Most people are squeamish about raising their own meat.  I can understand that!  I am an animal lover and hate to see anyone in pain.

But I also care about my family.  I am concerned about how the American food system is taking care of their products.  Hmmm, how is sending chickens to China to be processed a good thing?????  So, I combat this by raising my own animals.  I know what they’re fed, how they’re treated, how happy their life is, how big the shelter is, etc.

My philosophy is make sure all their days are good until their last day.  And that last day is not a happy day for anyone!!!  I miss them when they are gone.  But it makes me appreciate their gift to me more now that I know what happened in order to have it.

Last year, we ventured into the world of pigs/pork.  I LOVED it.  Loved their antics.  My husband and kids are loving their bacon and smoked pork chops.  And say it is the best tasting EVER.  I love being able to provide for my family.  Getting ready to order my next batch for this year.  Halfway through last season, I decided to add more pigs so I could sell those and make costs even for my own meat.  If you taking care of one, why not add a few more!

One thing I noticed was how quickly we clear out a freezer!!  When you load it in the freezer as you come home from the butcher, you think, how can we eat all this!?!?!  But I gave a lot out as Christmas gifts – to someone who gave us their leftover corn, to our neighbors, grandparents, aunt/uncle, etc.  And we might eat at home more than the average person?  I have no clue on that.

I bought 65 butchered chickens last year and we don’t have ANY left!!!  My kiddos are missing chicken meals.

So this year we will be focusing on raising meat birds/broilers/cornish cross.

We have butchered our own roosters and they weren’t my favorite taste so I researched more into it.  First off, the roosters we ate were not the eating type.  Second, I didn’t let them sit (to remove rigor mortis) before cooking.  Third, did not cook them the best way to soften them.

I looked into raising Freedom Rangers.  This is said to be a more natural type that doesn’t gorge themselves to death and are better raised on pasture.  BUT I was concerned as my husband is not keen on the dark meat flavor of regular grocery store chickens so how would he be on these?  So that is why I am raising Cornish Cross this year.

As I posted earlier, we hatched 21 eggs.  Then we purchased 24 more eggs and 24 chicks.  If these all hatch/reach maturity, that would be 69 chickens but that won’t be enough for a year AND provided my butchering helpers with chicken too.   So we’ll do at least 1 more set of eggs and chicks.

For the first 2 weeks, they live in our garage in a horse trough with shavings, a heat lamp and well-covered to keep out our cats.  I am able to check on them regularly and keep them in clean food and water.  Now meat birds are different than layers!  Whoo Whee!!!  Smellier, messier, eat more, swim in their water bottle and uglier.  And since they can gorge themselves to death, after their first week, I take out their food at night.   I buy all of our feed from Scratch and Peck but have it delivered through Azure Standard.  Since we will be eating these birds, I want to make sure everything that they eat is as natural as possible.  For the first 8 weeks, they are to be on Starter feed.  Then they will be moved to Grower feed.  I’ll supplement their feeding with a local farmer’s scratch mix as it will cut feed costs.

Once they reach about 2 weeks old, we move them to the brooder that my husband built in our chicken coop.  I think he did a pretty good job designing it but I may be a little biased.  He is so resourceful!  As our house was being built, every scrap that was thrown out, he took and stored in a building her on the farm.  And he manages a warehouse so every time something comes in on pallets, he brings them home.  Other than buying hinges, he had everything on the farm!

This brooder hopefully will be all they need til butcher time!

We’ll butcher them at around 8 weeks if they are around 6 lbs before butchering.

I have been more introspective at the close of this year then I ever have been!  Maybe because this year I spent more time on training and developing ME?    Maybe that would have been my word/phrase for 2015 – personal development?  I think that the end of 2014 was when I first saw people making words for their year? Maybe??  Or maybe I just paid attention to it?  And I couldn’t think deeply enough to dedicate a word for me to focus on all year long.

Since I spend so much this year on introspection, I can see areas that need change in my life.  I realize I am involved in too many good things.  What’s the saying about doing too many good things that don’t allow for the great things?

I realized when school started this fall we would have to cut things.  Right off the bat, we cut 4H.  It is a very good activity, just too many regular meetings when we are already living 4H out on our farm.  Every day is already educational in farm life!   We cut the girls’ from the local drama group.  Mom was just tired of being the sole taxi driver and there isn’t anyone way out here in the country to carpool with.  We stopped the regular involvement with the American Legion.  We still made 130 Veterans Day cards and helped with the annual Turkey Bingo fundraiser but opted out of the monthly meeting and potluck.  But you know what???  I still feel overwhelmed!

Several years ago, I read a book called “A Woman After God’s Own Heart” by Elizabeth George.    It has been a huge impact on me (in fact it was the one that guided me to homeschool!)  But I remember the author saying something like Mama being the thermostat of the house.  If she is tired and cranky, her kids will show the same symptoms.  In my case, if Mama is stressed, the kids will also be stressed.

As I was searching for a new Bible Study to do in November, I saw one titled Breathe by Priscilla Shirer.  I had to think about it for a few weeks but decided that it was the study I needed to close the year out with.  I have a problem slowing down.  In fact, that’s probably the reason I don’t sit still enough to focus on this blog.

I have learned so much from it.  First off, I don’t feel I have trusted God enough with our finances.  That is something WE are supposed to control, in my faulty opinion.  Secondly, I learned that I am a slave to busy-ness.  I feel my self-worth comes from what I accomplish.  My son said a few weeks ago that we are not honoring the Sabbath as that’s one day we work even harder than others since Daddy is home and we can get projects done.  How convicting is that??  Now, I think he also had ulterior motives since working is not his preference!

Daryl and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this week. We went out to a delicious local sourced restaurant and talked for several hours.  As we always do, we looked back on the years and he commented on our lack of Sabbath rest.  Since D confirmed my thoughts, I knew this was something I need to change/focus on it for this next year.

So what will my word be for 2016??  Peace.

I will seek God in all my decisions – all my essential oil business decisions, all my farming decisions, all my homeschooling decisions.  I am seeking Peace.  If I don’t have God’s peace, I don’t want it!

This 2015 garden season was non-stop until the middle of November.  It did not go as I planned.  Things didn’t grow that I wanted to.  Weeds grew more than I wanted them to. My melons didn’t grow at all.  I had beets and carrots grow but guess what happened??  Mice ate them….under the  ground!!!

Throughout the hot summer months, we were able to go pick strawberries, apricots, peaches and pears from local farmers.  I did get a few apples which were only enough to make one batch of applesauce as we have plenty from last year.  I preserved and dried as much as I could handle.  We planted several fruit trees but it takes several years for them to mature and we even lost three (plum, cherry and peach).  Next year, we will have to plant more.

Here are some of my favorite recipes:

My favorite strawberry jam recipe (Just don’t try it with raw sugar.  Makes it too runny like a syrup!)

We found an abandoned apricot tree and made this Apricot Jam.

I discovered this AMAZING honey spiced peach recipe. I had leftover syrup and canned the syrup too.  SO DELICIOUS!!!!

This peach vanilla jam is TO DIE FOR!!!!!!  And was the easiest thing ever to make.  But our area had a hard freeze in late spring so there weren’t as many peaches to use.

Because I like the peach vanilla jam so much, I made tons of her pear vanilla jam to give out to neighbors and homeschool friends as Christmas presents.  I loved using this recipe because you did not have to peel the pears before making!!  Wahoo!!

If you can’t tell, we aren’t plain canned fruit with sugar syrup people.  I made this recipe for vanilla spiced pears  last year and knew I needed to repeat it this year.  My kids would drink the syrup if I let them!!!

I got so sick of pears before I finished, so I made one last effort to make this pear sauce!

My ideal goal was to have our fruit needs prepared for the year but they way THIS family eats fruit, I am sure I didn’t do that!!

Have you ever heard the thought that you are only as healthy as what you eat?  Ever thought that you are only as healthy what your food eats?

That was MY main thought when we got our pigs.  Why raise pigs to eat that don’t eat heathy themselves?  As you know, I am fairly new to the area so I don’t know the area businesses.  Don’t know where the food comes from.  But I do know a farmer that raises his own pasture raised pork.  What does HE feed his pigs?  I asked him and it’s from another local farmer, who happens to be certified organic!  It’s just a mixture of three grains.  Why I didn’t think about this until I GOT the pigs, I have no idea!

For the first couple of weeks, I fed that mixture.  Farmer John allows his pigs a larger area to pasture.  Mine don’t have that much area and they immediately tore up all the vegetation in there.  So I was concerned that they weren’t getting ENOUGH to eat.  Yes, they got our scraps but was that enough?

Shortly after we got the pigs, we went up to our favorite camp and helped clean out the industrial refrigerator and freezer.  I was so excited to bring home all the expired food to feed the pigs.  One reason I love having pigs is they turn scraps into bacon!

Through K’s 4H classes, I learned that pigs need a certain percentage of protein.  I buy our bulk goods from an awesome coop called Azure Standard and saw they offered alfalfa  pellets and field peas but no pig feed.  I asked Farmer John if those would be good to add and he said yes.  I want these pigs to grow like they should!  No skimping on my bacon!  K IS in 4H but she is a clover bud meaning she can’t sell her pigs in the livestock sale but WE can eat them!

So my pig feed is a mixture of local grains, alfalfa pellets and field peas.  They LOVE it!!!

Hello!  I cannot believe it is May of 2015!  I am finally feeling like I can breathe.  The last year has been a huge whirlwind with all the work we have done on the farm.  My idea of how much extra-curricular activities I could be involved in while on the farm shrunk drastically.

First off, we worked on getting the “dirt pile” ready to plant grass seeds.  That involved lots of racking, picking rocks, digging up BOULDERS, spreading manure and harrowing with the ATV. We also had the blessing of a neighbor helping (actually we helped HIM!) to put into a sprinkler system.  That helped putting int he grass seed so much easier!

Next, we worked to get our huge garden put in.  This also involved lots of racking, picking rocks, digging up BOULDERS, spreading manure and harrowing with the ATV.   And also was blessed by the neighbor putting in a sprinkler system!!  Made it 10X easier.  We still had tons of weeding to do over the summer.  We planted kale, swiss chard, beets, 45 tomato plants, strawberry plants, watermelon, pumpkins, cucumbers, beans, sugar snap peas, corn, cabbage, zucchini, yellow squash, honeydew melon,  jalapeños, basil, jackolantern pumpkins, daikon, blueberry bushes, okra, butternut squash….. and all from seeds that we started in March inside our kitchen.  I was able to can and freeze so much of it.  And was even able to share a ton too.

It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  The corn didn’t grow to produce ears, my husband ran over my blueberry bushes with the lawnmower since they were buried in weeds, the okra never produced, I got cucumber blight and only pickled about 5 jars, didn’t stake the peas early enough and the same with tomato plants, but we are back at it again this year!

August was busy with 4H preparation for all the kids.  We didn’t know how involved it would be. BUT I was amazed by what all the kids learned!  The last week of August was intensely busy with the county fair.  Our family entered over 45 items to be judged – from produce to cakes to sewing to jewelry to baking to paintings to lego and WWII dioramas!

My parents came to visit in the fall and we could show them our little patch of heaven in Idaho.  We stayed busy canning fruit (pears, peaches and apples), making and canning apple cider, and even learning how to ferment sauerkraut.  We were able to get a steady stream of regular egg buyers too!

Oh and we still homeschooled!  My goal was to make all our Christmas gifts but that didn’t happen!