Annie, Annie, how does your garden grow?

The Garden is doing quite well, especially if you measure it by cucumber output. This past weekend we made 14 pints of dill pickles and 18 pints of bread and butter pickle relish (we chop the cucumbers up more, and it's a relish). A couple of weeks ago we also pickled some beets, and some sweet pickle chips (which are one of our favorites from last year).

We have also gotten enough zucchini to satisfy us at times, and the tomatoes are starting to come in - which is exciting. We are still in the ramping up stage, but hopefully soon we will be swamped with tomatoes.

Our mustard greens were a revelation. I don't think I've ever eaten a raw mustard green before, and they were incredible. It started off and I thought - hmm a green. But then within a second the flavor exploded, and it was as if I had eaten the spicy mustard at a chinese restaurant (the good kind in a sit down restaurant, not the crappy stuff in the packets). Simply amazing.

We also have some carrots, they were nothing special in my estimation - I suspect the red clay of Georgia is not the best for carrots so they don't get very big - but they weren't particularly tasty either.

We did get a lot of garlic, which is exciting. We didn't grow it last year (or as I almost put it, "We've never grown garlic before."). We have something like 15 bulbs or so down in the basement curing. We actually used it for the first time yet in some of the dill pickles.

We made two batches of cheese this past weekend. I'm still trying to get the hang of Chevre (which is what people usually mean when they say goat cheese). It seems to be consistently too crumbly - not sure why that is. Also this time I put too much salt in it (which may have led to the crumbliness, because salt draws out moisture). Despite all of this, Annie says this is the best batch yet, and she is our Chevre judge. Also tonight, for the first time ever I made "30-minute mozzarella." I gotta say, it worked out pretty daggone well. It could use a bit more flavor (which we can work on by adding another enzyme or taking the time to culture the milk), but it was good and definitely mozzarella like. I made pasta and melted it on top, and it was tasty.
I also finished building our cheese press this past weekend, so hopefully soon we can try making a cheddar. That for me is my first big cheese making goal. If I can get a good cheddar going I will be very happy. After that, probably blue cheese.

I bet their is other news, but I don't recall it right now. I would like to say, that I particularly appreciate getting comments, cause it helps me know people are reading and interested in this. Also we'll do our best to answer questions if you ask us. Hope all are well

Jeff

Long needed update

Well, hello out there.

We have not updated this in some time. I think I've been waiting to get pictures, or have something especially profound to say or something. Also we have been busy.

So to begin with on May 16th Annie and I got married. YaY!!! It really turned out to be a beautiful ceremony - after some stressing about getting the outside of the house into shape, essentially everything took place either in the house or on the porches because of the rain. Well, actually the rehearsal dinner did take advantage of the rented tent, which was nice. The wedding itself was incredibly beautiful and moving, I think largely because there were so many people we love involved - and the rain forcing us into the house made it feel very intimate. Thank you to all who gave us gifts - we are working on thank you cards (really, we are!) but again - we are busy.

An update on soap stuff. We have now sold a couple of batches of soap stuff to better for babies (you can check them out at http://betterforbabies.com/ ). We have not yet started making anything to sell on our own - but are thinking we may start with liquid product - such as shampoos and body washes and whatnot, as we don't see those being represented in our local market place.

The garden seems to be growing well. At present we are harvesting cucumbers, zucchini, and a few tomatoes. Also there is basil. We already pulled all of our beets and pickled the vast majority of them. They came out red this year, which is a nice change from last years weird white beets.

The chicks that were featured in one of the last blog posts are now practically grown. They aren't to laying age yet, but the roosters are beginning to get their voices and start crowing. We are building chicken tractors for them (movable chicken pens - we'll put up a picture sometime soon). We need to get more of them built ASAP, as right now at least some of them are vastly overcrowded. Also we have put our wellsummers (two hens and one rooster) in "The Love Shack" and have been saving their eggs for hatching. Winona, our wyandotte hen, has gotten broody on us - so she is now setting on a dozen wellsummer eggs (since the wellsummers weren't getting broody). The projected hatch date for them is July 21st I believe. It will be exciting to see some chickens get raised by a mother hen for a change, rather than us having to care for them so directly. Other than that the other chickens are laying pretty well - though not as well as they did earlier in the summer. Chickens and goats seem to both produce less when the weather gets hot - so whereas we had a few weeks of getting between 60 and 70 eggs, we are now somewhere around 50 or less I would say.

The goats are doing well it seems. This is probably the most newsworthy part of this email - we now have one less goat. A friend of mine had a barbecue for July 4th and thought it would be a cool idea to serve a goat for it. So (avert your eyes if your likely to get teary eyed) Chevy (which is short for Chevron - french for goat meat) was taken to the slaughter house on Monday among tears (from Annie) and "moist eyes" (from me) and a fair amount of vocal protest (from Chevy and Hoppy). If I get a chance I'll write more on this later, but I'm trying to do a bare bones update right now just of what has been happening.

I'm sure there is something I am leaving out. but to find out what it is you'll have to stay tuned for the next exciting update of the deerfield follies (which I promise won't be so far away in time as this one was.)

Hope you are all doing well,

Jeff

The new kids explore the great outdoors

The new kids are getting to spend some time outdoors now. Hoppy's kids are curious about the newbies, as they are probably eager for more playmates. Lily hasn't been so keen on it, though. Being a protective mom, she keeps pushing them away from her little ones. Hoppy's boys have grown so fast!


Both does have developed mastitis, which is an infection of the udder. One side of Lily's udder is swollen, and the teat on that side is inflamed and swollen. Hoppy has a milder form of it, in which only the udder is swollen on one side. We've given each of them some antibiotics, but that hasn't seemed to clear up the problem yet. So far, we haven't seen any blood in the milk. Thank goodness. We're trying to get in touch with the vet to see what to do next. We've got our fingers crossed that we can clear this stuff up before the infection causes much damage to the udders!

-Annie

New chicks are here!

The post office called at 6:15 AM Wednesday morning to let us know our chicks had arrived from Cackle Hatchery. I jumped in the car to get them and bring them to their new home. Luckily, they all survived the journey and arrived safe and sound. We got 4 different breeds of chicken and 7 chicks of each breed. One breed, the Australorp, is a tried and true one for Deerfield, and the rest are new to us, but all of them are supposed to be good egg layers.

We set up 2 brooders. The first contains the Black Australorps and Speckled Sussex, and the second one has Partridge Rocks and New Hampshire Reds (which are yellow as chicks).

Sleepy time!

Our other chickens seem to be doing well. Some of the girls that we hatched last fall have started laying. Hooray! The Marans are laying very dark brown eggs, which are quite striking. We've been getting 6-9 eggs per day recently. Jeff and I are planning to take a Candling Class soon so that we can begin to sell our eggs. In the meantime, we have been bartering the eggs for various things, including a painting by a local artist.

-Annie

Lily's twins were born!

Over the weekend, Lily began to display signs of impending labor: frequent low soft grunting and nesting. We checked on her frequently, and Jeff spent Sunday night down in the goat barn to keep watch. Unfortunately, it was a cold and stormy night, so it wasn't the most pleasant experience for Jeff - but what a trooper he is! Lily did not go into labor that night, but she must have the minute we left to attend the weekly work meeting Monday morning. When we returned, she had already birthed both kids and cleaned them up, and she was standing in the stall with a kid on each teat, nursing away. Lily had a girl and a boy, and they both look just like their mother, complete with the long and floppy Nubian ears. Very different from Hoppy's kids but just as adorable!

And now for something completely different

This blog update is way overdue. I was having some computer issues, but they appear to have been resolved now. Hooray! So...ON WITH THE SHOW!!!

Well, actually, the show took place back in mid-March. The Monty Python show, that is. Theater On Cedar produced an off-season performance of Monty Python skits, directed by Jeff. The living room of the Truth and Beauty Laboratory provided a nice intimate venue, and we were blessed with enthusiastic audiences for our three show run. Beth graciously captured some of the fun on film for me. Enjoy!

An obnoxious fellow visits a bookshop and torments its owner.
Rrrrrrip! No more nut hatches! Any other birds you don't like?!
The bookshop owner reads "Ethel the Aarvark" to the obnoxious customer who can't read.
That's not how mommy reads it!!















Girlie Lumberjacks-

but they're OK!







Adam is "ruining the show" by launching back into the Lumberjack song.
Well...always look on the bright side of life...
And, always look on the bright side of death...just before you draw your terminal breath...

THE END

Hoppy's kids were born!

Hoppy had her kids around 11am on Friday. This was much earlier than expected. Jeff and I had just finished making the door to the kidding stall and were bringing it down to the barn, when we heard Hoppy make a noise we hadn't heard her make before. We looked over to her in the barnyard and saw a hoof hanging out of her backside. After Jeff and I finished freaking out, Jeff retrieved the kidding supplies from the house, and I stayed with Hoppy and saw the first kid be born. Both of her kids were born breach with one leg tucked underneath their butts. This could have been problematic, necessitating me to push them back in and find the other hind leg and pull it out, if they got stuck. Hoppy was a champ and pushed them on through. Thank goodness!! The kids are both boys, look just like their dad, and are doing well. Hoppy was in pain and fairly lethargic for about the first two days after birth. We were worried about her, acquiring a couple of shots from the vet to help her empty her uterus. We also gave her a number of things to help stimulate her appetite. Who knows what finally helped- perhaps, it was just the tincture of time, but as of this morning, her temperature was down and she was more energetic and eating and drinking better. Phew!! Anyway, prepare yourself for the extreme cuteness that is baby goats, 'cause here are the pics:

These pics were taken minutes after the second kid was born. Hoppy did a great job licking her kids clean after each one popped out.

With some help from Jeff and I, the babies finally found mama's teats and began nursing. It's very important that the babies get the colostrum from their mother's milk within the first hour of life.
Hoppy and the older kid, Chevy. What long, spindly legs he has!
I'm holding a sleepy Chevy, and Jeff is cleaning French Fry's poopy butt. Unfortunately, the kids' mom has not been taking good care of this task.
About the kids' names...well, they reflect a reality of raising goats. We don't have the money or space to keep more goats, and boys are difficult to sell, particularly if they are not purebreeds. So, the boys are destined for our dinner table someday. We decided (somewhat morbidly, I suppose) to go with the naming strategy of the former owner of the kids' dad, Tater Tot, and give them food names. Thus, they were named French Fry and Chevron (the word for goat meat - chevre is the french word for goat). We plan to give them a good, albeit somewhat short, life at Deerfield. In two weeks, they will start sharing Hoppy's milk with us, so we can make tasty cheeses and more.

-Annie