Ben & Jerry, our latest additions to the menagerie

I was perusing The Fence Post's on-line adds and ran across some Holstein bull calves for sale just a half hour down the road from us. I've bought my first calf when I was 9 years old with money I earned hoeing beans for neighboring farmers and by the time I graduated high school had a small herd that I used to pay for college. I love cows and wanted some calves since the day I left home. So, we have two more mouths to feed here. They were 50 bucks apiece and were just 2 days old. They are big boys, both weighing in at about 100 lbs each. I've never seen such a huge milking operation, he must have had at least 2000 head of cattle. He had a gal coming from Nebraska to buy 20 bull calves the day after I got mine.

Ben is the bigger of the two with lots of color and Jerry, the smaller, has a triangle on his forehead and a number 3 on his side. I assume he must be the brainy math type. I plan to get Ben a girlfriend and Jerry, well, lets just say unless he does some serious growing and passes Ben up soon he will be fixed and in the...ummm...food service business when he's big enough. They are both still quite wobbly on their feet stumbling and bumbling around the barnyard. Jerry seems to have a slight cough and a bit of scours. I've got him on electrolytes with psyllium husk along with his milk, and he seems to be doing much better this afternoon. He was a bit lethargic the first couple of days. I may pop into the feed store for some antibiotic if his cough isn't better soon.

To say the goats are terrified is an understatement. The calves of course are oblivious to it all, but the goats are sure Ben & Jerry's sole purpose in life must be to eat them. They wouldn't come out of the barn the whole first day, eyes wide with terror they banged around in the barn scaring the chicken half out of their wits as well. They were constantly peering out the window or open door. I think things have finally calmed down a bit, but they still wont get within 10 feet of the calves. Every night I have a hard time getting the goats to go into the barn, they seem sure Ben or Jerry are lurking in the shadows, like a kid afraid of the boogy man under the bed.

When we lived in Tulsa, I purchased a carved wooden cow as a decoration to put atop the cabinets and told the kids when they got home from school that I had bought a cow. They immediately dropped their books and darted out into the back yard expecting to see a real live animal, exclaiming "Oh cool!!!!" as they ran through the open door. I still chuckle at that one, but they wouldn't put it past me, they do know their mother. Now finally I have the real thing.

Last week I sold 10 chicks for $40 and some eggs for $10, so that paid for the one calf. I have another order for 10 chicks and will be selling eggs this week, so there is the other $50. I'm trying hard to make my hobby pay for itself, so far so good.

I forgot how good milk replacer smells. Just think vanilla cake mix. I did my research and found out that mixing it half and half with raw goat milk is beneficial for them. And, it cuts the cost of replacer in half, so that's what I've been doing.

The garden is still producing wonderfully. I have lots of tomatoes, but not enough to satisfy my expected use till next harvest. I picked 31 lbs today. Some are ripe enough to can, but I'm going to wait a few more days so I have a decent batch. For all the work, I hate doing 4 or 5 quarts at a time. I'd rather do a whole bunch at once. My goal is to have 100 quarts total, figuring about 2 quarts a week, for stuff like spaghetti and chili. Not sure I have that many out in the garden, but its better than nothing and there's always next year. I plan to double up on a lot of stuff.


I just finished bottle feeding them both. They seem to have a high degree of certainty that there is more milk available...somewhere.


Jerry the math nerd, with a #3 on his side and a triangle on his forehead.


Jerry again. He is the smaller of the two.


Big Ben. He's so heavy Josh couldn't even lift him. Plan to get that boy a girlfriend. Probably a Jersey. They are smaller and have a mellow personality. They also have a very high butter fat content.


Cheddar checking the boys out from the safety of the coop, terror in her eyes. The other goats were afraid to look, let alone come out.


Belle my littlest baby goat, she is so cute....and ornery, she will come out to face the giants.


Today's harvest and in the background the tomatoes I've canned so far. Hope they keep producing, I've got a ways to go to reach my goal. The flowers on the left, Becca picked from around the yard. I've got about this many more tomatoes in the garden just a shade or two lighter than these. And, bunches of green tomatoes....please no frost yet.

Stop the world and let me off

Well, its been a busy couple of weeks. I'm ready for the world to stop spinning, I just want off long enough to catch my breath. I have a feeling that things will continue to spin no matter how strongly I want a break. Ah, such is life.

Josh's hand is healing up nicely. He has ditched his splint and is anxious to get back to playing football. He has an appointment this week and will probably get the okay from the Dr to get back into his usual activities. The Doc we saw was an army medic with years of combat medical experience. He feels that unless its been completely blown or torn off, its really not that bad. He said he wouldn't cast it unless the bones were at a 90 degree angle, and anything less than 45 degrees will take care of itself. He was a bit scary, thinking the fiberglass splint the ER put on was pretty cool, and repeatedly commenting that he had never seen anything like that. I guess after raising Josh, we've seen all sorts of things related to broken bones and ERs. None of it is very cool to me, I simply see money flying out of my checking account, which is never a cool thing in my eyes.

Mom & Dad's visit was great. I so enjoyed myself. I hope they had as good a time as I did. We went up to Estes for lunch one day and putzed around a lot the rest of the week. Mom found a feather bed on Craigslist, so we went out and snatched that up. Its a true featherbed, and in perfect condition. What a find, thanks mom! I also found an air hockey table. It had a broken switch, but hey for free. I went out to the electronic store and for 6.00 we now have a fully functioning game. It came from a frat house at the nearby college. You'd think if I could figure out what was wrong with it, they certainly could. Oh well.

We also tried my home made goat cheese. Not sure that passed. The first attempt at cheese was a little lame, but the second and third rounds turned out pretty good in my eyes. More like a grating cheese. Next time I will try adding some cow milk or cream. Like I said cheese making is really an art. Guess my home made cheese comes off the Christmas list for them.

I've been canning applesauce and tomatoes. I found an elderberry bush down the road so hope to snag some of those and make some syrup and jelly too. Not sure that will happen, but maybe even just juice them out for now and complete the project another day.

Steve got back Friday afternoon from two weeks in China. Nice to have him back. I get a little tired of being a part-time single mom. He always stops in San Fran and picks me up a yummy treat at the airport. It just about makes up for two weeks away.

We took the kids up to Rocky Mountain National Park this weekend. Man was it crowded! Seemed like everyone was getting in the last trip of the season. This is the time of year I like to start going. The trees are just starting to turn and the air is so crisp. We hiked up to several lakes including Nymph, Dream and Emerald as well as Bear lake which is not really a hike, being just a few hundred feet from the parking lot.

We took a Colorado quarter along and spotted the site that is printed on the back. Its the back side of Long's Peak the perspective being from the North end of Bear Lake.


The air hockey table. Josh wanted it in his room. He & Em have been playing it for hours on end. I heard lots of puck banging and giggles all weekend. And to think he just cleaned his room.


So pretty. Snow on the higher parts and elk in the meadow.


Bear Lake, with Long's Peak in the background. Its on the back of the Colorado quarter.


The quarter


Another real-life view of the back of the quarter.


One more view. Okay, I'll stop. But its just so pretty. Longs peak is 14259 ft in elevation.


A bear we saw while hiking. He was enjoying a bit of honey and seemed oblivious to the bees swarming around. I was only able to get one picture then my battery went dead, go figure. Steve wants to buy me a really nice camera, the one I use is only 3 mega pixel and is almost 10 years old. I've put him off so far, but when I miss a good shot, i begin to think about taking him up on it.


Nymph lake. I noticed some beetle kill in the trees. Hopefully it can be contained before it devastates the forests up there.


Mom, Dad and me. We had a great time.

The KHM Crusade Team, hospital visits and a broken bone

The bus at the end of the pavement. Getting ready to head back into town.

Well, its been a busy couple of weeks. Just when I get on a roll with the blogging along comes a period of business. Thankfully, the Crusade Team visit, hospital visits and broken bone are all unrelated events. But, all have kept me busy.

The Hagins and the crusade team were in town. Wow, what a great time!! It was such a blessing to make the meetings and visit with Pastor and Lynette and some old friends from Tulsa. We invited the team out to the house for a cook out and were so excited to have them take us up on the offer. I think including us we had about 20-25 total. They had to park the bus at the bottom of the mountain and take cars up. I parked the van down there in the morning, drove the truck and Steve had the jeep. Rich had his rental car and the pilots Dave and Scott drove themselves as well. Dave used to live in Omaha, just a stone's throw from Steve's folks. I worked with his wife many years back when we both worked at the ministry. Between all the vehicles we had plenty of room for everyone. Some of the younger ones had a blast riding in the back of the pick-up, snapping pictures and pointing every which way as we went up the mountain. We saw a bunch of deer on the way back down, including a nice 5 point buck who posed for the camera and a couple of fawns.

Everyone had a great time, snapping lots of pictures and hiking up the peaks on our property. When they saw the gun we keep just inside the door, a few of the younger guys wanted to do some target shooting, but with so many people outside hiking and stuff that wasn't happening. A couple of them hung out with the animals and passed around a newly hatched chick. I forgot to get pictures till the end when the bus was pulling out, so I only have one that I snapped with Em's cell phone. Hopefully they will update their blog with some pictures. http://www.rhemaontheroad.blogspot.com/ We grilled hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken breasts, along with some potato salad, baked beans, watermelon, veggies, chips, muffins, and plenty of desserts! Yum! We already have a couple of the team that have "booked" vacation time with us next summer. I'm so looking forward to that!

The day of the cook out I got a call that Dad was in the hospital. Not good news for sure. I was pretty worried about him, but he is doing well now and is out and back to normal pretty much. In fact, he & Mom are flying in on Tuesday for a visit! I'm so pumped! Can't wait to show them all I've gotten done in the past year around here.

Thursday evening Josh broke a bone in his hand. I'd like to say it was something exciting, a football injury or something equally cool, but its a boxer's fracture. Hand vs board, board won. It required a trip to the ER. Let's just say Mama wasn't happy. All the urgent cares seemed to close around 7, so we got our first experience at the ER here. They marvelled that he was 18 and this was his first visit. We laughed and explained we had only lived here a year, this was his 7th visit to an ER, we thought. We've lost track now, but this is his 3rd broken bone. Boys, sheesh! Good thing it's not his dominant hand, he can still do his homework! However football is out for a while, bummer.

They splinted it with a fiberglass half-cast and sent us on our way. I was impressed with the whole process, we got into a room in less than 5 minutes and were in and out in less than 90. 24 private ER rooms, with a nice flat screen TV in each and x-ray just around the corner made for a nice visit. We were the only ones there for most of the time.

Hopefully the next couple of weeks will be less exciting. I'm ready for a full night's sleep.


Josh's x-ray. His 5th metacarpal bone is angulated about 40 degrees. I heard him mumbling under his breath a couple of times "that was stuuuupid." I can't remember if that was before or after he passed out from the pain.

Changing of Seasons

Two weeks ago we were at almost 100 degrees. The airport was at 104 and had been over 90 degrees for 23 consecutive days breaking the old record of 18 days set back in the late 1800's. Saturday night it snowed in the high country. Just 10 miles or so from us they got 6-10 inches. Seems there is change in the air. Damp chilly mornings are becoming more common. we didn't even get out of the 40's for the past three days, till today when it warmed up nicely.

The kids started back to school today. It seemed so quiet here. I really enjoy having them home over the summer. I was a bit lost, my routine out of kilter. I think it will be a good year for Emily. She was dreading going back, insisting that this was going to be "the worst year ever." However she doesn't have a first hour class, has study hall second hour, has PE with her best friend, has her favorite teacher once again this year and has a bunch of new teacher all of which "are really nice." So, it seems we are off to a good start. She had a hard time adjusting last year, going from a class of 1600 to a class of 55, and has been pestering me to home school this year. When she finished telling me about the first day, I asked if she wanted to be home schooled and her response was a quick and solid "noooo!"

Josh is still out, so I don't know how the day went. He had a scrimmage, then BBQ and team captain voting, then off to Wal-mart to sell restaurant incentive cards to help pay for football equipment. Mom & Dad are coming to visit the first week in September, I'm looking forward to us all watching him play.

The garden is doing nicely, we've enjoyed our first bacon & tomato sandwiches. I bought 6 lbs of bacon a couple weeks back in anticipation. I remember enjoying them all summer long as a kid and could still live on them. Its just not summer with out a good bacon & tomato sandwich. I see I'll be making lots of zucchini bread too.

I got the hook up from Craigslist for apples this fall, all we can use. I'm looking forward to applesauce, apple pies, apple strudel.... I missed the harvest last year. I thought I had discovered an apple tree on the property here this spring, but after hiking down the other day to take a look, it turned out to be a full sized plum tree with just a few plums, oh well. I hope to plant some fruit trees in the next year or two as well as some sugar maples to tap. We had two maples when we lived in the city and we used to tap them and make maple syrup and hard maple candy. I miss that and had hoped to get some trees in this spring. For sure next year. I did get a few from Mom & Dad's place when we were back in Nebraska over the 4th. Three are doing very well, as are the two walnut trees we dug up. However they are a mere 3-4" tall. Guess any way I look at it, I'm a years away from reaping.


I candled the eggs tonight and made a movie, hopefully you can make out the little chick moving around in the egg. The chick has been 7 days in the incubator, 14 days to go.


Em holding one of 5 "zucchini on steroids" from the garden. Well, ya see it rained for 3 days straight and I didn't check the garden and when I finally did, well, you know.....


The peas were almost as big around as a quarter, and oh so sweet! Em & I snacked on them while watching the olympics.


Some of the smaller zucchini from the garden harvested several days back. Grilled, topped with goat cheese and dried herbs from the garden, looks delicious!


The homemade ravioli I mentioned a few posts back. It turned out great!

The Broody Hen House

Several of my hens have decided to go broody lately. I had 4 in the coop that were pretty cranky when ever I approached. Kinda cuts into the egg business when all the hens start laying in the broodys' boxes, so I fashioned a separate hen house for them and moved them out. I probably lost a couple chicks in the process, but overall It was a good move. Over time I will have more success and lose less than I would with them in the coop. I have 2 hens that have hatched out their clutches since the move, and two more to go.


I picked up this doghouse from Craigslist at no cost, made a door for it from some lumber I had laying around and added a lock and trim. It's 4x4...must have been a pretty big dog! Its heavy as all get out, but Josh & I managed to carry it out of the yard and lift it onto the bed of the truck, dumping it off at home was the easy part. I didn't have any hinges laying around, so I used some pieces of strapping instead. The hens love it.


I put a couple of eye screws into the door and side, a bungee between the two holds the door open during the day.


My nesting boxes: an empty speaker box, problem is the eggs seem to roll out kind of easily. A cardboard box, the envy of all the hens, and a kitty litter box on its end. That one got rejected by all, seems on the floor in the corner was better, oh well. Need to put some more of those cool cardboard boxes in next time!

I've also got eggs in the incubator again. I had a request from the person that bought one of my roosters to hatch them out a batch of chicks. I just candled a few and they seem to be doing well. The embryo looks like a spider, with the chick body curled in the center and veins radiating out from there. I tried to photograph it, not sure how it will show up.


Hope it shows up when clicked on, the chick is in the top right. Its just been in the incubator 4 days now. Set to hatch out on 9/2.

At $4 each, I'll make $48 for a dozen eggs. I would like to expand my chick business at some point. It would be nice to make a little extra money each spring...or even year round. At the current $3/dozen I sell them for, I am barely covering the cost of my feed. Once I process this years roos I'll be a little bit ahead. I've got a few customers who pay me $12 each for a processed chicken. When I really look at it, its a lot of work for the money, but it makes our eggs and processed birds free and a little cash to spare. The best part is that they're so fun to have around.

Em & I made some root beer today, it takes a week to ferment and become carbonated. I'll let you know how it turned out. If its good I'll make some for when Mom & Dad come to visit in a couple weeks, that and some home made ice cream...can you say root beer floats? YUM!! I'm drooling already. The alcohol content is low, between .35 and .5%. Compared to 6% for a beer, it would take about 1.5 gallons to equal a 12 oz. beer, so in that respect its pretty negligible. If my next blog enrty resembles a drunken dyslexic you'll know something went wrong.

Cheese making....my version of it.

I've learned that cheese making is really an art, hopefully I'll get better with time, but for now I am pleased with how its going. I think all three types turned out well. The cheddar is drying on a rack, the ricotta is in the fridge and the mysost is still on the stove.

I want to try Parmesan next time. I need to make a thermophilic mother culture first and just haven't gotten around to it. Hopefully this week or next.

I tired to take lots of photos of the process. I'll detail the pictures as I go.


I have a 12 quart canner that I like to use. I've put in 2 gallons of goat milk and very slowly heated it to 90 degrees. I froze my mother culture in an ice cube tray. 1 cube is equal to 1 T of culture. Cheddar takes a mesophilic culture. I add the culture and then let it ripen for an hour.


I keep tabs on the temp while its ripening, making sure it stays right at 90 degrees.

After it has ripened, I add in the rennet and stir it for a minute or two till I see it just starting to set up. Then it sets again till the curd is firm enough to make a clean break when a knife is inserted.


You can see how firm the curds are. I let them sit for 30 minutes then begin slowly heating them to 100 degrees while gently stirring to bring out the whey. The whole thing is really a time consuming process. I hold them at 100 for about a half hour and continue to turn the curds.

They are then ready to drain. I have a nice butter cloth I use to line a strainer and pour the whole thing out into another pan and let it all drain for about 15 minutes. Once the curds have drained, I dump them into a bowl and crumble them up, adding 1T of salt. It's important to use salt that doesn't have iodine in it, most table salt does. I have some nice large grained kosher salt that I like to use. I then transfer the curds to a cheese cloth lined mold and press it at 40 lbs for 12-15 hours. I then turn it and press at 50 lbs. for 24 hours. once its done it is salted and put on a rack to air dry. After 3 days I wax it. It could be wrapped in saran, but hey, the wax looks cool.


Here is the cheese just removed from the mold and the cheesecloth. I put a quarter on it to show the size.


Waxed and ready to go into the fridge to age a bit. This is one I made a couple weeks ago.


Ricotta


I add a pint of cream to the still warm whey that has drained from the curds and slowly heat the whole thing to 195 degrees. You can see by the picture that its already 1:25 in the afternoon. It will take a couple hours for the ricotta to be done. I started the whole process at about 7 am.


I drain the whey from the ricotta overnight. In the morning it looks good.


The finished product. I ended up with about 1.75 lbs of ricotta.


Mysost

With the whey that is left over from the ricotta I can make mysost. The whey has to cook down for hours and hours till most of the liquid has been removed.


The whey reduced down about half way.


Wish I could upload the smell, its incredibly good. I decided not to reduce it all the way. Its a little on the salty side, I decided to use half of it to make cheese and potato soup and maybe cheese and rice something with the other half, so its in a canning jar and into the fridge for now.

As you can see its pretty much an all day project. But the results are pretty tasty. I think Em & I are going to try our hand at home made rootbeer tomorrow. Yum!

The Homestead

Well, I got up at 5:45 this morning. Went out onto the back deck to bring in the load I had hung out last night. I have a T-post line up by the garden with four long lines, but I also strung a line between two of the porch posts out back by the laundry room. That's for when I don't want to trek up the hill to hang laundry or if I'm doing a small load that doesn't need much line. After I had taken all the laundry off the line, I looked over and no more than 3 feet from me was a nice big rattlesnake all curled up next to the house watching me do laundry.

I thought it was a rattler, but wanted to make sure before I sealed its fate, so I grabbed a shovel from the garage and gave it a nudge, sure enough it began to rattle. With it being so close to the deck and able to slip under if I missed, I hollered up to Josh's bedroom window. He was down in a hurry and, being a good aim, made quick work of things. He then buried the head.

The snake had a nice big rattle, I'm going to tan the skin tomorrow, it's rolled up in the fridge, too much going on to mess with it now. If you are easily grossed out, skip to the next paragraph. I skinned him out and gutted and cut him up and we had it for lunch. I breaded it and pan fried it in some bacon grease. The kids thought it was pretty good. Even Emily ate it, stating it tasted like chicken. That's the first I had tried snake, it was actually more tender and tasted better than I expected.

After the laundry, I got the cheese started and headed up to do chores while the milk heated on the stove. I've got one young rooster that is meaner than all get out. He can't even crow yet, but he attacks all the other chickens. So I caught him and caged him up. I'll have to put him in the freezer today or tomorrow.

I added the culture and while the milk was ripening and went back out and trimmed the goat's hooves. Its a monthly chore, I like to keep them nice and trimmed. Tigris the alpine/saanen had bad hooves when I got her, very folded over, pointed and looooong. She was literally walking on the sides of her hooves. Its taken a couple months to get them nice and it only takes 20-30 minutes to get all 5 of the girls trimmed up. I figure if you're going to own an animal, it ought to be well cared for. She takes care of me through milk, babies and eventually meat, it's my duty to care for her now.

Back inside, I added the rennet and once again let the milk set to firm up while I went out to the garden to putz around a bit. Harvested a few grape tomatoes and some zucchini, nothing too exciting.

Well, the cheddar cheese is in the press as I type. I've made ricotta with the whey, its hanging in a buttercloth to drain. I'll post my cheesemaking photos tomorrow, with a little more detail as to the process. Will make Gjetost (or less well known, but more correctly termed mysost) with the whey from the ricotta tomorrow as well. Nothing wasted. With the fresh ricotta, Em will be helping me make some homemade ravioli tomorrow, yum!


Here's the bad boy. If I encounter them away from the house, I leave em. But this close, he had to go.

I heard they made good eating, had to try it.

The tomatoes have grown into one massive patch. They are loaded, hundreds of them. Hope they ripen soon.

The potatoes are run amuck as well. I keep mounding them with dirt, but they've got to be 3' tall now. No more room to mound. Next year maybe I'll plan ahead and put up some sort of fencing system to contain the dirt. Heirloom pole beans are climbing the fence.

Zucchini. Need to shred and freeze some. We'll have some grilled tomorrow as well with the home made ravioli.

These crazy peas have been eaten off twice by the goat, but they just don't give up. They seem to come back each time with just as many pods as before. The edible pod peas are my favorite.

Herbs and some onions line the fence. Everything did great but the basil which got frosted out twice and laid on by the dog. Thankfully I still have a bunch hanging over my pantry door from last year. Ought to last me till next year.

Got a small start on firewood for the winter. My goal is to have 7 full cords (21 face cords). I think we have about 2 face cords so far. Got a long, long way to go!

My harvest for the day.


Here's where I keep the goats and chickens. Not a real high tech system, but most everything was scavenged and gotten for free or super cheap.