Living in a Fall Foliage Calendar

In October, the landscape changes drastically around here.  It's exciting because of the fall colors but we know that only 30 days from now the leave will all be gone and the skies will be grey as winter starts to take its grip on us.  But until then, every day and every errand we make is just like driving through the pages of a Fall Foliage Calendar!  On every town road, and around every corner, we are blasted with color!   This is one of the reasons we like living in New England..

Looking down our driveway from the garage.

Looking up the driveway from the road

Looking South down the road

Looking North on the road towards town

As the colors get more vivid and the days get shorter, I will post more pictures.

Making Tomato Sauce

When the plum tomatoes are ripe, its time to make tomato sauce.  We have tried numerous different ways to actually get from the whole tomato to the final product of the actual thick tomato sauce.  Since I like technology, we opted for the fastest way using the least manual labor.  We have been using this method for about 25 years now.

First we pick all the ripe tomatoes.  This year we used an heirloom variety call Amish Plum Tomato.  They are nice and plump and also good in salads.  We also like the size of the plum tomato becuse the fit into the juicer nicely.

Tub of Tomatoes

 First we take all the tomatoes, pull off the green stem and float them in a sink full of cold water to clean them.  Removing the green stems is optional, sometime we sometimes we do other times we don't.  It doesn't seem to make a difference. If we have a huge amount to do, its easier to keep them on as it cuts down the steps and the amount of time required.

We then set up our 40 year old Champion Juicer with the screen attachment.  When we juice the tomatoes, the juice falls through the screen and the seeds and skin get pushed out as waste.  We save this waste for later.

Our 40 Year Old Champion Juicer

We push the tomaotes, one by one through the juicer.  You can see this on this youtube video I posted.

After all the tomatoes are done,  we end up sauce and a pile of seed & skin.

Sauce from the juicer

Seeds and Skin as waste from the Juicer

Now we take the seeds and skin and quicky run them through a hand food mill to "squeeze" out the last bit of tomato goodness from them.  After once through the hand food mill, we a left with just a small amount of seeds and skin.

Compare this to the previous picture to see the result of the food milling process

 Now we cook the pots of reduce the amount of water in the juice to create a nice thick sauce.  These two pots cook down to one pot of thick sauce.

Two pots of sauce will reduce to one pot after cooking

When all done, we let the sauce cool and pour into zip lock bags for freezing.  We used to season it and  make spaghetti sauce, but now we save the seasoning for when we actually need it.  We also use as is with no spices for homemade pizza.  I will update this entry when I make a pizza with this sauce.

This entire process, from tomato to two pots of sauce took about 1/2 hour. The reducing the watery sauce to a nice consistency takes a little longer, but it just sits on the stove cook while we do other things around the house.

The Peeps Have Arrived!

Today the new pullets (baby hens) arrived in the mail.  We get them from Reich's Poultry Farm in Marrieta, PA.  have gotten them there for years and always have had good results.  After the Post office called, and I picked up the chicks, I saw this fox in our front yard eating the plums on the ground. He looked really skinny and scrawny.  Not a good sign for the baby chicks.  We will have to be very vigilant.  No foxes in the hen house for us!

Red Fox in our Front Yard

The coop was all ready for the chicks, so we took them out of the box one-by-one and showed each one where the water is.  Hope they all learned today's lesson!

The box of chicks from the Post Office

The traveling compartments

A cute little peep!

Settling In!

Blueberry Picking Time

Today we took a ride out to Agway to get some things for the garden.  On our way back we stopped at Goerge Hill Orchards to see if it was time for picking blueberries.  Well we were in luck, today was the first day for picking and the trees were loaded!

It didn't take us long to pick 6 pints, but it was hot.  They were priced at $2.50 a pint.  When we got home we discovered that a pint weighs 1 pound.  We will investigate if there is a cheaper place.

Here's what we picked today

Butchering Time!

Today we started butchering the chickens. Just the ones we put in death row last night.  The process goes as follows:

Step 1: Get two chickens from death row and place in the killing cones, head first so that their heads stick out the bottom.  Grab their head and make two slits right below their ears (above their ears because they are upside down).  This will sever the two main arteries and they will bleed out.

Me and two chickens bleeding out in the cones.

Step 2:  After they have bled out, we scald them in 142-152 degree water to loosen their feathers. Any warmer and the skin and fat will begin to cook, any cooler and the feathers won't get loose.  When the feathers come out without any effort (usually around 1 minute) they are ready for the plucker.

Getting ready to dunk them in the scalder

Chickens in the scalder

Step 3:  When the feathers come out easily, place them in the chicken plucker.  With the hose running, turn on the chicken plucker and hose the chickens down as they spin.  In 30 seconds they will all plucked.

The chicken plucker ready for action

Click on the video below to see the plucker in action.

Step 4: After they have been plucked, we bring them over to our stainless steel table to remove the innards.

Our butchering table

Step 5:  After they are all cleaned out, we place them in a cooler filled with cold water to start the cooling down process.  After we finished all 10 for today, we bag them in grocery bags and put them in our refrigerator overnight to allow them to cool down and for the rigor mortis process to set in before freezing.  They have to rest for a day or else they will not be as tasty.

Today's work

Closeup of chickens

Tomorrow we will do 10 more.  This is all the room we have in our refrigerator each day for chickens.  If we had another fridge, like we used to have in the garage, we could do more in one shot. Oh well, tomorrow's another day.

Time to Butcher the Chickens!

Tomorrow the chickens will be eight weeks old.  Time to get them butchered.  Yesterday, one died from an apparent heart attack, it weighed 6 1/2 pounds, a good weight.  Today we were waiting for our friends to return our chicken plucker and it arrived , so tomorrow we can begin.

We captured 10 chickens and placed them in "death row" so they won't eat or drink anything for at least 12 hours to clean out their insides (intestines, crop, etc).

10 chickens on "death Row"

We also got the butchering area ready for the chicken cleaning. This consists of: the killing cones, the turkey fryers used with 142 degree water to prep the chickens for plucking, the chicken plucker and the stainless steel table.

Our Chicken Plucker ready for Action

The killing cones will be nailed up between two trees

We still have all the aprons, gloves, water thermometers, knives , etc from the last time we did this almost 3 years ago.  So we are all set for tomorrow. We plan to start with only 10 to see how tired we get and how long it takes us.  If the weather hold we should be done by the end of the week.

Landscaping Work

Been trying to get our gardens back in shape after a year of neglect.  Its starting to look good.

Taken on April 13, 2013

Today May 24, 2013

Big difference a month of growth and hard work transplanting makes. The tractor in the background is up on jacks being repaired.  Some problem with the front end.  You can see what I am doing on it at skutel.blogspot.com.  I just started and trying to find out how to take the front knuckle apart.

A beautiful iris blossomed today

The patio and perennial garden

The vegetable garden is in, I will take pictures when it stops raining.  Hope everything survives the deluge!

Meat Birds at 5 Weeks

The meat bird are getting big & juicy. 5 weeks old now.  The fox is still hanging around so we may keep them in the coop & yard rather than putting them in the tractors.

"I know I am going to be dinner someday"

They are eating so much now that we can't keep enough bags of food on hand. Seems like we are always making a trip to the grain store.  Can't wait till they are done!

I Think It Really Might Be Spring!

Its amazing what a difference a few months make.

The Fire Pit in the Snow

Same Picture Today

Everything is finally turning green and a few of the flowers are starting to bloom.

The First Iris in our garden

Ground cover between the patio & deck

May is a magical month where everything seems to come alive.  It a completely different world between May 1 and Memorial  Day.  This is New England where the scenery is constantly changing. 

Chicken Movies

I thought that I would post a few movies of the chicks in the coop. They are fun to watch.

Chicks: Two Weeks and Getting Bigger

The chicks are getting big really fast!  I changed out the little peep feeder for the large feeders that they will be using when they are place outside.  I also hooked up the Plasson Bell waterer, they will also use these outside.

Large Feeders & Bell Waterer

I opened up the door to the outside run to see if they could be coerced to go outside. No luck yet!

I am always amazed at how fast they grow, in just two weeks they have a lot of wing feathers already.

Almost fully developed wing feathers

Stay tuned for next weeks update.

The Peeps, One Week Later

It has been cold here at night so the chicks stay huddled together under the heat lamps to stay warm. A few mornings ago we lost two of the chicks, either by trampling or cold.  The rest seem healthy and are getting fatter.  They are also getting their first set of fathers.  In a few weeks they will be they will be getting so fat that their feather growth cannot keep up with them and there will be many bald spots.  I will post more picture to show this later.

Huddled together to keep warm

The first real feathers appear

Time for breakfast in the coop

The Peeps Arrive

Got a call today from the PO at noon to come get my chicks.  I was just about to go there anyway to mail some packages, good timing. Picked them up and they all survived.  After getting the water ready, I took them one-by-one from the box, showed it where the water was and placed each of them in its new home.  So cute, but we can't get too attached as they will be dinner in 8 weeks.

The Priority Mailing box with chicks inside

50 little peeps inside the box

The peeps eating

The peeps drinking

The new home until they get bigger

They will be kept here in the coop until they get big enough to put outside into the chicken tractors.

Getting Ready for Spring

The snow is almost gone. I think there is still a small pile of dirt covered snow at the end of the driveway, but its good enough.  Next week we will be getting our batch of 50 chickens to raise as meat birds. The coop has already been cleaned out and it ready with the heat lamps, etc.  The chicken tractors are ready in the front field for when the chicks get too big for the coop.

The inside of the coop ready for the little chicks

We also have already started some seedlings under lights to get a jump start on the outdoor planting.  This works out well and the seedlings are thriving under the 24 hour lighting in a big plastic storage tub..

Cilantro, peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers

The critters are also out, we will have to be very vigilant when the chicks arrive to protect them from this red fox that has been wandering about our backyard.

The backyard fox

Its nice to have spring back even though some days is seem like winter has never left!  Warm weather soon.