Category: Tools - Page 15 - Tiny Farm Blog

Second snow, 2009

19 Apr 20221 Dec 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Around 8 am, just getting light, and it’s the second snow that’s sticking around for a while. Here, I’m standing in a weedy area right beside the barn, looking south-west over the south-facing slope, with the chickenhouse just out of sight to the right. (That’s a so-far unidentified piece of antique iron farm gear with wheels, sticking up on the left.)

Winter isn’t coming in as hard and early as it has in the last couple of years, the temperature is supposed to stay above zero for the next few days at least. We shall see!

Every year, the feeling on first seeing veggie production land disappearing under snow I find kinda cool and interesting. It’s not really sad or anything like that, but there’s definitely an “it’s really over now”, wiped-out thought-sensation-emotion thing going on. When you’re growing stuff, the snow and the cold really send a message. This is obvious, but still…worth noting. :)

Yes, carrots!

5 Dec 20095 Oct 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Just-rinsed carrots in the soft light of an overcast day: beautiful every time! Some veggies look particularly good without trying… These are freshly pulled Nelson, at a pretty fair size but not yet fully mature, from our fourth planting of the season. Every year so far, I’ve put in at least four, sometimes five plantings in succession, and we rarely see really fat, full-sized carrots. This has worked well for CSA and farmers’ market: our carrots are freshly harvested every week, never from storage, and at a versatile size, always perfect for eating raw and usually big enough for convenient cooking as well. Today’s haul, bundled and laid out for rinsing on the long screen table, will be heading into CSA share bags in just a minute, for pick-up this afternoon…

Harvest board revisited

16 Nov 20234 Sep 2009 by Mike (tfb)

As the afternoon shadows get longer, Michelle checks out the harvest board to see what’s left to do for tomorrow’s farmers’ market. This same whiteboard is now in its third season of service, a little worse for the wear, with the surface no longer coming clean, and one edge of the frame fallen off (it’s lying there, right behind, waiting for repair), but fully functional. As long as I remember to keep it out of the rain and too much sun, it could have a few years in it yet. And I’ve grown to really like it. The shiny WHITENESS is a little glaring and kinda office-like—I considered switching to a chalkboard—but the printing stands out so well… It makes things clear, which is always good!

Chickens, frozen

3 Feb 202230 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

There they are: 38 newly processed chickens, freezing solid in the chest freezer (39 minus the one we took to roast fresh). It’s the last stop before the table on what was a pretty fine meat bird run.

Like everything else on the tiny farm (and in life in general!), when you get down to freezing chickens, there are the details. What I noticed this year is the amount time it takes to actually freeze chickens solid. This wasn’t quite as apparent last year, when we started with under 20 processed birds. Here, checking out the new freezer’s manual, I loosely followed the advice against freezing too much at once. I put in half, around 20 chickens, for a few hours, then added the rest. I’ve also been rotating them—they freeze faster when they’re exposed—but after a day, they’re not all rock hard.

I have it in mind that the faster you freeze stuff, the better it is when you thaw it out: firmer, not mushy. Something about smaller ice crystals doing less cellular damage. Sounds plausible to me!

Luckily, the chickens came heavily pre-chilled from the processing house. Processing your own in any sort of quantity, I imagine you need a fair bit of refrigerator space to cool them down, or a walk-in cooler, or lots of chest freezers. Another thing to look into for…the future!

Of course, the whole freezing thing is another puzzle. It’s quick and easy, and works really well for all kinds of food. Newer chest freezers seem quite energy efficient: this 15 cu ft one uses 400 kWh a year, which is like keeping a 60W lightbulb on for 9 months (at current electricity rates around here, that’s about $50). Doesn’t sound so bad, and there’s room for lots more in there. Still, we’re trusting a lot to yet another plug…

FINALLY, there’s the sticker, another fine feature of commercially-processed chicken. The meat is Ontario government-inspected (a provincial inspector is always on-site, that’s the law), which is indicated by a little logo on the label. Plus you get the date, weight down to two decimal places of precision, AND a price-per-pound of your choice. I picked $4. These birds are for our own use—not for sale—but it’s always fun pulling out an EXPENSIVE farm chicken for dinner, as long as it’s priced kinda within reason…

Chickens to meat

19 Apr 202229 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

The White Rock Cornish X meat birds are now…meat! Today was to-the-processing-house day. Up at 5:15 a.m. to get them rounded up for the trip. And it seemed to be a pleasant one for them. They arrived looking laid-back and content after a breezy 35-minute drive. This was gonna end up their “one bad day,” but so far, so chill.

To save an hour plus round-trip drive to pick up cages from the processor, we decided to load ’em directly in the trailer. The original idea was to cover it with a tarp, but I waited till the last minute (this morning at dawn) to fit it, and there was no easy way to get the tarp secure. So, a last-minute solution that turned out great: snow fencing and wire.

Three sections were cut from a roll, overlapped, and fastened with twists of light-gauge electric fence wire. Really quick, secure, easy. Perfect! At the processor, I helped hand off the birds right through the slaughterhouse door. And that was it: back at 5:30 p.m. for the pick-up.

The trip was smooth, but the end was still a little impersonal: in one processor house door, out the other. I hope to fill in that last killing step soon.

So there we are, 39 free-ranged chickens, after what seemed to be a happy, active, fast-growing, 11-week life, are now government-inspected, weighed (average about 7lbs/3kg), packed in plastic, and pre-chilled for the freezer. This seems pretty close to sane meat production. Chicken dinner!

Weighing chickens

25 Apr 202214 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Booked a chicken processing date today: slaughterhouse day is July 29. They’ve been looking good all along, but now the White Rocks seem mighty…tasty. I keep remembering one of them hurrying by with a long worm trailing from his beak, then gulping it down. The last batch got nothing but feed. These guys have foraged for a varied diet, literally free-ranging (no fence!) for most of their lives. Feed plus bugs, plants, and whatnot. Should be a delicious combo.

On this, only my second flock of meat birds, I’ve noticed a new feeling for food animals. The first round was a novelty and a learning experience, now, it’s a comfortable routine. I observe the chickens with appreciation. I like them. I talk to them (although, not about much), hang out with them when I have time. I size them up as soon-to-be FOOD as I look out for their comfort, well-being and cheerfulness every day. There’s no pet-based sentimentality, instead I am grateful. The I-raise-you-then-eat-you feeling may sound harsh, but it feels…natural.

Weighed a few for the first time today, using a hanging scale and a trug (flexible plastic utility bucket). This can-do set-up works fine for spot checks. With the handles pulled together, the top of the trug is pretty well closed, so the chicken inside tends to sit still for a while before starting to look around…

At 9 weeks, most of them are around 7-8 lbs (3.6 kg). About 6-8 of the 39, like the one in the pic, are a little smaller. They’re around 6 lbs (if you’re checking the scale in the pic, the outer number is kgs, inner is lbs, and the trug = 2 lbs). All things considered, that seems good! According to the hatchery catalog, the White Rock average is 6.3 lbs (2.7 kg) at 7 weeks. I assume that’s with confinement and unlimited feed. These guys are out and about, exercising, and I let the feeders empty for 4-5 hours every day. The lighter weight seems to make sense. A couple more weeks and they should be White-Rock-plump, still healthy and happy, and…supertasty!

Carrot-burlap method gets a twist

19 Dec 202110 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Here’s one of the more extreme displays of crazily labor-intensive tiny farming technique. Andie surveys our work, the result of deciding to try landscape fabric in place of burlap to help carrot seed germination. It’s actually a double experiment, because one of the beds is green onions.

The burlap method has been the way to start carrots around here for the last two seasons: tried and true. The main purpose is to preserve moisture in the seed drills, and the increase in heat helps as well.

After a good run, the first round of burlap expired, and I couldn’t find rolls of it in time for this season (I know it’s out there, somewhere). But, I spotted this gear, landscape fabric, a porous plastic mulch used to permanently suppress weeds in…landscaping. It’s light, and just wide enough (3’/30 cm) to cover 4 rows of carrots (that’s a little closer than usual for the bunching onions). I tried it on two beds earlier in the season, and it works fine!

One little problem: it tears easily, so how to hold it down? With the burlap, we made wire staples out of heavy gauge wire. Here, we placed a LOT of heavy rocks, close enough together that there’s no room for the wind to get under and start really pulling. This does the trick for now, but overall, it’s a little TOO intense. The hunt for burlap: still on!