Too Many Toms

If you're raising turkeys for meat you generally don't have to worry about genders since they usually go to slaughter before they meet sexual maturity.  If you're keeping them for breeding, as we are with these bronze turkeys, then you really have to limit yourself to one tom to about five hens. Multiple toms in a small group like this one (which is made up of only six turkeys) means some infighting may occur. This means the extra tom, in this case, the smaller of the two, will hopefully end up in someone's oven.

Looking for some fresh turkey? Give us a shout at orders@hightailfarms.com! We sell our turkeys for $3.75/lb and will cut it up and package however you like (whole, quarters, pieces, etc). Neck and giblets for an extra $2.00. This fellow probably weighs around 14-16 lbs dressed, just to give you an idea of size. 

From Fruit, Wine

“Give me wine to wash me clean of the weather-stains of cares” 

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

We've already posted about the number of fruit bearing trees and bushes on the property, and we may have talked a bit about how we used some of that fruit. One thing I've been meaning to do with our surplus is something that man has been doing for a long, long time: make some wine.

The first time I fermented anything was right after Hurricane Katrina had hit New Orleans and I had some time on my hands waiting to return to the city. I bought a beer kit from this fantastic shop in Philadelphia, Home Sweet Homebrew, and it was the best investment I've ever made. The owners there are great, and spent a lot of time answering my questions and helping me through the process. Even after returning to New Orleans I continued to order from them since there was no local brew shop open.

Fermenting alcohol is a very simple process. You take water and sugars, expose it to yeast, and allow the yeast to convert those sugars into alcohol. You can do this with almost any sugar: malted grains, honey, molasses, and especially fruit. This happens in nature quite frequently: fallen fruits become exposed to natural yeasts (or bacteria!) and begin to ferment. Every once in awhile you may seem some birds or other animals eating these fruits and behaving ... strangely. Alcohol's effects on a body are the same be it human, bird, or rodent.

We were thrilled to see these vines growing on the property once spring came around. Muscadine! We watched them grow and waited, and waited. The only muscadine I had ever seen or tasted was a dark, dark red, so I was waiting for the color to change. On a whim I gave one of the blush colored ones a bite and, sure enough, it was sweet and ripe! What we were growing was a variety of muscadine called scuppernong.

Hurricane Isaac was approaching quickly and we knew that heavy winds would probably shake free most of the fruit. Rather than hand pick all the fruit from this somewhat wildish vine that has no real structure to it, we decided to shake them free. We took a sheet and held it up under the vines, then shook them out. The fruit tumbled down the sheet to a tarp. (Sadly, no pictures, but let's just say it was fun.)

This is about 3 lbs. of grapes. Our bushel was half full when done!

Our final yield was 18 lbs. of ripe scuppernong grapes. I followed a recipe on Jack Keller's winemaking site which called for 6 lbs. of grapes per gallon of wine. Three gallons is a fine amount of wine in my book!

Crushed and mixed with water and sugar

The only yeast I had on hand was a champagne yeast, but I was glad that I did. I thought it would be important to use this kind of yeast because it's extremely aggressive (converts a lot of sugar very fast) and, in my unfounded theory, would work fast enough to prevent any bacteria from forming. Bacteria can ruin a wine quickly and turn it into vinegar (not a bad thing, but not the desired result). We probably weren't as "sterile" as you really should be in making wine. I come from a beer brewing background so I'm used to making sure everything is clean, but since wine ages for much longer there is little room for effort. My starting specific gravity (SG, a measurement for the amount of sugars/solids in the wine) was 1.100. That's pretty high!

After awhile I let it ferment down. I checked the SG again: 0.995. This calculates out to almost 14% ABV (alcohol by volume) -- even for a wine this is pretty high! It also means this will be a pretty dry wine, which was what I was hoping for in the end result. I racked it off of the lees (the grape skins, etc) and into a glass fermenter (referred to as a "secondary"). This will sit for another week or so for the sediment to clear before I transfer to another fermenter. I'm considering topping up with water to 4 or 5 gallons (which would dilute it down to around 9% ABV), but I'll wait and taste it then. More updates will certainly follow in the coming months!

As fall is in full swing, we harvested our pears and are looking forward to later in the year enjoying the fruits of the citrus trees in the yard. While I doubt we would make some citrus wine, we do love making limoncello (or orangecello, or grapefruitcello, or limecello!) since it allows a little bit of fruit to go a long way. Plus we can save the juice so that we always have citrus juice or homemade sour mix on hand!

The pears have been ripening in the fridge. Let's see what we can do with those next!

Gimme those pears, dammit!

Horny Toad

 Our little Gwen's horns are growing in nicely. 

What's really cool is the girl has two different colors coming in. One horn is plain black, the other is striped half white and half black. I have no idea if the color when stay when she grows up, but I really hope so. I'm also hoping that she will have her mother's lovely back/side swept horns.

I know a lot of people have strong feeling about disbudding young goats before their horns grow in, but I cannot imaging putting this little one through that kind of pain. Not to mention the potential for damaging their brain in the process! Josie, despite all her spit and vinegar personality, is extremely cautious with her horns even when she pissed off and bowling her way thru the sheep or knocking an errant turkey out of the way.

Photographic evidence that Gwen's ear nibbling is not limited to feline ears. 

Fencing the Pasture

Thank goodness for the Grizz!

Currently, we're only making use of about half of our property. In the "back pasture," as we call it, we have another 5-6 acres and a couple of small ponds. However it's all partially fenced, so we're hesitant to put any stock out there.

The north side of the pasture is creek; the west side is half fenced, with posts already up along the rest of it; the south side was fenced by the state; the east side was completely lacking fencing.

I had been pricing fencing for awhile, but we had a lot of other more immediate concerns on the half of the farm that we were using. I suspected in a few months we'd be able to afford what we needed and would eventually get some time to get everything up.

Lo and behold, a friend of ours told us of his grandfather's old dairy farm. Apparently he had recently passed away and our friend found a shed on the property absolutely full of rolls of fencing, posts, and barbed wire. He said we were welcome to whatever we needed.

We also had a roll and a bunch of barbed wire in the back of the Element!

It took us awhile to get it out of the shed and loaded up on the trailer. Many thanks to our friend and his father who helped us with this rather daunting task! We sadly didn't get any photos while we were there, but you can definitely take a look at how loaded up the trailer was. And, of course, it had to rain cats and dogs on our drive home. I won't bore you with too many details on how fencing is put up, mostly because I can in no way claim to be an expert. There's a variety of sources out there to learn how to install field fencing. We're big fans of Google when it comes to research, and if you're a new farmer you might want to do the same.  Properly installed fence should require little maintenance for some years, so I'd rather do it right from the start.

First off, our neighbor was kind enough to bush hog our field for nothing. I offered him a turkey and he refused. He did it just to be nice! How awesome is that? It's good to make friends with your neighbors. I hope we can return the favor one day soon. Clearing that whole field saved us from a whole lot of extra work!

Now came the fun part of actually putting up the fence. We decided to make use of t-posts. While we have an excess of 4x4s from the southern property line we had no auger and not enough manpower or time to dig those holes by hand. The t-posts had already been purchased months ago in preparation for fencing, so it was just a matter of hammering them in ... which sounds easier than it looks.

Using a "mother-in-law" to drive in the posts

We decided to space them fifteen feet apart, and to leave a twelve-foot opening where we'd like to add a gate. While we want it closed off, we do want to make sure we have access from either side, especially since we're not sure if the small bridge that crosses a drainage ditch would actually hold the weight of a car, truck, or tractor.

For the H-braces we used Wedge Loc, a system that lets you build the whole fence with t-posts, as normally you'd need wood for the braces. This way we didn't need to dig any holes and save us some time. Wedge Loc doesn't seem to have a huge reputation (I'm surprised I even found it) but we'll see how they hold up. In theory it should work well, but only time will tell.

Since the fencing we got from our friend was only about four-feet high, we'll be stringing a strand of barbed wire across the top. Sheep don't typically climb things, but this will help more with keeping the goats in and some potential predators out.

Putting up the actual fence requires anchoring one end of the roll, unrolling it, standing it up, then pulling it taut before attaching it to the posts. I fashioned a fence puller out of a 2x4 and some hooks and we used the winch on the Grizzly to do the pulling for us. It got it pretty tight, but a tractor would probably have worked better. At one point I put the Grizz in reverse to give it some extra tension and snapped the 2x4 fence puller in half. Oops.

A week ago I finished the fencing on the western side, save for the barbed wire. This past Monday was my birthday and to celebrate I took off work to try and get as much fencing done as possible (don't worry, I took plenty of time to relax as well). We brought Thea and Gwen out with us. They keep us so very productive.

We ended up running out of t-posts and sunlight that day but we're very close to finishing. Hopefully in the next couple weeks we can get the last bit of fence, barbed wire, and gates up and put all of our land to use. We have plans on building some large, mobile chicken tractors. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the field dotted with sheep, goats, and chickens. For now, I'm certainly content just being out there and admiring the view.

Growing chickens

  Our little chicks that hatched from The Great Incubation are slowly and steadily growing up. We moved them outside about a week ago they are having a great time scratching for bugs and munching on grass.

They all came from our giant white cornish rooster, Fernando, and a mix of ameraucana and wyandotte hens. It's amazing to see the different colors that resulted from this cross. We had planned on just raising this batch for meat, but now we are pretty tempted to keep some of the prettier girls as egg layers. We are hoping to get enough chicken eggs to be able to sell to local restaurants. We just don't know if the cornish half of these guys will keep them from being good layers.

This guy is NOT a keeper. 

We aren't sure if this is the results of a birth defect or a freak accident then he was young, but aside from looking derpy and slightly hilarious, this little guy does just fine. He is always the first to the feeder and on the day we took this pic, he actually flew up onto Big Onion's shoulder looking for food!

Gwen and Hunter BFFs 4ever

We've had an interesting and adorable inter-species relationship developing here on the farm in the last few weeks. Our Gwendolyn the goat and Hunter, our new barn cat, have become the best of friends.

When Gwen is out of her pen, Hunter is always with her. I suspect they originally bonded over a love of milk. When I put Thea up on the milk stand, Gwen gets to nurse her fill then Hunter gets a few squirts into his bowl then the two would hang around together while I finished the milking. Now one is hardly found without the other. If Gwen starts crying out for any reason, Hunter will come running, even braving a backyard full of dogs to be with his buddy.

Yesterday, I watched him follower her around the pasture while she grazed on grass and he hunted bugs and field mice. One day I got home from work to find Hunter IN the pen with Gwen and Thea, and I have no idea how he got in there!

 Mostly the two just like to lounge around and nibble on each other. Gwen chews on his tail...

 Hunter attacks her tail....

... and a particular favorite for both cat and goat is when Gwen nibbles on Hunter's ears. I swear one day we are going to go out to find a one eared cat, they do it all day long!

Here's a little video I got today of the two buddies bonding.

Could you just die of cute?!

Saying goodbye to Mawmaw

On Saturday, we attended the funeral of one the most important people in my life, my Mawmaw. Mawmaw died a couple weeks ago after bravely battling cancer, but the storm delayed her funeral until today. I don't usually talk much about the goings on in my personal life on this blog, but Mawmaw was such a huge influence in my life growing up that I feel like I should share a little bit about who she was here.

Mawmaw was the most caring and giving person I have ever known. She loved taking care of people and animals. Mawmaw had the ability to calm crying babies just by taking them into her arms and holding them close. The family tells stories about her sleeping on the bathroom floor with an alarm clock and tiny, sick puppy and waking every few hours to give food and medication that kept the little creature alive. Once she babysat a duckling for us while we went on vacation. She kept little Sedrick in the house and delighted in hand feeding him peas and letting him follow her around.

Toward the end, when she was so sick and bedridden, she insisted that I bring baby Gwen to meet her. Gwen hopped all over her bed and even all over her, and she thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. I remember her telling the little goat that now she was one of the family, one of our babies. That we would always protect, take care of, and love her.

Mawmaw taught me to love and appreciate food. We even referred to the creations of her kitchen as "Mawmaw food." She was the kind of wife and mother that would cook for her family from scratch at every meal, often times using ingredients she had grown and preserved herself. I remember as a kid helping to can vast amounts of tomatoes that Mawmaw would eventually turn into her amazing chicken spaghetti, "mawmaw soup," and jambalaya.

She was a huge supporter of our farm. She was the very first to put in orders for ducks, chickens and even a rabbit. She insisted on paying us for the dozens of duck and chicken eggs that be brought her no matter how many times we refused payment. Mawmaw was never able to visit the farm. She just was not healthy enough in the last 8 months to make the trip. She always talked about the day she could come here and sit and play with all the baby animals.

After the funeral, we all gathered at her house to celebrate her life with friends and lots of food. After a lifetime of enjoying "Mawmaw food" I felt like I should do something special honor all those delicious meals. The Big Onion and I put together a few dishes that came almost exclusively from the farm: egg salad from our duck's eggs, chicken salad using one of our chickens and chicken eggs, and goat cheese courtesy of Josie and Thea with blackberry sauce from our wild bushes.

Just before we were leaving and I thought I had finally run out of tears, my mother took me aside and handed me a photo album with this written in the cover...

It was an album of pictures of me growing up. There were only a couple with both me and Mawmaw together...

What struck me about these pictures is that she is not looking at the camera. She is smiling at me. That's exactly how Mawmaw lived her life, worrying about, caring for, and putting the needs of others before herself.


No matter what I write here, I feel like I cannot do justice to what an amazing woman she was. So many of my life's choices were guided and influenced by her strength and her gentleness. I just hope I can someday become half the woman she was.


A note from Big Onion: Kaela was worried about whether or not this post belonged here on the farm blog. I don't think there's any better place for it. Mawmaw's love for life, for animals, and for good food is something that was passed on to Kaela, instilled in her from a young age. This love for animals and for the food they provide is what I think led her to want this farm so much. To raise animals in a way where they are seen as more than just a food source is something that Mawmaw was always happy to hear about. When we knew she could not make it out to the farm we took some videos to show to her -- I wish I could have recorded how happy and proud she looked to see what we had accomplished in such a short time. She appreciated all of the work we had done and continue to do, more than anyone else we know.

We love our animals no matter what their ultimate purpose may be, and knowing that we raised our animals in such a way always made Mawmaw happy. Without her encouragement there would likely be no farm. We here at HighTail Farms owe her a lot for that, and for that reason she most certainly deserves her own post on this site.

People always say that their family are their biggest fans, but it's rare that family can be their biggest inspiration as well. Thank you, Mawmaw, for believing in our dream and encouraging us in the amazing way that you did and continue to do.