This year we raised ducks for meat for the first time. Like our other poultry they arrive in the mail. After picking them up from the post office, we put them in the brooder under heat lamps, give them water to clean their bills and nose off, and provide local organic grain for them to eat.
Once they have feathered out, we move them outside to our portable chicken (duck) tractor. We move this twice daily, providing them with fresh grass, and water and feed as before. This allows them to be raised outdoors, but protects them from predators.
Once they are large enough we process them for meat., similar to how we process chickens and turkeys. Because their feathers are water resistant, we need to do an extra scald in hot paraffin. This pulls off the feathers that didn’t come up in the regular scald.
We finish the process by packaging them in poultry shrink bags. This allows for a nicer presentation and should have reduced freezer burn and ice build up.
We use this recipe when we eat duck. It is simple, duck over apples, made in the crockpot. The leftover broth can be used for a sweet rice pilaf. Enjoy!
Warm and dry this week! That makes it a good week for lettuce salads. And we have the lettuce – buttercrunch bibb, really red deer tongue, and green deer tongue.
This is buttercrunch bibb lettuce. It is the one others are compared to. It has a soft texture with a pleasant lettuce flavor. The leaves are rounded.
These are the red and green deer tongue lettuce. Do you see how the leaves are sort of shaped like a deer tongue? We like the flavor and sturdiness of this lettuce.
SALE THIS WEEK – These are available as a small bunch for $2.00 or as a large bunch for $3.00. You can mix and match any of the three varieties. Expires 6/24/23.
It is scape season! This time of year you will see these twirly green stalks. at farmers markets. They are garlic scapes. The hard-necked garlic puts up a flower umbrel. It starts as a curly-cue. If allowed to grow, it will straighten out. But most farmers want the energy to go into the garlic bulb, so they harvest them and sell them as garlic scapes.
These can be used many ways. They can be cut in bean size lengths and boiled/steamed/sauteed as a veggie or added to a veggie mix. They can be blended/processed with nuts, cheese, and oil and used as a pesto, a dip or a spread with veggies, bread or crackers. And if you love raw garlic, you can eat them straight up. They have a vegetative garlic flavor. Lots of uses.
Here is some garlic scape pesto we made this year. It is more like a spread. We use 1 part olive oil, 2 parts shredded cheese, 2 parts chopped nuts, and 4 parts chopped garlic scapes. We eat it fresh and also freeze it, so we can eat it throughout the winter.
Remember those hot dry days that we had last week? Those are great days for making hay! And we did. First we mowed the field and then let the hay sit for several days to dry.
Next we used the rake to turn the hay over to make sure the underside was also dry. This also gathered it together more into a row.
And finally we baled the hay, threw it on a wagon and stacked it in the barn. Do you notice different colors from the front and the back? The hay in the back is from last year and the hay in the front is this year’s.
Here you can see the color difference better. The back is golden-brown and the front is green. We do this to get ready for feeding hay to the cows and sheep in the winter when we no longer have grass.
Grass is grass is grass, right? Well, not exactly.
Here is my front flower bed all overgrown with grass. Looking at it more closely, I saw that it has a variety of grasses. Some have thin seed heads, others are thicker. And Timothy grass, one of the more well-known ones, hasn’t gone to seed yet.
Thicker seed headSectioned thick seed headThinner seed headThinner seed head
As far as putting our cows on pasture, we are glad for any kind of grass. But this demonstrates that grass is not grass is not grass. There are differences.
‘Tis the season to have an abundance of eggs. What should I do with them?
Bake with them. Once I had a customer who loved to have my eggs put into cookies. The cookies rose better and tasted better than store bought eggs.
Mix an egg with oatmeal or granola. Dressing up oatmeal this way also involves adding some variation of oil and butter, dried fruit, seeds, nuts, applesauce, and yogurt. It makes a deluxe breakfast!
Fry the eggs with bacon or sausage.
Serve the fried egg as a sandwich with a slice of cheese, lettuce, mayonnaise, or tomatoes on bread or tortilla. Lightly grill the bread for a toasted sandwich.
Chop up, mix with mayo, mustard, cottage cheese, chopped onions, chopped pickles, or chopped olives. Add tuna for extra protein. Serve on bread or over lettuce.
Magic quiche was our go-to winter egg recipe for years. Or lightly saute veggies in a skillet, sprinkle with cheese, top with 4-6 blended eggs with a little bit of milk. Bake at 375F until the eggs are set.
“The first load of hay is here!” comes the cry. John Klein has turned in the driveway and brought the first of 10-12 loads of hay for the season. It would be a hot day because that is the best kind for making hay.
Someone would go out to meet John and help block the tires so that he could unhook the wagon from his truck. Then he would bring down another 1-2 loads that evening. We would unload the wagon that night or early the next morning and he would pick the wagon up when it was convenient. The same thing would happen several more times throughout the summer.
John Klein lived around the big block from us. We met him sometime in the early 2000s. Over the years he had supplemented his income by raising veggies for market, but by the time we knew him he was primarily making hay. He had several nice fields that he would mow, rake and bale. Then he would sell the hay off the field to several customers, including us, and sell from the barn to several other customers.
Making hay is hot, hard work, but John enjoyed it. He was good at it, too! He was glad to help those who needed hay for their animals and was glad to work the land.
John had a small field near his house, about an acre or two. He would mow, rake and bale this section first to make sure everything was working like it should. The tractors that pulled the equipment needed to work properly, the mowers teeth needed to cut, the rake needed to rake right, and the baler needed to pack the hay the right way and string the bales the right way. The small field was the right size to confirm everything was working. It was also near enough to the house and barn that, if he needed to fix something, he could go get parts and make the necessary repairs.
About 3 1/2 years ago John was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. “And you know what that means?” he said when he told us. “It means you have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel!” Over the past 3 1/2 years John had several rounds of chemo and several surgeries. He also became more vocal about his faith. He reminded us that he was trusting Christ in the whole cancer business whether it meant him being healed or him getting to his real home, heaven, sooner. A few times he was without any evidence of cancer. For that spell he felt that God had healed him. And then the cancer came back. And finally he had no more treatment options and was put on hospice. Being extremely independent he lived on his own until the last week of his life. Finally he passed on to his real home and was healed permanently.
In our early interactions, John was just a fellow farmer, the neighbor man that we got our hay from. And we primarily had a business relationship with him. But as time progressed, we would take more time to visit. And in the last 3 1/2 years we would catch up with long telephone calls every few months. This included friendships with my sons. John cared about them and what they were doing in their lives.
Occasionally we will bring your attention to other enterprises that are working towards the same goals as we are. Here is info about Food Waste Collection Businessthat is thinking of starting in the Syracuse area.
Greetings! I’m excited to be doing market research about creating a residential food waste collection business. The structure of this service is simple:
Receive a bucket/welcome packet
Put out the bucket weekly for pickup of food waste, including: Fruit, beans, bones, bread, coffee grounds, coffee filters, eggs, dairy, fish, grains, meat, paper cups, paper napkins, paper towels, tea bags, and vegetables.
After we pick up your bucket and drop off a clean one, your food waste goes to a composting site. This keeps it out of the trash, landfills and in the case of fats/oils your drain.
The cost of this service covers transportation cost, drop off fees and hourly wage for workers. Our mission is to keep costs affordable because we believe in supporting our community. Payment would be a monthly subscription model. As we get info from our survey, possible perks or other benefits could be created.
Please take 5 mins to fill out this survey in order to help us know how to support the community better. Market Research Survey – Click Here
It’s a simple idea. But the benefits could be felt for years to come.
Food scraps contain valuable nutrients that are good for the soil. Finished compost can be used in gardens, farms, and landscaping.
Generating less trash conserves landfill/incinerator space.
Composting puts your waste to work supporting composters, local farmers, and food scrap haulers.
Without food scraps in it, garbage is cleaner and less smelly.
Less garbage can mean a lower fee depending on your service options.
Thank you for taking the time to help us as we try to recapture food waste. Please reach out with any questions or comments. Aaron Southwick – cnyfoodscrapper@gmail.com
