Thanksgiving: In Review!

    Thanksgiving this year was a fun-packed weekend-long undertaking filled with incredible food, awesome friends and family, warm fires, and merriment. Whitt and Martha had the usual suspects up for Thanksgiving dinner aside from Grethcen and Austin. Unfortunately they were unable to make it up from Asheville, NC.
    The meal consisted of three (yes, three!) of our turkeys prepared in different ways. Two birds had been brined by Mia and Martha prior to cooking: one in a water and salt mixture, the other in a mixture of water, milk, salt, and various spices. The third was relatively untouched prior to cooking. The idea behind brining is that the salt and liquid mixture will coat the skin and form a protective coating that holds in the moisture of the bird while being cooked with minimum basting required. The two brined birds were grilled while the third was cooked as normal in the oven. Howard and Whitt spear-headed the grilling of the turkeys.

Howard sprinkling on some magic.

A couple swipes of goodness...

And viola!

Whitt and Howard talking about the boring view.

In goes the bird!

Annie doing one last nose check before the lid is closed to make sure it smells good.

     According to all present, every bird was unbelievable, but the grilled birds where exceptionally good. Of course the birds were merely the center piece to the meal. All of the sides and desserts were also, as normal, incredible.

This Is Ground Control to Major Tom

Hello blog followers!

As many of you may have expected, the holidays on top of our regular work schedule have been swallowing us whole. Thanksgiving is always a blast at the farm because not only do we celebrate on Thursday, but we also have Thanksgiving Pt. II! The barn was in dire need of a re-vamping with the influx of animals in need of storage. I'm glad to say we have finished most of that project up. We've been able to get Christmas trees, decorate for the season, throw a holiday party, host lot's of visitors, AND rent a ram to breed our ewes. Needless to say, the blog will not be neglected for the next few weeks.

There's so much to tell you about! Stay tuned!

-Brendan and the whole Cair Paravel Family!

Hunting

    As most of you may know, it is hunting season here in Virginia. For you hunters, it's the season for waking up early, stocking the truck with bullets and beer, and sitting in a tree for hours and hours on end. For us non-hunters in the middle of the action, the season consists of our loveable dogs bringing back all the pieces the hunters didn't want one disgusting piece at a time, and constantly being worried someone is going to shoot them. So, we have come up with an attempt at a practical, yet fashionable, way to help prevent buck shot from finding our dogs.

    Here we have Tsuki modeling a dog safety vest complete with a handy pocket for treats or anything else she wants to put in there. Actual dog vests run a surprising amount of money, so I just ended up making these with 97¢ human vests and a 47¢ spool of thread. Hurray for safety!

Get Your Turkey!

        Thanksgiving is on Thursday! If you don't know where your turkey is coming from, we have the solution!

        We still have a limited quantity of birds left that have not been reserved for the big day. All of our birds are heritage breed, grass fed, organic Bourbon, Narragansett, and Palm turkeys. Turkeys were processed on Sunday (11/20) and are sold un-frozen. It's as fresh as they come! 

        $5.50/lb --- weights vary.

    If you're in need of a last minute turkey, e-mail Cair Paravel at

CPARAVEL@GMAIL.COM with "TURKEY" in the subject line.

Remember to buy local and support small businesses this holiday season! 

Broken Bones

A few weeks ago Maddie broke her ankle. She has since had surgery to repair the break and is on a quick path to recovery. Keep her in your thoughts and wish her well! I'm sure she's thrilled I posted this picture of her pre-surgery (and hyped up on pain meds) on the internet.

Pumpkin Carving!

Disclaimer: Yes. This post is late. Very late.

        Halloween fell on a Monday this year. That meant children across America were bummed having to trick-or-treat on a school night. For us up on the farm it meant hurray! More candy for us! Actually, seeing as we don't get trick-or-treaters, there was no need for us to get candy at all... but we did carve pumpkins!

        I'm horrible at carving pumpkins. I have really great ideas, however, executing them is very difficult for me. Yes, it would be rad to carve Moby Dick exploding out of the sea with a ship between his jaws, but I can't draw it on paper let alone carve it out of a pumpkin. So after beginning the most epic pumpkin carving on the planet, my pumpkin ended up looking like this:

        Whitt's pumpkin didn't turn out nearly as primitive as mine. Nor did he spend two hours of cursing only to cut a huge hole out of the center of the pumpkin.

    Maddie went for the abstract. I'm not sure if there was a face, or if I just took a picture of the wrong side of the pumpkin. Either way, I still really like the design!

        Now Mia: she is a professional. She took pumpkin carving to the next level -- a huge long-neck squash! Ever seen those big dragons used in parades and festivals? You know, the ones with forty people wearing the same dragon costume and dancing down the street? Well, that is what Mia turned her squash into. Check it out!

Mia hard at work!

 

 The finished product!!

 

 

 

 

Follow Us!

  Cair Paravel now has a twitter! Follow us @CairParavelFarm!

Consider it the addendum to the blog, the more day-to-day, the fun filled fact machine of the farm, the picture gateway, the...well, you get the idea. We'll also post news, available products and prices, as well as requests for help with certain projects. Become a bigger part of our farm with Twitter!

@CairParavelFarm

Herding the Flock

Down at the barn Mikey hears me call, "Sheeeep, here sheeep." He is always the first to come thinking he is going to get a treat!


Flora, resting in the shrubs this warm day decides to join... but maybe not...but sees Noelle ambling up with Mikey.


Noelle and Mikey realize they are going to the green pasture. The area around the barn has been nibbled to nubs so they are going out to the stockpiled fescue, red clover, and landino clover pasture. There is also browse for them along the meadow edges.



Mikey, of course was the first to get into the knee deep grasses however....



.....the rest did not lag behind! Herding this trio is not difficult. Just show them food and they will follow.

See how the great grazing has help the sheep produce fantastic fleece!

This is Mikey's long-stapled white locks...


....and Noelle's creamy brown that deepens into dark chocolate.! I am looking forward to working with the wool this winter.

Chicken Processing

Coming up this Sunday, November 13, 2011 the last 2011 chicken processing (plus a few roosters and some geese. If you want to help/learn come and join us. Set up will start at 9:00 AM.

Fall Garden

The fall garden is producing big round heads of cabbage. Looking forward to stuffed cabbage rolls!
We have had roller coaster weather. Last week we were treated to 4" of heavy sloppy snow and now are basking in unseasonably warm weather. The artichokes survived under floating row covers....
....and the curly leafed kale as well. You can't really see from this shot but I planted parsnips between the kale and the picket fence. Hopefully we will enjoy them in February.

It was an adventure putting up the poly tunnels in advance of the snow. We used pvc pipe jammed into the raised beds. The force of the hoop against the board sides of the beds provides enough support to keep the hoops in place. Then it was draping the sheets of plastic over the hoops and securing it with rocks. Fortunately we have an abundance of rocks.

The parsley is loving the additional warmth.....

...as well as the Swiss Chard and arugula. Lettuce, beets, carrots, fava beans and some hearty peppers are still producing as well has numerous herbs leading to experiments with herbed ricotta and ravioli. I even have one tunnel with a late tomato trying to hang on!

Garry the Chicken

    We've acquired quite a few more birds here at the farm. A rather mixed batch actually; rhode island reds, marans, cochins, more barred rocks, orpingtons. Although new to our farm, nothing out of the ordinary as far as chickens go. Except Garry.

    We have no idea what kind of chicken he is. We actually thought he was a hen for a few months until we witnessed him crow in person. Not only is he tiny compared to our other birds, but he is the epitome of the "little man complex." He antagonizes our biggest, baddest rooster and actually wins! I honestly think it's because our top rooster is so surprised/bewildered it doesn't have time to come up with any other reaction than running away in shock. Please, if anyone has an idea of his breed, let us know!

 
And now for Garry's name-sake. He is only the second chicken that we have named. The first was "Big Dude," who is in fact a big...dude. Really the only reason why we named Garry at all is because of his incredible likeness to our good friend Mara's dog Garry. The similarities in Garry the chicken's behavior to Garry the dog's were so uncanny that Mia and I came to the same conclusion while watching him one day. We literally looked at each other at the same time and said, "IT'S EXACTLY LIKE GARRY!!!!"

 

Here is a shot of Garry (the dog)in all his glory. We hope one day they will meet

and become best friends.

Goat For Sale, Trade, or Barter

CPE needs a new home for Samuel! Samuel is a very happy and healthy purebred Nubian buck born July 6th, 2011. He has been de-horned and will soon be ready for breeding.

What we are looking for:
      -outright sale of Samuel for a price TBD
      -trade for other livestock (i.e.-goats, sheep, turkeys, et cetera)
      -a mutually beneficial trade of breeding services
      -establish a network between ourselves and another goat farm


We would love to talk and work out some sort of deal that can benefit us and the buyer. We're more interested in starting a relationship with other goateries than a plain cut and dry exchange of money.

    If you would like more information, please contact us through e-mail at cparavel@gmail.com.

Eva Update!

 I'm pleased to inform little Eva's leg has healed beautifully! For those that may not remember, she broke her leg a few weeks after she was born and had to hobble around with a cast. Now the cast is off and her leg isn't giving her any issues at all!

 

Tomætoes, Tomátoes

    Martha has picked the last of the tomatoes before the gardens are switched to fall/winter mode. With the nights getting colder, and ultimately the day's temperatures catching up, that means it's time to break out the green house structures for the raised beds and move as much as we can into the affixed greenhouse off of the lower apartment. I've been working on tilling all of this years plants into the soil to decompose and nourish the ground. As a good way to end the time of year that the bulk of our veggie production slows down by sharing some pictures of the different tomato varieties we grew this year.

    Our tomatoes were good to us this year!