Peaceful morning

After the week of too little sleep, and too much exhaustion I was sincerely dreading getting out of bed this morning.  I even slept in until 7:00 am, and when my alarm went off, rapidly followed by the dual brays of the donkeys, I dragged my weary ass out of bed and plodded around the house getting ready to go do the deed.  The best surprise was that it turned into one of those mornings of fantastic achievement.  The kids stayed up late last night so were all still asleep, and the hubby who has been very sick this week was still abed.  It became my morning, with no rush to get it all done and hoof it out the door to work.  I turned on Pandora on the I-pod, stuck it in my back pocket, and started to enjoy everything!  Visions of accomplishment in my head!

Pre-setting at night for an easy morning has got to be one of the smartest things we ever started doing - after the evening feeding, I measure the morning feed into coffee containers and put on the lids so that when they are all demanding to be fed, it's a fast process.  Decaf canister is for the donkeys, the blue one is for the kids, and the red one is for the first milking doe.  (She's a pill, by the way.)  The second doe to be milked is the only one I have to measure for in the morning. 

After the feeding and milking were done, I even had time to stay out and play with them.  Walked my sweet donkey girls out to the pasture, and scratched the baby goats.  Every time I get my hands on Balvenie, our now 3 month old doeling, I make a point of petting her everywhere including her baby teats.  It's all in the hope that she will not be like her mama and act the terror on the milking stand! 

Back in the house I discovered that the entire family was still asleep!  After filtering the milk, and unloading the dishwasher I fed the dogs and decided it was time to start a batch of cheese.  Still no family awakenings.  The milk is warming now, and I've just enough time to finish this and pour another cup of coffee before I need to go tend it.

Only other mom's would appreciate this, perhaps, but I felt so alive and capable this morning with everyone still asleep and accomplishment in my pocket!  Now, I'm ready for them to be awake, and feel like I can be Mom and Wife with a smile.

Adventures in Baking

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and I do believe this is true.  When a person has need they can improvise, learn new skills, and in general bluff their way through all sorts of situations creating all sorts of new ideas. 

I love to bake - bread in particular, and oddly enough I'm a huge fan of casseroles.  At my workplace we were planning a pot luck to celebrate another baby that is due, and without thinking I said Sure! I'll bring a breakfast casserole!  Breakfast is by far my favorite meal of the day, and breakfast foods are far and away the tastiest dishes that should be eligible for consumption at any time of the day.

I went home after a long day of work, taking kids to doctor's appointments and errands, took care of my little farm and animals - adventures in goat wrangling that left me sweating and the little doeling playing hide and seek behind the donkeys - feeding my family, and finally... finally I was ready.  I got out a couple of casserole dishes, and took stock of ingredients. 

A dozen eggs fresh from the hens, Check
A pound of turkey sausage, Check
Shredded potatoes, Check
Sweet onions, Check
Homemade goat Gouda cheese, Check
Salt and pepper and dry mustard powder and parsley, Check

Oven... oh bugger.  It came - the unfortunately belated realization that both of my ovens are still out of commission due to damaged elements.  Crap! 

So I kind of gave up on it and said Eh, screw it.  I'll go watch a movie with the kids.  So I did and it felt incredibly good to do nothing for a little while.  That little while turned into 3 hours of watching Shakespeare In Love, and crawling into bed at 11:30pm!  Still no casserole.  Ok, I'll set the alarm 15 minutes early and figure something out. 

5:45 a.m., and laying in bed inspiration strikes!  If I can do a crock pot meatloaf, why couldn't I do a crock pot breakfast casserole?!  The office party isn't until 10:30 or 11:00, so it should have time to cook, right?  Off to the kitchen to brown the turkey sausage, saute the onions, mix those with shredded potatoes and shredded Gouda.  Pour over it a blender full of a dozen blended eggs to which the salt, pepper, mustard powder and parsley have been whizzed together and give it a little toss.  Pour it all in the crock and turn it on.  The morning moved on a little more rushed than usual, but I managed - even Cindy, my big lamancha doe was unusually cooperative for her milking!  By the time I left for work it was just starting to cook around the edges... Screw it, it can cook at work, so away I go.

3 hours later, cooked on high (so the edges are a little on the dry side, unfortunately), it's done. And it tastes FANTASTIC!  I have a new way to conquer weekday breakfasts with the family!!

Oh the Mighty Egg

It's springtime in North Texas, and with that the days are warmer and the hens are laying a little bit more!  We've sold a few dozen (from the gate), and when I look in that refrigerator I begin to think of all the ways to save / preserve eggs.  It's definitely time!

You can preserve the life of your fresh eggs, and here I stress fresh because store bought eggs probably are already at best a few weeks old before you buy them and don't have very good cell structure, in a number of ways.

To freeze them, take a standard ice cube tray and crack one egg into each compartment, then freeze solid.  The frozen eggs can be stored in a ziploc bag in the freezer for baking until you need them, and then you can just pull out the number of cubes as the recipe calls for.

For the fresh eggs in the frig, put them in a deep glass or crockery bowl and cover with cool water.  What this does is close the porous egg shell off from air.  This slows down the decomposition of an egg remarkably, and while I've never had them in water more than a month, the old country wisdom books claim you can get several months out of an egg this way.

You can scramble the eggs in a blender, and freeze small portion bags of this ready for omelettes - just thaw the bag in water until the egg is liquid again, and cook right away!

The best possible way though is by baking!  There are plenty of cake recipes that call for 4 or more eggs - bundt cakes and angel food cakes are by far the best!

Projects

No matter how small the farm, the projects are still never ending.  My good friend e-mailed me today, and my mind took off at high speed on all the things that need to be done. 

There is:

• The chickens new palace to put some hinged sides on, and roof paper the roof - oh and install the top half of the !@!#$%! Dutch door
• Stretch the fence to segregate the chickens
• Running electricity to the barn
• Set posts and stretch the fence to segregate the garden patch
• Build a movable temporary chicken coop so the chickens can do their magic in the garden patch
• Put a new floor in the (soon to be new) hay storage area
• Build a milking bench
• Cross fence the big pasture
• Build a run-in, in the "Run" out in the big pasture
• Turn the compost heaps (which, by the way, it looks like something has been digging down into it and sleeping in there for warmth during the cold nights)
• Fix the gate on the big goat birthing stall
• Haul in more roadbase and level up the floor of the barn

These are the beginning of the projects, and may sound like a lot - especially in addition to the daily activities involved in keeping and raising livestock and simply keeping house / life, and making soap and cheese, but there is a method to the madness.  This has been something I've wanted all my life - the early hardships are still worth it.  When each of these projects reaches completion, it will be that much easier to maintain.  I am ridiculously EXCITED about each of these projects!  There isn't a single one I dread! 

It's always busy, but because it's our farm it is not ever overwhelming.

The Incredible Edible - and oh so useful - Chicken!

The kids are all teenagers now, with one ready for college this year.  The humongous fort that came with the house and land is no longer needed and just in time, as it's starting to get a little shaky!  That has to come down and be recycled into other useful stuff like a portable chicken coop so the chickens can be moved around from time to time for composting purposes.

I like to think of my dear little flock of chickens as an integral part to our little farm.  With the addition of the Americauna chickens, who like small bugs like ants and ticks, and the turkens (ugly as all get out, but tough!) who like to eat the crickets and grasshoppers, most of our pest control is taken care of!  They will break down donkey and goat manure, and old straw and barnyard gradings - leaving behind tremendously useful compost that you can grow darned near anything in.  They will also tear up the earth and pre-work your planting beds for you, just given the chance. 

So one of the next projects must be a temporary coop, built out of reclaimed material from the fort.  This will go in the garden patch, where they can break down the over-aged hay that is decaying on the bottom and soften up the earth while eating bugs and leaving behind their own brand of fertilizer.  Hooray for multipurpose animals on a farm!

Who would have thought?

As I make rather regular posts on Facebook about what’s going on with our little farm, and the successes and failures of various projects (I will refrain from doing more than mentioning briefly how evil is the making process for mozzarella cheese), it never once occurred to me that someone may be inspired by some of what I do. 

My old friend Cathy, from way back in high school and I reconnected via Facebook – like it happens, right? – and it turns out she and her family have a little farm outside of our hometown where they have raised pigs and Kiko goats.  (Here I digress and admit open jealousy of the fertility of the soil up there!)  After remarking last night that I was finally cooking dinner and stated what we were having - piccolini with homemade pesto, chicken breasts with homemade goat milk mozzarella cheese and a garlic basil sauce and a salad in case you were interested – she said she wanted to come to my house for dinner.  It’s a nice compliment, and I joked that she would feel right at home helping to feed and milk, etc.  Her next statement just floored me:

“Milking may be an issue (we don't have milk goats...yet) but knowing me I will work on it. Right now we are expanding our poultry and birds. Hopefully, we will get our peachicks in a few weeks. I have thought about getting a milk goat to be able to make and sell my own soap---you have inspired me to think outside of the box about my farm and what I can produce!”

I always wanted to work with animals, and have made that a reality even if it’s just in the form of a hobby farm.  Someday, hopefully, it will be more than a hobby.  One of the best compliments (aside from “Wow, you smell fantastic!” of course) is “You’re a farmer.”  It's still a compliment when the speaker says it more as a question, and with the expression of a puzzled beagle.

But – a farmer who inspired someone else to expand their own horizons?  That’s pretty damned awesome! 

Sanity

It's been a traumatic week, emotionally for the family and peaceful moments have been hard to come by.  However, the chores of the farm are those moments.  It's funny how simply mucking out a goat stall in the company of a cacophany of birdsong from the woods, the bleating of the goats, and the quiet clucking of the chickens can settle a person. 

Maybe it's because you feel you finally have control of something, even if it's just a shovel full of manky bedding - or maybe it's the productive and peaceful time of milking the does, and seeing that pail fill up while they are happily munching on their feed.  Or even, perhaps, it's the silly antics of a nine month old jenny who wants to be brushed but right *there* it tickles.  It heals the soul and soothes the wounds of the day. 

Never question where peace comes from - just accept it when it does.