Homemade Chicken Plucker II

   After last year’s failure at making a chicken plucker, I decided to try again this year. I went with the tub design, sometimes called a whiz-bang plucker. I’ve been working on it for awhile; slowly gather parts and looking up ideas on the internet

   First thing I started with is a squirrel cage that came from an old furnace blower. Someone gave it to me a long time ago and I’ve used it in different projects along the way. I used it to hold the plate up and give me something to mount the motor to. On one side of the squirrel cage I attached a 16” pulley that I had to order. On the other side, I took the original pulley off and used it as a template. I routed out a circle in a piece of plywood that was the same diameter as the pulley. Then I attached the pulley to the piece of wood with some screws. Using the pulleys edge, I used the router to cut the piece of plywood in a perfect circle. This will make sure the plywood is balance and won’t vibrate when spinning. I reattached the pulley and plywood back on the squirrel cage.

   Next I mounted a motor that I had kicking around the shop on to the squirrel cage . It happened to have the right pulley on it already. You want the plate to spin around 190 RPM, and most motors spin at 1750 RPM. I had to buy the belt that goes in between the two pulleys. Once the belt was attached, I used a piece of wood cut in the shape of a wedge and slid between motor and squirrel cage to adjust the tension of the belt. I then bought a plastic 55 gallon drum, that happen to hold Mnt. Dew before I got it. I cut the bottom off and cut then cut the top third off. To install the rubber fingers, which I ordered off EBay, I drilled 13/16” holes in the bottom of the drum and on the side of the drum. I then pulled the fingers through the holes and they stay there because they have a grove in the end that the edge of the barrel slides into. 
The fingers are ribbed to pull the feathers off as the chicken spins around barrel. Once all the fingers were installed I screwed the bottom to the plate which also helps hold the fingers in as well. I then used laminated plywood I had in the shop to build a box around the motor and squirrel cage, and then wired the motor up to a switch and then a plug. I turned the motor on and used a power planer on the plastic edge of the barrel to make sure it was perfectly round and centered. Next I attached the barrel on and used 2 x 4’s and plywood to support it. Put some old wheels on I had from an old barbecue and some legs and handles, and I was done.

   I had 47 chickens to process this weekend and hadn’t tried it out yet. We are going on vacation soon and had to process them before we left. I was very nervous after last year’s failure and didn’t have a plan B if this didn’t work. After dipping two dead chickens in some hot water to loosen the feathers, I put them in the plucker. Turn the switch on, and after thirty seconds of spinning around the birds came out with no feathers except for a few pin feathers on their tails, which is normal. I was very excited that it actually worked the way I planned it. I was able to process 24 birds in about four hours on Saturday, and finished the rest on Sunday in the same amount of time. I might make a few adjustments later on, but it worked out great and can’t wait to see if it will handle the turkeys this fall.

  

   

Homemade Ice Cream

   Now that we have all this milk, we’ve been playing around with making different things. Miss J made some soap, but wants to continue in the fall when things aren’t so busy. We’ve also made a couple types of cheeses, one was good but the other was a little too strong for us. We use the milk in such things as pudding, pancakes, and other baked goods, but everybody’s favorite is the ice cream.

  I found the recipe on Antiquity Oaks website, and quickly realized how easy it is to have ice cream in the freezer all the time. The recipe is simple:

4 cups goat milk  

1 cup sugar

4 egg yolks whisked

1 tsp vanilla

   You put all the ingredients in a pan and heat them up, stirring frequently. You want to bring it right up to boiling point. As soon as it starts to let out some steam I take it off the cook top. Pour the mixture into a jar and refrigerate tell it has cooled down completely, I let it sit overnight. Then pour into an ice cream maker, if you have one. We just bought one and are very happy with it. Let the machine run for twenty minutes or so. Right when the mixture stars to look like ice cream add any type of topping or extra ingredients like chocolate chips. Once done scoop out and store in the freezer.

 
  The nigerian dwarfs have higher butterfat content than any other goat or cow, so the milk makes a creamier ice cream. I can’t have a regular ice cream due to the fact it upsets my stomach, but I’m able to eat this type of ice cream. The ice cream comes out just as good if not better then store bought ice cream, the only problem is trying to keep some in the freezer due to three hungry kids.         

Goat Roll Call

   The goat herd has made some changes in the last six months. We have sold, bought, and even helped make some of our own goats. With all the changes I thought a roll call was in order.

Montana

    Montana is the queen of the herd. She is the first to get milked, the first to eat, and pretty much the first to do anything. When she goes somewhere all the other goats follow, that’s why she wears the bell. If we want the herd to go anywhere we just grab her and the rest follow. This spring she delivered four kids, which is pretty good for a first freshener, and she is giving us a little over a quart of milk a day with only milking her once a day. She turned out to be a great mother always looking after her kids, and was sad when they had to leave. It’s no secret that she is my favorite goat.

Sugar Cane

    We picked up Sugar about two months ago, from a very good breeder. We were told that she was bred but as it turn out it didn’t take. I always want a buckskin goat, not because of the black like cape on their back from which they get their name from, but because of the stripes down the face. When I found out that she had blue eyes, I had to get her. She has very good confirmation with her long body and tall legs. She should produce a lot of milk. We can’t wait tell next kidding season in spring to see how she turns out.

 Sally

    When we sold Meadow back to her breeder we had to find another goat in milk to keep up with the demand of three thirsty (human) kids. I ended up finding a local breeder through craigslist that had a couple of goats in milk that they were selling. They told us about Sally and sent us a picture. She looked just like our first goat, Goldie. When we meet her for the first time she was very outgoing and not nervous at all, and then they showed us a quart of milk that they milked from her that morning and we were sold. Although she is on the smaller size, she still gives us almost a quart of milk every day. She is easily our most friendly goat we have and is the kid’s favorite.

Katy

   We have had Katy for about seven months, but for some reason she still is the low goat on the totem pole. Just like Sally she is on the smaller size, for good reason, both their grandparents come from the same farm. She has a great temperament and until recently we have never heard her cry at all. We just had her breed and she is due towards the end of September. We can’t wait to see how much milk she gives us; we have been told she has the walk of a great milkier.

Tom Sawyer “181”

   Sawyer was born on our farm this spring. His dam was Meadow, and one of the reasons we sold her was because we were planning on keeping Sawyer, and didn't want to have him breed with her by accident. He is a very friendly buck who always comes up to the pen to greet you. He has good confirmation and will add some good genes into our herd through the years. His nickname is 181 because he has it written in white on one of his sides.

Huck Finn

   We needed to get a friend for Sawyer to keep him company in his separate pen, so when we picked up Sugar we asked the breeder if she had any good bucklings that have good lines to add to our herd. She showed us Huck who was only six weeks old but looked like he was three months old. We said we’ll take him. Huck comes from some very impressive lines and is not related to Sugar at all. He is a very good looking buck and has a lot of different colors. Even at a young age he loves “hanging out with the ladies” and has showed us that we have to keep the bucks separate so that no funny business happens.

The Buck House

Teacher Gifts

     About a month ago Miss E and I made school supply cakes for both her teacher and as a centerpiece for the Teacher Luncheon that I put together for the teacher's at Miss D's preschool. I've been hanging on to this post so that Miss E's teacher did not see her gift before the last day of school.
     We used pintrest as our inspiration, but modified the "ingredients" to fit what preschool and kindergarten teachers may need. Making a school supply cake is just like making a diaper cake, although if you shop for supplies smartly, it is much more affordable.
     I liked making this school supply cake for the same reason that I like  making diaper cakes as gifts. They are very easy to put together, but they have a certain WOW factor that makes people think that they took you FOREVER to make!!!
     We shopped for most of the supplies at Five Below. The rubber bands, pencils, Elmer's glue, glue sticks, crayons, and scissors were all $1 each. I'm sure I could have gotten an even better deal shopping the back to school sales at the end of the summer, but in May that was the best price I could find. We bought the paper towels for $0.88 each at Walmart, and found a great deal on a HUGE package of craft foam, sidewalk chalk, and watercolor paintbrushes at Michael's. I used my coupon and we shopped the clearance shelf. We were able to make both cakes and still have plenty of sidewalk chalk, a couple boxes of crayons and tons of rubber bands leftover for either our craft stash or to make future school supply cakes. The stickers were a clearance find from Marden's. I think I paid either $0.25 or $0.50 per package. When I did the math it came out to be just under $25.00 per cake.
     For the bases we used 2 cardboard supports from the gluten free crust that we use to make our Movie Night pizza's every Friday. Mr. J has been making fun of me for wiping them clean and stashing them away each week for some time now, but I have found countless uses for them in my craft room! I also save the resealable bag that they come in. I mean, it's basically a FREE ziploc, right?  Anyway, back to the cake...We used scotch tape to cover the cardboard pizza bases with scrapbook paper that I had on hand.
 
   

     We used clean aluminum cans for the top tiers. I spray painted them with 3-4 coats of chalkboard paint and then used a cool chalkboard marker to write on them. I have been looking for the right justification to buy a set of chalkboard markers and this seemed like the perfect excuse reason! Using the same method as I use when making a diaper cake, I placed a rubber band around the can and then Miss E and I lined the outside with glue sticks. We filled the cans with pencils and paintbrushes to add more height to the cakes and themn moved on to the bottom layer.

     Miss E lined the craft foam up in rainbow order and then I put a couple rubber bands around the roll of paper towels and worked on securing the craft foam "rainbow." This was the trickiest part, just like with a diaper cake. I always struggle a bit to evenly space and tightly "package" the tiers of diapers around whatever base I have chosen. I actually have found it is easier to just use more diapers and swirl them into a circle using a bowl to make what is called a "boutique style" diaper cake. Unfortunately, this method was not possible with our school supply cakes since I really wanted to include the paper towels and I did not have enough craft foam to make the cake big enough. So, I just played around with it for a bit, and borrowed an extra set of hands from Mr. J to get the foam sheets around the roll of paper towels tightly and evenly.

     After securing the foam to the paper towels, the rest of the project was "a piece of cake!" I simply hot glued the paper towel roll to the base and hot glued the aluminum can to the top of the paper towel roll. Then, in doing as I had with the previous layers, I placed rubber bands around the bottom and middle of the cake and Miss E added the chalk, glue, crayons, stickers, and scissors. We made each cake a little different. Miss D's school had specifically asked for scissors and seasonal stickers on their wish list and according to Miss E her classroom needed more pencils. To give the cakes a finished touch I used ribbon and rick rack to cover the rubber bands and glued a fake flower from our stash to the front of the bows on the bottom layers. With some diaper cakes I have made in the past I have sewed the ribbons together quickly with my sewing machine, but this time I just used my hot glue gun since it was already on. 

     This turned out to be a fun activity to do with Miss E. She was very proud to go shopping with me for the supplies and put the cakes together all by herself. I think the cake made an excellent centerpiece for the teacher luncheon and yesterday when I helped Miss E deliver the other cake to her teacher, it was the talk of the school! Miss E just beamed with pride as she gave it to her teacher and all of her friends were oooing and ahhing. Seeing her pride put a big smile on my face and made my heart just swell with pride.         

     When I was teaching it meant so much to me to get a gift that I knew had taken thought and time to create. To this day I still treasure many homemade ornaments and keepsakes from my teaching years. Don't get me wrong, a gift card to Barne's and Noble or L.L.Bean is not bad either. There is also something about a practical, useful gift. In my "expert" opinion these School Supply Cakes are a little bit of both. They are thoughtful, practical, and  homemade. We will definitely be making more school supply cakes in the years to come...

Mrs. J :)

School Outfits

Miss E's First/Last Day of Kindergarten Outfit

Miss D's First/Last Day of Preschool Outfit

Miss E's First/Last Day of Kindergarten Socks and Hair Bows

Miss D's First/Last Day of Preschool Socks and Hair Bows

                                                                             Last fall instead of going to the store and buying expensive new school clothes, I used my gift card from the second hand store in our area to buy the girls new school clothes. All year round as the kids outgrow things, I turn them in there and instead of getting cash back for them I almost always opt for 10% more back in store credit. At twenty dollars a visit, it doesn't seem like much, but after a while it starts to add up. I was able to get pretty much everything that the girls needed to be "dressed in style" for the 2012-2013 school year.
     For their first day of school outfits however, I wanted to do something a little more special. Since I have been getting a bit more adventurous with sewing over the past few years, I felt confident that I could handle making a simple jumper for each of them without having to use a pattern. I simply traced a jumper that fit each of them, added seam allowances, and a yolk, and whipped them up in no time. The tops snap closed under the bows. I also added a custom applique to fit the "theme" of each jumper. Miss E's is a cat since it is her favorite animal and Miss D's is a Blue Butterfly because that was the name of her preschool class this year.
     As sort of a challenge to myself, I decided to use only items that I had on hand. Luckily, I had plenty of cute fabrics stocked up from previous 50% and 60% off sales at the fabric store and I was able to choose something for each girl that I felt truly captured their personalities. I also embellished coordinating ruffle sleeved polo shirts and socks (from the Children's Place,) as well as a pair of hair elastics. It only took me a couple hours total to sew both jumpers and in just a few evenings while watching T.V. I was able to hand sew the polo shirt, sock and hair bows to complete the outfits.

A close up of Miss D's socks just because they're cute!

Miss D's patched up leggings for her last day of Kindergarten

     For the last day of school I decided that it would be neat to have them wear the same outfit so we could compare how much they have grown. When I had them try on their outfits a few weeks ago, I realized that they had gotten so much taller (especially Miss D) that their once "jumpers" hand turned into "jumper shirts." We solved the problem pretty easily by adding leggings to their outfits. The only problem was that last night (the day before Miss E's last day of school) when we were setting out her clothes for the next day, we realized there was a small hole in the left knee of her only pair of matching leggings.
     After the kids went to bed, I dipped into my scrap bin, used some wonder under (or whatever it's called,) and made a quick little patch. I did not bother to reinforce it with any stitching since it was just for one day and I plan to turn the leggings into ruffle bottom shorts for the summer anyway, but I still think they're pretty cute for a five minute fix and Miss E just loves them. In fact, she requested a close up picture of her "cute new pants" I made her. I love how easy my children are to please at this age. I also love that they're still young enough that I can play dress up with them and make cute, little, ruffly clothes and accessories that they love and will wear.

Miss E on her first day of Kindergarten 9-4-12

Miss E on her last day of Kindergarten 6-13-13

Miss E on her first day of Kindergarten 9-4-12

Miss E on her last day of Kindergarten 6-13-13

Miss D on her first day of Preschool 9-10-12

Miss D on her last day of Preschool 5-22-13

Miss D on her first day of Preschool 9-10-12

Miss D on her last day of Preschool 5-22-13

     I plan to continue the first day of school/last day of school outfit tradition as long as my children will allow me to make them clothes. It is a fun way to create a keepsake for the school year and I love seeing how they grow and change in just one school year! I also figure that by the time the gradate, I will have gained the necessary sewing skills and confidence to make a fun keepsake quilt with each school year outfit.
     In the meantime I will continue to enjoy these cute, little people as they grow and I plan to take full advantage of the fact that they will still allow me to play dress up with them and make them coordinating outfits. This is the reason why I chose to stay at home with my kids. I know these years go by quickly and I want to treasure every moment and memory that I can as this parenting adventure unfolds.

Happy Summer Break!!!

Love, Mrs. J :)

Milking Goats Using The Henry Milker

   I've been milking our goats now for about six weeks, and the whole time I've been using the Henry Milker. After a week of milking with the milker, I made some changes to it. I first made a box for the quart jars and the pressure gun to sit in, and made a special notch on the box and the milking stand so that it can be easily lifted off and put back on. I also added on longer tubes, giving me plenty of slack to get to the goat's udder.

   I wake up every morning at 7, and fill up a pail of cold water. I then get out of the freezer two old sour cream containers that I filled with water the night before and add them to the pail. I also grab a half gallon mason jar and head out to the barn. I start by assembling the Henry Milker, putting on the lids and then hooking up the tubes. I try to remember to turn the valves to close and pump the pressure to make sure it holds the vacuum. I then go get one of the goats. They know which one is first, which is Montana. She runs into the barn, and then runs up to the milk stand but doesn't jump on. She'll then do a lap around the barn and then wait for me to lift her on. I use a seat for them to jump on and then jump onto the milk stand but she doesn't like using it. I need to make a lower seat so she'll jump on. Once she's on, she digs into her grain which gives me time to milk. I start by hand milking four or five squirts into a separate cup to get the old milk out and check for mastitis. After that I take a warm cloth and wipe her udder clean, I also massage the udder with the cloth to get the milk to flow. I then make sure the pressure is a little bit less than 10 on the dial of the pressure gun and then attach one of the cups to the first tit. I slowly turn the valve to allow the vacuum to hold the cup onto the udder and start the flow of milk. I then attach the other cup and do the same thing. I hold one of the cups between my index finger and middle finger and the other one between my ring finger and pinky finger. Even though the vacuum makes them stay on, if the goat starts to move too much she can kick one of them off. As the milk flows, I make sure to keep the pressure between 5 and 10. As the milk flow starts to slow down, I use my thumb to push against the udder trying to squeeze out any milk left behind. If the goat is still nursing kids I don't worry too much about leaving a little milk behind, but if there is no kids then I milk out the last five squirts or so by hand into one of the cups. Once done, I put the cups back on the box and then lift the box out of the way. The whole milking process takes less than five minutes and I usually have to wait for the goat to finish up her grain. Before I let the goat down, I spray her with some udder spray to help stop mastitis from happening . I let Montana down and put her in the run and then grab Sally.

She runs right in and then jumps on the milk stand. She's a good little goat. I do the same process with her making sure to get out all the milk. Once I'm done with Sally I pour the milk into the mason jar and put the jar into the ice water to rapidly bring the temperature down. I rinse out the cups and tubes with warm water and do the same to the lids and jars. I also spray everything with mixture of water and bleach and then rinse again. I can usually do all this while Sally finishes up her grain. I let her down and put her with the rest of the goats. I then grab Montana's kids, which spend the night in their own stall in the barn, and give them to her to take care of during the day.

   



   The whole process takes about twenty minutes for start to finish. Between the two goats, which are both first freshners,  we get about half a gallon of milk a day only milking once a day. Everyone in the family loves the milk and the Henry Milker makes milking a whole lot easier.

Montana five weeks fresh

All Purpose Citrus Cleaner

     In an effort to cut back on buying chemicals to clean our home I have started making my own citrus all purpose cleaner. So far I have made 2 batches and I have three more "aging" under the kitchen sink. I am pleased with how well this simple recipe works and like it's disinfecting properties the best. I can use it on the kitchen counters and I know that it is leaving behind a clean and safe work surface.

     With all of the cooking, baking, preserving and raw food preparation that goes on in our kitchen on a daily basis, I feel like wiping the counters in our kitchen is my full time job.

     We have three cats that like to jump up onto the counters, and dozens of dirty chicken and duck eggs, pet dishes, and water bottles that need washing. Needless to say, a thorough wipe down is A MUST before making anything in this kitchen!!!

     What's nice about this recipe is that I always have everything I need to make it on hand. All I do is fill a quart mason jar at least 1/2 way full with lemon, lime, or orange peels. I then pour distilled white vinegar over the rinds and let it sit for a minimum of two weeks in the back of the cupboard under the kitchen sink.

(Tip: I write the date I set it aside on the lid so I know how long it's been there.) 

     When the two weeks is up, I simply strain out the rinds, and add equal parts water and citrus mixture to a reusable spray bottle. I did add lemon extract to my latest batch just because I had it on hand, but I did not really notice any difference from the batches that I did not add it to.                                                 

Mrs. J :)