Wild Flowers

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Seedlings

So we are so close to putting our seedlings in the ground. Except I call them seedlings like I call my 7 yr old baby. These are true plants. Our cucumbers have flowers. They could bare fruit if it was warm enough and they were outside. And you know you are a mom when you start to look at your seedlings, okay remember these are plants, and start to get weepy when your husband says it is time to harden them off and stick them in the garage for a few days. Seeing them grow right in front of your eyes is quite an amazing site. It is also amazing that the cats stayed away and our baby, okay toddler. Seeing them in the small seedling pots, being happy when they grow out and need a new bigger pot is like your baby learning to walk. The proud moment of them getting bigger and stronger. And when they move to the next bigger pot, still a proud moment. But now they are to the point where we don't have pots big enough and they are too close to our lamp. They need to go outside to the big wide world of our front yard. It is spring and it is time for growth. My baby love, will se ever outgrow that nickname?, is babbling all over. I love the sweet sounds, her facial expressions, it is amazing to me. The stories she already tells. I am totally enchanted. Life is good right now. Things have changed but I see them more like the opening buds on the trees, full of promise and possibility.
I will try to take pictures of this soon. I also need to get pictures up for Gwen and her birthday. It has been a slightly full week :)

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

breaking down a chicken

I love the internet. Jack was wondering about breaking down the chicken instead of freezing them whole. I had just happened to watch a video on gluten free girl. I love her blog so much. http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-break-down-chicken-video.html
Even if you are not gluten free it is something to have on your blog list. There is a lot of good general info here:)
These pictures are pretty self explanatory. You can see that we do not have commercial meat layers. Their thighs are much bigger than their breasts. But that is alright with us. If this goes well, we might get some day olds meat birds.
Oh and the last picture is gruesome. I will leave some space so you can choose not to see it.

only look if ya want to now....

So Jack breaking off the leg part.

Peeling the skin back. We decided to do it this way at least the first time. We don't care much for skin on skin and it is easier than plucking feathers.

Jack gave the girls anatomy lessons. We got to discuss, lungs, esophagus, kidney, intestines. I am probably forgetting some things here, but it was interesting and even with all the gross faces they thought it was pretty cool.

Jack spraying off the chicken and what we were all freaked out about was he was spraying up by Gwendy. He didn't get her, but she was pissed that she couldn't come down.

And if you want to learn more about processing chickens here is a video on youtube. I have to say that I kinda get a kick out of the chicken making noises in the background. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgo6Qlaff_4&feature=PlayList&p=44413D3C6FB3973D&index=0&playnext=1

Here it is

Okay two people responded, but it is enough interest for me:) There are lots of pictures, so there will probably be at least two posts. And so they won't be in order. And looking at some of the pictures I see, I think the technical term is, overexposed. I tried to take non gruesome pictures. But this does involve the death and skinning of chickens, so continue at your own risk.

Because every coop should have a killing cone attached to the side :)

Jack picking out the first lucky bird. Really we did try to be kind here. We were not rough with them and tried to make it as quick and gentle as possible. I put them out by themselves in our run earlier in the day. Their last hours were of scratching in the mud and eating bugs.

First thing is to make the chicken dizzy. They get very light headed when held upside down and usually quiet right down. The first one didn't, but the rest did. Of course the first one we did was the head roo.

Chicken in the cone. Jack wants to mess with the design a little bit. It did work. Sorry there are no actual pictures of slitting the throat. One, I helped Jack and two I really felt that it would be too gruesome.

And Natalie helping pick the next chicken. Gwen was probably the cutest one. She kept going up the the chicken as it was bleeding out and saying chicken, bawk!!! bawk!!! Yes, a little disturbing, but it was funny at the time.

A Question for you all

Please respond. Jack wants me to blog us culling our chickens. I was curious to see if there was any interest in this? Would you like to see the process of culling chickens?

Some henna

I have been working on some things recently. This is one of my first henaed boxes. i have more made now but I haven't taken many pictures

Like my second maybe third left handed attempt. It is a very simple design but I am happy with it.

gwen always wants henna, always!!! but se is just now getting to where she sits still long enough for something more than a swirl. She is very proud of her henna.

I wore a skirt yesterday and was practicing on my thigh. I am actually really happy with how it all came together. It is like 4 different designs and I wasn't really going for anything to look nice together, just to practice.

Natalie karate

They are in different classes now. So Natalie got her red belt last night. Natalie has a harder time staying focused in this class. It is bigger and she went from being the oldest and pretty good in the younger class to being the youngest and still pretty good, but we have to practice more.