Muscovies - day 2

When we first bought Muscovies the intention was for meat and eggs. As everything here on our small farm, it must serve a purpose. Well.....we came to liking them and they became a novelty around the farm. We occasionally sell some to a friend that takes them to market and bring others to auction. Maine Man just really hates killing them and our freezers have been well stocked. We have only eaten one and honestly it was the best duck we've ever had! One word to describe what they taste like is roast beef. Any how we are couple months into winter here and we have too darn many of them! In the summer even if we have a bunch they are mostly at the pond but this time of year they are in the barn and the door yard. A little too much poo for my liking. Yesterday when I pulled in the yard between the ducks & the chickens I thought for sure I was at a freakin zoo. So today MM is doing the deed along with his 8 year old daughter as I hide inside doing chores and preparing lunch. Not a good day to be a duck on the farm.

2009 Tally

This past year I tried desperately to keep a tally of all the food we produced here on the farm and gathered from mother nature. Well I tell you, I failed miserably! I was able to keep track of most of the meat we put up but there was no way that I could track all the fruits & vegetables.

In addition to grocery shopping in the garden nightly this summer we picked lots of wild raspberries, domestic raspberries, and a few strawberries & blueberries. Next summer's fruit harvest should be more plentiful. The kids and I also went strawberry picking a couple times and froze all we could. For the second year in a row I bought 20lbs of Maine blueberries from a local. You can't beat the price or the taste!

I froze what I could from the garden including beets, cabbage, beet greens, swish chard, green beans, peas, pumpkin, and rhubarb. I canned dill pickles, zucchini pickles & relish, an beets. In cold storage we put up onions, garlic, sweet potatoes, yukon golds, hubbard and buttercup squash. The eggs tally lasted until mid July and the count left off at 3373 eggs. We eat lots, give plenty away and sell to a few locals.

Here is our meat tally. Keep in mind all of the chicken & turkey we put up are on the bone.

Rabbits - 10lbs (still have 7 full grown meat rabbits to put up or sell)

Ducks - 13 lbs (we have 8 Muscovies that we intended to eat but have become attached to and 3 Khaki Campbells) They will reside in the greenhouse this winter. I will be posting about that as soon as it is complete.

Fish - 6lbs (this is inaccurate, it is the only # I had written down, I did not do a good job tracking this....oops)

Pork - 270lbs

Turkey-82 lbs

Venison- 88lbs (thanks to Maine Man. I did get a shot at one for a first this year but I missed :(.... couple weeks left in the season.

Chicken - 423lbs (we have 15 Cornish Rocks roosters left in the barn that probably weigh at least 8lbs dressed) Seeing how we have no more freezer space or the need for any more meat MM will do the deed this week and we will give to family. Early Merry Christmas ;)

Partridge/ Woodcock - I forgot to track....

Total Tally - 892 lbs (after MM takes care of the broilers and the rabbits we should be up over 1000lbs. I will update the tally when all is complete)

We gave some meat to family& friends. Some we bartered for homemade wine & cider. The rest will nourish our family right through a good portion of 2010.

Not only did we raise all these animals but Maine Man processed 100% of the meat. He really lives up to his name!

Interestingly, we tried to sell the last of the rabbits and cornish rocks and nobody was interested.(I didn't even mention prices) I also offerred one of our grown pigs to a family member for free and they declined. The basic reason is because nobody wants to do the deed. I can't say I blame them because I am have never been interested in that either. Give me the meat, I'll package but I'm quite all set with the rest. Although the more I get into this lifestyle the more I think... well maybe. Funny how you acclimate to your surroundings. A couple years back I would not even considered it. Heck, I go hunting. Not sure how I'd feel if I shot one but hopefully someday I'll find out. It is kind of sad how much we have distanced ourselves from killing animals for food. Some can barely even recognize meat as living animals that were killed for their consumption. :(

P.S. We also put up 4 quarts and 1 pint of maple syrup. Can't wait to tap more trees next year!
Not sure if I'll keep a running tally next year but I am glad I (somewhat) I did this year.

Stocking Up

We chuckled as our friend backed in our yard to return our chicken plucker and this is what filled his pick-up. 50 cases of canning jars. Hannaford was selling 1 quart cases for $2.50 and 1 pint cases for $2.00. The best part is he sold me some! I bought $28 worth (12 cases). BARGAIN!!!!

Speaking of the chicken plucker that was the 4 or 5th time we have lent it out and MM has used it several times. We have made our money back+++ . The kids and MM just did up 70 Cornish rocks.

For anyone new to reading this blog MM built a chicken plucker a while back, the post is here.
According to my traffic feed that I occasionally peak at this is the #1 post visited. The second most is another of MM's post is how to skin a pig. Funny how the only 2 posts he has ever done are the most popular. Well he has been talking about building a wind turbine so if and when that ever happens I am sure he'll post about. So lucky to have such a handy man!

Making Bacon- pig processing part 3

This is the final post about the pig I swear! We made up a rub rather than a brine. It was a combination of maple syrup, a TON of salt, and brown sugar. Maine Man rubbed it on and we kept it in the fridge for 7 days flipping daily.

We came up with a couple smokers. The above one was borrowed from some friends, Mike & Bea (THANKS SO MUCH!)

And this one came from my dads, he had it in storage for many years.

Thankfully we had M&B's because this one did not work. That was a real bummer because I really loved the look of this one. What year do you guess this came from? I still have the booklet downstairs so I will check and see.

This is a rather fatty piece of bacon that we actually kept as a salt pork. Unfortunately the only one that I took a picture of. We had to soak the bacon for a couple hours prior too smoking to get some of the saltiness out. After rinsing the rub off the meat MM soaked it for an hour then cooked a piece repeating this cycle until we felt it was not too salty.


Processing the pig ourselves was well worth it and we will do again. We have sampled everything we put up and it is SOOO good! Since we do not have a whole lot of deer hamburg left I have found the ground pork has been a great substitute. So for I have used it in spaghetti, chili, tacos, and plan to make a meatloaf with it over the weekend. Before now I never thought to use this way before.