Mar 11, 2010
Mar 10, 2010
Photo Booth
Over the weekend we held our second Open Barn of the season.
It was the first nice weekend we've had in a while and Spring Fever had all of us out in the sunshine. I don't have an exact count but I think we welcomed somewhere around 200 people to the farm- multiple families picnicked on blankets in the fields, Rupert our resident peacock happily paraded for his audience, and lots of kids met our kids.
I set up a 'Celebrity Dairy Photo Booth' where for a donation to Heifer International you could take a ticket and get your picture taken with "Teeny the Wonder Goat" billed as "The World's Cutest Goat!" Okay, so I can't legally prove that claim, but he's the world's cutest goat to me. Over the weekend I took close to 100 photos and we raised over $1,500 for Heifer.
The photo booth was such a success I'm thinking we should consider offering it as an option for weddings, birthdays and other events held here on the farm. Here are some snaps.
It was the first nice weekend we've had in a while and Spring Fever had all of us out in the sunshine. I don't have an exact count but I think we welcomed somewhere around 200 people to the farm- multiple families picnicked on blankets in the fields, Rupert our resident peacock happily paraded for his audience, and lots of kids met our kids.
I set up a 'Celebrity Dairy Photo Booth' where for a donation to Heifer International you could take a ticket and get your picture taken with "Teeny the Wonder Goat" billed as "The World's Cutest Goat!" Okay, so I can't legally prove that claim, but he's the world's cutest goat to me. Over the weekend I took close to 100 photos and we raised over $1,500 for Heifer.
The photo booth was such a success I'm thinking we should consider offering it as an option for weddings, birthdays and other events held here on the farm. Here are some snaps.
Mar 4, 2010
A Goat Cheese Tart & Blackberry Jam
One of the best things about living on the farm is that we have a Bed & Breakfast Inn steps away from our front door. With an Inn comes a huge commercial kitchen, gas oven ranges, a library full of all the cookbooks I've ever wanted to own, and an industrial dishwasher- meaning that yes, I might have died and gone to farm heaven. It also means plenty of reasons to experiment with yummy recipes.
This week we've had a company here on the farm for a retreat and Brooke, Celebrity's talented and very cool Innkeeper and Cook, has been in the kitchen around the clock preparing breakfasts, lunches and dinners. For dessert today we got to collaborate on a dish when Brooke made a delicious Lemon Goat Cheese Tart and covered it with some Wild Blackberry Winter Preserves I'd put up over the weekend. It was a winner so I thought I'd share some photos and our recipes.
First, I'll start with the Blackberry Preserves I made this weekend. Brit and Flemming had picked wild blackberries on the farm last summer and there were still some left in the freezer that I'd had my eye for quite some time. I took the basic recipe for Wild Blackberry Preserves from Christine Ferber's fabulous book, "Mes Confitures: The Jams and Jellies of Christine Ferber" that is, lucky for me, part of the Inn's library, and adapted it to create something I called "Wild Blackberry Winter Preserves" by adding more lemon and some ginger and honey.
I decided to add ginger and honey in thinking about the taste of summer blackberries in the midst of more snowy days here on the farm. Lemon, ginger and honey are three foods I use anytime I start catching a cold. I thought the spicey ginger would help warm up these last cold mornings when served over hot biscuits or Brooke's scones.
Ingredients:
2 1/4 pounds foraged wild blackberries
3 3/4 cups sugar
Juice of 1 small lemon
Zest from 1/2 the lemon
Honey and grated fresh ginger to taste
Directions based on what I did:
After de-thawing the blackberries I rinsed them off quickly and put them through a small food mill to try and remove as many seeds as I could- a special request from Booke who hates seeds in her jam! I then combined the fruit with the sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest in a copper pot over low heat until they reached a simmer. I stirred and poured the mixture into a stainless steel bowl, covered it with parchment paper and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. (I'd never done this step before but that's what Ferber's recipe called for, so I thought I'd try it out.) The following day I brought the already thick preserves to a boil, stirring them, and then bringing the heat back down. I added the honey and ginger to taste and then waited, stirring and checking the set, until I was happy with the texture and taste.
For the Lemon Goat Cheese Tart with Blackberry Preserves, Brooke adapted an easy recipe from Maggie Foard's book, goatcheese. Maggie's blog, Goat Cheese Please, is a great read for learning more about cooking with goat cheese and has plenty of recipes. I highly recommend Celebrity Dairy customers to check it out!
Here's what Brooke did to make a yummy semi-sweet tart perfect for a decadent breakfast or as dessert.
Ingredients:
16 ounces unsalted Celebrity Dairy chevre*
4 extra large Celebrity Dairy free-range eggs
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 9inch homemade spelt deep tart shell made with local Lindley Mills spelt**
1 jar of Blackberry Preserves
Directions:
Preheat over to 350
Blend the chevre, eggs 2/3 cup of sugar, and lemon juice
Zest the lemon and combine with the 2 tbs of sugar
Combine the chevre & lemon mixtures until smooth
Pour the mixture into the tart shell, place on a cookie sheet at bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
Let the tart cool on an oven rack and while cooling, heat up one jar of blackberry preserves until warm for easy spreading
Spread over the tart and garnish with lemon
*Foard's recipe calls for 8 ounces of fresh chevre and 8 ounces of ricotta, but having a cheese room out your back door makes it easy to get soft, unsalted super fresh chevre.
**We use spelt crusts because of one of the owner's has a wheat allergy, for a non-spelt all around great tart shell recipe, visit my friends Emily's awesome pie blog nothing in the house.
This week we've had a company here on the farm for a retreat and Brooke, Celebrity's talented and very cool Innkeeper and Cook, has been in the kitchen around the clock preparing breakfasts, lunches and dinners. For dessert today we got to collaborate on a dish when Brooke made a delicious Lemon Goat Cheese Tart and covered it with some Wild Blackberry Winter Preserves I'd put up over the weekend. It was a winner so I thought I'd share some photos and our recipes.
Slices were flying out the pan.
First, I'll start with the Blackberry Preserves I made this weekend. Brit and Flemming had picked wild blackberries on the farm last summer and there were still some left in the freezer that I'd had my eye for quite some time. I took the basic recipe for Wild Blackberry Preserves from Christine Ferber's fabulous book, "Mes Confitures: The Jams and Jellies of Christine Ferber" that is, lucky for me, part of the Inn's library, and adapted it to create something I called "Wild Blackberry Winter Preserves" by adding more lemon and some ginger and honey.
I decided to add ginger and honey in thinking about the taste of summer blackberries in the midst of more snowy days here on the farm. Lemon, ginger and honey are three foods I use anytime I start catching a cold. I thought the spicey ginger would help warm up these last cold mornings when served over hot biscuits or Brooke's scones.
Ingredients:
2 1/4 pounds foraged wild blackberries
3 3/4 cups sugar
Juice of 1 small lemon
Zest from 1/2 the lemon
Honey and grated fresh ginger to taste
Directions based on what I did:
After de-thawing the blackberries I rinsed them off quickly and put them through a small food mill to try and remove as many seeds as I could- a special request from Booke who hates seeds in her jam! I then combined the fruit with the sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest in a copper pot over low heat until they reached a simmer. I stirred and poured the mixture into a stainless steel bowl, covered it with parchment paper and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. (I'd never done this step before but that's what Ferber's recipe called for, so I thought I'd try it out.) The following day I brought the already thick preserves to a boil, stirring them, and then bringing the heat back down. I added the honey and ginger to taste and then waited, stirring and checking the set, until I was happy with the texture and taste.
These preserves are not lasting long around here...
For the Lemon Goat Cheese Tart with Blackberry Preserves, Brooke adapted an easy recipe from Maggie Foard's book, goatcheese. Maggie's blog, Goat Cheese Please, is a great read for learning more about cooking with goat cheese and has plenty of recipes. I highly recommend Celebrity Dairy customers to check it out!
Here's what Brooke did to make a yummy semi-sweet tart perfect for a decadent breakfast or as dessert.
Ingredients:
16 ounces unsalted Celebrity Dairy chevre*
4 extra large Celebrity Dairy free-range eggs
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 9inch homemade spelt deep tart shell made with local Lindley Mills spelt**
1 jar of Blackberry Preserves
Directions:
Preheat over to 350
Blend the chevre, eggs 2/3 cup of sugar, and lemon juice
Zest the lemon and combine with the 2 tbs of sugar
Combine the chevre & lemon mixtures until smooth
Pour the mixture into the tart shell, place on a cookie sheet at bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
Let the tart cool on an oven rack and while cooling, heat up one jar of blackberry preserves until warm for easy spreading
Spread over the tart and garnish with lemon
The guests liked the tart and so did the staff.
*Foard's recipe calls for 8 ounces of fresh chevre and 8 ounces of ricotta, but having a cheese room out your back door makes it easy to get soft, unsalted super fresh chevre.
**We use spelt crusts because of one of the owner's has a wheat allergy, for a non-spelt all around great tart shell recipe, visit my friends Emily's awesome pie blog nothing in the house.
Mar 3, 2010
Growing Pains
The babies are getting so big.
The oldest ones are now eating grain and hay! The biggest ones are almost too fat to dance on the milk buckets which has been their favorite pastime at feedings up until now.
Growing means changes to their bodies- natural and forced. Last week Brit told me it was time to start disbudding the babies. Disbudding is done to remove the goat's horns before they develop into larger horns with mature circulatory and nervous tissue, and I was not looking forward to it. In doing research about disbudding, almost every source refers to it as one of the least favorite parts of goat farming for compassionate caretakers.
The majority of goat farmers do disbud their goats because the horns can be dangerous to other goats, people, and an appendage that often gets caught in fences. Brit has had the misfortune of having to cut off horns when a goat has gotten them stuck and says it's an extreme and painful process to do so on mature horns with arteries and nerve endings. Therefore, most farmers see it as a smart preventative measure to stop the horn's growth before they become a liability. And if done when they are a couple weeks old, quick and relatively painless.
The process of disbudding involves securing the baby goat in a specially made box with its head poking out and using a specially designed hot iron to burn the horn bud area and stunt further growth. This is also a good time to do ear tattoos on the goat so they can be identified and documented for your records. The use of a hot iron is similar to what ranchers do with cows for branding and is extremely effective. It also seems more humane than the other alternative for disbudding which requires the use of a caustic acid you must apply topically to the baby goat's head.
We use two types of hot irons, a larger one and a smaller one. The larger one is used first to burn a hole around the horn. You want to see a bright copper ring. Next, a smaller iron is applied to burn closer to and on the horn. At this point you can then scrape off the tiny formed bud to expose the baby bud tissue beneath. We use the iron again to scar the top of the bud and prevent any bleeding. After that the baby is released and goes back in the pen.
I'm not going to lie- I was shocked when I saw my first baby- my baby!- disbudded. I love these goats and do everything I can to keep them from any kind of pain- hunger, cold, sickness. I couldn't bear the idea of pushing a hot iron onto their tiny heads. Not to my Suri! And they let you know they don't like it. The hardest part for me is watching them struggle and the sound of their tiny hooves scraping against the box and their high pitched bleets. The smell is not pleasant either. The barn is filled with a burning hair smell that embeds itself into your clothes, burns your nose, and stings your eyes. You carry it around with you all day.
I've never really understood the principles of veganism when it comes to abstaining from local and humanely produced cheese, eggs and honey, but after watching the baby goats cry at the touch of the hot iron I can understand their concerns. On the other hand, this routine procedure is saving them from potential injuries down the road, takes less than a minute to perform, and has no lasting negative effects on the baby. Literally, five seconds after taking them out of the box, the babies were happily running around again as if nothing happened- their funny new haircuts the only sign something was different.
Here is a good article on the subject that outlines some of the pros and cons of the procedure. And you can see a good tutorial on how to disbud goat horns here. However, I'd hope that anyone doing this would learn from an experienced farmer before working with their own herd.
I have faith in the fact that the owners of Celebrity Dairy have been doing this for over 20 years and love their goats more than anyone. Brit told me, "We didn't much like this either when we started doing it, but after seeing what damage goats can do with their horns to each other and themselves, we found it necessary." In fact, as I did more research I found that disbudding really is the standard for goat farmers in the U.S. I'm not sure about practices in Europe, but I'd like to find out.
This Monday, Brit trusted me to finish up the babies on my own. I knew that this was part of being a goat farmer and that I just had to do it. I was confident and worked quickly and strongly to minimize the time each kid had to spend under the iron without compromising the work. If you do a rushed and poor job, goats are at risk of developing spurs on their horns that will have to be removed later, so you want to be thorough.
It wasn't as bad as I had remembered or feared. Each baby had a unique reaction to it- - some cried, others didn't make a sound and seemed fairly blase about the whole thing. A few fiesty ones looked at me and bleeted angrily- I admired their fighting spirit and willingness to voice their displeasure with me. All, though, went back to their pens and showed no signs of continued suffering or pain. I petted them as much as I could before, during, and after to show them comfort and filled up some buckets with fresh milk after it was all over to give them an added treat. During the process I wound up burning myself- a huge surprise, I'm sure, for anyone that knows me and my klutzy coordination. My skin is still red and aches. It was a good exercise in a continued effort to understand what compassionate care might look like on a dairy.
The oldest ones are now eating grain and hay! The biggest ones are almost too fat to dance on the milk buckets which has been their favorite pastime at feedings up until now.
Growing means changes to their bodies- natural and forced. Last week Brit told me it was time to start disbudding the babies. Disbudding is done to remove the goat's horns before they develop into larger horns with mature circulatory and nervous tissue, and I was not looking forward to it. In doing research about disbudding, almost every source refers to it as one of the least favorite parts of goat farming for compassionate caretakers.
The majority of goat farmers do disbud their goats because the horns can be dangerous to other goats, people, and an appendage that often gets caught in fences. Brit has had the misfortune of having to cut off horns when a goat has gotten them stuck and says it's an extreme and painful process to do so on mature horns with arteries and nerve endings. Therefore, most farmers see it as a smart preventative measure to stop the horn's growth before they become a liability. And if done when they are a couple weeks old, quick and relatively painless.
The process of disbudding involves securing the baby goat in a specially made box with its head poking out and using a specially designed hot iron to burn the horn bud area and stunt further growth. This is also a good time to do ear tattoos on the goat so they can be identified and documented for your records. The use of a hot iron is similar to what ranchers do with cows for branding and is extremely effective. It also seems more humane than the other alternative for disbudding which requires the use of a caustic acid you must apply topically to the baby goat's head.
We use two types of hot irons, a larger one and a smaller one. The larger one is used first to burn a hole around the horn. You want to see a bright copper ring. Next, a smaller iron is applied to burn closer to and on the horn. At this point you can then scrape off the tiny formed bud to expose the baby bud tissue beneath. We use the iron again to scar the top of the bud and prevent any bleeding. After that the baby is released and goes back in the pen.
Brit disbudding Suri.
I've never really understood the principles of veganism when it comes to abstaining from local and humanely produced cheese, eggs and honey, but after watching the baby goats cry at the touch of the hot iron I can understand their concerns. On the other hand, this routine procedure is saving them from potential injuries down the road, takes less than a minute to perform, and has no lasting negative effects on the baby. Literally, five seconds after taking them out of the box, the babies were happily running around again as if nothing happened- their funny new haircuts the only sign something was different.
Suri after being disbudded, happy again.
Here is a good article on the subject that outlines some of the pros and cons of the procedure. And you can see a good tutorial on how to disbud goat horns here. However, I'd hope that anyone doing this would learn from an experienced farmer before working with their own herd.
I have faith in the fact that the owners of Celebrity Dairy have been doing this for over 20 years and love their goats more than anyone. Brit told me, "We didn't much like this either when we started doing it, but after seeing what damage goats can do with their horns to each other and themselves, we found it necessary." In fact, as I did more research I found that disbudding really is the standard for goat farmers in the U.S. I'm not sure about practices in Europe, but I'd like to find out.
This Monday, Brit trusted me to finish up the babies on my own. I knew that this was part of being a goat farmer and that I just had to do it. I was confident and worked quickly and strongly to minimize the time each kid had to spend under the iron without compromising the work. If you do a rushed and poor job, goats are at risk of developing spurs on their horns that will have to be removed later, so you want to be thorough.
It wasn't as bad as I had remembered or feared. Each baby had a unique reaction to it- - some cried, others didn't make a sound and seemed fairly blase about the whole thing. A few fiesty ones looked at me and bleeted angrily- I admired their fighting spirit and willingness to voice their displeasure with me. All, though, went back to their pens and showed no signs of continued suffering or pain. I petted them as much as I could before, during, and after to show them comfort and filled up some buckets with fresh milk after it was all over to give them an added treat. During the process I wound up burning myself- a huge surprise, I'm sure, for anyone that knows me and my klutzy coordination. My skin is still red and aches. It was a good exercise in a continued effort to understand what compassionate care might look like on a dairy.
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