Reserved for special occasions, our family's favorite smoker recipe is a Smoked Stuffed Sausage Bacon Explosion. 

Curious?  Here's how to make one:

Bacon Explosion


And if you want to try your hand at making your own wood smoker, instructions are below!  Scroll through the pages to see how to make a smoker using either a metal trash can or a clay flower pot.

Urban farming is hard work and a lot of fun.  But I would have to say that record keeping, while essential, is not my favorite part of the process.  I am working on getting better at it for two reasons.  First, good records will help my farm to be more profitable. Records provide clues to where the farm is succeeding, and where its management can be improved. 

Secondly, good farm records protect us legally.  One of the items that we sell to the public is our farm eggs.  Before we ever started selling them, we researched best production and handling practices and put a plan in place.  But a plan, in itself, is not enough.  In the event that someone would claim that one of our eggs made them ill, we need records to prove that we are following safe handling practices on a daily basis.  This is where our egg production chart comes in handy.  Not only does it show when and how many eggs we collect twice daily, but it also provides a record of when food, water and bedding are changed and how often we clean the coop and supplies.  Filling the record out daily keeps us accountable and provides peace of mind to us and to our customers that we are doing everything in our power to provide the freshest, healthiest eggs possible. 

If you are raising your own hens for eggs to feed your family or to sell the the public, I encourage you to take a look at our management spreadsheet, adjust it to your own operation, and use it to ensure the best eggs possible.

For more information about keeping egg records, see my article Selling Backyard Eggs.