Now I've Got Milk!

As promised the stanchion was finished on Thursday. It is working out so well! Thursday's milking was a little tough and I was only able to save about a 1 1/2 quarts. The chickens and cats got the rest that had bits of hay and dirt floating in it. Friday was better and I got 1 1/2 gallons. Today hardly any kicking at all and 1 3/4 gallons.

Today's milk. Possibly next weeks cheese!

Yesterday's milk. Definitely tomorrow's butter! I put a rubber band on the cream line.😋

Got Milk?

Well... yes and no...

Let's just say I have a milk cow.

The last couple of days have been quite interesting. It seems Miss Violet has a stubborn streak, about a mile wide!! The first 2 days she has been here have been a battle. Not that she is mean but she is just not going for being milked by hand.She has always been machine milked. I have managed to squirt enough on the ground to keep her from getting mastitis. 

That ladies and gentlemen is about to change tomorrow morning! A stanchion is set to be erected at daylight. Hubby has nabbed a couple of his guys and as soon as it is done I'll be running her hiney in it. Stay tuned ;-)

Violet and Vinca

They are here! The one on the left is Violet. She is milking now. One the right is Vinca and if all goes well she should be calving in September. Violet was exposed to a bull so she may possibly be bred. I will have the vet out to check in a few weeks.

MORE Mushrooms!

I don't know what going on in the mushroom world these days. It seems about once a month I am stumbling on some amazing mark down deals. Today's find were Maitake and Shiitake once again marked down to almost nothing. The Maitake were a whooping 49 cents and the Shiitake 99. I also found 2 containers of white button marked down. So of course I had to scarf them all up!

I dehydrated the Maitake and Shiitakes and canned the buttons. Another nice little addition to the pantry!

Happy New Year 2019!

Happy New Year from the homestead! I hope you have a year of love, happiness and of course productivity! :-)

We have a lot of plans in the works for the farm. Hubby already has plans to do some barn remodeling to better accommodate the livestock we have now since all but one horse is gone. I plan to add 6 more herb beds, medicinal and culinary. We are scaling back on the Kune Kune pigs and plan to add a couple of Large Black Hogs. I am also downsizing the Icelandic flock and adding a couple of Suffolk ewes. In doing this I hope to have some lambs that grow out a little quicker (and cheaper) for the freezer. The new orchard did not happen last year so that is also on the to do list.

Fingers crossed it looks like we may have not 1 but 2 farm interns. I am doing a happy dance thinking about all that we can get done. Many hands make light work!

Today, however was not a day to dream. Chores called and the biggest one was cutting up yet another deer. Number 7 went into the freezer. Though it sounds like a lot, we split them 3 ways between the family members who hunt and cut!

I think though the most exciting news of all is.....wait for it......DAIRY COWS are coming back! I have purchased 2 dairy cows. One is in milk now and one is due to calve in September. I hope to pick them up in the next week. Stay tuned!

Year End Homestead Update

I'm not sure if time is moving faster or I'm moving slower. Me thinks it's me...

I can't believe the year is almost over! It's has been (as always!) a crazy busy year. In addition to the normal routine of critter tending and garden work we moved a house from the center of a field to a corner on the far side of the property. Not only was it taking up needed pasture space it was built over an area that stayed constantly wet and was starting to cause structural issues in it. Hubby and my brother in law have spent the better part of 3 months remodeling it. The house is absolutely precious now and we are renting it to my niece. Welcome to the compound J. :-)

Just prior to that Hubs had some minor surgery that put him out of commission for several weeks.

We added a new family member. This is Saber. He is a now 11 month old solid black German Shepherd. 

Ludovic and I trained hard all summer and he finally earned his BH and is now training for his IPO1 title sometime next year.

The boys have been busy hunting and sis and I have cut up and packaged 6 deer so far. The freezers are in nice shape for the winter as is the pantry since I've started canning meat in addition to freezing it.

We are letting our garden rest for the winter but we planted sis's garden with a wide variety of greens, broccoli and cabbage. It is looking good! 

We have dealt with 2 hurricanes and a heavy snow already. Wind brought down a few trees not damaging anything but making a mess for sure. It is wetter than we have ever seen it since building our homestead. We ended the year almost 20 inches above normal! 

Our soap business is booming and we are blessed with lots of happy and repeat customers.

And that's a quick year end update. We are looking forward to a great 2019!

Mushroom Jackpot!

Today while at the grocery store I stumbled upon a mushroom jackpot! Organic shiitake mushrooms had been marked $3.00 off making the packages 1.29. And they were sliced too! Double jackpot! I was greedy and grabbed all they had.

Once home, I rinsed them and tossed them in the dehydrator.

 A short time later I had 2 quarts of dried shiitakes. For long term storage I put in quart jars and vacuum sealed them.