Best $17 I've Ever Spent!

If there are cookies involved, these two will be your best friend. Try to trim their hooves, give them meds or any other necessary goat maintenance and they go all psycho and will try to kick your lights out. 😕

So now it has come to this...

 

I bought this $17 calf sling from Premier1 supplies. Best purchase ever! No more nonsense, lol. They are quite secure and comfortable in there and it is much less distressing for all parties involved. 

And I can do a much better job without wearing out my back. You can swivel them around to get the best view and lighting too.

Here's Snappy sticking his nose through the knot hole in the barn wall, wondering what on earth's going on back here and insisting he deserves a cookie too.

 

The boys are not hard to trim. They behave very nicely on the milk stand for me. Other than the stinkiness, they are a real pleasure to work with.

Something else that has made my hoof trimming easier is a Stanley Surform rasp. You can find them at the hardware store or online for about $9. It makes it really easy to get a nice, even plane on the bottom of the hoof. It takes off a little at a time; much like shredding cheese, but on a lesser level.

 

I also invested in a nice, sharp pair of hoof trimmers from Premier1 last year. Those ran me about $40, which I thought was a fair price and well worth it. These are well made and dependable. If they ever need sharpening, you can send them in and they'll do it for free.

Heather and Astrid were handled and played with all the time as kids, but they still turned out to be stubborn brats. They were dam-raised. Ava was beginning to dread messing with the goats, so I had to do something. A few cookies later and all is forgiven! Overall, it's a more positive experience for them too. 

I would say use your discretion as to the size, weight and health of your goat if you decide to give the sling a try. Some goats are more rotund, with a large, active rumen. It might not be as comfortable for one in that case.

Hay is Up!

Today we got 90 bales of sweet, second-cut timothy/orchard grass/clover hay put in the barn for winter. Man, is that a good feeling!

We bought off the same folks as last year. The lady had a whole plate of no-bake cookies for the kids to take home. They helped a good bit and got a little wagon ride on the way home. Good times! 😊

It's a Jungle Out There

 

 

 

Summer is winding down, but with all of the late rains we have had, the garden is still very green and lush. This has been one of the most bountiful and healthy gardens I've ever had. I did lose control of the weeds as we had a couple of weeks of continual rains. As the bulk of the harvest came on, my whole family caught Covid! I was thankful to feel well enough keep up with the canning. It amounted to something like a mild flu/bad head cold for us. The kids recovered quickly, but my husband and I were sick a good two weeks.

 

I have seen so many beneficials out in the garden this year. The brown marmorated stink bugs seem to have leveled out finally. They had been the worst pest I've had for several years now, sucking juices from the fruits and spreading disease. This year my nemesis was the cabbage moths. I sprayed the cauliflower several times with BT, but they were relentless. Now with all of the rain we've had, the cauliflower is beginning to rot out. I will probably just go ahead and pull those. I used insecticidal soap a couple times to get the thrips and aphids. I have seen a lot of lady bugs too. The only place had to  spot check with Sevin spray was the summer squash and zucchinis as we battled so many squash bugs. I was careful to spray late of an evening so it would dry before the new blooms opened and the bees came back in the morning.

 

 

The luffa gourds have taken over both sides of the hoop trellis now. It is an aggressive spreader. They bloom during the day, which is nice; a sunny, yellow bloom. I canned a lot of pole beans and left the rest here to go to seed. I kept hitting my head on the dangling fruits as I was picking beans. They are heavy!

 

I've had some gorgeous sunflowers this year! These are called "Teddy Bear", I think.

The grasshoppers have arrived, looking to fill their bellies.

 

 

I have lost control of the tomato patch. It is difficult to get around. I have canned up 3 wheelbarrow loads of tomatoes and saved lots of seeds. I wish I hadn't planted them so close together. I was desperate to get several varieties in the space. I have saved seeds from multiple fruits to lessen the chance of any being all crossed out. I don't usually get many crosses, but it does happen sometimes. I did pretty well photographing and documenting all the varieties I saved. You can find those on my Instagram feed -- journey011.

The Glass Gem corn reached about 12' tall. I planted densely, in a spot that was well fertilized with chicken manure and compost. Each stalk has 3 to 4 ears each! They are filling out well and I am beside myself with anticipation for the joy of shucking them when they dry. 😄

 

 

My fingers are crossed that the Thai Red Roselle will set seed before frost. I can't wait to have a glass of this tangy, red tea as soon as these buds develop. We sure could have used that natural Vitamin C while we were sick! They are just now appearing. These were started back in February. The plants are much larger than I expected and I have them crowded, of course. I am considering digging one or two up to bring inside for the winter. 

 

September and I have a love/hate relationship. I love the crisp, cooler days, but I also get a little bit of SAD as the days get shorter. I do hate to see the garden come to an end, but I guess everything--myself included--needs the break. We have eaten so well from it this summer and I am grateful. 💚

Kitchen Floor Pickles

This is an old-fashioned, lacto-fermented pickle recipe that I got from my next door neighbor and garden buddy, Mavis. She shared a jar with me last year and they were THE best pickles I've ever tasted.

I used larger cucumbers than what it called for because that was what I had at the time. You cut them up later, after they've fermented for a month. I've made gherkins before by a similar process, but they only go about 5 days. On the second step, I am going to try using monk fruit, instead of regular sugar, since we are keto. I'm not sure I'll put the full amount in either. I am not certain how that will work out, but if it does, I will update and let you know!

ETA: 09/09/2020 -- Monkfruit worked out perfectly! I used about 1 cup, give or take. You can use as much as you want until they taste best to you. Since fermentation also utilizes some of the sugars in the cucumbers themselves, these sweet pickles are very keto-friendly. The larger cucumbers I used on this first batch still turned out good and crunchy. I was able to get a bunch of smaller ones for the second batch, which is pictured above. I decided I would also trim off the blossom ends as you do with regular pickles. There is supposedly an enzyme in them that can affect the crispiness, as I understand it.

Kitchen Floor Pickles

Using small to medium-sized cucumbers, pack tightly in a gallon jar. Add 2 tablespoons alum, 2 tablespoons salt, 1 cup whole mixed pickling spice, and 4 cups vinegar. Fill the rest of the way up with water. Cap and let set for 1 month. Be sure jar is glass or plastic. Shake jars often. (Rolling the jar across the floor each day is how this recipe got its name.) 

Remove from jar and wash thoroughly. (Wash jar too.) Cut in chunks and put back in jar. Add 4 cups sugar. Cap and shake jar. Shake until cucumbers are covered with juice. Pickles are ready to eat. Refrigerate.  

Have fun shaking! These pickles are delicious. And you don't have to can them. They won't last that long.  

Note: When I say wash, I wash with water only, not soap and water. Also, these pickles make their own juice while you're shaking them.

A Reviving Rain

The garden has been at a standstill for most of June and July due to little rainfall this summer. I haven't done the best job keeping up with watering the garden, very hit and miss. My cistern has gone dry and I hate using city water and running up the bill. With the help of the kids and my husband this year, I thankfully had everything mulched right off the bat and that has made a big difference. Yesterday's continuous rains finally managed to saturate the ground and the garden (and weeds) seem to have doubled in size today. 

Here are a few of the peaceful scenes I got to soak in last evening. 😊

My luffa gourds and pole beans are beginning to climb. These all were planted during the first week of June. I only put in 5 bean varieties this year as I needed the room to work with renewing several of my tomato varieties. Also, we are low on tomato sauce and salsa, so I plan to do a lot of canning with them.

These are WV-63, an heirloom canning tomato with high yields of uniform red fruit on a very disease resistant plant. They are an indeterminate, but put most of their energy into bearing. I sucker prune my indeterminate tomatoes and these stayed short and bushy after that. I put in half a row of them and they are all just loaded.

My Feher Ozon peppers are doing great. These will turn fiery red and then will be smoked and dried for paprika. It is a sweet and slightly spicy pepper. This is the second time I have grown them. I will have seed available of these later as well. 

Now, I'll share with you a moment of peace as happy frogs sing tranquilly in the little pond over the hill. Monroe, our one-eyed barn kitty who has adopted us, photo bombs at the end. She is very demanding of affection! 💗

Flip-top Bottles at Aldi's

If you enjoy making your own kombucha at home, you need to stop in Aldi's and buy their sparkling lemonade (non-alcoholic) just for the flip-top bottle it comes in. My kids said the lemonade was very good too. (I wouldn't know, as I have been sugar-free on keto for over two years now. 😋) 

These bottles are very expensive to buy in a case. I paid $2.19 for what I think was a one liter bottle. They are glass and well made.

Sealing the bottles of kombucha airtight on the second ferment will produce a fizzy beverage. This is usually when you would add fruit or juice if you want--mixed berries and pineapple juice with ginger were our favorites. I have used pint canning jars with reused metal lids screwed down very tightly. This wasn't always successful. These bottles are perfect for the job.

Ameraucana Eggs in the 'Bator

I have another batch of eggs going in the incubator, hatch date set for Wednesday, July 8, 2020. These are Ameraucana eggs, a mix of self-blue lavender, cuckoo and black. 

My husband says I don't need anymore chickens. I told him I'm selling some Silkies to make room for more! 🤣 I will even come out ahead.

I am thinking I will cross these with my Easter Eggers to bring up their blue. 

Blue is my favorite color. 😍

Trimming rooster spurs with a Dremel

As I was putting leg bands on my older Silkies the other day, I noticed one of the spurs on my painted rooster, Rocky, had curved backward and begun to impale itself into his leg. My husband was working in the garage, so I brought the rooster up and we immediately got it trimmed. 

I have seen another method where they put a hot baked potato on a rooster's spurs to loosen them and then twist them off. Leaving the quick exposed like that looks more painful to me. I thought I'd show you how it works to trim them with a Dremel rotary tool.

We get the little brown cutting wheels. I'm not sure the specs or part number, but see the photo below. It works like a tiny angle grinder.

You can wrap the rooster in a towel if you wish, but I just hold him tightly with his head under my arm and restrain the leg. My husband uses his free hand to hold the foot as well. It is important that the rooster holds still so you can make an accurate cut.

You want to leave about a half of an inch stub. You don't want to cut too close or flush with the leg. The main goal is to take the sharp tip down so that the rooster won't hurt the hens or himself when he walks or worse, stab someone or another rooster by flogging. It will slowly regrow. I find it sufficient to trim them once a year in the spring before breeding season hits full swing.

The great thing about this method is that it is very quick, minimally painful for the rooster and the speed of the wheel cauterizes the quick and you should have little to no bleeding. Recovery is quicker than the other methods of twisting them off and there is no need to apply medicine or isolate the bird for time to heal.

You can see from the picture below how clean the cut is.

You can see from this angle how the spur had curved back toward the leg. It made a complete U-turn. I've never seen this happen before in my 12 years of chicken keeping. Perhaps he had injured it. The other spur was normal.

All done and no worse for wear. Rocky's ready to go back to his girls. 

Chickens in the Garden

I wanted to brag on my chickens a little and show you what good garden helpers they are. 😊

This upper quadrant of the garden is a perfectly bare square of dirt since I put my bantams on it this past winter. I have 6 silkies and 2 other bantams in that coop and they have been way more aggressive getting after every green and growing thing in their area. The smaller fenced area was to keep them out of the asparagus patch. 

The big chickens further over have done a lot to keep the weeds down in their area too. They had a big pile of compost they decimated for me. I've taken to making a pile in one corner of the garden each year of all manure, clippings and scraps. I don't want to waste any of the good stuff. 

I'll lime, till and plant the top half of the garden just as soon as it ever quits raining long enough. 

I've been working with these Poultry Net electric fences from Premier1 for about 6 years now. They are amazingly effective and I can't say enough good things about them. They're super easy for me to move by myself and I've had no losses to dogs, opossums, coons, etc. since I started using them. I have lost a couple to hawks, but that was while allowing the chickens to range outside the fence. The fences are strong and haven't degraded in that time either. I have three of them now for rotating their pasture and keeping different flocks separated. Occasionally I will get some stubborn girl who wants to fly out, but I just clip the flight feathers on one wing and that puts an end to that.

So anyway, this has been an easy way for me to cultivate and fertilize my garden and I highly recommend it. Those accursed weeds can be very discouraging for me otherwise. The droppings are incorporated quickly and thoroughly enough that it doesn't get "hot".

Rainy Day

I've been getting some pretty radishes out of the garden, as well as spring onions. The lettuce and spinach are just about to come on too. One plus to this cold, wet weather. Looks like we'll have to run the fireplace at night for the next week or two. 

We have had so much rain this spring and few sunny days so far. I am already behind on what I wanted to have done in the garden. It's a swamp out there right now.

Not Fun

Poor Katie had to go to the vet yesterday for an abscess, two actually, on her cheek. It's not CL because of the location. Likely she is biting the inside of her cheek or has a briar lodged in there. Her teeth may need floated.

I've dealt with a couple of various medical matters with my goats over the past 16 months since getting them and let me tell you, I would rather do anything...seriously anything, like having to stick my arm halfway up a goat's wahoo even, than have to flush an abscess! It was traumatic for all of us. 

Katie's twin doelings stood at the gate and bawled most hysterically, which set us all on edge.

Not something the vet mentioned, but I found it helped to open the wounds better by first applying a warm compress of epsom salt solution so that the scab came off and it was easier to get the cannula up in there.

I had Ava helping me restrain her. I won't make her do it again in this particular case for the likelihood of causing her to forever hate goats because of it. It was not a job for the feint of heart. Even held in the milkstand, Katie was of a mind to buck out of there. Horses are easier to restrain than a goat! This is a 56 lb. goat!

I owed everyone a handful of animal crackers after that.

Julie, or Juji as we call her, is doing well for a 13 year old goat. She doesn't get into to as much excitement as the others, but prefers to pick a good spot and lie in the sun all day. We figured out last time that the easiest way to trim her hooves is to roll her over into your lap, lol.

I have found another reason to start bottle raising kids from now on, besides for managing milking or avoiding the hysterical hollering that goes on every time I have to separate them to work on anybody. I caught these big girls still nursing their mama. They are tubby little things and their mama is not. I thought Katie was looking thin because of her troubles chewing, but maybe that is less of a problem than I thought. I am going to have to separate the girls out long enough to dry her out.

I am on the fence about breeding Katie again this fall. She is an excellent mama, but I would like to get her weight up a little first. Her blood test for Johne's and CAE will be coming back soon. I don't expect any problems there.

Katie's birthday and her doelings' birthday is this Saturday, the 25th. Katie will be 12 and the girls will be 1.

Greening Up

2020's garden is well underway! Just waiting for things to warm up around here.

Savannah's rainbow carrot experiment.

Growing some Thai Red Roselle, a species of hibiscus whose buds are used to make a tangy, citrus-flavored tea or jelly. The leaves are also edible as greens.

Good Hatch

Despite all my worrying about humidity levels, we had a very good hatch. 17 of the 18 eggs that went into lock-down hatched. We ended up with 1 black, 4 blue splash, 5 paint and the rest are white, all healthy and vigorous. I plan to sell these here in a couple of days, after the kids have had a chance to enjoy them for a bit. If there is sufficient demand for them, I will set a couple more batches. All proceeds will go toward the purchase of a pair of new doelings!

Day 19

Ok, we're in lockdown...the silkie eggs, that is. 😬 Candling on day 14 had me worrying that the air cells weren't large enough. I ran the humidity low as possible from then until now and made good progress. I hope it was enough. It has been awhile since I've hatched eggs and I haven't done banty eggs before. I kind of flew into it without thinking and forgot to weigh the eggs before setting. We'll see how it goes.

Keeping Busy

I hope you all are staying well and getting along alright during this pandemic. What a surreal event it has been. It seems it will be a long time before things get back to any semblance of normal.

Ordinarily, I am a homebody and an introvert anyway. I could never run out of interesting things to do or means of keeping myself busy. But the thought that you cannot do something makes it oddly more desirable. I have started a lot of different little projects around here and it seems there's always something I'd like to run to Tractor Supply or the hardware store for. I try to bundle all those things into one trip as much as possible or make do.

We have gotten a good bit of tidying up done out on the farm lately. There are many pressing projects that need attended to out there. My husband has been blessed to be able to work from home, but mediating the chaos of everyone else working from home has kept him very busy in the IT department (which he technically isn't in anymore!!) He is set up with a desk in the basement and we really don't see much of him during the day. There are lots of things I wish he had time to help me with, but this has been no vacation for him.

Here are a few pics of things I am doing lately. None of which yet have included spring cleaning, ha.

Wintersowing.

 And starting flats...tomatoes, flowers, peppers, cauliflower, head lettuce, herbs, etc. I'm going to plant a LOT of tomatoes this year and do a lot of canning. I didn't plant up all of the garden space I have available the past couple of years since I was so busy. I plan to can lots of tomato sauce so I can make it keto. 

 Planted early spring veggies in the front raised bed so far.

 Pruned my roses and working on putting down new mulch on all of my beds. I know, these are two different colors! I ran out of the mocha brown and haven't been back to Ohio to get more so I had to settle for black. Not exactly a "necessary" purchase, but if I don't get it done now, I will be fighting weeds all summer.

We bought my Dad's bass boat out of the estate and my husband has been working on the old motor which wasn't running. He bought a big, thick manual on it and cleaned and rebuilt both carburetors. It sounds pretty good, but has some electrical thing wrong with it. He bypassed the kill-switch and that got it starting for now. This is has been his quarantine project and stress reliever. I don't think he would have gotten to it yet if it hadn't been for the COVID-19 shut down. Hopefully, we'll get to spend lots of time out on the water this summer. I bought a new 12-person tent too.

We're on day 13 of 21 hatching a batch of silkie chicks. After candling and removing 6 duds, I have 19 viable eggs at present.

These are some of the parents. (The Polish hen and the Mille Fleur hen's eggs were excluded, of course.) I would love to get some more Mille Fleur D'Uccles. They are the sweetest, prettiest little banties. Our silkies are very cute and friendly too. Just the right size for the kids to cuddle.

 Raising some replacement layers. These are all female Easter Eggers. The EE's will always be my favorite for layers. They have a nice temperament and I just think blue eggs taste better. 😉 I wanted to add some Cuckoo Marans this year, but I'll have to order them. I haven't found any locally.

I am totally obsessed with goats nowadays. I got my first Nigerian Dwarf does in January 2019 and spend a lot of my time studying all about good goat husbandry. The white doe farthest left is Katie and the other two are her doelings from last spring, Heather and Astrid. Lazy ol' Juji is in the barn hiding somewhere.

These are my new registered boys, both carrying milk stars from their dams. They are looking forward to having a job to do this fall. Katie is 11, so I'm retiring her. I plan to breed Rebel (black, in back) to my 2 first fresheners. He is a slightly smaller built buck than Snapdragon (in front.)

Snappy says "Hi"! Who knew you could love something so dang stinky? 😄 Both boys have wonderful personalities and can be so cute and affectionate. Everyone got their hooves trimmed yesterday and the boys stood for me much nicer than the girls do. I'm going to give them a spring shave here as soon as the weather warms a bit more.

I've been working on building them a run. They just go out in it for the day now and sleep at night in the barn until I can finish their little shed. We're putting up a privacy fence around that side of the yard too, as extra protection against loose dogs. I also have electric run around the pen.

When I can, I try to get away for a hike and some foraging as much as possible.

 

Morels are in season right now. I've been out a couple times. So far I have only found this one tiny Tulip Morel, M. diminutiva. 

 

Naturalized daffodils scattered around an old home site. My honey hole was logged 2 years ago. I don't know how long it will take to recover. The machinery spread the daffodils everywhere when they came through.

And we've been digging ramps.

 And playing in the creek.

And Savannah is really into learning to shoot a bow lately. She's pretty good too!

Things are blooming and this is my favorite time of year. I am so thankful for spring as it makes living in the twilight zone much easier to bear. So long as I stay outside and stay busy and don't turn on the news, everything is seems wonderful here in my little corner of the world. My heart goes out to those who are sick or have lost loved ones. It is hard to believe they could let something like this get so out of control in this day and age we live. 

I hope you have a blessed Easter this Sunday, in whatever form that may be.