Micro-Garden

This summer I planted a "micro-garden." We have not been able to fence our garden and do our chicken rotation like we plan to, and I refused to engage in the battle against weeds and renegade chickens another year. However, I was also unwilling to go completely without some of our favorite fresh produce. Instead, I turned the flower bed around our back patio into my garden. I think that in a normal summer this would have been a doomed plan, but this year it worked out perfectly. The patio is on the north side of the house. Strike one for a vegetable garden. There is a large, mature cedar tree immediately to the west of the garden. Strike two. This year, though, we experienced a drought like I've never endured. The extra shade seemed to help my plants survive. Also, there is no way we could have afforded to water a full sized garden, but I was able to mulch and keep my little garden alive quite well. I REALLY wish I had taken more pictures. On Wednesday I pulled up all the plants that are not cold hardy. I thought about taking pictures, but knew I'd taken some a couple months ago and didn't realize how much it had grown and thrived in the fall! The plants had really filled out and you could not see the ground at all by the time I had to rip them out. It was pretty sad to do, but I knew they would be a rotten mess if I didn't, because a hard freeze was on it's way. Sure enough, I awakened to a morning temperature of 27* today. This way I can freeze all those lovely peppers to enjoy in cooked dishes over the winter, and I plan to make pickled green tomatoes this afternoon. My final stripping of the plants yielded almost 9 gallons of tomatoes and peppers!

I planted this eggplant, which had been growing in my classroom since the previous August, in May. Unfortunately Wayne doesn't like them, and they don't agree with my stomach. They made a nice ornamental for us, though. The peppers along the top of the picture produced huge Greek type peppers that were lovely in salads and sauteed in scrambled eggs. You can barely see the ~7' long tomato vine that runs from the eggplant to the peppers. It had also grown in my classroom window all school year. I planted it's roots, laid the vine along the ground, and hollowed out little pockets of soil about every 18" placing the soil on top of the vine. It took root along all those places and it appeared to be several plants instead of one long one. It bore some really nice cherry tomatoes. All the plants mentioned above were from a Miracle Gro greenhouse kit I bought on clearance for my students to enjoy.

My friend, Diana, gave me starts of Egyptian walking onions. They seem to have gotten themselves established pretty well in my little micro-garden. You can see one peeking out from the lemon balm with it's head of "babies" over the concrete near the top of the picture. Under the lemon balm is some lettuce. I had several varieties of lettuce which I mixed together in a cup and sowed in hopes of having a living ground cover. The germination rate of the lettuces wasn't that great, though.The ones that did come up tasted like burnt rubber. I really wish I knew what variety it was so I don't buy it again! LOL!

At the NE corner of the patio I placed several potted plants. The largest pot contains rhubarb. Unfortunately, it didn't' make it. Diana gave it to me as well. She has tried for several years to grow it and it wouldn't thrive. She told me she was ripping it all out and I begged for some. I guess my skills were even worse. I planted zinnias and cock's comb in the black pots, which did grow, but looked rather scraggly. The yellow pot contains more lemon balm. The large terra cotta pot contains a miniature rose given to me by my friend Jenifer two years ago. It has the most precious yellow roses! Hens and chicks are flourishing in the center plastic terra cotta looking pot, and the small pot had a lone Egyptian walking onion that I was nursing along until Diana gave me the new starts.

Here is a view of the entire micro-garden and patio. The whiskey barrel contains more tomato plants. Now it's all bare except for the perennials and I am preparing to mulch it this afternoon.

P.S. The garden also included several varieties of large tomatoes for canning and eating fresh. bell peppers, and Anaheim chili peppers. I planted cilantro and basil, but they didn't do very well. I think they may have been choked out by the tomatoes. The micro-garden also includes abundant peppermint and spearmint. I would love to see it completely filled in with mint-family herbs and abuzz with honey bees in the future!

Baby in the Manger

This post will be unillustrated, because to have taken the time to get a camera and take a picture would have put her life at further risk.
This morning while I was milking the adult does Baby, my LaMancha doeling, started to cry in distress. I went to see what was wrong and discovered her IN the manger! Her legs were sticking out the various holes in the manger and she was in danger of breaking a leg or her neck from struggling to get out. Our manger is about 5 feet tall with inward sloping cattle panel for the sides. I tried to lift her out, but there was no way I could even come close. She is probably close to 50 pounds at this point, and at that angle I couldn't get her. I frantically searched for something I could climb to reach her. A ladder wouldn't work because I am no where near graceful enough to retrieve a flailing goat and keep my balance. I needed something much more stable. Providentially, our neighbor had brought an oval stock tank so that we could water his cows if the pond went dry, but it hadn't been needed and was sitting empty beside the driveway. I dragged it into the pen and over to the manger, climbed on top (I had it upside down.), and heaved her out. By the time I got the tank in there she was shaking. I'd been praying ever since I first saw her predicament that she wouldn't break a leg. When I saw her shaking I feared she was going into shock, but as soon as I had her out of there and standing beside me on the stock tank she started stomping her feet. I bet her legs had gone numb! After a few moments of stomping she jumped off and has been perfectly fine ever since. I can only guess that she managed to jump from the dog house into the manger. The dog house is one of those plastic ones you buy at the big box pet stores. I found it at a yard sale, and the goats love it for a private little retreat. They fight over who gets to use it. They also move it around to suit their tastes daily. I have moved it to the back half of the lean-to, away from the manger, and so far they are only scooting it back and forth a few feet, still a good twenty feet away from the manger.

Oh, Wow!!!

I've recently discovered my new favorite confection. It's everything fudge ought to be, but isn't. What's even better is it's incredibly easy! I had been experimenting with homemade "Larabars" when I stumbled into this one. It's my own conglomeration of what I learned from several other recipes I found online, and it's DIVINE!

 

Put one cup of raw walnuts (from the baking section or fresh) in the food processor and chop until it's about the texture of coarse corn meal. Then add one cup of pitted dates and blend together until it starts to form a ball. Next add 1/2 cup of raisins and two tablespoons of cocoa powder. Blend again until it's all well incorporated. The walnuts will release a good bit of oil. There will be oil in the bottom of the food processor, or at least there is in mine. I unplug the food processor, pull out the blade (I'm a bit paranoid!) and roll the concoction into balls. Store in the fridge. That's it! Only four ingredients: walnuts, pitted dates, raisins, and cocoa powder. They are SO delicious, and can be enjoyed completely guilt free! WooHoo!!! If you aren't already familiar with these, you simply MUST give them a try!

Reality

This post is about being real and honest. It pains me to share, but for the sake of education I must.

The past few weeks have been a battle on our homestead. Miracle got mastitis as soon as she freshened. It took three doses of Nuflor, an antibiotic shot that stings horribly, to get her healthy. I'm still not completely satisfied with the condition of her udder. She is no longer showing clinical symptoms of mastitis, however, and I am comfortable pursuing natural means to get her back to top-notch health. While the vet was examining Miracle I told him I was not happy with her body condition, despite the fact that I have done everything I know to do to make her healthy. He ran a blood test and discovered that she was infected with a blood borne protozoa (transmitted by lice) that attacks the red blood cells. If she had it, the entire herd did as well. This meant an antibiotic (CTC-10) added to their feed for 30 days and a pour on treatment called BOSS. There would be no milk for human consumption for 30 days. He also did a fecal exam and said she had a high worm load. I had just dewormed the entire herd with Ivomec only two weeks prior. This meant I had to give every animal in the herd daily Panacur dewormer for five days straight, and repeat in ten days.

A few days after Miracle's diagnosis, Twilight's twins started to scour. I had put the bottle babies back with their mommas when I got Miracle's diagnosis so they could be treated with the rest of the herd, and I thought the scouring was from too much milk. I began giving a blend of Sour-Halt and Pepto Bismol, but the scouring didn't improve and the babies were acting like they were in pain. I called my goat mentor and she came down to check them out. She was armed with Neomycin, Banamine, and Kaospect. I already had Di Methox on hand for prevention of coccidiosis. She said that we needed to get them started on all of these medicines and be very careful to keep them hydrated as well. I gave them all their medicines religiously for a total 10 days. I was able to stop the Banamine after four days, and the Kaospect after about six. It was so stressful! Diarrhea is a very serious illness in young kids, and our triple digit weather was not helping their chances of beating this. I set up a fan outside the fence for them to stay in front of, which they took advantage of.

I can finally say that all my animals lived and are off all meds except the CTC-10 that goes in their feed. We have another week to go on that one.

*WHEW* Talk about a wake-up call!

I have always managed my herd using herbs, vitamins, and minerals with only rare detours into pharmaceuticals. The past 10 months have been particularly difficult, though, and I couldn't seem to get my act together. I kept forgetting to give the herd their herbal dewormer every Saturday. That herbal dewormer has many health benefits besides just deworming. The herbs have nutritional value and help build up their bodies in the same way good nutrition helps us humans. After missing several doses of herbal dewormer I decided that I was going to have to bite the bullet and go synthetic to get me through this season in my life. I started giving my herd Ivomec dewormer. However, it didn't occur to me that I needed to start them out with a more rigorous deworming schedule and then switch to maintenance. I think this is what went wrong with the worms.

I have also always kept an immaculate goat pen. Our goats have a lean-to that is about 20'x50' with a concrete floor and full access to lush pasture. (I know goats aren't supposed to be housed on concrete, it was here when we bought the place.) I had heard so much about the benefits of deep litter method for the winter months that I decided to try it. Bad, bad, BAD decision! This was the mildest winter of my life! The deep litter bedding was okay for quite some time. But when the insect population indicated to me that it was time for the bedding to GO, it was all at once! I had to clean out that entire lean-to one wheelbarrow full at a time. It took me two days. Wayne was appalled that I pushed myself that hard to empty it, but I knew my animal's health was on the line. I fear it was too little too late. Now I keep the lean-to swept out with a push broom. I will never try the deep litter method again. Ever.

All these factors combined to create conditions favorable to the deterioration of my animal's health. I have been sufficiently slapped in the face and am (precariously) on the ball with maintaining their health needs now. For the past three weeks chores have been taking me two hours, twice a day. It is exhausting. If I had simply done a better job of keeping my animals healthy in the first place, none of it would have happened. Now I am having to play catch-up: get them healthy, get their bodies back up to their healthiest, and get back on natural preventive health care. I intend to continue using synthetic dewormer and whatever else is necessary to keep my animals healthy until I have proven to myself that I can keep up with the natural methods. I will overlap the two during that proving time, and then transition off synthetics.

Killing Cone

     When we decided to raise meat birds I did lots and lots of research on processing. We wanted our birds to be raised as close to organically as possible and then processed in the most humane and efficient way possible. The conclusion of my research was that we would use a killing cone for processing our chickens. The reason for this is that when you use a killing cone, the method entails cutting the chicken's jugular. The bird looses consciousness very quickly due to a loss of blood pressure to the brain. However, it's heart continues to beat, allowing virtually all of the blood to be removed from the body. The chicken is restrained in the cone, so there is no flopping around. Birds processed in this way are much cleaner to work up. There if very little odor when you are doing the rest of the processing compared to other methods such as complete decapitation.

     I was asked a very, very long time ago to share a tutorial on how we built our killing cone for processing chickens. It's been in the back of my mind on my to-do list ever since. I kept putting it off because I didn't want to waste our sheet metal making a second one, and I couldn't think of any inexpensive materials to use to make a prototype. Today I stumbled across this article on how to do just that! I see no reason to reinvent the wheel. The author used essentially the same method as we did. I hope you enjoy learning how to make this simple, but quite valuable homesteading tool!