Farmstead Goodies - almost ready to share

For the past few weeks I've been holing up with my pencil, camera, and computer. I appear at milking and mealtimes, mumbling something half coherent about "the store" before scurrying back to the living room, where drawings, photos, mock-ups, and all sorts of artsy and craftsy things are sprawled everywhere. 

Every other day, for a little over four weeks now, I excitedly gush, "Guess what?! I think I'll be able to finish tomorrow!" Maybe you've been there before? Well, I said the same thing today and I'm now realizing that it might actually happen this time. Woooooo hoo! 

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The Herd Goes Organic - Sprouting Grains for Feed

sprouted spelt and wheatAs I bet you can tell, Scrapple and I aren't necessarily about doing things the easy way. We've set out down this path to do them the right way, or at least the way we believe that to be. This mindset led us to rotational grazing, which, while being a bit on the labor intensive side, has the overwhelming benefits of providing our herd with a variety of fresh, nutrient dense, forages daily and enhances the land with the amazing fertilizing feature of our four legged friends.

We've strived to give our herd the best care possible, while at the same time allowing them to be goats and so far they seem to thank us by not only staying happy and healthy, but also giving us some amazingly delicious milk!

"nom nom nom"Along with the around-the-clock grazing, we give our milking goats (when they're in milk) a bit of grain when they're on the milking stand twice a day to supplement their diet. In keeping with our values and practices, we had hoped to feed organic but, unfortunately, none of our local suppliers carry an organic goat feed. We went with the next best thing, local, while hoping that eventually someone would start carrying organic/non-gmo

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Grandpa's Visit and The Tale of Billy Whiskers

As many of you know, we had the extreme honor of hosting Sweetbreads’ 100 yr old Grandpa George a couple weeks ago. He flew from Florida by himself and was accompanied at the farm by my Mother In-Law, who it wouldn't have been possible without. She made the visit seamless.

It was an amazing experience to be able to sit down and chat with someone who had been through so much and was still lucid about each aspect of history. George was a chicken farmer back in the 30's, a jazz musician, and always an active member of his communities. He is quite a remarkable man, and who knows, maybe he’ll be back!

I wanted to share with you one of the highlights of the trip for all of us. O
nce the sun went down out came the book "Billy Whiskers, The Autobiography of a Goat". Since we don't have TV, and listening to the radio gets a little old after a while, I read a few chapters out of Billy Whiskers each evening. 

You'll have to read the story for yourself, but as you can imagine, it's the tale of a mischevious and adventuresome goat. It was written in 1903! Quite a wonderful and hilarious tale (although parents these days would probably throw a fit over some of the descriptions of the incidents...).

Below is the link where I found to the story. Maybe one day I'll come across a hardcopy. 

Best enjoyed on a cool winter evening with a warm glass of mulled wine.

http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/Billy_Whiskers/pages/001_Billy_Whiskers.htm