Sorry, I was farming

Meeting a lieutenant from the fire department for lunch, sweaty and covered in chicken/goat/pig poo and paw/hoof/claw prints? Sorry, I was farming; digging up grass from one area and moving it to another.

 

All the concrete blocks are now packed with uprooted grass and the edge is securely wrapped in a 5 foot by 1 foot roll of sod, carefully dug up and transported from the overgrown stairs and basket ball court by me. I also added another wheelbarrow of sand now that the rain and critters have packed the first load of sand into the cracks. Even after a few rainy days, the ground is still dusty dry when I dig down more than an inch. I am hoping the fire bans across Washington will be lifted soon, but so far I am understanding why there are so many fire bans down here. Last night I brought in a bucket of logs from out in the weather, out in the "rain", and put a handful of cardboard in the bottom of the fireplace with 1"-4" logs piled on top. On my first try with a lighter, I had a happily crackling fire. 

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Missed your phone call? Sorry, I was farming; watering the compost pile in the rain, consolidating a years worth of compost and grass clippings and barn cleanings into one big pile. 

I've been slow to get around to this chore. For quite a while, I've been putting "turn compost" on my daily chores and goals list and then... thought about it and decided it could wait just one more day; desperately hoping the compost fairies would come and turn my beautiful, enormous piles. Usually my compost pile is at or above 160f, but I have not had the thermometer in the pile since pre-chicken butchering, meaning it has been a cold, dry, un-turned pile since Tim came home from Bristol Bay at the end of July. Far too long to neglect my beautiful compost! I've been rather negligent in my gardening; so much weeding to be done and so little food succeeding, but my compost I am generally proud of. Perhaps next year I will enter a jar of it in the Island County Fair Compost Competition - though they would probably disqualify me for cheating on account of my compost being unbelievably amazing. There are many theories on composting: everything from pouring a beer and a coke on the pile to precise measurements of various materials. My theory on compost is that being 'finished' is a product of number of times turned, so a pile turned weekly will be done in 10 weeks or so, where as a pile turned monthly will be done in 10 months or so. 10 being an arbitrary and randomly chosen but conceivably believable number. When the compost pile is turned, it must also be watered to a damp sponge-like wetness. It would also probably benefit from being covered to keep extra moisture in or out depending on the weather.

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Forgot to put the garbage out or change over the laundry or finish the dishes? Sorry, I was farming; hunting through mounds of mulch for hidden potatoes, scouring the property for where those chickens might have hidden their eggs this time. 

Monday night Grandpa came down for dinner and we each had an ear of corn fresh from the garden with our home chicken noodle soup (our chickens) and home bread (with goat whey from my milking and cheese making and eggs from our hens). Last night, we had mashed potatoes with our home grown potatoes. Tim has been taking sandwiches to work with the bread I made topped with the cheese I made and some tomatoes from our garden. It feels so good to be eating the food we grew. Hopefully this trend with continue to grow until it is our majority. Oh, and the above eggs. That little dark one looks about the size of a normal egg yolk, but indeed it was mostly whites inside with a tiny speck of miniature yolk. When Nancy collected our eggs one night, she reported the same. Hopefully we don't have a secret quail in our hen house. As much as I always wanted my pet quail to lay eggs, I am not hoping for quail eggs from these hens! Tonight there were four eggs in the nest boxes! I left them there to encourage a feeling of safety in laying eggs in the nest box and to hopefully reduce the number of eggs misplaced about the yard and goat/pig barn. Oh! about that multi-species barn; I try to avoid predictions of the future, but it sounds like we will have a couple of large, milky guests in our barn for the winter. A fellow Whidbey goatherder needs boarding for a pair of milkers this October through February, which would be just around when Petunia will (hopefully) be having babies and starting to milk. So far she is still away on her date and we are missing her but mostly Esther is desolate. 

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Haven't updated my blog in a while? Sorry I was farming; introducing the Tilly Puppy to the chickens with her muszzle on and a 12 foot leash trailing behind in case I needed to catch her.

To ease Esther's heartbreak, I've been using this opportunity to encourage Tilly and Esther to bond. It seems to have worked. Tilly has successfully been out with Esther supervised only through the window with no muzzle. Also, Tilly had her first outing with the chickens (off leash but with the muzzle) while I turned the compost and did great with them. Tonight there was a little chasing and I think I must do a better job walking her and tiring her out and calming her before releasing her with the chickens. When she is feeling 'cooped' up and under-stimulated is the wrong time to tempt a terrier with skittish birds. Though even given the challenging timing, she did pretty well wandering around with them without harassing, and when she started getting carried away with herself, the chickens found an orderly path into their coop and were locked up for safety. The goat and pig also went to bed as Tilly really needed a proper romp in the yard after being such a good girl all day. We went to Home Depot and people walking past stopped and pet her before I saw and she kept all her paws on the ground and her mouth closed! I had to resist getting excited and ruining the moment. There is hope yet of passing our Canine Good Citizen test! Oh, which reminds me, I don't think I properly bragged about Tilly's last Search. Another team (dog and handler) were given a Zero problem (no one hidden in their area though the were convincingly lead to believe someone was there and must decide when they feel confident they have thoroughly checked their area and there is no one there) but Tilly was given a typical "20 yards in any direction from this point in the woods" problem and mastered it! It was her first night problem and it was a delight to see her flashing light and reflective strip bouncing through the brush. I need to start giving her much longer, harder problems as she's been solving these ones in under a minute it seems. Good thing little kids aren't that good at hide-and-seek!

No vegans here.

Well, Brother Daniel and Amanda stopped in for a few days to visit and it was so wonderful to see them. They took off again back to Alaska at 4:30 this morning, which I was gratefully not awake for. They will be home, I mean back here again, in about 3 weeks and then it will be for good. We are so excited to have siblings moving to the state and coming to stay with us for a while until they settle into their own house and jobs. They particularly enjoyed being reunited with their little pig and I was particularly grateful for their help with milking Tadd's goats. Hopefully we will have goats to milk on our own property soon.

With six days of milking nearly in a row, I am experimenting with recipes. Today's recipe is much simpler and faster than my last cheese recipe, though requiring more supplies. I ordered special "butter muslin" and cultures from New England Cheesemaking and got busy today. Today's process was to heat the milk to around 86f, at least taking the chill off it, then mixing in an 1/8th teaspoon of Chevre culture with rennet premixed into the culture. Now it sits until midnight (6 to 12 hours or more), then is strained into cheesecloth and hung overnight before going into the fridge and waiting to be eaten. I suspect it won't be waiting long to be eaten as I made molasses bread (from the Encyclopedia of country living; recipe of 3 cups milk or other liquid, 1/3 cup or so of something sweet, in this case molasses, a couple tablespoons of yeast, a pinch of salt, and enough flour and whatever else is around the house to make it into a good dough, kneed and let rise for an hour or so, repeat, then form into loafs and bake for 45 minutes or so at 350 or so. Most of my cookbooks have pretty loose recipes...) using the whey from the last batch of cheese. I can definitely imagine having hot curds and whey with a little brown sugar for breakfast, in fact, I imagine it about the time we start getting daily milk from goats on our property. I better get more lactose pills. Chevre (the soft cream cheese like goat cheese that is typically sold in stores) is so very much easier and faster than hard cheeses. Next I hope to make some Brie and some ice cream with my milk stash.

I also suspect there are many quiches in our future, as they call for a lot of eggs and milk and whatever veggies are handy, which is about what our farm is growing. This morning I took 5 more eggs from the hen house - 4 in the nest box, one in the yard - at least 2 left over from yesterday - and had a wonderful lunch of 6 rather small eggs. I am wondering if these hens are going to lay larger eggs once they get into the swing of things. Currently they seem a little small for selling.

Miss Muffet

Exhausting work this masonry is, and this farming is! I had a vision of a beautiful brick patio completing the illusion that something about the barn was level, and finally completed my project. I estimate it took me about 15 wheelbarrows of concrete bricks and another 10 wheelbarrows of sand. My sand pile (left over from leveling the floor inside the barn) is slowly dwindling as I cart it off for projects. Also, I now can't go to Ace Hardware without all the employees looking at me with horror. Over two days, I made quite a few trips back and forth until they were worried they would run out of bricks, though I've been their only brick customer this week, and I even made Tim stop for 50 more bricks on the way home from work one day. Though the dream was to have a level patio on the barn, I would call this 'level enough'. Doing any sort of precise work with 14 chickens, a pig, a puppy, and Esther the Very Helpful Goat watching doesn't end up so precise and trying to lock Esther out of the way made the crying unbearable.

Speaking of goats, our regular island milking goats we've been collecting milk from each week are all alone this week so I get to milk them nearly every night! They're production has been drastically dropping off and it's quite a drive, and they are sort of disagreeable goats - I think having lots of different people taking turns milking them has made for uncomfortable udders and nerves; but we do get free fresh goats milk which is a wonderful thing to have access to. I believe the way the laws are written, I can't even give my milk to my extended family or friends (legally) unless I am licensed as a commercial dairy processing facility, but if I am the one milking the goats, I can drink it. The laws are a little bit ridiculous it seems, especially compared to egg laws which have no regulations if you have less than, I think, 1,000 birds?! I've gotten rather off topic. My point was, I am milking nearly every day this week while the owners are out of town, so I have decided with so much milk, I had better learn to make cheese!

My recipe comes from Carla Emery's 10th edition of the Encyclopedia of Country Living who in turn got the recipe from a woman named Mary Simeone who was pregnant living in a tent on a mountain with two goats and a husband. She calls the recipe "Basic Farm Cheese" and it is a a recipe meant to say, "if someone can make cheese in a tent on a mountain, 9 months pregnant, surely I can do it in my well-equipped kitchen!" I like this recipe because it doesn't call for cultures (which must be special ordered) but only rennet (which you can find on the top shelf in the grocery store in an old little box that says "junket", up where no one bothers to look, near the other baking supplies - like cheese cloth! Though don't bother asking anyone at the grocery store if they carry rennet, they will ask what it is and when you say "salted baby cow stomach", they will tell you they are quite certain they don't carry it).

Basic Farm Cheese:
- Take about a gallon of milk from your favorite milk-producing animal
- Heat the milk to about 86f (double boilers help)
- Add the rennet (I think I added twice as much as I should have... oops)
- Let sit 20 minutes
- Gently stir curds and whey for 2 minutes (I don't think I was gentle enough! I don't think you're supposed to let it all clump together... but it was so much fun to play with! The milk looked like a fresh container of yogurt, then I stirred it and saw all the grainy looking curdles, then they all kept globing together like a playground game of 'blob tag'. Now it looks like cauliflower. But the curds are yummy! This is as far as I've gotten.)
- Slowly double boil to 102f
- Remove from heat, cover and let sit one hour with more gentle stirring.
- Put the curds in a piece of cheesecloth to strain out the whey and hang up the cheesecloth bag of curds for 12 hours about (over night for me). Use the whey to make bread (to be done tomorrow).
- Day 2: put the cheesecloth bag of curds into a mold and press. She suggests using a headband or belt around the middle and weights and flat plates and such. My plan is to use my spring-form pan very cleverly and press in that metal ring with space for whey to leak out around the bottom.
- Press all night (or day - again about 12 hours I think. She started the recipe in the morning and I am starting it at nigh as that is when I milk) then let air dry in a cool place (the fridge) turning frequently for a week or so as it forms a hard rind.
- Dip or paint the cheese with wax. I am generally getting my cheese making supplies from the New England  Cheesemaking Supply Company who has special soft cheese wax, though crafty paraffin will do just fine. Hang in a cool airy place to age for 2+ months. According to Carla Emery, the aged cheesemaking process is a good substitution for pasteurization as the cheese bugs kill the other bugs (and if it's not a success, I think it will be rather apparent.)

Oliver

Juliana Pigs:  Also know as the painted pigs.  A true Juliana pig will always have spots.  Some Juliana will be white with black spots, but they also come in various shades of red and chocolate spotted.  Juliana's usually have longer legs than the teacup pigs, micro mini pigs and pixie pigs.  they weigh in 20 to 50 pound range.  - Pixie Pigs

They can be as affectionate as a dog or cat, cleaner and smarter than both and continually astound you with their aptitude for learning tricks. ... Check all the information you need to consider before you embark on this wonderful 12-15 year mini pig adventure. ... There is no assurance that it will remain small. ... Pigs are considered livestock and may not be aloud by zoning laws. ... If you work outside the home full time, a pig is really not the best pet for you. They do not do well closed up for too long, be it in a crate or a small room. They become destructive and potentially aggressive. ... Micro mini pigs cost $1,000 to $5,000. ... Make sure the pig is spayed/neutered to avoid avoid behavioral issues as well as any unwelcome smells. ... They should be able to graze when possible. ... You should brush your pig daily to help with skin care and stimulate blood flow. - My Mini Pet Pig

Mini pigs have become the latest pet craze. ... Because pigs can breed when they are as young as six weeks old, the parents of a piglet may be piglets themselves; therefore, their size is not an accurate measure of how large their offspring will be in adulthood. Potbellied pigs can grow until they are five years old and reach well over 100 pounds. ... Most teacup pigs don't make it past five years old due to being underfed and malnourished. ... They need to interact with other pigs and have access to the outdoors. In nature, pigs live in communities. ... Additionally, they have natural rooting and digging behaviors. - Best Friends Animal Society 

First you have to decide how much squealing your eardrums can take. ... If you have never heard a mini pig squeal, there is nothing "mini" about it! It's probably 10 octaves higher than you'd imagine. It is pretty painful to listen to, not only because the pig is so obviously unhappy but also because it does some serious damage to your ears. ... Not only did he not want to be picked up; he didn't even want to be touched. ... We were wondering how we could have picked a worse pet. We were diligent in our research before our pig came, but nothing could have prepared us for our "problem pig." ... They are smart creatures and are often considered the fourth-smartest animals, after monkeys, dolphins and whales. They use this intelligence against you. - Pet Adviser / My Mini Pet Pig

Made popular in part by Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Paris Hilton, and other celebrities who have embraced pigs as pets, the demand for small pigs is on the rise. ... Most owners are expecting a pet roughly equivalent to a small dog, not a highly intelligent, very social, 300 pound pig. ... Weighing in at a minimum adult weight of 14 pounds, the Pygmy Hog, Porcula salvania, is the world's smallest species. Once distributed throughout India and the surrounding regions, the 150 surviving individuals are now restricted to the 950 square kilometer Manas National Park in the Indian state of Assam. Dr. Goutam Narayan, lead researcher at the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme, discusses the tremendous success of the conservation program, but also the struggle with funding. If the pictures of adorable tiny pigs has you pining for a porcine pal, you might want to consider taking that hefty fee breeder's charge for a teacup pig and instead contributing it to the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programe through the Durell Conservation Trust. - Southern Fried Science

You should exercise a teacup pig like you would exercise a dog. Thinking of your teacup pigs as similar to a dog is a good basic plan. They’re about as big as a dog, they’re as smart as dogs, you can train one like a dog and you should exercise them like dogs. In other words, take them for daily walks so they get the exercise they need, as well as the opportunity to eliminate outside. Pigs need plenty of water, not just for drinking, but also for playing in. A children’s pool is the one item other than blankets that no teacup-pig owner should be without. Wading in a pool of water will help your pig regulate its body temperature when it’s hot outside. It’s also important to know that your pig will probably splash water from the pool onto the ground to make mud it can roll in. - Paw Nation

Silver Tip Peak

Things we did well or maybe even better on this adventure camping trip:

• We brought a real sleeping bag! On our last camping adventure, we brought a 5'6" ultralight sleeping bag and two $5 Fred Meyer fleece throws and ended up bringing our friend Zac, which meant no real sleeping bag, three people and a dog, also no sleeping pad and a 4' x 5' tent... this time we at least had our good extra wide sleeping bag, a small sleeping pad, and no third person! 
• We brought tea candles! It's no camp fire (burn bans all across Washington) and it's no camp stove, but with four tea candles in a metal dish with another metal dish balanced on top, Tim was able to heat up his spam and cheese for dinner, and warm spam and cheese in the dark is always better than cold spam and cheese in a tiny tent. 
• We brought navigation! I printed off a stack of maps, including detailed driving directions, satellite maps, and topographic maps as well as a decent compass, Tim downloaded an excellent GPS app for his phone and a stack of digital maps, and we brought along our emergency Spot GPS for back up and tracking our trip after the fact. 
• There were trails! Well, mostly trails. When we started off after Tim finished work, we hiked out what was a nearly flat decommissioned road until it was too dark to see and we found a spot to pitch our tiny tent. In the morning, we continued on the flat road to the ghost town of the Monte Cristo mining community from the early 1900's to the other side where a steep but good trail lead the rest of the way up to Silver Lake near the top of Silver Tip Peak. From there we headed up mostly deer or daring human trails, but the trail to Silver Lake from Monte Cristo was a delightful surprise. 
• And that last section without a trail leads me to our final plus: we brought rope! That last section without real trails was a bit of a steep scramble; over 700 feet of elevation gain in about half a mile, sometimes using high altitude shrubs as handholds and largely sledding on vegetation to get back down. There was one particular spot with steep drop-offs and bad footing where having a rope to guide our decent was a real asset. 

Making dinner: yum fried spam over tea candles and Easy Cheese with oysters on crackers!

The entrance to historic Monte Cristo, much like Juneau's Tredwell

Very old US property mining cabins

A reminder to enjoy the artifacts.

View of the mountains hiking from Monte Cristo to Silver Lake

Getting near tree line! Quite the climb

The beautiful Silver Lake, surrounded by blueberries. We continued past and climbed up to this view.

The view from our final destination on the far side of the ridge far above Silver Lake looking out over the valley that guides Silver River to Highway 2

What we will do differently next time:

• Wear hiking boots, not boat boots
• Get a camping pad wide enough for two
• Bring the camp stove
• Have a tent long enough that Tim doesn't touch both corners sleeping diagonal
• Plan a better trail
• Make Tilly carry a heavier load
• Go somewhere with fewer other hikers
• Bring more TP
• Don't spill the Easy Cheese all over the inside of the pack
• Bring a good flashlight and a lantern
• Bring clean clothes too
• Way less heavy of bags, particularly the daybag setup

The best perk was finding delicious blueberries at the top and being able to bring a jar home for our pet caretaker. 

First egg

Gratitude.

Last night I had a dream that the nest boxes were full of eggs, all different sizes and colors of eggs filling the nest boxes. Some were small like robin eggs, speckled, gold, black. All of them were so beautiful and there were so many! I was delighted and entranced. I woke up with a feeling there was an egg for me, and indeed, right in the nest box like it was supposed to be was my ceramic egg, and one more. Our farm is producing food! Our chickens are laying, and I have delicious chicken noodle soup for lunch. Soon, Tilly and I will be biking around the neighborhood delivering eggs.

Delight.

Making up for lost pictures

Today's project for me was to build this most excellent hay holder in my 'milking parlor' which now also has a functional gait into the rest of the barn and a sink complete with retractable sprayer nozzle.  Next step is to make a nice milking platform and get the girls used to the routine of hopping up and eating their pellets while being brushed and washed and messed with. Also, I am thinking of eventually adding some shelving in here for their brushes and whatever else goes on shelves. 

The goats approve of the changes to the barn and appreciate all the split hay.  

The pig also approves, though he's not convinced I have good reason for scooping up and redistributing all the straw he's carefully pushed into his mini barn. Since coming to live with us, his hair has gotten thick, his spots have gotten black, and his skin is a little flaky and sun burnt, though he always has the choice to lay in the shade instead and we try to encourage time in the shade and even try talking him into rolling in mud from time to time. At least he's happy. And strong. Today while working in the barn, I moved the stepping blocks away from the door, making the door jam far above his head - probably a good 8 inches high. Without pausing, he leaped effortlessly yet dramatically up into the barn. What a change from the first day he was here and got high centered and stuck with all legs kicking trying to climb over the door step!

While I was working in the barn, Tim was busy in the yard perfecting the goat teeter-totter! Making things for the goats is far more fun than working on the part of the house where us humans live. Petunia is enjoying the game and has associated tipping with treats, but Esther isn't yet convinced. 

Our joint project of the day was making Tilly's super duper utility vest, fully equipped with 6 pockets. Tim's ingenuity and creative direction and my sewing skills at his direction and Tilly's excellent patient modeling came together to make something beautiful, comfortable, and practical. She seems to think it's just fine and it holds a good amount of rocks in the pockets to slow her down.

Grandpa's beautiful garden is in full swing of production. It's nearly time to start transitioning to the fall garden for the next growing year. Grandpa brought down a garbage bag full of tomatoes which are now drying on the dehydrator.

Amazingly, the corn is growing taller than me and has harry ears sticking out along the stalks.

 Grandpa also brought down a bag of cucumbers which I am pretty sure are pickling cucumbers and regardless of the seeds they came from, the little nobly vegetables are now floating in jars of vinegar and spices.

The farm has a nice rhythm growing. In the mornings, I wake up and start the coffee, let the chickens out of the hen house and into the yard,  then feed and let out the goats (the goats just get in the way if they get let out first). Tilly gets a walk around the lake to see all our friends, then I try to be productive for the day until it's time to shut the chickens in to their house and the goats (and pig) get tucked in with dinner. The weather is still warm and sunny, all the animals are happy, the garden is growing, and everything is what we've always dreamed of. 

Morning feeding

The food rains down from above as Grandpa calls out "Oliver!" and all the animals come running.

We've scheduled Petunia's date with a young buck and hopefully will have a pregnant goat and chickens laying eggs within the month! If Petunia's date goes well, we should have Valentines babies and milk for the spring.