later post towards the end of the growing season once I know more what the average yield is.  Whenever we can, we also try to gather things that are essentially free like huckleberries, blackberries, morel and oyster mushrooms, and we also try to harvest animals such as elk, deer, bear, and birds such as grouse and maybe a wild turkey when we have the tags to do so.  The wild meat helps our annual grocery budget immensely.  I have a very skilled husband that doesn't need much gear each year to get the job done, which I am super thankful for.  I hunt too but not to the degree he does, now we have 2 young hunters coming up in the ranks!  Two kids are taking Hunter's Safety Classes right now in fact.  We've always cut and wrapped our own meat, (even the whole beef we bought, whew what a job!)  Processing our own meat really saves a bundle!  As I've written about previously, we raised meat chickens this year which added a sizable amount of quality protein for the year.  The pigs round out the meat selection nicely and they compliment the other game meats because we can use the fattier cuts of the pork to mix with the leaner ground game meats for excellent flavor.

All in all, I feel so incredibly blessed that we both had people in our lives growing up that taught these skills to us, that we've continued to hone the skills over the years together as a couple with our own family, and that we have the helpers that we need to make it happen efficiently!  That is a huge factor, having well trained help that isn't afraid to pitch in wherever they can!  Granted, if we didn't have so many "helpers" we wouldn't be needing to put up near as much each year either.    Funny how that works.

To some I am sure we seem crazy!  Spending all this time and effort just to put food in the pantry and freezer when we could just go to town and buy it (maybe).  There are several reasons why we don't just do that, the two main ones are money and health!  To be really honest, there isn't much REAL savings in doing it ourselves (especially when we figure in the time, which we don't) because by the time we buy the fruit, the fuel to get it home, the sugar (even in very low sugar syrups it adds up), the lids for the jars, etc.  It comes in at maybe at most 10% cheaper than conventional types probably the same or a possibly costs us a little more than it would on a really good sale at the store (how often would it be on sale when I needed it though?) and 35%++ cheaper than organic versions.  The fruit we buy is not officially organic, but it is grown on a small scale and more naturally than most commercial producers and we control what all goes into those jars and how it is handled while being processed as well.  That gives us a little more peace of mind for our health.

Another reason we go to all this work, is to teach our children something useful and memorable.  You never know when these old fashioned skills will help them make it through a tough season in their lives one day or how the work ethic they are learning will come in handy in their future career or marriage even.  Or maybe they will appreciate learn the value of food and not to waste it by seeing how much work it takes to preserve just 1 quart of food!

Having a connection to the food you are eating is a wonderful thing.  When we are harvesting things I can't help, but start thinking of how we carefully placed those small seeds in the trays of soil to start indoors all those months ago.  Then how we tended the little seedlings each and every day.  Then how we transplanted them all into larger pots and watched them take off in growth.  Oh and we can't forget the process of taking them all in and out every morning and evening to properly harden them off to fluctuating weather! Finally a warm spring day where we planted that same group of plants in the garden with high hopes of good weather to grow well.  The late night panicked trips out in the garden with piles of sheets and blankets to guard those tender plants from a late spring frost that threatens to kill all our efforts thus far.  We can't forget the diligent watering and weeding to help it flourish and the patience to wait for it to eventually produce food!   That is just to get you to the point of actually harvesting that food....

Now a different kind of work begins when we preserve or cook these foods!  All of these things are a powerful process to reflect on, especially as you enjoy that tasty meal featuring some of your homegrown items.  It connects me with thoughts of our Creator so much more than if I simply selected a can off the shelf of a store or a bag of frozen veggies from the freezer section.

Granted, there is a LOT of work that goes into this way of life, and we've had to limit what we get involved with outside of homeschool, homemaking, and farm care.  I am sure there will be many years we end up not being able to do near this much as life has a way of throwing curve balls, but for the years we can, we will celebrate all year long with thankfulness in or hearts.

Garden Bounty...

Wow!  This is really fun.  Getting to harvest all the bounty has to be my favorite thing about gardening, well it is a close 2nd to seeing the little seedlings come up anyway!

Here are a few pics from this morning's harvest session.  

I love all the colors!

This picture shows the colors of the Bright Lights Swiss Chard a little better.

To the left is a 1 Ball Squash to the right is an 8 Ball Zucchini Squash, in the middle is a couple straight neck summer squash.

Here are the side shoots we've been getting from the once harvested broccoli plants.  These plants were first harvested about 2-3 weeks ago.  These side shoots add up surprisingly fast.  Some of the side shoots are more like secondary heads and were about 3" across!  These smaller shoots, if they keep producing like this, will really help us reach our goal of 40 quart bags in the freezer for winter.:)   By the way, this red tub is a 7 1/2 gallon size and it is very handy in the garden for transporting to and from the house.  I am really glad I got it!

Here are a few peppers we harvested this morning.  We will likely donate a few of these to the local pantry because we'd only use one or two a week.  Once we get some tomatoes ripe to make salsa we will really use up the peppers I am sure.  The jalapeno peppers are about 2 weeks away from being the right size so hopefully the tomatoes will cooperate with that schedule so we can put up some tasty salsa!

This morning's green bean harvest.  Honestly we are a little disappointed in the green bean crop this year, what we are getting is nice quality and very tasty but we've had a mole eating plants left and right and there are barely enough to supply our fresh eating needs let along enough to put up for winter.  Thankfully we still have about 25 quart jars from last year so it won't take much to get us up to what we need.  

Here is our first attempt at growing celery, I am pleased with the turn out. Tobers LOVES this celery and eats it all the time dipped in peanut butter.:)

Sunshine just finished cutting the cauliflower into smaller pieces for the blanching process to get it into the freezer.  Looks like we got about 3-4 quart bags worth!

A pile of Sweet Banana Peppers too!

Thanks for following along on our harvest adventure this morning.