Process them!

We finally did it. We worked up the nerve to slaughter our first kid goat. Saturday we thought out our list of supplies. A sharp new knife. Rope to hang the carcass. A bucket of water for rinsing hands and knife. A hose to wash off the inevitable hair. A fan to control flies. A wheelbarrow full of hay to catch blood and entrails. The .22 rifle and 4 cartridges (after my taking 3 shots to kill a raccoon last fall I wasn't about to depend on my marksmanship).

While feeding the goats a special meal of hay and oats, I snuck up on my victim. I this case it was 12's kid. He was the biggest of this years kids. 26" in girth, which translates to roughly 61lbs of goat it's amazing he was only born in January. A lot of milk grass and hay went into that goat.

While he was nibbling at some oats with the other goats, I grabbed him by the rear leg, picked him up and carried him to a stall. Many of our goats are used to being handled. He wasn't one of those. So he fought and struggled. Somehow he gouged my arm drawing blood. The first round goes to him.

I locked him in a barn stall for later. Our plan was to get up at about 6 and do the deed while it was still cool. Cool means 77 degrees at dawn in Texas this time of year. So naturally we got started at the crack of 10am. We had watched a few YouTube videos about goat skinning. This helped prepare us for what was to come.

We lured the herd to the driveway which needed trimming, one of the few areas we have left where there is come green grass, and locked them in. They are used to this, we do it several times a year so I can avoid mowing it and they get full bellies. A win win for everyone. So with the goats out of the way I was free to proceed with:

Step 1. Kill a goat. This is something I had never done before. Well, not intentionally. It required some thinking through. How would I immobilize the kid? Since he doesn't like to be handled, he isn't likely to stand there while I put a bullet in his head. I opted to snap a collar on him and tie a lead to the bars of the stall. Then I put down a dish of grain thinking he would bend down to eat the grain while doing that I could take aim. However, he was too nervous to eat. Making sure that Kristi was safe in case of an errant shot, I aimed and fired while he was in a quiet moment. The first shot was a good one and he died instantly. I loaded him on the wheelbarrow and took him to the back yard for:

Step 2. String him up. I had prepared an area for the skinning by throwing a rope over a suitable tree branch. I used an old broom handle to mount the carcass. A cut is made between the bone and the Achilles tendon and the broom handle is inserted into that cut. This makes it easy to spread the goats legs and make all the parts more accessible. The pole is then tied up at the ends to the rope and the goat is raised to a good working height. I positioned the wheelbarrow under the goat to catch the blood and offal. That will make a good addition to our compost.

Step 3. Bleeding the goat. I made a cut in the goat's neck and fortunately I got the jugular on the first try. The blood began to drain into the hay in the wheelbarrow. I removed the head and let it fall into the wheelbarrow too. A layer of hay went over this.

Step 4. Skinning the goat. This takes some time and since this was my first time, it took a while. We didn't look at the clock before we started, but by the times the photos were taken, the whole process took from about 10 am to 11:07 to complete. Not bad for a couple of newbies!

I used a new, very sharp Chicago Cutlery 5" boning knife. This knife has a high carbon blade which holds an edge better and is easier to sharpen than a stainless steel blade. This is the knife that Chicago Cutlery made its reputation on. First thing I did was cut all the way around the anus.

I pulled out a few inches of the colon and put a tie wrap around the tube. I cut off the anus itself and put it in the wheelbarrow. That part has a lot of bacteria and could taint the carcass. With that done I can proceed to skinning. I cut up the inside of the legs under the skin, taking care not to cut the meat. Then across the bottom through where the anus was. I removed the tail.

At this point I could alternate pulling downward on the skin and loosening with the knife until I was basically turning the goat inside out. There was some fiddly work at the legs and neck and then the skin was off. Kristi was spraying the carcass with water to help remove hair.

Step 5. Disemboweling. This is another one of those processes that isn't really fun, but it's a part of home butchering. Working from the hole where the anus was, I slid the knife in between the anal opening and the membrane and slit down exposing the innards. There were a LOT of innards. This was a well fed goat. working along the backbone I cut and snipped all the spots that were holding the viscera in place. Suddenly out it all came PLOP into the wheelbarrow. I had to reach way down inside to cut through the trachea and a couple more snips and it was all out.

Aside: We are very interested in making our own goat cheeses. There are age-old stories about shepherds storing the mornings milking in goats stomachs and, by the time they're ready to drink the milk, all they get is a fine liquid substance (whey). As the shepherd traveled he would notice that the milk turned to chunks. The chunks tasted good and the love of cheese was born. Goats stomachs contain natural enzymes that comprise rennet. Rennet supplies bacteria that helps an unweaned kid goat to digest his mothers milk. Rennet is necessary in cheese making. What this is leading up to is that when the stomachs (4) of the goat were removed we collected a nice piece of the fourth stomach to be made into rennet for our cheese-making. At this moment it has been cleaned and is heavily salted in a bowl to dry. When the stomach piece is dried, the whole thing will be rinsed and then placed in whey or with vinegar to create a whole bunch of rennet, with which we'll make (Uh, Kristi will make) cheese.

Step 6. The carcass was once again hosed off and is now in a cooler with ice to rest for 24 hours. Once the meat has relaxed, we'll cut it up into usable pieces and run it through our vacuum sealer for freezing.

Paneer Tikki

Latest news: The Paneer Tikki worked very well (needs salt) and I tried it with goat milk, thinking, what the heck... might as well try to make goat cheese. I've never been able to master the putting of the cheese in containers to let them sit forever, so this method works very, very well... and it's tasty! As soon as Geraldine is old enough to breed and then freshened, we're going to have a bunch of goat milk to make cheese with.. and now that I know I can get it through a simpler method, it will be easy!

The one thing that I didn't understand at first is that the curd, in goat cheese, is half the size of the smallest flea and I added a little too much lime juice (didn't have any lemons on hand) because I thought the curds should be bigger. But when I strained the milk through cheesecloth, all the individual curds and coagulated nicely. Oh, this is dangerously good...

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I discovered a recipe for a simple cheese called, "Paneer Tikki" in Flatbreads and Flavors. This book has all sorts of great recipes collected by two people who traveled to different countries seeking flatbreads and local flavors. Excellent book.

Paneer Tikki is made with regular, store-bought, two-percent milk and lemon juice. That's IT.. there's nothing more to it.

Then the pulled pork from yesterday's adventures (Mike starting the Boston butt and me finishing it.. seems to work well.. low temps (between 200 and 300) with hickory)..

Meat, cheese... hmmm..

Enough for today.

Birds and Bees and D.H. Lawrence, oh, my!

I have been reading, for about the 20th time, Lady Chatterly's Lover. One might think that it's the erotic nature that draws me back repeatedly, but what I find myself realizing is that each time I read it, I learn something else, am in a different mind frame to FIND that something else, and enjoy it just as much as the first time I read it. Lawrence, once banned in the U.S. for his risque' novel, wasn't like the crude, but rudimentary Henry Miller at all.. he wrote about a woman's orgasm, wrote words that still resound today in their wisdom.

But enough of that and back to the birds and bees... We have a pile of hickory branches that need to be cut down, but that, it seems, will be put on the back burner, now. What Mike discovered Saturday morning was that a Bewick's Wren baby was under all the branches. It must have just come out to learn to fly, which means the egg would have hatched about three weeks ago or so. We saw the bird as it attempted to fly into the house and reached a window, then dropped to the ground. It made its way back to the hickory pile and Mike captured a beautiful photo of it.

Ah, the bees... yes, we finally opened the hive again, this being week 9 in our beekeeping extravaganza... we have had success, but the bees are not filling out the entire hive as we thought they would. We know the queen is busy because there are lots of eggs in the hive and we took pictures that we captured with Picasa and exploded them... finally seeing the queen in all her long glory, with the telltale white spot on her head. She's been very busy.

The goats are hungry. No rain and little to eat.. I clip branches for them from our forested area every other day or so - and they eat lots of hay, but I really, really wish it would rain.

Brooster the mean rooster - RIP and good riddance.

After Saturday's ordeal with three unwanted goats, we still had a ton of work to do and the thought of doing it kept us IN bed and not really wanting to start the day.

Then I heard the wretched squeal of a hurting animal. We have a brand new dog, another Great Pyrenese and one we rescued from some nasty folks in Bastrop who, if they didn't abuse it, came close to it. The way the man handled the dog spoke worlds about why the dog cowered in a corner of their horse trailer and feared humans. He was flea-infested and sticker-bur saturated, not to mention smelling of oil that came from a cart that was also inside the horse trailer. This man didn't deserve to have a dog or any of the other creatures, including the horses and goats they owned.

The dog was born to one of his livestock guardian Pyrenese and the man said he found it in the field. He thought coyotes had gotten the rest of the puppies. He advertised this puppy on Craig's list claiming that the dog was 8 months old. When we saw it and what it looked like, I watched Mike's face and read it as "I don't think so" but he asked me quietly if I wanted it and I was adamant about it. Yes. I wanted it. If nothing else, to save the creature from this horrid human being. We paid 75.00 for it.

We've had the dog, which is really about 8 WEEKS old (not 8 months) since last Monday. As soon as we brought it home, we proceeded to terrorize it by bathing it and giving it food (it didn't recognize what a container was and tried to eat the container instead of the food). Then we put him into a stall for a few days with lots of food and water. We let him out on Thursday and he found a cozy, hidden place behind the shed and under some wood piles to hide and sleep. Unfortunately, we didn't know this and spent an entire evening trying to find him on the 15 acres. After a few hours of this Mike and I were pretty depressed about losing it and around sundown, I wanted to check one last time, to see if we'd just missed it... and sure enough, I saw him coming out from behind the shed. We fed him more, but we didn't put him back in a stall. The next day, he did the same thing and again, we thought he disappeared. Just before evening, he came out again from his hiding place. (who WOULDN'T want to hide during these hot Texas summer days?)

Fast forward to Sunday morning. We didn't want to get out of bed, but I heard this yelp from the barnyard and looked out the bedroom window to see Brooster attacking the poor puppy (who's literally no bigger than a bread basket.) Brooster reared up and rolled the puppy on his back and then attacked again.

This isn't the first time Brooster had attacked creatures and we thought he'd grow out of it, but he didn't. We can't have a mean rooster because we have some many docile creatures and young goats. He's even attacked Barbecue, our older Great Pyrenese. This rooster, though, is a little funny and would often put his head in a corner of the barn, talking to himself and stomping his feet.

Mike and I get dressed quickly, go to the barnyard and go through the ordeal of capturing Brooster. Mike wrung his neck and although that's normally my job (wringing chickens' necks), I think it was good for him to do it.

But then this means it's chicken processing time. We get to try out the new chicken plucker that he built for me. I killed another roo that we raised just for eating. If you think this is cruel, examine your eating habits and discover where the chicken you eat comes from. You'd understand WHY we want to raise and eat our own birds. It's healthier and the chickens are fed better and not treated inhumanely.

Anyway, when you process chickens, you have to let them sit a few days in ice to let the meat relax. We tried killing one of the birds and eating it fresh, but were very disappointed in the small size and quality of the bird. We have around 40 of these birds and now do not know if they'll be good enough to supply us with chicken for the year. Having to go back to store-bought chicken? Yuck. Yuck.

So Brooster is no more. And now the animals will feel more comfortable in the barnyard and maybe this little puppy, who's been bashed by humans, goats and a rooster, will survive and thrive. He's still around. Maybe he'll stay. I'm definitely giving him a piece of chicken when Brooster's ready to barbecue.

Stupid Goat Tricks

Saturday morning might have turned out to be okay - maybe a little hot, except for the unwanted goats that everyone kept trying to herd into our property... "Hey! You have goats! These must be yours!". The first time was around 8:30, when we go outside to start the morning and I see, in the distance, three goats coming toward the inside gate (about a tenth of a mile from the outside gate) and a car that is parked behind them. Someone is trying, I thought, to tell us that the fences are bad and we have goats that got out.

I take my golf cart to the first gate and realize that these aren't our goats! Someone has dropped them off and just assumed we'd take them. With feed prices so high, it's easy to see why people who can't afford to feed their animals would want to dump them. These were two very large billy goats and a female Boer goat in heat. I get to the folks standing at the outside gate and we do the introductions. They're neighbors. The goats, at this time, have traveled down the driveway toward Mike, who's looking a little perplexed.

We manage to get them out the gate and close it, so they can't come back, but the electric fences are not working properly and we have to monitor them, so they're not tempted. Goats are herd animals and they've seen our herd and want to join them. The goats that were dropped off look very healthy, but we can't allow them to interact with our own herd because looks can be deceiving. Also, one billy goat per herd is pretty standard and I am willing to bet that these just got two old for the owners who probably bought them for their kids or as roping dummies. Yes, the thought makes me sick, animals purchased for the pleasure of torturing them. Some of our neighbors have this mindset. We do not.

So, the goats, with the help of a car that came along ("do you want us to move them to the gate so you can get them back in?") "No! they're not ours... if you could just herd them further along, someone might claim them..."

Fine. So they're gone. Or so I thought. Next thing I know, I'm hearing a sheriff's car horn and seeing flashing lights an hour after the goat ordeal. Then I see the three goats. AGAIN. They've been herded back into our property. The sheriff actually opened the gate to let them in! Another man, who has stopped to help the sheriff herd the goats into our gate, stands by them. I'm in my cart, shouting, "No... no! These aren't ours... Don't... no!" Waving my hands, etc...

The sheriff has the audacity to ask me if I'm the one that put them 'out' as if out into the street. I tell him that they were dumped at our place, but they're not ours. The guy with him named Cal, says that he'll take the goats, but he has some errands to run and is towing a long trailer at the moment.

Fine. We try to keep the goats in the driveway until the guy comes back to claim them. The sheriff is gone, now, and we've got the goats. Cal says that he has about 15 acres and the only thing that gets dropped off at his place are mangy dogs.

It's a LONG time before Cal returns and at this point, we've decided to shoot the goats and are looking at tanning procedures on the web. Goat skin can come in handy or we could sell it.

In the meantime, two of the goats, the female and one male have escaped the driveway and are mingling with our herd. We capture them in the barn and herd them into stalls, each in their own and right next to each other.

About 2:00 pm, we're out working fences to make sure this doesn't happen again and to keep our goats on the inside of the fence. We're up near the street and Cal shows up, pulls up along side and says that he's having all kinds of problems, but that he still wants the goats. We tell him that we've got a cage (mike made it) and that the cage will hold the animals and he can take them now if he wants. We knew the hardest one to get will be the one in the driveway because it can and will still go through the fence, but it must have been shocked because it not only didn't go through the fence, it was a little wary of it. This worked nicely to our advantage.

The chickens that we had in the cage on the lawn (fattening them up for slaughter), had to be moved. That was my job. We had three red roos and one barred rock roo that was being mean - this was Brooster, the female rooster. I put the three red roos in the shed (where we feed the cats - who will probably never forgive me) and let out Brooster. He'd been in the cage terrorizing the three red roos for a few days and he's easy to catch (pretty stupid), so I let him out to forage.

The cage was fastened to Cal's trailer and we got the two goats from the barn in (although they didn't want to go). I jokingly said, "hey, you want two more?" Cal said sure, he'd take a few more - he got 8's older wether and 215's older wether. These are (castrated) males that are too old for eating, so we gave them to him.

It ruined our day, but turned out slightly better than it could have. We got rid of two useless wethers - a present, no doubt, for one of Cal's daughters whose birthday was that day.

It was a long day and maybe people don't realize what a burden it is for weekend farmers who don't have the time to deal with their castoffs. It's just rude to dump animals on others when you don't want them, whether it's mangy dogs or unwanted livestock. If it happens again, I'm going to get a nice goatskin rug out of it. I've been learning a lot about tanning a hide and I'd rather it be yours than some poor, unwanted pet that your kid outgrew.

Weekend ritualistic self-torture

Nice and cool this morning, but it's turned into a bugger of a day - muggy, hot. Texas.

We finished putting the fingers into the chicken plucker and had quite a few fingers left over. Mike's finishing the rest of it today (or getting really close to finishing). The 'rest of it' involves pulleys and a motor to drive it, etc...

This morning, we fenced off the main garden so that the goats would have another area to eat today. We are managing the pastures and have about six different areas that can be gated or locked, so it works out great. This is the first year we've really gotten into moving the goats around, but it's working out well and we've got some fat goats.

Mid-day -

Just finished hoeing up an area to plant the perennial vegetables in - the onions and the artichokes. Will probably move the ten or so asparagus plants in the fall to this new area, but not during the spring.

Also mulched the potatoes again - they are growing like crazy.

And checked the gourds in the backyard which are filled with both good and bad bugs - shield bugs bad, wheel bugs good. leafhoppers bad, ladybugs good. So we're going to leave them alone. I might spray them with molasses water and bt later to keep the worms and the ants away, but I've already got a ton of egg gourds on them thanks to the bees. The bees are so heavy with the orange pollen they get from the plants that when they go back to the hive at night, they can barely make the landing platform.

Just watered the grapevines and the one surviving blackberry plant.. correction, make that two, but the other one is still in the backyard area which means it's survived us - and several years of neglect. The fig tree seems stressed (either too much water or not enough will do that), yet there are four figs on it! We also harvested our first peach from the peach tree in the front yard (one of several, as well), but we're not going to get very many this year... just not a good year for them. Maybe next year. Because we've got bees, now, the trees will have more fruit. Just not this year, although for the first time, the trees are absolutely gorgeous. We've had to spray them several times with bt to keep the web worms off of them, but it seems to have worked.

The pear tree, although it had fire blight last year (which is purported to be the death of a tree) has wonderful new growth this year. I sprayed the tree with a combination of orange oil and bt last year, because I think that fireblight is caused by creatures, not a disease. All I know is that it seems to have worked.

We had a happy hour with some of my friends last week and when we got home, we discovered that the goats managed to get into the front yard and backyard and destroyed many branches of redbuds and the oaks, and tore up my herb garden as well as some prized bushes. Luckily, we had nets around the fruit trees in the front so we didn't lose any branches. Goats love to browse, which means eathing grass and bushes and trees, oh my.

Later in the evening:

I made crackers - great recipe that's very forgiving. And it's very simple. Water, oil, salt and flour - then some kind of seasoning. Easy to do and you can make all sorts of flavors. One batch fills up one baking sheet.

Shoveled dirt into the cart to put down on the raised bed (onions, artichokes, etc..), but will need to turn it again because the weeds have taken control of it, as always happens when you turn your head for ten seconds.

Sat out and watched the goats in the evening. Their bellies are so full that they can barely move and all the females look very pregnant again, but they're not.

Planning on planting the basil, the beets (it may be too late for them in texas), the Salvias I've grown from seed and a few more things from the greenhouse before it gets too hot.

And then there's the goats that need to be tagged and given their worming medicine and their hooves need to be trimmed and we need to go grocery shopping.

Gah.

Mother and child

Last night, both Mike and I were completely exhausted after work, ready to do the DVD movie thing. We had delivered pizza for dinner - a treat when you are on a farm in the middle of nowhere.

Mike was idly looking out the window at the goats and saw our most pregnant goat, 71 (as we affectionately call her) lying on her side away from the others in the barnyard.

This wasn't right. Her udder had grown disproportionately to her body - she-goats walk kind of funny when they're all 'bagged up' back there with milk.

We arrived to discover that she was oozing... the stream of goo coming from her backside isn't a very pleasant thing to see, but it did tell us that she was ready to give birth. So we dragged her (it took both of us) into a stall, spoiled her with alfalfa, apple treats, grain and other stuff.

However, we'd been keeping her in the same stall because we already knew it would be any day that she'd give us a kid or two. But today, Mike fed her really well and then let her out for a bit to get some sunshine and nibble on the green grass. She didn't eat much of what we gave her. This we should have noticed. She's not one to pass any food by if it's within butting distance.

So when we dragged her back into the same stall because of the goo sticking out of her hind side, we knew it would be a matter of no more than an hour when she would grace this world with another kid. Her last one died late in the year last year. We're hoping this one doesn't. We've had a great kidding season with few losses, so we're crossing fingers and toes.

Mike loves to take pictures of the goats' most intimate moments, such as, you know, giving birth. So we have a whole series of her grunts, pushes, standing up and then lying down again (repeatedly), and then finally the bubble of amniotic fluid that comes out with the kid's hooves and nose - they come out with head and hooves positioned as if for a long dive, with hands above one's head and put together, then head down for the jump.

The kid enters this world pretty slimy and screaming for food. Mom is busy cleaning it all the while and within ten minutes, it's up on its feet and ready to chow down on Mom's teats. This time, it's another male.

The kid was born at 7:45 last night and is probably the last kid of the kidding season. Last year, 71 kidded on Mike's birthday in July. She's the odd one out, as the rest of the moms usually kid in late December or in January and February.

It was molasses water (for energy), more feed and privacy for 71 and her newborn. For us, it was an early night and no movie. Perhaps tomorrow. You just never know what's going to happen from one day to the next when you live on a farm.

This morning, the rain hit just as we were leaving for work. It's likely to rain most of the morning and the goats stay in the barn during the storms and eat hay and grain. At least 71 won't be alone. She'll have 41 others to keep her company.

Advantages of an organic world without the organic hype.

Let’s face it… sometimes a household consists of two different political perspectives, two opposites that can’t agree on politics, but can still sit down to a fine meal, take walks within the confines of one’s property or simply sit out and enjoy the earth. Living without chemicals –organically, if you will, doesn’t require a political stance. It requires common sense and a love of nature. You don’t have to belong to any group or be a fanatic to make the switch and enjoy the benefits of living WITH nature and not working against her. The alternative of ugly chemicals is not practical and it's expensive, not to mention deadly to the creatures that can help you out. Life is about balance. Getting that balance for your property may take time, but it's certainly worth it.


When my gourd and vegetable plants spring from the ground, it is tempting to bring in the heavy artillery (RoundUp) to take away the weeds that pop up with them – weeds that grow faster than my plants do, no matter how much I fertilize with compost or mulch them to protect the soil from drying out with the Texas heat. But with weeds come one truism that I’ve heard from the die hard organic culture: The weeds are a good diversion for the leafhoppers, grasshoppers, cutworms, and other little buggers that tend to ruin a perfectly good harvest.

Granted, I spray my vegetable plants with Bacillus thuringiensis, or BT. Green Light puts it out in what looks like white and green oil bottles (oh, the irony). BT is found at most big box stores or nurseries and isn’t anything that requires a degree to use. It isn’t a part of any ‘system’ calling itself organic. It is simply an off-the-shelf product that could save your tomatoes and eggplants from the little creatures that like green leafy things as much as you do. I let the weeds take the hit from the bugs in the garden, not my vegetables.

I’ve also discovered something amazing after nearly four years of keeping the harsh chemicals from the farm and garden – the good bugs are taking over. Those good bugs – ladybug larvae, ladybugs, army beetles, dung beetles, frogs, lizards, etc. have returned en masse – When I see a plant with aphids, there are at least three ladybugs on that plant eating them.

Sitting out and watching the birds or the goats is one of our favorite pastimes. Because our place doesn’t stink of chemicals or perhaps because the bugs are so prevalent, we’ve seen a three-fold increase in the number of birds around – from nighthawks, caracaras, owls and woodpeckers to blue jays, bluebirds, scissor tails, mockingbirds, cardinals, Bewick’s wrens, chickadees and tufted titmice. This kind of noise pollution I can handle.

Fire ants are, of course, problematic in Texas, but we've managed to keep them out of the garden by acquiring a backpack-style sprayer and using molasses and water. It doesn’t kill them, but does keep them from building temples on my property. A couple of tablespoons of molasses to three gallons of water covers my entire garden. I did one massive spraying in February and that's lasted even to now, mid-May. Molasses is also purported to enrich the soil, as well and I need all the help I can get.

Taking walks where you can stop and smell the roses (if we had any) without the attack of fire ants makes this extra effort worthwhile.

So whoever’s in office doesn’t matter when dinner’s on the table and the food tastes like food, or when we’re taking a walk and stumble upon a bird’s nest that’s well guarded by the squawking jay or cardinal. We can stand silently, listen to the birds frantically chirping for us to leave, and not feel the nasty sting of fire ants on our feet. At least... not near the garden. And life is good. Today.
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ope

watching the clouded day
grace tormented ground
we hope
for the ever-elusive: hard rain.

the pulling wind sucks old air up toward
the menacing clouds
and rumbles walk behind the streaking glare
of lightning’s first approach

and as the isolated sprinkle
touches hats of straw
the wind twists and turns around
chasing our disparaging souls
inside.

On April 5th we took a pleasant day off from the farm (after feeding all the animals) and went to pick up our shiny new dairy goat, Geraldine. She is a now two month old Nubian doeling. A very happy, spunky girl. She sat on Kristi's lap for the 2 hour trip home nibbling on a handful of grasses that we plucked from the side of the road. To economize on fuel we combined the trip with stopping in Navasota to pick up our first package of bees. We are now budding beekeepers!

Geraldine behaved herself in the potty department for the entire trip. That is, until we got home and I had stopped the truck, went around to open the door for Kristi and Geraldine and at that moment she began peeing on the seat. Sigh. You can take the goat out of the barnyard, but you can't take the barnyard out of the goat. You can quote me on that. In the few weeks we have had her she has had to go though many changes. Introduced to a different farm, different fields, different goats, barn et al. She has held up remarkably well. While we have done our best to protect her, the nature of goats to a new member of the herd is to show her who's boss. That means she gets butted around some. As far as I know she's been knocked down twice. We've stopped a bunch of hits and fortunately the butts have settled down. after 3 weeks she is pretty much a member of the herd and is with them as they move from field to field.

She was a bottle baby and we didn't want to add to her stress by abruptly changing her diet at the same time as moving her, so she stayed on the bottle. Each morning and afternoon she would get a nice warm bottle of our baby goat formula. That includes 1/2 whole milk, 1/4 buttermilk and 1/4 milk replacer. This mixture helps to prevent scours and they like it. The downside is it's expensive and we had 3 bottle babies going at the same time. It seems like we were running to the store every other day for milk. Slowly we began to wean off all 3 babies. 1 went quickly. He's a wether and while he was the biggest of the 3, he was mostly weaned to pasture anyway. Since he was sharing a bottle with the other wether, the bottle was pretty much empty by the time he got his turn. Geraldine was easy. To help ease her into the herd and help her become familiar with the herd and surroundings, I attached her bottle holder to the milking stand. She would stand up there with her bottle and was able to watch and hear the feeding frenzy in the barn. One day I left the bottle in the tack room and gave her a cup of grain. There was a little confusion on her part but all by herself she began eating grain. She is so prim and proper that she would take one tiny little piece at a time, chew it thoroughly and swallow before taking the next piece. The other goats take huge mouthfuls and I don't see much chewing going on. Of course, they have competition (40 goats are getting only a half bucket of grain) but goats take great pleasure in bashing each other during feeding time. Eating seems secondary. So all the babies are weaned now. Only the smallest wether has had trouble adjusting. He still comes around and tries to suck on fingers, clothing, shoes, the barn, stall bars and anything else get can get his lips on.

A week before we went to collect the goat and bees Kristi hurt her back. It was my fault. At the end of a long hard day of work I wanted to get one last thing done. I wanted to remove some field fencing that had been wired to the electric fencing between the house and garden. This would improve the appearance and view which nice, but my main goal was weedwacking. The weeds grow quickly here and I use a string trimmer to keep them down. The string however seems magnetically attracted to the wire of the field fencing. So I can't get very close to it. and since most of the weeds grew right at the fenceline a lot would go untrimmed and the fence looked unsightly.

I had detached the field fencing and laid it down on the ground. The fencing was longer than the width of the field (it had gone around a corner at one end) and I needed to pull it out straight before I could roll it up. It was about 80 feet long and with the early spring weeds it was too much for me alone to move it. So I was pulling the whole thing while Kristi was jockying it around a corner so it wouldn't get hung up. At some point during this exercise, she pulled a muscle in a bad way. From that point on she was in pain for about 6 weeks!

Kristi was hardly able to move when we left to go pick up the goat and bees. I'd have done it myself, but she would have none of that. She had to be right in the middle of it. While the drive out and back went well, there was a minor problem. We now had a package of bees. A package of bees is a small portable screened room with food and separate quarters for the queen. The package contains 11,000 bees. Kristi was the one who was going to be the beekeeper. I was interested, but she was going to do the handling. With her back the way it was she couldn't run away if anything went wrong ( like if she dropped the whole package). So I got to do the handling. We had all the stuff. Bee veil - the metal mesh hood that prevents bees from crawling into your nose and ears. We had a suit. Gloves. A smoker to *calm* the bees (yeah, right). Our hive was set up and ready. So I put the veil on and installed the bees. The way you install bees follows.

First you remove a wooden or in our case cardboard cover from the package this exposes a soup can that contains sugar syrup. Fast food for bees. It takes a lot of food to keep 11,000 bees fed. I removed the can and that exposed the queens cage and also it made a large opening that bees could get out through. I removed the queens cage with my bare fingers. I put the cardboard cover back over the hole to keep the bees from escaping before I was ready for them. Kristi was snapping pictures from a safe distance. The queens cage was completely covered with bees. There must have been a hundred bees on it. You couldn't see into the cage because of all the bees. Carefully I got out my pocket knife and removed the tiny cork that prevents the queen from getting out. I then placed the queens cage into the hive and fastened it into place. She can now come out when ever she wants to.
The next step was fun. I read the instructions for this step several times to be SURE I had it right. Once again I removed the cover from the package. the bees were buzzing loudly. I then whacked the package of 11,000 bees on the ground to dislodge them from the top of the cage, turned it upside down and proceeded to shake the bees out of the package into the hive. This is where I had to stifle the "run away now" reflex. When I had most of them out, or when I couldn't stand it anymore - that whole part is a fog- I carefully inserted some frames into the hive, they had been removed earlier to create enough room for all the bees. Then I slowly, to avoid crushing them-that can make them mad- put the cover back on top of the hive. I left the package in front of the hive with the opening of the package facing the opening of the hive. I then stepped slowly away and removed the veil. Whew. We sat there for hours watching as the bees from the package slowly made their way out and over to the hive.

How many times did I get stung?

Not once.

Kidding season 2008

Kids kids kids. Lots of kids. Since January 25th we have had 11 baby goats born. It's been busy. Of course the goats did most of the work. But there are times when they need help.

First was 201 who gave us a nice big buckling. It was born with about 4 feet of umbilical wrapped around it. We didn't think anything of it and when it dropped off 3 days later all was well. But day 4 the kid just layed around sleeping. Not much activity. Day 5 it started shaking and shivering. I took it to the vet on day 6. So our $20.00 goat cost us $120.00 in vet fees. The baby had an infection due to the umbilical (and what it was dragged around through). We administered antibiotics, milk and fluids. We made sure it was comfortabe, even having it in the house (a VERY rare treat for any of our creatures) We even began milking the goats, which we hadn't done before to get it colostrum. The milk-benefical bacteria mixture that is present in the milk of a new mom. After all our efforts on day 8 the baby died.

Next up was 5. 5 is a smallish Spanish (mixed breed) goat. Very hardy, doesn't require much effort to maintain. Usually. Kristi was home from work sick on Monday the 28th of January. 5 went into labor in the morning and it was quickly apparent that something was wrong. The normal way a goat is born is that a water sac appears, then a front hoof or two and then the nose. In this case 5 had been pushing for a half hour and the kid's head was out but the feet weren't Kristi was able to get her fingers inside of 5, find the legs and get them to come out and then she gently pulled the kid out. She saved the kid and likely the mom too. Kid and mom are both fine. Another buckling.

6 was next also on the 28th. Even though they usually don't follow any numerical order. A perfectly normal birth and a big perfectly normal buckling.

12 had a small buckling on the 29th. She's a good mom. Had the baby all cleaned up and ready to show the herd in an hour.

9 had twins very quickly on January 31st. I say quickly because I was watching the goats and thought she was being awfully chatty for her. We went to watch a British comedy on DVD. So 40 minutes later we go back to check and she has had twins! One male and one female.

On February 1st 215 kidded. Our first twins of the year. One was slightly larger than the other and the smaller one had both rear legs bent backwards at the joints. It looke painful and the kid was just basically dragging them around. 215 didn't like the look of that so she was rejecting it. So we would supplement the kids feed with our "new kid" formula. Watching the new kid is is getting to feed from 215 but is isn't her favored kid. We think she'll condescend to take care of it.

Now it's 213's turn on the 2nd. She took about a half hour. She strained mightily to get the first one out. She was up instantly taking care of it and the second kid just plopped out on the ground unnoticed. She is taking care of both. Two males I think. I'll have to double check that. One oddity about 213's kids is that Delores, one of our rare named goats has taken a fancy to it. She follows it around sniffing. She lets it try to nurse even though she's dry. She's pregnant but not due for a month or so.

Today it was Blank's turn. When I went to feed the animals at 4:40 this morning she was laying down outside the barn in the same spot she was last night. That's a little unusual but not too weird. I fed everybody and she stayed out there instead of coming in to eat. Now THAT'S weird! I took her a scoop of food and looked at her butt. She had the amber goo coming out. So she's ready to kid! Kristi had come out to the barn by that time, no doubt wondering what was taking me so long. She was able to help me wrestle blank into a stall. Blank got a huge bowl of food and treats for her trouble. When we got home from work she had popped out twins! Both are big kids. She even cleaned up the afterbirth for me.

Next up I think will be 8. I put her in a stall this evening.

Canned alive

8 pints pasta sauce. Three more trays of sun-dried going into the hopper. My advice to those who would can fresh tomatoes or processed ones.. when squeezing the seeds out of them after parboiling and peeling them, SMELL the tomatoes. If they smell 'off' or not like a tomato is supposed to smell, then throw it to the chickens.. or, uh, put it in the compost bin. They're not going to make your sauces taste as good as they could. We've had a lot of rain and picking tomatoes when they're just turning orangish or reddish is best, as they will ripen just perfectly off the vine and taste just as good, despite the fallacy of the marketing hype that tells us all that only vine-ripened tomatoes are worth eating. Bah!

Planted twelve pepper plants that were in small containers and not doing so well. Mike had prepped a 4 x 4 area and I added finished compost to the top of it and then stuck the plants in that. It's been raining so water will come from the top and let the water take the nutrients from the compost down into the soil where the roots stretch.

Also added compost to the watermelon and the gourd plants just outside the garden. I saw one of the apple gourd plants today that I planted in the specialty gourd area and it had a tiny little apple gourd on it! Woo hoo!!!!

For harvesting gourds, you have to wait until they dry or the stem turns brown before you pick it, otherwise the gourd will pucker and the whole thing will rot. Once the stem is dead, the gourd itself has also begun to dry and won't rot after you remove it from the vine. I could also just leave them in the field and let them dry, but I don't. I use the greenhouse during the late summer just to dry gourds. The greenhouse, at that point, is too hot for anything else.

While I was doing the inside work on the tomatoes today, I thought of this beautiful woman who is about to embark on the journey of her life. She is going to homestead in Virginia. I was thinking back to a time when we were doing all the stuff to prepare ourselves for farm life. We bought a cream separator (and used it, but ironically, not on the farm, yet). We had chickens in a fancy neighborhood until the roosters started to crow and we had to off them. We grew a small (18 foot by 14 foot) garden and learned to can stuff. We learned how to test the soil and how to make compost and compost tea... and a lot more. We were preparing, but nothing can prepare you for farm life, really, unless you were born on a farm. Luckily, this woman will have had some experience as a child on a farm and be better prepared than we were. My bones ache just thinking about what she's up against.

Tired.

gourdacious grounds and then there's more.

Saturday: 5 pints tomato/spaghetti sauce. 10 jars (1/4 pints mostly) sun-dried tomatoes. Two more batches in the hopper.

Sunday: 6 pints salsa - combining the stuff I made a few days ago but didn't can, with the hot mix I did today. EXcellent flavor combined. Salsa fresca and cooked salsa together.

On Saturday, I put compost on a bunch more gourd plants. The gourd society here is pretty picky about their gourds and if I don't get them thick enough, I'll be run out on a rail. Which is what happens at their meetings, and which is why I don't go to them any more.

Most of the plants are doing okay, but the ones in good soil by the house and in the garden (where they shouldn't be) are so healthy that I know the gourds need this extra boost of compost. I also took a smelly, maggot-infested container of natural fertilizer that had been soaked with rain and will add a bunch more water to it, then sprinkle the fields with it.

Mike cleaned out the barn on Saturday and fixed a few things like the front-yard-gourd-area-to-the-street-fencing. Then we were able to move the orange portable fence out further and watched the goats go nuts over the new area to browse and eat.

On the ground, underneath where the broody hen was nesting (she had only one egg this morning, but about ten the day before - which means we need to set our trap again and catch the possum or raccoon that's been getting them), Mike found a snakeskin, probably from a rat snake or corn snake. We have a few snakes around these parts.

Today, Sunday, I've made a cooked salsa by throwing things in that I know go with it. I also look online for recipes, but never use them, only cooking times, ideas about what goes in them and general prep instructions from many sources. This is how I think the Internet is most useful. A ton of ideas from which to create your own unique flavors. Also making lemon bars and since baking is much more a science sometimes than an art, I use a real recipe and just one.

Mike is making tomato bread (what else!) and smoked some tomatoes on the grill, then let me have them to dry. They smell wonderful and fill the house with the smell of oak wood.

One of our little goats, Thirty, which is Ten's kid, is having problems with worms, so Mike and I wormed it. Mama goat, who we thought we gave a good dose of worming stuff to before, seems to have worms again. Poopy butt, swollen jowls, lethargy. All signs of an unhealthy goat.

In the afternoon, we got another fifty feet of fencing installed, pulling down the old field fence and attempting to put up newer stuff. This ridiculous neighbor ( a mile down the road a bit) stopped by -- mind you, many people stop by to give us reports like "I've been here 27 years and never seen nuthin' lahk it.." or, "this flood was really unusual". All reports amount to the same thing -- that the flash flood we had wasn't typical. But THIS lady... "this fence goes down every single year..." Uh. Huh. Mind you, we've been here three years and only once has this happened and everyone else says it hasn't happened for a long time. The lady had expensive hair, a nice car and one of those really fake smiles that say, "I don't belong in the country".

We are both exhausted, but managed to go to Home Depot, to the grocery store and to Tractor Supply to pick up some goat feed. Mike is making chicken wings for dinner and I just don't know how he has the energy to do it.

On the way home, heading down the driveway to the house, we watched the goats. They have access to the area we set up that goes beyond where they were able to eat but have not gone out there all day. This is probably because they don't have to go far to eat grass. But they were, at the end of the day, in this newly created area. We think that because they weren't allowed to go into it until yesterday late in the day, they just didn't go there in the morning. Creatures of habit, they are.

7 pints salsa
5 half-pints sun-dried tomatoes and one more sheet drying. The dehydrator we're using will not be able to keep up. Luckily, I inherited one a few years ago and will be using that one, as well soon, if our tomato crops keep producing like they are now.

Last year, I was busy doing stuff for the sesquicentennial at the school where I work. Of course, that meant that the farm suffered immeasurably since I was not around and not processing what we had grown and not tending to the growth in the field. There were times when I had to throw out many of the tomatoes because they were rotting on the counter. But not this year.

Mike asked me to count the tomato plants we have this year and I laughed. This year, I cut all the bottom leaves off so the plants would grow tall. By the time they did, we had not yet put the cages on them (which would have been a bust, I think, considering how big the plants are and how much fruit is on them. The small cages that I used for a few of them are just bent over with the weight of the fruit this year). So the sprawling plants, ladened with goodness, take over the garden, produce so much that I'm running to keep up with it. I think he wants to quantify what others know as a tomato plant, but it's hard to do when the tomato plants are producing probably twice or three times what someone else's plants would do.

I will probably do a few more batches of salsa then switch to spaghetti sauce. These are things we use a ton of during the year, although we haven't had spaghetti in a long time. I think it's too common a food for Mike. :) Or maybe he had too much of it as a kid. I know I did. But the same sauce we can use for his homemade pizzas and that's worth it. He's such a good cook and what I offer up to the whole cooking business is my uncanny ability to can ably. Say that ten times fast.

I also provide many of the herbs we use, both dried and fresh. And, of course, I planted the garden with plants I grew from seed while Mike did the peripheral stuff, like build huge compost piles for me and do the tractor work to prep the fields. It all works and we work very well together.

Now, if we could only get some raw milk for cheesemaking.

6 half-pints sun-dried tomatoes.
Gathered about 15 lbs of tomatoes this time. Processed about seven pounds, which includes parboiling and then squeezing the juice and the seeds out of them.
Cut and put into the dehydrator another two trays of tomato halves, with salt and home-dried herbs. The six half-pints came from four trays processed yesterday.

Mike prepped the salsa that will be canned this evening (against his will).

I came home yesterday to find that one of the goats -- Eight's kid, wasn't around. Her other, older kid was lying with her, but the whether with the whiter head born late last year wasn't. I looked around, circling the barn about three times. Only the other goats of the same age and body size are females and tagged -- 26 and 32, specifically, were there. I fed the goats and fowl, then headed for the back backwoods (versus the woods directly behind the house) always scanning the landscape for a white and brown goat body, this one being about 50 pounds worth. They're easy to spot if they want to be spotted. Otherwise, they disappear. After traveling through many spider webs and discovering that the whole place is overgrown again and the wood Mike cut last year is still on the ground in the far back, I headed back to the house, noting that the trash from March's flood was still on the ground, as well. Picking it up is on my growing list of things to do.

The kid wasn't anywhere to be found and I was about to scan the front area where the goats are not currently allowed when it just showed up. Don't know where it was, but it was confounding that it just appeared, to say the least. It's too hot to bury another goat right now and I just don't have the energy.

Watched more LOTR and washed several loads of dishes after processing and canning tomatoes. Another 30 lbs of tomatoes sits on our counter, ripening.

black sweat pants, stickerbur dance.

Farm life is beginning to be easier, but only after three years of being here. Every evening, Mike and I sit and ponder this fact, ponder life or the universe or other stuff, but of course, that involves sitting outside with the goats, or with the dog and various chickens scratching around and sometimes a peacock checking us out. Today, all the creatures want to be around us - especially since we have chips and my homemade salsa, but most particularly, the corn chips. Corn is a universal food, loved by all and eaten by nearly evrything on the planet in one form or another. It's very popular with our breeds. I just wish I could grow it successfully.

But that's another story.

Farm life is good because of the fields of gourds and literally tons of vegetables which happen to be mostly tomatoes and peppers at the moment (with errant gourds growing in and around them, as well) . It's a good life, too, because the animals are all pretty healthy.

We have the growing of tomatoes down.. that we have. It's the weed populations and it's why the black plastic didn't work and it's what we need to do next year that's eating us -- and all the bugaboos that we have to work out next year. All these improvements from last year creates a mysterious mix of success that we have and continue to have, but yet, never really have totally. For example, had the weeds not taken over, had the gourds ALL germinated properly, had we had the sprinklers set right.. you know the drill... something can always be done a bit better.

But it's always an adventure.

In the Texas heat - mild for this time of year, it's eighty degrees outside but feels 100 with the humiidty-rampant air that sucks the last breath out of you and leaves you wringing out your shirt in the yard to dispense with the water/sweat accumulations.

Today, I planted about a fourth of the first part of the 'acre' of gourds again today while Mike repaired fences. The germination wasn't what it should have been and the blank spaces in the field need to be filled in. I know that in Texas, you don't plant anything past the first of July and expect it not to fry in the summer heat, so I'm running out of gourd-growing time.

I also added compost to many of the existing gourd plants that seem to be a bit puny. Hopefully, they'll come around before it's too hot and begin their long, long vines that will stretch, eventually, across the full acre. We have great compost, piles of it, in fact, but it does no good if it's not sitting on top of some plant or the other.

I have been feeling the effects of the steroids that are used to combat poison ivy (Dexamethazone) and frankly, have lost a large part of the last two weeks because I've been so out of it. The drugs make me crazy, make me pant and panic a lot, tend to make me feel 'drunk' and make me act like someone I'm not.

The nurse I called on Friday felt like I needed to go to the hospital emergency room in Bastrop because I simply ca told her how the drugs were screwing me up. She had already told Mike that I shouldn't drive and should not do anything else, for that matter, except drink lots of fluids. I called the doctor's office simply because I could, for the first time, do this without wanting to bite their heads off for what they did to me.

I drove home the back way on Friday -- and barely, really, made it without killing someone or myself. Or maiming someone since I know I'd go to jail if I did anything more.

But alas, the effects of this fiasco are almost over. I will never, ever call the doctor on a weekend. Somehow I think they were punishing me because I interrupted their dinnertime and thus gave me these potent steroids for retribution. You don't want to mess with their dating time.

Anyway, back to the farm. We seem to have a bead on the goats' health and that's important. And it's Father's day, so Mike's on the phone with his dad, no doubt regaling him of all the things of the farm, since Mike's dad lived on a farm in his youth.. and soon it will be time to make dinner. And then relax for the rest of the evening. Or finish the second DVD of the Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring long version. Both my parents passed away in the last ten years, so there's no need to call anyone. Game over, obligation over. I miss them both, especially my father. Take care of yours. It's an important lesson to learn, but you don't have to learn much. Honor those who brought you to this world and love them for who they are, not for what you think they should have been.

5/29/2007 14 pints of bread and butter pickles
6/17/2007 5 pints of salsa
6/17/2007 1 pint sundried tomatoes
6/17/2007 2 half pints sundried tomatoes.

Twice a day we're walking the tomato patch collecting a hundred tomatoes. Going to be a banner year for us. We can all our own tomato products including sundried tomatos, whole, stewed, barbecue sauce, paste, sauce, salsa, tomato chutney, spagetti sauce oh and tomato soup too. We're getting far more tomatoes out of far fewer plants this year. We are scurrying around looking for recipes to can too.

This weekend has been rainy, unusual for central Texas in June. So we have only done a few hours of outdoor work. I did some tractor work to level out the ground where the fence repairs are still going on from the March flood. I also collected some gravel and put it down on the driveway where water pools up. I cemented in a new gate post for the section of fence along the gourd field that collapsed during the same flood. Kristi collected many pounds of tomatoes, watered everything in the greenhouse, collected all the rotting tomatoes and pelted the goats with them. 216 in particular had tomato seeds all over her. Kristi also put down a cart load (1200 lbs) of compost on the first section of the gourd field. These are the plants she started in the greenhouse. I loaded the cart for her with the tractor being careful not to over do it. The first time I used the tractor to load the cart I flattened both tires because the compost was too heavy.
Once the ground dries out a bit I'll go try to hammer in 3 fiberglass poles for the gourd fence and reattach the HT wire to the gate post. That will be one minor repair done after the flood.

Storm's coming. The sky is black to the north, you can hear the occasional
thunder and it's moving this way. Kristi is fussing over her garden. We've
changed the position of the portable electric fence and the goats are
greedily eating. At the same time I can take credit for mowing even though
I am letting the goats do it. I am sitting on a chair in the driveway
entering this blog post via my Palm Treo, sipping wine and swatting at gnats.
The wind is starting to pick up feeding the upcoming storm. Soon I'll have
to bring the goats in and go inside for the night. Temperature is dropping
quickly now.
We've been watching our roadrunner pair building their nest. The are so
used to us we can walk by them and they hardly move. They've been buidling
their nest and practicing mating rituals for a couple of weeks now. I'm
thinking we have a bird-friendly place what with chickens, turkeys, pea
fowl and guineas. I'll keep the fence where it is for a few days, until
the goats have mown it down to the ground. Filling their bellies and
robbing me of the 'pleasure' of mowing. And sweating. And sneezing. Then we'll
move the fence to another overgrown location. At present, with 11 inches of
rain over normal so far this year and more expected in a few minutes, I'm
not lacking in locations for grazing.
___

Sunday we "harvested" the rest of our chickens for the year. We came out with a total of 28 birds. One had been killed by a raccoon and one was dead in the barn stall when we went to collect them in the morning. We are going to leave up our festive chicken harvesting area till next weekend when we intend to harvest our first goat. We have a couple that are a little older and we need to stop them from getting any older. No doubt that the older ones will be a little tougher but we can always stew them or braise them. I love cabrito, Kristi not so much. I need to make something that is especially delicious. Then it will be something to look forward to. I have some research to do before we do the deed. I have no idea how to butcher the kid to get good cuts. No doubt I'll make a mess of it the first time or two. To celebrate, we're getting our freezer repaired tomorrow. Gotta have a place to put the lil baby until we can stomach eating him.

Saturday Kristi cleaned out the backyard goldfish pond. She also pruned the overgrown trees that obscured the view of the pond. Now we can see it from the house. It looks great. I mowed the back yard and as I was finishing I saw a chicken running around with a snake! By the time I saw it the snake was dead. It was about 12 inches long, probably a grasssss ssssnake but I didn't get a close look. The hen was pretty protective of her booty. It's amazing just how much a chicken can eat. Kristi reminded me of one of our first chickens that ate a HUGE beetle larva that we found in the compost. It was about 3 inches long and as big around as your thumb. She swallowed it whole.

We've been having fun moving our portable electric fence around and letting the goats mow the grass and weeds. They do a nice job. What's great about it is that we are doing slightly less work I (it does take some effort to move the fence and get power to it) and the goats are going to bed with full bellies. Yesterday we herded them into the driveway since the grass was getting long due to the recent wonderful rains.

I repaired my creek water pump once again. The male adapter that goes into the pump and connects the piping system has broken twice. Saturday I bought a rubber coupler hoping that the rubber would absorb some of the vibration that is fracturing the plastic. It didn't work though. The pressure was enough to blow the rubber coupler apart. So I bought a broken horse stall mat from TSC for $10.00, cut a chunk off of it and put it under the pump. I ran a full tank of gas through the pump and it didn't break. So far so good.

We're a little disappointed with the new gourd field. We only seem to have about 20 percent of the plants that we expected. So we will likely have to put some more seed down while we have the creek water available. We also have to put compost down for all these hundreds of plants. That will help the shells to grow thick.

chicken killing time

Last weekend, we exhausted ourselves by killing and processing 20 chickens on Saturday. What this entails --

We bought 30 more cornish crosses after the flood (we'd actually lost quite a few before the flood due to putting them into the regular chicken coop and not realizing that the regular chickens just wanted to kill them by pecking them apart).

These chickens we bought nine weeks ago and have been feeding them all along. These chickens, when nekkid, look just like the store-bought chickens that come in nice little packages for you.

farm along spring roads

The pear tree in the front, along a line of fruit trees (several plums, two peaches) bore great fruit this year, unlike the other fruit trees. No plums to speak of and one peach that rotted in the fridge. The other seven or so were probably eaten by squirrels.

I looked through old posts and found none that have shown the disastrous grace of the flood we had on March 12th, the first day of spring break in these parts and as I work for a school, that was the first morning that I had off... and I worked most of it at the farm, probably about 10 times harder than if I'd gone to work!

Here's what happened (email sent):
We've been inundated. Woke at 3:30 because a goat was screaming - a goat we normally don't hear at night. It was raining, but Mike went out to check on it - in his underwear, an umbrella and shoes thrown on. Since he was going, I knew it was safe to go back to sleep. Five minutes later, Mike is on the back deck and sticking his head in the door. "Help. We're underwater!" Up, up up we go until that night. Exhausted both of us.

The barn was under 3 feet of water, which means goats that are not more than a foot and a half high were trying to stay afloat. We got them on top of some hay bales, but barely and Mike had to yank one or two of them when they'd fallen off the edges of them. Remember that their moms are wanting in the stall with the hay in it as well and we let them all in there. The hay was wasted and useless after the flood and so whatever they ate of it now would not be a bad thing.

Mike went to get a rope from the greenhouse, about 40 yards from the house. Not sure if he was thinking clearly, but we were going to try to haul each goat across the flooded, rushing divide between the flooded barn and the side yard to the house which was, thankfully, on higher ground.

When he came back to the barn, I'd already gotten rope from the garage, attached it from a huge tree next to the house, then to one of the heavy wooden fence posts and then tied it off to a beam in the barn. We used this lifeline from the barn to the house to carry, under one arm while we hung on because the entire neighborhoods flooding was going straight through the property on the way to the creek in back.

The water was rushing so fast from uphill that if we'd been caught in it, we most likely would have wound up in the electric fence or drowned. Much like a torrential river. But the lifeline allowed us to carry the smaller goats to the yard, which is above flood level. I pulled one of the nannies, after one escaped and headed to another high point where a stack of rocks had been piled, away from the barn, but not where we needed her. I got the second goat with Mike's help
through the water so that the little ones would have one adult goat (the
rest were in the water in the barn) to control the group. This seemed to
work and now we had the mom controlling the young ones underneath the shed roof where it was drier. Most of the goats either followed or stayed on the hay bales in the barn.

We lost our five turkeys that we were raising for later in the year,
along with 30 cornish cross chickens that died in the flood. The chickens
were roosting and I think all of them survived. It was still dark outside, so
we had to wait until it's light to assess the damage.

Because it wasn't light, we just decided, since goats and people were settled, that we'd sit calmly and read the paper. It was going to be a long day. We had to salvage the stuff in the tack room (most of the feed was spoiled because we'd stacked it on the floor) and the hay we got out of the stall, after giving much of it to the goats. They couldn't go to their stomping grounds and eat because they couldn't get there! The entire front area was flooded and the side was also, leaving us pinned in, essentially.

The sick goat had to be buried as well as the cornish crosses and Mike found the dead turkeys in the stall where they were flooded. We had to go in search of things like feed buckets, stools, anything that floated out of the barn. The whole back wooded area was so misshapen and looked like something out of the Star Wars swamp scene when Luke first meets Yoda.

I cleaned out the tack room a few days later. It was filled with mold and bad feed and stunk to high heaven. It costs us a great deal to replenish the feed and the hay, but eventually, we got through it and now we're more prepared for it. The lifeline from the house to the barn is attached to the midpost, we carry a better flashlight and have hooks for buckets along the barn stall walls. I put in cinderblocks in the tack room so the feed remains above flood level. THe hay in the hay stall is now also up higher and the boards underneath it will support stranded young goats if need be.

We were pretty lucky not to have lost all the young ones. One of the stand-offish goats I took care to sop off after the flood and the rest of the goats were actually a lot tamer, if not very upset over what happened and a bit in shell shock. They were actually good for a little while, not digging into my thighs with their horns to move goats out of the way during feeding time, etc... But now they're the same goats they always were.



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Later -- one goat that had fallen ill with bad worm problems drowned, but we think she had already died before she drowned. Our casualties were, in fact, numerous enough to have to find a dry place to bury them -- the old pet cemetery was across another point of water that fed into another part of the creek on the other side of the property. The rain went downhill into the 'j' of jiffy lube's symbol, curved around and then headed back to the creek. Luckily, the house was spared. Many neighbors would later tell us that the water hadn't gotten that bad since 26 years before. We just moved in three years ago.

While we were struggling, with a flashlight and whatever house lights we could use to see into the barn area so we could find more animals, we noticed police flashing lights at the top of the property, sending people back the other way. The creek was flooded and anyone heading into it along where it joins with the road and our property would have simply been swept away.

The damage to our fences was almost catastrophic. The entire dogleg fencing went down in a big way, took out long-standing posts in cement and basically has killed that field for the goats since it went down this day. It's now June. We still haven't fixed the fence, but we're well on the way to doing so. Just a few more small events need to happen and we bought the correct fencing this afternoon. SOON!