bird seed cookies

based on an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe from Moosewood.

1 cup cane sugar
1/2 cup butter (microwaved for 1 minute)
1/4 cup veggie oil
2 eggs
(1 teaspoon vanilla extract, I never do tho)
1 cup all purpose or half & half flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 cups rolled oats or five grain mix
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup raisins and/or dried cranberries
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup dried dates, small pieces
1/2 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds and/or pinenut seeds

combine all ingredients.
with a tablespoon drop batter on baking sheet
push batter flat to about 1/2 inch thick
bake at 375 degrees for 14 minutes or edge of cookie is crisp
cool for about 10 minutes or until cookies firm up in middle

I would have added a picture except we already ate the latest batch!

These are good emergency cookies as well. Healthy enough as a breakfast and / or lunch replacement when on the road! At least I think so...

Coffee & Cream

Meet our two new does, Coffee and Cream (or maybe Cappuccino and Espresso?!). They are a Nubian Saanen cross and most likely pregnant. They're a little younger than I would normally breed (it was an oops) but it is the industry's standard so we'll just go with it this time as older, experienced milking goats are quite valuable - if you can even find one!

And I think we lucked out all around, I found two healthy milking prospects and they did not go to the weekend meat auction! I happened to email just at the right time...

ducks everywhere!

It's been fun having all those duckies around, but man, do they make a mess! I already evicted their water bucket to the outdoors and just wish they would do their multitude of poopies there too...

But, they are fun to watch, tromping down the snowy pasture all in a row, scooting like a penguin under the stall doors to check out the barn isle (and scooting back fast when they see me...), coming to the fence real curious to look at the tiny human, who in turn loves to watch the funny looking and chirping mass of ducks!

They're about 8 weeks old now and some of the boys are already larger than their mom...

quick stew option

Add frozen meat and frozen tomato liquid to stew pot, with a little jar rinsings to help thaw out without sticking to the bottom of the pan.

As I mentioned in the Squashed Deer Stew recipe:
When I can tomatoes, like everyone, to make paste I cut the tomatoes, boil them up but then I remove the liquid with a ladle before the tomato flesh completely disintegrates. That way I don't have to boil the tomatoes forever to remove excess liquid, plus I either can or freeze the liquid to use for other things (stew, soup, etc).

Couple hours later: perfect stew!

Monica, may she rest in peace

I'm real sad to say that our trusty milker Monica died this week...
She was ailing for a while, had milkfever after kidding last spring, had real trouble putting on and keeping on weight over summer and then had a miscarriage followed by milkfever this winter... I tried high nutrient food, extra vitamins, splitting up at feeding just to make sure everyone got what they needed, and just when I thought she was getting over the last set down she died. Poor, poor girl.

In collaboration with Cornell Ambulatory I donated her body to the vet school Anatomy lab. Hopefully an autopsy will reveal what went wrong so I can learn and prevent my other girls from having to go thru a similar ordeal like her. And maybe her remains can help teach the student farm vets...

We're going national!

 

Far Mountain Soap officially opened shop on Etsy.com today :)

visit us at www.etsy.com/shop/FarMountainSoap
to check out the first listing of our best seller milk and honey bars...

which reminds me, we're on Facebook now too!
visit us at www.facebook.com/FarMountainSoap and "like" us.

Squashed Deer Stew

The following is a recipe that evolved from my kid's insistence on not eating anything lumpy & mixed... so I blended it before serving. I also used a short cut to make stew with meat from the freezer without thawing it first, very useful for the busy (and forgetful) mom!

When I can tomatoes, like everyone, to make paste I cut the tomatoes, boil them up but then remove the liquid with a ladle before the tomato flesh completely disintegrates. That way I don't have to boil the tomatoes forever to remove excess liquid, plus I either can or freeze the juice to use for other things (stew, soup, etc).

1 leg of frozen meat, I use goat or deer
1 quart of saved tomato liquid, frozen or canned

Add to cast iron pot (start with a little bit of extra water if liquid is frozen, like rinse out of the bag or jar, to help start thawing the rest) and simmer until meat easily comes of the bones.


Remove all meat and bone from liquid, let cool down on cutting board, when meat is cool, remove from bone, remove squishy parts and cut up in small pieces.

1 butternut squash or medium pumpkin, skinned & cubed.
same amount of sunchokes (jeruzalem artichokes), cubed.

Add cubed squash and sunchokes to liquid and simmer until tender.
When cubes are soft, a fork sticks right thru, blend with stick blender.
When blended add meat back in and heat until all is warm.

We like this with spagetti but it works well with all kinds of pasta. The neat thing is that the paste sticks to the pasta (courtesy of the sunchokes) so the kid has to eat the veggie even if he tries to pick around the sauce :)

Why I call it Squashed Deer Stew?
Cause the deer had a vehicular encounter before ending up as stew...