First Harvests

Much has changed since the October post, mainly that our chickens are no longer freeloading! Our current total is 2 roosters, a Rhode Island Red and a Barred Rock, and 20 laying hens. The hen breakdown is 2 Black Sex Links, 2 Red Sex Links, 6 Barred Rocks and 10 Rhode Island/Easter Egger crosses. They are eating 1 bag, 50 pounds of crumbles, each week. Their pen is 50x50 and they are in there until the late afternoon, at which point they get to roam as they please about the property. Once we are able to fence the front yard they'll be able to come and go as they please throughout the day. Our daily egg average is 17 right now, which is way more than 2 people and 2 dogs need. In fact, another 2 dozen are being donated today.

In addition to harvesting eggs, we harvested a few geese over the Holidays. Wow! We'll be updating our process before doing that again. They tasted yummy and were a decent yield, but the plucking was a nightmare! In the last month we have also harvested 7 roosters. They were strong birds, but so easy to handle given that they were hand raised. The stock we've made from the leftovers has been incredible! 

I've about perfected my cracker, 'artisan' bread, and sandwich bread recipe so it's time to work on an egg pasta recipe. It's neat to look around and see all that we can consider homemade, even at the beginning of our journey! As time goes by, the list will grow, but for now it also includes our laundry detergent and lemon curd. Here are the recipes I prefer for the items above:

• Stock: Wrap up all bones etc in cheesecloth, cover with water, and place on stove or in pressure cooker to boil away. The remains after boiling are either fed to the dogs or added to the compost. We use an InstantPot, which was a gift that we use all the time! In fact, it's steaming eggs at this very moment! 
• White flour crackers, though I add a lot of toasted onion powder, garlic powder, and a seasoning blend from Trader Joe's to mine.
• No knead bread, as published by the New York Times courtesy of Mark Bittman and Jim Lahey.
• Sandwich bread recipe, I often omit the sugar.
• Liquid laundry detergent, sometimes I cheat and make it a powder instead of a liquid.
• Lemon curd, from the lemon trees that were here when we moved! I nearly doubled the amount of lemon juice I used.

Looking at the list makes me feel as if we've accomplished a lot in the short time we've been here, even though I'd been working on the artisan bread for a while before we moved and have used that laundry soap recipe for the last few years.