Sweet mince pies

 

I found an old jar of homemade sweet mince in a cupboard recently. It did not stay full for long. One batch of sweet mince pies and the jar was empty!

Early trees

People give us their Christmas trees to feed to the goats (and later use as firewood). The first trees normally start to arrive on Boxing Day with the majority arriving in early January. This time however, people have started early by giving us their tree stubs! The goats are having an early treat.

Still milking

 

Penny, our best milking goats, has been lactating for over 2 years. There was a short period of a few weeks in winter earlier this year when she stopped pumping out the milk, but by spring she was back into milk production. All this without her being mated.

We had been hoping she would stop lactating this autumn. We have reduced her frequency of milking to once every three or four days but she still produced two litres each time. We want her mated as any nanny kids will be very valuable for future milking. So we have put her in with the billy. She went in a week ago and to ensure she's pregnant, they will stay together until early January.

Feta gone wrong

 

One of our goats, Penny, is still pumping out lots of milk. We turn most of it into cheese and recently we had a go at making feta. Alas, as you can see, it was something of a disaster. Far too much salt, never mind the mold. As it was indigestible, sadly we had to throw it out.

The hay arrives

 

We have bought hay from the neighbouring farm rather than make our own this year as the sheep are on our hay field. We took delivery of 2 bales on Friday which were dropped into the goat paddock. They were all over them in no time!

Name the new ram

 

We have a new ram (see video above). He is a Cheviot and we bought him to breed with our Texels. But he needs a name. Fell free to post up your suggestions and we will choose the best.

Game casserole in orange sauce

 

This was dinner earlier this week - game casserole in orange sauce. All ingredients except the oranges were either produced by us or swapped. Very enjoyable!