Milking Time

A few challenges and learning experiences, but overall the first few milkings have gone well! 

Our friends brought their stanchion for us to use. It's quite tall so the person milking can slide the stool underneath. To solve the issue of the goats getting up to it, we used a sturdy and short wooden bookshelf previously used to hold Joe's tank. We set it in top when not milking. 

That didn't stop Svetlana from jumping all the way up to the top of that stack to see what she could see. Suddenly, a few more leaves seemed in reach... She still couldn't get them. 

At milking time, the goats lined up one by one to be milked. Each one hopped right up when it was her turn! 

We milked into glass peanut butter jars. I learned quickly not to let them fill up too far, just in case the goat kicks the jar out of your hand. I lost a bunch of milk that way. 😒

Here's our haul from this morning. Galen got even more at tonight's milking. 

I thought it would have a big difference in flavor since goat vs cow cheese is so different. To me it tastes like cow milk. G says they taste vastly different and goat milk tastes way better. Either way, we both like it, which bodes well for our future goat milking ventures. 

Very No

This week has been overrun with plums...

Another host family blessed us with two gigantic bags of plums. A good number were squished or bruised or starting to mold, so Hohomi and Yua helped sort. 

They had a system and said aloud if each plum deserved to be kept... "No... Yes... No... Very no!" 

The 'very no' pile went to the animals and were thoroughly enjoyed. The rest were used to make fruit roll-ups, prunes, and sauce.

(above are fruit roll-ups ready to go in the dehydrator on the left and plum sauce on the right)

A few days later, we got a second round of plums even more than the first! This batch I shared with friends/family and made a second batch of dehydrated fruit. And the animals got another round of cast-offs. G requested a plum pie for his birthday, and that will use up the last of them!

Danger Zone and Goatsitting

Making breakfast in my pajamas this morning, I heard squawking coming from the pasture. 

I almost ignored it, then thought better of it and looked out the bedroom window. Misty had another chicken by the throat. She dropped the hen for two seconds when I yelled at her and then picked the chicken back up. 

I tore out of the house like a tornado, no time for shoes. It took me grabbing Misty by the collar to finally get her to let the chicken go. I thought the chicken was surely a goner. But no, Trixie popped on her feet and took off along the fence looking for a way to get to her side. She doesn't fit through the wire, so I tethered Misty in the front yard, then rescued the hen. A little slobbered on, but otherwise okay. 

The chickens stayed away from the fence the rest of the day. I found them chilling in the goat shed after lunch. 

The other big news of the weekend is that we're goatsitting three milking goats for some friends. They're milked twice a day, morning and evening. It'll be good practice for us!

The newbies seem to have acclimated all right. The three are small (Nigerian dwarf), so they're the perfect size to go in the trampoline. One is resting in there right now. 

Our goats have ignored them for the most part. Svetlana has been the most interested in them, following them a bit, but she seems to be behaving herself. Our herd is actually resting outside instead of in the shed! Maybe to keep an eye on the interlopers...

Out on a Limb

The chickens have figured out roosting. ☝️ 

They've also roosted on the gate to the pasture. I think it's time to transition them into roosting in the goat shed...

International

We are hosting two Japanese college students for 3 weeks, Hohomi and Yua. They are doing the Japanese equivalent of a j-term at MSU, studying management and English speaking, reading, and writing.

They are very friendly and cheerful. We've had a wonderful time since we picked them up Saturday evening. 

They enjoyed picking vegetables for supper in our garden with me. We found many tasty things including this humongous green bean, shown next to a stack of regular green beans for size comparison. 

Our animals are a huge hit too. 

Note the chickens pecking at the end of a gigantic zucchini we found in the garden.

 

Barking Up a Storm

Misty has taken to barking for hours in the middle of the night. 🙄 We can hear it through our windows, and nothing G says to her stops her for more than 30 seconds. 

So, we got a bark collar. 

We only put it on at night. When she barks, the collar starts with an uncomfortable vibration. The more she barks, the more intense it gets, at some point moving from vibration to a shock. 

The first time we put it on, she barked twice and then stayed quiet until we took it off. The second night, she barked once. The third, not at all. We'll keep doing it for 2-3 more weeks to make sure she's learned completely. 

Next training to tackle is poultry...

Hot, Hot, Hot

I squatted down to get a closer look at our white chicken, the one named Pixie. She appears more and more rooster like as the days go by...

Big red comb, pointy neck feathers, and a curled tail feather. I check with my dad for verification and he thinks so too. Pixie is a rooster. And a nice looking one at that. No crowing yet. Hopefully he's one of the rare ones who never crows. 😬

It's been so hot I refreshed the animals' water with nice cool liquid. I brought Misty in with me so she gets used to being closer to the animals. She got a little jumpy in the beginning, but calmed down quickly. I put water in the kiddie pool for her to chill. The ducks were jealous. 

But they got to enjoy their pond later, so everyone was happy!

Even the goat...

First Day of Subbing

Can you believe some schools have already started for the year?

My old school starts next week Tuesday. They just hired a new 5-6th grade teacher. Well, actually they hired two; one is teaching science and social studies in the afternoon and the other teaches in the morning. This morning I met with the afternoon teacher to go over science and social studies curriculums. It went very well and the new teacher seems like she'll be a good fit for the school and the classroom. 

This afternoon I was back at Mt Olive, subbing for the 6th grade teacher just for the afternoon. The students I taught are the same ones I did the long-term sub for last year. We were all very excited to see each other. 😁 They started school Wednesday and already have a lot of the routines down. 

It was a super simple afternoon. We did a devotion, a chapter of read aloud, DEAR time, extra recess, and art led by the other sixth grade teacher. And then it was time to go home! 

Nice to be back at both schools. 😊

The Chase!

I did something stupid today. 😅 

Misty hung out on the back deck looking through the screen at me. We had some pork scraps in the fridge for her, so I took one out for her. Thinking it'd be good to get to work for it a bit, I tossed it off the deck into the grass. I thought she'd run after it right away, but she sat there staring at me. 

Here's the stupid part. I thought, maybe she'll come find it if I go with her to the area. So I kicked off my slippers onto the deck and stepped into the grass. 

Misty immediately snatched a slipper in her mouth and raced around her enclosure, tossing it up and catching it again as she went. 🤦‍♀️ I should've known. 

I tried unsuccessfully to get her to come back and/or drop it.

So, I threw the other slipper back inside, found the pork scrap, and did a trade. She accepted immediately. 

And now my slipper is drying out from the slobber. 😜

Further Adjustments

After the chicken escapade, I had the idea to put a post at the bottom of the gate so the chickens couldn't slip through. 

It's funny. The chickens came straight over to peck at the dirt and gravel right next to the gate. One even eyed up the crack between the gate and the fence, wondering if she could squeeze through. You'd think they'd stay away! 

Thankfully, they haven't attempted to cross onto Misty's side since the post has been added. 

I tried playing fetch with Misty with a thick stick in her pen. She bounded after it right away and nosed through the grass until she found it. She scooped it in her mouth and retreated under a tree far away from me to chew it. 

This afternoon my mother-in-law and I took Misty to be fitted for a walking harness. Even though she has room to run in the pasture, we still like to take her on walks on the path around the pond. Our dog is so strong, she sometimes pulls us off our feet if she sees something interesting (not G, mostly us ladies). 

So, Misty got a pickup ride, multiple treats at the store, and a new collar, harness, and leash. She's fully outfitted now! 

Oh Deer

The deer got our only two apples. 😭 

I knew it had been too long since their last attack... Still, I didn't push G to spray deer repellent soon enough. 

My first clue was the bare branches on half of the peach tree. My second clue was the thinned branches on the pear tree. One tree looked like it got cut in half! 

And the third clue was G's question, "Hey, did you pick those two apples today?" 

Ugh. Bummer.

Fence Adjustment

We adjusted the fence today to give Misty room to run without putting our other animals in danger. It makes the goat area a little smaller, but they don't seem to mind. They found the pile of wood G stacked a while ago! 

Here's our new setup:

Misty is off tether now. The chickens and ducks seemed to enjoy their side of the pasture... For a while... 

I found out later in the day two of the chickens thought the grass was greener on the other side. Our best guess is they slipped through the crack in the gate while Misty slept in her dog house, caroused in the luscious grass, and then Misty woke up. 

My father-in-law happened to be over checking on the kittens and he heard the squawking. Misty was terrorizing one of the chickens by pouncing and releasing it repeatedly. Thankfully he caught her in time and was able to get the chicken away. The other chicken had been on the other side of the house, also terrified. My father-in-law had to catch her and carry her to safety. 

The chickens hunkered down between the goat shed and the wooden fence, about as far from Misty as they could get without going into the back pasture. 

Adventurous Creatures

The kittens are getting to the adventurous stage. They're wandering out of their corner, which puts them in direct contact with the goats and their hooves. 

G came up with this solution:

The cats are loving it. Mopsy and her kittens have fully relocated to the safe triangle between the pallets. The kittens dart in and out of the holes and duck under the pallet of wood to the left in the picture. They've started eating regular food. Soon they'll be ready for new homes!

Misty continues to settle into life on the homestead. She did kill a duck the other day. 😕 Our suspicion is that one wandered too close, she thought she was playing with it, and got too rough. 

She's still tethered in the pasture. Her shelter from the rain is a dog house I got from my sister back when our first cats showed up. My sister's dog was a little bitty thing, so I didn't think Misty would fit through the door. It takes some maneuvering, but she does! And she actually likes sleeping in there! 

Last Fair of the Year

The Murray county fair is this week. It's usually one of the last fairs before the State Fair, and it's my last fair of judging this year. 

G came with me to Fulda Sunday afternoon. On Monday, we went with my dad to pick up our butchered beef and dropped off my sister's portion at her house (and played with my nieces a bit... sticker time and reading books!). G and I brought lunch to my mom at her work in Slayton and went for a walk to kill time before I needed to show up for judging. Then G went home to help Dad and I judged!

My classes were a random assortment of not-as-popular categories: citizenship, youth leadership, scrapbooking, home environment, safety, money management and consumer education, and creative writing. 

The largest category was creative writing. Here are some of my favorite entries: 

These entries ended up with purples. The champion entry was a super creative longer story written by a 7th grader. 

The second largest category I judged was home environment, a category that includes remodeling a home/room, refurbished furniture, and anything diy for home decor. The top two projects were a refinished vanity- this 7th grader had to match stain on small pieces of thin wood to fill in gaps-  and a remodeled Barbie house - the 3rd grader spent a few months this winter making her Barbie house more "big girl" by painting rooms and furniture, 'installing' carpet in the bedrooms, and adding mini shelves and decorations to the walls. It was super cool. 

Idyllic Scene

We ran out of poultry food, so we decided to let them free range today. Misty is doing pretty well leaving them alone (she's still on her tether), but she's barked at them on and off.  We rotated the door of the trampoline so it's facing away from her, and now the ducks are splashing away in their pool, coming and going as they please.

It's so funny to watch them weave their way through the tall grass, pausing for a nibble here and there. They look like they're swimming. 

The goats are loving the cooler weather we've had. They found a nice sunny spot out of the wind and are all chilling together. Ilsa is completely relaxed and laid out!

They did get up when a neighbor brought her sweet corn husks over. 🤣 Nothing like a treat to get them up and moving!

Camp Read a Lot and Farmfest

Two of my favorite days of the summer! 

Camp Read A Lot is a one day conference for teachers and librarians to get together and talk about books. I earn continuing education credit for reading the book list. I always read the youngest list for prek-1st grade because there are way more books on that list I can use with students than the upper grade lists. The books on the 5-8th grade list are generally are better for free reading and not classroom use. I still peruse those and mark ones that sound interesting.

The day of the conference, they feed you well, you get to hear an author speak (and sign your books), you go home with free books... what's not to love!

The following day is Farmfest, basically a county fair minus the animals and rides. So, all the commercial exhibits where people try to sell you things? That's primarily what you see. My side of the family goes every year. Dad gets coupons for free things at particular booths in the mail: pork chop on a stick! ice cream! cheese curds! 

It's three days, and we aim to attend the day of the free pancake breakfast. After pancakes, we wander around, usually without a plan, and stop at booths that look like they're giving away cool stuff. Most of the time I go home with a nice new pail, popcorn, water, various bags, pork seasoning, a meat thermometer, and samples of up-and-coming ag products from the research tent. 

This year was no different in that respect. I won a brand new bucket by getting a hole-in-one on the putting green in a seed seller tent. Dad happened to be wearing a shirt from that seed company, so they gave all of us free ice cream tickets.

My sister's family, including my two nieces (both under three) came along, so the booths we spent the most time at were different. They wanted to see the animals (two booths had calves and sheep for equipment demonstrations) and sit on all the tractors. But only the red ones! And play in the corn pools (kiddie pools filled with shucked corn) and jump around on the straw bales set out for people to sit on. We spent quite a bit of time in the farm safety booths doing the kid activities too. My favorite exhibit was the "is this toxic or a fake?" You had to guess if the liquids in jars were antifreeze, gasoline, coolant, window cleaner, etc. I got all but one right!

Then lunchtime rolled around and the girls got hungry. Their family decided to hit the road. We had packed a lunch, so those remaining found a trailer to sit on and enjoyed our sandwiches. Then the rain started. We thought we'd go through the tents and maybe wait it out, but by the time we finished those, the rain pelted down even harder. So we got our ice cream and went home!

Up High

The goats really enjoy climbing on things and being high up. Thank you Fritz for the example. 

I've seen them step up on one piece of wood with their front legs, just to be a little higher.

Unfortunately, that kind of fun in the shed is no more. It was time to move the wood out. G spent an afternoon stacking it along the outside of the garage. So far, the goats have not attempted to climb that. We'll have to build them a new jungle gym.

I wondered if any of them would attempt to jump onto the chicken trampoline. They haven't. Yet...
 

Preservation: Peaches, Blueberries, and Pears

Dehydrating blueberries takes a long time. A person I know said she pricks each blueberry so they dry better. That sounded like too much work. Google said to blanch them for best flavor/texture. That's not too hard. I figured the blanching would thin the skins enough to dry better, so I skipped the poking step.

They took forever to dehydrate. The recipe I used said 8-18 hours. After 18 hours they still looked plump. So I added 8 more.

It wasn't until the next day I actually pulled them out, thinking I'd store the dry ones and leave the plump ones in longer. The plump ones were dry! Their skin didn't shrink with them; they stayed blown up like a balloon. Now, a crispy balloon. I probably didn't need to add those last eight hours...

The freezer blueberries were waaaay simpler. Dump them on a silicone mat lined tray, stick them in the freezer, transfer them to a larger container a few hours later. Done.

We had a bunch of soft and bruised peaches. I turned those into sauce, canned in smaller amounts since we probably won't eat a ton in one sitting. You might notice the white lids in the picture below. Those are reusable Tattler lids. This is my first time using them! I read in online reviews that there's a learning curve to using them; some even suggested canning water to practice. I skipped that and did the sauce for my first try, following the directions that came with the lids. I figured if any jars didn't seal, I could turn them into fruit roll-ups. 

Guess what. They all sealed.

The next day I canned pears and peaches. Pears were peeled and canned in water. G wanted to try a bunch of different liquids for peaches to see which we liked the best, so I did a few varieties of hot packing:

• peeled peaches in water
• peeled peaches in light syrup
• peeled peaches in white grape juice
• unpeeled peaches in water
• unpeeled peaches in white grape juice

I was careful to label the jars once they cooled. They pretty much all look the same from the outside! The liquid in the jars of the ones with peels have a pink tinge from the peels. The skins mostly came off the unpeeled peaches in the hot pack/jars, so they look identical to the unpeeled ones (aside from the tinted liquid). All those jars sealed too! One lid somehow buckled in the hot water bath, but evenso it sealed. I don't trust it, so we'll eat that one right away.

Misty

We have a dog! 

She is half Great Pyrenees and half Chesapeake Bay Retriever, seven months old, rehomed from a college friend of mine. Her original name was Missy, but I have a friend with that name, so we changed it to Misty (close enough she still responds). Here she is chilling in the goat pasture.

We kept her on a leash to introduce her to our animals. You can see the goats were less than enthused to have a pasture-mate. They were pretty intimidated for the first few hours.

They never took their eyes off her...

Misty was super curious about the chickens and ducks. We had relocated the trampoline to the pasture so that she could get used to them and they could get used to her (in a safe way) since her main duty is to protect them.

She did really well with all of them, although if the animals made sudden movements by her, she'd take off after them in a playful way. Not a habit we want to solidify. We repurposed the goat tether system into a dog tether system (ironically the original use of the items 😄) for the time being so everyone can get used to each other. 

She wasn't a fan of the tether, but she seemed to accept it quickly. G got on her level and let her sit on him. "I just want her to know that we love her."

Two days into her new home, things are going great! The goats will come within 5 feet of her and neither respond besides mild interest. The chickens and ducks escaped their trampoline this morning (someone left the door unlatched) and again, Misty didn't bother them. Ilsa felt like exploring though...

Home Again

Our drive back went quickly. We made good time and had no hold ups on our way through Chicago. 

Once we crossed the border into Minnesota, we stopped at a few friends' houses to drop off peaches. A friend of Sue's met us at our house to pick up the fruit we brought back for her. G's parents came over to say hi (and also sample this crop of peaches... they passed muster 😉). 

The crates of peaches are safely chilling in the basement, blueberries in the fridge, and pears are laid on a towel on the kitchen table. The pears did not fare the best. We left them in the plastic bag for the car ride and some of the bottom ones got squished. Those went in the fridge right away, about a dozen. The rest held up fine. 

I'm feeling itchy to get these fruits preserved and in the freezer and in cans! Maybe I'll start on the blueberries tonight...

235lbs

Our fruit collecting is complete. We picked 215.4 pounds of peaches and 19.6 pounds of pears. 235lbs total. Sue is keeping some for herself/a friend (those three half bushels closest to Galen in the picture). The six half bushels grouped together is what we're taking home. 

Here's the weight breakdown for each of our baskets: 

There were some enormous peaches! I tried to get as many of those as I could (fewer pits). 

Here's all the fruit loaded in the car! We brought back 20lbs of blueberries too, but those were prepicked from a local produce farmer Sue knows from church. The guy gave us a few freshly harvested cucumbers too. 

Back at Sue's place, we sorted the peaches by size and softness into the crates from the garden center. We were able to fit them all in just single or double layers. The peaches are firm enough they should travel back to MN in good condition.