They have been great dogs. They aren't 2 until this March, but being loose on 250,000 acres, they choose to stay with their stock, mostly the chickens by day. They take turns doing runs out to the pastures to check on the sheep and goats.
I would love info on how you make your ACV, if you are...
Do you make your own raw ACV?
The chicken that drowned, I dry plucked and froze him then fed him to the dogs. The meaties do pluck pretty easily, but I would still rather have a plucker to make quick work of it and be more thorough!
Cletapotamus is the main chicken guardian. He LOVES his chickens. Bruno helps, but he isn't as attached to them.
This year the chickens will get a dedicated corral as I want to get the yard in shape and avoid the elephant poop the meaties tend to leave in their path!
I love paper bags. I use them for:
ripening avocados
wrapping gifts
drying herbs upside down(they keep the dust and light off of them while they dry)
customers to carry off soap
patterns
drying seed
as a grease mat for fried foods
trash bags
One of my Maremmas raised 15 meaties last year on my back lawn. The dogs set up a 'no fly zone' to keep the hawks and the owls that were living in the barn next to us away from the yard. We only lost 1, that fell in my little whiskey barrel waterfall and drowned at night. We plan to do at least...
You can use lard, or tallow, or crisco as a base for your soaps and add other oils which will bring different qualities to it. I recommend always using a soapcalc to make sure your lye ratios are safe and correct, and it will also tell you how your soap will perform with the amounts and choices...
Don't try to step over a polywire electric fence either. They wrap around your leg and make you vibrate for a long time before you can get off the ground! It also makes for a very bad hair day. :hu
You can also use the lemon juice to whiten laundry, clean porcelain (think toilets, sinks and tubs) and I mix 1/4 lemon juice to 3/4 olive oil in a spray bottle to use on my wood furniture. It works better than pledge and doesn't build up. The rest, I would get a micro plane and zest them, then...
I use castle soap (straight olive oil soap) on all my saddles, bridles, etc. and oil them with olive oil. I would think it would work the same on your table!
I'm another one who votes the Ball Blue book to start out with. It has a lot of information in as well as recipes. U tube and blogs would make good supplementals to the written directions.
WE love this recipe for grilled venison backstrap from AR.
2 pounds venison backstrap, cut into 2-inch chunks
1 quart apple cider
1 1/2 pounds thick sliced bacon
2 (12 ounce) bottles barbecue sauce, your choice
Directions
Place chunks of venison into a shallow baking dish, and pour enough...
Thank you for your responses! I will definitely look into that mill. The hand crank wouldn't work too well for me because of my RA, but the price on the electric isn't too bad. I can put that in the budget for next year! I am really looking forward to this, and learning anything I can about...
those are some great links, bee kissed! Thank you!
wow, I'd love to run into a deal like that! I've been pricing grinders and it made me gasp! I see there is an attachment for the KA. Anyone ever use it?
I'll have to look up Honeyville.
Thanks for the input everyone!
This is something I would really like to do, but I have no CLUE where to get things, or even WHAT to get. I know there are differences between white, red, and all that...what do you buy, do you combine them? Where is a good resource to learn?
Its really very easy to do and very nice to cook with! Lots of websites and videos of people doing it, I just melt it down in a big pot and let it simmer and simmer, taking the foam off until it has separated and all the icky stuff is on the bottom of the pan. Then I pour off the clarified...
We are several hours from town, but the boss had 500 head of cows stolen a couple years ago. We are worried about being hit again, so all the cowboys are now armed on patrol.
That is professional rustling being done, but i have also heard that people have been getting family cows stolen.