Death TO SNOW!!!!

Well here is the latest addition to my arsenal in the war on snow. Should tip the odds in my favor I think. Compared to a strong back and scoop shovel, this is a major advancement. Sort of like the cave man getting his hands on fire. Its a 1957 International 450 Farmall, with a 2001 International Loader on it. Runs ok, you can tell she's got some miles on her, but it seems to be reliable. And over the summer, when its hopefully not snowing, it should open some big doors in the self sufficiency growing my own food department.

The Mrs

Well Amanda has been bugging me saying that she doesn't get on my blog enough, just pictures of dead critters. So here is one to restore the ratio - My photographer sister snapped some vogue romantic photos of us this summer. As you might expect, I was really excited about that, but had no choice :)

Canada 07

Well I figured I should get around to putting some pictures of our June Canadian catch up sooner or later. It was a good trip this year, tons of big fish, camaraderie, and for the first time ever, a whole herd of bears savaging our cabins/coolers/ and generators. Sort of like rats on steroids really. They tore out the screens, raided the frozen sweet corn, and chewed off the fuel line to the diesel generator. Guess our cabin was on the Island of the Bears!!

Here are a couple dandy pike and my second biggest muskie ever - a 40 incher, right around 20 lbs. Also is photo of Pop's beast of the week, a 44 inch 25 pounder. We got both of the muskies in the same bay within about 100 yards or so, two different days though. Must be something in the water. Hahaha.

JZ

The end of the chickens

Well since since the chicken story was starting to take a long time to tell, I thought I would just skip to the ending, which is after all the best part. Below you can see the chickens on there big day, they ended up reaching about 7 lbs or so in like 8 weeks. My buddy Jon came down to help out with the butchering (only fair since half the meat is his). Mini turkeys really at this size. The breasts are huge. You have to fillet them in half to get them to grill up decent, but they are still melt in you mouth tender and juicy. Here is our butchering setup, the weather cooperated nicely so we just worked outside. After relieving them of their heads via the chopping block and axe, we let them drip dry a bit from the ladder on the left with some pieces of wire. A good rinse with the garden hose followed, and then off to the table in the center. (actually the table was a big chunk of plastic decking I bummed off my dad. He got a bunch of it used last summer and had some extra pieces laying around) We just filleted off the breasts, took the legs, and called that good enough. Probably like 85% of the meat or better, and no messing around with plucking feathers or taking out the guts. We tried getting some of the wings, but that proved to be more work than a few fork fulls a meat was worth. We also saved a bunch of livers, since I have heard that chicken liver is the best catfish bait around. As you can tell from the 15 gallon tub level full of meat, the yield on these little buggers was excellent. We ended with approximately 350 lbs of meat (boneless, no carcass included) at a cost of $1.78 per pound. Which is like 1/2 price of what Walmart sells chicken for, so economically, it works out well. The total amount of feed these guys ate was around 1800 lbs, just shy of a ton. You sort of realize how many resources go into meat production when you try your own hand at it. We boned all the leg meat out (yep that took a LONG time), and ran it through my grinder, making some of the tastiest, healthiest burger you can imagine. Just enough fat in the leg meat that the stuff sticks together pretty well, and it tastes fantastic. I will definitely grow some more next year.

4 week fryers

Well here are the beasts a little over 4 weeks. I forgot to shoot on Thursday. They started stinking pretty bad in the house, so I moved them outside where they belong. They were most of the way into their new feathers, so it was time. I swept out one of my grain bins, put down some shavings, and through in my monster feeders. So far the bin has been quite ideal for a coop. It didn't cost me anything, and the chickens seem to like their new home. I took a shot from above through an access hole, so you can see the layout of the bin a little better. I think the birds are edible sized now actually. The Cornish game hens you buy in the store are just really young broilers like these.

Chickens and Heroes

Well here are the beasts at three weeks. You can see the exponential growth curve starting to be realized now. I bet they doubled in weight this week. Getting pretty ugly too. They are about 75% into a set of new feathers. I snapped a couple photos of my feeder I built too. The doors are down to the feed troughs, and you can see the string (baling twine baby) that I use to simultaneously raise and lower the doors so I don't actually have to crawl in the pen and do it before work. Just swivel the 2x2 door jams out of the way (so they can't sneak a midnight snack on me) and pull the string up. Presto, feeding frenzy. Actually had one die in the fray last week. I think his buddies broke his leg and trampled him in a effort to get his share of the breakfast. They are getting pretty durable and big now, so I don' think I will lose many more. They are sort of fragile when they are really small.

What else is new around here other than stupid chickens? Well I just got a bonus at work - that made my day. A little seed money for the tractor fund (the homemade plow had its day, but real prairie blizzards and 4 foot drifts call for something with hydraulics) Last weekend I went on a "Heroes" binge big time. I had never heard of the show before, but I downloaded it for my brother inlaw (serving his country in the big sandy as we speak). Any way, it turns out, its a phenomenal show, and horribly addicting. Makes 24 look like child's play as far as the "cant' wait for the next episode" phenomena. Good thing I only had the first 11 episodes, cuz Amanda and I watched them all. I cued up 12 to 18. Have to wait till summer for the season to be over to get them all.

JZ

Chickens @ 2 weeks

Thought I would through a couple of 2 week pictures up for comparison. They are getting big enough that they don't all fit around the 3 little chick feeders I bought any more, so yesterday I built two big 4 foot long feeders with troughs on each side, a big hopper that holds approximately 100 lbs of feed or so, and lids for the troughs on hinges so I can shut down the feeding frenzy at night to stave off the heart attacks. I will throw a picture of the contraption up with week three photos