Where Our Food Comes From

I was asked a question today that I've been asked before and it's usually a long answer, and because it's one busy mom asking another busy mom, I don't usually get to give the longer, detailed answer.  So, I decided that I'd write about it here because I'm geekish that way.

Where do we shop for our groceries?  There have been times that my weekly "grocery" trip netted so few items in the cart that I got to use the express lane.  My only local grocery option is Basha's, and the 3 things we used to buy the most of there were bananas, bread and bottled club soda.  The 3 B's at B's.  Some of our friends work there, so we try to support them as much as possible, but this town isn't "organic" friendly, so there aren't too many things there we like.

My Local Grocery Store:

• Some produce.  We use the Dirty Dozen/Clean 15 app.  If it's in the top 20-25 cleanest, we'll risk non organic, but the rest of the list we buy organic.  My town is not into organic, clean, real food, so the options at this store are limited, but thankfully growing.  I can get organic celery and greens when I need them now, rather than having to plan ahead.
• Club soda.  I need the bubbles.
• Sometimes a loaf of sourdough bread, but I started baking our own recently and it's so much better and about one third of the cost.
• Wild caught fish and seafood.
• Organic milk when our goats are "dry".  Organic sour cream.
• Cereal and coffee for my husband.
• Some canned goods (salsa, tuna, green chilies)
• Blue Bunny vanilla ice cream.

Trader Joe's:

• Uncured hot dogs
• Bacon ends and pieces
• Organic whole chickens
• Some produce
• Some dairy-butter, heavy cream, yogurt and specialty cheeses-all organic
• Fun food.  Their commitment to not using artificial flavors, dyes or other chemicals, and no GMO's makes it easier on me to have crackers and similar snacks available.  I used to make them from scratch.

Azure Standard:

• Frozen berries and vegetables
• Pasta
• Canned salmon
• Bulk grains
• Herbs and spices
• In season produce
• Non -GMO cheddar, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.
• Orange dark chocolate
• Tomato products
• Nuts, coconut, and other "super food" type things
• Grade B, organic maple syrup
• Evaporated cane juice and other baking essentials

DIY:

• Beef
• Pork
• Lamb
• Milk
• Yogurt
• Goat cheese
• Chicken eggs
• Duck eggs
• Some produce-we haven't been too successful with our gardens.  :-(
• Sourdough bread

Miscellaneous:

• I recently tried Bountiful Baskets produce delivery again.  I have mixed feelings about it.
• CSA (community supported agriculture), I didn't like the reality of it as much as the idea behind it.
• Trades and barter, freebies whenever they arise.

That's the big stuff.  We used to rarely eat out after we changed our diet over to real food, but with our two new additions to the family, sometimes the need to end chaos outweighs the commitment to avoiding all the processed junk out there.  Thanks to several of you for asking the question and giving me a reason to really think about it again!

The Testimony of Our Pig

She loves milk.  Real, whole, raw milk.  The timing wasn't right for her though, as the goats are dry prior to her reaching butcher weight, so she hasn't had milk for a while.  Until my husband noticed 1/2 gallons on sale at the grocery store for .88¢.  I saw it too and never thought about actually buying any for her.  He did and started giving it to her.  Guess what?  She doesn't like pasteurized, homogenized, high pressure treated, possibly hormone and antibiotic containing, artificially fortified white liquid.

With real milk, she slurps it up first, no matter what else is in her feed bin.  With the other stuff, she ignored it at first, but has started drinking it after everything else is gone.  I'm thinking I don't want her to have any of this for a few weeks prior to butchering.

Interesting, huh?

This post is shared at the Homestead Barn Hop at Homestead Revival and Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.
 

Books About Preserving Meat

The two that we're excited about right now and planning to purchase are Charcuterie and Pig:  King of the Southern Table.  Having recently butchered our first steer and knowing the pig's turn is soon, we've been looking at all the wonderful things we can do with the meat. 

I came across Pig a while back while exploring titles thru my Nook Color.  I downloaded the sample and just the first chapter piqued my interest.  I now have it from the library and am convinced we need to own it.  The only question is eBook or hardback.  The size of it says eBook, but there's just something about a physical book that I can't quite overcome.  Since the majority of the book is a how to and recipe book, we'll likely get it on the Nook.  The Nook works well in the kitchen-I open a cabinet and secure it behind the cabinet's center support, keeping it at eye level and away from spills.  This book will show us how to use just about every part of the pig available.  There are some things I can't wait to try (making our own bacon) and others that I'm sure I'd never miss (blood sausage).  According to the book, Southerner's make use of just about every part of the pig-the ears, jowls, hooves, feet, brains.  I think the eyes were the only part I haven't seen a use for!

This one is going to teach us a lot!  Everything from hot dogs to red wine salami to confit to pate (which I formally believed to simply be pureed liver) and everything in between.  Tony and I are both excited to work through these recipes and processes.  The challenge is going to be our small kitchen and lack of curing space.  However, Tony's already talking about building a smoke house!  I wonder if it could have a cheese cave basement below it?

This post is shared at the Homestead Barn Hop.

Around the "Farm"

It might only be January, but we've already started this year's batch of baby chicks.  They arrived last Thursday and are growing so quickly!  The Rhode Island Reds are already getting wing feathers!  This was taken the day they arrived.

On the 4th we added more ducks to our farm.  We had a breeding pair of white pekinsg, but the female disappeared a few weeks ago.  The male was lost without her so I had 4 ducklings in the order with the baby chicks.  Before they shipped though, I found 4 females for sale thru Craigslist, so we bought them instead.  They were the same price and already a year old!  I can't get close enough to take pictures yet, but one is really pretty-I think she's a blue Swiss?

On the 7th we butchered our first steer.  Completely grass fed.  Maybe not organic (neighbors wouldn't stop giving him their grass clippings and I suspect they use chemicals for weed control) but no grain.  This Thursday is cut & wrap day.  He ended up being about 200 pounds heavier than we had hoped for, which is a blessing.  If averages can be trusted, we should end up with 500 pounds of beef in the freezer, plus bones for stock and fat for tallow!

Sorry it's sideways.  Hubby is 6'2" and you can see how much longer the steer is even with his arm raised, which is close to an 8' reach.  The hoist is rated for 1300 pounds and struggled to raise him off the ground, so we're thinking 1250-1285 pounds on the hoof.

Next month it's the pig's turn.  So looking forward to fresh beef and pork!

This post is shared at The Homestead Barnhop #45.

Our First Steer

WARNING!  If you're sensitive to what happens to animals raised for dinner, you probably shouldn't read this.





Jasper was born January 24th, 2010 to the first heifer we've ever owned.

Wasn't he cute?  And look at that gorgeous rusty coat! 

Here he is at about 6 months.

This one is middle of summer 2011.  I think this is the last picture I have of him.  He's the one on the left.  His coat isn't as rusty as when he was born, but more so than what this picture shows.  He's been rapidly growing on a mix of grasses on our pasture, free to roam and do as he pleases.  We thought he'd get to about 1050 pounds and were surprised yesterday at butcher time when the 1300 pound rated wench could barely lift him.  Our guesstimate is he was about 1275.

My husband is gallant enough to do the hard work and not require my presence.  Goober Gus and I arrived in time to see this:

We're very grateful to these friends from church for helping out!  None of us have ever done this and I'm happy to report that despite it taking longer than they thought, no one got hurt and things went quite well.  I was there to gather parts that won't be aged and start prepping the hide.

As much as I felt I had researched and learned what to do when this day came, I was still woefully unprepared.  I knew which organs I wanted for human consumption and the parts I wanted for the pig and chickens.  I thought we had enough buckets.  If you've never done this-take more than you think you need!  Take plenty of everything.  I saved the tongue, liver and heart for us.  I kept the brain because one of the tanning methods I read about uses the brain.  We needed a bucket for the scraps of meat that were being trimmed during hide removal and quartering.  I was going to take my rubber gloves and don't know why I chose not to at the last moment.  I wanted to keep the kidneys, but to our untrained eyes, we couldn't find them.  There was a bucket for the fat that I plan to render into tallow.

I had it in my brain that there wasn't much for me to do on butcher day, that all the work I'd be doing would be on processing day after the meat ages.  Wrong.  All those decisions to make about what to keep and how to package/store it were up to me. 

The guys told me the wench pulling him up is rated for 1300 pounds and it struggled to get him off the ground.  When the hide was removed, it took 2 of them to carry it outside for me to clean.  When they gutted it, again they were amazed at the weight of all the internal organs.  Once the quartering was done it was a little easier to estimate weight.  Even the smaller sections were at least 150 pounds.  Tony can usually lift that alone, but it took 2 to get each hindquarter to the truck to transport to the meat locker.  The front sections required a 2 wheeled cart.  When there was just one left hanging on the hook, Timothy (the one in the red shirt) tried to counter balance it by hanging on the other arm.  He couldn't do it-he was raised off the ground!  Even the guy that owns the meat locker said the pieces looked big.  Our conservative estimate is 800 pounds dressed.  Using national averages, we'll get 500 pounds of meat.  Since we plan to use the bones for stock and the fat for tallow, our total yield will probably be greater.  So you really can raise a hefty steer on nothing but grass!

My goal yesterday was to get the hide skinned and salted.  That part didn't even start until about 530PM!  Tony worked with me and at 8 there was still about half the hide needing to be skinned.  5 hours of manpower and we were only halfway done!  We stopped at that point (Goober Gus was getting hungry and we still needed to get parts for the hot water handle in the shower that broke the night before-good timing huh?) and decided to go ahead and salt it down and see what happens.  We're hoping the salt will dry the remaining fat well enough to make it easier to remove.  My hands were so cramped from gripping slippery fat in one and trying to trim it with the other!  My back was stiff and for some reason so was the rest of me.  Prior to the skinning tasks, it doesn't seem that I did that much, so being so sore afterwards was confusing.  I understand now why professional tanners get $500 per hide!

The irony of the whole day was eating at McDonald's at 9PM on the day we'd been working toward for 2 years-the processing of our own homegrown, grass fed steer, so that we didn't have to eat industrially raised beef anymore.  Another reason to be better prepared with a meal plan!  I think the plan from now on will include yummy, healthy beef several times a week-at a fraction of the cost!  My best estimate (if we yield 500 pounds) is about $1.70/pound.  The inexpensive cuts from the local ranchers are over $4 per pound.  The savings are worth the crazy day we had yesterday.  Even if I am still sore and tired!

A River Runs Thru It

OK, it's really just a creek, but on days like today, it looks like a river.  I think this is the first time it's been high this time of year.  Usually it's January before we see it this high, but it's sure fun.

It's Monday again and normally that means a new menu plan.  However, since the challenge is over and there's no link up, I'm not sure I'll keep posting it.  If it's here, I have to log in to see it, as I don't take the time to both write and type it.  Although, I've been using my Nook Color for things like that more lately, and it might be a good idea.  Just not today, cuz I haven't planned the week yet!  I did think it might be fun to compare what I planned with what we actually ate.  I had to keep a record for my naturopath, so I could easily copy and paste.  OK, I will.  First is the planned meal, then what I actually had.

MONDAY
Smoothie #1: Eggs, bananas, milk, yogurt & cacao powder: S1 with maca root powder
Breakfast: oatmeal, milk: oatmeal with butter, raisins, cinnamon and sugar
Lunch: leftover noodle casserole: noodle casserole with mozzarella
Snack: Veggie smoothie (any assortment of fruits and veggies available) with breadsticks or crackers and olive oil dipping sauce: organic chocolate chip granola bar
Dinner: Shredded chicken in the rest of the leftover noodle casserole, baked sweet potato and garden salad: the last of the noodle casserole with chicken and cheese and baked sweet potato fries, can of Hansen’s soda
Pretty close this day!

TUESDAY
Smoothie #1: S1 and Traditional Medicinals Detox Tea
Breakfast: something baked to take to the park ???: baked oatmeal squares
Lunch: Tuna salad on greens: cheese crisp (We’re out of mayo, so no tuna salad)
Snack: Veggie smoothie (any assortment of fruits and veggies available) with breadsticks or crackers and olive oil dipping sauce: nada
Dinner: Goat meat chili, shredded cheese and diced onions with a salad: goat meat chili with shredded cheese and sour cream
Quick adjustment for no mayo, and then never had a snack

WEDNESDAY
Smoothie #2: Coconut milk and berries: S1 w/o cacao
Breakfast: bacon & eggs: bacon and eggs, slice of sourdough bread
Lunch: Peanut butter and celery and a salad: celery & peanut butter
Snack: Veggie smoothie (any assortment of fruits and veggies available) with breadsticks or crackers and olive oil dipping sauce: 1 slice sourdough bread with olive oil/balsamic vinegar
Dinner: short ribs with roasted butternut squash: rockfish with artichoke tapenade, sm chunk butternut squash and salad with ranch
Clearly not getting my quota of greens; had to switch to rockfish, as short ribs are in freezer at work and Tony came home before I could have him take them out on Tuesday.

THURSDAY
Smoothie #1: S1 w/o cacao or eggs plus teaspoon of peanut butter (not in the smoothie)
Breakfast: butternut squash pancakes, milk: pumpkin pancakes
Lunch: eggs salad: sandwich with bacon, colby, tomato and avocado on sourdough bread (still no mayo, but oh boy was this sandwich GOOD!)
Snack: Veggie smoothie (any assortment of fruits and veggies available) with breadsticks or crackers and olive oil dipping sauce: nada again
Dinner: Lunch box from Wild Flower Bread Co at the Sinfonietta: turkey, cheddar, lettuce & tomato sandwich, grapes, sm cookie & water (from Wild Flower Bread Co)

Closer than I thought for these days. Looks like I’m mostly missing a healthy afternoon snack and plenty of greens. I have good intentions-like juicing a bunch of stuff to freeze in ice cube trays and use for afternoon smoothies, but that takes time and energy that I just don’t seem to have. Then, the $7 carton of organic salad mix I bought that had a “Best If Used By” date of 11-11 was starting to get slimy on 11-9. I was really irritated over that! It took me about 15 minutes to hand wash (already washed lettuce) enough of it to serve that night, and even then I still found slimy lettuce in my salad and that’s a big turn off for me. The rest went to the goats. I’m glad it got used, but I can’t afford $7/pound goat food!

Words I Thought I'd Never Say

"Got a hatchet?"

to my husband, as I hold a hen caught eating an egg, standing just outside the door.  We've got a broody hen whose chicks are due to hatch any day now, so I was watching out the window, having seen her out looking for food.  Then I saw her getting aggressive and not letting any other hens into the hen house.  I went out to investigate and she was up on a pole squawking at the egg eater in her nest!  It wasn't a fertilized (or maybe just not developed enough yet) egg, but we've been having a problem and I was glad to catch the culprit.  Tony is plucking and cleaning her right now.

Yep, we've come quite a ways on this journey-had we written out a 5 and 10 year plan when we got married, raising animals for food wouldn't have even crossed our minds, let alone made it to the list!

Bad Year for Poultry

This year has been hard on the poultry on our farm.  Our first year we lost 11 birds over a 1 year span and then went a very long time with no losses.  This year we're seeing a rise again.  These are the ones I can recall, we may have lost 1 or 2 prior to the loss of the first juveniles in the spring.

1. 1 young turkey due to exposure
2. 1 young chick due to 5 year old boy's curiosity
3. 1 young turkey cause unknown
4. 1 adult hen from accidental poisoning
5. 1 juvenile hen due to illness
6. 1 rooster due to hawk attack (assumed hawk)
7. 1 adult hen simply disappeared
8. 1 juvenile hen eaten by pig

It's sad to lose one, but this year, fencing the property wouldn't have saved any of them except maybe the 2nd turkey and the hen that disappeared earlier this week.  It's still cheaper to replace a bird than to fence everything, but if we choose to make this our long term home, we'll likely fence it for various reasons.  The first year when we lost 11, most were probably coyote attacks, but even then it's still more expensive to put up fencing.

The one lost to the pig happened today.  Probably when we were at the park late afternoon.  I don't know how she got in there, but there are feathers all over and the backbone and wings.  It's not the loss that bothers me as much as which one-it'd be nice if it were one of the older hens on the downside of their laying career rather than one that just entered that stage, but it's in God's hands, right?  I hope the other hens were watching so they'll not try to go in the pig pen!

EDIT!  That darn pig got another of the juvenile hens!!  Guess whose life will be cut short, despite making good growth gains since coming to us?!  I'm off to research roasting whole pigs, as she's not big enough to take the time to butcher.  We can't figure out how or why the chickens are getting into her pen, but suspect it's to scrounge after food she hasn't eaten.  They could be flying over, as the fencing isn't very high, but more so than the hens usually go.

Also, I forgot that we lost 2 ducks shortly after they came to our home, so with today's attack, the total is now 11 poultry birds lost this year, making it worse than the first year.

Emergency Flashlights

Or power outage lights, as I just learned they are called, come in handy when it suddenly goes dark because of a power failure.  This is not the kind we have, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time searching for the exact one.  I also know nothing about the site, it was first in the list of search results.

We have one that my sister in law gave us for Christmas a few years ago.  It plugs into an outlet and when the electricity stops flowing to it, the light comes on.  This is nice when it happens at night, as happened to us a few weeks ago.  We saw the lightning and a big clap of thunder popped then it was dark.  Except for this light coming from behind the entertainment center.  It just happens to be the only outlet not used regularly.  I had only recently plugged it back in (ask me why it wasn't always plugged in-I don't know) and was glad I had.  We had a boy here visiting and while he had just fallen asleep, our son had not and the whole event shook him up.  Being able to get to that light and then light candles helped keep him calm.

We figured it was an area wide outage until Tony looked towards the neighbor's house and they had light.  Turns out the lightning blew a fuse in the power line across the road and about 6 or 8 homes are served by that fuse.  It's too bad both of the boys were asleep by the time the power company arrived to solve the problem because it was neat to watch how they changed out the fuse.

A couple of nights ago we took my parents out for burgers and when we arrived home the power was out again.  It had been off for nearly half an hour when we got home and was off for nearly two.  It was still light out when we returned so we didn't notice right away.  The flashlight was still working though.  I'm glad we have it and that it got plugged back in!

If you don't have one of these, I recommend them.  It's nice to have an instant light source when the power goes off so that you can get to your other sources of light easily.

This post is part of the Preparedness Challenge at Homestead Revival.

Before and After

I read a guest post today from Kitchen Stewardship that reminded me a lot of my own food journey so I thought I'd share my story.

If we look at life about two and a half years ago, meal planning consisted of thinking it'd be good to have fish once a week and trying not to have the same type of meat twice in a row-in other words beef, pork, chicken, lather, rinse, repeat.  We ate out several nights a week, as well as every Sunday after church.  Fast food was a regular part of our diet.  I tried to make sure we got a variety of foods but that was about the extent of making healthy choices.

Had you told me then that just about everything we eat would be made from scratch-by me-I would have laughed literally out loud.  Yeah, I enjoyed cooking and baking, but not to the point of making bread on a regular basis or homemade crackers.  I baked cookies when we were in the mood, not because it was a better choice health wise.  Probably the biggest reason for my disbelief would have been that I just don't have the energy to do all that cooking and baking.

In January of 2009 my chiropractor suggested that I have adrenal fatigue.  I'd never heard of it, but a bit of research lined everything up.  A bit more research and we started applying a few changes:

1. Bought baby chicks so we could have farm fresh eggs (then added two adults because we didn't want to wait!)
2. Discovered how expensive raw milk is and decided to buy a couple of goats to have our own fresh, raw, milk.
3. Learned to make yogurt and chevre with the raw milk.
4. Eliminated HFCS and hydrogenated fats.
5. Added coconut oil.
6. Reduced sugar intake (refined white).
7. Cut back on fast food consumption.
8. Started trying to buy non factory farmed meat.
9. Learned to milk a cow that didn't want to be milked.
10. Began following the Dirty Dozen/Clean 15 system for buying produce.
11. Began trying to avoid GMO's.
12. Discovered son was sensitive to food chemicals and started avoiding them.
13. Learned that I'd have to make a lot of things from scratch to keep from eating foods with chemicals.
1. Cookies
2. Ice cream
3. Crackers (wheat thin style)
4. Bread
5. Sour Cream
6. Buttermilk
7. Graham Crackers
8. Granola type bars
9. Marshmallows (who can give up s'mores??)
10. Meatballs
11. Bread crumbs
12. Mayo
13. Ketchup
14. Tomato sauce
15. Granola
16. Toothpaste
17. Mouthwash
18. Laundry soap
19. Deodorant
20. Dishwashing soap
21. Insect repellent
22. Household cleaners
14. Stopped enjoying eating out-the flavor just isn't there when you no longer eat processed foods all the time.
15. Realized that I've come a long way when I cringe at nearly everything available away from home and when others point out how much I do.

No wonder I'm still tired all the time!

Preparedness Challenge Week 15

Amy at Homestead Revival has been hosting this challenge and I've been enjoying reading about her efforts, but haven't really posted anything mostly because while in this small house I don't feel like there's much we can do to store extra food and water.  However, since it is small steps that get the job done, I do have a few things to share.

A couple of weeks ago we answered an ad for ripe apricots.  We went to the owner's home and he insisted on picking them for us, so we just stood on the ground pointing to what we wanted and taking them from his hands.  We bought 10 pounds and he gave us another 10 that were a bit overripe and ready for jam making.  Tony made one batch of cooked jam and it turned out nicely, I just don't like cooking the fruit if we don't have to.  Online research showed that the pectin needed for sugar free or lower sugar jams wasn't available in my area, so I ordered a box.  It just came yesterday and I haven't used it yet.  I did however, dehydrate a couple of quarts so far.  We've just been enjoying eating them fresh!

A friend told me her neighbor offered her access to their plum tree.  This friend doesn't do any canning so she asked if I could come get some instead, gotta love friends like that!  We were planning to go this evening, but it looks a bit stormy, so that might change.

Finally, our local grocery store has had roma tomatoes on sale twice at prices low enough to buy in quantity, so I've dehydrated several quarts, made stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce, all of which is in the freezer now-except the dehydrated ones of course!

I kind of fall back on the knowledge that we have goats and chickens, so if something happened we'd at least have eggs and milk.  We live along a creek, so there's access to water that can be boiled on the wood stove.  The stove can also be used for cooking.  If we ran out of feed, there are trees along the creek that the goats love, and the chickens would probably fare alright if they didn't get their daily supplemental rations.  Maybe not the best scenario, but I feel like basics are covered.

Repurposed Dish Soap

I have about 2 or 3 cups of ultra concentrated dish soap that in addition to being hard to rinse thoroughly, the scent is so strong I'm afraid it would flavor our food if used to actually wash dishes!  I don't want to just throw it away, and our hand soap dispenser in the bathroom is empty, so I searched for a recipe to make hand soap.  The ones I saw started with a bar of soap-I used 1 tablespoon of this in its place.  I added 1 teaspoon of glycerin and about 20 drops each of lemon and orange essential oil.  I mixed it with 6 cups of water and poured it into two dispensers.  I still have a quart of it left.  Eight tablespoons in a cup-is that right?  Or is it 16?  Bare minimum I have enough of this to make 768 ounces of soap!  That's six gallons!  Hmm, might have to see about selling it at the farmer's market...what do you think about that?

Update, as of 9PM the same day.  Even with just 1 tablespoon in 6 cups of water it's WAY too strong still.  The overwhelming scent isn't diluted or masked.  Guess I'll just see if a friend wants the soap!

Summer School

I was thinking the other day...this would be a good time to get intentional about homeschooling.  "Is summer really a good time to start?" I asked myself.  Immediately I replied, "why not?"  We seem to be on the counter cultural side anyway, so why not start school when hordes of people have just stopped?  I even signed up for classes.

Last week I filled out some lists I'd won from ListPlanIt.  I made goals for what we'd like to accomplish by the end of August.  I took inventory of educational items we already have.  I made a schedule of activities for this week, I just didn't assign times to most of it.  Goober Gus is registered for VBS this week, so that is a set time, then I made a short list of items to discuss during lunch.  The rest I will need to be intentional about, but it doesn't need to happen all at once or at a certain time.  I may even post our goals and plans on his blog, but that might not be a good use of time.  We'll see.

I, on the other hand, will be taking advantage of the time he's at VBS to work through as many classes at GNOWFGLINS as I can.  First on the list is sourdough bread.  I reactivated my starter last week and it's in the fridge waiting.  I'm going to try completing the video portions of all the sourdough classes this week.  I may not get to try all the recipes, but I'm aiming for one per day.  That ought to give me a good foundation for working with sourdough-or at least that's my hope!

Weekly Wrap Up Feb 19th

I just finished reading a story that has disappointed me.  The Dervaes Family was awarded a trademark for the term Urban Homestead (and others).  Click the link to see more about it.  I'm headed to their site now to cancel my subscription.

Goober Gus caught whatever Tony had last week, but I'm happy to report that he fought it off much better.  He slept most of yesterday (oh wow, was that ever nice!) and is chipper and chatty today.  We started on the elderberry lozenges as soon as Tony started feeling bad, and I think that's what helped Gus to fight it off so quickly.  When we ran out of the lozenges, we made our own syrup from Herbal Nurturing. 

It's raining in AZ!  We've had about an inch of rain fall since the wee hours of the morning, which will hopefully give the grass a head start on growing, which means less money spent on hay!  It's been an indoor day except for the short time it stopped raining and we milked the goats.  Cream is ready to be milked, and she's got a great temperament for a milk goat, but she's holding back her milk.  We brought Spice up to the milkstand with her today but she still didn't let down.  I'll just keep trying!

For dessert tonight we made shakes from:

• 3/4 to 1 cup raw milk
• 6 scoops of Blue Bunny All Natural Vanilla ice cream
• 2 bananas
• 3 eggs
• 2 T raw, organic cacao powder
• 1 T ground maca root

Oh my were they ever good!  That will have to be a weekly treat!

Wednesday evening I was preparing to take hay to Elsie & crew and noticed one of the barred rock hens standing peculiarly.  I watched for a moment and out pops an egg!  It was a softshell-like she laid it 12 hours early or something.  I saved it to show at our homeschool play date on Thursday.  It felt like a water balloon.  I haven't seen any others, and hope it was just a fluke.  We crush and feed their shells back to them, so I'm guessing they get enough calcium.  Oyster shells if I find more?

Melody at Laughing Duck Farm had goat babies born on her farm recently too, if you need another dose of goat baby cuteness!  Ours are almost a month old and I need to take more pictures.

For Valentine's Day we went to a community event/round table discussion about the needs of local farmers and local food venues and how to bring it all together.  I'm glad we went and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of notes from the night via email, so that I can share with you what transpired, without having to type it all out!  Basically we shared (the panel and audience) the problems facing growers and then potential solutions.  The problems were many but came down to two basics:  community education and less government regulation.  The solutions sounded good, but I wonder just how well many can be carried out. 

We booked a trip on the Grand Canyon Railway for March 18th.  We bid on tickets last April at a benefit auction and are now taking the trip (because the tickets expire on the 18th!)  Goober Gus will love it!

For those so inclined, last Sunday's church service is available here.  Facing truth in life.  Good stuff!

The Little Things

I doubt anyone reading this can say they enjoy cleaning out the fridge, myself included.  However, since acquiring chickens, it's not a totally dreaded task any more.  They eat just about anything I throw out there, and they come running with such eager anticipation that it's one of those small joys to see.  They run headlong from all across the yard to see what kind of treat I've just tossed.  It's also not so bad to see that something has been in there too long, knowing that the chickens are going to enjoy it so much!

Some-things Cookin'

1. It occured to me that many of you may think, based on the title of my blog that it's mostly about cooking.  If you knew that my last name is Cook, you'd see the twist.  I wanted to incorporate my name and also convey that there wasn't a specific topic for this blog, so that's where the some-things part comes in.  Enough about me, let's talk about what I made for dinner!
2. After some consultation with Polly at Polly's Path, I knew what I needed to do with the last batch of chevre that came out more solid and kinda strong on the goat flavor.  Today I put it in the crockpot with about 1/3 cup of milk while we were out planting more seeds, after Tony got home from work.  I added a very generous scoup of asiago parmesan tapenade that I got from a local olive mill.  I then sprinkled it all with salt and Italian seasoning and let it warm until dinner time.  I've been trying to use food from our freezer (imagine that!) so the cheese sauce went on shrim and crab stuffed ravioli.  Yes, it was GOOD!  We had more of the salad from the other night with the buttermilk dressing.  Speaking of the dressing, does anyone have a good recipe of what goes into buttermilk/ranch dressing?
3. After dinner I started moving food to the fridge we brought home from Tony's shop.  4 gallons of milk and 9 dozen eggs.  I wonder if I could contract with a local restaurant to buy my excess eggs?  It's a small place-old bungalow style house converted into a restaurant-and I think they're only open 5 days a week.  I should ask how many eggs they go through a week and see if they're interested in featuring free range, local eggs on their menu.  Hmmm...

Menu Plan Monday

I do more than plan the weeks' menu on Monday, but it has a nice ring to it.  I stole it from Jennifer at PJ Academy blog.  I also fill my son's snack drawers-1 in the fridge with fruit, cheese, boiled eggs, and small cans of V8; and another in the drawer where his cups, plates and bowls go with mixed nuts, dried fruit, and bunny crackers.  We also have a basket on the counter with fruit in it (he and I prefer it room temp).  He can choose snacks from any of these throughout the day, giving him independence and a bit of responsibility.
I also make more yogurt, buttermilk, cheese and any other dairy product I can come up with to reduce the qty of milk in the fridge.  Even after two weeks of having other avenues for milk consumption I have three and a half gallons of milk.  Two and a half qts of yogurt, a pint of buttermilk, and another half pint incubating along with another batch of chevre and ice cream round out the variety of our dairy products.  I write milk on our menu plan at each dinner, but that doesn't always translate into drinking it every night.  I also have smoothies down each morning, but the same thing applies.

I know that if I were drinking more of the milk I'd be better nourished and thus less fatigued.  It's hard to overcome 30 years of non milk drinking though.  I am getting better though.

Polly-we tried the chevre warmed and it was more creamy.  I took it to a BBQ and the hosts loved  it, so I'm making a batch for them.  I tell everyone that tries any of our dairy made concoctions that they won't hurt my feelings if they don't like it.  I think most have been honest, as I get a variety of responses.

Today for MPM I even cleaned out the fridge and made an inventory of contents.  Then I planned meals around what I could make from those ingredients.  We bought a large bag of organic carrots a while back and I need to get them used up.  I used two for carrot raisin muffins this morning and will put a bunch in the crock pot tomorrow for pot roast.

Milestones

Over the weekend I noticed that I had made 100 posts.  I think that's a milestone.  I was also thinking of writing of my life now vs one year ago and that's another milestone.  Choosing to buy a buck is another one, but I already told you about that.  My son's first year of preschool came to an end last week, we could call that a milestone too.

On Saturday, I made buttermilk biscuits, with buttermilk that I made myself, from goats that I hand milked.  We ate it with sausage made from a goat we raised.  I'd say lovingly, but my attitide towards him wasn't so warm for the last few months.  Not that anything in his care changed, just my attitude toward this kid that was drinking my milk and ramming me in the legs.  I also baked brownies from scratch, made a peach pie from scratch, made homemade ice cream.  I finished off a second batch of chevre that I shaped into a pretty ball for a BBQ we went to on Sunday.  I made bread dough in the machine and used it to make chicken in a bread loaf for dinner.  I kept the kicthen relatively clean all day too.

In addition to those kitchen duties, I washed all of our bed sheets and made fresh beds, folded and put away 2 loads of my sons clothes, and took care of the daily animal needs.  For some of you, this may sound like any typical day.  For me, it caused me to realize how far I've come in a year or so.  Brownies came out of a box, biscuits from a can (though from time to time I would make a batch from scratch), cheese was something I'd never even contemplated making, and ice cream wasn't something I really enjoyed enough to keep in the freezer.  Dinner was eaten out more often than home and the dishwasher was only needed about once a week.  While I cook at home a lot now, we still don't use enough dishes to run the machine daily, but getting close!

I've started using cut up old wash cloths to clean my goats' udders instead of paper towels.  I made a few cloth napkins at my first sewing lesson, and I use cloth pads instead of disposable ones now.  This will be a nice accounting of where we are at this point in our journey and some day I might read it and say-that's all  I did??  For now, I'm pleased with the progress and hope to keep taking steps in the direction that brings us health.

Tuesday Tidbits

My first thought for a blog today was to share that our pet bunny, Rabbit Redford, has learned how to get into the house using the pet door.  Not sure what to do about that!  I've got the door closed off for now, hoping he'll forget that he can do it, but I'm not hopeful that would work.  Silly rabbit.

Then I found this site with printables I like, so I wanted to share it.  There are vintage looking calendar pages also.  The link takes you to a pretty page to record an inventory of food you already have at home.  I'm going to put one on the door of the freezer with quantities written next to it, so when DH brings something home he can cross thru the highest number to know we now have this many left.  For instance, fresh bacon: 10 9 8 7, etc, where he crosses of #10 the first time he takes one out and we know there are 9 left. 

I'm eagerly anticipating the arrival of my dairy cultures by mail.  I ordered quite a variety for cheesemaking, plus sweet yogurt, buttermilk, and sour cream.  Can't wait to try them all!

It's cold in my neck of the woods today-or at least cool.  I'm wearing long sleeves in the house.  Nice to know the heat isn't here to stay.

We planted grape vines yesterday, thanks to a generous gift from Polly at Polly's Path blog.  Some day they will be a beautiful edible border along the north side of our property line.

Got a little miffed while reading this story.  I think she's a little off base, but entitled to her opinion.  The prevalence of historical revisionism is partly to blame, I think.

So that's what's on my mind today.  Thoughts?

Food and Faith Challenge

Tony and I have recently committed to being part of the solution to this country's food problems by NOT participating in the problem!  It's not something we can complete overnight, so it's a work in progress.  Maybe because that's our focus, or maybe because it's the focus of a lot of people right now, there are a lot of blogs dealing with leaving the mainstream food market.  This post looks like a good way to keep the issues forefront for us and I want to share it with you.  Let me know if you choose to participate!