Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The Milky Way......

So since I got Tulip and Star back from Jen, I've been milking each evening.  Jen had recently stopped milking them, because she thought they were bred and due to kid in January (or was it December?)

Anywho, the day we went to pick them up they were in heat, so we knew they weren't bred and I started milking them again.  I started out getting about a quart between the two of them, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.

About 2 weeks it had dwindled down to less than a pint between the two.

 During their peak production with me they were giving anywhere between 3.5 to 6 lbs a day (each) depending on if I was milking once or twice a day.


Now you may be asking yourself this question.....A PINT BETWEEN TWO GOATS??  WHY IN NAME OF CORN ON THE COB WERE YOU BOTHERING FOR A PINT BETWEEN TWO GOATS!!

Gee whizikins, calm down and I'll tell you!

It's because.........I truly love milking.....there I said it.


Some people who keep dairy animals may not particularly enjoy the day to day milking aspect of things, but they really enjoy the end product of fresh, raw milk.

I am one of those odd people who love milking.  I find it very relaxing and very calming, (unless I'm breaking a cantankerous new doe to the pail that is).  I especially enjoy milking in the winter time.  I love the steamy stream of the milk into the pail and I LOVE cuddling up next to that warm, goat-ish body when it's cold!



I used the last of the milk two Sunday mornings ago before church to make homemade ice cream and I immediately began having milk withdrawls, and milking pains.....

Never fear though, I'm pretty Star is k-knockened-up and will be kidding the end of March.  That means by the 2nd week of April I'll be back to milking!  For now I just have to enjoy sitting in the barn and scratching Tulip's hind end for hours......it's a fitting substitute for milking I think, and I know she does!

And please excuse the age of the pictures................since my girls aren't in milk, I don't have any current ones, but that will be remedied this spring!  :)


Until next time..............I remain yours in Christ,

Saturday, December 27, 2014

What's Cookin'?

So right now we've got quail cookin in here......


Bunnies cookin in here.................


And goat-ish kidlets cookin in here.


and possibly in here...............


And is there anything cookin in here?

Nope that is just one fat kitty cat!!


I can't wait for all the babies!!!!!


Till next time..............God Bless!


Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Happy Birthday Baby!

16 years ago today 
God gave us the amazing gift of a beautiful baby girl..... 


We are so thankful He chose us to be your parents!! 


Happy Birthday 16th birthday Poodle!!!!!!!!





Saturday, December 20, 2014

It's Time for Another Episode of......THE QUAIL REPORT!

Well since buying our new quail, the birds out in Quail Paradise have begun laying!  First one egg a day, then two, and last night we finally got four!  That means all four of those girls are laying now and that is very exciting! 

So The Man has 16 quail hens and they are all laying an egg every day.  Which very quickly adds up to this......


And by the by, I had no idea how lovely quail eggs are.  They are truly beautiful an unique!

That means my new go-to breakfast is this.....


That would be three soft boiled quail eggs and a half piece of toast.  It is quick and delicious and easy to eat in the car on the way to work!  I must say I do love soft boiled quail eggs!

  He's got lots of ideas for building more quail paradise type pens and they are soon to be in the works, but in the meantime he needed one of these....


And since our bosses give out a lovely bonus at Christmas time, he researched incubators on the online shopping place and decided on this one.....it's really cool, digitally controlled, and has an automatic egg turner......


Here he is loading it up with some pretty little eggs....


The rails are adjustable and can hold from parakeet sized eggs, all the way up to goose eggs!


It's got 30 quail eggs in it and hopefully in 18 days we'll have our first hatch of quail!




Until next time.............God Bless!!!



Monday, December 15, 2014

What's the Best, Most Foolproof Way to Tell if Your Goat is Pregnant??


This has been a topic much on my mind since bringing Tulip and Star home from Jen's.  I've seldom been without a buck during my goat raising tenure.  This was the last time I was buckless, and you may or may not remember how that turned out.  

Anywho, I've been trying to figure out if Tulip is bred or not.  I'm 99% certain Star is.  Star was in raging heat the day we put her in with Jen's buck Silo, and he bred her about 5 times or so.  Tulip on the other hand, has always been much more coy about her heats.  She's much more difficult to tell when she's in, and she never stays in very long. Usually about 12 hours.  She looked to be in that day, and she stood for Silo once, but then she came in super strong a couple days after that here at our place.  So.........I've been guessing about Tulip ever since.  

That led to a discussion with The Man about breeding and guessing and not knowing, which prompted him to suggest finding a buck of our own, to which I replied..... REALLY?!?!

Now I've got several requirements for bucks around our place.  

1st, they need to be small.  Tulip and Star are Kinders, which are not large goats.  I love my girls and don't want to risk them having babies with too large a buck.  They've been bred to Nubian bucks since they've been with Jennifer and that's what Star (and possibly Tulip) is bred to now. They haven't had any trouble, but it scares me because Nubians are such large goats.

2nd, they need to be friendly.  Bucks can be a challenge, and it helps a lot if they are nice and sweet to begin with.

3rd, they need to be healthy.  Again, I love my girls and don't want to risk them getting any goat cooties from a buck.

I never really worry if they are dairy bucks, unless I want to keep replacement does, but a dairy breed buck is a plus.  
So Saturday morning we loaded up this......


And drove about 20 minutes to pick up this.....


His name is Olaf but we call him Ollie, and he's just precious!  He's a 6 month old Nigerian Dwarf buck.  


He's a handsome devil and such a lover.  He's got beautiful blue eyes.


He was quite interested in Star, but she wasn't so sure about him.....


Tulip didn't want anything to do with him whatsoever, and I don't think she even let him get close to her!  


Tulip was more interested in Dad with the honeysuckle in his hand......


And rubbing her head on Dad for a nice scratch!


So is Tulip bred??  I don't know yet, but with Ollie here, if she hasn't come in 30 days from now, I'll be 99% sure that she is.  If she does come in, I'll let him breed her so I can have one more crop of babies out of her.  As I've mentioned, she'll be 9 in June and I don't want to breed her anymore after this year.  

And to all of you who know these things, yes there is a real, true, fool-proof way to tell if your does are bred.  You just draw a vial of blood and send it to the lab and they blood test them for pregnancy.  I think it costs about 6 bucks...............but this is more fun!  LOL

Also Saturday was our Christmas party for work.  Our company is a small family owned company, and they really go all out.  The party is at a fancy country club and they have linen table cloths, and lots of fancy silverware and feed us prime rib!  We're pretty out of our element, but it's nice nonetheless.  
So on Saturday I went from this at 9 AM......


To this, at 6 PM......


Stay tuned for updates on Tulip and the continued quest of is she? or isn't she?  


Till next time.............I remain yours in Christ!





Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Make Your Own Frozen Burritos....Goodwife Style!

So, The Man, every once in awhile, likes to eat one of those frozen burrito type things.


  You know, you buy them in the frozen, fake food section of the grocery for 89 cents?  And they are always hard and so hot on the ends that they burn all the flesh off the roof of your mouth, and frozen in the middle?  They are full of who knows what and terrible for you?  But the middle filling part is sort of tasty, you know the part that's luke warm and not frozen and not so hot that it burns your tastebuds off before you can eat it?  That part is kinda good?

He asked me awhile back (about a year ago or so) if I could make them because he was having trouble finding one that actually tasted as good as it should/could.  

So in true Goodwife fashion, I got in the kitchen and this is what we came up with.  They are good, they are tasty, and while not healthy by any stretch (probably??) they are a nice, occasional, weekend lunch!

First you need about a pound or so of some kind of ground meat.  I use pork from our piggies that we raised.....and I sprinkle it with some seasoned salt and then I nuke it with the lid on until it's done.  You can cook yours on the stove top if you'd like......


Then once your meat is done, and you've broken it up into nice small little crumbles, you are going to add in your favorite taco type seasoning.  I used a packet of the stuff from Aldi, because I'm lazy like that, but if you've got some uber secret special blend that you grind yourself, then by all means go for it!  

Then you are going to dump in some beans.  I use home canned black beans, or home canned pinto beans.  IF you are going to use store bought beans, I'd use refried beans.  The reason being, that home canned beans are MUCH creamier than canned beans from the store and you want this filling to be pretty creamy.......


So you dump your beans in a bowl and mash them up a little with a fork.  If you are using refried beans you can of course skip that step, and then you dump the beans in with your cooked, seasoned, ground meat and mix it up good.  Then you are going to dump in some shredd-y cheese.  I used mexican style from Aldi, but you can use whatever you'd like.  I'd say about a cup??  Not really sure how much, but don't use too much or it will dry your meat mixture out.....


Now, you can use whatever size tortilla shell you'd like.  I've got a hungry man on my hands, so I made super mondo burritos.....and the itty bitty ones are for me!


Then you are going to tear you off some wax paper.......


About this big in relation to your tortilla shell......


When I worked at Micky D's I opened 5 days a week and one of my tasks was to roll breakfast burritos.  I rolled around 150-200 breakfast burritos a day, 5 days a week.  After over a year of working there, I rolled literally thousands of burritos and didn't care if I ever rolled another one in my life, but consequently I became very good at it!  You'd be surprised how many people struggled with rolling burritos....


So anyway, you slap your meat on there, however much you want in relation to how big/thick you want your burrito to be.  Remember, I'm feeding a very hungry man so ours are pretty huge.
There are two ways you can fold this....the one end open style or the both ends closed style....this one I'm rolling one end open....


Bring the right edge of the tortilla up...


Then fold the bottom up and give a little tuck up there at the top to trap the meat.....


Then roll it over so the seam is down.....


Now drag it down to the corner of your paper....


And bring the corner up and over the burrito....


Fold each end in.....


And roll.......until you get to the top corner.  


Repeat with the rest of your burritos and when you've got them all neatly rolled up, put them in a ziplock bag, label and toss in the freezer!  

Total time on these, start to finish??  About 20 minutes......

I usually just put them right back into the tortilla bag, but I didn't use all the tortillas this time.

When you are ready to nuke these, I do them on defrost for about 2 or 3 minutes, then nuke them 1 minute at a time until they are done.  This prevents those hard ends and frozen middle!

You could heat these in the oven if you aren't a microwave kind of person, but I'm not sure how long it would take and I'd do them in foil instead of wax paper....

So here's the recap.....

1# ground meat (I use pork)
Seasoned salt to taste
Cook meat, making sure to crumble well...
Add 1 packet of taco seasoning
Set aside.
Meanwhile mash up some home canned black or pinto beans, or else open up a can of refried beans.  Add those to your meat mixture, then stir in about 1 cup of shredded cheese.
Assemble burritos, roll, roll in wax paper, and freeze!
To serve, heat in microwave or oven.

These are really delicious with some rice, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, whatever toppings you desire, or they are also great just by themselves!

Till next time......God Bless!





Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Experience Pays... And Miscellaneous Things

Welcome to the Rabbit Report with The Youngun! All is well in the Bunny Barn and today I am just going to tie up some loose ends and tell a few tales, so let's begin...


First of all, I would like to talk about our glorious Tauriel, who we were lucky enough to find. She is our Standard Rex doe that we were able to get when we went to get Eden, our Californian doe. The gentleman we bought Eden from said he knew two ladies who raised Standard Rex and that they might have some they would sell. He took us over to one of their houses and they sold us Tauriel, so we finally have a Standard Rex doe! (some of you might not have known about finding Tauriel or that she is a Standard Rex, not a mini)

  
Next up I would like to talk about staying fit and lifting weights. In order to stay buff and attract ladies, I bought Presley this mean set of free weights.

Yea that's right... He's going to start lifting...
 






 
Okay... So he's not quite sure of the mechanisms of lifting weights yet... He'll learn!
 
Third order of business... We bought our water bottles from Tractor Supply and they were NOT working well at all! They leaked and usually would be empty in just a few hours... We can't have our bunnies being thirsty, so The Goodwife tried using a soda bottle with the water bottle lid. It worked, so that is our new method for watering our rabbits. You probably all know what a soda bottle looks like so I don't really feel the need to put a picture of that...
 
Next up, we have those comparison pictures of Presley and Tauriel I promised!
See how small little Presley's ears are? Much, much smaller than Tauriel's. She has also grown a lot since we got her.

 
Again, much larger ears, not just longer, but also regarding width.
This proves that Presley is a miniature, although, it doesn't really matter because all The Goodwife wants is Rex fur, and all I want is my bunnies, that make me sooo happy!
 
Last but not least, we have this lovely rabbit... 
Elvy? No no... This is Elvy...
 
The other gentleman is our handsome wonderful Spartan, the newest addition to our bunny barn...
On Sunday when we went to pick up The Man's quail, The Goodwife found a Silver Fox buck for $30, which is a really nice amount of money since Silver Foxes don't come cheap. Luckily, the buck was near the area we went to get the quail, so we went ahead to get this buck too. The gentleman we bought him from said at his previous home he had not been treated very nicely, and so he bought him to get him out of that environment. We took Spartan home and set up his cage, and he is doing VERY well in his new home!



Spartan is six months old, and after not even a minute with Eden he had bred her twice. We put her in with him again the next morning and he bred her once more, so we will be expecting little balls of fluff in twenty nine days! Spartan has a very nice coat and is a really sweet boy! I'm so glad we took him home with us!
 
Thank you for reading The Rabbit Report! Check in soon for another report!