Winter 2014/2015

Wet juniper

Decomposing rock of shale

Algae thriving where the current flows fastest

Greenhouse tomatoes

One of several greens gardens

Christmas afternoon (with an idyllic perspective on a few doomed birds)

     I don't know that I'll be raising broilers for awhile. I should, just to have more of meat that's healthy. But living the old way, like our great-great grandparents did is time consuming, back breaking, and relatively inefficient. When one person tries to cut the wood, plant the garden, weed the rows, raise the animals, butcher the animals, prepare the meat, and cook the dinner, he burns too much time. So that's why the economics of distribution of labor makes so much sense. The goal is human happiness and well being, and this comes from working hard, that's true, but it also comes from sitting still with a book or a Creek and a glass of wine. Subsistence farming (not anywhere near what my easy life is) doesn't allow for the sitting part. And opulent living with maids and servants or home-delivery and expansive restaurants doesn't allow for hard work. We need both, and this can occur  only in a small community of like-minded folks who work, share, and play in healthy proportion.
     But part of our experiment has been to raise some eating chickens on a compromise of good grains and backyard grass. But letting the birds run loose would be to run a charity food program for foxes, raccoons, and hawks. So the compromise here is, again, the mobile chicken tractor. (One afternoon we heard a loud noise out at the "tractor." The birds inside were going crazy when we got out to their pen. And there on the other side was a stunned red-tailed hawk just starting to fly off. It had flown down to nab a bird, without preparation, however, for chicken wire and metal. A dent in both remains today.)

When it began, with work on the
mobile broiler house (November 1)

Reclaimed lawnmower wheels

32 Chicks (24 broilers and 8 egg layers)

December 6

A bit of sunshine and fresh grass on December 16

December 16

Perennial rye grass serving its purpose

Completely clueless on December 26

Scalding in 145 degree water to loosen feathers

Salvageable gizzard and liver in the background 

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Cajun seasoning and a Zoe beer

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     The processed chicken needs to be allowed to rest a couple days before cooking so as to rid the meat of the effects of rigor mortis. So an ice-water bath after the butchering and then a soaking in a brine bath aren't terrible ideas. But here we grilled the slightly tough bird. Alright by me.