Typical Scene on the Farm
It’s a blustery day here on the farm. There’s moisture in the air, sometimes just a light mist, other times it’s wee little balls of stinging sleet. This is not my favorite time to be out and about, but the animals need hay even more on days they don’t go out and graze.
The guineas don’t seem to mind a little rain, running around looking for grain or perched on the fence.
I almost chickened out of my morning walk through the woods, but I figured if the guineas could hack the foul weather, so could I.
The wind was making quite a racket as it roared through the trees, and of course the creek was up a little from the bit of rain we had. 
On nice days, when I let all the animals out together, it’s not unusual to see all kinds of combinations of critters, with the chickens, guineas, dogs, sheep and llama.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen poultry perching on sheep. I think that nice thick wool must keep their feet warm, or maybe they just like being on top of things.
It’s a typical scene on the farm.
Corn Crazy
In the mornings when I go out to do chores, the chickens always come running because they love me so much. Okay, maybe it has more to do with the fact I always throw some cracked corn out first thing.
The guineas aren’t far behind, and rush in to get their share. It seems every critter on the place loves to munch on cracked corn. Even wonder dog Toby will lick some up now and then.However, the top of the food chain here is the goats, and when I let them out, they chase everyone else away.
And just what do you think you’re doing, trying to eat MY corn????
For that reason, the goats are always the last critters I let out of the night pens, but I always make sure there’s some left for them to have a morning treat also!
It seems the only critter outside that never wants their share is the cat, Spot. I guess he figures that corn isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Here we are, all set to start a new year. And every year, I think I’m going to do better, and get more done, and have BIG plans for what I’m going to accomplish. And every year, most of the things I accomplish don’t seem to match what I’d planned to accomplish. Maybe this year will be different? (I know, take off those rose-colored glasses!)
So what’s on the agenda for 2008?
#1) Get rid of all the wool from past shearings sitting in my basement.
#2) Update our farm website. Our critter population has changed dramatically.
#3) Rejuvenate my flock of laying hens. Time to order some new chicks this spring! My hens are getting elderly – I didn’t even know that chickens lost coloration in their feathers like we do in our hair.
#4) Order some meat breed chicks also, and fill our freezer with some “I know what’s in ‘em” chicken. My biggest hang-up is finding someone to do the processing. I can’t handle all the feather plucking and cleaning out and stuff like I did when younger and healthier.
#4) Find someone who raises beef without hormones, and put some no-dye-or-anything-else-in-it beef in our freezer.
#5) More, higher raised beds in the garden. Even just one that was tall enough I don’t have to bend over to work would be great. It would make growing veggies so much easier for me.
#6) Finish refinishing the house, specifically, the hall bathroom and my office. Those are the major projects, but there’s a bunch of little stuff that needs done, too.
#7) And the most major project, clear out all the extras in the house, from merging 3 households of packrats. It’s time to clear things out, but it takes a lot of time and effort, and is difficult when you have lots to do, and not enough hours during the day you can work!
I know doing all this will be difficult in one year, but it’s good to have goals to shoot for!
Is that chicken, just chicken?
Because of some health issues (fibromyalgia for one), I’ve recently been working on my diet. I’m trying to eat more “natural” foods, as close to ‘off the farm’ as possible. It’s made me check food labels even more carefully. Sometimes the ingredients are kind of what I figured, and other times what I read on labels comes as a complete surprise.
Case in point… chicken. I was looking at labels on packages of frozen chicken breasts, figuring it’d say chicken. Period.
WRONG!
I discovered the chicken is injected with broth. I looked at lesser known brands first, then I checked out Tyson. Didn’t matter. Both were injected with up to 15% broth/salt water. And getting fresh chicken instead of frozen doesn’t help. It’s injected with the broth solution also.
When I looked on the web to see if I could find out exactly what is in the broth, I never did get an exact list of ingredients, but I did find out a whole lot of other stuff.
It seems Tyson says their company injects broth in chicken because “customers like it.” It supposedly makes the chicken more tender.
But here’s the thing. Tyson sells chicken to Walmart. Walmart wanted packages of chicken to be even weights, like their 3-pound bags of frozen chicken breasts. Well, guess what? Chickens don’t all produce the exact same weight breasts, so either the chicken company has to put in extra chicken to ensure there is at least 3 pounds, and lose money because there’s some “free” chicken in there… or they inject a lesser amount of chicken with broth until it weighs an even 3 pounds.
Okay, if they want to inject the chicken with broth, and it’s labeled they have, that’s their choice. The problem is the USDA allows them to label this broth-injected chicken as “100% all natural chicken.” What???
Some chicken companies quit selling to Walmart when it insisted on even weight packages because they wished to keep their “natural” label and couldn’t afford to lose money by putting extra chicken in the package. Naturally, they’re upset that the USDA now allows the natural label to be put on broth-injected chicken.
These companies lose out because a) they lost their market with Walmart, and b) now they lose the uniqueness of their labeled chicken, because other companies can use the label even though their product is not chicken, just chicken.
The consumer loses out on this deal because a) they are paying the same price for the broth in the chicken as they pay for the chicken itself, b) there is an increased amount of sodium in the chicken which most if not all consumers positively do NOT need, and c) where do you find just chicken, plain chicken????
What a rip-off!