A Beautiful Day

A beautiful day to work on clearing brush out of the fence rows, so that we can add goat proof wire.  CC and I broke out the hand and electric clippers and got a good portion done.  Then we worked on dragging off a bunch of the brush that CC had already cut.

A lot of people thought that we were buying an ATV for fun, but have revised their opinions as they’ve watched how much we use it for work around the place.  We use it for riding the fences, skidding brush, and toting fencing supplies.

Toy?  Hardly!

Having the fence up on this portion will also allow us to keep the goats under the barn at night as opposed to the shed we built, which is rapidly becoming inadequate.  It will be nice to have everything in one place as well.  Right now, we’re having to haul feed and water and lead the goats to the milking stanchion. Once we have the fences set up, we’ll be able to call them into the barn and simply pull them through a gate to the milking area.  It will also provide a little more than double the area they have right now.  I plan on rotating them from one pen to the other, so that the grass and forage has time to grow back some in between.  This will also help with keeping parasites down.

Eventually, we’ll add another large pen and combine these two (read: more goats), but for now it is working really well.

 

 

GF Clam Sauce with Penne Pasta

GF, of course, standing for gluten-free, this recipe is easy on those nights that you need something fairly no brainer.

4 cans of clams

2 large white or yellow onions

1 stick butter

1 bag of Heartland Gluten Free Penne pasta

Dice your onions fine and sauté in the butter.  The more they caramelize (brown), the tastier your clam sauce.  Once they’ve caramelized to the desired level, dump in the clams, juice and all.  Turn the heat to a low simmer and let it cook down until it is nice and thick.  Meanwhile, go ahead and cook the pasta according to the directions (although, I’ve found my family likes the pasta better if I give it an additional 3 minutes boiling).

Serve and enjoy!

 

Two wasn’t enough, Part II

First there was Ice Cream and Chili.  Now there is Muppet, her sister (Auntie), and Muppet’s kids (Fish and Chips).  That’s right; four new goats have joined our little homestead.  These are Nigerian Dwarf goats and have a fairly interesting history, which you can read about HERE!   One of the benefits being that they can be bred all year, so that you can stagger the breedings, so that you have milk all year.

Muppet and her babies, Fish (the brown facing away) and Chips (the one right behind her).

A better shot of Chips, who is a complete sweetheart and about the size of a football on legs.

The extremely nice folks that we got the goats from kept Auntie’s doe, so I am now happily milking morning and evening.  So far it has been a family event.  CC and BG help and we’re all getting a kick out of it.  Despite this being her first kid and never having been milked before, Auntie has been the soul of patience.  BG has even gotten to milk her a little bit, which makes her four-year-old heart full to bursting.

On a more practical note, Auntie’s milk tasted disgusting when I first started milking her.  Her previous owners had her on dry pellets and hay; no grass, no real forage.  My father had always told me that if you want sweet milk, feed sweet feed to your milker.  His suggestion was corn, but I learned that sweet feed works very well indeed and isn’t all that expensive.  I say not that expensive because Auntie gets literally a cup in the morning and a cup in the evening while she’s in the stanchion.  This serves several purposes actually.

Auntie is Muppet’s younger full sister.

1. Her milk is now super sweet and delicious, less than five days later.
2. She can’t wait to jump up onto the milking stanchion and stick her head in the catch.
3. She comes running at a simple call.
4. She has gone from having to corner her to catch her, to coming when she’s called and begging for pettings.

Despite being a member of the rodeo team in high school, I have no desire to rodeo these days, especially first thing in the morning, usually before I’ve had coffee.  I’ll pay the $10.99 for fifty pounds of sweet feed.  Thanks!

 

 

Back In The Garden

My big pot of spinach that I hope to keep producing all summer long.

When we moved, I didn’t bring one plant with me.  It broke my heart, but we had to pare down the load.

I’m happy to say that I am no longer plant less.

Thanks to my mom and my cousin I have pots galore and have started filling them.  I, actually, started my new garden in December when I snagged a key lime tree that was dying in the cold at Wal-Mart,  I’ve since added spinach, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, onions, rosemary, basil, oregano, thyme, lavender, ginger, sage, spearmint, and peppermint.

BG is my helper as always and I promised her that she could plant whatever she wanted in her portion of the garden.  So far she’s chosen two pots of flowers and seeds for more.  I hope that her enthusiasm for gardening continues.  There is something terribly special about being able to share something I really enjoy with my daughter and know that she’s having fun as well.  As a treat I bought her lilies that should bloom all summer long.