get your backyard chickens ready for winter
Snow on the mountains and frosty mornings can only mean one thing; winter is on its way!
Here are a few tips to help you get your backyard chickens ready for winter.
Choose a hardy breed.
If you happen to have a heritage breed of chicken, you’re already ahead of the game. Old breeds like our Barred Rocks have been bred for the barnyard. They are hardy and well adapted to deal with the weather.
This article has some great info on cold-weather friendly chicken breeds.
Modern industrial chickens have been bred for heavy production and a short life. They should be avoided. Heritage birds are more beautiful, anyway!
Water
Your birds need access to fresh water. If you have a traditional poultry waterer, you will need to fill it with warm water at least twice a day.
If you’re feeling slightly ambitious, you can build yourself a drip-bucket poultry waterer. With its open-top design you can drop in a submersable heater which will keep the water from freezing.
Wind and Cold
Chickens aren’t the brightest creatures, but they’re not stupid, either. They will stay inside when the weather is miserable, fluffed up cuddled and cozy. You job is to provide them with a protected place out of the wind.
You can help keep your chickens warm in the winter and cool in the summer by insulating their coop with a solid sheet insulation.
Despite the fact that the insulation is bright blue and looks nothing like chicken scratch, they will eat it. We keep ours from chowing down by laying a tarp between them and the removable roof.
Be sure to place their roosting perch near the roof to make the most of their own body heat, which will rise.
During really cold, windy days and nights you should wrap up the outdoor run. With a big tarp and some bungee cords, wrap your chicken run up like a present. Be sure to maintain some ventilation and open it occasionally during the day. Without fresh air it will get mighty smelly mighty fast. No good for you OR your birds.
Mud and Muck
Lucky for us here in Vancouver, snow and negative temperatures in the double digits aren’t an all-winter-long affair. As for rain, that’s another story.
No one likes muddy eggs in the morning.
We cover the roof of our outdoor run with a tarp during winter for the chicken’s comfort, but the soil will still get saturated.
You can deal with winter rain by laying down clean bedding inside the coop and in the run on a regular basis. You should also turn it in regularly. We use wood shavings, but you can also use straw. The carbon in the bedding will help to balance out the nitrogen from the chicken manure. Turning it with a pitch fork on a regular basis will aerate the soil and keep it from becoming anaerobic. (That’s a fancy way of saying SUPER stinky.)
You’re chickens will likely stop laying during the shorter days of winter, so don’t be alarmed when your regular breakfast supply dries up. It’s only temporary.
The return of those bright sunny yolks is just one more reason you’ll have to look forward to spring.
flank steak with homemade tortillas & chili mango salsa
Another cheap and cheerful recipe from the Tortoise & Hare kitchen.
Flank steak is a relatively inexpensive cut and is easy to cook.
The tortillas in this recipe take a little bit of effort, but once they melt in your mouth you’ll be glad you took the time. If you’re not feeling that ambitious, this is a quick week night meal with store bought tortillas.
You can prepare the salsa and marinated the meat the night before. When you get home just grill up your meat and tuck in!
Marinade:
- 1 small jalapeno, minced.
- 2 garlic cloves, minced.
- 1 hot red chili, minced.
- 1 to 2 tablespoons cumin.
- Olive oil (a good glug).
- Juice and zest of one lime.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
Not rocket science. Mix it up, rub it in and let it sit! An hour is good, overnight is better.
Salsa:
- 2 cups finely diced mango.
- 1 jalapeno, finely minced.
- 1 hot red chili, finely minced.
- 2 cloves garlic, minced.
- 2 tablespoons fresh mint, finely chopped.
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped.
- 1 tablespoon chives, finely minced.
- Juice and zest of one lime.
Same goes for the salsa. Chop it up, mix it up, eat it up. Easy. (And don’t feel guilty about using frozen mangos. Mango’s aren’t local OR seasonal eating, but hey, we all have our vices. It could be worse, right?)
Tortillas:
This recipe is adapted from my favorite cookbook : Rebar
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons lard or vegetable shortening
- 3/4 to 1 cup warm water
- 1 tsp honey
Mix together your dry ingredients. Rub the lard in with your fingers until mixture is crumbly. Stir the honey into the warm water. Slowly mix in the water / honey mixture and knead doug gently for a few minutes, until it is less sticky and begins to feel elastic. Cover with a damp towel and let rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour. After dough has rested, roll it into golf-ball sized pieces. Cover with the towel and let it rest again. When ready to cook, roll each ball out on a lightly floured surface, nice and thin. Heat a frying pan seasoned with a small amount of oil. Fry each tortilla, flipping when bubbles start to form. Keep them warm in a low oven until you’re ready to chow down.
Cook your flank steak on the grill on inside on a grill pan. I like mine medium rare. Make sure you let it rest when it’s done cooking. The key to enjoying flank steak is to cut it in thin strips cross-ways against the grain. That way you’ll have lovely tender strips of juicy beef instead of chewy shoe leather.
Pile your beef and salsa into your hot tortilla, add a bit of sour cream or plain yogurt if you feel so inclinded and dig in!
happiness is : giant cabbages & mini-gardeners
This September I was honoured to be one of two judges for the Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House’s fourth annual Harvest Festival vegetable contest at Clinton Park in East Vancouver.
Frog Hollow is a volunteer driven organization that provides family and community services to people in my neighbourhood in East Van.
The day was full of watermellon-covered smiling faces, gorgeous veggies and the joyful sounds of the infamous Carnival Band. The children enjoyed a dance and impromptu parade around the park while playing tambourines and drums.
This young man was so proud! He was just beaming. Warmed my heart to see a boy so happy about veggies!!
Here I am with one of our tiniest prize winners! Who doesn’t love The Very Hungry Caterpillar!
Roasted Garlic & Squash Ravioli
Cooler days and bountiful fall gardens make this a perfect recipe for this time of year.
I’ve used butternut squash, but feel free to use whatever squash you have on hand in the garden or at your local farmer’s market. This recipe is a bit of work, but makes a huge batch of pasta. You’ll be thankful you took the time when you can come home after a long day at work and reach for these instead of a box of KD!
Roasted Garlic & Squash Ravioli
- 1 small squash (sugar pumpkin, butternut, acorn etc.), roasted
- 1 head garlic, roasted
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
- 1 1/2 cups marscapone cheese
- 1 large handful fresh sage
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 batch homemade whole wheat pasta (If you’re pinched for time or can’t be bothered, pick up some fresh lasagna sheets. They’ll work just as well.)
Wisk together eggs, cheeses, minced garlic and nutmeg until smooth and creamy.
In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, scoop cooled flesh from the squash and squeeze garlic from the bulb. Puree until slightly lumpy. Add sage and puree until smooth. Combine cheese mixture and squash mixture and season to taste.
Put mixture into a piping bag or a ziplock bag and cut an opening in one corner. Working in small batches lay out sheets of pasta and pipe tablespoon size portions of filling onto pasta in a row along the length of the pasta, about 1/2 inch from the nearest edge. Brush around filling with egg wash. Fold remaining dough over top of the filling, gently pressing down between portions and pressing out the air.
Once you have sealed them well, cut into individual ravioli using a knife or roller. Dust with flour and freeze in a single layer on a baking sheet. Once frozen they can be stored in a reusable air-tight container.
Cook in boiling salted water from frozen until they float.
Serve with sage butter and grated parmesan.
Pumpkin Soup
We had a terribly stormy day here on the West Coast the other day, of Winnie the Pooh proportions. (If you know your Winnie, you’ll know what I mean.)
Anyway. It was the kind of day that called for a simmering stock to warm the kitchen and a sturdy bowl of soup to warm the soul.
Jeff had just brought in the sugar pumpkins from the vines in the front yard, making Pumpkin Soup the obvious flavour du jour. Turns out Jeff spent the day working outside in the ugliness, so I got extra bonus points for preparing such a warm and cozy meal. Nice one.
Recipe: Roasted Pumpkin Soup
This recipe works with any roasted squash. Each will produce a different, but equally delicious result. I used a sugar pumpkin, typically used in Pumpkin Pie.
Don’t forget to save the seeds for roasting! Nom nom!
If you use vegetable stock, this recipe is vegan.
Cheap and Cheerful Chicken Pie
Trying to keep both my grocery bill and my meat consumption down these days. I’ve been on the lookout for cheap and cheerful meals that make the most of less.
This pie took leftover chicken and veg from the garden and turned it into decadent delishiousness for a couple more meals.
Recipe: Cheap and Cheerful Chicken Pie
Please feel free to use whatever veggies you have in your fridge, garden or freezer. The amount of chicken is also totally up to you. Our goal here is to clean out the fridge and use what we have on hand.
Waste not, want not!
Oniony Goodness
It’s finally September. My hubby and I spent the weekend working on bringing in the last of the harvest. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, onions.
There are always a handful of onions that aren’t really big enough to bother curing. I hate to waste the fruits of my husband’s labour so I found a lovely way to take these unassuming little throwaways and turn them into little gems of oniony goodness.
You can use any small onion for this. We used small storage onions, small sweet Walla Walla, pearl onions and Cippolini.
Caramelized Baby Onions with Apple Cider Vinegar and Honey
- Take 2-3 cups of small onions. Peel, trim ends and leave whole.
- Pour a glug of olive or canola oil and 2 tablespoons of butter in a frying pan.
- Saute onions with butter and oil slow and low until soft.
- Add salt, pepper, one bay leaf and a few sprigs of thyme. (Fresh is best, but use 1 teaspoon of dried if that’s all you’ve got.)
- Add about a quarter cup of good apple cider vinegar, put a lid on and steam. Keep a close eye so they don’t burn. Keep them moving.
- When the vinegar has reduced, add honey. We used berry honey from Arila Apiary. You can find them at the farmer’s market.
- Simmer on low stirring constantly until thick, shiny and golden.
Feel free to fiddle with the recipe. More vinegar for more tang, more or less honey to suit your sweet tooth.
These onions are delicious hot or cold. We ate ours warm with a fresh loaf of crusty organic country bread from A Bread Affair. The onions are so tender, they spread like butter, and the bread was perfect for mopping up the sauce.
They are equally good cold with a sharp white cheddar, in a sandwich (grilled cheese!) or as part of an antipasto plate.
That is, if they last that long.
the renegade housewife
So its dawned on me that some of my posts have strayed pretty far from the realm of food security and whatnot of late . . . You may have noticed I’ve been blathering on about babies and all sorts of other unrelated housewifey stuff. Or maybe not. Whatever.
Anyway. It occured to me that some of you food security peeps might not be so keen to hear about my domestic cavorting.
And so.
I started a second blog. To spare you. Or tickle you pink. Either works for me.
the renegade housewife is my new blog about all things domestic. Well, not all things. Only the things that amuse or annoy me, mostly.
Hopefully some of it will amuse (or annoy) you, too. Again, either works for me.
smoked salmon
Nom nom nom.
I love smoked salmon. Living on the West Coast of Canada, you kinda have to. It’s pretty much a pre-requisite to living here.
Problem is, it’s expensive. Darn expensive.
Obvious solution? Make your own.
Pink Salmon are pretty much at the bottom of the salmon totem pole. Poor things. Their flesh is pale and mushy and to be honest, they kind of stink.
For these reasons, in season, they’re cheap as chips. We’re talking 6 to 7 dollars per good-sized fish.
Better yet, you can spend a lovely day on the water or at the river and catch some of your own.
Did I mention that they’re stinky? Also slimey.
My first wild Pink Salmon in all it's stinky, slimey glory.
Anyway. I digress.
Curing Pink Salmon completely erases all it’s poor qualities, turning it into firm, delicious, wild salmony goodness.
Hot Smoked Salmon Recipe
Canning Workshop September 14, 2011
