Thankful for Rain!

My poor little mint and lavender starts were suffering in the hot sun, despite my occasional watering under Tim's concerned watch (if the ground is THIS dry, how much water is left in our aquifer?) The potatoes we planted before leaving for fishing looked as if they hadn't grown an inch since I saw them last and several plants were missing - wilted away to nothing. Hopefully the thunder and lightning means a few days of good rain to bring everything back to life. The goats and chickens were looking desolate in their dry, dead yard.

Speaking of chickens, chicken butchering is starting to seem like a normal activity around here, so much so that I think I didn't even mention it! This was our third round of juvenile rooster elimination, and we've learned a few lessons along the way.

1. Neighbors like you better when you kill all the squawking young roosters and I get to sleep in past 6am! It's great to only have one.
2. Being sneaky in the barn helps: I slipped in just after the chickens went to bed, before it was so dark I'd need a flashlight to see or a gun to fight off the rats, and quietly stood in the hen house waiting for the young roosters to ignore me and go back to sleep. To catch them, I put my hands on their backs and wings and stood still like that for a minute before picking them up. This way they didn't scream and flap about waking everyone else up. They went very quietly.
3. Feed: My process involves separating the death-row chickens from the rest of the flock 24 hours in advance and locking them in the small sandy run with only water to clear out their digestive tracts. It's a good idea but it means that a) I have to really commit to killing them 24 hours before I do it, with no backing out because we are tired; and b) I have to get the whole rest of the flock out of their house and around to the yard in the morning, then reverse the process at night. Last time there was a lot of catching and chasing and herding and frustration and a few bent feathers. This time I made a little trail of feed going out the hen house door and around to the gate (locked Tilly inside the house away from the action), through two sets of gates and into their big yard. After laying the trail with a big pile of food at the end (better lock up the goats somewhere away from that too!) I stood back and in about 10 minutes, the big red rooster led his girls along the trail, no problem. In reverse worked just as well. It helps that I was withholding food from them inside their house to try to encourage the rats to relocate, thus creating very hungry chickens.
4. Prepare: The night of the butchering, I neglected to really make sure we were set up well in advance. It turns out the painting crew over the summer removed some of my butchering supplies and I got a little desperate racing around finding the missing parts in time to hopefully be done by midnight and in bed sleeping soon after. Now our deck is beautifully painted and clean AND set up for butchering with things like a leg loop hanging from the beam for plucking and hooks around for hanging lights and other tools. The all important head-bucket-with-lid was located and we were ready to go before it was all the way dark (see above about rats and holding flashlights in my mouth).
5. Wait until they are all the way dead: Catching the roosters for the final time went like I said above. In the dark I held their backs and wings for a moment before picking them up. Sleepy eyed, they hardly made a cluck. Up at our butchering station I tightly swaddled the rooster in a black towel (hides bloodstains), and tucked him under my arm or between my knees and slit his throat over the main artery. The first two times I broke their necks and chopped off their heads a bit prematurely, this time I waited for that final shutter of life leaving their bodies, then removed their heads. As a result, the process was that much calmer, no fighting, no perceivable pain or discomfort, just very sleepy roosters transforming into dinner.
6. Control the feathers: This time around, we were much more prepared for the pile of sticky, wet feathers we accrue. Instead of having a deflated garbage bag near-ish and feathers everywhere, we lined our large 55-gallon curb-side-sized garbage can with an equally large bag and were much more successful at catching all those feathers. 
7. Package whole: In an effort to expedite the process as well as use the meat better, we elected to leave all the chickens whole this time around. Once all five were plucked and gutted and rinsed we brought them into the house, gave them one more rinse and scrub, and Put the whole bird into an 11" vacuum seal bag - they fit! With their wings and drumsticks tucked in tight to their bodies, they look just like commercial chickens, ready to be thawed, soaked in a sugar-salt-herb brine, rubbed with butter and baked. Delicious! 

In other chicken news, I discovered the secret of the missing eggs. I have 20 hens and was only getting about 6 eggs a day - suspicious. Before I left I was getting 10 eggs a day and now there are three more girls that should be starting to lay. Up in the hay loft above the goats, I pulled the tarp off the bales just to be sure, and lo, there were all the eggs. About 60 eggs ranging from very rotten to a hen mid laying when I interrupted. My neighbor, Linda offered to take all the eggs and mash them with garlic and onion for her own special deer repellent. 

On the goat front, I have a nice new bit of fencing up for them, but despite the shock they keep slipping through! They'll do alright staying in their yard and grazing the tall grasses until they see a person walk by and then their fear of the electric fence dissipates as they go running for affection. It's nearly time to breed again, and then they can start being useful and contributing members of the farm instead of just taunting tails for Tilly to bite at.

The goats had another admirer this week. Our friend from middle school and high school came down from Alaska on a work trip and took a day off to see us. Emily Thorpe, now Emily Bordelon, is expecting her first baby in another 6 months and we had a great time catching up and showing off the farm after so many years! We really need to work on our tour guide routine before she comes back as we fell a little flat on our presentation of the island, "um... there's a bowling ally in Oak Harbor, that's like 45 minutes from here, um... there... is... a market! on Saturdays! that's fun... but not today... You wanna go see the wild show bunnies at the fair grounds?" We can do better.

Having a visitor was a nice relief from my farm chores for the week: removing all the ivy from 5 trees and installing a new kitchen sink.

Nearly more ivy than tree it would seem. Last year's test tree seemed to be a success with my method of removing all the ivy as high as I could reach and hoping the rest would die and fall off - it did and hopefully these ones will too 

The kitchen sink project was an educational opportunity, proving myself as a strong independent woman and all. What probably would have taken a plumber only a couple hours took me three days with daily phone calls to Dad and sending labeled photographs to explain why I couldn't just unscrew the parts. But if we would have called a plumber, the plumber wouldn't have wiped out all the spiders and dust and mold and painted the inside of the sink cabinet to make it a usable and relatively pleasant space. I am very proud of my beautiful new sink. Hopefully it won't even leak!

While I was doing all that, Tim has been working on his own ATF approved projects; brewing beer and trading out foreign for domestic parts. He even brought me a baby hop plant to add to our garden.

Now it is time for Tilly and I to go to Search and Rescue practice while Tim monitors his brewing and waits for Joe and Roni to come by for the weekend.