The circle of life on the farm -- the Dr. Seuss version

I realize during my self-imposed blogging blackout, I never did fill you in on the story of what happened to Oscar (hereinafter referred to as 'the goat.')

So I suggest you read all about it here on my last blog post on GRIT.com:

"We are now a two-ruminant family. Yep, we took the goat to the butcher a week after my last GRIT post (the first day the government meat inspector was in) and had the meat processed into 46 pounds of assorted goat cuts.

I felt some disappointment that things didn’t work out better with Oscar, but I must admit, I was relieved and satisfied we’d made the right choice. (Thanks to all you readers for your suggestions and comments – you were a great help!)

We told the kids right away that Oscar was no longer on the farm and they took it fairly well, considering the botched job I did of explaining it.

I’d decided that I was going to be upfront and straight about it. No “Oscar has gone on holiday” nonsense. They were going to learn about life and death on the farm, and I was going to be the one to explain it.

I told them that we’d decided to get rid of Oscar (hereinafter referred to as, “the goat” – you’re right Amanda, it’s much easier when you don’t name the animal!) as it was no longer safe to keep him. We’d done the best we could but some animals are just mean.

They seemed to agree with that assessment. (I think the head-butting and the fact that I had to use a broom to fend him off whenever I entered his pen gave them a good understanding.)

Then they asked where he went.

I explained that we’d taken him to a local butcher to be processed (which is a fancy way of saying "killed.")

My four-year-old daughter Ella asked, “Why?” with tear-filled, big blue eyes that never fail to melt my heart. I should tell you that this is the same girl who cried when she ate the first egg from our new hens.

  

I gently explained that instead of selling him to someone else who might not be as accepting of his goat-like nonsense and ill-temper, we decided that it was more responsible for us to have him processed into meat.

My son Jack replied, “It’s sad the goat went mean and now we’re eating him.”

I paused, then explained that while it’s OK to feel sad about the goat, we can feel good about the life we gave him. I reminded them that the animals in the barn aren’t pets and eating them, mean or not, will become part of farm life.

“But we’re not going to eat the horse, right mum?” asked my son.

“No, we won’t eat the horse,” I replied.

“Or the donkeys?” asked my son.

  

“Or, the donkeys,” I replied.

“Or the Ellas?” asked my daughter. Ella is the name she gave to all 10 of our hens.

“Well,” I said. “Eventually, we’ll eat the chickens once they are no longer producing eggs for us.”

So then my son said, in his infinite seven-year-old wisdom, “So you do your job, or you get eaten. Right, mum?”

“Yes, sort of,” I replied, rubbing my temples and thinking that maybe the “Oscar’s gone on holiday” explanation might have been better after all.

I told them that one of the benefits of raising our own animals to eat is that it puts good quality, tasty food on the table.

“Are you going to eat the goat, mum?” my son asked.

“Well, I’m not sure,” I replied, explaining that I first became a vegetarian because I was against animals being raised on factory farms.

“We’re not a factory farm, right mum?” my son asked.

“No,” I replied, explaining that factory farms are places where animals are raised in very poor conditions. While we offer a much different life for our animals, one where they’re happy and well cared for, it’s been so long since I’ve eaten meat I’m not sure if I want to.

“But mummy, you’ve got to try it,” said my daughter in earnest. “That’s the rule.”

By now, I was starting to get something of a headache, so I redirected the conversation towards the new chickens we’d be getting in the spring.

I asked the kids if they could help me raise some day-old chicks as well as a few ducks and maybe even a turkey.

“Babies,” squealed my daughter. “We can name them Rosie!”

“And when they don’t do their job, we’ll eat them,” said my son.

Yes, son, we will. But in the meantime, I’ve got to find some recipes for goat meat. Then I’ll decide whether I’ll be eating it too."

Goat troubles, as posted to GRIT.com

My second posting to GRIT.com went up today and it's about troubles here on the farm. Goat troubles, that is.

It seems that I've got to figure out what to do with our first goat Oscar, now that he's become something of a nasty fellow -- and I'm finding it a harder decision than I expected.

What's worse, I've realized that this is just the first of many decisions that I'm going to have to make if we're going to breed animals (such as goats for milk and cheese) here on the farm.

While I wanted to share this story with the GRIT community, I also wanted to share it with you as I know there are some experienced goat people out there (you listening, Mama Pea?) and some homesteaders that I respect (yes you, Chicken Mama) who have or are raising animals and making decisions about culling and/or consuming them.

To be honest, I've felt quite uneasy about writing on this topic at all. It's probably that critic inside my head that says "didn't you think about this before you started getting goats?"

Well, yes I did... in theory but I'm finding the practice much more challenging.

I guess it stems from a fear of coming off sounding weak or foolish. But, this is my life and this is where I am in my thoughts right now. I started this blog to document our homesteading journey, bumps and all.

So, without further ado, I've included the text below (I omitted the photos as I've already posted most of them here before.) Or check it out here at GRIT.com.

And if you're new to this blog, you can read some more of the back story here, here and here.

As seen on "Homesteading Tales from Rowangarth Farm"

We’ve got goat troubles … and it’s the chickens’ fault. Maybe it’s a bit unfair to blame the chickens but if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here trying to figure out what to do with an ornery, head-butting pygmy goat named Oscar. So in my angst-ridden state I’m holding them responsible. Okay, partially responsible.

It all started back last October when we finally got around to cleaning years of previous owners’ junk out of the barn. We had a great set-up – a few goat pens, a large horse stall and two areas to keep poultry – but no livestock.

So like many new country folk, we decided to get us some chickens. Because it was fall already, it was too late to place a chick order so I went online to look for some laying hens.

Not long afterwards, I found a lady willing to sell us 10 mature barred rocks, Rhode Island reds and black rock hens.

We brought them home and within days we were collecting tasty, rich and gorgeous eggs from our girls.

About a week later, the lady who sold us the chickens emailed me to ask I’d be interested in buying a six-month-old male pygmy goat. Although Billy was still intact (as in, a fully capable male goat) she said he was very friendly and not at all aggressive.

I admit it – I’ve always loved goats, especially the little ones. Yes, my only exposure to them before moving to the farm was in petting zoos (there’s my disclaimer, right there), but I’ve always loved their personality. But that’s not a good enough reason to buy one, I reasoned, as we are not ourselves a petting zoo. So I decided to do some research.

I discovered that although pygmy goats are only 16 to 23 inches tall at the withers and does weigh approximately 55 pounds, pygmies can produce as much as four pounds of milk a day (equal to half a gallon) or 600 to 700 pounds a year, quite enough for a homesteading family of four.

Since one of the reasons we moved to the farm was to become more self-reliant, raising goats seemed like a good way to ensure a steady supply of goat milk and cheese. While purebred dairy goats such as Nubians and Saanens produce a much greater quantity of milk (averaging 1600 pounds annually), they are larger, require more space and more feed. Plus, registered proven producers (milkers) would be significantly more expensive.

Because we had absolutely no experience raising goats, we decided to try the economy version first.

But the question remained, should we buy Billy? I know there’s a lot more to selecting an animal for breeding than upbringing – pedigree and conformation are key but again, we’re just getting started here. The sticking point was, did we really want a buck?

While intact male goats start out as lovely little creatures, they quickly mature into bucks with somewhat objectionable habits, smell being the least of them. I mean, once you learn that a buck likes to spray his own beard and forelegs with urine, you may think twice about owning one. I know I did.

Finally, we decided to go ahead with it. We’d buy Billy now and get a doe in the spring and we’d go through one breeding cycle and see how things went.

We weren’t able to get Billy right away so in the meantime, I found another pygmy goat for sale: this one a three-year-old wether, or a castrated male.

I thought that it would be a good idea to get a wether as a companion for Billy. Goats are herd creatures and don’t do great on their own and once Billy matured, he’d be off limits to our future girls.

So on a cold, sunny day in November, my daughter and I brought home Oscar.

I liked Oscar immediately. He was inquisitive and friendly and took to following me around the barnyard like a puppy. While it was endearing at the time, that was probably a sign of things to come. I hadn’t bought livestock – I’d brought home a pet and a pet isn’t what I bargained for.

A few days after arriving at the farm, we tried introducing Oscar to the donkeys (they came after the chickens.)

Already we’d heard the coyotes circling the farm and we wanted to have predator protection in place before adding anyone else to the barnyard. Let’s just say it didn’t go well.

Cinder, the older and more sensible of the two, didn’t much mind Oscar. Lee, the younger and more insecure donkey, laid into Oscar like a fury, sending him cart-wheeling across the barnyard. It was unexpected and truly dreadful. We put the donkeys in the back paddock and tended to Oscar’s bruised ego.

Worried about what we were getting into, we were relieved when the chicken lady decided to keep Billy. That was fine with us because breeding was farthest from our mind at that moment.

But then a few weeks later, along came Lucy and Sam.

We purchased Lucy, another three-year-old pygmy goat, and her two-month-old baby that we named Sam, from a less than scrupulous owner. The idea was that Oscar would now have a companion (he was starting to show signs of stress and anxiety that we assumed was because he was an only goat), and we could keep Sam intact and have our own buck.

While we hoped the addition of Lucy and Sam would reduce Oscar’s growing agitation, it seemed only to heighten it. Although we kept them in adjoining pens for the first few weeks (we’d now moved everyone into the barn, out of the harsh winter weather) he became even more aggressive, not less.

Then the aggression turned on us. All my sources say that wethers were supposed to be docile and friendly but whenever we went into Oscar’s pen to collect his water bowl, he’d growl, head-butt and even once tried to down me. It left me with a nasty bruise and a growing worry that something was wrong. But what should we do about it?

The vet told us to take him to the sales barn. My dad offered to eat him. I even tried to sell him privately. But none of these options seemed to assuage my guilt that we’d failed. If only we’d done something more or differently, if only we weren’t so inexperienced, he wouldn’t have turned on us. (Looking back, he did seem pretty high-strung and codependent for a goat, right from the very beginning.)

So here I am today, learning my first lesson in animal husbandry – what to do with an animal you no longer want. I’m finding it a hard decision to make (now’s probably a good time to disclose that I’m a vegetarian – I’m something of an oddity around here), but it’s the first of many if we decide to continue raising goats or any animal.

If 50 percent of goats born are male, our options are: castrate every one of them and open a petting zoo (not an option), sell them privately (which may be harder to do with animals that are neither registered nor proven), butcher them or sell them to a sale barn (where someone else in turn will probably butcher them.)

It’s not like I didn’t know we’d have to dispose of excess animals even before we got into this goat business. I’m all about paying your own way around here and if you’re not contributing then you’re taking away from making this farm sustainable. I’ve even said it myself that once our chickens are done laying, they’re headed for the soup pot.

It’s just there’s this disconnect: the self-reliant side of me that knows full well that livestock are not pets (repeat after me: livestock are not pets) and that I can’t keep every single one of them; and the other side of me that has a soft-spot for four-legged creatures.

Maybe it’s time to get out of goats, but the barn would sure be empty without them. We’d miss out on our own milk and cheese too. Seems like a pretty high price to pay for my squeamishness.

So if anyone has any perspective or advice to share with this greenhorn, I’d love to hear it. Should I stick to growing vegetables or does culling animals, even the cute furry ones, get easier?

Vinegar pie... oh my

I was looking at some of the GRIT blogs the other day when I came across a posting called "Foodie Thoughts" by senior associate editor, Jean Teller.

I'm all for thinking about food and with one click, I was instantly rewarded with a tantalizing photo of homemade macaroni & cheese, one of my favourite comfort food indiscretions. (I'm also partial to the occasional fish & chips meal. I'm sure cardiologists and dietitians everywhere would scoff at this revelation, but there you have it.)

I'm always on the lookout for new recipes and while I didn't find a mac & cheese recipe (a cookoff for the best recipes is apparently in the works) there was another one that caught my eye.

Vinegar Pie.

Vinegar pie? My first reaction was, BLECHHHHHHH!!!! And that's coming from a self-avowed fish & chip fan. But vinegar pie? I just didn't get it. But it peaked my curiosity so I read a bit further.

Apparently, vinegar pie (a popular request among GRIT readers and I'm sure many of them could teach me a thing or two about country living) was traditionally an "adversity pie" eaten before the spring rhubarb was up and after the winter supply of fruit was gone. Like many "pioneer"-style recipes, its origins are disputed (some say Texas, others New England) but it was from a time before freezers, fridges, pressure cookers and eating out of season.

It was from a time when the 100-mile diet was everyday -- not revolutionary -- thinking.

While the sound of it made my face pucker, I loved the idea of this imitation lemon pie -- how it embodied the idea of making do with what's in the pantry and respecting the boundaries of seasonal eating.

So, I decided to try making it.

Here's the recipe, for 1889 Vinegar Pie:

1-1/4 cups sugar
3 tblsp corn starch
1-1/2 cups hot water
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 tblsp butter
2 eggs, separated
1 baked pie shell
1/4 cup sugar, mixed with 1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. In a saucepan, mix sugar, cornstarch, water, vinegar and butter. Bring to a boil, stir constantly until thick and clear. Remove from heat.

This is probably an important step. I don't think I cooked the mixture long enough as the filling never did firm up properly.


2. Stir a small amount of hot mixture into beaten egg yolks, return this to the saucepan and cook another two minutes.

3. Cool to room temperature and pour into a pie shell. (I didn't cool it as I'd read somewhere else that it's best to apply meringue to a hot pie filling to help make a seal. I poured the filling in still warm (it did cool a bit while I was fussing with the meringue) and it worked fine.)


Yep. That's a store-bought shell there, folks. While I may be good at making many things, pastry just ain't one of them.

4. Beat egg whites with sugar/cream of tartar mixture until very stiff. Apply meringue over pie and seal meringue to crust edges.

My first attempt at meringue was a total flop (it never stiffened). So I did some reading and apparently, the best meringues are made with older eggs (three to four days old -- now whether that's three to four days for fresh eggs or three to four days for store-bought, which would actually make them over a month old, I'm not sure.) I tried again with some "older" eggs and some modifications to my technique: first you beat the egg whites, then you add the cream of tartar until you get the stiff peaks, then you add the sugar.

Clear as mud? Good.

5. Bake 10 to 12 minutes in 325 degree (F) oven until lightly brown.

I had to admit, from the outside, the pie looked lovely. But what about the inside?

Taste test #1: I gave the first piece to my dad, who was visiting for the weekend. He has an adventurous palate so I thought he'd be a good person to start with.

"It's not bad. It [being the filling] is better with the meringue. What is it?"he asked, finishing off his small piece.

He was quite surprised to discover that the mystery ingredient, the one he couldn't quite put his finger on, was in fact, vinegar. He called it "a success" though once he'd had a few minutes to savour the aftertaste, commented that it may have been a (wee) bit too vinegary. Scottish men (especially dads) can be so diplomatic.

Taste test #2: Buoyed by this apparent success, I tried the second piece. I, however, was all too aware of the vinegar. I could smell it and taste it and couldn't get past the first bite (though the meringue was yummy.) My piece ended up in the bin.

Taste test #3: Knowing that Lucas' favourite pie is lemon meringue, I thought he'd be a fan for sure. Unfortunately, he also knew that the main ingredient in this filling was vinegar.

His piece ended up in the bin. (Though he did report his sinuses felt clearer.)

Taste test #4: Wanting to know what all the fuss was about, my four-year-old daughter asked to try it. She took one bite, screwed up her face and ran away with her hand over her mouth.


Her forkful ended up in the bin.

Taste test #5: By this time, my son was really intrigued and wanted in on the action too. As I knew that no one else in the family was going to eat any, I told him to take a bite directly from the pie plate. He scooped a bite... and he liked it.


I suggested he take another bite, which he did. Still good.

I challenged him to take a third bite but this time I did the scooping and made sure there was a fair portion of filling and not just meringue.

The rest of the pie ended up in the bin.

While I loved this experiment in pioneer-style eating and there was something of a lemon-like appeal to it, the next time I'd use half the vinegar.

Trouble is, I don't think I could convince my family to try it again. Maybe it's best to leave the vinegar to my fish & chips.

P.S. If anyone has any experience with this or any other "imitation" recipes, I'd love to hear about it!

Blogging at GRIT

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm now blogging at GRIT.com. Once a week, I'll be writing about our latest adventures here on the farm.

I'm really excited about it and I'm actually pretty humbled too -- that someone there thinks we've got a story worth sharing.

(I hope I haven't come off like a braggart or anything as I'm quite new at this self-promotion thing. I'm generally terrible at publicizing my work even though it's not a very useful quality when you freelance for a living.)

If you haven't discovered GRIT already, I highly recommend it -- online or in print. You'll find tons of amazing stuff on everything related to rural living and simply celebrating country life.

And as you can see by the above screen shot, the folks there obviously have impeccable taste on what it takes to be a great "cover model."

Yep, that's our Henry!