Sunday, November 4, 2012

Milk

Glorious raw goats milk. Two days into milking and all is going great. Clover ( the baby) is also going great though she does seem to favour one side more then the other so I am making sure I take more out of the other side when I am milking. My milking process is quiet simple I don't even have a milking stand. We have a small meat house behind our house and this is where I store all the animal food. So what I do is around 8.30 am ( this is when i get back from the school bus drop of) I take Moonie up to the meat house shut the door behind us so she can not get out and place a bucket of feed in front of her. She is quiet happy to just stand and eat I then give her teats a quick clean, strip the first little bit of milk out then away I go. Moonie isn't a friendly goat when out in the paddock she will only come to you if you have a bucket of feed, so it has been a huge relief that she is so easy to milk. I am only milking her once a day and the Clover has access to her 24/7. So far I seem to be getting just under 2 litres of milk a day ( 2 quart jars full) which  is plenty for us, for our day to day needs and for me  to start making some cheese. So be warned there will more then likely be a few cheese making post coming soon.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

A Little Girl



Its so exciting. I had a feeling Moonie ( that's the doe) was pregnant but thought that she wasn't that far along. On Friday night around 10 pm I heard a funny sound outside and thought it was a fox, as we have been having a bit of problems with the foxes. Instead of it been a fox there was two tiny little kids. As soon as I looked at them I could see one was a lot more alert and active then the other but I assumed that  the more active one was the first born. I dried the little boy of and left them with there mum. The next day the little boy still wouldn't stand, I gave him some milk but he wouldn't suck. Sadly we had to make the decision to put him down as after two days he still showed no sign of having any sucking reflex's and he still wasn't standing. So far this experience has been a mixture of emotions. Trying to reason with Lincoln has been the hardest, he is really upset by it all. However we now have one beautiful little girl kid that the children have named Clover and we also have fresh goats milk.




Thursday, October 25, 2012

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Joining in with SouleMama

Thursday, October 18, 2012

this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Joining in with SouleMama






Wednesday, October 10, 2012

New additions

Well we ended up getting the goats I mentioned in the last post. Three Does, one Buck and one Kid ( which is also a boy). So far they are settling in great they are very calm and quiet. They are all Anglo Nubians, which is a milking breed. So including Ninny I will have four does I can milk next year.






Tuesday, September 25, 2012

..

This year is rushing by but in a good way I feel like every time I got to town I buy more fencing supplies but we are yet to actual start fencing.
fencing the to be veggie garden
fencing the to be orchard
fencing a goat yard, which if all goes to plan will be holding 6 goats not 1 .
 Since we moved the children have turned into free range children.
They are all about exploring,  the dogs go with them every where and they spend lots of time looking for hidden treasures in the long grass and getting up to mischief.











Sunday, July 8, 2012

A little farm to call home

Its been so long since I have been on here.. lots of good stuff has been happening.
We have a new family member Henry the english pointer, he is still a puppy and his favourite past time is to chew on things. 
Me an the kids have been busy moving out west more in to the upper hunter valley. Its all been very exciting and stressfull at the same time.
 So far we have been
Exploring 
Planting out garlic that my dad started for me (thanks Dad)
Watching the local wedge tail eagle
Puting up our rustic home made mail box









Thursday, March 22, 2012

So much to do and so little time

Really sums up how this month has felt. More then once I would of loved to have had a pause button.
The last 9 days in particular went way to fast. Rob and I left the kids with family and headed to Qld for Emma and Clayten's Wedding which both me and rob were apart of so I don't have any photos of the wedding. We spent two nights on the way up near Bundarra fishing and chilling  and on the way home we spent two nights at Coffs Harbour with the kids and family.






Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Starting

Starter. I have had attempted this a couple of times in the past, the best I achieved was a funky smelling goop that did not result in anything. This time around I borrowed The River Cottage Handbook No 3 - Bread from my local library. The only thing I have did different this time around to in the past was I used my Kenwood mixer to mix the batter for 10 min as was suggested in the book. The results while the weren't instant, they were obvious over the first week. I started by mixing 1 cup spelt flour with 1 cup of water and mixing with food mixer for 10 Min's then this step was repeated every day for the next 7 days and each time I would take half the starter out ( its great to add when making piklets, you don't need to waste it). I didn't always add 1 cup some days was half a cup, from what I have read it doesn't matter as long as it is equal volumes of water to flour.
After a couple of hours the first bubbles started to form, this is a good thing. It means the starter is fermenting.
First feed, the starter grew quickly the first photo is after 2 hrs and the 2 nd photo is after 6 hrs.  After 7 days I  used the starter to make my first ever sourdough bread. The process is slightly different to making bread with yeast but in no way more complicated.
Two loaves I made a day apart the loaf which is rectangle was risen an cooked in a bread tin, while the other was risen and baked an a standard baking tray.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

T is for

Tomatoes.Yesterday I got 3 boxes of tomatoes, maybe I was just excited but it didn't  seam like much. That was until I got home. Depending on how you want to look at it, 3 boxes equals 30 kgs of Roma tomatoes, 1 day slaving in the kitchen or 46 jars of final product. Using  a mincer to separate the skin an seed made a huge difference time wise, I would hate to think how long it would of taken me if I had to do it all by hand. All the onions an garlic added was from my garden and thanks to this the total cost was $45. So while it was a long day making all the sauce then bottling it, it was well worth it.





Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Food for free

 

I have mentioned before about finding food for free .
This time it was blackberries that are growing wild on my Dads place but there are lots of spots where they grow wild on the side of the road.







End result three yummy pies, two for the freezer and one has already been eaten.