Ugh! Poor Bees

I guess there was a swarm at my work on Monday, which was my day off. They called an exterminator and killed off the whole hive... my stomach hurts just thinking about it. I let them know that I can pick up any bees if they ever come back. That I would gladly take time off of work to move them off the property. ... I guess it was a large swarm.. and now it's all dead. =(

Gardening - or lack there of

Sooo, pretty much all the beds in the back have been trampled, rolled, eaten, scratched, or frolicked on. What that means is that the existing plants were eaten and the seedlings have not been able to make it.

On Friday we were able to extend the gate in the front and now it is closed in. Mikael and I started pulling out the grass in the front and I really look forward to planting some food in the front. It's funny, I feel so incomplete w/o a garden that is growing. I have this next weekend and next Tuesday off so we'll see about getting more done then.

New kid on the block

We ended up picking up another little nubian doe last night. The seller wasn't sure of her age but she looks to be about a week or two old. She's drinking out of a baby bottle and she looks to have scour so I'll be making butter to get buttermilk and make the drink I need for her. I left her with a warm house, a full tummy, and a bowl full of cut grass for her to feed on. I would like her to start attempting to eat some solids so that we can move her away from milk. Thankfully we have milk from Big Goat so I've been using that to feed her. She drank like the dickens last night so we'll see about evening out her eating intake. Right now she's about as tall as one of the cats so she's still pretty tiny. She's also very friendly so I see her having the personality of Lil' Rosie. She wasn't at all upset about leaving the other goats, but she did get a bit whiny if Jed and I both left the house. If she's anything like Lil' Rosie then she'll cry herself hoarse and we can go from there. Last night she woke up twice hungry and I was able to take the first watch while Jed took the second.

We also spent some time trying to figure out a name for her. Jed wanted "Little Goat" to go with Big Goat, but I requested that we give her another name. After many names we decided this morning to name her Negrita. It is a term of endearment in spanish and it pretty much means "Little Black One." It was a bit cute, after she drank her fill she stumbled over to her blanket and then fell asleep. She was out completely and Jed was able to take several pictures of her. The only way you can distinguish her from her blankets is that she has white ears and a white mouth, but you can't see it because she pretty much face planted onto the blankets and slept for 5 hours straight.

I'll be picking up most of the things I need during my lunch so that I can just drive home tonight and hang out with her for a bit. She'll be in the house until she's able to eat some solids and hang out with the bigger goats. She's not really able to maintain her body temp yet so we'll see about keeping her warm until she's able to hang out with the other goats. It's neat to see how much Rosie and Ramses have grown. Oh, and Big Goat is a bitch and I look forward to eating her. ... As soon as we dry her off after Rosie is with kid.

Butter recipe:

Bottle of cream

Directions: Shake until butter separates from buttermilk. You'll start feeling the little pebbles form prior to the butter forming.

I scrape the cream from the goat milk I get and we now have a bowl full of goat butter that we use. It's a bit funny because I now realize how decadent it is to make cookies or anything that takes a lot of butter. If it takes me a week to get about 6 tbsp of butter than I would have to wait a couple week's worth of milking to get enough butter to make a cake.. I can see why they were so sparse and special.

Ducks.. almost spelled it as Dukes...

Well, Jed has wanted runner ducks for a while, mostly because they look so funny; so I got him some ducks. There is a gentleman out in Cal Valley that is getting rid of most of his animals and so I called and asked to pick up as many runner ducks as possible. He thought he had 10 runners but it turned out he only had seven. It was a gorgeous drive out to Cal Valley, all the hills were green and covered in golden, yellow, purple, and blue flowers. It actually wasn't a bad drive, I made it there in less time than it normally takes me to drive to AG. I showed up and picked up 7 ducks and put them in the back of the van. I had layered the bottom with cardboard and covered that with tall grasses from the front yard. They ended up eating grass, feed, and drinking the whole drive home. The first day they gave us 3 eggs, then 5 eggs, so far the egg count goes as such (3, 5, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8) Yup, today they gave us 8 eggs from 7 ducks. Jed thinks he might have missed one yesterday, but who knows. As we have these as primarily layer ducks, I think they will work out just fine. We do not plan on eating any of these as they are still a bit skinny and will not grow to be very big. If we are to have eating ducks they will most likely be pecking or some other type. If we get a male runner in the group of chicks we get in June we'll see about keeping one to breed with our ladies. As for their coloring, we have 2 spotted (their feathers almost look black laced), 3 spotted (traditional brown and white markings), and 2 black.

We tried a couple of their eggs on Sunday with our waffles and their yolks are still not as golden as the chickens. We noticed that they have started eating more and more of the grasses so hopefully their yolks will turn a bit more golden after some time. They made the waffles really light and fluffy, but still filling. Part of that could have also been the goat's milk and goat butter we used for the waffles.

Baby Dorkings

Sooo, we haven't posted in a while and we've actually managed to do a lot. We received our box of baby chicks on the 15th. The box contained 27 chicks but unfortunately three of the little ones died. I think one of the male blue andalusians and two of the bantam old english game. When we first got them they were itty bitty tiny and though they are still small they are over 4 times bigger than when they first arrived. We have them in the craft (Or crap room as Walter calls it) room in a box with a heater lamp on them. We just added another box so as to double to room for them to run. They zoom all over and boxes and are trying to figure out the pecking order of the group. We're thinking about putting Sylvie in there with them so that they can figure out what it feels like to be in the pecking order with the rest of the chickens.

So we're hoping to have 8 Dorking pullets, 2 Dorking Cocks, 4 White Faced Black Spanish pullets, 1 WFBS Cock, 4 Blue Andalusian pullets, 1 BA cock, 2 OEG pullets, and 1 OEG cock, oh, and 1 exotic chick. So far, I'm counting a ton of Dorkings, not as many WFBS, 3 BA pullets, 1 BA cock, 2 OEG something, and 1 banty. We'll see what they all are when they grow a little bit more. Their feathers are coming out and we'll see how long it will be before they are ready to head on out and be with the other chickens. All of these are supposed to be white egg layers and not necessarily as prolific egg layers as the aumericanas, but at the rate we're going with the eggs we're ok with that.

I think we're going to keep the box in the craft room for when our farmyard assortment comes in from Sand Hill Heritage Ranch (I love these guys). We'll see if we end up with just chickens or (hopefully) with turkeys, ducks, geese, and guineas.

Big Goat

Milking has gotten a lot better. She's been jumping into the old broody boxes for the chickens and is standing there so that I can milk her. We ended up skipping last night because we got in about midnight and were both totally exhausted... This morning I didn't have to grab her horns or anything, I just walked over to her while she was on the boxes and I just leaned against her and started milking while I talked to her and let her know that we were very thankful for the milk she provided. She took it well and I think prefers being pet while being milked. Today we got 2 cups in the morning. Her quantity keeps increasing. She started with the big amount, then gave 1/4 cup for 3 milkings, up to 1/2 cup, 1 cup, 1 and 1/2 cup. All in all, I think she will do well. Her double nipple is something to be concerned about because I would not want to pass on to any of her babies, but if her temperament keeps improving, I think we might want to see about keeping her for long time use. Sharon helped me milk her on Friday and we ended up with a cup and a half. I poured it into little cups for us to try the milk and everyone liked it. Mikael ended up taking a canning jar full of goat milk home. I think I look forward to filling up the 1/2 gallon glass container I have (if I can keep from drinking too much of the milk) so that we can make cheese. I've also been leaving the milk in a measuring cup in the fridge to cool down. Before I pour the milk into the glass container I take off all the cream to see if we can save up enough to make butter. We'll see how long it will take me.

F* you Piggy!

So the piggy got away, again. She went right back to the same place she broke out of last time and just ran through. Next time, we'll just go on over and shoot her w/o making a party of it. I guess impromptu slaughterings work better.

All by myself =D

I was able to milk Big Goat all by myself today. =) I held her by her horns and tried tying her back legs, which was an epic failure. She just kicked out of the loop. I did get to milk her and we ended up with a little less than 1/4th cup, which I might add is a lot better than 5.5 cups in one milking. I gave it to the cats and I think they approved. We'll see what she peaks at. I held her for a while afterwards just petting and cleaning out her fur. I let her know that she was all right and that things would be ok for her. I hope she feels comfortable in her stay with us. Ramses has really taken to her as he tries playing with her and just hanging out.

Oh, Rosie the goat was not helping as she kept on trying to eat my sweater while I milked Big Goat.... I think next time I'm going to move the kids outside while I work with Big Goat. I'll see if Jed can help me design something to make the milking process easier.

Milk!

Update on Big Goat (I can't believe Jed named her that...)

Monday - Big Goat was skittish and didn't want to be near humans. Interacted fine with baby goats (which aren't really baby any more). Got home too late and was unable to milk... or get close. Left food out for her as she did not go into the pen where the baby goat's sleep.

Tuesday - Would meander into pen but still did not like getting near humans. Left food in the morning. After I got home form work Jed helped me catch her to see if we could milk her. (Background story - we got the goat from Jose - Naomi's step-dad but they were not sure when she was born, when she gave birth to her stillborn baby goat, nor how long it had been since she had any milk drained. She also had some scabs and healing wounds. ) Caught her but she was ubber swollen and very sensitive. She kicked but we were able to maneuver her. I was unable to get any milk out and she was just hurting. Jed dressed her wound while I held her by the horns. Left her more food and closed her up with the baby goats over night.

Wednesday - Morning - Fed her and had her get used to me being close. She's still a bit skittish. Evening - got home and was unable to get close to her. I saw our neighbor's dad, Don Jose, and I asked him if he had worked with goats before and if he would be able to give me a hand. He came over and noticed that she looked like if she had not been milked for a while. I caught her and he tried milking her. Her nipples had already started to get clogged up from undrained milk so he had to try a little harder but milk came out. The ducts were cleared and she gave a lot of milk. She did kick out a lot but we were able to get most of the milk. I ended up with 5.5 cups of milk. Note to self - acquire scale soon to measure produce and milk to keep track in log. Oh, and add cheese cloth to that too. She went back to eating and was walking a lot better. She's been playing with the baby goats. I think she was low goat on the totem pole and was thus not treated the best by the other goats. Hopefully she'll have a good time here.

After seeing that she'll need two people until she gets accustomed to being milked I was thinking about tying her up like we did with some of the cows who kicked when I was young. We would tie the rope to their horns and twist their heads back and then tied the rope to their back legs so that they would not kick nor thrash. This would allow me to milk her w/o another person. We'll see how it goes tomorrow morning... I can only hope that we got that much milk from her because she hadn't been milked in a while... it would be... slightly overwhelming if we ended up with that much milk every time we milked...

On a side note: I take Ramses in to be castrated next Friday. He was supposed to be castrated the 2nd or 3rd week of his life, but as we didn't have him then this will do. =) Poor little guy won't know what got him.

Breakfast Sausages - Piggy fulfills her contract

After slaughtering the piggy I saved the small intestines and rinsed them out and left them in salt water in the fridge. Last night I rinsed them out a bit more and decided to make some breakfast sausages.

Recipe:

2 lbs of pork (I used stew meat) frozen
1/2 cup pork fat (bacon grease)
fresh thyme
fresh sage
small Rosie handful of salt
ground white peppercorn
sprinkle of ground cloves
sprinkle of red pepper

Grind pork in fine ground setting (we actually used the bread crumb setting in our hand crack grinder since it was available and Jed had used it for Happy Circle and Dots). Mix all other ingredients with pork... watch out, your hands will freeze. Then I rinsed out some of the casing some more to take off all salt and any mucus that might still linger. Since I don't have a stuffer I just took the top part of my turkey baster off and used the tube to stuff the casing. I pushed the casing onto the turkey baster tube and when I reached the end I tied a knot. I then started stuffing the mixture into the casing. Jed helped by poking the casing once in a while (at every link) with a needle to let air escape and to completely fill in the sausage. I twisted the link about every 3 inches. The recipe originally said 4 ft of casing, but it turned out being over 8 ft and I still have a bit left over. I was kind of done making sausage after a while. Recipe also says to put it in the fridge for a few hours to over night. To use w/i three days or to freeze and use w/i 3 months. I cooked some this morning and it was a success. Jed and I really liked the flavor and the sausages cooked down a bit smaller. The juices ran clear and the whole house smelled great.

We still have casings left over so I was going to see about either making some beef and potato sausages or make some chitterlings for Jed so that he can try them out. We'll keep you guys posted.

The Return of the Piggy

So the one pig that crashed through the fences has returned. =) We'll see if we can slaughter on my next day off. We'll see if we can actually plan it this time and have the barrel to dunk her in to help take the hair off so that we can have pork rinds rather than just pork hide.

Ambushed by a goat

Just before 8am on my day off, I am catching up on my rare moments of sleep. The phone starts to ring, thinking to my self that it must be important as most people know that I will simply not answer the phone that early unless I am at work. So I pick up the phone...........It is Rosie.......

Rosie :"Um, ya...... I need you to get $$$ out of the bank and go meet Jose in about 20 min in town, he will have a goat for you to pick up."

Me: "mppphhhh........what?"

Rosie: "Oh an good morning!"

Me: "ok........"

Rosie "Let me know how it goes, bye"

So I roll out of bed, throw some cloths on and go out to the van. The van is packed with loads and loads of our junk that we have no managed to get unpacked for about a month. Open the garage and begin to throw everything from the van into the garage. I am running out of time as it has taken 10 min to get the van cleaned and dressed so I jump in the van and drive to town (another 7 min) get the $$$ and head back to the meeting place. Thinking I need to at least be a little awake I gulp down a redbull at the gas station while waiting for Jose. Jose shows up and seems nice enough, luckily his english is better than my spanish and we are able to converse a little. He seems a little wary of selling his goat to this obviously scruffy looking nerf herder (no shower, no hair combing, no coffee, no breakfast, even the crazy homeless guy at the gas station gave me a wide berth). But I explain that Rosie knows about goats and that seems to make him fell a little better. So he opens up his pickup camper shell and I notice that I am not getting a cute and manageable little baby goat. I am getting a horned, full grown evil eyed (not really but it sounds good) human flesh eating goat. Prior to this my only experience with goats is with our little baby goats who love to be picked up and scratched on the head. So I decide to take the bull (goat) by the horns and pull it out of the truck and haul it into the van. Once in the van things seem to go smoothly, although I notice that the new goat (Big Goat) has a old wound on her hind leg. Also I notice that Big goat is in desperate need of a hoof trim nothing too bad but something to notice. So I drive Big Goat home and proceed to literally drag her by the horns out of the van and threw the living room to the back yard. The entire time Big Goat has locked all four of her legs and is acting like I am dragging her off to be tortured and killed. Luckily Aikido works on Big Goat and we make it to the back yard. Once there everything is fine, she now hangs out with Little Rosie and Ramses and things seem good. Of course last night I ask Rosie if there is anything I can do for her tomorrow while I am at home. She says "If you can milk the goat that would be super cool".

Did you miss the part where I have never even seen a big goat until yesterday????

Final day of the Pigs of Evil

After much attempted chasing and much mud, trying to get the Pigs Of Evil back into their pen it was decided that the Pigs Of Evil needed to be put down. We could not continue to let them tear up our neighbors yard nor could we seem to be able to get them back into our yard. Over all it was an interesting day, I have never slaughtered any animal that large (around 100lbs) but it pretty much went along the lines I expected. It was no different than dressing a large rabbit. It took us about 1 hour to go from hanging the pig to having it quartered and while I am sure we did a few things we should not have there was no real difficulty. We had a number of friends over who help us first with the chasing then with the slaughtering. One of our friends had never done anything close to this but seemed to have a good time and was quite interested, his Lady was not so amused (sorry again Sharron).

It was interesting to examine my feelings about the slaughter, it was really no different from hunting in the basic form. While there was no "enjoyment" with the act of killing, there was great pride and enjoyment with the act of providing meat for my family. I am guessing that the act for most people of providing sustenance for their tribe triggers a very primal pride, the pride of the hunter: Keeping your people alive threw the darkness and the cold. When the hunter brings his kill into the cave or ring of tents and is greeted by the smiling faces of the elderly and the children who now know they will survive for a while longer with a belly full, there is a feeling triggered. A feeling akin to pride but without the arrogance, akin to honor with out the praise, a feeling of personal accomplishment. I guess you could call it "success" in the most basic method, you have fed your tribe. You have helped to keep that most basic human social structure alive another day. We are a long way from the cave and the tribe, but never the less that pride of the hunter and the honor shown to the prey is no different today than it was at the dawn of modern humans. I praise the Pigs of Evil, and I show honor to their strength and courage by using their flesh to feed my tribe. When we feast on the pork provided we will be showing respect to their memory and helping them to fulfill their purpose.