The Rural Blogger

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Fresh Raspberry Pie

I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the berries Kristine picked for me.  Not only did she get strawberries, she also got 2 pounds of raspberries for me.  Madison and I just love raspberries so we thought we’d try a fresh raspberry pie recipe.  After a short search online, I found this recipe on cooks.com.

Just to let you know how good this pie was, Rich doesn’t like raspberries but decided to try the pie anyway.  2 slices later, he mentioned it was “pretty darn good!” 

I realized today that I forgot to share pictures of the new lambs that were born Feb 24th.  Our Katahdin, Sugar, had twins.  Rich and I got to watch the 2 lambs being born.  Sugar lambed outside in the hay yard.  She had been off by herself all morning while I did chores.  She had made a nest in the leftover hay from a round bale, laid down and without one peep, quietly gave birth to the 2 darlings.   Rich finally moved the family to the barn after an hour or so.  We were concerned about the ewe lamb as she didn’t seem to be nursing.  After warming in the house for a short time, she was doing just fine.  Sugar is a wonderful mom.

Now, onto today’.  This morning I woke to warm temps of 20 with the weatherman saying it was going to get above freezing today!  I was very happy to hear that. You see, last night, Austin and I discovered the barn water hydrient frozen and we were unable to defrost it.  So we carried water from the house to the barn for evening chores.  Not exactly fun but it works.

And of course, I was carrying water again this morning.  Rich thinks the line is froze underground.  He’s hoping his sister has the tool to help fix our problem but we won’t know until tonight or tomorrow.  Unfortunately, the temps started to drop just before noon with the winds picking up.  Rich and I quickly got the bales into the yard to feed the goats, sheep and cattle.  Dang, it got cold fast.  It is not suppose to get above 11 tomorrow.  Oh that should be fun running water to the barn from the house, UGH!

Rich and I were scheduled to attend the second part of a holistic management class today.  Yesterday, we were at the first part.  After 10 hours of class, my head was on overload.  So this morning, I was up early to get chores done before we were to leave.  I found my Nubian-togg goat, Annie, in early labor.  So Rich went to class by himself.  It was cold this morning with dangerous below zero wind chills, so I stayed home to watch Annie. 

Annie's Buckling

By 8 am, she had delivered twins, a buckling and a doeling.  The doeling needed a little extra TLC from me, so I brought her to the house to warm up a bit.  The buckling was doing just fine, busy nursing on mama.  

Annie's 1st Doeling

By 9 am, I had the doeling warmed up and headed back down to the barn to see if I could get her nursing on Annie.  Lo and behold, Annie had another baby while I was gone!  So back to the house I went with the newest addition to Annie’s family.  This one was a doeling and quite chilled. 

Annie's 2nd Doeling

Madison is usually my helper with house babies but today she was at school so Ellie got to help me.  She just loves to lick new babies clean.  I guess that’s the benefit of being a farm dog who gets to live in the house. 

This little one will most likely become a bottle baby.  Annie is one of my main milkers.  I don’t want to stress her too much by having to raise 3 babies and be milked once a day.  I suppose we could try putting this doeling with Thelma since she lost one of her bucklings.  We’ll see how it goes. 

The rest of the day was spent running down to the barn to check on the Annie’s kids that I left with her, grabbing milk while there so I could feed the baby in the house and baking bread.  I have a large order of bread due tomorrow so I finished them up tonight.  It’s a good feeling to have them out of the way. 

Looks like we have a goat kid in the house for the night.  I hope she sleeps!

Dill Pickle Bread

Some of you already know this but it seems my Dill Pickle Bread is a hit.  I received a call on Saturday from a man named Al, who was looking to add a little something extra to his CSA boxes.  He ordered 28 loaves of Dill Pickle bread.  Think I’m going to be busy for a day?    I love it.  He also inquired about my bagels.  This should be a fun adventure.

So, after taking on this large order, I’ve been making bread, dill pickle bread to be exact, and doing what we like to call Research and Development to make sure I can deliver these goods in tasty order  .  It’s kind of fun as I’ve never taken on something like this before.  I just popped 2 loaves into the oven for more “testing.”  At the moment, I’m thinking a double oven sure would come in handy.  And here Rich thought a double oven was silly when I said I’d really “like to have” onea few years back.  Hmmm..  maybe if this works out, I may “need” one instead just “like to have” one.  Hehe

I also had a friend call me last evening to discuss the possiblity of  shipping the bread to her.  Paula lives a state away in “Packer Land.”  And yes, I still love her despite that little flaw…  Love ya Paula!  So I’m gonna do a little R & D on that one too.

In the back of my mind, I’m trying to come up with a clever name for my baked goods.  I’m really bad at being clever with names so if any of you have a suggestion, please let me know.

Well, I’m off to finish my bread and check on my bunnies!

Rich moved my blog last night. So I have a new look and new location.

Hopefully, this will make it easier for me to blog.
Exciting!

I see it’s been a few days since I blogged. Let me see if I can get you caught up.

Thursday we attended Madison’s fall band concert at school. It was an awesome show. They announced that the marching band was hoping to take a trip this upcoming summer to California. So that means tons of fundraisers. Madison, should she go, needs to come up with $1050.00, OUCH!

Tim, the goat, decided on Friday (Oct 29) that he had waited long enough to start breeding the ladies and broke through the pen. Rich and I had a brief discussion and decided to let Tim have his way since we were going to release him on Monday anyway. A couple days weren’t going to make that big of a difference for us. He got “busy” right away, lol.

One of our broad breasted white turkeys was killed on Saturday by a semi truck. Madison and I found it as we were headed out to the north paddock where farmer Mike’s heifers are being pastured.

I had received a call from Rich saying he thought one of the heifers was walking funny and might have given birth. We were not expecting calves as these gals were first exposed to our bull in June. So first thought was, that’s not good as the calf will be premature. Rich was on the wrong side of the creek so he asked me to go check. Sure enough, a heifer had given birth but to a term heifer calf not a premie. Unfortunately, the calf was dead. That was sad. When Mike came over later to check on the heifer, he said his bull must have jumped the fence at his place as he too thought the calf was term. Now we get to watch the other 4 “just in case.”

Oh, back to the turkey. On the way back to the homestead, Madison and I gathered up what was left of a nice sized carcass. It was still warm. I skinned and boned it immediately. We only lost one thigh and leg. The cats got that treat. The rest went into the frig to chill. I will be grinding it later this week.

On Halloween, Madison and I headed out to a neighboring town to pick up some rabbits and accessories before she headed out to Trick or Treat. We brought home 3 mini lop does and 2 mini lop bucks with 8 cages. Feeders and waterers came with each cage. Price for all that? ZERO! unless you count the gas for the van. Madison still has to take a look at each rabbit and decide what is show quality and which will become brood stock.

We got home with about an hour to spare so we unloaded everything quickly off the trailer. I didn’t want Rich to judge my awful tie down job, lol. Hey, everything stayed on the trailer, isn’t that what’s important… not so much how it looks? haha

Madison got herself ready to go trick-or-treating. Here was her outfit:

The whole outfit cost me $5.15, thanks to Good Will. I love the pants but Madison says they are “just plain ugly” and she will never wear them again. HAHA! She went trick or treating with friends in town. She came home with a big ol’ bucket of candy. She was quite happy.

Yesterday, I spent the day moving rabbits around and making room for the new rabbits. I fixed a couple cages as well. We will be putting lights on our satin and creme does as they will start breeding in December. I also canned the turkey stock I made from the ‘road kill’ turkey bones. It smelled so good in here. Yum!

Today, I’m hoping to put a few chickens in the freezer. Austin and I penned 12 of them yesterday so I hope I can get them all done. I have about 40 to do. I will also be processing the laying hens who are over 2 years old. Then it will be on to the ducks and finally the turkeys for the week of Thanksgiving. PHEW!

Well, I best get moving so I get all my stuff done. Have a great day!
~ Carol

And its looks to keep on being that way.  I know I haven’t blogged in something like forever but thought I’d put up a quick note today since I have a bit of down time.

Our county fair ended a week ago and now Madison is gearing up for the State Fair trip with her livestock (rabbit) and also one in the general area in Exploring Animals.  She made a board on how to make Mozzarella cheese and won Grand Champ on it.  She took 2 market turkeys and received reserve champ on those but decided they would be to hard for her to handle at the State Fair judging.  That is why she is taking her rabbit.

After several days on chasing goats back into the pasture WE wanted them in… we decided to let them have their way and go into the pasture THEY wanted.  Rich had to do some quick fence fixin’ and now we have happy content goats who are staying on the correct side of the fence.  Funny, how that works sometimes, .

We have visitors to the farm yesterday who bought us 2 turkey poults they saved from certain death at the local hatchery.  They didn’t know what to do with them but had been to the farm before to buy eggs and thought we might take them if they brought them to us.  Of course, I’m not going to say no to free turkeys.   The poults are weak but we”ll do our best to try to save them.  The couple didn’t know what to feed them or that they needed a heat lamp so the poults were without either overnight.  This morning the poults are walking around and appear to be eating although one was laying on his side on my first coop check today.  I guess time will tell.

Well, I’m off to stretch the mozzarella cheese I made yesterday.  Later y’all!
~ Carol