Twin Oaks Farm - Dec 2, 2009

On Monday around noon the weather changed from blue skies to cold, overcast and gray, then it started to rain around 3:00. Tuesday morning the weather is clear but it is chillingly cold, below 30 degrees. After the morning feeding we spend most of the day indoors peeling Mandarin and preparing to make preserves and in the middle of the day Renee decides that since we are all set up it is a good idea to capitalize on this oppurtunity and she picks another 54 pounds of Mandarin. She makes other preserves such as Blueberry and Peach but she has to buy the fruit from an organic grower and that cuts into her profit margin, so it makes perfect sense to me to maximize the take on the Mandarin. The jar issue is all cleared up and they are on the way from New Jersey and on top of that Renee shopped around for the shipping and reduced the cost from around $500 to $285 and we still get to pick it up from her freight forwarding agent in Dothan, Alabama. That will be next week and I'm already looking forward to it. All day in the commercial kitchen it's the same routine over and over. We peel the outer paper thin layer off the fruit and set it aside in plastic bowls. Then by hand we finish peeling off the white middle layer of the peel and pull off as much of the white stuff as possible, does that stuff have a name? Then Renee slices the fruit in half to let the juice out and puts it all in a large pot over the stove. At first I thought she was going to cook it down, but no, she just warms it to "almost too hot to touch" and then gives me the pot. I'm set up next to the stove at a stainless steel table with a hand operated rotary device that is a combination press and strainer. As I turn the handle a archimedes disk pushes the juice and pulp through a strainer built into the bottom of the bowl. I load it up with 9 one cup ladles worth and then start turning the handle, immediately the mix starts reducing down and down until I have to stop and use a spatula to push everything to the bottom of the bowl and then press it again and again. It's surprising to me how much pulp we can get out of the stuff, at the end the useless white stuff is very dry and easy to remove from the bowl. Each pot has 5 or 6 batches for the strainer and there's three pots, plus another two cartons of Mandarin just in from the orchard .... gonna be here for a while. In the afternoon it starts to rain again, this time heavier than the previous day. By the time I finish the evening feeding it's turning into a torrential downpour, when I get back to the house we're back to peeling for another couple of hours. Around 7:00 we stop for dinner of veggie soup, then brown rice and turnips with greens fried in olive oil and akula (sp) salad greens. Afterwords we clean out a freezer to make room for the days production and do a mild clean up in the commercial kitchen just to the utensils directly involved in the pulp removal so it will be easier in the morning to do the complete clean up. Off to bed around 9:00 pm. The weather at this point has turned up another notch or two, there is high wind and rain and the temperature has come up some. The cable tv and the internet connection are through a satellite connection and both are down so I read for about an hour and then give in to the seductions from the pillows. All night there are thunderstorms, high wind and a driving rain. There's a small tree outside my bedroom window always brushing the vinyl siding on the outer wall and sometimes the window itself, it's annoying and keeps me from falling into a deep sleep and then at some point the power goes down for a few seconds, just enough to notice that it happens. Around 2:00 am the wind dies down and I'm off to blessed slumber.
On Wednesday morning it's still raining and windy but the wind is somewhat calmer. The first order of business for the day is to give the commercial kitchen a thorough cleaning, from the top down and then mop the floor. A secondary benefit is to give the weather a chance to clear up before we head down for the morning feeding. Around nine o’clock we head down and after getting through the gate notice some hens clustered together around 15 feet from the back of the large broiler coup. My first thought is that somehow they got out, like a door came open or something like that. But then I notice that the grass next to the coup is dry and then we see a dead chicken directly next to the coup and another stuck under the rail and not moving, but I can see that she is still breathing. A gust of wind had come up and lifted and pushed the coup a good 5 feet or so and trapped the poor hen like the wicked witch of the east under the rail of the coup. The dry grass is a give away that this had happened just a few minutes before we arrived and when Renee picks up the dead bird it is still warm so she takes it up to the house and processes it right away. One by one I round up the others, chasing chickens in the rain with my new yellow rain jacket that feels more like a plastic bag than anything else. After all the escapees are rounded up I get on with the normal feeding. In all of the coups the chicken feeders are hanging from the roof with a thin cord which is tied to the metal handle on the top of the feeder, like a bucket handle. The driving rain has gotten under the tarps and then water ran down the cord and into the feed, turning the feed into a wet oatmeal type solution. This has kept the feeder from working properly, and the result is the birds had nothing to eat this morning. Plus, all the birds look a little wet, so the driving rain has gotten into their little apartment complex. When I get to the large layer hen coup, the one where the majority of the hens prefer to hang out I notice the feeders are bone dry, working properly and completely empty. The ground and the hens are also dry and comfortable looking. No wonder the hens like this place, this is the luxury townhouse of chicken coups. By the time I finish the feeding I'm soaked through and when I get back to the house I notice the power is out. Renee sticks her head out the door and tells me to not open the door of the commercial refrigerator or any of the other appliances. A friend in a neighboring town is opening a bed and breakfast and Renee is preparing to leave the house so we go over a few details about where there are some buckets with rainwater and so on and such and such. Without power there is nothing to do, the house doesn't even have water pressure. After she leaves I go upstairs to change into some dry clothes and start writing today’s blog. After an hour and a half the power returns so I go downstairs and fix my lunch of leftovers, do the house kitchen dishes and the proceed to that usual of all activities, clean eggs in the commercial kitchen, I have the mp3 player all loaded up and ready to go. Most of my body aches are gone except for my back and it’s screaming. I don’t like the idea of covering up the pain with some advil but if the pain isn’t gone by Friday then I’m going to pick some up this weekend. I know the real reason is I’m just out of shape and overweight and since those two things aren’t going to change anytime real soon then …… I clean all the duck eggs from the last two days and then Renee returns from the opening. She has good things to say about the place, it has 16 rooms and the decorations of each room are based on a single country. The whole event went well and she is glad to have made possible connections for future sales. Now we need to start getting set up for chicken processing, the broiler hens that were too small on the last processing day are now nice and plump and she has already arranged some sales via her email chain letters so she has decided to process the remaining 22 hens and sell the remaining ones between now and the next processing date which is Dec 13. The first task is to bring the hens up to the coup next to the commercial kitchen. We do this with the trailer on the riding lawnmower and the special plastic storage bin that has been modified for this purpose. There are only 22 hens so this only takes two trips, nice and easy. While she starts getting the processing gear set up I go down to the pasture for the evening feeding. The weather is breaking up and the sunset is real nice, bright orange with scattered clouds, it would make a good picture and yes I’m working on the whole pictures thing. With all the outdoor activity complete it’s back to the commercial kitchen for more egg cleaning, but my trusty mp3 player will save me once more. Dinner is around 7:00, leftover whole grain rice and the not so lucky fresh broiler chicken that was killed by the flying chicken coup. Renee cooks it with just a sprinkle of salt and pepper and puts some broth in a gravy bowl which I put on the rice. Mmmm, very tasty. After dinner we do the dishes and I’m off to a shower at 8:20. Twelve hour days are turning into a standard event on the farm.