This snowstorm was a major one! 14 inches is more that I ever remember seeing as a child, growing up in Greensboro. I’m glad that Uhtred got to see another year of snow before Christmas (that’s the right way to ring in the holiday season!).
He spent part of one day sledding and exploring deep snow, and the next day we threw snowballs and watched the cows. Overall, it was a great few days of rest and relaxation!
This week has been an interesting one… Another hurricane and power outages across the state. We hope that your family and home weathered the storm without any problems, and it sure is nice to celebrate the return of the sun. We’re celebrating the return of the sun this week in a special way—with a new product offering. Our Rendered Chicken Fat is offered in 12 oz. containers, and is perfect for pan-frying pretty much anything! Come on by The Corner Farmers Market tomorrow from 8am-12pm to grab yours.
We cook almost all of our food with chicken fat—eggs, vegetables, etc! Not only does it add a tastiness to your dishes that you didn’t even know you were missing, but it has a higher smoking point than butter! It’s great subbed for butter in a roux, added to the pastry for a chicken pot pie, or used for sautéing vegetables (any veggie shines in chicken fat).
We cook almost all of our food with chicken fat—eggs, vegetables, etc! Not only does it add a tastiness to your dishes that you didn’t even know you were missing, but it has a higher smoking point than butter! It’s great subbed for butter in a roux, added to the pastry for a chicken pot pie, or used for sautéing vegetables (any veggie shines in chicken fat).
Refined oils are often weird blends of many rancid oils, and bleaching agents, deodorizers, detergents, coloring, and other additives are including in what might be mislabeled as a pure, organic oil. The traceability of our product is high… You know that it came from our pasture-raised chickens straight to your frying pan.
We’ll let you make your own determination about how much fat you’d like to include in your diet, but there’s no denying the high levels of vitamin E, vitamin D, and choline in chicken fat. Plus, because our birds are free ranging on pasture, you can be sure that chicken fat from KW Homestead has higher levels of omega-3s than fat from birds raised indoors.
Our two dogs, Bolt and Coona, make a really great mouse hunting team. Bolt, the quicker of the two, has lightning fast reflexes and can snatch a mouse straight out of the air. Coona, who is the hound, usually flushes mice out to Bolt by rushing in between feed bins and spooking them out in his direction. It’s fantastic to watch their cooperation!
While Coona is the second-in-command mouse hunter, she is the leader when it comes to duck and chicken herding. We recently noticed that her legacy as a hound/shepherd mix, makes her an excellent and very focused duck and chicken caretaker. Because our birds are pasture raised and free ranging, they are often ending up in places where they shouldn’t be! One of these places is the backyard. The backyard fencing is cattle paneling, which means that birds can easily slip in and out of the yard. Until recently, Jason or I would herd the ducks out of the yard ourselves before letting the dogs outside, but ultimately some would sneak right back in. It took us only a few days of watching Coona interact with these daring ducks to realize how gentle she could be when herding them back through the fence towards the woods. Bolt, on the other hand, has always needed a bit more coaxing in order to be gentle with the birds. He just gets so excited!
Coona impresses us every day with how much she loves her job. She will quietly and contentedly lay near the back fence waiting for a chick to pop through and then slowly, and with complete focus, usher the chick back through to his side of the fence. Bolt is often watching this… He usually keeps a check on himself so that he doesn’t chase the birds too intensely or grab one with his mouth. It’s amazing to watch Coona be so delicate with ducks and chickens. She interacts with them very lovingly, with great tenderness, and with great concern for the rules. We would love to be able to say that we taught her to be such a great herding dog, but it’s just not true. It’s in her blood!
Considering the great working team that Bolt and Coona are, it’s no wonder that they have a fantastic time outside together securing the homestead and caring for the animals!
Being a farmer: hard.
Being a pregnant farmer: Waaay harder!
This is another cute video featuring Half-Nose’s newest litter. How cute are they? Check out the spotted piglet… who we hope will be the next Farm to Your School visiting pig!
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This past week, Half-Nose delivered a litter of cute little babies (including a spotted babe). The day after, another pig delivered her first litter, but since it was her first time as a mom, she wasn’t up to the challenge. Luckily, Half-Nose happily adopted her babies and is nursing away! Great job, Half-Nose!
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Last year we didn’t have great luck with our incubation… Our incubators malfunctioned in various ways and we were only able to hatch out a few babies. This year we’re hoping for a different result. We’ve calibrated the incubators to be sure that their temperature is reading true (this was our biggest issue), and the nicer incubator we have is now in a spot where the cords won’t get bumped or jostled (this was disconnected the incubator and totally ruining our hatch).
We segregated the adult Pekins from the rest of the layer flock, thus collecting only Pekin eggs… Which are usually a bit larger.
The ideal temperature for incubating ducks is 99.5 degrees F and the ideal relative humidity is 55%. Duck eggs incubate for 28 days, a whole week longer than chicken eggs. Amazing, right?! We are all set to place the eggs in the incubator in the next few days, and we’ve made sure to rotate the eggs every day so that the eggs don’t start to settle or stick to one side of the shell. Wish us luck this year!
We have 2 of the Little Giant incubators with trays that slowly swivel and rotate the eggs over time.
We have one incubator from Incubator Warehouse that worked wonders two years ago before it became electrically sensitive. The egg turner turns the eggs partially every 6 hours (or less or more if you change the settings).
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I usually skip the simpler carbohydrates if I can, like rice and flour, but that doesn’t make me any less hungry…
After some trial and error, Jason created a fantastic and simple pancake recipe, loaded with calories but low in sugar! What a great and filling breakfast! Plus, it’s fantastic with one of my very favorite foods: grass fed butter.
It’s so simple, you’ll be surprised! You can make these into classic pancakes, or you can take the easy route and bake the batter in the oven as a thicker cake. I enjoy the texture of the baked pancakes better.
Ingredients:
Materials:
Directions:
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We are a pretty hungry family, and making food in bulk is a great idea for us. Usually every Saturday we cook 2 of our Red Ranger Chickens, and this week was no different. This time we decided to make pulled chicken for eating tacos with the large pile of ripe and yummy avocados that we always seem to have in the house these days!
Here’s the details… Enjoy!
Ingredients:
Materials:
This finished, pulled chicken was a version that we made with some pureed tomatoes added as well.
Recipe:
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I have always been a lover of bones. So much so, that I ended up studying archaeology (specifically zooarchaeology) for a time, which eventually led me to Jason. So I would say that bones have served me very well!
When my “niece” became a big sister, I made her a painted puzzle which included bones from various animals, feathers, and shells. I was tempted to keep it for myself. I love the feel of bones, the smell of bones, but most of all, the symbology of bones.
Our bones are with us our whole lives, they make us human, make us whole. They are also on earth longer than we are (in most cases), and I believe they hold something of us when we go. I feel the same about animal bones. That is why I adorn my house and often my body with them. I believe that they reconnect me with the world that we often forget and to our primal, animal selves.
As I grow a little human inside me now, this baby already has their bones. These bones with make them strong, but also because some are still unformed, they will allow this baby to pass out of me into the world we know… Into a world where this baby and I can one day work on a bone puzzle just like this one:
If you’re interested in a bone, feather, and/or shell puzzle for a loved one in your life, you can email us at ourochreway@gmail.com for more information about ordering your very own puzzle!
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