Monday, September 23, 2019

Keeping our promise




We promised to be more diligent in our blog posting. So let's start with a bit of an update.

Over the long weekend (Labour Day in Canada and the U.S.) we planned to process our 21 meat chickens (we still have our 11 layers).

    
       Layers purchased from a local in April

Our meat chickens are all grown up
In preparation we wanted to pick up another freezer specifically for chickens. We have a 7 cubic foot one now but found it is well used and we could not have cleared enough space for adding in the processed chickens.  After a bit of online research Tricia found that a 5 cubic foot would be a good size for the amount of birds we do yearly. Did you know that a cubic foot holds approximately 7 gallons and the average chicken is about the equivalent to 1 gallon? We found that our local Canadian Tire had one available but also that Best Buy had one cheaper with free delivery. Well that seemed like a no brainer.



We ordered it online late on Wednesday evening only to find that it had an anticipated delivery date of Tuesday the 5th (after the long weekend). We asked around and found a couple of people who could "hold' the chickens in their freezer for the weekend. Imagine our surprise when the freezer appeared on Friday! Love when the Universe conspires to meet our needs. We were thrilled as we could process and freeze them ourselves without running around to put them into the freezers of our generous friends.


To prepare the new freezer we put a 5 gallon bucket filled with water in to freeze and hold some space while we finished the birds up over 3 days. Although the energy rating on this new freezer was such that we felt it would work with our system, the weather, read lack of sunshine, this time of year meant running the generator. We kind of expected that as the empty freezer would be grabbing a lot of power to get and keep cold.






     Everything is finished and
     the freezer is now packed







This additional draw on our batteries has caused Tricia's interest in the workings of a solar system to be peaked. She really didn't have any interest in 'knowing' how things worked previously. To that end she has delved deep into what Ed calls his 'bible' on the subject The Renewable Energy Handbook: The Updated Comprehensive Guide to Renewable Energy and Independent Living by William H. Kemp






You can expect some future posts on what she finds of interest.







Share with us your own chicken dreams and nightmares.
Are you off grid or just living vicariously through us?

Comments are what keeps a blogger motivated so even an "oh this is boring" comment is productive.

Besides Tricia gets lonely with just Ed and the dogs day after day...