Borscht, Brays, and Bounces

Today's project was making a batch of Gael Glen Farm borscht to use up the last of the beets from our 2017 garden.  I washed these beets after picking but they still had their skins on and had frozen solid in our garage fridge.

Beets are messy.

In combination with few jars of our canned tomatoes, a package of Sandy's stewing meat, some homemade turkey broth and a bunch of miscellaneous vegetables, our old beets made a delicious, hearty winter stew.

Coupled with a slice of rustic rye molasses bread warm out of the bread machine and voila - dinner!

One of the best things about cooking with lots of vegetables, aside from the health benefits, of course, is that all of the kitchen scraps make fantastic treats for the farm animals.

Today Charlie and the sheep were the happy recipients of beet, sweet potato, and white potato skins.

Everyone got a taste.  I offered some to Martha and Mellie but they were not interested at all.  They were much too preoccupied with meeting Charlie.  They could see her through the fence and were very intrigued.  I captured their very first encounter on video.  With the soundtrack of rooster and duck in the background, you can hear Martha calling out to Charlie with a timid "Hello".  It is impossible to miss Charlie's reply and Mellie's reaction to it all (watch for the poop!).

Once the goats were outside in the balmy -13 degree C weather (ugh), I took them for a some exercise in the paddock.  Martha surprised me with her enthusiasm at being outside.

Here Martha is in mid air as she prances towards Charlie.

She alternated between following me closely and galloping away at top speed until she got too distracted mahh-ing at the sheep and donkey through the fence.  She even did some nifty flips in the air which were impossible to catch on camera.

I have a feeling these goats are going to be a handful!