He guards my front door.......

Flowers

I love this time of year when everything is in bloom......

Fox Gloves

One of my favorite native flowers. I did'nt have any in my yard so I transplanted a bunch 2 years ago. They have now multiplied and I see about 50 of them growing. Fox Gloves are VERY toxic and should not be eaten and kept away from children. There is a heart drug a derived from this plant called Digitalis. Here is more information on the plant: http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/digitalis.html

Gluten free baking

There are alot of food allergies in our house. We are mostly gluten, dairy ( YES, I have dairy goats, long story), soy and tree nut free. So alot of our food I make from scratch. Sometimes I feel like I spend my life cooking. I typically take a regular recipe and hack it up to be allergen free, most people that try my goodies LOVE them and don't know the difference. I have found that most GF/CF baking mixes and baked goods from the store are expensive, dry, crumbly, full of sugar and just plain gross so I make my own from scratch. This morning I made gluten free dairy free muffins and waffles. I made Banana-Apple cinnamon waffles and Apple Raisin muffins.

I'm really not a wino......

.....I just make alot of it! Last summer I got several hundred pounds ( seriously) of organic asian pears off a neighbors tree. When trying to figure out what to do with it all I decided to make wine. I bought all the supplies at Olympic Brewing Company, made up my 5 gallons of wine and crossed my fingers it would turn out. Of the few bottles I've given away its gotten rave reviews. And it came out this pretty bright pink. I will probably give some away as christmas gifts. This year when all the blackberries are in season I will be making 5 gallons of blackberry wine.

Making Soap

I made a batch of my favorite soap this morning. I call it Mocha Goat Milk soap. Its a combination of several oils, goat milk, coffee butter cocoa butter, ground coffee, cocoa powder and balsam peru ( a vanilla like essential oil). It smells and looks good enough to eat!

Mystery Solved!

I guess my mystery herb is Comfrey. I looked up a few pictures online to verify.
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/c/comfre92.html

Potatoes

The first 2 years I lived in my house I used one paticular area to grow potatoes. This season I decided I wanted to grow squash in the same spot. All of my squash seeds are not growing because the spot is being taken over by potatoes I did not plant. I was not aware that once you plant them in a paticular spot they are difficult to irradicate.

Mystery Herb

I received a few flats of herbs from a friend last year to plant in my yard. I can identify all but one. Does anyone know what this is?

Lots of strawberries

I received almost 10 lbs of free organic strawberries yesterday and figured I would make and can jam. I used strawberries, lemon juice, Pomonas pectin and honey. It turned out yummy!

Goat Milk Cottage Cheese

At the moment I have gallons of milk so I've been thinking up ways to use it. I made a batch of goat milk cottage cheese yesterday. Its fairly simple. You add Rennet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet to make it curdle. Cut up the curds with a knife. Slowly heat it to 110, stirring constantly. And drain and rinse in a fine mesh strainer. I add a little salt. It is so good. It is nothing like cottage cheese you get from the store. It has a sweet taste and is more like mozzarella in flavor.

The ducklings hatched......

My Muscovy hen went broody so I bought fertile call duck eggs to put under her for her to hatch. We started out with 18 but only wound up with 13 in the end. They all hatched out today and are as cute as can be. She won't let me get to close and is super protective. She is going to make a good mommy!

Information on Call Ducks:

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/Ducks/Calls/BRKCalls.html

http://www.phelpswaterfowl.com/Our_Call_Ducks.htm

Buckets of apples

The first year we moved into our house our little apple tree produced so many apples that some of the branches were touching the ground from the weight. Last year we had 3 apples! I thought something was wrong with the tree. I was told sometimes tree produce in cycles. It appears this year we will have tons of apples again!

Our state flower

Right now all the Rhodadendrons are in bloom. Most of the ones in my yard are in pinks and reds.

Sunflower

We bought a new milking doe from a family on Bainbridge recently. She a nubian, super friendly, but really quite noisy!

Joe Salatin of Polyface Farms

Nikki at Pheasant Field Farms had Joe Salatin of Polyface Farms http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx visit her farm last week. Joe is known for his inovative farming techniques and was featured in the book Omnivores Dilemna http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php. He was in Washington to speak at Olympic College.

We've been busy!

I feel like its been ages since I posted. I have been super busy with the animals and getting ready to sell at the Farmers Market. My Alpine Paige had babies 2 saturdays ago, a doeling and a buckling. They are super cute. They look more like their dad, Valentino http://whiskeyhillfarm.com/bucks.shtml , and they both have waddles on their necks, which I have never seen before. Here are a few pictures.....