National 24-Hour Challenge 2014: Ride Report

Way off this blog's typical subject matter, but ultramarathon cycling has been a longtime passion of mine --- and in recent years has helped forge an important connection with my kids. Although it has nothing to do with farming, I wanted to share my "ride of a lifetime" experience participating in the National 24-Hour Challenge earlier this month.

The event is billed as a "personal best" challenge, not a race, and it's been held for over thirty years now. Riders come from all over the country, and from overseas, but most of the 300 or so participants live in Michigan or other Great Lakes states. The idea is to ride as many miles as you can in 24 hours, from 8am Saturday to 8am Sunday. Take as many breaks as you want, but the clock never stops ticking. Does that sounds intriguing? Crazy? Actually, it was an absolute blast.

And this is what I looked like at the end:

After every major cycling event, I try to write up a personal "ride report" while my thoughts are fresh. Years later, when I'm preparing to participate in that event (or a similar event) again, those notes often prove invaluable. My hope is that some other aspiring 24-Hour participant will find this report, and find my experiences useful. Be forewarned that I have deliberately included much more detail than a typical published ride report would include, and it is significantly longer than any other post I've put up, but I wanted to share everything that I wished I could have known before going off to participate in my own first N24HC.

Here we go:

Wildlife

When a person begins raising livestock, it's remarkable how swiftly one's attitude toward wildlife --- especially potential predators --- changes. Overnight, "cute" becomes "Quick! Don't let it get away!" Especially after a time or two of witnessing the mayhem that those "cute" little critters are capable of inflicting. I'll never forget the mornings I've followed a trail of blood and feathers into a field, trying to locate the spot where a predator finished off his victim.

Several years back, when we were living in Illinois, our farm was separated from a small housing development by about a mile of open fields. One morning, while driving along the road running in front of that development, I noticed a new homemade sign. It read, "SLOW! BABY FOXES", and had an arrow pointing down to a culvert where a mother fox had made a den. My first thought was: Whoever made this sign so doesn't have livestock. My second thought was: I wonder how many of my chickens the mother fox will make off with to feed these babies. My third thought was: I wonder how many of my chickens these babies will make off with once they grow up.

Fortunately, we haven't been hit with predator strikes any time recently. But I did spot a raccoon in a large tree across the street a couple of nights ago, peering across at our farm, so I suppose it's just a matter of time. (I didn't have a clean shot at him, and he wasn't on our property anyway.) And while Homeschooled Farm Girl and I were out on a long bicycle ride this weekend, we saw a mother raccoon with six little ones run across the road in front of us. I made a mental note to re-bait and re-set our traps once I got home.

Needless to say, I got a smile out of this article that I recently stumbled across:

A man was biking to work one day when by the side of the road he noticed a poor fox that lay dying. Here is his account of what transpired:

I'm sure the person who posted it thought it was heartwarming. The overwhelming majority of people who commented on it certainly did. I'm also confident that few -- if any -- of them raise livestock.

And I suppose on one level this is a heartwarming story --- but don't blame me for being conflicted. I'm just hoping the fox in question gets to live out the rest of his days being cared for in a very secure zoo or other wildlife facility. Far from my farm.

Chickens: Ten Weeks Later

Been awhile since I've posted, but spring is a crazy busy time on the farm. Butchering the meat chickens has been my biggest job lately, and we're finally down to the last handful. I find it's best to butcher no fewer than four and no more than six meat chickens per day. Fewer than that, and it's hardly worth the time it takes to set everything up, clean / sterilize the eviscerating table, etc. More than that, the scalding water begins to get too cold, my shoulders begin aching, and the flies really start to swarm.

I butcher the biggest chickens first, starting at about eight weeks of age. Most of them are males. After clearing them out, the pens become more spacious for the remaining birds --- and the females in particular have the chance to reach more of their growth potential. I don't weigh the fully-butchered birds, but each one gives us plenty of meat. Enough for our family and two guests, or enough for our family plus leftovers.

In case you're wondering why virtually everyone raises some version of Cornish Cross chickens for meat, and uses other breeds pretty much exclusively for eggs, here's a good picture of the size difference after ten weeks between a meat chicken and an egg chicken. I don't need to tell you which is which:

Here's another look inside the pen:

In the past, I would simply leave each butchered bird whole and freeze it that way. That's fine if you intend to roast each bird whole, which we used to do. But as time went on, we found we much preferred cooking the chickens in pieces (whether on the grill, or in some other way). Also, a cut-up chicken takes up a lot less room in the freezer than a whole chicken. Bottom line is, I'm now cutting each bird up into pieces as I butcher it. All the pieces go in a big pile as I work, and then I sort them at the end. In each gallon-sized freezer bag, I put: two drumsticks, two thighs, two wings, and two breasts. I tend to skin the breasts, but leave the skin on the other pieces. All the remaining carcases (and necks, and feet) go into a really large turkey-sized freezer bag, to be used later for soup (one big bag of carcass scraps makes one pot of soup). Then I take all the hearts and livers and put them in their own small package. It's taken years to settle on this approach, and for all I know I may refine it further next year, but for now it's perfect.

And freshly-butchered-and-grilled chicken sure tastes perfect. This was our Memorial Day dinner:

So, I should finish up butchering the last of the chickens in the next couple of days. Then we'll turn the egg pullets loose in the barn (they should begin laying this fall). And it'll be "mission accomplished" for the chicken tractors in the garden. (Fortunately, we didn't lose a single bird to predators.) Mrs. Yeoman Farmer will be able to plant her squashes very soon.

Note in the pictures above just how thick the grass is inside the pen. That's what it looks like when the pen is first moved to a new patch of ground. Now see what the ground looks like that they've already gone over (this view is looking north; our hay field is the long grass just beyond the garden fence):

No wonder it's called a "tractor" system. Here's another shot, looking the other direction, showing the other pen:

Just imagine how great those squashes will grow in this nice rich soil. Squash soup and roast chicken...now there's a combo for this fall.