Never trust a skinny cook

Another question I received:

Have you cooked anything good in your new kitchen yet?

I love food. Eating it, talking about it, even grocery shopping. Italian, by heritage with a husband who has adapted well to our style of eating and loves food just as much as I do. In fact, one of the main driving factors behind working our arses off on the farm is to produce high quality, ethically managed food for the two of us and our extended families. 

I love cooking too, although in recent years my time in the kitchen has suffered tremendously due to time constraints. Being closer to work now, that's one thing I' d like to see change for the better. So imagine my delight and surprise when I was appliance scouting, on my birthday no less, and found the perfect stove. I'd been cooking on electric for years while secretly pining for a gas range which I greatly prefer. The new house has propane for heat and cooking so I immediately began shopping. 

I wish! Not my kitchen. 

My dream stove is a commercial Viking 6 burner convection range with an indoor / outdoor central grill. I saw the price tag ($15,000!) and my dreams quickly shifted gears over to the appliance department at Sears. 5 burners - check. True convection - check. Slide-in - check. Large capacity - check. Self-cleaning - check. It was a floor model and it was on sale, *big time* to the tune of nearly 75% off full price. I casually draped myself across it until the salesman was available. 

And that's where my luck ran out. 

Two months later I accepted delivery once we had possession of our new house. It was installed incorrectly and unusable. Weeks later a service call ended in "I'm not allowed to fix that." Weeks after that and hundreds of dollars later on a plumber we had a partially working range and a recommendation for another Sears service call. Weeks after that we had another service call confirm that we needed more parts. Weeks after that we had another service call that ended in "Its as good as its gonna get."

Now I'm generally an even keeled kind of person. But Sears tested my limits. I spent hours on the phone that went nowhere. Except maybe to India. I drove to the store. Three times. Two different stores. I relied on friends and my own employees to be at my house for all these useless service calls. Customer service online chat hung up on me, Yes! Hung up on me online! I wasn't even being mean. In fact everyone had been telling me I was being too nice through the whole ordeal. 

I had a plan though. 

No, I wasn't going to risk jail time, I'm too busy. But I think I found the answer. I started calling the service request line and requesting service calls for a non-working brand new range. Every week. Appointment after appointment. And when you keep calling they move the appointments up to higher priority. And when you call again they move them to days that are more convenient because when you live in the country a technician is not always in your area. And when you schedule appointment after appointment with no signs of stopping, your stove gets fixed. And Sears cries uncle and does the work they 'weren't allowed' to do on the very first service call. 

So to answer your question, have I cooked anything good in my new kitchen... I cooked for 2 months using an electric skillet and griddle. We have had a properly working range for about 2 weeks now, finally. And the most exciting thing I made was a new recipe for a green tomato pie. I don't like to be wasteful and there are always copious green tomatoes on the vines after the summer heat has dissipated. A favorite past recipe is for green tomato mincemeat which makes excellent fall tartlets. In the interest of time I was looking for more 'instant gratification' so I whipped up a green tomato pie, and then another. 

Tastes like a perfectly tart, rich apple pie and it was a big hit at the office and at a later clam bake. Here is a link to the basic recipe, I made some changes, of course, added a bit of green apple and dried cranberries and reduced the sugar a bit as well. Enjoy!

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/green-tomato-pie

And remember. . . 

Dinnertime on the farm

Next Question:

Do you eat goat? What?? People do that?

Yes, we eat goat. Yes we eat our goats. And yes, its tasty. Goat meat is the most widely consumed meat worldwide, just not in the US which is why it is met with such disbelief. 

Goat meat is quite healthy compared to other commonly eaten meats, just a little more exotic. Due to its low fat content, it has to be cooked low and slow, depending on the preparation. 

Slow roasting or smoking a whole leg is fantastic. We substitute ground goat in burgers, meatloafs, sloppy joes, any of the old standbys.

One of my personal favorites is to simply quick-grill chops with salt and pepper and once they come off the grill douse them with really good spicy olive oil and chopped fresh herbs. The chops are quite small though, so we usually cook about 20!

My go-to goat cookbook is this:

Every recipe is perfectly seasoned and balanced and the curries are phenomenal. My favorite is braised goat meatballs with fennel and artichokes, served with creamy parmesan polenta. Here is a link to the recipe: http://www.pbs.org/food/recipes/braised-goat-meatballs-with-artichokes-and-fennel/

And now I'm hungry. . . 

Daylight Saving Time...ugh

        

       

It's 5:30 pm and it's almost dark outside. And none of us will probably sleep well for a week. But who should we be angry at? Farmers? The government? Ben Franklin? Frankly, I have no idea...I just grumble about changing the clocks every fall and spring and deal with my screwy sleep schedule as fallout. So today's blog is about why the dreaded clock change. I'm turning to the research guru itself " the Internet", obviously, and hope to find some marginally accurate answers. And yes, it's Saving, not Saving(s) time.

      

Benjamin Franklin did not in fact originate the idea of moving clocks forward. It seems he did not like to wake up early. He apparently penned a satirical essay which suggested that Parisians could save millions of dollars for the economy by using sunshine instead of candles. For this reason he is credited with "inventing" daylight saving time when really he just proposed that people change their sleep schedules.

                                

Daylight saving time was first fully implemented by Germany who embraced it in order to conserve coal during WWI. The United Kingdom Russia and the U.S. would soon follow. Worldwide, energy consumption savings are between 0.5% and 1% during daylight savings time. Worth the hassle? Hmmmm...

                                  

     

Not the farmers. Changing the clocks was never intended to benefit farmers as many people think. It was first implemented in the United States as a means of energy conservation and it was greatly opposed by farmers. Farmers schedules are generally dictated by the sun and not the clock so it was very disruptive to their schedules. It also disrupted the schedules of hired help as they had moved towards a tendency to work by the clock and not by the sun. Also dairy cows and other animals did not adapt well to be milked an hour earlier or an hour later to allow for altered shipping and delivery schedules. 

        

So who suffers the most from daylight saving time? Apparently it's pedestrians. In 2001 researchers found that at say, 6pm,  65 pedestrians were killed by car crashes the week before daylight savings time ended and 227 were killed in the week following. Other studies of shown a 186% jump in the risk of being killed by a car for every mile walked when dusk arrives earlier.

                                   

     

Also regarding health, changing the clocks has mixed effects. In a fixed work schedule it'll provide more afternoon sunlight for exercise and outdoor recreational activities but researchers identified an increase in the risk of heart attack by 10% in the 3 weeks following clock changes, possibly due to stress cause from disruption of sleep both in quantity and efficiency. Circadian rhythms can take weeks to adjust. 

       

So thank you, oh great and undoubtedly accurate internet resources- Wikipedia, history.com and weather.com. They're all legit, right? After an hour of my life wasted I realized....It seems the real reason for daylight saving time is to make good use of daylight. What a letdown. 

     

A much celebrated day

Today, November 1st marks the end of milking goats for 2015! The does are bred and are now resting from producing milk so that they can grow the 2016 kid crop. 

Putting the milking stanchions and equipment away for the winter is always an exciting day, it means *break time* for us too. . . 

Addendum: I DID post this on the 1st, I swear! Although it would be typical for me to mess up on the very first day...

How many goats do you have?

Time to start answering questions. Question #1, submitted by Vince. 

How many goats do you have?

This seems like a fairly straightforward question, but honestly I had to count and double count and count again! The answer is 27. Which is a lot. And when you include pending pregnancies that number will creep towards 55+ in the spring. . . 

Senior does (ie milking does):

Luna

Charlotte

Chicory

Maribel

Isadora

Sofia

Luciana

Carolina

Gemma

Masquerade

Emilene

Junior does (ie dry does):

Sabine

Embry

Emogen

Elliot

Linden

Filomena

Paloma

Sicily

Charming

Iris

Bucks (ie stinky boys):

Bugs Moran

Mickey

Bonner

Maximus

Flash (temporary)

Ingo (temporary)

NaNoWriMo

                            

National Novel Writing Month is officially November. Every year. Sure, I'd heard of it before. But I'm not writing a novel. Nor am I doing a stand-up job of finishing my book, which remains 95% complete, just as it was last year.

      

 

Essentially, the goal of NaNoWriMo is to serve as a writers support group, the end point being completion of a 50,000 word novel by writing every day in the month of November. It sounds harder than it is. That's about 1666 words per day. I routinely dictate charts in excess of 3,000 words in any given day, but those words are repetitive, bland and far from creative or flowery.

                     

      

So I am going to *attempt* to write something every day in the month of November. I say *attempt* because I have great certainty I will fail! But I want to get a head start. This is a way for me to re-start writing, keep writing, and possibly get some usable material. 

And thus I pose this offer- ask me anything! Within reason... that's a disclaimer for some of my more colorful friends. You know who you are. Anything goes...

What flavor of jelly beans is your favorite? None, I hate them.

  

How did you choose goats? We received a baby goat as a wedding gift!

Do goats really eat anything? No absolutely not, they're very picky....and spoiled.

How many pairs of shoes do you own? Ummmm...a lot. I'd have to go count. I have a problem.

So this is my goal. And challenge. But I need help conjuring up topics to cover. If people read it, great. If not, great. Read it to your pigs, or goats, or horses, or chickens. 

                           

Please submit questions in the comments section or by emailing me at capralane@yahoo.com!

     

6 months in a blink

Once again, I've fallen into the category of 'blog slacker'. But this time I have a good reason. We've had a *few* things going on. Rather than write a novel I decided to summarize the past 6 months in a series of overused, overdone, often sarcastic cliches, quotes and phrases.

Making the commitment was the hardest part. We were comfortable at our house. Everything was redecorated, re-tiled and re-organized. The house was just the right size, not to mention we had fabulous neighbors. The milking parlor was gleaming white and brand new, the basement was outfitted with a double sink and shelving to make goat kidding season more efficient. The pens were built, the fences strung. If we could have just picked it up and moved it a bit north, life would be perfect. Work was getting the better of me and my poor sleeping habits so we put our little farm in podunk Amish where-the-heck-is-Adario up for sale. Shockingly, in 2 weeks our little farm in podunk Amish where-the-heck-is-Adario was sold! 

We searched and scoured southern Lorain and northern Ashland counties for the "new and hopefully improved" Capra Lane homestead. The trouble with buying acreage in this area is that a) it's sparsely populated and b) most of the mid-sized plots of land have either no home or a century home on them. Having lived in a newer home for several years now we just weren't up to the task of maintaining an old farmhouse, no matter how charming the shell may appear. Through a series of well timed conversations we fell on an opportunity to purchase a home in Brighton township, a 20 year old 36+ acre farm that served as a thoroughbred boarding and breeding facility in its past life. Of note, Brighton was named over 300 years ago as the area was heavily wooded except for the town square, where the sun shone brightly. Thanks, Rog.

Before I talk about how utterly painful the move was, there are a few more missing pieces. 

In that case, I LOVE the lawnmower. I LOVE the baler. I LOVE the brush hog. In LOvE with the manure spreader. Because every freaking thing we own broke in the weeks leading up to our move. And not just once. Fixed the knotting mechanism, the next day the whole shaft broke. The the steering shaft on the mower. Then the belt on the brush hog. Then the other belt on the brush hog. It was really trying. We were certain our neighbors had put a curse on us for moving ( they still haven't fessed up 😏 ) because there was just no other reason for us to be so miserable. Maybe we should learn our lesson and not buy equipment from the 50's...

We lost Elina, queen of goats, at age ten this spring. She was beautiful, stubborn, and a force to be reckoned with. At times she was kind of a pain in the arse but she was also sort of a 'goat ambassador' for visitors to Capra Lane. She demanded attention and back rubs and would clear the other goats before throwing herself against the fence and looking over her shoulder with narrowed eyes until someone obliged and rubbed her back. Her twins from this spring are still here- Elliott, her doe kid is a complete spaz, bordering on suicidal. Flash, her son, may get lucky here in the spring with some of our younger does. We also brought back into the herd Maribel, a daughter of Macy and Capone.

At the same time we were dealing with Elina's rapid decline and death, Luna, the barn favorite turned into quite a disaster. She first started limping, mild at first, then more pronounced, favoring one of her front legs which eventually developed into a rupture/ dislocation at her knee. She spent more time lying down than standing and started losing weight. Once the pasture greened up in the spring, she foundered on top of the pre-existing leg injury. So with 4 sore bruised feet and a leg in a cast, she earned a private princess stall where we modified her feed intake and pumped her full of meds to allow her to heal. She wore her cast like a champ, that is, until she started favoring the opposite shoulder from using it to push off the wall. The awful ripple effect continued and led into a deep infected wound on that shoulder which necessitated a t-shirt for protection. So poor Luna, barn favorite, 1st goat- is a wreck. Many months later, she's getting around like a champ, still in a cast as her knee remains unstable and (ick) only bends backwards. Her shoulder has healed, her hooves have calmed down. She trots, she grazes, she flirts with the boys by beating her cast on the gate. Yep, quite the charmer. I haven't broken it to her yet that her breeding days are over!

The yearly county fair came and went, complete with the usual cast of characters. Although this year the 'fair uniform' paired exposed buttcheek bottoms with tube tops and chunky necklace bling instead of tacky cowboy boot bling. Most importantly the cheese curd truck arrived, better late than never. Mmmmmmmm.......

On to the move. We were blessed to have 'early access' to the barns at the new house and moved a few loads of 'stuff' over the course of the month of July. We had to be out by mid-August, so the race was on. We had plenty of much needed help, plenty of bottled water and microwaved hot dogs and plenty of late nights. Cleaning-painting-flooring-moving-redecorating simultaneously is not that fun while milking goats and living in 2 locations. And moving a farm no less! But yet again, I convinced myself we'd get it all done. We had help trailering the goats to minimize trips. We baled hay at the last minute at the old place and dug up the beets from the garden. On the last day, we hit a wall. The chickens were adopted by the new owners of the Adario house because we just flat out ran out of energy and couldn't catch them too easily. The last loads were moved out and Rog made the slooooow drive with the tractor and haybine after dark. We've decided we're done moving. Really. And super thankful we had the foresight to not raise turkeys, meat birds and hogs this summer.

I'll admit this one time only. I missed having chickens. To clarify, not really the chickens themselves, but having eggs at the ready. We were chicken-less for about a month. Last week we built a coop inside the barn and bought a mixture of 6 laying hens and 18 pullets that should start laying in the coming months. A few breeds are new to us, like the silkies, one bird is wacko, the brown leghorn, and one, the buff Orpington, looks borderline cuddly. For someone. Not me. We are eggless no more.

The goats were difficult. They did not adjust well. There were cattle housed in the new barns most recently, so we had some cleaning to do prior to making permanent housing for the goats. We initially placed them a few to a stall, as we have a LOT of horse stalls now. They're roomy, airy, but you'd think we were killing them. It was hot, They fought like cats and dogs, panted constantly and we saw Blessing spit for the first time. Our everyday routines were completely lost. We built, we rebuilt, we moved, rearranged more times than I can count. And finally things settled. It took at least 2 weeks for them to act civilized again. They're getting braver with each passing week, the front pasture is a scary place as it leads towards the road. Cars are apparently terrifying! Every time someone drives down our rather quiet road they all haul ass back to the barn. Our old place was set back quite far with most of the road noise coming from horses and buggies. They're getting there. 

And so are we. Rosie and the pups have found their sleeping spots and sniffed every corner and crevice. Our socks are in a drawer, the mugs are in the cabinet. My list of winter decorating projects is lengthy. Work is still chaotic, but closer now. The tractor runs a bit longer, the mower gets a workout and we have a LOT of space. Although the sun sets on the 'wrong' side of the barn now, it's finally starting to feel like home.