Homesteading in Western PA

New Chicken Coop - Part 1

2017-01-22T20:25:00.001-05:00

I spent last night drawing up the plans for our new coop and figuring out the material list. I went back and forth with buying a shed kit, but the to get a kit close to the size I wanted was several hundred dollars more than building it from scratch.

What we've decided on is a 10'x6' coop, the inside would have 7'x6' (42 sq ft) of space for the chickens. The other 3x6 space would be for storing food. The idea is to be able to get eggs and feed the chickens while being out of the weather, while storing everything with the chickens. The chicken area will have a small loft area above it for storing heat lamps, water heaters, and other supplied. We're going to build the egg boxes so that they stick out of the chicken area, likewise with the feeders. This way we can gather eggs and feed the chickens without having to walk through chicken manure (a plus for my wife).

Below is a visual of the coop plans. I made this in about 10 minutes with Sweet Home 3D, http://www.sweethome3d.com/.

The middle wall in the image above will be welded wire with a door made of welded wire on a wood frame. The egg boxes will come into the entry area, as well as the new feeders. The new feeders will be made out of PVC pipe, about 3 feet long with a 180 bend at the bottom. I saw a friend of mine in Seattle had these type of feeders that he built and they work great.

So, here is the material list to build the coop, broken out by where it is used:

Floor:
2x6x10' - 6
2x6x12' - 1 (cut in half to make 2 six footers)
7/16 OSB - 2 sheets

Long Walls:
2x4x10' - 4
2x4x12' - 9 (cut in half to make 18 six footers)
T1-11 Siding - 5 Sheets

Short Walls:
2x4x12 - 8 (cut in half to make 16 six footers)
T1-11 Siding - 4 Sheets

Roof:
2x6x10' - 1
2x6x8' - 6 (cut in half to make 12 four footers)
7/16 OSB - 3 Sheets
2 bundles of shingles
36' of drip edge

Trim:
1x3x6' - 10 (for the corners of the coop and sides of door)
1x3x8' - 3 (for the windows, top of door, and chicken door)

Most of the materials are now at the homestead. We're going to try to get this built and the chickens living in it over the next 2-3 weeks so that we can get pigs in the barn, where we are currently housing the chickens.

It's going to be a busy couple of weeks, stay tuned for updates.

Moving The Homestead

2017-01-09T15:41:00.000-05:00

We are officially in our new home. Technically we've been here since Thanksgiving, but with the holidays and everything that comes with that time of year, it didn't feel like we moved in until now. Looking out at our pastures and the unfenced in parts of our property, we definitely have some work to do. We want to change the fencing around so that the paddocks are bigger and fence in more of the property. There is about 2 acres of grass/hayfield that we want to fence in and just let the cows eat it.

But back to moving. Everything was pretty easy, then it came time to move the chickens. Thinking about how are we going to get our chickens from the old homestead to the new one, an hour away, I spotted an old metal dog carrier that we had sitting in the wood shed.

I waited until dark so that the chickens were calm and in their coop. They looked a little cramped in there, but in hindsight it was probably perfect since there was really no room for them to move around and get injured during the drive.

We decided not to bring the old chicken coop, since I wanted to build a new/bigger one anyway. Our barn had a section that was fenced off with gates, so we put up some chicken wire and put the chickens in there until a new coop was built. I let them out to tour the pasture and eat bugs, but they seem pretty happy in the barn, with plenty of light.

Chickens in Barn

Our new chicken coop is going to be approximately 8x8, like a shed, with 1/2 of it for the chickens and the other half for storage. I'll start construction this week, so look for a new series of posts detailing the construction of the new coop.

Wild Game Wednesday - Stewed Pheasant with Sage Dumpings

2016-11-09T20:23:00.002-05:00

Here we are, Wild Game Wednesday's, presidential election edition. I'm looking forward to us making this soon. I reckon I need to get out pheasant hunting. It's been a couple of years since I chased pheasants, but I love hunting them.

Stewed Pheasants With Sage Dumpings

Pheasants
2 large pheasants, cut up as for frying	1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 carrots, thinly sliced	1/2 tsp. pepper
2 medium onions, thinly sliced	1/2 tsp. mace
1 rib celery with leaves, chopped	2 tsp. mushroom catsup or Worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. savory	1/2 cup white wine
1/2 tsp. marjoram
Dumplings
2 cups flour	1 tsp. rubbed sage
3 tsp. baking powder	2 eggs
1 tsp. salt	2/3 cup milk

Place pheasant pieces and the remaining pheasant ingredients in a casserole and add just enough boiling water to cover. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 1-1 1/2 hours.
When pheasant pieces are tender, remove them but keep warm in a pot with a little sauce. Make the dumplings while the broth continues to bubble. Thicken broth, if you have decided it needs thickening, with flour and cold water paste.
Stir the flour, baking powder, salt, then stir in the sage, being sure to distribute it evenly.
Beat the eggs with the milk and stir into the flour mixture. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into the boiling broth. Cover and cook gently for 15 minutes. Do not lift lid to peek.
Arrange pheasant pieces on a platter, surround with the dumplings, pour over some of the sauce, and serve remainder in a sauceboat.

Inheriting Ducks

2016-11-04T15:21:00.001-04:00

We just got asked last night if we would like to keep the 4 ducks that are currently living on the pond at our new property. After thinking about it for a while, we decided that we would. Some quick research showed that they are good at eating bugs like mosquito larvae. The previous owner said they don't require any housing either, which I find amazing considering the pond will freeze in the winter and it gets awfully cold in western PA. So we'll see how it works out. I have to find out what kind of ducks they are. I'm guessing Pekin at this point, but don't know for sure.

There is something pleasant about seeing a farm with ducks on the pond. I had thought about buying ducks for the last couple of years at our old house, but didn't know how they would do in the creek. Hopefully we can get some nice duck eggs to supplement our current eggs.

Speaking of eggs, we can no longer keep up with demand. If I delivered 1 dozen eggs to everyone that wanted them, just at my office, we'd have to buy another 6-12 birds. We're talking about going from our current 7 birds to 12-18 birds in the spring. I'm leaning toward 18 since the 7 we have now would be 2 1/2 years old next summer when the new ones start producing, and from our experience with Rhode Island Reds, they will be about at the end of their quality egg production cycle. It is great hearing the feedback from people on our eggs.

"They are so much bigger than store eggs."
"Your eggs taste so good."
"The yolks are so much brighter."

Maybe we'll see a similar demand for duck eggs.

Wild Game Wednesday - Fennel and Tarragon Stuffing

2016-11-02T11:33:00.000-04:00

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I thought I would share a stuffing recipe that we tried one year. Despite the amount of fennel seed and tarragon, there is only light faintest aroma of licorice and no taste of licorice. When we first tried this recipe at Thanksgiving, my mom and wife bought a box of Stove Top stuffing, just in case it didn't turn out. To their surprise is was really good and started the trend of "never doubt the L.L. Bean Cookbook". To stuff our Thanksgiving turkey, I quadrupled the recipe below to make 6 cups of stuffing.

This recipe comes from The L.L. Bean Game & Fish Cookbook by Angus Cameron and Judith Jones, printed in 1983. We happened to find a copy at our local Barnes and Noble about 10 years ago and have used it extensively.

Fennel Seend and Tarragon Stuffing

A subtle stuffing with a faint licorice aroma that's particularly compatible with delicate birds like quail. Also good for fish. Makes about 1 1/2 cups.

Ingredients
1/2 tsp fennel seed
2 Tb. chopped fresh tarragon or 1 tsp dried
6 Tb. butter, melted
about 1 1/2 cups roughly torn fresh bread crumbs
1 Tb. chopped parsley
salt and black pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients together, tossing lightly.

Squirrel Pot Pie Recipe

2016-10-26T13:20:00.000-04:00

The last post was about hunting, which I'm sure brings big game into most people's minds; visions of deer or elk hunting. A lot of people started out hunting with small game, quickly moved on to big game, and maybe never went back to hunting small game. Sure there are guys that love rabbit hunting or bird hunting, but I think they like working with their dogs more than the game. How many guys love to go squirrel hunting? Probably a lot less. I think it comes from the idea that it takes so many squirrels to feed a family. Personally, I really enjoy squirrel hunting and absolutely love the meat. The meat is sweet and nutty, given their diet, it's not a big surprise.

So here is a recipe that will feed a family of 4-6 with as little as 2 or 3 squirrels and have enough for leftovers. We also make this with game birds.

Game Pot Pie

Ingredient List
Broth	Pie
2-3 squirrels (or 1 pheasant)	2 carrots, sliced
1/2 water, 1/2 white wine to cover	1 rib celery, sliced
1 small onion	4 Tb butter
1 rib of celery with leaves, sliced	3 Tb flour
8 peppercorns	3 cups broth
1 tsp salt	1/2 Tb Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp thyme	3 medium potatoes, cubed
1 bay leaf	1 medium onion diced
	cream
	pie crust or biscuit dough

Simmer the bird or squirrels in a kettle in wine-water to cover, along with onion, celery with leaves, peppercorns, salt, thyme, and bay leave until tender (1-2 hours). Remove the game to cool.
Cook the potatoes in the same stock until they are tender (you can put the potatoes in for the last 20 minutes of step 1 or you can cook them separately).
Retain 3 cups of the stock.
Bone and dice the squirrels or bird.
Prepare the dough for the crust
Saute onion, carrots, and celery in the butter until carrot is soft. Stir in the flour, cook a minute or so, and then off heat stir in the broth and sauce. Return to heat and simmer this gravy for 3-4 minutes, correcting for thickness with cream.
Put diced pheasant, potatoes, and other vegetables in the sauce in a casserole dish, cover with crust, and bake in a 500 degree over for about 15 minutes or until crust is brown.

I tweak this recipe every time I make this. Sometimes putting in some sage, sometimes using a roll of croissants for the crust, maybe adding some peas. Try it out and adjust it to make it your own. This is a go to recipe for us and I look forward to it every time.

Enjoy!

Hunting, Fishing, Homesteading

2016-10-24T09:26:00.001-04:00

As a homesteader, and yes, I'm slowly embracing the term (even though I don't agree with being labeled a homesteader), there is one thing that I take for granted, and that is food. Our freezer always has venison, rabbit, squirrel, wild boar, elk, bear, pheasant, grouse, or goose in it. It also has a variety of fish usually with walleye, perch, trout, and salmon. Our pantry and other freezer always has vegetables from our garden.

I grew up with wild game and wild fish being a part of dinner on a regular basis. Wild game wasn't a part of every meal when I was a child, but it wasn't unusual to have venison 2 nights a week and wild fish 1-2 nights a week. It was just normal and when I turned 12, I got a gun and went hunting with my dad. With my own family now, if we eat meat for a meal, it was something that I shot, caught, or grew. We just don't buy meat from the store. We aren't raising livestock yet, which is why wild game is a such a big part of our meals, but even after we get our cows and goats, I don't see hunting going away.

When most people think of homesteading or self sufficiency, they envision gardens, chickens laying eggs, goat milk, maybe a dairy cow. Some may envision raising meat animals, chicken, pigs, meat goats, lambs, or a beef cow. But I don't think that most people, when thinking about homesteading, dreaming about making a change of lifestyle think about hunting and fishing. One good day of fishing or small game hunting, can lead to a week worth of meals. One good day of big game hunting can lead to months or even a years worth of meals for your family.

I would like to make a stand though between hunting for food and hunting for a wall trophy. I do have a deer head on my living room wall. I hunted whitetail deer for 20 years and a couple of years ago had the opportunity to take a big, mature buck with a nice rack. That one deer fed us for 6 months. His head is on my wall so that I can remember the hunt, the smells, what it's like to be in the woods in the fall. I can look at that deer and remember all of the deer I've taken, I can remember meals around the table with my family and friends.

When I enter the woods with a gun, my objective is to put meat in my freezer. It is not to take the biggest animal that would make the best mount. When my freezer is full, I stop hunting. We have a deep connection with our food. When we hunt and take an animal, we give thanks for the meat.

I guess my point is that you may be against hunting and/or fishing, but you should know that most hunters and fishermen are not just after trophies for on their walls; most hunters and fishermen are just trying to fill their freezers with healthy, organic, hormone free, antibiotic free, free-range meat. The same meat that most homesteaders are trying to raise.

New Homestead on the Horizon

2016-10-20T21:36:00.002-04:00

It's been a heck of a year. We threw out most of our garlic last year due to the wet conditions we had. Almost all of it was either rotten or just so wet that when it dried, there was nothing left of it. That was pretty rough. So we went into the fall thinking we would plant corn in 2016. Then, I got a new job in December. It required me to drive to the city at least 2-3 days a week, and sometimes more. We immediately decided that it was time to upgrade our homestead and move closer to the city, closer to my wife's family, and closer to our old friends.

We almost bought a 30 acre farm that was already set up for beef cattle, with plenty of woods to heat the house and hunt on, but that didn't work out. Next up was a house on 17 acres, but it failed the inspections pretty poorly. Finally, after almost a year of searching, we found a house that we both really like, with a barn, fencing, a pond, and 8.5 acres of land. There is currently long horn cattle on the property. We are now looking forward to moving to our new farm in 4 weeks.

And with that new farm comes a lot of new things to learn. We need to get the pond stocked with fish and make sure that we have a good habitat for them to breed, with a goal of harvesting a good portion of the fish that we eat from the pond. We want to get cattle and possibly some goats, and learn how to get a small grass fed beef/goat operation going. We've had so much demand for our eggs just from my colleagues that we need to expand our flock. And where we are moving to, we could probably sell 2-3 dozen eggs per day. We need to get a wood heating source for the new house, get it installed, and get a stock of wood as we are moving in right before winter.

There is a lot of stuff to do and a lot new learnings to share. We're hoping to at least do weekly updates as we learn how to take care of cattle, goats, and aquaculture.

Know Your Mulch

2015-06-18T14:00:00.000-04:00

It has been an unusually busy spring, with multiple last minute trips to Seattle, above average rain fall, and above average weeds.

We mulched our garlic with oat straw to keep the weeds down, and it worked really well. We hardly have any weeds growing in our garlic field. We do however have tons of oats growing in our garlic field. In some places the oats are so thick you can hardly see the garlic. It's sickening to look at. Lesson learned, buy cleaner straw mulch. Actually, I'm thinking we may go with leaf mulch next time or if we continue growing garlic and get a new bedder, getting a plastic mulch attachment. I know I've been against laying down plastic to keep weeds out, but this season might just put me over the edge.

We got our new garden beds built and planted. It took 51 landscaping ties per bed. The long sides are easy, three 8 footers with every other row starting with 4 footers to offset the seams. The short sides however took pieces that were 52 inches long in order to get the 4 feet of space in the middle. The corners overlap and I drilled through with a 2 foot long 1/2 inch arbor bit, then drove a 2 foot piece of rebar through the corner to hold them together.

There are 3 cross pieces you can see in the picture below to hold the sides from bowing out. I also drilled through this part and drove a piece of rebar to hold them together. With 192 cubic feet of soil inside these beds, the cross members are necessary to keep them from falling over with the pressure.

The spacing between the boxes is 5 feet, enough to fit our lawn mower. The beds are 2 feet high and weeding is SO much easier now. I think we actually weed more because we don't have to kneel and bend over to do it.

We wound up with extra space this year because of the lack of hot peppers that sprouted, not planting onions, and not planting corn. So we decided to put in 2x the number of carrots, 32 sq ft or 512 plants. And we decided to try something new, growing watermelon. I'm excited to eat our own watermelon, and judging by how well our past crops have all done, we will likely have enough to make some watermelon wine.

We didn't plant the 1/2 acre of corn like we talked about and we didn't put in a pumpkin patch. We really just ran out of time. Between me traveling, remodeling our house, and raining 4 out of 5 days, we barely got our garden in. But therein lies the beauty of doing things yourself, no corn but we have a new bathroom; no pumpkin patch, but we have new raised beds. And those ideas of corn, corn mazes, pumpkins, fall pig roasts, etc. can all be put up for the next season.

Evening looking across our field

Spring Beginnings

2015-04-10T11:09:00.001-04:00

It's been a busy week on our homestead. With the warmer temperatures and lots of rain, our garlic really popped up.

Garlic growing

We were really excited to see the garlic coming up through the straw mulch we put down. And now we just can't wait to see how well it does at keeping the weeds down. Because we plant in raised beds, we put the straw down really thick in between the beds and about 1 inch thick on top of the beds. Next year, we want to mulch in the fall instead of the spring.

Today we got our new egg laying chickens, 8 red sex links. We can't wait to have fresh, organic eggs again. Since our chickens stopped laying in December, we've probably eaten 3-4 dozen eggs total in 4 months, compared to 2-3 dozen a week.

New chickens

Now on to the chores and to-do list. Fences to take down, fences to put up, new electricity in the barn, new raised garden beds, and the list goes on and on.

Starting Seeds

2015-02-25T22:06:00.000-05:00

Last year we bought a Burpee XL Ultimate Growing System and it worked very well.
http://www.burpee.com/seed-starting/grow-kits/xl-ultimate-growing-system-prod002628.html

However, it used those expanding peat moss biscuits that were enclosed in a mesh, which I didn't care for. The watering system though was fabulous. We could go up to 7 days without watering and we had excellent plants; by far my best seedlings ever. The cover doesn't exactly fit the tray and is fragile. I cracked it trying to get it down on the one corner, but it still works well.

This year I decided to use the peat pots with the self watering mat and tray. We are also trying Jiffy Natural & Organic Seed Starting Mix. In the past I have used my own compost, but this year it's under 2 feet of snow and frozen solid.

Our seed starting setup

We've grown our vegetables from seed for years now with several different setups but all basically the same. Hanging above the bench is a $20 shop light from Home Depot with daylight T-8 bulbs. Then it's one or two flats of cells and a little plastic dome that goes over them (the dome seems to be very important until the plants get pretty big). Under the trays is a heating pad. The cells I like to use are the larger ones where you get 36 cells per tray. With these Jiffy Strips, we get 50 cells per tray.

I will review the starting mix and the Jiffy Strips in the upcoming weeks.

New Garden Design

2015-02-11T16:36:00.002-05:00

After gardening with a square foot garden made of 2x6 for several years, and complaining about things each year, I've decided to try use a different approach going forward.

I want to keep with the intensive planting that Square Foot Gardening introduced me to, but improve upon a couple of things. First is to build my beds about knee high, so roughly 2 feet high. The hope is to save our backs a little, make mowing easier, and provide more nutrient rich soil to the vegetables.

With a bed this high, we are planning on using landscaping timbers stacked up and connected with long nails. We'll see how that goes. Otherwise we'll connect them with 1/2 in bores and rebar. But with beds this high and using landscaping ties, we are also planning on making our beds 20 feet long. This will actually make the foot print of our garden smaller. Right now we have 4 feet between each box on each side. So with this set up, we will only need 2 long beds to get the same space as our 9 beds AND our four 1x4 beds!!

Another advantage that going from 13 beds to 2 beds is that an automated irrigation system becomes a lot more manageable and cheaper. Even without an automated system, watering will definitely be easier. Our final improvement with the beds is to put hardware netting on the bottom of them to keep the moles out of the beds. We've lost too many crops to moles/voles over the years.

Our spacing between our beds will allow us to mow in-between the beds. So maintenance between the beds will now consist of one pass with the lawn mower.

We will continue planting in our intensive, "square foot" way, but will have to think more carefully about where we plant things. We will also have to get a lot more soil into the beds.

So as I get my seeds started this weekend, I'll be spending plenty of time thinking about the logistics of where things will be planted, how much space they take, etc.

End of Year

2014-12-30T17:04:00.001-05:00

It's the end of the year; a time for reflection and planning. Our homestead feels a little empty with no chickens to take care of. We started the year with 5 laying chickens, raised and butchered 25 meat chickens, and then butchered our laying chickens when they stopped producing. We are already planning on getting 6 laying chickens in March.

Right now we are excited about growing two or three pigs in our current fenced in chicken yard. One pig for us, and the rest for our families. Our families are excited about the prospect of us growing some pigs for them as well. These pigs would be butchered right around the time when the new layers are ready to occupy the space. Although I'm not throwing out the idea of raising them on concrete in the barn as my neighbor does. One of the benefits would be the ability to collect and spread the manure on our fields.

Speaking of fields, if I had laid out my beds better, I could have got one more bed in the field and used up all of our seed. Our goal this year is to sell 500 pounds of garlic, which would make the tractor payment for the year and purchase a new raised bed maker from Buckeye Tractor.
http://www.buctraco.com/3%20Online%20Catalog/Model1921-Dx.htm

We are also looking forward to planting a half acre of corn. After talking with our friends, family, and neighbors, we've decided on a the types of corn and are preparing our seed order. We haven't yet figured out how we are going to plant the corn. I've seen 1 and 2 row planters at auctions for less than $300 that need some work, but for only 1/2 acre I could get a brand new walk behind planter.

As the year winds down, we have been spending time looking at more acreage. Wooded acreage for cutting firewood, hunting, and building a small camp. Tillable acreage for expanding our garlic crop and raising beef cattle.

Reflecting on our garden and our harvest the last few years, we have to make some changes. We have raised beds that need repaired/replaced. Our 1 foot wide beds are going to expand to 2 foot wide for our tomatoes. Our walkways need to be repaired and finished. And finally our soil/compost mix needs to be refreshed in all of the boxes. We've talked about putting up a greenhouse on the south side of the barn so that we can get an early start on everything and even grow some things year round.

We will not get all of the projects done that we envision for 2015, but we've come to realize that is just a part of homesteading. There is always more to get done than there are hours in the day.

Overall, we had a good year and we are looking forward to 2015.

Farm Income

2014-09-02T23:29:00.003-04:00

We did it, we finally made some income from our farming enterprise. With all of our garlic cleaned and weighed, we wound up with 67 pounds to sell, about 1/4 of what I thought we would have. It is all sold and we will get our first check this week. And even though its not much, it did pay for the garlic we purchased last year to get started. We are excited. After 2 1/2 years of planning, purchases, and prep, we finally have money going into our account.

Garlic ready for delivery

Next year, even if we still end up with a 4x yield, we will make enough to break even with the tractor payment. Anything above a 4x yield would be actual profit. And with the changes we are making, I'm confident we'll be closer to 6-7x yield.

When we set out, our goal was to sell the majority of our garlic to a seed company in the Midwest, but we have to get a higher percentage of our garlic heads bigger than 2 inches. So now that we've found some garlic festivals within reasonable distance, our goal next year is to sell 300 pounds at one or two festivals, while continuing to improve our fields and select the biggest & best heads to increase our average size.

It's taken 2.5 years to get any revenue, hopefully 1 more year and we will be profitable. Time to review and update our farm plan for the next 1-3 years.

Lawn Mower Fixed

2014-08-26T20:09:00.001-04:00

I've always prided myself on being self-sufficient, being able to fix anything that comes up, growing my own food, etc. That's the way I was raised and it just seems normal. So when our lawn tractor died, I did what only felt right. Instead of throwing it away or scraping it and getting another one, I took it upon myself to not only fix it, but to improve it.

The trouble with our tractor started the first summer we had it. It has always thrown belts, ALWAYS. Then my wife hit a piece of concrete and ruining the bearings in the middle spindle. Over the course of 5 years, I've kept the bad spindle packed with grease and have kept the tractor mowing at least decently. Then 3 weeks ago, I hit a very large stone which shattered the left spindle.

I found a 2 pack of spindles on Amazon.com for 1/2 the price of one spindle elsewhere. 3 new OEM blades, 2 spindles, 1 belt, and 45 minutes later I was ready to mow. We mowed our grass once without issue. Then the next attempt the tractor stopped running and would only run on choke. So I tore the carburetor off, checked everything, cleaned it up and we were ready to mow again. However this time, it just kept throwing the belt every 50 feet.

The belt on our tractor is 147.75 inches, so I went to get a belt that was 147 inches, taking out any play. Unable to find a belt that size, I decided to get an OEM belt and replace the tension spring on the deck. I bought a heavier spring at Tractor Supply, quite a bit heavier. With everything in place I was finally ready to mow. Finally, the tractor mowed as good, and actually better than when we first got it, no more thrown belts, no more lines where the blades missed pieces, but finally a good looking lawn.

So for a total of $157 we had working tractor that mowed better than when it was new. Thinking about not only saving our tractor, but making it better is quite a satisfying feeling. And for anyone thinking about being a homesteader or living a more self-sufficient life, more important than growing a garden or raising some animals, is being able to look at anything and say, "Yeah, I can fix that." Once you can do that, you are ready to make your move.

Garlic Yield

2014-08-26T18:50:00.001-04:00

I had counted on a yield of close to 10x when I started this venture last spring. After harvesting all of our garlic, our average yield for year 1 was 4x. Since we are planning on planting 25 pounds of each variety ourselves, we were left with only 30-40 pounds to sell. So, we wound up making enough to make one tractor payment and replace the fluids in the tractor, but was so far off the mark, that it is really depressing.

1/2 the garlic hung to dry

After a few days, much thought, and discussing it with the family, I've come to the conclusion that this is just like any other business. There are start-up costs, learning curves, and you can't be successful right out of the gate. So, things are in motion for year 2. We have a bigger plot, with better soil that is growing the second round of buckwheat right now. We have 100 pounds of quality garlic to plant. We have found several avenues to sell our garlic next year. And we are excited to try some new things.

We will definitely be mulching the garlic for weed control. We will attempt to use a potato plow to harvest the garlic much faster. We will try washing the garlic with water before hanging to cut down on the time it takes to clean the garlic for sale. Hopefully we can get our yield up, harvest faster, clean faster, and make a profit next year. I need to figure out a faster way to bunch/hang the garlic, but I have 10 months to figure that out.

Some other things that we will be doing next year is growing a pumpkin patch for friends and family. We want to have a fall gathering, take everyone on a hayride around the country roads, and send all the kids home with pumpkins to carve. We are also in the planning stages of growing a large plot of corn. We haven't decided if we will grow field corn to feed our chickens or sweet corn to feed our families. And we are looking into growing pigs instead of meat chickens in the spring.

Needless to say, there will be plenty of activity next year. Now we start shifting gears and thinking about firewood again.

Best Onions So Far

2014-07-17T23:40:00.000-04:00

We picked our onions yesterday and were pleasantly surprised. I usually end up with about 50% being rather small, around 1 - 2 inches, however this year I only had about a dozen or so that small. Besides having a lot of nice onions, we had several that were the size of a baseball or bigger.

A couple of our large onions

If we can continue growing onions of this size year over year, I will have to change the spacing in my square foot garden from 9 onions per sq.ft. to 5 per sq.ft. I'm going to have to give credit to the weather for our harvest this year. We have received steady rain and temperatures have been rather pleasant. We are excited to see how the holland onions turn out.

Water Bath Canning, Botulism, and Absolutes

2014-07-10T12:31:00.000-04:00

This is not a post on how to can, what to can, or how to do it safely. There are literally thousands of pages with information about canning on the internet. This post is about how most of those pages tell you, in absolutes, that you can't can beans, potatoes, meat, or anything else low-acid in a water bath canner.

I am not encouraging anyone to go against the recommendations of the government or state agricultural universities when it comes to canning. But I will say this, YES YOU CAN PROCESS BEANS, POTATOES, MEATS, AND OTHER LOW ACID FOODS IN A WATER BATH CANNER! Ok, I shouted it, but it needed to be shouted.

Beans, potatoes, meats, low-acid foods will be referred to as simply LAF for the rest of this article, mainly because I'm a lazy writer and you really don't want to read all of those words each time I refer to them.

My first issue is with speaking in absolutes. I've read some sites that say "You can't process LAF in a water bath canner" OR "You absolutely can not process LAF in a water bath canner.' OR "You must process LAF in a pressure canner." These absolute statements mean that it is not physically possible to can LAF in a water bath canner. HOWEVER, the old Ball Blue Books have processing times for LAF in them, so at one point in time you COULD do it. Therefore, those absolute statements are simply false. Now a statement like "You SHOULD only process LAF in a pressure canner" is much more acceptable and true. By speaking in absolutes about something that is not absolutely true, you have immediately disqualified yourself from giving advice and I won't listen anymore. But by making a very strong suggestion, you have my attention.

"You must breath in order to live." That is an absolute statement that is true and I don't doubt it. But a statement like, "You can't dunk a basketball" is an absolute statement that is not true. Yes, it is highly improbable that I can not dunk a basketball right now (I'm 5'5", can't palm a ball, and have a short vertical), but it is not impossible. And given some training and practice, the probability increases. Here is an absolute statement: "You can not rob a bank." That statement is totally false. You CAN rob a bank, however you either have to know what you are doing OR deal with the consequences. The same thing goes with canning with a water bath canner.

Now some background; the reason I KNOW you CAN process LAF with a water bath canner is because my mom did for years, and we never got sick. My grandmother did for decades and nobody ever got sick. It has been done over and over again for years, by many, many different people. So anybody that says "you can't" or "you must use a pressure canner", is really just reiterating the government/ag universities statements. So let's look at the statistics.

According to the CDC, from 1990 - 2000 there were 47 events of botulism and 70 incidents (e.g. an incident = 1 person being sick, an event = 1 outbreak of the disease.) The population in the US in 1990 and 2000 was 249 million and 281 million respectively. So during the time frame of 1990-2000, we'll average the numbers and call the population 265 million. That means that out of 265 million people in the United States of America, 70 got sick from home canned foods. 70! SEVENTY! Divided by the 10 year period and that's an average of 7 people per year. Your chances of getting botulism from home canned foods in a year is 1 in 38 million. Compare that to your chances of being struck by lightning in a year, which is 1 in 1 million (see NWS Page), and you are 38 times more likely to be struck by lightning that get botulism from home canned foods. And yes, I am aware that not everyone of the 265 million people cans food, so not everyone is at risk of getting botulism from home canned food. Not everyone goes outside during thunderstorms either, but the lightning strike data is calculated based on the total population, so in order to compare the percentages, the botulism stats also need to be applied to the total population as well.

Lets take a closer look at the CDC numbers CDC Table.

Type of processing/food	No. events^b	No. cases
Noncommercial,home canned
Total	47	70
Restaurant-made
Total, contiguous states and Hawaii	102	160

You are over 2x as likely to get botulism from eating at a restaurant.

And again in more detail:

Type of processing/food	No. events^b	No. cases
Noncommercial,home canned
Tomato juice	1	1
Potatoes	1	1
Pickles	1	1
Noncommercial, not home canned
Bread pudding	1	1
Apple pie	1	1
Potatoes	3	3

Tomato Juice is a high acid food. Potatoes are a low acid food. If we assume that the tomatoes and potatoes were canned according to the recommendations, then you have an equal chance of getting botulism with either one. Even if the canned potatoes were canned "improperly" using a water bath canner, you are still as likely to get botulism from the tomatoes as the "improperly" canned potatoes. Same with pickles, which have vinegar, pickling salts, etc. added. Now if you look at the non-canned foods, there were 3 times as many events with uncanned potatoes as there were with canned potatoes. Now that could simply be explained because most potatoes prepared in the home are not canned. But then you have apple pie and bread pudding, with the same number of incidents as tomato juice and pickles. However, you don't hear too many people giving you absolutes on preparing an apple pie or even worrying about botulism from apple pie.

I will again state that I am not advocating anyone to go against the recommendations of the government, universities, family members, friends, or your neighbors. I'm simply stating that yes, you can process LAF in a water bath canner. I will not tell you how. If you want to know the times, buy an old Ball Blue Book from Ebay.

Now, after all of that, will I can green beans in a water bath canner? No. Not because I don't believe it isn't safe, but because it takes 3 hours per batch in a water bath canner! And during that 3 hours, you have to keep adding water to keep the level above the jars. Compare that to the 25 minutes in a pressure canner and it becomes a matter of time/economics. I won't tell you that it can't be done, that you must use a pressure canner, or that it is unsafe, though you could process four batches in a pressure canner during the time it takes to do one batch in a water bath canner.

I will give some advice to anyone that is processing LAF with a water bath canner. Don't be stupid! Don't open a jar of meat or beans, and eat straight from the jar without cooking first. All of the venison, beans, and potatoes that my mom canned was cooked thoroughly, THOROUGHLY, sometimes beyond thorough, before we ate it. No matter how you can your food, check it before you eat it. If the seal is popped, throw it out. If it's seeping liquid, throw it out. If it smells funky or looks funky, throw it out. If there is mold growing on it (and somehow it passed the "looks funky" test), throw it out. If in doubt, throw it out. Put dates on your jars and throw it out when it gets old. I wouldn't open a jar of meat that I canned 3 years ago and eat it, that just doesn't make sense to me. Don't cut corners on sanitation or processing. This man used a pressure canner, as is recommended, but shortcut the process: Home Canning Hobby Leads to Near-Fatal Medical Emergency. And finally, don't be afraid. Respect your food, respect the process, respect the bacteria that could be living anywhere, but don't be afraid; be smart instead. After all, your chances of getting botulism from canned tomato juice is just as high as getting it from apple pie.

Be safe, be smart, and enjoy your canned foods, however you process them.

Injured Chicken

2014-06-18T10:00:00.000-04:00

We were driving home the other day and as we pass the main road field, which is where our meat chickens are, we could see something odd going on inside their pen. Upon investigation, I noticed the chickens torturing one chicken. I don't know how it happened, but this chicken had a bloody head and it looked like it had a decent gash on the top of it's head.

Head Injury starting to heal

I watched for a while and sure enough, there was no way that chicken could stay in there. So I put it in with the 5 layers we have. Those chickens didn't peck at it's head, but they didn't want this new chicken in their area and they let him know it. They basically stayed away and I figured after a couple of hours, they would all be used to each other.

I went out right before dark to check on things and the injured chicken was gone. Disappeared. We looked all over for it, but couldn't find it and eventually figured that it decided to go to a neighboring farm. The next morning, he was back, inside the pen, as if he never left. A couple hours later and he's back outside the pen. So I captured him and wanted to see if he could go back in with the other meat chickens. As soon as he went in, the torture started again.

So, I had to put him in the barn. He's now living in the same kennel that they all lived in until his head can heal. I know he would rather be outside, eating grass & bugs, feeling the breeze, but at least he isn't being eaten by other chickens.

Life in a dog kennel

I guess this serves as a lesson to make sure you have a "triage" area to put injured or sick chickens away from your other birds. I thought about making a small moveable pen that I could use as a triage area. But the dog the fold-up, portable dog kennel is fast, easy, and stores in a small space.

Bushels of Scapes

2014-06-16T00:13:00.000-04:00

After playing 6 games of baseball in a tournament, my son still had the energy to help me pick the scapes this evening. Almost 4 full half-bushel baskets. We'll be busy making pesto the next couple of days and hopefully sell a few. Time to find a farmer's market!

Garlic Scapes Pesto

2014-06-13T15:34:00.001-04:00

9-10 garlic scapes, knobby seed-pod removed
1/2 cup slivered almonds
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste

Rinse scapes in cold water
Chop into 1/2 inch pieces
Pour scapes and slivered almonds into food processor
Blend 30 seconds, or until texture is smooth
Scrape sides of bowl.
With the processor running SLOWLY add olive oil and process until thoroughly mixed (about 15 seconds).
To chill place pesto in a glass bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap

Yields about 2 cups

Weeds and Scapes

2014-06-12T10:07:00.002-04:00

The weedeater worked decent in between the rows. We finally got everything weeded, just in time for the scapes to come on.

Kids running in the weeded garlic field

Andromeda helping with the weeds

We are working on a price for the scapes. Since they are really a by-product of growing hardneck garlic, I'm not looking to make much off of them. I might have my wife call a couple of upscale restaurants and see if she can unload them in mass.

Garlic Progress

2014-06-04T10:00:00.000-04:00

I am extremely satisfied with how well our garlic is growing, considering this is the first year growing a mass amount and not in 4x4 raised boxes. That said, we messed up by not mulching the garlic in the spring before the weeds started growing. So now we have a large task of weeding ahead of us. Since the garlic is planted in raised beds, we are going to try weeding the beds and in between taking a weed-eater through at ground level.

We are on track to weed 1 row per day in the evenings when it's not too hot. Hopefully we'll only have to weed 1 more time by harvest.

Below are before and after pictures. You can see the first three beds on the left are weeded down the slopes and there is still a large mass of weeds in-between the beds. Since our field for next year is twice the size, it will be imperative that we mulch in the early spring to get on top of the weeds.

Before

After

Chicken's New Home

2014-06-03T10:33:00.001-04:00

We decided that our chickens needed more grass. We have been letting them out of their run to walk around as they want, but they are too interested in the garden. So I marked out a 40'x50' area next to the garden for the chicken's new home. After pricing out fencing, I decided on welded wire fencing and NOT buying the T-posts, but to use the posts from the split rail fence we had lying around. And since we were using the posts, we figured we might as well put the rails in too and make it look nice.

I dug 5 holes the first day and set the posts. Then I decided to invest in a 3pt post hole digger. After that, we got the rest of the posts set in just under 2 hours. With the split rail fence up, we set out putting up the welded wire fence. I went with 4 foot high fence and made sure that the coop and waterer were far enough away from the fence that the chickens couldn't jump/flap to the top of it.

The chickens love their new home, with all the grass and bugs they can eat. With 2000 sq.ft. of space for 5 chickens, I don't expect that they'll be able to mow this area down to dirt.

Meat Chickens in Moveable Pen

2014-06-02T13:40:00.003-04:00

After swearing to not raise meat chickens again, we decided to have another go. Only this time instead of raising the Cornish X, we went with a more traditional breed, White Rocks. Yes, they take longer to grow out, but we aren't running a meat factory. Our purpose, and likely most people raising meat chickens in their back yard, is to raise chickens without chemicals or antibiotics, and to allow the chickens access to grass and bugs.

So we bought 25 chickens at the local Tractor Supply, put them in the large stock tank that we have as a brooder, and got ready for meat chickens, part 2. The 25 chickens outgrew the brooder fast, so I set up a portable dog kennel in the barn until they feathered out and could go outside. In the meantime, I started on a chicken tractor using only what we had laying around.

My idea was to build a 10x10 moveable pen, half covered with metal roofing and the other half in wire. I started with two 10' treated 4x4 posts, cut the ends at an angle so that they worked as skids. I then ripped a couple of treated 2x6 and 2x8 into 8 foot long 2x2s. I couldn't dig out enough 10' pieces, so our pen wound up 10x8. I some of the 2x2s into 2 foot long pieces for the sides, with 5 pieces down each side and 2 on the front and backs. I then too 5 longer pieces built the roof supports, connect the uprights from side to side.

We had some extra roofing material in the rafters of the barn from when it was built. I cut several 2 foot long pieces and screwed them to the sides and back. Then cut 5 foot long pieces for the roof. We had some welded 1x1 wired that I wrapped around the sides and front on the front half of the pen. Then took some chicken wire we had laying around and attached it to the top. For an access door, I cut a 2'x2' square in the top of the chicken wire and wired a screen window to the frame. Then I realized that I needed access to the roofed area to put the food so that it wouldn't get wet, so I cut some wire and took a loose piece of siding and just lay it on top.

So we wound up with a rather sturdy moveable pen and it cost absolutely nothing. Everything was already on our property, including the nails (we have 5 gallon buckets of nails from the previous owner). All of the wood came from when we tore down the old deck, and the roofing/fencing was in the barn.

Here is the final result, with 25 chickens enjoying the grass and fresh air.

Chickens in moveable pen

This specific pen is kind of heavy and moving more than the 10 feet that we move it every 2 days, is pretty tough. The 4x4 posts on the bottom are the main weight issue and in hindsight, they could probably be replaced with 2x2s or 2x4s to cut the weight drastically. If we stick with this pen, we'll likely end up drilling holes in the back to attach wheels when we need to move it.

Our chickens are extremely happy and with the grass & bugs, they are only going through 1 gallon of feed every 1.5 days. If everything continues to work out well, we have already discussed raising another 25 or 50.