(You can find proof of my blogging mediocrity in the underlined section above. It's not supposed to be underlined and I ain't sharp enough to figure out how to fix it!!)
Over the past year or two, my interest in vegetable gardening has been growing. Unfortunately, not much IN my vegetable garden has grown except for a lovely crop of tomato hornworms and a plethora of pesky slugs. So this spring, the Best Hubby Ever is planning to build me some raised beds. I can fill them with free goat compost and some lovely loam and maybe, hopefully, grow some real food.
Goatsong's gift to me was an autographed copy of The Heirloom Life Gardener by Jere & Emilee Gettle. It's a gorgeous hardcover book full of easy-to-understand and practical wisdom for organic gardening. It may even help a less than mediocre gardener like myself actually, you know, GROW something other than weeds!
Thank You, Goatsong!!!!!!
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Caprine Update:
A thousand apologies for not keeping everyone up to date on our goat adventures. We've been busy with raising the kids and milking Annika.
The boys, Rutherford and Ulysses, found a happy new home as pet wethers (a wether is a neutered male goat).
My grandkids loved to come visit the boys while they were here. Ji-Ji even gave them kisses!
In a quest to keep them entertained, Silly-Head became a human goat toy.
But all that attention was not enough. They wanted to GET OUT!
So we sold them to a very sweet couple who email me goat baby updates. :-D
At this point, Mindy has been bred (we think) and we just stopped milking Annika so she can rest up and be bred next month. After that we'll keep her on a fall breeding schedule since Silly-Head and I aren't overly enthused with winter milking. I already miss the milk, though. Hers is so sweet and creamy!! I made cheese and have taken it to a couple of Christmas parties thus far.
It. Was. Amazing.
Looks like I'll have customers lined up out the door once we get some more does (Oh PLEASE let Mindy have doelings!) and step up our production levels. :-D
3 comments:
Great, Groovy!! So glad to see you here in blogland with a bit of an update. Come on over and see what's been going on in my neck of the woods - besides broken toes!
Congrats on your win! We've been talking about being more self sufficient - intend to put a solar water heaters and solar panels for electricity. Get our garden going again. Was it difficult to make goat cheese? I think I could live with a couple goats. I love the idea of making my own cheese.
So far, I just make a simple farmer's cheese. You heat the milk to a certain temp, then add a bit of lemon juice. Once curds form (it only takes a few minutes) you strain it through cheesecloth and then hang it for a few hours. Add some salt and herbs and it's oh so yummy to spread on crackers! There are fancy artisan cheeses you can make as well. My friend makes feta and ricotta and cottage cheese. Many people make cheddars and marinated cheeses. So it can be as easy or as hard as you like!
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