Desolate

That's how things feel around our homestead. After much deliberation, we decided to downsize our livestock.

First it was chickens. A couple weeks ago I sold some hens to Megan at A Blossoming Homestead. I had thought I would sell even more of our chickens than I did, but just by selling a dozen hens (all less than one year old) our flock seems small now!

I am also looking for a home for our ducks. I was SO tickled to get my hands on the five Khaki Campbell ducklings in June. We raised them with excitement and have been entertained daily by their ducky antics. However, it appears I am allergic to duck eggs. Each time I eat them I get violently ill. After doing some research I am pretty sure that it's an allergy, and I am fearful that trying them again would invoke anaphylactic shock. Our ducks lay white eggs, and they are very hard to discern from the chicken eggs, and so we have agreed that the safest plan is to sell them, too.

Finally, a week ago today I sold my Nigerian Dwarfs all in one fell swoop. I couldn't believe it happened that way. I've listed things on Craig's List several times with mixed success. I expected to sell one here and one there until we were down to a few goats. Instead, a lovely lady came to see them, fell in love with the whole herd, and came back two days later to buy them all! Now I just have my LaMancha doe, Miracle, and her daughter, Baby, who was born in June. Things are feeling rather empty around the place. I'm not emotionally sad like I expected it to be. I thought it would be really hard to sell my very first dairy goat that I worked so long to get, her daughter, their companion, and my favorite, no nonsense milker. Instead my main emotion is relief. They no longer have to endure the constant fighting that goes along with having a herd of mixed sizes of goats. I am able to keep up with deworming, hoof trimming, and other maintenance needs with ease. It is peaceful now. It doesn't hurt that our feed bill just dropped by at least half!

All in all I think things are better. We still have enough chickens and goats to supply our needs for eggs and milk, and their care is much more manageable.

Greatest Cookbook Ever

One of my top three all time favorite bloggers has published a cookbook. Months ago she did a survey of her readers asking if they thought anyone would buy it if she took on this massive project compiling all her favorite recipes into a cookbook. I responded to her survey and said, "Why would anyone buy what you have already provided us for free on your blog? I think you'd be wasting a lot of time and effort." However, I am THRILLED to announce that she did not listen to (or, at least heed) my advice. After nine months of hard labor she has given birth to her fourth "baby." She has managed to keep the price very reasonable at just $15.99. This is an extraordinarily good value! I have never, ever tried one of her recipes without thoroughly enjoying it. Her recipes are made with wholesome, nutritious ingredients, not the, "open a can of this an a box of that, dump them together, bake for 20 minutes and pretend you cooked" that is typical of the cookbooks I see in the retail market today. I sincerely hope you will head on over to Jane's Blog and see for yourself. You can try some of her recipes for free before committing to the cookbook, but I am certain you will love it! I can not wait for my copy to arrive!

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!