Busy Days of Summer and Rendering Lard

Rendering lard, why would anybody in their right mind do this? Well, when we process the pigs they always send us home with nicely wrapped packages of lard, such as below. In the past I have promptly thrown it in the garbage, not wanting to tackle this project. However, the more I read about "Good Fats", I thought why not give it a try. I have to tell you it is a long process. I should have started earlier in the day. I just did not realize.

The lard starts out a nice white and pink color when first going in the pot.

You put little chunk pieces in a stainless steel pot on the lowest stove setting. Stirring often the lard will slowly begin to cook down.

Then it starts to turn a grey color as it is rendering down. You will be left with small pieces of cracklin. The end result of hours of rendering. I could not wait on it all to render down so I finally just filtered out what I could and ended up with 3 pint jars. I poured the lard through a cheese cloth several times to ensure a clear end product. The jars sealed themselves during the cooling but I still think I am going to run them through the canner for a little while. It's beautiful and I can't wait to make a pie crust!! Today, I am rendering more lard. I am starting wwaayyy earlier and using a smaller pot. I hope that speeds up the process.
The turkeys are now 12 wks. old and are just so interesting looking. I thought they might be bigger by now but they aren't. Lord willing by Nov. they will be a good size.

Here are the turkeys walking across the backyard during a good downpour. They just absolutely refuse to stay in the acreage that we fenced in for them. We need to clip their wings but I don't know that that will help.

Our days are full right now on the mini farm. We have been canning pickles, freezing peas, squash, and zucchini. We are also really busy with all of the animals around here.

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I will leave you with this last little snippet of happenings around the homestead. We have a small game chicken, who we lovingly call bird, because she looks like a bird up next to regular size chickens. Anyway, we had not seen her in weeks and thought that a predator must have gotten her, as she comes and goes as she pleases, out of the pen. Well about a week and a half ago we found her and 7 baby chicks in the barn. We promptly put her in the chicken tractor. I would have loved to let her walk around the yard with her babies but from past experience we knew that she would be too vulnerable to predators. Lord willing, when the babies get bigger, we can let them out to run around together. I am thankful that we have some chickens with the natural instinct to set and care for babies.

Have a great weekend!!!

Turkeys

My daughter is turning into quite an awesome photographer and she tooke these amazing pictures of our turkeys. I love this one.
They are growing so nicely. I am amazed at how much more friendly they are than the chickens, who we also raised from day one.

And Ramsey just loves them. They are buddies.

Have a great week.

How do you spend Father's Day on the mini farm......

You drive 3+ hours to Louisiana to bring home a 3 month old sheep in a pet carrier. ha ha

This is the beginning of our St. Croix sheep breeding program. He is a registered St. Croix sheep. His name is Ramsey and he is finally home. He is just another step in our overall plan to be as self sufficient as we can. We hope to breed for selling and whatever we can't sell, process for our freezer. We decided to go with St. Croix sheep for a number of reasons but mainly we were looking for a heritage breed. Heritage breed animals do not have a lot of their natural instincts for breeding and mothering bred out of them. The St. Croix is also on the threatened list. So we feel good about helping to conserve the breed. They are also extremely parasite resistant, which tends to be a big problem with sheep. We want to do things as naturally, as possible and would prefer not to use commercial wormers. They also thrive on pasture.We are really hoping these two become fast friends. That is until we get Ramsey a girlfriend or two or three. We did not realize at the time that St. Croix sheep are such a rare breed. There are no breeders in Ms. and the ones that we found in Louisiana had already sold out of all of their ewes. So it looks like it will be next Spring before we get our ewes. We are on the waiting list now for next Spring. However, after we get our ewes, we will be the only breeder of registered St. Croix sheep in Ms.

I couldn't leave you without a picture of Phoebe. We got her her own swimming pool and she spends a good bit of time wallowing in it. This is one spoiled pig!

The end of May already, here's what's been keeping us so busy

~~Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. 1 Corinthians 3:8-9~~

This is the biggest cause of our busyness. Our very large garden. It rained and rained and rained and we were about 2 weeks late even getting our garden planted. Now that it's in the ground, it quit raining. UGHhhhh So for now we are water sprinkling it. It's not coming up great but my tomatoes look really good.
We are doing a lot of this......

My girls are doing their fair share of weeding, as well. Lord willing, we will have a bounty for all of this work. Working in the garden and putting up the harvest is one of my favorite parts of homesteading. Oh and by the way, the outfits below are not something we would ever wear outside of the garden! We like modesty!!

Our newest advenuture is beekeeping. My husband and son took a beekeeping class a few weeks ago. My son is hoping this will be a little side business for himself. He is so excited about it and loves his bees already. He has been in his hives every other day so far.

Here are the girls working hard.

My boys in their bee suits.

Smoking out their bees so that they can release their queen.

Another major project at the Spencer Family Farm is raising 15 Bourbon Red Turkeys. We have had them about 3 weeks and let me tell you, it has not been easy. We did not realize that turkeys are not the smartest of animals. We got them as day olds and thought it would be like the many chickens that we have raised in the past. However, turkeys we soon found out will starve to death standing beside their feed. They have to be taught to eat. Which we did for over a week. It has been tough and we have lost 3 but they are all eating well now and it seems they are doing good.

We plan to keep 3 hens and 1 Tom for future breeding. We are giving 2 to my mom and will process the rest for the freezer. They are so cute but aren't growing as quick as chicks either.

Here's Mrs. Phoebe. We have moved her to the big pasture to free range too. She has lost so much weight since having a bigger area to run around in. We are so crazy about this little missy. She gets two eggs at the end of everyday and now she is in the habit of running when she sees me heading to the chicken house. Who would have known that a pot bellied pig would be so much fun?

The girls are busy laying in their new Hen Pals Nest Box. I have to say I love this thing and the girls do too. We are getting about 20 eggs a day.

They also love the big new area that we have fenced in for their free ranging.

I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day and remember those that have given their lives so that we could have freedom!!

Spring Around the House and Camping

Spring has sprung here on the homestead...... With it, has come some terrible storms and some of our family and friends have been effected. I encourage everyone to pray for those affected by the recent tornadoes.
~~ Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. James 5:16~~

Around the homestead, we are seeing everything start to bloom and green up. Here's a swarm of bees who were attempting to make one of my muscadine polls their home. The day after we took pics. of them, they left. I can't wait to have our own bees here on the mini farm.
Here's a beautiful purple Iris. They didn't bloom much last year but are beautiful this year. I hope to dig up some more from my mom's house and plant them.

This is our "new" to us camper. We camped about 20 mins. from our house because we were trying out this new pop up camper. We have always tent camped and even though we had air mattresses, our girls hated the tent. So this is a step up. A friend of mine was wanting to get rid of it for next to nothing. It has some things wrong with it but I am married to a "Mr. Fix It". So for us it's not a big deal. We love to camp. There's nothing like getting out to the woods and having no phone, TV, etc.

Setting up our outdoor table. This is our prep area for meals.

The love of my life walking his little dog. Snicker Snicker. This was supposed to be Katherine's dog but oh, how he loves Ronnie.

The girls had the occasional photo shoot and waded in the water. I love this one.

I loved watching the kids play cards for hours on end. There is some serious family bonding going on over a game of peanut butter and jelly or spit. Roosevelt State Park has a White Tail Deer Research Facility. The sign said not to stick your hand in but you can't keep the deer from sticking their heads out. Haha

We took a long hike to see the goslings swimming with their parents. It's interesting to know that Canadian Geese mate for life. We love cooking over an open fire on this little grill. Then we sit by the fire and eat smores.

The fishing was not great needless to say, but Peyton enjoyed the catching and releasing.

This is a miracle (smiling), considering this sweet girl doesn't really like camping. She took one for the team!

Our friendly visiting duck came by all through out the day to eat bread or peanuts. :)

We hope to have a couple of camping trips this summer in between all of the work of the garden.

Have a great Week!!!

Trixi

Resurrection Sunday

For this reason the father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my father. John 10: 17-18

And Jesus said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that the repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Luke 24:46-47

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

Thank you Jesus!!

Newest member of the Spencer Family Farm

Here is Ramsey. He is a 15 day old St. Croix ram and he is beautiful. He will be one of the stars of our breeding program and we are so excited to get him home. We will pick him up around the middle of June. There are many reasons why we decided to go with the St. Croix breed but the main reason is their ability to thrive on forage and their resistance to parasites. Here is some other info.: St. Croix sheep

Our intention was to breed 100% registered St. Croix sheep. Well, during the planning process, we did not take into consideration that it would be very difficult to acquire a St. Croix ewe. They are rare in our area. So we are #1 on the list for one next year but this year we may have to get a Katahdin and have a St. Croix Katahdin cross. It will work out fine. Once we get our St. Croix ewes we can always sell the Katahdin if we want to.

Oh, those eyes. They are just magnificent.

This is just another step towards us growing and raising all of our own food free of chemicals, antibiotics and growth hormones.

Barn Hopping.....How does your garden grow?

I am barn hopping again today. I think I have said it before, I really like the barn hop and getting to see what other homesteaders are doing. Such fun.

Today, I want to focus on my garden..... If you have read around here very long, you know that gardening and preserving the harvest are my passions. I love the garden!! I love the squash and tomato blooms. They just make you happy.

I also love a prolific bounty.

If the Lord wills it, my garden table will look like this in July. I will have tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, etc. coming out of my ears. There will be 5 gal. buckets of fresh produce everywhere. Oh, I love it......

But for now we are still ordering seeds and planning. A good garden needs lots of planning!

(This is last year's bounty)

We already have green beans and onions growing in our raised bed garden. However, Mr. Larry, our very dependable neighbor, comes over every spring and tills my main garden with his tractor. We do not have a tractor with all of the implements and he does. He also loves to be on his tractor. So it's a win, win, situation. We use to till up the spot with a garden tiller. It would take days of back breaking work. Now, Mr. Larry comes down for about an hour a couple of times and we are ready to start planting. He has come and done the breaking up part. So in a couple of weeks he will come back to till and row it up. I can't wait!!

Until then, we will plan. Here is what my 2011 garden plan looks like:

Tomatoes (about 60 plants) I love celebrity but will throw in a few others, as well.

Cucumbers I put up 30 jars of pickles last year and that wasn't enough. I am shooting for 50.

Yellow Squash

Zuchinni

Cow Peas

Green Beans

Onions (red)

Eggplant

Okra

Peppers

Watermelon

Cantaloupe

Honey Dew Melon

Pumpkins

Gourds

Zinnias (We planted these last year and they were so amazing!!)

Marigolds (around my tomatoes)

Sunflowers

Catmint (I am planting this to ward off squash bugs. Here's a great article.)

This year I am planning to plant more heirloom varieties, as I want to save more seed this year. Here are some great companies to order seed from:

Baker's Creek Heirloom Seeds

Heirloom Seeds

Victory Seeds

Oh, and as a side note, Herrick Kimball, has a new blog Agrarian Nation. It is just as good as all of his other writings, go check it out.