Aagaard Farms THE VINE

Yummy Butternut Cranberry Bread With Whole Grains

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:12:00 +0000

If you read this blog a bit, you know we love winter squash at Aagaard Farms - us, the goats, the chickens: we're all eating squash! We grow about eighteen kinds, and are fortunate to be able to store them for winter use. We're always interested in new recipes. I receive a fantastic e-newsletter from Simple Bites (use the link and go sign up now!), and this past week, it contained a fabulous link to an article on whole grains from Good Life Eats. We're really committed to using more whole grains, for the health benefits as well as great taste, and there are some great tips in the article for using, storing, grinding and such. It also contained a recipe for a whole grain pumpkin cranberry loaf. Just so happened the night before, I had used part of a butternut squash in a chickpea stew so it seemed like it was 'meant to be' that I should try this loaf. I had put the butternut not used in the stew in the oven to roast while I was cooking so it was ready to go!

Now, the recipe calls for pumpkin, and I have some 'Sugar Pie' pumpkin here but the butternut was roasted and ready to go. You can replace any winter squash for another in any recipe - it will just change the outcome slightly. Using butternut instead of pumpkin probably gave me something a little sweeter and a little smoother. Once you've baked or roasted a squash, you just need to break it up with a fork or hand blender to get exactly what is in a can without preservatives, colorings, BPA or whatever else. You've got the goodness of just plain, unadulterated squash. If you'd like a little review of roasting and preserving winter squash, check out this post here.

Here's the recipe link: it called for whole wheat or spelt, oat and barley flour. I had organic whole wheat, unbleached white and spelt. Worked well, the result was a moist, dark loaf. The cranberries add a nice 'zing'. The recipe called for a little bit of the spice cardamom, which I didn't have, but I just used a wee bit more of the other spices called for. Really like this loaf - that recipe is a keeper! And good to know that Farmer Man is getting his grains! You don't have to tell them it's good for them - right?

Slow Cooking Morning and Evening!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:34:00 +0000

We've gotten back into our slow cooker in a big way the last month. It's so easy to put it on the shelf and kind of forget about it - especially once summer hits and we're eating fresh, fresh, fresh from the garden! This all started when sister Keltie shopped at her local Farmers' Market for our Christmas present; she sent us an assortment of great slow-cooker soups from Souptacular in Alberta. The product is packaged with everything needed, including the spices. You just put everything in the crock pot with water or stock and walk away! Six hours later, a beautiful soup, and healthy with a selection of beans, peas, lentils, barley and such. Our favorite so far is the Tandoori - would be great with chicken added, as well.

Breakfast!

With the slow cooker out on the counter, I started to pay more attention to the foodie blogs and Facebook pages that I follow when they talked about slow cookers. Saw a great recipe for hot breakfast oatmeal in the slower cooker from Simple Bites - instructions are here for Apple Pie Oatmeal. Takes five minutes before bed to mix the ingredients and you wake up to a hearty, hot breakfast. The recipe calls for steel-cut oats; we have local organic oat flakes in the house but I bought the steel-cut to trial the recipe. I also wanted to see what the fuss was all about over steel-cut. Really good! We halved the recipe because we're two and also because an appropriate container for the serving for four would not fit in our little crock pot - check that out before you proceed! The oats are cooked in a water bath (or bain de marie for your foodies): a mix of oats, milk, grated apple and applesauce are put in a heat resistant container like a heavy, glass measuring cup and then placed in the crock pot surrounded by water. The oatmeal is, essentially, steaming. The Apple Pie Oatmeal was just delightful! There's a link in Simple Bite's post to an almond oatmeal - we'll be trying that, too! And, I'll also be trying to incorporate some of our local oat flakes and spelt groats that are in the house. Nice thing is, too, that I didn't really get the slow cooker dirty!

Dinner

I had been online reading about the good value of chicken thighs, as opposed to cooking with chicken breasts, so I picked up a package during my last grocery shop. Went online and found an easy recipe from the blog What Kara's Cookin'; it didn't require browning of the chicken and called for our homegrown potatoes and carrots! The recipe calls for half broth/half wine but I used just our stock with a splash of homemade thyme vinegar, to brighten things up. Less than ten minutes of cleaning and chopping some vegetables, mixing the stock with minced garlic and dried thyme, both from the garden, layer everything and done! Six hours later a great chicken dinner, the chicken thighs really moist and yummy! And I love having one pot to clean!

Of course, there was no time between breakfast and dinner to slow cook a lunch. Lunch for us was eggs fresh from the chicken coop and homemade bread! Are you using your slow cooker these days? It may be time to dust it off!

A Good Egg!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Did you know that a chicken lays the same egg all the time? Yes, by species, an Ameraucana will always lay a little pastel blue egg, a Black Sex-Link will always lay a brown egg and a Leghorn will always lay a white egg. But, more than that, each individual hen will lay almost the exact same egg every time she lays! Some girls lay an almost round egg, some lay long, oval eggs every timem some have freckles. One of our girls is laying a wrinkled egg quite regularly! It's definitely one of the young Black Sex-Links, because this is a new thing. An Isa Brown would not start doing this in her third year. It's a perfectly fine egg in all respects, it's shell is just wrinkled! It's the kind of thing you would never get in a package of eggs at the store - egg companies remove this kind of imperfect egg and use it for processing into powdered eggs or baked goods. It's rather a pity that only 'perfect' eggs are deemed fit for consumption! I like my eggs with a little character! Would you be unnerved if you found an egg like this in your carton? You can have one if you care to come buy some eggs at our farm gate!

Greener Cleaning

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:23:00 +0000

In 2012 we're committed to getting greener, making more of our own products, growing and preserving more of our food. We're aiming at a good degree of self-sufficiency, but we're not gung-ho enough to give up coffee or bananas quite yet. (Or chocolate...) We're turning our attention this week to house cleaning products. There are lots of great solutions for cleaning that don't contain harsh chemicals, aren't overly scented, are less expensive and will be easier on the environment, us and our animals! Some of these ideas we've been using for so long we don't even know the origins any longer. Many we've gotten out of Annie B. Bond's 'Eco-Clean Deck', which we won: read about it here. Some of these recipes have come from our favorite magazines such as Mother Earth News, Herb Quarterly or Organic Gardening.

For many years, our go-to glass and mirror cleaner has been vinegar and water, using one part vinegar to nine parts water. Lemon juice would do the trick, too; it would be great to be in a warm climate and have cleaner with ingredients from the back yard! (We also use a similar vinegar solution, made a little stronger, as a non-selective weed killer.) We've used baking soda as a soft scrubber, especially on our good pots. One cup baking soda, followed by one cup vinegar for a bubbling affect and then boiling water is quite effective to clean slow moving drains.

After doing some research in the fall, we got together a green cleaning shopping list. Borax, washing soda, vegetable glycerin, tea tree oil and grapefruit seed extract were the major things to buy. Baking soda, salt, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and essential oils are cleaning supplies that are pretty much staples in our house. I, personally, was a little surprised to easily find the washing soda and borax at my big-box grocery store. Both, along with the tea tree oil and grapefruit seed extract were at our local natural food store. Did you know that grapefruit seed extract is a very powerful and effective disinfectant? I was happy to put it on the list because it's also a great preservative for homemade beauty products. And, it's great to have a more natural product for cleaning not only in the house, but in the chicken coop and goat pen, as well! Tea tree oil, as well, is a great antiseptic and also very effective against mildew!

So, for general cleaning of dirt and grime, like floors and walls, we're using 1/4 C borax dissolved in 2 liters (about 1/2 a gallon) of hot water. It's in a spray bottle for use on our laminate floors, counters, walls etc. Not great, apparently, for real wood. This is an alkaline cleaner; the 'Eco-Clean Deck' has some great info on alkaline cleaners versus acid cleaners. Acid cleaners will be better for pet and body stains and odors, and mineral buildup. 'Eco-Clean Deck's acid cleaner recipe is 1/4 C vinegar or lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon liquid detergent or soap and 3/4 C warm water. Something interesting we learned for the 'Eco-Clean Deck' is that soap is generally from natural sources, detergent is from artificial, largely chemical sources. So, we're opting for liquid soap: we're using Dr. Bronners Castille/Hemp soap which is a pretty multi-purpose shampoo/body wash/cleaning liquid - awesome stuff You could also use a natural glycerin soap - both castille and glycerin soaps you can find at your natural food store. If you're not that militant about keeping it natural, whatever you're washing your dishes with would work!

For an antiseptic cleaner: 1 tsp washing soda, 2 tsp borax, 1/2 tsp. liquid soap, 1 tsp. antiseptic essential oil like lavender, tea tree or the grapefruit seed extract plus 2 cups hot water. For dish washing by hand: from the 'Eco-Clean Deck', 1 ounce of the liquid soap, 2 cups water, 1 teaspoon vegetable glycerin plus five to ten drops of essential oil, an antibacterial one like lavender adds fragrance and extra cleaning! For the dishwasher: from Mother Earth News, 2 cups washing soda, 1 cup borax and 1 cup baking soda.

Who knew? Cream of tartar is fabulous for porcelain, according to the 'Eco-Clean Deck'. We've been using baking soda and water, mixed as a light paste for lots of scrubbing duty. The Deck lists a heavy duty scrubber as equal parts of baking soda and washing soda. For a mildew remover try borax, tea tree and just enough liquid soap to make a paste. For the toilet bowl how about equal parts baking soda and vinegar, which will give you a bubbling, frothy cleaner. Follow with a good scrub with the bowl brush, invest in a good, sturdy toilet bowl brush.

Doing laundry is a bit more of an interesting challenge. We haven't tried any homemade laundry solutions yet. Using soap instead of detergents is the first step. Castille soap can be used but I haven't found dosage recommendations, just a note that one should always rinse in cold water to prevent any further sudsing. Washing soda, an alkaline, is great for brightening and whitening, about 1/4 cup for standard machines and 1/8 for HD machines. About 1/2 cup lemon juice added to the rinse cycle is a great whitener. The solution we're using for laundry right now is a fabulous Organic Laundry Soap in powder form from Winnipeg's SoGa Soap. It's ingredient list of organic sunflower and coconut oil, borax, calcium carbonate and fragrance is short and sweet, and just 1/2 tablespoon per load makes it quite economical. (Louise's CupFake bubble bath goodies are outrageously fabulous, too!)

When you're making the move to greener cleaning, you've got to 'step away' from the disposables. Disposable dusting clothes, disposable wet cleaning clothes, even the chemical laden 'erasers' and such are filling up landfills quickly! We've invested in a wet/dry mop with a washable head, a washable mitt for dusting (can't use anti-static/fabric softener with it if you put it in the dryer) and a few different washable cleaning clothes and shams. For window and mirror cleaning we use the newspaper - works well although it will start to shred if you scrub too much. Lots of our cleaning and scrubbing is done with rags from old t-shirts and towels - all fully washable and a great form of recycling! Are you thinking of making a move to greener cleaning? Please share your recipes and tips in the comments - would love it if you shared!

Now We're (Trying) To Make Goat Treats!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:48:00 +0000

Who knew? Apparently, goats have a bit of a sweet tooth. Training, of any kind, can be greatly enhanced by a little tidbit of something sweet as a reward. We've seen a few blogs that call cracked corn the 'crack' drug of goats - highly addictive. Our little herd gets cracked corn in their mixed grain ration everyday, that is how the bagged product is formulated. So, for training purposes, we needed something extra special: how about corn in corn syrup? We used the treat recipe on one of our favorite goat blogs, The Henry Milker. Here's the recipe for their goat treats.

The recipe seems quite simple: boil sugar, corn syrup and water, add cracked corn, cook for a while, remove from heat and add baking soda (good for the goats stomachs). Sounds easy, right? The recipe says to bring the temperature of the cooking liquids to 300 F. Well, I had my candy thermometer in the mixture and it didn't seem to want to budge past 250 F. Boiled for ten minutes at medium, no movement. So I nudged the heat up to medium high and still no movement. I let more than five minutes pass, still stirring and no movement. I nudge the heat up to high and kept stirring. My candy thermometer seems to want to just stay at 250 F. Now, I don't have a lot of experience with making candy and I had doubled the recipe, but this just didn't seem right. The mixture smelled strongly of sugar and corn at this point and had been boiling for over twenty minutes; the recipe says nothing about how long the cooking will take. I decide the thermometer is broken, it's been boiling for quite a while and it's probably done! There is nothing else in the house that measures that high so I'm winging it. I remove the pot from the heat, let it cool a bit and then add the baking soda. Immediate bubbling and frothing - the recipe never said anything about that either! Now, I'm seriously wondering if this is not going well....

The recipe instructs to pour the mixture out onto cookie sheets, let it cool and then break into pieces. Hmmmm, twenty four hours later, mine is more like salt water taffy: very flexible, soft and stretchy, nothing is snapping off here! The good news is that the goats were quite enthusiastic about the little sample I took them yesterday! It's probably the most aggressive I've seen our new little buck around the does as he tried for a second piece! I'm going to do a little research, or just email Henry Milker and find out how long it actually takes to cook this stuff! Is there a long, slow period of heat increase in candy making? Well, always something new to learn: that's a good thing, right?

Gorgeous January Weather!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:58:00 +0000

Usually in January, we'd have at least a couple feet of snow and we'd be looking forward to temperatures around -25 C. (about -18 F.): really, really cold. Instead, in this odd year that began with flooding, we have very little snow and yesterday it was melting and dripping! Global warming? Once in three-hundred-year weather pattern? That's a whole other blog post! This kind of weather is actually bad for perennials, trees and shrubs. Plants that are hardy for us need their freezing period and snow is our best insulation. Warm weather with patchy snow cover, inevitably followed by very cold weather, is damaging to root systems and drying for stems and branches!

However, the critters are all enjoying this weather immensely. Sometimes I feel bad about keeping animals in the winter here. Heck, sometimes I feel bad about keeping us here in frigid weather! Wouldn't we all be happier in the warmer climes of southern Ontario or the coast of BC. But, that's not where we live, so we are really going to enjoy the balmy weather predicted for this week!

Doodles getting some sun.

We took the goats out for a walk yesterday. A little romp, a chance for them to enjoy some natural food. Goats love leaves and even like the brown, fallen leaves that are exposed right now. They nibbled in the tomato field, chowed down in the willow shelter belt and really enjoyed the corn field. We like to leave a certain amount of plant material in place for the winter: it acts as snow fencing, trapping and keeping the moisture of snow in place. The added bonus this year is that is provides a little treat for the goats! The dogs, of course, were with us and got some great exercise. The house cats, Blondie and baby Doodles, hung out by the front door, sunning.

Busy in the chicken pasture.

The chickens have been basking in the sun and enjoying their natural dirt baths since there is no snow. Usually this time of year, in extreme cold, they would spend most of the day in the coop with heat lamps on! We try to supply them baths by providing large cat litter boxes filled with peat, diatomaceous earth and wood ash. Natural is better, don't you think? Even the barn cats are getting out for a little sunshine! Love the harmony here at Aagaard Farms - cats and chickens mixing to enjoy the sun. I sometimes find it unbelievable that the barn cats seem to understand that the chickens are off-limits and everyone seems to get along well. Well, except Grizzly Bear, who just can't seem to grasp the concept that the barn cats have a place here, too. We'll keep working on him! Peace and harmony, that's what we like!

Barn kitties and chickens hangin' out!

Sneaking Into Soap Making!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:43:00 +0000

I'm really interested, okay obsessed, with soap making these days. We're hoping to have baby goats and fresh milk in about five months (Go, buckling, go!). The point of adding the goats to our little farm was to have another revenue stream and soap is the easiest path, without the regulations, restrictions and costs associated with selling milk and cheese. Now that Farmers Market season and gardening is finished I have the leisure to pursue some extra interests. Problem is, now is not an ideal time to make soap. Soap making involves lye, a somewhat dangerous ingredient that must be handled very carefully; whenever it is used very good ventilation is always strenuously recommended. We are at the time of year when we are constantly and consistently in freezing temperatures - not a great time to have windows open. Furthermore, our kitchen is built in the middle of the house without any windows, only doors leading to other rooms. And, the ventilation system is elderly and rather questionable. May not be a great time to be messing the lye.

Noodles and milk, ready for the oven!

So what's someone who is soap obsessed to do? Aside from bathing a lot in other people's products? Well, have you heard of soap noodles? I first read about noodles in the excellent book 'Soap Maker's Workshop' by Dr. Robert S and Katherine J. McDaniel. It's soap someone else has made that is then grated or shredded fresh and shipped off to the end user. The end user just has to melt it and then can finish it at will with added ingredients like fragrances, exfoliates and herbs. This is a process called re-batching or hand-milling. Soap makers will re-batch if they think the lye is not completely dissolved or the color or fragrance is not right - it's a way to correct and re-make a batch of soap. Soap makers will also re-batch to add in herbs, flowers or other things that may be damaged in the high heat of the chemical reaction of lye. You can make your own noodles by simply grating bar soap.

Going online to find soap noodles proved interesting. You can buy soap noodles by the shipping container: apparently lots of large commercial soap sellers are not making their own soap from scratch! I found smaller quantities at the site Soap Crafters, a wholesaler for soap and beauty product supplies. They had a good assortment including a very simple goat milk noodle! I ordered and was so excited to receive my box of noodles just before Christmas. Rather a surprise then, when I went back online to make a note of the ingredients to find the Soap Crafters site closed down because the company had been sold to Elements Bath and Body Works! It's taken a few weeks, but Elements is finally listing one soap noodle, a Shea butter soap. Hopefully, Elements will add more noodles in the next little while!

First batch, more a bar than a block.

The process of working with the noodles is really quite simple. The included instructions say to melt it in the oven, in an appropriate oven-proof container, at 200 F, stirring occasionally, until it resembles a very thick soup. Pour into your chosen mold, cool, remove from mold, cut and cure for at least two weeks but six weeks for best results. For my goats milk soap, the instructions called for 1/4 to 1/2 cup of goat milk to be added to one pound of noodles before putting into the oven, and fragrance, exfoliants and herbs are added and stirred in just before pouring into the mold. The McDaniels' book says you can also do it in the microwave or a crock pot.

First batch involved some of the lovely, fresh goat milk from Brambles Nubian Goat Farm. I made it just simple and straight forward, and did just one pound, 1/2 cup was all the milk I had to spare. It took just over an hour to melt down the noodles. Found my chosen mold, an old plastic bread or loaf holder measuring 4" wide by 9" long, was quite large for one pound of soap and I got about an inch of soap in the bottom of the container! A few days later, with store-bought goat's milk I did a two pound loaf, which gave me a block of soap about two inches high. For this one I added lavender essential oil, about ten drops. Smells very nice, so far! Yesterday, I did a three pound batch, adding 1/4 cup of honey and a cup of ground oatmeal, as well as the goats milk. Three pounds made for better sized slices! Now, for the waiting and the curing....

Homemade Dog Treats!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:21:00 +0000

In the flurry of baking that went on just before Christmas, I finally got around to something I've been meaning to do for quite a while: homemade doggie biscuits. As we progress in our quest to be more self-sufficient and eat as local as possible, we're working on including our animals as well. I also like the idea of our doggies not having preservatives, colourings and other unpronounceable ingredients in commercial biscuits. I chose to try this recipe for cheddar cheese dog biscuits, because our dogs love cheese!

The recipe calls for whole wheat flour, rolled oats, corn meal, eggs, milk, butter, water and chicken bouillon cubs, plus the cheddar. I used a combination of local whole wheat, rye and spelt flours because I wanted to use up some of the grains in the pantry. I also substituted my local oat flakes for the rolled oats. The eggs, of course, came from our chicken coop. Butter, milk and cheddar came from the store - but we're hoping to remedy that by spring when our goats, hopefully, have babies and start producing milk! The corn meal and bouillon cubs were store brought, but I'm thinking I could replace the water with my homemade stock to get that 'meaty' flavor. The recipe comes together quite quickly and is oven baked.

The result - a hit with my dogs! The cookies are chewy, not crunchy like the commercial biscuit we've been using. We gifted some little bags of the biscuits to friends with dogs, so I'll be interested to see what the reports will be! Because there are no preservatives, the biscuits must be refrigerated and last up to a week. We kept enough for about five days in the fridge and froze the rest. We made a small size, an inch square, because we (mostly) have small dogs. Because of the fiber, we've been cautious about feeding them - too much fiber can be a bad thing!

In an interesting coincidence, opening our presents Christmas Day, my sister Cathy had sent a great little kit for making doggie treats: a paw-printed container, a recipe book with eighty recipes and some cute cookie cutters shaped like a bone or a cat! Stay tuned as we try some of these new recipes!

A Fabulous, Fresh Christmas Present!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 16:52:00 +0000

A fresh present!

When we went to Brambles Nubian Goat Farm to pick up our buckling, Rebecca gave us an awesome present: fresh goat milk! I've never had fresh milk and it is beautiful: creamy, mild and a wee bit sweet. Like so many things - blows away the stuff in the stores! I can hardly wait until we have our own steady supply (Go, Buckling, Go!). What to do with fresh goat milk a couple of days before Christmas? Make cheese, of course! And maybe a little soap.....

Heat until steamy and frothy, not boiling!

The tiny curds draining.

We've made cheese before; we acquired a great starter cheese kit on Etsy from Urban Cheesecraft, which has everything you need. Making simple, soft cheese is really quite easy. The milk goes into a heavy, stainless pot and is heated to 180 - 190 degrees Fahrenheit, until it's steaming and frothy but not boiling, stirring regularly. Then, you add in citric acid dissolved in water. Curds start to form almost right away - for our goat cheeses the curds have always been tiny. Stir for a few minutes off the heat, then pour into a cheesecloth lined colander. We capture the whey, the yellow liquid, because it's great for the chickens or in place of stock in soups and stews. The cats quite like it, too!

Packing the curds into the mold.

The curds are left to drain for ten minutes, then kosher salt is stirred in. Then, the curds are placed in a mold, or for a casual ball, you can just leave them in the cheesecloth. We weighted down the curds for a firmer set, we put plastic wrap over the top of the mold and popped on a jar of jam. After refrigerating for an hour, we have a nice, soft goat cheese! And sooooo tasty!

The finished product!

Happy Birthday, Goatlings! Have We Got A Surprise For You!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:21:00 +0000

Yes, that's him, hiding behind the Farmer!

This week brings the birthdays of all three of our little Nubian doelings! Yesterday Chocolate turned one, today is Mabel's birthday and Saturday will be Goldie's first birthday. We had decided months ago that they would get a very special present, so yesterday we made a trip to Brambles Nubian Goat Farm up by San Clara, Manitoba. Brambles is where the girls all came from and we needed something special for them that only Brambles could supply.

We returned after dark last night with an eight month old registered Nubian buckling, a gorgeous little guy who is brown with some white and black patches, mostly on his legs. When Rebecca, of Brambles, introduced me to the little guy my first question was: "Is he old enough to do-the-deed?'. Farmer Man came in the barn a short time later and asked almost the exact same question! He is probably about twenty five or thirty pounds lighter than our three does (who admittedly may be a wee bit over-weight), and two or three inches shorter at the shoulder. He is very festive looking at the moment with some bright green splotches: something about a tattoo ink bottle accident a couple of days ago, but Rebecca assures us that it will wash off easily or wear off in a few days!

Look at those festive, green ink spots!

He is just gorgeous; the full Nubian ears, a long slender nose, beautiful big brown eyes, excellent lines! Farmer Man would like to call him 'Randy', but I'd like to get to know him a bit better before picking a name. He smells like a goat buck with a musky, smokey scent that the girls don't have. He has not, unfortunately, been the instant success we were hoping for. The goatlings were in a bit of an uproar when we pulled up to the barn last night. We've never both been away so long and the girls had not gotten their afternoon or evening grain ration and it was past their bedtime and we still hadn't 'tucked' them in! We got the little buckling out of his crate on the back of the truck and set him in the corral where he promptly started to bawl and bleet. I got some grain for everyone: we fed him in the corral and the girls in their usual spot in the barn but left the barn door open. When they finished their grain, the girls came out for a look. Chocolate promptly head butted the little fellow, Goldie chased him around the picnic table and Mabel just went back inside the barn. So much for love at first sight!

The two doelings continued to be quite aggressive with the young buck so we decided to take the crate off the truck, put it in the barn and he could have separate accommodations for the night. Farmer Man found a pallet that would fit over the open door so that the little guy wasn't completely cooped up in the dark. This morning, Farmer Man went and hang out with them for quite a while; he even took all four for a little walk while he gathered kindling. Mabel, as always, is sweet and gentle, just sniffing at him from time to time. Goldie continues to chase him a bit, Chocolate continues to take runs at him, horns first! He did show a bit more gumption today - pushing back a bit, so to say! Other times, the little buckling goes to hide behind Farmer Man anytime the doelings approach. According to everything we've read, once the goatlings even just smell a virile male, they should go into heat within ten to fourteen days, so there may be an attitude adjustment in the next couple of weeks! And hopefully, some baby goats will be bouncing around the farm in May!

Fresh Greens For Everyone!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:59:00 +0000

We try to keep ourselves and our animals, as natural and chemical free as possible. During the growing season our chickens, goats and Berkshire pigs are all in pastures: free to roam, nibble on fresh food and be what they are. The chickens scratch the dirt to eat bugs and seedlings, the goats try to climb trees to eat leaves and bark, the pigs eat everything and wallow in mud. Here in Manitoba now, however, we are now frozen solid with a bit of snow. More snow will come, of that we're sure. So how do we keep our animals eating fresh food? Well, fortunately, they all appreciate a good winter squash. The chickens love the seeds and like the flesh. The goats love the skins and the flesh. Fortunately, we have a root cellar and have a good stash of winter squash. When we cook one for ourselves, we'll keep the seeds for the chickens. It's too bad neither type of animal has much use for potatoes, garlic and onions, although a little garlic in the chickens' water is suppose to be good for them!

This is when our sprouter comes in handy! We've blogged about it before here; we love this thing. We've got a wide variety of seed mixes for sprouting and everybody loves them. Farmer Man will have them on his sandwiches, the chickens go nuts for them and even the goats seem to be enjoying them. We love the idea of everyone get fresh, nutrition-packed food! As soon as the mania of Christmas is over, we'll start some flats of lettuces, which we'll share with everyone. The trendy micro greens for salads for us, maybe a flat in the chicken coop for them to peck at -- and then they'll probably have a dust bath is what remains! A double win for the chickens! The goats are new to this, but they seemed to enjoy their first encounter with sprouts! I may try to force some branches for the goats after Christmas to keep them in their favorite: willow leaves!

Goldie and Chocolate May Need An Agent!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:52:00 +0000

Mabel never made it online - until now!

Our goats may be getting famous! I posted the bottom picture of the goatlings getting on the roof on the Aagaard Farm Facebook page. One of our 'fans' is our pal Michele McDougall, who just happens to be the Weather Person on CityTV's Breakfast Television in Edmonton. She asked permission to use it on air and on her great blog of Fresh Air moments. Check it out, including her on air comments! We've already had a couple of great emails from new 'friends'. Just don't tell the goatlings - don't want it going to their heads! If you want to keep up on the goatlings - come on over a like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter!

It's Hard to Recognize Joel Salatin Without His Hat!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:49:00 +0000

It's the same, for me, with many professions! The hockey or football player is more familiar with helmet on, the way I'm used to seeing them! Would I recognize Queen Elizabeth on the street, without a crown or fancy hat? And who was that guy on stage yesterday at the Manitoba Conservation District Association conference in a navy blazer, dress shirt and tidy slacks? Where was the Farmer Dude with the big hat and suspenders? Ah, but when he started to speak, I knew I was in the right place!

We were glad to have a chance to see Joel Salatin speak yesterday. What he writes resonates greatly with us! We've got a couple of his books: 'Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal' and 'Pastured Poultry Profits'. He's been on the forefront of the movement for healthy, natural, local food for many years now. His books tell the often funny tales of his run-ins with commercial agriculture and government bureaucrats as he just tries to produce good food! His methods are both old-fashioned and cutting edge, and full of common sense!

I wonder how many of yesterday's crowd had previously heard of Joel Salatin? The MCDA is a provincial association of people and groups involved in watershed issues; they are a diverse group representing municipalities, utilities, businesses, habitat conservationists and more! Mr. Salatin talked about the uncontrolled run off that had stripped most of the soil from his Virginia farm over the decades, the loss of the precious resource of spring run-off that he avoids by building natural ponds. His natural way of managing his cattle on pasture precludes the need for manure retention ponds and the danger of leakage into ground water and water systems. He spoke of how his family has been slowly rebuilding the lost soil using sustainable methods that don't require the use of fertilizers, which are expensive and can leach into water systems causing algae blooms. I hope he brought some new ideas to the table!

I love that Joel Salatin's and his business, Polyface Farms, are about what he calls the 'whole-ism' of ecosystems. He wants to let a chicken be a chicken, a pig be a pig and pasture should be what it was meant to be: perennial grasses. In nature, the bison moved into an area, ate the grass down and moved on, allowing the grass to re-grow. Why did someone figure that it is was better to pen them in tiny corrals and feed them unnatural grains and corn? Not for better food, that's for sure. It was for profit and convenience. Mr. Salatin called himself a 'bio-terrorist' because he allows his chickens to cavort with wild birds! If you don't raise poultry, you may not know about the issues of the avian bird flu scare. Some in the industry claimed small producers, like Aagaard Farms, were vectors for bird flu because we didn't immunize and feed antibiotics to our birds and we allowed them outside where wild birds can carry the flu. Poultry, like pigs and cattle, are suppose to be outside, we believe, eating what they're suppose to eat. And their lives interesect on many levels: pigs root around trees, opening land. Chickens eat parasite larvae from cow patties so that the cows don't get re-infested. Cow patties fertilize the land, allowing fresh, healthy re-growth of food plants. And so on!

We were fortunate enough to have two presentations from Joel Salatin yesterday. Both were of great value to us, who are trying to 'grow good food for our neighbors'. At this time of year, when we reflect on the past year and plan for the new year, it's just great to have been touched by the enthusiasm and vigor of someone like Mr. Salatin! And as he said, to paraphrase, if it didn't go well, keep trying! And we will! And we're wishing that everybody gets a copy of one of Joel Salatin's books in their stocking this Christmas. We think every single Ag student should have to read one!

Dark Days 11/12: Week 1

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:53:00 +0000

The Dark Days Challenge is underway! We decided our first meal of local food for the challenge would be Monday, which we've been observing as Meatless Monday Not too much of a stretch for us as we are vegetable growers! Looking around, we decided on baked beans, from our stash of 'Jacob's Cattle' which we harvested this year. Also had a 'Small Wonder' spaghetti squash on the counter, very ripe, so thought we'd use a recipe for a squash pancake that we haven't used in a while. We usually do a bean recipe with rice and although we do have some local wild rice, we decided to use 'Cavena Nuda', a rice substitute that is actually a type of hulless oat or naked oat!

There is a lot of conflicting information out there on using fresh, dried beans. We harvested ours late in September, it took us a few weeks to get them cleaned and ready for storage. Some info says you shouldn't have to soak fresh beans at all and they should cook quickly. Other sources say you should still soak them for a short period, if nothing else but to remove the sugars that can cause the 'musical' effect. We did soak them for a couple of hours, changing the water a couple of times. They plumped up nicely but lost most of their lovely cranberry/ivory color! We then chose to use our home canned marinara sauce for baking the beans.. This is a multi-purpose tomato sauce from Sherri Brooks Vinton's excellent 'Put 'em Up!'. All tomato sauce ingredients were from the farm. We sauteed a bit of our onion and garlic and then mixed beans, sauce and sauteed veg in a baking dish and into the oven! The mixture was done in about an hour and a half - so very quickly for baked beans!

We roasted our little spaghetti squash (and roasted some butternut, too, for a nice soup tonight!). We used Molly Katzen's recipe for the squash pancake, from here. We didn't get the full amount of cooked squash called for in the recipe and adjusted the ingredients on the fly. Our chicken coop supplied the eggs, our flour is local and organic: De Ruyck's that we get from Two Farm Kids, and we just skipped the salt and pepper. When I cracked one of the eggs it was a double yoker, and may have made the pancakes a little too 'eggy', but they were good nonetheless. Alongside were our nude oats, which are an excellent rice substitute! They are chewier than rice, but a lovely wheaty flavor - and good for you! A tasty, hearty dinner for one of our coldest nights so far this year! Have you cooked a totally local meal recently? Even if you're not blogging, feel free to join in The Dark Days Challenge by telling us about it in the comments section!

Making Largely Local Lip Balm

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:20:00 +0000

We're rather interested in anything we can make for ourselves these days. And the more local the better! If you're not aware, we're participating in The Dark Days Challenge, a group of bloggers writing about the challenges of eating local food through the winter. If you follow us on Facebook, we're sharing links for everything from making dog biscuits to Christmas decorations to bath and beauty products! It's interesting to contemplate just how self-sufficient we could be - supplying most of the ingredients ourselves!

We're working on bringing a little boy goat here shortly, so that we will have our three little goatlings pregnant for the spring and will be milking by April. We hope to provide ourselves with milk, cheese and butter, and to add to our farm income by making and selling goat milk soap and creams! I use goat milk soaps now, which are fantastic for my somewhat sensitive, dry skin. Selling milk and milk products is way out of our means, involving regulations galore and investment in a commercial grade kitchen and equipment. In the quiet days of winter, I'd like to get started on trying some products. Stay tuned for an easy entry into soapmaking! I remembered a great little recipe for lip balm in one of my favorite magazines, The Herb Quarterly, in the Summer 2010 issue. The recipe is by Janice Cox, whose excellent book Natural Beauty At Home I've owned for a while. With cold weather here to stay, lip balm is something we'll be using regularly!

The basic recipe in the magazine calls for 1 tsp. coconut oil, 1 tsp almond oil and 1/2 tsp. grated beeswax. You simply microwave the ingredients on low for in short bursts for a total of one to two minutes, mix well and pour into little jars or tubes. Little pots and tubes are easy to access at craft stores, or online at eBay and the many websites for DIY soap/body product makers. I tried a batch of this last week using local canola oil, and it is quite nice, but light. I didn't even think to take pictures, just got motivated one afternoon to make it after I ran across some beautiful, local beeswax from Hive on the Hill at a craft market! I think I was a little light on the beeswax, got to pack it a bit after grating. We've got coconut oil here, which we've been experimenting with for cooking and baking because of its health benefits.

I decided on trying a batch with Manitoba Harvest hemp oil, which we use regularly in our smoothies because of it's high level of essential fatty acids; it's local, organic and has some great skin benefits (I'm using a lotion from Manitoba's Hemp Lady right now)! Because hemp oil has a very low boiling point, I melted the coconut oil and beeswax first, in ten second increments, stirring between blasts, until it was liquid, than added the hemp oil for another twenty seconds. Total microwaving was about sixty seconds! I stirred well, than poured into little waiting pots. I like this balm much better: it's richer and more emollient. Because of the hemp, it is a lovely green shade, but that doesn't show up on the lips. It does smell and taste a wee bit 'grassy', but I don't mind that! Now, I'm wondering what local product could replace the coconut oil, but that's a tough one! Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, which makes it great for balms, and it has it's own skin benefits. Maybe a vegetable shortening, although everything in the stores has soy or cottonseed or something not even slightly local. More research is definitely required! I've also been thinking about natural colors: I've read about dehydrating beets and carrots and grinding them to powders to add color. I'm wondering if that would make the balm more prone to spoiling, again more research is required. I've also got some strawberry 'leather' here that I made this summer but it does have the seeds in it; it might give flavor and color but again, might spoil! But, I've got all winter to work on it! Have you ever made your own balms or lotions? I'd love to hear about it - please leave a comment!

Making Bread!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:18:00 +0000

If you read this blog regularly you know that I'm a big fan of 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day' and 'Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day', both by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. I first started baking bread with these books, attracted to them because it was 'five minutes a day', no kneading required, healthy and artisan. It really is quite a simple process for most of their breads: you mix your ingredients in the container you will store the dough in, let it rise, refrigerate and then, on baking day, grab a chunk and let it rise before putting it in the oven. The recipes are largely for hand-formed artisan style round loaves and have become our daily bread. However, they don't make a great sandwich! Farmer Man has had a hankering for a proper sandwich!

Now, the artisan breads can be baked in a loaf pan for the shape but it just wasn't what Farmer Man was craving. I had seen a recipe on one of my favorite blogs FarmGirlFare for an Easy Farmhouse White loaf. 'Easy' sounds attractive and I've always had such good luck with the recipes I've tried from this blog that I though I'd give it a go! The thing about making bread is that you've got to be around for three or four (or more!) hours and you've got to be mindful (or have a loud timer). The thing for the newbie bread maker is the learning curve with terms and descriptions. Just what does it mean that the dough 'springs back' when you poke it? But it's like that with so many things: you've just got to do it one time and it all becomes much clearer!

So, first rising went on quite a while. The recipe said sixty to seventy five minutes and two hours later I'm thinking 'maybe' it's doubled. I carry on with the kneading and the rest of the directions and get it in the pans. Sixty to seventy five minutes later is hasn't come any where near filling the pans like the picture on the blog! Two hours later, the loaf pans still aren't anywhere near full! It's getting close to bedtime so I decide to go ahead and bake. The bread comes out and is very tasty but short and dense, quite dense. And I had what was decribed as 'exploding' sides, an indication of too much energy left in the yeast. Just so happens the next day I was heading to the winter indoor Farmers Market downtown to trade in my empty honey bucket for a full one with Mann Apiaries. Georgine Mann makes a ton of bread all season long for the markets so I asked her about my lack of rising. In discussion, we decided that it is probably because our house is quite cool this time of year. She recommended that the next time I try, use quite warm water with the yeast and preheat the oven for one minute and then use the oven for the rising. I'll keep you posted and, and by the way, the bread is delicious!

Have You Got A Date With Joel Salatin?

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Is Joel Salatin in your datebook? Don't forget he's going to be in Brandon on December 13th! He will be here as one of the keynote speakers for the Manitoba Conservation Districts Association annual conference. Get all the information you need here!

If you have any interest in local food, sustainable food systems, freedom of choice in your food, well, you'll want to hear Mr. Salatin. He's an interesting and passionate speaker - should be good! Hope to see you there! If you're not familiar with him, check out Polyface Farms, his family farm in Virginia. Polyface and Joel Salatin are on Facebook and Twitter.

Getting to Our Least Favorite Chore

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 23:30:00 +0000

Being on a small farm, you might think our least favorite chore would be cleaning out the goat pen. Or, perhaps, cleaning out the chicken coop. It might be hauling half finished compost, or turning the compost pile that is in use. Perhaps it could be weeding or watering on hot, sultry summer days. But no, our least favorite chore and the one we procrastinate at is: grooming our dogs. Of course, the longer we leave it, the more of a chore it becomes and trimming The Three Bears involves not only fur but sticks, burrs and other unidentifiable stuff!

In a good year we might just ship them off to a groomer and put up with the jokes and incredulous looks. But, this hasn't been one of those years so we're doing it ourselves. Thank heavens, in a good year, we invested in a really good set of clippers! Still, with three little doggies and one set of clippers, this is going to take a few days. The clippers can only go for so long before they overheat. Then there's the wiggling, teeth-baring and, finally, snarling that predicts an end to the current session. The Bears are waaaaaay over due and there are mats to take out carefully, dew claws to watch for and personal aversions each dog has to having certain body parts shaved.

There is an awkward period...

We really should have done this in September but we were still rather busy with Farmers Markets and CSA. October was Saturday Farmers Markets, trying to finish the potato harvest and curing and storing winter squash and such. November has been clean-up, close up and chores like winterizing the chicken coop and goat barn. So, an end of November clipping involves finding the dogs' little sweaters and getting them washed up 'cause there will be some shivering going on! Blaze the Border Collie will need some attention, too. He hasn't had a good brushing for a few months which means that a shopping bag of fur will come off of him! Probably needless to say, the vacuum will be getting almost as much use as the clippers in the next few days.

A Reprieve in the Weather

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:54:00 +0000

A couple of the barn cats grab some sun!

The Chickens grabbing some rays and a dust bath!

The Goatlings get out and about.

We've had a nasty cold snap for November: the kind of temperatures we'd accept in January just seem so wrong right now. All the animals, and us, have been huddled in our respect homes for a few days but yesterday turned into a beautiful day. Winnipeg set a record high and Brandon

I thought the sunflower heads were for the birds but...

came close! Time to get out and enjoy, and get some of those last chores crossed of the 'to do' list. Farmer Man still has firewood to collect and is still gathering wood for fence posts from our shelter belt. A good time to let the goats do a little free-ranging while he could keep an eye on them! Everyone soaked up a few rays and enjoyed it immensely.

Dinner Rustica!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 01:24:00 +0000

We could say that we were practicing for The Dark Days Challenge, coming up. We could say it was because we were organizing and cleaning the freezers. Nonetheless, we ended up having a largely local meal, from disparate parts. I made tomato sauce for the first time this summer. I used a marinara recipe from Sherri Brooks Vinton's excellent 'Put 'em Up!'. It's a multi-purpose sauce that, with tweaking, can become almost anything: pizza sauce, pasta sauce, bruschetta base. I had some cooked, cubed butternut left from making this delicious pilaf with quinoa, cranberries and nuts for Meatless Monday. In tidying the freezers, we found one small package of a gift from our neighbors Mike and Naomi of homemade deer/pork sausage. There is a good chance the deer was harvested from our farm, and the pig was raised by a friend of Mike's. The sausage was delightful with a smokey flavor and coarse texture. After cooking the sausage, everything went into a skillet to warm. We boiled some spaghetti, store bought admittedly. We'll get back to making pasta from scratch, now that things are almost closed up on the farm. We accompanied the meal with home made bread from the much-used 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day' by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. The pasta was topped with some grated parmesan, also store bought. This time next year we hope to be having homemade goat's milk parmesan. Dinner was followed by a cup of tea from homegrown spearmint, hung to dry in the back room! Now, that's not bad for eating local without really trying! Are you still eating local food?

Combining Two Chicken Flocks

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Rocky the Rooster and The Hens have lived in their insulated coop since it was built. The Chicks started out in Farmer Man's shop in their incubator, then moved into the greenhouse when they got bigger and then into the new shed/coop when it arrived. We have always intended to combine the two flocks in the insulated coop for the winter. Combining two flocks can be interesting: roosters and hens alike can fight, pull feathers and cause general mayhem while establishing their 'pecking order'. We were particularly concerned because our ten Ameraucana chicks had turned into six feisty roosters and four hens. We really like Rocky: he's a gentleman and a great protector of his little flock; we'd hate to have anything happen to him. We're not quite so fond of some of the Ameraucana roosters; they are aggressive, randy and don't really look out for the hens. We had put the Ameraucana roosters on our local web site eBrandon as breeding stock but no takers.

We did have the knowledge that the two flocks had been free ranging together for the last two months with few problems. We were still debating the best way to go about the whole thing when Mother Nature decided for us, as is often the way on the small farm. A forecast of 10 - 15 centimetres of snow (3 - 6 inches) with forecast lows of -22 C (about -10 F), freaky cold for November. There was no decision to be made anymore: The Chicks had to go into the insulated house or perhaps freeze to death! Farmer Man got busy installing new, more extensive roosts from willow scavenged from our shelter. The willow is a great example of reusing, recycling because he had originally cut the heavy branches for feeding the goats, choosing ones that were big enough but not too big for roosts! The goats eat the leaves and the bark, so the branches were nice and smooth for chicken roosts.

We let The Chicks go to bed as usual in their shed that evening and, with snow falling, we carried the sleepy Chicks into the insulated coop where Rocky and The Hens were already cozying up for the evening. So far, no big problems. We can certainly see a few hens with some missing feathers, but no big fights have ensued. The biggest problem for us is that not all The Chicks 'get' their new home yet and return to the shed each evening. In cold, windy, snowy conditions Farmer Man and I have had to find them and return them to the insulated coop each night. Three or four that have been laying their eggs in the barn are also insisting on maintaining that habit, too. We've had to step up our egg gathering so that we find the barn eggs before they freeze!

Child and Chick Reunion

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:40:00 +0000

Pal Deb brings her grandchild out to the farm sometimes. We love touring people around Aagaard Farms; young children are particularly fun. Ayla is almost three years old; she was out for a visit in early June, when the chicks were very small and fragile. We had to be careful because she was young enough to be too rough, without meaning any harm. How thing can change in five months! Not only is Ayla bigger and talking a mile-a-minute, but the chicks have grown an incredible amount! The little girl showed a healthy respect for the chickens this time, and was even a little intimidated by the bounding goats! Ayla loved her time out here: first it's the dogs, who greeted her as she was being helped from Grandma Deb's car, then she spied the chickens because some of the Black Sex Links were free-ranging in front of the house. We took her around to the barn and got some scratch grain; Ayla was giggling as all the chickens came running for their treat! Feeding and petting the goats, petting the barn cats, back to the chickens. She was crowing with delight and saying many things, although we're not sure about all the words we know 'shiggen' was called every time a rooster crowed. After all the outdoor excitement, we all came inside for juice and a snack where Ayla met and made great friends with Doodles the kitten! Next time, we promised, we'd help her ride a goat! Haven't talked to the Goatlings about that yet...

The Dark Days Are Here Again - Yeah!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:33:00 +0000

It may sound like a bad thing: The Dark Days. And it's true: winter is closing in, we've already got a persistent dusting of snow on the ground and it's snowing a bit right now as I type. Daytime highs are just barely getting above freezing and night time temperatures are four or five degrees (at least) below freezing. It's dark 'til late in the morning and it gets dark again before we've had our evening meal. But what I'm talking about here is The Dark Days Challenge! Organized for a number of years now by the great blog The Urban Hennery, The Dark Days Challenge is about eating local through the winter. It's one thing eating local when your garden is growing and the Farmers Market are in full swing, but what about in the dead of winter? That's why it's a challenge: can you find local food all winter long?

The Dark Days Challenge is a great community of bloggers from all over, with varying climates offering varying access to fresh, local food. The challenge encourages us all to cook one SOLE meal a week and write about it. SOLE stands for sustainable, organic, local or ethical food so if you can't find it local at least make it organic or Fair Trade or sustainably grown. The blog posts will present you with a dizzying array of awesome recipes and some great stories of finding ingredients or amending recipes. All the information you need to get involved is here; anybody can join in the fun! If you don't blog, you can still join in by posting about your meal in the comments section here on The Vine! Recaps of all the blogs are posted for perusal and I'll keep you updated with links! Hope you'll join in!

The First Pastel Egg!

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:32:00 +0000

We've waited a while for the Chicks to start laying eggs. In the last few weeks we've gone from three eggs a day from the old Hens to about fourteen a day! When the Chicks really get going, we should get about thirty eggs a day. But, what I've been waiting for is a pastel Ameraucana egg! It's why I got the breed, aside from the fact that they are beautiful hardy birds, because they lay gorgeous blue/green eggs! The eggs are ultimately no different in taste or nutrition to any other egg, and you don't get the shell served on your plate with your eggs, but still I had a yen for some pretty eggs.

We've been getting brown eggs from the Sex Links, in a small way, for about two weeks. Finally, yesterday morning, an Ameraucana Hen laid an egg! Unfortunately, she chose to lay it by the front door, on the outdoor bed for Blaze the Border Collie. Blaze was the first to spy it and promptly picked it up, brought it to Farmer Man's feet and dropped it! Splat! went my first beautiful egg. We figure Blaze thought it was a wee ball and wanted Farmer Man to throw it for him. There on the pavement was a gorgeous, deep yellow yolk and bits of a truly lovely egg: somewhere between sky blue and mint green. The picture doesn't really do it justice - it is really a lovely shade! Oh well, I don't get to eat my first pastel egg but there will be more to come!

C.S.Egg

noreply@blogger.com (Aagaard Farms) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:22:00 +0000

In the straw stack!

This post could also be entitled 'The Problem With Free Ranging Laying Hens'! The Black Sex Link chicks have started to lay eggs. Gorgeous, tiny brown eggs in various shades, some with speckles. The problem is they are completely ignoring the nests in their coop. The first egg found was in a little depression in the bedding in their coop, on the floor underneath the nests and we continue to find one there on a regular basis! The next was found, a few days later, on top of a bale of straw in the barn. Then, one was found in a crate up by the garage! These had to be destroyed because we weren't sure how long they had been there. Now, collecting eggs involves a flashlight and a complete search of the property. We're looking through the barn, under trees, behind cans: anywhere the Black Sex Links have been hanging out! What worries us is just how many we may be missing! And so far, no little blue or green eggs from the Ameraucanas!

In the goat's stall in the barn.