Crooked Creek Farm

EGG!

After not having eggs for the last couple of months, we were shocked when D found an egg tonight! What a nice surprise. We all clapped and looked at it like it was a golden egg when D brought it in.  lol

Yes, we could have put lights in the chicken house to try and force the chickens to lay. I just felt that if God made chickens to stop laying when the days are shorter, then the chickens must need a break from laying.

But I surely will be happy when we can stop buying eggs!

Making Butter

We were gifted with a gallon of goats milk recently. This is the first time we have had fresh goats milk! Everyone liked it! When it was gone, and the kids went back to drinking store bought cows milk, 3 out of 4 said they liked the goats milk better!  So, sometime in the future, we will be getting milk goats (ours are meat goats, and they only produce enough milk for their babies).

In the pic below, if you look closely, you can see the milk / cream line. Right above the smudge on the left of the jar.

The cream. I got 4 cups of cream off the gallon of milk. Not as thick as cows cream, though.

 I have never made butter before. Or even watched anyone make butter before!   I went by the book. lol

That would be The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book the BEST book to have!

Churning in the blender. You can see the butter starting to come together.

 Washing and gathering. I added the salt at this point. Having never made butter before, I just guessed at the amount of salt. And was happy that it didn't come out too saltly! lol

I had a lot of buttermilk left. I'm going to use it to make biscuits, since we're not buttermilk drinkers.  Out of the 4 cups of cream, I got approximately 3/4 to 1 cup of butter. I didn't measure it, but that's what it looks like.  Not as high a ratio of cream to butter as cows cream, according to the book.  But I'm happy with it!

The finished butter!

Pretty, and good tasting, too! At first, I thought it had a sourcream taste to it. But after chilling and eating it on bread the next day, it didn't have that taste. It's not a strong butter taste, but it's good. And I would definitely do it again.

A Crooked Creek Christmas

In continuing a tradition that we started last year, we took all the animals their special Christmas treat.

The chickens loved theirs, but of course, they eat anything we dump in there! lol

The goats were so impatient! They came to the end of their pasture by the chickens to see if they could get something extra! lol

 The cats, Coonie (short for Coon Butt, because her tail looks like a racoons) on the left, and Baby on the right enjoying their turkey.

Shadow, the Australian Sheperd, gobbled his turkey so fast the camera couldn't even catch it in the bowl! lol

The goats getting feed their treat of celery and apple peels by Zachary 7, Calen 13, and D.

Look at all the good little goaties, all lined up nice like and eating their treat. They were on their best behavior, it being Christmas and all!  

A Merry Christmas was had by all on Crooked Creek Farm.

FOUND:Crazy Country Woman

In case anyone was looking for her, I found her....in my yard.

The neighbor's dog, who is a known chicken thief, is running around loose today. Chasing our chickens. It was spotted in our front yard again so I threw off my slippers, donned D's shoes that he keeps by the back door. And off I went. I was walking around the yard, in the rain, wearing D's shoes, that are like clown shoes on me, with a loaded gun, (Ok, it was a bb gun) in the rain. Oh, the dog was nowhere to be found.

So if anyone was indeed looking for Crazy Country Woman, You now know where she is.

Hot Chocolate soothes everything, even wet, crazy, gun toting, dog chasing country woman.

Homestead Carnival

Russian Sage Wreath

Last Thursday, I trimmed the Russian Sage in the Bible Garden. I used the trimmings to make a wreath. It smells sooooo wonderful! This picture was taken right after I hung it on the wall.

And here's a pic I just took. It still looks good, even though it is drying out. And it still smells wonderful.

Rain!!

Plum Granny Melons

Sunday at church a lady gave us some yellow squash, as well as what she called  pomegranates. The pomegranates that I knew were the red ones, so of course I had to look this up.  

Here's a picture of what she gave us:

They are Plum Granny Melons, also known as vine pomegranates. If you visit the link, you have to scroll down. They smell incredible! We ate a couple Sunday night, and thought they tasted like a mild canteloupe. We found it funny that in the Victorian era, people used to carry these in there pockets to mask body odor. lol I saved the seeds, so we can plant some next year.

We'd never seen any of these before, so I thought I'd share.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Calen was diagnosed with ALL - Acute Lymphomablastic Leukemia in October 2000. 10 days before his 6th birthday. He was released from the hospital after his diagnosis on his 6th birthday. He was able to have his party at home, instead of in the hospital. He finished treatments in December of 2003. Yep, 3 years and 3 months of chemo for boys. A few years ago, I assembled a page with some links, as well as an article written by a fellow cancer mom. I just noticed that I neglected to include this page in my link section on the right. I thought I had put it there, but I will go do it now.

Please visit our Childhood Cancer Awareness page.

The Battle for the Toy Box

The Battle for the Toy Box Contest!
I entered the Battle for the Toy Box Contest
on the HSB Company Porch.  I hope to win
over $100 worth of, Tales of Glory, Bible-based toys
from one2believe!!

Egg Poison??!!

We've been having eggs for breakfast everyday for a  few weeks now. The chickens have been very, very nice to us, and have supplied us with an abundance of eggs. Well, the 4 youngest kids have started complaining about having eggs every day. "groan" "moan" "can't we even have toast?" But this morning Calen said "You know, if you keep serving us eggs, there going to become poison to us!" ROFLOL I've never heard that one before!  Did he still have an egg for breakfast? YEP!

Growing and Harvesting Lavender

I have been trying for several years to grow lavender. I've been growing from seed, without much luck. I acutally have a couple of seedlings that are doing pretty well now. They are about 2 inches tall. I have bought lavender from seed companies, only to have them die. Last year I bought a plant from Walmart. I grew quite large, but didn't bloom. But now......it is blooming!! I am sooooo excited! Lavender is my favorite scent for EVERYTHING! I even have lavender essential oil that I put in my homemade cleaners. lol  I was looking up how to harvest and store the lavender,  and thought I'd share some links.

About.Com

ehow.com

Lots of info about growing from seeds, cuttings, and varieties

Chickens Hatched

Our First Egg Sale!!

We sold our first dozen eggs today! So exciting! lol We are charging $2.00 a dozen. I checked the grocery stores for prices of cage free eggs, and they were all more that .  Before we put the sign up, we did have someone stop and ask if were had any for sale, but he refused to pay $2.00. He said he usually bought them from our neighbor down the road for $1. a dozen. I want to be able to buy the chicken food and the egg cartons out of the egg money, and can't do that for $1 a dozen.

I got information from the extension office about selling eggs, and it stated that the cartons had to be new. I bought the cartons from www.eggcartons.com Hopefully we'll sell many, many more eggs!

A Sad day....

Christmas on the Farm

Yes, I realize that Christmas has come and gone.

This year, we decided to put the Nativity scene out by the barn, instead of in the side  yard by the house.

Yes, the Angels are on the roof, lol, held on by screws. We had the Wise Men up the hill by the fence, until it was time for them to come. We used a spotlight at night to light it up. Our neighbors commented on how nice it looked.   All the mud from the hill being cut out, is the subject for another post.

We started a Christmas tradition on the farm this year. We took all the animals a special snack so they could celebrate the birth of their Creator, also.

The chickens got the left over homemade cinnamon rolls from Christmas Breakfast (a family tradition) and celery. The cats got milk, and some meat off the turkey neck. The dog got the turkey neck. And the goats got apples and pears cut into chunks. They all seemed to appreciate their special treats. And we plan on continuing the tradition.

Goat Weigh-In

Mama Angel and her twins first thing this morning....soooo cute!

Calen on the scale with the female. She weighed 3.5 pounds.

This pic is blurry, but you can see her markings.

Calen weighing the male. He was 4 pounds.

A close up of the male.

"MAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! Did you see what they did to me?!?!?!?! MAAAAAAA!!!!"

Yesterday, I guessed that they weighed under 5 pounds. Last night, D guessed 2.5 pounds. We were both a pound off, so we were both right! lol

Twins!!

We were so excited at about 11:45 when Melissa can in the house saying that Angel had twins! D and I were out there just last night talking about how she was getting bigger, but she wasn't bagging up, so we didn't think it was going to be anytime soon. Oh, how goats like to prove you wrong! lol

They are sooooo cute, the black headed ones a girl, and the brown is a boy. One to keep, one to sell.  :)  They are doing well, and hopefully, we'll get a chance to weight them later. They are so tiny! I'm guessing under 5 pounds each. We'll see if I'm right! lol

a little goat humor.....

Cabbage, Cantelope and Chickens...

Tonight we found cabbage worms on the cabbage and broccoli. sigh.... So I mixed up 1 part salt to 2 parts flour and we sprinkled that on the plants. The worms eat this, bloat up and die. I've read that you can also use self rising flour, but I don't use that, so I mixed up the other. Hopefully this works. The cabbages were really looking good! We don't have any flowerettes on the broccoli yet, but the plants are looking really good. So hopefully this will help keep the worms from destroying all our plants.

Now, for the cantelope and chickens....

We have a few (5 or 6 ) chickens out of 36 that keep getting out of the pen. When we walked over to check on the chicken garden last night, we caught a couple of chickens in there next to the cantelopes. The chicken garden is next to the chicken pen. That's why it's call the chicken garden. lol Anyway. D said "maybe that's why we don't have any insects in this garden, the chickens are eating them." To which I replied "As long as they don't eat the cantelopes" Well, guess what? When we got close enough to see, there was a chicken eating a cantelope! I'd say this cantelope was bigger than a ping pong ball, and the chicken ate it! grrrrrr! We found the remains of another partially eaten cantelope also! grrrrr!  Lucky for the rotten teenage hens that they will be giving us eggs soon, or they would hve ended up in the pot! Guess we're going to have to cover the pen with something to keep them in. D clipped all 30 of the teenagers wings (one wing on each chicken) But we consistently have 5 or 6 out everyday.

They better leave our garden alone, or eggs or no eggs, they just might end being our dinner!