Good Golly Miss Molly

This is Miss Molly. Miss Molly loved to fly the coop everyday. It didn't bother me but the neighbors dog as well as a few coon were enjoying my chicken for dinner far to often. The Farmer added Cattle panels to the fencing to make it taller in an effort to keep the chickens in. They all stayed in the run after this, all of them except Miss Molly.

Everyday, I would see her strutting around the yard, pecking and scratching for her dinner and every night I would see her back in the coop roosting with the rest of the chickens. I couldn't figure out how she got out or back in. I tryed to find and plug the holes but the next day, she would be out again. And then one night I noticed that Molly wasn't in the coop with the other birds. That was almost a month ago and I hadn't seen her since. I wrote her off as dinner for some predator.

Then this morning I was on my way back into the house when I passed by a fir tree out in the yard and heard some clucking noise and there she was, Miss Molly, coming out from under the tree with a brood of seven chicks.
I was dumb struck.

It didn't take long for the cats to find the chicks and we had to rescue two of them from being coming lunch. As much fun as they were to watch parading around we decided to move them into this little hutch.

 The family seems happy in their new home.

 I noticed that Miss Molly had left behind several eggs- when we picked them up we could hear chirping inside and one of the eggs was beginning to crack.

 This little guy makes the 8th chick.

Miss Molly made my morning, heck she made my week. We are all enjoying her new babies and marvel out how she managed to survive underneath that tree.

Once again, I can't help but marvel at God's creations.

~ Kathy

Another reason to say I'm strange

Oh yes, if you living in these "modern times", and you do anything out of the norm (the norm, being buying all your meat and food from a super market, eating boxed cereal and prepacked food, sending your kids to public school, using disposable everything) then you too, I'm sure, have been told that you are strange. odd?  crazy? perhaps weird?

Anyway- I can't remember where I first got the idea, probably read it in another farm girl's blog somewhere. But the idea of rendering tallow was formed and we were taking a beef in to be processed, it was the perfect time to give it a try. Plus it had been awhile and I was needing the fix of being looked at like I was from another planet. So, when I called in the cutting orders for our beef, I ordered 20#s of ground suet. Of course, I being as weird and strange as I couldn't hardly wait for the locker to call and say "It's ready".

We got our meat home yesterday and Bill hit the jackpot with catfish last night. They say tallow is awesome for frying foods, so with that in mind, I wasted no time rendering the suet so I could fry fish for dinner.

This is how it came to me from the locker. They offered to grind it for me so I let them.

While researching I discovered there are several methods for rendering lard or tallow. I choose the crock pot method.

Put your fat in the crock pot and cook on low for about 3-4 hours. It took me almost 4 hours to cook down about 7 pounds of fat. When its done the fat will have all cooked down and the meat left over will float to the top.

I used a small strainer and ladled the hot liquid into a big bowl with a spout. then I poured it over the cheese cloth into a jar. You can see how its golden here but after it has cooled and hardened it turns to the white we are accustomed too.

7lbs made about 3 quarts of tallow and it really was that easy.

 Why hadn't I done it before?

The fish was awesome. Best I've ever made.

My husband's only comment tonight was "you would have fit right in with my grandma."

Yup, I know I would have but I think I'm in pretty good company anyway!

Monday's Barn Hop

Adventures In Berry Picking

If you have ever wondered why my blog is called Cackles and Berries, it has to do with the abundance of berries found in the pasture on our farm.  The Pasture, I believe was once used to graze cattle but since has been turned into a haven for wild life. It is however loaded with wild black raspberries, blackberries, and mulberries as well as wildflowers.

The "cackle" has to do with my love of chickens.

Every year my mother and I go berry picking. Prior to moving here we used to hunt for berries along the canal and other public wooded areas. Now we are blessed with being able to step out our door and into a secluded private haven, of berries!

Mom and I both attended mass on Saturday evening so we could get up early and pick berries this morning.
She was at my door slightly before 7. We dressed in our "gear" and sprayed ourselves liberally with OFF before heading out. She wasn't to keen on getting her picture taken but it didn't take much to talk her into it. She just wasn't going to pose.


We picked up the face nets last year and they have been wonderful at keeping the mosquitos away from our faces. I try not to think about all the little critters but they are everywhere.  Spiders especially seem to love berry plants.

Ewwww... and I move on.


In all fairness..this is me!
It can get pretty hot. Especially when you have to dress in long sleeves and pants.  So early morning or evening hours are really the best time to pick.

Mom has always out picked me. I've always carried my bucket but this year I agreed to use one of her ropes and tie the bucket around my waist. I thought perhaps this was her secret to picking more berries but I still came up short.



If this is the biggest critter I stumble upon I'll be happy! Once I walked up on a coyote. He ran the other direction, thank goodness.

hmmm..Mom left her bucket of berries on the seat of the mule.


She's in the thick of it and would never know if I snuck a few of her berries into my bucket.

 
But, I would know- She still out picked me!!


We picked for about 3 hours and I think we ended up with about 3 1/2  ice cream pails of berries.
Time to make a fresh batch of jam.

This wonderful juicer was handed down to me by my mother with the stipulation that she could borrow it when ever she wanted.


What a deal huh? Its great for juicing anything- no cheese cloth required. Drop the berries in the top, water in the bottom and the juice drips in the middle and comes out the spigot.


My pail and 1/2 yielded this much seedless jam- plus plenty to eat.

Even with all the mosquitoes buzzing in my ears, the sweat running down my back and fearful dread of getting poison ivy- I wouldn't change a minute for anything. I love the berries but even more I love the time spent in quiet with my mom in the heart of nature.

God is good!!

Thanks mom for being a good sport and letting me take your picture.

Breaking and Entering!!!

I've been building fence, rearranging the pasture. Up till now,we have had the pasture by the barn split so the chickens and sheep were kept seperate. I decided to open it up and see how they got along together.

"hello? anybody home?"

"Come on, coast is clear"

This could be a problem!

"I'll keep look-out!"

"caught! no where to hide"

A pitiful look if I've ever seen one

 "get out and don't come back"

"quiet down in there, can't a girl lay an egg in peace?"

Yeah- I don't think your suppose to be in THE BARN either!

~counting my blessings and thanking God for each day ~
life is such a gift

~enjoy~

Kathy

easter chicks

Finally, I break from the rain. It has been a miserable spring here in the midwest. No complaints today though. Beautiful! I was up at 4am to drive an 1.5 hours to Freeport Illinois to the small animal swap with my friend Tamara.

Anna had inquired a week or so ago when we were going to have some baby chicks.Well, I wasn't planning on hatching or getting baby chicks this year but who am I to deny my 4 year old the pleasure of having baby chicks. So, my goal was to get some 1 or 2 Americana bantams for her to enjoy. Plus, I had to pick up a Rhode Island Red Rooster from Trisha of County Line Hatchery. I've purchase from Trish before, hatching eggs and chicks. Her stock is so nice.

So.....Here is Mr. Rhode Island Red Rooster

 Here is one of the lovely little bantam chicks - I ended up getting 3.
You never know

you might lose one and then you wouldn't want the other to get lonely

Then I decided I should really get some standard size Americanas. I was just going to get three, really I was. I couldn't decide between the blue, black or splash. So, thought I should have one of each and then you know what are the odds you would have three hens? Better get 6 to increase the odds.

 Here is Anna- she is thoroughly enjoy her new babies.
In fact she was very quick to name 2 of them.
Remember Anna has a talent for coming up with unique names?

This is Shirley Temple.

This one is just Shirley.

Happy Easter Everyone!

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad.

Many Blessings,

Kathy

Delilah's Ram Lamb

Monday morning- 7am. I went out to the barn to do my chores. I had 2 more girls yet to lamb and I was expecting Brie to be next.

You can't tell from the picture but she is large and her udder is very full. I hope she has twins in there. I really expected her to lamb last Saturday, just cause I was gone all day, but here it is almost a week later and she still hasn't had her baby. Guess she likes to keep us guessing. Last year the vet was out and said she was a few weeks off from having her lamb. Well, she wasn't even pregnant. This year it was the exact opposite. The vet said she was 100% sure she wasn't pregnant and there is no doubt in my mind that she is.

So, back to Monday morning- I found Delilah in labor. She obviously wanted nothing to do with me so I decided to head inside, take a shower and get dressed (yes, I do my chores in my p.j.s) and check on her again.

When I returned she was finished and had delivered a lovely little white ram lamb.

I am now very confident in my ability to sex newborn lambs. It was in fact quite obvious that he was a boy- did not even need to turn him over!

He seemed to be doing rather well but on Tuesday I noticed he was very lethargic. I made a call to another shepherdess who thought he could benefit from some Nutra drench. I didn't have any.The little farm store we have here in town never has anything we need. Waiting for the mail wasn't an option. I texted my friend Tamara who raises goats and asked if she had any. I figured I could run over to her place and be back in an hour to treat him. Well, she immediately called on the phone to find out what was going on and when I told her she said "I'll be right there". Tamara did in fact drive all the way out to my place and came with nutra drench as well as other stuff and quickly doctored the little guy. I'm so lucky and thankful to have her for friend.  So, little ram lamb is since doing fine and is full of spark and energy and he is ever so sweet.

I have come to the conclusion that a lot of the vets around this neck of the woods don't know alot about sheep. I would be really lost without the help of the other Shetland sheep breeders, both Chris of Shepherd woods farm and  Corinne from Crosswinds farm who have both been more then generous with their knowledge and willingness to answer my silly questions. And where would we be without good friends who are willing to drop everything and come to our aid?

Life is Good!!

Snack Time

Somebody - and no one wants to admit to it, turned the temperature down in the fridge. This resulted in a frozen Cantaloupe.

Chickens couldn't have been happier with their afternoon snack.

~ Kathy

Barn make-over (A.K.A. Best christmas present ever)

I've been waiting to blog about this for sometime!

My excitement can no longer be contained.

When my hubby asked what I wanted for Christmas I know he would have loved to hear me respond with something he could get at the store and wrap, but instead I exclaimed "a barn make-over". His response, "wouldn't you like a new diamond?" -"hmmm..Nope", was my reply. I really didn't expect to get a barn make-over..but honestly was the only thing I could think of that I really Wanted.

Well, Christmas morning came and I got some really nice packages from my wonderful hubby -New PJ's and fuzzy socks, Good smelling perfume, oh and a coupon to the nail salon for a pedicure(loved that) and I really don't remember what else -cause the last present was the best of all- a handwritten Coupon for a barn remodel. - I had about a week to come up with a plan and decide what I wanted and needed for my hobby. Laying a wake at night planning a barn is a lot more fun then laying awake at night and worrying about your teenagers.

So, the Barn is nearly complete- We are just waiting on the electrician to  add  lighting and receptacles. (there are absolutely None on this side of the barn)

So..Now for the before pictures.

The barn was once a dairy barn- converted into a machine/storage shed. It is divided into 3 section.

Before picture

Broken window- extension cord provides electricity to the chicken coop next door.

Here you can see that I share my barn space with a bunch of my hubby's Junk Things.

The cattle gate is nice but lets be honest- I'm getting older and don't think I want to continue to climb over it and lift sheep up and over.  Do you like the pallet leaning against the back of the sheep's pen? Yeah- I use that as a door when I need to keep them inside. The rabbit hutch you see is being used to house 2 of my chickens that were being henpecked to death.

The snow on the ground is from the big sliding door on the left of the picture. Snow was drifting in from underneath and also since its so heavy, I would leave it open a few feet so I didn't have to open and close it constantly.

Lovely, huh?

This is my barn today

 

A wall and door was added to separate my barn from the rest of the barn.-storage shelves, My entire section was walled in AND we didnt' plan it but we ended up doing the ceiling as well.

A cozy little coop for my "henpecked girls" honestly I think they have the best pen on the farm

A bulk feeder for my chicken feed. My hubby came up with the idea of using these bins that seed beans came in and my 18 year old welding the stand to put it on. Saves time, money and ecofriendly!(no more bags to throw away)

Sheep's pen - I have a gate! They will both open flush against the walls so I can clean the pen with the skid steer if I want too.We have 3 lambing jugs up and ready to go- I figured I would only need 2 right now so the third is holding my hay. I also have a fourth one built should I need it and they can come down after lambing season is over. Oh- and yes, the pallet is still there - but is no longer needed as added 2 sliding doors to the back wall.

It would have cost us $800-$1200 to replace our heavy door or close it in and since that was a huge portion of our budget we decided to add the board to the bottom to keep out the snow and our carpenter added a walk in door for me!

Yippie!!

Thanks for letting me share.

This was a lot of fun for me and I will be able to enjoy my animals even more now.

Fall in love with pears!

Its been a crazy fall. Can it really be the 17th today? This weekend has gone by so fast. Everyone I know is fighting colds and allergies. The dust in the air is thick from the corn and beans being combined. It doesn't help any. Our youngest has been fighting a bad cold and wakes during the night with a coughing fit that lasts about an hour. The sun doesn't want to shine until after 7am and it makes it very difficult to pull ourselves out of bed. But winter will soon be upon us and there is so much to get done before that happens. Thank goodness the weather remains beautiful and that helps our motivation level.

This weekend I spent catching up on my canning. If you couldn't have guessed from the title of my post, I've been canning pears - all weekend. Yesterday I canned two batches of regular pears and today, I canned cinnamon pears.

We put in 2 pears trees at home here last year. These pears however were from another farm. The tree was absolutely loaded this year. I wish I had time to do more...but I think this is gonna have to do.

I start by making a syrup for the fruit. I like to make an extra light syrup so I taste more fruit then I do sugar. 1 cup sugar per 1 quart of water. For cinnamon pears I add 2 sticks of cinnamon(per quart of syrup) and a couple drops of red food coloring.

I know adding the food coloring goes against my "all natural - no preservative" philosophy BUT

it makes such a pretty presentation and I consider cinnamon pears a treat and I didn't add that much. So, we make an exception.

After peeling the pears I drop them into a solution to keep them from darkening. The solution is 2TBSPs each of salt and vinegar to a quart of water.

After they soak in the solution for no more then 20minutes, I drain it off and rinse the fruit well.

Then I fill the jars and can as usual, using the hot syrup to cover the fruit. I use the water bath method and process pints for 20minutes, quarts for 25 minutes.

The finished jars - don't they look so pretty?

The cinnamon pears are to the left with the lovely pink blush.

Nothing goes to waste either...all the peels and cores are a real treat

For the chickens!

I also managed to find the time to make some Hot Pepper Jam

This summer was my first year making this and I love eating it with cream cheese and crackers.

Sooo Good! Now, I admit, the peppers used in this batch weren't from my garden- I bought them at the store. You see, I made a batch earlier in the summer and was anxiously waiting and anticipating while the next peppers grew in size and were ripe to pick. I knew they were there-  I saw them on the plants. I went out early that Friday morning and couldn't believe my eyes. They were gone. Yup - Plant and all. I knew what had gotten them. It was my 18 year old son. He got mower happy. - Sigh - nevertheless, I have taste tested this batch and I am happy to say- it is just as good as the first! He will however be reimbursing me for the cost of the peppers.

We also managed to get my new green house brought home and off the trailer this weekend.

Friends of ours no longer needed it and offered it to me. God has truly bless me with wonderful friends, family and life.

Well, blogger continues to freeze up on me  - so I guess that's its.

~Count your blessings!
~ Kathy