Just another Day on the Farm

Love how the chocolate icing layer turned out, the colors were good, but the swirls are a work in progres, still it was so exciting to get to cut into this, each bar was its own..

Ok, I am going to try this again.. I tried this once and got overwhelmed and lost.. so lets see if I can make this work better for 2013..

In general for health, and for ease of rounding out.. DH and I need 5000 calories per day, 365 days in a year and we need 182, 5000 in calories.. While it would be hard to grow everything we need on the farm, my question is more along the lines of in 2013, regardless if its balanced, did we grow/raise those calories on the farm? If not, what percent can we do so..

Jan

Lamb Meat Imputes: 223020

Pork Meat Imputes: 231000

Beef Imputes; 226800

Milk – 6480

Eggs- 7200

Jan imputes : 694500 which means that in the single month of Jan, we had a major meat overload and over half of the years needed calories provided but lets face it, you can not live on meat, milk and eggs alone..

So simple, so easy, one of those things that takes no time at all to make but takes time to be ready to be used.. did a total of three 8 oz jars with different mix’s, this is,  the one of the udder balm, it has elderflower, pepperment, plantain and nettles in it.. they were all done with sweet almond oil, some will be used in salves and others in soap making, as most recipes I have tend to call for 4oz of almond oil, three full jars are enough to make use in six batches, I had to make the call on cold infused vs hot infused and for these are going cold.. I will do a heat one for one of the salves, but will do its own post for that..

Well, I am on the hunt today for a new udder balm recipe for the deep cold, my regular balm is good and works well most of the time but does not seem quite enough for when I get really cold..

Now a few things I found interesting, one of which is that for the milking critter, if they start getting chapped skin, that its a sign of lack of vit a, and this can be fixed with adding some chopped carrots into their feed, and so I will start doing this with my little DF sheepy, and see if that makes a difference.

Having said that, I also need a now fix, so I am going to melt down one of my done healing salves from my cottonwood buds, that is to thick and I am going to add a freshly done infused almond oil with pepperment/elderflower/nettle and make it soft enough that it can be more easily spread on the teats.

While I am not sure that I want the cooling effects that pepperment brings, I have heard that its very good for first timer’s and so for girl that’s a very good thing.

If this weather ever clears up, and I need track down the different photos over the past two years, I want to do a post on the development of her bag, it seems to be darn near changing weekly at this point in her pregancy.

I also need to make a number of herb infused oils for planned coming soaps, I will do my best to keep notes and be able to post detailed recipes for you to go with the soaps..

While its fine to be a bit of this and that for baking/cooking, when it comes to soap making, it needs to be very detailed to make sure it works out correctly..

So anyone else make their own homemade udder salve for cows? Sheep? Goats? and if so, would you be willing to share your recipe?

I tell ya, that big girl gave me a run for my money this week, you see  she had been on “holiday” I mean come on, the whole farm is covered in ice, the cold has been so bitter on certain days that it has required three days before the winter gear goes on and there has been more snow shoveling then i want to admit..

Between milking, hauling, butchering and everything else that has been going on in the past few weeks, my BrandyGirl has been on a winter rest, she has a few jobs, be herd boss, eat lots of hay, drink warm water, get a cookie now and again and follow us around while we do the barn/pasture chores and her biggest job at the moment, DO NOT STEP on a lamb!

So I changed out the calander and forgot to write down the ferrier visit, OPPS, lets just say, that she would not even come to the gate for me, I had to go get her, then she didn’t want her halter on, and it just went down hill from there.. I finally broke down and let her chew on a pan of feed just to keep her in place so we could get the last two legs done..

Honestly, you would think that those hours I had spent training had never happened, you would think that those moments of moving feet/lines for driving had never happened, you would think this is not the same horse that was tied up and had a sheep on a lead go under her and wrap itself around her legs and stood there ever so kindly while we untangled that mess..

So you can imagine my scowl and then my smile and finally my laughing when yesterday when she meet me at the gate first thing in the morning, and was all, are we working today mom, and I am like, no I am hauling water, and have things to do, she follows along, finally stealing my hat and stands there with it in her mouth till I take it back, then she try’s to give me the over the shoulder hug, or the I’m really tall horse, you little women, I put head over your shoulder and go.. “Watcha doin?”

So I come back thought the gate and she put her head over it and “wait for it” puts her face into her hanging halter and bangs it and then looks at me..

I know that look, its the , are we going to work today?  I would like to do something, anything.. what do you have in mind.. I can’t wait for a bit more spring like weather or safer footing.

So here is my question, if you don’t have a heated indoor area to work in or even just a covered indoor area to work in, how much do you work your horse in winter? Do they get a few weeks or a month or so off in the worst/hardest part of winter, and if so, do you fine they backslide?

This is as simple as can be.. simmer up one cup blueberry/One cup of Red Onion with a tsp of salt, 2 heaping tbsp of sugar or honey, half a tsp of ginger, and cracked black pepper.. Place half under the steak and half on top, that is the amount per big steak, works for pork or beef or lamb.. heck it works for pretty much any kind of meat, even good on chicken or turkey breast..

While I know that most folks get to see these and either love or hate them, but with my purrpots and the fact that there is good woods around me but not so much on the farm, this in fact only the third time I have seen one of these on the farm in all these years, it was making its way from the woods over to where my hay bales are feed from and quickly stuffed its little cheeks as hard and full of seeds as it could and headed back down the drive and woods, good call on its part.. sticking around would be a bad thing..

One more and I will stop for today but this one while not as fancy in looks at the ones I just posted, turned out wonderful, I took some of my regular sage, some of my pinnapple sage and two dried lemon rinds and ground them up for this soap and I just love! the look and the scent on it..

They may not be the bright colors that you can buy in the store but they are a pretty little collection to be sure..

I made a batch with my homegrown tea mix on the top part with a goat milk soap base with dried and ground Burdock/Rhubarb and it turned out well but is almost impossable to take a good photo of..

But the winner of the day is this stunning soap, the top is filled with my dried Elderflower and the base is a goat milk soap with my homegrown, dried and ground Burdock root and Nettle leaves.. pretty and good for your skin!