RIP Russell Crow

It’s a good thing I finally got around to taking a picture of Russell, cause this picture is all that’s left of him.

He was taken out by a coyote yesterday morning.

Darryl saw the mound of feathers and the coyote slinking away, but by the time he got back out there with his rifle, the coyote was gone.

Coward.

The girls are all still here, but they’re staying close to the coop.

I already miss hearing Russell crow.  Hehe.

He was a great rooster.  He warned the girls of any possible predator, including ravens flying over the yard.  He never attacked the kids or us.  He was gorgeous, as far as roosters go.

He will not be easy to replace.

I don’t think we’ll try.

Rest in peace, Russell.

 

PS. If you’re reading this in your e-mail, click over to the actual blog once in a while.  I change up the headers every month.  This month is one of my favourites.  Check it out.

Chad’s Second Birthday

Last year we kinda skipped Chad’s first birthday.  There was something going on to make us super busy (can’t remember what though), so we didn’t have a party.  He never knew.  Hee hee.

We couldn’t very well skip this year’s party.  So we had a few friends over and ate some yummy food.

Like this healthy chocolate cake.

This was the second time we made it and it always gets rave reviews.  It happens to be my favourite chocolate cake too.  It uses whole wheat flour soaked in soured raw milk, and succanat instead of sugar (recipe here).  It’s moist and dense without being heavy, and it’s filling!  We didn’t make healthy icing to go on it though cause we ran out of time  (we hosted a work party the day before and fed everyone a big homemade lunch).

The bunting on the cake matched the bunting hanging all over the house.

The bunting is easy to make using poster sized card stock, yarn, and a hole punch.

I was hoping for rainbow colours for the fruit skewers but forgot to get purple grapes.  Oops.  I wasn’t about to buy blueberries this time of year.

We also served homemade raw ice cream, which is also healthy.  And delicious!

We gave him a bike.  Might be a little early for that, but he’ll grow into it.  Aunty Hannah gave him the helmet.

Happy Birthday Chad!  We love you!

Last Week

We’ve been busy getting a few farm things accomplished.

The “fence” along one side of the chicken run was literally falling down.  There was a hole in the wire the chickens used several times a day to get in and out of the coop.  Not that that’s a problem.  We want them to free range and spread the cow pies out for us.  And eat less food from the store.  But if chickens can get out, dogs and kids can get in.

Plus it was a bit of an eyesore.

So bad, in fact, that I couldn’t take a picture.

Ok, not really.  I thought about it after we cut the old wire down.

We I dug new holes for 3 fence posts and we stretched some page wire between them.  We had a chain link gate behind the house forever so we used that instead of building a new one.  The roll of page wire was long enough to go down the side of the chicken run and along the pasture fence to the next corner, where I already have wire to keep hens out of the yard.  So the whole section behind the garden where the greenhouse is, is now almost completely fenced in, except for the short space between the coop and the garden.

Which is great because we might get a goat.

Yeah, the neighbours, who we had over for hot dogs the other night, actually eat goat meat (I wouldn’t be opposed to trying it either), and said they could get me one to raise for them (to eat).  Perfect.  I need the services of a goat to keep the shrubs in the pasture under control.  Actually, I’d probably need a hundred for that, but you have to start somewhere right?

Anyway, do you think a goat will climb this fence?

Don’t answer that.

We were given a trampoline and got that set up.  The kids love it.  Sadie already broke the rules (not going on there when one of us isn’t out there watching) enough that she doesn’t get to go on for a week.  Chad is enjoying it very much.

We found a dead chicken.

Kidding!  She’s just working on her tan.

Took some pictures of Kai.

Set up the hummingbird feeders.

And FINALLY got a decent picture of Russell.  He’s a great rooster.  Never attacks small children.  Or adults.

Last weekend was also busy but I didn’t get any pictures.

We got a couple round bales of hay, patronized a new food stand selling delicious chicken tacos, unloaded the hay and drove out to Peachland where Darryl knew of some sand dumped on the side of the road and we loaded up the back, then stopped at a creek to let the kids play in it and get all wet and sandy, then made a quick dinner and I left to go out (wahoo!) while Darryl took care of things around here.

Oh, and that morning I also started a project outside that I can’t wait to show you.  I think it’ll take a couple weeks though.

What have you been up to?

Cheese!

After trying to order a cheesemaking kit online and finding out they don’t ship to individuals and the nearest distributor is in Duncan, BC, I kinda gave up for a few weeks.  All I needed to make mozzarella was rennet, so I called around to every store I could think of and nobody even knew what rennet was.

On a whim, I looked up U Brew stores online where you make your own wine and beer.

They carried cheese kits too.  And rennet.

Huh.

Since all I needed was rennet, I got a kit that makes 8 different kinds of cheese, and it comes with rennet tablets.  I can get more from the store when I run out.

I just happened to have a whole lot of skimmed milk sitting around, so I started with a double batch of mozza.  2 gallons of skimmed milk, half a rennet tablet and some citric acid (which I already had).

I warmed up the milk with the citric acid, then added the rennet and let it sit for 5 minutes.

The curd had a clean break, so I cut it into 1 inch squares.

So far so good!

Then I heated up the whey and drained the curds out through cloth.

I was thinking about letting it drip overnight and finishing the next morning, but I kinda just wanted to finish.  I followed the recipe for stretching the cheese using a salt water bath, since I don’t have a microwave and wouldn’t adulterate good food even if I did have one.  That’s where things started to get screwed up.

The brine got too hot and I couldn’t get all the cheese out of the pot at the same time using every utensil I could think of.  It was too soft.  I think it got a little too hot.  It stretched too quickly to grab more than a little lump.  Eventually it cooled down enough that I could fish out most of the larger pieces.

I ended up with a slimy lump of cheese.

Fail.

I confess, I did try some.

It was like eating a slimy booger.

Not that I know what that’s like.  I just imagine it was like eating a slimy booger.

Really salty too.

Sooo…I had to try again.  I had a LOT more milk to use up.

The second batch went swimmingly like the first one, only this time I didn’t heat the water up so much for stretching it, and I didn’t put salt in the water.  I tried working it into the cheese after I stretched it like some recipes do.

This time it looked a lot better.

But when I tried it, it had an okay texture, but absolutely no flavour.

I guess the working-salt-in-at-the-end method didn’t work so well.

Third time’s the charm right?

I made some more, and everything went quite well.  I used a salt water bath for stretching again, I just didn’t add as much salt as the first time.

It turned out quite nice, but could’ve used more salt.

Then I made it again, adding a bit more salt to the water.

Again, it could’ve used more salt, but it was almost just right.

It’s texture is just a bit rubbery though and I don’t know how to fix that.

I had to take a little break cause I ran out of citric acid, but now I have a 2 year stash so I should be good for a while.  Until I run out of rennet.

Maybe 5th time’s the charm in this case?

Hope so.

Mastitis Update

Today I’ve been encouraged that what we’re doing to help Moola is working.

After doing more research, I’m pretty sure I can rule out poop being the cause of her mastitis.  Not that there isn’t a lot of poop in her pen, but there’s something else that can cause mastitis besides that.  Like an abrupt change in feed.

Oops.

We’ve been feeding her a grass/alfalfa mix hay because it’s nigh impossible to find pure alfalfa in this city, especially with all the hunter/jumper horses around.  They don’t eat straight alfalfa or they’d be uncontrollable.  The nearest source for alfalfa is usually a couple hours away, so we opted to switch her to grass/alfalfa mix shortly after she calved due to lack of time and gas money.  She’s been doing well on it.  But our goal was to switch her back to pure alfalfa as soon as we could find a decent source.

We bought a round bale of alfalfa a couple days ago and started feeding it to her the night before she got mastitis.  Half her old hay and half straight alfalfa.  I think that’s what happened.  She wasn’t used to that much protein.

Live and learn.

So I’m pretty sure it’s not a staph or e.coli infection.  Yay!  She hasn’t been that dirty lately either.

It’s only the second day and the first quarter that showed signs of mastitis is feeling almost back to normal.  The other side is a bit harder but I’m confident it will show signs of improvement soon.  It’s almost more like clogged milk ducts than mastitis.

Her front quarters are being milked 4 times a day, and after I massage the udder I’m alternating rubbing on castor oil and coconut oil with peppermint oil.

Darryl does the morning milking, so I milked again around 10am.  She gave me more milk from her front quarters than yesterday, so that’s another good sign.

The back quarters are still fine to drink since they’re not infected.  They’re producing the normal amount.  We milk them separately so we can keep the milk.  The milk from the front quarters goes to the chickens right now.

She sure loves all the extra attention.  I’ve been working on getting her cleaned up some more.  I trimmed her tail and brushed her legs.  She stood quietly the whole time and chewed her cud.

I showed Sadie how to milk today and she got a few squirts out.  Maybe when she’s 4 she can take over milking.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Today is a beautiful, lovely day and I’m typing this on my laptop outside in the sun.  The chickens are pecking at random specks in the dirt and the kids are playing nice in the sandpit.

And my house is a mess.

Today is a good day.

On Poop and Mastitis

Cow’s poop and mastitis.

Today I’m dealing with some mastitis in her front quarters.  It’s my first time dealing with it (in a cow…I’ve had it myself before and I know how it feels), so I’m reading the Family Cow Forum looking for ways to deal with it before resorting to antibiotics.

I milked out the quarter that was harder and warmer than the others, and took a sample from all 4 to filter.  According to the filters both front quarters have some mastitis, so in a few minutes I’ll go milk out both front ones again.

I also rubbed some castor oil on the outside of her udder, because I read once that it draws out toxins.  We used it on her heel just after we brought her home.  Half her heel was swollen up and she was limping.  I dabbed castor oil on it twice a day and the swelling was gone in a few days.  I’m hoping it will help with mastitis too.

(this photo was taken the day her calf was born)

I’m guessing the mastitis was caused by contact with poop.  There’s a lot of it in her pen.  It dried up enough a couple of weeks ago to get a few loads out with the wheelbarrow, but then it started raining again and her pen turned to soup.  The weather is clearing up this week and we’ve had a couple sunny days now, so hopefully her pen will dry out quick so I can get back at it.

It would be REALLY nice to borrow a bobcat for a weekend and get that pen totally cleaned out all at once.  Otherwise it’ll be a loooooong summer hauling it out by wheelbarrow.  I did that last year.  I caught up on all the horse poop in time for Moola to take over the pen.  I kept it clean until it got too difficult to get the wheelbarrow in there.

It was easy to keep it clean once I got it to that point though.  One load every couple of days.  I just need help getting it to that point again!

(His new owners named him Ruckus)

It should be even easier to keep up come summer when Moola is out grazing during the day, spreading her own poop.  With the chicken’s help of course.  I’ll be rotating her daily through different sections of the “pasture” using electric fencing and step-in posts.

I did that with the horses last year.  But we don’t have enough grass to feed them all summer.  We should have enough for 1 cow though.  I’ve seen some improvement with the grass in the last year.  Now that I have an electric fence the grass isn’t being overgrazed.  But I think it’ll take a year or two for it to recover fully and start rebuilding topsoil.

(so nice to have fresh butter again!)

Anyway, I’d better go do some milking.

Kids + Art

These pictures are from a few weeks ago, but I had to share them, for the grandparent’s sake.

We painted.

Doesn’t happen too often cause it’s such a mess to clean up and Chad’s attention span with painting is very short.  Like 3 minutes.  Then he gets frustrated and makes a big mess.

But he’ll line up the paints in a row for half an hour.

We found a picture in one of Sadie’s library books that she wanted to paint, and we all painted it.  Or our version of it.  That’s mine in the foreground.

This one was Chad’s.  I kept it.  It’s all smudged from leaning over it to get more paint.

Sadie did the big green blob and the one in the center of the picture.  And the stack of papers at the back too.

Before we cleaned up, I found a piece of styrofoam and drew some hearts on it really deep with a pen.  We used a brush to cover it with paint and stamped it onto paper.  A roller would have worked better but I didn’t have one that was accessible within 5 minutes.

Looking forward to our next painting adventure.

Just not the clean up.

Bonus Photos!