I’ve been rather quiet lately and for most of you I am sure you know why.
Learning to care for a milking animal takes quite a lot at first.
I have been busy hatching eggs so I can increase my egg production and also have some roosters to put in the freezer this fall.
We have also been working on cleaning out the stalls and incorporating the manure into the vegetable garden.
My goal was to donate 1600 pounds of food last year to St. Martin’s.
My garden was a flop.
I will try to reach this goal again this year.
As many of you know in addition to donating food we can and use the food for our winter supply.
This past winter has been quite lean due to the garden failing.
We had planned to plant 100 pounds of potatos before Good Friday.
The weather did not cooperate.
Our vacation has been a mess – but the weather will warm up and he does have at least another week coming so we will get them planted!
We also are adding some baby ducks this year since, after the neighbors dog incident last year, we only had one left.
I will be getting some turkeys at the end of the month.
I can’t wait.
I have been wanting some for a while now.
I am looking for some Sebastopol Geese babies.
I would like the colored but the white ones will do.
If anyone knows of anyone with some please let me know.
Now, back to the goats!
We have Darla, our wonderful doe and Mr. Buck – who is also known to us as bam bam!
I think that explains it.
Darla is a wonderful milker and I am so glad Kim chose to sell her to me.
She is so nice and loving.
So far we have made 2 quarts of ice cream – butter pecan and chocolate marshmallow, enough butter to keep us supplied, chocolate and peanut butter fudge, buttermilk for bread and pancakes and still had lots of milk left to drink.
We are really enjoying the milk and no, it is not goaty at all.
It tastes like regular milk although even after scooping all the cream off the top that I can get, it is more creamy than regular milk.
The ice cream was the best I have ever eaten!
I have been making my own loaves of bread and have found if it rises long enough and is allowed to cool completely before it is cut you can get nice, fluffy slices just like store bought.
We have also been making all of our own noodles.
There is nothing quite like homemade and the richness of our eggs just adds to the goodness.
I have also acquired a French Angora Buck.
I am looking for a female for him.
We named him Prince.
I have got quite a bit of Angora from him so far and have been working on spinning it.
For those of you who do not know my friend Minnie had a turn of the century spinning wheel that she sold me several months back.
I have spun quit a bit of yarn.
I have also been making my own socks which I like so much better than anything I could buy.
Finally I would like to say a big thank you to Susi for thinking of me and giving me her Grandmother’s rug loom.
I have already started a wool roving rug.
I am going to felt it when I am done so that it will be washable.