Denise Domning's Blog, page 31

Farm Funny: “Bump the dog,” I said to the cow, and, with ...

Farm Funny: “Bump the dog,” I said to the cow, and, with a cow grin on her lips, she bumped the dog. Dog didn’t think it was funny

Farm Weird: a beep-beep-beep car alarm. All the turkeys f...

Farm Weird: a beep-beep-beep car alarm. All the turkeys freeze, lift their heads & listen not to move again until it ends. Weird!

Farm Alarm Clock(s)

5:30 in the morning, 6 roosters, no snooze button on a single one of them. Argh!

Well, 5 roosters now.  Something crawled over the 10 foot fence and caught the rooster who refused to go into a coop at about 5.  That’s one less that needs to be slaughtered.  We heard him and whatever it was fighting.  Ed turned on the light and scared it off.  I figure it must have been small enough that it couldn’t carry the rooster with it back over the fence as it departed.  A Coon maybe or a small bobcat.

#Farm Wisdom: When juicing Prickly Pears you will get spi...

#Farm Wisdom: When juicing Prickly Pears you will get spines in your fingers no matter how careful and pink will be everywhere.

#Farm Success: One of Brighty’s teats started toward infe...

#Farm Success: One of Brighty’s teats started toward infection. A little colloidal silver and she’s back to normal.Whew!

— Denise Domning (@ddomning) October 6, 2012

Turkeys in the Trees

They perched on top of that pile for a good long time

Okay, seems pretty expected, right?  Turkeys have wings.  They fly.  There’s no reason they shouldn’t be in the trees, well except I’ve clipped these guys’ wings.

Ah but today’s trees were riverfall–the big pile is what Oak Creek has swept downstream over who knows how many flood seasons.  The pile is taller than I am.

And today I took apart the turkeys’ electric fence while I worked on trying to regrade their pasture.  They decided to go on walkabout.  For a while they stayed near the cow (I promise that entry is coming soon!) then decided to go exploring.  Because they’re Heritage birds, they look like wild turkeys.  All I can say is that they had such a nice day they all went to bed without a hiccup.

Field Work

From my porch I can see three beautiful tiers of red earth all carefully bermed to hold a flood.  A flood of irrigation water, that is.  Just what we needed to properly grow our veggies!

I still love it even though I now have Oak Creek instead.

It couldn’t have happened without Paul Holdeman of The Pond Gnome.  We’ve been working with Paul since he came to fix a leak in the pond and waterfall at our old house, and instead turned what I’d thought was a great pond into something far more fantastic than I could have imagined.

When we came out here I very quickly realized that although we have plenty of water it’s nearly impossible to get that water to where it will grow healthy plants.  I also want ducks and having ducks requires a duck pond.

We started with some big ideas, like a water retention pond that also served as a trout pond, but ended up scaling back mostly because of money (oh that pesky problem).  What Paul came up with was a simple solution:  re-grade the fields so we can use the big valves Sam Frey installed to flood them.  And using the rise and fall of our landscape, he dug out a three foot deep a duck pond, one that will be aerated by ditch water that rushes in from one side and rushes out the other.  I probably won’t be able to plant water lilies in it, but in a trade off between water lilies and duck eggs, duck eggs will win with me every time.  There’s no better egg for a frittata!

Here’s our before and after photos:

The old field layout meant whole sections never got watered. Now the H2O spreads from one end to the other with ease.

That big red circle is the duck pond.  Of course it’s not finished yet.  We’ll wait until February and the ditch is shut down to install the gate valves.

Paul also created a beautiful waterfall out of our most distant spring box, where the pipe goes from 12 inches to 10 inches and the water is always overflowing.  Since I can’t have water lilies maybe I’ll try planting columbines and native orchids along our “natural” waterfall.

Thank you Paul and Gary, the backhoe operator who pulled stumps while he was here, and Timmy, who sat in his little tractor looking backwards over his shoulder at his gannon as he drove in reverse for three straight days.  Lord, but that makes my neck hurt to think about it!

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The Barn Boys

Here's the new wing!

The barn has a new wing.  Not the barn that is really Ed’s shop.  This is the barn near the turkey enclosure, the one Ed and his brother Gene raised last year after bringing it to Cornville from Desert Hot Springs and our friend Tom’s house.  The barn, a simple pole and metal sheathing building, has served us as a place to store the tractor for a year now.  When Leah and I decided on Brighty (who has turned out not to be pregnant…too bad!) coming to live with us, Ed insisted on adding a stall wing to the pole barn.

I warned him immediately that he only had three weeks to get the barn up.  There could be no delay.  He said “No problem.  I’m going to let Gene do it when he gets here.”  Gene comes out here to work, enjoying the pure physical labor of the farm.

Isn’t family wonderful?  Right after Ed said that I called my brother-in-law, Courtney Lawyer (who runs JustFloorItAz.com), and told him we finally had a job for him to do up here.  Courtney loves it here and he’s been bugging us to let him repay our hospitality by doing some of the many jobs we never get to.  The only problem is that weekends go too quickly and we like spending time with his kids, so we don’t really want to be working while he’s here.  I told him we finally had a job for him, one that repays all his weekends enjoying Green Acres.  He said yes without hesitation, bless him.

What’s amazing about this is that Ed didn’t have anything to do with this job, other than putting together all the material necessary for the job and putting out ant stakes to deter the big red ants from eating our volunteers.

Okay, the ants won’t really eat people…I don’t think.  Or maybe these are the ants the Native Americans or rather the Indians of the movies of the Forties and Fifties staked some unfortunate Red Shirt over so the plucky hero would find their bones and bring vengeance down upon the whole tribe.  For sure these ants look like they could eat you.  I don’t know what species they are but they live here in a BIG way.  Their homes span yards–there’s no missing them because the grass has been removed to display the front door, a toilet paper tube sized hole, which is surrounded by a perfect circle of bare dirt.  The more ants in the nest, the bigger the circle.  Over time they carve distinctive paths through the grass–which I always step over, just in case.  Most of the time these big ants are pretty docile, unlike the smaller, nastier ants that bite.  You can stand near one of these big doorways and be ignored, but woe be to you who ends up with one accidentally crawling up your pant leg: they don’t bite as much as they eject acid onto you and it burns for hours.  Our friend Kathy Klein of Danmala, the beautiful mandala-flower art, described the experience as psychedelic.

Marco pointing at the little nick in the barn he made with the tractor

Back to the miracle of the barn raising.    Gene got here on Thursday along with Jeff Marine, a childhood friend of theirs.   He started working on Friday, his sole job to straighten the posts that Ed’s cousin Marco bent when he backed the tractor into it in July.  Courtney arrived on Saturday morning, and he and Gene became partners, each of them armed with their favorite DeWalt drill.  Up went the poles for the sides.  Sheet by sheet the roofing made its way up the ladders and across the supports.  Ubolts were purchased and put in place.  A guys night out was arranged at Cliff Castle Casino, where Larry the Cable Guy was playing.

Two full ten hour days worth of work later and they still liked each other...maybe?

 

This morning the last sheet of roofing went into place.   It looked great despite a slight miscalculation that left 3 inches more of the overhang at one end of the barn than the other.  All that counts is we have a place for Brighty when she shows up…or will have after Wednesday when the contractor takes down the three metal single car garage doors which will make up the walls of her stall. As you can see, it makes a very nice cool space for the animals.  The turkeys are already enjoying the extra shade.   They’re watching in the background.

Oh, you might be asking why Ed wasn’t out there helping?  Because I had asked him to please get our bathroom finished for the weekend.  It’s not that I didn’t want to share the other master bathroom (when we bought it the house had two master bedrooms upstairs, each en suite with massive bathrooms) with my sister and her family.  It’s just, well, three months waiting to have my own toilet again was long enough.

Ed said, “Sure!  It’ll all be done before they get here.”  He even agreed to buy a vanity from Home Depot instead of making one himself.  He EVEN said, “Let’s face it.  I’m too slow when it comes to building things.”  WOW!

As of right now, I do have my own toilet.  It was functioning by Saturday evening.  It’s extra tall.  Once again Ed’s planning ahead.  He says it’ll be easier for him to use when his knees don’t work anymore.  I suggested that asking his knees to lift him off the John will keep them working well into his Eighties.  He wasn’t impressed with that suggestion.

He's still working on it as I write

The tub is in as well and looks beautiful…but the plumbing leaks.  The vanity is still at Home Depot where it will most likely remain because once the weekend is over he’ll change his mind about buying a pre-made piece because, after all, it really isn’t quite what he wants.

That’s my guy!  I guess it’s not such a hardship to walk from my new 1/4 bath (or is that 2/3 or 3/4 bath because we do have the shower in although Ed won’t let anyone use it yet and theoretically the tub is in although it doesn’t work)  to the big master bath to wash my hands.

Cindy Whistler

God bless my wonderful brother- and sister-in-law.  Look what they gave us!  The contracted with Cindy Miller, a friend of ours, to paint this for us.  THANK YOU, Cindy!

Oh, this is so us!

Non-Vacation III, Slaughtering Chickens

I knew it was coming.

One of the things I expected to learn when we took on this lifestyle was how to turn the animals we raised into the food we ate.  I can’t say I was looking forward to it.  But, I was committed to the idea that if I was going to raise the animals for meat, then it was my responsibility to make sure the animals’ transition from living creature to dinner was as humane and respectful as possible.  Besides, I have no trouble buying a whole chicken and cutting it into parts.  Surely, starting from a living, feathered chicken couldn’t be THAT much different.   Or difficult.

Except, everyone I asked who had grown up on a farm or slaughtered a chicken told me how horrible the experience was, how the blood spurted and the chicken ran, and so forth.  Then they’d hold forth on how backbreaking plucking a chicken is, hours and hours of work to process just a few chickens.

Thank heavens for Joel Salatin’s book Pastured Poultry Profits.  Not only is it a great book for anyone thinking of raising chickens, but he includes a complete description of the slaughtering/cleaning process WITH PICTURES! For people like me (are there any?) who believe they can learn anything from reading a book, this was perfect.

Even more important, the process he describes seemed so much more humane than chopping off the creature’s head and waiting for a frantic nervous system to wind down.  Instead, he puts the chicken into a “killing cone”, so they hang upside down with their heads out of the bottom of the cone.  An upside down chicken is a calm chicken.  I’m not sure it’s true but it’s said they go into almost a sleep state when their upside down.  Anyway, once they’re in the cone and calm, Joel uses a  (very) sharp knife to cut the artery in the neck while avoiding the windpipe so the still-pumping heart will drain the blood. Done properly, the chicken dies quickly and calmly. Then the chicken is dipped up and down in 145-150 degree water for a minute or two–no more or you’ll cook the chicken–so the warm water can loosen the feathers.  By adding a bit of soap to this water you also clean the chicken.  After that, the chicken goes into his automated plucker, then the eviscerating begins.  He had step-by-step directions for that process, too.

Ed nicknamed these "The Cones of Death"

I read that section again and again, pouring  over those pictures, screwing up my courage.  I ordered two killing cones from featherman.net and salivated over the automated plucker–a mere $1500 and way out of reach for someone with less than 20 chickens to process.  I went to our local Habit for Humanities ReStore resale store and bought an old stainless steel sink and a base to hold it.  Green Acres came with two solid wood panels from a long-gone dining room table.  These made a great chopping board.  I bought a propane-fired turkey fryer to use for my water.  (It works great as long as I remember to keep turning the little timer dial.)   All I was missing was the right knife.  But what was the right knife?

This was the suggested knife for doing the chickens in

These are the knives Bob made. Pretty amazing!

Everyone I asked offered the same response: a corn knife used on top of an old tree stump.  Um, that’s the old paradigm while I’m committed to a new one.  That’s when I realized I needed to ask the right person and he turned out to be my friend Bob Haugland who is an avid bow hunter who has a little knife sharpening business on the side. He made me two knives he thought might work for me.

 

At last I couldn’t avoid the moment any longer.  The morning cacophony of roosters was becoming the every-minute-of-the-day cacophony.  Ed helped me set up on the metal bridge over the gully that is supposed to channel raging rainwater from the mountain above us into the Mason ditch.  Time and some serious storms have somewhat altered the water path.  But the bridge is flat and easy to hose off, and the hose is long enough to reach it from the pump house.  We tied our cone to a metal stake and drove it into the ground at an angle so it hung out over my metal sink.  A bucket went under the open drain to catch the blood.   Another bucket stood by, ready to be filled with feathers.

I put the first rooster into the cone.  Ed walked about fifteen feet back from me.  His face grayed.   He sent me a panicked look and turned his back.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Supporting you,” he said without turning his head.  “You shouldn’t have to do this alone.  I’m going to eat them, too.”

How sweet!  That’s my guy.  I went over and gave him a hug.  “Go.  I’m fine.  I need to do this by myself.”  And I did.  Leah and Elana had both offered to help.  I couldn’t ask them, not for this first bird.  I needed to find my own peace with what I was doing before I could include others.

He breathed a huge sigh of relief.  “Thank you,” he said and disappeared.

That left me staring at the chicken in the cone who was staring back at me.  I contemplated the complexities of philosophy.  I considered converting back to a Vegetarian.  I fingered the knife.  I touched the chicken’s neck, and the enormity of what I intended to do hit home.  I was going to steal his life away from him.

Then I reminded myself that he had no trouble attacking and hurting our other birds. Everything on a farm has a place and a function.  There’s no room for things that “destroy the harmony of the flock” as Ed so nicely put it.

I won’t go into further detail about the moment I put the knife to his neck except to say that I did my best.  The chicken died and I thanked him for being a good teacher.

With Joel’s book sitting open on the concrete pillar, I started the process.  Into the water the chicken went, dunking up and down.  Out on the planks.  I pulled at the feathers.  They zipped right out of the skin, coming out far more easily than anyone I’d talked to would have had me believe.  Then again, no one I’d talked to had done the hot water dunk either.

Joel suggests pulling the chicken’s head off.  That wasn’t something I could manage to figure out from a picture, so I chopped instead.  The feet went next.  Then it was time to clean it.  First I opened the skin above the breast and discovered the crop, the chicken’s pre-stomach.  Wow, who knew?

With that loosened and skin pulled back, I turned the chicken over and found the oil gland on top of the tail and removed that.  Then I flipped the bird over, put my hand on the breast bone and started to loosen the skin at the bottom of the breast bone.

“Bleaaaah,” the chicken moaned quietly.

I nearly dropped my knife.  All my spiritual confidence of the previous moment faltered.

I touched the chicken again.  “Bleaaaaah,” it said again.

I touched it again and this time saw the top of the windpipe move as it sighed.  I think I giggled.  Every time I pressed the breast, air escaped through the windpipe and the chicken’s voicebox, or whatever passes for one in a chicken, made a noise.

Reassured I wasn’t going to be haunted by this rooster for the rest of my days, I set to opening up the body cavity.  Before long was I following the instructions that said to slip my hand into the cavity, keeping my hand pressed up against the “keel” bone (I thought keels were in boats) as I snaked my fingers up to the top of the body where I was to use a finger to grab the windpipe.  After that, I was to pull all the entrails out of the body in fell swoop.

All I added was olive oil, salt and pepper. Delicious.

In my case that was swell foop.  Intestines, gizzard, liver and gall bladder exited.  I couldn’t catch the windpipe.  I finally ended up pulling it out from the top.  I had to scrape out the lungs.  When I was done I had a pile of very interesting and surprisingly beautiful body parts, all headed straight for the compost heap.  And next to that pile was something I recognized: the clean carcass of a chicken, ready to be made into a meal.