Carrie's Shooting Spree!

It started as a normal early autumn day on the farm. Sunny but chilly with a slight breeze. In the background, you could hear the goats asking to be fed and the chickens singing their egg songs as their morning production commenced. Then a flash pierces the still subdued light of the morning! "Got it!" she exclaimed. "You've got to see this one!" she insisted as I ran(walked fast) to see the victim. Yes, Carrie has taken to her camera and nothing escapes the careful aim of her shutter. Here are a few of the great images she captured around the farm:

Burning Bush ( Euonymus alata "Compactus") in fall color. A beautiful non native invasive that is being allowed to grow wild along our fence line by the road.

A small toad waiting for something smaller to eat. It is difficult to tell from the photo exactly how tiny this little guy is, but he would fit easily on a nickel!

Duke, looking smart upon his soapbox sporting his Maynard G Krebbs goatee.

The scarecrow stands watch over part of the harvest.

Homeland Security is headed up by the rather stern looking Ms. Sheba (aka- "stretchie kitty"). She can often be found sleeping during the days in the henhouse where she protects the feed from any small furry would-be grain theives.

Sheba's able young deputy, Tigger (aka- "Steenky") is at the ready to back her up as needed. In this photo, he is on field duty investigating a tip about a possible terrorist threat involving a small red-tailed hawk.

Piggy Goats

Photo by Carrie Taylor

Once again, we have expanded the herd! Isabel is the latest addition to our barnyard family. An 8 week old pygmy goat with a beautiful snow white coat and big gold green eyes. But don't let this dainty little lady fool you... she has no problem holding her own against the much larger Duke and Clementine! In the photo below, you can see how they are doing some individual expanding of their own. Sometimes they seem more like piggys than pygmys. The older goats took to the new little girl right away. Well, almost right away, after a bit of barnyard instruction on the rules of the herd and other important things for a new young goat to know. But, quickly enough, they were all getting along well. In fact, the first night they were all cuddled together against the early fall chill.

Photo by Carrie Taylor

Back to our Roots

Photo by Dan W. Taylor

We've been blessed with a bounty of root veggies this year! Including our Ebenezer white onions, Danvers Half Long carrots, and Kennebec potatoes pictured above. When I see these together, they remind me that potato soup is one of my favorite fall comfort foods. Here's one of my favorite recipes courtesy of Paula Deen:

Ingredients

• 1/2 stick butter
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 medium carrots, diced about the same size as the onion
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 8 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 4 cups milk, whole, reduced fat (2 percent) or low fat (1 percent)
• 2 chicken bouillon cubes, dissolved in 1/2 cup hot milk
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 cups salted water
• Crumbled bacon bits, for garnish
• Grated sharp Cheddar, for garnish
• Dill sprigs, optional garnish

Directions

In a 4-quart saucepan, melt the butter and saute the onion and carrots until both are slightly tender, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the potatoes, milk, and dissolved bouillon cubes. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are very soft and some of them have begun to dissolve into mush. Add the half-and-half, salt, and pepper.

Serve soup sprinkled with bacon bits and grated cheese. Garnish with dill sprigs, if desired.

Can't be beet!

Detroit Dark Red Beets

Well, root crops are turning out to be a big part of our harvest this year! For the first time, we've tried growing beets. We just put out three rows as a tryout. We used transplants and floating row covers with lots of good home grown compost as a soil amendment. Well, this attention plus the cooler than normal temps have yielded a great return! We were able to can 12 pints of fresh beets plus have extras for fresh eating! That averages out to more than a pint per foot of row! So needless to say, we will be growing more of this vegetable. Perhaps even trying a late summer / fall crop along with the turnips.

Here's one of our favorite recipes from a great local restaurant, Meadowlark Restaurant

Beets with Horseradish, Goat Cheese and Pecans

3-4 whole fresh beets; tops removed
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1/4 cup mirin; (sweet cooking sake)
1 cup pure olive oil
1/2 cup jar horseradish
salt and pepper
crumbled goat cheese or feta cheese
chopped, toasted pecans

Roast the Beets:
Set the oven to 400 degrees. Lay a piece of foil in a small baking dish and
put the beets on the foil. Drizzle lightly with olive oil. Gather foil
around beets and crimp to seal. Roast for about 45 minutes, or until beets
pierce easily with a paring knife.

Make the Dressing:
Place orange juice, mirin, olive oil and horseradish in a bowl and slowly
whisk in the oil. Season with salt and pepper. Or, put it all in a jar
together and shake like mad!

allow beets to cool, then gently peel and trim them. Cut them into
bite-size dice, about 3/4" square.

Arrange beets in one layer on a platter or individual plates or bowls.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Spoon horseradish dressing liberally over
beets. Sprinkle well with crumbled cheese and pecans. Yum!

Jars of beets

Has it been THAT long!?!?

Has it really been over 2 months since the last post.... Wow, how time goes by... So let's start to catch up:


First, the garden is doing very well with all of the sunshine and timely rains lately. The first crop of onions is drying for harvest. The beets are ready, as is the Swiss Chard and Eight-Ball Zucchini. Beans will be ready soon, both the Contender green beans and the Royal Burgundy purple pod beans. Other crops this year include: Sweet corn, Pumpkins (Hercules), Watermelon (sugar baby), Cantaloupe (Ambrosia), Acorn Squash (Table Ace), Cucumbers (Spacemaster, Little Dillicious), Potatoes (Pontiac), Tomatoes (Roma, Better Bush, Lemon Boy, Celebrity, Brandywine), Broccoli (Packman), Sugar Snap Peas (Oregon Sugar Pod), Peppers (Cayenne, Jalapeno, California Wonder, Sheeps Nose, Oriole), Arugula, Horseradish, Basil, Lime Basil, Sage, Chives, Rosemary, Italian Parsley, Oregano (Greek and Italian), Lemon Balm, Chamomile (German), Cilantro, Dill, and a few others I'll think of later.

Bright Lights Swiss Chard

Improved Detroit Dark Red Beets

The hens have been very productive these days. We've added a couple of Araucanas to the flock. This variety of chicken is known for it's unusual colored eggs... Blue and Green! Gathering eggs each day is like Easter morning. Eggs in blue, white, green, brown, tan, pink can all be found in the nest boxes and odd corners. The Cochin ladies will be laying in the next month or so and the new group of 15 Golden Comets (read as "egg laying machines") will be in production within a few weeks after that.

Colored Eggs


Duke and Clementine waiting for a treat

The invasion of pygmys continue. Little lady Clementine has joined the fray along with her beau, Duke. Duke likes when Carrie holds him but Clementine becomes a bit jealous and standoffish not wanting to share her boy. They will be the start of the breeding stock (but not too soon!).

Clementine, ready for her closeup Mr. Demille.

Well, I'm sure that there is much more but I'll leave that for the next post which will be MUCH sooner! Promise....

Bloomin' Daisy

Daisy in the Yard Photo by Dan Taylor

Ok, here's the latest revelation. We've been beset by a cloven hoofed beast and her name is Daisy. Well, yeah, I suppose that's a bit melodramatic as she is a sweet little baby pygmy goat. She currently resides in a dog cage in our bathroom complete with stuffed animal and heart shaped pillow to sleep on. Well, that's when she's not watching tv or chewing on my boot laces. Black and silver hair with white patches makes here a classic agouti colored pygmy. Her grown weight will be between 35 and 45 pounds but right now she's about 5 pounds , or about half the size of the cat that babysits her. She's just a bottle baby right now but she is full of energy and bounces everywhere she goes. Carrie practically has her potty trained. We will be getting her a playmate in the next week or so. A little boy to chase and flirt with.

Marans TRADED!

In an unexpected move today, Morning Meadows management has traded young sensation Carl "Cuckoo" Marans. The talented Marans is now assigned to the Medway team where we're sure he will be productive. The move to trade came as a surprise as Marans was just coming into his own. "This kid can really crow", commented veteran manager Carrie Taylor. Marans was traded for 10 young prospects. "This trade was necessary for the future of the club" said Taylor, "They're a fine group of feather footed Cochins". Hopefully, this will be a great start to what appears to be a few more lineup changes here early in the season. In fact, rumor has it that the Morning Meadows team may just be in the process of starting a minor league franchise. Time will tell.

Paparazzi photo of the 10 new players celebrating the trade.

That time again! ...finally...

Photo by Carrie Taylor

Just when it seemed like it would never arrive, it's finally the Ides of March! Always a highly anticipated time here on the farm as it's the day that the garden is awakened from it's winter slumber to prepare for the growing season ahead. Always on the 15th of March, we have planted our early green onions. We have planted them through rain and snow and even by flashlight a few times. In 1993, just a few days after knee surgery, I was out in the garden on a crutch planting onions. This year, however, the weather was almost perfect! The temperature was a warm 60 degrees and mostly sunny. The soil was warming and loose. With a bit of rain expected in the next few days, these bulbs should be active by next week!

In addition to onions, this year we are also trying a few other early crops. We have started a small area of rocket arugula. A very quick growing, cold hardy salad green with a very peppery flavor. We usually wait until April to sow this one, but after seeing it come through some harsh weather last year, we think it'll be tough enough to get an early start.

Well, the spring season has officially begun here on the farm, even if not on the calendar. More and more activity to come every week now.

Misty morning

photo by Dan Taylor

Just another beautiful pre-spring morning on the farm. The fog has turned to hoar frost and covers the trees and ground in a sparkling blanket. Soon, these crisp mornings will give way to the warmth of the early spring sun and daffodils, crocus, and dandelions will follow.

The Monster Egg!

Double yolked? At least!

Recently, little miss Cinnamon decided the time was right for her to take the final step towards hendom and start laying eggs. She started right off with beautiful large white eggs which were a great contrast to the medium brown of the Rhode Island Reds and the dark browns of the Cuckoo Marans. Pretty eggs, yes, but nothing out of the ordinary. Well, she went about 3 days with no egg, which is common during the winter months, and then IT happened. I went unsuspecting to the nest boxes just like every morning, gathering a few eggs here and there when my hand brushed a foreign object. Now this is always scary in the darkened corner where the nest boxes are. You never know what your hand is going to find! But what I pulled out was amazing! It was the largest chicken egg I have ever seen! it is fully 3 times the size of a normal egg! It looks like a goose egg. Poor girl! The photo above shows for comparison, a medium egg from our Golden Campine and a jumbo egg from our Rhode Island Red. That's not a dime on top, it's a quarter! The young lady took it all in stride, though. She was scratching around outside as though it was no big deal. Well, she got an extra bit of cabbage and banana that day.

Eggs A Plenty!

Dan's hat full of eggs.

Well, the ladies are starting to increase their output! It's almost like Christmas morning with every trip out to check the nest boxes. About 6 of the hens are laying regularly now, with eggs ranging from bright white to off white to light brown all the way to dark chocolate brown from one of the cuckoo marans hens. I hope that this is an indication of how productive the flock will be when warmer weather approaches.

The gardens are in the planning stages right now. Only about 8 short weeks until onions sets go in the ground. Currently, asparagus, raspberries and blackberries are being transplanted to areas with better soil management. We still have the cold frame to build that we were hoping would be finished by now. Plants need to be started indoors soon! Whew, but we love this time of year!