What's Going On Around Here

Ok, so I'm soooo far behind in my posting, that I'm going to do a picture post of what's going on.

In late March we went to san Antonio for a conference and enjoyed some 80 degree weather while we still had snow on the ground.  I came home April 1 to "break up"

The snow melted fairly quickly, but green up still didn't happen until mid May

Our older chickens are enjoying being out of their coop all day

Last weekend our Bronze Turkeys enjoyed moving from the garage to outdoors

We have a few replacement layers still in the garage, we have 4 Ameraucana and 2 Delaware.  Ameraucana have been our best layers all winter, we have never grown Delaware before.  We didn't hatch any, and we are not doing any chickens for meat this year.  (it refuses to quit writing in italics!)

The Rhubarb is coming up, no sign of the strawberries, apparently they didn't enjoy or -50 this winter.

The starts are being hardened off outdoors.  This could have happened much earlier and they should be in the ground already, but my life has been taken over by cupcakes!!!

Yep Wild Rose Cupcakes is still selling cupcakes at the Tanana Valley Farmers Market. 

The tomatoes did get moved out a couple weeks ago.  We did put some heating coils under the soil to keep it a bit warmer in there, with the intention of getting them out early May, but in reality we didn't need them because they didn't get moved out until mid May and it was plenty warm then.   They look great mostly because they were purchased from a greenhouse.  Mine managed to all die again this year after transplanting the first time.  I don't get it!

Pollinating with an electric toothbrush. 

Well that's a very quick update of the past 2 months!  This weekend our goal is to get the garden beds planted.

Recycled Mittens, My Craft Obsession, and Everything Else

We had a nice Thanksgiving and family time.  I hope that all of you who celebrate did too.  Ok, ok, I do realize it's now December and Thanksgiving is long past, which means I'm again behind in my blogging.  I managed to not take a single picture of the food ( I know really? As I blog about, you know, food...).  My update on the brine.  I liked the Alton Brown recipe better than the one that I tried previously.  I think I overcooked the turkey a bit, and lost some of the juiciness, it was still really good and I think I'll try that brine again.  Although I think I read on a blog about another one that uses a lot more sugar, twice as much sugar as salt.  Maybe I'll give that one a try next....

Photo Credit

I went to Anchorage for a few days for a conference.  Trips to Anchorage or "outside" meaning out of Alaska, usually involve shopping.  As we have exactly one "mall" which is by no stretch of the imagination an actual mall, we call it a "hall". I caught some great sales and managed to come with an almost empty suitcase and leave with a full one.  One of the speakers at the conference, talked about the healing properties of wild berries.  It was very interesting, and I was hoping to make a post on that, but I'll have to do it another time because I haven't been able to access the slides again.

Two weeks ago we were -40 degrees, a lot changes in a couple weeks, we've had a temperature swing of about 80 degrees.  Sunday we warmed up to over 40+ and got freezing rain.  I think we are the only place that closes school for rain, but never for snow!  We are back to normal now and are back down 1 degree.  I like it to warm up, but never enough to rain, it just causes a mess!

I thought things would settle down in the winter and I would have more time.  Yep that hasn't really happened.  My crafting obsession resurfaces during the dark, cold winter days, and as usual I have several projects going at a time.  

My husband fixed my sagging craft cabinet, and put the nice fabric to dress it up too.

Crochet baby blanket for my new niece

The weekend after Thanksgiving I took a recycled wool mitten class.

Reverse side

 The directions for felting the wool and making the mittens can be found at this web site: studio5 recycled mitten pattern and instructions. 
There is a printable pattern available on the web site.  The class we took found the size a bit small for some women, it works well for teens and smaller women.  The pattern I used was increased on a printer to 110%.

Well that's whats going on around here.  What winter crafts are you all working on?

Brining Your Thanksgiving Turkey

Photo Credit

Do any of you out there brine your turkeys?  Brining is supposed to improve flavor, and make a more juicy and tender bird.  Most store bought turkeys are "flavor injected" so brining them may become too salty.  I honestly never considered brining before we started growing our own turkeys, which we've done for two years now.  

It is a really simple process that basically involves a turkey, salty water, added flavorings and a large pot or bucket to soak the turkey in.  The past two years I used a recipe that brined in spices and apple cider, but was underwhelmed with the results and really couldn't tell the difference. 

Photo Credit

After searching the web, and finding several positive references to Alton Brown's Good Eats Roast Turkey (Click on the link to get the recipe)  I've decided I'm going to give this one a try and I'll keep you posted with the results.  It loooove stuffing cooked in the bird, so I'll have to change the roasting directions because of this.   

Anyone out there have a tried and true brining recipe?

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

Well I obviously wasn't blogging.  I didn’t actually plan to take a blogging break, but somehow I just never got around to getting one done.   I thought I’d catch you up on what I did for my summer vacation, since it is drawing to an end and I’m back to work on Monday.

We butchered 3 of our 5 bronze turkeys, 2 seemed smaller so we are growing them a bit longer.  Last year we also raised them, but being our first year we couldn’t tell how big they were, when we finally butchered them, they weighed 28-32# each.  Yikes!  I wish I could say exactly how old they are, but we just can’t remember when we finally got them.  I believe they are less than 12 weeks old though.  The 3 we butchered were 20# each, which is perfect sized to me.  Raising them organically it cost us $50 each.  Not cheap for sure, but far cheaper than purchasing them, they were selling here smaller than 20# and were $125.

A fox or dog got into our henhouse, and we lost somewhere around 15 birds which was very disappointing.  We bought an electric fence controller to put around the pen, whatever it was just went over the top.  We also butchered 2 of our Barred Rock/mix roosters we were raising for meat.  I don’t have pictures because I wasn’t home when my husband did it.  They weighed about 2.5# each at 12 weeks.   They were just put into the freezer, I haven’t tried them yet.  The rest just seemed too small still, so we are growing them another couple weeks or so.

I picked more blueberries, I now have 7 gallons in my freezer from this year.  The season is pretty much over, they were getting too soft, if I get any more, it will be taking a trip out of town to a higher elevation to pick where the berries ripen behind mine.  I’m happy with 7 gallons though.

We went to the fair yesterday:

We caught it on a wonderful and sunny day, when the fair comes it usually rains all week.  I love the fair, I don’t bother with the rides, and I really don’t go just for the food, although I ate and ate (more on that later).  I go for the agriculture, animals and booths.  

In the land of the midnight sun, we can grow some REALLY big cabbages

I dreamed of having a cow someday

Oh and a pig

Not sure I want sheep, but these girls are sure rocking their awesome coats

Oh I do, I do, I do want a couple of these.  Pleeeaaase!

I picked up some helpful literature from the Cooperative Extention, canning and smoking fish, Highbush cranberries, and Fireweed, I didn't pick up the canning Walrus handout, but found it interesting.  Bet your fair doesn't have one of those?

Where but the fair can you get cool hair extentions and a neon orange hat?

Oh, and the food, I ate Gyros, Kettle Corn, a beer in the beer tent (Hey my step dad's band Grumy Old Men was playing, so I had to you see?)

Oh yeah, and one of these, the best cream puff ever! Yep did I mention today my diet starts.....

I got a lot done, but still have a few things left on my to do list.  My washer belt broke, so until the appliance store opens on Monday, no laundry will be done.  My office is still a disaster and I would like to work on that today.  We haven’t started any wood hauling at all, which is driving my husband crazy (because we need 6 cords before winter) so this week I promised we would get some done, I have some extra days off over next weekend and he's made me promise at least 2 days, maybe 3.  Ugh...  The rosehips and high bush cranberries are ready for picking too.  No matter how much time I have off, there is always more to do....

How does my garden grow?

Sorry about my lack of posting this week, I've been a bit under the weather.  I decided to post an update on how the garden, chickens and turkeys are doing.  Please excuse the poor picture quality, my digital camera died and I'm down to just my iphone.

So far the greenhouse cucumbers look much better than last year.  The milk jugs didn't do much to keep it warmer, but they seem to work quite well at keeping it cooler on the really hot days.

My Maintoba tomato has some buds!  They seem to have recovered nicely.

The jalapenos in the cold frame are doing well, and we have buds and a few peppers growing

The sungold snacking tomatoes I have in the outdoor pot are also doing much better and have a couple buds.

The rhubarb is growing well, one of my few perennial fruits.

I have some yellow summer squash going, zucchini too, but the picture was blurry.

A patty pan squash too, my first time growing these.

The broccoli is growing too, not big enough to form any heads yet though

The greens have taken off finally.

The cabbage too.

Eagerly awaiting the peas to start flowering.  Got them nicely weeded and mulched with some straw.

The potatoes are up and hilled.

The turkeys are getting big, and come begging at the fence for chickweed snacks as much as the chickens do!

The chickens enjoying their summertime treats.

Bailey our puppy is getting big.

Ok so she's not a garden, chicken or turkey, but she is stinkin' cute, and so busy, she makes our hyper springer appear calm.

 Well that's what's going on in my garden and around our place this week.  I have a front flowerbed to weed and to be terraced, and a flowerbed around a tree in the backyard that needs extreme help.  If I make headway on those I'll post some pics, bad, grainy iphone pics, but hey they'll be pics.

This weekend on the farm - What a difference a week makes!

 

The snow for the most part is gone from the yard, now just waiting for green up!

 

The chickens are enjoying full use of their yards digging and rolling around in the dirt.  

 

The snow is off of the garden, although it is still too swampy and wet to get around in there.  We are experimenting with different covers or not to see if it makes a difference in the temperature.  This coming weekend I think the ground will be dry enough that I can put some of the hardiest seeds under the hoop house.

  

My milk jug experiment doesn't seem to be working much.  It is getting up to the 70's in there, but still down to 35 at night which is basically how cold it is outside.  So I'm not sure I'll get plants out there early.  

 

The indoor plants are still growing well.  I repotted some of the flowers, and moved some tomatoes into 6" pots.  The peppers and dill have gotten so tall they are up into the lights and I'm going to have to move the shelves around to make more room.

 

The Bronze turkeys are growing fast.  We REALLY need to get them off the paper and onto the litter below.  I'm just too short to reach into the box, so DH will have to do it.

 

The chicks are doing well.  They are apparently camera shy because they immediately ran behind their feeder and hid.  They are starting to get feathers on their wings.  

We have 60 eggs in the incubator.  Wednesday will be the first week.  Thursday evening we will candle them for the first time and see how many are developing.