Success!

 On the 27th day we saw a little chip of the shell missing and knew the show was starting. Even though all the websites said they would take 30 days, one of them started that late afternoon. Not much happen the rest of the night and we thought by time we woke up their would be a duckling waiting for us. When woke up though, not much change on the first one but the one next to it started cracking. The second one took only a hour or so and he had popped out. Maybe it was Miss E cheering it on, or it was just a smaller bird so it was easier for the duckling. Either way, we had a real live duckling that we hatched on our hands and everybody was really excited. The websites also say not to help the ducklings come out of the shells at all either. But, with my wife and daughter telling me not to, I new that something had to been done with the first one. I used a pair of tweezers and slowly broke away some the egg shell pieces and membrane, stopping every now and then to see if I had done enough for it to push out on its own. Eventually it got out and proved the reason it took so long. It was a a lot bigger then the first one that hatched even though they were made on the same date. It also had some of the shell stuck to its back which made it hard for it to push out. We are the now the proud owners of two ducklings with more to come.

Cheese

   When I picked up the goats I also bought two gallons of goat milk from the bredder for us to try and make different things with it. One of the things we wanted to try was cheese. I've made many different types of cheeses out of cow's milk before, but wanted to try to make a quick and simple cheese this time. After reading a couple different blogs and books on how to make what  people call Queso Blanco, I combined them to make this simple recipe. It's basically just curds seperated from the whey and squished together.
  
 


  
 I started with a gallon of milk and slowly heated it up to 190 degrees, which took about 20 minutes. Then I added 1/4 cup of vinegar, and kept the temperature at 190 for  15 minutes. I made sure to stir frequently while watching the curds separate from the whey. Once the 15 minutes was up I poured the curds and whey through a colander lined with butter muslin, but a couple layers of cheese cloth will work also. I also made sure to have a bowl under the colander to catch the whey, that way I could feed it to the pigs. I then sprinkled some course salt on the curds and stirred it up with my fingers. Then I tied up the corners of the cloth together and hung it on the faucet to drip off and form into a ball. After about three hours I took it off the faucet and untied. We first broke off some chunks and put it in the salad that night and then put the rest in the fridge where we have been slicing it for snacks and even used in a quiche. All in all the recipe turned out pretty good, it was a very easy, fast, and didn't take anything that we won't have on a regular occasion at the house. Even though it doesn't have any cultures in it, it still tasted good almost like a mozzarella. The only draw back to it is, because it uses vinegar instead of rennet it won't melt when heated. We won't be milking any goat milk until spring, but I think we'll be using this recipe with cow's milk until then.

What's A Couple More Kids?

Golden Rain "Goldie"

    We have been thinking of get goats for a while now, actually before Mr. T was born. Recently though, I started doing some research about different breeds and such, with the idea that we get them next year. We decide on the nigerian drawfs, with their high butterfat content and small size we thought that they we make a great addition to our farm. Even though they are small they still give a little more then a quart of milk a day.

Aspen "Penny"

    I went to go visit a breeder in New Hampshire who had a couple baby goats, because I wanted to see them and talk about what it takes to raise them. I was very adamant about how we were just looking and wanted to wait tell next year. She was very nice and told me everything I wanted to know. One of the things she told me was that the does take a year before you can breed them. When I left, she dangle the carrot in front of me and said that she still has one baby doe left and she'll throw in a baby whether to keep her company for a good price. A whether is a neutered buck. On the drive home a started thinking about how long it would be until we would have milk. If we waited tell next year, it would be a year before we could breed and we wanted babies in the spring. That means it would be 18 months before we would breed and all total three years from now until we would have milk. Way too long to wait. When I got home, with the wheels turning in my mine, I talked to my wife and decide to look into getting the two goats. When I emailed the woman about the goats, she  responded that right after I left someone called and put a deposit on the doe. Some would say that was a sign not to get goats right now. Not us.

   I contacted a breeder that was a lot closer to us and, some one who I talked to a couple years earlier about buying goat milk from her. She had a couple of baby does left and one that was 10 months old that would be ready to breed this winter, which means we could have milk next spring. She also said that we could use one of her bucks when it comes time to breed. The whole family went to visit the goats and everyone fell in love with them right then and there. The kids were not intimidated at all and were running around the yard with them, feed them anything they could. My wife was concerned about the taste of the milk because the milk we tried at the store had a funny after taste to it. I put a deposit down on the two that we wanted when we left, without trying any of the milk yet. The woman gave us a half a gallon of milk as we left. We went down the road a little bit and stopped to try the milk. My wife took a sip and gave me a thumbs up. Nothing like shooting from the hip. I tried the milk when we got home and it was very good. I actually had a big bowl of cereal for dinner with the milk, something I haven't done in years due to cow's milk bothering my stomach, and it didn't bother me at all.
   One of the reasons I was thinking of waiting a year was, now I had to put together a place for them to sleep and pen for them to run in. Now with everything else going on, I had to get something ready soon . I ended up making a stale underneath the lean-to of my shop, the same place where I made a quick pen for the pigs when they were young. I also put three cattle panels together to make a 16' x 16' run for them. With the short amount of time it actually came out all right. I made a hay feeder and water bucket holder for them and was ready to pick them up.

   Two weeks after we saw them I went to get them. The breeder let me use a crate she had lying around to put them in so they could ride together. We did some paper work, gave me some more milk, and put the goats in the crate and I was off. They did very good on the ride home all things considered. I put them in there new home and they seemed alright. When I would sit down with them Golden Rain (the little brown one)would jump right in my lap like she was a cat. Aspen seemed more content on eating the new leaves in the run. When I left to go in the house, Goldie would let out this awful cry. I thought she would settle down after awhile but, a couple hours after I left to go to work my wife called me and said that she had been crying the whole time. I left work early to see what was going on and ended up stay with them tell night time when they settled down. Its been a couple days now that we've had them and Goldie still cries for her mother, but every day gets less and less time she does it. It may take a little bit before she settles in completely.

Homemade Weekend

   This last weekend we experimented with making our own homemade food.
  BUTTER
We made butter using whipping cream that we bought at the store since we don't have access to any cream ourselves ( at least not yet). Although it was fun learning how butter is made, it didn't make sense financial due to cream costing so much compared to butter.

   What we did was pour the whipping cream into a mixer with the whisk attachment on it and turn it on medium speed, just like we do when making whipped cream. Once it starts to thicken, we turn it on high speed. After awhile the whipped cream started to form into crumbly texture, then I knew we were on to something. The mixture started to get really crumbly, until liquid started to form at the bottom of the bowl. We poured the liquid into another bowl so we can save it, I believe it's buttermilk . We kept mixing and stopping to pour, a couple of more rounds, until no more liquid came out. You're are supposed to pour clean water in the bowl and mix it then pour it out and do again until the water comes out clean. We forgot to do this step. We just made sure to store it in the fridge when done with the butter, that way the butter wouldn't rot due to buttermilk left in it. We then added salt and honey into it and mixed it one more time. After that we formed it with some waxed paper and tried it on some toast. Very good!

 CRACKERS
   We also made some gluten free and gluten crackers. We found a recipe online for for gluten free cheese crackers that my we made, and cut them out using a small cat shape cutter.

   Along with cheese crackers we also made some olive oil and herb crackers that we used with a dip for a party we went to. The square ones were made with flour and the rounds are gluten free.

 My wife also whipped up these lite little gluten free crackers that were for the party, but were mostly eaten up before we got there. All the crackers came out very delicious, especially the cheese ones.

Tires and Potatoes

   The potatoes are doing really well this year, and are growing tall. The trick of catching the potato beetles in a jar of soapy water also worked out. Only had to do it for about a week or two then they weren't around as often.

   Hang an old tire from a tree with some rope you had around the house, doesn't get much simpler then that.The kids have a blast on it, especially when I push them up really high. 

And now a post from the Crafting Corner

   In an effort to save us money and live a more self sufficient lifestyle, my wife has been honing her skills as a seamstress. Along with fixing tears and rips, she has been making all kinds of stuff for the kids. She has made beanbag games, to teach the kids colors and numbers. She has made kitty cat animals filled with corn to put around the girls necks. She has also made blankets and clothes for the kids.

   Recently she made a little place mat for Mr. T's birthday coming up. The place mat holds matchbox cars in the little pockets and folds up into little package to carry. She also repurposed some old towels by sewing hoods on them from old hand towels and sewing designs on the back for the kids to use at the pool or at camp.

   She just finished making some gift bags out of place mats, and adding handles on to them. She filled them up with preserves we made earlier in the year, and gave them to some people that helped us out with our daughter recently. If you happen to get one of these in the future, please try to do your best at being surprised.

The Clothes line
   This summer we put up two clothes lines, to try to cut down on the electric bill. It's been working out so far, the dryer doesn't run as much and the clothes smell awsome. The only problem with a clothes line in Maine is there aren't many days when you can you use them.

Things don't always go as planned

   We have been incubating Khaki Campbell duck eggs, and by this time we were thinking we would have a bunch of ducklings running around, but it didn't go as planned. We only have two female ducks, so we were only getting two eggs a day to put in the incubator. Khaki Campbell eggs take about 28 days to hatch, but around 20th day we noticed a smell coming from the incubator. It wasn't an unbearable smell, but still a smell like something was wrong. When we candled them around day 8 everything looked good, but when we candled them when the smell started we saw no movement or anything. We read that you are not supposed to wash the eggs when you get them from the coop because you'll take away the protective coat. With all the spots on the eggs  we were wondering if bacteria got into the eggs. The only thing that looked good was the air sack. We left them in the incubator hoping for the best, but after day 35 we decided that they didn't make it. I took them out into the woods and broke them open to see what happen. What I found was the egg that was the oldest had a pretty well formed duckling in it and the one that was ten days newer was not as well formed. That means that they all died at the same time. After talking to my wife she told me how my little boy was sitting up on the counter near the incubator, but she didn't notice him play with it.
When she checked on the eggs later she noticed that the temperature got turn way up. This is probably what killed the eggs.

   We are currently loading the incubator to try again. After doing some more research we are going to try some more things to insure are success, including keeping little hands away from the temperature knob. I have a couple of chickens that like to sit on their eggs; they also get mad at me when I take the eggs. I tried putting duck eggs under them to see if they would hatch them, but they don't stay on the eggs long enough to keep them warm. Sometimes a chicken won't be a duck.