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“If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Warning! Feed Store Danger

Oh, my goodness! I didn't even think about it! It didn't even cross my mind that there would be a danger at the feed store. I guess I should explain a bit. Yesterday, I stopped my one of our feed stores to pick up some replacement plants for the garden. The goats got out the other day and snatched up quite a few on their race through the "forbidden eden". Well, I needed some replacements and didn't really even think about what time of year this is. Since I rarely go to a regular feed store and buy my feed from the farm, I just wasn't thinking. It didn't occur to me that this time of year is really not a good idea to stop by the feed store with your young children in tow. So, there it was just as we walked in the door......a large water trough full of colored chicks and ducks. Right for my kids to see. Well, my oldest has seen them before because we bought her little colored ducklings when she was about 4, but this is the first time for my little 3 year old. The pure delight on her face and in her little squeals made my heart go pitter patter. I went along and got my plants from the back while the girls ogled the little blue/green/pink/orange darlings. Of course, when I came back they had each picked out their colors. We now have 4 little ducklings, one of each color. They are happily chirping away in their radio flyer wagon in front of the fireplace. I was hoping to get out of there without anything living (well except for my children), but the ducklings will be a nice addition to the farm. They will be white pekins, which are a nice breed for both meat and eggs. Hopefully, we will get a hen or two (or dare I dream 3) out of the bargain. Watch it will be my luck that they will all be drakes. Now, I have a dilemma. The pond is in the middle of my garden and ducks love ponds. They also love to destroy the plants that are around ponds. So, what will become of the garden this year I don't know. I might have to do some serious thinking. Right now they are simply too little so the spring crops look safe. Oh, what have I done! So for all you moms out there.....beware the feed store is a dangerous place to be this time of year. I will say that I managed to make it out of there without the 4 adorable goslings that they had. And they really were adorable! Have a blessed day and don't say I didn't warn you.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Buy, Buy American Pie by the Capitol Steps

I am currently making a conscience effort to buy more American made items. It is a difficult task, but one in which I am willing to take. Anyway, this video is great....funny in a way and truly scary in another way.

Broody Chickens

Nobody should ever tell a chicken that they are not supposed to do something. I have one hen that was a freebie, she is a production red. Production reds are not supposed to go broody, but guess what? She has gone broody and is diligently sitting on a nest of currently 6 eggs. All day yesterday, she sat on the nest in the little box in the feed room. She gathered the eggs left by the other hens and tucked them up under her then settled back down to keep them warm. She never left that nest once yesterday and so I finally decided she has gone broody and put a container of water close by for easy convenience. I did stick my hand under her to check to see how many eggs she had and to see if I needed to go looking for eggs from the other hens because I was not finding any. She had all six eggs for the day under her and she got very perturbed at my intrusion. Last year this hen never once showed any signs of broodiness. It makes me wonder if hens have a biological clock like women do. She is getting on in age and she has slowed down in her laying. She still lays the biggest eggs of the whole flock, but less of them. I wonder if she thinks this might be her last chance to have babies of her very own. Nature and God never cease to amaze me. This little red hen is absolute proof that God is in complete control. While man may have bred "broodines" out of some of the chickens, he gave that instinct right back to this little hen. Just goes to show that the power of God and the power of His grace should never be underestimated. So, I am hoping that all goes well and my little red hen stays safe and gets those babies her little chicken heart desires so badly. Blessings from the farm!

Rumsford, Care of Kitchen Utensils

Now we are getting into the nitty gritty in this little handbook and there is tons of valuable information. So here goes!

To clean a frying pan, rub with a hard crust of bread, and wash with hot water and washing soda. Never scrub it or the next food fried in it will be likely to stick. (Household Handbook pg. 9) More than likely they are talking about cast iron frying pans.

To clean enameled or granite utensils whose contents have been allowed to burn, fill with cold water, add a piece of washing soda the size of an egg, and heat to boiling pint. Wash at once, as the burned parts will then be more easily cleansed. (Household Hand book pg.9)

Rusted ironware or sinks may be cleaned by smearing thickly with fat or grease, and then covered with powdered quicklime and left for several hours. Wash off with hot water and washing soda, using a cloth tide to the sink broom for the purpose, so as to avoid touching it with the hands. (Household Handbook. pg.10)

To clean copper or brass. If the copper or brass is very dirty, put some fine salt on a plate, dip into it a cut lemon and rub on the metal. The strong acid will remove the worst stain. (Household Hand book pg.11)

Hope you are enjoying these little tips and tricks from the past as much as I am. Blessings!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Really great short article

I just finished reading this article at A Wise Woman Builds Her Home. Truly inspiring, encouraging, and empowering. Take just a few moments and check it out. God bless, Kat

Rumsford cont. Kitchen Conveniences

I simply love this book so here is some more from Chapter 2 this time.

Please don't follow the advice of this little tidbit....if they only knew then what we know now!
One or two asbestos mats should be kept in every kitchen to place under saucepans on the fire, so as to prevent their contents from cooking too fast. (Household Hand Book pg. 7)

A Convenient Shelf. A great convenience, where it can be arranged, is to have a shelf at the head of the cellar stairs, where can be kept those things which belong to the cellar and are in constant use. Many steps can thus be saved during the day's work. (Household Hand Book pg. 7)

A double broiler has been invented which in appearance is something like two frying pans fitting closely over each other. The meat can be perfectly broiled with this, either over an open fire or a gas or oil stove, without the unpleasantness of having the kitchen filled with smoke and smell of the cooking. (Household Hand Book. pg.8)

Gotta love modern conveniences....no matter the decade!

Blessings from the farm and tomorrow will be Care of Kitchen Utensils!

Rumford Household Handbook

A friend of mine found an awesome little gem when she was doing some spring cleaning and gave it to me. It is the Rumford Household Hand Book published in 1906. I love this little book and while I haven't read all of the handy little tips yet I am totally hooked. So I thought I would share a bit with you over the next few days. Today we will start with a few tips from Chapter 1 Division of Labor. So here goes, enjoy!

Proper and systematic methods of doing housework would eliminate nearly one half the labor from the home; but it is too often the case that the work is done whenever most convenient, and in some cases only when it is impossible to leave the task longer undone. By planning carefully all may be kept in goo order each day having its appointed labors instead of leaving he bulk of the cleaning for one day at the end of the week. (Household Hand Book, pg.3)

Daily Routine of Work. It is a good plan, when the daily routine of work for the week has been decided upon, to have a written copy made of it and hung in the kitchen or pantry, so that it can be referred to as the need arises. The mistress will, in this way, be saved much supervision and answering of questions. (Household Hand Book, pg.6)

Where there are children in the house it is well to make them responsible for certain daily duties. Definite duties for each cannot be given here, but the girls can attend to their own rooms as soon as they are old enough. They may also at different time undertake the care of the table, or of the parlor, first, of course, being carefully shown how to do the work. In this way, as they get old enough, they will be able to superintend the work of the whole house. In any case, let some of their duties be such as are conducive to the comfort of the older members of the family, and not only those that pertain to themselves and their own belongings, that they may feel more responsibility and realize that all are dependent on others for the comforts and necessaries of life. (Household Hand Book pg.6)

Next post will continue with Kitchen Conveniences. Have a blessed morning!

Monday, March 22, 2010

A Couple Quotes to Think About

Just thought these would be some thought provoking quotes today.

The Enemy Within

by Marcus Tullius Cicero


(born January 3, 106 BC and murdered December 7, 43 BC)
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear."


"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."

Attributed to Alexander Tytler with dubious historical accuracy*


Hmm....interesting. Our Republic is just shy of 234 years old. Are we in our death throes?

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Fox!!

No, not the network. A real live bushy tailed varmint seeking to steal and kill my livestock. War is officially declared! I know I have spoken of our funny little guinea, Martin. Martin was a really asset to the farm. He was a great bug hunter in the garden while being oh so gentle with the plants. Martin, was an awesome guard dog (guinea?) in training. Martin also helped to round up chickens in the evening and do the daily feed chores. My dogs never suffered a tick long as long as Martin was allowed to groom them while they napped. Martin, slept on the side porch and guarded the side door all night. Unfortunately, that is where the fox found him early one morning and the dogs were too late to save him. I know it was a fox because it was back at 5 am this morning. It was back on the porch, looking for another meal. This is one brave fox. But sometimes being so brave can actually be pretty stupid. It will be back and I will be waiting. We really miss Martin, the farm just isn't the same without him.

Two Bills in Senate that Need Your Attention

There are two bills in the senate that definitely need your attention and the attention of your representatives. They are a huge move by big government to strip Americans of what few rights we have left. The first bill is S3081. This bill will give the government the right to arrest and detain an American citizen indefinitely without trial. Did you read that? An American citizen indefinitely detained without trial. According to the Bill of Rights:
VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.


This bill is just another example of the slow destruction that our Constitution is undergoing by our government agents. How many Americans will just shrug their shoulders and simply say "It doesn't affect me?".

Now the next bill is equally ridiculous. S3002 authorizes the federal government to regulate vitamins, minerals, and virtually all health and natural food products. Now we see what a great job government regulation already does (peanut butter contamination, ice cream contamination, spinach contamination, tomato, etc. etc. etc.). So now they want to take away our right to choose natural supplements versus, chemical experimentation via big pharma. If they have this authority what makes them stop with that bottle of vitamin C on the shelf? Why not just regulate how many and what kind of oranges we are allowed to buy. Shoot why don't we just force a prescription for those oranges and by doing that we can charge 10 times the price.

Folks these are dangerous bills that John McCain (who by the way said over and over that he was against big government) has proposed. Don't let these bills slip under the radar. Get to writing those letters and making phone calls. These bills need to be stopped simply because the path they lead to is a very dangerous one indeed for anyone who values freedom and choice. Blessings from the farm.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Grocery Store?

I have not been to the grocery store for a couple of months, so imagine my surprise when I went the other day for a few things and most of the shelves were pretty empty. Not just the shelves, but the meat and dairy cases were as well. Lots of empty space! I wanted to get some pork chops because we are out of pork chops and I just had a hankering for some. The only pork left in the meat case was just a few pork loin roasts and Italian sausage. I have never seen this before. I even asked and they said they did not have any in the back either. This is a large grocery chain, not a mom and pop, so I would not expect to have seen this. Has anyone else noticed this, or is it just me? The only time I see shelves like this is when there is really bad weather coming and we don't have any coming our way.I guess we will wait until the hog is butchered for those pork chops. Blessings from the farm.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Evenings with Victoria Botkin

I just discovered that Victoria Botkin is having a women's talk online. For those who don't know the Botkin family, they are truly amazing, inspiring, and definitely inspirational. Their daughters have grown into wonderful young Christian women, seeking to please the Lord in their lives. My oldest daughter and I are reading their book, "So Much More", together now. It was written by the Botkin sisters several years ago when they were teens and written for young teen girls. However, I have found that it is something the whole family can get something out of. There is a registration fee for Victoria's sessions, but I feel that the cost is reasonable and the information invaluable. I know as a mother struggling to raise my daughters to serve the Lord in a world that seems to hate our Lord and Savior I need all the help, advise, and encouragement I can get. Victoria Botkin has been there, done that, and succeeded. There are also some very great articles available online at the website. I encourage all mothers of both sons and daughters to take a look here for more information about Victoria Botkin's Session for Women. God bless, Kat

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Sheep and Goat Expo Afterthoughts

Well, it was a good day despite the rain....yes I said rain. There were quite a few producers there and quite a few products for display and sale. It was a good day for talking dairy goats and sheep. There were of course meat goats and meat goat people as well. Looks like I might be trading some spring doelings (provided we get some this year) with some katahdin spring lambs. It will be nice to have lamb in the freezer. My daughters wanted to bring home all the babies. Didn't matter whether goats or sheep, they were all adorable and would have easily fit in the station wagon! However, they all went home with their owners. I am not interested in sheep at the moment. My oldest daughter and I were taught how to spin wool. Come to find out the lady selling and demonstrating the spinning is our neighbor. Well, next county over but out here that is considered neighbor. She raises Icelandic and one of the rovings that she had was the most beautiful steel blue color. She doesn't dye her wool so it was all natural. I want a sweater made from that wool! Ok, nothing to it just buy the roving, practice spinning, learn how to knit......I can do that no problem! LOL! I don't know when I would ever find the time. However, she had both a large spinning wheel and a small spindle type thing (see how much I learned). The little spindle type thing looked so relaxing. Just like something that would be nice to do while sitting by the fire on a cold winter day. Or a blustery spring day like we had today! The cheese guy had the most wonderful cheese and that is definitely on my list of things to learn. His wife is teaching a class next weekend and I had made up my mind that I was going. That is until I found out that they are in the extreme north end of our state....about 5 hours away. So that is a little far for a one day cheese class. Now the food! Well apparently no one entered the cook off. You would think that the meat goat people would want to promote their product. Anyway, they did have chevron burgers cooked by someone who obviously had never cooked goat and they were dry and tough. Kinda like chewing on shoe leather. Oh well so much for new and exciting recipes. The photo contest was fun to look at and there were some really cute goat pics. I told my kids that they have to learn to do cute things so that I can take cute photos and enter them in contests! They said they might consider it only after supper. Ok, on to the highlight of the day the speakers! The first speaker was awesome. He was from the sheep and goat department of one of our state universities and up on all the latest data from purchasing your dairy goat, management issues, commercial marketing and home production. He really covered a lot of material in a short amount of time. One of the most interesting things that he brought up was the parasite resistance problem that we are having to pretty much all commercial de-wormers. Currently, there is no research being done anywhere to develop another de-wormer. So it comes down to natural management practices....right up my alley. Apparently, there has been research done on forage use for parasite control and one of the things that has been found is that forage high in tannins seems to have anti-parasitic properties. In other words it acts as a natural parasite control. So my goats will definitely get more oak tree branches and leaves this year and I am looking for lespedeza to incorporate into my pastures. Both are high in tannins. The most awesome thing about that speaker is that at the end of the talk he asked if anyone would like a copy of his dairy goat notebook that he had compiled. I of course volunteered to get a copy thinking that this would be a pamphlet type thing. Well, this was a huge 3 ring binder full of all the latest from agricultural colleges around the country. Everything from kidding, management, forage, feed, commercial production and marketing to home production practices. There are even cheese recipes in this notebook! The best part of this notebook is that there is so much about sustainable production like rotational grazing, forage nutrition, natural parasite control etc. It truly is a dairy goat owners dream to have this notebook and if I had to put a value on what he gave away for free....well I don't know if you could. So then we move onto the next speaker who I was not so impressed with. I am not sure what his credentials were as my toddler was acting up when they introduced him. I know he was from the extension agency. Anyway, his topic was feeds. Basically to make it short and sweet he believed that forage was a supplement to feed, instead of the other way round. He also recommended highly the use of corn in the feed ration. Which as you all know I highly disagree with that. When I asked why he would recommend corn when there have been so many studies showing that high corn diets promote acidosis in the rumen and throw off the natural bacterial flora....he was speechless. Yes, literally there was a very awkward silence as the whole room is looking at him and he didn't know what to say. He bumbled about finally saying that corn is a good high energy feed and fed in moderation is a good addition to any feed program. I also asked him about his rotational grazing recommendations as far as forage types and how long to leave stock before moving them. Apparently, his idea is that the stock should be kept off pasture except for 2 hours a day! Maybe 3, but their primary source of nutrition should come from their grain diet (of course full of corn)! So he was useless and as far as I am concerned gave a lot of folks some very bad information. The next speaker was a meat goat producer who turned to dairy goats and was speaking on the difference in production styles and requirements of the two. She basically was there for folks thinking about getting into goats but not sure whether they wanted to go with dairy or meat. She was a very good speaker and very informative even though she was short. I would have liked to have heard more from her. She has written one textbook (on goats) and one book on meat goat production. So onto speaker number 4. This guy was all about marketing dairy goat products. He talked about the different products, cost analysis breakdown of producing the different products like soap, cheese and milk, how to market, where to market, average prices paid for products that are being marketed and USDA requirements should you want to get into commercial production of milk or cheese. This was definitely a talk that dairy goat producers in this state needed. While meat goats have grown by leaps and bounds, most with dairy goats simply don't know what to do. A few have ventured into the marketing and commercial arena but most of us stick with selling goats which is safe in the legal arena. All in all it was a good day. I learned quite a few things that I didn't know, which is always a good thing, and spoke to a lot of people about what I like best.....livestock. I love going to these kind of things simply because I can talk about what I love. Most of the time folks who don't do what I do don't care to hear me talk about it. So it is one place that I can talk nothing but livestock and that is simply......delightful! God bless and have a great evening.

Sheep and Goat Expo

Today, the kids and I are headed to the sheep and goat expo. It looks to be alot of fun and they have some great speakers today mostly focused on dairy goats. They will also have a spinning demonstration and a goat cheese making demonstration. There of course will be food. I am really excited about this year's expo as the focus seems to be on dairy animals. All three of the speakers are focusing on dairy and then of course, there is the cheese demo. With cattle prices continually heading south and cattlemen looking for alternatives, meat goats have established a strong foothold in our state. However, us dairy goat folks have largely been ignored. Of course, dairy in general is not a real big part of our state's agricultural make-up. It is still a small portion and for there to start being recognition of dairy goats is exciting. One of the speakers will be talking about marketing our dairy goat products. So I am looking forward to that as I hope to someday be able to market some of our products from our goats. Hopefully, the rain will hold off and it will be a nice day. Because of the cookoff I hope to get some great recipes as well. I only have a few for cooking chevron and can always use more. Like venison it does take a little more effort to keep it from becoming very dry due to the lack of fat. These events are great events to keep educated in practices, whether you are a simple homesteader or plan on going big. They are usually free and contain loads of information. It is also a great place to talk to other producers and make contacts. They also usually contain state specific information. One of the other talks today is about good forage practices in our state. It is good to find that kind of information. So many times you find information about things that won't do well in your state. For instance, many people can plant alfalfa in their pasture. Well, here in the deep south alfalfa doesn't do very well. It is too hot. So we have to look for other legume options for our forage. When I get home, I will share how the day went and the neat little tidbits of information that I come home with. Have a blessed day!

CSA and the Garden

Wow, things have been really busy around here and not much time for posting. We are still working on issues with our daughter, but things seem to be looking up for the most part. I have spent a lot of time answering questions about our CSA. This is our first year offering CSA shares and we are only offering a few. However, since we are the only CSA in our area there is a good bit of interest. I was even invited to speak at a ladies group a week ago about local agriculture and safe food. Of course some other topics were thrown in as the ladies got into a discussion about all of this "stuff" they seem to be forced to live with. What was supposed to be a one hour presentation turned into a 4 hour discussion group. It was fun and I think the ladies enjoyed themselves as well as learned some things. I also took them all some of my homemade lip balm, which they all seemed to enjoy. Our garden is bigger this year and since we have had so much rain I can't get the tractor in the garden without just making a huge mess. So, I hired someone with a tiller to come and till the garden. He ripped me off and that made me angry with myself. And really the more I look and work in the garden the angrier I get because he didn't do that great of a job. I had tons of compost that needed to be tilled in really well and I simply think he tilled the compost mostly. I am still working it with a dirt fork. We are getting a bit of a late start because of how wet our spring has been. The ground is soaked and I am simply afraid everything will drown. It wouldn't be that big of an issue if I did not have people counting on food in April. So I just keep transferring the transplants to bigger pots. The potatoes will be later than I expected because I am going to plant them vertically in trashcans and straw to keep them from rotting. They would definitely rot if I put them in our ground. With as much rain as we have had the pond is overflowing and has a leak so that waters the garden along with the rain. I know, I am complaining about the rain and in July I will be begging for it. I will get the transplants in the ground tomorrow as the rows don't feel to soggy and most of the water is being diverted into the space betweeen the rows.That is a good sign that my plants have at least a chance of not drowning. For our first CSA year this is going to be a tough one. Thankfully, we have not taken on many customers. I hope all is well with everyone and that your gardening efforts are getting off to a great start. Blessings.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Honey Roasted Leg of Goat

This is what we are having tonight. Hope you enjoy as much as we do.

Ingredients:
1 leg of goat/chevon
1/2 cup of honey
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tlbs. brown sugar
salt and pepper

Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place leg of goat on a rack in a shallow baking pan, season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. While this is baking mix the honey, OJ, and brown sugar. Aftter 30 minutes remove the foil from the chevon and baste on both sides with the honey glaze. Place back in the oven, uncovered, for another 60-90 minutes depending on how done you want it. I usually re-glaze/baste about every 20 minutes to keep the meat moist and to get a nice glaze on it. You don't want to cook chevon past medium otherwise it is too dry. This goes really well with couscous and a green salad. Enjoy.

Beer Braised Rabbit

This is one of our favorite rabbit recipes and since this is what we had for supper last night I thought I would share.

Ingredients:
1 rabbit, cut into serving sizes
salt
pepper
1 cup beer
4 sweet potatoes cut crosswise
4 carrots cut in 1 inch pieces
1 onion sliced
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 c. rotel
1 tbl. brown sugar

Directions:
Season rabbit with salt and pepper to taste. Then brown rabbit in a large skillet. Add the vegetables to the skillet. Mix the beer, rotel, garlic and brown sugar. Pour over the rabbit and vegetables. Then bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes until the rabbit is tender. Serve with fresh bread or rolls. Yummy!