Quiet Days on the Homefront

I'd be writing more, but there's just not that much to write about. This is the quiet time of year. We still have the rent-a-buck here, and we are still living in a faint miasma of funky goat ball pheromones and watching the goats butt heads and tails together, but other than that, there's not much going on.

A black hen is still on her eggs up in the hayloft. I think today I will clean out the rabbit hutch and get it ready to transfer her and her eggs into. And I'm going to keep them there as long as possible.

Food preservation season is over. Maybe, maybe someone will still want to press a few apples, but there aren't that many apples around any more. I did have fun making tepache - basically, wild fermented apple-beer. Leave it out on a warm countertop for three or four days, until it gets a not-unpleasant tang, then freeze it. Remove ice. The liquid left over is pretty strongly alcoholic. I'm guessing here, but maybe 12-15%? From a gallon of cider, I got a quart of tepache. I poured that into a quart jar and screwed the cap on loosely and left it in the fridge for another two days. When I opened the jar, it was fizzy and quite delicious. And rather heady. I would

try making more, but I'm all out of fresh cider. I am also out of cheese and running out of eggs.

But the freezer is still full of beef and berries. And seven or eight gallons of frozen cider.

The last food preservation job of the year is butchering the goats. I am not looking forward to it, but it is almost time. When we are feeding the goats exclusively hay, then it's time. When the weather is cold enough to hang them for a day or so, it's time. When they are fat (and they are) it's time.

I better go get a gun, I guess.