Sausage Scramble

This is one of our favorite dishes. It can either be served as dinner or breakfast.

Sausage Scramble

Smoked sausage - sliced
One whole onion - chopped
Several sliced bell peppers (any color you want although you want to make sure
and include green bells for stronger flavor)
Potatoes - red is best but russet will do. Skinned and cut up - as many as you want.
A generous palm full of parsley
salt and pepper to taste
liberal amounts of cumin
oil

Chop and slice all vegetables as directed and place in a large bowl, slice sausage
and add to bowl along with spices. Put in enough oil to coat and mix thoroughly. I
prefer to use my hands (washed first of course) but you can use a spoon if you feel
more comfortable with that. Place in pan, cover with foil and bake at 350* for one
hour. Remove foil and continue baking until down and brown.
(pardon the Halloween tablecloth)

Serve with scrambled eggs,buttermilk biscuits, and sliced tomatoes

Home-grown food

There is nothing better than homegrown food. The taste is wonderful, growing it-whether plant or animal-is peaceful for the soul, and it is beautiful as well,

And, when you have fresh home grown food, you can make yummy food like this:

Open Faced Veggie Sandwiches



16 oz cream cheese -preferably fresh cream cheese made with goat milk 

1 envelope Hidden Valley Ranch Dip seasoning

two pimento stuffed green olives chopped small

a handful of black olives (more or less as you want) chopped small

1 or 2 cloves of garlic chopped small

green bell peppers and onion chopped small - as more or  little as you want but more is better with the bell pepper

two carrots, shredded with a cheese grater

shredded zucchini - however much you want 


Use hands and mix it all together well. Spread on toasted light rye bread and top with sliced cucumber and tomato. Serve with celery sticks on the side (or you can chop the celery small and add it to the mix) and enjoy!

Rain!

We have been really dry here, to the point that the grass has been crunchy for the last three weeks. This evening though, the sky darkened as heavy clouds rolled in and a look at the radar showed us a storm was headed our way. Normally we do evening chores between 6:30 and 7:00 in the evening. But tonight we went out a little early. The bucks were happy to go in their house and eat their dinner, the chickens went to bed a little early too, well all except one younger hen, she had to be chased into the hen house so we could get them all shut up for the evening.

The does were gathered impatiently at the gate. They knew the rain was coming and true to the goat code, they are convinced that wild water (like rain and any other water not safely contained in bucket) will permanently damage them. They were happy to eat and settle down in their freshly bedded stalls (spoiled girls).

We all sat outside after the animals were all settled and watched the storm come in. The wind really picked up and leaves were blowing all over the place, kicked up off the ground and fluttering down from the trees. It was beautiful to see all the bright fall trees against the deep grey of the clouds. The kids had fun seeing how many leaves they could hit with their bats before the leaves could hit the ground.

The first rumble of thunder was accompanied by big,fat, drops of rain and we all headed in. Soon after everyone was in the house, the sky opened up and rain beautiful rain, began to fall in earnest. As I sit here and type this, the sound and smell of rain through the open (yes open) windows is absolutely wonderful. I can almost here the trees and the ground sighing with relief.

Hoop shelter/tarp house thingy

I thought I would post some pictures of the hoop/tarp house we made for BigWig and his new buddy. What we call it their "man cave" LOL. There is a double layer of tarps at the back which faces north. We also slid a board between the fence and the back of the hoop shelter to help keep the north wind from blowing the tarps to much. They are tied securely, but we figure the less strain from the wind the better. The floppy eared goat you see is BigWig's new buddy.

BigWig seemed to think that looking at the camera sideways would help him understand it better

Love is in the air

BigWig has settled in and is doing his job well. So far both Tally and Lacey both have accepted his advances. He seems to enjoy the fact that he is the only male and is happily blubbering and snorting and peeing on himself. The does of course just can't get enough of that wonderfully bucky behavior. The stench, the urine sprayed face, how much more attractive can you get? (gag!)The first day he was here it was like watching a small gaggle of school girls swooning over the newest teenage heart throb. They gathered at the fence and flirted like the shameless hussies they have become.



Because the acquisition of a buck was unexpected, we had no shelter for BigWig. But a couple of days of work (would have had it done in one if we'd had everything we needed) later and he has a nice hoop shelter with his hay and alfalfa in there. He still lives in our good sized chicken pen but he makes sure the hens stay out of his house. I guess he figures they have their own house with that yummy smelling chicken grain in it that he can't get to, so they had better stay out of his. Of course when he is spending time in the doe pen with the girls, the chickens take advantage of his absence and rifle through his house for anything they might want. He promptly chases them out when he returns to his pen.


However his reign as the only male will end as soon as we find a friend to be his penmate. This friend will most likely be a wether, so BigWig will still get to maintain the title of supreme buck.

BigWig

Well as anyone who has prowled my website knows, we were originally planning on breeding our girls to a young Saanen buck that is owned by some friends of ours. But he is still a little too young and hasn't quite grown into his herd sire britches yet. They nicely offered the use of their mature Nubian buck, but we really have no desire to go that direction.

While were contemplating what to do and Fate was amusing himself by trying to trip us up, Serendipity decided to take a hand in matters. And so BigWig, a stunningly handsome young purebred LaMancha buck, came to live with us. Not only is he beautiful, but he also has the most fantastic personality. We are so happy to have him. Thank you Miranda at Beyond Goats for the opportunity to add him to our little herd.

We named him BigWig because the tuft of hair on his head reminded me of a rabbit by the same name in the book Watership Down.