Cook: Short Ribs

 This was my firsts time cooking short ribs, and they were quite delicious! You have to ask for them specially from your butcher.

It's supposed to be a very fatty cut, but I didn't find them bad at all, maybe because our meat is grass finished.

I used a mixture of rosemary, thyme, s & p to season the ribs, then browned them in the pot. 

Then add a whole bunch of chopped veggies (that's onions, carrots & celery). 

And some very thick home-made chicken stock!! (was about 2 cups) 

Threw in a few of my wine-scicles (I froze some wine I didn't like a while ago, and always have it for cooking).

After that you throw the ribs back in the pot and it went in the oven at 350F for about 2 hours. They were falling off the bone and very good. Came out more like a pot roast though and I'm going to try something different for next time.

Chicken Photos

The little chick corner

Busy coop on a snowy day!

Can't get her to stand still for a photo
but I believe "raven" here is a hen, at
least I hope so!

The poor polish, I hate to laugh at her but...

Someone got caught out in the rain!!

Chicken Myths

You've got to be careful about what you believe out of all the information you'll read on the net, for the simple reason a great deal of it is anecdotal. Chickens all have different personalities, and things that work for/or happen to one flock can be completely different from someone else's experiences.

(And I hope everyone realizes the same for any "advice" or information I give out)

I read that we should keep the moms & chicks separated because they will kill any other hen's chicks. You can see clearly from the image they are obviously trying to kill each other... NOT! Actually one of the little grays has an adventurous spirit and frequently wanders off to the other hen's brood. Momma #2 will watch him and protect him until he runs back to his mom, or she comes back to collect him.

Play date!

Now, these mommas grew up together and know each other well, their chicks are around the same ages and there is tons of space in the coop. I don't know if any of that makes a difference at all.

Good Day, Bad Day.

Today was a bad day.

I lost my favourite little chicky (my little penguin) when he fell into the chicken's water bucket. We've had chickens (meaties) drown in other waterers before, but that bucket has been in the coop through lots of chicks and this has never happened. I was in there at noon and forgot to check the chick's water, the bigger chickens must have drained it & little penguin got thirsty.

If nothing else, I learn from my mistakes, and hubs is picking up a proper waterer on the way home today. I was hoping to set up an elaborate rain catch & drip-water system. That's not happening any time soon, so in the mean time we won't loose any more chicks.

Coco officially abandoned her nest. There was one cold morning she got off to eat & the BPR took over to lay an egg, and then Coco did not return to her nest. The eggs hadn't cooled off too badly so I was hoping they'd survive, but it looks like none of them did. Coco kicked an egg out yesterday, then two more this morning, and left the last 3 this afternoon. She's back to being a normal chicken and I dismantled the nest.

I wouldn't let her go broody for at least a few weeks because she needs to get back to a good condition; and then the weather is going to be way too cold (November chicks was kind of pushing it). So the soonest we'll let her hatch more is early spring. We'll see what she thinks of that plan.

Out of about 2 dozen eggs we got 6 chicks and I'm starting to re-examine my hen-hatching plan in favour of an incubator... well not really. Selecting for a good chick raising instinct is really important to me, but those are some frustrating numbers!

Instead of removing the dog kennel I set up a creep for the chicks. Now they can access their feed and water where the adult chickens can't reach it.

The other bad news is that someone is eating my chicken eggs. It started before the new chickens arrived, so it's not them. I'm moderately sure it's the turkeys. I have been going in there to collect eggs as frequently as possible (usually 4-5 times a day) so they don't get a chance, but they got another one today. That means I need to separate the turkeys, egg eating is very difficult to stop once it starts, and I don't want to the hens getting any smart ideas.

No idea where I might put the turkeys for the winter... so this could prove challenging.

Good news on the turkey front is that they were looking a little wormy, ruffled feathers so of shrunk up posture, but I locked them in the feed-room of the coop (where they may have to stay) with turkey feed & a whole lot of Diatomaceous earth and they look great!

We're still getting a dozen or so eggs every day out of the coop, most are xl & jumbo so I'm on the hunt for some bigger egg cartons. Hubs should also be picking up our regular sized cartons on the way home today, and I'll be glad to get all my bowls back since they're in my fridge holding eggs.

KSCC: Notepads

This is one of the simplest things you can do to help reduce waste. I try to double-side print everything I can to save paper but sometimes you get an odd or single page. I save up all our one-sided computer print outs and when I get a few, it's a simple as cutting the pages into quarters & stapling them together. And I've got dozens of these around the house so I've always got something to write on. (I would suggest never using anything with sensitive or private information on it, in case you loose the page).

When I was in high school our environmental club did this one year (having students place one-sided paper waste in bins in each computer room) and then sent them out to a company that made actual note-pads with glue. They were great & I had tons of them for years & years, but staples and cheaper and easier at home.  

Equine study I had finished reading

Today on the Farm

The best laid schemes of mice & men... thanks to the warm weather I've had to move the horses out of the sacrifice (/diet) paddock because there is a foot of mud in there. This is always going to be a problem in Spring/Fall because we're keeping two big animals in a small area. However, by the end of November the ground is suppose do to be frozen, and probably a few inches of snow on the ground already.

Torrential downpour has filled the ditches,
ducks are happy!

So they're off enjoying their freedom instead of coming in from the rain.

The goose has gone M.I.A. Not that I'm sad he's missing, which probably happened because despite my suggestion he go into the barn he decided to bite me instead, but I am concerned about the possible predator activity. He couldn't fly so it's not like he's gone off somewhere.

I'm hoping to add some more goslings soon so we can collect down, but I think we'll start from chicks this time so we can tame them. We will wait until the spring to buy them because I'd like to make a separate coop for the waterfowl. They're not making a big mess in the coop at all, and they occupy space that the chicken's don't (on the ground). So we could continue to keep them all together indefinitely, but I'm worried the ducks may get nasty once they have ducklings to protect.

Steak is "happy" to be back with mom, I think he mostly just missed having other cow around again. The cows were smart enough to come in out of the rain, and spent the last 2 days sleeping in the barn.

Clearly did not loose a lot of weight in weaning

Yankey has turned out to be quite the bully! I've had to separate Billy at night because she was picking on him too much. Unfortunately she came back into heat, so now we're on a stud-search, which means waiting longer for milk.

We've been getting a great supply of XL & Jumbo eggs from the new chickens, a dozen a day! So I've bought some cartons from Berry Hill & we may open up our egg shop to the public a little early then planed. Or start holiday baking REALLY early.

I moved the piggies into the middle stall in the back of the barn last night, so Maddie can have his stall back. We're not letting them out any more, after they took off after our neighbour's in their horse-drawn wagon last weekend (a piggie chase ensued as they ran off down the road). They've got a lot of space to run around in the barn, and we'll fix up the sacrifice paddock fence first thing in the spring (we'll probably expand it too).

Coco's Eggs

Poor Coco, the girls have been taking advantage of her! Everytime she gets up from her nest to eat, someone sneaks in there & gives her another egg to care for. She had 7 a few days ago, and now she's up to 14!

So I went into the coop after dark last night to candle her eggs. 7 looks quite full and should be ready to hatch in just a few more days. I removed 7, including one that was broken, most of which looked fertile but were really just a few days old (so good news the new chickens have fertile eggs).

I remember some great twitter advice about writting on the eggs, and the 7 that are ready to hatch have one 'X' on them, so if any more chickens get smart, we'll be able to tell those eggs apart at a glance.

CoCo's 21 days are up now. Eggs this developed it's hard to see if they are moving or not, but we should know very soon. She had been off her eggs twice because of other hens sitting on her nest, but neither times the eggs got too cold, I hope!