Yesterday I spent several hours driving to New River, AZ to pick up two lambs. These are Jacob sheep (I posted a link for more information about this breed). I decided to get this particular breed because of its smaller size and desirable meat product. Yes, these are for next year's processing. I am told that the fat deposits along the breast bone on these lambs, so that it is in demand with the gourmet restaurants for their menus.
The girls are definitely giving me a hard time about the idea of taking these animals to process (I have a hard time saying slaughter) next year. They really aren't on board with the idea. Although, they have both raised hogs that they have sold at auction with the 4-H. Of course, those porkers didn't end up on our table. This is a test for me as well. I have to admit baby animals are so cute and cuddly, it is hard to believe I will be willing to haul them down to the University of Arizona's meat lab next year.
We have been trying to get started on raising more and more of our own food. The livestock for the meat and our garden for the veggies. We even have plans for a mini-orchard. One of the first issues with the livestock is housing them in secure pens. That takes extra labor and we have a list of priority items that are directly related to generating an income for the ranch that are at the top of the list. Food is for the family.
The other consideration is where to put the meat. We don't have a freezer for this and always seem to have other expenses that have prevented this purchase in the past. I figured that starting with a smaller animal would be a good training tool for the entire experience. Hence the lambs. I am told that when these animals are "dressed out" they end up only being about 40 lbs of meat. I imagine that now that we have them, the freezer will become a little more important as the time comes and we'll make the purchase.
I have taken over the girls' 4-H hog pen with our new lambs, so a new pen for the lambs will be in order come fall. We have a design for a line of livestock pens with a large turn out run for their exercise. We just have to find the time to get it built. It will need to house the lambs, an Emu and a hog or two.
Donald wants to raise a hog for our freezer next fall. The girls have had their hogs through the winter months and that has been manageable. As the weather heats up it is very difficult to keep the hogs from stressing, so processing in the spring eliminates that difficulty.
Another idea in the works will be meat poultry. This isn't going over too well with Emma, as she has names for all her chickens and spends a good amount of time getting to know them. So my meat flock will have to be seperate from our egg layers and her show birds. What I would like to do is have a mobile pen that would be placed in the pasture for the chickens to graze, relocating as necessary. I'd like to try grass fed as we have a good deal available. I have talked with Emma about what type of birds would be best for my project. She recommended the Jersey Giant, but then conceded that the Cornish Rock cross would probably be best for her soft heart. This cross is a "fast grow" and she figures that they can't survive their own bodies weight gain, so they would die anyway, so she could accept that as opposed to a chicken that could potentially have a long life. Of course, it may be a ploy on her part to put an end to my meat poultry project altogether considering my Thanksgiving turkey experience.
I raised a Broad-Breasted White turkey for our holiday meal last year. I went to the neighbor's day-before-Thanksgiving gathering to learn how to butcher and clean turkeys and ended up with an extremely large bird for our feast (no roasting pan large enough, even with the oven racks removed). To sum it up, it was a disaster. The meat could only be described as turkey jerky. I ended up throwing it in the trash, not even feeding it to the dogs. Emma warned me that the mutant birds bred for fast growth weren't the way to go. Perhaps she is thinking that I will have a similar experience with the chickens and give up.
As I build my courage and we build the fencing, we will eventually move up in size to the steer. The realities of an animal that size take some serious considerations. Hauling isn't so hard when it is a calf, but when it is full grown it has to be hauled in the horse trailer. Getting a full grown steer into a trailer may be easy for the experienced, but I will practice with the reduced-size experience of the lambs first. The hogs haven't been so bad, because the girls have spent time walking their pigs around the property. They have to do this so they can participate in the Showmanship classes at the county fair. It also builds the muscles so that the hog is a better meat product in the end. Honestly, the size of a steer is intimidating to me. I was always fascinated that my mother's favorite animal was a cow knowing that she is afraid of our horses. I have a great appreciation for animals that understand they have their space and I have mine and the spaces only intersect when I decide they will. Cattle seem to go where they want and if you're in their way, you may get smashed into a fence as they go by. I am determined to work through my personal fears and accomplish our goals.
As for the garden, we have had a challenging start. We planted tomatoes and green peppers, grapes and herbs, melons and carrots. The first go around we realized that the Jackrabbits and Cottontails had to be fenced out, for they ate all my early plantings and nibbled away the growth of anything coming up the day after we excitedly noticed. So the rabbit fence went up. In the meantime the chicken flock had grown enough that they were expanding their range and quickly discovered that a brief moment of flight landed them into the area of "good eatins." By the way, chickens love green pepper leaves. I came out one morning and all that was left were a long line of green stubs sticking up from the dirt. Oh the heartache.
We eventually re-fenced to keep our own chickens out and we were growing the garden. Things were yummy and it was so convenient to walk out and pick what we needed for a recipe or salad. The seasonal differences were a little tricky for me after having a small vegetable garden years ago in Ohio. It is just too hot during the Arizona summer to plant the same way I did up north. I spent a lot of time trying to find specific literature about planting in the desert and had some nice plants producing well by early spring.
Watering the garden was done with drip lines buried just under the surface. Sprinkling or spraying water here is wasteful. Evaporation is high. The drip lines get the water to the roots under the surface and decrease the evaporation. The watering schedule was set on a timer for convenience. Of course we had to trench over to the garden location and put in two drip line connections for each garden bed row (eight 40-45 foot beds). That was laborious as usual. But the location of the garden just so happen to be the previous owner's roundpen location, so the earth was extremely compacted and it took the neighbor's tractor to break through the earth. This was 2005, before we had purchased any significant equipment.
The garden was growing well and it was time to leave for Oregon for several weeks. We had a neighbor lined up to check on things. Shortly thereafter we received the call that our well pump had died and the neighbor wanted to know what to do about the garden and tree watering. The work that needed to be done on the well had to wait until we returned, so we lost the garden and some trees. The garden has been waiting ever since for me to get back to it.
But I am determined to start again this year. I have taken the back hoe and dug up the earth at least 3-4 feet down to loosen up the soil. The clay soil really lends itself to the making of bricks. So I have amended the soil with organic manure from the local organic dairy and gypsum sand from the local quarry. I have mixed this with the back hoe like using a big spoon. Unfortunately, the clay chunks are still clay chunks and really need to be tilled to break them up. The motorized hand tiller can't even get through them. I have revised my plan to focus on one bed row. I intend on getting more composted soil to add to the bed and watering in attempt to break down some of the clay chunks and hand till (yes with my own hands and garden tools). I then intend on framing this first bed up with wooden planks to make it a raised bed for perenially plantings. Once the framing is in I will not be able to use the tractor to re-till or disc in the future, so this one will grow permanent plants; herbs, asparagus mostly. And I better do it right.
With all that we don't know about the chemicals and additives that are put into the foods at manufacturing and processing plants and feed lots, I prefer growing my own if we can. I suppose that is the point, we can so why not? We have the space, we have the motivation, we just have to make time. We learn as we go. Even if we think we have done all the research, there is always something unique to our experience that teaches us another lesson along the way. I figure the people have managed to raise crops and livestock in our history before the technology and machinery of today, so we should have a pretty good shot at growing enough to put a few meals on the table.
