The Tale of Chubby the Chicken

Many months ago, John ordered some chicks from the hatchery.  And, surprise, with his order of meat chickens, he received a free "exotic" chick! This little chickie looked different than her housemates from the outset.

And, since she was so much smaller than the quick-growing meat chickens, Girl 2 jokingly named her "Chubby."  She was a favorite from the beginning because she wouldn't be eaten.  She would eventually get to move into the hen house.

We all breathed a sigh of relief when we discovered that Chubby had survived the dog attack when the chicks were very young.  And once she'd gotten all her feathers, John was able to identify her as an Aracauna, one of his favorite laying breeds.  Once again, we were excited at the prospect of adding her to our laying flock.

When Chubby was 8 weeks old, she watched as one by one her housemates were removed from their house, never to return.  Chubby couldn't yet move in with the big girls, though, because she was still too young to eat their laying feed.  She would have to survive another 10 weeks in her own tractor alone.

She proved to be one tough chicken.  Once all her housemates had made the transition from backyard to freezer, she braved the cold alone.  When her tractor was completely snowed in, she hunkered down and awaited the thaw.  Farmer John dutifully cared for her as she grew bigger and bigger all alone in her tractor. 

In fact, she got a lot bigger than we'd expected.  She started to actually be "Chubby."  That seemed a bit odd.

Then, early this morning, Little Boy looked up from his breakfast and said, "Momma, the chicken is doing sumfin' funny!" and we all flocked to the backyard door, peering through the still-darkness and fog and listened.

Yep, Chubby was crowing.  As in "cock-a-doodle-do"-ing.  As in, Chubby is not a she, but rather a he. 

18 weeks.  For 18 weeks, John has dutifully cared for and fed this little stinker. 

I've been laughing pretty much all morning.  What else can you do?

I've said it again and again, but it's so true -- we really do learn new things around here everyday! 

I love my chickens, but I can't stand roosters!  Any takers?  She's, I mean, he's a really good lookin' chicken, but any chicken that crows has no place in our backyard!  18 weeks in, he's officially worn out his welcome!

Chicken Cannibalism!

We are on high alert here on the farm.  It seems that we may have a cannibalistic chicken.  There are many forms of cannibalism among chickens, but the problem we are experiencing is egg eating. 

Obviously, since we are keeping our hens for the purpose of providing us eggs, egg eating cannot be tolerated.

Basically, if an egg gets accidentally broken in the nesting box (because there are too many eggs left there and they crack, or shells are too thin because of inadequate nutrition) a chicken may get a taste of yummy egg.  Then, you've got a real problem on your hands.  Chickens are smart enough to know how to get more, so they'll begin to intentionally break eggs to get more.  How did the problem begin here?  To protect the guilty, my lips are forever sealed on the topic.  :)

Yesterday, I opened the nesting box to check for eggs and found a Dominique (one colored like this) eating an egg.  It was almost entirely gone, shell and all.  I wasn't sure what to do, so I shooed her away, cleaned up the remaining egg, and gathered the other 3 eggs out of the box.

Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens says that, "the only way to stop egg eating and keeping it from spreading is to remove the culprit early."

Remove?  Remove her and put her where?  The stock pot?

This chicken seems to be waiting for her friend to lay her egg.  Is she the guilty party?

Because we have several Dominiques, I'm not sure which gal is the culprit.  For now, we've got the chicken house positioned right outside the kitchen window so that I can keep a better eye on things out there.  If we have a repeat and I'm able to identify the guilty gal, I've been instructed to catch her and move her to the other chicken pen.

Looks like it may be chicken for dinner this week.  :(

More Backyard Snow

Well, a few of the chickens are braving the snowy ground.  John moved the gang onto a patch of mostly thawed ground today, so they can move around much more easily.

This group of "chickens," though, are still afraid to come out of the house.

The goats have apparently figured out that they'd have to come out of their house to get to their feeder.  So, I was able to get a few snowy goat pics.

Love these gals!

Razz had to come get some lovin'.

I know I'm a crazy goat lady, but I really do think they're pretty animals!

Our compost bins (and a half-sunken Milkshake)

A tiny kitty and her tiny,  kitty-sized tracks

It's crazy to think that these strawberries were still producing about 2 weeks ago.

Will the crazy parsley bounce back from this?

Winter Wonderland

Yesterday, amidst the rain and sleet, we traveled home from our family Christmas gathering in Fort Smith.  We were thankful to have made it home safely and that our animals were doing fine.  As I unpacked inside, John hurriedly made some backyard preparations for the incoming snowstorm before dark; then, we hunkered down and waited.

By morning, the ground was covered with a snow so thick that Little Boy could barely trudge through it.

As I greeted them, the chickens were torn.  They love to come greet me because they know I usually come bearing treats, but they also didn't want to step down into the snow.

This is as far as she came before retreating back into her house.

I was interested to see how the goats would like the snow as this was the first snowfall we've had since they've called our little farm "home."  Apparently, they dislike it about as much as they do the rain.

They all peeked out of the house for a photo, but didn't want to trudge through the snow to come see me.

Here's a pic of our snow-covered field.  I'd really hoped to get a few pics of the gals out here, but they were not budging from their shelter.

Last night, John moved some larger backyard items -- a goat feeder, wagon, wheelbarrow -- to surround Chubby's house.  (Chubby is our lonely chicken who is not yet old enough to join the other hens.  Girl 2 gets credit for the name Chubby;  she thought it would be a funny name for the skinniest chicken we have.)   The large items acted as a barrier as the snow swept around and kept her house from being filled with snow. 

Milkshake, our smallest kitten, wasn't too sure about the snow.  She could easily get lost in snow this deep!

Girl 2 threatening me with a chunk of snow!

Unfortunately, John had to work today, but we are looking forward to having him home to join us in some snow play tomorrow!

CAE Free!

The company that ran the pregnancy tests on our goats' blood samples also offers CAE testing without the need for an additional blood draw.

CAE stands for Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis.  Sounds bad, huh?  It is. 

According to The Backyard Goat,  "CAE is a goat-specific disease  . . . that is a progressively crippling disease caused by a retrovirus.  Unfortunately, there is no vaccine against CAE and no cure. . . . The virus that causes CAE is transmitted to a kid from its infected dam through her colostrum and milk."

In other words, CAE is VERY bad news.  But, the only way a kid can get it is from her mother's milk, so if you can verify that the mother is CAE-free, you can verify that her kid will be CAE-free.  Above are our girls' results: NEGATIVE!

Reputable and registered dairy goat breeders test their herds regularly for CAE so that they can guarantee that any animals they sell are CAE-free.  Yep, that's us -- we are reputable and registered!

So, should we decide to sell our kids this spring, we'll be able to verify that our herd is CAE free.  It sure has been a week of good news for our little goat herd!

A Legit Goat Feeder for a Legit Farmer

I do not come from a farming family.  Not. Even. Close. 

Everything I've managed to learn about the animals who now populate our backyard and how to care for them has come from books.  Sure, as we acquire our animals, we are slowly gaining some contacts in the farming community, but it's a community that we're still working ourselves into.  And, like most htings, it's a process.

We are now proud members of our local farm co-op, and to say that I feel out of place there is quite an understatement.  I walk in, make my way to the front counter, where a group of male farmers are congregated, deep in a cow-related discussion.  They pause their conversation, all eyes trained on me, to allow me to have the worker's attention long enough to order my "laying pellets." 

"Oh, no!" I think.  "Am I supposed to call it laying ration?"    There I am, in my tall boots and boho sweater, and I feel like they're all looking at me like "is she for real?"  Maybe I should wear my overalls next time. 

Now, I'm probably just being self-conscious, but I do often feel less than "legit" as a farmer.  The fact is, though, no matter how we come by our knowledge, no matter how new to this we are, no matter what I call the feed we give our chickens, we ARE farmers.  I mean, we've got animals outside, after all.

Still, I really like to feel legit.  And the new-to-us goat feeders really seem to add to our legitimacy as a farm!  Check them out!  They're huge.  They're rusty and well-used.  They get the job done in a practical way, as all good farm equipment should. 

Goats are pretty picky about their hay and feed.  They do not want to eat it off the ground (which is weird, considering how they graze the grassy ground all day).  Nevertheless, we put their hay in feeders.  Goats are pretty messy eaters, though, so there'd always be a lot of waste as hay fell to the ground around our old feeders.  Not anymore!  These new feeders (on loan from my father-in-law who isn't currently "running any cows" --I'm pretty sure that's accurate farm speak, right there -- be impressed!) catch the hay that would otherwise fall to the ground in the trough below, minimizing waste. 

In case you're not well-versed in deciphering the stares of small ruminants, allow me to translate these looks:

"What's she doing now?"

"Oh, the crazy lady's just climbed the fence to take our picture again.  No big deal."

And this look is, "Are you just gonna stand there with that camera all day, or are you gonna scratch me behind the ears already!"

We've Got News!!!!!

Can you make out the pink line?  Okay, there are no pink lines, but you should see two very important words in the photo above:  PREGNANT!

Yep, both of the gals are expecting!!!!

Looks like we could've just trusted biology after all.

We are ecstatic!  A goat's gestation period is about 5 months, so by our math, we could have some new little kids in our herd as early as March 1. 

Most commonly, does give birth to twins.  Giving birth to 1 or 3 kids happens frequently enough.  Honey happens to have been part of a sibling set of 4, so if that's a heriditary trait, we could be in for a surprise.

As we await the kids' arrival, we have some shopping to do for the farm.  There will be some supplies that we'll need to be sure to have on hand for kidding.  Once again, it'll be a first for us, and I am SO looking forward to it!

Blood Draw Success!

Can you hear the triumphant angels singing?  "Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!" 

Yep, we've got blood!

Let me just say what great friends and family we have!  Not 30 seconds after I posted Saturday that we were giving up on drawing the blood ourselves, cousin Karen called me.  She volunteered her husband Chris, who as a pediatric nurse, knows quite a bit about drawing blood.  They came over Sunday afternoon and gave it a go.  Both goats were a bit unruly.  (And who can blame them, as many times as we'd restrained and stuck them by then.)  Chris did a great job, but we had no success.

Prepared to give up again, I texted my friend Jessica and asked for the number for the vet they use for their cows.  Her husband, who works in anesthesia at the local hospital,  caught wind of our conversation and volunteered to come out and give it a try himself before we called the vet. 

Adam came out Tuesday afternoon and informed us that the needle/needle holder set-up we were trying to use is VERY difficult to work with.  (This was a bit of a relief to learn.  It seems that John, Chris, and I all had the right idea -- just the wrong equipment.)

He opted to use a basic needle and syringe.  John restrained Honey while Adam drew the blood, and I rejoiced nearby!  Then, they swapped spots so that John was the one to draw the blood from Razz. 

After the way things had gone over the past week, we were so glad to see that blood in the syringe, that John actually hugged Adam! 

Here, the samples are all packaged up and ready for shipment.  We hope to have results back within the week.  You know I'll keep you posted!  Fingers crossed!

We are so appreciative of those who helped us with this process.  It seems we learn new things everyday here on our little farm.  Occasionally, we try something for the first time and succeed.  But, a lot of times, (like this one) we have to fail first.  But, the blood is drawn, we now know how to do it, our goats don't seem to be holding a grudge, and we learned anew how great it is to have the support of a community of family and friends.  Sounds like success to me!

Blood Draw Drama

We attempted the blood draw needed for the goat pregnancy testing again today.  And, we failed again today.  I really don't get it.  John did a great job straddling and restraining her, holding her head at a 30 degree angle. 

Here you can see Honey's neck, shaved to make it easier to see the vein.

I applied pressure to the vein until it popped up, inserted the needle holder into the vein followed by the vacutainer tube.  That's when the blood should flow quickly into the tube, but it just didn't happen. We tried it several times, following the steps we'd seen in the video.

For her part, Honey was pretty cooperative.  She mostly just took it as we poked and prodded.  Bless her heart!  Once we realized that we were doing it exactly the way we thought was right but the blood just wasn't flowing, we knew the time had come for us to throw in the towel.

Plan B is to see if we can get a vet to come out and draw the blood for us and maybe teach us how to do it.  Plan C (and I really hope it doesn't come to this) will be just to wait it out.  We'll either have babies and milk in the spring or we won't.  While lots of big farms routinely go this route, it's not nearly as feasible for a small farm like ours.  If a few goats in a big operation don't wind up pregnant, it's not a big deal on a farm with a large herd.  When we've only attempted to breed two goats, though, even one of them not being pregnant will have big repercussions for our expected milk production next year.  If we find out now that one or both of them aren't bred, we still have a little time before breeding season is over to try again.  The "wait and see" approach obviously doesn't allow for this.

Anyone know a local vet that will make house calls?

Complete and Utter Failure

Well, this is the only photo I was able to get of yesterday's attempted "neck bleed."

Let's just get this out of the way.  We failed.  We TOTALLY failed.  Honey was not decapitated (as she had been in my nightmare), but she does have a bare patch on her neck and wounds from several needle pricks.  :(

Knowing that I would have to do this as soon as John got home from work, I'd been psyching myself up for it all afternoon.  I read and reread the directions. Somehow, though, it's just hard to visualize exactly how it should be done when you're translating from written directions.

Once we'd gathered all our materials and discussed our game plan, we had no other excuse to put it off, so we had to commence the "neck bleed" attempt.
While John restrained Honey, I shaved a patch on her neck so that I could find her jugular vein.  Then, I attempted to draw the blood.  She was unamused by it all and was very jumpy, as was I.  Long story short, we had a crucial step of the process wrong and never got the blood sample. 

We gave up (hopefully before we traumatized her too terribly), came inside, and I promptly had an emotional breakdown.  What can I say?  I love my goats.

 I'd worked myself all up to be prepared to jab them in the neck in order to get that much-needed blood sample.  But, to jab my favorite goat in the neck multiple times and still not get the sample was just too much for me.

Anyway, once I'd settled down a bit and realized that we were going to have to figure out how to do this, I did a little searching and came up with this VERY helpful video.  Watch it if you're interested in seeing exactly how it's done. 

It was very obvious to me as I watched the video what step I'd been doing wrong, so I'm hoping for a better result when we try again this afternoon. 

Ahhh!!! Testing Kit is Here!

Monday, as I opened up this package, I could feel my knees getting weak as the big bundle of needles tumbled out.  It's here:  the pregnancy testing kit that will let us know whether or not Copper got the job done this fall and we've got little goats on the way.  We've got the clippers, the surgical gloves, the needles, and the specimen tubes.  Now, all that's left to do is actually jab the goats in the jugular and draw that blood.  Ahhhhhh!! 

Here are the directions.  Notice the title: "How to Neck Bleed a Goat."  Uggghhhh.

Well, Monday night, Girl 2 had a Christmas performance at school (she did great!), last night I had to make a trip to town, so we've planned to do this TODAY!

Knowing what today would hold, I had a HORRIBLE nightmare last night.  I'll spare you the details, but just know that it ended with a decapitated goat and me crumpled on the ground sobbing uncontrollably.  Yes, it was disturbing.  Let's hope this afternoon's "neck bleeding" goes much better.

Check back tomorrow to see we (both goats and humans) fared.  :(

Ahh! Needles!

Confession:  I am not very adult about needles.  When I'm at the doctor and needles come out, I just can't look.  I get queasy.  In fact, one year that I was teaching high school, the Blood Drive was taking place in the library just across the hall from my classroom.  I had to keep my classroom door closed all day because my knees got weak when I saw those tables and hanging bags of blood.  I literally had to teach sitting down all day (which was not my teaching style at all).  I realize that this phobia doesn't doesn't jive very well with a homesteading lifestyle.  I did, after all, butcher my own chickens a couple weeks ago, and I did go all "momma bear" on a copperhead this summer.  So, while I don't look forward to the blood draw involved in pregnancy testing the goats, I'm hoping that I'll at least just be able to do it.

According to the website from which we ordered our testing kit, here's what I'll have to do:
1. Using electric shears, shave a 4x8" patch of the doe’s neck to see the jugular vein.
2. Have an assistant (John) turn the head of the doe to the side, at a 30-degree angle, by holding the animal under its jaw to allow for easy access to the vein. Then, I need to straddle the doe, placing my knees behind the doe’s shoulders, and back the doe into a corner or against a wall to help control her hindquarters.
3.  Locate the vein by applying pressure to the vein. The easiest way to locate the vein is to draw an imaginary line from the middle of the doe’s eye down the side of her neck. 
4. Use a surgical scrub to clean the area and keep bacteria out of the needle insertion site. 
5. Guide the needle holder into place with the right hand while the left hand is used to apply pressure to the vein.
6. Once the needle is in place, apply pressure so that the blood collection tube is pushed onto the needle.
7. Collect 2 cc or more of blood.
8. After the needle has been removed from the skin, press fingertip over the area where the needle was inserted.
9. Label and ship the tube and await results.
10.  Take a deep breath, hopefully stop shaking, and do something fun to celebrate the fact that I was actually able to do this.

We could, of course, just take a wait and see approach.  However, in a roughly 5-month gestational period, goats often won't "show" until the final month, if they show at all.  By that time, it is too late to try breeding again as the doe will no longer be in heat.  Large farms can handle a doe or two turning out not to be bred, but when you're only breeding 2 goats for a small homestead, like we are, being sure they're bred is key.  No little doelings or bucklings in the spring means no milk.  The quick turnaround of this test will allow us to try breeding again if one or both of them turn out not to be bred.

Wish me luck!

Got Babies?

I just love a good goat pile!  Last week, we moved the goats around so that Copper (our buck) is no longer in with the girls.  They seem to be enjoying the newfound peace and quiet.

But, the question remains. . . did Copper get the job done or not?  We never actually saw him figure it out.  We did see him trying very hard on several occasions.  A shepherd friend of ours says that his sheep always make it happen at night, so he very often won't even know they've bred until he tests them.  I'm hoping that's the case here.

Unfortunately, knowing for sure is more complicated than a little pee on a stick.  It will either take time (we just wait until they get huge) or a blood test to know with certainty.  We will definitely be doing the blood test.  I can hardly wait to find out!  This is very exciting to me.

I'm, of course, hoping that by adding Honey as a milking doe, we'll have twice the milk next year.  I'm also excited to see her as a Momma.  She's my favorite goat, remember, and is just so sweet and friendly that I think she'll do well on the milking stand. 

So, Razz has been around the block a time or two.  But, this is Honey's first rodeo.

So, is she or isn't she pregnant?  Well, as you can see, her appetite is strong.

Maybe she's  little queasy?    What do you think -- does she have a glow about her?

I asked Razz what she thought about giving birth again.  I guess she was feeling a little sassy!

Seriously, what's with the tongue?

Anyway, I'll be sure to share with you our news as soon as we find out.  ;)

Cornish Cross Processing

**This post does contain some photos of chicken carcasses.  If that is disturbing to you . . . have you never cooked a chicken?**

As you may recall, last week I invited each of you to join us for Friday morning's backyard chicken processing.  Unsurprisingly, I didn't have any guests that morning.  ;)  Oh, well, your loss -- I'd planned to send any visitors home with their very own chicken for dinner.  ;)

Here, you can see that John has carefully positioned the awaiting chickens so that they cannot see the processing table (it's on the other side of the grill). 

This picture and the next one really crack me up.  We both look like we're pretty unsure about what we're holding.  As you may recall from this post, these chickens were such mutants that they hardly even seemed like chickens to us.  Also, I was just in shock regarding how heavy they were compared to the Buff Orpingtons we'd slaughtered earlier in the summer.  These were easily twice their weight and at only 7.5 weeks old, they were half the age.

There are always interesting, um, surprises when home processing chickens, but this one was the most interesting this time.

This is the chicken that I'd just skinned.  Can you see the wing bone poking out on the right side of the photo?  That's what a normal wing bone looks like when I'm done.  When I skin them, I cut the wing at that joint because the smaller part is too difficult to skin/defeather.  It has two little bumps on the end.

This chicken has one normal looking bone (on the left) and one strange looking one (on the right).  Apparently, when Dexter attacked the chicks, he broke and dislocated this one's wing.  The wing had continued to grow but it was only attached to the rest of the body by a skin flap.  This bone healed like this, in a more rounded way and became discolored.  I really found this interesting, and sad.  I was angry at Dexter all over again.

Here are all the chickens once they'd been cleaned up and moved into the chicken-- 11 in all.

All packaged up and labeled and ready for storage! (Our freezer is getting very full!)

Meet Your Meat

In the words of the great Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation, we'd like to cordially invite you to "meet your meat."  Tomorrow morning (Friday) at 8:00, we will begin to process these Cornish Cross chickens.  And, we'd love for you to join us.

I can't tell you how many people have told me since our first chicken slaughter day, "I just don't know how you can do it.  I definitely couldn't!"  Here's the thing:  you can. . . . and you should.  In fact, if you can't acknowledge the fact that an animal died to feed you, then you probably have no business eating meat.  Just sayin'.

Here, we "process" chicken in the most humane way we know of, showing respect for the animal through our process.  If you think you're ready to take part or just to watch how it happens (the anatomy lesson alone is worth the backyard visit), come on over. 

When my parents were here a few weekends ago, we had to unexpectedly process a chicken with an injured foot.  My dad wasn't exactly ready to don the gloves and grab a knife, but he did open the guest room window and watch it all go down as John talked to him about the process.  The chicken-processing table is just outside this window, so it made a great spot for being involved-kinda.  You could always take that approach and watch from behind the window.  ;)

As you can see from this pic with the processing table in the background, the chickens which get moved everyday have been slowly working their way toward the part of the yard where it'll all go down.  As I write, they're enjoying their final meal.  They'll begin their pre-slaughter fast tonight so that their digestive tracts will be cleaner for tomorrow. 

If you get here and we're not answering the door, just come on around back.  We'll be hard at work, and we'd be happy to have you either participate or watch and learn.

Today, I Was the Crazy Lady

I've been fussing a lot lately about the price of milk, since I've had to start buying it again.  Today, a gallon of store-brand milk was $4.18.  (Of course, using my sale papers, I was able to get it cheaper with a price match. ;)  But, I also noticed for the first time the goat milk that a friend had told me she'd seen on the shelf lately. 

Here it is -- complete with a cute little cartoonish-floppy-eared goat!  It also was $4.18 today . . . for 1 quart.  Let's do the math, shall we.  That's $16.72 per gallon!  Yowza!

This gives me an all new appreciation for Razz and her golden udders!

So, in case you were wondering, yes, that was me.  I was the crazy lady you saw taking photos of milk today at the grocery store.  ;) 

Meet Our Mutant Chickens

Meet the mutants.  Our cute little yellow chicks have become these hideous creatures.  The last time we raised meat chickens, we used Buff Orpingtons, which are a beautiful, heritage breed.  These guys, though, are Cornish Crosses, the breed that's raised in commercial chicken houses and accounts for 99% of the chicken consumed in the U.S.  The Cornish Cross has been selectively bred to mature quickly and grow giant breasts.  Because they're ready for slaughter by about 7 weeks, these have been much cheaper to raise.  (As commercial farmers would say, "they have a great feed conversion rate.")  But . . .

1.  They're dumb.  Ours are sheltered, so this isn't a problem for us, but one farmer that I read raised Cornish Crosses free-range alongside heritage breeds and walked the field after a rain only to find the Cornish Crosses had drowned in the rain.  In fact, their resilience has been bred out of them nearly altogether.  They don't fare well outside and much prefer the temperature-controlled chicken house.

2.  They're single-minded.  All they want to do is eat.  You have to ration their feed, or they will eat themselves to death.  We lost one last week on a day when there was really no other explanation.

3.  They get so fat so fast that they have all kinds of health problems, including heart failure and hypertension.  In fact, if not slaughtered soon, their legs will not be able to support the weight of their enormous breasts.  As of now, they basically stand up only to move from feeder to waterer and back again.

When I walked up to take pictures, they stood up because they thought I was bringing them more food.  When they have no food, they're likely to peck John as he attempts to remove or put in their feeders.  And, in the absence of food, some of them seem to have become carnivorous, pecking on their neighbors until they bleed and develop weird holes in their flesh.  Disgusting, huh?

Because one of them had an injured foot, we went ahead and slaughtered one early.  She had quite a bit more meat than the Buffs we'd slaughtered previously.  The rest of the gang is scheduled to meet their ultimate fate on Friday. 

Despite how much cheaper these birds are to raise, I'm undecided about them.  I guess I'll reserve final judgment until after we've slaughtered and eaten a few.  Check back in for that later on.  ;)

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Yesterday, the girls wore shorts to school.  Today, they wore coats.  Such is the weather here in Arkansas.  One day it's summer, the next it's winter -- or so it seems.

Anyway, following his bi-annual feed run to Thayer, Missouri (have I mentioned that we're very particular about our animal's feed and have to drive all the way to Thayer to get the kind we want?) earlier this week, John came home announcing that he'd picked me up a surprise. 

Now, I know some women whose thoughts might've immediately drifted to flowers or some other nonsense, but I know better.  John is far too practical for all that.  Besides, he had just returned from the feed store. 

This is what I got -- deerskin Thinsulate-lined gloves!  I was thrilled.  They are so soft AND warm. 

He, of course, got himself a pair, too.  I know that a lot of folks might take cold weather as an indicator that it's time to stay indoors more, but we don't ascribe to that.  We couldn't even if we wanted to.  Too many animals depend on us. So, a gift of winter work gloves is a great one!

John wore his this morning and came in from his chores proclaiming that the key to staying happy outdoors in the cold is keeping your extremities warm -- hands, feet, and head.  I've definitely found this to be true when running in the cold, too. 

If you do a lot of work outside during the winter, I'd advise you to pick up a pair of good, warm gloves.  At $20.95, these are not the cheapest on the shelf, but they're a good investment in your winter happiness!

The Whole Sha-Bang!

You know what they say:  waste not, want not. 

We as Americans don't seem to ascribe to this philosophy, though.  I read a sobering statistic that stated that despite all of our mothers reminding us to remember the poor starving children in Africa as we push our peas around our plates, nearly 40% of food produced in the U.S. is wasted.  It either isn't "pretty" enough to make it to the shelves, gets tossed during processing, goes bad in our own refrigerators, or is tossed from grocery store shelves after its "best by" date.  As a whole, we are waste-ers, yet we still want for nothing.  We take most of our resources for granted.

Homesteading, even on a small scale, has a way of exposing that error and reteaching us the value of the resources God has given us.  Take for example, the chicken.  I can tell you this: since we've been raising our own chickens in the backyard, slaughtering them with our own hands, and cooking them in our kitchen, we've wasted not a single shred of their meat. 

Understandable, right?  I mean, we didn't research and select the perfect breed, rejoice in the chicks arrival, settle them into the warm brooding box, feed them daily, watch them grow, laugh at their antics, research humane slaughter practices, employ those practices with our own knives and hands, package, freeze, thaw, and cook them only to let the leftovers go bad in the fridge and become food for the garbage disposal.  I mean, those chickens were intended to feed us! 

Just because we may not always see the process involved with the production of our food, this is all still true -- it was intended to feed us.  Out of respect for the system God put in place to feed us, the animals that give their lives to do so, and the people involved in the production of our foods, we ought to strive to minimize our waste. 

All of this ranting eventually brings me to this:  today I was able to make use of some of the chicken parts that we don't eat -- wasting them not, if you will.

If I'm not cooking a bird whole, I'll thaw it and then cut it into its 8 traditional pieces:  2 thighs, 2 legs, 2 breasts, and 2 wings.  That leaves me with the back.  Ever considered a chicken back?  When you look at one skinned, you can see that it does actually have some meat on it, but it's just so hard to get to.

As I cut the back out of a bird, I throw it back into the plastic storage bag and back into the freezer from whence it came.  Today, once I had collected 4-5 chicken backs, I used them to make chicken broth, using my usual recipe. 

For basically the cost of a couple of celery stalks and carrots, I was able to make use of chicken parts that would otherwise have been thrown out.  (Sidenote:  You can also use the neck and/or bones leftover from other recipes.) 

I usually freeze my broth, but I've been in such a canning mood lately that I decided to put some up in jars to use on those days when I've not had the forethought to thaw out any broth.  I used both quart and pint jars because my go-to bean recipes call for either 4 or 6 cups of broth, so this way I can use either just a quart for the 4 c. recipes or a quart and a pint for the 6 c. recipes.  (We've gotten into a pattern of having some type of beans every Monday -- it's a carryover from our New Orleans days!)

To can broth, you need a pressure canner.  Fill hot, sterilized jars with hot, freshly prepared broth, allowing 1" headspace.  Add lids and rings and process for 25 minutes at 10 lbs. of pressure.

Voila!  Chicken broth at-the-ready in your pantry.  And, it comes complete with that warm, fuzzy feeling you get from knowing that you made use of the whole sha-bang, (or chicken, in this case.  :)

Mystery Chicken

This little gal is our mystery chicken.  The hatchery we use shipped us a free "exotic breed" chick with our most recent order of meat chickens.  She's now got some of her adult feathers, but we're still not much closer to identifying her breed.  The other night, John was squatted down outside the coop comparing her to chicken photos he'd pulled up on his smart phone.  Still, we're unsure.  What does seem to be clear is that she is a SHE.  That's good news.  We'd have had a tough decision to make if it had turned out to be male, since he wouldn't have beefed up enough to be worth much in the way of meat and obviously would be useless as a layer.  As an exotic, she may not be a very prolific layer, but at least she won't wake us up crowing and will make an addition to our breakfast somewhat regularly.