2015 – Page 2 – Peacock Orchard

2016 Winter planning and a year in review

Winter is a slow outdoor season for obvious reasons. I’ve had to do some pest proofing of various trees and bushes but for the most part we just wait for snow and then marvel at the resulting white. December I begin spring planning. Last years planning involved a lot of tree purchasing and mapping out of various earthworks. Dreams of our greenhouse, pergola and water harvesting mechanisms were also included.

We accomplished some of those tasks this year along with a lot of tasks that weren’t pre-planned. This year we managed the following:

The mini-Kraters were built and planted.
Water harvesting from our driveway was increased.
Experimental seeds were planted. (sainfoin and a lot of other cover crop seeds)
The sunken hugel was built and planted.
Kitchen gardens were expanded.
The yards were tilled and planted with low growing clover.
Cider orchard was built and planted
We got pigs
We had a ton of hatchlings
We lost a ton of hatchlings (all but 1 baby peacock died this year).
We did the back porch project that included re-flooring, painting and wiring the sun room for lights.

Gosh, I’m getting tired thinking about the things we did this year. Still a lot to accomplish though. The major projects I had wanted to get done this year were not done. Now that I am not working these will be at the top of my project list. The pergola, the greenhouse and starting all fruit trees from seed. Because of the loss of my income I’m going to make a real push at growing my own from seed and growing root stocks to graft from the successful experimental trees.

Also on the list is improved food production in the kitchen garden and we are planning to butcher the pigs at home . I am trying not to set us too many tasks as house maintenance often surprises us. I know we need to repaint the house and probably caulk the windows ASAP.

One major project I want to take on is building a natural swimming pond that is also going to collect roof water. I admit, that will probably be #1 on my list. Stay tuned for that. I have a habit of over doing ponds. Hopefully this one will be sealed better than the last one I dug.

Other than that I’m preparing the basement now for the kids and for seedling growing. I’m also managing our permaculture group. Whoo. I’m glad I quit my job now. I’m going to be BUSY!

Peppermint essential oil as a spider and mouse repellent

*CAUTION* this post contains pictures of spiders.

We aren’t a spider killing family for the most part. Black widows being the exception as they live on the kids toys and I’m terrified of the kids getting bit.

Now that I am going to be home with the kids full time I wanted an area to allow them to run off steam during the winter. Luckily we have an unfinished basement. Unluckily we never use our unfinished basement, but the spiders love it.

Before oil

I admit I go down there to retrieve and replace Christmas decoration totes, and that’s it. We knew there were spiders but they weren’t bothering us so we didn’t bother them. Now that I’m moving kids toys down there and preparing to keep them active and entertained the spiders have become a problem. A big one. I can’t move anything without at least 6 spiders skittering away. It’s creeping me out, and I’m not easily creeped out. Besides that there are widows down there. A large brown widow bachelor pad to be exact. I’m sure there are black ones down there hiding in crevices. Obviously I’m not comfortable letting the kids play with all these spiders about, so they have to be evicted. This is where Pinterest comes in.

I enjoy Pinterest, I won’t lie. The problem with Pinterest is that you have to sift through the misinformation to find anything of use. The premise of the peppermint oil post I found is that you soak some cotton balls with peppermint essential oil and it repels all the critters you don’t want. Essential oil was purchased, cotton balls were soaked, I smelled like candy canes for days afterward. The spiders, well, they put some garland up and some lights and the bachelors said they really liked having a woman’s touch in their pad. It didn’t work. Basement smells like Christmas though. Bug bomb ahoy!

After oil

Oh and you really don’t have to tell me to get down there and clean these things out of the window wells. I am totally on board with that, so long as dying isn’t a possible end result of the endeavor.

Making your own Turkey Kill Cone

This is a guest post by my wonderful Husband who does far more farming than he ever wanted to do.

Readers Notes:

*If you are here solely for the supplies and instructions scroll on down for the TL;DR section of this post.

*Pictures were not taken of the original process. The pictures attached to this post are an example of what was done in smaller scale.

A couple of years ago we raised turkeys to sell as mostly organic, free range, farm-fresh, etc. turkeys. We harvested 12-15 turkeys that year, our first time. (The exact number alludes me, but it was a lot for a first time.) I was sorely unprepared for the killing part, the scalding part, the plucking part, pretty much every part, so I figured I’d improve that this time around.

Why would I make a kill cone? I hung the turkeys upside down with rope with pretty good success last time. Although once the turkeys get above 35 pounds, trying to put their legs in the slipknot of a rope can get tedious. After I took a couple of shots in the ribs from turkey wings I decided I didn’t want to deal with the pain and hassle of it this year. I figured it’d be easy to just slip the turkeys into the kill cone and let them calm down in there, plus they don’t move around as much in the cone as they do when they are hanging loose on the rope, so that’s another added benefit.

There are about 40 pages on google on how to make your own kill cone but all of them were for chickens. I had a problem finding actual directions on how to make a turkey sized kill cone. Reading through a couple different websites the best I could find was “well I’ve never made one, but if I did, I’d do this” and their dimensions were different from other sites dimensions. All the various chicken kill cone dimensions matched up, however.

I bought several pieces of 36″x48″steel flashing which didn’t list the gauge. I’m guessing this piece of sheet metal isn’t at that sweet spot of 26 gauge, as it felt like it was basically a piece of aluminum foil folded in half twice, or a little thicker than an aluminum can, but it worked just fine. I bought this at Home Depot, and the sheets were about $16 a piece. Most websites were saying to use tin snips to cut the metal. The tin snips this place was selling were $34?! more than the cost of the two pieces of sheet metal I was getting. I thought, “Screw it. I have a circular saw with a metal cutting blade, I’ll just use that.” Trying to cut a giant piece of basically soda can metal without a proper cutting work bench is a pain in the neck, and I wouldn’t recommend it at all. If you don’t have a pair of tin snips, don’t be cheap and just buy the freaking things (at the time of this posting we still don’t own tin snips, so listen to my “don’t be cheap” rant with a grain of salt).

The next hurdle I came up to was how to fasten the metal together. One site said to use tapping (self drilling) screws into a board, another said grommets (man, I really wish I knew how to do that) , another said rivets, and another one just said to use nuts and bolts. I bought tapping screws, which I didn’t use and some nuts and bolts, which I did use. Just buy the smallest size nut and bolt they have.

Now comes probably the hardest part if you aren’t good at math, which I am not: the trapezoid. You basically cut the metal into a trapezoid and roll it like you are rolling a newspaper to swat a fly, and that makes the shape of the cone. Now some sites will try and have you cutting these elaborate patterns that aren’t true trapezoids but a sort of trapezoid with some stupid looking tab you might see on a filing folder in a filing cabinet. You don’t need to mess around with all those extra cuts and curves, just cut a dang trapezoid, if you are lucky enough to cut on just two lines DO IT! But you’ll probably have to do three.

Now comes the difficult part of rolling the cone and putting whatever type of fastener on that you are going to use. For these turkey size cones, you will need help, trust me. Roll the metal, measure the head opening 7″ wide. Have someone hold the metal together, drill holes and insert your nut (flat side on the inside of the cone). Fasten the ends first. You can do the other 2-3 holes or fastening areas on your own.

And there you go, that is basically all there is to it. The “experts” on the other sites say you can do it in about 5 minutes. And you probably can, but for a first time without all the right tools, look at it being 15-20 minutes of your life to save you not having to deal with angry turkeys hanging upside down from rope.

Oh, and you’ll want to hand this thing up on a sturdy piece of anchored wood, to do that add a piece of metal from the scrap metal you have from cutting it. The metal I was working with felt too thin to use it so I folded it in half using an eyeballed 8″ x 3.5″ piece, I folded the metal and drilled that into the cone at the top of it so I cold use that tab to hang it on the beam. It worked OK, but if I had to do it again I might fold it 3 times so it’s thick enough to hold it without the threat of it ripping in half and the entire apparatus falling.

Picture of hanger for actual turkey cone

Size difference between turkey cone and chicken

———————————————————–

TL;DR section

Supplies

1 sheet of sheet metal (I used a 3’x4′ steel sheet flashing of unknown gauge)

1 box of 3/8″ nut and bolts (I got a 12 pack, but if I knew how, a steel grommet would be better)

Tin snips if you have them, something to cut metal if you don’t

drill and 3/8″ bit to make hole for the bolts if you aren’t using grommets

sharpie

screwdriver and/or ratchet for the bolts and nuts

Instructions:

Since I was working with a 48″ long piece of flashing I calculated 25.35″ and rounded up to 25.5″ for a final area of 25.5″ height x 24″ base1 x 48″ base 2

Draw trapezoid to fit the above dimensions with the sharpie or anything that will mark on the metal.
Cut the metal with tin snips or anything that will cut metal.
Roll the metal so that the opening where the head will go is ~7″ wide, the top of the cone will be wide enough for giant whites to fit in comfortably.
Drill the holes along the cone where the metal overlaps, people recommend 5 holes, I made due with 4, or use grommets, I don’t know how, so if you want to know google it.
Insert the bolts so the flat part of the bolt runs along on the inside of the cone (you don’t want the birds getting cut up by the bolts) and tighten.
There is a sort of ^^ since my sheet metal wasn’t long enough where the metal overlaps, I just tucked those down with some pliers and installed a hanger. to make the hanger I just took a long piece of extra metal left over from the cutting, folded it in half, and drilled a couple holes through the cone into the piece I made and put some bolts in there to secure it, and I put a couple more holes in the top part of it to attach a couple screws into the wood beam we were attaching it to.

A different kind of snow harvest

Most moisture that arrives to us arrives in the form of snow. It also arrives at about 60 m.p.h. Blowing snow is what I set out to catch and the swales/berms and kraters have proven they are capable of catching it. The best part of that is that they then keep the snow melt in place as they were made for water harvesting.

The snow we had over Thanksgiving was not blowing. In fact it was a beautiful snow, soft, powdery and almost straight down. While our earthworks naturally filled with snow it was not anything that flat land couldn’t have done. So, what surprised me about this snow harvest is that the clover caught it. Acres of tall sweet clover that annoyed us all summer has done wonders at collecting snow.

Mowed contour with clover on both sides

We decided to experiment with this clover, which we did not plant but have in abundance. Husband mowed decently on contour. At least he was able to do some experimental lines, N, S, E, W and an X patter before a loose fence wire got caught in the mower. Then it snowed and everything was a mess. So some mowing was accomplished but not as much as we would have liked. We thought where he mowed would collect blown snow and the remaining, tall clover would assist in keeping it from blowing it away. We may still be right about that but what it did was show us how much tall plant matter can collect and keep at it’s base.

This clover has been interesting to us. It arrived gradually and now we have roughly 35 acres of it. It grows extremely tall. So tall in fact that our ducks often get lost in it. While hunting them down one day in the car we disturbed two deer, which we wouldn’t have seen if they hadn’t started jumping, as the clover was taller than they. This clover is a food for so many animals, our own included. I just hate how tall it is, how smothering it is to the plants I want and how it destroys our mower when we do mow it. Also, it hides those pesky rabbits from predator view.

We caught way more snow than the wheat field behind us.

Still, if it gathers a lot of snow and keeps it on our property I suppose this clover invasion is a blessing, though a mixed one.

This majestic and unintelligent dog certainly loves the snow.

I loved how the different outdoor elements were iced over. This is a clump of grass.

I thought the garden gate I made from a crib mattress looked beautiful all iced up.

Improved poultry processing equipment

I’m unsure the exact number of birds we have processed at this point. We’ve done 2 large batches of turkey slaughters (10+) and killed a lot of chickens. Thanksgiving dinner was to be killed by us again this year. We weren’t particularly sad about our turkeys demise either. They liked to bite and annoyed me most of the time with their “in your face, try to eat your fingers and eyeballs” attitude. These two turkeys were quite unique. The last turkeys we had weren’t nearly as brave as these two. Anyway, so we secluded our 2 turkeys and 10 of our adult chickens. Our chickens are eating their eggs so I had decided they must all go. My sister-in-law brought over her 9 giant white turkeys and help. Help is necessary when doing a large quantity of turkeys, in our experience. It takes about 3 people to do a large turkey processing because of the size and strength of the birds. Our last turkey slaughter required 2 men to scald a single 62 pound bird because of the weight of the wet feathers.

Moving on though, we improved our equipment this year. Husband made 2 turkey sized kill cones and he also insulated the scald pot.

The scald pot is a real issue for us. It doesn’t hold the temp very well and we’ve had under and over scalded birds on the regular. A usual processing required large pots on the stove, simmering to help with the scald pot. Not so this year. We finally have the ideal method!

Our scald pot is a large tamale pot. We heat it with this bucket heater. We keep the tamale pot off of the ground with a few cinder blocks. The tamale pot is a great size for doing large turkeys. The largest we’ve ever done was 60lbs live. So the tamale pot has now been insulated. Husband wrapped insulation and tinfoil around the outside and cut big foam blocks to put on the top and bottom. It worked a dream.

We’ve used quite a few thermometers from your basic meat thermometer to a pocket dial thermometer and have finally settled on Thisthermometer as the most accurate and sturdy, at least so far.

It was cold out so the people outside were all wearing gloves. This made scalding difficult as the gloves would get wet and then be useless. We were happy to have the Gator Gloves we discussed in earlier posts for keeping leather gloves dry.

The kill cones were made out of sheet metal and hung in our lean-to. The turkeys fit in them just fine. To modify them for chickens we took a milk jug and cut the top and bottom off. The jug could be inserted into the kill cones to hold the chickens.

Husband will do a guest post explaining the dimensions and process he used for making these kill cones at a later date.

The plucker we have got clogged up once with feathers but otherwise worked a dream plucking all the birds.

The plastic tub and buckets were used to put water into the plucker as it was too cold for running water.

Rope was hung from the rafters in our garage to store birds while they awaited evisceration. There were 3 men doing the killing and 2 people inside doing the eviscerating. With the kill cones the men were able to kill the birds far faster than we could eviscerate them. This method of holding them over worked just fine as it was cold enough outside it acted as sufficient icing of the birds.

We bought a knife kit from Wal-Mart and it’s worked just fine for the most part. A few pieces just broke and I really only used a single knife from the set. We’ve since advanced and I use This knife to do everything. It’s been great so far. We’ve also started using a bone saw this year. It’s done a great job at sawing off heads, usually the hardest part, at least when you’re doing the eviscerating on your kitchen counter and can’t go at it with a hatchet.

We’ve bought shrink bags before and I do recommend them. They work really great. However, this years turkeys simply went in garbage bags, as they’ll be eaten quickly. The chickens went in regular old gallon freezer bags. That’s working just fine so far as well. I’d say the shrink bags were easier in a way. We did wrap the turkeys in plastic wrap before putting them in the garbage bags. The shrink bags eliminate that step, but they do ad others. I think I’ll place a mass order of shrink bags for future processing, however. As far as where to get those, that’s a toughie. I’ve only ever found them sold by bloggers.

To weigh the carcasses we put them in a grocery bag and then use this Scale.

Lucky chicken and turkey foot recipient!

As far as our preferred cooking method goes, we like to dry brine before we wrap them up, fresh as can be. Turn them twice a day and keep them in the fridge until Thanksgiving. Then we use Gordon Ramsey’s citrus cooking method. It’s AMAZING!

This post contains affiliate links. These are products we have actually purchased and can attest to.

Farming means you sometimes have to do the unbelievable.

As I’ve already posted here, we got pigs on the farm. Two of them, small and of unknown age. We have grown to really enjoy the pigs, well I have. They make the most adorable noises and do the most interesting things. I like how excited they are to see us and how they sniff our shoes to smell the dogs (just like the dogs sniff our shoes to smell the pigs). Their eyes are almost human as well.

B.L.T has become quite comfortable being petted by us. He is a very friendly pig. Rocker-Digger isn’t as friendly but he’s not as skittish as he was either. At least he was getting to know us. He probably hopes I trip so he can chew my leg off now. What do I mean by that? Well we had our pig’s anus sown shut.

I’m amused just typing that. I shouldn’t be amused, it was awful, but it is kind of, sort of, funny. So I woke up to a nice snow on November 17. I went to feed the pigs and noticed the most awful thing on R-D. He had part of his anus hanging out of his butthole. I’ve tried to think of a nicer way of saying this but it can’t be done. It was bloody and big and red and be thankful I didn’t take pictures. It was nasty. I run inside and hit Google to find out what is going on. Anal Prolapse (don’t click on that unless you want to see graphic pics). I do some reading and it appears that you can push it back in and it’ll be ok. It is also suggested that spraying it with cooking spray may help it go back in naturally. So I grab some rubber gloves, cooking spray and what little dignity I have and go out to shove my pigs butt back into his body. I try to trick him with some hot oatmeal. He does want to eat it but not enough to let me touch his butt. I’m chasing him about when Husband comes in and helps me corner him. The internet had said to be rather gentle. So I tried gently pushing it back in but it wouldn’t budge. So I spray it generously with cooking oil.

We go inside and I decide that perhaps I should just call a vet to see what they think before going to work. I do and JEES. It’s far more serious than the internet led me to believe. The vet tells me to go back out, hold the pig up by his hind legs and shove his anus back in like I’m folding socks. I repeat this many times as I can’t quite believe what is about to happen. Husband goes back out with me and we play chase and wrestle with R-D until he is finally captured and hoisted up by his back legs. I shove his anus back in and it actually works. I’m so relieved. Husband lets R-B go and as soon as his feet hit the ground, POP, it’s out again. Crap! The vet said if that happened we’d have to sew it in.

I call the vet back and hours later we are at the vet, R-D very sadly in a cage in the back of the truck. The kids are with us and I have prepared them for what is to come. R-D is going to scream. He’s going to be in some pain. It’s ok though, we are going to make him better and we can give him extra juicy apples when it is all done. I load the kids up with books and toys in the Vet’s office and Husband and I go with the vet to restrain R-D for the procedure. So Husband has R-D’s legs and I have what may be the worst half, the biting half. I’ve thrown a sheet over his head in what may be ineffective to stop biting but makes me feel better at the very least. I’m sitting on a bunch of pallets with R-D’s elbows stuck against my leg, one arm under his throat and the other over. I’ve got this pig in a wrestling move. Boy he really doesn’t appreciate the local anesthetic being applied. He is screaming, I can hear the kids crying from the other room, R-D’s thrashing as much as he can against us. It was a real work out. So the vet pushes his anus in and stitches his butthole closed. We are told to give him a suppository for a few days and to use mineral oil in his food so his stool is incredibly soft.

I help Husband load the kids up and off they go to work and Daycare. I remain to take R-D back home. When we got home I thought I was going to need help from our neighbor to get him out. However, as I’m preparing his seclusion center I see him alert and sniffing. I think he knows where he is. So I open the door to the cage and he slowly walks out onto the tailgate of the truck. I pick him up, he screams, BLT screams, everyone screams. I put him in seclusion and watch him as he gulps down his body weight in warm water. BLT is still screaming. He hasn’t figured out where R-D is yet, he just heard him yelling. When I left R-D was wearily laying down under the heat light I provided him. It was a hard day for him.

My day hadn’t even started yet. I shower and dress and go to work for a few hours before going home to check that everything is alright. R-D broke out of seclusion, figures. R-D hopefully will not have a relapse. If he does we were informed we’d just have to eat him. Life is tough when you’re a pig.

Interestingly this episode appears to have made R-D more friendly. I had no problem touching him and getting close to inspect him. I was sure this episode would make him terrified of us. Apparently touching his anus just brought us closer. HA!

Rocker-Digger (R-D)

B.L.T.

While I was taking pictures these chickens were fighting over sleeping position.

Meanwhile the peacocks were glaring at me from above.