Is There Life Out There?

Sometimes, when I am particularly frustrated with the daily grind of the office job that supports my real life, it occurs to me to wonder if there is more to life itself.  Then, when I get home to the kids and the farm, it comes back to me that THAT is real life. 

Taking care of their worries, sicknesses, injuries - and the payoff is the home and farm full of love and happiness and green grass, burbling creek, and the occasional pounding of hooves as the donkeys tear up the turf in a rousing run around the pasture.  The sleepy good mornings from the kids, who are not little anymore but still greet the day that way, and the quiet behehehe of the goats when it's feeding time are the best way to start any day. 

That is what real life is - and the ability to make so many of our own things: cheeses, soaps, growing our salads, sewing our pajama pants, brewing our own beer and wine, building the barn ourselves out of reclaimed materials, trimming the animals hooves and lavishing all of the above, and more, with all the love in my heart. 

Ok, so there is life out there. 

Healthier Days!

I’m back and I feel fantastic, finally!  However, during my absence due to illness (that sounds like a school note, doesn’t it?!) poor Lulu’s fly problem on her legs got out of control and now she has a pretty funky skin infection going on.  We’re cleaning her up daily with a betadyne solution, drying her off, and applying Furazone to her poor infected front legs.  I think it says a lot about your constitution if you can clean scabs and gunk off of your donkeys’ legs, dry her off, spread on a thick layer of antibiotic ointment that is the color of lemon pudding, then consider having dinner!  Anyway, she has no systemic fever – just localized heat, so the washes and Furazone applications should take care of her in a couple of weeks.

Which brings us to dinner… I planned on harvesting some spinach from our little salad garden only to find that the caterpillars got to every single leaf before I did!  It must be time to find new organic gardening solutions for pest control.  (The chickens like the veggies pretty well too, so they can’t help!)

Somewhere in my memory is a concoction of tobasco, egg whites, and water plus something that I can’t remember that apparently worked wonders.  Apparently the something else must be the key, because I’ve never had success with this creation – Texas caterpillars like the heat of tobacco, maybe.  The lunch at work made up for it today: in celebration of Earth Day and in an attempt to enlighten people that healthy food can taste good, it was a Mexican vegan treat!  Nom!

On to bigger, better and brighter things!   Evening projects and oooh more cheese and soap!

Back soon

I have not fallen off the planet - just fallen sick. Send a healing thought my way, and I will be back soon.

Treasured Moment

Spring is always an unusually busy time of year for us with all the normal activities of home and farm, plus the renaissance festival activities (jobs) we have.  It’s something that we all enjoy, so we make the time for it and consider the cost in time and time management to be entirely worthwhile. 

Yesterday was one such day, with a busy day and long drive behind us, and all of the family taken care of, dinner in the oven, the animals fed and milked and the water tanks freshly scrubbed and refilled I had a rare moment.  The sun was low in the sky but definitely still springtime bright, and I sat on the steps of the deck petting the dogs as each one came to show me their slobbery love and get scratched behind the ears.  The donkeys and goats and all frolicked in the pasture, trotting around playfully – the goats occasionally turning to rear up and butt each other and alternate who had the job of chasing the other.  The chickens foraged under the big tree by the back fence and squabbled comically.

It came: a moment of perfect peace and happiness.  No one made any demands of anyone else, and the world peacefully absorbed me in gilded in sunshine and green grass and shady spots under the trees.  Even the birds in the woods sang in peaceful harmony, and all was right in the world.  My connection to everything that is was so complete and so fulfilling, the beauty of that moment lingers with me still. 

Never question those moments when they come.  Just absorb them completely and hold that feeling in your heart to draw on whenever  needed. 

Pie... I Like Pie!

Learned nearly 18 years ago ...

This is a simple missive, discovered years ago when trying to keep a fantabulous homemade apple pie, created from my mothers recipe, from bubbling into the bottom of my oven as it cooked.  (I do promise to post the recipe at some point in the not too far future.) 

I took this glorious creation, with it's gorgeous and fluted crust mounded several inches higher than the rim of the funky blue pie plate, and set it in the oven and realized that as the apples baked and bubbled in their sweet and cinnamony sauce it would bubble over.  I grabbed the first baking sheet to hand - actually a jelly roll pan - and put the unbaked pie on it in the oven.  It just so happened to be a black t-fal baking sheet. 

Roughly an hour later, I removed my beautiful and steaming pie from the oven and set it upon its trivet to cool.  The baking sheet was removed, and soaked to remove the sticky sweet, apple-y goodness that had bubbled out and baked to it. 

When I finally cut into that pie, I discovered the greatest pie baking lesson ever learned: Bake a filled pie on a black baking sheet, and you'll get a well cooked and even flaky bottom crust!  Oh My Goodness what a delight this was!  Pumpkin pie! Blueberry pie! Cherry pie!  There is no end to the mouth watering awesomeness that is a filled pie baked on a black baking sheet. 

I swear, it will be the best $15 ever spent when it comes to pie baking!  Try it out on your next filled pie and tell me what you think.

An Animals Diet – and my soap box

Now let me say up front that I was raised within a family that is very conscientious of our animals and their care.  A huge part of their care revolves around their diet and the need to make any changes gradually.  Just as if a vegetarian suddenly started eating meat, or someone who consumed little to no fat suddenly started eating rich foods, they would have serious effects on their system, so will an animal have dietary and health upsets should you change their feed suddenly. 

Now, on to the issue.  One of our goats is having a little trouble keeping weight on, and having de-wormed her on schedule, and increased her feed and trying gentle probiotics for her, she is finally starting to at least hold her own.  She isn’t rounding out much yet, but she’s looking a little bit less scrawny.   As you can imagine, nearly every time I go to the feed store, the owner and I discuss how she’s doing.  When I mentioned our slow and gradual change to him, the response was immediate. 

He began with “You’d be surprised…”  followed by multiple tales of clients who have animals of various types and the rampant change of diet for these poor animals.  It’s so very hard on their systems, that it’s really unfair to the poor animals to put them through such abuse as frequent and or abrupt dietary changes.  One would hope that livestock owners would know better, but it seems that is far less often the case. 

I beg of you – anyone who reads this – if you care about your pets, and I don’t care if it’s your cat, dog, parakeet, horse, cow, goat, llama, etc – any sudden change can do much more harm than good.  Change them over slowly when you use a new food.  A 10 day plan, replacing 10% per of the old food with the new food on day one, 20% on day 2, and so on, so that on day 10 they are on the new feed completely.  It will be easier on their system, and in the case of house pets easier on your floors too. 

If they really hate the new food, you’ll know before the ten days is up.  They can all be remarkably careful about which food they leave behind in their bowls or pans.  That means you have not invested a huge amount of money before finding this out.  

Once they are solidly on the new food for about 6 weeks, you’ll be able to genuinely note if their health is improved by this change. 

Treat them with love and care, and that means taking care of their digestive needs with respect.   They count on us to take care of them in the best way we can, and good nutrition is one of the best ways we can express that!

A Practical Recipe

So with my day-to-day job, there has been a lot of upheaval in the last couple of years.  With that upheaval came a series of 4 new bosses in less than 2 years.  (Yeah, here is where you say - at the very least - Yikes!)  One of these bosses wanted to play a team-building exercise / game on her first day with us.  I can play nicely, so away we go.  The task was to list 2 truths and a lie, and the other office members were to guess which was truth and which was the lie.  I am a terrible liar, so this was particularly challenging.  I came up with the following:

I have pet mature tigers.  I make my own laundry detergent.  I love mice.

Being the country girl that I am, no one guessed that I am actually a little bit terrified of mice.  (One read about Bubonic Plague will do that do a gal!)

Fast forward 18 months, and one day a woman in my office came back to my "cell" and told me she was going to make her own laundry detergent.  She was so excited that I couldn't help but smile along with her and share a little bit of learned wisdom with her.  She is, after all, one of my favorite office mates and makes every day at work better!

I started doing this several years ago, and love it. Now, it seems these days there are more and more things that every day "Jo" is doing to save some money and live a little bit closer to the earth.  So, this leaves me inspired to share my laundry detergent recipe.  The ingredients will cost less than a bottle of Gain, and you can make a LOT of detergent from them.

Purchase: 1 box of 20 Mule Team Borax, 1 box of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, strong bar soap.  (I love using Fels Naptha, but have used some stout homemade soap in a pinch, as well as the Dial fresh spring scent that was on sale.)  If I get 4 bars of Fels Naptha (roughly $1.25 per bar), I have enough to make detergent for about 6 months, for my family of 5.

Get for free: Frosting bucket from your local Wal-Mart or Sam's cake decorating center.  Clean thoroughly.

Action: Grate 1/2 bar of Fels Naptha, or whole bar of other soap.  Set aside.  Measure a rounded 1/2 cup of each Borax and Washing Soda.  Also set aside.

Boil 1 - 1.5 gallons of water.  Pour into bucket, and stir in grated soap.  Stir until dissolved and then stir in Borax and Washing Soda, until they are also dissolved.  Slowly stir in cooler water until 2 - 2.5 gallons are achieved.  Cool completely.

*NOTE: None of the instructions I found warned me that this would become a very thick gel!  The best way to deal with this is once cooled, simply plunge your hand and arm down into it and squisk it through your fingers until you have a liquid again!  Then, if you're super adventurous you can whisk it, but I'm not that adventurous any longer.

Put the lid on the bucket, and use a cheap (or free) 2/3 cup measure for each load of laundry.  This is super low sudsing so it's perfect for HE washers, leaves practically no scent on your laundry and rinses out easily. 

I am a huge fan of good smelling laundry, so I DO still buy fabric softener - and one tip I read suggested soaking a washcloth in the softener then let it air dry, and use it as a dryer sheet for up to 20 loads.  This really works well - it goes a long way, the laundry is soft and smells so good! 

And now, I'm off to switch the laundry to the dryer and tumble into slumber. Another week and a half before I make more detergent!

Homemade Lasagna! Oh It's Been So Long!

Since I have an allergy to cow dairy, there are many foods that have been off the list of even possible for me for a very long time.  Even before I really knew about the allergy, I knew some foods were definitely a problem. I loved the taste of lasagna, but also knew that sickness would follow so no matter how good it tasted it was a very big no-no.

Now that we have the dairy goats, and homemade mozzarella is in my retinue of foods I can craft from goat milk, it's possible.  The goat milk ricotta is so easy it's one of the first cheeses most people learn to make.  With this discovery of the availability of goat milk mozzarella and goat milk ricotta, lasagna became an option, along with real homemade pizza! OH the cheesey goodness that is now available!! 

This said, about the time we discovered I could in fact make mozzarella, our ovens went out.  Both had faulty elements, and one even resulted in a kitchen fire.  No worries, everyone is fine and the house is well recovered from the useful application of a fire extinguisher.  (Note: Everyone should learn the right way to use a fire extinguisher!)  For financial reasons we had to stall about replacing the elements - they are a bit expensive.  My charming husband asked one morning, "If I can get new elements will you make me lasagna?"  It was so cute I had to say yes!

First, the homemade mozzarella:  2 gallons of fresh goat milk, 2 3/4 tsp citric acid and cool water, 1/2 tsp rennet in cool water, and some hot salt water - an hour later, a nice fat wheel of fresh mozzarella!  The whey - my goats are freaks that they don't want to drink it, as most goats go nuts over it.  Whey mozzarella and I are seldom friends for some reason, so another gallon of milk to make some whole milk ricotta - (which is heated to nearly 200 degrees, just below the boil, then add acid in the way of vinegar or lemon juice) and skim out the curds.  Drain and salt and cool.

(pardon the poor quality of this photo of our FRESH homemade mozarella -

the lighting was terrible and I was just taking photos for fun)

OOohhh! We are so close now! Prepared the lasagna layers (mixed the ricotta with some fresh homemade pesto) and voila! REAL lasagna that I can eat with a fresh salad from our lettuce garden!

(fresh mesclun and baby spinach salad)

(Goat cheese lasagna!)

Tranquil Morning

(I see you!)

This has got to be one of the best mid-spring mornings, where the world is calm and peaceful and the light is bright and clear.  There are no clouds in the sky, and the temperature is just about 63 degrees with a light dew on the ground and the smell of hay and new grass and young plants in the air.

(Every girl needs a perch)

The puppies are playing nicely together with a stick that they found, and teasing each other with little pupply gruffle-sounds.

(Mine!  Mine! Share? Ok!)

These are my favorite sort of days that begin like this, and the animals are all gentle of spirit, with the does relaxing in some of their favorite places while the kids gently butt heads and play on every high surface they can find, and try to ride the donkeys who willingly oblige by standing next to the now elevated kids.

(How 'bout a ride?)

With luck, we'll  come home from the days adventures in another time and place (ok, the Renaissance Festival) and find equal peace and contentment!

(I'm so above all of the shenanigans)

After the Storm

North Texas was hit with a series of tremendous tornadoes yesterday. 13 in all, most in the DFW metroplex, but a few as far north as our area.  We were quite lucky that the one closest to our town hopped over the schools where my kids attend, and though there was one in the university campus area where my husband and I work, we were spared any damage.

It was a little bit of a nail biter, worrying about the kids and the farm while watching the weather from the office - then being in lockdown at the office. 

Rest assured, all is well.  We arrived home to find no more damage than a couple of missing shingles from the roof.  The barn and the animals are all intact and happy that the weather is now clear and calm.  The dust is knocked off of everyone, and it smells fresh and green :)