Goats, goats and more goats.

I have not written specifically about our goats for a while now. I'd like to do a better job documenting them than I have and sharing our hard lessons on goats that we have loved and lost.

Three years ago we got Amelia and Lady on July 4th 2010 from My Kids Farm and I made a new friend named, Karlene. We got goats mainly because hubby and I really didn't want to get a horse. And when your 12 year old is DESPERATE for a horse OR goats. You will probably opt for the lesser of the two evils, or in this case, the cheaper and more practical of the two.

I decided that if we were to get goats I'd like them to be "in milk" already so that we had to immediately start milking every day and that we'd benefit from the new food we would be buying them and it would turn into food for us. When I started this blog I was just really starting to develop a "back to basics" mindset. Trying to grow more, can more, forage more, learn more about the food we eat and how to prepare our family better for harder times that always have the possibility of coming.

We set up our temporary hut for the girls (it was a Rubbermaid lawn mower shed, low ceiling to keep warmth in and keep them dry, I had been researching a little and discovered goats don't need a heated space, little did I know what that little shed would lead to.)

Amelia was the first to breed that fall and Lady was much more stubborn. Amelia kidded in April 2011 for the first time at our house. In the heated garage, we didn't want frozen babies, and April can surprise you here with cold weather. She had 3 big boys, Lazarus, Buck and Billy. We sold Lazarus to a friend and got her hooked on goats in 2011.

Amelia with her batch of boys in 2011.

Lazarus was our bottle baby and SO cuddly and adorable.

My daughter had done so well milking the first year that in the spring when she asked for a puppy, I said, "No, but you may have a goat!" So I bought her a pure bred LaMancha doeling that she chose and we brought her home when she was weaned. She named her, "Elka". This was May 2011. I'd wanted a LaMancha to begin with but took Ameila and Lady (Nubians) because Karlene didn't have any other does in milk that she was willing to sell. K and I worked out an arrangement on how we'd share the work and pay for her goat and how we'd deal with money if we sold a kid out of her in the future. So far it has worked out great. K has milked for all three years now and does not want to give it up, she doesn't consider it a chore, she loves her alone time with the goats.

Elka, our new LaMancha.

Lady still would not breed 'till we dried her up completely, so in August Lady had gone to Karlene's, house to visit for a very long visit...in August she bread successfully and in January we had our first winter kidding. We were hoping that this would be the LAST because winter kidding has many issues attached to it. But, as I write this, Lady is at Karlene's again after the same issue of not breeding last November and bred 3x last week, so it looks like we're in for another one.

Large Lady in her kidding stall in the garage a week or so before kidding.

January 27, 2012 she had two adorable boys, this one was the cutest.

Here's lady and her matching boy.

This boy looked just like his daddy, Impetuous. We named him "Roast".

We named both boys after cuts of meat. We didn't have high hopes they would go for breeding stock, not that they couldn't have, they have great bloodlines, but because boys aren't needed as much as girls and they typically get eaten.

On March 9th the boy with moon spots died. K found him frozen stiff on the ground and came to the front door screaming in anguish with the frozen baby goat. All of the other 5 kids chimed in with the screaming at seeing the dead body and jolted hubby and I out of our TV trance to find out who had died. It was very sad.We learned from that experience. If a goat does not come in for food on a cold day, FIND OUT WHY!!! They should ALWAYS want grain, if they don't there is a problem.

In November Karlene and I decided that we would borrow a buck to breed the girls to. We'd give a Nubian to Lady & Amelia and we took Elka down to my friend, Amber's house, where she had other LaManchas to breed. Karlene brought a buck there first and we watched Elka breed 2x as soon as we put him in the pen.

We brought the Nubian up to our house and put him in with my girls. They flirted but didn't really make any commitments, this went on for about three weeks then, tragically, in the November bitter cold winds, her buck died. We learned MANY more lessons from that ordeal. The most important one was to 2X DAILY at the very least, pet, check, talk to, make stand, your goats. We also learned that bucks pee on themselves to make them more attractive to the ladies, so they are more susceptible to cold, especially the kind we had with the wind and a lame ass shelter. We also learned that no matter how good we think we are, Karlene has a lot to teach us about humility, forgiveness, friendship and kindness. Not a harsh word was spoken, she simply cried, collected her bucks body and told us that it was HER fault for not educating us enough and that she just shouldn't loan out goats. Her heart is so kind, she puts me to so much shame.

Hubby had had enough of my temporary shelter and we hired 2 very burly men to build a small doe barn on the end of our milking shed, we added insulation and a deck area inside to keep cleaned off. This also accessed the hay shed so they could eat with out leaving the shelter. I just wish so badly we had done this sooner.

First day's work building in 10 degrees and much bitter wind.

Lunch break and it's ready for insulation and a door.

Amelia nor Lady bred to Karlene's buck, both their preg tests were negative. So Karlene put me in touch with another amazing goat farmer with a disease free herd and she housed both girls while they were in heat in December. Amelia took the breeding and Lady was taken there two times and still didn't take.

In April 3013 we put Elka in a new kidding stall I had built in the milking shed. K noticed that she had developed a hard udder before kidding and Karlene came the next day to take a look. She had developed a very bad case of dry mastitis. She kidded 3 days later, we had been treating her teat, but the main infection was right in the tip of her udder so the medicine would not even go into her udder very far at all. She has not produced on that side, it's quite sad. We hope that with her second kidding we can watch for it more closely and perhaps get some milk out of that side. I have learned that this destroys the milk glands inside and they don't produce nearly as much as they would have even if it works again. She had a single doeling, now breaking our buck "spell". K named her Belka and has since been re-named by her new owners.

Belka at a few days old.

K with her Belka the day before she went to her new house.

End of June Amelia was due to kid. We weren't worried about putting her in a stall as it was so WARM!!! She kidded right after K had checked on her and this was her first birth she did herself, Ameila had the first two on her own and K pulled the last one that was breeched. My husband usually helps the goats but he was on a trip to his brother's wedding. K, now 15, handled it like a champ, it was very laid back and we were SHOCKED to find that she had had three GIRLS!!! 

Proud K with Ameila and babies.

Karlene had first dibbs on Amelia's girls, just took Amelia 3 years to have one. She chose the dark eared one pictured here. She plans to show her. Her big sister from 4 years ago is already a finished champion. She'll do great.

All in all, having goats is very rewarding. It's more work, for sure, but they are very enjoyable. Goat kids are the CUTEST animal in the world and you sell them when they get bigger. My kids love having goats, people love to visit the goats, I love the manure from the goats for the garden, we all love the cheese that my husband makes. All in all it's a win win.

Shriveled potatoes and really old eggs

Sounds appetizing right?

It's May and I still have 2 boxes of shriveled up potatoes that have started sprouting. They look unseemly, I hate to throw them out, but who wants to eat them that way? Well, I do, they are perfect for skin on-mashed potatoes.

Today hubby is making some pork ribs (using the 3, 2, 1 method) in the new smoker I encouraged him to purchase (more cooking for him means less cooking for me, and smoked meat? Yeah, baby.) Skin on potatoes sounded like a perfect fit.

I am so lazy when it comes to actually using potatoes. I don't like scrubbing them or peeling them. Fortunately, God gave me 6 healthy children, so they can do it, besides they eat them all, so I don't feel bad. Skin on are not my husband's favorite kind, so when they are fresher I concede and peel them, but the skin is where all the nutrients are in the potatoes, so I try to sneak in skin in recipes that call for taters. We have to fill our 8qt pot every time we make them, we still don't have leftovers.

Skin-on mashed potatoes

One pot full of potatoes
One stick Butter (or margarine or olive oil)
Salt & Pepper

Optional:
sour cream
cream cheese
dried minced onions
milk

Scrub the potatoes, fill up the pot as you go. Unload the potatoes and cut them up in to large pieces and take off any green that is on the potatoes (the green is from being exposed to light and makes them very bitter and I have heard that it is even poisonous, but that may be a wives tale). Also by May there seem to be more black spots inside the potatoes you need to cut out.

Put only about 4 inches of water in the bottom of your pot. My mother taught me to do it this way, you basically are steaming your potatoes instead of boiling them and leaching out the nutrients into the water.

Cook about 15 minutes, until they are fork tender.

Drain off most of the water, put in a stick of butter, cover the butter with potatoes and let the butter melt for 3 minutes or so. Add salt to taste (I added about 4tsp tonight), pepper (I added 1/2 tsp) and anything else you desire (I added a pint of sour cream tonight, they were really good.)

Mash, taste, adjust salt and pepper, serve hot.
OR
Put them in a 9x13 casserole and re-bake them for a potluck or for dinner the next day. When you re-bake them add more butter to the top and some paprika. Bake covered at 350 for 45 min, then uncovered for about 15 min. I do it this way when I'm going somewhere for Thanksgiving and I usually peel them for Thanksgiving and add the cream cheese and dried minced onions.

Here are my scrubbed, shriveled, soft potatoes being cut up for mashed potatoes.

Top are the potatoes cooking (lid on) and below are the eggs covered with water, lid off, watch them.

Ok, onto the month old "farm fresh" eggs, ha.

If you are Orthodox than you know why I have a plethora of eggs up to one month old. I have given some eggs away and sold some too, but I still have about 12 dozen eggs built up in my fridge. I haven't figured out how to tell my chickens that it's Lent, lay off for a bit... But as I HATE wasting food, it is my mission to find the best way to use month old eggs.

A cool way to tell if an egg is rotten or not is if it floats, if you have a floating egg throw it away. If it stands up on end, it's old, but not rotten. We eat those.

The best way to cook old eggs in my opinion is to make deviled eggs! You float them all in the water, hard boil them, make a bunch of hard boiled eggs, devil them and eat them at your potluck, then make more for snacks for your family. Most people say that the older the egg, the easier it is to peel. Mine should be quite easy to peel!!!

Basic Deviled Eggs, for 24 eggs (48 deviled eggs)

Hard boil eggs (you can reference the internet for more details on hard boiling eggs, but this is what I do):
Cover eggs with 2 inches or so of water, heat them on medium heat, I leave mine uncovered at first and check on them every 5-10 minutes.
When the water just barely starts to bubble, turn off heat and put the lid on the pan, set the timer for 18 minutes.
The other day I put the lid on for 22 minutes and they were overdone. I don't mind for deviled eggs, I'd rather them be overdone than underdone and it's easy to under cook this many eggs when they have all come out of the cold refrigerator. The mass of cold versus the mass of hot water won't let them cook properly, that's why I have started heating them more slowly, it causes the eggs to heat up with the water.

Cool in cold water with ice, wait 'till manageable or completely cooled. Cut eggs in half, pop yolks into a bowl.

Ingredients:

1 cup mayonnaise
4 tsp white vinegar
4 tsp mustard
milk if needed
pepper to taste
paprika

Whip ingredients with a fork, add milk if it's too thick. Taste it! Add salt if you need more. There are also other fun ingredients you could toss in, but when you're making so many eggs and they are good this way I don't go for fancy.

I used a little milk the other day because it was too dry. Then, the next day when I made more, I didn't need any. I also used a quart bag, folded down edges, filled bag with filling, cut the tip off the corner, and squeezed in a heaping portion into each half.

Sprinkle with paprika to make them pretty.

Here are the ribs hubby made today. They. Were. So. Good. I'm not a rib fan, but I'm a fan of these.

By the way, if you want to know if you can give your dogs cooked pork bones, you can't. They are like cooked chicken bones, they will splinter and they can kill them. :(

This is the new smoker we bought when we moved to Washington. We love it! He smokes all the salmon we get, makes these pork ribs and he even started making homeade bacon!!!

 

New love of canning

I discovered a few years ago how much I loved to can, but this year I discovered something new.

Tattler lids.

They are plastic, made in America, BPA free (I don't know what BPA is but others don't seem to like it) and best of all they are REUSABLE!!!

I decided to purchase about 6 dozen of wide and regular mouth lids when a lady in our town was doing a large bulk order from Tattler. Earlier in the year another friend had given me 4 boxes full of Classico spaghetti sauce jars (3 cups each) and other miscellaneous jars she had collected over the years. So here I sit with FREE jars and REUSABLE lids.

I quickly used up all the free jars and decided to just spend money on more jars. We "invested" in more jars and it was like I had a playground in my kitchen. I even borrowed my neighbor's caner so I could do 2 batches at a time.

My husband made me promise that I would actually USE the food that I canned and not just let it sit there for years looking pretty. I have done a pretty good job, I think, the stock has been wonderful, the spaghetti sauce delicious, the carrots are so handy when I don't have any in the fridge, and the canned moose and chicken are so handy.

In this picture there is:
moose meat, cubed for stews
ground moose meat
hummus (not recommended for canning just like re fried beans, learned after I canned it, they are both too thick and should not be canned, now I just freeze all hummus and re fried beans)
stewed tomatoes
spaghetti sauce
carrots, plain
carrots, pickled
beets, plain
beets, pickled
pinto and black beans, plain
rhubarb jam
rhubarb/raspberry jam
fireweed jelly
blueberry/rhubarb jam
cucumber pickles
Red salmon, smoked
Pink salmon, smoked (pink smokes up really nicely! I was shocked, here in Alaska it's a "reject" fish but because if it's extra soft texture the smoked pink is not so jerky like like reds are, they are soft and great on crackers with cheese)
Chum salmon, smoked (edible, but we won't bother with chums again, too slimy and don't taste nearly as good)
Red salmon, plain
Pink salmon, plain with skin on (yuck, take the skin off or smoke those bad boys)
zucchini relish
Chow Dixie relish
lard
chicken
chicken stock
lamb stock
salmon stock
rhubarb/apple pie filling
lentil soup (turned out very mushy so I will add small amounts other recipes a little at a time to use it up)
spicy caribou and moose stew (not to impressed with the lack of flavor, not having the best luck with canned soup)

 

Update on use of our canned goods: I discovered that having them nearby made a huge difference. We used most of the spaghetti sauce, about 1/2 the moose meat, all but one jar of carrots, almost all of the jelly/jam, and generally ate a lot of it all before the next fall. I didn't can as much in 2012 but canned up a bunch of the things that were needed and bacon bean soup, this links to the video I made that had a better flavor.

Kids and dogs

My oldest daughter turned 13 this May. This is my child that has begged me for animals her whole life and this year is no different. She wants a puppy so she can breed it and sell the puppies.

I am not an animal lover. Not at all. I used to like cats, but not anymore. When I started having children I lost any interest I had for animals. HOWEVER as you know, we have many animals. This is mostly the fault of Martha Stewart and my daughter. Martha Stewart because when I watched her show years back she had the most beautiful eggs and I coveted them. I wanted THOSE chickens so I could get THOSE eggs. My neighbor knew about chickens so we jumped in. Turns out having chickens is fun and my husband took to them much more than I did. I love the eggs, he likes the hens.

When my daughter was eight she begged me for a horse (again) we have 2 acers but no fence or barn. Horses are very impractical in Alaska, however, as a homeschooling family we want to encourage our kids passions not discourage them. We got her into horse lessons. Unfortunately she was a natural...which sucks 'cause that means we can't easily quit. So we go during the summer. Last year she won the first competition she was in...beginners luck? At this point in time we are not equipped for horses and perhaps never will be, but we like the idea of her being distracted with animals through her teenage years. I don't think that will be a problem...our younger girls on the other hand, well that's a different story.

Another animal she begged for were goats. I didn't want to milk a goat, who was I kidding. I'm a lazy NOT farm girl. But goats make a whole lot more sense than horses do. I began collecting chain link dog kennel panels after our friend gave us theirs and another friend gave us theirs. I realized they would be great for goats (who are terrible at getting through fences). When I discovered last year that goats don't need the kind of heavy duty shelter that chickens do up here in the winter, I realized it was time to jump on board. No time like the present...if I don't do this now I may never. So we took the plunge, 2 Nubian does in milk producing 2 gallons a day. A whirlwind of a learning curve, what to do with THAT much milk?! Learn to make everything out of it and find what you like best.

This June one doe is maybe pregnant, harder to get her knocked up than the other. The other had 3 bucklings. The nice thing is that bucklings need more milk than doelings, so the doe will produce more that year, but the bad part is they suck it all and you don't have it to drink. We get about 1/2 gallon a day from the other doe now for ourselves, which is barely enough...we have to ration it. I'd wanted a LaMancha doe last year but the breeder I chose didn't have any. This year she had more LaMancha kids available. I don't have enough milk at the moment with the doe feeding kids and I also don't want my children getting attached to the bucklings we're raising to sell as bucks or to butcher this fall for meat...I decided that after my daughter did an amazing job this year doing 95% of the milking that I'd buy her a goat instead of a puppy.

It was a good call (so far) she was not disappointed, she's totally in love, she picked out the one that was born the day we were at the breeder's visiting, she and I will split any profits from sales of kids and the doeling will provide our family milk for years to come. Daughter named her Elka and though LaMancha's aren't nearly as cute as Nubians (no ears!) with her docile personality, she will definitely grow on us.

I'm finding the goats are growing on me in general. I dare say I could end up being a goat lover. Don't tell anyone.

It's raining, lets blog

Today is raining, so I'll finally post these pics I took last week. It's been so sunny and nice (awesome) but it's good to have a down day...as long as it's just one day. I'm making borscht for my deprived family, the ham bone is slowly cooking and our house feels cozy.

What's your favorite thing to do on a rainy day in the summer?

pansies and Livingston daisies planted here...hope they get bigger!

zucchini & 2 sunflowers...the warmest part of our yard

columbine getting ready to bloom

2 new raspberry beds, one yellow one thorn less red

never ending fence redo

our yellow house that used to be green

our old laying hens

planted garden

new chickens for this year, our "teenagers"

first try at turnips, how do you eat turnips?

new top needed for our picnic table, old rotted one removed

there is nothing better than a snuggly baby goat

my prized peony, love this thing

husband's honey bees hard at work

Free Roasted Chicken and Rice

It struck me again as I was picking the meat apart from the bones on the chickens tonight...it was free.

Only because we were willing (and knew how) to do the work was it free.

This summer someone made a "donation" of 7 chickens to our local substance abuse place that has a thrift store and grows potatoes for the fellows that live there. They don't do chickens. Our friend found out about these chickens and he and some others were offered them for free, as in PLEASE TAKE THESE THINGS! He called us knowing that we have chickens. 7 free chickens? What kind? How old? Who knows? Who cares?

Turns out there were 3 roosters and 4 pullets (girl chickens that haven't started laying yet, they are usually pretty expensive to buy) crammed into a little dog crate with no food or water and had been left in the sun in their parking lot all day. Needless to say the critters were scared and my hens didn't really help them to feel welcome. They had some pecking order fights, and boy are those fun to watch. Hubby decided that night that he was not going to keep extra roosters, they just want to constantly fight with each other, so the next day he butchered them and put them into the freezer.

I realized then as I did again tonight that the only reason we got the 3 free chickens in our freezer and now 4 great laying hens was because not many people actually have a set up for chickens or are willing to butcher them. It's really easy, it's really rewarding, and it's really tasty. Best of all, it can be free.

Basic Roasted Rooster: prep 15 minutes, bake 2-8 hours

One or two whole roosters or hens or meat chickens, depending on how many people to feed and how big your chickens are. I always cook mine frozen for about half the day, so they thaw and cook. If cooking them thawed they won't need as long.
2 cups rice
4 cups water
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

In a Dutch Oven (preferred, can use another baking dish with a cover, if no cover use a turkey bag or foil-be sure it is on tight! it has to be covered so it won't dry out) oil the bottom of your dish or spray with PAM or something similar. Add your rice and your water. I never use my crock pot for this because I adore my dutch oven, BUT I have a feeling that a crock pot would work perfectly for this recipe. A great one to cook on low all day long. Leave me feedback if you try that please.

If using frozen chickens, like I typically do, thaw them enough to get them out of the bags then place them on top of the rice. Rub olive oil on them and season them with salt and pepper. Once with a rooster I omitted the rice and just poured barbeque sauce over them, that was delicious. (I have read that you're supposed to thaw chickens first, etc, but I have cooked them this way for a couple years and we usually eat about 20 whole chickens per year.)

Cover your pot with a lid, I have an 8 quart dutch oven I can fit in one large or 2 small chickens into and still cover it.

Bake at 300 degrees for about 3 or 4 hours.

This particular dish is my summer favorite, I put it in the oven before I go outside to work and know dinner will be ready when ever I decide to come in or hubby finally makes me quit working. I have baked these from as little as 3 hours to as long as 6 in the dutch oven. The meat WILL fall of the bone, but I like it that way. Makes it easier to pick the meat off later when it's time for clean up.

Roosters and hens over a year old are stringer than a store bought or a 6-8 week old meat chicken that you can raise for meat. But their flavor is superior. This is my easy way to bake all my chickens and any time I change the recipe (different spices, adding lentils to the rice, etc) hubby complains. My family is known for liking "plain food" so just FYI.

I typically get 2 meals out of this, my second meal is chicken fried rice. I use the chicken (obviously) and the left over rice (obviously) and some of the hens eggs, some lettuce or spinach from the garden. What a great "homestead" meal!

It's easy to get free meat if you know how to butcher a chicken.

Large bowl of chicken (rooster), this is after we had roasted it and had our fill... Half of it will go back into the broth with the noodles I made today for a pot of chicken noodle soup.

My husband said I've gone insane

He's partly right, of course, but I usually am when obsessed with something new. At the moment it's Granny Miller and this link connects you to one of today's projects: pressure cooking my 3 roosters. They have been waiting patiently in the freezer for my day of inspiration, and today it came.

ready to be cooked

She also wrote about making your own egg noodles, this is a fairly simple thing that I've just never done. So today we made those too. For some reason I had it in my head that you need a pasta thingamajig and I HATE extra kitchen gadgets that take up precious room. So I've never even considered buying one, and I've never made noodles 'till today. You don't even need a fancy noodle rack...

our cheese spoon and chopsticks held up by rice

rolled as thin as I could muster, then cut with a rotary cutter by children with joy

My chicken is about done, and the only trouble tonight figuring out what to have for dinner is the opposite problem I normally face...I have too much food in both fridges, I'd thawed out moose for spaghetti but then made 3 chickens. Oh and I have a pot of rice from Saturday. I know I'll be making some chicken soup... but now I need to figure out how to combine the rest of the foods for this week.