Here is another fall update….
The little piglets have been moved into the garden to forage
and rototill. I am keeping Abra and
Avidor in their summer digs for a bit longer to allow the babies to grow a bit
faster without the competition of their parents for food. We figure we will be butchering at least one
in December and perhaps the other in February.
We had our first hatching success and have 12 little Light
Brahma chicks. Our success rate was about 50%. I don’t think that was too bad for our first
clutch. These baby chicks are so
friendly compared to the ones I have purchased via mail or at TSC. I have
another 30 eggs going into the incubator this weekend.
The Guinea fowl have been banned into the horse barn for the
duration of the winter. They don’t like
the chickens so they can’t stay in the chicken coop and they can’t free range
because they like Greg’s truck as a daytime perch. They
were doing well up there until they found the cat door……sigh, they are NOT the
smartest birds, but they sure do know how to get into trouble.
I finally found something at which I can rival an Amish
woman. I found a superb recipe for a
pumpkin log that tastes JUST like one made by the Amish (and maybe better). A few notes:
1) I did not use any nuts. 2) My jelly roll pan was larger than the
required size so the cake batter didn’t cover it; I had to make an additional ½
batch to fill out the pan (but didn’t use ALL the batter). 3) I’m pretty sure
they are wrong on the amount of servings; there were a few less than 8. J
Pumpkin
Log
Ingredients:
3 eggs
¾ cups granulated sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup oil
1 cup chopped pecans
Directions:
Grease and flour a 10” x 15” jelly
roll pan; line with wax paper or parchment paper and grease again. Preheat oven to 360 deg F.
Mix ingredients together in order
listed, excepting nuts. Spread into
prepared pan; sprinkle with nuts. Bake
15 minutes. Turn out onto dampened
towel. Roll up lengthwise in jellyroll fashion (including towel and
paper). Cool
Filling:
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 package cream cheese, room
temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
Assembly:
Combine all ingredients, beating
until smooth. Unroll cooked cake and
remove paper and towel. Spread with
filling, re-roll, and refrigerate.
Makes 8 servings
My dearest hubby hooked up our dishwasher – what a wonderful
help. I had (sort of) forgotten how nice
it is to have one.
My dearest hubby has been such a busy man, since he also
finished up the new goat barn and his farm equipment storage shed. After we had a week of heavy rainfall, they were
happy to have this extra space during the next rain. This
barn actually has height enough for me to very comfortably stand in it. With an additional 200 square feet of floor
space I know I’M going to be happy with it. I’m now storing quite a bit of hay in the
goat feed room adjacent to this new living space; this makes it even easier
this winter as I won’t have to trudge through the snow nearly as much to put
hay into the feeders!!
Powder, our Satin doe, has finally come of age and we
attempted our first breeding. Not quite
enough proper action from our buck, Fudge, the first couple of tries. We put her in with him and the third time was
the charm. We are due for our first babies
around November 20th, 2012!!
Speaking of bunnies, I picked up two more rabbits yesterday. They are two young Checkered Giant/ New Zealand
cross does. One will be heading to the
dinner table while the other will be a kept as a breeder. I am
seriously on the lookout for some nice size angora does. I’m doing some research into them and found I
can use them for fiber (when not bred or rearing young) and for meat.
The goats are growing wider and wider and wider. Got the baby monitor fixed and set up ready
to alert me to babies (in a few months).
 |
| Ruby |
 |
| Snapdragon |
As I get deeper into this world of quality goat breeding, I
find more things that are hard for a softie like me. While I believe that my stock is of pretty
darn good quality I concern myself with the small (or maybe not so small)
things. For instance, if I have stock
that is of very nice confirmation, good feet, decent worm resistance, good meat
to bone ratio, fast growing, has large litter sizes, friendly and of amazing color but for some reason seems to
be more prone to unknown illnesses and/or nutritional deficiencies. Are those the first I should cull? Or would
it be better to cull a family line that is slower growing but that is NOT prone
to any illness or deficiencies? Or
perhaps the family line that has EVERYTHING but only gives me single
births? Currently I haven’t had these
specific issues or choices to make but I tend to make mountains out of molehills
sometimes. I don’t want to cull anybody
to be honest, but I’ve been thinking more and more about currently having 9
does bred and only space to keep 3 more goats!!
I know I would like to keep one Myotonic doeling and two are most likely
already sold. I am hoping I get at least
one SUPER colorful and built doe from Nitro and would like to keep that
one. I’m not sure however if I want to
keep any offspring from Demon. He is
growing wonderfully and I’ve bred him to Berry and Fiona, but I don’t like his
scrotal conformation. If he throws that
trait to his male offspring he will be culled.
I do know that before closing our herd I need at least three bucks that
I am extremely happy with or my herd won’t be that constant improvement that
all (okay hopefully at least most) new breeders strive for.
I will be getting gift baskets together soon for this
year. However I wish they could be as
full as last year, but unfortunately I didn’t do the canning this year that I
did the previous year, so my cupboard is almost “bare”. However without as many home canned goods, I
hope to add a few craft projects, maybe some homemade soap or body scrubs and
maybe a few homemade mixes!!
I’ve put Icee and Reign back together to guard the girls pen
as a team. Icee finished her first “season”
at 11-1/2 months of age. If all goes
well, she won’t be coming into heat again until spring; at which point I will
either separate them again or allow them to produce their first litter. I have been extremely impressed with the
guarding ability, temperament and intelligence of these two. When kidding season hits this spring however
I think I will keep both Reign and Icee with the boys until the dams and their
kids settle in. I’m just not sure I want
to trust ANY dog with my newborns at this time until they prove themselves (supervised)
with little ones first!!
There has been one sad departure since our last blog
entry. Monte (aka Monkey) has moved to live with
children. I think the change was most
likely sadder for me than it was for Monte.
I’m sure he will be very happy with a couple of kids to dote on him!!
There have been two additions since our last entry. Jasmine (aka Jazz) is a gorgeous 10HH pony
mare. She will need a lot of work on
trust issues, being a bit head shy. We
have had her here about three weeks now and she has come a long way, if the
weather would cooperate I’m sure I could work her more often. She is my new cart prospect and hopefully by
spring we will have a harness on her.
The second addition to our homestead is 10 acres surrounding
our current 2 acres. We have put in the
fencing for a two acre horse pasture and will be planting pasture grasses and a
few trees in the spring. The remaining
acreage will be planted for haying.
Hopefully in the spring I will be also doubling the size of the both the
buck pen and the girls pasture.
Well, until next time…..
