Category Archives: Personal Stories

Slaughtering Lamb & Hogs

Posted on by
Reply
pig head Slaughtering Lamb & Hogs

Here are two pigs heads, one partly skinned. Keep everything from the animal even when you aren't sure what to do with it. Learn how to make head cheese or split a head with an axe and fed it to laying hens in winter. This helps the hens produce better eggs. Use everything.

Early in December we slaughtered one lamb and two hogs. The lamb came from Jocko Creek Ranch. The hogs originally came from Ranfurly Farm but we fed the hogs up ourselves. Our neighbor Joe came over to help Shaen slaughter and process the carcasses. The men killed, bled, skinned and halved the carcasses. Shaen had a chance to use a butcher’s bone saw. He was able to cut each carcass in half very quickly. The carcasses will hang for a few days before cutting, wrapping and freezing.

I was in the kitchen and helped with cleaning and wrapping of the organs and heads. I washed the tripe over and over again. Most of my time was spent cleaning hair roots out of the hog fat. I have never eaten or made head cheese or tripe. I have looked over the books The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating and Beyond Nose to Tail by Fergus Henderson and wondered when I would have a chance to try some of the more unusual recipes.

We didn’t use everything. It is possible to make sausage casing from the intestines but we decided it was just too much work. Joe took the intestines home for processing. I was very sad not to be processing the skin of the lamb into a hide, but we don’t know anyone with tanning experience. I have been doing some research and may give it a try anyway. We gave the remains of the digestive system to the chickens. Shaen could not believe how fast the pile disappeared. The chickens considered the offal very good eating. We also saved certain organs, glands and scraps for pet food. Meadows, our cat, gorged herself on scraps during the slaughtering process. She then disappeared for a night and day to sleep off her feast.

Three days later, everyone got back together to cut and wrap the carcasses. Shaen turned on one of our large deep freezers which has a chill-down setting. This feature is found on some very large older freezers and was originally used by hunters wanting to quickly chill-down their kill. Joe brought his meat cutting band saw, which made short work of cutting up the carcasses. Shaen and Chris worked on the wrapping and labeling table. The men finished the cutting, wrapping and clean-up in about three hours.

Holiday Dinner Menu

Posted on by
1

I wanted to share the menu I used for Christmas Dinner, but the menu would be good for any holiday dinner. All the ingredients came from organic sources. I have found a new source for organic herbs and spices, mountainroseherbs.com. I was very impressed with the freshness and quality.

This meal was fairly easy to prepare and took about four hours. I usually bake my desserts the day before a special dinner. If I do not have time, I will complete the desserts in the morning so the desserts have time to cool in the fridge before serving. I make the stuffing well in advance, so the flavors can meld together. I cut up all of my vegetables well in advance and set the vegetables aside for later use. I let the roast sit on the counter, seasoned, until I am ready to start my final preparations.

The meal was delicious. We made it to the first dessert with the ice wine but could not get down another bite. This meal served six but could easily have served eight people.

Salad Course
Grated Beets with Whole Seed Mustard Dressing
Green Salad with Whole Seed Mustard Dressing

Main Course
Roasted Grass-fed Lamb with sea salt, fresh rosemary and whole garlic heads
Spicy Yam and Sweet Potato Fries
Savory Nut Stuffing
Vegetable Medley with Raw Cheese
Homemade Red Wine

Dessert Course
Pumpkin Custard with Fresh Whipping Cream
Chocolate Brownie with Cream Cheese Icing
Christmas Butter Tart Squares
Local Icewine
Espresso

Roasted Grass-fed Lamb
Our lamb came from Jocko Creek Ranch. Shaen and Joe slaughtered and wrapped the lamb earlier in December. We used the leg for Christmas dinner.
5 pound grass-fed lamb leg
2 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1tsp unrefined sea salt
1 sprig fresh rosemary, from my indoor herb garden
1-2 garlic heads, in their skins
Allow the grass-fed meat to sit in the fridge for a few days before cooking for best results. The morning of the meal, remove the lamb leg from the fridge and place on the counter to warm to room temperature. Make small incisions into the leg to place the slices of garlic. Place the sprig of fresh rosemary under the leg of lamb. Sprinkle the unrefined sea salt on top. When ready to cook, place the meat thermometer into the leg. Cook at 325F until the meat gets to 120F. Remove from oven and let rest for 5-10 minutes. The meat will continue to cook and the temperature will rise. Peel the garlic cloves and serve with the meat. Slice the meat and serve immediately.

Spicy Yam and Sweet Potato Fries
This recipe is based on a recipe from mountainroseherbs.com. This recipe is NOT safe for someone on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, but might be a good recipe to try during the reintroduction phase.
1 large organic sweet potato
1 large organic yam
1tsp cumin seeds, freshly ground
1tsp paprika
1tsp sea salt
1T organic extra virgin olive oil (optional)
3T pastured pork fat
Heat oven to 325F. Cut sweet potato and yam into French fries or wedges. In a large bowl mix the spices, sea salt and fat together. Add the cut tubers to the spice mixture and toss well. If you are using fats you may have to use your hand to get the mixture to cover the tubers evenly. Spread evenly over a glass oven pan and bake for 30 minutes until tender and lightly browned.

Vegetable Medley with Raw Cheese
1/8c organic butter
1c organic onion, cut into rings
1c fresh organic mushrooms, whole
1/2c dried morels, crumbled (optional)
1c organic Brussel sprouts, cut in half
1c organic carrots, cut into wedges and julienned
1c organic broccoli flowers, cut into small pieces
some bone broth, juice from roasted meat or red wine
2c raw organic cheese, grated
1/2c organic parsley, chopped finely
This should be the last dish prepared before serving dinner. Have all the vegetables cut and ready for cooking. When the roast is ready, heat the butter in a large cast iron frying pan. Saute the onions and mushrooms until soft. Use a bit of bone broth or the juice from the roasted meat to avoid sticking. Add the Brussel sprouts, carrots, and broccoli. Cook until vegetables are just tender. Stir well and top with raw cheese and parsley. I used Gort’s Gouda for the raw cheese. Slightly heat the cheese and serve.

Pumpkin Custard
I remember the first time I had pumpkin “pie” using whole pumpkin instead of canned pumpkin. I was surprised at the flavor of real pumpkin. The canned pumpkin I used to buy, had “pumpkin” as the only ingredient, but the canned pumpkin had a sweet and slightly spicy flavor. It was then I realized labeling laws are deceptive and allow for the addition of sugar and spices to some given percentage without having to include this information in the ingredient list. I started distrusting labeling. Nevertheless, I would never go back to making pumpkin-based desserts with anything but whole pumpkin. The end product tastes so delicious.

The secret of great pumpkin pie is fresh spices and using a sweet “pie” pumpkin. I always use whole spices and grind them with a mortar and pestle just before use. I keep fresh ginger in the freezer and grate as needed. Since I am using organic ginger I grate skin and all.
1 small organic sweet pumpkin, pre-cooked by baking or steaming, skinned
1/4-1/3 raw local honey, adjust to sweetness of pumpkin
pinch of sea salt
1tsp organic cinnamon
1tsp organic ginger, freshly grated
1/2tsp organic allspice, freshly ground
1/2tsp organic cloves, freshly ground
1/2c whole organic cream, or more
1T Brandy (optional)
In a food processor, smooth out the pumpkin into a paste. Add honey, sea salt and spices and taste for sweetness. Add extra honey if needed, but remember the pie will become sweeter after cooking. Add cream to smooth out the paste. It should be thick but not stiff. Fill 6-8 oven safe glass custard cups and place into a large glass baking dish filled with warm water. Cook at 325F for 30-45 minutes until custard is slightly browned. Cool in the fridge and serve with fresh whipping cream.

Are you a producer or a consumer?

Posted on by
2
handmade doll Are you a producer or a consumer?

I made this little doll for Sonja. It is made of 100% wool felt and yarn. The stitching is made with 100% cotton embroidery thread.

I was just reading the afterward in the third edition of The Unsettling of America. As always, Wendell Berry never ceases to alarm as he enlightens. He was talking about smaller assumptions that support the larger philosophical assumption that the world is a machine. Here are the smaller assumptions:
1. If the world and all its creatures are machines, then the world and all its creatures are entirely comprehensible, manipulable, and controllable by humans.
2. The humans who have this power are experts.
3. Experts are made by education.
4. Education only happens in school.
5. Experts are smarter than other people.
6. Thinking is best done by experts in offices and laboratories.
7. People who do work cannot be trusted to think about it.
8. People who work would prefer not to work.
9. Human workers are inefficient machines, encumbered by extraneous needs and desires, and they should be replaced by more efficient machines or by chemicals.
10. In general, the human machine is better at consumption than production.
11. A farm is or ought to be a factory in which plant and animal machines serve the economic machine in the most efficient way.
12. Efficiency has nothing to do with human or biological needs and desires.
13. Farm bankruptcy increases agricultural efficiency.
14. All farmers actually dislike farming and are secretly glad when they go bankrupt, because that gets them out of the sticks and into the bright lights where they have a chance to become experts.
15. Conventional agricultural science (like all conventional science) is disinterested and objective and serves no interest other than the advancement of human knowledge.

What caught my attention today was number 10: “In general, the human machine is better at consumption than production.” I found myself confused by this statement. It brought on the question: Am I better at consumption than production?

I found myself looking around my home. What artifacts in my home have been made with my own hands? A higher standard would be: What artifacts in my home are made with my own hands and come from materials in my local environment?

doll Are you a producer or a consumer?

This doll may be handmade but only the wool stuffing came from a local source.

As I searched my house, I found some drawings, but the art paper and drawing utensils came from some unknown place. I found a few toys I have made for the girls but all the materials came from somewhere else. 99.9% of the artifacts in my household come from somewhere else, produced in a nameless factory.

When I looked into the daily consumables of my household, I did a bit better. I found some food my family has produced on the property. Nevertheless, most of my food comes from local farms and ranches. My dried stores, even though certified organic, come from faceless sources.

I have to say, after my household inspection, I am indeed a better consumer than a producer. I find it interesting that something so mundane and obvious has escaped my notice for so long.

It makes me wonder what type of world I would live in if most of my household artifacts came from people I knew. What would it be like to make most of the artifacts in my household with my own hands from materials from my local environment? I wondered if I would be more connected to my possessions, or less. I could see both as possible, because if I can make something, there is always more where that came from.

Another question that comes to mind is, who are the producers?

What we are working for, I think, is an authentic settlement and inhabitation of our country. We would like to see all human work lovingly adapted to the nature of the places where it is done and to the real needs of the people by whom and for whom it is done. We do not believe that any violence to places, to people, or to other creatures is “inevitable”. We believe that the industrial ideology is wrong because it obscures and disrupts this necessary work of local adaptation or home making.
Afterward 3th Edition, The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry

Just One Sit-Down Family Meal

Posted on by
1
hertiagetomatoes Just One Sit Down Family Meal

One of the pleasures of growing your own food is having a change to try heirloom varieties. These pear and cherry tomatoes do not travel well but have amazing flavor. You wont find these tomatoes at a grocery store but your local farmer's market will have them in season.

This is a post I wrote back in early October. It is quite a contrast from today, since we are pulling out our winter boots, snow pants and jackets after the first snow of the year:

Shaen and I spent the afternoon working at cutting back the tomato plants. We removed leaves and extra green growth from the tomato plants in an attempt to encourage the plant to put its energy into ripening the tomatoes before the first killer frost. Shaen found a monster eggplant and numerous hot peppers hiding in the greenhouse. Sonja worked on pulling up beets and baby carrots. Erika found a potato plant and dug up the tubers. Erika danced through the garden collecting ripe cherry tomatoes like some sort of fairy nymph. The girls cleaned and processed their vegetables.

For dinner, I made a mixture of baked vegetables in a glass baking dish. Most of the vegetables came from Farmhouse Herbs an organic farm that sells at the Kamloops Farmer’s Market. It hasn’t been a good year for our garden and Farmhouse Herbs has supplied my household with much of our vegetables. The vegetables included: parsnips, onions, green onion tops, garlic, beets and carrots. (By the way, those golden beets were the best beets I have ever eaten.) I added herbs gathered by the garden nymph, and mixed in sea salt and fat from my grease bucket. Please read The Great Grease Bucket: Something for Nothing for more information. In another glass baking dish, I cut the freshly dug potatoes and added sea salt and fat. I used our own garden carrots, lightly cooked in butter and dressed with fresh garden parsley.

When Shaen came in at the end of the day, he cooked three chuck steaks on the barbecue. Chuck steak is normally not grilled because it is considered a tough cut of meat but these steaks were tender and very juicy. We got the grassfed veal from Jocko Creek Ranch last winter. For more information please read Grassfed Veal and Cooking With Grass-Fed Meat and Fowl.

When we sat down to our meal, we each enjoyed a glass of fresh cow’s milk. There was a salad of sun ripened cherry tomatoes and herbs. The girls loaded their potatoes with raw butter I made last year. (I privately thanked Patty, our Jersey cow, for the wonderful dairy products.) It was a delicious meal. The meal was wonderful because so much of the food came from our own land or from the land of people we know and trust. We were hungry after working the afternoon in the garden. What also made the meal special is that we ate it together and enjoyed each other’s company.

I just wanted to tell about one sit-down family meal. It wasn’t a special meal but the way we eat normally. This meal might seem odd to the modern eater, rushing between the office, take-out, and home but this meal would have been the norm a generation ago.

Oven Baked Seasonal Vegetables
4-6 large carrots, cut into large 3″ pieces
4-6 parsnips, cut into large 3″ pieces
2 orange beets or turnips, cut into wedges
1 large onion, cut into wedges
1-2 leek tops, cut into large 3″ pieces
2-3 large garlic cloves, cut in half
1T fresh rosemary, chopped
1tsp sea salt
1tsp fresh growing black pepper
1T grease from the grease bucket
1-2 potatoes, cut into wedges, optional
The trick to this meal is to use the best seasonal vegetables you can find. Cut all the vegetables into pieces about the same size so they will cook evenly. Use a large glass baking dish and mix all the cut vegetables together with the grease, black pepper, sea salt and rosemary. Cook at 350F and stir every 15 minutes for about 45 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked through.

Sun Ripened Tomato Salad
2-3c sun ripened cherry tomatoes, whole
1/2c garden parsley, finely chopped
1/4c red onion, finely chopped (optional)
Add all ingredients together in a wooden salad bowl. Add 2-3T of Whole Seed Mustard Dressing. The recipe can be found in Making Homemade Lacto-Fermentation Whole Seed Mustard.

Hey farmer farmer
Put away the DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

Looking for Another Cow

Posted on by
3
new cow Looking for Another Cow

This is our new Jersey cow, Olivia. We got her from Christine Blake of Windfire Jersey. Olivia really picked us.

A few weeks ago, we got some bad news. After waiting three weeks to get a milk pregnancy test, Patty our Jersey cow isn’t pregnant. (By the way, I will not recommend that company selling the milk pregnancy tests because they first lost my order for ten days, then it took another ten days to get it through the mail!) After the test we got Dr Robert Mulligan, who works with Kamloops Large Animal Veterinary Clinic, to come up and confirm the bad news.

We have a number of choices:
1. We could bring Max the Dexter bull back and have him tear out all our electric fences again. We would also lose all the milk to his nursing. (I know there is a vegan myth out there about humans being the only animal to consume milk in adulthood. I guess vegans don’t spend that much time with real animals. Most adult animals love milk, if they can get it!) This option would give a late summer calving and no milk during the peak grass production. This option is the cheapest in direct costs but we will have to feed the bull for about 60 days to catch two estrous cycles.
2. We can use Artificial Insemination with Patty and accept a late birth, assuming we can tell when she comes into heat. This is a more costly option but we would be able to choose the genetics of the sire. We have got two straws of semen from Westgen from a “calving ease” Jersey bull. Calving ease semen is usually given to heifer cows to ensure a small first calf. Since Patty’s last calf was a stillbirth, calving ease semen seems like a good idea.
3. We could milk Patty through the winter until we can get her pregnant next year. Milking through the winter would be hard on Patty and us for that matter. Here are the reasons why it is better to milk seasonally and freeze milk.
4. We could get another cow that is pregnant and will give birth in March or April 2011.

We really are not set up for winter milking. Patty is a weak cow and milking through the winter would be hard on her. We do not have a proper barn, so milking in winter would be a serious challenge for the milker. The danger would be that she would dry-off too early and we would lose milk production during peak grass production in the spring and summer.

We have decided to use AI with Patty and accept a late calving in August 2011. This will set her up to always be a “late” calving cow. Of course, if we learn to watch her fertility we might be able to slowly bring her back to early calving over a number of years.

This still does not solve the problem of having fresh milk in the spring and summer. Getting another cow solves this problem. It will mean getting more hay to feed the animals over the winter. As I have said before, our pasture is brittle grasslands, so we may have a semi-permanent forage problem unless we can get more land. But with the extra manure from a second cow and extra water on the pasture we just might be able to improve the fertility of the pasture. We have observed that the hay we bring in is excellent mulch for the pasture. Under the hay stems not eaten by the cows grows a lush carpet of mixed grasses and forbs. It is a beautiful sight to see a sage and brittle grassland moving towards a lush pasture of mixed grasses, forbs and herbs.

So we are looking for another Jersey cow. We have visited two Jersey dairies in the Spalluncheen area looking for pregnant cows:
Windfire Jersey
Grenville and Christine Blake
1165 Mountain View Rd, Spallumcheen, BC, V0E 1B8
T: 250.546.3523
E: cgblake(a)telus.net
127km
commercial milk dairy, breeders for Jersey cows and Saint Croix sheep
Jake Konrad
4931 Parkinson Rd, ‪Spallumcheen, BC V0E 1B4‬
T: 250.546.6069
commercial milk dairy, breeder of Jersey cows

During this search we have found out more about our own cow Patty. Originally, I bought Patty from a couple in Abbotsford, BC. This couple got Patty from Hunny-Do Ranch in Prince George, BC. It turns out that Patty’s real name is Georgia and she came from Windfire Jersey. Christine from Windfire Jersey gave me Patty’s(Georgia’s) pedigree.

It looks like Jake Konrad does not have any cows he is willing to sell that are calving at the time I need. Christine Blake has a number of cows which would work well for me. It looks like we will soon have a new addition to the herd.

Updated November 18, 2010: We have found another option. Christine and Grenville Blake at Windfire Jersey board and breed cows to their Jersey bull for $100 per month. Normally, they do the boarding and breeding in the spring but they have agreed to take Patty for two months this winter. Thank you, Christine and Grenville!

Updated November 26, 2010: I just got an email from Christine Blake at Windfire Jersey. She said that Patty is doing very well and has been enjoying the company of their bull. (We’ve been joking around here that Patty has gone to the spa!) We have bought another Jersey cow. Her name is Olivia and here is her pedigree.

Heritage Hogs and Ranfurly Farm

Posted on by
Reply
skinning pig Heritage Hogs and Ranfurly Farm

Joel Salatin would be happy to know we had ourselves a hog kill. This was a traditional practice just a few generations ago. Now people are reclaiming the skills of slaughtering and butchering. Here is Chris Harder giving Sonja a quick explanation of skinning a hog.

Near the beginning of August we picked up two, eight week old English Big Black Hogs from Ranfurly Farm. Ranfurly Farm is located near Chase, BC in Turtle Valley. Mike and Margaret Fryatt moved onto the farm just over a year ago, but they have done a lot in a very short time. They are breeders of heritage livestock. They are specializing in pasturing animals and growing part of their animal feed as green crops. Using electric fencing to control access, they let the animals into the green crops for a self-service buffet. Their daughter Jennifer Fryatt and her partner Adam Cooke, moved onto the property and are running the only Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program in the area that I know about. This makes them a multi-generational farm, which is a very good thing.

hog parts Heritage Hogs and Ranfurly Farm

This was the first time we cut up an animal bigger than a turkey. Ranfurly Farm doesn't require you to butcher your own animals; they can send the hogs to a butcher for you. Our group just has an insatiable appetite for learning new skills.

At Ranfurly Farm they use electric fences for their pasture management so the hogs were trained to electric fences. We have been using a paddock and a small electric fenced pasture area for the hogs. We feed the hogs organic mixed whole grains from Fieldstone Granary. We soak the grains overnight and feed the mash directly to the hogs and chickens. This soaking improves digestibility and if the hogs do not eat everything the whole grains will sprout producing greens for the animals. We also feed the pigs kitchen and garden waste and the occasional feast of chicken offal. Hogs, like chickens, are omnivores and need animal products to be healthy. Traditionally, hogs would also be fed the waste products from cheese and butter making.

We have never handled hogs before and we have come to love these sweet animals. I can’t understand why someone would dislike hogs. Hogs are very clean animals and, if given the option, they will go to the bathroom in only one area of their living quarters. I don’t know how the two hogs come to a consensus about where to go to the bathroom, but they do.

The hogs were very wary of us at first. They have these big floppy ears that hang over their eyes. I don’t know how they manage to see where they are going. But now when we come, they jump around and bounce their ears so they can see us better. After their fill of soaked grain mash, the hogs will stand still for a back scratching. The hogs will grunt with delight and wiggle their back ends with pleasure, not unlike a dog.

I must admit I am getting attached to Bacon and Sausage. These are the only names I allow the girls to use for the hogs. (We have a policy of never naming livestock destined for our table. At the same time, names such as Bacon and Sausage, helps the children understand where their food comes from.) I don’t know which will win out, growing the sows into breeding stock, or my hunger for homemade smoked bacon.

If you are looking for heritage livestock or pastured beef, pork or lamb, here is their contact information. If you are interested in CSA please contact Jennifer Fryatt and Adam Cooke directly:

Ranfurly Farm
Mike and Margaret Fryatt
797 Bailey Rd, Chase, BC, V0E 1M0
T: 250.679.2735
E: mfryatt(a)hotmail.com
E: marg.fryatt(a)hotmail.com
60km
pastured beef from Galloway cows, pastured pork from English Big Black and Berkshire pigs, fibre from Blueface Leceister sheep and meat from North Country Cheviots Cross sheep, free range eggs from Black Australorps and Silver Laced Wyandottes chickens, breeders for English Big Black, Berkshire pigs and Blueface Leceister sheep; soon to be breeders of Bourbon Reds, Ridley Bronze, and Blue Slate turkeys; soon to be breeders of heritage Sussex and Wyandotte chickens
Jennifer Fryatt and Adam Cooke
E: ranfurlycsa(a)gmail.com
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) weekly box program for vegetables and pastured poultry

Predators and Neighbors

Posted on by
Reply

Last night we had half of our laying hens on the leased pasture killed and eaten by coyotes. About a month ago, we deactivated our perimeter electric fence at the request of the owner of the property. A neighbor had complained to the property owner that he had got a shock on the fence.

The neighbor got the shock as he was cutting our electric fence. We found our electric fence cut into numerous four inch pieces. For some reason he was upset that in the process of destroying our fence he got a shock. I must admit I am not very sympathetic to the pain someone may suffer while vandalizing our fence. Unfortunately, the owner of the property is fearful of being sued by the vandalizing neighbor. This is an unbelievable situation but it illustrates a common tension between city and country.

As we move from an agricultural society to a industrial society, people become more and more disconnected from how food is produced. I’m sure the vandalizing neighbor has reasons for his bizarre behavior but he definitely does not appreciate the reasons why we have electric fences for predator control.

Even though I honestly believe the vandalizing neighbor deserves a shock if he cuts our electric fences, I do care about the property owner’s concerns. We are trying to think of a way to have a trip-wire for the perimeter fence without causing further aggravation with the vandalizing neighbor. It just means more work re-running the wires on the inside of the fence, which unfortunately will not work as well. Or we will have to come up with some other creative solutions unknown to us at this point.

We will move the remaining flock of layers from the leased pasture back to the GO BOX site. The GO BOX site has electrified chain-link fencing. Unfortunately, predators know a good thing when they find it. The coyotes will be back and the hogs and calves are still on the leased pasture. Of course, coyotes also eat pet cats and dogs. We lost our cat Tabs a few weeks ago to coyotes.

If you are wondering why I am not focusing on the coyote problem it is because I don’t see it as THE problem. Predators are a part of life. Farming and permaculture increases wildlife. We have helped the populations of numerous wild species such as: ravens, pigeons, rodents, squirrels, coyotes, and many song birds. The leased pasture is full of life. Predators are just doing what comes naturally to them. My job is not to eliminate their population but to find ways to limit their predation on my livestock. When thinking about predators, I think about the problems the predators solve for me, without my knowledge. If I kill a “problem” predator, I might find I have a population explosion of another pest.

I see the main problem as a classic city-country conflict. It is also a conflict of asserting private property rights and issues of trespass. I know the vandalizing neighbor and his buddies used to walk across the leased pasture before it was perimeter fenced. It must be irritating not to be able to take a short-cut through the property anymore. Not being able to use the property as a dump must be irritating too. Over the last few months, we have removed over 2.5 tons of garbage from the property. Finally, it must be hard having to find another “park” where your dog can take a shit and no one requires you to clean-up after your animal.

With friends like that, who needs enemies.
English Proverbs

Slaughtering Chickens II

Posted on by
Reply

Is minic an fhírinne 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

Industrial Food Sickness

Posted on by
6
wine cheese board Industrial Food Sickness

Use whole food from a quality source as your medicine. But even the best food doesn't agree with everyone. Additives can be a real problem for some.

All disease begins in the gut.
Hippocrates

Since my family has been eating exclusively whole, unprocessed foods for over three years, I have noticed a strange occurrence. When my girls go to birthday parties or indulge in holiday festivities such as Halloween or Easter, they don’t feel very well afterward. After eating the processed foods out of the Industrial Food System, the girls become nauseous and complain about stomach pain within a few hours. My eldest daughter has vomited a number of times after these meals. My youngest daughter is very sensitive to something in these foods. More often than not, it causes behavioral problems for a day or two after eating the processed food. My husband occasionally eats out at restaurants and complains about not feeling well after most meals. Even our cat Tabs, who has been on a raw meat diet since we got her, has become sick from getting into a friend’s processed cat food. As I observe their sickness, I notice it is like a mild flu that includes stomach upset or vomiting.

Now my family has not eaten unprocessed foods our whole lives. We used to eat processed foods everyday without feeling sick. (Okay, my family wasn’t the picture of health, but we weren’t vomiting after a meal either.) One would hope that eating nourishing traditional foods regularly would strengthen a person’s constitution so an occasional meal of highly processed foods would have no effect. But the reverse appears to be true. The longer my family eats nourishing traditional foods, the more sensitive we become to these processed foods.

Why are they now having industrial food sickness? Why in the past did these same processed foods not cause sickness? What has changed? I have been thinking about this question for quite some time. It is hypothesized that the healing action of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is that it changes the composition of gut flora or reverses gut dysbiosis. Gut dysbiosis is the lack of gut flora or an unhealthy gut flora imbalance which causes illness.

What if this progressive industrial food sickness is caused by changes in the gut flora community? Do the processed foods damage or kill healthy gut flora? Does the gut flora “communicate” this damage to the “gut brain” causing the feeling of sickness? The gut brain is an extensive grouping of neurons in the digestive system, which gut flora attaches to and chemically communicates with the nervous system. What if the gut flora community is causing the feeling of being sick after my family eats the processed foods?

This would explain the progressive nature of industrial food sickness and why it seems to worsen the longer my family eats nourishing traditional foods. The longer my family eats better, the stronger the population of healthy gut flora becomes. As the healthy gut flora population increases, it can send a very strong message to the nervous system that the processed food is making the gut flora’s environment poisonous to them. The reason why the processed food did not cause illness before eating nourishing traditional foods is because of gut dysbiosis. There was not enough healthy gut flora to send a strong message of dismay to the nervous system about our food choices.

One thing I notice is that it is getting easier to get my children to eat better. Every round of industrial food sickness reinforces good eating patterns. The sad part is thinking about all of the people walking around with very sick gut flora communities, too weak to send a danger warning. Most people are not aware that we are indeed “individuals” but our bodies are a vast and complex microcosm of interrelating organisms. We are in peril if we forget that we interface with the environment on a microscope level and our first line of defense is our symbiotic gut flora community.

For more information about this topic please read What is a Healthy Gut? For more information about gut dysbiosis please read Gut and Psychology Syndrome and GAPS In Our Medical Knowledge. For more information about the gut brain connection please read Breaking the Vicious Cycle.

Chicks, Chicks and More Chicks

Posted on by
Reply

Last year a neighbor lent us an incubator and we hatched two loads of eggs. The first hatch was Quail eggs which went very well. For the second hatch, we ordered fertile eggs from a small backyard breeder of heritage birds. Unfortunately, this hatch did not go very well. We had what is known as a sticky hatch. This is when something goes wrong with the hatching and the chicks have trouble getting out of the shell. We had about 50% mortality in the shell and in the first few days of life. There was also a number of birth defects in the chicks. This sticky hatch really put us back last year. We ended up having to buy some point of lay hens to get the right number of birds.

A few days ago, we received our order of day old chicks from Miller Hatcheries. The chicks come in the mail from Westlock, AB. When the call from Canada Post came in, we drove down to the post office and picked up the birds. We have found getting live chicks from a respected hatchery will ensure healthy birds and less mortality. We get the chicks without immunization and do not have them de-beaked. Chickens that are not in confinement do not need be de-beaked for their own safety and actually need their beaks for foraging in the pasture. We ordered 50 Cornish Giants, a meat bird, and 50 sexed Red Rock Cross laying hens.

It is very important for the chicks to be kept at a constant temperature, so for the first week we have the chicks in our living room. Shaen got two large cardboard boxes, which he joined together into one very large box. He covered the bottom of the box with a few inches of spelt hulls from Fieldstone Granary. He set up the water and food. We use a standard un-medicated chick starter. When the chicks get a bit bigger we will put them on pasture and a homemade chick scratch made from organic grains from Fieldstone Granary. Shaen uses a red heat lamp for warmth. Miller Hatchery sends detailed instructions about the care of chicks, but Shaen likes watching the chick’s behavior for a better gauge of comfort. If the chicks are crowded around underneath the heat lamp, it is too cold, and he will lower the lamp to increase the temperature. If the chicks are crowded around the perimeter of the box, it is too hot, and he will raise the heat lamp. Shaen likes to see the chicks actively moving around in comfort.

Later we got a call from Rochester Hatchery. They specialize in heritage breeds. Originally, they had no extra birds available for this year, so we got put on their call list for order cancellations. We got the Rochester’s Heritage Group Pack. There is a mixture of 50 Ameraucana, Buff Orpingtons, Danish Brown Leghorns and Buff Brahams. There are a lot of chicks in my living room this week!