Pictured: Apple Fritter Bread. You can find it at my Etsy shop!
It’s still summer, but as the days grow closer to September, while I’m still picking tomatoes and excited about fresh corn, I feel the twinges of readiness for apples and pumpkins and crackling leaves. You? At this time of year, as the season changes and the holidays are around the corner, I rearrange my shop, highlighting things people suddenly get in the mood for in fall months–items with apples and pumpkins, especially. But lately, I’m making plans for a different kind of change. Or, maybe not a change, but an addition.
Any fellow Etsy sellers out there? If you are, you know what I’m talking about when I say Etsy has been making a lot of changes lately, and some that aren’t exactly designed with the handcrafter’s best interests at heart. I’m not interested in moving to any other marketplace platforms. I know there are many. I’ve been very happy with Etsy for several years, but any time you’re working on someone else’s platform, you have no control over changes in direction. It’s their playground, and after experiencing so many (sometimes baffling) changes Etsy has made, I’m not going through that again with another marketplace platform. With that in mind, I’m getting ready to open a shop area right here on my website. I’m planning to continue with my shop on Etsy for the foreseeable future, but I’m going to establish my own shop presence on my own playground. My new shop here won’t be open for business for another month or two, but in the meantime, you can still find me on Etsy. (And can continue to find me on Etsy even after I open my shop here. I still hold out hope Etsy is going to remember that handcrafter’s are what their site is about and turn the ship around before it’s too late.) But, also, I’m really looking forward to making the addition of an independent shop to my website! I’ll update when it’s ready!
carla anne says:
Good for You! I like spunky people who will not be deterred by someone else’s idea of what’s best. I am glad to see your posts again! I really enjoyed the chicken slaughter even though I am a city girl and will probably never do that. I was wondering about when in the process you remove the innards and what happens to them. My grandmother raised chickens, and I remember her going out in the morning to kill a chicken for dinner (lunch). Because I was visiting from the city, I was never privy to the process – the farm folks were afraid it would upset me! lol
On August 13, 2019 at 1:21 pm
Suzanne McMinn says:
A few people have asked me about that, so I added a paragraph to the post about it. The time to gut is after the plucking and right after removing the feet, before you start cutting up the chicken–if quartering. If keeping whole chicken, you cut then you’re done, no further cutting up. So you don’t have to go back to find out, here is what I added: If you plan to keep whole chicken, you’re going to get up close and personal now with some chicken butts and pull the guts out and remove organs you may want to keep. We decided to just quarter this batch–cutting out thigh/leg pieces and breasts–so we didn’t even gut them. (You can quarter, carefully, without gutting.) Next batch, we’ll keep a few whole chickens. I like a few to roast whole through the year. When we do that, I like to seal up the organ meat, and neck, separately in a small bag and put it inside the bag when I vaccuum seal the whole chicken. I love using chicken heart, liver, gizzard, neck when making chicken gravy or stock.
On August 13, 2019 at 1:43 pm