A New Respect for Turkeys

I don't have words to describe how touching this video is. You have to see it for yourself.


My Life As a Turkey. One man's remarkable experience of raising a group of wild turkey hatchlings to adulthood.

Soap!

Due to my near obsessive love of  DIY, I have been wanting to make my own soap for the past few years. I always thought it would be difficult and take a huge amount of time. It would if I were starting from wood ash. But thankfully, lye is available at most hardware stores so there is a much, much easier way.

Lye. Water. Fat.

Wow, I can't believe it is so dog-gone easy. True, it can be dangerous. You need to be aware that lye can cause serious chemical burns. But if you exercise caution and common sense, it's a piece of cake.

Well, I think it's a piece of cake now, but we'll see in a few weeks if it's successful. The soap really should set for 6 weeks to cure, but I doubt I'll be able to wait that long to try it. From what I understand, it takes a couple of weeks for the saponification process to complete and the soap is usable at that time, but the bar will become harder and will last longer if you give it more time to cure.

I was given this recipe from a local woman who has been making her own soap for several years.

13 oz. lye
2-1/2 pints cold, soft water
6 lbs. fat (olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable oil, tallow, lard or a combination)
         I used lard because that's what she uses.

1. Line mold with plastic wrap, waxed paper or a damp towel. I used a shallow box I picked up from the grocery store that held canned goods. I put it in a second slightly bigger box as a precaution and was glad I did because quite a bit of moisture seeped through the waxed paper and the first layer of cardboard.

2. In a well ventilated area (outside is preferable) dissolve lye in cold water in a stainless steel, enamel or oven proof glass container. Lye first, water second - never water then lye. I used a 2 qt. Pyrex mixing bowl. Don't use aluminum or tin utensils and be aware that the chemical reaction will product a lot of heat, which may shatter glass, stonewear or ceramic and can melt plastic or damage aluminum containers. Stir until dissolved. A wooden spoon reserved for soapmaking works great. Stir until dissolved and let cool to 105-110 degrees F.

3. While waiting for lye solution to cool, melt fat and let cool to close to the same temperature as the lye solution.

4. Pour lye solution into the fat, in a thin steady stream, with slow even stirring. Rapid addition of the lye may cause separation.

5. Stir constantly until the lye solution is absorbed into the fat and the mixture thickens. This can take an hour or so of stirring by hand, so use a stick blender if you have one. It will greatly speed up the process.

6. Pour into prepared mold(s). At this point, I added oatmeal and orange essential oil. Cover soap and let remain undisturbed for 24 hours.

7. Remove soap from mold and cut into bars. Place soap where air can reach it, but avoid drafts and cold air which may impair lather. Coldness during curing may cause coarse, crumbly soap. The soap can be used in 2 weeks, but will continue to improve with age.

If your mixture separates and doesn't form soap, reheat and try again.

Since this is my first soap making expedition, I highly recommend that you do further research before you make your first batch. Be safe. Exercise caution with the lye, use safety glasses, wear long sleeves and shoes, and never work with lye with children present.

We lost a good girl this week.

We haven't had problems with the neighborhood dogs in quite a while, but today a young male lab got curious and came for a visit. His people are really good about keeping him at home, so I think he probably broke his tie-out or something. He seemed like a nice, friendly boy so I wasn't particularly concerned about the chickens. However......one chicken did not return from her day of bug hunting and foraging. Major bummer.

She was my only Barred Rock and I reeealy liked her. So much, in fact, that I recently decided to turn to Barred Rocks as the future majority chicken breed of our little homestead. After reading Harvey Ussery's new book (awesome, btw) and given my experience with hybrids, I definitely think heritage breeds are the way to go. But I digress; that's for another post.

Dear husband thinks the chickens hid in the cornfield when they saw the dog, as they normally do. The problem with this is the farmer was cutting the corn, so she might have gotten herself "combined"!  Yikes!

RIP Barbara. We'll miss you. Someday I may report on our chicken loss just previous to this one, but it's a tragic tale that I don't know if I should tell. I'll have to think on that.

Here's Barbara as a chick.  She's the little, fluffy one.  The big, hairy one is Kid #3.

Silly Chickens

This morning I found two of the girls squished together in one nest box.

The hen in the front is Edith and the one in the back is Cindy. Seemed a bit cramped to me. Especially, when there was an empty box available!

When I asked what the heck they were doing, Edith got out and climbed into the other box. Cindy followed her in there. Edith apparently became annoyed with the game and dropped her egg so fast I couldn't snap the picture before she got out of there. See the egg?

Silly chickens.

Homesteading, Farming, Oh My!

I have this overwhelming urge to farm, or homestead, or whatever you would prefer to call it.

This desire is steadily growing stronger by the day. I find myself reading about homesteading, growing my own food and self-sufficiency for hours every day.

I am wondering if this feeling will pass in time or continue to grow. I thoroughly enjoy making things; however, to be honest I'm am quite lazy when it comes to manual labor. I don't know if I am up to the physical challenges of homesteading, but also know that it doesn't necessarily have to be a complete back-breaking, labor-intensive proposition. I am learning that there are many ways to garden and raise animals that don't require dawn to dusk labor.

The more I read about how inhumanely many animals are raised and slaughtered on factory farms and about genetically modified food, the more I want to know what's actually in the food I feed my family and where it comes from.

More on this later, but in the meantime I'd love to hear your thoughts and personal stories on this subject.

Come Get Some Yummies!

My own brand of chicken treats is now available in my Etsy shop!  That's treats for chickens, not treats made of chicken. No chickens were harmed in the making of these treats. My own chickens absolutely love them. See them here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/RockwellDesigns

Happy Mother's Day

I hope everyone had a good day.  Lots of fun stuff today. Started planting in my new garden beds: swiss chard, radishes, snow peas, cucumbers and romaine.

As you can see from my uber fancy twine and dowel divided sections, I'm using the basic principles from Square Foot Gardening. To match my fancy twine, I added strips cut from a milk jug for my plant identifiers. I know, it doesn't get any more uptown than this, does it? I will spare no expense for my garden.

I especially like the circle one from the round indent on the side of the jug. Always wondered what this was for. Now I know.

I've been wanting to start composting since we started chicken farming, as my father-in-law calls it. I figure we really should do something with all this chicken poop, other than just tossing it in the field. I tried just dumping it in a pile with some grass clippings, but that turned out to be a bad idea. The chickens thought I put it there for them to scratch through to dig for worms so it just ended up spread out instead of the rotting pile I intended it to be. So much for that lazy plan. I think I may just be one of the laziest people I know and this occasionally works for me....but not this time.

I've thought about different ways to make a compost bin, from wire fencing, pallets, 55 gallon drum and even checked out the $100 plastic ones. Well OK, I didn't actually consider buying one of those things. They look nice and no offense to anyone who has one...but c'mon a hundred bucks for a plastic barrel?  I don't think so. 

I finally decided last night on using a trash can. This morning I took a trash can from the garage we were using for wood scraps and drew circles with a marker all over it where I wanted the holes. My son, Trenton, used a  drill and 1" hole bit to make the holes and wa-la, a compost bin was born.  Thanks Trent!

I filled the bottom foot or so with chicken poop, brown dried grass clippings, mulched leaves, a bit of water and stirred it up with a small pitchforky thing I bought at a yard sale last year. I'm always picking up unusual things at yard sales that I just know I'm gonna use some day (gotta love those yard sales) and I'm so happy when they actually prove to be needed.  I did need to add a handle but luckily I was able to find one that I think came off a paint roller. One little screw and I was in business. I decided to put it by the pine tree near the chicken coop.

I 

I think I'll use a coffee can until I can find a cute container to leave on the counter for the veggie material, coffee grounds, tea bags, eggs shells and such. Hopefully I can train everyone in the house (including myself) to remember to put their compostable garbage in the can and if I can remember to take it out with me when I go out to the coop every day, this might just work.

Got some plants and seeds in the garden - made a composter - planted 24 crowns of asparagus and 3 rhubarb roots - then chicken and homemade noodles for dinner topped off with a piece of toast spread with dandelion jelly and sprinkled with cinnamon for desert. Hmmm....I think the day went quite well.

The Beginning

This past year has been a new beginning of sorts for me and I've decided to document it in bits and pieces along the way.

Last Spring I started raising chickens; something I decided to do on a whim after reading a bit it in a book. I guess I just thought it sounded fun. Happily, this turned out to be true. I've enjoyed it every step of the way and haven't regretted it for a moment. My girls (hens) are much more than just little egg machines as I originally thought of chickens. They're more like pets and, oddly enough, family members. They all have names and I love them.

This year I started dabbling in old-fashioned domestic practices, self-sufficiency and general homesteading. I've found that simple things, such as making our own butter, vanilla extract, home-made jam,  jelly and laundry detergent are rewarding and soul-enriching experiences that I can't seem to get enough of.

I have been reading about home canning this week and made a batch of strawberry jelly. It turned out nice. Yesterday I made dandelion jelly, which is quite pretty and delicious with a honey flavor. Rhubarb is the next jelly I want to make when I can get it. It doesn't seem to be easily found in stores and no one I know has any plants.

Today my family built a raised garden bed and tomorrow I'll be planting seeds and some transplants I started in the house a few weeks ago. Over the winter, I've been reading Square Foot Gardening and am looking forward to putting the information to use.

I don't know where all this is leading me, and I guess it doesn't matter. What I do know is it's fun and it just feels right.