Green Tomato Salsa Verde

My father in law always plants a few tomato plants every year in his yard and this year was no different.  But this year he has been plagued with blossom end rot and has only been able to harvest a few ripe tomatoes from them.  He has left the tomatoes to ripen on the vine, fall to the ground and rot.  When I was there yesterday I asked if it was ok if I harvested the remaining green tomatoes on the vines to use.  McKayla and I picked 12 3/4 pounds of green tomatoes off of those two plants!

So now I just need to use them up... the first thing I am making is a green tomato salsa verda.  Salsa verde is a traditional Mexican sauce made with tomatillos.  Tomatillos, although resembling green tomatoes are actually related to cape gooseberries.  My 2009 "Ball Blue Book guide to preserving" has a recipe for Tomatillo Salsa which along with the recipe for Green Tomato Salsa Verde at ModernComfortFood is how I came up with the following recipe:

Mild Green Tomato Salsa Verde:

4 pounds green tomatoes, cored and quartered
2 cups yellow onion, coarsely chopped
2 green jalapeño peppers, coarsely chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon fresh lime zest
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoon honey or sugar
2/3 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped

1. Combine the green tomatoes, onion, jalapeños, garlic, salt, cumin, olive oil, and water in a stock pot. Bring to a boil and cook covered on a medium-low heat burner for approximately 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes and onions are soft.
2. Stir in and simmer for an additional five minutes the lime zest, lime juice, honey (or sugar), and cilantro. Taste the mixture and adjust the seasoning, if needed.
3. Blend the mixture in the pot with a stick blender or spoon into the container of a food processor or blender and pulse until the salsa reaches the consistency you prefer, either chunky or a smooth puree.  Makes approximately two quarts of salsa.
4. Ladle into sterilized jars and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.  Remove jars from the water and allow to cool on the counter.  Test tops for a good seal and refrigerate any that have not sealed properly and use within 2-3 weeks.

Other farm happenings today:
Our alpaca stud Novio bred our female Aberdeen this afternoon.  I will have to keep watch to see if she spits him off in the future.
Spotted a hummingbird in the marigolds in the greenhouse.

And the babies keep coming....

Our alpaca Gritona gave birth to a tiny light fawn female this morning.

Our first cria of the year!

Celtie, my favorite alapa, gave birth to a handsome medium brown boy this morning.

I put our alpaca stud Peter in the girl's pasture today to spit test the girl's.  Within minutes he had our female, Eloise, cushed down and breeding.  I knew Eloise was open but it slipped my mind when I put Peter in there.  Since Eloise is Black and Peter is Medium Silver Grey I can hope for a grey or black cria next June!?

The game hen that hatched out the five ducklings was missing from the barn this morning.  Evan went on hunt into the woods and found her scratching in the leaves with all five ducklings.  I wanted to collect them all up and put them in the chicken coop to keep the ducklings safe.  As I said she is a very protective mother and did not want me or the kids near her babies.  She puffed herself up and attacked me numerous times while picking up the ducklings.  I managed to get all the little ones and put them into a pet carrier... mother hen was then easy to get as she wanted to be with her charges and she went right into the carrier after them.

Broken Fences and Alpaca Breeding

We have had a growing hole in one stretch of of our interior cross fencing for a while now.  I have patched it up a few times but the LGDs and goats keep working at it until it splits open again.  They do this so they can gain access to another pasture without the effort of going all the way around the fence line and through the gate.  It is a short cut they are resistant to let go of so I have just let them have it.

Then it happened a few weeks ago... I found one of my female alpacas, G.G., out in the cow pasture.  There was no other way for her to get there but to have squeezed herself through the "goat hole".  Every day I would find her in the other pasture waiting to come back for her grain.  Then one day I found her two year old daughter, Abby, in the other pasture with her.  Then a few days later Fiore joined them in their nightly romp in the cow pasture.

One of our alpaca studs, Peter, lives in this pasture as well (along with our mini donkeys, cows, llama and the sheep and goats that can come and go).  Up until this morning I had seen no interest from Peter in the wandering girls.  But this morning when I stepped out the front door to go down to the barn I could hear the noises from Peter as he was chasing one of the girls around trying to get her to cush for breeding.  It was Abby and after a bit of running around she cushed for him and stayed down for a breeding.  So, if it takes then Abby will be a first time Mom next May.

New Postcards

We received two postcards in the mail today. One from Iowa and one from Pennsylvania and both state map cards.


The third litter of Chinchilla rabbit kits are finally leaving the nest box to eat pellets.  They are very cute.  There are 6 Chinchilla colored ones and 2 black frosted ones like their mother.  I have offered one kit from this litter as the raffle prize for the 4-H event this coming Saturday.

Today I also did the Ivomec injections on the alpaca girls.

Annual Alpaca Shearing

Today was the day we had our alpacas sheared. For the third year in a row we have hired the same professional shearers. And the for third year in a row we worked together with two other local alpaca farms to get all of our animals done in one day.

We started at 7 am at David Rosin's farm in Timberlake, NC with 15 alpacas. Next we came to our farm to shear our 12 alpaca and our llama. Finally, we ended up around 4 pm at David St.Laurent's farm in Virgilina, VA where we did 19 alpaca. 47 total in all!

Here are a few start to finish photos....

This entire process takes less then 4-5 minutes per animal! These guys are good and fast!

Days update.

Well, first off, our rabbit made it through the night! She is tucked in the far corner of the hutch but her ears are up and she seems alert. I will not consider her out of the woods until another day or two and I see her eating and drinking again. But, she looks good for what she went through yesterday!

Neil's Dad came by early this morning so he and Neil could get the last of the four concrete stabilizer footings poured on the garage. Yeah! Now that that is done they can continue work on the end walls and doors to button it up for the winter.

We have two alpacas that are due with crias at the end of this month. One of those is Eloise. While feeding the girls this morning I noticed a large lump by the tail head of Eloise, so large that it actually pushed her tail to one side. I went up and felt the lump and it was firm. I pressed on it and it retracted back! A few minutes later it reappeared... I pushed on it again and it retracted once more. This was the nose of the cria! So, Eloise is now on cria watch.

My birthing stall has had a gate broken on it for some time (the cows share one side and rubbed on it until the wall broke) and since my need for that stall my come sooner than I had thought... Neil removed the half wall that the gate is attached to, rebuilt the framing, covered it with pressboard for strength, reinstalled the wall and then hung the gate again. Now I am all set if I see any signs of impending birth. I will put the two girls in there in another week regardless so that they don't give birth without being separated from our LGDs who are so protective of babies that they keep the dams away too!

Sold the three little ducklings to a neighbor I sold some turkeys to this summer. She called yesterday to see if I had any ducks for sale and was pleased that I had little ones available. Funny how things work out sometimes.

I weighed our two new Nigerian Dwarf goat doelings again today to see if they are growing. They have been here two weeks now. Miss Olive, who weighed in at only 16.75lbs two weeks ago, was up 1.5lbs to 18.25lbs. Miss Cheddar on the other hand remained the same at 17.75lbs. I am sure this is due to the week long bought of diarrhea she went through when she first arrived. She has recovered fully and is doing well now. I will continue to weigh them over the next few weeks to keep my eye on their growth.

Finally, Neil set up the volleyball net for the kids in the side yard so they could play badminton with it. Evan played for a bit but then went off to set "snares" around the farm. McKayla and I played badminton for almost an hour. What a sight we were... playing badminton with a volleyball net and racket ball rackets... but we had a blast!

Last milking of the year.

Today will be the last day that I milk our Dexter cow, Cherry Blossom. She has been giving less and less milk the last few weeks and this morning I only got about 2 cups. I expect her next calf to come in December sometime so I want to dry her off for a few months anyway.

I will miss the fresh milk but it will only be for a few months. After the calf is born I will start up again.

Was surprised this morning to discover three ducklings in the chicken run with one of my dark rippled ducks. I knew she was sitting on eggs in the barn but I thought she had a few more weeks to go. All three are brown frosted over yellow. Not sure what color they will turn out to be. Evan helped me herd them up and put them and mom into one of the brooder pens in the coop. It is getting too cool this time of year for the little ones with no heat lamp.

I moved Fiore, one of our female alpacas, out to the far pasture to keep our stud male Novio company. She wasn't too happy about leaving her pasture mates behind but the lush grass in Novio's pasture seemed to make up for the lose.

Since our neighbors moved away last month we have been meaning to go over and move the two electrical spools and dog house they left behind (we got permission, plus they are actually on our property anyway). The dog house we moved out to the far pasture too. I hope to get that pasture goat proof soon to put our bucks into. The dog house will be shelter for the bucks. The smaller spool will also be used as a goat play structure.

Farm Photos from Today

This is one of four roosters from our Southern States chick purchase this spring. He tried his hand at crowing for the first time this morning. He was supposed to be a Americana hen but instead he is a Single Comb Light Brown Leghorn as are the other three roosters and four matching hens. I may keep one Roo to go with the hens... maybe.

These two hens are also from the spring chick purchase. They are supposed to be two of four Barred Rocks. But two look like the closer hen with bright orange legs, larger comb and more white to the bars. They other two look like the far hen with dull yellow legs with grey on the front and toes, smaller comb and less white on the bars.

Here is our new cria born yesterday. Looking much drier and cleaner today. He is also much more steady on his legs and his knees are pointing in the right direction now!

Gabby is one of my original two Nigerian Dwarf Goat does (along with her sister Pepper). Gabby has turned into a beautiful goat and everyone comments on her when they come to the farm.

She is also very sweet and loves to give kisses. (A rare photo of me. Taken with the camera held at arms length.)

Finally, another cria is born!

My favorite alpaca Celtic Woman, aka Celtie, finally delivered her cria this morning. A beige little male out of our stud Novio. He seems to be all legs and knees at the moment.

After stretching his legs for a bit, he had his first meal, and a good roll in the dirt before settling down for a rest.

More goat news.

I have been bottle feeding our two 6 week old twin doelings out of our doe Mary Jane for a week and a half now in anticipation for today. Today was the day they got picked up by their new owner, Ellie, an avid 4H'er. These will be Ellie's first goats and she is very excited about them. She named them Daisy and Gracie.

Evan with Daisy.

(Evan thought the straw made him look more like a farmer.)

Evan with Gracie.

Ellie had gone to 4H congress this past week and while there attended a class on alpacas and totally fell in love. I told her she could come and work with mine whenever she wanted to. I have several that need halter training still.

Meanwhile, I have fallen totally in love with the new little buckling I brought home yesterday. He is taking to the bottle pretty quickly. He is very social and will stick around to get petted and scratched... which I find amazing for a pasture raised kid. Mine don't even do that. I will keep him locked up in the dog kennel (while I am not with him) for a few more days for him to settle in. Then he will have to move out the buck barn with our adult buck Gottaway. I hope Gottaway enjoys the company and plays nice with him. I wish I could let him romp with the rest of the goats but young Nigerians can be fertile as young as 7 weeks old and I have several does I do not want to bred yet, one of which is my last spring doeling, Emily.

Oh, and drum roll please... we decided to name him Jeepster!

I ended up following his dam's line naming scheme. His granddam is Mercedes, his dam is VW and now he is Jeepster, a fitting name for a rough and tumble boy! Plus, Neil is a big Jeep fan and owns a Jeepster as a project car so it just seemed to fit.

Oh, and the kids, the human kind, come home tomorrow... yeah!

New goat!

This is our new goat: Belva... we will be calling her Belle.

She came from Little Flowers farm about 1 1/2 hours south of us here in NC. Stacy from Little Flowers farm was nice enough to drive her to our farm this morning. Belle is very nicely marked, has some great milking lines in her pedigree and I am happy to have her join the herd!

Oh, and the little cria, Poppy, that was born on Monday is doing well too. Frolicking around the pasture like all healthy crias should. They are such fun to watch!

Criation at last!

Well, after a very long wait, the first of our three alpacas that are late term pregnant had her cria today! Joy, a first time mom, gave birth while I was down at the barn doing chores. She had a beautiful little girl. It looks to be medium fawn in color (but its hard to tell for sure until completely dry).

She is strong and was up and standing within 15 minutes of birth and was nuzzled in nursing at about 30 minutes.

Joy is being a very attentive mom for her first time. I couldn't be happier!

Farm Photos

Six month old Murdoc... who we discovered was a Rose Grey only after shearing.

Last nights rain clings in the flower garden.

One of last year's hatch of Chocolate Muscovy Ducks.

One of Nigerian Dwarf goat doelings, Elizabeth, from this spring... she is for sale!

The Embden geese with their seven goslings.

The rose bush in front of the house is in full bloom.

Our Entlebucher Mountain Dog, Tate, taking a short break in the shade.

Finally, Daddy and 4 1/2 month old Taylor taking a stroll around the farm together.

Quick update...

Two more ducklings hatched out in the barn today... a smokey grey one and one marked like a mallard duckling (those markings don't stay when the adult feathers come in). They have joined the turkeys and yesterday's duckling in the brooder. I will have to set up the third brooder soon as with the onslaught of ducklings to come the second brooder is going to get crowded soon.

I have looked around the farm, unsuccessfully, the past two days to see if I could locate the turkey hen that I left the 2-3 biddies with. I don't know where she is hiding... I guess she didn't like that I took her babies away from her. But, what I did discover was my fourth turkey hen is setting on a nest of about 20 eggs down in the woods inside one of the old corrugated steel pig shelters from the previous owners. It seems like a nice dry safe nest so I let her be. I will keep checking on her every few days though.

I got my Homestead tomatoes planted in the garden today. Which means that the kids and I had to first remove all the crab grass from that raised bed, fluff up the soil, give it a good heavy drink of water and then plant the tomato starts, install the supports, cover the rest of the bed with wet newspapers and top it all off with old straw/chicken manure raked up from the barn floor. It wouldn't have been that bad of a task, as it was a comfortable 83F outside today, but little 4 month old Taylor, who was sitting in the stroller the whole time ran out patience after I only planting the 3rd tomato plant. Still she was happy watching all the action up to that point so I really can't complain. The kids pushed her around the garden in the stroller while I finished up as quick as I could.

Taylor's debut photo on the blog.

I have three alpacas that I am expecting crias from anytime between May 1st and June 1st: GeeGee, Celtie and Joy. They were all living with our stud Novio out in the second pasture last spring/summer so I am not exactly sure of the breed dates. Celtie and Joy both have noticeably swollen bellies and I can see the cria moving in Celtie's abdomen quite often now. It will be the first crias for both of these females so I am a bit nervous about it... and Celtie happens to be my favorite as well. I will report in when the time comes!

I grabbed my camera this morning...

Time for alpaca breeding... or not?

Fellow alpaca farmer David St.Laurent brought over two of his alpaca breeding males this morning. The intent was to breed one to our female Noodle and the other to Abby. But, to my surprise both girls (that should have been open, ie. not pregnant) spit at the boys and wanted nothing to do with them.

The only explanation is that our ten month old male cria, Seamus, that was weaned from his dam, Gritona, only about 10 days ago must have been breeding or at least attempting to breed these only two open girls in the pasture. It has been documented that crias this young can be fertile but normally in the alpaca world the males need to be closer to two years old before they are able to breed successfully. It is possible that as induced ovulators that the girls might not be pregnant but are experiencing a false pregnancy do to hormones released during the attempted breeding by Seamus.

So, David and I decided to just let the boys run with my girls for a few days to see if time would change things. Once we let them all out together is was clear to see that all the girls were testing positive for pregnancy as everyone was spitting and running from the boys. The other girls were supposed to be all breed so that was comforting to witness.

Farm Update

Let's see...

The 16 chicken chicks are growing well. They are feathering out nicely and are even starting to fly up onto the roost in the brooding pen. I still can't tell the sex of the chicks so I am keeping my fingers crossed that more then 50% will be hens.

The rabbit kits are also growing well. I pulled them out of the nest boxes a few days ago to put clean bedding material in so I got a head count on them finally. Purslane's litter has 7 kits while Camomile's litter has a whopping 10 kits!

The goose is finally sitting on her eggs in the ground level nest box that Neil built for me last year. I have counted 7 eggs in the nest. I hope she successfully hatches out more than one gosling this year.

The alpacas are looking skinny after their shearing earlier this week. I moved our 10 month old male, Seamus, out of the females pasture and put him in with the young boys out in the back pasture. He is mildly stressed by the move, I always hate weaning time, but he seems to be getting along fine with the other boys so I am happy with that. I also moved our llama into the cow pasture. There is more grass there right now and she can't be in either of the back alpaca pastures since I have intact males in both of them. She seems to enjoy having new pasture to explore.

I got the lawn mowed again today... I need to start mowing sections of the pasture soon to keep the thistle and wild dill from taking hold again.

Neil and his Dad started framing in the rear wall of the garage this weekend. It will be nice when the building of the garage is done and Neil can spend his weekends using the garage instead. I have lots of projects for him. :)

Evan picked these buttercups for me today... they sure brighten up the kitchen!

Alpaca Shearing

Today was the day... the annual shearing of the alpacas. Three farms, 46 animals and two professional shearers... done for another year!

Our stud Novio having his blanket removed.

The last to be shorn was our llama Neffi.

Three of our girls post shearing.