Homestead buildings

This is our redneck back yard.  Our 3 outbuildings (OB) are OB1 (large shed with hay loft on the left), OB2 (milking barn/shed) and OB3 (goat shed).  Can you see Emily?

You guys have seen the milking barn (OB2) in the background of other pictures but this is from the other direction.  You can see the goat shed (OB3) up against OB2...  The goats don't like it when it snows, or rains, or any kind of moisture falls...

Jared built both of these last year.  The front of the OB3 swings up and attaches to bolts that hold it open during the summer.

Since we have a milking barn, or Milkhouse you might say, I had to get this heater for Emily :)

This falls project was making a new fowl house after we lost a chicken to a predator... we think it was a skunk.  Jared spent alot of time on it and it is very well made.

Gage took up my suggestion to decorate it after I painted it (he's imitating the rooster head he drew).

Home Depot had a selection of little paints in their oops pile so I got a bunch of different colors...

Since the girls aren't laying for the winter yet we don't know which color they like best :)... the tan color inside was the first coat of paint I put down with blue the second coat (both colors from Home Depot oops pile).  Didn't have quite enough paint or time to do the entire inside.  Maybe in the summer when it is warm and will dry fast I can get the rest.

Aaron electrified the fowl house for us... meaning he put a light in there and a plug in strip.

Here he is fixing the light sensor for the automatic door opener.

Originally it was supposed to hold the ducks too cuz they can get very loud at night yelling at the cats or anything else they see and think might be a predator.  Our poor neighbors.  But ducks are so messy and our neighbors keep their windows closed during the winter... so we've just let them do their thing.  Perhaps that will change over the summer.

After Jared dug a trench from the house out to the yard light with an offshoot to OB1, Aaron updated the plug on the yard light and electrified OB1 with a light and plug in.  Jared also dug a trench to the milking barn but Aaron still needs to connect the lines.  We have solar lights in OB2 and OB3 but it would be nice to plug heaters into the barn rather than using an extension cord from the yard light.

When we were keeping little Buttons from impregnating his sister before he got old enough to fix, Emily penned off an area and Aaron made this little shelter for him.

Eventually both baby goats were placed in there to try and wean them.  Tulip would sidle over and let them drink through the fence so Aaron had to put mesh around the pen at udder height.  He called it an Udder Guard :).   Those babies wouldn't get weaned (Tulip didn't stop them from nursing whenever we let them out to play) and they were starting to outgrow the shelter (especially with two of them in there).  So eventually (with the help of the internet) I sewed an udder guard Tulip now wears...

This isn't a building but here was my first attempt.

It worked until right before milking time when the babies got it off and drained Tulip in 10 minutes (the time between Aaron checking to see if it was still on and Emily going out to milk).  So that night Aaron and I went to Home Depot and got some more strapping and made a better one. Home Depot only carries black or orange strapping :(...

I took these pictures one night when Ems asked me to milk, that's why the lighting is so bad. Only one solar light in the milking barn.

On Tulip (actually taken after I had milked).

 And this is unsnapped and ready to be milked (its symmetrical so the other side looks the same)...

Its only failed twice... once when it wasn't done up properly and secondly when one of Tulips teats was accidentally left out of the canvas bag. Its a little jerry rigged up by her front legs cuz I thought one strap around her neck would stay up but it really needs two, one on each side.

A couple of other pictures I took that night so you can see the milking barn.

 Daisy is shore she will eventually catch the mice that live under the shelves/milking stands/bins and tries to find/catch them during milking time.. Funny story, Emily left the door to the barn open one Saturday morning for the cats and just a couple hours later we see BJ sauntering by his sister with a mouse in his mouth.  He's earning his keep! Daisy... not so much.

Spots was mad I was taking too long to give her treats and so wouldn't put her head down by me :)

Jared has been working on a long shed to house the tractors.  He found 30-35 feet long telephone poles for sale on KSL.  Jared's poor little truck was pretty loaded down!  But he had taken his chain saw and cut them there before loading them up.  This is the picture Jared took to show how he had engineered tipping it up all by himself.

Kinda dangerous but we rednecks live for danger.

I was worried that the poles weren't buried deep enough (I know, weird) so Jared kindly pulled it back down and dug out the holes a bit more... then we poured concrete around 'em.  Hopefully that will do it...

We need more poles but haven't figured out a better way to transport them.  Those things are long and HEAVY!  Plus, there are other winter things Jared is working on... such as fixing the tractors so they run :)

To end, I will share a short video of Emily breaking the ice she got off of the stock tank in one sheet... love that sound.

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving always involves fire... doesn't yours?

Emily did a pit turkey again...

When she went out to put the turkey in that afternoon, somehow more wood got on the fire again and we had to let it die down again :)  Emily likes fire.

The coals got so hot Emily's face turned red and stayed that way for a while. The ducks thought the fresh dug dirt was awesome... we thought maybe they were looking for roasted worms.

The goats got a thanksgiving as well!  All the peels and trims

Yum yum yum!

I took two video's...

Don't worry I will spare you from having to watch the second one :)

I will tell you about poor tulips harness/bra later.

Nathan and Annaliese came over to visit with us for a little bit while we were cooking but I didn't take a picture of that :(

I was in charge of the oven turkey... but might have misjudged the size of the opening to add veggies too... It was weird to cook 2 small turkeys instead of one great big one.

We ate thanksgiving that afternoon.

Aaron, Adam, Megan (niece and husband), Emily and I.

The gravy was salty (we brined both the oven and the pit turkey) and the stuffing dry... but Aaron's mashed potatoes, jello and grilled pinapple and Emily's pies and yams and apples were great :)

The one thing I made that did turn out pretty good was the pumpkin swirl cheesecake.  The secret is using a bit of store bought cream cheese instead of all goat products. It needs a hint of that comfort taste we all know and love.

That evening Emily opened up the pit turkey.

Ta da!

The fire was so hot it browned/burned the top of the turkey!

Now that's hot.  Snow didn't stick to the dirt in that area for days.

But the meat was great on both turkeys and even after Megan and Adam took some home we had a bunch of leftovers.  We had the semi traditional turkey soup with homemade noodles on mashed potatoes on Sunday and then Amy used the rest in tasty weekday meals.

Hope everyone else had as good a thanksgiving as we did :)

To end I will post one picture of the Activity Days activity I was in charge of the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Most of the mess had already been cleaned up :)

Sister Weis bought apple pie filling on sale so I was to teach them how to make and roll out the top and bottom pie crusts.  Of the 2 batches of dough I had made the night before, the first one crumbled as the girls tried to roll it out.  I didn't have enough of the better dough to replace the crumbles so we did our best smooshing it into the pie plates (which I didn't realize I was also in charge of so Sis. Weis had to run home and get some) with the nicer crust on the top.  I haven't dared ask how they ever cut through those pies once they were baked!

Partial Fall Harvest

I thought maybe I should put at least one more post up for 2015.  I really do mean to regale everyone with tales of our homestead but we've been busy working, homesteading, or resting from homesteading!

I downloaded most of these pictures into a blog post without text about a month or so ago.  Many of you will have seen them on facebook or texting :)

The beginning of our green bean crop...

Mom is letting us store her pressure cooker so we pressure cookered a lot of beans... Many times we would sort, snap, and fill the jars the night before in preparation for canning the next evening.  One time I may or may not have forgotten to add water and salt before putting them in the canner :(  We just had to eat those up quick.

Here is Emily's winter squash harvest...

I wanted so badly to pressure can pumpkins so I did that too (not all pumpkin shown)...

Yeah, we are going to freeze the rest.  Way too much work (pressured for 65 minutes...) but it is fun to see all those cans lined up on the shelves... And it shore tasted good in our pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake.

Ems and I discovered a great way to use up our produce this summer.. gyros!  Fresh tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and a cucumber sauce made from yogurt.  Almost everything from the garden... except the meat and some spices.  Truth be told we still had some goat in the freezer I could have used but we didn't find it until Em's cleaned the freezer out a couple weeks ago :)

I had even made the corn tortilla's from Emily's field corn.  Yeah, spent the whole Saturday in the kitchen.  Probably not going to happen again but fun at the time.

September you saw all the peaches we canned... another day in the kitchen in which we just about did in my poor mother.  At least she got to take some home with her.

We've been getting way fun carrots from Emily's garden.  So colorful!

I started peeling before I thought to take a picture.

And sweet potatoes...

Here is a comparison... As I posted on facebook, Emily says go big or go home! (Sweet potato and carrots)

Unfortunately the temp in our garage got down to freezing so some of the sweet potatoes were lost before we got them down into the fruit room but what we had on Thanksgiving was delish.  The giant ones are still down there...

And of course we got lots of eggs this summer... duck and first year pullets make for all sorts of colors and shapes.

Its always sad when the hens stop laying for the winter but we don't make them lay over the winter... that way they lay into their later years and we don't have to process them :)

Hmm... I guess I put this picture in to show how Dad and Aaron put in some track lighting for us over this dark work space.  Its made it a very nice place to roll out dough.

Many of you have seen this picture of the first honey harvest...

Here is the results from the first 2 frames they pulled.

Aaron and Emily got the hive ready for winter (I sewed a bee pillow for Aaron with my surger) and pulled some more but we haven't processed them yet.  That was quite an adventure and we very much hope the poor bees can make it through this cold cold winter... poor things.

Here is a big red pepper from the garden.  Ems goes big!

I didn't take a picture of the bags and bags of sweet peppers I cut up and froze... I counted almost 30 bags of 2 cups each... all different colors.  Good thing Amy found a nice freezer on KSL for us to get and add to our storage capacity.

Oh, I found all these pictures of us picking grapes.

Ems and Aaron were serious...

Red shirts?

Guess I didn't get the memo...

We got quite a few pounds which was rather expensive... But Emily and Amy canned jars and jars of it and it tastes GREAT!

OK, I'm determined to post some more about our thanksgiving exploits (another pit turkey) and more buildings but that will have to wait for another post.  I need to get to work...

To end I will post this wonderful picture of Dad driving the tractor around the yard.