Meet The "Bun Buns" PART 2

Miss D choosing Prince Eric

     Everything in moderation, right? Well, with us, not so much! The whole raising rabbits idea just popped into my head in the first place one day, and the next thing I knew I was researching breeds and visiting local rabbitries. In less than a week we had our first two rabbits! Well, here we are a mere 3 months later and they have already been bred, and are both due to kindle their litters any day now. We also just added Pablo to the mix for good, so one would think that we would be all set for a while, right? WRONG!
 
     Over the past few months while I have been (not so patiently) awaiting the breeding of Hazel and Ivy, my wheels have been spinning. I haven't said much to Mr. J about this because he is just about up to his eyeballs in projects, but all the while I have been planning where the new rabbitry will go, how many cages we will need, what kind of outdoor run they will have this spring, and what other breeds we will most likely be adding to the farm in the future.

Miss E holding Prince Eric

   
Yup, I have decided that we definitely need to add MORE breeding rabbits, even before we have really gotten started breeding our Satins. Truth be told, even though we chose the Satin breed because they are a great dual purpose breed (meat and fur,) and we will most likely continue to raise them for that very reason, we are not finding them to be overly affectionate or very tolerant of being handled by our young children, and that's just no fun!

     So, when we went to my friend's rabbitry to pick up Pablo for breeding last month and she had freshly a litter of 3 week old New Zealand babies, I decided right then and there that we just had to give the New Zealands breed a try. Miss D was with me and she and I picked out a couple furry buns in hopes of one of them turning out to be a buck. At that point we didn't know we'd end up owning Pablo, so I figured we could try a Satin/ NZ cross at some point and that way we wouldn't have to keep borrowing Pablo if we didn't end up with a buck in either upcoming litter. So, in a nutshell, that is how we ended up with the ever so handsome, so very fluffy, super-duper friendly "Prince Eric."

    

Miss E choosing Ariel

 Miss D had hoped he was a girl and had planned to name her Ariel, but was quickly swayed to take Prince Eric home instead. I promised that we would visit another rabbitry later in the week that I knew had plenty of NZ and NZ crosses to choose from, so that we would also have an Ariel to join him shortly. And, making good on my word that is exactly what we did.

Miss E showering Ariel with kisses

   

      Meet "Ariel," a 12 week old NZ/Cali cross from Penny Pond Rabbitry in Berwick, ME. Miss E picked her out and although she is a tad shy right now, we are hoping that handling her on a regular basis will make her a bit friendlier than Hazel and Ivy. Of course, it's a well know fact that the Bucks are much nicer than the Does. It's really too bad that you need more Does than Bucks in a breeding program! Oh well, for now we will keep working with Ariel and just enjoy the love of Pablo and Prince Eric until those cute, cuddly little babies arrive...  
                                                                                         

Hoppily Yours, Mrs. J :)

Meet the "Bun Buns" PART 1

Ivy, our Blue Satin Doe

     Exactly 27 days ago today we borrowed a friend's Satin Buck to come "romance" our Satin Does since they had finally reached breeding age. He stayed for 4 days and split his time equally between the girls, visiting with Ivy first. He was a super-duper sweet guy. A real gentleman, in fact. We all very much enjoyed having him here and the girls got a kick out of naming him.

Hazel, our Chocolate Otter Doe

Pablo, our new Black Satin Buck

     My friend has so many bunnies that she hadn't thought of a name for him yet, so she told Miss E and Miss D that they could name him for her. Miss E first suggested naming him Borrowed since he was not ours and we were just borrowing him for a few days. I didn't think that my friend would be too impressed with that name, so I looked up names that mean borrowed and came up with a rather interesting list. Since my children can't read yet, I only shared a few of the cuter name possibilities with them and they quickly settled on the name Pablo. We instantly fell in love with Pablo and found it very difficult to return him once his services were no longer needed. Ivy and Hazel are fairly standoffish even though they have lived here for nearly 4 months, but this guy was so curious and friendly!

     Lucky for us, our friend was looking to downsize her rabbitry, so over the weekend we were able to go back and get him for good! If all went well we should have teeny tiny baby rabbits arrive any day now and we just couldn't be more excited. Miss E, who has a birthday coming up in April, has been telling us that all she wants for her birthday is a baby bunny. The good news is that even if one or both of the Does didn't take the first time, we now own a buck and can re-breed in ten days if need be. Hopefully, though, that won't be necessary and we will have cute pictures of brand new baby bunnies to share by early next week if not even sooner...

                                                 Hoppily Yours, Mrs. J :)
   

Homemade Maple Syrup Evaporator

    Last year I was able to find three stainless steel serving pans from the dump. I scrubbed them down and used them to make an evaporator using some old chimney linings for the sides and bricks in the back. I dug a hole in the dirt and built the evaporator around the hole. It work alright but wanted to find a better way to keep the heat in and support the pans.

Last year's evaporator

  This year I was able to find an old locker and modify it into a better evaporator. I used a right angle grinder to cut the doors off, then cut it to the length I wanted. Out of the extra parts I had, I made a door and some side supports. I used self tapping screws to put everything together, including a piece over the exhaust hole to stop any ashes from falling into the syrup. We tried it out using water instead of sap so that any of the paint or dirt would be burned off before we used it for syrup. I think when we make syrup we'll put some dirt or sand along the sides to help insulate the sides. Although it looks a little ghetto, it worked out great and didn't cost a thing. We still have about another month before the sap starts to flow around here, but we are already starting to get excited for some more real maple syrup.

Place Your Orders

    Even though it is below freezing and there is still snow on the ground, it's already time to start planning ahead for spring babies. To make sure that we get what we want we will have to put orders in soon. This year we wanted to give our friends and family an opportunity to have some of the quality meat from our farm as well. If you are interested in any our animals spending some time in your freezer please email us with what you are interested in at sprucecreekfarm@comcast.net.

PORK
   We raised three pigs last year with excellent results. We gave them plenty of room to run around and stayed away from feeding them junk food, which we attributed to our success. Just like last year, we plan to feed them an antibiotic, all grain diet supplemented with all the cutoffs and leftovers from the garden, and a little bit of our table scraps. This type of diet will help to ensure that the pigs will stay lean, with just enough marbleized fat in the meat to add flavor. All of the people we sold pork to last year raved about the flavor and texture, and agreed that in no way can the quality be compared to the dry, flavorless pork you get at the store! The pork comes in vacuumed sealed bags and individually labeled. The bacon and ham comes smoked as well. The type of pig we raise is a Duroc/Hampshire mix, which are bread for their long bodies and great tasting meat. Last years pigs went for $300 for a half a pig, and the hanging weight of the pigs were around 150 pounds for the whole pig.
    It's hard to say how much the pigs are going to cost this year with the potential of the price of grain going up. We are also going to raise them for an extra month or two. It is probably safe to say that the price of a half pig this year will be between $350-$400 for a half pig and $700-$800 for a whole pig. They will be ready some time in November.





CHICKENS
   We've been raising are own meat birds for three years now and have never looked back at buying them from the store. It's hard to describe the difference in home grown chicken and the stuff you can buy at the store, other than it just tastes more like chicken and is much juicer. We feed the chickens an all grain diet free of antibiotics. We're going to try raising them outside this year in a shelter that has the ground for a floor and wire fence for walls. This will make them happier, and hopefully even better tasting. The chickens will be about five pounds all dressed out, and we will sell them for around $15 dollars a bird.


TURKEY

Narragansett

Broadbrested Bronze

 We're going to raise turkeys for the first time this year. After the chickens move out of their shelter and into the freezer, we're going to make a larger run off of it and grow the turkeys in there. We're going to try two different breeds; the Broadbrested Bronze and the heritage breed, Narragansett. The BB Bronze will grow to a larger turkey with the standard plump breast, while the Narragansett will be smaller but more rich in flavor. After growing chickens and noticing the big difference in taste between the store bought and home grown, we are exited to experience the difference in taste of home grown turkeys. One of the options we can do for you is if you only want the breast meat, we can turn the rest of the meat into ground turkey for you to make other things out of. If you are interested in some home grown turkey, let us know what type of turkey you would like and how big you want it. The price would be determined on how big you want them, but I'm guessing between $45 and $75. The latest we plan to let them grow will be around late October, so we can't do any fresh turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Leroy The Rooster

   This past summer we ordered six buff orpingtons along with our meat birds. They also threw in one extra bird of their choice. As the birds grew up we noticed that one of the buffs started to look a little bit different. It started to grow taller than the rest and have different types of feathers. After about six months of growing we came to the conclusion that the hatchery had given us a buff orpington rooster by mistake, something that does happen from time to time. Also, our free chick turned out to be an araucana rooster as well. Knowing that two roosters in a hen house is not a good thing, I quickly found a new home for him. He's with some other araucana hens and is very happy.
   Leroy seems very happy with his flock too and watches out for everyone. He hasn't shown any aggression toward me, or the rest of the family, and is now just starting to practice crowing. We'll see how that goes... We're hoping that he will help in guarding the flock against any predators this summer.
   We chose the buff orpingtons because they are easy going, have the ability to hold up to Maine's winter weather, and are good egg layers. Now that we have a rooster their other characteristics are going to help us out as well. The orpingtons also tend to be broody, which means they will hatch their own eggs and take care of their young. They also are big enough birds to eat if we have to cull out the roosters.
   The new plan is to try and hatch only the buffs' eggs and eventually cull out all of the other chickens as they get too old. Miss E can't wait to start hatching chickens this year and have a bunch of new chicks to take care of.

Sausage Fest

   For Christmas, my mother-in-law got me a meat grinder/sausage maker for us to use as we get into more processing of our own meat. After doing a lot of research on them, I decided on the STX turbo Force 3000. I added it to my Amazon wish list, and low and be hold I ended up getting it for Christmas. I couldn't wait to get through the aftermath of Christmas and start using it.

   I was able to purchase some natural casings, hog intestinal, from the local butcher shop and they also were able to give me some advice on sausage making. We didn't want to waste any of our natural pork or chicken on our first time trying to make sausage, so I bought ten pounds of chicken thighs at the store. We wanted to try two different types of chicken sausage, so I divided the ten pounds of chicken into two piles, cut out the bone, and then cut the meat into one inch strips, leaving the skins on.
  I then put the strips on a pan, and put them into the freezer for about half an hour. They say the meat grinder will work better if the meat is almost solid. Once the chicken strips were firm but not frozen, it was time to start grinding. We started with the attachment that does the coarse meat first. It worked very well, didn't have to force the meat in at all.
   We piled the meat on a dish as it came out of the grinder and then put on the finer attachment and ran the meat through the grinder again, as the meat came out we put the meat into two different bowels. We then added the two different seasonings that we made a head of time. Using a spoon we mixed up the meat thoroughly making sure the spices were incorporated into the meat. They say that you should let the meat rest in the fridge overnight so the flavors get into the meat, but didn't want to wait that long, besides the flavors will be in the sausage once made and will have plenty of time to rest then. Before we used the meat in the sausage, we fried up little patties on the stove to try them out, and see if they tasted good. We then started getting ready to stuff the casings.
    I put the coarse attachment back on, but on the end of it I also put the stuffing tube on. I painstaking pulled about ten feet of casing over the tube and scrunched up against the base. Once on, tied a knot on the end and was ready to go. We later discovered that it was easier to have the meat fed all the way to the tip of the tube and then pull the casing on, the little bit of meat on the end made like a cone to help feed it on.
   Once we got the casing on, we scooped the clumps of meat on to the loading tray and used the pushing rod to feed the grinder, as the meat got fed through the machine it would fill up the sausage casings. As they got about six inches long we would twist the links and started another one. We did all the breakfast ones first  then went on to the tomatoes ones, that way the breakfast ones didn't taste garlicky. I turn out to be a pretty easy process and are looking forward to using our own meat to make the next batch.

Apple Breakfast Sausage:

5 Lbs Chicken Thighs
3/4 Cups Brown Sugar
2 Apples Deiced
1 1/2 Tbls Cinnamon
1/4 Tsp Nutmeg
1 Tbls Salt
 1/2 Cup Olive Oil
We made this with the sugar to help entice the kids to eat it for breakfast, you can omit it if you want but the kids ended loving it this way.

Sun Dried Tomato and Basil:

5 Lbs Chicken Thighs
1 Cup Sun Dried Tomatoes
1/2 Cup Basil Leaves
1/2 Head of Garlic
1 Tbls Rosemary
1 Tsp Thyme
1/2 Tsp Oregano
1 Tbls Salt
1 Tsp Pepper
1/2 Cup Olive Oil

We put the tomatoes and basil in the mini processor to cut them up before mixing them with the other spices.

Homemade Corn Nuts

    This past summer, we had a surplus of sweet corn that we couldn't eat in time before it got too much of a starchy taste, so we left them on the stalk to dry out. After the stalks dried up we picked the corn and hung it up in the basement to finish drying. We weren't sure what we were going to do with it at the time, but after eating a bag of corn nuts, we decided to try to make our own.

   What I did first was, shuck the corn off the cob and then put the corn into a bowl with enough water to cover the kernels. I left the corn in the fridge for three days or so. The water that is absorbed helps make the kernels almost pop and swell up. After the kernels absorbed some the water, I strained them through a colander and, then laid them out on a dish towel to air dry.
   While they were drying, I heated up the deep fryer to 375 degrees. If you don't have deep fryer, you need to get one they're great. Once dried I put them in the deep fryer for about seven minutes, once they started looking golden brown, I took them out and dried them on a paper towel. I then sprinkled them with some salt, and the whole family enjoyed eating them up.  

   The kinds you buy at the store are made out of a different type of corn, Hickory King Corn, but we wanted to try to use the corn we already had.

 




 

I know there is nothing healthy about taking a starchy, sugary food and deep frying it and then puting salt on it, but who can be healthy all the time?