Revised Chicken Coup

Well, we added onto the chicken coup! Here's our new (and clean for the moment) coup.







This is where they lay their eggs



This is where the pullets go, after they leave the brooder.




This is the breeder pen, where we put pure breeds together for hatching our own chicks.

Blessed with New Life

Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Deut. 28:4


When I look out at our little farm, I stand in amazement at the blessings He has given us. This picture is of our Dexter cow and her new calf Ella. So much of the Bible references to land, animals, farming, sowing, etc. I was reading in Deuteronomy 28, which talks about blessings for obedience. How the Lord has blessed us with fruit on the trees, crops, livestock, and new life in the pasture. I look out in my backyard and I see His creation and I see His blessings.

Homemade Wheat Bread

Here's my favorite whole wheat bread recipe. The flour I use is freshly ground from the wheat berry. If you are using packaged flour, the measurement will be different, but you can still use this recipe. Also, I use a Bosch mixer to knead the bread and this recipe will yield 5-6 loaves. The biggest trick to making your own bread is to take your time - don't be in a hurry.

6 cups warm water
1-1/3 cups honey
3 T instant yeast
1-1/3 cups virgin coconut oil
Enough flour to make it a little thicker than soupy (probably 7 cups)
Let this sit for about 10 min or so

Add the rest:

2 -3 T sea salt
1-2 eggs
flour until it pulls away from the sides of the mixer bowl (probably 8-9 cups)
Let this rest for 20 min or so.

Put it in your baking pans and let them double in size. Bake for 30 or so minutes (unitl the tops are golden brown) at 350.

You can use this same recipe for pizza dough, bread sticks and cinnamon monkey bread. For the pizza dough, spread it as thin as possible and cook a little before putting your ingredients on. For bread sticks, paint with butter and sprinkle garlic and salt on them before cooking. For cinnamon monkey bread, roll in little balls, dip in melted butter, roll in cinnamon and sugar mix, pile them up in a bread pan or bundt pan about halfway and bake at 350. Yum!!!

Making Your Own Beef Broth

Making your own beef broth is easy to do. If you don't raise cattle to butcher, you won't be saving any money doing this. If you don't raise your own cattle, you can either buy meaty beef bones from the butcher (they are cheap) or talk to one your friends who does raise cattle because they likey have more than they care to keep. Here's the recipe (note: all my measurements are guesses and can be altered to what you have on hand - I don't really measure or weigh anything unless I'm making soap).

4 pounds meaty beef bones
2-1/2 quarts water
2 medium onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
parsley, basil, or sage (fresh)
salt to taste

Mix it all together and cook it for about 6 hours. Skim off any fat (this is easily done if you let it cool first). Strain it and store in freezer baggies or freezer containers. You can can this if it's too close to hurricane season (I try to deplete my freezers before hurricane season if possible). Enjoy!

Goat Milk

A huge part of being self-sufficient is producing your own milk from goats or cows. We have recently changed over to the cow, and I will post more on that later. Goats are relatively easy to keep and not as costly as a cow. I will post on the differences between goats and cows for milk in an upcoming post. I don't want to step on all my goat lover friends, but I have to say, I'm really enjoying the cows! While cow milk is more versatile, there's alot you can do with the goat milk. One thing is soft cheeses. Here's my recipe for an easy and delicious soft goat cheese:



16 c. raw milk
1/2 c. vinegar

Heat the milk in a stainless steel pot until bubbles form around the edges and it's steaming. Remove it from the heat and pour in the vinegar. Stir until curds appear, which will be very quick. Drain this in a strainer and let it sit for 10 minutes. Transfer the cheese into a container and refrigerate or freeze it. You can blend this if you want it creamy, such as using it for pasta dishes, or leave it in small curds and use as a dip. Experiment with adding things to it. The photo above is one I made for a spaghetti topping and on top of garlic bread. I added salt, garlic, and fresh basil. You can add pineapple with nuts, garlic with crushed red pepper, dill, minced marinated olives with garlic, etc. Have fun and enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Turkey Jerky

I meant to post this right after Thanksgiving, but alas! Here's what I do with extra turkey. I buy more than one turkey during the Thanksgiving season because they are so cheap. I cook one in the oven and just enjoy it. If it's too big for your family to eat two meals from it, use the leftovers for sandwiches or casseroles. With another turkey I cut the breast in nugget sizes and freeze this in pound sized containers or baggies and for future turkey nuggets (cooked just like chicken nuggets), and I freeze the dark meat for casseroles. Then with another turkey I make turkey jerky, which is the picture above. Here's the recipe:

(My measurements are general since I don't really measure - it'll come out just fine no matter what you do):

Cut strips of turkey meat into 1'4" strips (slightly frozen is easier to cut). Make enough of the juice to barely cover the top of the meat in your bowl. To make the juice, mix:

2 c. soy sauce or teriyaki sauce (if you use teriyaki sauce, add some salt)
1/2 c. salad oil
1 c. vinegar (you can also use 1/2 c. lemon juice instead)
1 c . water
2 t. liquid smoke
1 c. brown sugar or honey

Marinade for several hours then put in your dehydrator using the meat setting and as long as your machine tells you to. I always sprinkle each tray of meat with something different. Here's some ideas: garlic powder, pepper (red or Slap Yo Mama), ginger powder, onion powder and crushed red peppers.

Note: I use the Excalibur Dehydrator, which I love. Store the jerky in a breathable container to increase the shelf life.

Enjoy!

Organic Eggs

We are constantly asked if we sell our "goods". We have people interested in buying our eggs, meat, garden produce, honey, milk, etc. Most of the time I tell them we don't make a habit of it, but will sell at times. I've toyed around with the idea of housing more chickens or goats, for example, so we can have more naturally raised goods for people to buy. However, we have come to the conclusion that this is not a good idea. In order to raise chickens the way God intended them to live, you'd have to have an enourmous area for a large number of chickens. By keeping a smaller number of farm animals, you will have less land/pasure burden, less disease, less parasites, less work, and happier/healthier animals. The best thing you can do, is to raise what you need for your family...period. See my earlier posts on the blog for how to homestead in the city. If you absolutely can't homestead yourself, get educated on what brands to look for. We recently passed by a number of poultry farm (Tyson Farms) when we were picking up our Holstein. I'm not kidding when I say, you could smell death in the air. The food industry is an industry - this means they are concerned about the all-mightly dollar. They are all trying to get their products into the all-mighty Wal-Mart which is another blog all-together.

Here's a henhouse picture from an organic supplier.

The Cornicopia Research scored the top selling organic brands. You can visit their website and read the "Scrabled Egg Report" here: http://www.cornucopia.org/egg-report/scrambledeggs.pdf

Here are the top scoring brands per TCR:

1. Coon Creek, Mondovi, WI
2. Kingbird Farm, Berkshire, NY
3. Krause Farm, Engandine, MI
4. Cleary Family Farm, Plainfield, VT
5. Common Good Farm, Raymond, NE
6. Highfields Farm, VT
7. Misty Meadows Farm, Everson, WA
8. Old Friends Farm, Amherst, MA
9. One Drop Farm, Cornville, ME
10. Trout Lake Abbey, Trout Lake, WA

Here are some common terms you will see on egg cartons along with the industry definitions:

Certified Organic: The birds are uncaged inside barns or warehouses, and are required to have outdoor access, but the amount, duration, and quality of outdoor access is undefined. They are fed an organic, all-vegetarian diet free of antibiotics and pesticides, as required by the USDA’s National Organic Program. Beak cutting and forced molting through starvation are permitted. Compliance is verified through third-party auditing.

Free-Range: While the USDA has defined the meaning of "free-range" for some poultry products, there are no standards in "free-range" egg production. Typically, free-range hens are uncaged inside barns or warehouses and have some degree of outdoor access, but there are no requirements for the amount, duration or quality of outdoor access. Since they are not caged, they can engage in many natural behaviors such as nesting and foraging. There are no restrictions regarding what the birds can be fed. Beak cutting and forced molting through starvation are permitted. There is no third-party auditing.

Cage-Free: As the term implies, hens laying eggs labeled as “cage-free” are uncaged inside barns or warehouses, but they generally do not have access to the outdoors. They can engage in many of their natural behaviors such as walking, nesting and spreading their wings. Beak cutting is permitted. There is no third-party auditing.

Free-Roaming: Also known as "free-range," the USDA has defined this claim for some poultry products, but there are no standards in "free-roaming" egg production. This essentially means the hens are cage-free. There is no third-party auditing.

In conclusion, raise your own food or educate yourself on what companies are the best. Remember that industry organic terms are broad and not what you would think they'd mean. Only buy from "open gate" farms - this means you can tour them at any time (good luck with getting the large farms to let you do that, by the way). Even if you buy from small homestead farms, like ours, go visit it. We have friends who never let their chickens out of the chicken yard (which is always going to be bare ground). Ask what they are feeding if you are concerned about GMOs, antibiotics, or hormones. It's almost impossible to feed chickens non-GMO products, so any chicken that is fed grain, will likely be getting GMO products. It's easy to avoid medicated or homone infused feeds, but pretty impossible and quite cost prohibited to find organic grain without GMO or by-products. The only solution, in my opinion, is to allow the chickens to free range and forage as much as possible. It's quite the balancing act to allow our chickens to free range and forage, provide water access in various parts of the property, keep them safe from preditors while they are ranging outside the safe chicken yard, and somehow encourage them to go back to the chicken yard to lay eggs while they are "out". Thankfully, we really love our chickens so it doesn't seem like work. By the way, if you are one of our egg customers, the gates are always open for ya!