Mike and I began dating during our freshman year of college.  We spent much of our free time camping, hiking, cooking, making things, etc.  We have always both been very interested in food, from techniques, to culture, to the growing of vegetables and fruits and the raising of animals.  Slowly but surely, we have acquired knowledge and experience through reading, watching documentaries, and visiting farms and farmers markets.  When we bought our first home, it was 300 years old, so much time was spent repairing and restoring it.  We also put in fruit trees and a system of organic raised garden-beds.  We had our chickens and tapped our stand of sugar maples.  We had cats and dogs.  Whenever we do anything, a good amount of research is done first, so we were always learning, trying to read from as many sources how to do something so that we could put together the techniques both ancient and modern that would work best for us.

Since moving here, the learning curve has been steep.  In every room of our house you will find books and magazines dealing with all matters of livestock husbandry, vegetables, fiber crafts, etc.  We also read a fair amount on line, the blogs and articles written by those who have come before us are inspiring and very informative.  The River Cottage books and television series have always steered us in the correct direction.  We are also now lucky enough to have developed relationships with a number of local farmers who don’t mind answering questions when they come up.

We are all very curious people in our house.  We all like to know the hows and whys of things.  We don’t mind asking people questions.  We also don’t mind making mistakes.  We use whatever resources are available to us; books, magazines, the internet, people, and our own trial and error.  Hopefully life will continue like this for our entire family long into the future.

I tanned the pelts using the instructions found in this Mother Earth News article.  I tanned five pelts after the first butchering this September as a test batch, then froze the rest of the pelts.  I tanned the rest of the pelts this January using a solution of kosher salt and aluminum alum (purchased from Van Dykes Taxidermy).

The key to getting the pelts really soft was to work with them about twice a day for a good week.  This included stretching, brushing, and crunching them.  Zsaka destroyed one pelt and I used one to try to do some rabbit fur knitting (with no success).  Of the rest, I picked out the best six to make hats and outwear, the next best sixteen were chosen to make a rabbit fur quilt (my next big project), and the rest were used as testers for trying out different patterns and techniques.  I blocked each set by dampening the pelts and tacking them in a stretched out shape onto some plywood.

I made the first hat out of the “test” pelts.  I used three pelts, cutting two same-ish sized rectangles from two of the pelts, making them as large as possible.  From the third, I cut out a circle for the top of the hat.  I stitched it up and learned a few things in the process.  What I was aiming for was a tight fitting hat with a double-sided fur band and a single-sided fur circular top.

The hat fit Jackson really well and I had a good idea of how to improve upon the design for a hat for Mike.  Here are the basic instructions:

Take two measurements; one of the head circumference and one of the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the ears.  For Mike these turned out to be 23″ and 9″ respectively.  I cut out two templates; one rectangle to make the two sides of the hat, adding in a 1/4 ” seam allowance on all sides (the piece ended up being 10″ x 12″); and one circle with a diameter of 7.75″ which included a 1/4″ seam allowance.

I cut out the pieces from the pelts using an exacto knife and cutting on the leather side.  I cut VERY carefully to avoid cutting any of the fur.  It was easy to find a pelt to cut the circle from, but the rectangles required some careful placement, and even then they were not perfect.

One of the problems when working with fur is that there is no elasticity like with wool or even fleece.  After I made the test hat, Mike and I decided it would be better to work in some elastic into one of the seams so that the hat had a little bit of give.  I cut out eight 1.5″ pieces of elastic.  I laid my two fur rectangles fur-side down, so that the fur was all going in the same direction (meaning putting them “head-to-tail”).  I stitched the elastic as close to the edge of the piece on the right as possible.  Then I measured where the other end of the elastic should be to make the two joined rectangles the correct length (plus seam allowance).  I stitched down the other side of the elastic to the second rectangle.

The problem was that although you couldn’t see the overlap from the outside because of the fur, stitching it in this way left a flap.  So, I stitched the elastic to the far edge of the left rectangle so that all of the “pull” would occur on that side of the fur, with the other side acting as an anchor.  The hat had the give we were looking for and looked great from the outside.

The next step was to section the circle so that it was in four triangular pieces that were held together by just a tiny bit of leather at the bottom.   The goal was to stitch the top of the hat into the seam of the band of the hat.  The end result is that the fur is double-sided around the band with one layer of fur on the top.  I pinned the sectioned circle along the top of what would be the outside of the hat, fur-sides together.

I then folded up the bottom side of the rectangle to meet the top, making it fur-side to leather-side with the section circle.  If you were to take a cross-section of the tube, it would have been (from left to right) leather-side of the outside of the band, fur-side of the band, fur-side of the top, leather-side of the top, fur-side of the inside of the band, leather side of the inside of the band.

I hand stitched along the length of the tube using a blanket stitch, a quilting needle, and extra-strong quilting thread.  I used a 1/4″ seam allowance and worked slowly to make sure that each stitch made it through all three layers.  When I was finished, I turned the tub right side out.  It looked like a band of double-sided fur with four fur triangles pointing out the top.

Two steps were left; closing the tube, making it a band, and then stitching together the seams of the triangle to close the top of the hat.  Working carefully, I used a blanket stitch to close the outside band of the hat stitching fur sides together, therefore making the seam invisible under the fur.  On the inside of the band, I used a blanket stitch as well, again trying to stitch fur sides together.  I was trying to make the stitching invisible and yet make the seam strong.  It is hard to describe in words, but basically I worked slowly and carefully to accomplish those two goals.

With the band closed, I turned the hat inside out.  Starting at the center (or tips of each triangle) and working toward the band, I stitched the four seams together again using a blanket stitch to close the top of the hat.

That was it!  Of course, now the weather has been “warm” in the 30s-40s and Mike says the hat is almost too warm when he goes out to take care of the animals.  However, it will be perfect for any more cold days this winter, and can be used for years to come!  I plan to make a few more hats and also maybe some fingerless mittens, with the fur on the inside and wool felt on the outside.

I hope these basic instructions help, here is a very simple summary:

1. Take head measurements and make templates.
2. Cut out two rectangles for the band and a circle for the top, being careful not to cut the fur.
3. Stitch together two short sides of the rectangles with some elastic for give.
4. Cut the top into wedges and pin it inside the band.
5. Stitch the band closed using a blanket stitch.
6. Turn right-side out and stitch the band closed working carefully to hide stitches while making a strong seam.
7. Turn inside out and working from the center to the band, close the four seams of the triangle using a blanket stitch.
8. Turn right-side out and enjoy!

Our flock currently stands at about 40 hens and roosters.  Five came with us during the move, five are from a friend, and the rest are chicks we either got from the hatchery or hatched here on the farm.  We are very happy with our flock, we have four great roosters (you want around a 1:8-1:10 ratio) and are currently getting about 18 eggs/day from our hens.  Our chickens free range and we feed them an all natural vegetable feed with no antibiotics.  We also give them leftovers from the house since we are currently pig-less.  We use a little more than one and a half 50lb bags of feed per week (each chicken consumes roughly 1/4 lb per day, plus we let the 11 ducks and 4 geese eat a little as well).  Each bag of feed is roughly $12, so we spend about $18/week to feed our flock.  Right now we are getting about 8-10 dozen eggs per week, which if you do the math comes to about $1.90/dozen eggs in feed costs, which is way better than the price you pay for all natural free-range eggs in the local grocery.  Plus, there is NOTHING better than eggs that have been laid that day.  We sell several dozen/week to friends and eat the rest.

Here are some of the dishes we made with eggs this week:

• Hard Boiled Eggs and Egg Salad
• Ham and Swiss Quiche
• American Sponge Cake
• Cookies (three kinds that we cooked a few and froze the rest)
• Challah Bread
• Beignets
• Omelets
• Fried Eggs with Bacon and Home Fries
• Kasha Buckwheat

If you can, find a local farm and purchase some eggs.  When chickens are happy and have access to the outside, fresh air, water, and healthy grain they make the worlds best eggs.

We are busy, working parents with two young kids.  Sometimes we go through the drive-thru.  It is infrequent (once/twice a month) and we have rules, for example we try to only order fish or whole cuts of chicken if we order meat at all.  We avoid foods that have been ground due to concerns about contamination.  Same thing goes for restaurants in general, although, again, we are not completely dogmatic about this.  Sometimes we make alternative choices based on what would be easier, faster, most polite, whatever.  The key is moving towards and ideal even if it’s never reached (nor expected to be reachable).

We really like sweets and allow our kids to eat candy and drink soda.

GASP!  To be honest, most of the sweets we eat are things we make ourselves.  If you come to our house, you are likely to find anything from homemade root beer to homemade twinkies to homemade candy.  Several nights ago we made a chocolate cookie cake with a ganache frosting for Mike’s birthday.  I made a batch of dark chocolate covered cherries that I am hoarding in the back of the fridge and not allowing anyone else to eat.  We limit soda to special occasions; birthdays, parties, eating out, and don’t drink soda with caffeine (we usually stick to root beer or ginger ale).  We feel pretty strongly that life is for enjoying and we really enjoy yummy foods.  Our kids get plenty of veggies and other healthy stuff, so the occasional desert won’t hurt them or us.  Plus, when you are living and working on a farm, you can use the calories.  Finally, from years of personal experience (Jamie has only ever had child-related jobs; camp counselor, baby-sitter, nanny, etc.) the kids who have the biggest problems with sugar and sweets are the ones who are never allowed to have them.  Children who are allowed to have snacks and learn to moderate themselves tend to grow up with the healthiest food attitudes.  In our house, it is common to have to throw out the last cookie or piece of cake because it has gone stale.  We have a huge candy cupboard that the kids can both access. They never try to sneak candy because they don’t need to.  In fact, this next year, I think I may just make a bag of uneaten candy that I set aside and we use to decorate our holiday ginger bread houses.

We watch tv and so do our kids.  We also play Wii.

In moderation and without commercials.  We have a Netflix subscription, so we get disks in the mail and watch movies and shows online.  We go to the library once a week and the kids each pick out a movie.  We use a program on our computer that is like Tivo and we set up a weekly schedule to tape the shows that we and the kids like.  I take out the commercials from the kids shows (FYI, a half-hour show is really only 22 minutes).  For our shows, we just fast forward.  We feel that by not being tied down to watching at certain times, we have tons of flexibility and probably watch far less tv.  We have a few kids shows and a few grown-up shows we watch and maybe once a week watch a movie as a family.  We limit the amount the kids watch, some days it is none, and some days (bad weather, sick, really tired, etc.) we watch a lot.  Sometimes I feel like the kids watch too much, but that is life.  If we had a communal living situation and people around to play with and interact with at all times, I am sure they would watch almost none.  As it is, all four of us tend to be people who are very concentrated and focused and intense with whatever we are doing (working, playing, visiting with friends, cooking, etc.) and then want to just zone out for a while.  Plus, there are some really great shows and movies and we feel that our lives are more enriched having watched them.  As for the Wii, it is also something we set limits on.  Mostly Mike and Jackson play together (Lego Star Wars), but we are starting to play as a family now that Charlotte is older (Big Brain Academy).  Like with the sweets and soda, we feel that having our children get exposure to it and learning to set some limits for themselves is the best way to proceed.  Jackson will spend half an hour on the Wii and then go play his legos for an hour or more.  He is learning self-modulation which we feel is very good.

We love technology and pop culture and politics.

We have  and iPhone and iPods and keep up with the latest scandals on a myriad of websites (actually, that’s mostly Jamie).  We don’t wish to be living at another time or place.  We are happy with our modern lives and consider ourselves to be techno-pioneers.

I finished my log cabin quilt.  I am very happy with the way it came out, one side is a bit wonky, but I love the way to colors look together and it is very soft and warm.

I finished the pair of socks I had been working on.  I knit socks from the toe-up using the “magic loop” technique.  It is a great way to do socks (and also hats from the top down) as you can try them on as you go and get the sizing exactly right.

I tanned all of my rabbit pelts.  I have a total of 28 tanned pelts, one was “sacrificed” to try knitting with fur last summer, and Zsaka ripped the other one up.  I will use 16 to make a quilt/pad for the baby.  I need to block all of the pelts to take the wrinkles out and then decide if I want to make a free form quilt and try to maximize each pelt, or cut them all in a uniform fashion.  I will use cotton batting and a silk backing to finish it.  I need to get a walking foot for my sewing machine to stitch the fur and then do the quilting.  I have several books coming soon on sewing with fur and leather, surprisingly little on the internet about the topic.  I will use the rest of the pekts to make a few hats and maybe glove cuffs and maybe a really nice wrist rester for Mike while he is working on his computer.

Most exciting of all is that I got my spinning wheel, a Lendrum that a new farm friend was looking to sell.  She dropped it off almost two weeks ago, but with the quilt and pelts already in progress and Mike traveling, I wasn’t really able to sit down and spin until this weekend.  The kids helped me clean one of our sheep fleece this week and I carded 4 oz of Leicester Longwool and also mohair from our female Angora goat into rolags.  I tried spinning those, but had much more luck with some mohair that was processed into roving at a local mill (the roving was bought form the same woman we bought our goats from, so in all likelihood, our two goats fleece was spun by me today).  I actually did better than I thought I would, but the yarn is a completely typical newbie spinner yarn, full of thick and thin spots, bumps and slumps.  BUT, I did it and am happy to finally be spinning!  I plied the blue mohair that I spun with a grey yarn that was left on one of the bobbins, presumably from one of my friend’s Blue-faced Leicesters.  As I type, I am “setting the twist” having wound the yarn into a skein and soaked it in warm water.  It is now hanging with a weight and hopefully tomorrow I can take a few pictures, and maybe even knit it into something.  Both kids are VERY into the spinning wheel, so I think once I am good enough, I will try to get them involved in some way as well.

As far as being attached to them, we just don’t allow ourselves to be.  We know (all of us, kids included) that some animals are for eating and some are for keeping forever.  We bond with and give affection to our breeding stock and the rest of the animals are treated exceedingly well during their time with us.  I am pretty sure that I have said this before, but the animals are all typically butchered when they are “teenagers”.  Like human teenagers, they can be rude, loud, and very naughty.  Believe me when I say that I feel nothing but relief when we have dispatched a particularly troublesome creature (our Hereford steer being a great example).  These are not pets, they are food.  We have chosen to take the responsibility of dealing with our own feelings about taking their lives as opposed to forcing the animals we eat to live in sub-standard conditions just so we don’t have to think about the fact that the chicken nuggets on our plate were once real live animals that walked and squawked and had to be killed so that we could eat them.

We feel fairly strongly that if you don’t think you personally could take responsibility for the butchering of an animal (either by bringing it to the butcher or doing the butchering yourself) than maybe you shouldn’t be eating meat.  We feel that when you remember that the food you are eating required that an animal had to lose its life, you tend to feel more concern over the living conditions of that animal and therefore you may be more likely to seek out sources of meat in accordance.  That is certainly the path that led us to our farm.

Finally, most domestic breeds of livestock have gone extinct (95% in the US).  There are many fewer types of cow, pig, sheep, chicken, etc than there have ever been since the beginning of animal husbandry.  Most animals in existence today are commercial breeds that require tremendous care and handling to survive.  They cannot breed, or even live outside of the carefully constructed environment of commercial livestock farming.  When the family farms started to disappear, so did the family farm breeds.  We make a point on our farm whenever possible to only raise breeds listed as endangered by the American Livestock Breed Conservancy.  If more people raised, and especially ATE these animals, there would be more demand for them, and they would not be running the risk of becoming extinct.  Furthermore, to ensure that these breeds carry on and improve on their vitality, vigor, etc, it is important to breed them yearly and then ONLY keep the absolute healthiest and best animals to carry on the line.  For example, we have two ewes (female sheep) that just returned from breeding.  They are hopefully bred with their first set of lambs.  We plan to return one out of every four lambs born back to our breeder in exchange for the services of her ram.  Of those, only one out of two or four may be chosen for breeding purposes, meaning that over the reproductive span of one sheep, she may give birth to 10-20 lambs but only a few may be chosen to be bred and carry on the line.  The chances of producing a really healthy offspring worth breeding increases with the number of breedings that occur.  All of those other sheep could become pets, fiber animals, or they could be eaten.  To continue  (and improve upon) any breed of animal, only the best animals should be chosen to breed, they should be bred yearly, and only the best of their offspring (the top one or two animals) should be allowed to carry on the line.  It is our domestic form of “survival of the fittest”.