Devonviolet Acres

[Ridgetop]

I love hay string. I collect it in a barrel for later use. DH wants to throw it all away, but I won' let him. This is a former 4-H home after all. The sheep have been known to chew through it when it is holding panels together though.

 

[Devonviolet]

I love hay string. I collect it in a barrel for later use. DH wants to throw it all away, but I won' let him. This is a former 4-H home after all. The sheep have been known to chew through it when it is holding panels together though.

We haven’t gotten hay with strings for a long time. DH used to hang feed buckets over the fence using hay string. He went to chain when they started chewing through it.

 

[Baymule]

I had to repair my working chute. Little stinkers chewed the hay string off in places….. of course I used more hay string!

 

[Ridgetop]

I love hay strings. I will have to pack all I have since in Texas we will be using giant round bales. LOL Now where to find another box?

 

[Devonviolet]

Sonata had her little buckling right on schedule this afternoon.

This morning she wouldn’t stand still for DH to check her ligaments. She also wouldn’t eat her breakfast, when normally she scarfs it down like there was no tomorrow. She just went to a shady spot and laid down.

So, about 2:00 DH went out to check on Sonata and make sure everyone had water. Sure enough she was out toward the back of the pasture with her singleton buckling!!! He called me, on his cell phone, and I hustled out to see the new kid!





As we always do, DH put a leash on Mama and I picked up the baby. We took them to the goat run behind the chicken coop. That is the photo above with the gate behind them. The heat index was 108°F with no shade in the run. DH already had an old shower curtain ready to hang up on the west side of the run, to block the sun.

MAN! It was SO HOT standing there, helping DH hang that curtain. We have two 8 X 16’ runs connected by a wire wall with a door, which we usually latch open, but that we can close off if we need to. So in the first run, we hung the curtain from the top of the west end (7‘ high) almost to the ground on the inside, so when the dogs and other goats don’t chew on it when they have access to the outside alley at night.

We also have a 6-1/2’ X 13-1/2’ 40% shade cloth, that we bought several of, for the garden. We hung that inside the second run, from about 3 feet off the ground up and over the top. It creates a nice amount of shade over the second run, so it should be tolerable in this awful heat we are having here in Texas. At least now (at 6:00 PM) the heat index is ONLY 93°.

I’m not sure what’s going on this year. Out of four kids four have been boys and two singletons!!! I’m going to have a talk with Danny Boy next year about giving me some girls and all twins!!!

 

[Baymule]

Congratulations on a healthy little buck, he’s pretty too!

 

[Devonviolet]

We cut another tree down today. We had a bad storm on Sunday, and the top of this tree broke in half. There was already a large broken branch in the tree next to it, from our ice storm in January, and it was laying across the top of this tree. We had tried to pull it down, but it wouldn’t budge. so, we decided we had better cut the tree down before the broken branches fell on one of us. As it turned out, there were broken branches in other trees hanging over the road, and we couldn’t get those branches to come down either. Well, in the storm on Sunday, they did finally come down. Thank the good Lord! I was worried that somebody would drive under the trees when the branches fell.

This tree that we cut down is a hackberry. I HATE HACKBERRY TREES!!! This tree was a lot harder to cut down then the cedar tree. Hackberry trees have a lot of small, curly branches that tangle with everything around them. The good news is cutting it down was fairly easy, and it fell exactly where I wanted it too!! It was the cleaning of the top branches that was a huge pain. As it turns out DH and I were both getting very tired and it was already REALLY hot and humid at 8:30 this morning. I have essential tremors, which makes my hand shake most of the time. But it was getting hotter and I was getting tired, so I was starting to shake all over. Once we got the top of the tree out of our neighbors hayfield, it was almost 10:00, and I told DH it was time for both of us to go in. He started to protest, but I took my saw and went home so he couldn’t keep working.

He had brought out the weed whip to clean up the area around the tree, so we wouldn’t trip in the wheel ruts in the dirt. He forgot to change the chain before bringing the chain saw out, so I had to ask him to go change it. While I was waiting for him to get back, I picked up the weed whip and started weed whacking the grass back in that corner and along the front wood plank fence, where we weren’t able to get the lawnmower recently. I actually got quite a bit done, but started getting tired and realized I needed to save my energy for the tree, so I stopped. But I think that is part of the reason I was shaking so bad.

When we got inside, I sat with a fan blowing on me, on the highest setting, and drank ice water. I then took a shower, and got dressed, because we were meeting a friend of ours and Winnsboro, so she could give us a couple of big bags of ripe elderberries. I stood in the sun, talking to her for about 15 minutes, in the sweltering heat, and ended up with a sunburn on my forehead. I always wear a big hat and long sleeves, so I don’t get a sunburn when I’m working outside. And then I stand in the sun for 15 minutes and get a sunburn.

Tomorrow, DH is going to have to go out and finish cutting up the hackberry tree, because I’m going to have to stay in the house and cook all those elderberries down, so I can make juice to put in my freeze dryer. Once it is freeze dried, I will powder it and seal it in canning jars. Then I will have instant elderberry juice that I can add to water with honey in it, and I will have instant elderberry syrup!

Now, I am exhausted so, I am going to finish watching a movie and then go to bed.

 

[Baymule]

You are amazing! You wield that chainsaw like it’s a kitchen utensil. You brought that tree down! Hackberry makes very pretty lumber.

The heat is awful. Give yourself a Pat on the back for getting ANYTHING done outside, much less cutting down a tree! I know you’ll be watching your sweet DH like a hawk to make sure he doesn’t over heat.

If I have outside work to do, I’m out the door before 6:30, to get started. After the past 4 weeks of roofing, this week is my do as little as possible week.

 

[Ridgetop]

Interesting that you can dehydrate juice! How do you freeze dry it?

 

[Devonviolet]

Interesting that you can dehydrate juice! How do you freeze dry it?

Yes, it is an amazing technology. I have a harvest right freeze dryer, that I bought two years ago. They used to be the only company that made homestyle, freeze dryers. But lately I have seen another company advertising freeze dryers for the home.

The basic process is, the machine first, freezes the food at an extremely low temperature, under a vacuum, created by a powerful pump, for several hours. It then switches to an extended dry cycle, which hyper dries the food. Once it is finished, you vacuum, seal the food, either in mylar bags or canning jars. When you are ready to use the food, you rehydrated. One of my favorite things to freeze dry is eggs. I crack Eggs into my KitchenAid mixing bowl and mix the eggs up well. I pour 3 to 4 dozen eggs into one of the freeze dryer trays (which are 9x19x1/2”) and freeze until they are solid. I can transfer them to the freeze dryer and set the cycle to run. It can take as much is 35-40 hours for them to dry completely. When they are finished, I put them in my food processor and grind them to a powder and then store them in half gallon canning jars, which I see you with a food saver attachment. To eat the eggs, you put 2 tablespoons of powder, per egg, in a bowl, with 2 tablespoons of water, per egg, stir them and let them sit for about 10 minutes. When you cook them, they taste just like fresh scrambled eggs! They come in really handy in the winter when the chickens stop laying eggs.

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