A fridge full of bones

I find I appreciate my food so much more when it's something I've raised myself. I never made chicken stock before we raised our own chickens. Now, I have a very hard time just throwing the bones away! I had a LOT of chicken bones in my fridge... now, I have the bones from 3 chickens roasting in the oven (the 4th carcass did end up in the garbage - bones should not be fuzzy and green! I swear it wasn't in the fridge that long...) I discovered a lovely recipe for brown chicken stock about a year ago: Brown Chicken Stock. It's a little more work than just hucking the bones into a stock pot, but it makes such a lovely stock. One set of bones this time are from a chicken that I tried soaking in brine - I'm curious to see if it will effect the flavor of the stock!

Got the donkey/goat/sheep/goose shelter cleaned out today, and broke apart one of our brand new square barley straw bales into it for bedding. One square bales seems to be the perfect amount to bed that shelter (technically it's a small calf shelter). I'm hoping I can pick the shelter clean for awhile, and the straw will last for a reasonable amount of time!

Food and bed, hay and straw

Got out of our bed early today, to pick up bedding for the critters. 40 square bales of barley straw, to be exact, plus 60 square alfalfa/brome hay bales. We've got enough round bales for the winter, the square hay is more for emergency feeding if the skid steer won't start. It's also a little better quality than the round bales we got, so I'll likely alternate between round and square for the donkeys/sheep/goats.

Loading 100 bales onto the trailer, then re-stacking them isn't exactly how I'd choose to start the day! I do have to say though, it sure does wake a person up. Pretty sure my hands are going to be stiff for a couple of days after this.

After we got the livestock food unloaded, it was time for breakfast for us - today we had brunch at the Heritage Inn with my parents. They have a really nice Sunday brunch there. I ate waaay too much. Luckily all I really had to do for the rest of the day was feed and water the stock, and switch the bottom hot wire on the small animal paddock over to a ground wire - bottom wire's been burried in snow for a couple days.