goats

Kidding season has begun!

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Cedarfields Lucy kicked off our goat kidding season this afternoon.   Vicki was diligently checking in her all day and came in for a brief time at lunch. She informed us Lucy was very close.    Sure enough, when Vicki got back out, she rushed in to tell us Lucy was kidding and feet were showing.   We went out and after a while, decided to help things along.   This was Lucy’s first and she needed a little help.   A healthy 6.8lb buckling came first and was quickly followed by a 5.3lb doeling.

We only name girls starting out, and this year our naming theme is trees.

Lucy’s doeling is Sawyer Farm’s Red Maple!

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fitness, health

Biking in the house

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We finally got motivated to bring the CycleOps bike trainer out of the basement and into the den.  A little Pandora for music and we are all set to ride the bikes inside.  Last night I took mine for a test ride.  Vicki was begging to bring hers up too, so a quick adjustment was made and she got to ride.  Given the tire doesn’t reach the resistance flywheel, so she is just spinning with the resistance of the gears on her bike.  That said, she rode on the trainer for 40 minutes while listening to Kids Bop.

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Then we adjusted the setup for Anna’s bike.  She plans to get comfortable enough on the trainer with proper riding attire and the clip in shoes so we can ride outside in the spring.

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kids

Playing in the forest

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One advantage of living next to state forest is the kids have a lot of places to play.  After lunch today we sent them to play. They had told us they were working on shleters.  Ok.  Then they came back to the house to get rugs or towels for bedding in the shelter. We let them take a wagon of hay. Eventually we went to see what they were building for shelter.

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pigs

Makin’ Bacon! An adventure in smoking meat

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As you probably know, last fall we decided to raise 2 pigs.  We sold 1 (in 2 halves) and kept the other one for our family.  Our ~200lb live pig yielded about 125lbs of meat.  However, our butcher doesn’t smoke meat, so instead of paying someone else, we decided to smoke our own meat.

First, I had to take the pork belly which was a full side of bacon and break it down into smaller pieces for curing.  One of the problems (in our opinion) is most of the bacon you purchase in the grocery store is cured with chemicals and given “artificial smoke flavor”.  So, with a little reading online and some Youtube videos, I decided to use a very basic cure: 2lbs of brown sugar mixed with 1 cup of Kosher salt.  I mixed the dry ingredients, sliced each side of pork belly into thirds, and rubbed the pieces with the mixture.  Each pork belly was about 11lbs of meat with the skin still on.

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Then we vacuum packed the meat and put it in the refrigerator for 12 days.  We also cured 1 of our hams and left the other one uncured.

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We already had a large 6′ grill.  Last fall I was going to sell it because we didn’t use it much, but I didn’t get any legit interest, so we decided to keep it.  The problem with the grill is the way it is built makes it very hard to control the temperature in the grill when cooking with charcoal and adding more charcoal requires shifting the cooking surface.  So I wheeled the grill into the garage to make some changes.

20140114_143334I had done some reading about smoker designs and decided to add a side mounted fire-box to funnel the smoke into the grill without using direct heat.

20140126_094039One of the decisions was whether I was going to cold smoke, or hot smoke the meat.  Other than the obvious temperature implication from the names, there is a bigger fundamental difference.  Cold smoking the meat imparts flavor into the meat at low temperature, while frequently debated, less than 120F is a commonly referenced, but less than 90F is generally considered better.  Hot smoking is done at temperatures above 120F but generally closer to 165F.  Hot smoking imparts flavor too, however, it also actually cooks the meat, which is not what I wanted to do.  I decided to cold smoke our bacon and ham.  Once I had the charcoal hot and the apple wood smoking, I loaded the grill with meat.

20140126_09410420140126_094057I had a few strategically placed thermometers to monitor the temperature.  It didn’t take long to figure out the meat directly over where the firebox connection was would be hot smoked if I left it there.  Luckily, with a 6′ long grill, I was able to quickly rearrange the meat to the other end.  For the next 5 hours, our meat was smoked at about 75F (it was in the teens outside).

20140126_115244The butcher had allowed me to borrow his slicer, so after cooling the meat, I cut the skin off the bacon and ham.  The ham went straight into the oven for dinner.  The bacon was put in the freezer for a few hours to stiffen for slicing.

20140126_210024Small farm pigs don’t give the same big huge slices of bacon that you get in the store.  But, we did manage to get the bacon sliced as much as possible.

20140126_210016 In the end, our pig gave us about 10lbs of packaged bacon, which means we lost just over 50% in weight from the starting point through the juices extracted by the cure and trimming the skin off the bacon.  Before the night was over, we tossed a few sample scraps on the stove.  The meat was very sweet (from the brown sugar) and had great flavor.  It was a fun experience, but I don’t think I will be going into the bacon business any time soon.20140126_210003

Uncategorized

Truck batteries

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My F350 has 2 batteries. Big batteries. It takes a lot of power to turn over a 7.3L diesel engine. Since I bought my Jetta for commuting the truck doesn’t get driven as much.
Our horse trailer has been in the shop for 3+ weeks getting service, repairs, and some custom work I wanted done to make it a little nicer. Tomorrow after work I will pick it up. This will be the second time it has been driven this month. So, since it usually needs to be jumped to crank after a week or two in these temps, I decided to check tonight instead of before work. It was dead. As in less than 8V in the battery. And then the jumper cables melted the contacts in the cable clamps trying to recharge the truck.
Time for new heavier cables. And probably 2 new batteries.  I wish batteries would last more than 18 months in this truck.

Uncategorized

Kid chores

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The kids have to help daily with animal chores, but as they have been getting a little older, the scope of chores has expanded. Since it was a snow day and we were all home, Alex and Vicki cooked lunch. Vicki made Swedish pancakes and Alex cooked waffles – Vicki already has her recipe memorized. Alex quizzed Anna and wrote it down to reference (no mixes).
Afterwards, Alex read to Amanda for rest time and Vicki listened in too.

Supposedly they are cooking dinner tonight.
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health

Why is the butter in the fridge?

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As you know, we like to get back to the past and look at how things used to be done in the time of our grandparents and great grandparents.  Part of that, is reading (listening to audiobooks) of biographies from the 1900 era.  I like to pick up on how things were done and figure out why we are doing it differently.

For example, eggs.  Why are the eggs in the fridge?  There was a significant study done by Mother Earth News about the methods of storing eggs.

But what about butter?  Before everyone had refrigerators, they still had butter and managed to keep it fresh?  That is because, butter doesn’t need to be refrigerated.  Butter has salt in it that keeps it fresh. It’s true, if you want to buy some butter and use it 2 or 3 months from now, the fridge is a better choice.  However, if you use a couple of sticks a week, then it is fine on the counter.  As with many items, refrigeration simply extends the time that an item can be stored prior to going rancid.  For the manufacturers, this is important.  But for our family, the butter sits in a dish on the counter.  And because the butter stays soft, we don’t need to buy “soft butter” at the store with olive oil or other things added to keep it soft at 40F.

And in our house, you will only find butter, not margarine, because we have looked beyond the label in the store and made an educated decision.  That doesn’t mean anyone using margarine isn’t educated, simply, it’s not what we choose after learning more about the subject.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/how-to-store-fresh-eggs-zmaz77ndzgoe.aspx

health

Ginger for the sweet tooth

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I have a confession.  I have a sweet tooth.  In fact, if I have a bag of spice drops sitting on my desk at work, I might eat the whole bag in a couple of days.  I like to keep snacks in my desk drawer so I can munch on things through the day instead of just eating a big meal for lunch.  I really want to have healthy snacks, with as little processing as possible, but I also like some variety.

When I was at the store the other day, I decided to pick up some crystallized ginger, after all, it looks a piece of candy.  I know, crystallized means sugar-coated, but it’s still better than “high fructose balls with artificial flavor, artificial color and a sugar-coating” also known as spice drops.

Did you know ginger is really good for a lot of things?  Check out this website: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=72

It has a little kick that helps wake you up when sitting at a computer, and the health benefits definitely outweigh the added sugar (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).  So, next time you want a sweet snack, grab some crystallized ginger.

running

Just a short run

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Yesterday afternoon, as the holiday stand down was coming to an end, and the new week loomed, we needed to do some chores.  I was short tempered with the kids and snapping at everything because I felt we had not accomplished as much as I hoped and the kids were not moving fast enough.  Anna looked at me and suggested I take Mack for a short run.  I snapped back that there was no time for running, we had things to do!  So I grabbed my coat and went out to the barnyard to get things done.

In the evening, I realized, it had been a week since I had worked out.  It wasn’t that I didn’t have time, it was that I didn’t make time. This morning, after getting up at 5:30 as I scrolled through FB, I noted a friend who posted about a workout and I scoffed, thinking, that doesn’t even really qualify as a workout.  But then I realized, I had done nothing.  Who was I to judge another for what challenged them, when I was doing nothing.  So after working on some chores around the farm, I grabbed my gym bag and tossed in my running shoes, some shorts, and a top appropriate for the 50F weather that had surprised me during chores.  Off to work I went.

When lunch came, I was hesitant to go to the gym.  Maybe I should skip the workout and work on a project over lunch?  No.  I left the office and headed to the gym.  Before I arrived, a massive rain storm started.  I was planning to run outside (I hate running on a treadmill).  Oh well, no workout today.  But then, it stopped.  Ok, no more excuses – I picked up my bag and headed in.  Once at my locker, I realized, I forgot to grab socks this morning.  Oops.  Guess I will have to just hit the pool instead.  No.  My shoes were designed to run without socks, and I had run without socks almost as much as with socks.  So, I changed into my running clothes and went outside.

It was clear from the humidity and clouds in the sky, the odds were not in my favor of making it through the run without getting overtaken by another rain squall.  I started out at a steady pace.  About a quarter of a mile into the run, I encountered a puddle on the gravel path.  As I started to weave around the puddle, I discovered the grass was a mushy, muddy mess.  So, I went through the puddle in my sockless, minimalist trail shoe.  And I resolved, that no matter what I encountered on my path, I would go through it, not around it. I was hit with spray from the water as waves pounded into the rocky shoreline.  But I ran on.  It started to rain.  But I ran on, through every puddle I came to.  In fact, I went straight into a puddle that was slush mixed with ice, water, and snow over my ankles (my feet were not really cold until that one).  And I ran on, hoping to regain the feeling in my feet lost from the ice bath.  Then it was over.

This wasn’t a huge run.  It was 3 miles that took a little under 30 minutes.  But this run was significant.  On this run, I got back what I had been missing since my concussion, nearly a year before.  I have had very few headaches over the past 2 weeks.  And today, I found the mental release I was missing that lets me ponder everything, and nothing.  The clarity to analyze my life and recognize what I’m doing wrong.  And when it was over, I had the feeling that I’ve missed.  I can’t describe it, but if you run, you probably know what I mean. Somewhere between accomplishment, calmness, zen, and the urge to run some more.

Tomorrow it will be in the teens, so maybe I’ll just ride my bike on the indoor trainer.  But maybe I’ll take some running clothes to work, just in case I stop making excuses.  Just a short run makes a big difference.

The story of our lives with horses. And goats.