I've been gardening for most of my life and have been a devoted fan of organic gardening the whole time. It just makes so much more sense to work in harmony with Mother Nature than to fight her. Besides which it is better for the planet and better for our bodies. Here you can see what I'm planting and harvesting, with gardening hints and resources thrown in for good measure.
Been another doozy of a week. I had to work my part time job 3 days instead of just 2 so that cut into my project time a lot. Then on Wednesday morning Bean was yelling her head off. Sure enough she was in a full standing heat. Not sure what happened, since I thought she was in heat the week before. However there is such a thing as a short cycle where a doe can come into heat close together. But as far as I know she and Bentley had a successful date and we should have kids in 5 months.
Back side of the big chicken house
I've been working on making repairs to my big chicken house, being very careful looking for the rattlesnake. So far no sign of it. I'll probably do a little video about this and the mistakes I made when I built it. In the meantime there is a page about it here; Big Chicken House
Fresh Goat Milk
In spite of the girls having their heat cycles and our weather being wonky I'm still getting a lot of milk. I did make a couple of batches of cheese.
Death Nap
The first time I found a goat stretched out like this I was panic stricken to say the least. But 'death naps' are a regular occurance.
pomegranite
The little pomegranite tree is almost ready to pick, but a squirrel got one first.
Goat Milk Soap "Orange Coffee"
Goat Milk Soap "Cedar & Sage"
I did get some soap packaged up that was ready so a couple of scents are restocked now. I really need to get more made so I don't run out of anything again but it's hard to do with so much other stuff going on.
Welcome to Farmer Friday, a recap of the goings on around here. Boy it's been a week and I'm physically exhausted and super stressed out. Miss Bambi came into heat on Wednesday so I took her to have a date with Bentley.
Things weren't going too bad until Bashful tried to get in on the action and Bentley took offence. Bentley proceeded to mangle the cattle panel and weld wire fence in between them.
This cattle panel is trashed
I fixed things up as good as I could and prayed the fence would hold up. It did, just barely. Both boys are bloody, Bashful from breaking his scurs (small bits of horn) off and it looks like Bentley cut open the back of his neck, probably from broken fence wires. So I decided to make a quick hoop shelter up in the hill pen and move Bentley up there, I am hoping that the extra distance between the two boys will help. All of that occupied all of my Friday, I didn't even pick any vegetables for market.
Pinto Bean and Bentley
I had wanted to breed Pinto Bean to Bentley also and it looked like she might be at the very end of her heat cycle so I moved her too. Poor thing didn't have a clue what was going on, although she did stand for him a couple of times that I saw. But after that she just yelled and yelled, wanting to go back to the girls pen. At this point though I'm a bit afraid of letting her out, afraid of what Bentley might do to the fence. Since she's not milking or anything I'm going to leave her in for a bit, to make sure she is bred. And try to figure out what to do next.
Welcome to Harvest Monday, a blog hop hosted by Dave over at Happy Acres Thanks Dave! Milk is still the most abundant harvest this week with a total of 13 gallons and 7.25 pints.
Japanese eggplant, Lemon Spice jalapeno
eggplant, Lemon Spice and other peppers
There were some eggplants along with Lemon Spice jalapeno and a couple of other peppers. Totals are down because it's been hot and dry and I just haven't been able to get out and water like they need it.
Cucuzzi
Still lots of cucuzzi and the vines are still going crazy. Some folks at market are adventerous and giving them a try. Leftovers go to a friend with pigs, she says they love them. Just over 6 pounds. I'm wondering if I missed some.
colored eggs
Still just getting about 7-8 eggs a day mostly from the new pullets. Giving serious thought to hatching the bigger blue ones from a couple of Legbar hens. Chicks that hatch now will begin laying in spring and will lay well most of the summer and fall when the older birds quit to molt. I just don't know if I have the time and energy....
Thanks for visiting and be sure to check out what other folks, in other parts of the world are harvesting too.
Welcome to Harvest Monday, a great blog hop hosted by Dave over at Happy Acres I hope you stop by there and see all the wonderful gardens and harvests. Even though I got half an inch of rain, the ground was still powder dry under the surface. Which is why I tend to water even if it's trying to rain, because it almost never rains enough.
Esmarelda is still pumping out milk like crazy
Esmarelda, one of my Nubian dairy goats, has weaned her triplets and is making milk like crazy. 10 gallons in the past 7 days. While the kids were nursing I was only milking once a day and now I have to milk twice a day. The old girl Bambi gave me 6 gallons this week, milking her once a day.
Japanese eggplant
The eggplants are still going strong. I did notice as I picked this week that I must have missed some last week because there were a couple very large ones with dull skin. I decided to leave them for seed.
a handful of tomatoes
There was only a handful of tomatoes, most of which I ate with tacos.
cucuzzi
Cucuzzi is an edible gourd from Italy and it's been producing like crazy and trying to take over the whole yard. Too bad the goats didn't seem to care much for it, it'd be a great thing to grow for them.
Honey Nut squash
Last year my daughter brought me some HoneyNut squash she had been given. They are like single serving butternuts but much better and sweeter flavored. I thought maybe they were hybrids but when I looked them up online found they were supposed to be heirlooms. So I saved seeds and grew some. These three were on the ground so I picked them because I was afraid they might be get too wet and rot. The vines have quite a few more but I love these so much I'm pretty sure I did not grow nearly enough of them.
Cucuzzin obliterating the rest of the harvest
This weeks totals;
Eggplant 1# 14 ounces
Tomatoes 4 ounces
Cucuzzi 11# 11 ounces
Honey Nut 1# 1.5 ounces
Milk;
Esmarelda 10 gallons
Bambi 6 gallons
Eggs 54
Thanks for coming along and thanks Dave for hosting us. See you next time.
Welcome to Harvest Monday, kindly hosted by Dave over at Happy Acres I was just checking out his lovely pepper harvests and hot sauce making! Around here vegetable harvests have been a bit thin. We've had a lot of days with high UV radiation this summer and once the sun comes over the hill in the morning I just can't stay outside and work. So a lot of things that should have been done didn't happen. So looking forward to cooler weather, although I'm not looking forward to actual winter.
Some peppers but I forgot to weigh them
There are a few peppers here, some cayenne, shishito and the yellow jalapeno Lemon Spice. I did forget to weigh them before stuffing them in a jar.
Fermenting peppers
I am experimenting with a lot of things this year. These fermented peppers I'm doing with Himalayan pink salt, that's why it's pinkish.
About 8 ounces of small tomatoes
Some became lunch
I had a bigger tomato ripening on the counter so it and others became lunch; sour dough toast from a local baker, tomatoes with basil and basalmic vinegar, both with a dry crumbly homemade goat cheese.
Cucuzzi
The cucuzzi were again the biggest harvest this week, 18 pounds and 4 ounces. Eggs continue to be down, with mostly just 6 new pullets laying. This weeks count was 37, not nearly enough to pay their feed bill.
Milk production is way up because Esmarelda's kids are weaning. Esmarelda gave me 8.6 gallons and Bambi gave 5.4 gallons. I've made several batches of cheese, with most of it going into the freezer for the time when I dry Bambi up. I'm planning to breed her this fall and will dry her up about 2 months into her pregnancy. I'm planning to milk Esmarelda until next fall when I'll breed her again. A lot of goat owners don't do extended lactations. I'm not sure if they don't realize it's possible, if they have a good market for selling kids or what. I don't really need to have a bunch of kids, most people near me want cheap or free or do not care about the fact that these girls are purebred, registered Nubians from good, productive bloodlines. So breeding every other year or even two suits me fine.
Thanks again to Dave over at Happy Acres for hosting the Harvest Monday blog hop. I encourage you to stop by and go see all the other harvests from different places in the world.
Some tomatoes still coming in but still a lot of grasshopper and fruit fly damage. The Japanese eggplants are starting to take off and a little trickle of chilies.
The wildlife in AZ likes to come inside to visit.
Lemon Spice Jalapeno
Poor Bambi her jaw was swollen; since it didn't seem to slow down her eating or drinking I think she got stung by a bee or wasp. Her tongue is out here because I just put out minerals and she is licking them up.
Just a little bit of this week around here.. Sometimes I can't remember everything that happened!
Sooooo many things have happened around here this year, some of which I'd forgotten about until I started going through my pictures. I decided to recap by doing a post a day, one for each month. So this is some of the highlights (and lows!) of January 2023. Above, some first eggs from new Black Copper Marans pullets.
I had several beds of greens thriving under row cover
Early in the month there was a lot of rain and some snow with high winds, causing a lot of damage to tarps and garden covers. At Christmas I had 3 doelings born to two mammas and they were doing well.
And then Esmarelda had her twin boys the morning it was 25 degrees outside.
I started lots of seeds. Over 500 seedlings
Lots of rain and snow
My Posie goat was so sick and I really didn't know what I didn't know. I lost her and it broke my heart. Now I know that she was extremly deficient in copper and carrying triplets she went down with pregnancy toxemia. I did everything I could think of for the toxemia but at that point I didn't know anything about copper deficiency.
Esmarelda rejected her twins so they became bottle babies.
But she has been an awesome milker and once I got her milking she settled down just fine and in all this time has rarely danced around or kicked the bucket while milking.
