This is the major time of the year for us to process poultry. Of course one first thinks of turkeys. This year we didn’t purchase any turkey chicks. We instead bought a couple breeding pairs of Bronze turkeys (although one is part Bourbon Red) last year. Each hen hatched and raised several turkeys. While there were some losses, those losses weren’t as expensive as those chicks purchased from a hatchery. On the other hand, the raised turkeys are not as big as the Large White commercial breed we’ve raised in the past. We will select the largest for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Additionally, it is time for the major harvesting of our gamecock flock. Last year we ended the fall with 35 game hens and 20 or so gamecocks. We kept 3 roosters and 8 hens from last year and they did their job laying, hatching, and raising their own biddies. (We even had two hens hatch clutches in the past two weeks.) But once again it is time to thin the flock and fill the freezer with chicken.

We usually spread the harvest out over a few weeks and thus have been doing a few chickens at a time. These chickens rustle all their own food and water from our small holding. They taste great, especially if you don’t let them get too old.

One tip: before putting poultry in the freezer, it should be aged in the fridge for a couple days to ensure tenderness.

On this (traditional) feast of St. Stanislaus Koska – Oremus pro invicem!

Open for Business!

Logs and Hogs!

Still cutting wood. I think we might have enough for the winter, but am not sure. Last winter was so mild, it is hard to judge what we’ll need this year. Folks in the area have been so good, letting us cut up downed trees on their property. My goal is to get way ahead of the game. After all, I won’t have sons to split wood the rest of my life.

This year, with my two oldest sons working in most of their free time (oldest as an EMT saving for college and number 2 at the hardware store) my number 3 son has split virtually every piece of wood we will burn this winter, and number 4 son has stacked virtually every log we will burn. Of course, I haven’t been idle-I man the chainsaw.

I’ve done a 5-month stint on the local quail farm. This will be ending in another few days. The extra income was welcome, but at a cost. Our own homestead suffered with the quail commitment, which was not quite as advertised. I didn’t have time to plant the Crowder peas we on planned our leased acreage (but we did get a good peanut crop), and I didn’t get a fall garden in for the first time in eight years.

We have two new endeavors in-the-making. First is my small engine repair shop which I think I mentioned a few months ago. It never got off the ground with the quail farm in the mix. But this week the sign will go up out front, and we’ll be in business!

And then there’s the pigs … In the past we have sold mostly weaned piglets, keeping just enough to fill our own freezer. This fall we are raising most of our last two litters to sell as either bbq hogs (~ 120 lbs or so) or as butcher hogs (~ 230 lbs. or so.) We will sell these hogs and deliver them to the butcher of the customer’s choice. The customer pays us for the hog and pays the butcher for the desired cuts of meat. The goal is to get great tasting pork into customers’ hands for about $2.75-$3.00 per pound.

In fact, I have started a facebook page (never thought I'd do that!) to let local pork lovers know about this unique opportunity. The current crop of pigs will be raised on peanuts, dairy, produce (when available) and grain. This pork will have a great flavor.

Finally, the coming presidential election … oh I can’t say anything good, so I won’t say anything.

Oremus pro invicem!

What have I been doing?  Working and cutting wood for the winter.  Since last posting, we've had 2 litters of pigs and one bull calf.  Been working on thinning out the livestock to the necessity as feed prices are going through the roof.

Oremus pro invicem!

The View from My Front Porch

at Front Porch Republic:  http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2012/07/the-view-from-your-front-porch-8/

Oremus pro invicem!

Looooong absence here. The quail farm job has been getting a lot of my attention to the detriment of my fledgling small engine repair shop-which isn’t, yet.

http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/  is a frequent stop for me, when I actually get on the computer. Two articles caught my attention today (although they’ve both been up for a while).

Here’s the quote from Russell Arben Fox’s article about looking back on high school and how things have changed:

Time was that a high school education was the pinnacle, the finale, of the average American citizen’s learning; the reason why people had such strong ties to their high school’s football teams or glee clubs over the decades was because it was from there that they were ushered into the adult world of making careers and families. So of course high schools were imposing edifices; like churches and city halls, they were spaces where the surrounding community got made. Yet when high school is transformed–thanks to the disappearance of reliable local work, the imperative of specialization and mobility, the breakdown of church and family connections, the shift of wealth away from the grounded vocations of land and manufacturing and to the distancing operations of finance and the “information economy”–into one more meritocratic step which the smart student (like my own daughter–and like, to be fair, her own parents as well) will negotiate as quickly and as efficiently as possible, looking at every class as something to maxmize for future college-application effect…well, if nothing else, it changes things.

And from Jake Meador on dying:

And it’s striking to me that three of the foremost Christian fantasists of the last century, Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling, have defined the highest form of evil as a desire to conquer death through some sort of controllable technique.

Tolkien makes the “conquering” of death a consequence of possessing the One Ring; his fellow Inkling, Lewis, makes the conquering of death one of the chief objectives of the N.I.C.E. in That Hideous Strength. Indeed, read thematically, that also seems to be one of the themes of the Tower of Babel account in Genesis 11 (which is the inspiration for Lewis’ That Hideous Strength). Death is a normal part of life in a fallen world and humanity doesn’t possess the means in itself to overcome it. And in attempting to obtain those means, we’re likely to do far more harm than good. Rather, we push back against lesser forms of evil which we are able to resist meaningfully and we trust to God the vanquishing of our greatest enemy. Isn’t that the most straight-forward way of reading the Resurrection? … This is all Biblical Theology 101: Death cannot be conquered by human means. And, as Lewis warned, those convinced that it is are the most likely to do things hitherto regarded as “disgusting and impious.” Tolkien understood that the essence of the modern project was human knowledge used to develop a technique, which would insure human control. That’s why he put nearly those exact words in the mouth of his most modern character, Saruman the White.

We might also turn to Rowling to help us better understand the issue. Rowling built her entire series around the question of death and how we ultimately respond to it. And it is the series’ villain rather than its hero who seeks to conquer it. Lord Voldemort attempts to ensure his immortality through the creation of what’s called a horcrux. A horcrux is something an especially powerful dark wizard can make that will contain a part of his soul. Essentially, it severs a portion of the soul from the body, insuring that even when the body has been obliterated the soul remains alive and can reanimate another body. But this immortality comes at a high cost. The portion of the soul that remains lives a half life. It has been severed from its body, which is a “violation against nature” in Rowling’s words. Bodies and souls, it seems, are meant to exist in union. Such violations do not represent the transcending of a mere arbitrary tradition that can be violated without consequence. Rather, it is so fundamental a rejection of the natural way of life that the normal delights of life become utterly impossible for the horcrux-maker. While life-prolonging medical care doesn’t sunder body from soul in the same way, anyone who has known a person like Wolff’s mother or my grandmother knows that there is some sense in which the person in that hospital bed living off machines is not the person you knew before the hospital. Perhaps such life-prolonging devices, then, might be thought of as horcruxes, physical devices that allow a life to continue even when the body and soul no longer function in harmony.

******************************************************************

Now from the homestead: expecting Penny (aka “New Cow”) to freshen towards the end of the week. We are certainly hoping for a heifer, a healthy calf either way will be a blessing.

We’ve been picking corn! Daughter Theresa blanched 366 ears of corn, which amounted to approximately 44 quarts of corn (taken off the cob) one day last week. We should be picking corn regularly for the next few weeks.

Getting close to weaning our most recent litter of piglets in a week or so. Another litter due in mid-July.

Last week we got several inches of rain. The temp has been in the 80’s, cooling to the low 60’s and high 50’s at night. This is unusual, but we are not complaining.

Oremus pro invicem!

So, another week in the bucket. Have been busy cultivating peanuts. Need to get the Gypsum on soon. Another clutch of turkeys hatched (5). We should be picking our first corn in 7-10 days. We’ve had a few inches of rain the past week or so. This will be enough to make some good corn on at least our first planting. One more rain needed on our 2nd planting, and we’ll just have to see on our 3rd and 4th planting.


Sal had her second litter of pigs. 16 born alive. 14 survive the week and going strong. Harry the sow due in 2.5 weeks or so. Need to get a new farrowing pen built for her. The old one is under corn right now!

We are still picking broccoli and have started picking peas in earnest-two pickings a week right now and the sugar snap peas will have their first picking this week also.

Our horse sustained an injury from the mule right where the plough collar sits. Thus we haven’t been able to prepare the last part of the leased field for planting cow peas. We are hoping it will be fully healed this week and we can get back to ploughing so as to plant the cow peas by early June at the latest.

Landed a part-time job on at a local quail barn. It is the answer to our prayers. Added income with flexible hours just minutes away, what more can one ask for? I give entire credit to the Infant of Prague in whose hands we place our needs.

Comforting words from this morning’s Gospel (from John 16): “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”

Oremus pro invicem!

Itching, War, Farm News

First to the comment below on cold water on the itch for poison ivy: Cold water does “cool down” the itch. Hot Water, on authority from my sons, and then from my own experience based on their advice: in the shower use water as hot as you can stand on the places where it itches. The itch increases and increases and then suddenly goes totally away. Finish with cold shower. Itch stays away longer than just with the cold water, HOWEVER … read on.


The problem with the hot water is that it opens your pores so much, that (especially if you have been scratching just a little - or more) it also opens those pores to potential infection, like staph. In my case, I got an infection and needed an antibiotic to get rid of it. So be forewarned….

**********************************

Listened to Morning Edition on NPR, interview with Rachel Maddow on her new book “Drift” on why we go to war this morning. Her thesis (paraphrased by me) is that because we have a large standing, professional army and military industrial complex, (we have drawn down less and less after every war since WWII), we tend to try solve problems with our military instead of using other means. Ironically, (she being a liberal) she quotes pre-president Jefferson on the virtues of small government.

I make sure my children before they graduate high school have all read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, (something my hs and college education lacked. We read about them, but never read them.) One of the points the Anti-Federalists make is Rachel Maddow’s very point: countries with standing armies are more likely to engage in war, and strong, centralized, governments will eventually maintain a standing army.

This is why we need to understand history-not merely dates and events, but the thoughts behind them, which are most evident when we read the original documents and not just commentary on those documents.


****************************************

Drying off Penny (aka New Cow) for her pending freshening in June. Litter of piglets due later this week. More peanuts planted and one more section of peanuts to go. Almost finished with the broccoli; radishes gone; Swiss chard being plentiful; corn coming on strong-just a few more drops of rain needed! Eight turkey chicks hatched by momma turkey this week: 7 survive first week! Small Engine repair course ½ over, already fixing 4-cycles right and left. Number One son graduated tops in his EMT class!!



Oremus pro invicem!

A week ago we had two below freezing frosts. I was worried about our sweet corn. We had planted it in four rounds about 2-3 weeks apart. The first batch was over my knee; the last was just poking above the ground. Two mornings in a row we had lows of 29°F. We had some browning, but didn’t lose any. Surprisingly, some of our broccoli (we’ve been eating off it since Easter) and early peas showed frost damage.

We’ve been eating lettuce from the garden and some peas-the peas should really come in starting this week. Radishes have been more plentiful than we can consume, but the pigs love both the greens and the radishes. Swiss Chard should be ready to start harvesting in a week or so, as will some rutabagas.

Poison Ivy itch is not gone, but is getting better. My method of relieving the itch was to take a cold shower every time it got out of hand. Night time was the worst, with me sometimes taking as many as 3 quick showers between 2 AM and 6 AM.

We had our (sort of) annual square dance on Saturday. We roasted a 120 pound hog on our homemade grill, putting it on at about 6:30 AM Saturday morning. We ate lunch at half past noon and then danced until milking time. Local folks, families from our parish, and old friends from Columbia all came out. I think we all had a great time. Of course the long-line Virginia Reel was the highlight for many. It is a real family day. Lots of interest in watching the boys milk the cows at the end of the day. Plenty of pork left over in the freezer for more feasting to come.

We’ve finished planting the first half of the peanut field. We do have another section to plow and plant, but it has gone so much more quickly and smoothly this year so far.

Once again, with all these happenings, God has blessed us much more than we could have imagined.

Oremus pro invicem!



Poison Ivy!

So, two weeks or so before Easter two of my sons got poison ivy. One case was extreme as it always is for him. I was with them cutting wood for next winter, but I only had a little spot on my arm. It never itched and I wasn't even sure that's what it was.

Fast forward 10 days later to spy Wednesday. Older son, who had worried the poison ivy would keep him from serving at the altar during Holy Week, was recovered enough to serve, as was his brother.

My little spot itched a little, but I thought nothing of it. By Good Friday, both my arms were crazy with itch. To make matters worse, Mrs. Curley caught it from me! By Monday, I had the itch from shoulders to ankle. Mrs. Curley went to the doc Monday and I went on Tuesday. We started a steroid last night. Some people in the family get "difficult" on prescription steroids. The joke around here is whether Mrs. Curley and I will still be talking come Friday!

Of course some in the family are totally against me taking any medication to end this torture. They say, "Dad, just think of the North American Martyrs!" They may have a point, but I go forward none-the-less. I will let you judge my character.

*************************

In lighter news, I sold a story to Back Home Magazine. It's not available online yet, but really long time readers of this blog (I mean back to the first few entries) will recognize the background issues involved in building better chicken coop protection from predators-including your own.

He is risen! Oremus pro invicem!

He is Risen!

Alleluia!

The latest at CL

Just a little article on Catholic Lane that I wrote. Here's a snippet:

But to go back to those healthy couples who choose to surgically or artificially limit the love in their families, I want to ask them: What if God limited His love, that is His creation, to just Adam and Eve? Those first two, after all, were a troublesome pair. They didn’t obey very well.

Read the whole thing here.

Oremus pro invicem!

Plowing the field

Update: Here's some pictures:

We’ve started plowing the field with our new walk-behind turn plow. I will say it is easier on the horse. He can plow more land in a session.

But it IS NOT easier on the plowman. If I keep plowing, I will lose a hunk of weight and get in better shape. It’s a real workout.

Will try to get some pictures this week.

Oremus pro invicem!

I made corned beef from the brisket of the dairy cow we had to put down this past August. I used the recipe in Charcuterie (rapidly becoming one of my favorite books-borrowed from a friend) minus the garlic.

I have never been a big fan of corned beef purchased from the supermarket, it is just too salty; you can’t soak or boil enough salt out of it. This corned beef was just right. I think it is the first time I really enjoyed it.

We also had pigeon this weekend. A friend was thinning out his racing pigeon herd and told us they were good to eat. They were okay. I think I overcooked them, but even so they were okay, very dense meat. Half of them I wrapped in homemade bacon and baked. The other half I soaked in milk and then battered flour and spices and fried. I think the one wrapped in bacon turned out better-but what else would you expect?

We started plowing a portion (~ ¼ acre) of the field we are leasing this week. I expect we will be planting some peas there by weeks’ end. Today I am purchasing a walk-behind horse/mule plow board with a turn plow, sweep, and shovel attachments. It is very good working order and reasonably priced. He had another which possibly had never been used, but it didn’t have all the adjustment features as this one does.

Our horse does a good job with the forecart plow, but it is an awful lot of weight to be pulling. We are hoping that the walk-behind will conserve some of his energy so that we can actually plow more territory in a day. However, this will present some new challenges. I believe a mule or a calmer horse would walk straighter lines than does our quarter horse. When plowing with the forecart, it is fairly easy to keep the wheel in the furrow, but once we get to cultivating, the horse doesn’t seem to want to walk those straight rows. So we will see how it goes. If we can get him to walk straight rows, the new sweep attachment will greatly assist us in cultivating and keeping the pigweeds down.

There is a big working horse and tack auction in Troutman, NC this coming weekend. Many of the horses/mules are Amish trained. AND I am told if you wait around towards the end, you can get some great deals on dead broke to ride and pull animals. Unfortunately I don’t think our budget will allow it this spring.

It has been so warm we took a chance and put a small patch of sweet corn 2 weeks ago. It is up now and looking good. We put in another patch this weekend. In another 2 weeks we will put in our final bit of sweet corn.

The warm spring makes me think we are behind in planting, but really we are doing okay with peas, lettuce, broccoli, radishes, etc already in and up.

Oremus pro invicem!

Weaned some piglets this weekend. Put the sow in with our new boar. If he works out, we can bring some of Tarzan's daughters into the herd and expand from our best sows (if that's what we decide to do.)

We should start getting our leased land ready this week. First we will cut down the tall, but dead weeds, remnant from last year. We will rake (plow) the field and then start plowing in earnest. We will start with a small portion and get in some early peas and then get going on the rest.

Am thinking of taking a small engine repair course this spring. I work on our cars now, but usually with lots of local advice. It would be good to become very good at small engine repair and get some income fixing mowers and chainsaws and tillers etc. Of course many around here to a lot of their own work, but I think this may work out.

Speaking of chainsaws ... this being a mild winter was a blessing since it was our first using only wood for heat. I hope I have enough wood cut later this spring to get us through a tougher winter next year. Here's a picture of Number 4 son with wood and a not so good pic of our stove taken during the Christmas season (as should be obvious from the background).

Oremus pro invicem!

Thanks for all the prayers regarding our "big decision". Don't you all know that I haven't let loose with the news to keep readership?

Without going into all the mechanics of it, because the whole process (not our doing) dragged out much longer than human patience can imagine, late last week we decided to stay here. I immediately approached our neighbor about leasing 6 acres again this year (affirmative answer).

God then immediately blessed us through two local farmers who offered us the equivalent of 10-11 truckloads of turnips from their fields if only we would harvest them. (Not a complete diet for the hogs, but every bit helps.)

Again, thanks for the prayers. The whole process made us revisit why we are here and how to go forward. God has been very good to us.

Oremus pro invicem!

Seen

on a Church (I think Methodist, but it could have been Luthern) billboard on the way home from Mass on Sunday:

Lent

It’s not just for bellybuttons!

Now, for most of us, this just doesn’t make sense. However (and it may be peculiar to the midlands of SC) there is an common accent which renders the short “e” sound as a short “i”. Therefore, for example: “pen”, is pronounced “pin”.

So here, “Lent” is rendered “Lint”, and thus how it makes sense-at least to some. We had a laugh because of the occasional miscommunication that has resulted with our friends over this regional accent peculiarity.

In truth we didn’t get it right away. We did a doubletake and then got it.

Oremus pro invicem!

The new view

Mentioned in the last post was that we had moved many of our pigs and breeding hogs to the front yard. Here is the new view from our front porch.

And here is one of our roaming gamecocks and game hens. The game hens lay and hatch 20-30 chicks each year without us doing a thing. They rustle their own food. We have almost 30 hens and some 8 cocks roaming around now. We need to thin them so they won't destroy our garden. With 8 hens and 2 cocks, they won't do much damage. We will sell a few and put a few more in the freezer.

Received our ashes this morning. Impressed by the homily's call to fast from entertainment and desserts so we can make more time for prayer. Here's to an initially painful but eventually uplifting Lenten season!


Oremus pro invicem!

First, no news related to my last two posts. We thought things would be settled by now, but I guess some wheels turn slowly. That being the case, we just need to plow ahead with our spring agenda.

We rotate our hogs from pen to pen and plant in open pens as much as possible. But there are some areas which have seen only brief breaks over the years. Our garden has been primarily in our front yard with some exceptions (most notably the tremendous corn we had last year in an old hog pen). This year we are rotating things a bit more. Since we have scaled down to three sows, we have more open areas and more options. So in the past few weeks we have been moving all of our pigs and hogs onto the front lawn/former garden. There is still some gardening space, but a good third of it is now occupied by some growers and most of our breeding stock.

Moving our breeding stock on Friday turned out to be quite an adventure. Moving hogs in recent years has usually not been a big deal. We have some experience and know the best way for each sow or boar. But our youngest sow, Sal, gave us a run for our money on Friday. We had a trailer which we backed up to the pen gate. Normally a hog will follow food into the trailer. We moved our boar and then our first sow with no problem. Then came Sal. She just wouldn't cooperate. First we tried to lure her; then we tried to push her; then we tried to back her in with a bucket over her head and a rope tied to her back leg. She didn't want to have any part of it. I now recall her mother used to be the most stubborn hog to move also (although now reformed). Finally we moved Sal into the shoot area between the gate and the trailer. But instead of moving forward, she overpowered the shoot wall and escaped. Two of the boys grabbed at the still dangling rope from her hind leg and quickly wrapped it around a tree-but not without some rope burns first. Finally, we hemmed her in with some hog panels. Since, the overgrown area she had escaped to would have been difficult to manuver the trailer into with the truck, Mrs. Curley and I disengaged it and manually pushed it over rough terrain to the ad hoc holding pen. Finally, here Sal decided she had lost, and boarded the trailer.

Instead of a 15 minute job, we spent almost 3 hours just on Sal. We had planned to slaughter a hog Friday afternoon, but it was too late (and we were too spent) to continue our plans. Such is homestead life. Plans are always thwarted.

We will (if all goes according to plans - ha!) put some onions, broccoli, romaine lettuce, and peas in this week. Our collards from the fall (planted late) are now doing well and are all that is left from the fall garden. I did harvest a small batch of carrotts last week. I didn't plant near enough-I never do.

The start of Lent always (at least nearly) coincides with the start of planting. I think it seems quite appropriate in some ways. The spiritual work we do in Lent (or lack thereof) results in the harvest of Easter. Likewise, with planting.

Oremus pro invicem!

My thanks for all the prayers. No decision yet-it'll be another week or so at least as we gather all the data.

Oremus pro invicem!