A simple EGG!

Just one of the many joys of having your own chickens.

I love fried eggs with toast!

That is a yolk that you won't find in a storebought, factory farmed egg.

That is bright, yolky goodness!

Garden Update!

Beans, beans, the magical fruit!

Yes, my mature side is showing!

from this

to this-

in less than a week!

We're going to get some green beans, if all goes like it has been!

Our itty peas!

Staked  a bazillion tomato plants!

I see tomato sauce, pizza sauce, salsa, etc in our future!

Okra!

Hubby likes it pickled, I like it fried... mmm

Zucchini!

We never seem to tire of eating it!

Hot pepper plant!

We have a ton of these!

I plan to pickle a lot of them and then use the spicy vinegar to make bbq sauce!

That's the only way to make my special recipe, so hot peppers must be grown.

The strawberry plants are growing like mad- we've gotten less than a dozen strawberries, but we've been pinching them back and expect a great show next year!

A row of cucumbers, still small but growing!

I can taste the pickles now!

My late grandmother left 15 recipes and I hope to be able to test them all out!

Mmmmm- Kale!

It's really growing!

AAAAAAAND
Don't forget to enter the Glass Dharma glass straw giveaway!

9 days left to enter, so take advantage of the many ways to win one of the two fantastic prize packs!

Who has pink and blue eggs?! WE DO!

On Monday, I went out to the chicken coop after lunch to take the chickens a treat- some stale bread!

I glanced into the nesting boxes, out of habit more than expectation, and what did I see?!

Our first egg! Courtesy of our "mutt" chicken, a grey hen named Paula Deen!

It's definitely tinted, almost pink! Pretty small, too.

And on Tuesday, I got another egg! Monday and Tuesdays eggs!

We also got another egg on Wednesday!

You guys that keep chickens were so right- once they start laying, they lay!

I also keep hearing that when one hen starts laying, it "encourages" other hens to start laying, so yesterday we started speculating as to which hens might start laying (since we have 5 that are old enough to lay) next!

This morning, I went out and there was our first BLUE egg!

And the layer was Keelin's big Araucana hen, Reeses!

Here are the eggs so far from this week!

Paula Deen is an afternoon layer (and I wrote this post around lunch time on Thursday), so my guess is that after I lay Jackson down for a nap there will be another pinkish egg waiting for me in the nesting box!

I feel SO relieved, you guys.

We spent money getting the coop ready, getting the hens, feeding all of the chickens-

It's like waiting for water to boil, waiting for them to start laying.

But now we know that we have two laying hens

and hopefully, the rest will follow :)

Butchering- (Warning:sensitive in nature WITH a few pictures)

Tim and I decided when we got our first group of Cornish Rock chicks back in March, we would butcher them around the end of April, beginning of May. It is best to butcher this particular breed between 8-10 weeks.

We had planned to butcher our chickens on Saturday, but my grandfather's passing meant that Saturday was family time, so it was decided that we would do it Sunday. Tim and I were running some errands that afternoon (picking up some baby items from a friend- thanks, Carol!), so I thought we weren't going to do it until Tim asked me if we were going to go ahead and butcher when we got home.

I immediately felt a bit lightheaded. I have been a purchaser of humanely raised/butchered meats with the feeling all along that I should probably be doing it myself. Personally, I feel that if you cannot get neck deep in the process of raising and killing an animal, you should probably not eat an animal. Lettuce doesn't feel pain when it's chopped for a salad. I knew that this was going to be the moment of truth for me. Could I actually go through with killing a chicken that I held in my hand when it was a week old, fed and watered daily, scratched it's neck while it sat on my lap in the sun?


The answer is yes. I can. And I did. But it was hard and a day later, I am still feeling a bit shaken up, but I think that is a positive sign. When I can take a life without being at least slightly disturbed by it, I will have lost a part of my humanity, so the goal is to become more human, more feeling, throughout this process.

This is a brief overview of how things happened. I'm not going to go too far into detail, but be fairly warned that there are some pictures that some might be sensitive to some below.

First, we decided which chickens were going to be butchered. We decided to start out with one, just to see how things went and maybe do another if it went well.. We put her in a box along with a couple of the chickens she was raised with to help her feel calm.

The box was given to us when we purchased the grown Araucana chickens about a month ago.

You see Jackson in the picture and he was home (and awake) when we did this. We set him up to where he couldn't see the process but we could see him- with some of our newer chicks to play with and he had a great time, never a clue what we were doing.

This is not a chicken that was butchered. She's alive and happy, but this is what our meat chickens look like at butchering age.

In all, we butchered two chickens yesterday.

The first, we used a chopping block and I really didn't like it.

I know that the chicken was instantly killed and that it didn't suffer, but it felt a bit barbaric to me.

The second chicken, we used a method that I was interested in trying after being a bit startled by using a chopping block. For chicken #2, I broke her neck cleanly to kill her and then proceeded to go through the process of removing the blood from the carcass and getting the meat to a useable state.

Instead of plucking the feathers, we chose to use a popular method and skin the chicken. We don't cook chicken with the skin on, anyway, so why not just remove it before freezing or cooking?

It was fairly simple, to my surprise!

The above photo is me skinning the chicken that I killed. From killing her to putting the ready to eat or preserve parts in an ice bath took about 20 minutes.

Here are the parts of chicken #1.

Chicken #2 was left whole after the entrails had been removed.

Here is chicken #2, my chicken, dressed and baked with potatoes and onions.

Here is chicken #1, packaged to be frozen for later use. The parts you can see here are leg quarters.

Now, I have mixed feelings about this whole process.

I adore my chickens, but we do eat chicken.

I'm not going to have the capabilities and resources to raise my own animals for food and NOT do it, but continue to eat animal products-

even though it was difficult for me.

Removing ourselves from the process of raising and killing animals is what has caused the incredibly sick growth of the factory farming industry.

We want someone to do it for us.

We want boneless and skinless delivered to us, wrapping in pleasant packaging.

We want clean hands.

I no longer have clean hands.

I raised and butchered my own animals for meat.

Like I said before, I have mixed feelings about it.

I will do it again- butcher.

I will do it again- purchase animals for the sole purpose of becoming food for my family.

That being said, I am feeling no grief over it, no guilt. I raised these chickens from fluffy butt chicks that were less than a week old. They were loved on, well cared for, treated with as much dignity and respect as any of the other 32 chickens we have living in our backyard. There is no difference between the way our pet dogs are treated and our pet chickens are treated and our meat chickens are treated.

My mixed feelings come from my own personal thoughts about being an omnivore.

I have had SO many people tell me that what I have done is disgusting.

Cruel.

Inhumane.

And it was none of those things.

It was clean, humane, and done with respect.

And the people criticizing me are people that would never consider eating farm fresh food, because knowing where the animals come from is too close for comfort. Factory farms are preferrable to them over what we do here at our home.

To each his or her own. I am not passing judgement on another person's convictions and/or eating habits. We all must live as we feel we must, but this is part of my growing process, part of our home becoming a homestead- a place that can sustain us.

And I hope that sharing this part of my journey with you didn't offend.

I tried to provide fair warning from the beginning.

But if you were offended, I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to shock or disturb, but merely to share my experience and educate.

Jelly

I am so excited to show you my first EVER canning efforts!

We went out in the yard and foraged some dandelion greens (wilted and served with vinegar = delicious!),

some dandelion blossoms,

some of our borderline invasive mint.

We soaked the dandelion blossoms in water overnight to extract as much of the dandelion goodness as possible!

Keelin was very helpful with washing the mint! Smelled so fresh.

Mint in the jar before we filled it with water!

I can smell it just looking at this picture.

Spicy tomato jelly,

dandelion jelly,

mint jelly!

All perfectly set, all delicious, all properly sealed in the jars!

I can't believe how easy it was to can my own jelly!

If this first timer can experience success, anyone can!

My favorite of the jellies, the "lively" tomato jelly on a slice of my homemade bread!

Recipes :

Dandelion Jelly

Boil 1 quart  of fresh dandelion blossoms (no stems) in 1 quart water for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir juice. Measure out 3 cups of the dandelion juice, add a teaspoon of lemon juice and 1 package of pectin, powdered works best for this recipe. Add 4.5 cups of sugar and boil until gelled. Pour into sterilized canning jars and leave 1/8" of headspace. Wipe the rims well, add lids and rings. 5 minute water bath and you're done! Just wait for the tops to pop!

Note: I cut this recipe in half and it made four 4oz. jelly jars full of jelly! Thanks to Jill at Domestic Reformation for inspiring me!

Tomato Jelly

(makes 6 medium glasses full)

Combine 1 3/4 cups of organic canned or jarred tomato juice, 1/2 cup of fresh strained lemon juice, 2 teaspoons of Tabasco sauce , 4 cups of sugar in a pot  over high heat until it reaches a full boil. Stir in one 3oz. package of liquid fruit pectin and bring to a full boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir, and skim off any foam for about 3 minutes. Pour into sterilized jars, leaving about 1/8" of headspace. Wipe jar rims, adjust lids and rings. Water bath for 5 minutes, then remove and wait for the lids to pop, signaling a good seal!

Note: I used more Tabasco sauce that the recipe called for and it was delicious. I just seasoned to taste and we enjoyed it pretty spicy!

Mint Jelly

Crush 1 1/2 cups of firmly packed mint leaves, fresh. Add 2 1/4 cups of water into saucepan with mint leaves and boil of medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for 10 minutes to extract the minty goodness! Strain through a cheesecloth. Measure out 2 cups of the infusion into a large saucepan. Add 3 1/2 cups of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Boil at full, rolling boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and immediately add in one 3oz. package of liquid pectin. Stir and skim for about 5 minutes. Pour immediately into warm, sterilized jars leaving about 1/4" of headspace. Seal with hot lids and rings, waterbath for 5 minutes, then let set!

Note: I let my mint soak for a whole afternoon after it was cleaned, crushed, and boiled. Most recipes I read also said to add a couple of drops of green food coloring, but I opted to leave it out. I didn't feel any need to add color to something already so yummy- it wouldn't have enhanced anything but the look.

Do you have any delicious jelly recipes or fruit preserve recipes to share? I'd love to hear them!

Garden update!

Just a few pictures, because there is nothing terribly impressive happening quite yet-

The garden update, as promised!

I had no luck with my rosemary plants from seeds, so I bought this great plant (bottom left) from Lowe's.

On the right, you can see a few tomato plants.

The markers are all root veggies, like horseradish, garlic, shallots, and taters!

One of our little strawberry plants!

I know you're supposed to pinch them back the first year, but I just can't bring myself to pinch them all back. I pinched off the blossoms of all but a few, so the kids could have a few strawberries this year (that we grew.)

A teeny "practice" peach on one of our trees. It KILLED me to pinch them off, but I know the trees need to focus on their root production and not fruit production. Hopefully, we will be overrun with peaches in about 5 years!

April 20, 2011- Starting jelly and baking bread

Okay, so how did it get to be the third week of April without my realizing it?! :)
Is it just me or is this year flying by? Maybe it's because I'm preggers, but MAN!

Today, my husband kept the kids away from our room so that I could sleep in a bit. Jackson (our 2yr old) had a bad dream last night and consequently, kept me up until all hours. If I'd gotten up at 7, I would have been a zombie, so kudos to Tim!!

This morning, I really needed to wash some diapers and put them on the line, even though it was a bit overcast. The kids played with splash balls, an outdoor tub of water, and cups while I planted a few plants and did the diaper laundry- which means they were soaked, half-naked, and had a blast! Thank goodness for living in the middle of the woods, right?

This afternoon, Keelin and I decided to bake some bread and make some jelly! The jelly is still in the works (we're extracting the goodness from dandelions and mint picked from our backyard) and won't be finished until tomorrow, but here are pictures of the bread!

I made two batches- the dough on top is multigrain (a new flour I was trying) and I kneaded it by hand. The bottom dough is a wheat dough that I mixed using the knead cycle on the bread maker I got at a thrift store. Unfortunately, the bread maker is downright WONKY and the knead cycle is super loud, so I won't be using it again, I don't think... but it was good to see if the $10 bread maker was worth the shot.

This was the first rise after they were kneaded!

The multigrain after it had been punched down and kneaded some more.

The 5 loaves that resulted from those two bowls of dough! The top 3 are multigrain and the bottom 2 are whole wheat. I rolled the unbaked loaves in ground flaxseed and was so excited to taste it!

Here they are on the second rising!

You'll notice that they're in foil baking pans- that is because I only have two "real" baking pans and wanted to make enough to freeze, so this was a good option. Once the bread is removed, I wash them carefully by hand and air dry to ensure that I can reuse them many times! When yard sale season gets into full swing, I will make it an obnoxiously Dusti mission to get my hands on around half a dozen baking pans so that I can do my baking less often and more efficiently!

Baking in our CRAZY hot 40 year old oven. Our whole kitchen was super warm during this process. It just felt like someone was baking :)

We'll be eating one of each loaf and the other 3 will be carefully wrapped and frozen for future use!

The very first time I baked bread at home was about 3 years ago using a recipe that I'd run across while browsing The Hillbilly Housewife online called "Beginner's Bread." It is almost fool proof! I am just learning to branch out into reading bread recipes and trying them, but I can still, from memory, make Beginner's Bread- but with whole grain or multigrain flour, organic ingredients where possible- just to make it super healthy. I don't follow a recipe anymore, just make what tastes good to me and my family from a couple of years of practice and tweaking!

An Easy whole wheat Bread!

-3 cups of organic whole wheat flour, or 1-1/2 cups of white and whole wheat if you're unsure about the density of whole wheat

-1 teaspoon kosher salt

-1 packet, or about 2 teaspoons yeast

-1 tablespoon organic cane sugar or brown sugar or  local honey

2 tablespoons of organic oil (I use a few kinds- there is no right or wrong oil)

1 cup warm water


Add dry ingredients and stir them together. Add the wet ingredients and knead with your hands for at least 5 minutes. Pour a bit of oil into a dry bowl, stick the dough in and roll it around to coat it, then let it rise in a warm spot for up to two hours covered with a hand towel. The dough should double in size! When it’s risen, punch it down, knead it until smooth- just a minute. Grease a loaf pan and pop in the dough, shaping it as you wish. Recover it and let it sit for about an hour and a half. It should rise to double it’s size again. Bake it on 350* for 30-40 minutes. When it’s done, it should be golden on top and crusty. Turn it out onto a dish towel, thump the bottom to ensure that it sounds hollow- that means it’s done!
 
Do you make bread at home? What kind is your favorite?
 
I have a few other types of bread that I make and will be posting pics and recipes for as I make them this spring- zucchini bread, peanut butter bread, garlic breadsticks, buns, rolls- etc.

Guess who went fishing?!

Yessir, Tim took Jackson fishing on Sunday evening. Together, they caught one teeny fish and one almost big enough to bring home to eat fish. As a family, we absolutely do NOT support the acts of fishing or hunting as a sport. As a means of teaching your children where food comes from (You mean, it doesn't magically appear on the shelves at the grocery store?) and putting food on the dinner table, it is something that we are on board with.

Jackson with his catch!

Fishy was quickly labeled just a bit too small to bring home for dinner and tossed back in to grow some more, but not before Tim (ever the photographer in the family) snapped a few shots!

On Monday evening, after Keelin got home from spending most of the weekend with her dad, it was her turn to head to the lake with Tim!

A face covered with something... Tim thinks that bringing yummy snacks is the most important part of a fishing trip- which is fine by me :)

Precious girl! She didn't catch anything, but she said she had a good time hanging out and eating snacks!

Both babes love eating fish, so Tim is looking forward to taking them on more trips like this. I certainly wouldn't mind not having to grill the guy behind the fish counter to find out where the fish I want to buy came from.

*sigh*

Because ya know, it doesn't get more local, wild, or free roaming than catching it from a lake in rural NC.

Smoothies!

Quite a few people have expressed interest in knowing how I make my smoothies...

This is how I start my day most mornings and I looove them!

I start with the same basics, give or take one!

Almond or coconut milk, probiotic powder (immune system boost, anyone?!), raw honey (helps me fight off seasonal allergies), and flaxseed oil (yummy, healthy fats)!

The ground flaxseed is what I use when I'm out of fresh kale, which I prefer (but sometimes can't find at the farmer's mnarket), but I love both!

I usually use some plain, organic yogurt, too- but I was out the morning I took these photos!

This day, I used a bunch of frozen strawberries that my dad froze last year, a whole peeled kiwi, two whole peeled bananas, and a handful of frozen pineapple that I cut and froze last week!

I really enjoy using fresh fruit, but if I do, I use ice to thicken the smoothie!

I try to spend time weekly cutting fresh fruit, freezing it, and using the frozen fruit- makes the smoothies super thick and amazingly refreshing!

Here is what it looks like!

I just put in the fruit, put in the dry ingredients, pour on the milk and/or yogurt and blend until smooth!

It packs a nutritional punch, starts my day off properly, and the whole family loves them!

Some other goodness that I like to pop in the blender:

- avocados (give the smoothie the same consistency as a banana!)

- using juices instead of almond milk (orange is my favorite!)

Recycled Crayons and "Cheezy Baked Spaghetti Nests!"

Today was so crazy! Tim wasn't getting any better, so I went all over creation trying to find something that might soothe his allergic reaction. Poor guy :( I hate seeing him so uncomfortable! I think we finally found something that will help him. Ready to have my hubby back at 100%, for sure.


Jackson went down for a nap and Keelin and I decided to celebrate "Week of the Young Child" with a little project. She and I de-papered all of her and Jackson's broken crayons, melted them in my double boiler, and put them into some star shaped candy molds that I had on hand!

 Here are the kids crayons! I think they turned out really well!

For dinner, I was interested in some carbs! I made whole grain spinach pasta!

Put the pasta in a muffin tin and scooped on some of my sweet tomato sauce!

Baked it with a bit of cheese on top (Tim's are the ones without cheese, per his request).

Oh, man! So delicious!

Thanks to Cat at The Verdant Life for this delicious idea! It was a hit with my family!

Her blog recipes are so yummy sounding and we can't wait to try out more in the future!

We served our nests with a spinach salad with broccoli and apples

 (yes, the same one we had last night- it was requested again by the babes!) and steamed edamame.

Our plates were almost covered with GREEN, minus the cheese, apples, and pasta sauce!

What an incredible day!!

Today was a really interesting day, so if you can hang in there through the whole post, you will be a real trooper! :)

Woke up this morning knowing it would be a crazy day! Why, you ask? Today is the day that my husband, Tim, goes on terminal/transitional leave! He is using up the paid leave that he has saved up before officially getting out of the Army a month from now after almost ten years of service. Crazy, right? (Paid leave being a relative term, considering what is going on with the governmental agencies acting like a bunch of kids with dirty diapers!)

We've been looking forward to this for the last 3 years that we've been planning this transition to civilian life and it was just so cool to see the day finally come! We got out of debt (car loans and such), saved up a chunk of change, had a baby, got me preggers with another, and got both he and I back in school.

What a way to sum up three years of marriage!

It felt like we waited all day for Tim to get home, so I tried to keep my hands busy!

I picked up sticks out of the yard (thanks, storm!), cleaned the chicken coop, lamented over the huge tree down in our yard and how being 19 weeks pregnant, I'm not in any shape to bust out our chain saw...

Oh, did a ton of diaper laundry, got Jackson down for a nap in his twin bed (Yay for my big boy!), and got in the kitchen!

This was our lunch, along with some homemade corn muffins that my son absolutely adores! Zucchini, squash, red potatoes, and carrots. All thickly sliced, drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with sea salt. The flavor was incredible, totally filling, and the chickens were thrilled to get the ends of the veggies as a treat! (Maybe now they will feel inclined to give us some eggs?)

Here are some banana chips dehydrating! I had to lay the smack down on my dad and son today. They were both in the kitchen getting into the dehydrator all afternoon. These guys just slay me- I can't make chips that actually get to be chips, because they get eaten too quickly. Banana fiends need to back off of my snacks ;) But yes, these were salvaged- 3 of my 4 trays made it into crispy, crunchy, delicious chips! I'll take the 75% odds!

Gotta love his "no poo" hair and cloth diaper!!

Jackson on his $5 consignment sale bike! He's a little guy, so it cracks me up that a bike that teeny has training wheels that are removable. I would love to see a person that small riding a Fisher Price two-wheeler without training wheels!

On top of my cooking, cleaning, and thumb twiddling- I sliced up a TON of fruit and froze it combinations that would be yummy for smoothies, which have become our go-to breakfasts around here.

I finally got tired of being productive and sat myself in a lawn chair to read the end of a book and start another while Jackson napped.

The book I just finished is:

“Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream . “ by William Powers

A great book written by a guy local to me. It highlights his experiences living in a 12 foot by 12 foot cabin in rural North Carolina. Very cool read!

I'm actually planning to give away a copy of this particular book (gotta support our local authors!) next week!

This is the book I just started reading:

"Better Off : Flipping the Switch on Technology," by Eric Brende

So far, it seems to be a book about an Ivy League educated couple that decide to see what life would be like without the distraction of electricity and their quest to return to simplicity. I have a feeling that this one is going to be good!