nesting geese in January!

It's winter, so time for some blog house keeping! And geese are on my mind, as I found out yesterday the reason why my gander Kristopher has been so paranoid in the run recently... the darn things started a nest! In January! While the temps are below single digits and worse! I ended up removing six frozen and cracked eggs and hope they'll either stop laying, or keep on laying in the same spot so I can keep an eye on it. I like them making the nest in the side run, as we can lock that up at night, but worry repeated egg harvesting might scare them off somewhere else...

Let's see, last time I posted we had received five goslings from my son's incubating program at school. The brooding goose managed to hatch another eight (!) which is our record. If I remember correctly there were only one or two unhatched eggs left in the nest. From talking to other goose and duck enthusiasts we deduced that the hatching rate last Spring was high because the average humidity was high; we had a lot of rain and drizzle (and mud).
Goose eggs need moisture to develop correctly which is why a lot of waterfowl need access to a pond for successful hatching; the brooders swim occasionally and thus bring back moisture to the nest by their damp breast feathers. We do have a large rubbermaid container for them to poodle in but don't really see brooding mommy make all that much use of it, she hangs around closer to home. But she is not on the nest at all times, so next season I plan to mist the eggs occasionally and see if that makes a difference. The previous year we had three goslings from 7+ eggs. That was an above average dry spring, so it would be great if we can increase their hatching rate with just a little spritzing!

All five school goslings ended up being adopted by the larger brood and within a month or so the whole group was walking around together. We sold three of the school goslings; since I kept a close eye on them as they lived in the sunroom I was able to see sex differences and tagged them accordingly. We kept a boy / girl couple ourselves and sold the others as breeders.
Two of the eight brooded goslings quickly got separated at night and died from exposure (they squeezed thru the run/side run wire partition but did not have the thinking to walk around to the door and loop back - I put a strip of smaller diameter fencing around the side run to prevent this from happening again), the other six made it to adulthood fine. We butchered those, for our and our friends' freezers. Feedback was that it tasted the best when deep fried, but then, what doesn't!

It was nice having a large group of geese strolling the yard and garden. It looked so homely (and apparently scared the wacky neighbors, another plus!). Even tho we had a bumper crop of fruit and apples this year we had hardly any problem of rotting fruit on the ground! I had already put a wood snow fence around the chicken yard for our fox problem, which in early season kept the fox out and in later season the ever hungry geese. We'd kick the geese out in morning, feed the chickens, and then let the geese back in at night - otherwise there'd be no feed left! We ended up not feeding the geese commercial feed for about 4 months, stimulating them to graze and gather for themselves as they grew to a respectable weight of about 6-8 pounds dressed - and apple & leftover marinated :)

spiced beets canning recipe

from http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Spiced-Pickled-Beets
       
Ingredients

 •   3 pounds small fresh beets (or cylindrica)
 •   2 cups (organic cane) sugar
 •   2 cups water
 •   2 cups (apple) cider vinegar
 •   2 cinnamon sticks (3 inches)
 •   1 teaspoon whole cloves
 •   1 teaspoon whole allspice

Directions

    Scrub beets and trim tops to 1 in. Place in a Dutch oven and cover with water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 25-35 minutes or until tender. Remove from the water; cool. Peel beets and cut into fourths.
    Place beets in a Dutch oven. Add the sugar, water and vinegar. Place spices on a double thickness of cheesecloth; bring up corners of cloth and tie with string to form a bag. Add to the beet mixture. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Discard spice bag.
    Carefully pack beets into hot 1-pint jars to within 1/2 in. of the top. Carefully ladle hot liquid over beets, leaving 1/2-in. headspace. Remove air bubbles; wipe rims and adjust lids. Process for 35 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Yield: 4 pints.

Editor's Note: The processing time listed is for altitudes of 1,000 feet or less. For altitudes up to 3,000 feet, add 5 minutes; 6,000 feet, add 10 minutes; 8,000 feet, add 15 minutes; 10,000 feet, add 20 minutes.

Originally published as Spiced Pickled Beets in Taste of Home June/July 2010, p66

I did 1 1/2 times the recipe and had 6 and a bit pint jars of sliced beets. I did not have cinnamon sticks so used cinnamon powder in a loose leaf tea bag, which worked just as well. I cooked the beets first and then weighed them for this recipe. I used the cylindrica beets, which grow mostly above ground and as their name implies are not round but cylindrical in shape. That way you can cook the beets whole evenly and make similar sized round crinkle cuts while using the whole beet. Enjoy!

What's in my soaps?

My goat's milk soaps and specialty soaps are made with organic ingredients when affordable, locally sourced when possible and home grown when available!


The oils & fats I like to work with:

sweet almond oil; natural or organic
canola oil; organic and locally sourced through Regional Access or Greenstar
castor oil; natural
cocoa butter; organic
coconut oil; organic
lard; organic, local (Kingbird Farm at the Ithaca Farmers Market)
olive oil; natural (no chemical extraction methods used)
palm oil; organic - refined (white) or unrefined (retains the orange fruit color)
palm kernel oil; organic
shea butter; natural, imported from Africa
soybean oil; not available local for some reason tho grown all around
sunflower oil; organic and locally sourced through Regional Access
wheat germ oil; natural or organic

beeswax & raw honey; local (Waid's Apiary, Rowland's Farm or friends)
vegetables & fruit; home grown, Greenstar or organic from the Ithaca Farmers Market

My palm oil is farmed and is not part of rainforest deforestation.
I don't use hydrogenated oils (like shortening) because I don't want to lather myself with something I wouldn't want to eat :)

About Far Mountain Soap...

 

Far Mountain Soap specializes in fragrance and essential oil free all natural goat's milk and specialty soaps; made with organic when affordable, locally sourced when possible and home grown when available. We add subtle scents where needed using choice flowers, spices and/or herbs and do the same to create specific soap colors - all without adding any chemicals, of course.

Started in the early winter of 2011 - you know, winter, when for the homesteading artist there is not much else to do than our favorite pass of time: bookkeeping... with the help of my accomplished soapmaking sister, Far Mountain Soap was born. I make my soaps using the traditional cold process method, the bars are hand cut and given at least a month to cure. This creates a high quality long lasting bar that retains the naturally occurring properties of the great ingredients I use. The bars are also naturally high in glycerin, a humectant that leaves the skin feeling clean and fresh without stripping it of its natural oils.

While we make basic soap batches, like the traditional Lye Soap with only local lard and well water, I enjoy developing and making unusual soaps. Like my Coffee Bar and Kitchen Hands soaps made with local Gimme! Coffee brew and grounds, my Apricot Wheat and Partly Sunny soaps made with the same beers from our local Ithaca Brewery and not to forget our signature milk soaps Milk & Honey and Winter Sunshine, made with milk from our own goats!

My soaps are free of preservatives, dyes & colorants, petroleum products, synthetic fragrance or essential oils - and of course: 100% biodegradable!

Please note - my soaps are hand made & hand cut, therefor every bar is unique; you may get a bar that does not *exactly* resemble the picture, but it will always be from the same recipe and it will always be just as pretty.

Handy Tip: handmade soap will last a long time if kept dry between uses. Please use a draining soap dish and keep the bar away from direct streams of water (and yes, we do sell reclaimed wood cedar soap dishes).

Soap Resources

Mountain Rose Herbs
Large selection of organic and non organic oils, butters, herbs etc.

Tropical Traditions
Has bulk regular and organic high quality coconut oil, keep an eye out for their free shipping and other sales.

Essential Wholesale
Has bulk regular and organic oils, nice materials but not that good customer service. Also sells cosmetic bases if you don't want to cook your own.

Brambleberry
Nice soap website with neat molds, melt and pour soap bases, fragrances and nice containers.

Lye Depot
Agway does not sell lye anymore, but I did find a great source for food grade lye on the internet.

Of course Regional Access for locally made and processed oils & honeys.

Milky Way Molds
Great selection of pvc soap molds; many, many to choose from.

Majestic Mountain Sage
Good recourse for materials, recipes and hosts the MMS Lye Calculator.

Miller's Homemade Soap Pages is full of technical know-how and recipes.

Soapnuts
A good resource for recipes, ideas and tips.

goslings

One of the five goslings hatched by my son's preschool last week. We donated 6 eggs from our breeding couple and offered to take any results back. All six hatched but one did not make it, and another was having a hard time (pictured). I brought that one home right in the morning to blow dry, keep warm and feed sugar water and by the afternoon she was fine. That afternoon I brought the remaining four home and the five of them are having a good time hanging out in a plastic half drum (no leaking) in our sunroom.

Baby geese are much sturdier than chicks and our five year old is enjoying handling and petting them (for now, until they grow up and "bite his bum", hihi).

The mother goose Emily is brooding her own nest with seven eggs last time I could count, which should hatch sometime the end of next week... we'll see who'll have the better hatching rate, the goose or the preschoolers!

I feel like gardening...

But it is only mid April! I did finally make a brick path in my flower & herb garden, which will make navigating it in summer much easier! Before the self seeding flowers loved to seed into the wood mulch path (they actually seeded more on the path than on the dirt...) and I felt bad about weeding out flower so left them and before you knew it the whole thing was impassible. So, with the left over bricks from the green house project (a lot of these have holes in them, are hollow bricks) a new path is made. If only I had started at the beginning and not at the end... I miss about 16 inches to reach the gate :)