When I look out our big picture windows, I can see a farm in the distance. I told Shawn I need binoculars so I can see what’s going on over there. So nosy!
Yesterday, Shawn made contact with a local farm via his Northern Idaho Facebook group. He found a local dairy that sells raw, fresh, A2A2 milk which is not known to cause lactose intolerance. The owner, Katie Millhorn, said she would give us a tour of their operation, so today we headed to the farm which turns out to be the farm I’ve been looking at out my windows. Small world…or valley.
The view of our house from Katie’s farm
Katie showed us her barn where she hand milks 3 cows daily. She also has sheep, chickens, and rabbits. All are free range. Milk is $6/gallon and cream is $7/quart. We bought a gallon of milk, and Shawn enjoyed it with his AB&J sandwich for lunch. I will try making yogurt with it in the Instant Pot.
Free range chickens and lion head rabbits
Katie’s chicken coop
The milk is SO good!
So we are raising meat chickens. We have 20+ Cornish Cross chicks growing at a rapid rate in our basement. Katie referred to them as Franken-chicks because they grow so fast. Shawn is busily working on their outdoor home, but it has come to my attention that one day we will need to process and package these beasts. Gone will be the days of picking up a tray of boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs at Safeway. I need to figure out what to do with whole chickens.
Tonight, I am making a milk braised chicken in the Instant Pot. Any recipe that calls for 10 cloves of garlic should be tasty. Unfortunately, I did not have the lemon zest the recipe called for, so I zested a couple Cuties. Tangerine garlic chicken?
The chicken was tender but could have used more browning. The leftovers will be either chicken corn chowder or chicken and dumplings.
A new addition to the kitchen is a stainless steel composting pot. Since we are on septic and don’t have a garbage disposal, all the table scraps will go into the pot and Shawn will add them to his ever-growing compost pile. Last night, Shawn asked if paper towels can be composted. I looked it up online and it turns out that Bounty has an FAQ for that.
“Our paper towels and napkins are biodegradable. We measure the biodegradability of our products using a composting test developed by the US Composting Council. Under these conditions, Bounty will biodegrade in 60 days or less.”
K-cups waiting to be dismantled so coffee grounds can be composted
Now you know.