I want to say thanks to those who answered my questions about dairy goats.  It's so nice to have helpful friends.  We haven't decided yet to get the 3 does.  I'll let you all know if we do because I'll probably have a ton of questions.

I have been researching how to milk a goat, saving the milk and such.  Looks like I'll have to invest in a few supplies.

I tried a new recipe tonight to use up the leftover chicken from the other night.  It was quite delicious.  Although, Madison said it didn't taste good.  I swear that girl should be a vegetarian some days.  I don't think she'd like to give up pepperoni.

We've taken down the Christmas decorations and I returned them to thehosue in town today.  It seems roomier in here tonight without the tree.  And it also feels cold!  LOL  I'm not sure the two are related but I'm chilly.  The temps are in the single digits below zero with a NW wind this evening.

Our baby bunnies are doing well. We've been bringing in both does in the am to nurse and everyone is thriving except for 2 runts in the litter of 10.  I brought Poppy in this evening to nurse the 2 of them but they didn't get much so I'm wondering if something isn't right with them.  They sure were giving it their best effort!

Well, I'm off to bed.  Good Night!
Carol

I need some information on dairy goats.  With so many wise and experienced homesteaders, I thought I'd throw out some of my questions and thoughts, hoping to get some help and/or advice.

I have a chance to buy a 4 year old Saanen dairy goat.  The gal is willing to breed her and throw in 2 bred doelings in the deal.  The doe is a good milker giving almost 2 gallons a day. I was told she often falls asleep while being milk.

Here are my thoughts/questions:

1.  I'd like a dairy goat to have milk to drink, make soap, ice cream and cheese.  Is a Saanen a good overall choice for these things?

2. We are used to drinking raw cow's milk.  I have tasted Oberhasli milk and I couldn't tell the difference between it and cow's milk.  I keep reading about the "goaty taste of goat's milk".  Is this something that happens in certain breeds or does it have more to do with the goat's diet - grass vs. grain?

3.  I'm reading that Saanen are seasonal breeders... if this gal tries breeding them now, will it take?  She says they are not currently bred, but she will breed them for me.

4.  Does a 4-5 yr old doe have a few years left before I need to retire her from breeding/milking?

Thanks for the help
Carol

Here's the chicken recipe I said I'd share with you.  I found it in a Taste Of Home magazine.  Don't be afraid to try it.  I thought the molasses would be weird but it just tastes like chicken with the flavoring throughout, not just in the skin.  Not sweet, not salty, not molasses tasting, just plain good!

Brined Roasting Chicken

8 cups warm water
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tbsp molasses
1 tbsp whole peppercorns, crushed
1 tbsp whole allspice, crushed
2 tsp ground ginger
1 roasting chicken (4 lbs)
4 cups cold water
1 tsp vegetable oil

For brine, combine the first seven ingred. in a large kettle.  Bring to a boil; cook and stir until salt is dissolved.  Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.

Remove giblets from chicken and save for another use.  Place cold water in a 2 gal. resealable plastic bag; add chicken.  Placein a roasting pan.  Carefully, pour cooled brine into bag.  Squeeze out as much air as possible; seal bag and turn to coat.  Refrigerate 3-4 hours; turning several times.

Discard brine.  Rinse chicken with water; pat dry.  Skewer chicken openings; tie drumsticks together.  Brush with oil.  Place chicken in a roasting pan.  Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 80-90 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 180 degrees; basting occasionally with pan dripping.

Yields: 4-6 servings.

Enjoy!
Carol

Oh, it was "brisk" this morning (-8 degrees) when I bought the new rabbit mamas in to nurse their youngsters.  We named the mamas Phyllis and Poppy Seed.  I hated calling them doe 1 & 2.  Both did well once they understood what was going on.  We should only have to bring them in once a day since they are good moms and every little one had a fat little belly after nursing.  That makes things easier for me.

Madison brought one of my bantam chickens to me during chores to show me its blood stained feathers.  It's chest area obviously was bleeding at one time and Madison said there was blood on some of the old piping (pipes from when it was a dairy barn) where the chickens roost.  I figured that it just got in a fight with a turkey but Rich and Madison investigated further to discover skin on the pipe.  So we think the chicken must have gotten wet and its feathers froze to the pipe while it was sleeping.  OUCH!  My goodness, that must have hurt!  I think the little guy will be ok. 

I tried a new bread recipe I got from Karen L.  She shared it with me a few days ago and I've been waiting to try it.  Unfortunately, I used the bread machine (cuz' that's what Karen does) and the electricity popped off while it was in the dough cycle.  It still tasted good but I'm not sure it rose properly so I will try again in a few days.

We did a bunch of search-a-word puzzles today.  I'm very competative when it comes to puzzles.  Madison and Rich imposed rules for me to follow to slow me down as I get them done so quickly.  I had to use a different color crayon for marking each word (that included removing and putting each crayon back in the box) and I had to go straight down the wordlist, no skipping around.  FYI:  I'm still the word search Champ, lol. 

I made a brined chicken for supper.  I had my doubts due to the ingredients in the brine but it was delicious!  The recipe is a keeper.  I'll share it you real soon.

I think that's about it for today.
Carol

Oh boy, did we get a surprise today.  I headed out with Madison to do chores this morning.  I was watering the rabbits when I discovered our pen of Flemish Giant cross females was full of pulled hair.  There was hair everywhere.  So I started to dig to see if there were kits in this huge nest of hair.  Nothing!  Now, 5 does share this enclosure.  One is fawn colored and the rest are chinchilla and of course, the hair is all chinchilla colored.

So what to do... I thought quickly and decided that the fastest way to see who was about to kindle was to throw straw in and see who starts a nest.  Within a minute I had a doe with a mouth full of straw so we put her in a cage, gave her straw and let her be.  I went to finish watering and wouldn't ya know, another doe has a full mouth of straw so into a cage she went. 

Once we had those gals settled, I went out and emptied the enclosure of the pulled hair.  That way, I'd know if another doe started.  When we got these does, we knew there was a possibility of them all being bred since they were free to do as they pleased on DJ's property.   I just wasn't expecting 2 in one day!  LOL  If I've figured right, we shouldn't have to worry about this after the 10th.  Although 2 did get out and were found with Midnight (buck) so it might be another week to be sure.

Before 3 pm we had 8 kits from one doe and 10 from the other.  So 18 kits in the house for now.  Of course, we are getting snow and temps are to dip into the negatives tonight so they'd freeze to death out in the barn.  They are all toasty warm in nestboxes and either we'll bring the moms in or take babies out for nursing starting tomorrow.

Here's the new babies:

8 from Doe #1 above and 10 from Doe #2 below:

Wish us luck with these little ones!
Carol

It was kind of a lazy day here on the farm.  Rich was feeling much better this am and headed out with Bill to help Kellie and Jeremy with house construction.  They are remodeling an old farmhouse... I do believe it was gutted and they are doing all the work themselves.  Since Austin was working at Wal-Mart, that left us girls at home.

Madison whipped up a batch of BBQ Chex Mix.  She's been begging since before Christmas for me to make it.  Today I told her, "here's the recipe, you make it."  She had just a couple questions and managed it quite well.

I made venison barley soup for supper.  I used what was leftover from my cannning yesterday and added a quart of my homemade tomato juice.  I threw in a few veggies as well.  Oh, was that delicous, I wish there had been more!

Well, I better get Chas ready for bed.  GoodNight!
Carol

I'm finally feeling better.  I believe I'm on the down side of this head cold.  Unfortunetely, Rich has it now and I think it's worse then it was for me.  He looked pretty tough last night but managed to have a good time at the New Year's Eve party.  He's completely wiped out today but has done the "heavy chores."

I canned 7 pints of venison and 4 quarts of venison broth this afternoon.  I'm offically out of pint jars.  I never thought that would happen.  I have a bunch of quart jars left.  I think I'm done canning for a while so it's not a big deal.. just thought it was interesting.

I tried a new recipe for french bread tonight with supper.  It was completely made in the bread machine and was pretty good.  Next time, I'll try using just the dough cycle and shape the loaves for a more traditional look.

Last night's festivities at church was a good time.  Even Chastiti seemed to be enjoying herself.  Austin made a friend or 2 and Madison hung out with the girls.  There was excellent food, conversation, games and music.  I was told they wouldn't go til midnight but we were still there at 12:15 am and so was everyone else!  LOL  It's so nice to have such great neighbors and fellowship.  What a great way to welcome in the new year!

It's windy here tonight.  I'm happy to report our furnace continues to blow warm air.  They were predicting snow but I didn't see any today.  Temps have stayed above 0 degrees which is very nice.

I forgot to mention but the other day I was in with our pot belly pigs and I believe we should be looking for piglets around the end of February.  Puga has a little tummy, it's pretty cute.  Rich doesn't think I should be able to see "a tummy" yet but I think I do. 

We also received the news that Ham isn't a good candidate to be a mom.  So we will be butchering her as soon as we have room in the freezer for her.  It will be nice to have pork again in the freezer.

Well, that's all the news for today.  Hope everyone had a great 1st of 2009!
Goodnight!
Carol

We are headed to a New Year's Eve get together at a local church this evening so I'm blogging early.

I woke to a house at 50 degrees this morning and -17 degrees outside.  Our furnace was malfunctioning so Rich got up and shortly there after the repair guy was here.  After a couple hours, the furance was once again blowing hot air.  Thank goodness we have baseboards in the living room and in the girls' room, or I think it would have been much colder!

It looks like the family is ready to go, so Have a Happy New Year!
Carol

My pressure canner was busy today.  Although I wasn't feeling real great, I need to get my chicken and chicken stock canned today.  I canned 8 pints of chicken.  Then I went on to the stock that was left and canned 7 quart of plain stock and the remaining 6 quarts I added veggies to for a soup base.  My table is full of cooling jars tonight.

I've been looking through some cookbooks for new recipes to try.  I'm not real good at the "just throw this and that in a pot" and BAM!  Here's supper.  I like to follow a recipe and then make changes.  I found a couple that sound interesting so I might give them a try this week.

I believe that's all the news for today.  I feel like all I did was canning but it sure is a nice feeling to have that all done and ready to use.

GoodNight~
Carol

It was pretty nice here today, in the upper 20's.  I didn't get much time to spend outside as I was inside working with my chicken stock.  It's ready to go for canning tomorrow.

We watched the Vikings/Giants game.  Yes, we are MN Viking fans.  It looks like the Vikings get to play one more game.  I'm not real confident that they'll play more than that.  With their record, they really havne't earned a trip to the SuperBowl.  OK, enough about football.

It's kind of quiet around here tonight.  Madison headed over to my sister's to spend a couple of nights.   Madison is 2 months older then my niece.  They are the best of friends.  Tomorrow I get to do chores alone without my helper.  Although, I have to say, I can get them done faster without the helper!  LOL

I'm tired tonight.  I have a bit of a head cold and the cold tablets are kicking in so I better head to bed.  GoodNight!
Carol