Fun with ice

Us, having fun throwing ice chunks across the frozen pond to see how far they slide - a surprisingly addictive game. So long as you're wearing thick gloves.

Snippets from my life

My husband and I took the family to see Wall-E last weekend. We're a little late, considering it's been out since about what, June? But that's just par for the course for us. It is a great movie. I really thought it was well-done. But ouch. Quite a slam against consumerism. It calls to mind Dana Carvey as George Bush the First on Saturday Night Live in the early 90's when the nation hit an economic downturn. He told us we should "continue to do what Americans do best. We consume." Then he proceeded to turn the broadcast into The Shopping Show. I have read movie reviews that say that Wall-E is anti-conservative and environmentalist, but I saw it as simply anti-consumerist, which is about as conservative as you can get, so I don't know what those reviewers were thinking.

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Did you know that turkeys can roost really really high? Now that the weather has turned cold, I put my beloved red bourban turkeys in the pole barn for some shelter. At night, they are roosting in the rafters - a good 15-20 feet off the ground. A skunk got one of them a couple of weeks ago and had it for supper. At least, I think it was a skunk. Or it could have been a fox (saw one a couple nights ago), and the skunk was just scavenging.

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In related news, my birthday was a couple weeks ago. My husband is so thoughtful, he took me skunk hunting on my birthday. He always knows just what I want. I can't tell you how that turned out or he'll get mad at me. Just wanted to let you know how wonderful he is.

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I could smell a mutiny brewing, so you should know I am no longer the family carb Nazi. When the husband begs for hamburger buns and the kids ask for lasagna with garlic bread for their birthdays, that is when you know surrender is near. No more carb Nazi. Now I'm the egg Nazi.

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So I've started making buttermilk biscuits for them. They seem to really like that. Don't tell anyone, but the secret ingredient is lard. I've made biscuits before, and they always turned out truly awful. Now that I use lard, they are great! It's also good to fry potatoes in. I've heard it's super in pie crusts, but I haven't tried that yet. (Sorry for the commercial.) Lard is probably only bad for your health because you're having a heart attack right now reading about me liking lard. But our family is doing just fine. We're not dead (yet). My kids aren't any fatter or sassier than they were before. They still literally climb the walls and break my eardrums when saying "goodbye" to guests driving out the driveway. No changes there.

A Cryptic Post

To the person I'm posting this for: you know who you are. To everyone else: have fun speculating exactly what this post is supposed to mean.

In a Bloggin' Mood

Baseball is now over. Boo! Yay! It was a long weekend last week with tournaments. It seemed we spent all our time at the ball field. Actually, we probably did spend all our time there. We played a total of 4 games, 2 of which were postponed one day, and re-scheduled the next. So it was really like 6 games. Since we haven't had any practice this week I am revelling in all this new-found time. Every evening I get a little bit more caught up on dishes and laundry. I'm not there yet, but maybe sometime in the next week, I hope. Woohoo.

We have a varmint picking off our chickens one by one. (*gory details ahead - go to the next paragraph if you DON'T WANT TO KNOW*) Some skinny creature has been breaking into the barn and biting the heads off our chickens. Sometimes he (she?) bites all the way through; other times, the head is just left dangling. Not a pretty picture, I know. We think it is a weasel or another mink. A while back we had the same thing happen and it was a mink. Now, as my husband says, it is an ex-mink.

It was a long, long spring with our cow, Ruby. We were first-time cow-milkers, she was a first-time cow milk-ee. She kicked. We kicked back. She developed mastitis, we stayed up half the night doing things to a cow we never dreamed we would ever do. Now I'm going to be honest with you. We've been getting farmier by the day over the last 3-4 years, but this experience was the first time we ever thought to ourselves, "This is just too much. Where do we go to resign?" We were also thinking, "I wonder how a humungous miniature jersey would taste as hamburger?" OK, we're just as human as anyone else. It was TOO MUCH. But we stuck with it. My thought was, maybe the worst is behind us, and we would be fools to give up now. So, we still have Ruby and "Buttercup" (a.k.a. T-Bone). They're both quite healthy now. But I'm not milking Ruby, either. That's because once we got her better, the calf started taking all the milk. That was fine with me, too, I needed all the time I could get for other things. This is a drama still being played out. Stay tuned for further updates.

I am, however, still milking two of our goats, which is providing our family's milk needs right now. It is just barely enough for the kids to drink, and not much else. I did make some great ice cream tonight, but I don't usually have enough to do that.

In gardening news: my spinach and lettuce have bolted. I've pulled the spinach, and am in the process of pulling the lettuce. Having been so busy over the last two months, I only just now got out my tomatoes and beans, and still haven't planted any peppers or zucchini. I do have some nice looking beets and cabbage, though. And chard.

The new guys: we bought a beef cow this spring - "Blackie". She is an angus/jersey cross. We also have a dozen Red Bourbon Turkeys, which I love. They are a heritage breed. That means they aren't profitable enough for the industrial turkey farms to raise, so they are becoming rare. I am hoping they will naturally breed next spring so that we don't have to buy our turkeys from a hatchery any more. That would be really cool. Plus, we are helping a rare breed keep from going extinct. I just hope they're tasty too, or all will be for naught.

Hopefully more blogs will be forthcoming. Baseball season is over and I feel like writing.

Ruminations on T-Ball Logic

Taking a break from my self-imposed blog exile to comment on the logic of t-ball. My younger son (7) is playing t-ball again this year. It's his third year. Next year he'll be too old. Before that, my older son was in t-ball, so I've had 4 years of experience in t-ball observations.

One thing that's great about baseball is that it's not a game of sheer strength and athletic ability. It also takes brains. You have to think about what should be done next. A pop fly with two outs is NOT the same as a pop fly with zero or one out. There are rules of logic that apply to each circumstance, and part of the game is knowing what your next move will be when the ball comes to you, and when you're running the bases.

Things are different in t-ball. The logic game is played by the coaches. The only thing the little guys and gals need to know is, I have to do whatever my coach yells at me to do. This presents problems when the coaches have conflicting points of view. The game becomes a shouting match of various coaches yelling for the kids to do different things, and the kids look around in bewilderment and just stand there holding the ball while the other team's players round third base for home.

Another thing the coaches must factor in to their yelling is the ability of the players. If the ball is not hit to the pitcher or to the right of the pitcher, forget throwing the ball to first base. Just throw it home and cut your losses. A good play is one in which the ball is not over-thrown. A great play is one in which the ball is not over-thrown and it was thrown to the correct person.

I love watching my boys play ball. It's one of my favorite things to do. But here's something else I've noticed. I need to exercise self-control at these games, at which I am not always succesful. How dumb is it to not only have your coaches yelling what to do, but also your mother. OK, I'm working on it. Mainly I just try to cheer. But my competitive nature (for which I blame my dad) bubbles up sometimes in the form of yelling things like "Go back! Go back!" and "Throw it to third! Throw it to third!" Sometimes I can't help it. But I'm trying. I don't mean to add my loud voice to the chorus of coaches.

Fortunately, I know this personal struggle is not because I'm not nice. I know I'm nice because my husband tells me I am. I return the cart even if there is no cart corral handy, and I don't pass with a vengence (and five dollars worth of gas) when someone cuts me off. I'm a mild-mannered person. All bets are off at the ball field. Don't stand in front of me when my boy's up to bat. You'll be sorry.

It's a Girl!

Ruby had her calf this morning around 6:00. She's a beautiful animal, but Ruby keeps kicking her away and won't let her get milk. This picture was taken right after we found her around 6:30 this morning out in the pasture. Apparently, that's where Ruby decided to have her baby. It makes me mad that I missed it. I wanted to be there.

Calf Watch

I am beginning to get a little concerned. Ruby has not calved yet, but I am sure she is in labor. It seems to be off and on, though. I considered doing a "live blog" event for this, but then, I don't have a laptop to take out in the barn with me, so...there goes that brilliant idea. I am just praying we don't have to call a vet. Maybe it is just one of those "false labor" things. You know, like in humans, when a woman fakes labor just to get attention. It's not really time yet, but it sure is fun to watch people's reactions when they DO think it is time! Maybe Ruby's just thinking to herself, heh heh, I'm going to get that human that takes care of me to come out and check on me every hour and only sleep 3 hours a night because she thinks a calf will be here any moment. Then when she's so exhausted she just can't stand it any more and goes to bed at night for a good 8 hours, then I'll REALLY go into labor.

Well folks, we have about hit that point, so look for Ruby's calf to arrive during the night tonight while I'm dead to the world.

Ruby Update

And now for a late-breaking news update: my cow is in labor. It started yesterday (Thursday) evening, and has continued into this morning. No calf yet. But this is her first time. Also, while I'm here, congrats to my older "little" brother on a Big Deal Work Thing he did. Way to go, bro!

Ode to Bacon Fat

Vocabulary Lesson from a Four-Year-Old

Introducing: "The Finish-Later". If there's something you don't eat, you put it in the finish-later...so you can finish it later.

Long Time No Write (which gives me license to ramble)

Well, it's been awhile since I've written here, so I thought I'd check in today. Time has been flying by. I'm not sure where September went. It zoomed past at the speed of light. Now here we are finishing up the first week of October with nary a frost in sight. We're still eating zucchini casserole once a week, and the tomatoes are still blooming. I brought in the rest of my cabbage last weekend to make our family favorite: cortido (Latin American sauerkraut). This weekend I am drying chopped celery from the garden. Despite all this good eatin', I've really been neglecting my garden dreadfully. I haven't been watering it like I should! We've had very little rain this year. We have a volunteer squash plant in the old garden where we throw the compost. I think it might be a butternut squash. The biggest one isn't ripe yet, but I'm crossing my fingers. The big question is: when will we get that first frost?

On the critter front, our little farm hit its maximum number of occupants towards the end of August. Now those numbers are dwindling. We butchered one group of chickens the end of August, and the second group will be done in another week or two. Our two steers and one lamb went to the butcher last week, and we've also done 3 turkeys. Besides that we have lost 4 ducks and several chickens to outside causes. One of our ducks got hit by a car during an unauthorized road crossing (serves the bird the right for wandering off the property). Of course, we'd rather eat them than have them get hit by cars or devoured by wild animals, but there's not much we can do about them going across the road. Other than...eating them before they cross the road.

School is humming along, and I am making the necessary adjustments for the new school year. I gave it three weeks, found some things that needed changing, and we're working on that now. We just finished Week 4 of our school year. We have school for three weeks, then take one week off. We do have school in June and July, but then we take August off. That makes 36 very full weeks of school.

I enjoy having my kids home with me every day. That way I can micro-manage their lives. Just kidding! No, actually what I like is that we are putting into practice something that I have always felt intuitively but never really fully realized until fairly recently: that is that the healthy home should be one in which all members of the family contribute to the household economy, and there is as much producing as there is consuming. As Americans, we are all already very good at consuming (that is after all the American way). What we need more practice at is producing. You know, being productive. Making needed things and maintaining what you have so that you don't have to buy another one.

Speaking of being productive, I feel really productive these days. I usually get up at around 8:00 (anything before 8 is TOO EARLY). Now with our daylight hours dwindling, when I get up in the morning and go out to milk the goats, the sun has just risen over the horizon. It makes me feel like a real farmer, up at daybreak, and doin' the chores. Yee haw.

Well, I guess that's enough rambling for now. Back to what you were doing. Something productive, I hope. ;-)

A Day in the Life

8:30 - I wake up. No alarm clock. Get ready to milk Daisy and Rose.
8:45 - Milk Daisy and Rose and say good morning to the animals in the barn. We get 1/2 gallon of milk.
9:05 - I bottle the milk and go back out to do the other animal chores. I feed the animals that stay put (Ruby the cow and Billy the billy) and put the other animals in their appointed places, which are mostly on chains attached to posts. Also, make sure they all have water.
9:30 - I get ready for the rest of the day
10:00 - Make pancakes for the kids' breakfast, which they eat with butter and maple syrup. My breakfast: 3 eggs over-easy, bacon, coconut muffin, a glass of kefir, and two cups of herb tea.
10:35 - Settle down to eat my breakfast and read the morning's news on the internet.
11:00 - I put off starting school by looking up several hatchery websites to see what chicks we want to order this year. I e-mail my husband to ask about ordering chicks.
11:30 - Clean up and get ready for school.
11:50 - We start school: Bible, phonics, reading, piano lesson, and my older son works a while independently ("independently" is a relative term here). We had a late breakfast, so I figure there's no reason to have lunch before 2:00. We continue working until:
1:50 - My second son notices a white horse out on the road, walking south. I notice that the horse has a saddle, but no rider. I go outside to investigate and see if I can find an owner for the horse.
1:55 - As I walk across the yard, I see Iris standing in her spot with some sort of white and black animal lying still on the ground next to her. I realize that Iris, the goat we thought was NOT expecting WAS expecting, and she has just had her baby. I partially recover from the shock of finding an unexpected newborn goat kid outside in our yard, and take the two into the barn to make sure they are ok. I totally forget about the horse. The new kid is a girl.
2:10 - The newborn kid, which seemed almost lifeless when I found it, perked right up in the barn, but showed no signs of wanting to nurse. That worries me, so I try to help it get a drink. Still no interest. I let her rest for a while. I notice a Bobcat driven by an Amishman drive down the road.
2:30 - The Bobcat goes back past the house going the other direction with the white horse in tow.
2:45 - The kid gets up and stands on wobbly legs and starts looking for milk. She finds it on her own. Yay! Both mother and baby are perfectly fine.
3:00 - I go back inside to get some lunch: warmed up soup for me, and leftover pizza for the kids. It was frozen in a little freezer bag and took forever to warm up in the toaster oven.
3:30 - We eat lunch and take a break from the day. We all thank God for the white horse that got my attention so I could discover the newborn goat outside. Otherwise we wouldn't have known about it for at least a couple more hours. I catch up on Dr. Mercola's blog.
4:30 - I read with my older son, and we talk about our stories. My daughter cuts holes in her tights with unauthorized scissors.
5:15 - I check on the new baby and then take a phone call. The kids argue over whether the baby goat should be named "Dandelion" or "Belle".
5:30 - I realize there are no dishes clean for dinner and rush around getting the dishwasher loaded before ball practice.
6:00 - Ball practice for my second son. Older son and daughter ride bikes at the park, and I walk around behind them and also read a homeschool magazine while they play on the playground.
7:20 - I put some Italian sausage on to cook for dinner. It's so nice out and rain is on the way according to the radar map, so I put it on low so I can go outside.
7:25 - I go outside and talk with my husband about animal stuff, and we work together on evening chores and getting the pens situated for this new mother and baby. That took some doing since the other mothers and babies are separated at night, so we needed a new separate pen. We ended up taking the "chicken tractor" into the barn to keep the babies in for the night. That's a makeshift solution, but, it will work for now.
8:30 - I have no idea what time it is, but I figure I'd probably better go inside and make dinner. We'll want to eat eventually, right?
9:15 - Dinner is ready. Husband and Son #1 are still out arranging the animals, so the rest of us eat: spaghetti for them and a big salad with sausage for me (I'm grain-free right now). This is a late dinner - even for US.
9:45 - I catch up on Dave Gumpert's blog (writer for Business Week). Son #2 asks me to make him some eggs. I tell him I doubt I will have time to make him any eggs since I haven't even started the dishes yet, and there are a lot to do. He starts doing dishes just so he can (he hopes) have some eggs.
10:00 - I make kefir, Son #2 continues doing dishes. Then I join him.
10:30 - We are both still doing dishes. Isn't he a trooper? This is entirely voluntary. I decide to fix him his eggs. He says he wants them over-easy.
10:50 - My son sits down to his snack of 2 eggs: one over-easy, and one scrambled (the yolk broke). I go back to the dishes. I ponder whether or not I should believe that kombucha is good for you or not. Son #1 makes me an early Mother's Day card. It's sweet.
11:15 - I quit doing dishes. Haven't I worked on them long enough? I never did get them done. I wander over to the computer, thinking about the day. I considered doing "a day in the life" type of blog in the morning when I woke up, so I sit down to write it out.
11:45 - Get my kids ready for bed and say good night.
Midnight - I finish my blog and head for bed. I thought when I got up I would blog about a "typical" day, but it really wasn't that typical. But then again, I really don't remember the last time we had a typical day. Anybody know what normal is?

Homestead Update

It's been a great week here on the farm. I'm milking again! Not one, but two does! Our babies are old enough that we can separate the babies from the mamas overnight, and then claim some milk for ourselves every morning. We have averaged about a 1/2 gallon of milk each morning over the last 5 days or so. The kids are getting used to the goat milk all over again, and now we have enough that they can have more than just one cup at breakfast. We also have the eggs to go along with the milk, so we are doing great! Last night I made the kids egg nog, which is delicious, even though it is not December. I'd love to try my hand at making some cheese, but that is just one of a number of things on my List.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for our new little goat mother, Rose. She seems to have recovered. We believe she broke one of her legs. Once I realized that is what had happened, I put a splint on it, and in a few days it was straightened out and she was able to put a little bit of weight on it. Now she's walking around just fine, and her baby Sunflower is growing fast!

I am trying some square-foot gardening this spring. I'm not sure how it will turn out, but we're trying! I started some seedlings about a month ago, but they did not do so well. So far, we have two 4x4 boxes planted with spring stuff - lettuce, spinach, onions, herbs, carrots, etc.

In the kitchen, I've been experimenting with coconut flour. It's just dried coconut ground up. I've been avoiding wheat in my diet over the last few months, and I have figured out how to make some pretty good muffins with the coconut flour. There isn't much information out there about this stuff, so this has been pretty much just "winging it". You can also use it for fried chicken, I have found out. But it didn't work so well for gravy. Maybe I just need to experiment more with that. I have read that you can use it to make pancakes too, but I haven't tried that yet. The big trick about using coconut flour is that you need plenty of eggs. I use two eggs for every 1/4 cup coconut flour.

Another thing we tried for the first time this week is kombucha. It is a fermented drink that tastes a lot like soda. It's sweet, but it has a slight vinegary flavor to it also. It is supposed to be very good for detoxifying. But I am skeptical about it. You use regular sweetened (with white sugar) tea, and then put a little pancake-y looking culture in it, and let it set out for around 10 days. The culture "eats" the sugar and ferments the tea. It actually ends up somewhat carbonated and tastes really good. Two out of three of my kids loved it. But it is hard to understand how something like that started with white sugar could actually be good for you. But who knows, maybe it's true!

Congratulations to my baby brother, who just officially got engaged! We are all so excited about this big news, and can't wait for the wedding. My kids are already talking about it. They are thrilled. Especially to be getting such a great new aunt!

See what I have to put up with?

I don't have a picture of the leech in our aquarium right now, but if I had one, it would go here too.

Big Family Announcement!

Daisy had her babies Sunday evening. It was a great experience for all of us. Our kids were there for the big moment, so I figure I get to count that as at least one full day of school. She had 2 males that look almost exactly like her. We're a little sorry that they were both boys because the females make much better milkers! But our two little fellas are adorable, and they are already starting to run, jump, and play. They are a lot of fun to watch, but we know that unfortunately we will probably have to eventually sell them (and by "sell them", I mean get someone to take them off our hands, using whatever means possible).

Soooo......Anyone out there need a couple of male goats? Hey! You won't need a lawn mower anymore with these two little weed and grass munchers tied up in your yard (jungle?) this summer. I've also heard that you can train them to pull a little goat wagon. There you go! Get a goat wagon, and Tom and Harry (my older son named them) can pull your kids around the yard. They'll love it. I'm sure at my crazy low prices that this pair won't stick around here for long. Get in touch with me now before they're gone!

In other news, baseball practice starts this week (both of my boys are playing....on different teams). I already have no time for doing things that I want and need to do, so no doubt I will be Beyond the Land of Sanity before the season is over the end of June. Right now I divide my time between the following leisure activities: outside chores, food prep, meal cleanup, laundry, and school. Yes, that about sums it up.

No wait, except for one more thing: egg organization. I spend a few minutes each day rotating my eggs. We are finally getting plenty of eggs from our chickens for our family, and I feel so secure with all my egg cartons filled up in the fridge. I have a very meticulous method for keeping my eggs organized and rotated properly. The rest of my house is a wreck (well, mostly, anyway), but those eggs are my pride and joy. Don't mess with my system, folks. It is something to behold, believe me.

Just a reminder, don't forget to let me know when you'd like us to deliver your new goats. They should be weaned by the end of May.