Our poultry seem to still be doing well, keeping them out of the front pasture. I do not believe there have been any further losses. I am continuing to be disturbed by the featherless back of one of our turken hens. Mysteriously, none of the other hens have been defeathered by the roosters except her. So I am contemplating knitting a chicken saddle/apron for her. Any advice would be appreciated as I have not done this before. But she is such a nice girl, and winter is coming.
We have been busy with wine and cider making. This is the wine I have fermenting so far.
Tom did press these pears for me. It only produced 2 gallons of juice so I need to figure out what I am going to do. I am hoping to add quince juice to it for some flavor. I did pick the last of the Asian pears today so will add them as well. Plus there are more pears already picked yet to ripen. I am hoping to get enough for a 3 or 5 gallon carboy.
I am still occasionally having a cocktail the evening before I go to work. On Wednesday I decided to make an Irish Old Fashioned. It was actually quite good. I will try to remember this one.
One of the only chances I take to read is during my bath before work as well. I finally finished Moby-Duck. I had wanted to read it since it came out in 2011. I finally purchased it used from Powell’s in Portland in 2019 and now have read it. It is not the best book I have ever read, but I learned a lot about oceanography, pollution, plastic toy manufacturing and the Northwest Passage.
While I read it I had my rubber duck with me. This is one given to me by my in-laws quite a while ago. It had been hanging out by our hot tub in the backyard, but I rescued it. I think he will stay inside now.
Yesterday Tom started working on my motorcycle, a 1975 Honda CB550 Four. It has leaky forks. One issue was how to elevate the heavy bike to work on it. So he wrapped chains around the handlebars. He was then able to get the front tire and forks off.
Here is the worst of the forks. Unfortunately the shaft is corroded. The good news is that we have a parts bike with good forks. The bad news is that Tom will have to do the same work to get those forks off as well. The hope is that we can go on a fall ride this year. I was hoping to go to the Oyster Run tomorrow so that will not happen.
Yesterday I was terribly tired after working so Tom made me a nice dinner. I had found this recipe for Sheet-Pan Sausage With Peppers and Tomatoes. Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of tomatoes and peppers from our garden right now so Tom went to Boldly Grown Farm to purchased them as well as shallots and garlic for the recipe as well as some other goodies. Here it is all cooked up. It was easy to make and quite yummy. We ate it on french rolls.
I think the peacock is finally done dropping his feathers. So now I can offer them for sale. They are 25 cents for the long ones (>2 feet) and 10 cents for the smaller ones. Let me know if you are interested in them.
Today after farm chores and some harvesting (Asian pears, tomatoes, peppers, basil, peas, cucumbers, teasels), I went shopping. The weather turned quite nasty so my timing was good. I bought new barn boots. This is always a major event on the farm. I am hoping these ones will last longer than any of the other ones I have ever purchased. I am hard on boots (as well as most anything else I take to the barn).
I also bought a pet door. The weather is getting cold, especially at night. We had been leaving the bathroom window open so Wally could go in and out of the house. In recent days we tried to keep her in the house at night and shut the window, but she was disruptive to our sleeping so we needed a different option. I do not want her to be locked out at night in case she needs to escape something. Bobcats have been taking house cats in the area recently.
They didn’t have cat doors for our type of window that I could find. So I purchased one designed for a door, and Tom was able to insert it into our window opening with some plexiglass above it. It is not terribly pretty, but hopefully it will be functional.
He also put a shelf outside of the window so she can access the door a little easier.
She has become quite comfortable here.
Today the sauerkraut is done finally. I moved it from the crock into two glass jars and will keep it in the fridge. I bought fancy pastrami from the deli and have Swiss cheese. Next I plan on grinding some rye berries I have (from Boldly Grown) and making some caraway rye flat bread to make Reuben-style crackers.
Now that the crock is available, I started fermenting pickles today. I have 6 pounds of cucumbers (which is pretty good considering how late I started my second attempt at cucumbers). Here they are ready for their brine.
I also finished the tarragon vinegar today. This is one of my favorite things in the world.
So that is what is happening on our little farm.
