~ 4 Arrows Farm ~

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

All In A Days Work

Scenes from this afternoon!

LOT'S of chicken broth!!

I'm currently waiting for the last canner full of chicken.

I Love Lucy!

The lighting made her hair just the right color and the red lipstick....

Reminded me of Lucy!

Canning chickens

I couldn't do half the stuff I do around here if it wasn't for my mother helping me!

I have learned so much about canning from her this summer.

Today we are canning chickens and she has taught me how to cut up a whole chicken into pieces like you get at the grocery store. Easy, easy, easy!! I am currently writing this from a stool in my kitchen watching the pressure cooker gauge....

So we prepared our jars....(sent them through the dishwasher) and started boiling the chicken pieces.

We are canning the chicken with the bones.

We packed the jars as full as we could! Sometimes only getting one chicken in a jar, and sometimes a little more.

Packing the jars.....

Boiling the chicken.....

Cutting up the pieces....

I had to have mom hold this so you could see just how big some of these birds are.....

This is just the thigh from one of the birds!!!

The drumstick!!!

Well a long afternoon and evening ahead.....but I'll be looking forward to this chicken all year long!

It smells amazing!!

Monday, October 1, 2012

Here Chickie Chickie......

It was a nice day despite the rain. Scott had the crew here today trimming windows in the basement and fixing the fireplace. We have had a fire in there for 4 years every winter, every day. That is a lot of heat!! So the mortar needed some repair!

Scott, David, Acelia, my mom, and I processes some chickens today. 21 to be exact!

Acelia was busy holding bags, running back and forth with the bowls and delivering chickens!

Scott got a new set of knives today in the mail. Just in time!! They are so sharp that some

of the meat had a nick or two!

Mom and I put them in the fridge and will can them tomorrow. We also froze the hearts, liver, kidneys, and necks for the dogs raw food.

We have about 25 more to do and those we are going to try to pluck and leave the skin on.

I can't believe how big some of these were!!! We have several that will fill up my roasting pan.

We've raised chickens before but they were around 3-4 lbs. These, we are guessing are around 5-8 lbs.

We raised Freedom Rangers this year for the first time and loved them.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

A Rainy Sunday

Watching...

The Lorax

The Cows Came Home!!

Rico

Stewart (Left) and JC

CC and Rico

He loves attention

Meat birds are big and still eating!

We welcomed home the girls yesterday....

Eleanore (Black and white) and Elsa

They are very calm and A LOT LESS vocal than the boys!!

They settled right in and Eleanore seems to be the friendliest so far! We have done lots of hand feeding and scratching of the boys and they are warming up to us daily. Scott was able to brush out a couple of them.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Jimmy Stewart

Acelia and I have decided we would name any incoming animals after famous Hollywood actors/actresses. When the cows came yesterday though David had already named the two boys Rico and JC......

So Acelia and I have named the rest of the herd. This little guy is Jimmy Stewart!

Thank goodness for my iPod and head phones last night!! Rico and JC moo'd all night!! I plugged in and listened to Netflix shows all night to drown them out!!

Yesterday when we brought Rico and JC home they were good boys. They were a little scared but came out of the trailer fine and entered their stalls like good cows, and calmed right down. By the end of the evening, David was sitting in the stall talking to them and petting them. Jimmy Stewart on the other hand......