Real Food for Your Dog

I have checked the prices of dog food at every store around.  The long and short of it is that dog food is expensive.  Even the "cheap" dog food is expensive.  I have done quite a bit of research on dog food and ingredients and it seems that most, if not all of it, has inferior ingredients in it.  Which only makes sense - ingredients that can be sold as human food bring more money so dog food gets the left overs - and you don't want to know what the commercial food industry considers left overs.  My dogs current diet consists of kibble and raw eggs.  They devour the egg and the kibbles that are covered in egg.  Then they leave the remainder of the kibble and will push it around with their noses.  They will only eat the kibble when they are sure that is the only option.  I thought that perhaps it was the Brand X dog food so I switched to Brand Y.  Same story.

What pushed me over the edge with commercial dog food?  Sadie, my two year old Border Collie - Australian Shepherd mix has been having ear problems.  She scratches and scratches and then whimpers.  It is so sad.  The first time this happened was in December.  I took her to the vet and he ran tests.  She had a yeast infection in her ears.  He gave us medicine and an ear wash to treat Sadie with for 10 days.  He also gave us a warning that if the yeast infection reared it's ugly head again we were most likely looking at a food allergy, probably to wheat.  $127 later we walked out of the vets.  We diligently followed the vet's 10 day schedule for medicine and ear wash.  Sadie started feeling better.  But then in February - the same thing.  We had enough of the medicine and ear wash left to treat this round of yeast infection.  I got to thinking about an earlier visit to the vet when he said that  Sadie had "hot spots".  After additional research, yeast infections on the skin are fairly common in dogs and could be the cause of the "hot spots".

My Beautiful Miss Sadie

So, why would I keep treating Sadie's problem rather than looking for a solution to the problem?  The simple answer is I am not going to treat the problem anymore.  I came to a solution after discussing the issue with my mom.  She had also noticed the rising cost of dog food and had decided to make her own.  Now why hadn't I thought of that?  I make all kinds of things instead of buying the commercial products - I really try to use real food as much as possible - but it had never occurred to me to make dog food.  I will be making dog food for Sadie and Stella.  This will allow me to know the ingredients in their food and thus I can manipulate the recipes to help with Sadie's yeast problems. 

My mom has been cooking a batch of dog food each weekend.  To gather the ingredients she places a container in the freezer and during the week any vegetable cuttings, meat scraps, left overs that are not consumed are added to the container (Please note:  These leftovers are not highly processed foods - they are made from scratch meals).  Then over the weekend she adds all of these ingredients to a dutch oven with the drippings from a roast she just cooked left in it.  She also adds frozen zucchini, eggs and rice or another starch and cooks.  Once the mixture cools it is placed in a large container in the fridge.  Each day the dogs get a scoop of this food along with their kibble (she is using up the kibble that she has on hand) and some cut up cow liver.  My dad reports that the dogs love it!  I am going to prepare my dog food very similarly except in my crock pot.  (I love my crock pot!)  I will use extra frozen vegetables from my garden last summer, extra fresh vegetables, extra eggs from hens, yogurt and beef.  Jerry is butchering right now and I asked that he save all the bones so I can boil the meat off of them for the dog food not to mention the fabulous beef broth.  I am going to use rolled oats as my grain ingredient.  My goal will be to stick within the general diet of 40% meat, 30% vegetables and 30% grains. I am so excited to start! 

If you are interested in learning more about making your own dog food, I would highly recommend the following posts on The Collie Farm Blog.  I felt that they really provided useful information for me in making my decision to make dog food.

Dog Food
More Thoughts on Homemade Dog Food

So, do you make your own dog food?  If so, I would love to hear your recipe/process.

I am sharing this post at:
 Homestead Barn Hop
The Country Homemaker Hop 
Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways 

Making Instead of Buying

One of my goals for 2012 is to buy less and make more when it comes to gifts.  Since this is an "in between time" on the farm I took the opportunity to start making.  I have a friend who is going to have a baby in September, so I am guessing the baby shower will be sometime in the summer when I am so busy that I don't have a minute for an extra breath.  I decided to make a baby quilt.  Nothing like jumping in head first right?  My sewing experience consists of a homec (is that spelled right?) class in the 8th grade and some botched attempts at mending holes in Jerry's jeans.  And let me tell you, watching him trying to get in the jeans that I sewed a leg closed on was really quite entertaining.... for me!

I decided to go with "Americana" colors for the baby quilt since it is too early to know blue or pink.  Plus, I am really into the Americana colors right now and I had fabric that my wonderful mother had given me that fit the theme.  Rather than doing small squares, my mom recommended going with longer strips to cut down on sewing time.  (I am really glad I listened to her because I thought there was a lot of sew time with the strips - can't imagine sewing little squares together.)  I used the side panel of a Cheerios box as a template for my strips.  Here they are cut out and laying on the bar.

The Strips

Here are the strips sewed together in rows.

First Round of Sewing

 Next the rows of strips are sewn together and now the top of the quilt is complete.

Second Round of Sewing

I chose to use fleece as the batting for the quilt.  I cut a piece out of a blanket I had on hand to match the size of the top of the quilt.  Then I placed the piece of fabric I was using for the backing, the fleece and the top piece together.  The top piece and the backing were placed with the "front" side towards the fleece and then I pinned them all together (this was probably the most challenging part in my opinion).  Here is the quilt laid out with the layers in preparation for the final sewing.

Almost Ready for Final Sewing

Then I finally sewed around the edges and left a space about 8 inches un-sewn along one side which is used to reach in and pull the front side of the quilt out.  Then the 8 inch gap is sewn closed using a needle and thread rather than the sewing machine.  This is how the lovely quilt turned out.

Third and Final Round of Sewing

And that is it - well almost.  I still have to tie the quilt.  But really this only took me about 6 hours from start to finish.  It was a wonderful experience and has made me realize that sewing is really not that difficult.  I know it isn't the pretties quilt in the world but I will be very happy to present it to my friend for her baby.  For those of you who are intimidated by sewing, give it a shot!  If I can do it anyone can.

This post is linked up with the Homestead Barn Hop and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.

Has She Lost Her Mind?

That is the question that my husband is asking himself.  I can tell just by looking at him.  Lately I have been trying natural or traditional (meaning from a long, long time ago - before the mass marketing crap that is considered traditional today) beauty products. Jerry:  "What - you're going to put oil on your face - to clean it?"  Me:  "Yes."  Jerry:  Looks at me as if I have lost my marbles.

I found this blog.  An amazing blog - this gal is phenomenal.  Crunchy Betty is the name and you can check it out here.  She talks about getting rid of all the chemical laden products in our lives and replacing them with natural items we can eat if we so choose.  Sounds great to me.  So I tried her oil cleansing face cleaner method.  Love it!  Then I found another post titled No 'Poo For You, Too!!!  Basically the idea is to give up conventional shampoo and conditioner and opt for more natural options - in this case baking soda and apple cider vinegar.  What an interesting idea.  The benefits seemed fabulous.  My hair is weird, in-between hair.  It is not straight by any means, accept one spot behind my right ear, and it is by no means curly - oh no.  Weird - half wavy, half frizzy mess.  That's what I have.  Maybe the chemicals are what is doing it.... maybe just maybe.  I sure hope so anyways. 

I have been on my no shampoo journey for nearly 4 weeks now and could not be happier.  I don't really have anything bad to say about it.  My hair feels different.  It isn't the beautiful, natural wavy hair that I was hoping for (just not in the stars for me) - but it is healthier hair and that is what is important. 

Two positives for me:  I had been losing ridiculous amounts of hair every time I washed my hair with regular shampoo - I mean enough hair that it would clog the bath tub.  This has stopped.  I had psoriasis on my scalp and have struggled for years to find something that would stop the flaking that everyone thought was dandruff.  Gone.  Those two things make it worth while for me along with the fact that I am using less chemicals on my body.

Me:  No 'poo = love.  Jerry:  No 'poo = hippie wife!  Whatever!  There are a lot of old hippies walking around - maybe they have it right after all....

So what is my goal - well, I want to slowly weed out the chemical cosmetics and beauty products that I normally use and replace them with natural alternatives (should they really even be called alternatives - they were here before the chemically laden crap!).  I think the most difficult thing for me to weed out will be hair color (I don't like people to see my not blonde strands of hair).  Luckily, my momma is a beautician and knows some about henna color.  Love you mom!

The Hog Hut

On almost all occasions I am the one who calls Jerry to say that I have decided to bring home a baby animal of some type or the other.  As I have said before, this is what I do.  So you can imagine my surprise when Jerry called me late last week and said "Honey, I'm getting two baby pigs."  No argument from me - he had me at baby.  I am such a sucker for babies of any type.

Friday rolled around and Jerry announced that we would be working on a home for the pigs over the weekend because we had an appointment to pick them up on Sunday afternoon.  I hadn't thought about this....  I mean of course they needed a safe place to live - but really - I had to spend my weekend working on it too??  I had big plans to decorate for Halloween.....  I talked to my very wise mother and she said I should help Jerry with the home and pen for the piggies because Jerry always builds me whatever I want for the animals I decide to bring home.  Darn it!  I hate it when she's right!

Reluctantly, I got dressed in my work clothes to go out and help Jerry with the pen.  By the time I made it out, he had several post holes for the pen dug and had brought the hog panels up from the shop.  Jerry informed me that my job would be to run the tractor - going back and forth to the shop for materials.  The very cool thing about this - Jerry bought NO materials for any of this - everything you will see we either had on hand, recycled it or re-purposed it.  I love it!

The Framework

I made several trips back and forth to the shop for materials, but once Jerry had all the post holes dug, I got to level the posts, fill the holes and tamp them down.  Fun stuff indeed....  While I worked on the pen, Jerry worked on the home for the piggies.  He got all the framing up and then it was time to put the "siding" on.  We re-purposed old cedar fence panels.  This gave the little building a very quaint feel (which I was just sure the piggies would appreciate).  Day One ended and we had the posts in and the building framed and mostly sided.

The End of Day One

We decided that Day Two should start with getting the hog panels up and getting the gate secured.  Done.  Next we (being Jerry) decided the next thing to tackle was the roof.  I brought up the roof wrap (I think that's what it is called - it's like tar paper but isn't) and helped Jerry to get it up on the roof.  (Not an easy feat for me because I am short and the part of the roof was tall - 6 ft.  So here I was, hands above my head with the roll that had to weigh at least 2 tons trying to get it up high enough so Jerry could reach down and pull it the rest of the way up.  My arms were shaking, lots of grunting and moaning and then whew - I got it up high enough for Jerry to reach down to the 4ft level and pull it the rest of the way up.)  Jerry rolled the roof wrap out and tacked it on the roof.  Next - on to the metal.  But wait - it was appointment time - off to get the piggies!

We picked up the two little guys and put them in our large dog kennel.  And I am telling you now - you have never heard such squealing and screaming in your life as those two little pigs made.  We had to drive a whole 2.6 miles back to the farm and this went on the whole way.  At this point I was thinking how thankful I was we decided to put the pen for the piggies behind the chicken coop - hopefully that would help block some sound!

One of the Piggies

Once we got back to the farm, we released the piggies into their new home.  First thing, they meticulously checked the perimeter of their pen for any weak spots - so far so good.  It was back to the roof for Jerry and I.  We used some old metal roofing that we had laying around for the roofing.  Jerry got the metal all laid out and put a few screws in to hold it in place and then announced I would be the one to put the rest of the screws in.  Whoa!  I wasn't too sure about that....  But Jerry explained that if I did the screws he could get the trim for the roof and work on some other things that I couldn't do by myself.  Dag nabbit!  I did the screws.  One very interesting thing about working on a roof - and let me first point out that the slope of this roof is not steep by any means - is that while you are up there, bent over, putting screws in the metal - your legs feel fine.  It is when you step on the ladder to get down that things get interesting.  So I put all the screws in the metal (and only missed the wood underneath with two screws!) which took be approximately an hour.  Jerry got the ladder over close to the roof for me to climb down.  One foot on the ladder, two feet on the ladder.  At this point I started to notice that my legs were not feeling quite like themselves.  Step down, step down, step down.  Ground.  Whew!  My legs were most definitely shaky!  Me:  "Wow!  Being on a roof like that really makes you legs weak, doesn't it?  Mine are feeling all shaky!"  Jerry:  "Now you know why I just want to sit in the chair when I get home and don't want to get up and go outside and do things with you after I have worked on a roof all day."  Me:  Suddenly feeling much better for obvious reasons.  Moving on.

During my time on the roof, Jerry had gotten the trim completed and done a bunch of other necessary things that I could not tell you because at that point in the weekend I was quite zombie-like.  It was nearly dark on Sunday evening and I was exhausted.  Everything wasn't completely done - but it was done enough to keep those little piggies safe.

The Hog Hut - Nearly Complete

Ooh-la-la - A man in a tool belt
 

I like to name all the buildings on our farm and thus the title of the article:  The Hog Hut!

I am sharing this post at the Homestead Barn Hop.

Lumberjack Days and the Clearwater County Fair

This year was the 100th anniversary of Lumberjack Days in Orofino, Idaho.  I was lucky enough to be able to go and enjoy the festivities on Saturday with my mom, brother and his family.  First of all, let me tell you that Lumberjack Days is free!  You can look at the animals, the preserving and craft exhibits and watch the horse pull all for free!  There are also rides there - they must be paid for obviously.  However, I didn't go to ride the rides.

Remember the Spokane County Fair I told you about here and the utter lack of animal exhibits.  Well once again a very small county fair had more animals!  Clearwater County has a small population.  I was so pleasantly surprised with some of the heritage breeds that were represented at the fair.  I know the Tamworth is crossed, but it is the first fair I have been to that the breed was even represented.

Nigerian Dwarfs

Tamworth - York Cross

Tamworth - York Cross on the Right

Midget White Turkeys (they were camera shy)

The really cool thing was the Horse Pull though.  These big draft horses pulled more than their weight easily.  The top heavy weight team (the two horses weighed approximately 4,200 lbs) pulled 6,500 pounds to win the competition.  It was really a very neat experience.  I would highly recommend attending a horse pull if you have a chance!

One of the Light Weight Teams

One of the Medium Weight Teams

I am sharing this post at the Homestead Barn Hop.

The Spokane County Fair

Remember how I told you I didn't like the crap involved with the big fancy, smanchy fairs?  Well, I have official proof of the lameness of the big "fairs."  I was listening to my favorite country station early last week and they were giving away tickets to the fair and rodeo in Spokane and a free pizza.  I called in because I wanted to go to the rodeo and low and behold, I was caller nine.  Radio DJ:  You're caller 9!  Me:  What!  I'm caller #9!  (all in a high pitched scream)  DJ:  You're going to the rodeo and we have fair tickets for you and we're giving you a free pizza!  Me:  SCREAMING!  (I am soooo one of those people that the radio folks love winning!  I scream and squeal and between you and me it is a good thing I was parked at the mailbox or there could have been some crazy driving!)  Me:  Oh my gosh!  I love you guys!  You are my favorite radio station (no prompting needed)!  DJ:  Thanks for listening and we love you too!

This is the first time I have ever won anything on the radio.  I was beside myself!  I called Jerry and was screaming/squealing for him to turn on my favorite radio station (not his favorite by the way).  He was somewhat annoyed with my exuberance but turned it on just in time to hear the play back of me.  As I have mentioned before, Jerry doesn't really like the rodeo and fair as much as I do - but the free pizza was right up his alley!  So Friday afternoon came around and we had to go to the radio station in Spokane to pickup the tickets.  They closed at 5 p.m.  Now Jerry and I live in a fairly rural area.  We aren't used to "big" city traffic.  We left in what we thought would give us plenty of time to get to the station.  However, we didn't take into account the fact that A) neither of us are very familiar with Spokane and B) there is traffic there around 5 o'clock.  Well, we made it there at 4:55 p.m. and got the tickets and the free pizza.  WHEW!  

We got to the fairground, got parked and went in the gates.  I saw an A&W and Ivars and a sub shop.  This is when I knew I wasn't going to be impressed.  Fair food is supposed to be made by grandmas and Kiwanis people and 4H moms.  We did manage to find a Kiwanis Long Horn BBQ booth where we ate.  Then we went to check out the livestock exhibits.  I have never been so disappointed in my life.  There were maybe 25 hogs, 50 poultry exhibits, 40 goats - well you get the picture.  Here is this huge fair - with no animals.  My little county fair in Bonner county had more animals!   There were sooooo many empty cages and stalls.  It makes me sad to see that people care more about the commercial aspect than what a fair is truly meant for.  (Please note:  I did speak with a nice lady in the preserves area who knew her stuff and we had a very nice conversation about canning and freezing salsa.)  

The one really cool thing there at the fair was in the cattle barn.  There were Highland Cattle.  I really love this breed and am working on trying to convince my dad (an angus/limousine man) and my husband (a not-gonna-argue-with-dad kind of man) to give this breed a shot. 

Highland Cattle

After the disappointing walk through the livestock barns we went to grab our seats for the rodeo, which were fabulous seats!  The arena at the Spokane Fair grounds is surrounded by rail yards.  Pretty great back drop...  Especially when you consider the arena at the Bonner county fair is surrounded by huge pine trees and has the foothills of Schweitzer mountain as a backdrop.  Much more to my liking.  All in all - Jerry and I had a wonderful time together.  I am very thankful to my favorite radio station for the tickets and the free pizza!  I will tell you this though - if I had paid to go to this fair, because it was not cheap for the fair and the rodeo, I would have been very upset by the contents.

I am sharing the post at the Homestead Barn Hop.

Beans, Beans, Beans

My garden has been far from stellar this year.  As a matter of fact, it has been darn near disappointing.  We had no spring and summer didn't start until mid-July.  Like I said, very disappointing....  And to top it all off, now that some things are getting close to being ready to harvest (like beans) we are nearing freezing temperatures at night.  Luckily, my parents live in a less harsh climate and there garden is doing beautifully!!  So this weekend, I went to visit and help with the canning.  And boy oh boy did we can!

My mom and dad grow bush and pole beans and they were full!  Here is a picture of one of their three gardens.  Isn't it beautiful! 

I Have Garden Envy!

Once the beans were picked and snapped we put them in the sink and rinsed them three times before putting them in the jars.

A Sink Full of Beans

Once in the jars, a teaspoon of salt is added and then they are filled with hot water.

Salt Please

The lids and rings are put on to hand tightness.

Ready for the Canner

The beans are processed for 25 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.  We had so many beans we got two canners going!

Two Canners Are Better Than One!

A Job Well Done

Several hours later and into the middle of the night we had 22 quarts and 1 pint.  And do you want to know what the absolute best sound to hear at night while you are sleeping is?  The pop of a jar sealing!