Today has been a crazy day.  I am thankful for the moment to sit at the computer and type out my menu plan for the week.   I also plan daily to-do lists, cleaning plans, (I follow FlyLady) and any farm projects.  I am a box checker, just in case you did not pick up on that yet.  Friday, I made a grand check list of everything I wanted to get done all day, went out to do farm chores and found a goat in labor, whole day took a different turn.  I like checking boxes better than “hello emergency!”  but farm life does not always work that way.

Sunday: Roasted Turkey, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and beets.  Don’t judge me, we all have our thing, mine is turkey, mashed potatoes and mac and cheese.  They have to be made together.   It was fabulous.  I stuffed the bird with apples and onions.  It will be lunch meat for the next two weeks and I will get three more meals out of this bird this week.  I have no idea how big it was, maybe 15ish pounds.

Once I finish cleaning and picking the bird, I will put carrots, onions, celery, water and the bones into the crock pot. I cook this down for at least 24 hours, adding more water if needed.  I can or freeze the turkey stock when it is done, I get about 4 quarts.

Monday: Turkey sandwiches, chips or turkey on salad.  I cooked all day yesterday.  Today I am keeping it easy.

Tuesday:  Tacos.  When we make tacos we cook dry beans in the InstaPot.  Rice in the rice cooker, saute onion and hot peppers and cut up lettuce and tomatoes.  We also fry our own corn chips.  It makes the night extra special. This is also a night the kids cook and clean up.

Wednesday:  Pork Loin in the InstaPot, roasted acorn squash and Brussels sprouts. The pork loin is a complete cheat.  This I got on sale, it is not from our farm!  Gasp!  However, it is an easy night. The loin is fully seasoned and it goes in the InstaPot for 15 mins.  I cut up the acorn squash in slices and half the sprouts.  Roast 350 for about 10-15 mins. The squash depends on how thick I cut it. Easy prepare and easy clean up.

Thursday: Turkey enchiladas.  I take more of the leftover turkey from Sunday, cut it up really small and mix it diced onions, bean, shredded cheese and a little salsa.  Wrap in a gluten free wrap and lay the wraps into a baking dish.  Cover the wraps with a spicy white sauce and salsa.  Bake 350 for about 25-30 mins. Serve over rice or quinoa.

Friday:  My daughter is cooking, it is going to be a surprise she said.  Wants to make up a complete menu and present it to me tomorrow.  It will have beef on it, that is the only hint I was given.

Saturday:  Turkey drop biscuits soup with sweet potato gravy.  This is like chicken and dumplings or chicken pot pie but with whatever veggies I have around, and the left over pieces of turkey.  I will cook a sweet potato in the InstaPot to make a nice thick gravy that has that something special.

This week I will bake something with apples in it for breakfast or a treat after dinner.  I have a feeling the kids are just going to want the baked apples, like the filling of an apple pie with no crust.  It goes great on yogurt with almonds for breakfast!

We are halfway through our kidding season! It has been an exhausting emotional rollercoaster.  We have had the joys of new life and the sadness of death. It is paralleling what is going on in the world right now.

We had a kid born this week with an intestinal defect. We did the best we could to save him but he passed in our arms. His twin brother was just not up to normal bouncy kid behavior so we took him to the vet. A low grade fever was easily treated and he is back to a normal hyper baby goat. The vet recommend pulling him off Mom, which as a dairy we normally do at about a week, so he is now an indoor bottle baby. Once the weather warms up he will go to goat daycare with one of our older does.

Our family was very upset about the death of the kid, but life had to go on the other baby needed us. There are a lot of times in farming where you have to push your emotions aside and just keep going. The other animals on the farm need you and there is no time to sit around feeling sad.

This week we also received chicks for a new sustainable meat bird flock. We are going to start breeding and maintaining a meat bird flock so we don’t have to continue buying Cornish crosses. With the events happening in the world right now we are doing everything we can to be sustainable. That means we probably are going to add some sustainable turkeys as well. However, we are still researching the perfect breed.

Two of our does are due to deliver any day now. We know it will happen in God’s perfect time. Once kidding is over we can take a deep breath and transition into milking and bottling. It does not mean less work, just different. This time of year keeps us very busy!

I pray this post finds everyone healthy. Let me know how your seedlings are doing. They should still be inside and the cardboard outside on your garden plot creating perfect soil. Feel free to ask questions about this process in the comments below.

This has been a busy week.  Spring is coming in with a long to-do list.  With the added stress and to-do of working from home, educating the kids and other COVID-19 stresses the farm is a source of stress relief.  We have been taking advantage of nice days and working inside early in the morning or when it is raining, in addition to having a modified “Spring Break”.  Many friends have asked, “what’s going on down on the farm?” I think this has just been a conversation starter to talk about anything other than the virus, but I promised to do a blog post with pictures of what we have been up to.

I’ll start with the cutest thing first!  This is Captain Crunch, Crunchy for short. He is the baby boy born to Cherrio today!  He is super cute!  He arrived right on is due date.  My husband when back to check on Cherrio this afternoon and there he was, not a peep out of Mom.  The baby was all dried off and happy as could be.  Mom did a great job taking care of him.  We have about 9 more babies coming this week.  This is based off the ultrasounds at the end of January.  God willing, we will be posting a lot of baby goat pictures this week.  This also means there will be new babies for sale on our Sale page!

In other goat news, we have a new milker on the stand.  We sold her kid so she is ready to join the milking ranks.  She did not think this was a good idea.  She does not want to be milked so she just sits down.  We have to train her with positive reinforcement that the stand and milking is a good thing.  It normally takes a week and lots of patience.   A stressful process for us all.

Inside the high tunnel things are growing well.  We still have another week or so before harvest, but the kale and radishes will be right on time.  There is a hard frost warning for Friday night, so we will be waiting till Saturday to transplant tomatoes and peppers.  The average daytime temp in the high tunnel without the sides open is about 120 degrees.  With the sides up it drops down into the 80’s.  At night the low is about 40’s.  That is a huge temperature swing, we are looking forward to some warmer nights soon.

Outside, we are shaping garden beds, mulching isles and laying down row covers when they are needed.  The garlic bed is at the bottom of the picture, all the logs and wood around it is holding down the wire we have to use to keep the chickens out.  Chickens are a huge frustration when we start moving dirt around in the garden, they are overly helpful.  We spent a whole day this week, re-fencing the chicken yard with 6 foot chain link.  This is in hopes to keep them out of the garden while we prep the beds and plant the crops. We are keeping our fingers crossed.  Until we know for sure we can keep them in, I will keep my garlic covered!

When I am not working on the farm, cooking, teaching my kids, teaching for school or cleaning the house, I am making masks.  The Governor issued an order that everyone must wear a cloth mask when they go out in public.  This is like a step above “cover your cough”.  Other teachers at school have helped me gather supplies and now it is time to cut and sew.  I’m happy to be able to contribute to my community and help maybe slow down this virus.  The link to the pattern I am using is below.

https://tianascloset.com/index.php/2020/02/06/face-mask-against-the-coronavirus-epidemic/

Lastly, I will leave you with this strange photo.  Can you figure out what we were doing in the kitchen this week?  We roasted the peanuts from last years garden.  I know we should have done it a long time ago, I normally roast them before Christmas, but I just never got the chance.  They still turned out great!  Growing peanuts is one of our favorite things.  There is nothing like the taste of a home grown peanut.  We all look forward to the day we can grow enough to make peanut butter.  Until then, we eat them plain, on yogurt, and in ice cream.  We roasted these in honor of all the baseball games we are missing.  It seems weird to be working on the garden without the soundtrack of baseball in the background.

So many things right now seem different.  We are trying to cherish the blessings, like the time together and online concerts.  We are praying for hospital employees and the sick.  Life is uncertain and seems like it is out of control, but we will hold tight to the truth that God is in Control.  We pray God’s will be done in our lives and that he guides us to be His hands and feet.  I hope you all have a great week.  Thank you for catching up with us.