Happy Holidays from Capra Lane Farm!

At least it isn't snow...

The wettest year on record is nearly over. Our place feels a lot like March-April at the moment, resembling a stagnant waterlogged swamp. Luckily our 22 tons of stone came just in the nick of time to re-stone part of the barn floor and partially repair the driveway. Our "pond" in the middle of the driveway had whitecaps today thanks to the wind. Again, at least its not ice or snow, we just heard on the news that the past few days of rain would have equated to 45 inches of snow!

Enzo has moved on to his new home near Chardon, OH where he joined a new group of lovely Saanen girlfriends. He was a great buck to own- very gentle, an overgrown goofball most of the time, but it was time for him to move on since we brought a new junior herdsire onto the farm earlier this spring. We repeated the Enzo~Serafina breeding this  year as we are quite fond of Hilary, our 2011 spring kid from the same breeding.

Who said goats don't smile?? These girls look pretty happy as they soak up the sun during one of the last warm fall days in November. We've been busy winterizing the barns, installing wind shields, cleaning pens, installing heated buckets. It seems like we just took them down... depressing....

Kaelyn is already prepping for winter, this blanket will not leave her side until April.

Finally caught up on holiday soapmaking. We have about 200 bars ready, scents are: Mint & Ivy, Autumn,
Oatmeal & Honey, Lavender, Oak & Eucalyptus, and Earth. Fancied up the lip balms too, now available in regular or tinted, flavored with eucalyptus oil.

The best news of the week? The girls are finally dried off for the year! No more milking (for now), no more pasteurizing and cooling. Life is good for the time being. However, we have 19 goats bred this year (!) and they start freshening mid-February. That's when life gets tough again. We are now accepting reservations on kids and will be offering at least 6 milkers for sale this spring as well.

In local summer fair news, we here at Capra Lane bred the Reserve Grand Champion Dairy Market Wether at both the Ashland County Fair and the Huron County Fair. Congratulations on 1st and 2nd place showmanship placings as well!

Snake Scarves anyone?

So what do you do when a precocious 8 year old calls you to ask if your pet snakes need scarves to keep them warm throughout the winter?

Well, you find a way to get the scarf on the snake, of course.

Here's Arthur decked out in his Sunday best...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Robbing the bees. . .

The honey harvest is upon us. We estimate that our 400,000 or so bees produced 15 gallons, or 180 pounds of honey this year, not including the stacks that were left on the hives to provide winter stores. We still have a few trays of Ross Rounds (trays for comb honey) left to gather. The pissed off honeybees still haven't completely evacuated our garage, but no stings or injuries to report during this process!

Overall, the extraction process took 2 days, but I'm sure it will be about 2 weeks until we uncover every last sticky doorknob and droplet of honey that managed to escape the tarp. Here is Rog's mini-photo-journal of the process:

OK, no matter how many times I edit and re-save these photos, I cannot for the life of me get them to stay vertical. Tip your head to the right for the full effect. . .

These are the boxes of honey trays we collected. Special screens are placed under the honey boxes and above the living quarters of the hives to allow the bees to move down into the hive, but not back up into the trays of honey.

Rog has officially taken over my milk processing corner in the basement. Not one rogue bee managed to make it into the house. . . yet

Three similar weighted trays are selected first. A heated knife is used to un-cap the honeycomb before placing it into the extractor.

Hold on tight! The extractor spins at high speed and the honey is forced out of the combs on to the walls of the extractor, where it runs down the walls and into a collection vessel. The combs are then rotated and the process is repeated for the other side of the tray.

The spigot is opened and the honey flows into a food-grade plastic 5 gallon pail over which a very fine sieve is placed to filter out the flecks of beeswax. The filter is very fine and takes hours to drain, so a lid is placed and it is allowed to sit over night before bottling. The 5 gallon pails also have a spigot to make bottling significantly less sticky and very clean.

We do not pasteurize or process the honey in any way. We do store bottles and combs in the freezer to help delay the crystallization process, which is common with raw honey. Raw honey will last for years if properly stored. Crystallized honey can be gently heated and will be restored to its liquid state.

Raw honey has a few medicinal properties as well. It contains amylase, which occurs naturally in the pollen of many flowers, and helps the body to digest starchy carbohydrates. Raw honey is also gaining popularity as a homeopathic cure for seasonal allergies. It contains residual amounts of plant pollens and molds that, when ingested in small manageable doses, can boost the immune response and eliminate the histamine induced allergic responses to these plants. To get maximal benefits, you have to buy local- ideally within 5 miles of your home.

Info about available honey, ie, sizes, prices will post soon. . . 

"No bees, no honey, no work, no money..." Unknown

“You don't have to have a professor's dome Not to go for the honey when the bee's at home” Unknown


“The pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy.”
Emily Dickinson 

“His labor is a chant, His idleness a tune; Oh, for a bee's experience Of clovers and of noon!”
Emily Dickinson 

“The careful insect 'midst his works I view, Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew, With golden treasures load his little thighs, And steer his distant journey through the skies.” John Gay 

“Bees work for man, and yet they never bruise Their Master's flower, but leave it having done, As fair as ever and as fit to use; So both the flower doth stay and honey run.”  George Herbert 

Slithery September

We are the proud parents of baby corn snakes! The eggs started hatching about 3 weeks ago, and within 24 hours we had seven. Six were red-orange in color, one almost-albino cream and white, and one dark brown with lovely orange markings.

We’ve taken a liking to the brown one, very unique markings, the photos do not do it justice. I named it Arthur, though I don’t have a clue if its male or female, nor is the task of sexing corn snakes on my bucket list, so it will be a mystery for now. 

Five have already found new homes, there is one large red still for sale, any takers?

Summer is winding down. . .

Sadly, the days are already getting shorter and I'm in complete denial. We've worked hard this summer and haven't had enough time to truly relax on the porch. Soon enough the porch will be obscured by drifts of snow. Again, why have I lived here my whole life???

The goats are milking like champs, it's hard to believe breeding season is right around the corner again. Our first Linear Appraisal session went well, with several does scoring in the high 80's with Macy, Cammile, Elina and Emilene taking top honors. We learned a lot,  by the end of the day I thought my head would explode. The tough part will be applying this newfound knowledge to our future breeding program.

The garden is bursting! Goat and chicken poop have done wonders for our soil. Despite tomato blight and and scary looking red potato beetles, this year's harvest has been bountiful so far. We did realize recently, that our self-proclaimed, "self-sufficiency" goals rely on our freezers. Even with all the fresh produce, meats, etc,  I've neglected to learn the art of canning up until now, I'm strictly a blanch and freeze artist. Time to set a goal for 2012. . .

Happy to report that I have 10 less birds tormenting my mornings, evenings and sometimes the nightmares of my friends (you know who you are). The broilers went to "market" last week. What disgusting creatures they are. Fat legs, waddling 2-3 steps then plopping down in their own poop for most of the day. Boy are they tasty though. After eating farm raised chickens for a couple years now, you realize the grocery store brands really don't taste like chicken, in fact, they don't taste like much at all. From eggs to 63 pounds of meat in just 7.5 weeks on just 2 bags of feed. Round 2 coming soon, we have more feed to use up before winter.

Save me the comments. . . this isn't gross, they tasted great!!!!

Late summer update. . .

It's hot. Really hot. Daily chores seem to take on a whole new level of misery when you add in a whole lot of sweat and a whole lot of flies. Speaking of flies, though, we have seen a tremendous improvement overall since starting to use Fly Predators. They are little tiny bugs, like gnats, that apparently seek out and kill fly larva to stop them from reproducing. They're a little gross, since they come to us in a bag and we have to let them hatch in the bag indoors before taking them out to the barn. Also they smell horrific when you open the bag. Simple to use though, we just sprinkle them around trouble areas in the barn and wait. .  .

Photo credit:  ValleyVet.com

In goat news, many of our friends are off to the ADGA National Show this weekend, we wish them lots of luck! Our goats are loafing a bit, shockingly some are already coming into heat, which I thought was pretty unusual with the recent weather. Generally heat cycles aren't common until the weather breaks and it cools significantly at night. Our smelly bucks have kicked into high gear, the new young'uns are starting to figure things out as well. So far they've only been interested in trying to play with our chickens.

Can we help? Can we help? Is it time to eat yet?

We have our linear appraisal session coming up in the next few weeks, hoping the weather will break so the dreaded clipping process will be more tolerable.

I know soooo many of you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our baby corn snakes. None yet- looks like about 6-7 of the eggs are still viable, should only be a few weeks to go.

Recently we completed the great fig harvest of 2011, pic is below. Yes, I realize there is only one, but it was perfect! Look at it! In another 10 years I can invite people over for figs. Our trees are only 2 years old, so I'm thinking one perfect fig at age 2 is something to be proud of. I did  cut it into 8 tiny pieces to share with my family. . .

Another recent failure of mine is in the cheese department. I'm convinced I should at least be capable of producing soft ripened or aged cheeses at the intermediate and advanced level. Maybe I should have read another book....

I had worked on converting my 6-bottle wine refrigerator into a cheese cave. I cut new racks, dutifully placed my pan of water and set and checked the thermostat at 45 degrees. The next day I snuck a peek and low and behold it was warm inside. I know nothing about refrigeration so I thought I'd just leave the door closed and wait it out for a few days. My lovely thyme and peppercorn chevre rounds were so furry and so smelly with undesirable molds I tossed them in the trash, along with the wine refrigerator. I didn't want to get close enough to take a pic because I was gagging from the smell. So back to the drawing board for now. I did make some kick-ass feta to redeem myself.

Pics of the garden coming soon, we are quite proud of it this year. . .

Update and Pics

We finally get a breather from show season.... 3 weeks in a row is tough! Now we have a break until August, our linear appraisal session with ADGA is Thursday August 11, and most likely our final show of the season will be at the Delaware County Fair.

Last weekend we had fun at the ODGA Buckeye Classic- we did not attend the junior show Saturday but we did bring 3 milkers on Sunday. Cammile finished 2nd and 3rd.

Emilene was 1st place 2 y/o and 1st place Toggenburg in state in the ODGA Futurity class, where goats are nominated as kids and compete as 2 y/o in the show ring at the Buckeye Classic.

Elina, queen of the barn, finished her permanent championship by going GCH in both rings, and Best of Breed in Ring 2. I guess we need to tolerate her pigheadedness a bit longer now so she can make more beautiful babies for us!

As promised here are pics of Mallory and Echo.

Lastly, a pic of Samantha, the corn snake, who will soon become the mom of 14. Good news is, no one was bitten while gathering her eggs. They are being safely incubated at Findley State Park in the nature center where they will be raised then sold.

Here is our 'oops' araucana white tufted layer, Francine. She stands our amongst her pals, Alice, Gladys and Tilly. No eggs yet, Rog said we have a few weeks to go and they will start laying when their legs lighten up. . . 

Quick Update

Things have been extremely busy around here now that the weather has been cooperative. The bucks and bucklings are all settled into their pens in the old barn, new pasture and runs are complete. We just started a new batch of white leghorn broilers today, we were told their growth rate will "blow our minds". I think I may want to stop eating chicken if they grow so freakishly fast. Our new layers are still about 5-6 weeks away from laying their first eggs. They've been dubbed Alice (comets), Gladys (rocks), Tilly (ameraucanas) and Francine (white araucana).

Since we aren't crazy enough already, Rog decided to breed our corn snakes, Cornelius and Samantha-Who. So today he received a call from one of the park volunteers and Samantha laid 14 eggs. 14!!! So now he's planning an incubation area and in 50-60 days they should hatch. I imagine these babies won't draw as many visitors as the "kids".

A quick show update: no pics yet, we're lagging behind and most of the show results pages aren't posted yet. First the NEODGA show in Wooster on June 10-11. True farmers, we spent our wedding anniversary getting sprayed by urine at a buck show after a night of fine dining at Arby's. But it was worth it - Bugs Moran, our new junior French Alpine herdsire, was Junior Champion in all 3 rings!. Enzo was 2nd place in 2 rings and Reserve Grand Champion (RGCH) in one ring. Very proud of our boys. Enzo is for sale, as we have several of his daughter and have recently introduced Mickey into the herd.

At the senior doe show, Elina was RGCH in one ring, while her daughter, Emilene was RGCH in ring 2. At the junior doe show, our alpines brought up the middle, while Luci was second in her class in both rings. Echo, our senior Togg kid was RGCH and thankfully did not throw herself on the ground and play dead as she does at home. Mallory, our senior Togg kid was GCH in both rings, earning her dry championship leg. She then was awarded our very first Best Junior Doe in Show against all the class winners of the other breeds. We are very proud to have our first best in show award go to an animal with the Capra Lane herdname!

This past weekend we travelled to London, OH for the MODGA show. Emilene was awarded GCH in one ring, earning her second championship leg. Now she and Elina only need one more leg to complete their permanent championships. At the junior show, Luci was 1st place senior kid twice. Echo was RGCH in one ring then GCH in the second. She nearly placed Best in Show as well, the competition was down to her and the alpine, but ultimately the award went to the alpine- so close!

Next week is the state show, and then I think we are done for the year. It's been hectic, but having all the shows so close together means I only have to clip the goats once! Photos soon, I promise. . .

First show of the year

After a week of hoof trimming, coat clipping and udder shaving we loaded up our trailer to head to the WRDGA show in Burton Ohio. 

Cammile went RGCH over several other lovely Alpine does. Elina and Emilene, mother and daughter, were 1st place in their respective age classes. Lola, my alpine kid did a stunning Stevie Wonder impression, swaying her head left to right as she dragged me across the ring. Despite this, she took second place in her class, second to the alpine who ended up being awarded best junior doe in show. 

Mallory, a long bodied Togg senior kid, showed in the AOP class against a handful of Oberhaslis, dancing and jumping her way to a 1st place and was awarded GCH in the class. Yeah, collar training is overrated. My embarrassment over the behavior and stubbornness of my kids goes away when they do well! They always seem to calm down as they grow...

A special congrats to Miss Moon who dominated the PeeWee showmanship class on her very first trip to the show ring. She definitely earned her blue ribbon. I also attribute Mallorys win to Una, who led her around the ring gracefully even when she was being uncooperative and trying to walk on 2 legs. Una helped Mallory earn her GCH title and deserved the right to show her during 'Best in Show' on her first official day as a showman. Congrats and thanks for your help!

The weather according to Dick Goddard (Rog). . .

Our farm sits on a flat, barren piece of land that used to belong to a much larger farm. Though the year, we continually observe that our house sits on the edge of a weather front, of sorts. There are times when we can see a weather system passing through the front yard but its dry and sunny in the back. I once passed through a blizzard at the foot of the driveway to find clear skies by the house.

So Rog explains that we sit on a bit of a plateau due to the advancement and retreat of the Wisconsin Glacier around 100,000 years ago. I looked it up to get more information to post here but it was as if I was reading a foreign language and I lost interest quickly. Phew! I thought that black cloud was following me all this time!

During severe weather, it does help that we can see, for the most part, 180 degrees in all directions, from horizon to horizon. All I know is that there were some incredibly freaky sights from our back porch the past few weeks. Ominous doesn't begin to describe seeing 3-4 layers of clouds, all swirling in opposite directions, the sky seemingly rolling and falling in on itself.

During my search for weather info, I decided to learn a little more about the very small town we live in. A few things I know as fact: a) there aren't many of us, b) the Amish outnumber us,  c) if your last name isn't Smith or Yoder, you will be loudly and publicly ridiculed when you register to vote at the town hall, and d) we have just one of these!

Here are a few little known facts about Adario, OH.

1. We aren't actually large enough to have our own mailing address. So to confuse us furthur, some folks have a Greenwich address and some have Shiloh, Plymouth, Savannah??? Not to mention my road changes names 3 times along its 5 mile course.


2. Rattlesnakes were once so numerous in Butler Township that one original settler (Elias Ford) had to suspend his bed from the rafters to keep the venomous reptiles from sharing it with him. All I've encountered are masses of garter snakes.

3. The round-up of the great wolf-hunt of 1828 was made near Adario. No wolf was captured, but a number of wild turkeys and deer were secured. No turkeys here, but plenty of deer. We've taken it upon ourselves to control the groundhog and coyote population.

4. Henry Foulks founded the village in 1838, which was originally called LaFayette. The name was changed to Adario because Ohio already had a town by that name. And no, it's not "a-dare-ee-o" like most of the world would assume. It's "add-uh-rye-oh" with a little hillbilly added in, or else "they will know you aren't locals", according to our realtor. Ummm, I think they know. . .

5. Our very own Fowler's Wood's holds the distinction of being Ohio's First Nature Preserve. The preserve is wheelchair accessible with 1-1/4 mile looped boardwalk. Spring is the best time for viewing the large variety of wildflowers and old-growth forest.

6. There are 1386 residents in all of Butler township, the largest city, Savannah  has 368. No records for Adario. I do know that the ratio of homes vs mobile homes is 2.5 to 1 and its obvious that the main industry is farming, considering most areas have no electricity.

7. The township is governed by a three-member board of trustees. Voted upon by 10 residents?? I remember when a toothless candidate knocked on our door one evening smelling of manure and chewing a toothpick, trying to secure our vote. 

8. There are 301 sex offenders living in our area!!!!! This is why its a bad idea to go digging around for information about your neighborhood. I'm thinking I want to up the power on our electric fence.

9. The USGS database shows that there is a 0.568% chance of a major earthquake within the next 50 years. That's comforting.

10. Every time I searched on Google, the town's main attraction came up every time. The cemetery! No general store, no feed mill, no coffee shop, just a few dangerously leaning homes 'in town' with fully furnished front porches, a few boarded up homes and a few cars that are obviously 'being worked on'.

My father asserted that there was no better place to bring up a family than in a rural environment. There's something about getting up at 5am, feeding the stock and chickens, and milking a couple of cows before breakfast that gives you lifelong respect for the price of butter and eggs.  William E. Bill Vaughan


There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets. Samuel Johnson

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, exhilarate the spirit and restore the tone of languid nature. William Cowper

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.  Dwight D. Eisenhower

Farming with live animals is a 7 day a week, legal form of slavery. George Segal

Upscale chicken housing now available

The new barn finally arrived! After weeks of waiting and wading through our yard, we had 2 dry days in mid May and Lakeside Cabins in Shiloh was able to deliver our new chicken house.

I think the hens have doubled in size since we moved them in to their 12'x10' estate. The nest boxes are easily accessible, many interior areas available for roosting, and the skids are high enough to accommodate the recent floods. Next project: an outdoor run to provide free range roaming through the day.

Welome ~ Kickadee Hill NJ Jack McGurn "Mickey"

Mickey joined our farm in late April, making the trek from West Virginia to Ohio. He had quite a first day, he had lunch in the ritzy upscale neighborhood of Hudson before making a pit stop in the National Park, ice cream at Fisher's in Peninsula, then home to Adario. Thanks Marilyn Grossman for allowing us the privilege of bringing another one of your bucks into our herd.

Sire: Noble-Springs AS Smilin’ Jack

S: Alize Sloan’s Arctic Shine

SS:Willow Run Victor Sloan

SD:Loughlin’s Talut Arctic Glow

D:Noble-Springs NSZ Jazelle

DS:Noble-Springs Zane

DD:Noble-Springs WRSE Jenna

Dam: Kickadee Hill JD Go Ask Andrea

S:Kickadee Hill WRS James Dean

SS:Willow Run Stormfront Stuck Up

SD:Kickadee Hill WMV Jorgette

D:Willow Run Diesel Go Ask Alice

DS:Windsor Manor SK Diesel

DD:Willow Run Dreammaker Arlene

F-in Rain!

That's the title of an email I received from a friend recently. Maybe the world is ending. We have plenty of wood, instead of a new aviary for the chickens or raised beds for the garden, maybe we should be reading up on ark-building. First our barn drain backed up, collecting puddles of curdling milk near the septic tank. Then our leach field became overwhelmed, so now we have nicely contrasting black puddles, strategically placed in and around the pastures. Our yard smells like armpit. Make that armpit and poo.



I shouldn't complain, the rain, though increasingly frustrating, has not caused any mass destruction here. Our House is dry, our basement is just a tad damp. We have always wanted a pond, just not in the middle of our driveway.

In between bouts of torrential rain, we rushed to fill our beds with topsoil and were able to get the tomatoes and peppers in. I'm quite sure our lettuce washed away in Tuesdays flood, time will tell. The garden, day 1, looks like that of our hardworking Amish neighbors, freshly turned dirt, dark, rich soil, plants arranged in neat rows. Soon, as in years past, the evil Canadian thistle will worm it's way in and work and other chores will take priority, rendering our lovely garden into a grassy disaster. Function over form, the garden may not be beautiful but is generally quite productive. Why a household of 2 needs 60 assorted tomato plants I can't fathom, but this year I responsibly cut it down to 24. 

Excited to have hunted down shishito pepper plants,can't wait to fry them with lots of lime and sea salt. I promised myself that this is the year- my pumpkins and watermelons will grow big enough to carve and eat,respectively. Last year I nurtured my poor lonely watermelon (yes, just 1), optimistic as it passed successfully from grape to plum to softball size, only to disappear off the vine, likely plucked by some filthy rodent who didn't appreciate its worth.

As I write this, the clouds have cleared and it is sunny, the ground green and lush. Translation=  we need to cut the lawn again. The hayfield is brimming with alfalfa and clover, hopefully the fields will dry out enough to cut it within the next few weeks. Hay sure is expensive when the growing season has already been pushed back a month. Add in finicky goats that wouldn't dare stoop so low as to eat grass hay and that makes for a pricey spring. 

As I sit on my porch, enjoying a few moments in the sun, I breathe in the freshly cut grass watch the goats napping in the field, the bluebirds flitting in and out of their nest boxes. I watch Tinder (aka Cujo) my chihuahua attack dog, find a treasure in the yard. She sniffs,then dives in, rolling on God knows what like she's in heaven. She turns, bolts like a little bullet on her tiny legs, up over my lounge chair to give me a kiss. 

Just as my nose is assaulted with the smell of rotten, musky, oily death, Kaelyn catches a whiff and quickly seeks out the same spot. Always ready to one up her mini sister, Kaelyn brings me a present. A very dead, very flat decomposing mole. I grab a shoe off the porch (sorry Rog) and collect the vile thing and fling it into the back field. The wind shifts and I hear the roar of a tractor on the dairy farm behind us. My nostrils immediately start burning with the smell of liquid cow manure as he covers the fields closest to our house. Armpit has been replaced by dead musky mole. Then there's the poo.