The layers are now 13 months and still lay about 12-14 eggs every day. Now the weather is warmer with abundant grass, the kids like to pull them off the ground and feed them.
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Category Archives: Garden & Animals
Meat birds again
Last year we had quite an experience with raising meat birds on the pasture. We are going to continue this endeavour this year.
The kids are exicting to hold the 2-week-old white rock. Tiffany and Odelia helped daddy to fix the tarp and cord around the coop. We have doubled the size of the lot for the chickens this year. The day we picked up the chickens we have frost for 2 nights. However, most survived except one.
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Starting Seeds
Again, it is time to start the seeds. We only start a few this year: cabbages, brocolli, cauliflower, squashes, melons and tomatoes.
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Start of Season
Time flies. Winter is over already and I was checking the planter box on the deck. Here is what I found:
| Garlic chives planted last fall come up quickly |
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| Red salad bowl starts to sprout. | 
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| The spinach from last year survivies under the glass. |
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Warm weather, time to plant?
This year’s winter, well, does not feel like winter at all. We had very little snow and it feels like Spring already in early March. I am looking out to the garden and imagine planting seeds, the kids playing on the swing set and me mowing the grass. This garden year I am just going to add Kale to my garden. I like to double up the leafy vegetables portion while limiting the Chinese veggies size. I did not have good result with the Chinese veggies for the past 2 years, what a shame. It is very hard to find organic Chinese vegetable here.
I am planning to give a whole square foot just for the children to explore.
End of season
It is end of October and the weather is colder now, which means end of gardening season. Well, at least most
of it. This year, we have expanded the
Square Foot Gardening up
to half of our garden. The result is acceptable, definitely much less
labour and the children can walk around the squares easily. However, the
hot season is quite short this year and a lot of heat-loving plants did not do
well, i.e. tomato. Also, the frost comes in a surprise in September,
killing some young seedlings that I was hoping to grow as a fall crop.
One thing I notice is squash grows better the traditional way: lots of
crawling space. While I do get 1 fruit per squash plant that grows
vertically, that is just pathetic comparing to 5 or 6 per squash plant that
allows to explore on the ground. The most important thing is that everyone
did enjoy the garden, helping out here and there. I wish Melody’s skin
problem will be healed by the Lord so my wife can sit in the garden next summer
and enjoy our labor together.
| Using straw to cover the soil for overwinter. |
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| The simple compost is filled to the top. | 
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I am trying to grow spinach, lettuce and swiss chard under the poly film again this year. |
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Sending the chickens to meat
It is the big day again to bring the chickens for butcher. The weather is good and we have a trailer this time.
The pasture raised poultry is a success this time.
| 7 weeks of labour and feeding finally pays off. |
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| Shoshana standing beside 2 cages of chickens, each cage holds 5. | 
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| Odelia opens the gate and let 1 chicken out each time so Daddy can catch it. |
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| This is our trailer, covered with tarp. |
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| Everyone is helping one and saying goodbye to the chickens. |
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| This is the entrance of the abattoir. You can see the sign that says “Live Receiving”. |  |
| Inside of the abattoir. You can see the cages other people brought in. |
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Butcher my first chicken
Well, another chicken has problem with its legs.Â
This is the inherited issue for the White Rock X,
because they are bred to be meat machine.Â
With super rapid grow, sometimes its legs cannot
hold its weight and thus the bones are deformed.Â
Rather than waiting for it to die because it can’t
move to feed it self, I decided to butcher the
chicken myself. It is my first time
but I believe it should be quite easy. After
reviewing the steps listed in the books, I took a
sharp knife and headed out. If you would
like to butcher your own chicken, here is a list
of things you would need:
- A sharp knife, preferably a boning knife.
- A bucket of hot water between 145°F and
150°F - A killing cone specially designed for this
purpose if you are dressing lots of chickens.Â
But for 1 chicken, I would just tie its feet
and hang it somewhere far from the house for
bleeding. - A bucket of ice to keep the bird cool.
- A couple of containers would be handy to
hold the organs and feathers. - Cover-all and gloves
| First, I hold the bird upside down and slit the artery below the jaw line so the blood would drop. I waited 5 mins for the bleeding to stop. |
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| I then dropped the bird several times into the hot water and started to pull the feathers out. I did not finish the whole job here because it was cold and windy. |
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| Then I cut its head off. | 
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| I took the windpipe out |
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| Then I cut around its vent. |
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I took all the internal organs out carefully. Here came the liver. |
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| I am cutting the breast meat out for lunch. |  |
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I am cutting off the foot here. Â |
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| Here I am cutting off the drumstick. Yummy! |
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All the while Odelia was observing the whole process. |
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Squash
The squashes that grown in traditional way, i.e. lots of crawling space gave better result than SFG squashes. We got 5 o 6 squashes each plant. Here we have butternut, buttercup, a greenish type that I don’t know and pumpkins that are not ready to harvest. These squashes make excellent soup in winter. They are worthwhile to grow if you have the space.
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Banana Squash
We only have 1 banana squash this year. Doesn’t it look like a banana. It is very moist when cooked.
