Now Posting On My Farm Blog. Pleasse stop by!

I'm occasionally posting at North Forest Farm, and welcome you to stop by.  :)

www.northforestfarm.blogspot.com/

Flooded Barn, and a Flood of Love

I've recently gone through something completely unexpected that's caused me to see how being prepared in an emergency is a real need, even for those who don't think they live in an area where there is danger.  We've never had a real flood, never had a tornado, no hurricanes...but this  spring we have had our own personal flood!  We had a record snow fall this month.  I mean a record month of snow, not a record April.  It REALLY snowed!  Our land is quite low, and our barn is actually lower than the surrounding land.  We're on a slope of the Sawtooth Mountains along the western edge of Lake Superior.  All the snow that melts on the ridge comes down to the lake. The spring thaw has really messed up the barn because of how much snow we had this month. There were 6 inches of water in it a few days ago. We had to pump it out and dig trenches to drain the water away.  I was up working on the mess almost all night that night.   All the goats are living on pallets with plywood over them to keep them off the damp floors. Thankfully, the water level seems to be going down now. In a day or two, we'll be able to muck out all the stalls and get the girls and kids into some clean and completely dry living quarters.  That will be such a job!  I'm trying not to really think about what a big job that's going to be, or how much work it has already been. Thank God it's working out! I was pretty upset and worried for a few days! All the mom's and babies continue to thrive in spite of the upset. :)
It is now clear that I need to think about what to do in the case of something like this occurring again, or a forest fire which we do occasionally have very near us.
I'm very thankful to our good friends, who came to help put pallets down and cover them with the plywood pieces.  You helped immeasurably, both the goats and my peace of mind! :)  You are a true blessing to us!  You were a flood of loving care just when we needed it the most.  I hope we can bless you as much as you have us. :)

The Return Of Word Verification

I really feel so sorry to do this to anyone who'd like to leave a legit comment here, but the word verification is back.  We'll see if that helps with the spam comments!  I have been wading through some amazing numbers of nonsense comments lately.  Some of them things I'd rather not have to see!  I do apologize.  With that little announcement out of the way, I'll leave you with a cute kid pic.  I think he was telling us all about the cat, whom he'd just discovered.

Things I've been making I

I've been wanting to share a few of the things I've been making this winter in a post, but as I haven't got the time to get all the photos together on one computer, and make a longer post, I'm going to post some short and sweet ones for a while.

Hattie's crocheted wool sweater with deer antler buttons.

Meet Twist, Latte and "Butcher"

Okay, I know, I've been preoccupied...again...by goats...again.  It becomes an addiction of sorts, I think.  Right now, I own 13 goats.  My husband never would have thought that possible.  Three years ago, the plan was to purchase two does.  Two.  Yeah.

I went to Hibbing for three more goats on Tuesday, and we've been getting to know each other for a few days now.  Time for you all to meet her too!  So meet Twist, her daughter Latte, and her son, who is "affectionately" titled "Butcher".  My 8 year old came up with that name so we would all remember his destiny, and not fall in love.  That should work...yeah.

French's Dream Twisted Sister

Latte, near my knee, and little boy behind her.

Cute babies!

These Nubian babies, almost 2 weeks old, are the same weight right now as my nearly 6 week old Nigerians are.  However, they are a whole different animal.  They're amazingly long and lean right now, as is their mom.  I hope to get a bit of weight on all of them soon.  I trimmed up Twist's hooves this morning, and she was really good about it.  However, she's not so good about having her udder touched.  We're going to have to be working on that, as I plan to begin separating her kids from her overnight and milk her in the mornings soon.  I hope she will be a good milker for us.  Her mother is a great milk maker, with great milk stand manners.  So far, Twist seems to be very good at holding her milk back for her kids, and they keep her udder pretty empty.

That's what I've been up to lately!  That, and slogging through about 18 inches of new snow.  The drifts on the way to the barn are above my knees now.  It's been a perfect winter these last two weeks.  Too bad it didn't do this in December or January! :)

Catching Up...Again!

Anyone whos read this blog regularly know I've had trouble with both cameras and computers for a long while now.  I'm a very visual person, and not overly great with words, so I really rely on photos to round out my posts.  This has all stalled my blogging for a while now.  My camera has occasionally worked, and I've got some photos I've taken with the plan to blog about those things.  Unfortunately, the computers not working well has caused a serious backlog on posting.  Usually when the camera and computer cooperated at the same time, I had to take advantage of it to add something to my FB business page or my goat blog, as I wanted to sell some kids and advertise my herd.  I thought I'd share some of those collected photos with quick comments here, and we'll be caught up with some of what's gone on last fall and over winter.

My green bean crop was lousy lousy last summer.  When Mama Pea heard about it, she generously gave me the last of hers. :)

Thanks bunches, Mama Pea!  We enjoyed a lot of canned beans and dilly beans.

First batch out of the canner.

On the other hand , the tomatoes kept me really busy, both those ripened on the vine, and these which I'd stored in paper bags and ripened later in the fall.  This was October.  I still have a lot of frozen chopped tomatoes to use. :)

Canned more venison late fall.

Ate some lovely bacon wrapped venison tenderloin for Thanksgiving.

I thought I'd get farther into winter than this, but again the computer problems interfere.  Apparently, those photos are stored on another computer.  LOL!  It's been a bit crazy.  I'll have to leave that for another day.

Panzy's Kidding

I said the next post would be about Panzy's traumatic labor and delivery.  I just didn't day it would be four plus weeks after the fact!  lol!
Panzy was in early labor on March 9th when I went out to do morning chores.  She was "talking" to her unborn babies, and looking at her belly.  I kept a close eye on her all day, and around 4:00 is seemed like she should be getting down to business, but she wasn't really pushing at all.  I decided I'd better try to see what was going on, as things just didn't seem "normal" (whatever that is).  At first I didn't feel anything at all, so I waited another 15 minutes, got on the phone with a breeder friend to discuss it, and then tried again.  By that time, there were parts presenting, but either not the same baby, or baby was sideways and presenting a front and back leg.  Not sure which.  I didn't know what to do, so I called my local vet, who is strictly a dog and cat gal.  Fortunately, she did a stint with cows and hogs as a young vet, so she's had a bit of experience. She agreed to try to help Panzy.  By now, the first bag had broken but no baby was following.  We put Panzy in a sled to get her to the van, and loaded her on a tarp with straw on it in the back.  Drove 20+ miles to the vet in a snow storm.
The sweetest part of this is that my daughter had met a gal, Alisa, who wants to learn about goats as part of her goal to have a goat farm one day.  She came to see her first goat birth just when we were going to the van, so she jumped in and went to the vet with us.  It was great having company, and an extra helper with us.  My Hattie girl came too.
We got Panzy out of the van and she walked into the vet's office.  The first baby, little K** in honor of the vet, was born breech with help within minutes.  Things were looking up!  Unfortunately, that was the end of the good news for a while.  The big hold up and tangle in the womb was caused by a large dead doeling.  That kid would NOT come out.  It took about an hour and a half to get it out, and then in pieces.  One front leg had to be removed at the shoulder to get it to fit.  There were actually lots of loud cheers when the kid finally came out, even though she was dead.  It was a rough, rough kidding for poor Panzy, but the whole time she just wanted her baby, called to her, licked her and tried to get her to nurse.  So sweet!
After we had everything all cleaned up, and loaded Panzy and new doeling back into the van, I got it stuck on the road.  Right in the middle of the road, not the ditch!  Couldn't go forward, backward, or anything!  Thankfully, a nice guy with a plow on his truck came by pretty quickly and helped us out. :) We got home around 9:30.
Panzy is still somewhat recovering from her ordeal.  She went through three courses of different antibiotics to fight the uterine and possibly urinary tract infection she got as a result of her ordeal.  There have been some scary moments since then, but I think she's getting better now.  Her doeling is growing fast, and I LOVE her!  I decided to keep her because I'm still nervous about Panzy's condition, and a bit concerned about breeding her in the fall.

Starlight kidded the next evening quite easily.  She had a breech tail first that needed a bit of help, then a full breech, and last a normal nose and toes.  I was never so happy to see the successful kidding and the end of a kidding season!  The best part was that Alisa had just come to get her car, and managed to be there for Starlight's whole labor and delivery, and helped a lot!  It was great that it worked out so nicely for her. :)

Please see my North Forest Farm Nigerians blog to be introduced to the newest members of our farm, who aren't Nigerian Dwarves!  I am really very excited though a little nervous about how everyone will get along.  Praying for peace and safety among all the critters here on the farm. :)

I couldn't resist a sneak peek at what will be joining us here on the farm!  There's a clue as to the breed if you look closely! :)  You can see more on my latest blog post at North Forest Farm.

How Cupcake Said Goodbye

Sweet Cupcake

Cupcake had been unwell for the last couple months of her pregnancy.  Not so unwell as to be really ill, just unwell enough to cause me to wonder.  To wonder if I'd made a mistake in breeding her.  To wonder how she would handle labor and nursing kids again.  To think that I wouldn't breed her again.  Her heart just seemed to work harder than it should.  She seemed to breathe faster than she should.  Her feet hurt.  She's never had the best feet, and they seemed to be too weak to support her when she was so large.
Cupcake got really, really larger as her due date approached.  Her breathing got faster.  It was hard to watch her like that.  As her labor seemed to be starting, she seemed to work harder to breathe.  She was restless, unable to lay down all day.  It seemed her chest was congested, and she couldn't breathe when she laid down.  She began to choke/cough.  At midnight, she finally laid down, rasping out her breaths, quick and shallow.  At 2:00 AM, she began to choke up clear fluid, and lots of it.  It was awful.  She passed away at 8:00 AM.  The vet believes that she had a weak heart, and passed away from congestive heart failure.
I spent so much time second guessing how I'd handles everything, from breeding her to how I fed her.  It was a hard thing to go through.  I spent a lot of time praying for peace, and trying not to be anxious about the next two kiddings coming up...
Next time, I'll share about Panzy and Starlight's kiddings.  Thankfully, the stories get happier as they go. :)

The babies are here!

Please CLICK to see posts about what's been going on for the last week and a half here at North Forest Farm!

It's been a crazy, sad, amazing, tiring, exciting, and joyful ride!

Waiting For Goat Kids Can Be Funny

Today marks day one of waiting for the goats to kid.  Cupcake is due first, and today is day 143.  We have the baby monitor hooked up now, and it's pretty interesting having the barn sounds inside.  When you're half asleep, you can come to some strange conclusions about what's going on.  :)  Early this morning I thought the chickens had gotten out and made their way to the house.  Dan got up around that time to look for "the crazy toy we had that sounds like a rooster".  I'm going to have to get a human kid to go to the barn and bleat like a doe in labor so I can tell where to set the volume. ;)
I think Cupcake will go a little while yet.  I can still feel tail ligaments and her udder isn't very full yet.  She's looking hollow though, so it shouldn't be too long.

Cupcake a few days ago.

Counting Blessings #239-261

 239) SNOW! :)
240) sun shining on snow, glittering like billions of icy diamonds
241) recovery and good health
242) Sunday rest
243) family and home
244) grandparents
245) seed catalogs
246) animals to care for that get me out of the house; I'm always glad I did!
247) making snow angels
248) the smell of fresh baked bread
249) wool yarn
250) sheep that grow wool
251) woodstoves
252) good books
253) aphghans
254) board games
255) children
256) hot cocoa
257) popcorn
258) butter
259) soup (I'm really NOT hungry :)
260) sweaters
261) Steger Mukluks

What's Going On

I am still alive, thankfully!  My family has spent this month surviving the influenza.  It was truly awful, and I'm glad it's over.
I have been busy making lots of stuff, most of which isn't quite ready for pictures yet.  Here's one though!



I've been crocheting mittens, among other things.

I wish I had time for a proper post right now, but instead, I'm going to link to my farm blog, so you can read about what's taking up some of my time right now.  I'm going to take the luxury or reading your blogs over a nice cup of coffee tomorrow, and hopefully even write a Counting Blessings post! :)

Baking Soda

HI everyone,

Oh, how I miss you all!  I've had so many things I've wanted to post about!  I really don't have time to be posting, but this was already written.  I had left a comment on another blog, and realized that it was a ready made post, at least sort of, at least better than nothing...

I make my own toothpaste and deodorant with baking soda. I also use it in the dish washer with a little borax when I run out of dish washer soap. I clean with a mixture of baking soda and borax, or straight baking soda.

Toothpaste: baking soda (as much or as little as you want your batch of toothpaste to be), a few drops of essential oils of your choice. I like peppermint (for fresh breath), tea tree, lavender and grapefruit (all excellent antibacterial agents), some stevia powder, and enough coconut oil to make it into a paste. To make a re-mineralizing toothpaste, add some liquid trace minerals and/or calcium and magnesium powder. I also add some natural salt with trace minerals in it.

Deodorant: As much baking soda as you want for the size batch you want to make, a few drops of tea tree or lavender oil, and any other essential oils you want to use for scent, and enough coconut oil to make a thick paste.

It is a wonderful thing to be able to open the cupboard and make some more deodorant or toothpaste when a family member runs out, and never to have to put those things on a grocery list! :) Every item it the deodorant and toothpaste is something that is it the baking cupboard or medicine chest already.

8-21-12 Harvest

This is today's harvest. The potatoes in the photo had to be harvested early because the cut worms left NOTHING above the soil. Thankfully we were able to harvest a few potatoes though. These are Kennebeck potatoes. We still have the Youkon Gold potatoes in the ground. They weren't hit as hard, so they should have some time to grow yet.

This is the first time we've grown potatoes, as hubby's opinion was we should grow things that cost more than potatoes. That has changed since we won't buy them at the regular grocery store any more. They're quite expensive at Whole Foods! So, anyway, I definitely have questions about potato growing. For one thing, I didn't think there were going to be ANY potatoes at all, since I never saw any flowers on the plants. I'd read in a gardening book that new potatoes were ready to dig when the flowers came on the plants? Also, when we were digging these, we ran across a few that were rotting, and in my daughter's words, "They smell like the pig pen. Is that why the pig pen stinks? It's all the potato peelings?" :) In other words, they stunk badly!! After a couple of those, dear daughter wasn't having nearly as much fun digging potatoes. She didn't want to accidentally touch another one of those! Were they rotting and stinky because the plants had died and we didn't get them dug soon enough? Someone please enlighten me!? Also, what happens to the "mother" potato? See, questions, always questions! :)

Making Chevre and Feta

I finally accomplished a goal I've been working toward for at least three years now, though it's been five years since I first began thinking of the possibilities.  I was able to make cheese from my own goat milk! And what's even more exciting is it worked!! What's possibly the most exciting thing of all is that my kids even like it! :)
Hooray for goats! :)  For those of you who've been following my Nigerian Dwarf adventures, I'm very happy to report that the parasites seem to have backed off, and the girls are doing well now.  No more milk going to waste.  Oh, happy, happy day on the homestead!
I apologize for my overuse of exclamation points, but you know, it's been a good week... :)

First I heated the milk and added the diluted rennet and mesophilic culture.  This milk has been sitting for 12 hours, and it's ready for cutting the curd.  Do you see those funky, swirly marks in the top?  They're stir marks.  I think when I stirred the rennet and culture in, I almost stirred it too long.  Thankfully, I stopped when I did.

The curd is cut.

putting the curd in a cheese cloth lined colander.

Leftover whey.  This can be used fresh and unrefrigerated to make ricotta cheese, or used to make bread (just substitute the whey for the liquids in your recipe), or fed to animals.  I didn't feel like I needed another project at the time, so I fed it to my friend's pigs.  I ended up with a gallon and a quart of whey from two gallons of milk.

The curds hanging to get rid of all the whey.  I let them hang for about 14 hours.  I ended up with about 4 1/2 lbs. of cheese from 2 gallons of milk.

Out of the curds, I made two different types of cheese as my finished product.  I wanted a firmer curd that could be used as an easy feta as well as a chevre to make cheese spreads with.  To get that I heated the milk a bit more than called for in the chevre recipe as well as using a bit more rennet than called for.  I left some of the curds plain and just salted them.  In this picture are a fruit spread made by adding honey to the curds and blending them in the food processor until creamy, feta in olive oil with garlic and rosemary (because this cheese is in the olive oil, it doesn't need refrigerating.  It will last months on the pantry shelf.  At least that's what I've been told.  I guess we'll see for ourselves, if the cheese lasts months.  I doubt it will.), and roasted red pepper and garlic chevre.

 

  

Projects

We've been working on a few goat related projects for the last few days. Our new buck pen is nearly finished.

My sweet brother moved this lovely big rock into this space for us using his excavator. His little daughter LOVES the excavator, and now I love it too! :) It was so awesome of him to do this for us. I'd always wanted a real, genuine rock for the goats to play on. It's perfect for the bucks. They love playing king of the hill or napping on the rock.
The white "buck house" is really an old fishing shack. I think it'll work for a while, but at some point it will probably have to be replaced.
And the gate...I'm sure it isn't easy to miss, LOL! Hubby built it VERY solidly, so it would last a while. Here's a gate building tip: If you're ever going to build a gate, make it open IN. After several gates here, we've finally learned our lesson. It is SO much easier to get into a pen if you can "push" the animals away from the opening with the gate as you go in. I'm sure all of you knew that already. I'm a slow learner and not very observant, so I didn't know that, but I'm getting there. :)

This next project, I'm pretty pleased with. It's a hay feeder made of a crib rail. I'm not sure if I blogged about this or not, so if I did, bear with me.
All my trouble with hay feeders began when the goat kids were born this spring. Nothing was safe for them. I nearly had Shamrock get hung in one of the commercial hay feeders, and I've have a friend who had a kid hang herself in one of them. Another friend had a doeling break her leg getting hung up in one, so I took them down and put them on the outside of the wire fencing or security panels. That was safe, but I was never sure the goats were getting enough hay trying to get it through 2x4 inch rectangles.
 I then got a piece of a cattle panel with 6x6 inch squares, bent it into a crescent and attached it to the wall. I hoped that might work to keep the goats out of the hay and be safe, but the kids could get through the squares and quickly adopted it as a safe haven. Of course, they used it as a bathroom as well.
A lady on a forum I belong to had the idea of using a crib rail to make a hay rack, so I decided to try it. I finally got the guts to try out the plan I had formed in my mind for building it. This was my first building project, and I'm really pleased! I only had to have hubby help with two cuts on the table saw, and hanging it on the wall. I've been really wanting to get better at using tools and building things, especially since hubby has said, "This buck pen is my LAST goat building project, and I MEAN last." Okay, I know it's just a hay rack, but it has given me some confidence. I'm pretty sure I'll be trying my hand at some more projects in the future! :)

Garden and Chicks

Mama and her adopted brood.  There are five chicks, but one is usually under mom.. 

Still five, four under mom.  She is very careful of her chicks, and very patient even when they peck at her eyes.

The lone lettuce plant

A jungle of tomatoes and broccoli.  It's even worse now, as these photos are already a week or two old.

Jalapenos are doing well this year.  Usually I can't get them to grow very big.  But it's hot out there!  Hot enough to grow hot peppers! :)

Puny cucumber plant.  There are four of them.  I planted about 30.  Sad...and not one flower on them yet.  Hopefully they'll make up for lost time and give me a few, anyway.

Potatoes.  I think the ones on the right are Youkon Gold.  I can't think of what the others are right now.  At this moment they look even worse than in this picture.  Especially those on the left.  The foliage looks downright on deaths door.  I've never grown potatoes before, so I don't know what normal is, but to me they look bad.  And I don't think I've seen any flowers on the plants.  I thought flowers were supposed to form, and at that time there would be "new potatoes" to eat?  Please, enlighten me.

My broccoli usually doesn't grow well, as you could probably see in the above jungle pic.  The heads are so tiny, not enough to feed one person if I picked it all, and while I'm waiting for it to grow larger it flowers out and is wasted.  This plant is actually producing a lovely head that looks like what I'd expect it to.   yay!

Harvest for tonight's supper.

My garden has pretty much had to fend for itself this summer, as I'm really busy with the rest of life.  Goat care and milking takes up about two to three hours of each day right now, with 7 sets of hooves to trim, fighting parasites, cleaning up after them, taking them to pasture, hauling water, milking and caring for milk and milking equipment.
Right now, sadly, we've had to do some pretty aggressive treatment for threadworms, so all that lovely milk is going to the neighbors pigs.  Happy pigs, sad us...And I'd wanted to avoid dewormers so badly.  However, things are looking up, so in about five days we should be back in the lovely, clean, creamy white bliss again.  Hooray!

Happy Wednesday to all you lovely blog pals! :)

Summer Fun Pics

The boys, Aspen and Shamrock

Swimmin' in the river

dock jumping

Dock jumping ninja

Chicks and garden coming soon.

Catching Up

 I'm hoping to catch up on what's been happening here this summer.  I'd love to get some photos of things other than goats up soon, but first I have to find my camera so I can upload them.
We've been able to squeeze a ton of summer fun into the last two months.  The weather has been wonderfully warm for water activities, which has meant lots of tubing and swimming.  The "Big Lake" has been 70 degrees many days, so the kids and Dan have been jumping off the dock in the bay near our house.  I just watch and take the pictures :)  I'll post a few as soon as I find that camera!  Before the lake warmed up so much we had the local river to play in, and I've got some pics of that to show you as well.  We have a great spot for swimming and playing.  It's like a water park just for us!  There's a water fall that flows into a pool where the kids get right in the water fall, and there's a flat rock formation that makes a water slide into the next pool down.  The river is usually not as full as it stayed for so long this spring and early summer.  Since we have this enormous ridge running the length of our county, the rivers run fast during spring thaw and hard rains, but are nearly dry the rest of the time.  By the time I remembered to bring the camera, the water level was down, but you will still get an idea of what it's like when I'm able to post pics.
The garden this year hardly deserves an update of its own, but today I was encouraged when I went out there.  Things are actually coming along now, and it's somewhat of a jungle out there.  Much more than I'd expected with the slow start I got and the failure to germinate that so many of my seeds had.  It was quite a strange phenomena how so many of our gardens had such trouble with germination this spring.  The strangest part for me was that so many of the seeds kept "popping out" of the ground.  I'd go out and find nearly the whole row of bean seeds sitting on top of the soil.  I'd poke them all back in and one or two would stay in and sprout.  Others would pop out of the ground again.  I'd poke them in again and another one would sprout.  That happened a few times and then so more sprouted.  The same thing happened with the squash, zucchini and cucumbers.  Out of about 8 rows of carrots, maybe four carrots came up.  One lettuce plant, one radish, absolutely no dill, four cucumber plants out of about 25...VERY strange.  Perhaps some of you have found out why things were so crazy, but unfortunately I haven't had much time to read (or write) blog posts lately.  I'm hopefully going to be able to slowly catch up soon though! :)
I've also got some pics of the chicks hatching in our incubator.  Molly got 5 eggs to hatch, then put the chicks under a broody hen.  She was thrilled with them, and is an absolutely terrific mother.  It's so fun to watch  them, and a big bonus that we don't have to raise the chicks.
So, next post will be pictures of what I've posted about today, but since the only recent photos I've got on this computer are ones of the does browsing that I took with my daughters camera today, that's what I've posted.  Next post, no goats...No, I mean it!  Really! ;)
It's nice to be back.  Hopefully I'll be here more often now.

Starlight's daughter, Lil' Bet

Panzy reaching for a leaf that caught her eye

Starlight and daughters, Ginger and Lil' Bet

My Daughter's Blog

I'd like to invite you all to stop by my daughter's new blog.  She's one super creative and talented girl, and I'm sure you'll enjoy your visit! :)