FarmerDenise's journal - full on harvest time = busy, busy, busy

[FarmerDenise]

Thanks dl.
Having this forum has been a real help to me. I have a real and supportive family and friends. But sometimes it is easier to "talk" to people who aren't so close.

 

[FarmerDenise]

On the farm front, I got a lot done today. I washed and hung 2 loads of laundry, took down three loads. Made a big batch of salsa, cooked up a pot of beans, vacumed, got all the dishes done, ironed a few blouses, played with the cat, gathered 6 eggs (two were pullet eggs, yay), checked my emails, responded to a potential new customer, labeled my 7 bottles of wine vinegar, fed the chickens, the dog, the rabbit and the cat, made our dinner, weeded some peppers, fed the chickens some more, cleaned some dried herbs for storage, picked some of the older sweet corn and fed that to the chickens as well, picked the remaining apples on our tree. Our dog has been picking them and using them as balls.
Now it's finally off to bed. Unfortunately I don't feel tired, so I'm having some herbal tea and do a little reading.

 

[FarmerDenise]

Got 6 eggs today. More pullets are starting to lay, we got 5 eggs yesterday. Our two meat birds are getting very heavy. It is amazing to me how different they look. My brahmas look bigger, but when you pick them up their weight is disappointing after picking up one of the cornish crosses. The meat birds are so sweet, it is going to be hard to butcher them. But then I think of how good they'll taste and I know I can do it. At least they'll have had a very nice life.

Got a new customer yesterday too. She wanted large organic zucchini, we usually try to avoid having those, so I had to tell SO not to pick the green zucchini for a few days
They sure do grow fast. I gave her 3 for $2.00 and one of our fliers.

I picked most of the lemons off our tree yesterday and the remainder I picked today. They were so ripe they fell right into my hands. I zested a few and am drying them in my car. I plan on juicing most of them and freezing them in ice cube trays. I also want to get a lot of zest, I think it'll make a nice and unusual gift for people this winter. I'll also probably think of other ways to use it, like in soap. I just love the way lemons smell.
I also picked the peppers off of a few plants and ended up with two big ziplock bags filled with gypsy peppers and green bell peppers. I'll need to repackage them in a few days, but at least they are in the freezer. Makes me feel better knowing it's done.

 

[Dace]

FD...it sounds as if you are back on track in your communication. I am glad for you. It seems like once communication goes everything goes!

I hope that you can find a way to get him to a DR.....I kow you were looking into a clinic. Find anything?

 

[FarmerDenise]

Gosh it is hard to find medical care, when you don't have insurance. I get so frustrated. Oh well, I'll keep looking.

I've been really busy preserving our produce, weeding, feeding the critters and all the other self suffuicient stuff.

I spent two days foodsavering most of what I had frozen or dehydrated. I froze more sweet corn. Today I froze about 2 or 3 gallons of sweet peppers (bell peppers and gypsy peppers mixed up, the colors are nice and make a nice presentation when sauteed together), yesterday I dehydrated a bunch of apples. I went last week to a friend's house, had a nice visit and we picked a bag full of apples. So I used the riper ones of my friend's apples and my own little basket of apples to dehydrate. I tried them this morning and there wer so good. I wanted to just keep eating them. They look real nice too, because I dipped them in lemon juice.

I used my freezer bread one time this week to make rolls. They came out real good.

We lost one of our white leghorns to a predator. I found her lying dead on the chicken house floor on thursday. SO spent the day reinforcing the henhouse. It had great big gaps around the door, which he covered with doubled up chicken wire. Now it's harder to open the door, but I don't mind as long as the chickens are safer inside. He also filled in all the holes on the bottom that the rats had dug and filled those in with anything he could find, that might stop the rats from going through. I hope to someday poor concrete in the chicken house floor.
All the chickens were affected by the attack and they have not been laying since. We have at most been getting three eggs a day, where we were getting up to 6 eggs per day. The white leghon that was killed was one of our new layers
Her sister went into shock and is just barely coming around. When I went to check on them a little while ago, she was actually sitting in a feed dish and pecking at the food.

Oh, I have a big pot of tomato sauce reducing on the stove for the second day now.

 

[FarmerDenise]

I decided to use our friends leftover wanton meat mixture to make eggrolls. I used peppers, carrots, onion, zucchini and lettuce; all shredded to add to the meat mixture. I had the wrappers i the fridge, since Ive been wanting t make eggrolls for a while. I also made fried rice, using a left over porkchop and then a whole lot of vegies from the garden and eggs from our chickens. I used brown rice since we have a large bag of it. Stepson had brought over some thai noodles yesterday that his girlfriend had made. So we had that for our dinner as well. I made a dipping sauce using a very strong chinese soy sauce, fresh ginger, garlic and hot chili peppers and a little bit of sugar.
It all came out very good. SO actually wanted me to save the leftovers.
Normally I would at least have bought bean sprouts, but I was in no mood to run off to a store, so I made it all with what I had on hand.
I foodsavered the egg rolls and froze them. They'll make nice snacks another time.

 

[jenlyn9483]

Denise that sounds like a wonderful recipe for egg roles. I have never made them but want to. Care to share that recipe?

 

[FarmerDenise]

jenlyn9483, I just wrote up how I made my eggrolls and then my computer blankety-blanked out on me and lost it all.

I'll try and write it up again, but I don't really feel like it right now. I'm a little ticked off at my computer.


I have been so busy preserving our harvest. I made tomatoe sauce and canned 4 big jars of it. We also had some for dinner one night along with nice big Italian meatballs and homemade freezer bread. It is white bread, but that's what SO likes. He had meatball sandwhiches the next day for his dinner.
I also made 10 1/2 pint jars of Bruschetta. I zested most of the lemons I had picked and juiced them and froze the juice in ice cube trays.

Then in the evening when it was time to put the chickens to bed, I found one of my australop pullets sitting down. I picked her up and sour liquid drbbled out of her beak. She shook her head and flung it all over me, . Then she convulsed and died in my arms.
We butchered her and I cooked her up to make into dogfood. I did not like the way her liver looked.

The greenish spots were rather solid, did not feel like liver at all.
Anyone have any idea, what this might indicate?

 

[Farmfresh]

I have never seen this but I found this site. Liver Post mortem is on page 99.

POST-MORTEM EXAMINATIONS


LIVER

Tuberculosis. Yellowish-white spots on
liver varying in size, somewhat raised and
convex; the spots or nodules may be readily
separated from the rest of the liver. The
liver itself is often very much enlarged.
(Fowl gradually loses weight and may go
lame; mesentery and spleen affected with
nodules.)

Cholera. Liver enlarged, dark green
and softened, sometimes showing whitish
spots.

Coccldlal diarrhea. More or less circu-
lar patches, depressed in the centre, associ-
ated with plugged caeca, the linings of
which have sores.

Congested liver. Much enlarged and en-
gorged with blood, may be readily torn.

Fatty degeneration or fatty liver. In the
first case the liver is rather shrunken and



POULTRY DISEASES AND THEIR TREATMENT

hardened, and in the latter excessive de-
posits of fat may be noticed.

Liver trouble. (Indigestion.) An en-
larged liver without any of the special
symptoms noted among the other diseases
of the liver.

Gout. Needle-like crystals (urate of
soda) give the liver the appearance of hav-
ing been covered with chalk. (Other or-
gans in abdominal cavity covered with
same powder-like crystals.)

Aspergillosis. Necrotic areas with
mold. (Fowls go light and move about in
a depressed manner, resting on their breast
bones.)

Hope is helps.

 

[Beekissed]

Nasty looking liver! I agree, not too good looking or healthy. I've butchered chickens and found many of them with livers that didn't look too healthy, although they look similar to livers one sees in the store~pale and enlarged.

My sis had one die just like that, identical. She didn't do a post-mortem but I'm sure it was the same thing.

I wouldn't worry too much unless you have more chickens with similar symptoms.

I tend to find my chickens from the hatchery bunch were more prone to having diseased organs...don't know why but I have my theories. I had two young hens from the hatchery die from heart attacks this year. No warning of sickness, they just dropped off the roost. Never had that happen in all the years I raised chickens!