Birthday Extravaganza!

As one gets older, birthdays seem to loose their excitement, but today thus far has been extremely fun.  The activities are as follows:

1.  Sleeping in.  

While this for us typically means sleeping until 6am, it's still nice not to have to rush out of bed in the morning.

2.  Opening gifts.

Presents included warm winter gear and dental picks (a popular choice on everyone's birthday list).  Needless to say, some tooth scraping was done before moving on to anything else!

3.  Cutting and decorating the Christmas tree.

This year we went a little more traditional and rather than cutting down an ugly tree from the yard, we went to a local tree farm and cut our own tree.  We are rather pleased with the result.

 4.  Eat lunch.  

No your eyes are not playing tricks on you.  We had a very healthy lunch of Banana Cream Pie and hot chocolate.  While Teresa's hot chocolate had marshmallows adorning the top, Eric chose whipped cream instead.

We'll see what the rest of the day brings!

Winter Harvest

We were a bit slow on the harvesting of carrots this year and quickly found ourselves in a bind.  About 2 weeks ago we had out first snowfall the night before Teresa was planning on picking the carrots.  The raised bed was completely covered in snow and the soil was frozen solid.  Eric covered the carrots with plastic in the hope that the sun would melt the snow, but this past week has continued to see multiple snowfalls and temperatures in the single digits!  Needless to say it was becoming obvious that the ground was not going to thaw again until the spring.  Yesterday, Eric wandered out through the snow into the garden with a shovel.  He shoveled snow to clear the top of the veggies, and then proceeded to dig into the frozen ground with a shovel.  The result was rather successful...

A December carrot harvest!  Better late than never!

Say "Cheese!"

Experiments in how to best use a relatively abundant supply of fresh goat milk continue.  Most recently, we added soft chevre cheese to the repertoire.  Preliminary taste test results are encouraging.  Who knows what else we can whip up?

A Treasure in the Woods

We went for a wet hike in the woods tonight and Eric stumbled upon a treasure....

Welcome home Elmer!!!

October Snow!

Woke up October 28th to a snow-covered ground! 

We hope this isn't indicative of the winter to come....

A Sweet Surprise

I came home from work to find a sweet surprise waiting for me....

Mmmmm.  Cherry Pie!!

Gleaning Hay

The hay field across the street was cut and rolled into large round bales the other day.  We asked Wes if we could gather some of the leftover hay lying in the field to feed the cows for their final two days, given the pasture was eaten down mostly.  Apparently the scene of people raking and loading leftover hay into the pick-up was so funny, that he followed the truck home with his tractor and dropped us off a round bale that didn't bind properly!  

The price? 

A 12-pack of Coors Light beer.  

Now that's a good deal!

VT 50

This past Sunday, we participated in the VT 50 (a 50 kilometer ultrarun).  Starting at the old Ascutney ski area, we spent a bit over 7 hours running and hiking on the trails and back roads that surround our home.  Due to some last minute route changes, we wound up with a "bonus mile" for a total of a bit over 32 miles.  We had absolutely beautiful weather and were, for the most part, unharmed by our outing.  Teresa's knee was pretty achy from early on but she once again proved just how tough she is with a strong finish.  I am quite proud.

Got Milk?

We do!

Lola wins a prize for milking.  She's producing a little over 1/2 a gallon of milk a day!  Harvey and the dogs have been enjoying this new abundance.  George really was a milk monster!

A Fairwell to Georgie.

This is the hard part of farm life, losses.
We arrived home yesterday from work to find poor little George dead.  He had caught his collar on a water bucket handle and suffocated.  Ironically enough, George was scheduled to be processed later this winter, but as caretakers of our animals, the peace we have with the life-death cycle comes from knowing that our animals have lived happy lives and that death is quick and peaceful.  Our animals don't suffer.  This loss has been particularly hard. 

George was known as "the milk monster", still nursing regularly from Lola at over 4 months old!  The tears flowed yesterday as Lola filled the milking jars, realizing just how much she was still feeding her baby boy.

George was a snaggle-horned goat who loved bridge-bouncing and napping on the cows.  He loved little apple pieces, mouthfuls of alfalfa, and back rubs.  We will remember him for his joyful spirit. 

Rest in peace little Georgie.

Acadia National Park

We just returned home from a few days at Acadia National Park, celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary.  Yup, still married to this guy:

We had a great time visiting the tidal pools and watching the crabs fight over mussels as the tides flowed out to the ocean.  During low tide we were able to hike across to Bar Island on the sand bar, which is so fun to see during high tide as the island is completely surrounded by water.  We went for many hikes throughout the park, one of our favorites went from our Bed and Breakfast (the Cranberry Hill Inn), across the causeway and up to the top of flying mountain.  From there you can look down the fiord (the only one on the Eastern coast of the US)!  Our favorite activity was exploring the area via the many carriage roads on our tandem bike. We never made it into the main part of the park or around the loop road by car...maybe next trip.

The 2016 Great Pumpkin Harvest

Today was the great pumpkin harvest of 2016.  

We pulled over 50 large pumpkins and 25 pie pumpkins out of the garden and loaded them into the pick-up truck.   

Nothing says, "Fall" better than a truck full of pumpkins!

Next weekend...out comes the gourds!!!

Liquid Gold.

Honey harvest 2016 is (most likely) in the books.  One 8 frame medium super was removed from "Hive B" with the help of a newly acquired escape board that didn't actually work all that well.  Lots of work with my smoker and a brush was necessary to remove the remaining inhabitants from the box.  We were lucky to have some company to help with the rest of the process.

 

 

We removed the comb filled frames from the box.  Because we use frames without any foundation, the bees build all of their own comb.  In order to harvest the honey, we actually have to crush the comb which releases the honey into a mixture with the wax comb.



After the comb was crushed, Ryan and I poured the mixture into a large strainer that is suspended over a bucket.

The end result after a few hours of straining: a bit over 25 pounds of liquid gold.

 

Maybe not liquid gold but as Teresa's very nice (custom and professional looking) stickers will tell you: raw wildflower honey. 

 

Will we harvest more this year?  It is unlikely unless the bees go a bit crazy. 

 

As an aside, no bees or beekeepers were harmed in the production of this honey.  The bees can take care of themselves and I have my fancy bee suit.  Ryan wasn't so lucky and actually sustained two stings while watching from what seemed like a safe distance.  Sorry dude.

Summer Vacation

We had a great time in both Banff National Park and Jasper National Park last week.  Over 4 days we managed to hike over 40 miles with a total elevation gain of about 10,000 feet.

The fields were all in bloom with wildflowers during our hike of Sentinel Pass.

Eric continues to have great wildlife eyes and managed to spot a momma grizzly bear and her cub digging on the mountain.  This was the second grizzly spotted that day, as the group hiking ahead of us had a juvenile male cross the path in front of them a few hours prior.  Eric not only remains excellent at spotting wildlife, but apparently is very attractive to them as well!!

  This rare breed of wildlife was also spotted...

oh wait, no, sorry...

that's just Eric being weird! 

Overall it was a great trip, with great friends.

2016 Meat Birds

This year the meat birds received a new house!  After hours of grueling work, the new and improved chicken tractor was finally completed.  It remained outside of the field, in the yard this year, out of fear the goats or cows might destroy the tractor minutes after it was completed.  Eric processed the birds yesterday.  This was a week earlier than last year, so we had more reasonable sized chickens (4-5 pounds) compared to last years 6-7 pound giants.  He continues to improve his butchering skills and was able to process each chicken in under 3 minutes!  We processed a total of 24 chickens this year.

A fresh chicken dinner awaits any Vermont visitors!

Ringo + water = love.

This is Ringo's evening routine while we fill his water bucket from the hose.  The cow sure does love water.

Fresh Produce

My favorite thing of this time of year is the constant flow of fresh produce from the garden.  The zucchini's are exploding and we're getting berries galore! 
 
 

The pumpkin plants continue to impress...this years harvest will be epic for sure!

New to the garden this year is the start of our wildflower garden.  Each year we hope to expand it a little more until we have an entire garden bed bursting with color.

George's new pillow.

The Stowaway.

While in the barn milking Lola, a constant chirp became rather difficult to ignore.  Near the rear window, this little baby was found calling to it's mother who sounded as if she were outside in a nearby tree.  We scooped up the stowaway and placed him outside the barn.  After a few brief selfies, we left him sitting on the bushel basket.  Fifteen minutes later he was off...

Solar Power.

Our house is now officially solar-powered!  We had 23 solar panels installed by SunCommon this week and are now generating solar energy.  Total power generated at this time = 89.9 kWh.  WOOHOO!

Our first cheese.

Here it is, the first goat cheese from Silver Hill Farm!

(just don't ask how we made it)

After milking Lola tonight, I filled two bottles with milk, one of which Lucky drank immediately, the other went onto the kitchen counter for later, as usual.  An hour later, I reheated the milk in the microwave for 39 seconds, shook it a few times on the way out to the barn to equally warm it and began feeding Lucky.  As he reached the end of the bottle, I realized that the remaining "milk" was a bit solid.  With the handy use of a chopstick, I managed to remove the mass from the bottle into a bowl.  

Voila...goat cheese!

Honey!

It has been a while since the last bee update and almost as long since I have been in the hives to check on their progress.  I have been too busy with other projects to do much with the bees but they seem to be quite happy every time that I pass by.  The other day, I had one sting me on my forehead quite randomly so I took that as a sign that I should take a peak.  Both hives are looking very strong.  The bees have lots of honey, pollen, and brood.

Hive "A" had so much comb that they had some stuck to the underside of the inner cover...right where I really didn't want it.  Not wanting to waste the comb and honey contained within, I retrieved a bowl and set about with scraping.  The bees were not at all impressed by my behavior and, despite my attempts to calm them with some smoke, I was stung again.  Impressively, this time I had been stung right through my canvas work pants.  Luckily, I was able to quickly finish my work and leave the bees to themselves.  I was able to collect approximately 2 1/2 pounds of honey by crushing and straining the comb just that I had scraped off.  Not too shabby.

Oh, and about those stings...I have some new defenses.  Enter the UltraBreeze bee suit.  It is pretty much the top of the line bee suit which is about as "sting proof" as possible for the next time that I visit the hives located over my left shoulder.  

1 Week Later

The pumpkins and gourds are doing really well.  We hand-picked close to 500 cucumber beetles thus far, but in the past few days we've seen very few.  The small sticky traps were a huge success.  The beetles seem to flock to the yellow color.  We ended up making 4 larger traps out of scrap wood which we attached to stakes.  We love a successful endeavor!!

Pumpkins vs. cucumber beetles: Natural pest control.

Yesterday, while Eric secured the roof for the upcoming solar panel installation, Teresa was busy in the garden.  After a morning of digging, over 250 pumpkin and gourd seedlings were planted in 3 out of the 4 garden beds.  Needless to say, there will be a TON of pumpkins this fall, assuming the cucumber beetles don't attack. 

Which leads us to our second project:  Cucumber Beetle Traps

One of the challenges of organic gardening is dealing with pest control.  With all these plants this year, there is likely no way we can keep up with hand picking off the beetles.  We bought some Tanglefoot (a sticky paste), orange paint, and wood sticks.  We dipped the sticks in the paint yesterday and then will cover them with the tanglefoot and place them in the garden.  Apparently the beetles are attracted to orange color, which closely resembles the pumpkin flowers.  They should then find themselves stuck to the sticks. 

We will see how it works.  Fingers crossed!

Do my eyes deceive me?

One could look at this photo and postulate a few ideas:

1. Lola had a third kid.

2. Abby had a baby goat.

3.  Eric has no self-control.

The answer: #3

I arrived home from work on Friday to find two baby bottles of milk warming on the stove.  When I inquired as to the necessity of the bottles, I was informed that we now had THREE mouths to feed!  Eric went on a trip to visit a goat farm a little South of us and somehow came home with a goat!  There is now a small matching kid for each of the adult goats.

Welcome Lucky.

Goat-mania!

We can't seem to get enough of these cute little guys!  Even at only 72 hours old, the heart-warming "goat hopping" has begun!

A sweet little 5 year old gave them both names until they leave the farm:

Welcome George (as in Curious George)!

Welcome Gerald!

This is the life...

The boys were all curled up under the water bucket this morning still fast asleep. 

This afternoon they made their first trip outside.  The whole gang is enjoying hanging out in the pasture...now this is the life!

The kids have arrived. Twins!

Today we welcomed Lola's babies to Silver Hill Farm!  One twin looks identical to Lola and the other looks just like Lola's mother.

We have spent the past 4 days waiting for Lola to kid.  This is said to be similar to waiting on molasses in February....it's VERY SLOW!  Saturday night, Eric and I took turns going out to the barn every 1-2 hours to check on Lola.  She seemed to have a knack for showing signs of labor right before bedtime.  She'd stop laboring in the early morning and go all day as though she were perfectly fine and not ready to kid at all.  As she reached 151 days today, we felt certain the kids would come soon.  Last night I came upon Lola at 4:00am standing on the hay trough ledge, staring into space, contracting, while the other two goats slept.  At lunchtime I called from work to check in on the progress and Eric informed me that he just finished checking on Lola and she had amber colored mucous, a good sign that the kids were soon to follow.  He checked in on her again around 1:30pm to find her resting on the ground.  

Eric walked over to the neighbors, who ironically had a handyman there who has raised goats for the past 20+ years.  He informed Eric that when Lola was kidding she's scream so loud it would be impossible to miss.  The silence from the barn was a good sign.  Thirty minutes after he last checked in on her, Eric rounded the side of the barn with water buckets.  He heard a small bleating coming from inside.  Eric arrived to find 2 kids, both clean and dry!  

Apparently Lola is a champion at birthing kids.  Within 30 minutes she managed to deliver both kids and completely clean them off without a sound!  After all this waiting and watching and late night barn checks, I missed the births altogether...and well, Eric managed to watch Lola birth the final placenta.