Daisy's kids, Day 2

I am just going to toss a few pictures in here... nothing new from Vinca. 

The twins

Bluebell's ears are floppy today!

Buckling is a lively climber!

Buckling meets Roye... Roye is not impressed

Pausing to pose

So, there is just an update on Daisy's kids.  See you next time...

A birth announcement!

Daisy had twins on Saturday afternoon.  First to arrive was this handsome brown buckling:

He weighed in at 8.6 lbs.  He's nameless, at least for now.  The photo above was taken today.

His little sister entered the world backwards!  She's a tiny thing; 6.8 lbs at birth, but what a cutie!  Her name is Bluebell.

This photo was taken not long after her birth, she's still a little dampish!

And here is the two of them this afternoon

We've had quite a busy weekend so this is all I have to post for now.  Vinca's doing fine, but no kids yet.  Until next time, be well folks!

Real Deal Cornmeal

We like to grow our own food here.  Eggs, milk, veggies, meat, and when we can, grain.  Rye does pretty well for us, but growing wheat and corn has been challenging so far. We haven't given up on it.  Some people might think that it's too much work to grow your own food, but we feel that it is worth the effort.

The cornmeal that is available in my local grocery store is de-germinated.  That means the germ is removed, which makes it more shelf stable, but also much less nutritious.  It's pretty tasteless and is also processed from GMO corn.  Because we enjoy cornbread around here, I have been wanting to find a good variety of corn to grow for cornmeal.  I tried blue, which was pretty tasty, but it's more of a flour corn.  So this past year I tried a new (to me) variety called Nothstine Dent.  It took about a year from ordering the seed to eating the cornbread.  Good thing we are patient people!

If you were viewing this blog last summer, you saw this dismal sight... my small cornmeal corn patch flattened by wind and rain.  It was just tasseling.  We propped it up and hoped for the best.

The yield was pretty small.  Just half a grocery bag of ears that we dried in the basement.

Rollie shelled the corn for us by hand.  It was pretty clean but putting it in this plastic bowl helped remove the chaffy bits because the static of the bowl made them stick to the sides.

And here is the grinder.  It belonged to Kevin's Grandpa Reuben, who was known as a bit of an eccentric when he was grinding grain with it back in the 70's.  Come to think of it, I guess some folks might think of us a little eccentric too.  Whatever.

The finished stoneground cornmeal.  We were surprised to get 6.9 pounds of it.

With supper that night,  cornbread made from Aunt Virgies recipe!  Delish!

Until next time (and hopefully we will have some baby goat photos to share then...),
be well folks. 

Waiting

The last time I put a post here was the day before Kevin's knee replacement surgery.  I am happy to report that almost two weeks later he's doing fine.  It's been painful for him; still is, but he's been following orders, doing his excercises, icing regularly, etc. and will be better than new in a few weeks. 

These past two weeks have been typical Minnesota. Cold mostly, and some snow.  Everyone I know is ready to be done with winter.  Today it seems like spring it is almost here...finally a warm up.  It was very, very nice outdoors and Kevin almost had to be restrained from heading out to the shed and firing up a tractor.  Patience man!

The snow is mostly melted off the shed roof.

The chickens have been indoors a lot lately.  Today they enjoyed the mild temps and were curious about Ranger's supper!

They also enjoy picking through his hay for tasty morsels...

I'm anticipating a package in the mail any day now... my main seed order has been shipped.  I'm thinking it's about time to get some lettuce started to go into the greenhouse next month.

Spring is not the only thing we are waiting for; goat kids are only about three weeks away! 

And the BIG BELLY award goes to....

So, I am rambling a bit here.  I'll add a couple a pictures and call it a night. 

Spot poses on my shoulder for a "selfie".  All of our cats have their own unique personalities and one of the things I love about Spot is that she is a shoulder-rider.  She is always looking for a ride.  In the summer this can be quite uncomfortable for the person giving the ride but when I am wearing my thick barn coat I am always happy to oblige.  I am rewarded by her musical purring.

Be well friends, until next time!