Last year, January 27, 2011. The ducks and geese were keeping one section of the pond clear, and the snow was piled 2 feet high.

This year, January 16, 2012. Our pond only froze completely within the last week or so (last year it was frozen by mid-December) and there’s not a bit of snow to be seen.

And because the kids got new ice skates from their grand parents for Christmas, we went out to test the skates on the ice today at lunchtime.

*I wrote this post on January 16th.  Wouldn’t you know it, it ended up snowing overnight into the 17th.  It’s not all that impressive, just a couple slushy inches of snow, but our drought is officially over.

Happy New Year!  The past two weeks have been pretty intense for our family, a fitting end to a very intense year.  All is well, but does anyone else feel like they need a vacation to recover from their vacation?  I have been enjoying reading all of the many posts around the blog-i-verse that are all about recapping 2011 and setting goals for 2012.  As much as I want to do one as well, I just don’t think I have it in me.  So, while I spend the next week cleaning, cooking, and getting our lives back to something resembling normal, please enjoy a big smooch from all of us via Big Momma, one of our two Dexter cows.  When we first got her she was quite to bossy lady, but dare I say that she has begun to mellow just a bit and was so excited to see us back home that all she wanted to do was kiss all over us? Or, maybe I still smell like molasses from the million, billion cookies we have baked recently, your guess is as good as mine

PS-A little package of farm-made soaps and salves to the first commenter to correctly ID the quote that is the title to this post.

Yesterday we butchered our six New Holland White turkeys.  It was a glorious fall day so we decided to work outside in the sunshine by the kids treehouse instead of at the grow tunnel.  We were able to get through all six turkeys in about 2.5 hours with both of us working together.  For the first time since we moved here, all three kids were big enough to play around us and/or help us, which was really great.

We started this summer with 17 turkeys.  We lost a couple as chicks, then a huge sudden rainstorm this summer took out five poults (yes, they really are stupid and unfortunately drowned before we could move them to a different spot, despite having part of their pen covered).  When we started letting them out to free range, we were down to ten.  One drowned in a bucket right after Hurricane Irene and we lost three to the fox.  So, not the best ratio, and we hope to do better next year.

We raised New Holland Whites this year, a very popular heritage breed.  They are smaller than commercial turkeys, but supposedly very tasty.  Prior to butchering, we put them in holding crates with just water so they can empty their digestive system as much as possible.  We do not have a killing cone, so this year we used a sheet with a corner cut out and some duct tape to provide a secure and sturdy support for them.  We slid them into the case then taped it closed.  We then hung them upside down from a beam.  Just like when we butcher chickens, we slit the jugular to allow them to bleed out a good bit before cutting their heads off.  Once they have ceased flapping, we scald them in a 30 gallon galvanized trash can that we sit on top of the heating unit of a turkey fryer.  We found that heating the water to about 140F and putting in some dish soap works best.  It is works well to slosh the turkeys up and down a few times, pull them out, and repeat this until the feathers wipe off easily, usually about three times.  Then we pluck them, submerge them into ice water, and gut them.  Once this has been completed, we sit them in the fridge over night.  The next day or so, we clean them thoroughly, making sure to remove all feathers and tidy up loose skin around the neck or body cavity opening.  Then, they get pieced or left whole, depending on our needs for them, wrapped in plastic, and placed in the freezer!  It is a pretty efficient process and it will only get easier as our gets get older and become more helpful!

We can’t wait to have a wonderful home-grown turkey this Thanksgiving and hope you and your family are able to enjoy the day with some locally grown food as well!

For the last several years our pigs have been breaking out of their original paddocks and free ranging for their last week or two (last year almost a whole month). They tend to turn sod, eat the grass and love to search our woods for acorns. Sometimes it makes us stressed out when they break loose (they never wander too far), but at the same time it’s somewhat fitting and a good fall tradition (we consider it own own version of pannage).

Flip over to Flickr to see more pictures of our free range pigs.

Enjoy a short clip while you’re here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCNINBgOWDk

Our pigs after a mud bath

Some signs of the times. With pork prices spiking (“like copper a few years ago and gold”) thieves have taken to stealing pigs.

Here’s a story from Minnesota that has been reported in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal:

For the moment, as worried hog producers around the region pledged to strengthen their security systems and considered offering rewards to solve the string of cases, investigators in Iowa and Minnesota, which are among the nation’s top hog producers, were left with a tangle of complicated questions.

Was this all the work of a single roving band of pig thieves, or were they isolated incidents with separate culprits, all driven by the high price of pigs (which are going for about $200 apiece right now, and were even higher last month)?

And who would have enough experience with 270-pound pigs (a group that would not, for instance, simply march out of their barns with a whistle and a “come here, boy”) and sufficient equipment (at least a large livestock trailer) to pull off such heists?

We usually raise a couple pigs a year, so we’re not at the scale of these guys (some would say “factory” farms), but it’s still disheartening when people steal someone’s livelihood.

“My guess is that they’re bacon and pork chops already.”

We’ve enjoyed our pigs this year.  They go to the butcher in a week, so they, too, will soon be bacon and pork chops.

I had seen this scarf tutorial at the Purl Bee last month and really wanted to make something similar.  A few years back, I had been given some oat colored llama fiber.   I had cleaned it then sent it to the mill to be spun into yarn.  It is SOOO soft and I had been waiting for the perfect project.  I decided to use hand spun yarn from our sheep for the colored portions of the scarf. A few days before Irene hit the Northeast, I dyed two 4 oz bumps of Leicester Longwool roving (from our two ewes Clementine and Clarabelle) a nice shade of orange and marigold yellow, respectively, using Greener Shades dye.

During the week without power, I spun and plied the roving into yarn.  It felt amazing to be able to craft the old fashioned way with no use of electricity.  The colors were so vibrant and I couldn’t wait to work on my scarf.

With all of the yarn ready, I cast on.  I used the Purl Bee tutorial as more of a “suggestion”.  I used 40 inch Addi Turbos in size 7 and cast on 415 stitches.  I knit for an odd number of rows with each color, always alternating in the oat colored llama between the orange and yellow.  I knit mostly in the car or while outside with the kids.  It knit up very quickly and before  knew it, I was binding off.  My scarf ended up being about 8 inches wide and pretty darn long, likely somewhere between 100 and 120 inches.  I haven’t measured the length to be sure.  I added on fringe at the end because I like the way it looks and feels.

Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a tropical air flow and it is super humid, so no pics of me wearing the scarf.  It is super warm and soft and I can’t wait to wear it this fall.  The sheep were shorn this past weekend, so looks like there will be no shortage of wooly projects to keep me busy this winter!

A picture from last year (August 23, 2010):

A couple pictures from this year (August 17, 2011):

And one of the creek from this year (August 18, 2011):

Oh, and we got ducks (Blue Swedish)…more on that later.

The great thing about having a homestead, though, is that there are always other projects to distract you should you temporarily lose interest in one.  This past week, our cow hide returned back from the tannery.  We mailed it to New Method Fur Dressing Co. in San Francisco, CA.  They are one of the very few places in the country that will tan a cowhide.  It took five months and was well worth the wait.  It came out so gorgeous.  At the widest it is about 6′ x 6′.  At first I thought we would use it as a rug in our bedroom, but since we are really on there to sleep, I decided to cover the futon in our library with it.  That way we can admire it, pet it, and roll all over it as much as we like.  The kids love it.

So far, we have had all of the pelts tanned of the animals we have had butchered.  Everyone has their favorite sheep pelt, we all love the two goat pelts, now we have this amazing cow pelt, and the small rabbit pelts are perfect for hats and quilts.  We try hard not to waste anything from our animals, and while eating organ meat is occasionally a bit of chore, having the pelts is pure luxury.

Then, for a while it was a duck pen.

And for the last two years, it has been sitting behind our coop doing nothing much of anything.  Mike banged out the floor and sides and put in 1/2 inch square 19 gauge wire.  He made three pens complete with doors.

After a really nice discussion with the rabbit breeders, we learned that the summer is much harder on the rabbits than the winter is, and they suggested having an almost completely open hutch to give the most airflow.  They also said in the winter you can box it in or use tarps.  They live farther north than we do, and the husband has been raising rabbit his entire life, so we figure they knew what they were talking about!

Our girls seemed really happy in their new space and we put the gosling in the third space until he heals and we get a new buck, hopefully later this year.

We also removed the three pens from inside the coop.  It took both Mike and I and let me tell you, it was a DIRTY JOB.  Poultry are dusty, and while we do a fair job of cleaning the coop floor, the rafters are another matter.  We both got covered in manure dust.  Also, as we were sliding down the pens, we realized a moment too late that a chicken or two had been roosting up there.  NOTHING makes a room smell worse than some broken rotten eggs.  Needless to say that we both took extra long showers last night.

What do you have around that you can repurpose?  Nothing better than reusing something for another purpose!

When I found him, it was clear he had a large injury on his back left leg.  Apparently a fox or other preadtor grabbed him by the leg.  He luckily escaped, but we had to do some doctoring.

Ironically, this happened the day after my boys woke up at 4:30am and spent an hour and a half outside on a stake out.  I think more fox hunts will be in order, unfortunately for them, but with a new set of turkeys and guinea keets *almost* big enough to start free ranging, I don’t want to have any predator issues.

We will keep the goose in a crate in the house until he is better, we are hoping he makes a full recovery.  We have cleaned and dressed his wound, so now he just needs time to heal.

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*UPDATE

The gosling is doing better.  His injuries appears to be healing and we have moved him to an outdoor pen in our new rabbit hutch.  We will keep him there for at least another week until the wound seems well healed and he is walking normally.  At this point, he is putting weight on the leg, but still hobbling.