On Thursday we went to see the buck. He’s big, beautiful, and very friendly. The family who raised him is having to move, and they are very sad to say goodbye to him. He’s also extremely smelly – just how a buck should be. When we got him to the farm, we first…
Not a Quiet Day
Friday was NOT a quiet day, after all. It turned out to be a constant-fun type of day. I’m not even sure what I was thinking writing that. I hardly got to knit very much, and it stopped raining. We had friends we hadn’t seen for awhile come over in the morning, and overlap with…
Quiet Day
It’s raining this morning, so we will probably have a quiet day today. Some out-of-town friends are going to be visiting this afternoon. Yesterday we went to look at a new buck. He was beautiful, and I think we will buy him. He’s already grown-up and knows what to do, which is kind of what…
Goodbye Night Hawk
Something very sudden, and very sad happened this week. Night Hawk, our little buck, became very, very ill suddenly and died. I believe he had Stargazing, or goat polio – not a contagious disease, but caused by a vitamin B1 deficiency. He was growing, in appearances in good health, although he seemed behind developmentally. He…
Signs and Portents
This is gruesome…but an interesting story. Ethan had dropped me and the girls off at the gate on the way in to the farm, because they like to walk along and look at Star’s piglets. They were lingering, loitering, moving very slowly, and I had a lot I wanted to get done, so I ran…
New Year’s Calamondin Cake
Welcome 2016!!! We had a wonderful New Year’s Eve dinner with my family. We had a big ham bone from a ham Ethan brined, so I made the traditional Southern New Year’s meal: Black-eye peas (with the ham bone), cornbread, and greens (turnip greens this time – I think they are supposed to…
Unfriending
We finally caught this raccoon who has been raiding the dog food – another unwelcome guest! I just had to unfriend someone after a decade-long friendship. It was hard. Our children liked to play together. She is going through a really hard time in her life, and I felt sorry for her. We have things…
Roots and Rabbits
Ethan uncovered this adorable little rabbit when he moved the chickens through a thick patch of Spanish needle in the garden. It tried to run away, but he caught it again easily, and it squeaked loudly. It had a litter mate that he unfortunately stepped on by accident, before he even realized there were rabbits…
Local Dad Finds One Cool Trick For Storing Tons of Back Fat
Ethan got out the meat grinder and tons of frozen back fat the other day in an effort to create more freezer space. It seems to work really well storing the fat like this. It doesn’t get moldy or go rancid the way rendered fat does. You just chip off what you need and throw…
Experiments with Fermented Cassava
We stopped by our friend PJ’s house the other day while we were on her side of town looking at a chest freezer we found on Craigslist. She loaded us up with more grapefruits, showed us her chickens and her garden, and insisted we take all the pablano peppers that loaded the five or so…
Too much
Christmas was fun…..(and there was too much chocolate) ….and busy. The results, naturally, are tiring, and lead to other things: All the new stuff we got from extended family gave me a panic attack this morning. There’s no place for it to go. My kids can’t handle what they have already. Puzzle pieces strewn…
A Christmas Eve Surprise
On Christmas eve we went out early to do the chores – not very early, after lunch-ish. There were a few surprises waiting for us – first of all, the pigs HAD gotten through the electric fence (I thought they were behaving themselves very nicely – too nicely), and were in the garden. Luckily we…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 