Nothing to Blame But the Dog

Winter sucks. This year wins as my most stressful and challenging winter, firstly because it was so long and so cold and everything was soooo frozen! Secondly, may I blame the dog? We decided to buy a pup from a neighbour whose dog had a batch before Christmas. The mom was great, the pups from the last batch were healthy and friendly. The price was right and the time was pretty close to right. So, we bought ourselves the pick of the litter. A healthy six week old female Rottweiler, with no dew claws. During her seventh week, her first week being home, she was cute and sleepy. She spent her days playing hard for an hour and resting for five hours. Then weeks eight to ten hit us like a punch in the face. She was pushy, knawed at your hands steadily, pushed any boundary you tried to set, chewed clothes to bits, caused no end of pain to us, mentally and physically - and not to mention the mistakes she made during bathroom training. We read books, watched training videos, talked to everyone whose ever had a dog... We tried everything - including despising the very look of her. But then week 11 rolled in - like the first warm day of spring where all the snow melts away - and voilà, she woke up being a good dog! Please note that I did not say a perfect dog... But at least she's live-able! I like to forget the last two months of muddled training and discipline, consequences and pleas, and focus on the progress she has made. She can sit, lay down, wait for her food, not climb all over the couch, come (most of the time), not kill the cat, she can hold her excrement for 5 hours AND overnight and WE dont loose sleep due to ceaseless whines and cries. Horray! I wouldnt go so far as to say that her good has outweighed her bad, yet, but shes well on her way there. Tonight was her first puppy class and she was miles ahead of the others! That made me proud of her, and kinda want to keep her. I just have one thing to say to anyone wanting to get a puppy - that cute face means NOTHING!! My last two months have been a write-off (and my last two pay cheques), simply because of the dog.
A quick update from the outside critters - I have been a lot more appreciative of unintelligent animals lately, you know the ones who obey you simply because you give them food. And you dont have to feel badly about keeping them in a cage/pen all the time...
The rabbits are living outside for the warm spell of +10oC weather we're having this week. At the end of the month Im hoping that Marigold will be pregnant - she's is really getting this nest thing down-pat. The chickens have been in good health - producing on average 8-10 eggs per day. Theyre definitely eating their eggs - they cant hide the yolk all the time. But I havent invested any time into solving that problem. I cleaned my coop after I lost the bird last month - what a job. But Im glad I got it done then, what a mess it would have been now! Im glad I can let them outside on days like today. I had to do a lot of chopping to get my pen door to close, but I got it and at 6:30pm they were still happily scratching around in the snow. Some garden planning has been happening here. Raised beds are a part of the plan as well as some vertical gardening methods. It takes the sunshine being out to really get the motivation to plan for the summer - but slowly and surely a plan is coming together. This week I must place my seed order or I may as well forget starting anything indoors.
Heres to the end of winter!!

Canned Venison: For The Hunter (AND His Whole Family!)

Im not sure if you have a hunter in your family - but if you do, you've probably eaten venison. Most likely, your experience has been bad. No doubt the wife of the hunter ended up cooking the game, who has far less passion for the oversized pieces of tallowy meat, than her man. All this resulting in a foul tasting, tough textured, undesirable dinner. My first experience cooking venison ended up in the garbage. My second experience cooking venison ended up in the garbage. Then I discovered online venison recipes, haha! Believe it or not, theres lots of great ways to cook venison so that you dont feel like your eating dirty socks. Soya sauce does wonders....
Well, heres a sure-fire way to please the whole family, even the sceptical members - with venison: put it in a jar!
Heres my process - please note that canned venison must be done in a pressure cooker NOT a boiling water bath.
Take your fresh venison (or thawed if previously frozen), cut off any fat or tallow, as that is where the bad taste comes from. Cube the meat in 1" squares and pack tightly in clean pint or quart jars. Add 1/2 tsp. coarse salt to pints and 1 tsp. to quarts. You dont put any water in the jars because the meat makes its own juice. Heat your snap lids to boiling and place on jars, securing with rings. Put the jars in your pressure cooker and give them 11 pounds pressure for 75 minutes. (If you havent used a pressure cooker before, read your manual first.)
Let the jars cool and store in a cool dark place.
Theres lots of ways to use the meat once its canned. Bear in mind that the meat is very tender, so its best used for a stew, casserole, or "venison on a bun" in place of beef.
Our favourite (so far) is just to pour the jar into the frying pan, make a gravy from the juice and enjoy over boiled potatoes. It sure makes for a quick supper!

The Great Chicken Adventure: January Behaviour

Of all the months Ive had chickens, January so far, has been the worst! I wish there was a set do and dont list for complex things like my situation, so the problems could magically go away. But instead, theres a long and drawn out trial and error process, infiltrated with new problems along the way. There never really is a solution - just a 'good-enough'. Let me elaborate. Minus a ba-jillion degree weather has resulted in a lot of broken water pails. After I broke the third one, I invested in a good livestock rubber pail, hopefully that will live up! If broken water pails were the only problem... All the coop inhabitants seem to be out of hand this month. About a week ago, I went out for afternoon chores and there was blood on about 4 hens backs and there was blood all around the rim of the water pail. After some sorting I traced the trail back to my poor Rob. His wattle was missing a piece and his chest had a patch of blood down it. I guess him and Fluffy were in a fight. The next day when I was out for afternoon chores, Fluffy had a piece missing from his comb and he had blood all down the back of his head. I guess Rob had to get back. If fighting was my only problem... For the last couple of weeks I havent been getting much more than 4 or 5 eggs per day. To try and up production Ive been doing a second feeding in the afternoon with about 1/2 as much feed as in the morning. When Im home for a whole day I make a point to check for eggs several times, because I knew they were eating some eggs - judging by the damaged eggs I was collecting. On average at least 1 egg was either cracked or picked every day. When I collected eggs around 1 pm on a day I was home, I got 12! So it really makes me wonder how many theyre eating?! So clearly boredom is a key problem in my coop, which prompted me to make some much "pinned" boredom busters. One thing I did was place plastic easter eggs in their nest boxes - interestingly enough they threw out the orange ones and left the yellow ones. Maybe a colour blindness? I also make some 2x4 board swings for them to play on, but unfortunately they dont go near them. Maybe they are too difficult to balance on. I also have plans and supplies (but as of yet no time) to make some seed "bricks" for them to pick away at. My most recent problem that came about today is the early signs of what I assume to be a prolapse in one of my hens. A few times Ive collected an egg with blood on the outside of it. I didnt really think much of it until today. One of the eggs was covered in blood, a lot more than before. I started looking through the hens to see if I could find who was laying that egg, and it wasnt hard to find her. The only hen on the roosts, a Rhode Island Red X hen, walking a little off balance, her back end was a trail of blood and feces. When I lifted her tail, she let out another stream of it plus it seemed that her tissue was being slightly pushed out. So completely dismayed I did some research and the closest thing I could find was prolapse of the oviduct. I couldnt find why it happens, but when it does, usually the hen will expel her vent so that it hangs out (kind of like when a cow gives birth to her calf, and then her whole uterus comes out, thats NOT a good thing). Then its a long process to an unlikely recovery, and if they recover they often prolapse again resulting in death. My research recommended in the case of an actual prolapse to apply hemorroid cream to the tissue and put it back where it came from. My hen didnt prolapse, but looks like she certainly could the way shes straining, I took some preventative measures. First I went to the store and bought a thing of Preparation H with the money scraped off the bottom of my car floor mats (oh the humiliating things you do for your chickens!). Then I wiped her backside down as best as I could. She kept trying to get away (fortunately since it was past dark I had a bit extra grace). Then, wearing gloves, I slimed her over with the goop, and now I hope for the best. When I checked on her again tonight she seemed more relaxed and not straining at all. If only she takes a couple days off from laying we might have evaded a much larger problem. And on a precautionary note, I wont be saving her egg to consume if she does lay tomorrow. On a brighter note, I think the sun is coming up.... lol...  

A Cold Cold Day

A lot can happen in a day, and today that was definitely the case. Bitter winds blowing, and the mercury falling like someone took the bottom out of it - I was in for a lot of water hauling. The sunshine can be so deceiving. I expected a break in the cold weather, but no, not today. Stepping outside I had to give the door an extra shove to get it open, since it was froze to the door frame. Then my first intake of frigid air outside I practically choked, the vapours from my breath freezing before it was out of my throat. When I got out to the garden shed to give my rabbits fresh, not frozen water, the first thing I saw was a big ol' rat in my trap. About a quarter inch away from the prize, he didnt even get a taste of that peanut butter. So gathering my wits, with shovel far extended, I set him outside to deal with later. I got all the critters looked after, and I proceeded to de-trap the rat. Not so easy though. He was froze right into the bar. Ill just interject a side note here, I HATE RATS. I hate seeing rats, and I really hate having to go anywhere near them. Dont ask me to touch a rat! So I mentioned, the rat was froze very solidly to the trap. My equipment involved here was a long stick, a garden trowel and my boot. Without touching the rat with anything important to me, I tried to finagle him loose but I couldnt. So I soaked him good with warm water, and finally got him pried off. Again, with shovel far extended, I fired him over the fence as far as that frozen rat would fly. I re-set the trap, contaminating my gloves with rat residue. Now Im down a pair of mitts, goodness knows how to sanitize leather mitts... So the score sits at this: Rats - 4 stikes (strikes including: destroying my potato crop, and 3 disturbing rat sightings), Farmer - 2 strikes (strikes including 2 very dead, very frozen rats). Rats will not prevail!
Just so you can see what Im totally hating (bear in mind that this is a rat trap, not a mouse trap):

On with my day, the chickens regarding nobodies rules, laid 10 eggs for me, which is the max theyve done in a long while. I fought with rabbit waters 4 more times throughout the day. I wouldnt be surprised if the water froze a mere 10 minutes after I replaced it. My deep freeze is significantly warmer than our -33oC weather... At least the house is nice and warm. For supper I made a trial duck to see how we like it. If it was a hit, we'd raise ducks in the summer, if not, no ducks. I started by slitting the skin in a cross hatch pattern, but not deep enough to touch the meat. I stuffed it with an orange halved and 2 garlic cloves. I rubbed it in coarse salt, pepper, orange zest, garlic powder, rosemary, basil, paprika and just a little cinnamon and nutmeg. I roasted it 2 hours at 350oF flipping it on its back halfway through. Then finished it off about 30 minutes at 400oF, flipping it again, and cooking until the skin was nice and crispy. And let me tell you, was duck ever a success!! We loved it, a deliciously succulent dark meat with a flavour packed crispy skin. Ive heard that duck is really greasy, but this meat was not greasy. (Dont bother making gravy out of the drippings though - theyre pure fat). A tasty snack of KFC would be far greasier... Being the success that it was, we'll plan to get some ducklings to raise over the summer. Thats one way to make use of our pond.

Ending off the day, the thermometer in the garden shed says -27oC for my poor cold rabbits, and the chickens are hanging out at -12oF (once again, I am so glad we insulated!)
On days like this I remind myself that spring is coming, like I told my rabbits "this too shall pass!"

Oh Rats! Again!

I should have known, where theres one rat - theres quite obviously more... And they seem to be made up of the same stuff, because when I was out doing chores once again, a rat came out of the bottom of Marigolds droppings drawer! As good as my intentions were with the last trap, the whole thing - rat and trap - ended up being buried under a foot of snow on the manure pile... But lucky for that rat, I found another rat trap!! So I loaded that down with peanut butter AND Christmas cookies and I wait in anticipation for another successfully dead rat...

So Good Chelsea Buns (For a Frosty Day)

These Chelsea buns are a great treat for a cold morning. We've been feasting on these the last couple of days, but they only last so long! Note: the dough turns out best with the use of a stand mixer.

DOUGH:
In the bowl of your mixer, add all ingredients and with the bread hook, mix for a total of 10 minutes. Dough will be stiff!

6 1/4 c. flour
2 tbsp. yeast
2 c. warm water
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1/3 c. oil

Let dough rise until double.

Cut dough in half. With each half, roll out flat in a 12"x18" rectangle. Spread generously with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll up tightly on the 18" side. Slice into 8 pieces, about 2" wide. In two greased loaf pans, sprinkle on the bottom of each:
 1/8c. brown sugar
Arrange 8 pieces of the dough in each loaf pan.

Let rise until double in size again, about 40 minutes. Bake at 400oF for 15 minutes or until evenly brown.
Immediately after they are finished baking, flip buns upside down onto parchment paper over a wire rack. Let the melted brown sugar glaze the buns.

Enjoy warm or reheat before serving.

  

Rabbit Update: False Pregnancy!!

Just last week I ran into a dilemma with Marigold. Although she hasn't been with Burgess, she was showing all signs of pregnancy. Most noticeably, she was pulling her hair and making a really comfortable looking nest. Good thing for Google, I was able to diagnose her with a FALSE pregnancy. More and more like a soap opera, I was the one responsible for it all. I make a habit of occasionally taking the rabbits out of their cages for a little walk, and while I had Burgess out, I showed him to Marigold (from the outside of the cage) and said "Look Marigold - this is your husband!" After doing some reading about the rabbits reproductive system, I discovered rabbits ovulate on command, and although Marigold wasn't bred - just seeing the male cause her to ovulate. Her system responded by preparing for babies and that's why she was pulling her hair and building a nest. But just to be absolutely sure, I checked her nest box a couple times to make sure there weren't any extra surprises...

**Note: Hair pulling can be indicative of other health issues. If your rabbit is pulling their hair, do some research to make sure you know what's going on.

Oh Rats!

My months-long struggle with trying to kill a rat has finally ended. It all started when I was out late doing chores, and a rat had come in the chicken door and found a nice snack in the feed trough. I screamed, the rat took off and the chickens were all freaking out. Needless to say, the chicken door didn't stay open past 5pm after that. My next encounter with the rat was when I discovered that he chewed my 3/4 bushel of potatoes to shreds that I was keeping in the garden shed. I mean, they were ruined. Feces everywhere! So out went the potatoes. I didn't see him again for a while except for tracks here and there. But then, yesterday morning I was doing chores innocently enough and out of the poop tray of Marigolds cage came the rat, looking sneaky and guilty as you'll get! Poor Marigold was scared silly up on top of her box. So rat-killing got a bit more serious. I bravely set the rat trap, put it in a well travelled area, bated it with some broken Christmas cookies and left. Later I went to do my evening chores, completely forgetting about the rat trap. I went into the garden shed for feed and BAM! I had caught my much avenged rat! He was large, and no longer in-charge. Im glad I caught him but I certainly don't have the stomach to go near a dead rat! It took all the gumption I had to shovel him up and turf him on the manure pile! Gross! Hopefully I got him before he had a chance to make a family...

Rabbit Update

A big project we took on this fall was building new rabbit cages for the winter. I knew I couldn't leave them outside, so that left the garage or the garden shed. Since everything is already out at the garden shed, that's where we elected to put them. We did some rearranging and measuring and started on our cages. We did 2 cages at 4'x2'x2' that stack onto of each other. We made the back and the two sides from 1/4" plywood. and the front is 1x1 cage wire. The bottom of the cage is 1/2"x1" cage wire  and beneath that is a drawer where the rabbits poop and pee all falls through. One of the plywood sides opens entirely as a door. We built 2'x1'x1' fully enclosed plywood "nest" boxes, with a door for extra shelter on colder days. Im really glad we built them with the drawers beneath, it makes for such easy cleaning. Just slide the drawer out, empty it and replace the bedding. Both the rabbits are healthy and growing. Their temperaments are so nice. Burgess has to have a good head massage every day. Marigold is a really nice rabbit, but she's so curious. She tosses her water dish around, she still spills her food and she loves to chew whatever she possibly can, particularly my mitts. My only big beef is running back to thaw the rabbits waters. It means checking and replenishing their water about 3 times daily. But for such nice critters Im glad to do it :)

  

The Great Chicken Adventure: Settling In for Winter

Even though it feels like I've had my chickens forever, this is really just my first year with them, and I've never even had chickens over winter yet! So far this is what Ive done to prepare them for winter. I cleaned their coop pretty thoroughly. I scraped up all the old bedding and replaced it with fresh stuff. A mix of pine shavings and straw. Now that the birds are older I find they spend most of their time pooping off the roosts, so its really packed at the back of the coop and in the rest of the area its fairly clean. We locked up the little door and nailed a board over the inside to keep out drafts. Ive closed the air vents, except on warmer days I open them for a bit of air circulation. I stopped letting them outside after the days were in the minuses, day and night. The days are much shorter and I find that the birds go to roost around 4:30 or 5pm. Ive been collected from 3 - 10 eggs per day, usually in the lower numbers though. The Buff Orpintons lay a light to medium beige coloured egg but the dual purpose birds lay the most beautiful big dark brown eggs. The only downfall is that they usually lay their eggs on the floor, and not in the nest boxes. I get one huge egg that's even bigger than a turkey egg. If I had a scale Id weigh it. And sure enough that egg is always a double yolk!
Here you can see its size compared to a regular sized egg:

Today when I was doing my chores I watched my birds for a while - they do the strangest things. I bet an animal psychologist would get such a kick out of my flock, because I sure do! If I haven't mentioned this before, Rob is certainly the king. Everyone listens to him. Fluffy and Garden Boy - the other roosters, are subordinate and they obey him. So today I watched Rob do what Im assuming was an election, or a loyalty call of sorts. He went to a corner and faced the wall, and then he didn't make any noise. But all the hens and all the roosters snugged right into that corner with him. They were all crowding to get as close into that corner as they could. There wasnt any food over there, there wasn't anything to scare them to that corner. Ive never seen anything like that before, and Im glad I had my camera.