Pete & Teri’s Next Big Adventure

It’s that time of year; the leaves are falling, the garlic’s about to be planted, and goats are going into heat.

Most does (proper term for female goats) have about a two-day fertile period every few weeks from September - December. In other words, they have two fertile days, then three weeks off, and repeat that for several months. It can be difficult to be sure when’s the right time; in general, does in heat will “talk” more and tend to elevate and wag their tails. We noticed Drama Queen was doing all of this yesterday afternoon, and decided to test her.

How do you do that? With what’s called a “buck rag” - an old rag that’s been rubbed over the extremely fragrant body of an uncastrated male goat. I brought out the buck rag (kept carefully sealed inside a plastic container) yesterday, and Drama Queen got very excited, wagging her tail and trying to eat the container. Aberdeen seemed interested too, but less so.

Koko may have been interested, but for various reasons we’re unlikely to ever breed her.

Our good friend and goat-breeding expert from down the road came by with Valcor, a carefully selected male. We are unlikely to keep any intact males around ourselves; they are the source of that infamous “goat smell”, which largely comes from their habit of constantly urinating on themselves. They’re also bigger, fence-jumpier, and will attempt to breed with pretty much any female regardless of age or close relation.

Now we get to the how to part. It’s very complicated: put the male goat in with the females.

Here’s an instructional video:

We have a family of wild turkeys that likes to hang around our yard. They started coming last spring, momma and five babies. A month or so ago, one got run over on the highway in front of our house, where idiots whip through curves at twice the posted limit. Another disappeared some time in the past few days, but hopefully that means that the remaining three are a little smarter about cars and will pass that trait on.

I will NOT be hunting these turkeys - no gunfire allowed on our land except in case of emergency, and we like having them come around. A nearby rancher friend has invited me to hunt on his land, where wild turkeys are eating food meant for his livestock, so hopefully Thanksgiving will be extra authentic this year. I sure hope so - the “tag” required to legally harvest one turkey cost $18, and it will take me a couple of hours to de-feather and process it.

Possibly some of our city friends will be a bit appalled at the idea of taking a 12-gauge and blasting a poor innocent turkey, but my point of view is that there is no more humane, healthy, and sustainable way to procure meat. Our Thanksgiving turkey will have led a full, normal turkey life out in nature, rather than getting overfed in some stinking little cage somewhere.

This video is probably from April (2008)

Tomato gardening goes something like this:

Nothing.
Is this thing growing?
Nothing (repeat for several months)
Tomato. Tomato.
Tomato tomato tomato!
TomatotomatotomatatomatoTOMATOMATOMATOMATOMATOMATO!!!!

Notice how the repetition eventually makes the word’s meaning slippery? You have to step back from the fray, breathe, and remind yourself what it means.

These critters can come in a flood that makes zucchini look lazy, and for the past month and a half “can more tomatoes” has been constantly floating around on my todo list. I just saw the photos below and remembered to be grateful for all the stews and sauces that will start with a jar of our own tomatoes this winter.

Here are some “Willamettes”:

…and here are the striking “Purple Calabash”:

My motorcycle helmet gets used more to protect from wild animals than for riding these days (though I’ve picked up a nice Yamaha 400 that should be on the road soon!).

Two weeks ago we had a rabid bat doing his rabid bat thing - coming out into the light and viciously hissing and snapping at everything and nothing, not really flying much but getting around a bit. I put on my helmet and gauntlets and dispatched him with an arrow through the head. Later I read that you should always preserve the brain intact for rabies testing. Oops - but I couldn’t leave him around our goats, not to mention us.

Just a few minutes ago I heard Teri shouting to Daks that “it’s OK”…he was out on his line, but wrapped around a big fir tree and pretty much stuck in one place, totally freaking out. Assuming that he was just upset at being confined, I went to free him. The yellowjackets got me in the head and face, and I retreated quickly, but hadn’t gotten the leash off Daks. I ran and put on my motorcycle helmet and gauntlets and freed the dog.

We brought him in, but he was still freaking out, and we found that there were yellowjackets in his fur, apparently still stinging away. We removed about five of them, and I swatted a few more flying ones. Then he found the “secret passageway” from the mud room to the space under the house, and wouldn’t come out. Once again I donned protective gear (cornered, terrified dog in pain = chomp) and crawled under the house. I managed to lure him out, and now he’s in his crate, very agitated and biting at his butt.

To top it off, one of the little #$%ers was still on the back of my head, tangled in my hair and stinging away. He got me a few times in the same spot before I realized it and whacked him, and there’s a big, aching lump growing there.

And oh, yeah - our refrigerator seems to have died this morning, and I’m tethered to the computer for work so I can’t go get a new one. The van’s little frig is saving our dairy products.

I think I’ve about worked up an appetite for breakfast now.

We’re still adjusting to the rhythms of sowing and harvesting. Food comes in bunches, from our garden and our CSA, and sometimes we just don’t get around to canning/drying/freezing/eating it in time.

This tomato got soft in our hanging basket, and was almost on its way to the compost bin when we noticed something funny…seeds sprouting right through the skin! No waiting till next year for this one:

Impressed by its determination, we decided to stick it in a pot and see what happens. I don’t know if a tomato plant can really survive in the see-saw climate of a rickety old cottage with woodstove heat, but we’ll see…who knows? We haven’t thinned the seedlings; it’s become a bit of a natural selection experiment:

I thought I blew it with the potatoes. Everyone warned not to use supermarket ones as seed, and I ignored them. When the plants suddenly started dying a month ago after an unseasonal 3 days of cool, rainy weather, I figured I’d learned my lesson.

Yesterday, I thought I’d better deal with the mess. I raked aside the mounded straw, too deep and wet with hot compost action on the bottom, and the spading fork touched something soft. I bent down and dug with my hands; it was a large, mushy, foul-smelling potato. I made plans to drag all the straw away to the burn pile so as not to spread the fungal blight I was sure had taken our tubers.

Then I spied a tiny but healthy-looking spud peeking up at me. No more than 1/2″ long, but perfectly shaped. I put it in my pocket as a memento to show Teri later, and kept digging.

When I had two one-gallon buckets almost full, I decided to leave the rest there, so Teri could enjoy uncovering a few. It was so unexpected; I’d been sad about the sudden departure of those formerly vigorous plants.

Tonight, we had fried potatoes (ours!) with onion (Wintergreen Farm, about five minutes down the road):

Also had a salad - romaine from Wintergreen with our own heirloom tomatoes and the one very-non-local ingredient: Danish blue cheese

…and for dessert, our very own homegrown watermelon, another first for us:

It wasn’t by far our most homegrown meal, but the potatoes were a big deal…they can be a really significant part of our diet for fairly little work, and like almost everything we’ve grown here they tasted incomparably better than those things at the supermarket.

The more we eat this way, and the more I learn about food production, the more it seems that most other human foolishness pales in comparison to the way we’ve transformed our food into poisonous, flavorless garbage that leaves a wasteland behind after harvest.

My food’s made of goat poop and old straw (well composted, of course) and it’s way better than anything I paid $30 a plate for in NYC.