Velvet's Baby Goats

We've got kids! Today was Velvet's big day. But before her kids arrived, we were doing some standard Saturday stuff. Making our traditional Saturday morning biscuits and as a bonus, we had gravy today, making sourdough bread (I set out the sponge last night), making yogurt and trying to clean up the kitchen while I continued to mess it up. You know, a normal day.

When I went up to the barn to milk, I noticed Velvet's hips and tailbone were very visible, so I knew her babies had dropped.
 

The hip bone to the left is very prominent.

Right along here, her tailbone is very visible. It's much harder to see in a picture.

A comparison of how hollow Velvet's hips and tail look. She is on the left.

Velvet on the left, Ivory on the right

Over the past few days her udder had filled up nicely and she was not cleaning up her feed, she just didn't have much room with the size of the babies.

Yesterday. Velvet on the left and her sister, Copper, on the right.

Yesterday afternoon

I finished off the milking and took the milk back to the house. Instead of chilling it after we strained it, I just heated it up and made yogurt. Then we added water to the incubator. The eggs have been going for a week now, only two more weeks until we have baby chicks.

 

 

Then I mixed up the bread and set it aside to rise. Since I used a half cup of butter in the bread, I set out more cream to make butter.

I also used up the honey we had ready to use. So, I got out the gallon jar of honey we are using. It has gone to sugar so I put it in jars to heat and rejuvenate it. Which made more messes, by the way.

Then it was back to the barn to check on Velvet. The goats were a little ways out in the pasture. Velvet was slow to make it to the barn and she was definitely in labor.

 

So, I fixed up the nursery.....

And penned up her mother, One Stripe, beside her for comfort. Here is the peanut gallery where I pull up a chair.

 

After a while it didn't look like anything was was going to happen soon, so I went back to the house to bake the buns and have some lunch. The buns didn't turn out right, they were kind of hollow. I am still getting used to using sourdough instead of regular yeast bread. Maybe some experienced sourdough folks can give me some pointers.
 

 

Then it was back to the barn. This is what I found when I arrived. Twin bucks. Nice big healthy boys. My concern with this birth was Velvet. Last year she had a big single doe, but she was kind of in shock for hours afterward. She wouldn't clean up the baby, nurse it or talk to it. She just stood there. Thankfully, this was not the case today. She is a very attentive mother and patiently stood for her boys to nurse. I am very grateful. It's hard to get newborn baby goats to pose for the camera, but here they are.

Velvet is the first of three does to kid this almost spring. Ivory is due next Sunday.

 

Copper is due the following Friday on March 7th. Then we will be swimming in milk again.

I'll be giving you updates on how everyone is doing. For now, at the end of a very busy, productive day I thank God for His many blessings, two healthy little boys and a healthy mom. Now it's back to the barn to check on the babies.


Until next time - Fern

 

Dream Big, Be Patient

As I brought some of our salsa, jalapenos and pears into the kitchen from the pantry this afternoon, I mentioned to Frank how great and unbelievable it is that we have finally reached this point in our lives. It is very humbling and brings great peace to our hearts to have some of our dreams come true. Let me explain.

This morning (Saturday) I made our usual homemade biscuits for breakfast. Then I fed the cats, opened up the chicken house and fed the chickens. This led me to the barn where I fed Pearl, our Pyrenees, milked One Stripe and fed the rest of the does. Enjoying the beautiful sunshine, I made my way back to the house and strained the milk. This time I didn't cool the milk because we needed to make yogurt. 

After the yogurt was started, it was time to make bread out of the sourdough sponge I had left out overnight to ferment. 

We had set out a bag of Cushaw squash to thaw for a pie a day or two ago, so it was time to get the pie going. This would also warm up the kitchen so the bread would rise more quickly.




By now it was time for lunch, which brings me back to the beginning of this post. It has taken many, many years of dreams, planning, postponing, and planning again to make it to this point. When we were newly married, our big date was to walk around downtown and window shop. We couldn't afford to buy anything. We just spent time together, walking, holding hands, and dreaming. Dreaming that someday we would live in the country and be as self reliant as possible. Now, thirty-something years later, we still have not achieved all of our dreams and goals, but many of them seem to be coming together.

Five years ago, we had not learned how to can vegetables. At that point the only thing we had canned was salmon when we lived in Alaska. 

Five years ago, we barely knew how to garden. We had a lot of book learning, but no practical experience. We grew one fairly successful garden about 20 years ago, then about five years ago we began to garden again.
  
 








Three years ago, I had never made cheese. 

Two years ago, I had never tried growing herbs.

A year and a half ago, we had just started to get into ham radio.

One year ago, I had not canned any fruit on my own. 

Six months ago, I had never used a dehydrator. 

  

Two months ago, I knew little to nothing about kefir and had never tried it. 

One month ago, I had never made sourdough bread. I have made a lot of bread, but now I have the self-sustaining means of continuing to do so indefinitely without yeast. As long as the wheat and flour hold out, that is. 

Two weeks ago, we had never tried any herbal, medicinal teas. Today we added some celery seed/chamomile tea to our daily repertoire.




And I almost forgot to mention.  234 days ago we had never had anything to do with a blog. We had been reading a few, but never written anything like this. And, believe it or not, we used to seldom take pictures of anything. Now somedays we are doing something and one of us will say, "Hmm, we should have taken some pictures for the blog." It is interesting how things turn out while you are pursuing your dreams.

You may not live on your own little piece of dirt yet. You may not have all of the livestock or garden space you want. You may not have the money to do some of the things you really feel are important to be prepared. But you do have the opportunity to learn all you can wherever you are. Dream big. Really big. Be patient and frugal and determined and diligent and vigilant. Then dream big again. When Frank and I first got married he had a saying that has been a motto of ours ever since. "Postpone gratification for long-term gains." Think about that. There are so many things we can do without. Sometimes there are things that are nice to have or that we just want. And sometimes it is really hard to put some things off. And then sometimes things happen that cause our goals and dreams to be postponed or changed. But that is not the end of them. Keep them close to your heart, discipline yourself that you might always keep them in focus, and don't allow yourself to be distracted by the things of the world.

Know that most dreams don't come true over night, at least not in my experience. And most days, I think that if they did come true overnight, I wouldn't appreciate them near as much. So, today, my heart is full of gratitude. Gratitude that God has seen fit to bless us with this little spot of land upon which we can achieve the things of our dreams by the sweat of our brow and the touch of His hand. Since we have been here, we have learned much, and I feel we have just begun. Hold fast to your dreams. They may come true in the most unexpected ways.


Until next time - Fern

 

Making Yogurt

Lately we have been consuming yogurt and kefir to increase our digestive health. There are many things in this world to ingest that are tantalizing to the taste buds, but not for the digestive tract. We are trying to remedy some of that. So, does that mean if you eat yogurt and kefir it negates the affects of potato chips and Cheetos? Probably not. But, until they are no longer available, we do enjoy a bag of chips now and then.

We have made yogurt off and on for years. Sometimes it 'makes' and sometimes it is runny. I find it works better if I add a cup of powdered milk to increase the milk solids. The other challenge is to make it where Frank will eat it. He doesn't care for the tangy taste that yogurt gets if it is allowed to culture very long, so we have been eating store bought for a while. But I decided to try again.

I buy my yogurt culture online. There are numerous places you can buy it. You can also buy plain yogurt at the store and use a few tablespoons of it to culture a new batch. As I mentioned in the kefir post, one of the problems with yogurt is that eventually, you will have to get some new culture to continue making it. From this batch I made I will keep out a few tablespoons to start the next batch. But as my back up, I keep extra packets of culture in the freezer for when I need additional fresh culture to keep our yogurt going. This time, since I had not made yogurt in a while, I am using some of the culture I bought. It is a simple process, so I'm not sure why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

First, heat the milk to 180 degrees. This kills off any competing bacteria, so the yogurt culture can grow. I've always wondered about this step. I don't like killing off the natural bacteria in my raw milk, but everything I have read indicates this is necessary to successfully produce yogurt.

While the milk is heating, I get out my YogurMet and plug it in. There are styrofoam versions of this that don't require electricity. When I bought this, I didn't realize there were. The only thing this does is keep the yogurt at a consistent temperature while it cultures. I put a cup and half of 110 degree water in this vessel. The water surrounds the tub when it is put in the YogurMet. This helps keep the temperature consistent. It would probably work just fine even if I didn't plug it in.

As the milk is heating, I add a cup of powdered milk. If I don't add the extra milk solids, the yogurt will be more of a drinkable consistency, instead of more pudding like.

After the milk has heated, you can leave it sitting until the temperature decreases to about 110 degrees. I put my pot in a sink of cold water and stir it around to expedite the process. Otherwise, I will wander off and forget to check it, then it will be too cold and require more heating. I have learned this from experience.

After the milk has cooled I pour it into the culturing tub. To adequately dissolve and disseminate the culture, pour the culture powder into a small bowl, add a little of the heated milk and stir until it is thoroughly mixed and the culture grains dissolve.

Then pour the culture into the tub with the milk and stir very well, for about a minute, to make sure the culture is well distributed. If you don't, there may be pockets of milk that don't thicken up as well as others. 

There have been times when I checked the consistency of the yogurt and it was still rather runny, so I left it a little longer. I have also added more culture. Then I found out that neither technique will result in a thicker product, it will just create a tangier flavor, which is not what we wanted. I have learned to watch the time more carefully and follow the directions on the culture package. Surprisingly, some cultures call for different amounts of time. This one indicates four to four and half hours. The last time I made this, four hours was not quite enough, so I use the four and a half hour time frame. This time I set the alarm so I would not forget to put it in the refrigerator at the right time.

 

It turned out a good consistency, thinner than store bought, but not runny. 

I set aside some of the plain yogurt to save for culturing the next batch. Then I put it all in the frig. As it cools, it stops the culturing process.

We like sugar and vanilla to flavor our yogurt. For this 2 quart tub, I added 2/3 cup sugar.

And 2 capfuls of vanilla. Yes, capfuls. In other words, I take the lid off of the vanilla bottle and fill it up twice. I used to use a measuring spoon, but realized the cap was just about the same, so I use it instead. Stir it up very well to dissolve the sugar. It's edible right away, but I like it better after it sits for a while first.

This is another instance of really enjoying something made from our ingredients with the least amount of additives. Skimmed goat milk, powdered milk, culture, sugar and vanilla. And it's good for you to boot. And sometimes, Frank will even eat it.

Until next time - Fern