Thanksgiving Turkeys

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!  

Ok, we know it’s not Thanksgiving yet, but we ARE going to have Thanksgiving Turkeys this year.  It’s time to start preparing if you would like a Turkey this year.

We are asking for a $20 deposit for pasture raised turkeys.  We are estimating the turkeys will be between 12 & 20 pounds.  Final cost of turkeys this year will be $6.00/pound minus the $20 deposit.

Please let us know if you would like a larger or smaller turkey.  We will do our best to accommodate.

We raise our turkeys free range on our farm and they have access to pasture all day everyday.

We plan to have the turkeys ready the Saturday before Thanksgiving, November 19, 2016.  We will be delivering (for a $20 fee) to Portland, Oregon on Sunday, November 20.

To order your turkey and put the $20 non-refundable deposit down, please go to our SquareUp site:

https://squareup.com/store/silkcreekfarm

If you would like to know more, please let us know.

DISCOUNT!!!

We would also like to offer a 10% discount if you refer someone to us and they purchase a turkey.  Make sure to have them email me and let me know that they heard about getting a turkey from you!

Bil & Julia

Silk Creek Farm

Cottage Grove, OR

Fix it Up!

Tags

Fix it Up, iFixit.com, iPhone

One of the things that is fairly constant in any homestead (in the city or in the country) you spend time fixing things.  It may be your car, your mower, tools, lights, etc.  Well, sometimes it’s something that you never knew you could even work on.  My middle daughter dropped her iPhone and the screen cracked.  It was still usable, but it made it hard to read emails (or texts and tweets) and do what she needed.

I did a little research online and found ifixit.com and thought, “I can do that!” So, I ordered the part that I needed and she came home to borrow the car and I got to fixing her phone.

As with any job for me, organization is the key.  I had to make sure I had everything I needed before I started.  I had most of the small tools already so that was no problem.

One thing with fixing small electronics is the VERY SMALL SCREWS!!!  Man those things are tiny!  So I also made a sheet where I could keep track of all the parts from the big ones (and with an iPhone, there really are no big parts) to the tiny screws.

It really helps me to know what step the screw came out and like in step 9 where I took out 4 screws (yes the little dots are screws) 2 were alike and the other 2 were different sizes.

All together it took me about an hour to take it apart and put it back together with a new screen.  Then comes the nerve racking part.  Turning it on!

SUCCESS!!

It was so good to see that little apple!

This was the 2nd time I’ve had to fix an iPhone screen.  My youngest daughter also broke her phone last year (hence having the tools already!).  So, I think as Brigham Young and many others have said, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do with out!”, I would like to add, “Fix It Up!”  What have you fixed up?

Getting Ready for Winter

Tags

fire, kindling, stove, wood

We live in the Southern Willamette Valley.  Our winters are wet and cold, but not too cold.  We’ll maybe get snow once every other year (we didn’t get any last year, so maybe this year).  It does get below freezing but will warm up during the days to around 40º most days.  We also have a furnace in our home so we are usually prepared for winter as long as we don’t lose power.

Last year we lost power for about three days, and we were prepared.  We have a wood burning stove and it kept us warm and cooked our food for three days.  As you can see, now we are not using it except to keep  stuff out of reach of the dogs.  🙂  But last winter it was great.  It’s an older very heavy wood stove.  We really enjoy it.

Yesterday we took a few minutes to make some more kindling to help start the fires.  we don’t keep the fire going all night and all day, just usually at night we’ll start a fire and then it will burn out overnight.  We probably have 2-3 fires a week during December through March.  So we have lots of fires that means we need lots of kindling to get the fire started.  You can see a three buckets we made yesterday.  For those that don’t know, kindling is small sticks (or small pieces of logs like we use) that will start easily so you can get a fire going.  Right now we have about enough to get 30 or so fires going.  We would like to have about double that to get ready for winter.

Here is a quick video of Julia and I make some kindling yesterday.  It’s much easier to make on a nice afternoon than when it rainy and cold!

With the kindling you also need something larger to burn.  We have one nice pile of wood that is not quite a cord of wood.

It’s hard to see in that picture but it is about 4 feet high, 8 feet wide and three stack back.

We also have three other piles of wood that we will get ready for winter later (once it’s a little bit cooler) and get it under cover to stay dry.  This is wood we’ve gotten from a friend or from some trees we took out. It isn’t the best wood to burn but it will do if we need it.

Since we had wood and kindling and we were waiting for it to get dark to see the super lunar eclipse (or whatever it was called) we decided to have a fire in our outdoor fire pit.  It’s a nice place to read the internet (since the router is right inside the door) and enjoy the fire!

How much wood do your have ready for this winter?

Getting Prepared

Tags

being prepared, earthquake, Get Home Bag, prepping

There are a lot of web sites out there and YouTube channels on being a prepper.  I don’t consider myself a prepper.  I don’t think we’ll have a zombie apocalypse or something like that, but I do want to be prepared for some things that might happen.

This last winter we were without power for almost 4 days and some areas around us were without power for over a week.  This is something that can happen quite often around there with freezing rain that we get about once a year.  It takes trees and power lines out every time.  We did well this last year being without power for 4 days.  We used our wood stove to heat the house and to cook food.  We had enough food to last so we didn’t need to go to the store.  The water didn’t go out and we have a gas hot water heater so we had warm water.  We had fun cooking on the wood stove and just being together with the family and no electronics (not sure the kids felt the same way).  It was a little bit sad when the lights came back on.  🙂

We live in the Southern Willamette valley.  You may have read about how everything West of I-5 will be gone when this Earthquake hits.  We live about 3 miles west of I-5 so we will definitely feel it.  We work about 20 miles north of here and what we worry about is getting home from work.  There are a lot of old bridges on I-5 between work and home along with most of the side roads from work to home.  I’m not sure we’d be able to drive the entire way if the BIG ONE hits.  With the possibility of something that might happen we are talking about what we may need in our car to get home.  We’ve heard about Bug Out Bags (BOB) but we don’t want to bug out, we want to get home.  So we are starting to put together a Get Home Bag (GHB).

After watching a number of YouTube videos I have an idea of what I would like it to have.  One of my favorite YouTube channels is the Urban Prepper.  He has good information about being prepared.

So our fist step was to get started organized was to get a bag.  A friend posted a sale about a bag that was on sale from National Parks Depot.  I ordered it last week and it came pretty quickly.  I thought I’d do a quick video to show the bag.

So, now that I have the bag, what would you like to put in a Get Home Bag?

Getting the Chicks all Ready

As I mentioned the other day we received 41 chicks from Meyer Hatchery.  We got red sex-link (or as Meyer Hatchery calls them, Golden Buffs) and we are looking forward to getting back in to the egg business.  We really don’t make any money on the eggs (we probably lose money) but we LOVE having fresh eggs around, so we had to get more chickens!  In the picture I posted a couple of days ago, we had them in a small brooder until I could get the coop ready for them.  Here they are again:They were just 2 days old then.  Well we had a wedding coming up so I didn’t have time right away to get the coop ready.  Well, this week I got the coop cleaned out and all ready for them.  I shot a short video so share so I didn’t have to post as many pictures and type as many words!

Well, we got the chicks in there on Friday night, and they love it!

Look how big they got in just about a week!  It always amazes me!  We’ll keep you updated on how they do, and when we have eggs for sale!

Our State Fair is a Grand State Fair . . .

As a family we enjoy going to the Lane County Fair.  This year we weren’t able to make it so we decided to go to the Oregon State Fair.  It’s up in Salem, about an hour and a half North of us.  It was truly a Family Fun Day!

Me and Julia and our three daughters went along with our new son-in-law, our 2nd daughter’s boyfriend and our nephew.  It was a perfect day to go to the fair.  Temperatures in the low 70s and overcast.  We did end up getting rain for about 3 minutes, but in Oregon, that isn’t a problem.  😉

On the way up, we stopped to take a break and we took a quick selfie to get the day started right. While we were there, it was hard to get us all together at the same time (5 were off riding rides and three of us were looking at the animals and other fun stuff).  So we made sure everyone took a picture with someone else while we were there.

Aislyn & I

Julia & Samuel

Lilian & Shane

Georgia & Isaac (the newlyweds)

Going to the fair is usually filled with food that is bad for you.  Well, thank goodness that hasn’t changed!  I got a stick full of freshly cooked mini-donuts covered in glaze and sprinkles. YUMMY!  I ate it so fast, I forgot to take a picture of it!

Well, I have been to the Oregon State Fair about 4 times total.  And as it usually works out, the animals I want to see the most of aren’t there yet or have already left.  Being this was the 2nd day of the fair, they weren’t there yet.  I was hoping to see the dairy cows and goats along with large fowl.  Well, there were about a total of 6 dairy cows, almost no dairy goats (didn’t see any) and only about 10 large chickens.  There were a TON of sheep, doves (sorry, I don’t get this one), beef cattle (the limousine cattle were very pretty though) and pigs.  I did enjoy seeing the pigs.  Here are some of our favorites we saw today! The first picture is of a Jersey/Ayrshire (I think that is what it was) and I fell in love with her.  She was just about 6 months old, and if I could have fit her in the trunk, I would have taken her home with us!

On the drive home it rained on us a little, and that is GREAT!  We haven’t had really any rain in Oregon for months!  It was very nice to get a little.  It made for a beautiful ride home!

What are you favorite things to do at a fair?

What have we been doing?

Tags

blog, chickens, eggs, farm, vlog, wedding

A LOT since our last post!  Our oldest daughter has returned from our LDS Mission to the Philippines!  She got engaged and she is now married! She got married in the Portland LDS Temple and had the reception in our front yard. We spent most of the summer getting the yard ready to have a party there.  It was a WONDERFUL reception!

For the reception I wanted to use an old bell my grandfather had and I was able to get.  I built a stand for it and every time someone rang the bell the newlyweds had to kiss.  I think by the end of the night is started to bother them (my plan is working!)  In the picture below you can see our front yard and the bell tower is off to the left near the tents. 

Our second daughter is getting ready to start college this year so we have been traveling with her to visit schools.  These were fun trips and we were able to see friends and family as we traveled.

Our youngest is heading off to high school this year.  She will be attending an arts high school to focus on theater and music.  We are excited for the next four years with her.

On the farm we have decided to get back in to egg chickens.  We just ordered and received 40 red sex-link hens.  I am going to be building a large run for them so we can find the eggs.  We are getting tired of searching the farm for eggs with our “free range” chickens.   It’s like a terrible Easter Egg hunt everyday.  It’s not fun anymore.  Here they are on day one.  They are doing great and I am fixing up our front coop for them now and I’ll be able to move them out there this weekend I hope.  More pictures to come!

I also have missed updating the blog so I started to think about what I need to do around the farm that I could write or make videos about and came up with a list of almost 60 posts that I can do.  So if I only get to one a week, I have over a year’s worth of work to do.  So keep watching, we’ll be posting more!

 

Thanksgiving Turkeys

Tags

Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving turkeys, turkeys

We are now ready to start taking orders for Thanksgiving turkeys.  This year we are raising only 20 turkeys on our pasture. They will have access to grass (or grass hay right now since they are in the brooder), feed, bugs & water at all times.  We do not us organic feed (it would raise the price of the turkeys to well over $10/pound) but we use the best feed we can find.

We are raising only hens this year, so they should be a little bit smaller than we have had in the past.  We are hoping they will be around 12-14 pounds (but it is always just a guess).

The turkeys will be processed the weekend before Thanksgiving, and will be ready for pick-up hopefully starting on Sunday, November 23.  We are still waiting to get a final date from the processor.  He is one of the best and cleanest we have found.  He is just down the freeway from us, and does an amazing job.  He is certified and great to work with.

If you are interested in pre-ordering a turkey, please click on “Order Turkeys Online” below and put a $20 deposit down for each turkey you would like to order (credit card order).  If you would like to write a check or use cash instead, please email us at silkcreekfarm@gmail.com and we’ll work with you that way.

Price:  $5.50 per pound
Date:  TBD

Order Turkeys Online

Good video on pasture raised meat

Tags

CAFO, chickens, cows, environment, health, hogs, pasture based farming

Just watched a great video on pasture raised meat and how it is compared to a confinement system. The video “Out To Pasture: The Future of Farming” is a nicely done video.  It is amazing to me how many people just don’t know where their food comes from.  I think more that people find out about CAFO’s and how bad they are for the farmers, the animals, the environment and for us, the consumers the more that people will start to buy and raise pasture based animals.

Changes

Tags

changes, farm life, garlic, market garden

The last post on the blog as you can see was August 25, 2013.  It has been a long time.  We have made some changes to the farm over the last 9 months.  Some big and some not so big right now but may get bigger.

Changes:

1. No longer on silkcreekfarm.com.  You may have noticed that we no longer have the web address silkcreekfarm.com.  At this point in our farm, we just didn’t see the financial need to keep this.  It was costing us a bit of money each year to keep the web page up as well as the email address.  So our old silkcreekfram.com emaill address don’t work either.  Now we are using this web page (https://silkcreekfarm.wordpress.com) and the email address of silkcreekfarm@gmail.com as our main form of contact.
2. No more cows.  😦  Yes, we have sold all our cows.  This was a very difficult decision for us, but it came down to time.  Julia started a Master’s program this last fall, and I travel at time with my work, and it would have been too much work for just one person to handle if I was gone for a week or so at a time.  We will own cows again, just not right now.
3. No more alpacas.  We are in the process of selling out last alpacas.  At this point we have four alpacas left on the farm.  Two of them are ours, and two are being agisted.  By the end of the summer, we’ll probably not have any alpacas left on the farm.  Julia has decided to move on from the fiber side of our business.
4. No meat chickens (this year).  We will not be having meat chickens this year.  I need to take a break from meat chickens, and then we’ll slowly start to add them back to our farm.
5. Adding garlic.  We’ll be adding a large planting of garlic to our farm this year.  I hope that next summer, I’ll be able to take garlic to the farmer’s market to sell.  My plan is to have scapes, green garlic (similar to green onions), garlic heads, garlic braids, and then later on, garlic powder.
6. Adding a market garden.  I’ve been doing a lot of research on market gardens, and we are going to slowly move in that direction.  Next year I hope to have along with the garlic a variety of tomatoes, carrots, greens, brassicas, melons, squash, cucumbers, etc.

Still the same:

1. Us!  We’re still the same, except our oldest is in the Philippines serving a mission for our church.  She’ll be home in April of 2015.  You can follow her at her blog, Georgia On A Mission.
2. Turkeys.  We’ll be raising some turkeys again this year.  We’ll start sales later this summer.
3. Eggs.  We don’t have many egg chickens right now, but check with Julia or myself to see if we have extra eggs to sell.
4. Loving the farm!  We still love the farm and all we learn from it.  I just got these books from the library today.  I’ve read some of them before, but always good to keep learning.
   

So as you can see, we’ve made a lot of changes on where we are taking the farm over this last year.  Please check out this new web page and follow us (button over on the left hand side) and get updated when we post something new.