What being a Pioneer means to me

Yesterday was cold and rainy. The laundry is still out on the line. However I was busy in the kitchen. It was time to take care of the tomatoes that were beginning to rot in their baskets, time for fresh bread, time for fresh yogurt made from the fresh milk from the cow.

I made spaghetti sauce from the last of the season's fresh tomatoes that ripened in the kitchen, you can see the last of the onions frying in the pan before going into the sauce.

I made meatballs from a combination of an elk shot "up on ta mount'n", and my neighbor's friend's cow we bought together. I mixed them with herbs from the garden, bread crumbs from stale bread, and egg (store bought because my hens aren't laying) and the moisture was the chicken (foot) stock I made earlier.

I had bought fresh milk last night and skimmed the cream off this morning and made yogurt. Mr. Greenjeans was home and DD14 wasn't feeling well so he did her job of grinding the grain for the bread.

I eventually got the sauce down to one pot which required us to eat some for dinner(I could really use a large stainless stock pot). This picture shows the yogurt maker and the fresh bread as well.




I canned the sauce at 13 lbs for 25 minutes and lovely Mr. Greenjeans cleaned the kitchen.

During the day he also made a hole in the chain link fence so that the chickens now have access to the yard from their rather small run. The trick will be to keep the dogs from harming them, but we can close the fence again too. Now that it's cold the dogs are inside a lot.



In some ways I didn't do so well with the pioneer challenge - I didn't always walk to my office, Mr Greenjeans and I went out to dinner at a new Mexican food restaurant that has just opened. But then again I think I'm living the pioneer challenge. We go out to dinner so very rairly that it was a real treat for all of us to go celebrate - and the food was good. Driving? Well, sometimes I'm just lazy and that has to get addressed at some point.

Even though these things are just the day to day for us, I love this challenge because as things go to hell in a hand basket, we are going to have to remember our pioneering spirit. People may have lost skills, but some still remember and others will figure out new and innovative ways to get things done. The new frontier is not clean and open land they way it once was, but rather how we begin new lives once the card house of our economy and oil experience has come down. It is the pioneering spirit that lies dormant in people of all nations and races that will once again come alive when needed.

Pioneer Days: The Cockerel killing

The cockerel's were growing big enough to be making quite a ruckus here where we live down town. They were also growing so large that the coop space allocated to them was getting too small. On Monday Pa and I both had a day off, it was a nice day before the first snow storm and so we planned for Cockerel butchering. At first we planned on only doing 4 but reasoned that it was going to be a long time before we got to the job again and worked from dark to dark butchering 11 chickens. I only took one picture, a clean one.



We started in the dark of the morning gathering supplies, there had been rain the night before and the standing puddles were icy. That would mean no flies and a cool day for the meat. It took a while to round up all the roosters, as I carefully chose who would be left behind and handled the birds gently and quietly. The last choices were difficult and they were the most difficult birds to kill as well. We put the birds in large dog crates and put them in a dim garage away from sights and smells of the action.

Pa had never killed anything before. My processing experience was limited to an one animal or two many years ago and there was someone around who had a clue. If anyone else is in this situation, we found a few sights helpful, mostly this site. I have just a few extra suggestions that aren't on the site. We worked in batches of 5 and 3 so that the meat could get chilled and not sit around.

At first we procrastinated starting but then reasoned we were in for a long day and better get on with it. The lives of the birds I had carefully tended and protected passed quietly and easily and I said a blessing for each one. Pa and I quickly found a division of labor based on having different jobs that each of us really, really, didn't want to do. I really, really didn't want to kill my birds and so Pa cut the juggler vein and bled out the bird, and we both plucked (not a bad job when the water is 147 degrees). When the cleaning part came it turned out that Pa got squeamish and hated it and so I volunteered to gut all the birds since he was doing the job I didn't want to do. It took me about 8 birds to really figure out what I was doing. I hadn't found any good instruction on this - just live and learn. I saved the livers for eating and a few hearts for the dogs.

No one part of the day was particularly difficult but the length of job and the shear numbers of birds processed took its toll as we were finishing in the dark under a flood light with freezing temperatures descending into the muscles of my shoulders and across my back, 10 hours after starting. You can bet I did those last three more quickly than the first 5.

We had saved the feet and neck of the birds. They are a delicacy the world over and have long been used for soup by people who raised backyard birds. When we came in and cleaned up I looked up soup stock made from chicken feet. (The feet had already been a minute in the scalding water as the birds were feather footed, but of coure they got washed again in the kitchen.) The recipe called for chopping of the toe nail which I couldn't do with the kitchen shears and when I called in Pa to do the chopping with his cleaver, his reaction wasn't fit to print and left DD14, exclaiming, Dad! He's a good sport and so did it anyway. I assured him I'd do the skinning after the initial 5 minute boil and he sputtered about skinning chicken feet and went to the shower. Only a modern people can eat a dish called "chicken fingers" and not think about it.

After his shower, I thought it best not to remind Pa that we were doing a pioneer days challenge and not to veg in front of the TV.

The I simmered the feet and necks with onion and herbs all night long. The recipe had called for thyme and I took a lantern - sorry a torch - and went into the yard looking for the thyme I'd planted last spring but it had been killed off by the aggressive mint. I grabbed a handful of Rosemary while I was there.

Pa didn't sleep well knowing the large stock pot was on the stove and got up several times to stir it. At dawn I got up and strained it and pressure canned 7 quarts with an 8th in the ice box (er the 'fridge).

Maybe one day this all will be a necessity. I think its important that the old skills don't get lost. If the economy gets turned around and we find a cure for our energy problems and the climate heals itself then this all will be for naught, but somehow I'm not betting on an easy future, but rather one where we will know how to feed and care for our families better.

Pioneer Week November 3-10, excluding the election coverage

I used to say I was going to grow up and live at my Grandparents fishing cabin. I'm still waiting to grow up so I can move there. However for the week I'm participating in Crunchy's Pioneer Week!

Day one of Pioneer week. The roosters are costing us money in feed and 9 of them are making a ruckus (we live right downtown). So today is butchering day for 4 of them. We don't have room to store any more than four.

I went to a neighbors (about 30 miles down the road) to borrow a 15 gallon pot for feather plucking and learned they had had a fire in their farm shop. 50 years worth of tools, welding equip, shovels and files and rasps, chain saw, and all manner of hand tool and garden and farm implement, 4 saddles and tack are gone. Good thing the new tractor was still parked in the driveway and not in the shop for the winter.

They had been working in the shop and gotten tired and went to bed early (must have left a spark) and a neighbor saw the flames and woke them. They had firemen from two towns and they went in to the fire and removed the welding equip to prevent and explosion.

They say they don't need any help and they are just grateful no one got hurt.