Urban Homestead: Personal Stories About Growing Food

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growing-your-own

Growing your own food is a very liberating experience. Start your own urban homestead and be healed by real food.

In our society, growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can ? and will ? overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the would ? we change ourselves.
Jules Dervaes

This post is an index of all the gardening and farming experiences we have had over the last few years. During our time in Kamloops we have greatly increased our knowledge about permaculture, forest gardens, and pasturing. We have learned how to slaughter and process meat and fowl. We have learned about secondary food processing. I have watched my health, and the health of my family, get better. Good food is a real healer.

We have become aware that food is a political issue. Just talking about food becomes a political discussion very quickly. Unlike?Jules Dervaes, I am more concerned with government forces that create the regulations, rather than corporate forces that may be working in the background pulling stings. Governments have the power to create laws which control the courts. Government created laws are backed up by the use of force and imprisonment. Corporations might dream of having this kind of power but it’s only a dream. Corporate powers can lobby but the real power sits with government.

There are political decisions being made right now that are resulting in greater barriers for small scale farmers and ranchers to sell their products to the public. This means you will have greater difficulties finding local food. These problems seem to be intensifying right now, or maybe I am just becoming aware of what has been going on for a very long time.

Producing our own food has been a fascinating journey. I hope that sharing our experiences will encourage others to grow their own urban homestead. Doing so will increase food security for everyone. I hope these stories will also help people who are disconnected from their food supply to appreciate the work that goes into producing quality food.

Local Food
Eating Local Challenges: Part I
Eating Local Challenges: Part II

Winter Storage
U-Pick Strawberries, Cherries and Blueberries for Winter
Winter Storage Part I
Winter Storage Part II
Storing Soft Fruits

Pasturing, Forest Gardens, Permaculture and Gardening
Terracing a Slope and Planning a Pasture
Making Friends with Deadlines
Pastures, Electric Fences and Milking Problems
Predators and Neighbors
Learning About Garden Weeds

Chickens
Chicken Scratch and Fresh Grain for Home Milling
Chicks, Chicks and More Chicks
We Have Organic, Soy-Free Eggs

Dairy
Looking for Pasture for Dexter Cows
Kamloops Herdshare Program
Patty’s Second Birth
Milk, Milk and More Milk
Change of Plan
Looking for Another Cow
Olivia’s New Calf
Olivia and Cinnamon
Olivia’s Illness
Patty’s Third Birth

Slaughtering
Slaughtering Chickens
Whizbang Chicken Plucker
Visit to the Killing Floor at Kam View Lake Meats
Slaughtering Chickens II
Heritage Hogs and Ranfurly Farm
Slaughtering Lambs and Hogs

Food Philosophy, Food Politics and Food Security
Slaughtering in BC: Information You Need to Know
Pastured Poultry Profits
Let’s Talk About Raw Milk Safety
Joel Salatin’s Vision of a Local Food System
Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick
Wrong Turn
Are you a producer or a consumer?

Housing
Trick or Treat: Earthships and Zero Energy Homes

Slaughtering Chickens II

Is minic an fh?rinne searbh.
You cannot plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind.

Irish Proverbs

We slaughtered chickens this Sunday. It was a family affair. For a description of our homemade chicken slaughtering assembly-line please read Slaughtering Chickens. Shaen did triple work on the killing cones, scalding area, and plucker. For more information about our homemade plucker please read Whizbang Chicken Plucker. Erika was next in line, doing a clean-up of the pin feathers not removed by the chicken plucker. I worked at the gutting and cleaning table. Sonja found her niche as “quality control”. She would carefully look over each carcass and remove any feathers or organ bits that were remaining. She would sometimes “reject” a carcass and send it back for further work!

This was the first time the girls helped with slaughtering. Normally, they have stayed clear of the “killing floor” but the adults really needed their help. Even though Shaen was working three stations of the assembly-line, I was the bottle-neck. This was the first time I have gutted and cleaned carcasses, so I was on a steep learning curve. Shaen showed me the basic technique but gutting a bird is something only experience can really teach.

Normally, we would have wrapped the carcasses right away, but being short staffed, we left the finished carcasses in chilled water until near the end. Shaen took a break from the killing cones and starting wrapping and freezing.

We finished thirty chickens in four hours. This included assembly-line set-up, chicken catching, and clean-up. I was tired, stiff and sore by the end. I was covered in scratches from the raspberry plants after my foot race with the chickens. I don’t think we will be keeping the boilers in the raspberry patch in the future. The raspberries seem to have enough fertilizer, if the jungle-like growth is any indication. In the past, we have composted the offal from the chickens. This year, the chicken heads, feet, lungs, and digestive tracks became a feast for our two hogs. Shaen couldn’t believe how fast they ate the offal. Meadows, our cat, licked her lips after receiving her share of warm, raw liver.

By the end of the day, the girls sat down to their dinner with appetite. Both girls had a great sense of satisfaction at helping with an “adult job”. This winter, having “chicken dinner” will have a new meaning for the girls.

There’s nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway.
Mark Burnett

Whizbang Chicken Plucker

chicken-plucker-2

Building a chicken plucker.

Last week Shaen finished the Whizbang Chicken Plucker. It took him about 8 hours to assemble the materials and build the plucker. Shaen outsourced some machining because he did not have the right tools for the job. It cost about $400 to build. Most of the materials are new but the motor is second hand.

In a previous post called Slaughtering Chickens, it took four people 10 hours to process 50 chickens. This works out to 48 minutes per chicken. We were plucking chickens by hand. This does not include set-up or clean-up time.

Last Sunday we had three people working for 4 hours to process 70 chickens. With the Whizbang Chicken Plucker, it took 10.3 minutes per chicken. This does not include time for set-up or clean-up. It took 1/5 of the time to process the chickens with the Whizbang Chicken Plucker over hand plucking. If we had had an extra person on the gutting or wrapping table, the time would have been even faster.

If we had to do the 70 chickens by hand, it would have taken four people 14 hours. An interesting question would be how much did we save if we had to pay the workers $10 an hour? With hand plucking it would cost $8.00 per chicken in labor and with the mechanical plucker it would cost $1.72 per chicken in labor. With the cost of the plucker at $400, we would have to mechanically pluck 63.7 chickens to pay for the plucker. This of course is a mental exercise because we didn’t pay our workers. Our helpful volunteer Chris Harder, went home with some chickens and grass-fed veal steaks. Christine and Shaen work for free but will enjoy chicken all winter long. I got the day off and took the girls to the 4-H Fall Fair!

Slaughtering Chickens

robert-kimbell

Here is Robert Kimbell with the "fingers" for the Whizbang Chicken Plucker.

We just finished two days of slaughtering chickens. It was a big job because our “fingers” for the Whizbang Chicken Plucker were out of stock. If you have ever plucked a chicken you know this is the most tedious job in processing chickens. Commercial chicken pluckers cost in the thousands of dollars. I decided to look for a used model online but found Herrick Kimball’s book Anyone Can Build a Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker. I bought the book but the rubber picker fingers, which his son Robert sells, were out of stock. If you would like to see a video on the process, please watch Whizbang Chicken Plucker. You’ve got to love these guys!

The day before yesterday, Shaen set up the assembly line:
1. The first area is for killing cones. He uses inexpensive roadside cones that are cut down to accommodate the chicken’s head.
2. The second step is located outside. The scalding area uses a turkey deep-fryer attached to a 20 pound propane tank. This is a big pot full of water which is heated to 150 degrees. The chickens are dunked for about one minute to loosen the feathers.
3. The third area is the plucking seat. There is a big bin for feathers and a seat for the plucker. An upside-down pail acts as a table to rest the chicken being plucked.
4. The fourth area is a washing area for cleaning and removal of pin-feathers.
5. The fifth area was for cutting off the feet, gutting and final cleaning. The “dressed” chickens then go into a cooler full of ice and water.
6. The sixth area is for wrapping the chickens and packing up the organs. We saved the feet, liver, heart and gizzards. The chickens were then put into our massive old-style freezer. This freezer has a special setting for maximum cool down which isn’t normally available on new freezers. People are just not freezing large amounts of meat at one time anymore.

We started processing the chickens yesterday morning. Shaen caught the chickens and worked at the killing cones. He did double time dunking the chickens in the scalder which loosens the feathers before plucking. I was the main chicken plucker. Christine washed, checked over the birds, and removed any pin feathers. Chris Harder, our welcome volunteer, worked at the gutting table and wrapping area.

It took the four of us about 10 hours to process about 50 chickens. If we called in a professional team to do this job it would have cost about $4.00 per chicken. It will take far less time when we have the Whizbang Chicken Plucker finished.

Update September 13, 2009: I have been asked if I can sell the chickens we are producing. Unfortunately, if I sold even one chicken, I become a criminal. The government wants to keep you safe from people like me. They know their “government inspected meat” is far safer than my chickens washed in the kitchen sink. If you are wondering about the governments record of safety regarding inspected meats, please read: Slaughtering in BC: Information You Need to Know.