New home for goats

Today we moved the does from their stall and pen of three years to a new home. Their previous home was a good hundred yards or more up a pretty steep hill from the house. May not sound very far but trudging up the hill with a babe on the back and pulling one in a sled along with a milk pail and tote....or running up and down the hill mid winter when a doe is kidding, whew! Their new home is built onto the low side of our new addition. I've forgotten the exact measurements but it is ten feet wide and about twenty feet long. However, the main room is divided in half, each room about eight by ten, and then their is a roofed outer area with three walls, but it is not completely enclosed. The floor is dirt and the ceiling is only about six to seven feet tall. The area is designed very nicely. We can get a wheelbarrow/ cart into both areas easily. The covered area will have feeders on opposite walls. We can toss hay into the feeders from outside the gate. We've really been talking realistically about how many does we want to keep maximum as we already have six, three 3 yr olds, a dry yearling and two kids. The top number is probably ten to twelve max, but that is taking into account kids and dry yearlings. As far as a comfortable number of goats to milk, four to six is a nice number. If we started selling milk shares maybe I could milk eight does or so by hand. Really for our needs a few milkers is just fine. This new structure is over twice as big as their last home and can comfortably house at least a few more goats than we currently have.

The goats are a bit antsy/ anxious tonight. By now I'll bet they are all sleeping. The coolest thing is that every time I open my front door they are right there looking up at me. Our kitchen window looks up the hill towards the garden and former doe pen. But the goats have to be running around for me to be able to just barely see them. Having the does closer to the house makes chores significantly easier. We will be storing hay on the side of our driveway just above their pen. We can pump water into their waterer from the truck year round. There is plenty of room for covered grain storage nearby. We are planning on milking in the new addition for this winter. The area is still not completely enclosed but we do have a large wood-stove with the chimney just installed.

So our two bucklings moved into the does old stall and pen. Our Senior buck is to join them soon. He is in full rut at the moment so I'm hoping to do a bit of maintenance to the pen before moving him up. The bucklings have got to be quite impressed with their upward mobility in housing conditions and Xavier doesn't know it yet but he is about to be a very content buck as well once he has company again.

Tomorrow some folks are delivering a winter's supply of brome hay, about a hundred and twenty fifty pound bales. Currently we've got a couple large nine hundred and fity pound square bales and are on the list to pick up a couple twelve hundred pound bales as well. I'm slowly learning not to put all my eggs in one basket. Variety is key.

We have been so fortunate as far as the last couple weeks of weather is concerned. We had been getting cold temperatures and snow for several days. Then we had record breaking warm temperatures in the fifties, reaching low sixties over several days time. It was fabulous. We were so appreciative as Dustin was outside working whether at work or here working on the goat stall. We still have one batch of chickens waiting on Xavier for their winter home which will have a heat lamp and heated waterer. I was transplanting some perennial shrubs, rhubarb and chives as recently as yestereday. The ground is now frozen, I think for good, luckily the holes had been dug for months, just waiting for the right moment. Over the course of time several chickens had died and had all made it into the bottoms of the holes, I have a feeling those plants are just going to take off next summer.

In other news, we are up to eight to ten eggs a day. There are many pullets that are still not laying, just the new sexlinks are laying. Dustin just got the woodstove back in place a few days ago and we've been have wood fires from morning till night. I'm not sure how I ever go without, I enjoy them so. Wood fires bring such a warm feel to an otherwise cool dark time. It almost seems as though I can notice a difference in daylight from one day to the next. We have been losing close to seven minutes of daylight a day, which is huge! The sun isn't coming up until nine-ish and going down around six thirty or so. However, this is a hard time to be on the west side of the hill, as the sun doesn't actually hit our property until noonish. Ouch.

The dehydrator has been running for the last week non stop, drying tomatoes. I've got hot water jars in my outside fridge at the moment trying to keep our carrots and beets from freezing. We are about to move the fridge in, or can a bunch of veggies, hm... And tonight I pulled in a package of ribeyes for dinner two nights from now. We got the best deal on a local beef box. We've been buying or receiving all of our beef locally for the last few years. Dustin stopped by to buy a hundred dollar box from a new slaughterhouse that just opened up. He asked them about how much the box would weigh and they said about thirty pounds. Well he brought it home and weighed it and it is about forty-five pounds of mixed cuts and hamburger. At least three packages of ribeyes and a couple packages of tenderloin. Anyways that turns out to be barely over two dollars a pound which is a great deal. The beef is not organic, but it is local, raised on pasture in the summer months, and I believe hormone/ antibiotic free. To buy "natural"( which doesn't really mean anything) hamburger, it is about five dollars a pound.

I did take some pictures of the goats in their new home today, so I'll try and get those up for the next post. These final days before the imminent and lasting snow fall is so precious, we are scampering around in a frenzy. Our winter vacation is timed just about right. I think we will leave just as all our outside projects are completed and the snow is here to stay. We have a fabulous house-sitter who has gotten to know our house and animals over the last six years or so. Our biggest worry is exposing our kids to all the crazy illnesses while on vacation, not that I'm worried about colds or flus, but it would suck to get sick on vacation. Goodnight and happy fall days.

Tomatoes Galore

Twelve o'clock and clockwise: Black Pear, Pink Accordian, Green Zebra, Black Krim, center Ida Gold, Sungold and assorted reds.

I am beginning to feel just a tad bit overwhelmed with tomatoes. We picked seventy pounds of green tomatoes a few weeks ago and they've gradually been ripening. Every few days I sort through the boxes and put the ripe ones in what has become the tomato bowl. Well then there was the bowl and a small box of ripe tomatoes, and then two boxes. I tried making sauce last week. It was the first time I've ever dunked tomatoes in boiling water and skinned them before chopping them up. It was a lot of work and I'm not sure the results were worth it or not. I had some paste tomatoes but a majority of red slicing and beefsteak tomatoes. For the last few days most of the tomatoes are heirloom and cherry tomatoes. We've got a small box of sungold cherry tomatoes. We've also got a couple nice looking Black Krim which I'm saving along with a Pink Accordian for a special tomato tart recipe. Other varieties in the bowl include Green Zebra, Ida Gold, Black Pear, Orange Russian and numerous red tomatoes of all shapes and sizes.

I've been chopping up tomatoes and serving them with garlic and olive oil (add cilantro and lime for salsa) with almost every meal, on top of salads and pasta, in tacos, with chips... I had been meaning to make and can some green tomato jam but it just hasn't been high on the list. In the past I've canned pickled green tomatoes but I still have some in the pantry. I've been holding out to begin dehydrating tomatoes. I figure that there are still a lot of tomatoes to ripen and the later ones won't be as good so I'll dry those. I'd like to have at least a gallon of dried tomatoes going into winter. There are a lot of plain red tomatoes ripening so I'll either be doing a lot of drying or some more sauce making. If it were warmer out I'd be making gazpacho or chilled tomato soup, but they've lost their appeal with the fall weather.

I'm almost burned out on our favorite easy fresh tomato pasta recipe which goes something like this:
1. Chop up a bunch of tomatoes, two to three pounds.
2. Add 1/4 cup olive oil and salt and pepper to taste
3. Chop up a mix of herbs, basil and parsley, maybe some oregano
4. Let the tomato mixture sit as you bring water to a boil for pasta
5. Boil pasta according to instructions, we usually use spaghetti or angel hair for this recipe.
6. While pasta is boiling grate parmesan, sometimes I pull out some capers or kalamatta olives
to add some extra kick, but certainly not essential to the recipe.

Last of all toss it all together and taste for salt once more. I usually stir some parmesan in and top with some as well. Serve alone or with buttered toast or salad. A light to medium red wine is nice, nothing so bold that it overpowers the meal. This recipe is quick, easy and fresh. We make it several times over the course of the summer. The tomato juice and olive oil combines to make a very nice sauce.

Well, it is October and we finally have a plethora of tomatoes. It has been a long wait. We no longer have our own fresh cilantro or basil so I just broke down and bought some cilantro from the store. We go on vacation in a few weeks so we'll be eating as many tomatoes as we can stand for the next couple weeks and then I'll dehydrate the rest. If anyone has any great tomato recipes that are not too time consuming and use up lots of tomatoes let me know. Tonight we are having navajo tacos with refried beans, cilantro coleslaw and tomatoes. Tomorrow I'm thinking pizza with the cooked tomato sauce and fresh tomatoes on top. We have a favorite tomato tart recipe that I'll be making soon. It has a rich parmesan crust filled with tomatoes, fresh basil. capers and kalamatta olives, mmm.

Hermaphrodite Chicken

Hermaphrodite Welsummer Pullet

It appears as though we have a hermaphrodite chicken. The Welsummer chicks can be sexed at a day old and we were certain this chick was a pullet (female chicken under a year old). As she grew it was obvious that she was definitely a pullet. About a month ago we had a friend over who is our local chicken expert and she noticed immediately. The first sign was the rooster feathers and upon closer inspection she is growing a comb and is getting the head feathers of a rooster as well. I was bummed because we were down to two Welsummer pullets, and I am more excited about the eggs out of this breed than any of the others.

another view

Fortunately, my chicken expert friend has several Welsummer Pullets and I was able to buy two more from her. So, once again I am up to three, and hoping I don't lose any more. I looked up a bit about hermaphrodite chickens. I believe that this one started life as a pullet. In the last couple months she injured one of her ovaries and her body began producing more testosterone. I don't think she will ever lay any eggs. Should be interesting to see how closely she resembles our other Welsummer rooster.

Welsummer cockeral and pullet

I've shared this photo before but here it is again. You can click on the pictures to see a close up. This is a regular Welsummer cockeral and pullet. You can see how the chicken in the top photos looks like the pullet but is beginning to look like the cockeral.

Falling into winter

These photos are a couple weeks old. At the time we were so busy harvesting I didn't have time to write. Noah and I had a lovely afternoon harvesting carrots together. I tried not to harvest more than I could clean and bag in a day or two. Digging the carrots was much quicker, easier and more satisfying than standing at the kitchen sink cleaning them one by one. I still haven't weighed the two gallon bags of carrots, I'm pretty sure that they are about fifteen pound bags and I've got eight of them in our back up fridge. So many that I really need to bust out the juicer and start juicing some. These are Early Sugarsnax. I also grew a mix of colorful carrots in a different row, they didn't get as big or yield much but they sure liven up soups and salads with their white, yellow, red and purple colors.
As we dug and pulled carrots the chickens and ducks provided us with entertainment. The ducks and a group of adolescent laying birds have been living near the garden while the older layers are in a coop further down the hill. Most of the summer the birds don't get to free range much as they are more vulnerable to predators when they are smaller, and the early garden is more vulnerable to chickens. Over the last several weeks I've been letting everyone out of their pens to get some greens while they still can. The birds are becoming bolder and roaming further from their coops each day. On this particular afternoon we watched the lower group of adult chickens venture up into the garden where the ducks and younger chickens were residing. It was not a stretch to imagine what the adult Brahma rooster was thinking as he encountered all the new young female hens. How many chickens do you see?


Dustin and Noah are building the new goat barn. When it is finished I will take a bunch of pictures as the goats explore their new home. Currently the walls and roof are up with vapor barrier and insulation in place. We have yet to build the doors, gates and put the fence up. Hopefully the goats will be moved in within the week.

We have low bush cranberries all over our property. They are similar to store bought cranberries only smaller. We use them mostly in muffins and breads. I usually make at least one batch each of cranberry salad, relish and chutney around Thanksgiving. Last year I had frozen all the berries and ended up buying some fresh cranberries at the store last November and felt pretty silly. This year I've got a gallon bag full in the fridge that I'm saving for the holidays. I've noticed that they last for at least six months in the fridge. I kept some up to a year once, they just started to dehydrate. Cranberries are full of vitamins and have anti bacterial characteristics. A local herbalist I know uses the plants and berries to make medicinal tinctures. I wish we had more berries that are this prolific growing in the wild on our land. We have some raspberries, blueberries, currents and high bush cranberries, but just enough for daily snacking and not enough to get us by for the winter. Cranberries on the other hand are prolific and I am going to start putting much more effort into using them more creatively.

Last year I dried some cranberries and they were fine, but nothing like the craisins I buy at the store. So this year I dunked the berries in a honey dip before drying them and they turned out more plump, glossy and vibrant. They are small and intensely flavorful. About a gallon of fresh cranberries turned into one quart of dried craisins. Next year I'd like to have a gallon of dried berrries going into winter. This year I've got between two and three gallons between the fridge and freezer and won't be drying anymore.


It is hard to believe that these two pictures were taken just a few days apart. Fortunately I made it down to the cranberry patch nightly for a few days right before our first snowfall. This patch is on a cliff looking over the road and valley below. It gets the evening sunset, so heading down just before dinner time is a sunny time for picking. The cranberries are super hardy and are still there even under all the snow all winter. Last spring Noah was picking dehydrated cranberries that were still on the plants. I'm usually not in a hurry to pick cranberries until I think the snow is about to cover them up. I often see the berries early at the Farmer's market before they are really ripe yet. When they are ripe they turn from a dull solid red to a more transluscent glossy red.

It truly is a lovely time of year. While outside I can almost imagine that it is spring time with the brown muddy leaf covered ground and the cool crisp air. But then I see the occasional tree still holding onto it's golden leaves, and the fireweed is still covered in cotton candy like seed tufts. I don't leave the house much but as I was driving today I was struck by the beauty of the hillsides. There aren't many leaves left but the hillsides are a collage of cranberry, copper, lavender and burnt sienna. For a few days the snow fell and coated the trees and ground. The contrast of green grass along the highways with the white crusty snow on the colorful shrubs and trees was phenomenal. I forget how lovely this time of year is, falling into winter.

Garlic

We have had a light layer of snow on the ground for over a week now. Above freezing temperatures during the day have melted enough that we can see the frozen ground with it's covering of leaves but there is still a partial coating of crunchy snow. We pulled and shoveled at least a hundred pounds of carrots, the last of the beets and potatoes last Thursday night. I've spent the past week scrubbing and bagging carrots. The only plants left in the garden are swiss chard, kale, beet greens, endive, escarole, mache and a few other hardy salad greens. They are all under either plastic or fabric row covers. I'm experimenting to see how long they last and how hardy they are.

I had a brief window last Sunday to plant garlic. This year I grew four varieties of garlic that I purchased last fall: Siberia, Northe, Chezchland Race and Killarney Red. I also had planted a mix from the plants I'd harvested from the previous year that I think were similar to the varieties I'd purchased. For whatever reason my second year garlic was much slower to start, less vigorous, smaller bulbs and finished early. The Killarney Red also did poorly for me this year. I harvested the Killarney Red and my own mix by early August. The bulbs were small but were just fine as far as texture and flavor goes. I'm guessing I got about a pound and a half from the first harvest. We start almost every dinner meal with chopped garlic and onions, and have already used up all the first harvest garlic over the last couple months. I harvested the majority of the garlic just a couple weeks ago. In the picture above I've got four piles. I think the unmarked fourth pile in the top left corner was just a bundle that I'd harvested early. When I pulled the garlic I wrapped the bundles with twine and kept the label with each bunch. Then I hung the bundles for a few weeks before cutting the tops off. The Siberia and Northe are both Marbled Purple Stripe Hard Neck Rocambles. They were my best performers. The Chezchland Race is a Hard Neck Rocamble, but not a Purple Stripe. The bulbs on it were smaller but the plants were vigorous.
I had about three and half pounds of garlic from the final harvest and I'm guessing that I harvested five pounds total this year. I ordered two and half pounds from Filaree Farms in Washington, the same farm I've ordered from the last two years. The bulbs are much larger than my own. In the picture below left to right are Killarney Red, Siberia and Chesnok Red. In the center pile of Siberia the clove in the bottom right is my largest Siberia bulb. Hm, I wonder why my second year garlic did so poorly? Beings that you plant the biggest cloves off each garlic and given the drastic comparison in size, I think I'll keep ordering garlic until my own crop is doing better. I ordered garlic before I had harvested any. I'm glad I bought more Siberia. I wish I'd ordered more Northe and maybe not the Killarney Red. I was hoping to plant more of my own garlic but since I'd harvested it so late it wasn't cured all the way when I went to plant. If the garlic isn't dried all the way the cloves are very difficult to separate and it is probably not good to plant it so soon. So I planted most of what I purchased and a small amount of each variety I'd grown.

From left to right are Killarney Red, Chesnok Red and Siberia. I broke up most of the bulbs putting the largest ones aside for planting and the rest for eating. Last year the garlic didn't last much past December so this year I am going to keep enough garlic whole for the next couple months and puree the rest with olive oil. I'll pour the pureed garlic into sandwich ziplocs and lay them flat. That way I can easily break of chunks for cooking with.
Fortunately I had turned this whole bed and worked in Bone Meal, Blood Meal and Greensand a few days before the snow fell. Broccoli and Kale had been planted here this summer and I had mulched with goat bedding and had limed before planting. So as I was working the bed I didn't add any lime, but there was still visible goat mulch which is full of nutrients. I walked the row and it is about twenty-five feet long. I planted three rows of garlic about four inches apart. I planted about two pounds. You can see I had entertainment and frisky company.


I don't get out much on my own so to be outside in the afternoon, planting garlic and watching the goats romp around was enjoyable to say the least. It was a lovely afternoon despite the overcast cool conditions. After planting garlic I headed indoors to prepare some food for a special harvest dinner later in the day, which will be the topic of my next post.

Harvest Dinner

For the last few years we have been celebrating the end of summer's harvest with a special dinner made up of multiple courses featuring our own vegetables and any other homegrown and local ingredients. The date and details of the dinner are planned far in advance, mostly by my mother and Nancy, a close family friend, advanced gardener and gourmet cook. This meal was officially our second harvest dinner of the season. We celebrate the arrival and bounty of ripe tomatoes in mid to late summer with a "Tomato Fest" and it tends to feature tomatoes as the star player appearing in various roles throughout the meal. Harvest dinner is easier for us all to make contributions as we are all have a bounty of something by fall whether it is tomatoes, chicken, cheese, caribou, turnips or carrots... The following pictures do not do the meal justice but perhaps my descriptions will help. It was a fabulous meal. Several wonderful bottles of wine accompanied the meal. I intended to include the pairings, but failed to keep track.

The very top photo is a picture of the dishes I prepared before leaving the house. I had spent the afternoon planting garlic and fortunately was able to throw everything together rather quickly. I wanted to be able to relax and enjoy the night so I tried to keep things simple so that I wouldn't have to make anything on the spot. On the left are three small cauliflower heads out of the garden, notice that each cauliflower is a different color, white, cheddar yellow and graffiti purple. I blanched the heads and pressed on a buttery Parmesan bread crumb mixture with red onions, thyme and parsley, all out of the garden. The middle boat is my own garlic drizzled with olive oil and a little salt. On the right is our goat cheese mixed with our own sun dried tomatoes and herbs and pine nuts (not ours) and also drizzled with olive oil. I was able to just put everything in the oven at the right time and then pull them out and enjoy.


The first appetizer bite was scrambled quail eggs on a toasted slice of baguette and topped with slivered bacon. (Quail eggs from Chris and Nancy's quail, prepared by Chris and Nancy)


Next we had some fabulous bread with roasted garlic and the chevre spread. (Bread brought by Patrick, garlic out of our garden, thanks to the goats for the very nice chevre, with a bit of work on my part).


This is tomato sorbet on top of diced tomatoes in a pool of fresh basil oil with a garlic Parmesan tuile. I'm not sure if either salsa or relish is quite the right word for the diced tomatoes, I remember that green zebra and tangerine tomatoes made up either the sorbet and/ or the relish. I must say that this appetizer was both unique and exquisite. I savored every drop. (Tomatoes and basil grown by Nancy, prepared by Nancy)

I was a little late trying to get a picture of this course. A beet salad with oregano and walnuts paired with a small serving of grilled caribou. We realized after taking our first few bites that the beet salad was missing the crumbled chevre and we paused as mom rushed to put some chevre in a bowl to pass around. The beets and caribou complimented each other nicely. ( Beets and oregano grown by and prepared by Marylee, chevre from our goats. Caribou prepared by Adam. He didn't actually kill it, but it is my understanding that he helped an older gentlemen get it and was given half of the meat in return for his work.)


And for the main course: Roast chicken with sage pesto, fried turnips and roasted cauliflower heads. This chicken was some of the tastiest chicken that I have ever devoured. I was a bottomless pit, helping myself to seconds and thirds.
(Chicken raised by Chris, prepared by Nancy. Turnips grown and prepared by Adam. Cauliflower grown by myself).





Dessert: Carrot cake and Pumpkin Pie (actually Sweet Meat winter squash - better than pumpkin) and coffee and tea (neither local.) (Carrots grown by Marylee, cake and frosting made by Marylee with help from Noah. Squash grown locally, from the market I believe. Pie baked by Adam.)

This time of year I'm spending more time indoors looking at cookbooks and food magazines. The fridge, freezer and shelves are stocked with enough produce and food for winter. I feel like I should be making some sort of pledge to not buy any groceries for a few months. While I'm not that hard core I will say that we are eating mostly out of our own garden. Each day I'm looking at what needs to get eaten or preserved. This past week I sliced up ten pounds of cabbage and started some sauerkraut. Yesterday I cooked up about ten pounds of tomatoes into sauce. We've eaten the last of this years peas, beans and zucchini. On the list for this week is carrots. I'm planning on making carrot soup, carrot juice, carrot muffins and possibly canning some.

Looking forward to a winter of good food and many more special meals shared with loved ones.

First snow and frost

Yesterday we woke up to large flakes of snow coming down from the sky. A quick glance at the thermometer reassured me that the snow wouldn't last long. The snow continued to fall most the morning but melted as it met the ground. We dawdled in the house as long as we could, making banana cranberry muffins, drinking tea and tidying. By late morning all that was left was a muddy mess.

This morning there is a light layer of snow and frost over everything. The lavender daisies on the back porch are still open as are the vibrant orange yellow gaillardia blossoms, but they are encrusted in a layer of snow and ice, frozen and still. The herbs and plants are still vibrant green but as the day warms and the plants thaw, I'm guessing many plants will wilt and turn to mush. The birch are looking rather bare and exposed. Only the most determined orange leaves still hang by threads. I would be more inclined to embrace this beautiful and exciting time of transition if we were more prepared for the snow and cold. Instead this time of year has us panicked and running around in circles trying to decide what takes priority; harvesting the garden, building the new goat barn, chopping wood, building the hearth so we can bring the wood stove back indoors or tidying up anything on the ground that we don't want to lose till next spring.

Fortunately I harvested most the garden this past weekend. We pulled the rest of the tomatoes and brought them indoors to ripen. Picked the last of the cucumbers and snipped all the herbs. I spent all day sunday blanching and freezing herbs and kale. I cut all the cauliflower and cabbage heads, they are filling our back up refrigerator at the moment. I picked the beans, peas and zucchini plants one last time before putting the plants in the compost pile. On monday Noah and I harvested a row of carrots and a row of potatoes. So far we have three two gallon bags of carrots and have only harvested a third of the crop. I pulled and scrubbed beets yestereday and prepped a bed for planting garlic. All that is left in the garden are carrots, potatoes, a few remaining broccoli and kale plants, and some swiss chard and hardy greens under row covers. I think we'll get to the rest of the potatoes and another row of carrots today. All in all, feeling pretty good about the garden harvest.

Dustin is about to have a couple extra days off. We are hoping to get the roof and walls up on the goat barn. We'd also like to get the wood stove hearth ready for tiling. These are the mornings for wood fires but the stove is sitting on the front porch. So much to do and so little time. I remind myself that one fall we were living in a tent and trying to get the roof on our house this time of year. Most years since we've been building some animal housing last minute. We've got the foundation in and the rafters up so I think the goats and chickens will be settled in their new homes within the next couple weeks. For now as I sit here looking out the window at the cold blustery day I remind myself that the sun is sure to come out again and temperatures will warm in the afternoons. There are at least a few more days of thawed exposed ground. The cool weather has me looking forward to the end of big outdoor projects. Lounging around in a warm house cooking soup and watching the kids play is sounding more enticing every day.