Meet Dixie
Don't worry everyone, she isn't mine. I have not officially lost my mind and added another dog to the menagerie. Puppies are definitely not my thing right now, although Dixie is an amazing puppy so far.
Dixie is Gaby's promised birthday gift and the first official Green Acres mutt. She is a 8 week old Border Collie/Lab mix and boy is she smart! She's already met my dogs and they could simply care less of her, which is better than them disliking her. So far Dixie is a great addition to Green Acres. Since she has border collie in her, we don't want her using her instincts to run the herd. So, the plan is to have her sleep out in the barn with Charlotte and Rose so that she will see herself as part of the herd.
Makin' Bread Baby!
So I recently finished Jenna Woginrich's book, Made from Scratch. For those of you who are not too sure about getting into homesteading, but are still interested in living a sustainable life this is a great read. I finished it in a day easily, which is a lot to say because I am slow reader. She uses fun anecdotes in each section and has a great sense of humor. One of the sections in the book is about cooking. She describes an easy bread recipe that even a novice like me could handle, so I decided to take on the challenge yesterday while it rained.
Making bread is a time consuming task, but a very rewarding one. Justin's mom kept saying, "You'll want a breadmaker after this!" My arms certainly felt the burn from kneading the damn dough for 15 minutes straight, but I felt like I needed to earn this loaf. Let me tell you one thing about making bread from gluten-free flour that I didn't know before: it does not come out light and fluffy like the traditional bread that we are used to eating. I would describe the texture and taste more to that of a bagel or a warm pretzel, which is nice but very filling.
Mix the dough...mix the dough!
Kneading the dough.
Next time I will make traditional bread. Justin really like sourdough, so I am going to try to find a simple recipe to make that next week. My goal is to try to make a new bread every weekend until I am an expert at it. If anyone has any ideas for yummy bread to make let me know. You can be certain that come October and November I will be making some amazing pumpkin bread. YUM!
The pull apart bread. Great for dipping into balsamic and oil.
Meat chickens are on the way!
Today I put in an order for 40 Cornish Cross fast-growing meat birds. These guys should get to market size in about 2-3 months. Heather and I are going to split the birds and freeze them for delicious Autumn BBQs and roasts. We have found some great resources online about how to build a proper chicken tractor for them out of PVC pipe, chicken wire, and tarp. More importantly, we will need to build a poultry plucker to assist in the processing we'll need to do in 2-3 months...YIKES. For anyone interested, I would be happy to sell a whole bird to you for $15 (they go for $16-20 for a whole free-range chicken at the Briar Patch Co-op Grass Valley). You can be sure that your bird will be raised healthy and happy on a beautiful property and processed in the cleanest conditions. I am very excited about all this. More to follow!
A similar tractor to the one we will build for the chickens. They will start the first month in here before we let them out on pasture.
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