Long, Hot, Busy Weekend

Saturday morning, bright and early.  The air is cool, but foreshadows a scorcher day.  This is the time to get the goats moved and milked quickly and start in with the weed whacker.  There is still a lot of grass to cut down, so the rattlers don't feel comfortable on my turf.  This is war.

There's a war on another front, as well.  Over the last few days I've observed and knocked down several new yellowjacket nests in my pickup truck, on the building next to our house, and in the grain shed.  I set one trap Saturday, but too far away.  I moved it closer on Sunday and added another one.

We had a birthday party planned to attend in the afternoon, and my daughter and her hubby were bringing a new mattress up for Becca's bed, so I worked more outside early and started moving the old broken pool, getting it cleared out and ready for disposal.  The new mattress is very much appreciated by Becca!  She's been sleeping on a futon for a long time, and those just aren't comfortable.  She really enjoyed a restful night on Saturday.  The bed is now twice as tall as it was before, and Duncan, our Scotty, was tired at the end of the day.  He just couldn't get up the gumption to make the double leap to the top, so Becca needed to give him a little boost.

After the bed install and a walk around the garden, then the discovery of a black widow spider near the front door (eek!), Becca and I took off for her friend Saul's house.  I love it when we get invited to parties there.  His parents are so sweet, and his mom makes the Best. Food. Ever.  Last year it was tamales.  This year, I couldn't keep away from the sweet green salsa.  I have to find a recipe that comes close, because I'm still craving it!  I loved that it was smooth and rich, almost glossy, but also had little chunks of onion and radish, and plenty of cilantro.  Saul brought out his cotton candy machine and we made some from hard Jolly Rancher candies.  I'd never heard of doing that before.

Besides the good company and food, I love wandering around their property, enjoying the chickens and pigeons and peacocks.  There are a couple dozen or more fuzzy little chicks peeping, hanging out with their protective mamas.  I am fascinated by the rare albino peacock they have.

As evening approaches, every single day he goes into an open area to spread his tail feathers, preen, fluff, and turn slowly and majestically around so we can admire him.

Part of the fun was a short walk to the creek, where the kids waded and skipped rocks.  Becca is really good!  She got five skips out of one.

By the time we got home, we were pleasantly tired, sweaty and ready to relax.  We had to take care of the animals first, and after chores we settled in with ice water and iced tea.  I was too tired to even pick up my knitting.  We watched a television program and talked about the day, then hit the sack.

I "sleep in" until 6:00 am on the weekends, and the sun was shining brightly when I awoke Sunday morning.  I love these long summer days!  The air was cool and crisp and fresh, and just right to do chores without the need for even a sweater.  Just out in the morning breeze in a tank top and jeans.  Of course, I had to have the cowboy boots on, because rattlesnakes are always on my mind now when I'm outside.  I did some more weed-whacking in the field next to the big goats.

I woke Becca, who was in a much better mood Sunday morning!  The new mattress really helps her.  It was time to get ready to go to the farmers market opening day in Windsor.

I was surprised when we arrived at the market in Windsor.  Cars were lining up on Redwood Highway to turn into our usual parking area, and there were no parking spots to be found at all.  I was a little disappointed at the two-block walk we needed to make, because I was planning to bring plants home from the community garden.  When we got to the edge of the market, I was amazed again at how many people were there!  The aisles between the stalls were so crowded that we had to thread our way through.  I was like a kid at Disneyland, wanting to stop constantly, and Becca had to remind me of our established routine and "farmers market rule" several times:  Walk one end to the other, and taste your samples and make your purchases on the way back.

There were a lot of vendors that we recognized and were happy to see again.  We greeted the farmer whose wife always makes the best gypsy pepper jelly at the end of the summer.  We got to meet her for the first time, and they told us there are six jars left that they forgot to bring, but they'll bring them next weekend.  We saw the biegnet booth, with puffy, decadent, fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar that gets all over your clothes and face.  Our favorite dairy farmers had their cheese out with samples.  The cute pony-tailed Johnny Depp look-alike with our favorite farm stand was there, as well.  He is so enthusiastic and proud of what he is doing, and always has the best basil.  We bought some artichokes from him, picked fresh that morning.

There were a lot of new faces and booths, too, though we were sad to see some of our favorites missing.  I know that means that they are enjoying success that makes it not worthwhile for them to attend the farmers market, but we miss them.  The most recent loss was Mama Tina's ravioli.  She has been doing really well over the last year, and has been able to get her products into local restaurants and grocery stores.  I'm happy to be able to pick up her ravioli at Big John's Market in Healdsburg (until I perfect my own!), but am sad not to be able to visit with her on Sunday mornings.

We filled our market bag with cheese, honeycomb, and fresh veggies, and then grabbed a couple of tomato plants from the community garden.  When we got home, hot and tired, we unloaded our things and then Becca made some lemonade.  We'd forgotten to pick the lemons up at the market and stopped by the grocery store on the way home.  A big mistake.  The organic Meyer lemons at the market were half the price of the regular ol' lemons at the store.  You can bet we won't forget next week!  Becca had to work on finishing a school project while I got to relax for and knit for a while.

I checked on the chicks later in the day, and when I did my head-count of the newest chicks, I was one short.  There was a moment of panic, as I started to look at the floor, then I heard a sound near the top of the box.  There was one of the Rhodies, perched on the metal guard wires on the heat lamp, having found a good roost.  Thank goodness it was a warm day, so the lamp was turned off!  I laughed when I realized that this is the chick we've named "Traz," short for Alcatraz.  She's an escape artist, and I knew that we'd have to remind her constantly that she was not going to be able to escape.  The netting went over the top of the box immediately.  Traz will keep us on our toes!

My evening inspection of vehicles and buildings showed more new wasp nests to knock down.  The traps have nothing in them at all, and I keep moving them closer to the house and activity.  I like to keep traps as far away from us as possible, but these guys are intent on making their nests right next to us, so I have to move them closer to the house.

It is definitely springtime on the ranch.  The carnations are really starting to bloom, and their scent can now be enjoyed on the breeze, just by walking out the door.  These are the best-smelling carnations I've ever encountered.

Happy Earth Day!

Mixed Results

After the notification of rattlesnakes lurking, the work on clearing tall grass near the house became much more pressing.  The garden area is in pretty good condition, so that can wait for a day.

The forecast on Friday was for 80+ degrees, so it was clear that anything that needed to be done outside had to be done early.  I moved the three dwarf goats to their temporary "grass clearing pen" near the blackberry bushes to let them get part of the job done.

I then double-checked the truck to make sure I'd gotten all the hornet nests the night before.  All looked clear.

The weed whacker came out at 8:00 am, and I cleared grass immediately near the house until the batteries needed recharging.  The sunflowers in the greenhouse need sunlight and dirt now, so I got them into a spot where they can grow tall and produce their seeds.  I started working on getting the rest of the water out of the pool that got a hole in it and is unusable, but bees started flying around my head as I worked and wouldn't go away.  I decided that that job was better left to another time.

I was sure that I had cornmeal from the Bridgeton Mill in Indiana, but was disappointed to see that it was cornbread mix.  By the way, here's a picture of the Bridgeton Mill, bridge and waterfall.  It's a great place to visit if you happen to be in Indiana.

The mix would have been fine, but I wanted to make the next recipe in Jennifer Reese's book from scratch.  I put some milk on the stovetop to make cajeta and took a look at the next recipe in the book.

I've made mayonnaise before and will probably try Jennifer's recipe, but what really intrigued me was the "milk mayonnaise" which is a Portuguese condiment.  I know my eggs are "safe," but I always worry about making things at home with raw eggs.  I might get over that.  I used to be nervous about raw milk, too.

The recipe for the milk mayonnaise is in Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, and also online at this link.  For me, it was a colossal failure.  I carefully followed the instructions, using the immersion blender, and even going so far as to grab the insert from my food processor that will slowly drizzle oil into the bowl for optimum emulsion.  I spun that concoction for a long, long time, until I felt the handle of the blender start to overheat.  I stopped the blender.  I had slightly thickened milk that tasted like ... garlic infused, oily milk.  It may work for you, but for me it's a fail, and I am going to get over my squeamishness about raw egg mayo.

The good news is that the cinnamon cajeta is a guaranteed success.  I make vanilla cajeta every week, but am making a special cinnamon batch to bring to a birthday party on Saturday.

Ending on the rattlesnake note, after making the cajeta, I noticed Larry mowing the field below where I put the dwarf goats.  I needed to put them back into their regular pen anyway, so went out to do that.  I heard a clank/crash and thought he might have hit a water spigot that hides over there, and sure enough he later came back and had to turn off the water to fix it.  He asked if he could borrow a shovel, and as I walked toward the barn to get one, I saw a big rattlesnake in front of me, heading toward the grass near the barn.  I alerted Larry, who tried to kill it, but it escaped and hid where he couldn't get to it.  Not a good feeling!  Since then, we've spotted and killed one more.

We are watching our step!

My Little Chickadees

Becca and I had planned on getting some Rhode Island Red chicks for her final science project of the year.  That's one great thing about her taking an Agriculture (Ag) based science class in high school.  No volcanoes or projects like that, the kids get to raise something.  It could be chicks, or plants, or even a goat, pig, or steer.  There are barns at the high school so some of the larger animals can stay at school.

About a week before the Rhodies were due to be hatched and delivered to us, Becca and her friend Sophie caught sight of some Americauna chicks at the feed store.  Those are harder to come by, and there they were.  Americaunas have beautiful markings, but more than that, they lay green and blue eggs.  I've always wanted to have some!  Since we were preparing to have chicks in the house anyway, I agreed (somewhat eagerly, I admit) to get them.  I asked the guy at the store if the chicks were all sexed, and he said that they were as much as possible, but it's hard to tell this young.  He assured me that 95% of the chicks were hens.

We brought home Athena and Persephone (Percy for short).

They grow fast!  The following photo was taken at just about a month old.  At nearly six weeks they are even bigger now.

We've been hearing odd noises from the chicks in the morning lately.  I thought at first they were learning how to cluck, growing out of the cheep and peep.  It hit me yesterday, when I heard the rhythmic and repetitive sound, that one of the Americauna chicks is probably a rooster.  I like roosters, though I am disappointed that this means 50% fewer blue and green eggs.  The good thing about this is that we'll have more farm music.  I love Foghorn Leghorn's crows greeting me in the morning.

From the Middle East to France, and Dangers on the Ranch

The recipe that follows pita bread in Make the Bread, Buy the Butter is, of course, hummus.  I've made hummus before, from a recipe found here, on a blog by Jonah Lisa Dyer.  I thought that the hummus I turned out from that recipe was okay, but I wasn't thrilled with it.  She did make me laugh at the thought of even contemplating removing skins from chickpeas (garbanzo beans) and had good suggestions on how to make it really creamy.

I decided to try Jennifer Reese's recipe for hummus.  The night before, I rinsed and put the beans into a pot of water to soak overnight.  Bright and early the next morning, I rinsed them again and set the pot to boil.  It's supposed to simmer, which is - I think - a safe thing to do when I drive the kids to school (my carpool morning!), so I set it low and slow and left.  When I came home, the water was hot, but not simmering, so I had to bring it up to speed again, because the beans were still hard as rocks.

I wish that the beans had done their thing while I was out, because I don't really appreciate the smell of simmering garbanzos.  It's not "bad," per se, but it certainly doesn't bring to mind the scrumptious hummus that I'm sure will be made from them.

There are differences in these two recipes.  One is that obviously my most current venture into the Land of Hummus was twice as large as Jonah Lisa's.  She used canned beans, and though I used cooked dry beans for that recipe, it wasn't the whole one-pound bag like I planned this time.  If you make hummus from a pound of beans, I hope you have friends to give it to, a family that will eat it up like maniacs, or a freezer.  It's a lot of hummus.

Jonah Lisa suggests creaming the tahini and lemon juice at the beginning, then adding the other ingredients, saving the beans for last, and I agree with her that that method works best.  I also use a food processor and not a blender.  I think it works better, and I'm lucky to have one that my awesome eldest daughter, Jessica, gave me.  I like the cumin in Jennifer's version.  It's one of my favorite spices, and one that I fell in love with when I discovered a recipe for Grilled Chicken with Fresh Herbs and Farfelle in an issue of Cooking Fresh magazine.  It's a summertime staple, so I'm sure I'll share soon!

The last time I made hummus, Jessica had cooked beans and had 1/2 pound left over that she gave to me.  Yesterday was the first time I'd gone from ground zero to hummus, and I was feeling frustrated.  At hour 2.5 of simmering the gol-durn beans, they were still hard, so I started warming milk to make chevre.  It all starts with a gallon, yes, a whole gallon, of milk. 

I'd never made anything using this much of my goat's milk, so I was a little nervous at first.  This is silly.  If I mess it up, there's more brewing right outside, and there's about another two gallons still in the fridge.

About the time that the milk had heated to the 86 degrees that was needed to add culture and rennet, the garbanzo beans had finally softened.  I drained and cooled them, then started to assemble the ingredients to make the hummus.  The pot of cultured milk went onto a heating pad to keep it at temperature for 12 hours.  That's going to be a late draining at 10:00 p.m.  Note to self to start chevre earlier in the morning.

I got anxious when I couldn't find the tahini immediately.  I dropped extra bucks to get organic because, though Jennifer has a recipe for making tahini, I haven't even attempted that yet.  Mixing the tahini and lemon juice creates a frothy concoction.

I was anxious to add the rest of the ingredients and get whirling!  In went the spices and garlic and olive oil.  I started adding the beans a handful at a time.  About halfway through I realized ... I should have checked the capacity of my food processor bowl before making this recipe.  I really should have known.  I filled it as far as I could, did some juggling around, mixing and removing and remixing, tasted it, and liked the intense garlicky and nutty flavor so much that I didn't want to add the last 3/4 cup of beans.  It was creamy and just fine the way it was.

I had a mess to clean up, the chevre was still staying warm, and I had a ton of work to do in the garden, so I took off the apron and tossed on the old clothes, gloves, and hat, grabbing the weed whacker on the way out the door.  I also grabbed the leftover beans, because the chickens love chickpeas!

I am making good progress in the garden.  The tall grass, weeds, and thistles that had regrown after the last rain are cleared, the greenhouse is nice and steamy (I have to take off my glasses before entering!), and I'm getting the soil softened so I can dig out some weeds in the raised beds.

After picking Becca up from school, my neighbor's brother stopped by to warn us that he'd seen three rattlesnakes that day.  He is really concerned, because normally he sees three in a whole season.  Later, Bette texted me to let me know that she'd seen another near her goat barn.  Feeling on edge already, when the day cooled, I went out to see if the yellowjackets I'd seen hanging around the pickup had made any nests.  I carefully opened the driver's door and saw that a nest was being started in the door jamb, just where it'd been last year.  I left that open and popped the hood.  The passenger door was clear, and after I carefully opened the hood I got a chill, seeing one, two, three yellowjacket nests under there.

Becca and I made a quick trip to the store to get a trap.  As she got out of the car she screamed and started flailing her leg, stomping the ground.  A yellowjacket had been on her ankle!  When it was time to leave, she really wanted to walk the six miles home, and did NOT want to get into the car.  We had no idea if it'd left or not.  It took some firm coaxing and an examination of the car to get her in, and a promise to stop if she saw anything.  Half a mile down the road, she started yelling - it was on the floor, walking around.  We pulled over and dispatched the creature, and made it the rest of the way home without incident.  By now the day had cooled, so I knocked down the nests, discovering two more that had been barely started.  The hood of the truck is open today and I'll keep an eye out.

As creepy and nerve-wracking as these things are, rattlesnakes and yellowjackets, and bobcats, raccoons and skunks and other creatures are just another part of the country living we enjoy.  Learning to live with and near them, and encouraging them to stay away from my place, is a balancing act.  Extra vigilance is a small price to pay for a place that I enjoy spending more time outdoors than in, can enjoy fresh air, grow good food, and not hear traffic, arguments, or sirens.  I fall asleep to the sound of coyotes in the hills, and appreciate that life here is darn good.

My Pita Bread Looks Funny

Yesterday I remembered something.  There is a reason that my rolling pin stays lonely and forgotten in the kitchen drawer.  I haven't made sugar cookies since high school, because my rolling pin skills stink.  I pulled it out yesterday, forgetting those long ago days of misshapen and torn pie crusts and inept looking cookies.  The next recipe bookmarked in my new book was pita bread.

My dear friend, Jill, apparently has been paying attention to the stuff I spew on my Facebook page.  She sent me the link to a great book, knowing that I would be interested.  (I love you, Jill!)  Marin County wife and mother loses her job, and decides to find out if it's cheaper/better to make or buy some grocery items.  Jennifer Reese is a woman after my own heart.  She is bolder than I am (and has a very understanding, patient, and accommodating husband!) in that I don't believe that I will cure my own bacon "from scratch" or eat one of my chickens unless there is a horrible catastrophic event and there are no grocery stores or butcher shops left in the world.  After reading the book description, I decided that I wanted to read Make the Bread, Buy the Butter.  Jennifer makes this a romp through the grocery store and her kitchen ... and her back yard and neighborhood, as she brings home goats, chickens, and even bees, and tests her recipes on her patient (if often skeptical) family.

I want to - and will - try most of the recipes in this book.  I read it cover to cover (well, as much of a cover as you can find on an e-book) and then started going back to the bookmarked recipes that I want to try.  I've made a few that I haven't blogged about, but I recently decided to get methodical about this and start from the beginning, working my way to the end.  As I hit those recipes I've already made, I'll tell you all about them.

You might think I'm on a bread kick, but really, I just happen to be on that chapter!  Yesterday's adventure was pita bread.

According to Jennifer, the key to making pita with pockets is a hot-hot-hot oven with a hot-hot-hot pizza stone.  Thank goodness I didn't decide to try this in July.  As it is, heating the pizza stone on the bottom rack of my oven yesterday morning burned off all sorts of missed things that I didn't know were in there and would smoke up the house.  It was a cool spring morning, so opening the windows wasn't a problem.

I futzed with the rolling pin.  The dough stuck to it.  I floured.  I got flour all over.  I forgot to wear my apron.  I got impatient.  I realized that 16 pitas from this recipe at 1/4" each was too many, at least for the dough I produced.  I modified the amount halfway through the dough.  Most of my pita circles weren't exactly circles, but I put them on the hot baking stone anyway.  I waited impatiently for eight minutes.  I didn't peek.

There are definitely pockets in my pitas.  They look like little bread balloons, but I think that's okay.  They aren't flat, plastic-packaging- and store-shelf-ready, but they are probably closer to the original concept than today's store-bought pitas, which often tear apart as you try to open the "pocket." 

Most of them aren't circular, but they taste ...

WONDERFUL!!!

Especially with homemade cream cheese stuffed into the pocket.  Hee.  I'll bet that when I learn to make them the proper size they might even be a great substitute for hamburger buns, and we can stuff that Amazing BBQ Pulled Chicken inside!

Accidents "Happen," but They Still Suck

A few weeks ago I started seeds indoors in these handy little trays with peat pods.  I planted 140 pods.  I very carefully labeled each row, using the label maker to put stickers on the lids, and hand-writing the names of the plants on wooden stakes to put into the ground when they're transplanted.  I tended them, and eagerly watched them sprout.  I moved some of the faster-growing seedlings to little pots in the sunshine (watching them bend eagerly toward the window) and made sure everyone was doing fine.  I was fascinated by the way some seeds sprouted so quickly (radishes first, of course), and how others take their own sweet time (loofah, where are you?).

This weekend, my dear neighbor, Bette, found a small greenhouse for us to use in our shared garden.  Yesterday I took a look at what it would take to put it together and found it would be really simple, so I forged ahead.  (I'm sorry I didn't let you know so you could play, Bette!)  It's cute!


After school, Becca helped me bring the seedlings and peat pods out to the greenhouse and lay them carefully on the shelves.  I noticed that one of the trays had too much water in it, so I gently lifted it and started pouring the excess out of one corner.

Then it happened.

Suddenly, the tray tilted forward unexpectedly, falling out of my hands.  The wire shelf tumbled, the tray fell, and pods rained onto the ground.  There was nothing we could do but stare for a moment in shock and dismay.

I recognize some of the seedlings that have started, because I've been enjoying watching them grow, but many have no sprouts yet, so Becca and I guessed as best we could about where things had fallen and where they might belong.  I am sure we got some wrong.  Just looking at those carefully prepared labels made a lump grow in my throat.  We will have to set aside a plot for the "mystery box" and see if we can deduce what the plants are as they start to grow.

The good thing is that 70+ seedlings are still labeled correctly!  We will also have a game to play of "Name That Plant" for the next few months. We'll just have to make that fun.

Bread and Cheese

When I took a look at what I made yesterday, I wondered if I was really making strides toward a "healthy lifestyle."  Despite the "high fat" and "carbs" and calories in bagels and cream cheese, I think I still am.  It's not like these are all we eat, but we enjoy them, and the ingredients are fresh, wholesome, and readily available.  Becca is not big on eating breakfast, but I can send a homemade fresh bagel with her to school (and two for her friends!) and she'll have something to eat at break time.  I am also certain that these are far better tasting and better for us than their grocery store counterparts.  Commercial cream cheese has lots of additives, as does bread.  I was shocked to discover last year that most commercial breads contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).  Some companies are making the move away from this ingredient, as evidenced by packages that now state in bright, bold letters that their product does not contain HFCS.  The worst offenders are hot dog and hamburger buns; it's hard to find them without HFCS, though I believe it's Orowheat that offers a potato hamburger bun that is delicious and HFCS-free.  We like to use those buns for our Amazing BBQ Pulled Chicken Sandwiches, that I'm sure we'll be making as the weather warms.  I'll be sure to share the recipe when I make it next.

I'm getting the bagel recipe "down."  When I first started making bagels this year, I used the recipe that came with the bread machine, since I am using the machine to mix and rise the dough.  Yesterday, I used whey left over from last week's cream cheese instead of water, and made a different recipe using non-diastatic malt powder (from roasted barley) from King Arthur Flour.  The malt powder replaces the processed white sugar in the dough recipe, and the bagels turned out shiny, with a nice, chewy, slightly crispy crust, tender and soft inside.  The recipe can be found here at the King Arthur Flour web site.  These bagels are massive, so I will probably make a dozen from this recipe in the future.

Today I an omitting the sugar from the water bath to see if that makes any difference.  I've also discovered that it's a good idea to lightly flour the surface you put the dough on (it is very sticky, but you don't want the bagels to be too dry either), and form the dough into the bagel shape before the 30-minute resting period.  Place them on a lightly greased baking sheet and stretch the holes out a little again, if you wish, before boiling.  After the water bath, you can drain them on a clean dish towel, re-grease the sheet, and bake.  I prefer the poke-the-hole in the middle method over the make-a-rope-and-stick-the-ends-together method.  It makes a much more uniform looking bagel, with no risk of it coming apart at the seams.


Ah, greasing the baking sheet.  I like using the spray oils, because it allows a light coating without too much mess or waste.  I don't like having to buy the cans all the time, though, which is expensive and wasteful, and most, if not all, of the canned oils contain soy.  I discovered a great little spray bottle that I can fill with whatever oil I want to use, and am tickled to finally be free of the metal spray cans.  I found the Prepara food mister at a local kitchen store.  If you cannot find something similar, you can follow the link above to order online.  I use this all the time!


Once the ingredients are on hand, making cream cheese is so easy.  It is not for fast-food types, because it won't be ready for approximately 24 hours.  The wait is soooo worth it, though!  Here's a picture of this morning's freshly drained cheese.  I'm working on my photo taking skills.  Really, I am.

A few weeks ago, my daughter, Amanda, and I took a fresh cheese class through the local JC, taught by author Mary Karlin.  Amanda was sweet enough to surprise me with a copy of Mary's book, Artisan Cheese Making at Home.  I now have all the information available to go from the fresh cheeses we beginners learned to any type of cheese I want to make! Next on the list is chevre, a traditional goat's milk cheese.  I've made it before, from another book, but it was always hit-or-miss; I never knew if it would work out the way I wanted it to.  Hands-on with Mary in the class, I now know that I can make an awesome chevre.

The bagels are in the oven and the cream cheese safely in the fridge away from Breezy.  I'm looking forward to my bread and cheese breakfast!

Learning (Or Remembering) Something New Every Day

Please allow me to introduce you to Breezy.

Breezy is an 8 1/2 year old Shar-Pei/American Bulldog mix, who still in many ways acts like a puppy.  She's no lap dog, but will climb up into Becca's lap.  She also has bad doggy habits that just won't be broken, as many dogs do.  If given the opportunity to get outside unleashed, she will take off running and evade you until you bring a car to her and open the door.  She pees when excited, so we learned quickly to take her outside as soon as we come home, and as soon as guests appear.

Breezy is also a chow-hound.  She will eat nearly anything, especially if it's human food.  She is a living garbage disposal, though most of what she eats is not garbage.  I've left a 10-pound-bag of apples in the kitchen while going out to the store, and come home to find them all gone.  Tomatoes, chips, especially butter, anything, although I've found she does leave whole onions alone.  Becca is also a child who can honestly use the excuse that her dog ate her homework.  Breezy has yet to tear apart homework before it's turned in, but she recently demolished a sketch book and daily planner that she pulled from Becca's unzipped backpack.

Last week I was soooo excited to have made my first batch of awesome cream cheese from our goat's milk.  I'd been enjoying it and we were about halfway through the batch when we left in a rush Saturday morning and came home to find that Breezy had eaten the rest of it.  I'd forgotten to put it back in the fridge, and even though it was in a sealed Glad-brand storage container, it was gone.  Breezy hadn't been able to get the seal off the top, but that didn't stop her from chewing through the corner of the container to get to the scrumptious cheese inside.

The obvious lesson learned was to double-check the counter tops when leaving the house.  The next lesson hit me like a bolt of lightning.  If I had put the cream cheese in a glass container, Breezy would not have been able to chew through it.

A friend on Facebook recently posted a link to an article, "What's Really Making Us Fat?" that contained a lot of food for thought.  Many of these things I'd already known about and had been taking steps to address in our own food consumption.  What hit home for me while reading this was that I had to wean myself off of plastic ware.  I've long been uncomfortable using it to store food, but it's everywhere, and as a child of the Tupperware Generation, it was as commonplace at home as a carton of milk in the fridge.  Petroleum is used in the manufacture of plastic.  Do I really want to surround my carefully-made organic food essentially with gasoline?  No.  And I have to stop cold turkey, now.  I'd previously decided to use up what I had and slowly replace it with glass, but Breezy showed me that there's no time like the present to get this stuff out of the kitchen.

She might be a dumb dog sometimes, but she taught me a lesson! Now to make more of that cream cheese...

Back to Basics

One of my goals is to prepare most of our food at home from scratch, using the freshest ingredients, and avoiding processed foods as much as possible.  These should include a majority of foods grown right here on the ranch.  Walking through most grocery stores these days is like walking through a food mine field, surrounded by highly processed, artificially flavored and preserved, and genetically modified foods.  The more I learn about the modern factory foods, the more I want to avoid them.

A few weeks ago, I decided I wanted ranch dressing.  Real ranch dressing.  Not the stuff in the unused bottles that linger in my fridge (I hate to throw away food, but this isn't really food, so I think I need to!).  My thinking reverted to ingrained patterns - "Aw man, I don't have the Hidden Valley Ranch packet!"  I rarely buy it anyway, so it's not like a staple in the house.

Then I thought, "Wait a minute.  That packet had to come from somewhere, right?"  I began the search for a from-scratch recipe for ranch dressing to see what was in that packet, and came across a great cooking blog at www.thepioneerwoman.com.  Her ranch dressing recipe, here, turned out to be marvelous and easy!  The best part of it all was that I could go outside to gather the chives and parsley from the garden, and know that when our garlic is harvested, mayonnaise made (from our own eggs), and sour cream made, that I could make virtually all of this home-grown.  (Now to get that olive tree and learn to press ... hold on there, Laura, one thing at a time...)

The dressing was marvelous, and even my 14-year-old finicky daughter was pleased!

This morning, I noticed that we are getting low on that dressing, and also on the sour cream that I made last week.  It was such a good feeling to whip up the dressing without even needing to look at the recipe, and then to start another batch of sour cream, again without having to look at the recipe.

The coolest thing about the sour cream is that I need NOTHING outside of the ranch to keep it going.  I skim cream off the top of the goat milk in the fridge (we get a scant 1/4 to 1/2 inch at the top of each 2-quart jar) and add a tablespoon of the previous batch of sour cream to continue the culture.  Let it sit for a day, and voila!  We have more sour cream.

I was quite pleased with that cooking adventure this morning.  Now to make mayonnaise, and hope the chicks start laying on the early side of the 4- to 6-month estimate for them, so we can have more eggs than the mostly-one-a-day that Roxie the Rhode Island Red hen gives us.

September - Circle of Life

It's September. Fall is here as of today.  The days have been getting noticeably shorter for a long time, as I have been milking in the dark in the mornings again.  This has been an eventful month on the ranch.

I think it was September 3rd when Bette broke her ankle.  Of course, we didn't imagine that it was broken at first, but that's what it turned out to be.  Poor thing had to undergo surgery the following week and is chomping at the bit, and frustrated at being housebound and unable to do the things she loves.  It's rather impossible to care for 11 goats when in a cast and using a walker, so I have been helping fill in the gaps as the brigade of friends and family has pitched in to help out.  It feels like a real community here, with caring people doing what they can.

Just four days later, September 7th, I headed up in the dark to feed Bette's goats.  To my surprise I heard maa'ing that sounded awful young and tiny ... oh yes.  Madeline the goat had decided to give birth.  One goat was up and almost completely cleaned.  I saw another lying curled up, covered in birth slime, being ignored, and another poor thing that had died.  I tried to get Madeline to take care of the smaller baby, but she refused.  After consulting with Bette, I bagged and secured the dead kid, then after getting Becca's help scooped up the runt, and brought him to our house so Becca could clean him off and get some milk in him.  She got ready for school, then we delivered the little white bundle with plenty of milk and bottles to Bette to care for.  Really the last thing she needed, right?  He was a little slow and uncoordinated in getting to his feet, but appeared to be okay.

Becca was late to school.  I dictated a note of explanation to her in the car, which ended by saying that Becca had taken some pictures on her iPod if the teacher wanted proof of why she was late that morning, then signed it in the school parking lot before she hustled to class.  I asked her later what her teacher said.  Becca said she gave her the note when she got to class, and then after class approached her teacher to talk to her about the tardy and possible detention.  Her teacher looked at her and said, "Well, where are the pictures?" Then she smiled.  All was well.

Becca named the little white baby quickly and without hesitation - Hope.  He struggled to stand the first day, and then would scoot backward only.  The second day, he started to walk forward - in circles.  For a while I thought we were going to have to change his name to NASCAR or Mario Andretti or something, because he could only turn left.  By the end of that day he was flying straighter - into walls.  We were concerned that he might be blind, but he responded visually, and by Day Three, little Hope had passed Navigation 101.  He had a strong appetite, and I picked up some colostrum from the feed store the first day to give him the best chance possible.  Becca babysat him for a few hours when she could to give Bette a break.

In the meantime, his sister, who Bette has named Ella, was growing strong.  Her mother, who still thinks she's a baby and needs to be with her own mama, is not the best goat mommy, but she is adequate.  The second weekend I collected both goats and took them to the vet for disbudding, the cauterization (under anesthesia) of their horn buds so they won't grow horns (dangerous to goats and humans when goats are in captivity).  Upon returning Ella to her mother, Madeline promptly rejected her.  I'm sure she smelled funny, but she is a baby and needs her mama!  By the end of the first day back, Ella was limping and injured.  Nothing obviously broken, but the knee joint in one of her front legs was hurt.  Becca and I caught Madeline three times a day that weekend to hold her so Ella could nurse.  If we gave up and gave her a bottle from Salsa, there would be no going back, so we stuck it out until Madeline finally figured out either 1) it really was her baby or 2) that was the only way she was going to get any relief from full udders.  By Monday, Ella was skipping around on all four legs again and doing very well!

The caretaker's family at the Bishop's Ranch next door has been kid-sitting and spoiling Hope for the last week.  He will come back here Sunday night to spend the night with me and Becca, so he's ready for his debut at SRHS to share with Becca's ag Earth Science class and other agriculture classes.  He'll be spoiled some more, and then spend a couple hours in the courtyard at my office, much to the delight of everyone there who are looking forward to his visit.

Through a series of text messages that I started exchanging with Bette just as I was leaving after dinner with Jessica in Windsor, I discovered that one of her goats had died.  Because it was a strange situation, she asked me to check on mine soon as I got home and then asked that I check on Ella, as she didn't seem to be well today and Madeline didn't seem to be allowing her to nurse.  We flew up the driveway, dust flying, and were relieved to see our goats all okay and where they should be.  While quickly changing clothes, gathering garbage bags and gloves and leash and milk, Becca heard the coyotes starting up - too close.  We made the decision to get our goats into the barn immediately and milk after we took care of the other problems.  They were a bit surprised to be put in without food, but after Lily escaped and ran around a bit, we were able to get them all in, promising them dinner and relief later.

Unfortunately, my first priority had to be to secure the dead goat, or we would be inviting predators right into our protected area.  Bette had given me a good idea of where it was, which was at a far corner of the pen, but not too horribly far from a gate.  Becca was distraught and I told her she didn't have to go near, but just stay where she could see me, use the flashlight, and talk to me.  Talk to me!  I don't know what I would have done without her.  She kept me sane and focused while I put black garbage bags over both ends of him and lifted him into a bin to make it easier to carry.  Thank goodness most of our goats are dwarfs and not as big as small ponies.  I was almost paralyzed over what I had to do, afraid of every sound in the dark, and so grateful to have Becca there asking me questions to keep me going.  I didn't realize how steep the ground was until I was trying to drag the bin back to the gate, and had to go very slowly to make sure I didn't fall and didn't tip the bin over.  We eventually got clear of the pen and I dragged the bin through bushes and up the driveway, locking him safely in our shed until he can be collected for a proper burial in the morning.

Ella was fine, and I'm sure she was hot and tired today.  Bette's sister got some water set up so that Ella can get to it more easily, and we are sure that will help.  Ella is old enough now that she is beginning to nibble on hay and I'm sure she's ready to start trying water, too.

After checking in and letting Bette know everything is okay, we headed home to feed and do a quick milking of Salsa.  The shower afterward felt luxurious - one of the best ever.  Now it's time to try to get some rest.