Twisted Fern Farm: January 2014

Friday, January 31, 2014

Snomad Blogger

It makes my day to wake up to a nice dusting of snow. I know it won't last but...

With faces like that I'll manage the rest of the day just fine. Such a pretty boy, how could you not want to kiss that face? And Willz is has such a mischievous smile, love it!
(Check out Lucy in the background... LMAO, she's in raging heat. Its no wonder my neighbor is moving.)

I'm so amazed how big Shane is, he's such a sweetie pie too!

Thought I'd share a different view for a change. There are 20 plus chickens in this photo along with 5 goats. Can you find them all?

What have I been up to the last two weeks? Well, I'm attempting apple cider vinegar from scratch. So far, it's going well.

We've been collecting and boiling down our syrup. Haven't gotten much but, it's still early.

I attempted a batch of goat milk soap but... grrr... realized I converted the recipe wrong and had to "re-batch" it.

That means I had to warm it up and add more oil to it so the lye would completely react. Of course, I could have used the bars as an acid peel soap. Err hehe

It's definitely not as pretty anymore... looks like Aa or is it Pahoehoe? I may have wrecked it entirely. The man with the beard wanted soap on a rope so, I put some hemp in the corner for him. Hoping it gets hard or we'll be using lotion/soap.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Messes, Potions, Maple Trees and Flirting Old Goats

Making potions and messes.

Some of the mess made a pretty picture.

Some of the mess made pretty patterns.

And some of the mess made pretty shampoo.

My second go at making soap. I was very prepared this time.

I ended up with pretty green soap.

I think Banjo is flirting with me. Crazy old goat!

Our friend stopped by today and gave us 10 taps and said to go tap our maple trees today. So we did.
We might be a tad early but, who knows.

Our first attempt at tapping maple trees.

Hey, I think he's flirting with me too! Crazy old goat!

No, Huckleberry is not flirting with me. Huckleberry is smiling because I'm flirting with him. Tee hee, crazy old goat lady.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Pent Up Energy!

So, I took the goaties on the WF hike today. It's been rainy and yucky and they've been all cooped up and need some fresh air and exercise... and to blow out the cobwebs... feisty little critters!

Here, they are distracted by the last patch of decent berry leaves and for the most part are well behaved.

Had to throw in a pretty picture of Shane. King of the rotten stump is almost the tallest goat now. He will soon have no competition for the high branches.

And let the feisty out nnnnnnnnow! Turns out the walk didn't burn enough energy and the fight begins with Willow and Huckleberry...

And ends with Lucy! Does anyone really want to tangle with her? NO! I have several very blurry action pics but, these speak for them enough. A few slams from the herd queen and everyone is quiet.

I guess its over now. So nice of them to trot right into their pen.

(psst, check out the shop! Guess what landed there? snigger snigger)

The WF's

We have 4 major drainage's on our property and we've had a hard time naming them. I'm fondly naming them WF's, short for Water Falls: WF1, WF2, WF3 and WF4, in order north to south. WF1 trickles year round and makes great ice when it freezes but, it never flows more than a trickle. Pictured above is WF2, if it rains it has water in it. If the snow melts, it has water in it.

WF2 has the longest lasting berry patch of the season at its base. Here you will find the goaties munching until spring. Once spring hits this berry patch will grow so big they won't be able to stand where the are in the photo.

This is WF3 and it flows nearly year round. It has a fun pond at its base and some day we're going to build a trail to it with a fun cable bridge across it.

This is WF4 and it also only flows with heavy rain and snow melt. It does trickle most of the year but, it is only spectacular when full.

I waded through the wet ferns up the hill to get a close up of WF3. If you look at the first photo of it you can barely make out that it splits in two around a tree at the top. I tried to get closer to take a picture of it but the goats started to panic. They won't cross the creek to follow me and they get weird if I get too far away. Oh well, next time.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Birds Eye View Or Rat Bird? Everyone wins!

Remember, Pepper's favorite perch is in the goat barn on the railing. This is fine when the humans don't bother her early in the morning and after the dark. See, chickens keep different hours than goats. Chickens tuck themselves in about an hour and a half before dark and hop off the perch at daylight the next day.

Its very disruptive to Pepper when we flip the lights on at O'darkthirty in the morning to milk/feed and she has to fly away outside... especially if its raining and nasty. She is, again, put out of place when we come in for evening pet and turn out the lights time.

Having put up with quite enough commotion, she flew across Little Barn and up into the hay mow. Yes, its hard to imagine a chicken doing that but, she did.

And there she perched in peace looking down and keeping watch from above.

In the morning I did annoy her a little coming up the stairs to get hay/alfalfa but, she didn't mind too much because she didn't have to escape outside into the nasty, windy, rainy weather.