Cordwood Shed Build (part 5)

Last week I was trying to get the cordwood wall finished up and the new to me window framed in.. Progress is unbelievably slow but I'm working mostly by myself. This is not exactly a one man job, cordwood requires friends.

Progess on the wall.....slow as always!

Got the window all framed in. I still need to finish caulking and put the vinyl stripping on the edges, but it's in! I used some really ugly brown caulking on part of this hanging project because I had run out of the white color caulk. It is going to have to be removed and re-caulked because it's absolutely hideous with this white vinyl.

Getting soooooo close to done with this wall. I added a green Mason jar....because I can, that's why. I mean Hell, they are called Mason jars, right? You can't go wrong with this one!!

Fortunately, if the jar cracks it won't effect the structural integrity of the wall, and if it cracks badly I can easily replace it with a piece if wood. No worries here!

My ugly construction mess. I was putting the tools away as I went, but every time I put something away I would need it again!

Getting all ready for more Mason jar masonry....

The salvage door I bought along with the window. Floor needs pouring before this piece is insalled.

Getting the jars all mortared in....

Looking pretty cool! And I am almost done with this stupid wall!!

Ya know....if I had the rest of my life to finish building this, and alot of buddies to help I might do more of this cordwood stuff. As in an entire house!

It is a TON of work and it takes forever. It is labor intensive and back breaking. But it's turned out really, really cool looking. The structural integrity of this is also good, the wall was 'earthquake tested' and flexes really well without cracking at all. Yay!!

Just about there!!

I plugged up the holes at the bottom of the loft with correctly sized 2x4 lengths. I also took the opportunity to use a few screws and secure the cordwood wall to the loft framing. There was no real need, but it makes me feel better knowing the wall is just a little bit more anchored.

I still have a couple more pieces to add, I ran out of mortar this morning. After that, I'm going to hang a 2x6 header on top of the loft joists to kind of protect the top of the wall from water, and also as a footing for the siding that is going to make up the loft area walls.

This job is going to need some chinking where my mortar mix was too wet or the pointing was bad or a piece of wood shifted with wet mortar, but I consider that to be finish work that comes later down the road.

Floor and walls first, we'll worry about sealing and insulating and all that fun stuff later. I'm not looking forward to hand pouring a cement floor but that's the next step and needs to be done soon. Earthen floors sound romantic and all, but I don't want to live in the dirt any more than I do already.

Goat Milk Butter

Here is how to make butter, from either cow or goat cream. No special equipment is needed for this, just a little patience.

I am using goat cream for this batch. The cream has been skimmed off the top of the milk and stored in the freezer until I get enough to make something out of it. Goat cream separates off the milk only after it has been sitting in the refrigerator two days or more. There isn't quite as much cream as with cows' milk, but it's creamy enough to make butter from.




Here's the frozen cream. I filled the jar only about halfway to allow for good shaking.




I let the cream thaw, then start shaking the jar. Seriously, that's it!
Here's the beginning of the butter process.




When you make butter, it is important to realize that before the cream turns to butter, it makes whipped cream. If you get whipped cream instead of butter, keep shaking, you're almost there!

Here the cream is starting to peak, almost to whipped cream stage.






The cream can be difficult to shake, but this is why I only filled the jar halfway. Using the palm of one hand and tapping the lid as you shake promotes a churning action of sorts and makes the process go slightly faster.

After a few minutes of shaking whipped cream, it will start to feel slightly sloshy again. Keep shaking, it is starting to separate into butter.

In these pictures, the cream has separated to butter. Note the liquid and solids of different colors in the jar. The liquid darker stuff is buttermilk, and the white stuff is butter. Congratulations, you've made your own butter!




Here is the unstrained butter, with the buttermilk still in it. Straining off as much as the buttermilk as possible is important to keep the butter fresh. Rinsing the butter with ice water can help get all the buttermilk out.

If you wish, you can save your buttermilk for baking, pancakes, or animal feeding, ect. It's good stuff.




I use a coffee filter to strain the buttermilk out of the butter. You can also rinse the butter in ice water to help get the buttermilk out at this stage, but then you still have to strain the water out. I don't personally bother with rinsing my butter.




Then the butter is put back into a clean jar, and salt is added and stirred in at this point if you wish.

The butter stores in the refrigerator for a week or so, and much longer in the freezer.

Goat Milk Fudgesicles

This recipe is super easy and doesn't require much time to do. Unfortunately, it all got eaten before I took any pictures...

Feel free to add to this and make it to your liking! Banana flavor pudding,  vanilla with chocolate chips, the possibilities here are endless.
You can skim the cream off the milk first, or use it whole.

Fudgesicles:

Quart goat milk
Package of chocolate Jello pudding

Make the pudding according to directions on the box. You will have around a cup of extra milk, it is OK to add this to the pudding if you like.

Find containers to pour the mixture into, and sticks are also helpful. If no popsicle sticks are around maybe use kebab skewers or spoons for sticks, spoons work well.

Pour mix into containers, add spoon or stick, put in freezer. Eat any extra pudding you didn't use.

Freeze for 8 hours or until frozen through.  Enjoy!

Cordwood Shed Build (part 4)

I know I haven't posted much about the shed lately. I haven't forgotten or given up on the project, but haven't had a ton of time to work on it. Here's the latest and greatest with the shed project!




The window was framed in. It looks great, but doesn't sit quite straight because the main poles are warped.






Mixing mortar. I have found that for my mixture with 20% sawdust, much more water is needed than it says on the bag. The sawdust soaks up a bunch of water.

You don't want soupy or slurry mortar when it's mixed. It should be the consistency of a snowball when you grab and pack a handful together.




I have been using dishwashing gloves. WAY better than the rubber dipped gloves, and no more concrete burns on my hands. These have been a real lifesaver!








Progress on the wall has been slow and steady. One bit at a time...

My method and mortar mixture have both improved by a lot. Using finer sawdust instead of shavings is helping a lot, and I haven't seen any more cracks in my mortar work. My pointing work is improving little by little, too.






Another day's work. Gobble thinks he's helping, but really he is just getting underfoot and starting to irritate me.


I have purchased another salvage window for the big back wall of the shed, and a solid core door for the front. They should work great for this project.

There is more lumber on site. It's all ready to be used for framing, and I'll get to that and have at least the window framed in before I pour the flooring. I don't want the window being somehow broken just sitting around and would feel more comfortable with it out of the way .

Meet our Heritage Turkeys

The turkeys are a big part of the farm. It seems like they are everywhere right now!

We raise heritage Bourbon Red turkeys. The flock is mostly for utility purposes... Meat and babies and eggs is what the turkeys are mostly around for.
I do keep an eye towards the exhibition circles and my flock does very well when they do get taken to show.

We began breeding Bourbon Red turkeys back in 2010. I liked their size, their color, and the type was readily available from a local breeder. At the time, it made sense to add turkeys to the chicken project.

These days the chickens are few and far between, and the turkeys have sort of taken over the place.

These guys are the 2016 meat pen. One of my Red toms, and two of another breed which were bought in when they were babies.

The big one is an extra tom who was bred and born here at the farm. One of the toms has to go this year, because three full grown toms really aren't necessary around here. This guy is the youngest, and he'll make good eating.

These turkeys are fed grain and crumble ration, some of the goat's hay, and copious amounts of goat milk mixed into their feed. The milk is really making a difference in putting weight on the Palms, it seems. They also get sunflowers from the garden and discarded fruit and vegetables.

The white turkeys with the black markings are young Royal Palms. They are truly beautiful turkeys, but tend to grow out smaller than the reds and have a flightier personality type. They were bought just to raise and eat, not for keeping.

Here are the breeding toms. Gobble (in the first picture) is getting kind of old and his fertility has dropped, but I keep him around because we love him.

The ladies and a youngster from this year's breeding. I think the youngster is a hen, but I can't tell for sure yet. Even if it's a tom, he'll be too small for eating at Thanksgiving so he's still running loose around the place.

The turkeys are going to be part of the farm for a long time. I enjoy their personalities and enjoy eating them, too. I could be doing worse things with my life than raising Heritage turkeys!

Cordwood Shed Build (Part 3)

Progress on the shed the last week or so has been slow because of off-farm obligations. The project is going at a snail's pace, but it really is starting to look cool.

Last week I got the loft shortened and a temporary wall up. Here's what's gotten done this week.

More wall progress, it's been really slow going. More pieces of different sizes cut, you can see them being incorporated into the wall here.

Framing for a window that I have been hoarding for years, moved with me through two moves and am finally finding a beautiful happy home for!

The window is block glass, and only 5 inches deep so I thought framing would be a better idea than mortaring this directly into the wall. We'll see how it goes...

Dug, placed and staked more blocks for the wall where I had the temporary framing from the loft piece that was cut out. The addition is eventually going onto this wall, and I plan to make it a step higher than the part I'm working on now.

In other news, we've bought more concrete for a floor pour, and more mortar, which I suspect wasn't quite enough more.

The next couple of weeks will be busy, but I will plug away at the project as I'm able to find time. The concrete burns on my hands from torn gloves need to heal before I mix any more mortar or concrete. I've gotten new gloves but am still not quite ready to tackle more mortaring. Ouch.