chicken pox, turkey butchering, baby face, plus regular ol' update

Here's what's happened around here the past month:

1. We had a new baby (love!)
2. My husband got laid off (ack!)
3. My husband came down with shingles (so painful!)
4. I came down with a bad case of mastitis (so painful!)
5. Our kids came down with chicken pox (so itchy!)
6. I had yet another root canal (so painful!)
7. Our oven stopped working, along with 2 stove top burners (ack!)

It's been exciting, chaotic, sucky, & fun all rolled into one month. Wheeeeeee! Love that roller coaster!

Here are the 2 miserable little pox victims. Our 22 mo old has had the worst case, he has pox absolutely everywhere. In his ears, nose, butt, fingers, & just covering his poor little crotch. It's been extra rough for me the days that I'm home alone with the kids, I only have so many arms & am often up most of the night with the sickies. My 11 yr old also got a mild case which I'm so glad of! I naively had him vaccinated against chicken pox as a baby which can lead to more severe outbreaks as an adult. But he's now built up antibodies against the pox like any other kid. Our newborn breastfeeder hasn't shown any signs of pox. My magical breastmilk is full of antibodies that are keeping him protected. :)

Mr. Miserable soaking in an oatmeal bath:

And Mr. Not Quite as Miserable but with plenty o' pox in his butt crack to drive him crazy all day!


And here's the cute new wee Seedling, 4 weeks old:






Annnnd, here's the turkey I butchered today! A lovely Bourbon Red, a heritage breed.


You may now exit the blog if you are offended by meat eating.


A generous friend offered to show me how to butcher my own Thanksgiving turkey. It was great! I'm always grateful to have the chance to do such things as I do hope to raise & butcher our own livestock one day in the future. None of that funky store bought, factory raised meat for me, thanks.

This was our set up. On the lower left you see a tidbit of our little bonfire (awesome on a chilly day like today!), then in the crate is my turkey awaiting her fate. Then- friends, the table we did the work on, a bucket of water for handwashing, the propane tank keeping the water boiling, & the ice chest. Once the turkeys had bled out, we dunked the carcass in the boiling water to open the pores & make the feather plucking do-able.

My turkey before:


After the neck slicing, bleeding out, beheading & dunking in the boiling water, I feather plucked:

Then I plunged my hands in to retrieve the guts:

And here was the awesome view from where we stood:

I'm proud to have butchered my own natural, pasture raised turkey for our Thanksgiving (click HERE to read about conventional turkey raising, and HERE to read about heritage breeds, and HERE to search for humanely raised turkey near you), BUT, I have no working oven to bake it in!! Haha. And on top of that, I just don't really have the freezer space to store it long term. AND. It looks like we'll be celebrating Thanks Day with my older kids' dad & his functioning oven. He's vegetarian & I don't want to bother him with the scent of turkey roasting in his house all day, soooooo, I'm not going to eat my Thanksgivng turkey on Thanksgiving after all. :p But that's really ok, I went through with the butchering more for the learning experience of it all than for Thanksgiving anyway. And for the gorgeous Pacific Northwest countryside view. :)