Excuses, excuses... yea, I know, I've been slacking off (when it comes to posting stuff)

Okay, I just realized how much I've been slacking off on this blogging thing.  Not so much due to the lack of activity to post, but much more so due to being a glutton for punishment.

So far this summer I've harvested over 25lbs of tomato's, 30 or so butternut squash, 1 watermelon, more banana peppers than I know what to do with... and it keeps going.  If any of you know good recipe's for preserving banana peppers, please share it with me!  

Last week we also butchered 58 white broilers from Meyer Hatchery... I initially thought I'd never raise them again, but I was actually rather pleased with how things worked out.  At the end of the day, they didn't save me much money over the Red Rangers I raised last year (60 birds, straight run (mix of male and female) butchered @11wks & 1250# feed - no numbers on dressed out weights), but the average was roughly 5# birds (60 hens (they are smaller) butchered @ 8wks (could have gone 9) & 900# feed).

58 beautiful ladies in my backyard

I should note that last year we put our birds in plastic bags with twist ties, and just about all of them got freezer burn.  This year we dropped some $'s and bought some heat shrink poultry bags from Texaspoultryshrinkbags.com.  I got to spend two evenings bagging birds with my beautiful wife... which would have been very enjoyable had I not been so stressed about it.  While I would have bought them from Herrick over at Poultryshrinkbags.blogspot.com he didn't have the smaller bags for the parts, so I went elsewhere.

This is the second year I have used my home made chicken nipple watering system, and recently built some more for a neighbor, which was fun, in a weird sort of way... I'll have to put up a post on how I build those thing, but for now, here are some pic's...

Making use of the last drop before it goes into the trash... you'll likely need some lube!

My home made chicken nipple insertion device

 Lastly, for today, I'll leave you with a quick fix I came up with for when that Red Ryder bb gun is just too big for that young shooter... a piece of 5/8x4in scrap cedar laying around made the perfect shortened stock!  All I used was a band saw, some chisels and sandpaper.  I figured that would be better than cutting up the original...

When stock just isn't the right size... make your own!

With that, I'm out of here... I have a load of manure to pick up to put on my garden!  Have a good weekend and God bless!
~Clinton