Happy First Day of Fall! I know not everyone welcomes fall like I do; you know who you are, those of you who see fall as a harbinger of winter. Cold long Canadian winter. Now I am not a huge fan of winter. I enjoy it probably up until late January and then it starts to wear on me. Thankfully that is just  about the time the seed catalogues start to arrive; so sanity saved.

Fall, or autumn as one of my grade school teachers tried to drum into me, fall is my favourite season. It is the time when all our hard work on the homestead surrounds us, the jars of canned food and medicine, the freshly butchered chickens and pig in the freezer the root cellar brimming with squash, turnip, carrots, apples and potatoes. The weather is amazing, warm days and cool crisp evenings, the first aromas of woodsmoke in the air. Mother nature's beautiful colour display, snuggling into cozy sweaters, having time to think as the workload slows down to a mangable 70 hours a week.  Fall is time to sit back and enjoy your family friends, all your hard work and most importantly, the beauty surrounding you everywhere you turn.
















I think we should turn the first day of fall into Homesteading Day. Doesn't matter if your entire harvest is three bottles of jam in your closet! You are a homesteader at heart and you are well on your way simply because you have done something! There are many people out there who share your dream of the house / farm in the country  who haven't done much but dream: but you actually did something, You canned three bottles of jam, you took the time and money to purchase your supplies, you read up on how to make and safely can your jam, then you did it! That hot, humid Saturday while the other people took a drive in the country in their air conditioned cars dreaming about which property they will have "someday", you stayed home canning jam and becomming a homesteader.
So for you and everyone else who is living the homesteading life, Today is our Day! 
 
Join me in celebrating the first International Homesteading Day!

We will be celebrating by butchering 15 chickens, how will you celebrate?

It occurred to me today that while I have spoken often of parts of our plan for Hand-Forged Farm I have never really laid out the entire plan for you. Today you get the full vision!

We first and foremost are a working homestead / farm. We will continue to produce fresh healthy food for ourselves and the community. The structure for the market garden is being put in place this fall, so that we will begin selling produce starting in the spring of 2015. The first greenhouse will be completed late this fall. We will be offering a limited amount of CSA memberships next year and expanding as we bring the garden to full size the following year.

The garden also serves as a valuable teaching tool for those who want to learn the skills required to produce their own food. From WOOFER,s who stay for the season, or part of the season; to workshop participants who come for a weekend to learn a specific set of skills. There a few more plans that will revolve around the garden, but those details will need to wait for now.

The barn will grow also, to start with Gary wants to run 2 sows and a boar. We are on the hunt for a Tamworth gilt, he might also consider a Duroc. The pigs will continue to feed our family and local community. We will continue to sell weaner pigs but will also be raising more of our pork for sale. Gary is finally happy with the system he has worked out for growing sprouts as fodder and is now producing well over 100 lbs a day summer and winter. The animals are all doing very well on them and we are ready to expand. Keeping more pigs will also allow more hands on experience for those who want to work with pigs.

I want to build up the goat herd to six milking does, This will provide enough milk for our family's needs and my soap making. Again, the expansion will allow for more hands on workshops and teaching opportunities.

There are no concrete plans for cattle at the moment, but I have a feeling one or more of the boys may have plans in that area. This would be at least 3 years out right now.

Herbs are also an integral part of the plans. There is going to be a large herb garden which I will use for our medicinal herbs. I plan to use our homestead as a venue for herb walks and wellness retreats and workshops. We plan to bring in other teachers and leaders to give workshops; herbal weekends are a great place to start.

A new orchard of apples, pears, peaches and cherries is going to be planted next spring. Between the garden and the orchard, we will need a few more bee hives. I am planning at least 1 workshop next year for introductory beekeeping.

We have a food forest planned for an area close to the ridge line on the property, and I am working hard to bring a permaculture design course here in late next year or early the following year. Accommodations for WOOFERs round out the plans on the drawing board for now.

Whew!  When I write it all out it sounds almost impossible; but when I look back at what we have done in the past year I know we will bring it all together. It is what we have always wanted to do. We could just build up our property and become almost self sufficient, but we have always wanted to share our knowledge as well as learn from others. For us that is the only way to really become self sufficient... by being part of a self sufficient community.

Humans were not meant to function in isolation, a strong community of people with varying skills and abilities is the basis of any healthy society. We have, for the most part, lost sight of that fact. It is our intention to work with as many like minded people as possible to change that. The oft quoted "be the change you want to see", message is alive and well here at Hand - Forged Farm, and thank you for being along for the journey.

Well we are out of the kitchen.. sort of. Last night a mink breached the defenses of the chicken pen. Fortunately Gary and Reiley were outside and heard the ruckus so the mink was dispatched posthaste. The vermin did badly injure one of the meat birds so the guys have put the bird out of it's misery and I will share with you how to clean and prepare a chicken. This bird is still quite small for us so it will be going as a gift to a great neighbour and friend.

I shall spare you visuals of the dispatching part of the process, however I will show you the set up we use to dress chickens. We usually raise 60 - 80 chickens / year and we usually have 3 - 4 "chicken days". ( our family euphamism for kill days). We always have several roosters that hit the magic weight zone first so they fall into the first day, then the majority are done 2 or 3 weeks later with the last few stragglers a week or so after that. We raise big chickens, we prefer our birds to dress out at about 7 pounds. (Refer back to our four sons. )

Actually, just an economics of farm animals note, the cheapest weight you will put on any meat animal is the last 20 percent of the total weight. During the time after the frame is grown out, you will get the most bang for your feed dollars in terms of feed conversion to usable product. The trick is to do this without simply laying on fat. Part of this can be accomplished with genetics, heritage animals tend to put on less fat. (Although berkshire pigs will always lay on heavy back fat if you over feed them). Learning how to feed at this critical time can make the difference between profit and loss, but I will have more on this topic in the coming week.

So, here is our setup for doing chickens

 Usually this is set up in the barn as it is easier to clean up on a concrete floor, but you  work with what you have. It is much easier if you have at least cold running water at hand

As I said, we remove the heads and leave the birds in the cone until they have bled out. They are then dunked in a pail of HOT water.

This helps to loosen the feathers, especially the tail and wings.
The birds are then hung up at the plucking station

Reiley was quite excited to be plucking! In the past, as the youngest, he has been delegated to running hot water from the stove, bringing completed birds to me in the kitchen and cleaning up. With just Gary and Reiley here today he got a promotion!

You need to work quickly but carefully to avoid tearing the skin. A small bird like this can be done in a few minutes.

After the bird is plucked,  it is moved to the table and the legs and internal organs are removed. To remove the legs cut through the joints. To remove the  organs, make an incision just below the breast boneand cut down to the vent opening just above the tail. DO NOT make a deep cut. If you cut deeply you will nick or cut through the intestine and contaminate the bird. This is a mess you just don't need to deal with. If you do accidently nick the intestine, try and pull it out as gently as possible so you spill a minimum of fecal matter. After you have removed all the organs dunk the bird in clean hot water and rinse the inside thoroughly with hot water.

Once you have opened up the bird, reach into the cavity with two fingers going up under the breast bone, scoop out the organs. Small birds like this one are difficult to clean as there is not a lot of room to get your hand inside. You can purchase a rake the you can use to clean out the organs but we have always done this with our hands. If you withheld feed from the birds at least 12 hours before slaughter, the crops should be empty and easy to remove. If the crops are full they are likely to tear and then you have a bird full of partially digested food and stones,sticks or grass. It is difficult to wash off and just really slows down the whole process.

This is a good time to get rid of the little feathers that may have been missed.  You can remove the neck if you wish and the tail as well. I have the guys leave these in place as they provide flavour.

At this stage the birds are brought to me in the kitchen. I rinse the birds, remove any small feathers the boys have missed, pat dry and place in plastic bags for freezing. All of our birds are frozen whole, if I need them cut up I will do so before cooking. Just remember to remove the pea size glands in the neck, they can change the taste of your chicken, as they release bitter lymph fluid into the meat when cooking.

So that is how to dress a chicken. The procedure is exactly the same for a turkey. The turkey will require a little longer dunking in the hot water to loosen the feathers, but it won't take you long to guage the time needed.

It takes a little practice to get everything right, but like anything else the more you do, the better your skills. There are always a couple of birds that seem to tear, just roll with it. As long as I have good looking turkeys for the Thanksgiving and Christmas table I'm good. Even the slightly wounded birds taste so much better than anything you get in a store!

Hopefully this will inspire you to try dressing your own chickens, raising your own birds is great but if you can't dress them out it is not a self sufficient system. Have a great day everyone!

I thought it was time for a little update on this summer's projects. Remember these guys?

Well, they have grown a little...

Aren't they just too cute?  They are quite settled in on their little piece of the farm.

As I posted about 6 weeks ago, one of the major projects here this summer is building a road to allow us access to the back half of the property where our wood lot is. The guys have been hard at work moving fences and shifting things around so the pigs can start the "plowing" of the road. They finally finished and they moved the pigs onto the new road four days ago.
So back on June 24th, the area looked like this:

After four days of very happy rooting by the porcine division, our soon to be road looks like this:

Speaking of the pigs, Patches is due in less than a month, September 5th to be exact. She is in really good shape and having a grand old time rooting around in her new space...

As long as those three strands of barbed wire hold up we'll be in great shape.

The goats are also enjoying their digs this summer. Between playing on the stump and the rock and peering in to watch the chickens, days are very full indeed.

The knotweed battle has taken a decided turn in our favour. Gary has a new toy!

He has hit the big patch of knotweed a couple of times now and it seems to be working; apart from an awful smell and a patch of landscape that looks like a scene from Apocalypse Now. Anything has to be better than knotweed.

Everything else on the farm is incredibly green. Even though we thinned out a huge amount of weak, smaller trees There is still a great amount of shade cover and as predicted the undergrowth has grown up with the increase in sun.

The blue is the roof of the chicken hut, it is approximately 100 feet from the back of the house. The new road runs up just to the left of the hut.
We are about half way through the working season, aka summer. We are slightly behind where we thought we would be at this point, but all in all we are happy with how things are progressing. This comming week will be all hands to the wheel as Reiley and I will be away from the farm all the following week, August19th through the 23rd for the Digby County Exhibition.

Reiley is showing Ivan and Pepper on Tuesday afternoon / evening. Also, hopefully, on Wednesday for the championship classes. I will be judging the crafts and sewing categories for 4H on Wednesday, and Digby county 4H has hired me to be the barn manager for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. So if you are in the area please come down to the exhibition and see us and everything else. It is the 135th anniversary of this exhibition and we are looking forward to showing there. 

Have a great day everyone! Enjoy the super moon tonight, hopefully cloud won't hide it from us.

Yes today is chick day. While I went with every intention of just bringing home the 30 meat kings and 8 brown layers I had ordered, they had extra unclaimed chicks... so we have 60 meat kings and 8 brown layers.

As predicted, they are comfortably ensconced in the kitchen for the next day or two.

Also,  Gypsy's fascination with chicks continues. Gypsy is our spaniel mix rescue dog. We have had her for 7 years. The only thing we know about her is that she was found and taken to the S.P.C.A. She had been shot, and she still carries several pellets in her side.
Gypsy is not known for her friendly manner. She has, understandably, trust issues. She is much better than she was after we adopted her, but she is still prone to ... cranky days. But, she has a weakness. She has always been fascinated with chicks. Actually animal babies of all kinds but particularly chicks. She will sit beside the cage for days on end if we let her. She doesn't try to eat them, she doesn't chase them. She just sits and watches over them. By the time they hit a pound or so in size she could care less, but as long as they are babies she is fascinated.

As I said, mysterious, but adorable! Have a great day everybody!

Short post today, just an update on the chicken front
So here we have it, the new and improved hopefully mink proof, or at least mink resistant meat bird hut:

The hut is a wood frame with slab wood on the back half. The front is chicken wire, with 1/2 inch hardware cloth on top. There is mink wire attached to the bottom, and goes underground to discourage tunnelling. We hope. The top is a heavy duty tarp.  With the exception of the beefed up wire sides and the anti tunnelling wire this is the same set up we have used for meat birds for the last 4 years. It works well and if it ain't broke....

The birds arrive tomorrow, just 30 this time, given the weather forecast they will probably stay in the house for a couple of days. (See,  if you say it fast it just sounds normal).
 Prepare for cuteness pictures tomorrow as our spaniel LOVES chicks ! 
I  promise you will know what I mean tomorrow.  Have a great day everyone, and if you are in Nova Scotia.. enjoy the rain!

I was at a meeting Monday evening and I met a woman who, along with her son, daughter-in-law and two small grandchildren, recently moved to the area.  They have purchased a property and her son wants to homestead.
Like about half of the people we meet through our homestead and consulting business he has no background in farming. This lady commented that he was working probably harder than he ever had in his life trying to get everything done.
It is something we see a lot of. I wanted to address that age old question of "where do I start?"
Unless you have recently won the lottery, or you are going to gamble your entire life savings on your property, you most likely will not be purchasing the picture perfect homestead featured on the cover of the last country magazine you bought.
Lets face it, homesteads or hobby farms, are about living a lifestyle. People tend to want  a connection to the land, to know where their food comes from, and generally a slower pace of life. Although some may argue with me on the slower pace of life after 12 hours of chores and garden weeding when, just at dusk, the neighbour calls to politely inform me that my pigs are digging up her tulip bulbs and could I please come and catch them.
The biggest mistake we see people who are new to this life style making is the idea  that everything has to be done NOW.  That within a year of purchasing your property everything has to be in place. The gardens have to be immaculate, all the livestock penning and shelter has to be built and looking like something off the cover of chicken home and garden
These are the people who will burn out after year, they're just setting the goals way too high and in the process setting themselves up to fail.
The  truth is most of the good homestead are ones that are built slowly. You need to take the time to get to know your land, to see how the sun moves across your land throughout the entire year. Where the prevailing winds originate in summer and winter. Does that bottom land flood every spring or just in very heavy snow years?
You also  have to consider how you are going to use your property, are you going to build a 2 acre market garden, or only produce food for yourself? Do you plan to use tractors, draft animals or hand tillers?
When you buy an existing farm or homestead you're probably going to
inherit the concept that the person who had the land before you had. Sometimes
it's a great and sometimes tit's all wrong. Hopefully hopefully whoever built
the farm knew what they were doing. However more and more we are seeing people buying raw land, or a small acreage with just a house and possibly a garage or shed. There are drawbacks and advantages to both but you need to realize that it will take time to build. 
You need to have a plan. Not a drawn in stone plan, but before you start throwing time and money at building infrastructure you need a priorities list. You should also have a land use plan in mind, especially if you are planning on making income from your homestead.
Now I realize that if you are bringing animals with you, you need immediate shelter, (been there done that). But that does not mean that you lay out $5000 for lumber and build a barn the first month. You need to see where you are going.

First: What do you want to do? Write it down. Be specific. Be realistic. We have 2 sayings here; they are based on over 25 years of experience.
# 1 is  first you get good, then you get big. (# 2 is garbage in - garbage out but we will deal with that another day.)
Start small, figure out the bugs in your systems. For example: you want to raise chickens for your own food, instead of ordering 65 chickens for your first run, order 10 or 15 hopefully on the first order date of the season. You will know within a couple of weeks if there are glaring problems with your set up. You may build a fabulous chicken co-op, but then come home the first day the chickens have been outside to discover a hawk has taken some of your birds. Better to find out you have a weasel or feral mink with 10 birds vs. 60.
The same applies to gardens, test your soil. Even if it is only a basic ph and soil structure test. It is a lot easier to augment your soil before a crop is in the ground than after.
Second: plan it out. Get out the graph paper or software. Note the location of buildings, large trees, the driveway. Mark the compass points. Does the plan work. Make use of the zoning principles in permaculture. Zone one areas are places you utilize everyday, usually more than once a day. Take seasonal differences into consideration. The first big snowfall is not the time to discover that the most logical place to pile snow is now covered by your young fruit orchard. Think about leaf fall, access to buildings and water movement. If you are going to be hauling several hundred kilos of feed a month you probably want fairly convenient access to your feed storage, same with hay. That leisurely stroll up the path to the barn in summer becomes a treacherous ice field trek in January. Talk to your neighbours. They can tell you that the wonderful spot you have for your garden was where the former owner parked the school bus for 20 years.
I'm going to wrap this up  for today as I have already blathered on way longer than I had intended. That's what happens when you are passionate about something; and I am very passionate about helping people establish their homesteads. I want every person who dreams of having this lifestyle to be enabled to succeed. I firmly believe that small farms, homesteads, self sufficient suburbanites, what ever you want to call them are imperative to feeding the country. I also know that planning and patience are the best way to make sure that each one is a success. Hopefully I have given you lots to think about, for those of you just starting out don't be discouraged that you are not where you thought you would be.  First you get good. Then you get big.