Friday, July 29, 2022
Balking a Buck (Apron Antics)
Posted by Aimee at 4:44 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, July 19, 2022
The Pantry Project (Ice Cream Edition)
Ran across an ice cream maker at Goodwill the other day, and it reminded me that ice cream is a wonderful way of preserving the products of the season - goat milk, eggs, and fresh fruit. Also it’s been pretty hot lately and that’s just the excuse I needed. I bought the ice cream maker.
Posted by Aimee at 10:39 PM 0 comments
Labels: cheesemaking, food, frugal, frugality, fruit
Thursday, July 14, 2022
They’re BAAAAAAACK (Prey Animal Strategy)
Right before bed, I decided to go out and check on the goats one more time, on the off-chance that mama Clio had found her babies. I was fairly certain coyotes had dragged them off, since two hours of me and Clio both searching for them this afternoon, Clio yelling her head off the whole time, had yielded nothing. But there they were, like nothing ever happened. Just two sassy little baby goats without a care in the world.
The End, I Think
I’m done. Lost TWO more baby goats today, presumably to coyotes. I came home from work and Clio’s twins are gone. They were born just a week ago, and Clio, a first freshener, was a great mama goat. She’s been yelling and yelling for them for the last hour, following me around as I walked the pasture.
Posted by Aimee at 7:07 PM 0 comments
Monday, June 20, 2022
Project Pantry (Meatballs and Morels)
Posted by Aimee at 6:01 PM 0 comments
Labels: food, frugal, recipe, self sufficiency
Sunday, June 19, 2022
Meet the Herd
Buck of many names. In keeping with our tradition of using weather or atmospheric or space related names for our bucks, we named him Jupiter. But the the girls started calling him Juniper instead. And then, just recently, I talked to one of his former owners and they said his name was Hunter. Homero likes that name and so now we all call him something different. He cares not a whit.
Christmas (pregnant) is my oldest goat at about 7 or 8. She’s also my biggest goat except for the buck and a great milker.
Sweetpea, Luna’s mom. Great little goat and very friendly because she was a bottle baby.
Posted by Aimee at 4:55 PM 0 comments
Friday, June 17, 2022
Cajeta (The Best Thing You Can Do With Goat’s Milk)
Posted by Aimee at 9:28 PM 0 comments
Labels: mexican food, milk, recipe
Monday, June 6, 2022
Project Pantry (Poor Man’s Soufflé)
Posted by Aimee at 9:06 PM 0 comments
Labels: farm, frugal, recipe, self sufficiency
Monday, May 30, 2022
Herb Harvest 2022
Spearmint is a lovely herbal addition to lots of dishes and we eat a fair amount of it fresh. I add it by the handful to tabouli, for example, and to fresh fruit salads, especially melons. I added some to the melange of herbs I chopped finely and added to my chevre. It even goes well into a pot of Mexican chicken soup, if you can believe that.
Then I went and cut five more big bunches of peppermint and hung them up to dry. Since they are in the chicken yard,
I gave them a good rinse first. This time I will try to remember to strip the leaves and jar them up before another year goes by. I should probably order some desiccant packs from the restaurant supply store, too. That will eliminate any chance of mold. And I’ll want them in a few months when it’s mushroom drying season.
Now, I should probably get to work and harvest the lemon balm! Lemon balm makes delicious lemony tea and it’s very calming and good for nerves and insomnia. And I have an absolutely ridiculous amount of it. It’s in the mint family as well, and it gets out of control fairly quickly.
Posted by Aimee at 7:28 PM 0 comments
Labels: farm, frugal, frugality, preserving, seasons, self sufficiency, self-sufficiency
Monday, May 16, 2022
Another One for the Coyotes (Attempts at Fence-Fixing)
Ever since the coyotes took Cosmos from the main barn during the night, we’ve been locking up the two remaining babies in the smaller, secure mama barn at night. We have to lock them up fairly late, unless we want to get up at the crack of dawn to milk the mamas. We go out after sundown but before full dark, which this time of year is about 8:30-8:45.
In this picture you can see how much acreage our neighbors to the west have. It’s about 300, give or take, and it has fields and forest and streams. It’s absolutely teeming with coyotes. When I complained about the problem on Facebook a few hunters contacted me and offered to help me out, so I may ask the neighbor’s permission to let a couple hunters try and pick off the boldest ones. It may discourage them for a while. Especially if, as has been suggested, we leave a carcass hanging to rot on the fence where they normally come in.
Posted by Aimee at 6:17 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Coyote Blues (Adios Cosmos)
Posted by Aimee at 5:12 PM 0 comments
Labels: death, farm, goats, homesteading, predator
Friday, April 22, 2022
Pasture Puzzle (All Flesh is Grass)
Posted by Aimee at 6:08 PM 0 comments
Labels: cow, homestead, meat eating, pasture, self sufficiency
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
First Babies of 2022 (Bitsy Babies)
Posted by Aimee at 10:13 PM 0 comments
Sunday, April 3, 2022
Spring Chickens
We got some baby chicks. Now that we have a coop for chickens so close to the house - right inside the fenced backyard - and can be reasonably sure that coyotes aren’t going to get them, we thought we’d take the risk on a few more.
Posted by Aimee at 10:38 PM 0 comments
Sunday, March 27, 2022
Project Pantry Week One
Posted by Aimee at 5:16 PM 0 comments