New Arrivals on the Homestead

We're hosting two Japanese students for two weeks. Well, it was supposed to be two weeks. Our two girls were scheduled to arrive Sunday night, but the blizzard caused the airline to cancel their flights. The soonest they could rebook was for Wednesday.

We pick them up last night from MSU and served them a welcome meal of spaghetti. They heard Minnesota is the land of hot dish, so their one food request for the trip was to try hotdish. Tonight's menu is tater tot hotdish, the most Minnesota hot dish we could think of. 😄

Other new arrivals are two baby ducks! I could see at least five more eggs with cracks in their shells, so there will be more by tonight for sure. 

Not new arrivals, but G caught this chick roosting on the heat lamp cord. 

Time to put a top on the box. 😅

They are fully feathered out now and are entering the awkward teenage phase. 😂

Jaron loves watching animals of all kinds, but especially birds. 

And especially Dad. 😂

He never fails to earn a smile and oftentimes a laugh when G is spotted. 😊

Goat Milk Cashew Cheesecake

My mother-in-law told me about a grocery store in Arizona near their home that carried goat milk cream cheese. My sister-in-law is allergic to cow dairy, and I know she laments not being able to enjoy cheesecake. I do enjoy cheesecake, so when I found out about the goat cream cheese, I decided to make a cheesecake while we were in Arizona. 

I brought graham cracker crumbs, arrowroot powder, and vanilla extract with me since those weren't on hand in the Arizona kitchen. My mother-in-law asked around for a springform pan. We went to the store and found goat cheese and cashew cream cheese, but no goat cream cheese. Turns out she had combined the two products in her head. No problem! Chat GPT was able to adjust the recipe for goat cheese and cashew cream cheese, keeping the recipe free from cow products. 

(There is some Greek yogurt in this recipe, and that is okay for my sister-in-law to have, so not completely cow product free). 

Make the crust the usual way. While it's baking, combine the cashew cream cheese and the goat cheese together, blending well so there aren't any goat cheese chunks remaining. Add the sugar and Greek yogurt mixing well. I must say, at this point, it was quite tasty.

Beat the egg whites into soft peaks. I did this and then had to pause for some reason, and I think the egg whites began to separate, because when I scooped some out of the bowl, there was some liquid at the bottom of the bowl. I whipped it a little bit longer to get it to recombine, but I'm not sure if that impacted the bake of the cheesecake. 🤷‍♀️

I'm kicking myself a little bit. When I first came up with the recipe, I told chat that I didn't have a springform pan. It recommended baking in the oven with a tray of water below to help with the humidity needed for a non-cracking cheesecake. I never updated the recipe to specify that I had a springform pan. If I had, I'm sure the instructions would have changed to cooking in a hot water bath. Instead, I did the water pan underneath.

The cheesecake baked nicely, even though it had quite a few small cracks.

Let cool in a cracked oven for 1 hour and then move to the fridge for at least 6 hours.

I made a blueberry, strawberry, blackberry sauce to go on top.

Here's the cheesecake after chilling in the fridge overnight.

So many cracks! Apparently egg whites in cheesecake are more likely to crack along with baking without a hot water bath. Thankfully it didn't impact the taste: purely cosmetic. 

I fancied it up with the berry sauce and a couple sprigs of mint. Voila! So delicious. My sister-in-law agreed. Maybe it's been too long since I've had actual cheesecake, but I didn't detect much of a difference taste and texture wise. 

I would definitely make it again if I could find the ingredients up here...

Cold Weather

My in-laws winter in Arizona and we are usually able to make it down there for a visit sometime in late winter/early spring. We spent last week in the dry warmth of Arizona. 

It was a relaxing trip for the most part. Poor Jaron started teething the day we arrived and was miserable the first two days - congested, feverish, and clearly a sore mouth. He couldn't get comfortable. And couldn't sleep. And only wanted mom. 

So he hung out in the carrier quite a bit. I stood on the deck and rocked him to sleep while reading my book. 

But the two teeth broke through and he bounced back to his normal self in a couple days. I can feel all four of his molars coming in so the best is yet to come...

These two pictures are from when he started to feel better.

What else did we do? Tried a couple restaurants, visited a farmers market, walked around the fountain daily, and did a ridge hike (a natural path up a hill surrounded by Arizona wilderness, picture lots of cacti). 

G and I spent a little time in the pool. Unfortunately, Jaron wasn't allowed. 😭 A sign said no infants in diapers were allowed in the pool. Not even swim diapers? We decided not to take the chance since my father-in-law is president of the HOA. Hopefully they will clarify that rule before we come back. 

So, most of our time was spent entertaining Jaron. The weather was the warmest I've ever experienced on one of these trips- one day in the 70s, the rest 80s and even a 90 degree day! We soaked up the heat on the deck. 

We flew home right before the big blizzard hit Minnesota!

This was on the way down to Arizona. Jaron enjoyed the slide while we waited in the Sioux Falls airport!

Hot Chocolate From Scratch

I've been on the hunt for a from scratch hot chocolate recipe for a while. With the snowy weather, I figured I'd see what chat gpt had to say...

Not knowing how it would turn out, I heated up some almond milk separately - we like to add a little honey and lavender essential oil to make a non chocolate hot beverage. 

It turned out pretty good! I kept the recipe. Next time I'll try subbing honey or maple syrup for the cane sugar. 

 

Incubation vs Broody

To get more color in our duck eggs, we're hatching a bunch of the green ones. 

They've been growing for about two weeks now. We candled them at one week and this is what we saw:

Amazing! That they grow so quickly and that we can see it with just a little light through the shell. 

The duck eggs are bigger than the chicken eggs, so they didn't fit in the egg turner that came with the incubator. G has been rotating them by hand. 

Until my brother-in-law 3D printed us a slightly bigger egg turner. 

It works great! although not all the eggs fit. If we cut out that triangle between the eggs and extend one side, we could fit six more in the turner. That can be prototype #2. For now, we turn those four by hand. 

The ducks we have don't go broody, that is sit on their eggs. Over the years that trait has been bred out of their breed/genetics. My dad says he notices this with chickens; the chickens hatched and raised by hens are better at being chickens than the ones incubated. Interesting nature vs nurture observation. 

We do have a chicken who's gone broody. She's up in the haymow and doesn't like to leave the clutch of eggs. 

We're still collecting the eggs under her so she won't hatch any. I'm tempted to let her try, but I'm nervous about chicks hatching when it's cold. I wonder how long she'll stay broody. Maybe we'll let her sit on eggs later this month for some April chicks. 

Squash Party

Throwback Thursday! 

I drafted this post in early January and lost it in the shuffle. Jaron looks a lot smaller, doesn't he? Some of these photos are too cute to pass up, so here's the post. Better late than never... 😅

We have a bunch of squash moldering in the fruit room. Actually, most of it is keeping fine, but some are getting wrinkled and soft. We also have a box of leftover pie pumpkins from the garden center that are starting to mold/get soft, so we need to have a squash party to cook it up.

Jaron loved to pat the squash. 

And eat the leaves that snuck inside in the crate. 😜

After getting bored with that, he discovered this large cardboard box previously holding pumpkins. 

Back to the squash. 

Cut in half, seeded, baked upside down, now cooling to be scooped.

And occupying Jaron with his alphabet puzzle - a gift from Auntie Eileen for Christmas. He particularly loved the letter P. Maybe the way it fits into his mouth? 

Some of the pumpkin was quite stringy inside, almost like a spaghetti squash. Is that the variety or because it's undercooked? 

The squash got packed into cubes which went on a tray in the freezer. 

We'll use them in soups, reheating to eat plain, and even in muffins! 

 

Seedlings

When it feels like spring outside, it makes me wonder if I should plant things, but G says there will definitely be more cold weather so I shouldn't risk it. I know he's right. As of Monday, we are 8 weeks before the last predicted frost. Time to start some plants! That's safe to do at least. 

I organized all my seeds according to whether they're direct sow or indoor starters. They were further divided by how far in advance to start. 

My notes on the front of the seed packets made it much easier to quickly sort them. 

To keep them all straight and so I don't miss a starting window, I made notes in my gardening planner- and old weekly planner/calendar leftover from the garden center I'm repurposing. 😅

Not too many in the 10-11 category - a few flowers, rosemary, shallots, and celery. Most are in the 4-6 category. 

All the peppers are in the 8-10 week planting window. I think I started eight varieties, mostly bell peppers (some from old seeds I'm not sure will sprout), one banana pepper, and two spicy. 

We eat a lot of spinach and I'm experimenting with using the containers as mini greenhouses. So far it's worked quite well to keep the soil hydrated. 

Everything got labeled with painters tape not only to keep everything straight, but so when they're bigger I can transport the label. 

This is the most organized I've ever been in starting seeds! I'll do some more starts probably closer to the 6 or 7 week mark so they don't have to live so long indoors. Once they germinate, I need to get a good light system set up or my organization will be for nothing...

Feathers and Slop

The warm weather has turned the pumpkin pile to mush. 

This fall:

Currently:

The ducks love it. They slosh through the slop, scooping up seeds and pumpkin and bugs. Lots of chicken tracks in the pile too.

Speaking of chickens, our fluffy little chicks are in the preteen phase. They're feathering out - first the wings, then the back, and now only the head left. 

G caught them all piled up sleeping together. Although it seems two of them were not so sleepy!

 

Oopsie Stuff

I don't paint my nails often. Never fingernails, they scrape off way too easily and I don't like the feeling. Toenails maybe once or twice a year, typically in summer to be festive. We're heading to Arizona to visit my in-laws, so I decided a tropical pink would be fun. 

My nieces (four and almost three) also wanted to paint their nails. I figured that'd be a neat auntie experience, so we got everything set up at my parents' house. 

I thought I was being ultra prepared with the q-tips and nail polish remover at hand. I poured a little into the lid so we could dip the q-tips in to clean up the edges. My nieces were curious what it was. I said, "It's oopsie stuff. For when we make messes." Little did I know. 😅

This bottle started out nearly full...

Only an inch left at the end. 😬

It was a comedy of errors. 

All began well. I painted my toes while the girls watched. They each held two q-tips, clearly eager to start their own nails. We only had the one brush, so I figured I'd do mine first, and then each of them while the first coat dried. 

Then Lil said, "I'm going to use this one for the paint and this one for the oopsie stuff!" I asked if their mom let them paint their nails themselves.

Lil said yep! 

Ivy was putting her baby to sleep and was unavailable for comment. I remembered she had sent pictures of them with nail polish before, so I knew they had some experience. Whether that was from their mom painting for them or she letting them do it, I couldn't remember. I thought the picture was of them doing the painting. 

So, I let them dunk their q-tips in the nail polish jar. 

Again, everything went fine. Until it didn't. 

Lil painted much neater than Miri. She even used the oopsie stuff to tidy things up. But then she thought she should refill the lid and ended up tipping the bottle over. We rescued it without too much being spilled. 

Lil then crouched over the nail polish to redo the nails that had been rubbed clean by the spill. Her hair dangled over it and got caught in the crossfire as Miri brought her paint filled q-tip back to her foot to paint some more. Now Lil had a bright pink streak in her blonde hair. 

While spill cleanup had been going on, Miss Miri took full advantage of the unsupervised nail polish jar. She had dunked her q-tip in each time she applied, accumulating more and more paint on the tip until it was dripping off. You can imagine what that did to her feet and hands. 

Bright pink streaks covered all four of her appendages- tops and bottoms. I grabbed some of the oopsie stuff drenched paper towels to clean her up (thankfully close by). 

At this point, Jaron decided to enter the fray, my mom in tow. She asked if she could give him a snack (most likely thinking it would keep him occupied), and she stepped right over my extended foot, her jeans brushing the tops of my freshly painted toenails, smearing the nails and getting paint all over her pant leg. 

Miri, excited about a snack, jumped to her feet smearing paint all over the floor. 🤦‍♀️ 

Desperation mode. Cap the nail polish. Tell the girls to sit still until I can help them. Clean the floor. My mom turned around, saw Miri's paint streaks on the floor, went to the table and tried to cap the oopsie stuff, not realizing there was nail polish remover in the lid. It spilled everywhere yet again. 

Miri kept wanting to get up to get a snack. I kept her sitting on the floor until I could at least clean the bottoms of her feet. Lil's hair got attention last. "I hope I don't smell like oopsie stuff forever," she said after I rubbed nail polish remover all over the pink streak. 

Cue Ivy joining us in the kitchen. "Mom! Look at my nails!" Miri called. (Photo post cleanup- there's only so much I can do 😅). 

"Oh wow!" 

Thankfully, Ivy was cool about the mess. She said she usually paints their nails, but sometimes she lets them do one on their own. (Ahhh, that makes more sense). 

Whew. What a memorable experience. 😂😜 

Meet Mina

I was right again! Yesterday morning I made the prediction Brighita would kid either that day or the next, and by 2:00, we had a new baby goat on the ground. 

We named her Mina, pronounced MEE-nah, which means mini. She is a mini-me of her mom! 

Brighita did well mothering. She licked her dry and got her up and moving right away. 

The other goats were there watching. It was very chill in the shed... Sage watched from her lounging position on the milking stand. 

Gerda chowed down on alfalfa while her kids hung out in a feed tub. 

They actually fell asleep while I was out there! 

I left everyone peaceful and snug. That evening after Jaron went to bed, G and I checked to make sure Mina nursed. Even though we hadn't seen her nursing, based on her energy level, I was pretty sure she had. Still, we wanted to confirm. 

Also, we were nervous about Brighita's udder. Turns out she has two teats on each side. They weren't noticeable until her udder got really big otherwise we probably would've gotten rid of her before kidding. 

I've never seen double teats with goats before! According to the Internet, it's more common in meat goats. It doesn't hurt them at all, but it can make nursing difficult since the extras aren't typically functional. 

In Brighita's case, both teats work on the one side! I didn't test the false teat on the other side; it's much smaller so my guess is it doesn't work. 

Mina had cleared out one side of the udder but hadn't drunk from the other. I showed her there was milk over there and she quickly figured it out. We'll let her nurse for a week and then begin milking. 

In other news, the goats have found interesting ways to access their mineral feeder. We saw Sage lean over from on top of the milking stand to nibble on the salt. I almost caught her in the action! 

The chickens have been very pleased with this warm weather. They're roaming all over our property! A bunch made it out to the pasture. Can you see them in the distance?