Just To Smile!

What I do in the evenings with Gerie...

And the results of that labor

What Ms. Balvenie looks like at 6 months old

 And her sassy mama Ms Cindy  

Timing is Everything

Being in the right place at the right time can be staggeringly important. 

Last night I was having a lively discussion on the phone with my mother, and standing on the deck grilling chicken breasts for lunches the next day.  (I love talking with my mother, as she is both insightful and amusing and shares her experiences so freely!)  The chickens were settling in for the evening, and the mosquitoes were beginning to rise.  I couldn’t wait for that darned chicken to finish cooking, so I could go back inside.

The goats were being chased by Penny, and came tearing into the barnyard from the pasture, when Chester jumped into the feed tray that is in front of the stanchion located out there.  I turned back to the grill to turn the chicken over, when I heard a distressed sound from the barnyard.  Chester had managed to break through the bottom of the tray and was dangling out of it by one leg and crying pitifully. 

After an expletive (probably – I don’t really remember what I said, but knowing me it was probably colorful) I tried telling Mom I’d call her back, and thought I had ended the call before SHOUTING to my husband as I ran off the deck “BILL!  GET OUT HERE! I NEED HELP!!”  Out of all that, he only heard “Help”.

I was to the gate, in my jeans and slippers, trying to stuff the phone in my pocket when Chester managed to free himself and walked away as if to say “You saw nothing.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.”

Bill grabbed his boots and was out with me – Chester was checked over, and seems fine.  Bill removed the remnants of the tray while I went back to the chicken and realized that my phone was still in my hand.  And still on.  Poor Mom had to listen to all that!  We discussed the event without re-using the phrase “If there’s a way for an animal to get hurt, they’ll find it.”  J

I can almost guarantee that if we hadn’t been home, he probably would have been hung up much worse and ended with a broken leg or something. 

Tonight we will replace the tray with a sturdy 2x4 base and look (again) for any other spots of potential danger.  And we’ll be glad once again that we were home when it happened. 

A Worthwhile Goal

With each day where the chaos of the workplace threatens to consume me, and I find solace with my family and farm – especially those days that I head to the barn and tell everyone to let me have some time alone – I draw closer and closer to the land, and overthink how the office jobs are damaging to us. 

I’m a tough mama, in that we have fun but I have no tolerance for lies or pettiness or misbehavior.  As a result, my kids love to laugh and we have game nights and they are polite, helpful and respectful people on the whole.  It’s my job as Mom to raise them to be happy adults who can be positive influences and make responsible decisions as adults.

My animals are well cared for and come running to see us as soon as they hear us come out of the back door, knowing they are safe and loved and well-tended. 

Each species on our farm serves a specific purpose, in addition to enriching our lives.  The chickens provide eggs and meat.  The goats provide milk and meat.  (Though only males who don’t sell and aren’t worthy to keep for breeding will be slaughtered.)  The donkeys protect everyone in the barn yard.  The dogs protect the kids, house and yard.  The ducks – well, they make me laugh.  That’s a purpose too!  When we someday have turkeys, they will provide meat and eat grasshoppers.  (They are grasshopper eating machines, folks!  Really!)

We make and sell soap from the goat milk, and make cheese and dairy products for home use.  Every day in the office at my daily job I contemplate at least a little bit how to make this little farm, this beautiful little dream, grow in the right way, and at the right rate, that someday it can be my real job. 

Believe it or not, I really would take sweating outside when it’s 110 degrees or layering up for those days it’s 20 degrees out, over just about any other job in the world.  It’s dirty, and sometimes it breaks your heart while other days are filled with elation, but it’s honest and natural and at the end of the days spent that way, I feel like what I’ve done is really worthy.  I took action that made a life better, or healthier or happier.  That in turn makes ones’ own life more enjoyable. 

How do you go from where we are now to sharing that passion and knowledge and those skills and those products with others, and make a living out of it?  That’s my worthwhile goal. 

CHOCOLATE! So simple!!

In wanting to make a homemade mocha frapaccino last night it was discovered that I would have to learn to make dark chocolate sauce to create the necessary "mocha" aspect.

I made this up on the fly and Oh! My! Goodness!!

In a small, heavy saucepan mix the following:
10 Tblsp sugar
4.5 Tblsp dutch press cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tablespoon Butter, or goat butter, or butter flavored crisco
1/4 cup freshly chilled goat milk

Heat to a low boil (or heavy simmer), stirring constantly - and keep it at a low simmer for about 3 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in:
1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

YUM!  That's all there is to it!  Goes well in coffee drinks, and man would this taste good on some goat milk ice cream - or on any ice cream that you can have.

OH YUM!! 

Happy Quackers

Since the day the ducks arrived, we have been planning on moving them to a better pen but life kept interfering.  Today, no interference arose and we succeeded! 

The new pen is a little bit smaller, but is full of grasses both tall and small and their dogloo (or is it duckloo since ducks use it now?) as well as their little wooden house are in side giving them shade and protection from the wind no matter which way it blows. 

The pond is in a location that makes it easier for us to empty and clean and the location of the entire pen encourages the placement of the kitchen garden for next spring.  Being adjacent to both the barn yard and the duck pen means that we can use the duck pond cast off water to both water and nourish the plants and the mulched down droppings from the barn yard provide easy access great compost.

I can't even explain how happy I am about this!  I am already envisioning the crops - green beans, tomatoes, green peppers, jalapenos, swiss chard, zucchini and yellow squash.  It's a small area to start with, so we can't overload it.  We can always expand later! :-)

Time for a brief rest while some things thaw for a late lunch, then this evening we may find a bit more to do!  Check back this evening for photos!

When a farmer gets that look in her eye...

I wonder sometimes if my husband starts to worry when I get a certain look in my eyes, which probably follows time spent outside by myself.  I'm rather convinced that there is a certain mania that possesses even the mildest mannered farmer when she, or he, looks out over their fields no matter how small, and envisions all that it could become.

This evening I had such a vision.  We had come home from work and let the puppies run, then went to visit one of my husbands new friends who happens to be opening a brewery about 6 miles from the house.  (I smell danger here, don't you?!)  After a nice little visit with the couple we came home to care for our little farm.  The milking was accomplished.  The ducks water changed. The eggs gathered.  We - ok he - even managed to get some fly spray on Penny who was acting the part of Ms. Super Frisky. 

I took a walk through the pasture, which while not enormous is big enough to support the grass needs of our girls and one boy.  I probably even looked innocent and peaceful enough out walking around and checking the grasses, and the back fence behind which is a decidedly noticeable coyote trail.  There were even several minutes spent reminding Penny how to target on my hand and follow it in order to be rewarded with shoulder and hip scratchings.

Bill was ready and waiting at the gate for me with egg basket and milk in hand.  The only thing left to do was fill the big trough, so I told him with a big smile "I'll get this, Honey.  Go on in." While the trough filled, I watched the ducks splash and then chase one another and I pet sweet little Chester who was sweet because I wasn't in there with him and in range of him biting my ass again. Stinker.

Alas, the trough was filled and I turned the water off followed closely by Cami and Jackson.  The evening was not super hot and sweaty, and it was early enough that the mosquitoes weren't yet rising, so we sat on the edge of the deck together and I looked out over our tiny farm envisioning all sorts of things while the puppies slobbered on me. 

I see a new roof on the barn - which is made mostly of recycled materials. (No wait - isn't that now supposed to be called re-purposed materials for the PC crowd?) Maybe a new barn some day - though I am awfully proud of our re-purposed material barn.

  And I see cross fencing in the pasture, dividing it nicely so that they cannot wear it down too heavily in any one place.

Oohh, and I see a new duck pen so the ducks can have grass and a better shade shelter.  Then over there, I see another tree where that baby tree is struggling to hang on.  And over to the north I see a new gate that gives us direct access to the big pasture - or what may (see the hope rising here?) become either the pen for the kids next spring, or perhaps even eventually a buck pen!  And within the yard... ohho oh ohhh!  The rest of the fort will come down, and there will be a little garden there! 

Oh the things that may come!!  Yes, that is a farmers mania.  For tonight though... I think it's time to revisit my layout of the land and modify it. Again!

Cheese!

The freezers are full of milk for soap and future use.  We have plenty to see us through the dry times when the girls are pregnant and will not be milked, and with our production still remaining high today is a good day for cheese.

So far we have made Gouda, Cheddar, Chevre, Havarti, and a standard farmhouse cheese - and a variation with hatch chilies in it.  Today, we try our first Caerphilly cheese.  I have found one variation that does not have Flora Danica in it - which is good because I don't have any at hand, and the Homebrew Headquarters (where Bill buys his beer making supplies - and where cheese cultures are conveniently carried) did not have any in stock.  Poot.  Well... we'll try this without, and I'll order some Flora Danica be delivered so I can try it out the right way soon in the near future.

As it is, I am very excited.  The result should be a cheese that's about halfway between cheddar and gouda, and is ready in 3 weeks.  Yes! THREE WEEKS!!! 

I've take some cues from Chickens In The Road (my favorite blogger!) and her experiences making Caerphilly, as well as an English cheesemaker's site.  This is appropriate since Caerphilly is an English cheese!  It is currently in the press, and in 30 minutes, I'll turn it over and press it some more.  Then tomorrow it can have a brine bath before it gets to dry out and be waxed, then in about 3 weeks I can try this awesome new-to-me cheese.  (How's that for confidence today?)

That used 2 of the 4 gallons of milk in the frig.  Perhaps, with the rain rolling across the Texas plains and its impending arrival on my farm, it's time for a batch of clam chowder or broccoli cheese (goat of course) soup. 

If the rain doesn't sap me completely, some of the spent grains from Bill's new batch of beer (currently in the making) can go into a loaf of bread and the rest to the ducks and chickens.  As it is, It's Father's Day - Bill can pick out which soup once the amber is in the fermenter.

Hands

My mother once made a remark about “Brenda’s hands” because I can’t keep them still.  Mother, Artist, Massage therapist, tender of animals, cook, seamstress, hippie-in-general about doing things myself and more… and I think, as the years have passed, that I agree with her.

My hands would never win a beauty contest of hands, if anything such as that existed.  Maybe it does, and I just don’t know.  It wouldn't matter - they are broad palmed with very long lean fingers, and riddled with scars.  When the weather changes, the knuckles get a little red.  (The awesome goat milk soap I make and use keeps it from being worse. Before goats milk soap, they would get so red and raw each winter that they bled often from the deep cracks.)

On my left index finger are the scars of when I was very young and everyone I knew had warts - so did I, and they were surgically removed.  The middle finger that was broken in a car door and bends slightly out at the distal joint.  The ring finger is remarkably unblemished, and the pinky has a mystery scar at the middle joint. 

The right hand is a plethora of scars including a one inch plus scar across the back where I broke it in a closing door while carrying in a box of holiday gifts for all of our student assistants in the office, and each of the fingers bears some sort of mark (most very small) from life experiences.  Most recently I was bitten by some insect that caused it to swell gradually for two days straight.  (I still cannot close it or open it all the way, and the knuckles have disappeared for all the swelling.)  I've broken this hand 3 times in the last 5 years.  One broken finger (ring finger) and my first metacarpal broken in two different places, two separate times.  I sprained the distal joint of the ring finger and that was far worse than any of the  breakings!

I digress - my point is that these hands may never meet the standard of beauty, but I have learned to find the beauty in them because they are so capable. They can soothe a hurt... feed and care for my family, and my farm... they can create art and build things that are sturdy and useful... sew a French seam and trim a donkeys hooves.  Time has taught me to appreciate all the things they are capable of, and the inherent beauty in that. 

It isn't often that I appreciate something in myself - but every time I look at my big, sometimes rough, scarred up, and occasionally swollen hands, you'll see a smile.

Priorities

The summer is starting off hot and lovely, and with that come all the plans and trying to prioritize what really needs to be done now, and what can wait a little while.  Bill and I agree that re-roofing the barn must be a top priority, as is moving the rest of the gravel and creating a better / more solid gravel floor in the barn.  (The silly chickens get in there and make hollows then dust bathe in the rock dust.  This creates great little pitfalls to twist an ankle in… ) 

Another project that will not take very much time is moving the ducks to a small pen with some grass!  This will be located in the back yard, and well fenced off from the dogs.  And it will have its own real gate with hinges!  I know that sounds silly to be excited about, but their temporary pen has a fence that has to be unclipped and re-clipped every time we go in and out.  They should also really have a cooler shelter – the dogloo is doing an ok job, but I want something prettier to look at this time! 

The third priority project for the summer is building a picnic table for the back yard.  Not just any picnic table, but one that I was inspired to build after seeing a really cool one with an inset tray down the center that can be filled with ice to keep water, iced tea, beer, wine, etc. cold while serving!  YAY!!

Oohh... and another I hope to accomplish - but am afraid of calling it a priority because then I set too many priorities and none will get done - is finally building the planting beds that didn't get built this year.  If I get them built soon, then they can compost over fall and winter and in spring we just till, plant and water.  (Drip lines are going to be mandatory though... *sigh*)  I have this plan in my head for how to do it with some of the scrap lumber we have.  Now if only the plans in my head can translate to reality!

Those little things like making functional still at least pleasing (for me that’s often rustic) that make a difference in how I perceive our farm.  One of these years, I’ll get around to planting more flowers too.  I won't call that one a priority either, just so that maybe it really will happen!

Gender Roles

Now that the insanity of the end of the school year, one daughter graduating, and the Renaissance Festival have all come to a close I have a moment to write again.  With the pace we have kept for the past few months (imagine it - no more than 4-5 hours a sleep at night for months and the days full of stress and activity dawn to midnight) there has been something niggling at my brain. 

I'm all for getting as much done myself as possible, and it truly causes me physical pain to have to ask for anything or to ask for help, and the concept of gender roles just fried my apples, as Mom would put it. As far as work goes, I'm all about equality.  Everyone does their share, because collectively it helps everyone.

This extended to farm care.

Our mornings begin about 5:45 a.m., and until recently we traded off on who was going out to feed and milk and who was going to take care of things in the house.  I found that quite often, when it was my turn to feed and milk, I would still end up doing the cooking and other indoors tasks.  When my hubby did cook, the oatmeal ended up as paste and the eggs were rubbery so no one wanted to eat.  We would choke down a few bites out of politeness, but there was a lack of nourishment, as well as consistency and creativity there.  (This still baffles me because when it comes to dinners, he's truly an amazing cook!)

As the morning pace became even more insane with kids needing to be at the school by 5:45 or 6:00 am (sometimes 5 a.m. even) the classic division of chores based on gender started to appear.  He did more and more of the morning milking / feeding and I did the dishes and cooked the breakfast and fed the dogs, and started the laundry, etc.

It is both frustrating and somewhat comforting.  It's nice to know that he can take care of things outside, and that everything in the house is running as it should (and that we would in fact have clean clothes as well as nourishment!)  BUT, and it's a big but hence the caps, I dearly missed the soft quiet mornings with the animals.  Despite it being Texas, the mornings outside are still cool enough and possess that gentle quality that grounds the spirit and makes a person feel whole again.

The schedules have settled down.  The kids are sleeping in. The husband is sleeping in. And me?  I'm still exhausted, but I think that maybe I have learned something.  Gender roles in farm care have a time and place that create better functionality.  I'm still glad that it seems that time has past for a little while and I can take up my part in the morning barnyard again!

This morning I spent almost an hour just Being, in the soft quiet morning surrounded by my animals.

Good morning, Penny!

And Ms. Balvenie

And who could resist a good morning from this handsome guy?!