Tis the Season for Apples!

This fall has flown by. In early September we had our third heat wave, three days in a row in the 90’s or higher. Then, just a couple weeks later, BAM! That’s right. We had a frost!

That’s New Hampshire for you.

Despite the drastic temperature changes, fall is really the best time of year to visit our fine state. We have beautiful weather (warmer during the day, but bring that coat for the evenings), wonderful colors and apples.

There are many pick-your-own apple orchards throughout the state, each one providing a fun experience and the best tasting apples around. You don’t have to look for long on the internet to find some amazing apple recipes, either.

My favorite type of apple is the Macintosh. I cook with it, eat it plain, I even give it as a snack to our goats. They are sweet with just enough tartness.

Cortlands are another favorite for cooking. In fact, the rule of thumb is eat Macs and cook Cortlands. I like both, but Macs will always be my favorite.

This year we have already made five jars of cinnamon applesauce, an apple pie and apple butter. We still need to make some apple pie filling and probably more applesauce and let’s not forget apple crisp.

New Hampshire offers a lot more than apples this time of year. Pumpkins are a favorite and typically there is a large pumpkin festival in Keene each year. Sadly, people created a riot last year and Keene has canceled the festival. I believe Laconia might pick it up. Laconia is closer to where I live so that would be great. The festival typically features the most lighted pumpkins at one time holding the Guinness Book of World Records.

Hay rides, corn mazes and haunted houses are also popular as we head towards October. And let’s not forget the fairs. We attended the Deerfield fair this year, which is one the most attended fairs in the state. There are other smaller agricultural fairs throughout the season, too.

Take a scenic drive along back roads or head north and try a scenic train ride. The weather is perfect for hiking, horseback riding or just taking a stroll.

Interested in visiting a New Hampshire ghost town or haunted location? I’ll write about that next…

Jack’s Adventure

So Jack’s adventure continues. A few weeks ago we had his horns surgically removed. You can check out here to read about how that came about. We had hoped his wounds would heal and everything would be fine. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

Sure enough, first one side then the other became infected. Our neighbor works for the vet we use and when we first noticed something was wrong we asked her to take a look. From there we have embarked on a two-plus-week journey fighting to keep Jack from succumbing to the infection.

Twice a day our lovely neighbor has come over to help rinse out his wounds with Epsom salt and warm water. This has helped remove some of the infected tissue and I have become a little more tolerant of looking at pussy wounds.

We are also using a new antibacterial spray (which costs a mint, by the way), which has really helped with the healing.

On top of all that, we are giving him penicillin shots twice a day. The good thing is that both my boyfriend and I have learned how to give our goats shots. This is something we’ve wanted to learn from the beginning and will really help when it comes time to do spring shots. It also brings us one step closer to becoming more self-sufficient.

Our neighbor has warned us that this will be a long haul for Jack. He has been such a good boy and much more tolerant than some people would be for all the poking and prodding and spraying going on. He gets lots of treats for his good behavior and has found a new love for apples.

We’ve learned what it takes to take care of our goats both the cost and the time. Early mornings up before dawn to give him his treatment before we get ready for our “real” jobs. Then back at it again in the evenings. Most farmers wouldn’t have bothered. We’ve already spent more money on him than he is worth, but he is our “Jack” and we love him to pieces.

Over time we have seen some improvement. Jack continues to be a great patient, but he is not out of the woods yet and we are not stopping until he is a 100% on the mend.

The Adventures in Raising Goats

When we set out on this little adventure of ours we thought we were prepared for potential setbacks. Because we care very much for the animals we raise, we made sure to create our own “first-aid kit” for farm animals. In it we included iodine for animals, a large bottle of peroxide, a tube of thick antibacterial cream, a bottle of Corrid, probiotics, baking soda, pedialyte, minerals, Epsom salt, various syringes, measuring equipment and probably a few other things I can’t think of off the top of my head. Okay, maybe we went a little overboard, but best to be prepared, right?

This little stash of goodies has come in handy this past summer as we have had a round of Coccidia, haemonchus and (believe it or not) surgery.

The first round of Coccidia went through three of our animals including our poor little ram who needed a bath almost daily. For whatever reason, it is more difficult to get rid of this pesky parasite in goats than other animals, so the ram was quicker to recover than our Nubian doe or our Nigerian wether.

We finally made it through all of that, when one night we let the “girls” (our three doelings) and our wether out to romp in the barn together. Our Nubian doeling decided to take on the older but smaller Nigerian wether. Much to our little guy’s chagrin, the Nubian won…and poor Jack had a broken horn.

To take a step back, all of our Nigerians were disbudded at an early age. However, Jack (as it turns out) had unusually large horns and the disbudding didn’t work perfectly. He ended up with 3-4 inch horns that were thinner than normal and we had a feeling that the wrong hit would take them out.

The broken horn fell off the following day exposing raw skin and blood. In the heat of the summer, flies are very attracted to wounds. We were also concerned that leaving him with the one horn would just create more trouble. After speaking with the vet, we decided to have his horns removed.

Now some people would object to this procedure to an animal at five months old. Others thought we were just spending money needlessly. After discussing the potential alternatives (other horn breaks, both horns grow back, repeat steps 1-2) we really felt that the effort and money were worth it to make things easier for everyone (including Jack) down the line.

As I mentioned earlier, we discovered that Jack’s horns were unusually large for his little head and when he came home from surgery the poor little guy had two gaping holes. Fearful of flies getting in there, possible infections and a warning from the vet that he needed to be kept either separate from the others or with someone who wouldn’t want to head butt him all day, we decided that Jack needed to sleep in our spare room.

We set up a large metal dog crate (the type with bars, not the plastic enclosed carrier type) with some shavings, hay and a water dish. He didn’t like being up there by himself and made quite a bit of noise, but just like most kids, he settled down within a few minutes and slept through the night.

This all took place just before Labor Day weekend and I had already planned on taking a few extra days off to get some stuff done around the house. Silly me. Instead I spent most of the time taking care of Jack.

Then, on the first day of my vacation, Pearl, the Nubian doeling, had the runs…again. Does this ever end?

So, another stool sample and a half day wasted running around and we found out she had haemonchus. This little nasty parasite attaches itself to the inside of the stomach and sucks the blood of its host. We knew something was wrong when Pearl (our normally noisiest goat) was quiet and not eating. All she wanted was to be cuddled. Again, just like a kid, we knew something was not right.

The hard part of this parasite is that the goat has to fast from 6-12 hours before AND after taking the medicine. Not fun when you are talking about an animal that pretty much eats constantly. To keep Pearl from being stressed, we brought in all three girls and locked them in their stall without food. They weren’t happy, but within less than 24 hours, Pearl had her medicine and we could already see an improvement in her behavior. Within a few days, Pearl was back to her noisy, mischievous self.

Jack’s head is still taking it’s time healing. We’ve been putting a warm cloth soaked in Epsom salt and water on his head at night and slathering him in fly cream during the day so that he can be outside with the others. He has healed enough that we are comfortable with him sleeping back out in the barn. (That and we were tired of waking up to a yelling goat right at sunrise. Goats clearly do not get the concept of Sunday morning.) During the day he is out with the other goats where it is wide open, but we have still kept him separated at night. We tend to be over cautious.

Some of our farming friends just shake their heads at us. After all, a wether isn’t really worth anything. Many times people almost give them away. So to spend money removing horns was something most people wouldn’t do. But Jack is, well, our Jack. He’s cool. He has beautiful blue eyes and a “I can take on the world” attitude. He loves adventure, but also will just sit in your lap for a while and nap. In a way, I think he thinks he owns us and not the other way around. We wouldn’t trade him for the world.

As the cooler weather settles in, we’re hoping we are over most of these maladies. Though we said that last time, too. This fall doesn’t seem close to slowing down any and I still have all those things around the house I wanted to get to before. But first and foremost we need to make sure our animals are healthy and happy.

The Never Ending Illness

After the bout of coccidian with Pearl cleared, we settled back down into normalcy only to come home last Friday night and find our Jacob, the ram, covered in poo. Poor guy had the runs so bad it was liquid and he was covered. We brought him in and washed him off. He wasn’t thrilled.  Luckily he is only about 50lbs and not the 250 lbs he will be when full grown.

We called the vets right away to get the dosage of Corrid for a five-month-old ram and started him on medicine right away. Sure enough, Saturday had our wether, Jack, with the runs. *Sigh*

We aren’t taking any chances so EVERYONE is getting medicine. We’re hoping we caught this thing in time.

Our Newfoundland, Elli, had a UTI and had to go to the vets to have that tested. Poor girl is clearly not feeling good.

Will this ever end?

The heat wave is gone and the weather is leaning more towards fall than summer. The days are very nice and the nights are cool, perfect for sleeping. Still, across the way just down the dirt road is a maple tree that is half covered in red leaves. Man, how summers fly by.

The garden is giving forth its bounty and we have several large jars of pickles already. Is there any better smell than pickling spices? My kitchen smells amazing.

I shredded enough zucchini to make eight loaves of zucchini bread in the freezer and still have a few zucchinis left over. The tomato plants look terrible but they are loaded with green tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen, but the plum ones are taking their time. I have a few jalapeño peppers just waiting for the fresh tomatoes to make salsa. If we get more pickling cukes we may try making a sweet relish. The butternut squash is just about ready to pick and the corn, peas and peppers are just about ready. Looks like we’ll have a pretty good haul this year.

It’s been so dry this summer that some people are having their wells go dry. We haven’t had that happen yet, but we are trying to be very careful with water. Running out would be bad, especially with some very hot thirsty farm animals.

My parents visited and I gave them some of my homemade ice tea. They loved it. I also let them try a new orzo dish I made for the first time. It has fresh basil, mint, zucchini (cause you have to use it up some how), cherry tomatoes (see comment on zucchini), olives and feta cheese. It only has three tablespoons of lemon juice and one of olive oil, so it is light and tasty and it’s really good warm or cold. My stepmother liked it, but my dad is a bit of a picky eater.

We’re going to enjoy as much as the summer as we can. We didn’t make it to the 4-H fair in Belmont or the old homes days in town, but the Hopkinton fair is in a couple of weeks and I rarely miss that fair. It’s one of my favorites. This year we also plan to make the Deerfield Fair, which is one of the oldest fairs in the state. It’s usually pretty mobbed, but we’ll give it a try. Remember…we aren’t really crowd people.

If you are interested in a refreshing drink for summer, try this one…

Cindy’s Homemade Ice Tea Mix

Instant Ice Tea mix – any brand will do

1- 1 ½ cups orange juice

1 Lemon

1 Orange

About 6 mint leaves (give or take depending on preference)

Make the ice tea according to the directions on the package cutting back the amount of water you use for the orange juice. Take the lemon and cut in half. Squeeze one half into the tea mix and slice up the other halve. Add the lemon slices to the tea mix.

Slice up about half the orange and add those to the tea mix.

Add the mint leaves to the tea mix.

Put in refrigerator and let set for at least an hour.Fill a glass with ice. Fill with tea mix and garnish with one or two leaves of mint and a slice of orange.Enjoy and repeat!

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A bit crowded at the beach.

Since Dennis is starting a new job, last Friday was the last chance we had to have an “official” vacation. His daughter had borrowed the kayaks, so we opted for a trip to the beach.

Since we only live an hour from the coast, I make it a point to get out to the ocean at least once a year. I love the waves and the smell of the salty air and let’s face it, there is nothing tastier than New England seafood on a hot summer day.

We took the road that took us to Portsmouth then south to Rye and Wallis Sands State Park. It was packed as we had an official heat wave that week, the first since 2013. The tide was high and that made for limited real estate on the beach. Still, we found a little spot and headed in to the waves. At sixty-eight degrees the water was a bit chilly for Dennis, but I thought it was nice and it didn’t make my ankles numb. We aren’t crowd people though and after a couple of hours we decided it was time to go.

We headed to Petey’s for lunch. They were mobbed, too, but we found a seat on the patio at the bar. We drank Cokes and ordered two friend seafood combo plates. It was delicious.

We took the side roads back home past old New Hampshire farms and wide areas of hay fields. It was warm, the sun was shining and everything was perfect.

We extended Pearl’s medicine a few extra days as she wasn’t quite back to normal on Friday and the vet said we could continue until we saw improvement. We took the three girls out for a romp through the hayfield letting them munch as they went.

As the sun settled in the evening, we took Jacob our ram out and gave him a good brushing. He is still shedding out his coat and we thought we’d give him a hand. He is such a love and enjoyed the attention and the good rubbing he got.

Saturday and Sunday brought drier weather with a nice breeze, though it was still very hot. We headed to a different farmer’s market Saturday morning to check things out. It was small and they didn’t have what we needed, but it was a beautiful ride through hills past the big lakes and an old town village.

We spent most of Saturday getting errands out of the way so we could stay home and relax on Sunday. Well, relax isn’t exactly the word I’d use. Dennis worked all day on building the nest boxes for the chickens. The hens should start laying in about a month and we wanted to be sure they knew where they needed to lay.

I pulled up the zucchini plants from the garden as they were just about done and had the powdery mildew stuff they had gotten last year and we didn’t want it to spread to the other squash and cucumbers.

Somehow we ended up with a gourd plant. We thought it was a summer squash when it first started to grow so we left it. It flowered and nice yellow fruit began to grow, but as they got larger it was clear it wasn’t summer squash.

The corn is doing well, if I can keep the Japanese beetles off of them. They are also enjoying the pea plants and sunflowers, too. There isn’t much that kills those little suckers. We just continue to squash them when we can.

I shredded enough zucchini to make eight loaves of zucchini bread this fall and I froze the currants, as we still don’t know what to make with them. We still have nine zucchinis in the refrigerator and several cucumbers. Dennis was talking about making more of the sweet pickles to use up what we have, but I also want to try the zucchini pickles before those go bad.

The next big thing will be the tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes are so heavy they have fallen over, tomato cages and all. We have tons of plum tomatoes but the plants are turning yellow and the leaves are turning brown and falling off and we aren’t sure what is happening. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the fruit will ripen soon so we can start canning.

I picked four big bouquets of lavender flowers and have them drying in the barn. They smell heavenly and will be great for adding to soaps or potpourri. I need to do the sage, oregano, basil, time and mint next.

It will be strange having Dennis working full time again. I’ve come to enjoy having him be home. The extra money will be nice, though and we are already planning the barn and what color to paint the house.

Once the barn and fencing are all up, it will make things a lot easier. We have already talked about tearing down the existing barn to add a garage and little shop where we can sell our farm goods and antiques. Dennis will still need a workshop somewhere. Off the garage, perhaps?

It’s hard to believe it is August already and if the weather app on my phone is correct, temperatures will already be back down in the seventies come later this week. Typically, by the second half of August you can already see some of the leaves change.

The Belknap 4-H Fair is this coming weekend and the big Hopkinton Fair is the first weekend of September. The Deerfield Fair, also a large Fair, is the first weekend of October.

Not that I want to rush summer, but sadly we only have a month left, “unofficially.” And that, my friends, is very sad indeed.