Rose and milk soap

The gentleman that purchased our red Irish Dexter heifer, Rose, out of our cow Cherry Blossom came to pick her up today. We didn't have too much trouble getting her loaded in the trailer but both her and her mom were quite upset by the separation. Even still this evening Cherry Blossom was calling for her.

I am looking forward to starting to milk Cherry Blossom now that the calf is gone. We will see how is goes in the morning.

Oh, and the first two batches of my Goat's Milk Soap has finished curing. A local farm produce market has agreed to sell them on consignment for me so tonight I packaged some bars up to take to town with us tomorrow when we go to do errands.



I will also be listing these soaps on our esty site if you are interested in purchasing them!

Flown the coop...

Well, all is quiet in the house now.

Two thirds of my children (Evan, 7 and McKayla, soon to be 5) were picked up by their grandmother at 7:30am this morning. They are traveling to Vermont for a week to visit with family. This time every year there is a large balloon festival in Quechee, VT that they all go to. Evan got to go last year but this is McKayla's first time away from home for so long. Even though I know they will be having lots of fun I will miss them terribly.

So, for the next seven days it will be me and baby Taylor hanging out.

I have grand plans to get lots of stuff done... we will see how productive I really am.

Muscovy duck with FOURTEEN newly hatched ducklings!

I sold a pair of American Chinchilla rabbits yesterday and two of the juvenile goslings this afternoon!

Evening update: Got a new batch of goat's milk soap made up tonight. I made a cornmeal scrub soap scented with cedar and orange. It should be a refreshing soap to use after doing chores. It will be 5-6 weeks before the soap has cured enough to use. At that time I will be selling some on our Etsy site and also (hopefully) at a local farm store here in town as well.

Today's update

Let's see, what did I get done today? I managed to track down seven of the roosters and get them isolated into the hoop house pen. Looking around the barn yard I still see two more roosters that have evaded me. I will get them when I can as it will be awhile before I get these others butchered anyway.

The birds are all still laying well. The chickens gave 23 eggs this morning! I had a customer drive in and purchase them before I even made it back to the house to package them up. :) Oh, I keep forgetting to mention it up to this point but our goose has been laying for a few weeks now. She has been giving an egg about every other day. I have been taking them from her as I am not real interested in having a larger flock of geese... the two we have are enough. If she keeps it up into warmer weather I think I will let her set on some. Meanwhile, I have been blowing out the goose eggs so I can save them. I plan on using some for Easter Eggs for the kids this year. The others I plan on listing on our etsy.com sight for sale for others to use in egg art.

I also got creative with one of the goose eggs and made this little gargoyle...

It uses a goose egg for the body and a bantam egg for the head. His features are made with Sculpty polymer clay and he is painted with a textured sand paint. I thought he came out adorable for my first attempt.

In the kitchen I started something new for me today. The kids and I love bagels but I have never made them before thinking they would be too much work. Well, I found a recipe on the King Arthur Flour site for mini bagels and it didn't seem too intimidating so I got it started today. It uses a 14 hour starter consisting of flour, water and yeast. I got it mixed up and it is bubbling away on the counter. Tomorrow I will make the bagels!

While I was mixing the bagel starter it occurred to me that I hadn't even peeked at my sourdough starter in about 6 months! It has been in the back of the refrigerator and forgotten during my final months of pregnancy and the two months since our daughter was born. I dug it out of the fridge and discovered it taken over by mold... yuck! I threw it out, cleaned out my sourdough crock and started over.

New Etsy Farm Store

Well I finally did it...

I have been hearing a lot about a new website Etsy for over a year now. (Etsy like in Betsy without the B.) It is a multiple storefront site developed to promote and sell handmade items and the supplies to create handmade items. The site has been getting great reviews so I figured it was time to get a presence on there too.

You can find our storefront here at http://www.thanesneckfarm.etsy.com/ . You can also get to the storefront by clicking on the Widget in the right hand column of this blog. I have only begun to put things up but my goal is to get two new items listed every week, one material item and one handcrafted item.

I guess I need to get crafting!