My Empathic Horse

Mr. Chief has never tried to get out of any pasture stall etc that he's ever been in and honestly with the way I keep him he indefinitely could with very little effort. So the night before last Mr. Chief decided he wanted out. Brian and I where woken up at 6am by our neighbor because chief was running up and down the road! Now he has never gone to the road even when I leave him to run around our place free which I did almost daily during the summer he never went to the road... and why now in the wee hours of the morning and in the dark! ... I went down to the road and caught him with out any fuss and put him away but he was pretty worked up.

It was very strange. I thought as I went back to my warm bed.. "hum I wonder if one of my neighbors mares is having a foal" (she was due any day) so the next morning I went down to check on my neighbor and her horse and honestly to no great surprise her mare had given birth about an hour before I got here and about 2 hours after chief started to sound the alarm.. it's amazing to me that he knew! it will be interesting to see if he has the same connection with the other mare in the canyon as there are a whole bunch due here in the next little while... well here's baby she's the cutes little filly and is a "silver" in color which makes her mom's 1-Dominique and 2-M0nique very happy
!

new addition to the farm and the pigs last day

A shot of our place form my neighbors place.. : )



I knew eventually we'd get a cat.. I'm not a big cat person but cat's are nice in there way. We have lots of rodents that I'd love for a cat to introduce him self to. I didn't go out looking for a cat as I figured If I waited long enough a cat would come to us.. and he/she has this cat has been around for a few weeks but had started venturing in closer. so We decided to give it some crunchies and ask it to stay and live at our place and take care of the critters.. so I think we have a cat now.. no name yet but I'm sure that will come... : ) welcome to Big Table "Blackie" (name for now) I'm not sure how the "principessa" feels about the new cat but I think she may know she's pretty much the queen around here... and the cat is not a house cat so her dominion is safe.



So I wanted to see how our eggs stood up to the competition .. I bought the top of the line $4.50 per dozen "free-range" organic omega 3 eggs and affirmed what I knew... free range in a big production I don't think will ever be able to match a set up with true rotational grazing and grass fed birds.. note not only the color of the yoke but the way the whites on our egg (on the right) stay together in a firm "pile" and the flavor well it's defiantly better... so there you have it if I can find a way to test the omega 3's in my eggs I'm sure I will : ) want to know morehere's is a great article..

http://www.motherearthnews.com/eggs.aspx



(a quote from the Mother Earth article...)

Most of the eggs currently sold in supermarkets are nutritionally inferior to eggs produced by hens raised on pasture. That’s the conclusion we have reached following completion of the 2007 Mother Earth News egg testing project. Our testing has found that, compared to official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs, eggs from hens raised on pasture may contain:

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene

The Pigs rolled off in this truck on Saturday.

I can't tell you how pleased I was and am with how well it went. It really made me feel super good about having the slaughter here at the farm. Both pigs had VERY clean fast kills neither of them saw it coming at all - and it was while eating eggs in their stall. I hope I go like that but I think I'd like to be eating chocolate... : ) anyway the mobile slaughter guy was super good and
efficient about the rest of the process post kill as well. The pigs where halved here and went off to Frontier meats on Saturday.



Brian made Boudin noir fresh from the slaughter (if you don't know what this is you may not want to)

a hard day

Yesterday I posted Chief for sale.

It's been a very hard decision he's very much part of our family. But after much soul searching I've decided to start looking to see if I can find him a owner who can provide him the training and leadership I can not. It's hard to admit I can't do it all. It's hard to admit that I couldn't break though what ever he has going on. It's hard to let go of this big guy who I've put so much time into and totally love. I'm certainly not in a hurry and will only sell him to the perfect person/home. But I've taken the leap so we'll see what happens next. For now he's here just livin' and being chief at our place.

If You are kind of horsey you can find his ads up on the following sites...





http://horsetopia.horse-for-sale.org/classifieds/ad275374
http://www.dreamhorse.com/show_horse.php?form_horse_id=1165587
http://www.equine.com/Horses/ad_details.aspx?lid=581438&search_id=764d5b6e-0e08-4627-898c-5324406e0d91
http://www.draftsforsale.com/ShowAd/index.php?id=47a12303e07ef


I posted loads of photos at
http://www.clarecarver.com/chief2
and
http://www.clarecarver.com/chief3

happy chickens lots of eggs

Despite the cold weather the girls are doing great! I don't think they miss the extra rosters the flock actually seems more stable now with just two rosters, who amazingly just leave each other alone. I think it's because they have enough ladies and loads of space (no comments neccessary guys) . We just gave them new pasture and they are totally happy... we are getting about 2 dozen eggs a day from 48 hens and that's with out using a light in increase production.. just good old mother nature - loads of fresh grass and bugs...

my favorite time

It's 7:30 am the sun is behind the hills and the moon has yet to set
It's 20 degrees out side and 47 degrees inside
I step outside into the the sharp air my horse "hurumbles" to me from his stall
I carry the steaming buckets of water to the pigs replacing their hard overnight water
The ground is solid underfoot but covered in a cotton frost
I hear the pheasant cracking through the air with his call and the whispering answer of the goat's bells far up the hill
The sky is blue above the west hill where the moon is settling, and behind me the pink glow of the unrisen sun is creeping in
I go further up the hill to the goats and lama who greet me with with warm noses and frosty wool
I bash through the ice to their water with my steal and then pour out their warm grain and hay
I collect the newly laid morning eggs so they don't expand and crack in this January air
The sun breaks the edge of the east canyon wall and bursts out against the fir trees leaving the moons memory behind them in their bright blue casts.

No photos please

(warning this is not a post for you if your a vegetarian or don't want to really know about your food)

This time no photos for this post as I thought some farm scenes are just not as photogenic as others.

Today we killed and dressed three chickens they where the first three we've killed here at Big Table. While we are not total greenhorns as we have killed a bunch in Napa but with a new place new set up etc. there is always learning to be done.

We have the slaughter down pretty well. Very quiet and peaceful no flapping running etc. Quick clean slit to the jugular as they rest inside a cone upside down. This makes them go quiet and kind of "asleep-like it's really a nice way to do this not so nice job. Then we bleed them out and then into a hot water bath to loosen the feathers. This set up was thanks to Brian with a nice big tub and propane burner so we could make sure the h2o was exactly at the temp we wanted.

The butchering part of the set up was a cutting board set up on a high table on two saw horses. I won't go into all the evisceration details here but I did the first bird and Brian who hadn't done this part of the process yet did the next two to get practiced at it. Again I think we pretty much have it down but definitely getting the process more refined.

This "small test group" made us both feel pretty confident that we can get 20 or so broilers done for our own consumption in one session. So looks like I will be ordering some more peepers in about a month : ) (that will make for good blog photos) ... I feel lucky we can raise our own and be assured of them getting the best possible feed (grain and grass diet) and that they are slaughtered in a low stress, quick, humane way.

So all in all the process went very well and didn't take too long at all. We killed three roosters two young ones from our own babies that hatched back in Early September that was cool to bring things full circle. The other rooster we killed was Percy who is about 8 months older than the other two. All three will be made into chicken apple sausage by Brian with apples we picked from here in September also... maybe I should call the sausage September sausage even if you make it in January.

All in a days work now back at desk as I have huge amounts of design work stacked up it's a VERY busy time of year so back to the real world and the other 1/2 of my life.

ONLY read this post if you eat pork...

Raising animals for food is an amazing experience and I am truly grateful to these animals for their gift of life in all it's forms.

Of course this process has one component that is the hardest part. Which sadly is now upon us with my pigs (for the second time around) ... some might say "how could YOU" well aren't all animals equal? Just because I scratch and care for, feed and clean up after these girls does that mean they deserve to live and other ones deserve to be our food... Brian's Aunt put it best these pigs have a GREAT life and one bad day...(which hopefully is not all that bad - I have the biggest plate of eggs they ever saw planned and then it's one clean "lights out".. hopefully they don't see it coming and therefore no stress.. or as little as possible... really when I die I hope someone is that kind to me.. I'd rather just not know that it's coming... so till that day comes I continue to enjoy them... of course I'm not looking forward to the day but I think writing and thinking about it will get me prepared a bit...

For those on the "pork list" I have a call into the "guy" and as soon as I have a date I'll send out the e-mail like before with an offering of a 1/2 a pig ...

till then love the ones your with : )

Happy 2007 ... Last years resolution!

Last year I made a resolution to walk up the hill at my place and put a quarter in a jar towards a new pair of jeans and a firmer butt... (see old post)

the goal was - $75 (300 walks up the hill)

(for those who have come to visit this DOES NOT include walking up to feed and or visit the goats I could have made more money that way: )

So I didn't quite make the goal but I brought the jar down today and counted $50.25 (201 walks up the hill) but I did have about 2 months off due to broken arms ... So although I'd like to be in a size smaller than I am. I'm pretty happy for at least not quitting. Now the challenge is to do something similar but different for this coming year.. do I put in more money? do I just try to make the goal I originally set out? do I say if I can run up the hill I get to put in a dollar??? humm the possibilities are endless... any suggestions???

feeling loved...

It's been a super nice day we slept in which was a luxury and then pretty much just puttered around the farm all day... the day started with Brian cooking me a nice farm breakfast fresh eggs and homemade bacon... we got our grain storage bins filled (bins compliments of the Boyers) fixed the self water set up for the pigs gave them new bedding ...

we got 14 eggs today! which was pretty exciting looks like the girls are finally getting going... now I can take eggs to Navarre again they have been very patiently waiting while the girls had their winter slowdown and we waited for the new hens to get "up to speed" ...



My super fabulous husband made me pizza for dinner and we broke in our new cutting bord from Porter which I absolutely LOVE : ) it has the farm name burned in it which makes me vary happy to look at... the pizza was made from tomatoes given to us again from the Boyer's... Barbara has an amazing garden and has given us lots of it's bounty! Thanks Barbara the tomatoes sauce from your fruit was amazing!! and B thanks for cheffin' : ) xx











these last shots are me enjoying my new mono-pod that joseph gave me for Christmas : )

Good Friends... and more of edward...

I think at some point I'll have to do a post of just photos of all our guests with Edward.. I think I have just about every one of our visitors posing with our guard lama... he's just so darn good looking who can resist him... so come visit and get your photo with edward : )






I'll have to say though these two are defiantly giving Edward a good run for his money ...

This post is from when our good buddy Matt came out with his girl Angie just before the holiday

Matt and Brian share a love of all things consumable they both make wine among other things...... They have worked on many a project both for public consumption as well as for personal consumption... Matt is one of our Pork customers as well as a frequent co-creator with Brian in our kitchen and out in the "shop"...

This groovy hat and scarf that I’m sporting in this pict is a gift from Miss Angie that she made!! Thanks Angie.. It was super fun to have you both out hope to do it again soon…

This is a shot Angie took of her man with his wine…"Love and Squalor" gotta love those wine guys… smokin'

this is Matt's label which he entrusted to me… : ) http://www.bluelist.net/portfolio.shtml

and Angie's shot of our dining room... and of course the Big Table... : )