Goat Problem

                                                               This is Bob

 You might remember the post some time ago about his birth and that we almost lost him after the birth.


Well Bob has grown up great, but he is a problem.  He loves to escape, so every day he gets out.  Then he feels lost, but will walk around on the out side of the fence keeping close to the herd,  but just on the other side of the fence.  So I asked Scott to please put a special post on his horns so help prevent him from jumping thru the fence too much.  ( I just can not get the photo to turn the right way.)

So this worked well so far.

Bob was not the first one to have this done here on the Keeslar farm.

Here is one of the young female goats who thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.  She places her head thru the fence, to eat the grass on the other side of the fence, and if she happens to be out side of the pasture, she will place her head thru the fence to the inside of the pasture to eat the grass there!

We really do not care if she does that, but she then gets stuck and can not get her head back out.  (many of the older goats know how to get their head back out of the fence) So we will come home and find her stuck, out on the back forty and we just can not have that.  That is not safe for her.  In the hot day she could get dehydrated to easily.

So she was one of the first ones to have the dowel rod duct taped to her horns.  She was good at getting it off so Scott made a special one for her by drilling two holes in a board-here she is.  We still have duct tape on her too!

  

Here are some of the goats playing on their play structures close to the barn...

The Coffee Grave Yard..

Ok, there is a coffee pot grave yard here at the house.  Coffee pots that no longer work, sitting collecting dust.  Since I personally do not drink coffee...but my husband and children do, I do not claim to be responsible for this one.  


It is safe to say that in this family -the coffee pot is like a friend.  So when it stops working, the family has a hard time to let it go...


"We" hang onto it like it will be resurrected or something.  With our hard lime water, it will not.  But the family hangs on, placing it on a shelf somewhere with plans someday to try to bring it back.  And before anyone asks, yes we have used the store products to try to remove the lime build up in the lines, and yes we have tried to use vinegar-but eventually it is just too bad and the coffee pot must be allowed to die.  I think if we owned the machine that is used to restart a human heart, my  husband would be heard yelling "clear!" as he attempts to shock the coffee pot back to life...  (ya know- that might work, it might remove the lime and build up from the lines in the coffee pot when the shock occurs!)


So now comes the coffee grave-yard-which is in my basement or at times- out in the garage.  Coffee pots that are no longer working, waiting for the trash but sitting instead on some shelf...

Here is the great temporary new friend...  temporary because it is the one used as a back up-only in an emergency when the larger version dies.  This is because it only makes about 4 cups of coffee at a time!  I am sure it will be replaced by a larger version soon and this one will again be placed on the emergency shelf..awaiting its turn to provide coffee for this coffee family.  Waiting fill in when in the future, the larger coffee pot -dies.

How To Use Stevia

Stevia Plant

A question was asked about using stevia.  


For me, sugar is very very sweet.  But so is honey for me!  I am not fond of extremely sweet things, possibly because I do not eat that way at all, so I taste the sweetness more so than others.  


I think the stevia plant is very sweet too!  One leaf taste to me like I am eating about a teaspoon of sugar!


But it has a low glycemic index (basically none) so healthier for everyone, esp me (I am a insulin / diabetic)


I experimented last fall with canning some pickles.  I love pickles, garlic kosher dills are my favorite, but I do like slightly sweet pickles too!  (one time I enjoy sugar!) But since I do not want the sugar I tried to substitute some stevia leaves for the sugar called when cooking/canning.  What I found was what tasted very sweet to me to directly place a leaf in my mouth, it took much more to get the desired effect from the plant when canning.  I did a 1/2 pint jar of pickles with about 5-6 leaves and it needed more.  


So to answer the question of how much to use?  Not sure.  (boy don't you love those type of answers!)


I suggest experimenting prior to the canning season (if you are planning on using the plant for canning) and purchase a few cucumbers from the store, canning up a few 1/2 pints now and testing them out.  I suggest 1/2 pints because they will be ready sooner than waiting weeks as for pints and quarts.  (my recipe has me wait about 6 weeks before opening a jar of pickles...)


I am also going to try to extract some sweetness from the plant-just like doing tinctures that I make for pregnancy and delivery...that can be used when cooking.  It will be in a liquid form when I am done.  I will be working on this from the stevia plant.  I will post later what I did and if it works or not-just need to let the plant grow some more first!


Hope that helps some....let us know what you find out as you experiment too!


Oh!  Have to show my first tomato is on and I can hardly wait until it is ready to eat!!! Ummmm!!!!!

Family Up-Date for the Farm...

Boy has it been a busy few weeks!  
Between "work", new babies, work around here in the farm,there has been no time to blog!


This week I turned 48.  Although we do not really celebrate birthdays, it does still mark another year older!  


Scott and I had planned to go out of town, to see our youngest son and his wife, (we wanted to anyway) but I have been busy helping to cover for another midwife, so those plans were canceled. 


 Then we thought maybe we would get the older three grand children for the weekend, and take them to the drive in, but that too had to change when I got busy this week with births!


So we plan to get the grand children another weekend!


We thought we would still try to go out for the evening...since we have not went out other than going out to dinner...and I have been wanting to go to the drive in for over a year. 
It is just something fun to do that we use to do all the time!


It worked to go this weekend, which happened to also be my birthday day...I did not think about that until two days before!  I actually forgot it was my birthday this weekend.  


Friday evening there was a storm that went thru...a really bad one.  So no trip to the drive in...since we would not be able to even see the show!  Instead we went Saturday evening. 


 The show began about 10:00 pm, and ended about 1:30 am.  We saw Marmaduke, and the A team.  It was like a blast from the past (that is a movie too!) seeing everyone sitting out in lawn chairs, or on top of their autos, children playing catch with a beach ball, and people just visiting!  Such a simple time it was years ago...when going to the drive in was a normal thing to do on the weekend...



We had a wonderful rest on Sabbath-but had a funeral in the morning, headed out to attend that and we went to the wrong place.  By the time we figured that out, and if we would have kept going -we would have ended up being late-over a half an hour so we did not go.  Frustrating to make such a stupid mistake. (so sorry Pat)

A week ago, we worked in the garden...here are some photos of my garden... above is some of the onions, cilantro (in bloom) broccoli, celery and pepper plant in the lower right corner...

Here is the lettuce...

 One of the pepper plants, (we have about 20-25 of them planted) see the small pepper started on the upper part of the plant...

One of the rosemary plants, and to the lower right of the photo is one of the stevia plants...you can see the chives in the back ground...

ok, need to get some things done then stop for the evening...keeping busy today too!

Greeted a wonderful little Amish baby girl this morning,the families first girl-they have a boy now that is a year old, so he is now a big brother.