We have 5 weeks left until our Freedom Rangers are at the age to butcher. I am praying they put on more weight in that time. They sure do eat a lot, and drink LOTS of water.
We are starting to assess what we need to accomplish the butchering of these chickens. We have never butchered chickens before, so I am relying on advice from those who have. I plan to set up the outdoor kitchen/butchering area behind the cabin. I have:
a table
the grill to heat water
picnic table
sink to connect to hose
killing cone (PH made one from plans I sent to him. I was so excited! He said it was my Valentine's Day present ;-)
butchering knives (I cut myself today cleaning the butchering knives and case - glad I have that liquid skin)
2 stock pots for heating water
2 gallon size Ziploc bags to place butchered birds in
I need:
large wash tub
tarp to catch feathers when we pluck
buckets for catching blood
I need to look back over my list to make sure I have everything gathered. I don't want to wait until the last minute. http://foodwaterandfire.ludlowsurvivors.com/chickenkill.html
The weather has turned chilly again. I woke to rain this morning, so coupled with the cold it has been a frosty day, and required the fire in the stove to be burning all day. I am thankful we have such a large supply of firewood. I am also thankful that the barn is finished and that the horses and goats now have shelter out of the rain, wind and most of the cold. I have worried about them for 3 years, though they appear to have done alright.
We are learning about the French and Indian War in our history study, plus we watched a documentary on Israel this morning. It was very enlightening to me, and I learned a lot. We also watched an older Disney movie called "The Light in the Forest" with Fess Parker. It takes place around the time of the French/Indian War, though surprisingly PD#1 said the documentary we watched last week "The War That Made America" was much better ;-) I agree. We will be receiving Part 2 later this week. We were recently gifted with two boxes of VHS tapes, mostly educational/documentaries covering foreign countries, world religions, composers, artists, history with a few older Disney movies thrown in. The school where one of my sisters teaches was getting rid of all their old VHS tapes and she brought me what she could. We watch a lot of documentaries, and I spent three hours the other evening putting documentaries in chronological order in my Netflix account.
I've been baking a lot lately, and greatly need to replenish some of my food stores (like chocolate chips, baking soda, brown sugar and VANILLA). Bread is on the agenda for tomorrow. I fear the cold won't let it rise, so it may end up sitting next to the wood stove tomorrow.
Well, off to bed..
What have you done this week to prepare?
For the large wash tub substitute what I call Party buckets. It's a 18 gallon tub that I've seen sold to put beer and soda in with ice. You can find them for $6.00-$10.00 each. They have nice rope handle but may come in hideous "Brady Bunch" colors of avacodo or neon green.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about the bread rising, heck I let my bread rise in the fridge. It may take a while upto 24 hours but if the recipe and yeast is good you should be okay.
A big week on my preparing I got my first water barrel installed. Sounds impressive it's not for most, But it's in the basement and full of water. I emptied and threw away 3 big garbage bags of my soda bottles that I did for water storage on the cheap. Started reorginising in all the space I freed up. I'm starting to feel a bit decadent,with all I have done. I'm seeing real results now. As you know we spend a lot of time and energy just making a good storage area or cages, boxes and all of the things that you have to start with a spot for it to go.
It's very nice to go from better than nothing to having plans work out and you are getting somewhere.
You're ahead of us. Our HOA won't let us have livestock. But I did get my garden in this week. Lots of squash, cucumbers, lettuce and beets coming our way :-)
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!
Love you Goals on the sidebar. Inspired me to add one too!
ReplyDeleteOrange Jeep Dad - I am so sorry you can't have livestock. I vowed growing up to NEVER buy in an HOA, after the grief my parents went through with the simplest things. We live out in South Texas, about 1 1/2 hours from the border. We don't even have building codes out here. You can live in a cardboard box AND have an outhouse. The county does ask that you install a septic tank, but you don't have to use it. Pretty cool! There are 3 10.5 acre tracts near me for sale, ya'll come on down LOL.
ReplyDelete