Willow Update and Video

As you'll see in the video, Willow is tearing it up! Even though she's still pretty gimpy and is weaker in her right hind leg and left front, she's getting stronger every day and LOVES to run and jump around. Just check out the tail wagging! Her left eye has almost cleared up and when the vet was here this week he said she's well on her way to a full recovery. Nerve damage can take a while to heal, but she's making great strides and hopefully in just a month or two we can start letting her out with the herd. Already she's been interacting with them daily and seems to be realizing that she is a goat and not a pup like her best friend Ginger.  Watch her go! (Mom, I know you hate The Boss, but I couldn't help myself with this one.)

Have a great weekend!

Pastured Egg Carbonara - Farm Wife Salvation

There have been many nights on the farm, where we have guests and I want to cook something delicious for dinner, but I'm sweaty, dirty, tired, and didn't finish chores until after a time when most people would already be eating dessert. Luckily, I have a go-to recipe for just that kind of night -  Pasta alla Carbonara. It's so delicious though that I'll make it a few times a month, regardless of timing or situation. It's fast, unique, drool worthy, and does the special trick of highlighting the amazing eggs our chickens have laid fresh that day. In fact, I'm not so sure I'd make this recipe if I didn't have my own eggs or couldn't get my eggs from a source I trusted. You see, the key to this dish is that the eggs are practically raw. The raw eggs in the sauce are only ever so delicately cooked by the heat of the hot pasta fresh out of the colander. Just enough to give real density, but not so much that someone squeamish about raw eggs wouldn't be a bit weirded out. 
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Goat Buck Pad


My lovely wife putting on the finishing touches

Male animals on the farm are a difficult proposition. They’re harder to manage, they’re stronger and they generally only have one thing on their mind. Yet you need them to make milk. If you don’t have babies you don’t have milk. So we needed some bucks to help us breed our ladies this fall for milk in the spring.

Enter Gozer and George. One is a Nubian (such as Bridget) and one is an Alpine (such as Mayday and Sabine, Queen of the Truck Roof). Both have excellent blood lines for milk production, which is a critical quality for our bucks. They are responsible for 50% of the genetics in our herd. Each doe has less of an impact than the bucks. Yet neither buck has produced kids, so we can’t be sure that their progeny will be up to par. But that’s the risk you take with bucks. No one wants to sell you their best buck, you almost always have to go with an unproven youngin’ from good blood lines.

 

 

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