About those eggs

Interesting Things about Eggs

Please read the whole article, but I will highlight two of their main points below:

2. Take the "sell-by" date with a grain of salt. In short, a carton may be up to two months old by the end of the sell-by date. Even so, according to the USDA, eggs are still fit for consumption for an additional three to five weeks past the sell-by date. We tasted two- and three-month-old eggs and found them perfectly palatable. At four months, the white was very loose and the yolk "tasted faintly of the refrigerator," though it was still edible. Our advice is to use your discretion. If the eggs smell odd or display discoloration, pitch them. Older eggs also lack the structure-lending properties of fresh eggs, so beware when baking. 

5. Farm-fresh eggs are well worth the splurge. In our taste tests, farm-fresh eggs were standouts. The large yolks were shockingly orange and their flavor was exceptionally rich and complex. The organic eggs followed in second place, with eggs from hens raised on a vegetarian diet in third, and the standard supermarket eggs last. Our conclusion? If you have access to eggs fresh from the farm, do buy them -- they are a special treat that would be best used in an egg-based dish like an omelet or frittata rather than baked into cakes or cookies. Otherwise, organic eggs are worth the premium -- about a dollar more than standard supermarket eggs. For general use, though, there's nothing wrong with supermarket eggs. 

As the chickens continue to wind down their production (I had 9 eggs in the refrigerator this morning) for the Winter I dread the thought of having to buy replacements from the store! 

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A Sad Day

This is the milk I was able to get from Becca Boo yesterday, looks like she is done for the year.  Addison and Gidget dried up quite a while ago so it looks like the milk supply has come to an end.  The Commander is heart broken as he can barely stand the taste of store milk anymore.

A few years ago we all would have had a good laugh at the thought of "running out of goats milk", who does that?  That would have been analogous to running out of moon spice!

That all change one fateful day when I read this blog post by OFG.  She followed it up with this one and the rest was history.

Mutton Stew

 I made mutton stew today, it was darned good.  I'll give approximate instructions but understand that I don't ever use exact measurements.

Two thick mutton shoulder roasts cut into chunks.
Roll the chunks in flour and salt then sear in a pan of olive oil and garlic.
Three potatoes (last ones from the garden) cut into cubes.
Three hand fulls of baby carrots.
At least one cup of chopped celery and onions.
Toss at least one tablespoon of thyme and some ground pepper into the crock pot.
One can of asparagus.
One can of beef broth and one can of onion soup.


Mix everything in the crock pot along with 1/4 cup flour and cook all day.  Add some water after 4-5 hours to ensure everything is floating!  Stir in a can of peas before serving.

Some homemade bread covered in butter along with a cool glass of fresh goats milk make the dish!  The flavors of this dish really jumped out at us.  I used wheat flour by accident and we could really taste it on the mutton and in the broth, it gave things a real hearty flavor.  The asparagus made its presence known in a big way.  The potatoes absorbed a lot of the broth and they tasted very gravy like.  Carrots always have a strong taste, especially when cooked whole.  The mutton gave the whole dish a kind of greasy flavor but it was in a good way.  The whole house smelled wonderful and the dogs kept walking around drooling.

Maybe next time I will try to add some wine?

Segregation

Killarney is doing something very odd, he is rounding up the three girls in his pen and moving them up against the back fence as far away from the other barns as possible.  So whenever I go out to see them they are all standing in the back forty away from shelter, food, and water. 

Is he concerned about little Bablo in the pen next to his?  Bablo sits by the fence and cries and cries to rejoin the flock.  I don't think he likes sharing space with the two goat boys.

On the other end of the property Laura paces the fence line and calls to the other girls.  She completely ignores Hoss' attentions so she and Azalia at least get to eat and drink.

The Commander brought Killarney and the girls into the barn just after noon and stalled everyone with food and water, but we aren't going to get much breeding done with this arrangement.

How do I fix this?  Do I move Bablo in with the girl goats?  Will Killarney get over his obsession? 

Happy White Friday!

 It snowed last night, hard!  It is still snowing.  The snow blower got its first run of the season and we had to salt the driveway as well, yuck.  Happy White Friday!

It was also moving day as the sheep breeding groups were established.  Kia and Avalon were not very excited to see Killarney.

 Killarney on the other hand was very excited to see them!  He was all tongue wagging this and lip curling that - I guess that is supposed to be attractive for sheep.

 The chickens were less than impressed.  So unimpressed were they that most of them refused to leave the coop at all today.  I'm sure the 21* F temperature and -1* F windchill didn't have anything to do with it.  I had the Commander put some extra food and water inside the coop tonight to make sure they get an opportunity to eat something.

 Juliette and Diablo spent the day outside picking through all the food the chickens didn't eat.  This will be Juliette's third Winter so she knows what to expect at least.

 With the rams joining the girls little Bablo needed a place to stay so he is moving in with the goat boys.  I'm sure the smell won't have any impact the quality of his wool.  I saw Bablo trying to itch his belly on a few of the girls so it definitely time for him to find other quarters. 

 I hate going into the pens when the rams are mingled with the girls, I just don't trust them.  The girls don't seem very trusting either as of yet.  The Commander had to bribe everyone with grain to get them into their barns for the evening.

 Laura is used to being the boss so the move to the ram pen to join Hoss has her very agitated.  She is still bigger than him so this will be an interesting situation to monitor.

Poor little Azalia has to be in with Hoss as well because Killarney is her father.  She has never been away from her mother Gardenia so I'm going to have to watch her closely for signs of excessive stress.

Return from Freezer Camp

The rams have returned from Freezer Camp!  I sure hope the family likes mutton.

My new freezer is full of the following:  leg and rack of lamb on the top shelf, lamb chops on the second, roasts on the third, and ground lamb on the bottom.  I estimate we have about 60-70 lbs on ice so it is time to start looking up recipes!

About that first egg....

Turns out the Commander isn't a very good finder.  We found 25 green eggs in the loft today so I'm am pretty sure that the lone Americauna has been laying for a while.

I wonder if the eggs are still good?