Adios January

Its 36 degrees today as I sit here slurping a hot bowl of tomato-basil soup, and this weather feels absolutely amazing after so many days of arctic BS.  This is the last day of January and I am very glad to see it go! I am so hoping for a kinder February and looking forward to spring again.

Not much of anything is happening on the farm right now.  Its just cold and uneventful.  Mama-to-be goat still has not shown any sign of having any babies any time soon.  I really am beginning to wonder if she is in fact pregnant?  What a trick that would be.  She went out for a stroll and played in the snow with her BFF doggie "Louie" yesterday, and seemed as content as ever bouncing around the snow covered pasture.

I am almost decided that a pig will be added to the farm this year.  I'm a little leery about getting one, because I know nothing about pigs and I still have to set up a pen for it.  But the farmer called me the other day and said the two sows had just given birth and the piglets will be ready in mid March.  So I need to hurry up and make a decision, pig or no pig. Have any of you out there raised a pig before, and if so, can you give me the dirt on what I'm getting myself into if I get one?  Is it worth it? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Well the weekend is finally here, and I'm looking forward to some better weather and the quiet time to experiment with some new recipes. I hope you all have a lovely weekend. 

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And the "Polar Vortex" continues...

Yep, its still c-o-l-d...  I know because I checked this morning, and the temperature read -23 degrees.  So it is true!.  This was the first time the big dog ever had frozen, stinging paws after running outside for a quick poop this morning. Poor Louie.  Because it was too cold to let the dog play outside, I took him along with me to the feed mill to pick up some grain.  He looked a tad concerned with my driving skills.  But in my defense it was snowing, and icy!



Louie riding" shotgun"

Snow and cold.  Cold and snow.  More cold, more snow. Cold snow. It appears never-ending. I'm going to loose my mind.  Have I already?



Heading to the Feed Mill

What have we been doing to get through all of this polar despair?  Drooling over spring seed catalogues and eating of course!  Lately we've just been hanging out in the kitchen, throwing ingredients together and playing around with our food to see what we could come up with.  So far the results have not been disappointing.



Perfect Seafood Soup



Red Skin Mashed Potatoes with Bacon



A little bit of everything omelet



French Toast and More Bacon!



Sausage Bean and Veg Soup (Spicy)



Simple Salad with Feta and Chickpeas

What (almost) a year can do...

A little flashback to some of the farm babies, showing how they've grown over the past year (or less).

June 2013 (We're focusing on the little yellow guy here)

Remember that little yellow guy?  Here he is in December of 2013

 

And how about this cute little man back in March of 2013...

 Here he is now in December of 2013.  (With a suspicious turkey watching from behind....)

Limbo

Life on the farm feels madly stuck in a sort of "limbo" stage at the moment.  Everything is frozen. And still. And nearly lifeless.  I rode one of the horses all over the property last weekend to inspect everything and see what was new.  Not much.

In the garden, the garlic had poked their little heads through the soil at some point during this winter and the little green tips were frozen solid.  But I'm not concerned, the same thing happened last year and everything was fine come July. The only thing that appeared to show tiny signs of life were the blackberry bushes. They seem to be growing a little, like the buds on the trees.  But it could be my imagination.  Or just my lust to see something green and growing!

The goat is still waddling around looking like a small pregnant cow. The woodpile continues to shrink.  I'm worried about the goat because if she is actually pregnant and does go into labor please, please, please, don't let it be in the next ten days when the temperatures are in the low "teens" and dipping below zero during the nights.  Otherwise, I will have to bring her and any babies into the house.  No question there!



January 13, 2014

The sun sets today at 5:29 p.m. here in Northeast Ohio.  How I long for the month of May when things really start to green up and the sun sets at a more respectable time!

On another dismal note, I've discovered lately that one of my racehorses has come to despise chickens. He's bashed a few around now, but this latest outburst was downright savage! Not only did he crush this hen, but then proceeded to tear into her, toss her around a bit, and then finish her off by stomping her to death. Maybe the horse is suffering from cabin fever as well...

Preparing for a Deep Freeze on the Farm

One of the not-so-nice things about living on a farm (with animals) is dealing with cold winter weather.  The animals, but maybe not the horses so much, seem to hate it as much as I do.  The chickens want to roost and linger in the barn all day, rather than brave freezing wind and snow.  But, the chickens (and duck) were happy to get out and roam around a bit over the weekend, once the temperatures rose to about 37 degrees.  And the turkeys and bunnies were pretty active as well.

With the slight break in the weather, I jumped on the chance to get the heat lamps up and ready to get the animals through the next two nights of arctic wrath. I also took the opportunity to pin down the Billy Goat (with some help), to get his hooves trimmed and fit him with a halter.  What a chore! But the collar alone wasn't giving me enough control, and he was still able to swing his head around and puncture holes in my thighs with his horns.  Not fun.  Or safe. 

Speaking of goats, I've been struggling with castration confusion.  If my (hopefully) pregnant doe delivers a buck, is it best to castrate it by cutting or banding?  I can't decide.  If anyone out there has any advice I would greatly appreciate your feedback on this one.

We had a nice dinner to close the day.  The husband wanted steak.  We don't eat much cow, maybe a handful of times per year.  I think if we raised one of our own that could change.  But we love pork, chicken, duck, rabbit, and the occasional squirrel (don't judge).  I'd much rather have a pig or two than a cow.  Or ten goats, but that's another story...

Getting back to the dinner.  This was way too much meat for me to eat, and as expected, I only managed to get through about one quarter of it.  Really, who eats like this?  Other than my husband... But I guess this is why so many of us Americans are large, unlike the Europeans, who's plates would contain only a quarter of what mine did to begin with!  I need to make a mental note to start eating more like a European.   And of course after all that food I couldn't be bothered with taking down the Christmas Tree and putting away the decorations.  I could barely walk. 

Deer Doe...

The husband surprised me and had dinner waiting when I came home from the office.  A nice stew, along with some garlic mashed potatoes.  Can you guess what the stew meat was? (Forgive the iPhone photography...)

Okay, here's the answer... (Sorry, a bit graphic if you don't appreciate hunting)

Farm Weekends

I finally had a weekend without visitors, all to myself pretty much, sort of. Friday started it all off with a quick stop at the local pub for some fried clams, and too much wine. Apparently country folk and Amish do not cherish the magnificence of a plateful of lightly fried calamari in the same way that I do.  Pity. And you can't find it anywhere near my town, so I'm forced to depress my tastes and accept the simple fried clams, with cocktail sauce.  How bland. But hell, who am I kidding, I absolutely love fried clams.

Saturday I actually slept in... all the way until 7:30 am!  Then I made a loaf of sourdough bread and went work cleaning the house and trying to get caught up on laundry.  I really hate doing laundry.  And I hated scrubbing the entire kitchen floor by hand also. But some things must be done, right?

Sourdough Bread. (P.S. My house isn't crooked - just my photography ...)

Later that day I made a huge pan of baked penne with mushrooms and hot Italian sausage, of which I took no photos because it was that good and it went that fast. Next time...

I greeted Sunday morning sitting at the kitchen table drinking my coffee, and noticing five young roosters sparring in the backyard.  I headed out with the gun, and shot one immediately.  I wanted two of them, but after the first one all the rest were privy to my plan.

I also learned something.  I found that I was able to pluck most of the body feathers quite easily from this young roo, before submerging it into scalding water. It made the job much faster and less messy.  I decided to quarter this bird instead of roasting him whole.  Please don't judge my "quartering a chicken" skills - still learning!

Quartered (sort of)

I said good bye to Sunday with a nice walk through the fields with the goats.  I tried to end the evening by staying awake for an episode of "The Walking Dead," but of course that never happened...