August

In July it started raining. In August it continued raining. We watched our lovely alfalfa fields turn into a lush green carpet, the goats salivated at the fenceline and the weather did not allow for timely hay production. So we watched it grow. And watched the mud. And thought about baling. Instead we got a kitten! And ate a lot.

No really, we got a kitten, because we didn't have enough barn cats (this makes 7) but this one is pretty exceptional. Meet Stella.

August was also fair time so we indulged in cheese curds, mmmmm..... And our less than perfect weather hay came in second place this year. I did decide to enter the silliest category I could find, which was an egg painting / decorating contest and we won! There's hope for a fallback career I guess.

We decided that since the garden was bursting with food and the freezers were practically overflowing we would 'live off the land' and have a house / pantry clean out for the month of August. We did still purchase bread, also wine but not much else. There's nothing better than 100% farm to table meals - this IS why we do what we do. Here are a few samples.

Tomatoes were NOT in short supply this year. we roasted, canned and canned some more. I mostly prefer eating a bowl of them with balsamic vinegar and salt.

Grilled then roasted herb stuffed chicken. Thank you chickens...

Tofu veggie stuffed lettuce wraps. No we don't grow soy but it was already in the fridge come August 1st. 

Fried italian sage leaves.

Margarita pizza with einkorn crust and goats milk mozzerella.

Pork ramen with soft boiled eggs. Thanks again chickens...and pigs...

Blistered lombardo and shishito peppers with sea salt and lime. Almost every night. A summer staple. For the first time ever we had more peppers than tomatoes, they stayed prolific until the first frost when I rushed out to pick about 3- 5 gallon buckets full. Then I canned some more. 

Grilled zucchini, uncured bacon and cherry tomatoes.

Homemade semolina pasta with tomatoes basil and garlic, found the olives in the pantry too.

One of my new favorites-  turkish eggs, served on whipped heated greek yogurt with red chili, cilantro and fingerlimes. 

Very tart blackberries we managed to steal from the fencerow before the birds got to them.

Goat burgers with bacon and chevre stuffed jalapeno poppers. 

And my favorites 'throw every thing on a pan and roast it' on this day it was baby potatoes, green beans, sweet corn and tomatoes drizzled with honey.

And zucchini blossoms, coated with a farina beer batter and fried in sunflower oil. The season is short but they are so, so good. Another example of staggered planting gone wrong, the second crop produced more quickly than the first and we were inundated!

June, July

June began with a new collection of hay wagons. The school year ended for Rog and each night when I returned home from work a new wagon was in the driveway. Some people collect cars, some shoes, some artwork and apparently, some prefer haywagons. Notice how they are lovingly lined up to catch the sun. Ivy treats them like hurdles.

We finally completed the new pergola with 'party lights' but as usual we didn't do much in the way of sitting.

We decided the chickens needed new digs. We had previously converted a horse stall into a coop in one of the big barns but they outgrew their welcome. Chickens stink, no matter how much or how little we clean up after them, they stink and produce a lot of dust. The previous setup didn't offer too much in the way of outdoor space either so we moved them across the yard into a new coop. Later in the year we'd add electric net fencing and a movable pasture, eventually we hope to let them 'work' the manure pile for us which will make the birds quite happy as well!

This years early summer heat prompted us to buy Ivy her very own pool. She looks positively uncoordinated and ridiculous swimming 'for real' but she enjoys it immensely so we thought this would be another way to tire her out. Having a long-haired weimaraner is quite different than our previous traditional weim, Ivy is quite intolerant of the heat and the sun and hopped right in the pool every chance she got. 

Soon we grew jealous and bought a pool of our own. At just the right angle it looks quite luxurious...and at just the right angle we can both fit in it. Didn't stop me from buying a little raft or from having a pool party...

The summer heat brought an early harvest. The strawberries were perfect and plentiful despite being overgrown with weeds. Unfortunately the dogs thought so too. Little bites at the bottom and big bites at the top, they all learned to play. It was funny at first but then they learned to pick snap peas, tomatoes, asparagus and raspberries. 

As the baby goats were weaned, we brought on a new batch of milk drinkers. Again we remembered how much harder 3 pigs are than 2. I know,  3 pigs is not a lot but 3 pigs worth of pig shit in a confined space can be a bit much. They're cute for such a short time then they become crazed foaming eating machines.

Added a new cheese to my repertoire this summer, Norwegian gjetost. It was made purely from whey left over from ricotta and was unlike any cheese we've ever tasted. It was quite labor intensive, lots of stirring, waiting, reducing, thickening to end up with an end result that looked much like a bowl of odd caramel. It was caramel on first smell and on first taste but quickly morphed into a very salty aged cheddar. Not bad, not good, just different but worth another attempt. It is traditionally eaten with brown bread (not to be found in Brighton township) and raspberry jam. We dishonored it with melba toast but will be more prepared next time!

May

May is the month of eagerness. Eager to dive in to the first cutting of hay, but the ground is still too wet. Eager to plant the garden in between the raindrops. Eager to set aside indoor projects in favor of outdoor projects. Eager to say goodbye to our customary Ohio pallor and get the first bit of pink on our cheeks.

For the horses it means eagerness to shed out the remainder of their winter coats. This year like many in recent history, spring was essentially non-existent and we went straight to hot and humid. Rain needs the most help getting rid of her winter fluff and the suddenly hot weather meant many many cool down hose-offs.

May meant the return of the starlings. We really hate those little shits. They built a nest like this in our grill in one day. Three times. We eventually had to cover all the openings with chicken wire. They nest in the barn eaves in such great numbers we constantly find eggs on the ground, immature chicks and the cats have a field day.

A new batch of bees was successfully installed and we looked forward to alfalfa honey in the coming fall. 

The May storms brought an abundance of rainbows this year. Way more than normal, it was actually borderline creepy. We've had a few doubles on occasion but I rarely have my phone in my pocket - made it back outside in time for this one! No gold was anywhere to be found in that barn, just a bunch of goats...

Every spring we sort through all of our scrap wood from the winter projects and build a few things, usually for the garden. This year I thought an herb planting table would be nice, since for some reason its such a chore to walk to the garden when I'm making dinner. We thought a nice spot off the end of the deck would be convenient for daily access. Ivy thought so too. Apparently she is most fond of thyme. She ex-planted everything in under 24 hours, hence the chicken wire shield. Another example of function over form at Capra Lane. Her breath was killer though...

That scrap wood also collects in piles just waiting to be fuel for the season's first bonfire. Our flat patch of land provides colorful sunsets galore but we don't have much protection from wind so we have to be quite choosy when building a large fire. 

We did manage to get one field of grass hay in before the close of the month and although the yield wasn't high it helped to make the much larger alfalfa fields a bit less daunting come June.

Always looking for new ways to tire Ivy out, we thought a pool was in order. She is not a fan of the hot weather and spent many hours trying desperately to swim in 6" of water. I also caught Rog sitting in it one evening.

We did manage to get much of our garden planted by mid-May, we had a week of storms that seemed to split right over our house and allow us to get caught up a bit. 

Our strawberries thrive on complete and utter neglect - my kind of fruit! We had pretty high yields this year but many don't make it all the way to the house. I made a fatal mistake  by feeding one to Ivy the terrible and for the rest of the summer we fought her self-service attitude in every part of the garden.

I also apparently suck at planting lettuce. I can put seeds in the ground 2 weeks apart, 3 weeks apart and somehow its all ready at once. For the first time our spinach grew really well and didn't bolt or shrivel up prematurely. We tried to stretch out this crop as long as possible, knowing its trickier to grow as the hot weather sets in.

And on to June....and then I'm only behind by a quarter...

April

In April, we finally reached the end of kidding season. We were all tired. So tired that the feed stack and the milkstand were attractive places to nap.

Kidding season this year brought several easy kiddings and several disappointments. The vast majority of the births went off without a hitch, we were way outnumbered on bucks to does this year, something like 27:13 when it was all said and done. Massey in her last kidding at age 10 gave us two bucks after having nothing but girls over her past 8 breeding seasons. Sigh. She is now retired and taking arthritis medication on *goat medicare*. Oh but those newborn saanen boys are always so cute!

Just like every April, we became mud farmers. Mud in the fields, mud in the pastures, mud in the yard, the driveway and everything in between. Mud leaking in our boots, mud splashing from the horses, muddy paws in the house and most notably, a muddy tail in the house. 

The muddy tail belongs to 'you-know-who'. Looking for trouble at every turn. 

And finally by month's end we saw hints of green. The blue sky came out of hiding and the ground started to dry out bringing the season of barn cleaning, hay restacking, shedding horses and oops! Another litter of kittens. . . 

March

March flew by with a flurry of kids. The trend this year was for 3-4 am births which is both good and horrible. Horrible because I have to get up at 3am but nice because the rough stuff is done by 7.

For the most part, the weather held out and our birth days did not correspond with any of the frigid cold days we had this winter.

We went from two to forty in a flash. Yes, they're all cute. No, we've never had an ugly one. Some are cuter than others, of course. As in- the first born is always cuter than the last, lets face it those late kids kind of get the shaft in terms of cuddle time. We had several picked up early this year, some by 1-2 weeks of age so the barn never got to the overcrowded panic point.

Through March we also tried to think of ways to tire Ivy out - impossible! Our last weimaraner, Kaelyn was a bit of a sissy in the cold and she certainly didn't like getting muddy. Not Ivy! We quickly learned that long-haired weimaraners are completely oblivious to cold, snow, ice, frozen mud puddles, etc. We also learned that those lovely long tail plumes are like a damn sponge when it comes to mud. Ivy is fortunately crate trained and fortunately quite a happy pup most of the time. That wagging happy tail, however, did a number on our walls and doors. We decided that April would be a good time to give her a good trimming.

February

Some months are tougher than others, especially on a farm. The weather just flat out stinks, the wind is biting and miserable and the desire to hibernate runs strong. Two things we must always remember are:
1) The animals must eat, drink and exercise - generally before we do.
2) When you have livestock you have deadstock.

February started with a case of urinary calculi in one of our mature alpine bucks, Patriot. We were excited to acquire Patriot only one year earlier and were looking forward to seeing what he would bring to our alpine breeding program. Unfortunately it was not to be and we had to euthanize him shortly thereafter. Which brings us to another thing we always have to remember - large animals often die in winter when the ground is frozen and hard. Yep, yet another challenge I'd rather not get into.

Late February brought the start of kidding season, a little later than normal for which we ended up being thankful due to the rather cold start we had to winter this year. Paloma started things off with two healthy kids. Check!

Charlotte followed with a really stuck kid. Check! In the wee hours of Sunday eve / Monday morning. Check! On a workday. Check! With the truck unavailable and the trailer full of hay. Check! And our first goat c-section. Check! One lone dead doe kid, which would have been her first female kid in 4 years. But Charlotte lived, which was the goal- she had a rough few days but has bounced back nicely into her role as herd queen. The other reality of farming is that every choice has several variables - we chose to save Charlotte as she is one of our highest appraising and productive does, we chose to save her over her kid who quite honestly I mangled a bit trying to get her out. We chose to save Charlotte knowing that this unexpected hefty expense would impact our entire season of animal sales, profits, etc. Though we're thankful we were able. We chose to do this so she could have the potential to be bred again and finally have that healthy doe kid I've been so patiently waiting on. We'll see. This will make for a nervous sleepless 'me' come February - March of 2019.

And the nerves and fatigue set in quickly for the kidding explosion to come.

January

Another blog slacker catch-up series... starting with January. Time has traveled so quickly and my memory is so crummy that I will refer to my trusty i-phone photo album to remember what transpired.

Oh yes! It was cold. Really cold.

The New Year came in with a bang, we stayed up till midnight.

We started adjusting to life with Ivy. Translation - saying 'no' constantly, playing keep a way with just about everything, lack of sleep that rivals that of new parents, constantly coming up with ways to stimulate the mind of a pup that truly doesn't rest, among others. Here is a rare photo of her sleeping - even in rest she's a nutjob.

I had a brief escape to south Florida for a meeting but it was far too brief.

In January we said goodbye to Mama Kitty at 20+ years old. We inherited her with the farm and her previous owners estimate she arrived in the mid-90's from Northfield Park after having a few litters if kittens. She was deaf, had a funky ear but she was sweet and affectionate and somehow could hear a can of wet cat food being opened a mile away. She's the only cat I'd ever met who routinely sat up like a dog to beg and her favorite hobby was sitting outside our patio door torturing Luna, who desperately wanted to be her friend.

The end of January brought the start of baby goat preparations, barn cleanings and lots and lots of fireside naps!