Fall Cheese Making

This morning I made a pound of mozzarella cheese for Pam to use in her lasagna for tomorrow's dinner.  Our recipe is from Ricki Carroll's book Home Cheese Making and is called 30-Minute Mozzarella, and really only takes 30 minutes and comes out perfect every time. Sunday I started two pounds of feta cheese, probably my favorite cheese this year.  We also have a simple recipe for Ricotta cheese made with whole goat milk (vs. the traditional recipe using whey from hard cheeses).  Ricotta cheese freezes well so I won't make any for tomorrows meal as we have a good supply in the freezer.

Mozzarella Cheese ready to cool off in the refrigerator

Feta Cheese ready for brine

Feta is much more difficult to make correctly than Ricotta or Mozzarella and takes several hours of close attention.  Our problem in the past has been getting hard curds.  Soft curds and the cheese dissolves in the salt brine, but when it comes out good it is the best feta I have ever tasted.  We add the soft feta to dishes we cook and save the firm feta for salads and eating by itself.

Next year we are going to start making hard, aged cheeses.  Hard cheeses need to age several months at 55 degrees and high humility, so we need to get a new refrigerator.  I need to start looking for a used one soon and we will keep outside in a protected area next to the pump house.  I'm not concerned about energy use (of an old one) as we will be keeping the temperature somewhat high (at 55 degrees). 

Coyotes

I woke up at 2:30 am this morning to the sounds of coyotes outside our bedroom window.  What strange sounds they make after a kill.  We lock down all of our birds every evening and the goats are in a six foot fenced pasture with electrical wire along the top.  I have chicken wire on the bottom bent over a foot and stapled down to the earth.  With the does we have a livestock protection dog living full time.  So far we have not lost any livestock to them, but we do lose barn cats.

Everyone that has livestock has rodents, rats, mice and voles.  It's almost impossible to keep 100% of the grain contained and these nasty rodents feast on it.  They will also pick apart the goat dung to eat undigested grain.  Dairy goats and chickens cannot be raised without grain, so we have an abundant rodent population.  Washington State Organic Standards allow us to use a rodenticide (vitamin D), and we do, but it only contains the population at manageable levels.  We also keep barn cats.  We get our cats from rescue organizations and our place is the last stop for cats they can't place in a home.  We have two large cages in our barn loft for new cats where we keep them for two weeks, then we open the door and they are on their own.  We keep a good quality cat food, fresh water and a litter box in the loft, and they have a ramp to get down and outside.  The life expectancy at our farm is not long for a cat.  We are very remote, bordering the State Park and large undeveloped wooded properties, so the predators are abundant here.  The Great Horn owl and the coyote are the main predator of our cats.  Our best hunter was Gray Paws, and she was eaten about a month ago.  She used to line up her nightly kills along the driveway for us to see in the morning.  We currently have two cats that won't leave the barn loft so they are safe;  Greta wanders - we'll see if she made it through the night later this morning.  It's a short life here at our farm for cats, but the cat people we use say it's much better than the animal shelters.

Oyster Mushrooms growing on an alder log

Monday I collected oyster mushrooms on an alder tree that blew over in the nasty winter of 2006-2007.  We have harvested nearly 10 lbs. this fall and I'll take another two pounds this afternoon.  I fry them in a little olive oil and add them to stir fry with vegetables from our garden and panir.  Panir is a goat cheese we make and use as the main protein source for one or two meals each week.  It's easy to make; I heat five quarts of goat milk to 195 degrees and keep it between 190 and 195 for 10 minutes, add a couple of gulps of vinegar, put it in a cheese cloth to drain for about two hours, refrigerate it for six hours, and it's done.  I cut it into 1/2 inch cubes and broil it after mixing it with spices and oil and add it to the stir fry.  It doesn't melt when heated like most cheeses and can be used in any dish as you would tofu or cubes of chicken.  It's almost unknown in the US but everyone that samples it loves it.  Tonight I'll make it with a peanut sauce and sauteed vegetables. 

An old fallen alder tree growing oyster mushroom on our land

Update on Greta: she made it through another night, waiting for me in the barn to get her morning lovings.

Organic Goat Milk

We feed our goats organic grain and organic alfalfa pellets, but have not been able to find organic hay or organic straw (straw for bedding) locally.  I have found farmers growing them in Eastern Washington but I would need to buy a truck load at a time and I don't have a place to store that much product.  Our barn is small (24' x 24') and the goats take up 2/3rds of that.  We keep our tools, freezer and bikes in the one 12' x 12' section leaving us with only room for 9 or 10 bales of hay and straw.  For a semi-truck load I would need a separate poll building just for that.  Nice dream but it's not going to happen soon.

We have been buying our hay from a Coupeville farmer that uses no herbicides but does treat his fields with synthetic fertilizers.  The goats have enjoyed the alfalfa/grass/weed mix and have been buying the straw (barley) from a different farmer.  I asked that farmer last month what herbicides he used and was shocked with what he uses.  That put us back in the hunt for a better product.

Surely with one of her boys on a bed of barely straw

We called another Coupeville farmer that rumor had said grew organic barley.  It turns out that in addition to organic barley he grows organic alfalfa, organic emmer wheat and an organic grass. We chose emmer wheat straw for our bedding as it has less chaff than the barley.  Barley chaff gets in our cloths and shoes and is a real irritant.  At times it can also bother the goats, making their utters breakout in a rash.  The problem with regular wheat straw as bedding is that the stalks are large and they don't absorb urine well.  Emmer wheat doesn't have the chaff and has smaller stalks - maybe our ideal bedding straw.  Organic standards for Washington State requires bedding to be organic.  Later this week we will get a load of organic alfalfa for the girls and his organic grass for the boys.  We still feed the goats sunflower seeds and peanuts, neither of them organic.  If we could find an organic source for those two products we would have pure, organic, goat milk.  A work in progress.

Honeybees are here!

About three years ago Pam found advertised in the local Whidbey weekly an ad for beekeeping supplies.  We have dreamed on raising honeybees for years but with all our other jobs have not taken it on.  We bought everything from an old guy in Freeland except bees, thinking we would clean up his boxes and order some bees from a person in Port Angeles that raised bees resistant to mites.  That was one of our summers that wasn’t and he had no bees for sale so we just left our hive boxes stacked near the pump house.   

This spring we noticed lots of honeybees at our place - was there a hive somewhere close?  Later this summer a swarm of honeybees moved in.  My problem was that the boxes were not set up correctly, the frames (frames are what the bees put their honey and eggs on) were not in, and the boxes were in deep shade (honeybees won’t come out until it warms up and in the deep shade that can be late morning).

A couple of weeks ago I finally purchased the frames I needed and a bee protection suit and finally went into the hive on a warm October afternoon.  I moved the hive boxes to a sunny spot on the south side of the pump house under a large eve on an old pallet.  I smoked the bees but my fuel didn’t work well, but the bees were gentle and I didn’t get stung even once!  There isn’t much honey stored so I am now feeding them sugar syrup, currently about a quart per day.  To make a quart of syrup I bring to boil two cups of water and add four cups of sugar mix it up and put it in a feeder slot.

I purchased a top feeder that will hold three gallons of syrup and once I paint it I’ll start using that, which will allow the hive a more consistent supply of syrup as my schedule doesn’t lend itself to keeping the one quart always full.

The setup

Next spring we need to think of planting fall blooming flowers that the bees will like and maybe we’ll start to have our own honey supply, FUN.

Years First Frost

This last Sunday, October 17^th, we had our first frost of the Fall.  For the most part October has been very mild and dry.  We have had just 0.6 inches of rain and we are 2/3rds through the month.  Often we will have a week or two of nice October weather but this nice is rare.  Luckily I have not winterized the water system in the garden yet as I’ve needed to water our winter crops.

The frost destroyed the remaining zucchini plants and some of the other squash plants but did not get the runner pole beans, which we continue to harvest.

We heat with firewood, which is abundant here on the Island for the cutting.  I mostly get my wood from real estate clients who purchased vacant land (vacant as to not having a home on it) and have cleared a building site.  Some have even cut and split the wood for me.  Usually I have to cut it, haul it home, split and stack it.  Quite a lot of work and it’s messy, but Pam and I love the heat from a wood fire.  We have only heated our home with wood for the past 10 years and only burn in a certified stove.

It is probably not the best way to heat from an ecological standpoint, and if everyone heated with wood it would be a major problem, especially in the cities, but I justify it several ways: we live on the west side of Whidbey Island with almost constant breezes coming in from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, bringing fresh air in (we seldom have burn bans due to stagnant air), we use a certified stove, we live in a rural area, and I’m not sure the other forms of heat are really ecologically that good either.  For those that are chemically sensitive wood smoke is a major problem, but so is natural gas or propane.  Electricity works only if you don’t live near the coal plant that produces it.

We burn about four cords each year and by the fall I’ll have this and next year’s wood split and stacked.  I'm always a year ahead with my wood in case we have a severe winter, and it also assures me that we are burning really dry and seasoned wood.

I've already moved 4 cords from this pile

.My wood pile near the house.  This will hold five cords.

We generally burn two types of wood, red alder and Douglas fir, the two abundant trees on the Island.  Red Alder was considered a trash weed when I lived in Northern California and we wouldn’t even burn it.  Now I find it works find, is light (only 2000 lbs. per dry cord) and heats well (18 million BTUs per cord) and is very easy to cut.  Doug fir is the best with 23 million BTUs per cord (white oak is 26 million BTUs) and is still easy to cut and haul.  My typical wood pile is 70% alder and 30% Doug fir.  I remember once cutting a dead white oak tree in Northern California.  It burned wonderfully but dulled several chains just cutting the wood.  It was so heavy I thought I would destroy my truck, and my hands ached for two days from lifting the split wood.  I said never again would I cut oak.  In the same time and wear on my tools I could cut three cords of fir.

I rented a hydraulic splitter and split over 8 cords in one weekend last month.  I lifted each round onto the splitter and then tossed the split wood into a pile.  So each piece I handled twice, and at 2000 lbs. per cord that 32,000 lbs. I lifted that weekend!   Sunday evening in the shower I couldn’t move my head, my neck was so sift.  I recovered.  I’m now moving the wood from the cutting area to our storage area near the house, limiting myself to two truckloads a day.  I’m about finished and the rains are forecasted to return this weekend.  Good timing.

Our Goats this Fall

We raise goats for two reasons; first, for the milk; second, because we love to be around them.  Nubians need to be bred and give birth every year to replenish their milk supply.  We chose Nubian for several reasons: we love the looks of them, they are known to be very interesting and smart animals, and they talk and interact with humans in a very interesting way.  Even though their milk flow is much less than many other breeds, their milk is high in butterfat and is sweet and has no “goat” flavor.  People we know that hate got milk can’t tell our milk and cheese is from a goat.

Our Nubian does goes into heat early September and about every three weeks until bred, going out in January (the book says August thru March).  For the first few years we did not keep a buck but took our girls to a CAE free farm in Oak Harbor – 25 miles from our farm.  It can be difficult to detect when they go into heat and they only last one day, so timing is important.  Most of the time we would get to the Oak Harbor farm and our girl wouldn’t be ready, so we would go home and then back the next day.  What a chore!

Last year we rented a buck for the fall and let him run with the girls.  February we had our first doe give birth, followed closely by the other three.  We had ten kids born within two weeks and I was totally worn out.  We ended up losing four of the kids, I believe from me not being able to give the newborns enough attention.  So this year we decided to keep our own bucks.

We crossed fenced the goat area and converted an old wood shed into a buck house.  We kept one of the boy kids for a buck and traded two does for a registered Boer buckling.  We enjoy goat meat and with our milkers at the number we want decided to breed two of the three milkers to the Boer, keeping the kids for a year before having them butchered.  Alure we decided to breed to the Nubian buck we kept and we’ll sell her kids as pure bred and registered Nubians.  We are only breeding one goat per heat cycle so the births will be spread out by three weeks this next spring.  Nettle we are doing last because her milk flow is so good this fall.  We bred Surely first because she came into heat first.

It has been so nice this year!  When the girl goes into heat she stands at the gate to the buck yard, wags her tail (called flagging) and moans all day.  It’s never been so easy.

People don’t like to keep bucks because of the space and the smell.  When a buck is in rut they have a strong odor and then to add to it, they will urinate on their face.  The girls love it but most people are repulsed. 

The Boer bred is known for its meat.  A 100 lb, one year Boer male will butcher out at 40 lbs., a one year Nubian at 30 lbs., a 50/50 mix at 40 lbs.

People ask me “how can you eat them, they are so cute?”  Life on the farm I say.

Alure at the Buck Fence

EV (Extreme Vision) is our Borer Buck

Stewie, our neutered boy that will be butchered in the spring

Protein Crops at Our Farm

Our goal is to provide 100% of our protein from our farm.  Big goal, yes, and probably not possible, but we can get close to it.

Our current plan is each week to have the following as the basis of our protein: chicken or duck, a panier dish twice, egg based meal twice, a runner bean dish once and goat once.   We sometimes purchase salmon from local fishermen, and once a friend of mine retires (he already bought his retirement home on Whidbey) we’ll go fishing a few times each month, adding to our protein supply from the abundance of the sea that surrounds our Island.

We purchase organic grains from Canada for our goats, chickens and ducks, and hay from a Coupeville farmer, so we are not self sufficient, and with our little five acre farm in the woods we will not be.  My goal has always been to sell enough farm products to pay for the hay and grain but we are a ways away from that.  There is a demand for our goat-milk products but Washington State law makes it extremely difficult for a small farmer to sell it legally.  There is also a strong demand for organically raised free range chickens, but the work of butchering them is not worth the price we can get.  I don’t mind working for $5 per hour selling real estate (sadly in this market it might be accurate), but I won’t work for that wage butchering chickens.

Some Runner Beans set out to dry

Runner Bean Poles

The runner bean, Phaseolus coccineus, is our favorite dry bean crop, and the only safe bean crop to grow in the climate where we are located.  We grow two varieties, Painted Lady and Scarlet Runner.  I grow two full beds of them, making a tee-pee out of old cedar posts (approximately 1”x1” x 7’), planting six seeds at the base of each post in late May.  We’ll usually get about 4 gallons of dried beans from this planting.  This year our harvest will be half of that.  All other dried beans have failed here, either having a small crop or turning to mold before ripping.   In the US the scarlet runner is widely grown for its attractive flowers by people who would never think of eating it.  The dried bean is large and can be used in any receipt that calls for a lima bean.

Some of the things that worked this last year

Carrots!  We planted a full 30 foot bed of carrot seed last spring, thinned it once, weeded it once, and have been eating carrots since June.  Our major pest for carrots is the Carrot Rust Fly.  The organic control is to cover the crop with a row cover.  We did last year but removed it in August after being told the Rust Fly season is over by then.  How wrong we were!  Up to three generations of this pest can occur in a year so there is really no time safe.  This year we kept our crop covered once germination occurred.  In order to water and weed the row cover must be removed so there is always a chance of infection.  Last night when I was cleaning carrots for the week I noticed for the first time this year a little damage on two carrots.  Last year we lost our complete crop.

One Huge Carrot

Garlic!  Of course, garlic is one of the easiest crops to grow with very few pests.  My only past problem has been waiting too long to harvest and having the heads open up.  When that happens they won’t store well.

Potatoes!   We plant a full bed of potatoes each spring of Yukon Gold.  Once the plants flower I stop watering.  In the past we have found that too much water will result in black rot in the center of the potatoes.  We store them in a large plastic boxes mixed with peat moss in the barn.  Last year the deep freeze froze some of them – which will destroy them.  We bring them into the house in a five gallon bucket, keeping an old towel over the top to block light to the spuds.  Light turns them green, said to be a kind of poison, affecting people with mild stomach disorders.

Summer Squash!  Can anybody in any climate not grow zucchini?

Sweet Peas!  Our late summer crop was eaten by a rabbit that took up home in our vegetable garden.  Pam brought in a neighbor one summer afternoon to harvest some of our produce for her family and the person didn’t shut the gate behind her.  The next day I noticed it open and I noticed the large rabbit running around.  With all of the plant growth there were too many places for it to hide and we didn’t get it out until fall.  Our carrots were safe because of the row cover.

Onions for storage!  We planted a full bed of red and yellow storage onions and about 1/3rd of them will be good for storage. The other 2/3rds sent up seed heads and while they are good for a few months, they won't store well.  You start to get rot where the large stalk connects to the bulb.  The reason for this was our warm February followed by weather in the 20's.  The onion is a bi-annual, setting seed in the second year; the onion gets confused and thinks it is in the second year when very cold weather follows warm weather.

Of course our goat milk (with cheese and kefir) was abundant this year, so much so that we had enough to share with a couple of families.  We froze over 50 lbs. of Panir, 20 lbs. of Mozzarella cheese, and several pints of Ricotta cheese.  We have had an abundance of eggs from our chickens and ducks, meat from our ducks and we raised 50 meat chickens which are now in the freezer.

Summer is gone

One of my real estate clients made the comment “I just don’t know how you can run a small farm, do landscape work and be a full time Realtor?”  The average American watches four hours of TV a day (from Big Site of Amazing Facts).  My wife, Pam, and I don’t own a TV, so there is the extra time for us to spend with our animals and in our garden.  

Right now it’s 5:23 am and I have been up an hour – my typical morning.  During the summer I’m outside by this time, but now I have another hour of darkness.  We go to bed in the fall/winter by 9 pm, summer 10:30 pm.  I’m sleep deprived all summer.

Certain things in life are non-negotiable.  On the farm, either Pam or I have to feed and milk the goats in the morning and evening.  During the summer Pam usually does it, fall/winter/spring I do.  I also have to let the chickens and ducks out, change their water and top off their food.  Evenings they have to be put away.  The vegetable garden needs to be watered daily – but that is about all.  Lots of other work to be done but we can adjust things to fit our schedules.

We had an interesting weather pattern this summer, completely different from the warm summer of 2009.  Just about every morning we were covered with clouds, with afternoon clearing.  I liked it but our fruits and vegetables didn’t.  Everything seems to be a month behind in maturing and the fruit is low in sugar.  September was one of the wettest on record at 2.6 inches.  At our farm we recorded 6.3 inches of rain in June through September – remember in the Pacific NW we have drought summers and we are in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, getting on average about 18 inches of rain per year.  Most of that rain falls between October and May, very little if any during the summer months.

Pam's garlic braids

10 lbs of over 30 harvested

Our best crop this year was the garlic – lovers of cool spring weather.  We grew five hardneck varieties: Italian Easy Peel, Georgian Crystal, Chesnick Red, Music Pink and Metechi.  We also grow softneck garlic that Pam braids for Christmas gifts to friends and family.  Garlic in the PNW is planted in October/November and harvested in early July.  This year I have given up on the Italian Easy Peel - the heads just have not been large enough for me.  2010 – 2011 garlic has been planted!  I double dug the bed last week, let it set for several days and planted Wednesday of this week.  I usually mix bone meal into the soil for forgot so today I’ll sprinkle some on top and gently work it into the top inch of the soil.  This weekend when Pam cleans out the goat barn she’ll spread spoiled barley straw on the bed about two inches thick.  Unless we have a dry May/June (usually we have a wet May/June), we won’t water.  Come spring I’ll weed and fertilize with a blend of organic fertilizer and then weed once more in late spring.  After that I let the weeds go as they won’t affect the garlic.  We harvest the garlic in early July and hang it to dry under our entry porch roof.  Last week I began the process of cleaning it up to prepare to store it for the winter.  Scrape off the dirt, cut off the roots and stalks, and put them in a onion bag, stored in a cool room indoors.  We feed the dried stalks to our goats – they think of them as candy!  What strange animals they are.  We love them!

Our 2010-2011 raised garlic bed