Preserving the milk harvest

We started canning milk last year and it has become an important part of our pantry inventory. We primarily use the milk for kids in the spring, but it is also nice to have for baking and cooking during the fall and winter. I use the instructions from the book "Goats Produce Too"...it's a simple pressure canning method.

1. Wash and sterilize jars (9 pints or 7 quarts for each canner load)
2. Filter milk and pour into jars, leaving 1" headspace.
3. Cap jars and place into the pressure canner
4. Add 3-4 inches of hot water to the canner and attach the lid.
5. Bring the canner to a full boil and begin venting steam.
6. Allow canner to vent for a full 10 minutes, then begin building pressure.
7. Bring pressure to 15 pounds and hold for a full 10 minutes.
8. Turn off heat and allow the canner to cool until pressure drops to 0.
9. Open vent and let it sit for 10 minutes.
10. Remove lid from canner and allow the jars to cool overnight.
11. Remove rings from jars, check seals, wash jars, mark and date them and store at room temperature.

The milk will keep for 6-8 months. Our does are in their 5th month of lactation, so I will be getting some milk put up now for the dry months. The canned milk is also good to have if you have a kid buyer that wants the kid raised on pasteurized milk. Any milk left in the pantry past 8 months old is fed to the dogs, chickens, or pigs.

It's That Time of Year...

We are making plans for breeding season. Pending some genetic testing on our new bucks, this is what we anticipate....

Callie to be bred to Manny (we tried this last year, but Callie snuck around the corner of the barn with Satin)

Tina to be bred to Satin

Happy to be bred to Dually

Silly to be bred to Ditto

Angel to be bred to Ditto

And Daydream bred to Ditto...

Of course this is all subject to change...goats will be goats!

Also on the breeding plans...I am going to try crossing our rooster Angus with some Cornish X hens. We are trying to produce a good meat bird without having to buy chicks each year.

Fun With Food

Our piggies have really grown up! We got them in mid-March at the age of about 6 weeks. We have been raising them on excess eggs, goat milk, and pig grower. We are hoping to have a litter of piglets from them in the fall before butchering the boar.
By the end of April the weather was getting a bit warm so we decided to buy them a kiddie pool to help them stay cool. Now that they are approaching 6 months old and the weather is hot...the boar spends a lot of time in the pool, and he nearly fills it! There is no hope to keep these guys out of the mud. Even with cleaning and filling the pool 2-3 times a day, the heat keeps them in the water and muck. By November he should provide us with 150+ pounds of pork.

Goodbye Sweet Boy

We lost our sweet Mansion, aka weenie boy yesterday morning. His genetics will live on through his kids and his brother Manny....but none will replace his sweet lapgoat personality.

The Buck Barn Project Begins...

We have always used the philosophy with our goat herd that you buy the best bucks you can find and you can breed your does up from there. We have 4 very nice bucks that reside here. Unfortunately, they got the short end of the stick when it came to a barn. In fact, their "barn" is just a slapped together shelter that keeps them dry (for the most part) during rainy weather.

Pitiful isn't it?

One of the goals that we set for this year is to provide them with proper accomodations, and Bob started work on it on May 27.

Keep in mind we are poor homesteaders, we have to buy materials a bit at a time. I was able to shear a herd of llamas to help pay for the roofing materials...which is the most expensive part of the whole structure.
Bob has been digging out to level the soil...not an easy task when you consider we live on top of iron ore rock. It is everywhere. Here are the big pieces he's dug out so far....I plan to use them to make a little patio at the entrance of the new buck barn.The new barn will be 28' X 14'. It will have 4 stalls that are 6' X 6'. There will be 4 outdoor runs attached to the stalls, and the runs will all lead to the big buck pen. This way we will have the option of allowing all 4 boys into the big pen, keeping them confined in the run and stall, or just in the stall....etc. The barn will also have a nice sized room for hay and feed storage....and an open side for garden supplies, and room for a bench for trimming or hoof trimming. In other words, the bucks will be pretty self-contained PLUS I'll have room for my garden soils and flower pots so that they don't have to clutter the milkroom or the patio.

The roof is well started.
We are hoping to finish the project before the boys come into rut!

Playing Catch Up - Part 2

Our little orphan Annie went to her home this month. We have had a lot of rain and were waiting for a clear day to make the move. She still needs her bottles for a couple of months, but my friend is well enough now to take care of her, so she went home to learn to be a llama.This was her first encounter with a llama since the day she was born! She's come a long way since that first day.And she fit in just fine! I am thrilled that she is now with her llama family and doing so well.A couple of weeks after Annie went home, we got the chance to go visit her. Along the way we got some shots of the river, and got a glimpse of exactly how much rain we've gotten lately! River road has been closed because the water was over the road in a number of places. We went through the day it started clearing. You can see on the trees how high the water was. In 20 years, I've never seen the river so high.

Most of these trees are not normally under water...

Where there is normally about 20 feet of clearance under the bridge, there is only about 10 feet.

We got to spend some up close and personal time with the donkeys...

And finally got to see Annie and give her a bottle. She is doing very well with her family, and has certainly kept her appetite!

We also had our first water lilly bloom of the year. This plant has bloomed every year since we bought it in 2001. I was afraid I had killed it last year when we cleaned out the pond, but it has hung in there.The lillies are beautiful, each bloom lasts about 2 days.

Playing Catch Up - Part 1

Since it has been 4 weeks since I updated my blog....I've decided to do this in sections! This is a very busy time of year for us, as berries come into season, gardens are growing, and kids are being weaned.
We finally butchered the pot bellied pig. He was small enough to turn into a whole BBQ, and as a matter of fact he's on the grill right now.I need to learn how to scrape the pigs rather than skinning...but we were anxious to get this one done so we could bring the big pigs back home. We put the pink pigs out at a friends' house for a few weeks to root up their garden...when we brought them home it was so warm we got them a swimming pool to keep cool.
We also got the corned beef finished. Some went into the freezer....And some went into the smoker to become pastrami...One thing I've learned over the years is that if you spend enough time outside watching nature, you will see almost anything. This was certainly true this spring when we got to watch a hive of bees swarm! These bees live in a tree behind mom's house, and one warm afternoon they all came out of the tree, swarmed for a while....and then went back into the tree. I know nothing about bees so I have no idea why they did it...but it was neat to watch! There were thousands and thousands of bees...and the swarm lasted about an hour. Look closely between the trees and you can get an idea of how many there were! And with the warming weather came a whole bunch of berries! Rebekah and I worked feverishly for 2 days on strawberries. Don't they look yummy??

We made and canned strawberry pie filling, strawberry bbq sauce, and we've had tons of strawberry shortcake!