For those of you who have a canning question or would like information on how to get started send me an email , I'd be happy to help you find the answer.
Vanderosa Farm |
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We've got ALOT of variety this year. Corn, tomatoes, beans, squash, beets, swiss chard, okra, potatoes, basil, eggplant, peppers and much much more! We've also staggered much of our planting to give us a steady supply throughout the summer. I've been making Kim-Chi out of the Chinese cabbage, pickling beets , freezing squash and beet tops, and making plum jelly. This is just the beginning of a summer of preserving. For those of you who have a canning question or would like information on how to get started send me an email , I'd be happy to help you find the answer.
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We're off to a good start with an early growing season this year for our garden. We are already harvesting carrots and green onions.
looking back to last spring, we had our last frost the 2nd week of May, which put us way behind on our produce crops. We hope to have lots of fresh veggies this year. Due to the high cost of fuel and feed we have cut our milk delivery short this year.
We will continue to have fresh milk at the farm for a while, as we also have to get our "off season" frozen milk stocked up. We are NOT quitting, just getting geared up for winter sooner. It's been a HOT dry summer and it has been very hard on crops and animals. We decided the sooner we can give our girls a break the better off they will be through the winter and during kidding. We should be back in full swing by January 15th. A BIG THANK YOU to ALL of our customers! With the start of a New Year comes the start of a New Season of milking. Part of our herd freshened the last 2 weeks of December 2010. It was many sleepless nights that I crawled out of bed every hour during the night to go check everyone and make sure all was well. Most of the babies were born on those very cold nights, but between the mommas, me and a couple other goats chipping in we got the babies dried off, up and nursing within minutes of birth. Theres nothing like the first cries of a new baby.
We are taking a short break for our off season this year. Our last Springfield delivery date was 10-14-10. I know this becomes an inconvenience for some people, but we must allow our producing does some time to rest and be reconditioned before milking for another season. Dairy goats tend to only want to breed in the fall to have spring babies, unlike cows who can breed anytime of year.
We do have a limited amount of FROZEN milk available. The good news is we will have early babies born this next season starting December 25th. That's right, Christmas day! And several more between then and New Year's. A whole week of kidding around. Ha ha! I hope it's not as cold as last December, but I'm ready and willing to deal with it if it is. I want to give all of our customers a big THANK YOU for your business this season! Hope to serve you for the seasons to come. We had our milk tested today just for curiosity. It scored 3.0 on butterfat, 2.6 on protien, 7.6 milk solids and 4.2 on lactose. Our somatic cell count was 325,000.
Grade A standards for somatic cell counts is no more than 1,000,000. That just means our goats have healthy udders. YAY! To better understand what those numbers above mean, a chart can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk Hot summer days can take its toll on people and animals alike. We did not attend a couple of the local county fairs this year due to extreme heat. I did not feel it was worth the risk. We keep fresh clean water in constant supply year round for our animals and we make sure they have lots of shade. For those who don't shed normally, they get the excess hair shaved off. We check them many times per day during extreme temperatures. The goat in the picture was one that had to be bathed a couple times per day just to keep her cooled down. Goats don't normally like water, but this one does when it's hot. If you live in Southwest Missouri you have probably heard about this family on the news. Click the link to read, and help your local milk producers fight back!
http://www.prisonplanet.com/missouri-government-plots-undercover-sting-operations-against-families-selling-raw-milk.html This might help clear a few questions for some about the legality of selling raw milk here in Missouri.
http://house.mo.gov/content.aspx?info=/bills091/bilsum/intro/sHB233I.htm http://www.house.mo.gov/content.aspx?info=/bills101/bills/hb1345.htm Goat milk is easier to digest than cow milk because it does not have the same protiens. Fat globules are softer and smaller, and it is lower in lactose by about 13%. |