Big Mean Tom

I killed Tom.  He was a big, mean, blue slate turkey, about a year and a half old.  Today, I will make sausage from him.  It will be delicious I'm sure!

I read a very interesting article in UU News (we attend a UU church....maybe I should do a post on that aspect of my lack of conventional faith?)  and it was a family with a mini farm like ours, she was killing animals she'd raised for food and trying to explain how she comes to turns with this in her belief system.  I get this.  I really do.  That big mean tom, he pretty much sealed his fate with me when he attacked my 4 year old son...and my friend, my husband, my neighbor....like I said, he had it coming.  I don't tolerate aggressive animals.  Anyhow, getting off track here, I'm not a vegetarian or vegan and nor do I care to be.  I do believe very strongly that we should respect the lives of all living creatures, even if we intend to eat them or a byproduct of their existence.  I think it's Joel Salatin who says something to the effect of...'They live a great life, with one bad day', and that's pretty much the philosophy I try to keep when rearing animals for food.

Thanks for reading.  I'll probably have more later.  I have this big turkey to get done today, can some spaghetti sauce and then I need to start working on some packets for my mozzarella demo at the farmer's markets (I have them two weekends in a row!).  Homesteading work never ends, combine that with housework never ends and you end up with my insanity.

Summer....whirlwind!

Summer has been crazy.  I wish I could say I've been endlessly busy but the truth is that lately my motivation has been lacking.
 
We had a big change with my son starting preschool last month, he's had some adjusting to do so I think we are finally to the point where the kinks are worked out.   He's a smart kid, I wasn't too worried.  But boy am I relieved to have him in school.  It's amazing how much energy he sucks out of me!

Our goat, Zada, freshened with a single doeling.  She wouldn't nurse her so we've been bottle raising her.  Unfortunately this girl so far has things stacked against her.  For starters, she has a third teat.  Most goat breeders are afraid of their reputation being ruined by admitting such a fault in their goats but I have no reputation so I'll speak frankly about it.  I don't know exactly how it happened other than a fluke, both sire and dam come from high quality show lines so they should have been a great match up- and if it weren't for that extra teat- she'd be show quality herself.  Except....we screwed up the disbudding.  Blah!  First off, we got to her too late.  We should have done it right in the first week.  Second off, we didn't burn long enough.  We were afraid of hurting her and new at it and we screwed up.  Not sure what we are doing now with it.  We have 2 options, one being a vet removing the horns surgically, the other being using a elastrator to cut the circulation off that way.  Anyhow, both dam and doeling are doing great.  Zada is giving us around 5lbs of milk daily (a gallon being 8lbs).

That brings me to cheese making.  That's one place where I've not been slacking.  I've made of course several batches of chevre, mozzarella....quick stuff...but I also put up a few rounds for aging of cheddar, gouda and fontina.  I really want to stock up the aging fridge with lots of good homemade cheese before we dry off Siren.  I just picked up some cultures for swiss so I think gruyere might be my first venture into Swiss style cheese.

I've been canning some garden goods too.  Corn, beans, need to do some tomatoes.  I have lots of tomatoes in the freezer waiting for time to free up so I can make pizza and pasta sauce.  Did a bit of applesauce, lots of jellies and syrups.  I wish I'd kept up on the garden better but it has been nice and productive for me even with all the weeds.

Our almost last batch of birds for the season, I'm taking to a local processor.  Its my way of giving us a break.  We've so far done them all ourselves and that's an experience all it's own, but there is something charming to letting someone else do all that dirty work and coming home with pretty packages ready for the freezer.