Rabbit sausage and jerky

Today, I ground up the rabbit meat and trimmings I designated as sausage to try it out. It was a pretty small batch of sausage, but there's nothing wrong with that. 

In fact, that's one of the things that I'm loving about rabbits. We've raised pigs in the past, and two 300 lb pigs makes a whole lot of meat. Since we were doing all the processing ourselves without a walk-in cooler, it was a marathon operation. Our fridge had to be pretty much completely empty, and then it was jam-packed with meat from top to bottom. It took a lot of effort to get everything packed away for long-term storage. Then, over the course of the next few weeks, we'd cure bacon and hams, and finally smoke them. 

Yes, the end product was great, for the most part, but it was also a heck of a lot of effort. Nowadays, of course, I see how I could have made things a lot easier on myself... but the fact remains that processing two big pigs is a lot of work and takes some planning ahead. 

With such a huge amount of meat all at once, there also was more risk. The first time we dry-cured hams and hung them for 6 months, they turned out great - fantastic. The 2nd time, it got really hot and humid and the mold grew thick on them (which is pretty normal). When we finally got to try them, after a lot of work scrubbing off mold, I thought the taste was a bit off. Not bad... but not real great. A heck of a lot of work went into those hams for them to turn out mediocre.

We made sausage after everything else was stowed away, and ended up with about 60 lbs. So we seasoned it a couple of different ways. Most of it was great, especially the first year. But the next time, the seasoning was too strong on 30 lbs of it. 

So I began to see all that meat at once as more of a liability than advantage. 

Chickens, even though they are small, can also be kind of a batch operation. If you are incubating or ordering birds, you can't just get a few at a time (nor would you want to manage the different ages with their different requirements). So you end up with a big batch of at least 25 or 50 birds. For a few weeks, you have to run a brooder. Then you hopefully get them transitioned to a longer-term environment, without many losses. 

When it is time to process them, chickens need scalding, and it isn't worth heating up all that water just to do a few birds. So butchering chickens becomes a marathon too. And if the weather is nice and people are there to help and it all goes smoothly... then it can be a fun event. But it can also be a not-so-fun event, when you have a lot of birds to do, a busy schedule, and no decent weather to take advantage of. And even though chickens take up a lot less space than pork, when you process 25-50 of them, they do take up some space. (Note that I'm not talking about culling a few older hens or roosters here, I'm talking about raising chickens specifically for meat).

That's the livestock I have experience with. A person could talk a lot more about buying, breeding, alternate feeds, and so on, but I'm mainly talking about the butchering and meat-preserving experience here.

Now, contrast and compare that to rabbits.

With just two does, you get a steady supply of meat. Our litters have ranged from 5 to 10 so far, and we've staggered them so we are just processing one litter at a time. The other day, we butchered and refrigerated 5 rabbits in about an hour and a half, without any rushing. There was no scalding, plucking, or hoisting involved - just a sharp knife and a piece of pipe. 

Then, at my leisure, I pulled those rabbits out of the fridge and cut them up on the kitchen table. No need to be working outside in the heat or cold.

Finally, I could package them into packs that are the right size for our meals, and stick them in the chest freezer. No need to make a ton of space or plan far in advance.

And here's the best part - with a steady stream of meat, instead of a large batch operation, there is a lot more opportunity to experiment and refine. So I made a small batch of sausage today. In a couple of weeks, if I thought it needed less seasoning, or wanted to try a different flavor - no problem. I'm not stuck with 30 lbs of sausage that Mel and Abby won't eat because I got it too spicy.

This time, I had about a cup and a half of ground meat, and added 1 tsp of sage, 1 tsp of ground rosemary, and a bit of pepper. I meant to add a pinch of salt, but I forgot. Abby and I thought it turned out great, though. Mel thought it needed a bit more seasoning. 

I'm very happy to have a very good substitute for pork sausage now.

I also started marinating the bellies in a little bit of Worcester sauce and liquid smoke, after cutting them into strips. Tomorrow, I plan to dry them on low heat in the oven to make jerky.

I love having these little batches to play with, knowing that more is coming and I can always tweak things better.

People have different reasons for raising different kinds of livestock, and I'm not judging what anyone else does here. I just wanted to put forth my opinion on the differences in butchering and meat-preserving experiences with rabbits vs. pigs/chickens.

Ron

Surprise in the yard

I was sitting at the kitchen table today, when the dog suddenly let out a bark. In the middle of the day, that's usually a bad thing. He has different barks for different situations... this one was the "get out here NOW, there is something RIGHT HERE!"

Sure enough, there was a big ol' 6' long black rat snake right there just beyond our deck, a few feet from the house, out in the open.

These guys really don't bother me, though. Well, yeah, they are huge and intimidating, and my evolutionary reaction is to bash their brains in... but I'm glad when I see them, because they mainly eat rodents. And I'd much rather have some harmless rat snakes around than to have packrats and voles chewing everything in sight.

I really thought the dog was going to get his face bit. The last time it happened was from a copperhead. Abby and I watched from the deck for a while, and then I asked her to hold the dog so the poor snake could go about his business.

And then, to my amazement, the snake went straight up the tree. It doesn't even have rough bark... I just couldn't see how it could cling to the tree like that.

I couldn't see the camera screen so I didn't get very good shots. But now we have a big rat snake in the tree outside our door. Don't tell Mel. :)

I cut up the rabbit today. Here's one, in the various pieces. At top, is sausage meat, going right are legs, middle is filleted out loins, bottom left is belly, and upper left is fat. I didn't show the carcass, which I am saving for a huge batch of soup stock in fall when it's cool enough to have a fire going all day. I also didn't show the liver/kidneys/heart.

I pulled the other belly meat out of the freezer, and added this batch to it. When it thaws, I'm going to marinade and make rabbit jerky.

There is quite a bit of meat on these rabbits, far more than the chickens we were raising from eggs we hatched.

Yesterday, I moved a stack of feed bags, and while I was at it I counted all of the rabbit feed. It came to 12 bags, since we got them back last June or so. 

This was the fourth batch we've done, which came to about 30 rabbits so far.

Each one, I'm guessing, is about 2.5 lbs of meat or so. That means, so far, we've gotten 75 pounds of meat.

A bag of feed is about $13 nowadays. So our total feed cost has been somewhere around $150. Which brings the cost per pound to about $2.

Going forward, I expect the cost per pound to go way down. After all, for the first six months, my breeding didn't succeed. Also, we were feeding three bucks for a while. Also, I didn't have a substantial supply of dried clover and grass to feed them.

Ron

Gardening is fun again

I woke up today feeling like someone ran me over. That auger, in certain situations, might save some labor... but the design made it fairly awkward to operate, and that translated into a lot of physical effort on my part.

Pretty much every hole behind the house had rocks in it. They'd stop the auger (with a bone-jarring wrench to the side), and I'd have to lift it out of the hole, grab the landscape bar and pry the rock(s) loose, pick them out, and then auger another few inches. Repeat.

Overall, I'd say that about 1 in 10 holes dug easy... so I doubt I'll rent that machine or buy an auger for around here. The rocks just beat the machine to death, and I have to pry them out by hand anyway. So, from now on, I think I'll just putter on holes a bit at a time with my shovel and landscape bar, and skip the joy and expense of renting equipment that doesn't really help much.

I did get all the holes dug, though... so even if it wasn't as easy as I hoped it would be, we did make progress. Once I recover physically in a day or two, I can start mixing and pouring concrete.

Today was a day of rest though, recovering and recuperating from the beating I got from the auger.

Cotton is busy building a nest for her next litter.

Taking a break, with a mouth full of hay.

Mel grabbing another bowl of lettuce. It's all-you-can-eat season now.

We invested in a better salad spinner last year, at the end of the season. Now we get to use it, and it works great. Oxo brand, I believe. It spins for a long time, and really gets the lettuce dry.

I ate my first strawberry today.

This is my stirrup hoe. Such a simple device. Perfect. I bought it for a buck at a garage sale, figuring I'd give it a try. That was a few years ago, but this year I'm finally using it, and loving it. The thing is very lightweight, and long enough that I can weed standing up.

It has made gardening fun again... prior to this tool, I was struggling to figure out a system that works well... mulch has its downsides, a tiller makes noise and seems like overkill just to manage weeds, I don't want to spray herbicide, and I hate the back strain of weeding manually. I have other devices that I bought cheap to try, and they are more complicated, heavier, harder-to-use, and do not work as well. This thing is perfect, though... nice and lightweight, easy to push/pull through the soil, and it glides around rocks without a jar to your bones and muscles. Brand new, they aren't very expensive, less than 20 bucks, and I'd buy one in a heartbeat if this one ever wears out.

I sharpened it a bit on the grinder initially, but after that it seems to keep itself sharp.

 Abby and I planted sweet potatoes this evening. I'm amazed at how much roots they grew in just a few days. Very interesting plants.

Abby thinks gardening is fun. I do too, especially now that I feel I'm getting a system going that doesn't require so much head-scratching.

Okra is popping up.

Sweet corn is too. Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't plant any.

Lettuce after some weeding that the stirrup hoe couldn't help me with. Next time I plant lettuce, I'll try to be more careful to keep it in rows, which will allow me to use the hoe for more weeding.

Squash getting going.

The bamboo shoot is now tall enough that it is hard to show it against my arm. It's just one shoot... but it's strong and growing fast. Eventually, I hope to propagate this into a 30'x30' area or so. It's a native bamboo.

 I've been badly wanting to try turnip greens. Several years ago, I discovered that I could buy turnip seed by the pound very inexpensively, so I bought a pound (or half pound, I can't remember) with the idea that I'd use it for a cover crop/chicken feed. I still have a bunch of seed left, so I stuck a row in this spring, and it has made tons of greens. Tonight, Mel cooked some in a bit of soup stock, with two pieces of bacon in the pot, and some garlic. Wow! I love it!

From now on, I'll probably just plant turnips for greens, and skip messing around with little packets of spinach or swiss chard that don't produce much.

Ron

Auger rental

I called about renting the auger this morning, and it had just been returned and needed some maintenance. They said I could pick it up this evening.

So, since Cotton is bred and should be having another litter in less than a week, it was time to process rabbits. Five this time, in an hour and a half. Not bad. No drama. I'm getting the hang of this. 

Tomorrow or Sunday, I'll cut the pieces into the various parts. Nowadays, I'm saving belly for jerky/bacon, fat for rendering, liver/kidneys/heart for pate, loins for cut meat (used like chicken breast in dishes), legs for frying or grilling, and what's left for soup stock. It's surprising how much a person can get out of a rabbit.

Then Mel and I put in stakes where all the holes should be. I added several holes in the interior of the building to support partition walls... which entailed some head-scratching, but is helping to pin things down and visualize how we will use the space.

Rented the auger. I detest doing business with this True Value... they always have different kids working there, and none of them know anything about anything. Maddening. It took a committee of four employees to get the price right on J-bolts. Is it really that hard? Argh. The guy who rented me the auger had never run it before, couldn't answer any of my questions. I got the thing home and discovered the gas tank was almost empty... I'm sure they'll want me to pay for that.

*sigh*

It does make a person ask whether they should just buy whatever equipment they need and spare themselves the hassle. But then there is taxes... and maintenance... and storage... and some things are just used so infrequently...  I dunno. I'm not convinced there is a perfect answer.

We got started tonight digging holes. It went about as well as I expected it would. Some holes, ok. Some holes, quite badly. There were times wrestling that damn thing that I wondered if I was saving any labor. But overall... yes, it did save a lot of labor. We dug all the holes for the building, ten in all, I think, and with a bit of shovel work they all ended up in the right places.

I thought this thing remained hooked up to the tow vehicle, but that part slips off, leaving you to manually position and control the thing. I wish it stayed hooked up, because then I could have used the lawn mower or tractor to position it. A 3-pt auger would certainly be more convenient in that regard, although I think the auger itself is heavier duty than the 3-pt ones I've seen (although I never paid real close attention).

The rental was $68 for 24 hours. With the not-really-optional damage waiver and tax, it came to about $80.

If I'm ever in a situation again where I've got a bunch of holes to dig, I might just buy a 3-pt auger. I think they run about $400 or so.

But in the short-term, I've got 12 more holes to dig tomorrow, and then I can finally start pouring concrete.

Ron

Screwed up my solenoid

I was walking around with the camera this afternoon, enjoying all the green things.

It won't be long now! The strawberries that we nursed through the drought last year are setting a lot of berries this year.

I would have finished mowing yesterday, but I hit a stump that killed the mower, and then my solenoid quit working. I was just about to order one... but curiosity got the better of me... so I cut the rivets and took it apart. They are really a simple device, with an electromagnet that pushes a plunger with a big chunk of copper at the end, which makes contact between the battery post and the starter post. There's so much current going through it that it welded one end of the plunger to one of the posts. I ground it down somewhat delicately, applied a bit of solder to get things back together, and now that starter whizzes better than it ever has. I think the drywall screws holding it all together add a nice touch.

Tomatoes are looking great so far this year.

The slips I pulled off the sweet potatoes. I had my doubts that they would produce roots, but boy are they ever!

Check out the bamboo! It has basically doubled in size from two days ago! Granted, it still has a ways to go for complete world domination, but it's finally starting to take hold. I read somewhere that it is normal for bamboo to take a while to get going - and then stand back! Apparently, it quietly builds up a big root system so it can thrust spears skyward when its good and ready.

It's so nice to see the area we cleared last year filling in this year. It looked pretty rough when we were felling trees and burning off the debris... I had my doubts... but now that it is greening up it is really looking nice. There's still plenty of work to do, but it's a good start.

Birds love it too. I've been amazed at all the birds this year. A family of yellow ones have been sticking around. Bluebirds already finished raising one batch of babies in the birdhouse (the other day, they attacked me, and I finally realized that there was a baby bluebird on the ground... got to see it make it to a brush pile ok). I had a hummingbird hovering by my arm while I was pounding on the trusses.

Lots of grapes coming this year.

Plums.

Apples.

Almonds!

Peaches.

I might rent the auger tomorrow. We got some rain, but not too much, and the next few days should be dry. So hopefully I can get these holes dug and start pouring concrete. The sooner I get started, the sooner I'll get it done.

Ron

Garden, hay experiment, house addition laid out

While I've been mentally preparing and planning for the next steps on the building and house addition, I've been physically playing in the garden here and making hay.

Today, I pulled my slips off of the sweet potatoes. I should be able to plant them soon.

Bamboo! This is the first shoot that I know for a fact has come up this year. It went from 2" to about 8" in a matter of a couple of days.

The state of the garden now. I've completely changed my technique this year. Partly because I failed to gather tons of leaves last fall, like I had been doing for several years. Instead, I've been using a stirrup hoe, and loving it. With that thing, I can go through the entire garden in about 15 minutes and keep it weed-free, without any back strain. The hoe just cuts the weeds off, and if you do that enough times they quit coming back. 

I got started mulching the garden our first year here after reading Ruth Stout... but mulching can be a bit of a pain. It takes a heck of a lot of mulch and newspaper to effectively block weeds. Also, some weeds will poke through anyway... blackberries and bermuda grass are a couple. I know that keeping bare soil is not real good for soil health... but I'm offsetting that by rotating the entire garden each year to an area that has been under clover and grass for several years. I'll still mulch some things in mid-summer... but I think I'm going to abandon the idea of trying to mulch the whole garden in the future.

I mowed the timothy/clover mix, and the tall native grasses in the orchard area. I've been making hay out of them.

A decrepit table cloth even joined in the fun.

It dried great. I flipped it once. I've still got some drying, but I've filled 4 garbage cans so far, packed tight. This seems to be a low-labor way to get some good feed for the rabbits, especially since I have to mow anyway to keep the clearing from reverting back to woods. This experiment is making me think I will invest a few bucks in seed this fall to get more desirable forage growing in more areas, and perhaps lime more area too.

 Hangin' out.

The rabbits enjoy dried grass just as much as wet grass.

Tonight, Mel and Abby helped me get the house addition laid out. The outside dimensions are 21'x28' (8' of that is covered deck). It's nice to have it all laid out and squared, and to walk around with the tape measure envisioning things. Now I just need to clear some of the stuff out of the way to provide access to the auger, and then we can rent that and start pouring concrete.

The back deck will be fairly close to the bunny barn, which will be great. I can just walk down the steps here to do chores, and the chickens are right next door. Of course, I'll clean it up better and the grass will fill in. To the left is an open area that we can put a nice firepit in. It will be a great place to hang out, with open area in the orchard for kids to play, deck to sit and swing on, and maybe a fire to play guitar around. And a pool table just inside.

I'm looking forward to the addition. Up until now, I've been focused on the more practical aspects of the homestead, and we haven't really had a good place for adults to play cards or for kids to run around where parents can see them. I've always wanted a pool table. And so far, our firepit has always just been a ring of rocks, with no real good place to sit. So this addition will fill a big gap out here, one that I recognized several years ago, and can finally get started addressing.

Ron