Whidbey Island Hobby Farm

Fall 2011

2011-11-15T06:17:00.000-08:00

The official rain year runs September 1st through August 31st each year. Our normal rain fall for Greenbank is about 18 inches (we are in the Olympia Mt Rain Shadow). Last year we measured 30.8 inches at our farm. Yes it was a wet year. Fall has been very nice and dry this year, with only a fraction of the amount of rain that we had last year. Because of all of the sun we have one of the best winter gardens ever. Four beds of greens, beets and carrots. This last Saturday evening Pam made our dinner consisting of fried chicken gizzards, baked potatoes, and a roasted beet salad with goat cheese. Other than the spices and olive oil, everything was from our farm - and completely organic. We couldn't have bought a better dinner at a fine restaurant.

One of our fall/winter garden beds

We had a good apple harvest, with 8 - 25 lb buckets from our trees. These are being dried for late winter when our frozen fruit is gone.

Our goats are doing well, with three of the does bred, one to go. Surely is due January 3rd, Alure is due February 11th, and Alder Rose is due March 5th. The next time Nettle goes into heat we will breed her, so she give birth mid to late April or in May.

Our four does with Pooh Bear

Some of the boys eating their morning grain. We'll butcher the four boys next May

Our milk flow has been outstanding this year. Both Nettle and Alure are in their second year (the saying goes, never judge a doe on their first year), Nettle has averaged 1 gallon per day and Alure 3 quarts since late July when we separated them from their kids. Nettle peaked at about five quarts for a couple of months, Alure a little less than a gallon. We are beginning to dry off Alure as we want her to "rest" for two months before she births in February. Nettle should continue to produce through February, about the same time we'll start receiving milk from Surely.

One of our staples we make with all of this milk is Kefir. We add, fresh from the goat, milk to about 1/2 cup of live kefir grains and let it sit on the kitchen counter for two to three days, strain out the grains and put the finished kefir in the fridge. I keep four quarts going all of the time. We use the kefir on our morning cereal in place or with milk, and also drink a cup in the afternoon as a snack.

"Kefir is a cultured milk drink that has been used for thousands of years. It is made by adding kefir grains to fresh milk and then letting it set at room temperature for 24 hours - strain out the grains and it's completed. It has a light, bubbly sparkle and is often referred to as the "champagne of milk." Traditionally it is made with live grains, and its unique flavor comes from the combination of bacterial acidification (creating a wonderful probiotic supplement for intestinal and immune health) and alcohol produced by yeast during the fermentation process. With proper care the grains continue to grow and sustain themselves."

Straining our Kefir

The kefir ready for today's milk

Our garlic has been planted. My favorite variety is Pink Music, a hard neck garlic. Our heads are huge, the size of a baseball, with only five to seven cloves. The individual cloves are almost the size of a garlic head you would buy in the store, are juicy and have a strong garlic flavor. This is a true garlic and is easy to peal. I have been growing it for 15 years, saving the larges heads to plant in the fall. I gave some to an Italian friend of mine and he said it was the best garlic he has ever had - and he has had lots in his life. We grow six varieties in a raised bed 5 feet wide by 30 feet long.

Nettle finished being milked in the milk stand

Pharaoh our barn cat waiting for her morning goat milk

Pooh Bear lives full time with the goats

September

2011-09-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

We are half way through September and summer had finally arrived. August was dry with only a trace of rain, but lots of morning fog keeping the days cool and in the low 70's. The last week of August and the first 10 days of September we sunny and in the upper 70's to low 80's, but we are back to clouds and 60's. I'm hopeful that we will still have ripe fruit, corn and beans.

Bees on our Sunflowers

We have 20 ducks as I have been unable to sell our excess ones. This weekend I am going to move all of the males except our one breeder into a separate pend where I will give them free choice grain to get them ready to butcher in another six weeks. Two of our goats have been bred and the two I am milking are still producing two gallons a day. I've been making lots of cheese and we are sharing our excess milk with four other families.

Junior, our young Rhode Island Red Rooster

Our Boer buck is gentle but wants to play. At over 200 lbs it can be scary. I bought a close in livestock prod to carry with me when I'm cleaning his barn. It's a hand held small unit with two brass probes - you push a button and stick the probe into his ribs. It gives him a shock, enough to make him run off but not scream. After three jolts all I had to do was press the button and he would run off - it gives off a light sound when activated and he has associated the sound with the jolt.


One of our Buckwheat beds in full bloom

This years corn might still ripen

One of our compost containers that we have been using this year. The compost is 1 1/2 years old

Our vegetable garden has done well with all of the cool season crops doing excellent. After we dug all of the potatoes I turned the bed, added four inches of compost and then covered the bed with another four inches of bedding/manure from the goat barn. That bed is now ready to set for the winter. Come spring I'll turn it under. The runner pole beans are getting large and if winter holds until November we'll have a good crop. Some of the corn ears are getting really big so just maybe... We have most of our winter crops in the ground with some of the faster growing ones still in flats. They will go in this weekend. I am still picking sugar snap peas and have at least one more picking before that crop is finished. I have never had peas later than the first week of August. What a strange weather year we have had.

Sugar Snap Peas in early September

Sugar Snap Peas are still producing well

Our Akane apples are one of my favorites, usually ripping early August. They are large, sweet with a little tart taste. They have turned red now and are about a week from being ready. Blackberries are beginning to ripen (the wild blackberry is a noxious weed in our state but my favorite noxious weed!). We have picked about four gallons for the freezer so far. If the rains hold off we still may get another couple of gallons. Once it rains the berries become so full of water you can't pick them.

Akane apples are almost ready

Honey bees are active but no excess honey for us this year

Many Hands make Light Work

2011-08-21T06:13:00.000-07:00

Pam, Merry and Sunni cleaning and wrapping the birds

Pam and I planned on butchering our remaining 26 broiler chickens last Saturday along with three old layers. Some friends of our wanted to bring four birds to our place to also have butchered that day. We ended up doing 32 birds and completed the job by 3 pm. Bruce and I dispatched the birds, removed their feet and feathers while Pam, Merry and Sunni clean, wrapped and weighed them in preparation for the freezer. A good day for us; not so for the birds. Oh well, life here is short but sweet.

The newest mother warming her ducklings

The older mother with her nine ducklings after being moved to the bird area

We had another Muscovy hatch some ducklings (7), her second batch this summer - she had 14 her last hatching. When the ducks come out of the nettle forest with new ducklings I catch them all (including the mother) and put them in a separate pen with their own house, with a small water container and free choice grain. When the duckling start to get their feathers (about four weeks) I move them all back into the bird yard with everyone else. This time she had less ducklings because I found her nest while she was still in the duckling yard of 12 eggs - no drake in this yard so the eggs were not fertilized.

Runner Beans with the summer fog rolling in

The garden is way behind this year due to a cold spring, a very cool summer, and my busy schedule. Between working on the new chicken coop and real estate being very busy I didn't do a very good job of starting our spring vegetables this year. I'm not very hopeful about the corn but the runner pole beans might still ripen their crop. Cool season crops have done very well. We had great garlic, broccoli and cauliflower crops, potatoes are yet to be dug (another couple of weeks but before the rains return), but I planted the onions late so they are way behind.

Our typical summer day this year has been fog or a low marine cloud layer every morning with afternoon sun. The sun has been warm once it burns off the clouds with highs in the low 70's. Yesterday was a treat with the temperature in the 80's most of the day.

I have the third part of my beekeeping class this afternoon and several questions for the instructor. How do I prevent swarming? How do I combine two hives? What are good flowers to plant for the bees? I want to combine two of the swarms I captured late in July and I want to build a bee garden near our house.

Pooh Bear with his best friend, Surely

We are milking two of our goats and have been getting about two gallons of milk each day, 3/4 of a gallon from Alure and 1.25 gallons from Nettle. The boys are doing well, Surely is bred (due in the beginning of January), and Pooh Bear is living with his best friends, the goats.

Our Compost entry in the Island County Fair won first prize

We entered 16 items in the Island County Fair last week and won 14 blue ribbons. Our compost and mint won best of the show in their groups. I watched as the judge for compost used ours as an example of how she judge compost. We have great compost, with our garden debris, goat and chicken bedding (with manure), leaves and the debris from my landscaping business. We have three piles, never turn them - just let them rot.

August on the Farm

2011-08-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

Surely is in heat and has moved in with our buck

Yesterday Pam and I cleaned out the buck/kid barn and noticed that EV, our Boer buck was starting to smell like a buck in rut. It's a strong, sweet odor, the first sign that fall breeding time is around the corner. This morning Surely, our best milker that didn't take last year and is dry, was at the buck gate, her tail wagging (called flagging) and talking to EV. I let her through the gate and sure enough, she was in standing heat. Standing heat is where the doe will stand still and let the buck mount her. Ovulation (the dropping of the eggs to be fertilized) in the female occurs 12 to 36 hours after the onset of standing heat. I saw EV mount Surely three times but we'll let Surely stay in with him for 10 days or so. Sometimes the eggs don't drop and she'll go into standing heat again - and I don't want to miss that. If she settles this time we should have her babies January 3rd.

Pooh Bear taking another nap

Pooh Bear wasn't interested in the racket, just wanted to get more rest.

Mother Muscovy with 10 ducklings teaching them how to grab flies out of the air

Our Muscovy duck has 10 ducklings that are about ready to be sold. We get $7 each for them at this age, $15 when they are fully feathered out, and $20 at six months. If we sell a laying duck we get $25. What we don't sell we'll butcher.

One of our new Sex-Linked hens

Egg production has really fallen off, from the peak of 12 eggs a day to three or four. Our layers are going into their third year and they need to be replaced. Our new flock should start laying next month and we'll butcher the old girls next spring. Our plan is to add 15 each year and remove 15, keeping our laying flock at about 30. Next weekend is our butchering day for the remaining broilers and we plan on including our two Rhode Island Red roosters.

A Sex-Linked Rooster - sex-linked is a cross of Rhode Island Red and Bared Rock

A nasty weed growing around here is Tansy ragwort, an invasive, toxic biennial weed from Europe most often found in pastures and along roads and trails. It is a Class B Noxious Weed in Washington State and control is required.


Tansy Ragwort with the Cinabar larva eating away

When prevalent, tansy ragwort is on of the most common causes of poisoning in goats, caused by consumption of the weed found in pasture or hay. Milk produced by affected goats can contain toxins. Most goats will reject it, bukt some will eat it, especially if it is in their hay; its poisonous alkaloids are unaffected by drying. Honey from tansy ragwort also contains the alkaloid.

They will strip the plant of leaves and flowers

The good news is the appearance of a moth that lays its eggs on tansy, called the cinnabar moth. Spectacular success has been achieved controlling tansy ragwort in the Pacific Northwest region by releasing this animal, and we have it occurring naturally around our place. In places where we don't see them we just pull the plant when it is flowering and compost the plant after cutting off the flowers. Our compost pile is very hot with all of the goat manure and urine, so it can probably take the complete plant.

A Very Good Life on the Farm, and One Bad Day

2011-08-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

EV, our Boer Buck with two of his Nubian/Boer kids in the Buck Yard

An interesting day Sunday was. It started off separating the goat kids from their mothers. I finally corrected the drainage problem around the buck house, putting in a curtain drain and gutters on the structure. The day before I cleaned out all of the old bedding straw, putting in fresh material. I put in EV, our Boer buck, and the four weathered boys this Sunday morning. Between the boys screaming for their mothers and their mothers screaming for the boys, we had much noise and little peace. Pooh Bear, our guardian livestock dog, slept through it all.

Alure and Nettle, our two Nubians that we are milking this year

Sunday was also our chicken butchering day, with our goal to process all of the male broilers. The night before Pam and I picked up the chicken plucker from our friends at the Blue Feather Farm in Clinton. The set up takes me about a hour, which we did near the house where we have outside hot water. Then the process of going up to the broiler house, grabbing a rooster and walking down to the processing area. About 300 feet each way - 20 round tips. The chicken I would grab was very upset, but as I made the trip down to the house I talked to each one, holding him close to my chest, thanking him for sharing his life force with us. By the time I was half way to the house they would be totally calm and accepting of their fate.

The Killing Cones set up for 4 birds

We had a setup of four killing cones on a sawhorse, I would put the chicken in upside down, allowing the blood to rush to their head. I then use an X-acto-knife to cut the throat and bleed into a bucket. By the time I had the next chicken brought down the one before would be dead. When I got three dispatched, I then submerged them one at a time in a pot of water, 140 degrees, for one minute. Then into the chicken plucker where I removed their feet (the feet are reserved for future chicken stock). About one minute or so and all of the feathers are gone - then into a metal trash can filled wit ice water. Pam comes out and takes them one at a time into the house where she cleaned, wrapped and weighed them before putting them in the freezer. 20 chickens took us just about the full day.

My set up

The inside of the plucking machine

The birds averaged 4.5 lbs, down a pound from last year. We changed feed this year and last year we let them grow longer.

Mid Summer on the Farm

2011-07-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, they say it is summer but this is one of the wettest and coolest I remember in a long time. Several days this week we had thick cloud cover, drizzle, and temperatures never reaching 60 degrees. Thursday was especially bad as I did pruning off the Island all day in heavy rain. After we completed our evening walk we were treated to one of the most beautiful rainbows I've ever seen - then a second one appeared. I was about to feed the goats their evening snack and just couldn't break away from looking at the rainbows, when two ravens flew through it. Oh my, I thought, this makes up for the crappy weather!

Some of our Garlic ready to hang to cure

Pam dug the garlic out - a very good crop this year of large heads. She'll tie bunches of six heads or so and we'll hang them on the rafters of our front covered porch to cure in the shade for a month or so, then clean them up and store them in mesh bags. The garlic will last us until the next harvest.

Our Buckwheat Bed with squash and carrots

Pam watering the corn last night

We have two vegetable beds we never planted this year so I planted buckwheat in them. Buckwheat is a good summer cover crop and the bees will love the flowers. Speaking of bees, we have another swarm in our garden. I sure hope it didn't come from our main hive!

Bee Swarm on our Garden Fence

We decided to replace our drake (male duck) named DJ. I'm going to miss him, he is so mellow but a great rater. When rats come into the duck house at night to share in their grain, he grabs them and drowns them in the water bucket, either leaving them in there or throwing them out. Our problem is that two of our female ducks are his daughters and many of their ducklings have died from unknown reasons. We are guessing that the cause is inbreeding.

DJ (Don Juan) our Drake

The new chicken house with a chicken starting to lay her egg in the smallest nest - also the most popular!

All of the chickens are now living in the new house now. I have the old one locked up and when time permits I'll tear it down. I'm going to keep two of the posts that are set in concrete and turn them into Scarecrows. Scarecrows have been successful at our farm in protecting our birds from eagles and hawks.

Steam raising from our compost pile behind the fence

Tomorrow we'll be butchering half of our meat birds - all of the males. We have about 45 in total. We'll let the hens grow with the boys for two weeks and then process them. Tonight I'll remove the feed just leaving them water to clean out their intestines. We did 45 last August and still have nine in the freezer - so this is a good number for us.

The Broilers in their summer home

The Broiler Chicken Yard

We don't use the popular 'Chicken Tractor' concept. Though the chicken tractor is better than cages, I prefer to let my birds run in the pasture. Our birds have plenty of space to search for bugs and weeds and get very good exercise. I've seen other people's chicken tractors and believe they are not much better than living in a small cage. We lose very few to predators.

Honey Bees

2011-07-19T06:13:00.000-07:00

I was in the garden last Thursday watering the bee balm plants and could hear the honey bees buzzing but couldn't see them. I thought that was odd and looked up into our apricot tree and saw a swarm of bees hanging.

A Swarm of Honey Bees in our Apricot Tree

I assumed it came from our hive as when honey bees swarm they don't go far at first from the hive and I don't know of any other bee keepers within a mile of our place. I've been meaning to order new hive boxes as I prefer to have more than one hive but have not done so. I do have two honey supers in storage that are brand new, so decided I could use them as a temporary home until I order a new set of boxes.

The Swarm of Bees up close

Bees swarm as a natural form of hive splitting and growing. When the bees in a hive believe they are filling up the space available, the queen starts laying queen eggs. The worker bees feed these eggs a special food (royal jelly) that will allow these eggs to grow into a fertile female. Shortly before the new virgin queen emerges from her cell, mama queen flies off with 50 to 60 % of the workers. They will land on a nearby tree to rest while worker scouts fly off to find a new home.

I got my ladder out, set up the new temporary home, put on my bee suit and climbed the ladder. I sprayed sugar water on the swarm to calm them, placed a five gallon bucket under the swarm, and shook the branch. Almost all of the bees fell into the bucket. The queen is usually in the center of the cluster. I then pored the bees from the bucket onto the top of the hive and put the lid on.

About five days latter (yesterday) Pam and I were cleaning the goat barn, hauling the spoiled straw and bedding to our compost piles, when we both heard thousands of bees. I went over to our established hive and saw thousands of bees coming out and flying over to a place in our orchard. In the orchard they were all gathering, forming a funnel of bees forty to fifty feet high. Another swarm was forming in front of our eyes!

It's very rare for a hive to have two swarms within a week unless there is something wrong with the existing hive and the bees are all moving out. I went in my existing hive and all is well. Our established hive looked very good, with many bees, frames of honey and brood. My guess now is that the first swarm I caught was from a local wild hive.

I found the swarm in a hemlock tree outside our orchard, took one of the honey suppers and set up another temporary hive, and caught the swarm like before. Now we have three hives, two in temporary quarters. July swarms are not known to be strong with little time left to build their winter stores. I'll help by moving some of the brood frames from the established hive to the new ones, start feeding them sugar syrup, and hope for the best.

Summer on the Farm

2011-07-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

My typical summer day starts about 4:30 am when I get up. I like to run when it is dark out, so three times a week I rise at 4 am to get my run in before starting the farm chores. 5:30 am I'm out working the birds, changing their water, topping off their feed and watering the garden. I then feed and milk the goats. I'm usually back in the house with the fresh goat milk by 7 am, strain it and let it set in the sink in an ice bath. Our goal is to get the milk chilled to about 40 degrees within an hour, then it goes into the refrigerator.

Runner Beans

Potatoes and Sweet Peas

Our garden is doing okay this year, below average. The runner pole beans are looking very good and we should have a good crop this year. We grow two beds each year letting the beans mature and save them for the future. Runner beans are very large and we use them in recipes that call for Lima beans. Two beds of 8 sets of poles will give us about a gallon of dried beans plus our seed for next year. The flowers attract humming birds and the honey bees love them.

Corn is way behind this year

Our corn is usually knee high by the 4th of July - today is the 11th of July and they are only half way to my knee. I fertilized them this morning and watered. Unless we have a very worm summer I don't believe we'll have fresh corn. Potatoes are looking very good, as is the garlic. The garlic will be dug up by the end of this month, tied together in groups of six and hung under our porch to cure. Sweet peas are late but starting to produce well.

The Meat Birds are doing very well

I'm just about done with the inside of the new chicken coop - I still need to put an electrical outlet in the main room so we'll have winter light. Once the days become shorter I'll put in a timer so the light goes on about 4:30 am until the sun rises. The idea is to get the chickens to eat more (with the light on they wake up and eat). The more they eat the more eggs they lay.

Our newest Mother with 12 day old ducklings

Yesterday our newest duck came out with 12 ducklings. Moved her to the duckling pen where they will grow until feathered out. We give them free choice grain during this growth period. We have 26 ducklings living here now and have sold 10. I have one duck on a nest and one laying eggs in another nest. The Muscovy will usually set twice during the summer - so we get a lot of ducks! I will sell all of the females and most of the males - keeping 10 or so males for the freezer. We sell the day-old ducklings for $5, once they are feathered out the price goes to $7, full grown females are $25.

The New Coop, with siding still to do

The Egg Condo

We bought a new dehydrator, one with a fan and temperature control, and large enough to put my cheese in. In the past I have been letting the cheese set a warm oven (warm when I first put in the milk) but with the new dehydrator I can set the temperature at 90 degrees and it stays there. My last two batches of Chevre have been excellent.

Cheese setting in the dehydrator

Summer is Upon Us

2011-06-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

It hit 80 degrees here about 2 pm today. The honey bees are happy, corn is growing as are the weeds.

Our Broiler chickens at five weeks in their summer home

I transferred the broiler chickens to their home and pasture. We'll butcher them this August and they'll dress out about about 4.5 lbs each. We started with 50 and four have died. Why, I believe they committed suicide. Who knows. The pasture and inside the coop had grass waist high; they ate the grass in their coop down in two days, hungry guys and gals. Now they are working on the pasture and they are growing well.

Day 2 in their new pen - half of the jungle is gone!

Of our two bee hives, the one in the new boxes are doing very well. The other hive I kept in an old hive box I bought used. The queen died and now we have few bees there. I think I will burn it and start over next spring with new boxes.

The goats are doing well. We have four boys, all healthy. I milk their mothers in the morning and let them feed all day on their mothers. We are getting about a gallon of fresh milk per day. Making kefir and some other soft cheeses.

We had such a cold and wet spring everything growing is behind except the garlic and the raspberries. Our honey bees wouldn't come out most spring days and our normal large crop of bumblebees came out late, so we had no pollination on the cherry and plum trees. Only one of our Asian pear trees (out of four) has fruit. The apple trees set ok, between two and three apples per cluster of five, which is alright with me as I usually thin to that so we get larger apples.

Mother duck with some of her ducklings in her brooder house

We have a good crop of ducks this year. Two mothers have hatched their eggs and we have two setting on nests due any day now. The first one had 15 and we sold 10; the second one had 10 and we have five of them sold as soon as they feather out.

Oyster Mushrooms growing on a down Alder log

With the cool spring our Oyster mushroom log in the woods was late, but our crop is better than ever. We gathered about 10 lbs last week, sauteed them and put them in the freezer. Oyster mushrooms sell for about $10 per pound. I'll go out there this afternoon and pick some for our stir fry dinner this evening.

Between real estate being extremely busy for me this year, and my building projects (new buck house, new chicken coop ...) I been behind on weed eating and preparing the garden beds. I have weeds growing into the electrical goat fence and still have three garden beds to weed and turn. Lots of work to do. Pam ends her school year next Monday, June 27th, so I'll have more help. I have not even had time to write, which I love.

Our Goat Milk-Flow is Back!

2011-05-12T04:15:00.000-07:00

Fresh goat milk is back and oh how I missed it. Normally we leave all of the mother's milk for her kids for the first three weeks, then separate the kids at night and milk the mother in the morning, leaving some for the kids. With Alure, we are getting about 3.5 lbs each morning (about 8 lbs per gallon). Nettle gave birth less than two weeks ago and I have been milking her in the morning for the past nine days, and averaging over 4 lbs. per day. I was concerned that maybe her kids are not eating well (I seldom see them nursing but then I'm away most of the time). Yesterday I took all of the kids up to Oak Harbor to Ron & Arline's farm (Stonebrier Farm) to have them disbudded and neutered; Arline commented that Nettle's kids looked great and that they were feeding well. Toots, the first born, weighed in at 18.5 lbs, Puddle (who we thought was the good eater) weighed 16.5 lbs.

Puddle and Toots bouncing around in the goat barn

Rain and Storm watching the new kids

So we once again are making Kefir, our beloved milk drink. I made some this past winter with frozen milk, it kept the grains alive but they did not thrive. Oh how they love the fresh milk. We still have 10 lbs of Pannier cheese in the freezer from last year, many pounds of other cheese, but with two gallons in the refrigerator I need to do something this morning. It builds up fast. Last year I was milking four goats and it was a major chore to use all of the milk.

Nettle has become an excellent mother this year

We named Nettle's two kids Toots and Puddle. We will be keeping them for meat, butchering them next May. It'll be interesting to see what our meat total will be with them being half Boer. We received 90 lbs from the two Nubian bucks we had butchered last month. Nubians are considered "duel purpose" - very good milkers and also good for meat. The Boer is a meat goat.

Our apple orchard in full bloom

Our new chicks are doing well. One of the problems with chicks is called "pasty butt" - their poop clumps up on their butt and can be fatal, blocking more from coming out. The book says to use a warm wash cloth to remove the clumps. This is a major chore when you have 70 chicks as we do. I have found an easy solution: feed them milk every few days. The milk give them loose bowels and we don't get the pasty poop. Last Saturday I went in the chick brooder to give them some milk when problems developed. I have a bungee cord inside to hold the door closed when I'm inside - the hook on the door stripped out at the same time I dumped the milk upside down, scattering the chicks like a bomb when off. One of our layer chicks fell out the door and ran off into the brambles. I was running late for a real estate appointment so had no time more time to spend looking for her. It was 45 degrees out and raining hard, so I logged her as gone. Sunday afternoon when we returned from Seattle after our Mother's Day gathering, the little check was still alive, scratching around the door. I put a little dish of food out and when she returned to snack I trapped her with a leaf rake. She'll be happier with the warm place and plenty of food and water. I'm also happier with her being back. I once read the only thing better than happiness is freedom, but this is a farm.

This Saturday Pam and I are off to Eastern Washington for our annual anniversary and birthday trip. Our wedding anniversary is May 16, Pam's birthday was May 3, mine is May 17, so each year we do a short trip with Pam taking two personal days off along with the weekend. This year we rented a place in Winthrop, a small resort town on the eastern sloop of the Cascade Mountain range. Our friends and neighbors Michael and Prescott will run the farm while we are gone. It's hard to leave the place when everything is peaking, but once we are away it's fun.

One of our bees working the apple trees

The bees are doing well. Our apple, pear and cherry trees are in full bloom, along with salmon berries and elder shrubs, so the bees have a lot to draw from. I love to set in front of the hives and watch the bees come and go.

May Day

2011-05-03T07:15:00.000-07:00

Nettle licking off one of her new born Boer mix boys

The last day of April brought two new goat kids onto our farm. Nettle gave birth to two Boer/Nubian bucklings at 2 pm. We bred Nettle to EV, our Boer buck, 148 days earlier. Our goal was to refresh Nettle, one of our best milkers, and hopefully have additional bucks to butcher for meat next spring. Success! Just what we wanted. They both seem healthy, bouncing around and Nettle is being a good mother, not like last year. Last year, her first, she didn't get it. I had to hold her feet down to let her kids nurse, and later she killed one, slamming the kid into a wall that was trying to nurse. I planned on turning her into sausage until I discovered how good of a milker she was.

Windy died Sunday morning about 9 am

After returning from a Beltane potluck dinner at a friend's farm, we bottle fed our little Nubian girl Wendy. She was normal, sucking down the bottle of goat milk in two minutes. Sunday morning when I went up to the barn to feed her I noticed something wrong - she wouldn't eat. She has always been extremely hungry so this alarmed me. I noticed blood and poop flowing out of her behind so we went into emergency treatment, talked to our vet, and tried to comfort her. She died about 9 am that morning, just three hours after we noticed her problem. So quick and sad. Pam held her as she took her last breath, singing to her a song about passing on to the next phase of her existence. I buried her in the raspberry patch that afternoon.

Our Cherry trees are finally blooming!

A goat breeder friend of our told us when Windy's mother first rejected her and wouldn't let her nurse, that often goat mothers will know there is some genetic problem with a kid and reject them soon after birth. Why waste energy and resources on a kid that won't make it? Natures way she said. Of course we didn't want to believe our dear little Windy had a problem. I guess we were wrong. Oh well, we have more milk now for the kitchen. We have four buckling kids for our meat crop this year, and not needing any more does, we are pleased.

I took a beekeeping class on Sunday afternoon and found it interesting. That afternoon with the outside temperature in the upper 60's I opened the hives and checked things out. The queen is starting to lay eggs - she will lay up to 1500 per day, and I put in the first mite treatment - formic acid in the form of strips. I'm told it's the closest thing to organic treatment but can be dangerous to humans and have to be handled very carefully.

Our apple, pear and cherry trees are now in full bloom - much later than past years. With our new bees I'm hopeful we'll get good pollination.

End of April and other things

2011-04-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

This last week of April has been full! I started out bring in the butcher to dispatch two of our male goats, Snowshoe and Stewie. A friend of ours wanted a buck of hers butchered but didn't want it done at her place so she brought her goat over last Saturday to stay at our place until the butcher arrived. Being he has never been tested for the dreaded goat disease CAE, we put EV (Extreme Vision) in with our girls - just in case. EV is our pure bred Boer goat. He and Snowshoe were born last spring and EV probably is 40 lbs heavier; I can understand why people like the Boer goats for meat.

Snowshoe looking over our friends goat Tank

When the butcher arrived I first led our friends goat out. He didn't like the experience much and made a lot of noise. Our goats seemed to understand that it was their destiny, walking gently to the butcher and never made a sound. It was really awesome.

EV, our Boer goat, made the cut and gets to stay on our farm

Alure, the mother of our little kids, continues to have problems. She doesn't like to eat grain, and she needs grain to produce milk. A couple of weeks ago her morning milk supply fell from an average of 3.5 lbs to 1 lb. I took her to our vet and she checked out ok. We did stool samples and drew blood, checked her teeth, had her milk tested...The blood sample came back with a liver problem on one of the tests. The vet doesn't know what that means, so he sent the information to Washington State University and had one of the professors look at it. He doesn't know what it means either.

Trying creative ways to get Alure to eat grain - her new thing is to eat directly out of the can

Nettle is due to birth within the next three days. She is huge, and her utter has filled up (called "bagging up"). Last night we cleaned out her birthing room and have isolated her in there by herself. She seems to be doing fine.

Pam cleaning Nettle's birthing room last night

Our bees are doing well. Their hives are all set up and the bees are very busy. Today I'll do the first mite treatment. I found a new product just approved in Washington State, called Mite Away Quick Strips. My bee guy said this is about as close to being organic as you can get, the product consisting of Formic acid. Formic acid is naturally occurring in honey. Two strips are added per hive three times per year: now, early September and late December. Sunday I have enrolled in a beekeeping class put on by Washington State University Extension Service for Island County. That should be interesting.

EV asking for more grain

April weather on the farm here in Greenbank has been close to normal, except much cooler. Our rainfall for the month is at 2.1 inches, with some more projected for Monday, but then dry. This morning we have no clouds and all sun, with highs expected to be in the upper 60's, maybe 70 for Sunday. Nice!

The three kids waiting to be let out in the morning

Spring has Arrived!

2011-04-25T05:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday sure felt like spring has finally arrived. Near 70 degrees, blue skies, bees buzzing and trees in bloom. Pam and I worked outside until 7:30 pm, cleaning the barn and doing other chores. The new bees are working hard, building new comb and out exploring their new territory. How fun!

The Chicken Coop with its metal roof almost completed

I just about finished the roof of the new chicken coop. I shorted myself one piece of trim and won't have that until later this week but it's now totally rain proof. I need to fix the window so I can open it and let in fresh air when it's warm out but not let the chicks jump out. I'll cover the opening with hardware cloth - metal wire with 1/4" square holes.

View of our chicken and duck area from the roof of the chicken house

Sunday was Easter and we invited the family over for a roast chicken dinner. Not everyone could attend due to colds and other family commitments, but we had six adults and three grandchildren. It's fun watching the little ones interact with our farm animals. Olive, the oldest granddaughter (almost three) loves the goats (her favorite animal) and loves to gather chicken eggs.

Granddaughter Olive playing with Windy

Chicks Arrived

2011-04-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

I received a call from the Greenbank post office yesterday morning at 7 am that they had our box of 67 two day old chicks. I finished the chicken brooder the night before so was all ready for them. Off to the post office I went. Of the 67 we ordered, one chick died. It was a sex-linked layer chick - we order 15 of them but after I released them all and counted, I still had 17 live ones. The hatchery must have shipped an extra three.

The Greenbank Post Office with my new chicks insde

The yellow chicks are our new meat birds, Red Rocks, the black our our new layers, Black Sex-Linked

The chicks in their new home

On Tuesday afternoon I opened the bee hives to get all of the new bees out of their boxes and get the queens ready to be released. I put on my bee suit and had work gloves on but didn't smoke them before starting to work. Two mistakes! The bees were not happy with me and I got stung three or four times through my cloth backed gloves. I put everything down, went to the house and got my heavy rubber gloves and then fired up the smoker. I started again, first smoking the bees and it was so much better.

Per Wikpedia: "Smoke is the beekeeper's third line of defense (what are the first two?). Most beekeepers use a "smoker" — a device designed to generate smoke from the incomplete combustion of various fuels. Smoke calms bees; it initiates a feeding response in anticipation of possible hive abandonment due to fire. Smoke also masks alarm pheromones released by guard bees or when bees are squashed in an inspection. The ensuing confusion creates an opportunity for the beekeeper to open the hive and work without triggering a defensive reaction. In addition, when a bee consumes honey the bee's abdomen distends, supposedly making it difficult to make the necessary flexes to sting, though this has not been tested scientifically."

The queen is in a little wood tube. I removed the cork and inserted a stale marshmallow in its place. In two days or so the queen will eat her way out and then mate with a drone and begin laying eggs to build up the hive. I just signed up for a beekeeping 101 class being put on by WSU Extension Service and taught by Timothy Lawrence, one of the nations leading bee experts.

Progress

2011-04-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

I had a busy week here. Just about finished the part of the new chicken house in time for the arrival of our 65 new chicks. We ordered them from Dunlap Hatchery in Idaho. Today is the shipping day so I'll be receiving a phone call about 8:15 am from the Greenbank post office. I just have some finishing touches to make, hang the heat lamps and set up the water and food stations. I'll use wood shavings on the floor.

The new chick coop with the brooding section almost completed

I built the floor about 2 feet up off the ground. I have found through experience that rats love to live below chicken and duck coops and they will chew through 3/4 inch floor boards. By raising it at least 12 inches off the ground stops them from nesting there. I was thinking of using a concrete slab as a floor as it would be easy to disinfect, but a friend told me that he has rats living under his. I measured the height of our garden cart and thought if the floor was a few inches higher than the cart, it would make cleaning the coop easier. Just push the material into the cart rather than lifting, so I built it two feet high.

About three years ago when I sold the property across the street (a real estate listing of mine), I arraigned to have a contractor put in a curtain drain in that property. I thought while they were out I would have them trench three feet deep from our barn to the area where I was planning on building this chicken coop. I ran a power line and water line from the barn to this area and yesterday connected power to the new coop. I hooked up a 20 amp circuit breaker (a GFCI breaker) - no more extension cords! I now have an outlet in the brooding area and can connect the heat lamp directly.

The box of new bees - about 5 lbs

Sunday morning we received two boxes of new bees from a local bee keeper. I partially took apart the box they came in and put a box in each hive. Today I'll remove the boxes and take the cork out of the queen's cage. I'll put a small marsh-mellow in the tube and in a day or so she'll eat her way out of it - then fly to mate with a drone. Our old hive (the swarm that moved in) died over the winter - which is not unusual for a new swarm.

Gary getting ready to put the box of new bees in the hive

The bees we received were New World Carniolans. The New World Carniolan was originally established in 1982 by Susan Cobey and Tim Lawrence in California. Tim Lawrence is now the Island County Extension Director. New World Carniolans are a cross between Old World Caniolans (from Germany or Czechoslovakia) and Italians selected for specific traits of gentleness and hardiness. They are relatively gentle bees and will fly on cooler days than pure bred Italians and winter over in small clusters, which means that they need a smaller amount of honey to get through the winter months.

Alure

2011-04-15T07:09:00.000-07:00

Alure is a very interesting goat, and not an easy one to manage. She gave birth to three kids March 13th and rejected her little girl, Windy. I milked her every two hours to feed the little girl but after a week she didn't have enough milk for all three, so we put Windy on goat formula. Windy thrived on the bottle and follows me around like a lost puppy. Four weeks later we started locking the kids in their special room at night so they can't feed during the evening and early morning - I began milking Alure in the morning before letting the kids out.

Alure with her two new boys and her daughter from last year

Windy being fed this morning

For the first three days I would leave 2/3rds of the milk in Alure and within a week reached her peak milking of about 3.5 lbs (about 8.2 lbs in a gallon) - which is good for Alure. I'm not milking her dry in the morning as she "holds back" some of the milk and won't release it, saved for her boys morning nursing. Four days of this and then one morning she had no milk. The next day I only got 1 lb, and then back to normal. I don't know what happened, but I do know she does not eat much grain anymore. I've checked for lice and found none, so we wormed her and the next morning she ate a little better. Today I'm going to set up an appointment for her to visit her vet and have him check her teeth. Maybe it hurts her to chew. At this point I don't know.

Little Windy, our bottle fed doeling

At our South Whidbey Tilth board meeting last night one of the members asked if we would loan her a buckling for the summer/fall - they would feed him all year and after breeding return him to us. A good deal for us as we won't be butchering him until he is at least one year old.

The new chicken coop is coming along

The chicken coop is coming along with the baby chicks due next Wednesday. I'm taking the day off real estate to work on it. The goal today is to get the roof completed and the new brooding room weather tight. I'll spend most of the weekend working on it.

Emery Adair Ingram - born 4-8-11

By the way, we have a new granddaughter, born last Friday, April 8th - 8 1/2 lbs, Emery Adair. How cool is that! We now have five granddaughters all less than 3 years old.

Beginnings of a Chicken Palace

2011-04-06T10:34:00.000-07:00

I've began construction of our new Chicken Palace. I need it weather proof by April 19th when the new chicks arrive. I will do it!

My construction experience is limited to the barn and house and some miscellaneous out buildings and already I have made some mistakes that will cost me time and materials. Oh well, what can I say.

The beginnings of the new Chicken Palace

The old chicken coop is in the background

The goat kids are doing well. I am locking the kids in a separate room at night so they can't feed on their mother's milk and milk Alure in the morning before letting out her kids. I don't milk her dry but leave a little for the young ones. 16 ounces goes in a bottle for Windy, the rest to the refer for us (and her evening feeding). I got a little over one quart from Alure this morning - she is probably producing about three quarts per day.

Alure's four kids - Alder Rose is one of her girls from last year, Windy is the little girl with white on her side

The idea of limiting their milk is to get them to start eating grain and hay, which develops their rumen. I noticed Windy "chewing her cud" which tells me she is eating between milking. Sometimes I wonder...

Nettle is due to kid the beginning of May and she is really starting to show. Very good news for us as Nettle is a very good milker though a terrible mother. I may need to bottle feed her kids this year as she killed one of hers last year. We were thinking of culling her out - I changed her name at one point last year to Sausage, but being such a good milker it went back to Nettle.

Later in March

2011-03-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

My grandmother use to say about March weather "In like a lamb, out like a lion" or vise versa. March began with heavy rains and it looks like we'll end with heavy rains. In between, we had just showers mixed with sun. As of this morning we have had 5.1 inches of rain for the month. I have an Oregon Scientific weather station that my kids got me for Christmas in December 2009. Until this month, the most rain I've recorded in a month was December 2010 - 3.8 inches. Last March I recorded 2.1 inches. YTD we are 172% of last year.

Stonebrier Farm in Oak Harbor

This last Sunday afternoon I took our little doeling, Windy, up to Oak Harbor to have her disbudded. As I have written before, we do not want our dairy goats to have horns. It hurts them but they recover in minutes after it is completed.

Ron and Arline Stone, owners of Stonebrier Farm in Oak Harbor are long time goat breeders. They raise both Nubian and Boer goats. They sell the Boer goats for meat and also show them at the County Fair. Last year they won Grand Champion for the Boer goat they entered. I put the link to their farm website on the link section at the top of my blog page. Really great people and I love to talk with them about goats.

Little Windy disbudded

Pam has next week off for Spring Break so I'm going to try and take most of the week off. My business partner is taking her children to Disneyland in LA, so I will need to cover for her, but most of my time is going to be spent building our new chicken coop. I can't wait to have it completed. It's going to be 24 feet long and eight feet deep, with four sections. The largest will be for our layers, we'll have two brooding sections, one for chicks and one for turkey chicks, and a section for the adult turkeys. Our goal is to build a new fenced pasture on north end of the coop for the turkeys. We hope to have that pasture completed for the 2012 year and raise four or five turkeys for meat. Probably sell one or two and keep the others for our freezer. Our new batch of chicks are scheduled to arrive April 15th, so I have no time to waste.

Windy in the truck ready to go back home to her brothers

Pam will help me get our spring garden planted. The snow peas are ready to put out and it's time to plant potatoes so I have to get those beds ready. I have the bed for our greens ready to plant so we'll get our spring greens in. All of the fruit trees are pruned as are the berry plants.

Monday evening I taught a class on organic pest control for South Whidbey Tilth. It was fun, I love talking in front of groups about farming! We'll probably have our farm on the summer SW Tilth Farm tour this year. We did it a few years ago and it was fun. Each year we tour three of our members farms and then end the tour with a potluck dinner at John and Molly Peterson's CSA farm in Langley. They have a huge walnut tree that we all eat under. It's always well attended and fun talking to other farmers.

Late March on the Farm

2011-03-27T06:03:00.000-07:00

Windy with her two brothers checking out all the new things

The new goat kids turned two weeks old yesterday afternoon and they are thriving well. We have moved them into the general goat population a few days ago. When we first introduced them to the other goats it was with my oversight. Goats have a ranking system and the lower ones are quick to let the newly arrived know who is boss, and sometimes this can be rough. The mother often will get between her kids and the older goats to run interference, if that doesn't work, I'm there. By the third day I'm not needed as the little ones know how to behave. Surely, who is the leader, doesn't even give notice to the little ones until it is time to teach one of them something. Goats love to rise on their hind feet and come down head-to-head (butting heads they say) - it's a game for them - and I watched Surely teach Alder Rose last year this game. Surely would rise on her back feet while Alder Rose just stood still looking at her, then Surely would drop down just short and tap her head against Alder Rose. She did this over and over until Alder Rose caught on. We have a special small door to the birthing room that is large enough for the kids to get through but too small for the adult goats - this give the kids a place to go away from the adults.

Pooh Bear living with the boys

We moved Pooh Bear into the pasture with the bucks. He is just too rough on the new kids. Last year he chewed on one of the kid's ear, and scratched one bad trying to pull the kid out of a hole. I just don't have the time to spend training him kid care.

The new bee hive, assembled and painted, ready to move into the orchard

I finally got the new bee hive assembled and painted. We have two new packages of bees (four pounds each) arriving this next weekend just in time for the nectar flow from our late blooming plum trees; the salmon berries are just starting to bloom - everything is about four weeks late this year, the pears are almost ready and apples are probably two to three weeks away. With two hives we should have honey next fall for our use and great pollinators.

Nettle is due to kid May 1st

This afternoon I'll take Windy, our little doeling to Oak Harbor to have her disbudded.

Alure with her two boys

Caring for the Kids

2011-03-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

Pam holding one week old Rain

We are into week two of Alure's newborns and things are going well. This is Alure's second year of kids, last year she had two girls, this year two boys and one girl. As a milker last year she was difficult. She started off being a great mother, letting her kids nurse and when we would bring them all out to the general goat population, she would hover near them, never taking an eye off their whereabouts. We usually let the new kids have all the milk they want for the first two weeks then separate the kids at night and milk the mother in the morning, leaving some milk for the kids morning feeding. Alure in the milkstand was a nightmare! She would scream and lay down, trying to stop me from milking. Finally I figured out how to milk her - I would tie her back feet to a rope connected to the back of the milk stand and then get up on the stand and hold her body up with my shoulder. In time she relaxed and I could milk her without the rope. We were not weighing her milk early in the season, but later when we purchased a scale (in September) she was producing about 3 lbs per day - there is about 8 lbs in a gallon. Nettle, also a first time milker, was producing double that.

My six year old "little brother" holding his first goat - Windy

This year Alure has decided that she would only nurse two of her kids, rejecting the little girl Windy. We talked to a goat breeder friend of ours and she said sometimes there is a birth defect of some type and the doe senses it. Unlike humans, the animal world rejects young that are not normal, and sometimes the doe will pick one that they don't like and reject that one. "Who knows what goes on in a goat brain!" I'm hoping there was not a birth defect (we'll see, but I don't see anything yet) - my guess is that she knows she will not have enough milk to raise three kids so she picked one to reject.

Storm and Rain at one week

The first five days I milked Alure and fed Windy a bottle of her mother's milk. The last two times I milked her I could just get enough milk to fill the bottle - so maybe my theory is correct. We bought some goat milk replacer from a suppler and this past weekend I started to use that to feed Windy.

Pooh Bear in his favorite spot

We disbud our goats - the removal of the goat horns just as they start to emerge, and yesterday was the day for the two little boys. We do not want horns on our goats, especially with dairy goats. Horns can be very beautiful, but they are also very dangerous, to you, your family and other goats. Even if the goat is a pet, and friendly, he/she can accidentally, or on purpose, seriously injure other goats, animals and humans. We have a friend that decided not to disbud one of her kids and the goat knew she had an advantage over the others, keeping the others away from the feed. Once the horns grow out there is nothing you can do - if they are to be removed it must be done just as the buds appear. With Nubian boys it is about day 7, girls about a week later.

The disbudding process is not fun. I take our kids up to Oak Harbor to a goat farmer and pay him six dollars per goat to do it. He uses a disbudding iron, red hot, and the kid screams, but recovers quickly. When I return the kids to the mother, I always re-introduce the kid butt first, the area with the strongest kid smell, so Mother will recognize her kid. The head of the kid smells like burnt hair.

March Madness

2011-03-15T07:11:00.000-07:00

The rain continues to fall but spring is in the air. Days are longer and the frogs are making their spring chirping/mating calls. The chicken egg production has increased but we have not be able to locate the duck egg nests. They hide them so well and cover the eggs with dirt. Soon we will have broody mother ducks and ducklings.

Rain learning to drink from his Mama

The baby goats are all doing well. The two boys are nursing well on their own and Alure is an excellent mother. The girl, Windy, is not interested in nursing so I am bottle feeding her. In the five years we have been raising goats I have never had to bottle feed one until this year. I take a clean bottle to the barn and milk directly into it from Alure, about six ounces. Windy recognizes me and when I sit on the goat platform she comes to me to be fed. I'm doing a feeding about every four hours, the hardest one is at 1 am. I've been sleeping on the couch in the living room so I don't disturb Pam's sleep. Once I get to the barn it is pure bliss. How I love the little ones and could stay up there forever.

Alure and her three kids, all doing well on day 2

Nubians are an interesting goat. We love the way they look and they are so interesting. Of course, their milk is the best of all goat milk, rich and sweet with no "goat" flavor. Nettle, who is due to give birth May 1st, is now doing the Nubian groan when she rests. Some have said it is the mother talking to their unborn babies.

The photo was taken February 27, 2010. Today is March 15, 2011 and these trees have not bloomed yet

I did the South Whidbey Tilth pruning workshop at our farm last Saturday in the pouring rain. About 20 people contacted me about attending but only seven showed up due to the weather. The plan was to demonstrate how to prune the different fruit trees in the morning and then have a hands on pruning afternoon where I prune all of my trees. By noon we were all cold and wet and nobody wanted to stay for the afternoon session, which was fine with me. The sun came out about 2 pm and I spent the afternoon putting the metal roof on the buck house expansion project. Still have to prune the orchard. We are about three weeks behind last year so I'm doing ok.

Baby Goats Have Arrived

2011-03-14T04:10:00.000-07:00

Finally! The first of our 2011 new kids were born yesterday afternoon to Alure, one of our purebred Nubian goats. She had two boys and a girl. We thought she would have three this year as she was so big. Our vet checked her out about a month ago and just looking at her said "triplets".

Rain is the kid nearest the wall - the first born with his brother Storm

Our weather has been extremely wet for our standards here in the Rain Shadow of the Olympic Mountains. We normally receive between 17 and 20 inches of rain each year, a "rain year" running November through October. Since November we have already had 17 inches of rain at our farm. Since last Thursday we have had 2.5 inches. Large puddles and streams have appeared on our farm where I have never seen them before. It's raining right now and showers are in the forecast for the week.

Alure licking off her little girl, Windy

I have always been the one in our family delivering the baby goats but yesterday afternoon I had real estate showings to do so Pam was the one home. We knew Alure was due (actually two days past the normal 150 days expected) so we had Alure in a separate "birthing room." When Pam was finished with her barn chores this afternoon she did a final check on Alure before going into the house and saw the big bubble. This is a long, clear string of "goob" (mucous) hanging from the doe's vagina. If the goop is amber, it is amniotic fluid, and a sure sign that kidding should happen very soon. The first one out was a boy, soon named Rain. After birthing is the time to assist the kids in finding the teats. This can sometimes be extremely frustrating. The kids just don't seem to "get it". We always need to hold the teats for them at first as we want to make sure they get their colostrum (first milk) as soon as possible. The kids really must get their colostrum within 1 hour of birth. To be sure they get this colostrum I put some in a bottle and feed the kid.

Pharaoh the barn cat had to come down from the loft to check out all the activity

Colostrum is the thick, yellow fluid which is produced before the mother's milk comes in. It is nature's way of transferring immune factors from mother to baby and generally occurs in the first two days after birthing. Last year one of our does had way more colostrum than her kids could use so I made yogurt with a gallon of it. Unbelievably good!

Storm, the second boy born, is still wet and about an hour old

I talked to Pam on the phone when I was completed with my showings and she told me of her first assisted birth. When I got home about an hour later we had another boy and a little girl. The boy was named Storm and the girl Windy.

Mothers can be such a pest, with their constant licking of the new born. This boy looks just like his father, Snowshoe.

I made sure everyone got several ounces of colostrum, were dried off and warm (we have two heat lamps in the birthing room) and came to the house for dinner. After dinner and our evening walk with the dogs, I again fed the kids and gave them each a shot of Bovi Sera, an antibody concentrate for newborns. I got up at 1 am to feed everyone again (and haven't been back to sleep yet). Once I observe them feeding on their mother most of my work will be done, but with triplets we will continue to supplement their feeds with bottle milk.

Surely was due last month but it seems her breeding never took. That is a real disappointment for us as Surely has always been our best milker. Nettle is due May 1 and she is also a great milker - we are crossing our fingers that she is pregnant. Next year we are going to build a breeding pen with a shelter where we will lock the girl in with the buck we want to breed for a month to be sure it takes. Oh well, it might be a lean year for us with goat milk as Alure, though a great mother, is not very good as a milker.

February Freeze

2011-02-25T08:03:00.000-08:00

Junior the Rooster that believes he is a duck on the warm compost pile

February on Whidbey Island is usually a mix of cloudy days, some rain and usually two weeks of spring like weather. This year we have had the clouds and rain, but instead of the spring like weather we have had snow, ice and frigged weather. Last February we had 1.5 inches of rain at our farm, so far this year we are almost twice that. Two days ago we had four inches of snow followed by sunny weather that melted most of it and allowed me to put some finishing touches on the newly expanded buck house, with that afternoon getting another three inches of snow. The snow was so bad the buses refused to go north of Freeland so I had to take the 4x4 truck into town to pick up Pam on her way home from work. I don't mind driving in the snow with the exception of crazy drivers - tailgating is popular in the snow and ice with many drivers along with passing in no passing zones. This morning we got down to 16 degrees when I went out to change water and feed the goats. Oh my!

Our 9 year old peach tree after pruning

Last week the buds on the peach tree were getting huge so I pruned it. My plan was to wait until Saturday March 12th because I am doing a pruning class/workshop for South Whidbey Tilth at our farm that morning, but with the large buds I did it anyway. Now with this freeze I'm sure everything will slow down - probably could have waited. Every year for the past few I teach pruning of fruit trees here at our farm in late February to early March in conjunction with a series of organic food growing classes SW Tilth puts on. With our 22 fruit trees, most of which are semi-dwarf to full dwarf, and mature, this is a good place to show how to prune. I am a certified arborist and learned to prune fruit trees from a retired WSU professor 12 years ago - hands on at a farm with over 200 fruit trees. If you talk to 20 fruit tree experts, you will get 22 different ways to prune. The system I was taught works very well and is very easy and fast.

From 10 am to noon, I will take the 20 or so folks around our orchard and demonstrate my technique, also talking about organic pest and disease control, along with how to fertilize. Then after lunch I will prune all of my trees in about two hours, with anyone that wants hands-on experience welcome to stay.

This Saturday I am going to demonstrate fruit tree pruning to a group call Gleeful Gleaners, a group of people on the south part of Whidbey that pick fruit from trees that would normally just fall to the ground and take that fruit to the local food banks. From one of the leaders of this group: "Despite winging it, our start-up year rustled up 53 volunteers, 23 tree fruit donors (some with numerous trees) and yielded 2107 pounds of fruit channeled to people in need of it." I believe 90% of the fruit grown by homeowners falls and rots on the ground while these same people go to the store and buy fruit grown 1000s of miles away. We use 100% of the fruit we grow, freezing and drying what we don't eat fresh.

Our Garlic coming up through the February snow

Winter Projects

2011-02-14T06:18:00.000-08:00

Winter is almost over and my projects are just beginning to be completed. The highest priority was to get the buck barn larger. I converted a covered deck that we used when we lived in a travel trailer while building our house to a home for the bucks. The structure was about 12 feet long by 8 feet wide with the east side open. Besides being too small to loaf around, rain would come in the open side keeping the half the ground area wet. With our very wet winter this year our bucks have developed hoof problems. We need more dry space for them.

The expanded buck house still under construction

My solution was to expand their barn another 10 x 12 feet, enclosing the west side and leaving the north side open. We get some cold winds from the north but the rain usually comes from the southeast. I have some left over plexiglass from my redesign of our cold frames so I will put a couple of windows on the new west wall to give a little more light in there. Today I'll order the metal roof (right now I have plywood and tar-paper on it) and get a few more boards. The plywood walls on the south and west sides will be covered with alder saplings that I will cut from our forest.

Pam putting down fresh straw in the boy's area

My next project is to rebuild the cold frames. We have been using plexiglass for the lights for the past two years, before that we used plastic but that only lasts a year before needing to be replaced. The plexiglass is expensive (over $35 for a square) and when the wind blows our lids start bouncing and they break. This year we bought a product called Sollex. They use it for greenhouses. It comes in 4' widths and is about $6 per linear foot. So each light costs me about $6, and it should last 20+ years, it's light and unbreakable.

The new cold frame "light"

We ordered our 2011 chicken crop and they will be delivered April 20th. After rebuilding the cold frames I will build a new chicken coop. This one will be 24' x 8', with nesting boxes and three brooding sections. One brooding section will be for turkeys, one for meat birds and one for each year's new flock of laying hens. I'll build it about 2 feet up off the ground so rats don't live under it and tall enough so we can park our garden cart at the door and be able to rake the litter directly into the cart. I should begin construction by the end of this month.

Winter has been long, cold and wet, and I am looking forward to warmer and dryer days ahead. Not much snow this winter but a lot of rain with the temperatures in the upper 30's.

Our Livestock Guardian Dog

2011-02-10T06:19:00.000-08:00

Pooh Bear is our 2 1/2 year old livestock guardian dog, a Great Pyrenees. We have a small herd of Nubian dairy goats and our concern for them is the coyote and other peoples' dogs. Before we got Pooh Bear I would lock the goats inside the barn at night, nighttime being when coyotes are most active around our farm. We have our pasture fenced with a five foot woven fence, with chicken wire along the bottom stapled to the ground. When we were building our house we lived in a large travel trailer and built the fence to keep our two house dogs in, so we figured it would also keep the stray dogs and coyotes out.

Pooh Bear, our Livestock Guardian Dog

We chose the Great Pyrenees because of his history as a Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD) and his friendly nature with humans. Some of the other LGD's are scary and we didn't want that at our little farm. On large farms the Great Pyrenees usually guards over 160 acres so his tendency is to roam. Our goats, always believing that the plant growth on the other side of the fences has a better flavor, tended to climb on the fence to eat what was growing on the other side and would knock down the fence. The goats were afraid to climb over the fallen fence, but not Pooh Bear. He would then go wandering. Our solution was to put an electrical wire along the top; we no longer have that problem and it gives us an additional layer of protection.

I had to string a lower wire along the fence that borders the gravel road as neighbors walk their dogs off-leash and it would set Pooh Bear off. I observed him throwing himself against the fence in a frenzy and feared he might break through.

Pooh Bear watching over his herd of Nubian Goats

Pooh Bear has two different barks. When he sees one of our barn cats or a deer the goats pay no attention to his bark, but when he hears a coyote and barks, all of the goats run to a place behind him, watching their protector intensely. It's really awesome to watch. We disbud our kid goats (a process of removing the new horn growth so the goats don't have horns when they grow). We use a goat farmer in Oak Harbor to do that for us. One year when we returned with the kid that was just disbudded its mother rejected the kid and wouldn't have anything to do with him. Pooh Bear became his best friend with the two of them always seen together.

Pooh Bear as a puppy and his little friend

We have a friend that owns an 180 acre ranch in north central Washington State that is very rugged. They raise fiber goats with no fences and use one Great Pyrenees to protect their herd. He tells the story of his dog killing a courgar that came after their goats. So we asked him to assist us in buying a puppy. The first day I brought the puppy home and introduced him to our goats the dog and I were walking on an old log, showing the goats that we could do that also. A large chunk of the log split off and a nest of bees swarmed out, stinging both of us. I looked at our poor puppy, rolling on the ground swatting at the bees and thought of Winnie the Pooh - from then on he was called Pooh Bear. It's a great name for him as he looks like a bear (he weights 120 lbs and looks larger with his fluffy hair) but to humans he is just a Pooh.

Pooh Bear spends 99% of his time living with the goats - his time off is every evening when we take him for a walk (on leash) with our other two dogs. We will often see him grooming the goats, licking them, especially around the face, ears, and urogenital region. I have often seen one of our goats go up to him and stomp her foot to wake him up and he'll start licking her leg. On the bad side, when a kid is not feeling well he tries to help and he is too rough. He may paw at them and has been known to pull on their ears, trying to get them out of a tight spot. This year when the kids are first put in the pasture with their mothers we plan on putting Pooh Bear in an adjoining pasture with our bucks.

Pooh Bear resting while the herd is out browsing in the pasture

LGDs are hardy animals and often do not use a dog house or shelter, even in inclement weather. They generally prefer to sleep in the open, somewhere high where they can easily observe their surroundings and often, even when it is snowing, I will see Pooh Bear sleeping out in the open.

The Ugly Duckling & Other Things

2011-01-20T06:53:00.000-08:00

Junior, our younger Rhode Island Red rooster, was hatched out early last summer by one of our Muscovy ducks, the chicken egg being laid in one of our duck nests. The duck mother raised him like one of her own. We thought that was cute. When he grew up we would often see him hanging around with the other ducks, but at night he always goes into the chicken coop to roost. Now that he is sexually mature he seems to only be attracted to the ducks! If we end up with some strange looking ducklings this summer we'll know why.

Junior, the Ugly Duckling all grown up

Last year was a wet one for us. Our usual rainfall for the year is around 18 inches. 2010 brought a total of 25 inches at our farm. Seattle, about 50 miles to the south, usually has about 36 inches, 2010 was 47. January of this year is a little more than half gone but we are almost to the level of 2010, our wettest month last year with more rain in the forecast. It has also been colder than normal, with snow several times this winter. The cold mornings are hard on me as I have to break up the ice in the water troughs for the animals - but it is nice walking on frozen mud rather than sinking in it.

Winter is our garden seed ordering time. We spent an afternoon going through our leftover seeds, discarding all of the seeds over two years old, and made an inventory of what we had. We get several seed catalogs in the mail each year but made the decision to go totally organic again this year. Most of the seed companies have a few varieties that are certified organically grown, but High Mowing Organic Seeds are 100% certified organic. We have used them for the past two years and have been happy with our results. If you pay before January 1st, you receive a 10% discount. So we figure out what we need, make a payment, and then order later. We received our seeds a couple of days ago. Order early so we get everything we want before they sell out. We save our runner bean seeds from the year before (I have been doing that for 12 years), same with our garlic and potatoes. I'm sure there are other seeds I could collect but time is limited. www.highmowingseeds.com if you are interested. I'm told that there is little difference (if any) between organically grown seed and non-organic, but I'm not interested in supporting the non-substantial growing methods used by many of the large seed companies. With certified organic seeds I know the farmer is working the soil correctly. I also know I'm not getting GMO seeds.

Today I will order our chickens for the year. For meat birds we will go once again with the Red Cornish Cross. We like this bird as a broiler as they have high livability, strong legs and take only three months to grow to maturity. The White Cornish Cross grows so much faster (seven weeks to maturity) but are very dumb. They have leg problems and won't eat bugs or grass and have been know to die rather than walk three feet to the water. They are best grown in a cage with their water and food in front of them. We want our chickens to have the freedom to range. I have also read that pasture raised meat is so much better for you than just grain fed. They say even pork is healthy if they have open range. Being we only raise one crop per year the extra time growing is not an issue - and I'm told that from birth to the freezer both varieties consume about the same amount of grain. I can't get the Red Cornish chicks locally so will order them from Dunlap Hatchery and will pick them up from the post office in mid-April.

We also need to replace our laying chickens this year. I ordered the materials to build a larger chicken coop for the layers and need to get it built by mid-April. Egg production has fallen from 14 eggs per day to about 5, yet they consume the same amount of feed. We will butcher all of the hens this fall when our new girls start laying. This year we going to buy the Black Sex Link, also known as the Bovan Nera. They are very good layers of brown eggs. The hens are mostly black with a red coloring primarily around the neck. The males are black and white barred. They are a cross between the Barred Rock and the Rhode Island Red. With the new coop I'll have room to add new chickens each year. By changing varieties each year we'll know who is ready to become stewing hens, keeping the hens for only three years.

Days are getting longer

2011-01-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

It might not be noticed by most people, we, because the farm functions by the light, do. I'm going out earlier to feed the goats and let out the birds in the morning, and going out later in the evening. Our ducks also know the difference and have begun laying eggs again. They start laying about now, peaking late winter through July, then start falling off again until they stop in the early fall.

We still have snow on the ground from last Wednesdays light snow fall. Days have seen temperatures in the low 30's (F) and nights have been in the low 20's. My morning chore time is mostly breaking up ice and getting the animals water.

Pam on Christmas Day in Tacoma

We had fun these past two weeks with Pam off for Winter Break from her teaching job. We took a short overnight trip to Cama State Park on Camano Island, spent Christmas day at my daughter's house in Tacoma with most of the family, and did our annual hike at Ebey Landing in Coupeville. Nearly every day we walked through the South Whidbey State Park that borders our farm - beautiful trails through the old growth forest. New Years Eve we went to Lynnwood to watch the twin granddaughters so my son and his wife could go out.

Ebey Landing from the upper trail

I pruned the raspberry patch last week. I have read many different ways to prune raspberries, tried several methods, and believe the best way is to cut out last years flowering canes (I have June producers) and wrap the remaining canes along a horizontal wire. June baring raspberries fruit on last years new canes. The new canes that grow up during the growing season are call "Prima Canes" (first year canes), the fruiting canes are called "Flora Canes" as they flower and then set fruit. After the Flora Canes fruit they die in the fall and need to be cut off at the ground. The Prima Canes then become your Flora Canes, and new Prima Canes come up and grow three to six feet during the year. Most pruning methods have you cutting the old Prima Canes in the winter but I have found I get more fruit if I don't cut them at all. Most of the plant's energy is used to make fruit instead of new cane/fruit. I saw some farmers doing this and it has worked well for us.

Raspberries Patch ready for mulching

A few weeds needed to be removed and then we mulched with bedding straw from the goat barn.

Score-Card of What to look for in a Homestead

2010-12-30T04:31:00.000-08:00

I've adapted this from the classic book written in the 1940's "Have More" Plan by Ed and Carolyn Robinson.

I	LOCATION
	Sellers' or Real Estate Broker's Name and Phone Number

	Distance to your job __________________________________

	Commuting Expense __________________________________

	Time to Commute ___________ Commute Expense ________

	Condition of Roads in winter ___________________________

	Distance to Schools or Bus Stop _________________________

	Distance to Church _______ to Shopping _________________

	Telephone Available ___ Electricity ____ Mail ____________

II	WATER SUPPLY
	City Water ___ Private Well ___ Community well ___
	If other than large community well or city water, have the
	water tested by a state certified lab doing a water
	bacteriological analysis. On Whidbey Island the cost is $20
	Pond or stream? _____________ Any wetlands? ______

III	ELECTRICITY
	Is electricity to the property? Living off the grid (on solar power or
	other) is difficult and expensive. If buying raw land, what is the
	distance to the power source? Contact the local provider to
	determine the cost to bring power to your building site.

IV	SEWAGE DISPOSAL
	Municipal ____ Septic Tank ____ Raw Land Perc ___
	Don't purchase raw land without having the soils tested for a
	septic perc (the ability for the soils to qualify for a state or
	county approved septic system). If purchasing a property with
	a septic system, have the tanks pumped and inspected prior to
	closing on the property. This cost is usually paid by the seller.

V	LAND
	Total Land Available ____________
	Should be at least 3/4 acre of good, level land. Total of 2 to 5
	acres to include orchard, pasture, hay field, and land to grow some
	stock feed.

VI	OUT BUILDINGS
	Garage ____ Tool House ____ Workroom ____ Barn ____

	Poultry House and/or Barn ____
	Barn for dairy, rabits and poultry ideally should contain a
	minimum of 500 square ft. floor area.

VII	ORCHARD
	Apple ____ Peach ____ Cherry ____ Plum ____ Grape ____

	Rhaspberries ____ Strawberries ____ Blackberries ____

	Blueberries ____ Asparagus ____ Rhubarb ____
	An established orchard in good condition is worth money. For
	a family of 4 this should contain: 5 apple, 3 pear, 1 peach,
	2 cherry, 2 plum trees, 10 grape vines. Small fruits: 50 raspberries,
	100 strawberries, 6 blueberry shrubs.

VIII	OTHER
	Shade trees ________________________________________________
	Fencing _____________________________________________________
	Good fencing is worth considerable)
	Length of growing season _______
	What is the micro-climate of the property? Is it in a hole that will
	frost early? Ask the neighbors.
	Kind of Neighbors _____________________________________
	Meet the neighbors, talk to them and ask about the neighborhood
	Is extra land adjoing the property available?
	What is the property tax on this property? ________________
	Any restrictions against raising livestock, etc.
	Are there any CC&Rs? (Coventants, Conditions, and Restrictions
	that run with the land)
	Assessed Value of the Property _________________________
	Down Payment needed ________________________________
	Estimated cost to repair ________________________________

IX	HOUSE
	List out your ideal want list for a house

Twas the night before Christmas... - by Juli Fisher

2010-12-22T07:18:00.000-08:00

… fog lay over our land.

All was quiet and calm, like a sweet little lamb.

The chickens were tucked in, their heads out of sight.The cats were all in the house, in their beds for the night

I was wrapping a few gifts, some last minute buys.

Bob was already in bed, he’s so healthy and wise.

As I put on the last tape, tied my last piece of yarn.

I heard some noises outside, they came from the barn I thought of that old poem, wondered if it could be

Old St Nick himself came to pay a visit to me I donned my jacket and mittens, a hat on my head

And braved the cold night instead of heading to bed

The air was so crisp, the stars shown so bright

I could see all the trees outlined in moonlight

I heard some voices I thought, but how could that be

There were goats and some coyotes, otherwise only me

Inside the warm barn the goats seemed to be sleeping

But all came alive when they caught me a-peeping

There was Lily and Lilac and Poppy a-pile

Velvet all by herself, which is really her style

Rocky grunted and butted his way through the herd

But the voices I’d heard, well, not a word

Then the littlest one, Willow, stood up and said “Mom!”

In English! In words! It hit me like a bomb!

I looked about at the goats, and they all looked to me

I said “I can understand you? How can this be?”

Then Amelia came forward, the wise and sweet one

And said “We’ve always been speaking, it’s what we’ve always done.

But it took a Christmas miracle for you to really hear

To understand what we say when you’re with us out here

We each have our thoughts on our lives here with you

Now you can understand what we want you to do

Annie wants you to feed her, just peanuts all day

Cypress wants you to hug her in your own special way

Filbert wants you to stop shoving meds down his throat

Fiona wants you to tend and to brush her fine coat

Willow knows she’s your sweetheart, your favorite pet

It’s ok, we all know she’s the cutest goat yet

Lilac’s a good doe, just frozen by fright She’s frightened of darkness, oh, and of light

Now Poppy we know is one special doe She’s very Zen, introverted, or maybe just slow The new babes are happy, we love them all well And we love you and Papa, in case you couldn’t tell

Now we must stop, you’ll no longer understand

When we call out and holler and make a demand

But you know what you know now about your goat herd

But you can’t tell a soul, no you can’t breathe a word

This is our little secret, so go back to your bed

And in the morning you’ll think this was all in your head.

Juli and I use to work together 15 years ago for a crazy person and became good friends. She and her husband Bob have been raising goats and making cheese for many years.

Our Holidays Wishes Letter

2010-12-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

Greetings Friends & Family!

This has been another wonderful year in our family. We are keeping busy with our farm, family, friends and work.

Gary balances his farm work, landscaping work and real estate. His hand finally healed in July after his surgery last November. A bone stimulator helped his hand to heal. Thank God for technology!

Pam still enjoys teaching her lovely preschoolers and kindergartners. She recently joined a Threshold Choir whose goal is singing at bedsides of those who are nearing their transition. It is fun for her to sing with other women instead of just her school children.

Pam and Gary’s family keeps growing. In February, Nick and Mel welcomed twin girls, Evelyn Rose and Claire Elizabeth into this world. They join cousins ,Olive, who is now 2 ½ and Chloe , who is now almost 22 months old. In April, Gabe and Jen, Chloe’s parents, will be having another girl. Needless to say, Pam and Gary are just thrilled and family gatherings are jubilant and fun. One of Olive’s favorite farm chores ,when she comes to visit, is collecting chicken eggs. “Goat” was one of her first words since she and her mom, Eleni, were present right after the birth of two of our goats.

In August, Alex and her long time partner, Alex May, married at a lovely farm wedding in Poulsbo. They are still living and working in Seattle.

Gary and Pam's Family

Gary A. returned from graduate school in New York in May to re-enter the work force. He returned to working at a gun shop in Lakewood and enjoying the city life in Tacoma.

Dark Days and Long Nights

2010-12-20T07:15:00.000-08:00

Yes, the dark days and long nights are fully entrenched upon us - one of my favorite times of the year. One of my loves is to set on the couch by the wood stove in the morning and read a good mystery and drink my coffee. I usually have a couple of free hours each morning before going up to the barn. Even then at the barn I don't have much to do. We have only one goat in milk, and I'm only milking her in the evening. I refresh everyone's water, give some of the ducks food, feed the bucks, and I am back to the house in 30 minutes.

Our buck Snowshoe in the newly cleaned goat area

Pam has the next two weeks off for winter break so I don't even have to cook dinner! Oh, lazy times for me. I'm taking these two weeks off from real estate work, having a business partner that will cover for me for most of the work, all but what I call the "non-negotiable" things, like writing up or reviewing an offer for property. Not much of that during this time of year, but I do have a couple of projects I'm working on. I'm going to take this time off to work on a new shelter for the bucks, plan next year's vegetable garden, and design the new chicken coop.

Last night we had our Yule gathering, celebrating the dark nights, at a friends house in Oak Harbor. It felt good not having to run home before dark to deal with all of the animals as they are all tucked away before 5 pm.

We continue to mulch our orchard and berry areas with soiled bedding from the goat area - it looks so nice. Our winter garden survived the deep freeze last month, probably due to the 3 inches of snow covering everything. Nights have been in the low 30's with days near 40 for the past few weeks, so with the light row covers our winter vegetables continue to live, giving us fresh greens for our salads. Our birds continue to thrive, and the two little chicks are growing, starting to get their feathers.

Camelina Seed for our Goats and Chickens

2010-12-12T06:51:00.000-08:00

We purchase our animal feed in 300 lb barrels from a local farmer (Jordan Coe) that makes a monthly trip up to the Canadian border. It is an organic mix of grains that contains soy as the major protein source. Studies have shown that soy in animal feed have high levels of phytic acid that reduce assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Jordan found a local (Bellingham) suppler that uses only Washington State grown grains in his mix, and has replaced soy with Camelina meal, which as the same amount of protein but is 35-40% linolenic acid (omega-3) compared to canola (8%) and soy (1%). Additionally, camelina oil contains high amounts of vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant.

Omega-3 Rich Eggs and Goat Milk from our Farm

Camelina meal was analyzed as an ingredient for production of omega-3 rich eggs. This study was done in collaboration with Nick Dale at the University of Georgia. The content of omega-3 in the egg increased with increasing camelina content in the feed. Camelina meal has also been evaluated for production of omega-3 enriched goat milk. Similar to poultry, milk from camelina-fed goats contained increased concentrations of omega-3.

Omega-3 fatty acids are considered essential fatty acids: They are necessary for human health but the body can not make them -- you have to get them through food. Omega-3 fatty acids can be found in fish, such as salmon, tuna, and halibut, other seafood including algae and krill, some plants, and nut oils. Also known as polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), omega-3 fatty acids play a crucial role in brain function as well as normal growth and development. They have also become popular because they may reduce the risk of heart disease.

I have always believed our chicken eggs and goat milk is of a much superior quality to anything we can purchase in the store - now we have enhanced Omega-3 chicken eggs and milk! The added plus is that we are buying local.

Sad Day for the Chickens

2010-12-08T06:15:00.000-08:00

I was getting ready to go up to the barn area yesterday evening when I saw a Bald Eagle fly low over the house toward the State Park land behind our property and had a bad feeling. I went up to the chicken yard and found our new mama, Falcon-ette, the Buff Orpington that a friend gave us, was dead. Nothing left but feathers and some bones. Two of her baby chicks were still alive (one disappeared a couple of days ago), I caught them and put them in the little coop with food and water. I have to figure out how to keep them warm without their mother around. If they made it through the night I will set something up in the barn. Pam wanted to bring them in the house but I drew the line at that. No way. Really sadden me last night. She was so cute with her babies. One time I saw her scratch and find a large seed and she took it to one of her chicks. Oh well...life on the farm.

Falcon-ette, eaten by an Eagle yesterday afternoon

Three years ago we had problems with an eagle that ate one of our ducks three days in a row. The third day I was standing in the garden when the eagle came out of the park, flying low toward the bird yard, saw me and took off. That gave me the idea of building a Scarecrow, which I did, and we never had a problem again until yesterday. I'm thinking I will change it's clothes this morning - I'm really worried that it will return for another good meal.

This morning I prepared one of the ducklings I butchered last month for tonight's dinner. Cut up potatoes, onions, carrots (all from our garden), added a package of dry onion dip with a half of cup of water, all into the crock pot for dinner tonight. This will give us about eight servings.

An easy dinner that will cook all day - duckling from our farm

Breding our Goats - continued

2010-12-05T06:58:00.000-08:00

Nettle was in heat last weekend and again went into heat six days latter. What happened?

Our Goat Herd with their Protector (sleeping)

Goats are seasonal breeders and in our region the breeding season GENERALLY extends from September to February, although exceptions occur. The duration of estrus (heat) varies from 12 to as long as 48 hours. Within that duration standing heat (the period the doe stands firmly when a buck attempts to mount) lasts approximately 24 hours. Ovulation usually occurs 12 to 36 hours from the onset of standing heat.

What all of this means is that a goat typically goes into heat just before ovulation, or the release of the eggs from the ovary. The buck's sperm then fertilizes the egg. If the egg falls too soon or too late she won't "take". I noticed that Nettle had some vaginal discharge with a little blood mixed in prior to her going into heat, so my guess is that the eggs dropped early. In humans, if no conception occurs, the uterine lining as well as blood will be shed. The shedding of an unfertilized egg and the uterine wall is the time of menstruation.

On Friday when Nettle was in standing heat I locked her in the pasture with EV, our Boer buck. I put Snowshoe (our Nubian buck) and Stewie (our wethered buck that will be butchered next spring) in an adjoining pasture. When I returned home from the office, Stewie and Snowshoe both broke out and joined Nettle and EV, so if Nettle takes this time the kids will be either full blood Nubian or half Nubian and Boer. It is also possible to have one of each. Typically a goat gives birth to two kids, sometimes one and sometimes three, but when multiple kids are born they are not twins, just multiple eggs that have been individually fertilized. Yesterday I fixed the fence but will have to replace that section before next breeding season.

Back to Normal

2010-11-29T06:43:00.000-08:00

The warmer temperatures have returned! Yahoo. We had our Thanksgiving gathering on Friday and the temperature rose to about 40 degrees F. with all of the ice melted on the roads so no one had a problem with the hill we live at the bottom of. All of our children, their spouses and children attended. We cooked a local turkey and stuffed ourselves on all of the other food.

Pam going into Ace Hardware

Saturday night the local Ace Hardware store in Freeland had their annual "Customer Appreciation Night", everything in the store was 20% off with plenty of free food and beverages (no alcohol of course). It's a very popular event on the Island and we get to socialize with many of our Island friends.

I had a water hydrant in the garden that I couldn't get completely shut off when I winterized the system so I thought it was time to replace it with a frost free hydrant. Bought one at Ace Saturday night (20% off) and installed it Sunday afternoon. The old system was a pain in the spring when we sometimes needed water in the garden. I would have to dig down and turn the water on and then turn it off when we were completed. Spring can be warm some days and then freeze at night - now we'll have water without the worry or hassle.

Digging out the old hydrant

The new Frost-Free Hydrant in the garden

Our brooding chicken hatched three babies - I don't know if they are full blooded Rhode Island Reds yet (communal nests) or if they are mixed with the mother.

The new mama with one of her 3 chicks

Breeding our Goats

2010-11-27T14:06:00.000-08:00

Nubian dairy goats need to be bred every year in order to have milk. Our goats dry up (stop producing milk) mid to late November. Nettle was bred for the first time last fall and she had two kids in February (as did our other three girls) but she is still producing nearly three quarts a day. Alure dried up last month and Surely this month, but Nettle is still going nearly full speed.

Nettle getting ready for EV the Boer Buck

Last February all four of our goats (Zoe has passed on the the freezer) gave birth within two weeks, with 10 baby goats and it was hell on me - really too much work. So this year we decided to spread out the breeding, allowing only one per heat cycle to be bred. Nettle we decided to do last because of her strong milk flow. We have to dry them up at least two months before kidding to give them time to build up their strength (milk takes a lot out of them). But last month Nettle didn't go into heat and we were worried. Pam talked to a breeder we are friends with and she said due to the warm weather in late October and early November several of her does skipped their cycle. Nettle has been going into heat every 21 days and yesterday was on our calendar as her heat due day, so I put her in with EV, our boer buck. No luck.

This morning when I milked her she was dripping mucus from her behind and then when I was finished she ran to the gate connecting the buck yard and started moaning. I put her in with EV and she is bred! It takes about five months so it looks like we'll have either late April or early May babies from her.

Nettle at the time of her breeding last year

Surely was bred September 15th and Alure October 11th, so we'll have them spread out this year like the plan. Surely is due February 15th, Alure March 15th, and Nettle April 27th. In addition to having the births spread out, next winter we should have fresh milk without the normal winter break. Usually we freeze several gallons to hold us through the winter but when we thaw it out it is not very good as it separates.

Yesterday morning we had another surprise. We were given four laying chickens by a client of mine that decided to move back to California and one of the hens has been sitting on some eggs and two hatched. So we have two new chicks born - she has three more eggs in her nest so maybe we'll get more.

Coping with the Cold

2010-11-24T06:12:00.000-08:00

With three inches of snow on the ground and daytime temperatures in the 20's, we spent the day doing chores inside getting ready for our Thanksgiving gathering on Friday. The morning temperature at our farm was 16 degrees F., so getting the animals fresh water was the first chore. Pam lugged buckets of warm water up to the barn while I fed everyone. We took a long walk through the state park that borders our land in the fresh snow with the three dogs and after dinner took them for another long walk up our road. 7 pm and it was down to 9 degrees! When we returned an hour later it was up to 10 degrees. Overnight clouds have moved in and the temperature has risen to 20 degrees - but there is no snow in the forecast until Thursday.

Pam bringing warm water to the barn

We have a propane instant hot water heater, one of those that give you unlimited hot water and does not have a holding tank. With all of the power outages rural life on Whidbey Island is known for, we wanted a non-electric one. We installed one that has a water turban that starts the fire without electricity. One of the options that we didn't get was an electric vent cap that closes the chimney flue when not in use, thinking we wouldn't have hot water without electricity to open the flue. We love it, with the exception of times like this when it gets really cold. Freezing cold air comes down the chimney and freezes the water inside the heating baffles, so I have to put an electric heater under the unit to keep it from freezing. Monday night I set it up and put it on low, but last night with single digit temperatures outside it froze before we went to bed. I increased the heat setting and got up at 11 pm and it was frozen again, so out came the hair dryer and I thawed it out; then turn the heater way up. This morning all was well.

Firewood ready to be brought into the house

We normally burn 1/3rd of a wheel barrow of firewood in a day, these past two days we have been burning two barrows per day to keep warm.

Our Lopi wood stove keeping us warm - along with the cat Merlin

We started our stock pot of chicken, duck and vegetables last night to make broth to marinate the turkey in. Yum, I can't wait. We are worried about the road conditions for Friday and hope all of the kids can make it here. Pam's son, Gary A. (interesting how she attracts Garys in her life, her first husband was also named Gary) will be arriving tonight and stay until Friday or Saturday. My son Gabe and his family will be staying on Whidbey Island for the weekend and he has a 4x4 car so I'm sure he'll be here. We have a nasty 1.5 mile private road we live on, with a very steep hill, so we may have to shuttle folks down here. We'll see.

The stock pot cooking all night

Winter is here!

2010-11-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Snow kept falling all day

Yes, it has arrived, early this year with snow flurries yesterday morning. 24 degrees out with a full moon when I did my 30 minute run this morning, and I can assure you it's cold, but clear. I went out to milk Nettle and let the birds out about 7:30am and it started to snow. Been snowing all day and we have almost 3 inches. With the forecast being continued cold for the next two days, with lows in the teens and highs in the 20's, we should have what is on the ground for awhile.

Chickens are hiding but the ducks and geese don't care

Last month we received a charge of $14 from Microsoft on our credit card and couldn't figure out what it was for. We called the number listed on our credit card statement and got a recording saying they did not accept phone calls, so we contested the charge. A week later our farming website disappeared! So that was what it was for. Time to build a new website.

I tried to use the Google free website but it was not very user friendly and the Help templates were useless (I love Google's Blogger and Google's Picasa), I finally settled on Yola. I finished it over the weekend and put a link to it above.

I recently registered with Dark Days Challenge and sent out my first email to the group but it got kicked back saying I was not authorized to use it. Oh well. The Dark Days Challenge is encouraging people to purchase all or most of their food locally. For Thanksgiving here is what is going on:

We produce about 80% of our own food on our little farm, and nearly all of our yearly protein, but have not grown turkeys yet, maybe next year. We bought a heritage turkey (Blue Slate) from Laughing Ducks & Barking Dogs Farms in Oak Harbor (about 30 miles from our place) this year. We met the farmers on a local farm tour this year. EXPENSIVE, at $8 a pound. I saw an ad on a Safeway flier for turkeys at $.29 per pound, oh well…but we believe in supporting the small, local farmer as much as we can; and I know how much work is involved.

We do the Thanksgiving gathering on the Friday after as we have five grown children (with five grandchildren – OMG I must be getting old!) and the tradition is to come to the farm on Whidbey the day after, letting the married ones visit the other family on Thanksgiving.

My Granddaughter Olive gathering chicken eggs

Here is the recipe for cooking it:

· Day before cooking, combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stock pot and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, remove from heat, cool to room temperature and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Late the night before or early on day of baking combine brine and ice water in a clean 5 gallon bucket or similar. Place thawed turkey breast side down in bucket, cover and set in a cool place or refrigerator for 6 -8 hours. Turn turkey over half way through brining.

· Preheat oven to 450F. Combine apple, onion, cinnamon stick in microwave proof bowl and heat for 5 minutes. Remove turkey from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water, discard left over brine. Place bird on roasting rack and pat dry.

· Add steeped aromatics, rosemary and sage to cavity. Tuck wings back and coat whole bird with canola or other neutral oil. Roast on lowest level of oven at 450F for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and place double layer of tin foil over breast.

· Return to oven, reducing temperature to 350. A 14-16 pound turkey will take approximately 2 1/2- 3 hours (be sure to check temperature and juices run clear) Internal thigh temperature should read about 150-160F. Remove from oven and let rest for 15 minutes before carving. (Note: USDA recommends poultry be cooked to 160-180F, but these temps will dry out a heritage. Heritage turkeys are much freer of disease and bacteria, unlike commercially raised birds, and do not need the extreme temps to make them safe to eat.)

Candied Ginger Brine for Heritage Turkey

1 cup Kosher salt 1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 gallon vegetable stock 1 TBSP black peppercorns

1/2 TBSP all spice berries 1/2 TBSP candied ginger

1 gallon ice water

For Aromatics

1 red apple 1/2 onion

1 cinnamon stick 1 cup water

4 sprigs rosemary 6 sage leaves

Snowshoe is a handsome Nubian buck of ours

3 Vegetarian Barn Cats for Sale!

2010-11-18T09:07:00.000-08:00

Well it sometimes seems like they are vegetarians! Trying to control the grain loving rats living in our barn is a real chore. I have been using the cats, a poison allowed by the Organic Standards, and last week I started to use traps baited with peanut butter.

Pooh Bear, our Great Pyrenees dog watching over the baby goats

I set the trap near the goat milking stand in a corner and the next morning had a large rat. That morning I also found a rat outside the barn half eaten by Greta (we saw her the night before chewing on its head). The next three evenings we caught one each night in the trap. No more rat droppings on the milk stand in the morning - I thought I must be finally controlling them. That morning I opened the bin where we store our potatoes and on top of the straw covering the potato bin within, was a nest of six huge, LIVE, rats. I screamed and dropped the lid but one of the rats tried to jump out and the lid came down on his hind quarters, trapping him. He was screaming (not sure if I was at that time), and everyone ran into the area, the goats jumping up on the lid of the crib, and Pooh Bear, our Great Pyrenees dog that lives with the goats, ran in and started gnawing on its head. I tried to pull Pooh Bear away but he is 115 lbs of muscle (some fat) and he didn't want to give up a free meal (he is currently on a vet ordered diet). Finally I got between Pooh and the screaming rat and beat it to death with a bucket. Oh my. Last night Pam said she would enjoy a potato dish, but I changed her mind, offering to cook fried chicken gizzards instead, thinking NO WAY I'm going in the potato bin.

BTW, Pam said I can't sell the cats.

This baby was rejected by her mother so Pooh Bear became its best friend

No Power at the Farm

2010-11-17T08:31:00.000-08:00

I am lost in the morning without a computer (I'm writing this at work and only have two minutes) as we have not had power for 36 hours now. A viscous storm came through Monday night with 60 mph winds, heavy rain (at one time the hourly rate was 4.5 inches), and the power went out for the south half of Whidbey Island. Almost everyone had it back by 9 am but we did not. We have a generator that runs the barn that I turn on so we can have water, but the house is in the back. More on this tomorrow.

Another evening without power - our Aladdin Lamp allowing me to read, a wood stove keeping us warm

Tomorrow is here and the power finally came on at 1 pm on Wednesday, 40 hours this time. We have not had a power outage like this one since the winter of 2006-07, when we lost power for at least 8 hours seven times.

Because our deep freezers are 100% full, and we didn't open the doors during the outage, everything stayed frozen there. I'm worried about the goat milk in the refrigerator so this morning I made Panier with five quarts. Because I heat it to 195 degrees F. for 10 minutes it will be ok.

Slicing Panir

Panir just removed from the oven

Those people that have learned to live without electricity are a hardy bunch. We have a neighbor that has two solar panels that have to be adjusted several times a day to have electricity as they live in the woods. They have been living without running water or electricity for over 30 years! I would like to put solar panels on the pump house roof so when we lose power we would still have water with pressure. A long term goal of mine.

Daylight Saving Time Ends

2010-11-10T04:47:00.000-08:00

Today is Wednesday, now the fourth morning since we changed the clocks back. How does it affect our farm animals? Not at all as they are ruled by the sun and stars. But for me, I usually can adjust within a week or so. We always go to bed between 8:30 pm and 9 pm during the school year and I get up at 4:30 am. No alarm needed, it's just when I wake up, no mater what time I go to bed. Now, with the clocks changed, I'm going to bed a hour later but still get up at my usual moment, now 3:30 am. So I'm losing an hour of sleep each night.

Double Digging a winter bed with some help from our friends

Why do we do this? "Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun." - Wikpedia. There is no way with my current lifestyle I could go to bed at 7:30 pm, too much to do. Last night in that last hour I sliced up a batch of pears to dry in the dehydrator, put away all of the dried runner beans into large glass jars, and made a batch of Kefir cheese.

Fall and Winter have become two of my favorite seasons. I remember last Spring showing our goats off to a friend, she asked how do I do it? I sighed, and said that I'm looking forward to December when I don't have to go out to the barn until 7 am and have everyone put to bed by 5 pm, and no milking the goats (they usually stop producing milk in late November until after they give birth in mid-February). We are almost there, at least with the timing. Two of our goats I am still milking and we love the fresh milk.

Lots to do today, real estate meetings from 9 am to 1 pm and then I need to get home and winterize our water system. The irrigation system in the orchard needs to be turned off and drained to protect the pipes from deep freezes, I need to change the oil in the generator and run it for a little bit, and install a new frost free water hydrant near the buck yard.

Fall Harvest

2010-11-08T05:49:00.000-08:00

When we harvest our garlic, onions, squash, and fruit (apples and pears) they go from the garden to our covered deck. Then we have to take the time to deal with them, and yesterday we finished! Yahoo!

We have 1/2 of a 5-gallon bucket of pears to dry and then are completely finished with last year's garden. Our winter garden is doing well and provides us with stir fry vegetables and all of our salad greens. We might get about month or so out of it before the deep freezes strike, killing everything but the chard and kale.

Our Fall Garden just after planting

We start our Fall-Winter garden plants in little starter blocks we make with a starting soil we purchase at the feed store in August and planted them in a bed I prepared in early October. We have been harvesting greens for about three weeks and just started eating the lettuce last week. It should produce into December unless the weather stays mild without the nighttime temperature going below 25 degrees, and then longer.

Carrot Bed and Fall Garden Bed all covered to protect from frost

We moved all of the garlic, onions and winter squash into a spare bedroom yesterday, a dry, cool place that will keep the garlic and onions until next summer, and the squash until January or so.

Garlic, Onions and Winter Squash put away for future use

I am still milking two goats, Surely once a day and Nettle twice a day, and are getting about 7 lbs. (about 8 lbs. per gallon) of milk each day from them. I'm concerned about Nettle as she should have gone back into heat three days ago but no signs from her. Did a buck get her when I wasn't looking? If so, how and who? They are in different pastures but have a common fence.

Quite a rainstorm yesterday with nearly an inch of rain at our farm - which is a lot as we only get 18 inches a year. Yesterday was my day to clean the buck house and yard, two duck houses, the goose house and the chicken house - so I got a little wet! Warm though, in the low 50's. We still found time to take a walk with the dogs through the State Park that borders our land. Mushrooms loved the weather, popping up just about everywhere.

Raw Goat Milk - is it safe?

2010-11-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

Healthy and Happy Goats!

I'm often asked if it is safe to use raw goat milk? Michael, who parks near our homestead and walks a mile through the woods to his little house, once told me that it is either the best food in the world or the worst - I believe ours is the best. Washington State Department of Agriculture has rules for licensed dairies on the handling of milk and requires the operator to get the temperature of the milk lowered to 42 degrees (F) within two hours. To accomplish this we store our fresh milk between milkings in the deep freezer (in the barn set at -22 degrees F) until we are ready to bring it in the house to strain. We strain the milk into quart Mason jars that are stored in the deep freezer (in the house) and then let it cool in an ice bath for another 1 and 1/2 hours before putting it in the refrigerator.

All of our milk containers are either washed in the dishwasher on a high temperature sani-wash cycle or washed by hand using soap, Clorox and scalding hot water. Once a month we use a special chemical on all of our milk pots to cut the milkstone (the milk protein that builds up on the metal pots).

Quart jar of goat milk sitting in bath of ice cold water - be sure to bring water to top of the milk level. A bucket of crushed ice would be best but I don't have an ice maker.

Barn cleanliness is also important. We remove all of the straw bedding from the goat barn weekly and clean the milk stand after every milking. We work hard to keep the rodent population as low as possible using barn cats, poison, and traps. All feed buckets are stored in a way to keep rodents out of them. We store our grain in metal cans with tight fitting lids and besides humans, no animals are allowed into the milk room other than the goat being milked. We are not a licensed dairy as the rules for that are beyond our financial abilities. We have a friend in Freeland who just went through the process to be licensed so she could sell her goat cheese to the public and spent over $200,000 building a State approved dairy for just 20 some goats. We are talking multiple enclosed rooms with special walls, special ventilation systems, concrete floors...People have been drinking raw milk throughout the world for 10,000 years without even using the safeguards we do and have thrived, so that is really overkill for us.

Our goat milk is strained through a new filter, never using cheese cloth or pillow cases. The filter is rinsed out and thrown away after each batch of milk. When we make cheese using raw milk, the cheese is strained in a clean cheese cloth (again, NEVER with a pillow case). The cheese cloth is rinsed and washed in the clothes washer, and then before being used for cheese we sterilize it in boiling water for a few minutes.

Straining goat milk before going into ice bath to cool

Our goats are kept healthy, eating mostly organic products (grain, hay and bedding straw are certified organically grown) and have a large pasture of grass, stinging nettle, and brambles. We only treat our goats with antibiotics if they have a problem and our vet recommends such treatment. We use a chemical to treat for worms, but again only if they have the symptoms. Before milking we wash their utter, teats, and belly with a chemical wipe specifically made for this. After milking we use a teat dip to sterilize the teat. We test monthly for bacteria in the milk and annually for four goat problems: CAE virus, Johne's disease, Bruelloiss and CL - the four nasty goat diseases. All of our goats have tested negative. We check for lice on a regular bases (the usual problem time is spring just after they give birth), and treat if they are infected with a powder insecticide. And, of course, we wash our hands on a regular basis, in between milking the individual goats, and always when returning from the barn. It's a lot of work keeping dairy goats and lots of responsibilities if you are going to use raw milk.

I put a couple of links to raw goat milk up top and if you are interested in raw milk, they are good reading.

Our Chicken Crop

2010-11-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

In April of 2009 we introduced chickens to our farm. Why did we wait so long? We started with ducks because Pam had an allergy to chicken eggs AND ducks are so much easier to raise. Ducks are dirty (they can foul a bucket of water in five minutes or less!) but have few diseases and will thrive on little grain along with bugs and grass, of which we have an abundance of both. Chickens need nest boxes and roosts, clean water and lots of food, so we waited. In time Pam's allergy to chicken eggs ended so the next phase of our animal care began.

Rocky the Rooster with some of his girls

But what is a farm without chickens? So in 2009 I built a chicken coop on a very limited budget. We put an ad in the local weekly looking for a free, old truck canopy to use as the roof and received so many calls that we then demanded free delivery. We ended up with one that came with a galvanized hanging feeder and waterier. I did have to purchase some lumber but I had it completed before the chicks arrived.

One of the local feed stores we use were giving away day-old chicks if you purchased items from their farm store, so we saved our receipts and got 15 free Rhode Island Reds (all girls) on April 15th of 2009. They began laying their first eggs in late summer. We chose the Rhode Island Red for a couple of reasons: they are considered a duel purpose bird, a very good egg layer of large brown eggs and also an above average meat bird. Our plan is to keep the layers for three years and then butcher them. We eat about a dozen eggs a week and were getting a dozen eggs a day so I went into the egg selling business and have been able to sell all of our excess eggs to co-workers.

We have lost a couple birds to who knows what, finding them dead on the floor of the coop or in their nest, and we lost one to a hawk, but over all they have done well. We wanted a rooster so we ran an ad on Craigslist for a Rhode Island Red rooster and got a young one who the owner called "Boy Model" - we renamed him Rocky. Yes he is a beautiful bird and is very good with his girls, but Rhode Island Red roosters are known to be mean to people, and he and I have had several fights. Pam won't go into the area without a spray bottle of water to squirt him. That seems to work well.

Even with nice nest boxes the girls like to find hidden places to lay their eggs, often adding the to the duck nests. When one of our ducks became broody this last spring it seems she also had several chicken eggs in her nest and one day hatched a Rhode Island Red chick. Chicken eggs hatch about 15 days before the Muscovy so our duck had this chicken to care for. The nest was under the chicken coop and I could watch the going on. As "Chick-Chick" grew she would roost on the head of the duck, whose duck eggs never hatched. So cute! Chick-Chick has grown into a fine bird, a rooster and has been renamed Junior. He looks just like his Papa. Last week he started to crow, if his crow matures into one we like it's the stew pot for Rocky - there is no place here for a mean rooster!

"Chick-Chick" with his mother the Duck

This last April we ordered our first set of meat birds. I took a class at the local Grange on raising meat birds and much of the discussion was on what type of bird to select. The standard is a white bird, Cornish x Rock, which has been developed to EAT and put on weight. It's what all of the commercial chicken growers use. Six weeks from hatch to the freezer, but they have major problems. They are said to be so dumb that turkeys look like Einstein and have been known to die of thirst because they won't walk three feet to the water. Free range is a joke as they won't eat grass or bugs, just grain. Because they grow so fast they are known to have problems with their legs and 15 to 20% often die for unknown reasons.

The instructor had success with the Red Rock (aka Red Ranger), which is what we ordered. They take three months to mature but over that time eat about the same amount of grain as the Cornish Rock. We received 50 in the mail one fine morning and I put them into the new meat bird house I built. They grew into a fine looking bird, somewhat like the Rhode Island Red but with a little more black in them. The instructor also had built a chicken plucker and would rent it out for 50 cents per bird.

Our day old Red Rock meat birds

In August of this year we rented the plucker for a day and processed all of the boys, 22 of them. We lost four birds to who-knows-what and three to a local fox, leaving us with 43 to butcher. We waited two weeks to do the girls, giving us and them a break and also allowing the girls a little time to put on more weight.

The meat bird house

Slaughter day was not very difficult. My job was to get the bird, bring it out to the barn area and dispatch it. We had a 4x4 board with four feed sacks on it, I put the bird upside down in the sack and cut its juggler vein with an exacto knife (with a new blade) and bled it out. The idea is to keep the heart pumping the blood out of the bird before it dies, giving it better meat than cutting off the head, which kills it outright. I would then remove the dirty feet and could put three at a time in the chicken plucker. The plucker has rubber fingers in the tub which removes almost all of the feathers as the birds gently tumbles. Plucking takes about one minute per three birds!

We had a table set up with two large trash cans filled with ice water. Once Pam gutted and cleaned the birds they went into the ice water. We processed 22 birds in about four hours from start to finish. The boys dressed out a 6.5 lbs, the girls at 4.5 lbs. 43 birds went into the freezer for our year's supply of chicken. Our cost was about $10 per bird. Free range, organic chickens in the local supermarket sell for about $20, and are shipped in from across the country, and who knows if they are really "free range" or just have the option to go outside. Ours spent all day in the tall grass in a pasture that has never had pesticides sprayed and ate only organic grain. The only change we'll make this year is to do a better job on grounding the electrical poultry netting I used around the pasture. I didn't do a good job on that this year and the jolt from the fence was not strong enough to keep the local fox out. One of my spring projects for sure.

Winter Projects

2010-11-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

My to do list for this winter is large. My first project is to finish enclosing the goat-buck house. I converted an old deck my children and I built for the trailer Pam and I lived in while we built our house. We lived for two plus years in a large travel trailer and the porch was a life saver, giving us a clean, dry entry way plus a place to story things. After moving into our house we used it to store firewood and when we started keeping male goats, I enclosed three of the sides for the boys. Too much rain gets in so I'm going to enclose more of it. They need a dry place somewhat out of the wind for when the weather is nasty. Because they spend so much of their time under the eve of the barn near where the girls live, I'm also going to make a little shelter there.

Our old home while building the house - the deck is now the buck house

Our old deck with the year's squash harvest

Next on my list is a greenhouse. Today I will go to the county planning department in Coupeville to turn in our plans along with the paperwork for the building permit. The greenhouse will be attached to the east side of our barn, 24' wide and 18' deep. The site has very good sun exposure. My estimate for the cost is about $2,000. Covering will be a product called Soleex, a flexible, insulated twin-wall polyethylene product which is said to last over 20 years. We'll have inside raised growing beds along the east and south sides of the greenhouse to allow us to grow tomatoes, peppers and basil (crops we have not been able to grow in our garden) and benches to start all of our vegetables and Pam's flowers. The county planning department told me it takes six to eight weeks to get the permit, so I have a little wait on that.

Our barn after completion - the greenhouse will be on the right side

Next on the list is a new chicken coop. Our girls are entering their third year of life and even though their eggs are getting really large, production is dropping off. We need a place to grow the next set of girls so we think a new wing to the existing house is the way to go. If we get chicks in the spring they will be laying by fall. We'll then butcher the older girls, making stewing hens out of them.

Meat Processing at our Farm - the Muscovy Duck

2010-11-01T07:23:00.000-07:00

We raise Muscovy ducks mainly for their eggs and to sell the ducklings. The Muscovy duck is considered duel purpose, laying a lot of very large eggs and the male (called a drake) grows very large and is coveted for its dark, red looking meat. The hens start laying in February, usually about five eggs per week, and the eggs are just as good as a chicken egg but much larger. We gather all the eggs we can find but once the nettle begins to grow and gets large we start to miss some of the nests. After a duck get about 15 eggs in her nest she becomes broody and disappears, sitting on the eggs for the next 35 days or so, until she emerges with 10 to 12 ducklings. We then try to sell all of the ducklings we can, usually 70 or 80 in a year, along with most of our grown hens. What we are left with becomes our new flock and meat birds.

Two ducklings waiting their turn

Yesterday I butchered six young drakes. The feathers are very difficult to pluck so I skin them. Most of the fat is in the skin layer so it also makes for a lean meal. We do not feed our birds any corn so they don't put on much fat (I believe the commercial growers finish them on corn to bulk up their weight, corn being cheep and selling the birds by the pound adds to their profit). I remove the wings as they are too difficult to skin and we lose a little weight and meat because of that. Ours dressed out at 4.5 lbs, not bad for no skin or wings, and they are considered "ducklings" - they are not full grown. Full grown Muscovy drakes will dress out around 8 lbs. We slow cook them all day in a crock pot and the dish will give us four meals or so. We have another four to process but will wait another 30 days or so as they are younger.

"Dispatched" duckling with the box I used in the background

My job is to catch the birds, dispatch them from this life, and skin them. I then bring them into the house and Pam cleans and wraps them for the freezer. I believe the best way to dispatch them is to put them in a box I constructed that is attached to a pole, head down. Their blood runs to their head and it kind of makes them drunk; I then cut their juggler vain with a very sharp blade to bleed them out. The complete process takes me about 30 minutes per bird, and we ended up with 25 lbs of meat for the freezer.

Pam not only cleaned and wrapped the ducklings yesterday, but made a batch of goat milk/oatmeal soap. All of this accomplished and we still made it to a Halloween potluck dinner by 4 pm. At the outdoor fire ring we talked of our ancestors who have passed before us, I talked of the six ducklings that gave their bodies to us this day for nourishment.

Pam making goat milk/oatmeal soap

Fall Cheese Making

2010-10-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-27T06:47:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-20T05:32:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

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.