And Some of the Sheep Get to Go Outside!

This past weekend we worked hard to make an outside run off the barn and cut in a barn door for the sheep. We finally heard that the fence guys are coming on the 11th, but we needed to let the sheep out before then. So we made a temporary pen with more cattle panel (one of these days I need to count how many of those we have bought over the years) and cut one of the planned doors from the stalls.

After we had the pen in place and the door ready to be hung it was time to cut the opening.
Needless to say, the sheep weren't very pleased with the noise of the saw and stayed as far away as possible.

They weren't quite sure what to do with the new opening.

Maddy had to coax them outside with some delicious grain.

And then they noticed the neighbors farther up the hill.

The door is hung and functional. We still need to cut the door into the traditional barn door with separate top and bottom doors, and we need latches. But it works and the sheep are now happy to go outside.

How I Cooked the 43 Pound Turkey

The turkey was a success. The hard part of cooking the turkey was finally deciding on the exact method.  I looked at cooking it overnight at 250 degrees, but then I read it wasn't a good idea if the turkey was over 20 pounds. So I ended up with the tried and true 325 degrees method, with a twist.
But first the turkey was brined overnight in a citrus/cider brine.

We woke up at 5AM on Thanksgiving morning and brought the turkey inside (it was too heavy for even my husband to carry in by himself.) I rinsed the brine off the turkey and got it ready in the pan while the oven preheated. My roasting pan was almost big enough. Cheap disposable aluminum trays made extended sides to catch the drippings and keep the drippings from getting onto the bottom of the oven. The oven was just big enough.

The turkey went into a 450 degree oven for 30 minutes then 5 1/2 hours at 325 degrees. I checked his temperature at noon and he was more than done! That's only 6 hours to cook a 43 pound turkey. He probably would have been fine with even less time. He was a bit overcooked, but he still was delicious.
We had 13 people for Thanksgiving dinner, gave away quite a bit of turkey as leftovers and still got a big mixing bowl and a small bowl filled with meat today

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Lambs in Jackets

I've been worried that the one new lamb was cold so my daughters made lamb jackets.

They seem to like the jackets and he seems perkier this morning. I found the directions to make the jackets on this great blog losing sleep counting sheep. So many things to learn about sheep.

Sheep!

We are building our sheep flock! Yesterday I took delivery of four ewes (one of whom just had two ram lambs.) We went from one sheep to seven in an afternoon.

The other three ewes should all be pregnant. One of the ewes is huge but I don't know when she might go into labor. Maybe she'll have triplets!

Firewood Prep

We need to get going on our firewood prep for winter, even though the high temperature today is predicted to be 79 degrees. Five days ago our high temp was 31 degrees.  Alan wants to have a large pile on the patio so when the worst part of winter hits we don't have to depend on the trailer to get firewood to the house. We need to get this pile...

to look like this...

So little time!

The Front Bed

The previous owners had a short wire fence in front of the flower bed bordering the road. Every fall they would put burlap over it to keep the cinders from the road out of the flower bed.  They told me they put up the burlap on Thanksgiving weekend, but we are supposed to get snow the day before Thanksgiving. The township boys probably won't need to put down cinders and plow, but just in case, I put up the burlap today.
Of course that wasn't exactly what had to happen. This spring I took out all the old wire fencing and posts. They had seen better days and needed to come out when we took out the huge mat of Lily of the Valley. I didn't really want to put the old fencing back so now everything is new. I think it looks nice and tidy.

This project just about finishes up the front yard in the winter preparations.  Now on to stacking firewood!

How Do You Cook a 43 Pound Turkey?

Over the weekend we worked on getting the turkeys ready for their trip to Iceland. Alan worked on a different transport cage  because we thought the door to the cage I used last year isn't big enough to get the Tom in and out. So Alan added a wire door to an old dog house. Of course the Tom was too wide to fit through this door too! Luckily the top comes off as well.

I thought it would be too hard to carry the cage with the three turkeys inside so we loaded two of the turkeys, put the cage in the back of the Subaru, then put in the last turkey.Luckily our butcher helped carry the cage once we got to the farm. It took all three of us to carry it!
And the turkeys had no clue. Here they are enjoying some cauliflower leaves in their last days.

The packaging was a little more difficult this year as the turkeys were bigger. Our Tom dressed out at approximately 43 pounds and the two hens dressed out around 25 pounds each. Now I just have to figure out how to cook a 43 pound turkey!