Easy Come Easy Go

Granby the billy goat has been with us for one week.  That has been more than enough time to realize that he is going to have a limited tenure with us here on Gael Glen Farm. 

This is our first time breeding goats. When breeding both our sheep and goats, we have found that it is difficult to find a stud. Most farms do not allow does from another herd on their property to mate with their bucks and they do not allow their bucks to leave their farm. This is to control the spread of disease and parasites. We did have a farmer agree to do a "driveway breeding" where we would bring Martha and Mellie back to the farm that they came from to be bred by an unrelated buck on their driveway.  However, this required figuring out exactly when each doe was in heat (which is challenging without a buck around) and would have cost $60 per breeding session. Yikes!  This is why we decided to purchase a buck.

In the course of doing my research on goat breeding I read that billy goats can be gross.  I honestly did not realize exactly how awful they are when they are in rut. In Granby's defence he is very horny - which is exactly what I brought him here to be - but it is all the other things that go along with him impregnating my does that I cannot wait to be rid of.

#1 Granby's extremely goaty smell. Have I mentioned that Granby reeks of goat? Reeks! It is so pungent that you can smell him from the front of the house. It is gag worthy.

#2 Granby is horny, in that he uses his horns for everything: deforming my brand new gate, destroying my garden hose, ripping two pairs of my pants (in one day!). I hate his horns.  The reason he does this is because his scent gland is located near his horns and during rut season it emits a strongly scented goat smell which he spreads by rubbing his horns against everything.

#3 Granby's goat "sneer" is revolting. He first shoves his nose up under the doe's tail right near her butt or right in her urine stream and then curls his upper lip to determine if she is in heat. It is all so very disgusting.

#4 Granby is whiny. He has started making very strange clucking and whining sounds at the does. It is most bizarre.

#5 Granby's penis is constantly out and flopping around. Again, disgusting. It is long and thin like a drinking straw and bright pink and he has absolutely no problem waving it in the air like he just don't care.

#6 Granby is aggressive. I read that you should never have your back to a buck in rut. No problem but that means that instead of bucking me in the bum, he got me on the thigh.

This goat needs to go. As soon as Martha and Mellie go through another ovulation cycle he will be re-homed. In fact, I am going to advertise him on Kijiji right now for pick up 21 days.  Thanks but no thanks.  Bye, bye billy goat.  Time to find a new home where you can be yourself without any judgement.

P.S.  There is currently a rooster living in our mudroom but that is a story for another day.  Stay tuned...

Triumphs and Tribulations

When one considers today's exploits in the context of the proverb that there should be "a place for everything and everything in its place", the trade-off of one rodent for a few patties of bacteria and yeast seems slightly less weird.

The boys and I are sad to report that our mouse-in-residence, Gus, has met his unfortunate demise after another run in with the corn bin. Over the winter we have become accustomed to seeing Gus scoot around the garage.  We kind of liked him - he was very fuzzy and seriously cute.  However, today he managed to scare the pants off me posthumously when I went to scoop Charlie’s evening snack out of the bottom of the grain bin.
It was dark and I did not bother turning on the garage light because by this point I could do the evening chores my sleep.  I can now attest that ending up with a desiccated mouse carcass in your scoop when you are only half paying attention to what you are doing, is enough to make the best of us jump out of our skin.

Poor Gus.

My second surprise of the day was still a shock but a much better one.  As I was rooting through the pantry, I moved an old jar of kombucha vinegar that I keep for salad dressings. Much to my delight, I noticed that there are now several scobies sitting in the jar. What a windfall of good luck! I am fresh out of scobies since my latest batch of kombucha moulded (again!) and I have been thinking about how I am going to start up my seemingly doomed kombucha brewing operation for the fourth time.  Woohoo for surprise scobies!

Scobies hiding out in the vinegar jar.

SCOBY!

My new booch brews.

So, long story short, we are minus one pet (though really wild) mouse in the garage and plus some pet (yet also really wild) bacteria and yeast patties in the pantry.  I suppose one could say that we are better off now as you really do not want mice (however cute) in your garage, nor bacteria and yeast patties growing in many places except kombucha jars.  Perhaps "a place for everything and everything in its place" really does ring true.

Getting Busy

It has been a busy day on the farm.  From the baby who refuses to be put down (believe me, I have tried repeatedly) to Granby doing his duty (also repeatedly) now that Martha has gone into heat, we have all been kept hopping.  Luckily I had an easy supper stored away for exactly a day like today when I had no time to make a one-handed masterpiece of a meal.

Brussels sprouts, roasted squash and apple sauce from our farm
to accompany our neighbour’s pork chops.

Alistair who, while admittedly cute, refuses to sleep unless
cuddled into a wrap while I pace the house.
All my attempts to sit down or, God forbid, put him down have resulted
in a wide awake, crying baby who then needs to nurse
for an hour to calm down. Sigh.

Collaborative Brews

It is always a welcome surprise when someone drops off a bottle of beer at our farm. It is even better when that beer has been brewed with our very own honey! We have been lucky to collaborate with two of our favourite local breweries on speciality beers flavoured with Gael Glen Farm honey. Using it to make delicious beer is probably my favourite way to use up delicious surplus honey.

When bees have time to seal up their honeycomb with wax cappings, the extracted honey has the correct moisture content and preserves well in jars. However, sometimes the honey production process is interrupted before it is complete, resulting in uncapped honey that has a higher than optimal moisture content. This honey does not keep well. It crystallizes fast and can also ferment.

While uncapped honey is fine to eat and use in baking or cooking (I do it all the time), we do not bottle it to sell. Even with using our uncapped honey regularly in baking, we were still overrun with buckets of the stuff - it was taking over our kitchen!

I am not a fan of mead so a better option to deal with our surplus uncapped honey was to sell it to local brewers.  We sold some to home brewer friends and the rest to local craft breweries.  I love tasting beer made with our honey - it is incredibility exciting!

Our first collaboration this year was with Small Pony Barrel Works.  Using our honey they made a sour beer called Hive Mind.  This beer was aged with the kernels found inside of cherry stones to give it almond and amaretto flavours. Next our honey and dried chamomile flowers were added. Amazing! Can you see our logo on the label? That is the coolest thing!

The result of our second collaboration was a seasonal pale ale called Tea O'Clock.  In addition to using Gael Glen Farm honey, Crooked Mile Brewing Company brewed this beer with Equator Coffee Roasters Earl Grey tea.  Tea, honey, and beer - the trifecta of perfection.

Here's to hoping more beer-honey collaborations are in our future.  Come on bees - the next step is up to you!

Operation HONEY BEE

Lately our farm chores have involved participating in multiple stealth missions in anticipation of spring time.  One of these is figuring out what exactly is going on with our honey bees.  Up to this point we have left the bees to their own devices.  Last fall we treated for mites and diseases, fed them up, left extra honey, and insulated them using both hive wraps and quilt boards.  As spring time looms, I am eager to see if anyone survived the long, cold winter.

On our first warm day this past week, I suited up and sneaked into the bee yard.  "Sneak" is a bit misleading as it was around 1 pm (the warmest part of the day) and I had to slog through snow that was past my knees.  I was neither particularly quiet nor stealthy as I might have uttered a string of curse words each time one of my boots came off underneath the snow.

When I finally managed to get to the hives with all my equipment, I cracked each one open to see what I could see.  In hives 1 and 2 I could not "see" anything but I swear I could hear a faint buzzing when I pressed my ear against the top bars of the hive.  I did not investigate any further as it was still pretty cold out and I did not want to disturb the colonies if they were still clustered in the middle of the hive.  Just in case they were in there, I placed "bee candy" (aka sugar patties) on the top bars to ensure that they do not run out of food before the trees and flowers start to bloom.

I made the bee candy while up at the cottage, in hopes that at least one hive would be alive and would need a food top up.  Needless to say, I was beyond thrilled when I opened hives 3 and 4 to find happy bees chilling on the top bars of the hives. 

I changed the pillow cases stuffed with wood chips (used to collect moisture) for fresh, dry ones and slid sugar patties in underneath them before I replaced the hive covers and lids and whooped with joy.

As my neighbour Beekeeper Jim pointed out, a lot can happen between now and the big thaw, but it is so heartening to have at least some of my bee colonies make it through what I hope was the worst part of winter.  Ah, I am so happy!  I hope my bees can just hold on for a few more weeks until spring arrives in full force.  It will be wonderful when they can come out to enjoy the sunshine and fresh blooms of 2019.

Operation GOAT

When spring is in the air I get the itch to grow our farm.  Last year we had lambs for the first time and this year I am hoping to add a few kids (of the goat variety) to our farm family.  To that end, Ian and I have been casually looking for a Nigerian Dwarf billy goat to introduce to Martha and Mellie.  Not only would their union result in a few kids but also a whole lot of delicious goat milk!

I am very excited to announce that today we brought home our buck.

He came to us from Farmer Peter near Belleville; a kind farmer and his wife who simply had one too many goats.  Lucky for us, we had one goat too few and were within driving distance.

We borrowed a dog crate and Ian rigged up a lovely goat transport habitat in the back of our new van.

 After a brief moment of hesitation this morning (is this goat going to destroy our van?), Ian and Liam headed off on Operation GOAT.  Their mission: to retrieve Farmer Peter's goat and get him home with the least damage to the van (and goat) as possible. 

Despite one special agent falling asleep on the job,

our new billy goat arrived on Gael Glen Farm shortly after noon.

Seamus named him Granby Lincoln and is he ever a sight....and a smell.  Granby has a lovely stripe down his back and a beautiful beard.  He is extremely mild mannered. 

To his credit, Granby also held his pee the entire way from his farm to ours.  Thankfully he did not pollute our van with his, well, stench.  He smells extremely "goaty" compared to Martha and Mellie.  Upon arriving at the farm, Granby let 'er rip and peed for over a minute.  Ian and I exchanged glaces of "is he is still going?", followed closely by looks of relief that that epic stream did not end up in the back of our van.

Introducing new animals into the mix is always interesting.  So far Granby's introduction to Martha and Mellie has gone swimmingly.  They seem mildly interested in each other and there has been absolutely no aggression.  Hopefully they continue to peak each other's interest until the "ram effect" takes effect.

Welcome to Gael Glen Farm, Granby.  We are happy to have you, stench and all.

Four Generations

Today Alistair was introduced to his GG (great grandma) Joyce. 

Grandma and I planned a road trip adventure for the boys which involved lunch and park play time at GG's house, a stop at the Wilton Cheese Factory, and a visit with Mr. Paul and Mrs. Linda.  It was a busy, busy day.

GG has a television in her living room which she turned on to keep Liam and Seamus occupied so that she could have some cuddle time with Alistair.  They were enthralled until...

...they asked her to change it to Paw Patrol.  At this point the boys were schooled on what it meant to watch old-fashioned TV.  What do you mean you can't pick the show?  You just have to watch what's on?  Really?!  There are only two cartoon channels?! Aw...man!   Ah, the Netflix generation.

The cheese factory was a hit with the boys - they had samples!

Everyone (including Grandma and I) were exhausted upon our return home.  After a quick dinner of fresh cheese curds and not so fresh (but still delicious) leftovers, a hot bath and a bubble gum flavoured shave, the boys are now tucked cozily in their beds. 

Good night, sleep tight...until at least 6:30 am....please.  Mom and Grandma need a break!