Building a legacy rooted in respect for the earth, family traditions, and shared knowledge
The aquaponics system is in full swing right now and is producing a ton of produce. The basil is going wild, green onions are thriving, bell peppers are starting to mature, and the comfrey is doing great. The mint is busting at the seams and overflowing the bed. There’s plenty of nutrient courtesy of the fish so everything is nice and green!
Over the last several months, we’ve been working on a major project around the farm. We drove down to Fort Myers and picked up a 24′ trailer from an ice truck.
We removed the existing freezer unit from it since we didn’t know how old it was and I wasn’t comfortable trusting it with thousands of dollars of meat.
I split the area into two sections: a freezer section and a cooler section. I then installed a 24,000BTU window unit and a Cool Bot in the front section that will act as a cooler. Using the Cool Bot, the A/C unit is able to achieve around 34 degree temperatures.
Once the freezer equipment was installed by Ian at HVAC Comfort Solutions, LLC, we got to work filling up the freezer right away.
The cooler is fantastic to hang and age the meat and to keep it nice and firm while butchering it into smaller pieces. We’re super excited for this new addition to the farm!
The carrots did fantastic in the aquaponics system. While they’re a bit ugly looking, they turned out huge!
The first round of bacon turned out great in the new smoker so we decided to try our hand at sausage and make some more bacon (of course). I’m still getting the hang of tying the braids for the link sausage.
I’m sure the neighbors think we’re crazy by this point…
It’s still a bit chilly at night so we have the heat lamps in the chicken tractors while they’re out in the front pasture. At night, the white tarps glow from the lights and remind me of Chinese Lanterns. Delicious, yummy, chicken flavored Chinese lanterns.
We’ve wanted to smoke our own meats for quite some time, so after numerous hours watching YouTube videos and looking at other peoples’ designs, we decided to take the plunge and build a cold smoker smokehouse. It’s based off the design from Deep South Homestead’s videos and has worked great so far. We can’t wait to smoke more bacon and sausage.
We used tongue and groove cedar for the smoker box and constructed an offset firebox so that the internal temperature wouldn’t get too hot for cold smoking. It’s topped off with a metal roof (leftovers from another project around the farm).
One of the things we take pride in when slaughtering animals is that we use as much of the animal as we can. It’s one of the ways that we honor its sacrifice to our family. This is just one such example. Most people don’t have much use for the chicken feet but we take the time to dehydrate them. This preserves the feet for weeks (even months) and makes for fantastic, healthy dog treats.
I’ll admit, the title of the article is a bit of click-bait. COVID-19 has no effects on poultry, well at least not directly.
Continue reading “COVID-19 leading to smaller turkeys”
It’s pretty crazy how some animals develop a personality all of their own. This pig (Periwinkle, I think) acts just like a dog. She wags her little tail and loves being petted. In these photos, she hopped up on top of her feeder to get closer so that I could scratch her head.
Meanwhile, while her sister (Petunia) is nice and is friendly, there is a huge difference between the two. Periwinkle is more friendly and awesome in general.
We added three additional pigs to our flock, herd, whatever you call a group of pigs. The girls have decided to name them Poppey, Periwinkle, and Petunia.
Continue reading “The three little piggies”