White Christmas 2010

We got a RARE snow on Christmas Day and the day after. 1963 was the last time we had a white Christmas. Snow is always a treat but to get it on Christmas is special indeed.


Some years we don't even get a snow; but to get enough to build a snowman is rare indeed.

It's Finished!

Melissa has been working on a quilt and today it is finished! It looks great! Check it out!

Makin' Bacon!

Last year we grew out a pig and had her processed but we chose to make our own bacon. We made up our rub from salt, brown sugar, and honey.

And then we rubbbbbed it in!

Then we bagged it up and refrigerated it for seven days; turning it each day. Then you take it out, rinse it off good and let it sit uncovered for 24 hours in the fridge and you got bacon! We cut it into one pound pieces and froze it. We got ~16 pounds of bacon from our pig.

Stud

This is our Hereford Bull, Samson, or Obeast as the girls lovingly refer to him. He is a fine specimen and gets along good with our girls. We have the cows in the pasture closer to the house so we get to see them more. He was so posed for this picture I couldn't resist!

New Residents

We picked up these two porkers on Sunday afternoon up in Pickens county. They are a cross between a Hampshire and a Yorkshire. The black and white one (Templeton) is a barrow (a fixed male) and the pink one (Buttermilk) is a female. They are VERY tame piglets. The kids are having a great time with them. They were born on October 1st so they should be ready for the freezer by March 1st or a little later. Our thinking is that we are going to grow them both out and sell one and see how much of the cost that covers for both of them. In a perfect scenario,
the profit from one would cover the feed and processing for the other and you end up with a free pig in the freezer. According to estimates, we would have to raise 7 pigs and sell 6 of them to have a totally free pig. We'll see how two goes for now.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Have a blessed day counting your blessings and enjoying your friends and family. I hope your house is smelling as good as ours does. We cooked one of the hams from the pig we raised last winter and it looks and smells great. Of course I had to break into the browning bag and do a little "quality control" and it tastes pretty good as well. Only a few hours now until the festivities begin. Friends, Family and food. A great trio for my favorite Holiday.

I went deer hunting for a few minutes this morning. I looked to the west as it got daylight and it looked cloudy-dark and then it started to gently rain so I decided to head on back to the house. Hopefully I'll get another deer or two before the season ends.

We hope to pick up another piglet this weekend. I've been talking to a guy who has some that should be ready to go. we'll get some pictures of that and some other stuff around here we need to catch up on and put them up this weekend hopefully.

Meat Chickens - Cut, Scald, Pluck, Clean

A couple of weeks ago it was time to process our meat chickens. This was our first ever attempt at growing chickens to eat. We have had layers for egg production for a few years now but this was totally different. Layers don't usually lay their first eggs until they are around 17 weeks old. These girls were ready to be processed at 7 weeks! So it's a fairly short deal start to finish.

The first step was to put them upside down into the cone and slit their Carotid arteries so they just slowly pass out and die as opposed to chopping their head off and then they, yes they really do run around like a chicken with it's head cut off! Next after they have peacefully slipped off into never never land they go into some 140 degree water for 60 seconds to loosen the feathers. Then they go to the plucking table where the feathers are removed.

Next the head and feet are cut off and the evisceration(removing the innards) begins. The livers and gizzards are put into a separate bag and the chicken is ready for the freezer or frying pan.

We were painfully slow as this was the first time but we got faster as we went along. Next spring we will get more broilers and hopefully be even faster yet.

Eating chicken that you grow yourself; that you feed healthy food; that you don't feed antibiotics and hormones is a very rewarding and delicious experience.

Savannah's big Catfish

Yesterday was a big day for us even for a Sunday. Beside church, small group, a birthday slip and a slide party, Savannah and a friend of hers managed to land the biggest fish ever caught in our pond! It was a huge catfish and they had to fight hard and as a team to get him in. Savannah hooked him but quickly saw that a net would be needed to get him in so she sent her friend to get the net. And they persevered and got it in and soon it will be dinner. There are several things I need to get on this blog but none as exciting as this big giant. Great job girls!

Blackberries!

My Mom called Saturday and said that their blackberry crop was flowing like milk and honey! She invited me to come up and get some so Savannah and I rode up there and picked up a few gallons. My Dad had rooted me some blackberry plants and we have 6 planted but they are still pretty small this year. Next year we should be "in the berries" ourselves. These are those huge berries like you see in the stores and another bonus is these plants don't have any thorns!




Well Melissa didn't waste any time getting them cooking and made several jars of blackberry jelly, blackberry jam, and blackberry cobbler filling. We will be enjoying these berries for a long time to come. As well as I can understand, this is the essence of sustainable farming. Harvesting whatever is in season and then preserving enough to make it until the next harvest. Blackberry jelly year round sounds good to me. (In moderation, of course!)

That's right! The Durham clan headed out for a little hiking for the 4th. We headed up into the mountains above Lake Jocassee. It was beautiful and much cooler than here! One funny thing was since our cell phones didn't work there no one had a watch so we didn't know what time it was for two days! But then we didn't need to know what time it was...that was the cool part. Savannah did finally figure out that the camera would show the time on a certain setting. Thanks Meredith for taking the picture.

The games of summer

With yesterday being the first day of summer I guess it should come as no surprise that we would have the first watermellon seed-spitting contest of the year. The watermellon had been chilling in the fridge for a couple of days so it was great. Then came the challenge!

"Do ya'll want to have a watermellon seed spitting contest?"


Let the games begin!

Not a bad mornings work

Last night Savannah asked if we could go fishing this morning before they had to go for their CPR/First Aid training. I told her we would have to go at 6AM and she said OK so we got up and went and the fish cooperated! She caught 6 and I caught 1 :-( It was a great time and we got enough for a great meal for our family It doesn't get any better than that. My Fathers Day weekend is starting off pretty sweet.

We were in the boat and the dogs were following us around the bank as we fished and then I saw one of them up on the deck so I thought they had given up. Then to our surprise here comes Cabella swimming up to the boat! We let her in and made sure to keep her away from the hooks and the fish. She seemed very happy to be in the boat with us so next time we will try just taking her from the start. Koko would follow us around but she was not going to swim out to us. She will get in the water but she has to have a little coaxing.

Well the early-morning fog has burned off and the sun is out so it's on to checking chickens, cows, bees and the garden. Have a great Fathers Day everyone.

Hot Pepper

One plant that must be grown here on the 2811 is hot pepper. Melissa loves it and now she has some of the kids eating it as well. It's a little too hot for me but they love it so we plant a few of them. This one is a Cayenne but we also usually plant Jalapeno and this year we planted one called a cow horn which has been a hit as well. You would think that these fireballs would be bad for your stomach but research actually shows that they are good for it. It kills some of the bad guys that cause trouble.

This is our garden so far this year. Everything is going very well with the exception of the attack of the squash beetle/borer worm whatever it is killing our squash plants! We think we have it under control now with a combination of "pick and drown" and diatomatious earth but we'll see. Diligent hoeing has kept the weeds under control this year as opposed to most years the weeds are getting ahead of us by now.

We did get a very late start this year. Usually we try to get most things planted on Good Friday but this year it was May 1st before we got it planted. It was tractor issues and then it was just too dry when we thought about planting so we waited and it seems to be paying off.

We tried a new thing this year of growing cucumbers upright on a tomato cage and it is working great (Thanks Lazy B for that idea). They take up a fraction of the space and don't lay on the ground where they tend to get discolored and eaten by bugs.

Our latest garden ever!!

We usually get our garden planted on Good Friday but not this year! It was May 1st before we got it going this year but it is going well so far. We have kept the weeds under control better than usual and God is providing plenty of rain. We got our first cucumber last week and squash and zucchini are starting to come in as well. Our corn is only about knee high so it will be a while yet on that. The okra looks good but no blooms yet. We planted several varieties of Tomatoes this year and we have several green tomatoes but no ripe ones yet. We got 5 inches of rain in the past week!!! That definitely caused some washing but we have got some dirt moved around now so it is mostly back to normal.


This is our rain gauge full of water! We haven't had this much rain in a coon's age. It is rare indeed when we have to dump out our gauge because it is full, but that is exactly what happened Monday. I would have really liked to have had this rain over several days or even weeks but hey, we take it when we can get it!



The bees seem to be having a good year so far. I have two "supers" on most of the hives and each one could potentially have 2.5 gallons of honey. Of course they will not all be full but some years we have not had ANY surplus honey so it looks like we will at least get some this year. Also we have not "seen" and swarms. That is not to say that we haven't had any but I try to check them pretty often. Hopefully they have been too busy making honey to think about packing up and leaving!

Polyphemus

Noah and I were hiking through the woods last fall when we came across a khaki colored cocoon like thing about the size of the end of my thumb. We picked it up and decided to take it home and see if it would hatch out. Well today was the day. We had put it in a cricket bucket with some leaves (we found it in the leaves) and put a tin foil lid on it. Melissa was the first one to see it hanging from the top. When they crawl out of their cocoon they have to hang upside down so the fluid will fill out their wings and they will be able to fly. We took the top off and set him out on the deck and by the time we checked after supper he was gone. He was a beautiful specimen and I'm sure he is off in search of a female as he will only live for a couple of weeks.

Turkey Hunt

God blessed me and Noah with being able to harvest a mature gobbler this morning. Good Friday sure is starting off good! I would just like to take a moment to thank my good friend Tommy Hite for introducing me to Turkey hunting. He put up with my terrible calling and rookie mistakes for years which now has allowed me to begin to pass on this great outdoor activity to my son. So thanks Tommy...this one's for you.

To Organic or not to Organic

We are researching what it would take to make our farm "Certified Organic." I met with a guy from the Soil and Water Conservation Office today who gave me some paperwork to look over and so that is where we are right now. I really don't think we are that far off from Organic but I know there would have to be some changes and I'm not sure I want the government deciding how I run my farm. I guess it will boil down to how much it will cost (over $500 just for the initial certification) and would it ever work out to be a "budget neutral" item on our small farm. Would we be better off just staying "all natural" and not going the extra mile to Organic city? We'll see!

Snow on the 2811!!!

In a rare appearance ......we have snow! Or as a friend of mine put it, "a precipitation accumulation sensation!" The kids, of course, had to get out and play in it but I was content to sit by the fire and eat home made oatmeal raisin cookies. It is now 7:00pm and it is still coming down pretty good. The low for tonight is 26 so maybe we'll have some more play time in the morning.

Blackberries

Here is the beginning of our thornless blackberry trellis. It is 30 feet long and a little over 7 feet tall. So far all we have are the main posts up, but I thought it would be good to document the building of it in stages. When you can't farm full time you have to do things in stages as time, funds, and the weather allow. I got these posts up this morning before the rain came (again). As you can see the chickens were looking on with their usual curiosity.

Winter

Winter is definitely here! The pond froze completely over this week which has not happened in years. The high for today is 34!

We have a pig now. I made a great trade for her. I traded our horse for her. I figured trading an animal that does nothing but eat for one that we can eat was the best horse trade (pun intended) I have ever made. She is now big enough to process, so she won't be with us much longer. She has an appointment on the 19th. I really wanted to butcher her myself but in all my research it just appeared that I didn't have the proper set up for the scalding part to get the hair off and I also found out that skinning a pig is very difficult as well. Combine this with the fact that she weighs about 300 pounds and I just decided that I am not going to be able to process this one. We may "finish" another pig next fall and maybe I will be ready by then. I am going to cure the bacon and hams myself...that part looks pretty easy.