Jewels of June

Herding Hens
One of our border collies, Marly, is 12 years old and spends more time in the grass lazing around than working with the sheep or goats.  He was herding the hens for awhile and then flopped down to rest and keep an eye on them.

Gender Hopping
You would think an experienced rabbit raiser would know better. Last year I tried to breed a rabbit for four months. I understand that there is no such thing as a rabbit that cannot be bred but I was convinced that I had the only unbreedable rabbit on the planet. Perhaps she didn’t like guys? Perhaps she was already bred? After the four months of every day “put her in with the buck stint”, we slaughtered her – and lo and behold she was a boy with testicles the size of quarters. So last fall I made extra sure that the boys were boys and the girls were girls. We slaughtered the boys and kept the girls for spring breeding. By April 1st all of the does were bred for May 1 kindling. Except one. Every day for thirty days I put her in with the buck. Nothing. Not that the buck was not interested. He just kept trying and trying and the deed was never done. So I checked her sex. Yup. A female. I found three dead kits in her cage. Could she have been bred when my back was turned? The doe in the adjacent cage was due so I was not sure if the kits were from the doe next door that crawled into the unbred doe cage and died. So for the next thirty days I put her in with the buck. Nothing. I did a little research to see if there was such a thing as a hermaphrodite rabbit. The rabbit expert explained how to palpate for underdeveloped male rabbit anatomy. Bet you don’t read this stuff everyday! So I checked to see if there was an anatomical problem according to the expert instructions. Sure was. She is a boy. Where the penis has been hiding for the past six months who knows. It’s not a normal looking penis but it’s there and explains the unbreedable rabbit. I concluded that my unbreedable doe has an incompletely closed penile shaft characteristic of a condition called pseudohermaphroditism. Something new to learn every day. So she is not a hermaphrodite – she is a he with deformity. Will he taste differently?

Just Because I Bragged
Never brag. About anything. The times I remember shamelessly bragging came back to bite me in the ass. Hard. I was bragging to a group of people at a conference last week that although farm chores are endless, at least I did not have horses to take care of anymore… Since my daughter left last spring for an internship at Welywn Stables in Rhinebeck and took her two thoroughbreds with her, the days of mucking stalls, scraping together enough cash for hay, grain and shavings, putting blankets on, taking blankets off, farrier bills, fencing issues and then finding the time to ride, were over. The VERY next day my daughter called me to tell me that she volunteered me to take care of her older thoroughbred that she had been leasing and that Montecello “Monty” was coming home for a few months. And because he was fully clipped for the winter show season, he could not be thrown out in the pasture. He needed blankets on and off, sheets on and off, groomed regularly and hooves picked. And, “Oh by the way”, she added before she hung up, “he needs a pony to keep him company.” The horse barn hasn’t had a horse in it for a while and the stalls are now occupied by kid goats, yearling goats and piglets. We rushed to move all the kid goats into another barn, remove all the nails, clips and pointy edges from the stall, pack in new bedding with shavings and salvage the rubber horse buckets from the dairy. We set up the round pen because Tom didn’t want the pasture pugged up or the grass would not grow. We worked endlessly for three days to get ready for his arrival. I even put up his old brass name plaque next to his stall door, made him a Welcome Home sign. That was in April. Now the pastures are lush with grass and Monty is out on the fields. He has a stream, trees and cows. As long as he thinks he is a cow there is no need for pony. Thank goodness.



Monty bossing the cows



Monty with the cattle

Montecello

Nicole arrives in time to Slaughter Chickens
Our new intern Nicole arrived two weeks ago. Since her cabin has not been built, she is living in the trailer. The first week was very hot and she worked very hard. We were worried that the combination of heat, our crazy family and slaughtering chickens the third day on the job would do her in. She survived it all and has been a great addition to our family and farm. Her main job is taking care of the broiler hens.  What a blessing to have someone ask, “What can I help you with?” Music to my ears. We are looking forward to a fun summer with Nicole.

One day old chicks in brooder

Nicole with ready to slaughter broiler chickens

The Garden
I built the pea fence but did not get the peas into the ground until June 1. “It’s too hot, they won’t grow,” my family chorused. I built the fence therefore they will grow. There are peas breaking through the ground. After all it was 90 degrees three days ago and yesterday we had a frost. They will grow.

Memorial Day – Summer in Full Swing
What a way to start the summer. Memorial Day weekend was packed with three farmers markets, Fable on Saturday night and Fable for brunch on Sunday and Bed & Breakfast guests. Busy is great; but why does it all happen at once?

We enjoyed our Fable guests this weekend. Lots of new people were visiting the area for the holiday. We love meeting new people and discovering their connection to the Catskills and to food and our farm. Guests share their favorite recipes, wines and adventures. The Memorial Day Fable dinner was a mix of wild spring food like dandelions caper butter and Japanese Knotweed and Rhubarb compote. Did you know that nasturtium buds taste like capers too? For dandelion capers – pick the flower bud when it is small and tight. Put in a jar with olive oil and kosher salt. Voila – capers! We are continuing our celebration of spring for the June 11 Fable dinner with the best of spring including smoked trout, spinach and rhubarb.
Amuse:  smoked trout with honeyed horseradish
Starter:  printemps soup
Main:  spring chicken roasted with lemon balm and sage and peas in pods with lemon verbena sauce
After: baby spinach greens with spicy rhubarb dressing
Dessert:  strawberry sundae with rhubarb compote

Here’s the recipe for Printemps soup
Printemps Soup
Servings: 10
1/4 cup butter
1 pound leeks, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 quarts water or chicken stock
3 large potatoes, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
1 bunch fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
4 teaspoons salt
1/2 pound fresh spinach
1 cup heavy cream

1. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the leeks and onion, and cook until tender.

2. Pour water into the pot. Mix in potatoes, carrots and asparagus. Season with salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes, until vegetables are tender.

3. Stir spinach and heavy cream into the soup mixture, and continue cooking about 5 minutes before serving.

Hope to see you at the farm or Fable soon.  In the meantime, enjoy the photo tour of Stone & Thistle Farm. 




View of Farm from Mountain

Irises in hen wagon field

Green Green Pastures



Scottish Highland Crosses





Rabbiting at Stone & Thistle Farm

Rabbit Rerun
Meat rabbits have been part of our farm family for nine years. When my children were young, we asked each of them to pick a “business” on the farm that they could manage independently. They were responsible for the whole project from daily animal care to recording revenue and expenses. We provided them with “seed” money and supervised their project. Katey picked rabbits to raise. We brought her to visit Charlie at Rabbit Tracks farm in Davenport and she chose two meat breeds: a New Zealand buck and three California Red does. Charlie showed her how to keep records for breeding, kindling and general care. We bought Raising Rabbits the Modern Way by Bob Bennett. Katey and Tom built rabbit hutches and bought feeders and water bottles.

Katey nine years old with her first breeding doe

Since Katey left home to be a working student at Welwyn Stable in Rhinebeck and abandoned her rabbits to lavish her love on horses, I have taken over her rabbit business.  The first thing I did was cull (slaughter – no waste; we ate them) any of the does (females) that were producing less than four kits (baby rabbits) per kindling (birth).  I kept young does out of two litters and bred them to the older buck. After several unsuccessful breedings and small litters of one, even two kits, I realized that the buck was too old.  In November, I culled the old buck (male) and bought a young, just old enough to breed buck.   Shane named him Bernard.

Winter is tough on rabbits so we provide the breeding does with cages in the barn and pack them tight with hay for warmth.  We wait until spring to breed them because the kits won’t survive in the sub-zero temperatures. Now that spring has arrived, it’s kindling time again! Using the young buck Bernard, I bred the does in March.  What they say about rabbits is not necessarily true.  Bernard was not interested in the does. Like Ferdinand the Bull, he was much more interested in smelling the green hay in his hutch.  He cowered in the corner of the hutch and stared at the doe intruder.  The Raising Rabbits manual suggested using younger, inexperienced does with Bernard since the older does may be intimidating and too agressive (so much for the older woman initiation theory.) Putting young does in several times with him would make him comfortable with breeding. And to get him in the "mood" the book suggested I tickle his sides.   I felt ridiculous getting a rabbit in the "mood", but the session worked and he bred the first doe’s head.  It took a few days for Bernard to figure out heads from tails but he finally successfully bred doe #1.  How do I know he was successful?  All bucks are different, but most of them seize and fall over on their side as if dead when the “deed is done.”  The first time my daughter bred a doe she ran off screaming for help believing that her buck was dead.  Thank goodness, to the best of my knowledge, she has not had therapy as a result of that incident.

I marked the due dates on the calendar (30 days from breeding) and a few days before the due dates, place nest boxes in their hutches. The boxes are filled with wood shavings and hay.  A few days before the does are due to kindle, they begin building their nests.  They gather the hay in their mouth and build a deep nest in the box. 

Doe gathering hay for her nest

The doe finishes building the nest with fur that they have pulled out from their chests. Some does begin pulling hair out weeks before their due date and they are practically bald at kindling time. Others pull their hair out a few  hours before they kindle.  I still get excited about opening the hutch in the morning and find the fur nest moving and wriggling.

The Nest box with newborn kits in a nest of fur, hay, shavings 

One day old kit





5 week old kits hopping in and out of their nest box

The doe nurses her kits only once or twice a day. In ten days, the kits open their eyes and in three weeks they are hopping out of the next box.

By six weeks, the doe is rebred and the kits are put in rabbit cages that move on pasture.



The cages are dragged on pasture twice a day. The growing kits have ample room to run and bounce. 

The Rabbit Cage Fleet 

Doe and her 5 week kits in pastured rabbit cage on the farm

The young rabbits or fryers are slaughtered on the farm at around 12 -14 weeks.The slaughter process is very simple and takes five minutes. The skin comes off in one pull. It makes a good muff when scraped, salted and tanned. The head and feet are discarded. Often falconers will use the head and feet for training their prey birds.

Tom slaughtering a rabbit

Rabbit meat is delicious. Older rabbits are made into rabbit stew. Stew can include almost any vegetable. Here is one of my basic rabbit stew recipes.

Rabbit Stew
4-6 Servings
3 - 4 lbs rabbit
6 potatoes, quartered
8 carrots, sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup beef consomme
3/4 cup beef broth
3/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon basil
2 bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon rosemary
1/4 teaspoon thyme


1 Cut rabbit into pieces. Layer onion, potatoes, and carrots in bottom of a crock pot. 2 Add spices to the pot. 3 Add rabbit, salt, pepper, consommé, and about 3/4 cup beef broth. 4 Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Thicken gravy as desired. Serve with sweet potato biscuits.


Young rabbits or fryers are sautéed with garlic and butter and fresh chives or parsley. This is my favorite recipe that we serve mid summer at Fable using almost ripe pears from our neighbor’s pear trees.


Braised Rabbit with Pears Recipe
Serves 4
2 young rabbits, each cut into 6 to 8 pieces
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
3 cups dry red wine
1 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 firm, slightly not-quite-ripe pears; skin removed, cored and halved
3 tablespoons chilled butter


Directions:
Season rabbit pieces and dust lightly with flour. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and saute for 3 - 4 minutes. Add rabbit pieces and brown each evenly. Add wine, broth, vinegar, sugar, bay leaves, rosemary and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add pears to the pan, cover and simmer for 30 minutes more. Remove rabbit and pears and arrange on plates. Remove bay leaves and rosemary from pan. Whisk in butter until melted and spoon sauce over rabbit.


The Updike
Tom makes a great rabbit linked sausage with rabbit, pork, apple, salt, garlic and spices. We sell it in our farm store and at the farmers markets.


Rabbit Workshops
Tom recently gave a rabbit slaughtering presentation at the Callicoon market to a large group of people who are raising or thinking of raising rabbits for food. We held a rabbit workshop last summer and will repeat it this year if folks are interested. A description of the workshop:


Rabbit to Roaster
Rabbits are caged raised during kindling and transferred to pasture cages at weaning. See the rabbitry and pastured rabbit cages. Learn how to raise rabbits on pasture. Learn how to slaughter rabbits and break down the rabbits into parts used for stewing, braising, sautéing and grilling. A rabbit meat inspired lunch will be served. In Fable, the farm’s restaurant, participants will work together to prepare dinner using all parts of the rabbit (including the liver and kidneys) Dinner will be accompanied by the seasonal dairy and produce raised and harvested on the farm.

You don’t have to be a farmer to raise rabbits for meat. A backyard hutch is easy to make and works well for three to four does. And the slaughter process is so quick and easy that every family should be adding rabbit meat to their diets. The French eat a lot of rabbit and every farmers market in France sells live rabbits which are slaughtered a at the market or at home. We don’t have to be French to eat rabbit. Hop right into rabbit raising or buy rabbit meat at the farmers market Bon Lapintite!

Farmer selling live rabbits at Bayeux Market in Normandy France

Cheese Please and Do you Fondue?

Cheese Please!
Did you know that small dairies in New York State producing value-added products such as cheese increased 38% in the past two years? Let’s hope that these new cheese makers are getting the education, financial and labor support they need to succeed. We are lucky to have two cheese makers in our neighborhood. Linda Smith of Sherman Hill Farmstead in Franklin, NY makes incredible goat milk cheese and last year applied her talents (quite successfully) to making cow cheese. She built an aging room and is producing incredible hard, soft and fresh cheese. On the other side of us in Jefferson, NY, Ron and Corinne Brovetto of Harpersfield Cheese are wizards of cheese production whipping up amazing tilsit with hops, lavender, basil and tomato. New flavors are added each season. I am looking forward to sampling their new flavors although the raw cheese remains my favorite. So with all this great cheese at our fingertips, we are inspired to eat beyond the cheese plate and cook with cheese.

Do you Fondue?
My parents threw fondue parties in the 1960’s. I have fond memories of dipping chewy breads and al dente vegetables into thick bubbling cheese. For dessert, we dunked chunks of pound cake, whole strawberries, and slices of apples and bananas in simmering chocolate. Meat fondue was only served at adult parties because my mother was epileptic about hot oil spitting and splattering within arms' reach. As my parents happily sipped their martinis (from which we would steal the gin-soaked olives in the morning) we spent the evening sword fighting with our fondue forks. En Garde! At Fable’s February Second Saturday Supper we resurrected the fondue and enjoyed dipping chunks of sizzling beef, smoked ham bites, bacon and sausage in bubbling pots of local cheese. In deference to mom, we used broth not oil to cook the meats. For the cheese fondue, Sherman Hill Farmstead’s Heathen Hill cow cheese is a must.

Ready to fondue? So what do you need to fondue? We use the traditional fondue pots with tea candles to keep the pot warm but fondue pots are commonly fueled by electric or sterno. Fondue pots are easy to find at flea markets and yard sales and fondue forks can usually be found in boxes of odds and ends. Here’s a simple cheese fondue recipe for bread. Watch the pot so the cheese does not burn and don’t substitute the wine or kirsh!

Cheese Fondue
Serves 4

1 garlic clove, halved
8 oz Sherman Hill Farmstead Heathen Hill or Gruyere, grated
8 oz Emmenthaler or other Swiss cheese, grated
1 heaping tablespoon cornstarch
10 oz dry white wine (not vermouth)
3 oz kirsch
1 teaspoon nutmeg

One day-old baguette or other crusty bread, cut into inch cubes. If you only have fresh bread, cut it into cubes, spread the cubes on a cookie sheet and put it in a 200-degree oven to dry out.

Rub the inside of the fondue pot with the garlic halves and leave the garlic in the pot. Grate the cheese; put it all in a gallon-sized zipper bag along with the cornstarch. Shake it up so the cornstarch is evenly distributed amongst the cheese. Heat the wine in the fondue pot on the stovetop; add the cheese just before the wine boils. Lower the heat to medium and add the cheese a bit at a time, stirring in a zig-zag motion, not in a circular motion (this apparently keeps the cheese from balling up, a very big fondue faux pas). Once all the cheese is in the pot, keep stirring; the cheese should be bubbling happily along but don't let it get too happy or it will start to burn. Add the kirsch and stir it for another five minutes or so, until it's thick and creamy. Stir in nutmeg.

Light the fondue burner and move the pot from the stove to the fondue stand. Spear a piece of bread with the fondue fork, stick it in the cheese, stir it around, pull it out, eat it. Repeat repeatedly

Ready to graduate to Meat Fondue?
Because of my mother’s fear of splattering hot oil, I most often use this fondue recipe for meat which uses chicken or meat broth, not hot oil.

Meat Fondue
3 cups chicken stock or beef broth (homemade is best)
3/4 cup dry white wine
2 Tbsp garlic (chopped)
2 tsp rosemary (dry or fresh)
2 tsp oregano (dry or fresh)

Saute the garlic in a splash of the stock for about a minute, just to bring out the flavor. Add the white wine and deglaze any garlic on the pan, and let evaporate for about two minutes. Finally, add stock and herbs and bring to a slow boil. The broth is ready to cook your meat! Use these time estimates for your raw meat and veggies:

Beef (steak) 2-3 minutes (Depends how rare you like it).
Chicken 3-5 minutes (Make sure there is no pink in the meat).
Seafood 1-3 minutes
Veggies: Broccoli, zucchini and mushrooms 2-3 minutes, potatoes 5-8 minutes (just dump them in and scoop them out with a slotted spoon).


Fondue Etiquette and Trivia
Fondue comes from Switzerland but it is not an old, traditional Swiss dish. Fondue was invented in the 1950's when the Swiss cheese industry was sluggish. As a marketing ploy to get people to eat more cheese, the cheese industry launched a Fondue campaign. Marketers discovered that a person ate ½ lb cheese or more when they fondued.

Fondue etiquette: Always stir the cheese when you put your forked bread in the pot; it helps keep the mixture smooth. Never eat your cheese directly from your fondue fork then stick it back into the cheese. Double dipping is not nice for the other eaters (unless you're all family or friendly enough that no one cares, or if everyone has had enough wine not to care).
A traditional fondue custom straight from the Swiss Alps: Men who drop their dippers into the fondue must buy the host a bottle of wine or give the next fondue party, while women who make the fondue faux pas must kiss all the men present.

Cheese Trivia
Tune into WIOX 91.3 radio for Watershed Wednesday’s Farm Chatter for the answers!

1. What is the difference between chevre and chevon and chevron?

2. Why was cheese popular in ancient Greece and Rome but butter and fresh milk was not?

3. Americans eat how much per person per week of cheese? ½ lb; 1 lb; ¼ lb?

4. How much of the U.S.’s yearly supply of milk is turned into cheese? ¾, ¼ or ½ ?

5. A law for local? From 1935 to 1937 state law in Wisconsin required restaurants to serve 2/3 ounce of Wisconsin butter and 2/3 ounce of Wisconsin cheese with every meal served. True or False?

6. Why is blue cheese called blue cheese? Eating the cheese cures the blues; mold spores produce blue green veins in the cheese; Monsieur Bleu invented blue cheese.

7. Which nation eats the most cheese? Italy, France or Greece?

8. What is turophilia? Fear of tourists, the habit of shouting “turo” after consuming a lot of wine or the love of cheese?

9. Why is some cheese more yellow than others? Cheese makers add marigold petals to imitate the yellow imparted by beta carotene found in the cow or goat’s pasture diet; the cow or goat’s main diet is pasture; yellow dye is added to the cheese.

10. What is the difference between cheese, processed cheese and cheese food? If you have ever accidentally grabbed American cheese slices with cheese food in very small letters on the label, you know the difference by taste.

Last Saturday Supper of the Season at Fable
The last Saturday Supper of the season at Fable is April 9th. We are celebrating the arrival of the Easter bunny by eating his cousins. Join us for maple sausage stuffed apple; rabbit pot pie with horseradish whipped potatoes, spring greens and baked apple shortbread with pepper cream. Wine suggestions available at Fable by the glass or bottle are Brotherhood 2004 Merlot or Heron Hill Game Bird Red. Fable is open for the season for Saturday weekly dining May 28th. We are going to have some fun this year with guest chefs, innovative cooking methods and unique eating styles. More to come.

New York State Farmstead & Artisan Cheese Makers Guild Annual Meeting
For current, new and interested cheese makers. Hobnob with New York State cheese makers and learn about the regulatory, production and sales challenges. Get the skinny on how fast cheese makers are growing in NYS!

Wednesday April 20th 10 am to 4 pm at Kortright Creek Creamery at Stone & Thistle Farm 1211 Kelso Road East Meredith 13757 607-278-5800. Enjoy pot luck lunch and cheese sampling and presentation by Dave Barbano from Northeast Dairy Research Center at Cornell University on potential legislative changes involving raw milk cheeses and on milk chemistry research. Please bring: Lunch to share and samples of your cheese; questions, ideas and comments for Guild membership and the upcoming year’s calendar; photos or announcements about your farm and products.

For information contact:
Nancy Taber Richards
Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese Company
5491 Bergen Road
Trumansburg, NY 14886
607-387-3108 nancy@fingerlakes-cheese.com  or the guild’s website: www.nyfarmcheese.org

Get your Goat?



No Kidding – We’re kidding

Kidding season is in full swing. The first kid goats were born in February’s subzero temperatures. Unless we were at the freshening, some of them did not make it. We also lost a few ear tips from the cold. We have 20 females and 20 males on the ground with ten more does to freshen. All of the yet-to-freshen does are yearlings and we need to pay special attention when they are freshening. We breed for milk production not mothering skills and some of the yearlings are downright bad mothers. They freshen and walk away from the kid(s) without cleaning them and getting them on their feet. After such a painful ordeal, they can’t imagine that there is more “work” to do like making sure their kids are on their feet and nursing. So we have to be in the barn to swoop them up, dry them off and bring them inside for warmth and their first bottles. At any time, there is one to ten goats in my kitchen.

There's A Goat in My Kitchen (Again!)

Normally freshening occurs without much intervention/interference from us. But this year we had three difficult deliveries which required pushing the kid back in, rearranging the head and legs and guiding the kid back through the birth canal. There was a breech delivery which required pulling so hard that I was worried that the kid’s legs would disengage from the body. The kids are tagged with colored and numbered ear tags – yellow for the females and green for the males. The numbers are then logged into an Excel spread sheet so we know who is who.



Kids in Orbit - Pan Feeding



The Bottle Rack Feeding Method



We are building a creamery on the farm to bottle our milk and make yogurt and cheese.  The creamery’s equipment is being paid for by a USDA grant but like all monies tied into the government, the project is delayed by funds disbursement.  So as soon as we are inspected we can begin raw goat milk sales but will not be selling goat milk products until summer.  As a result, we decided to keep the males on their moms so they will grow really fast and fetch us good prices for the Easter markets.  The males that are nursing their moms are almost twice as big as the bottlefed males.   The nursed male kids have 24/7 access to the mom milk bar and the females and bummer lambs (lambs without a mom) are bottle fed twice a day.   We milk the does, pasteurize the milk and feed it back to the kids.  Why?  Mostly for prevention from caprine and ovine diseases such as CAE and Johnnes.  We have used different methods over the years for raising kid goats.  We’ve used a lamb bar or suck-it-bucket which is a bucket with ten nipples attached to it.  The warm, pasteurized milk is poured in the bucket; the bucket is hung over the pen and the 12 goats go at it.  The problem with this method is that some goats get more than others; when the fastest sucking goat is done it moves over to the next nipple and bumps the kid out of the way.  The domino bumping continues and one or two kids get very little milk.  The other method is pan feeding; most cow dairies pan feed their calves.  The kids are not efficient at lapping milk like calves and digestion problems become a huge issue. Clots of curded milk are lodged in their rumens and they eventually die.  The third method is the rack.  Individual bottles with nipples attached are inserted into the rack and the rack is hung over the side of the goat pen.  The design of the rack is not perfect.  If you don’t supervise, the domino bumping occurs and the bottles pop out of the top of the rack. But this method is much more efficient than hand bottle feeding, which we are doing now.  We are hand bottling 28 kids and lambs.  When Riley was living with us, he was able to hold two bottles in each hand and one between his legs.  The problem with the bottle acrobatics is that when one the first goat finishes – your hands are occupied and you can’t easily protect the fast sucking intruder from hijacking a bottle in your other hand.  

The kid goats are bottle fed for eight to twelve weeks. The cuteness factor dissolves after a few feedings and everyone on the farm looks forward to the last bottle feeding of the season. The weaning process begins at about eight weeks – the kids are eating hay and pasture and small quantities of grain at this point. We bottle feed only once a day for a week or two and then every other week for a week. It is a great day when we can throw out the nipples, the soda bottles and store the rack in the top of the barn until its use next spring.  

Goats in Horse Barn playing King of Goat Mountain

The kids and bummer lambs are housed in the former horse barn. We have not horses in that barn for five years but I have a feeling that it will forever be called the horse barn. Barrels are placed on their sides for sleeping and cuddling corners and a couple of platforms are in the middle of the pens for the goats to play on. At two to three weeks, the female kid goats are disbudded; their horns are burned off with a disbudding iron. We used to keep the horns on the goats but it is difficult for the milking does to get their heads in the milking stands and we were constantly rescuing horned goats from entanglement in fences and feeders. Also, horned goats have an advantage and their typical goat play (rearing up and bashing heads) is dangerous for a non horned goat. While the horns are great handles for escorting them to and fro, we have had a few accidental piercings of hands of foreheads.

 

Let Me Entertain You - Let me Make you Smile!



The Hay Feeder Rubbed the Hair off our Noses!



Yearling Goats in Horse Barn



Why goat milk versus cow milk? Most people who drink goat milk are not able to drink cow milk because of lactose intolerance. While goat milk has the same percentage of lactose and fat, it is easier to digest because the fat globules do not bind together and are more easily digested and nutrients more efficiently absorbed. Many people believe that goat milk tastes “bucky” or “goaty”. I enjoy dispelling this myth with the Udder Challenge – comparing the taste of goat milk to cow’s milk with adventuresome milk tasters. Over half of the tasters cannot distinguish the cow milk from the goat milk. If goat milk tastes like the smell of a buck or a goat, it is most likely because the milk was improperly handled such as leaving it unrefrigerated for a while.

Recipes for Goat Milk
Raw goat milk is the best. The milk holds the flavor of the grasses, herbs and browse that the goats are eating. The flavors of the seasons are celebrated in the fresh milk. In the spring, the goat milk has a green, tangy taste from new grass and is buttercup yellow from the dandelion flowers. When the mint appears streamside, the milk, even as it is milked out of the udders, wafts of fresh mint. By June and by July the distinct taste of wild thyme flavors the milk. In late summer, the taste of hawthorn berries, wild blackberries and raspberries dominates the milk. By autumn, the milk is deeper flavored and more concentrated with taste traces of leaves, mosses, earth and apples.

My favorite goat milk recipe is Cajeta, a Mexican caramel that is drizzled over ice cream or pound cake or eaten with a spoon right out of the jar.

Cajeta
2 quarts of goat's milk
2 cups sugar
1 large, plump vanilla bean, preferably Mexican, split open (or substitute 1 tablespoon pure Mexican vanilla extract)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
1.  In a large, heavy pot (not iron), combine the milk, sugar, and vanilla, and place over medium heat. Stir regularly until the milk comes to a simmer and sugar is dissolved. Remove the pot from the heat and add dissolved baking soda; it will bubble up. When the bubbles have subsided, return it to the heat.
2.  Adjust heat so that the mixture is simmering briskly but not boiling. Cook, stirring regularly, until the mixture turns pale golden, about two hours.
3.  The milk should be stirred regularly as it begins to thicken and turns a caramel-brown color. Don't allow the milk to stick to the bottom of the pot. You can drop a few drops into a small glass of water. If a soft ball forms, the cajeta is ready.
4.  If you take the pot off the heat and allow the cajeta to cool, it should be a medium-thick sauce. If it's too thick, add hot water, 1 tablespoon at a time until it is the proper consistency. If it is too thin, return to the heat until it thickens.
5.  When the cajeta is cool, remove the vanilla bean. Strain the cajeta through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl or wide-mouthed jar, then scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the cajeta. Refrigerate until ready to use. Cajeta is best served warm.

It is difficult to make goat milk cream as goat milk is naturally homogenized. It requires a separator.  We make a lot of goat milk fudge, ice cream and chevre.  Spring's offerings of chives and dandelions mixed in the chevre is a little slice of heaven.  

What is your favorite recipe with goat milk?



It's in the Soup and Good Farm and Food Reads

It’s in the Soup

My dad sent me a new cookbook last week - Earthbound Harvest – a collection of stories and recipes from the organic vegetable farm in Carmel, California, The book opens with a story of how the farm grew from a ramshackle road stand to a multinational corporation. The beginning recipe section is a celebration of soup. The first recipe is for Nan’s Tomato Rice Soup made with canned tomato juice, beef short ribs, onions, celery and rice. Simple. Perfect. This chapter, which also includes chicken parmesan soup, shrimp and corn chowder, curried garnet yam soup, pear and fennel soup and butternut, white bean and chard soup, inspired me to begin a journey discovering soup. Not only is soup the perfect meal for fending off the chills of February, it is the ideal way to glorify leftovers and make use of the canned harvest in the cellar pantry. My husband was searching for celery to dice into the egg salad. The celery? It’s in the soup! Cranberries? It’s in the soup! Cinnamon bread? It’s in the soup! Now my family peers first into the stock pot to see if the food for which they are searching is in the soup.

Soup for breakfast? Absolutely. A steaming bowl of broth is perfect. After morning chores, instead of another cup of coffee (so much caffeine), I curl my cold fingers around a bowl of meat broth. The freezer is full of stock so I started canning it. Some people are paranoid about running out of half and half or toilet paper; I worry about running out of stock or broth. So every chicken or turkey or rabbit carcass, every pork or lamb chop or beef bone relives as broth. And every nib of onion, celery, turnip, carrot or leek is thrown into the pot. Good stock is like a strong foundation; it is easy to build something great from good stock. Soup is a diary of what we have eaten during the week. Leftover rice, vegetables, meats, chutneys are thrown together to create soup. Jackson Pollock probably made great soup. Making soup is as creatively satisfying as painting or sculpting but more so because it nourishes us.

Nan’s Tomato Rice Soup
From The Earthbound Book by Myra Goodman

3 lbs beef short ribs on the bone untrimmed
2 large onions, cut in half through the stem end
4 ribs celery including leaves
2 large cans (64 ounces each) tomato juice (from my canned tomatoes)
1 cup long grain white rice
salt and black pepper

1. Combine the short ribs, onions, celery, and tomato juice in a large stockpot. Place the pot over medium high heat, cover and bring to the start of a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the meat is so tender that it falls off the bones, about four hours. Then let the soup cool for 30 minutes.

2. While the soup is cooling, combine the rice and 2 cups water in a medium size saucepan, cover, and bring to the start of a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the water has been absorbed and the rice is tender, about 15 minutes. Remove the lid and let the rice cool.

3. Strain the soup through a colander set over a clean saucepan. Skim off any fat that has risen from the surface and discard it. (Alternately you can refrigerate the soup until is it chilled and then remove the layer of congealed fat that rests on the surface.) When the bones and vegetables are cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones and add it to the liquid. Discard or save the bones, onion and celery for stock.

4. Reheat the soup covered over low heat. Season with salt and pepper (Depending on the tomato juice you use, you may not have to add salt.) Divide the rice among the soup bowls, ladle in the soup and serve hot.

Other great soup recipes can be found in my favorite recipe books The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marion Morash and Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.

Good Farm and Food Reads


I want to read as much as I can before the kid goats are born and we are milking twice a day and bottlefeeding 50 goats two or three times a day. My favorite books about food, cooking or farming are below and were found at my favorite used book stores The Bibliobarn in South Kortright and the Rose and Laurel Bookshop in Oneonta :

Tender to the Bone from Ruth Reichl. I laughed the hardest about her accounts of her mother’s poisonous cooking (really – she poisoned a wedding party with bad fish.)

Comfort me with Apples by Ruth Reichl. It’s not as good as Tender but still insightful about her days as editor in chief of Gourmet Magazine.

In Good Hands – The Keeping of a Family Farm by Charles Fish. A great history of a Vermont Farm

First Person Rural – Essays of a Sometimes Farmer by Noel Perrin. It brought back memories of our early farm escapades

Of Sheep and Men by R.B Robertson A great read about sheep, herding and dogs in the 1950s in Scotland.

A three book series: Moving UpCountry, Living UpCountry and Growing UpCountry – Raising a Family and Flock in a Rural Place by Don Mitchell. Packed with delightful adventures about families, flocks and farming.

I would love to hear your food, farming, cooking “good read” suggestions!

January Jewels of Thought

We slaughtered a pig before Christmas for an adventuresome colleague.  He made hams in brine, and bacon and blood sausage (we saved the pig's blood).  He boned and rolled the loins with the cracklin' tied on and made tenderloins as Wiener Schnitzel.  He shared the finished results in the above photos. The other photos describe the kill, scalding and scraping the skin and cutting the pig into primals.   The prize was the head, carefully wrapped.  I can't wait to see what Jason does with the ears, jowls, snout and tongue.

Snow Storm and Border Collies Cavorting

During Christmas week, a couple of feet of snow were dumped on our valley so we had a white white Christmas.  Since our only travel was to the barns and pastures and back to the house, it was a joy to be snowed in.

New Year Food Resolutions

We are fortunate to have farm fresh eggs, milk and grass-fed meat and a cellar with canning cupboards stacked high with green beans, jams, jellies, coleslaw, applesauce, tomatoes, tomato paste and sauces and salsas. The root cellar is brimming with parsnips, squashes, potatoes and onions and the leeks are still in the garden. I pour boiling water over the leeks buried in the snow to unearth them.   My New Year Food Resolutions for 2011 are:

• Host a pantry swap in April so ten years from now there will not be ten-year old pickled cauliflower in my canning cupboard
• Buy a milking cow so I don’t have to buy milk from the store or bribe my family to drink goat milk
• Plant more exotic greens and edible flowers in the gardens
• Build a smoker for meats
• Make bread more than once a week
• Cook more in the fireplace using methods such as string turned roasting
• Eat more wild and foraged food
• Try to buy less than 10% of the food we consume from the grocery store.

When I shared these resolutions with my friends they asked me to come up with resolutions for people who do not have access 24/7 to farm fresh, organic food. The points below were shared at the Farm Catskills Annual Meeting in 2009.

1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages (like iced teas, energy drinks, etc).  You can lose 25 lbs in a year by replacing one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water). (from Center for Science in the Public Interest)

2. Eat at home instead of eating out.  Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food prepared outside the home. And, you’re more likely to be eating locally grown foods, and more of your food dollars will go to a local farmer.

3. Stay away from processed foods; prepare meals from scratch.  Many delicious and nutritious meals can be made very quickly and simply – and you get more nutrition and value from your food dollars.

4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks. Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and teens.

5. Eat local, grassfed meat.  An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals in feedlot conditions. Grassfed meat is available year-round from local farmers who do not give their animals growth hormones or routine antibiotics.

6 . Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides. According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S.

7. Support a local farmer; visit your farmer's market, join a CSA, or shop at a locally-owned food retailer.
Buying local foods allows farmers to keep a larger share of each food dollar, AND keeps more of your money circulating in the community. Find local farmers near you at www.purecatskills.com


8. Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS.
The average meal travels 1,500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate.

Comfort Food and Fable 
Our bodies crave comfort food when the temperature drops and the snow piles high and the winds are ripping and whipping.  We want to eat stews, roasts, soups, puddings and pies and eat next to the fire sipping hot spiced cider and red wine.  So to give you what we crave - Fable's Second Saturday Suppers begin January 8th and are held the second Saturday of every month from January to May at 5 pm. Come sit by the fire and share supper with us and friends and neighbors at the large farm table. Three courses for $30. Great selection of local beer and New York State wine. The menu for January 8 is:

Starter:  winter greens with poached pear vinaigrette
Main:  zinfandel glazed beef short ribs with horseradish mashed potatoes and bacon braised brussels sprouts
Dessert:  old-fashioned baked custard with caramelized sugar sauce

Here are a couple of comfort food dessert - Custard and Bread Pudding:
Old-Fashioned Baked Custard with Caramelized Sugar Sauce
6 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
4 cups goat milk or whole cow milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. nutmeg

In a large bowl, beat eggs slightly, add sugar and salt; mix well. Add in milk and stir well. Flavor with vanilla
and nutmeg, mix thoroughly. Butter a 9x9-inch baking dish and pour in custard mixture or butter ramekins. Place dish or ramekins in a shallow pan containing warm water; bake at 325 degrees for 75 minutes or until knife inserted in middle comes out clean. Pour caramelized sugar in each ramekin or serving dish.

Bread Pudding

2 cups granulated sugar
5 large beaten eggs
2 cups milk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 cups cubed Italian or French bread, allow to stale overnight in a bowl
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1 cup chopped walnuts

For the sauce:
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup brandy

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13 by 9 by 2-inch pan. Mix together granulated sugar, eggs, and milk in a bowl; add vanilla. Pour over cubed bread and let sit for 10 minutes.
In another bowl, mix and crumble together brown sugar, butter, and pecans.
Pour bread mixture into prepared pan. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture over the top and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until set. Remove from oven.

For the sauce:
Mix together the granulated sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir together until the sugar is melted. Add the brandy, stirring well. Pour over bread pudding. Serve warm or cold.

One of my favorite comfort foods in rice pudding but no one in my household likes it so I don't make it. We had a big New Year's Day bash and Morgan George of Sherman Hill Farmstead brought a rice pudding I remembered from my childhood.  I resisted the temptation to whisk it off the table and hide it in the closet so I did not have to share it.   Chicken in A Pot is my favorite main meal - using a whole chicken in the crock pot and adding homemade chicken stock and the assortment of vegetables are in the root cellar.  And bacon. Bacon marmalade will be available in the farm store in a couple of weeks.
 
The New Oven  - the Fireplace

We saw this method of string turned roasting at the Farmers Museum.  Here is our version of Roasting Chicken in the Fireplace usingthe String Turned Roast Method.