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Fancy and Soul

3/22/2016

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Over time I would like to share with you about all the animals who live here; how they came to be here, their personalities, their lives and their stories.
 
Fancy and Soul have been with us for almost six years. 
Our farm life began with the guineas and shortly after, the chickens arrived.  We fell in love with alpacas and began our plans to begin our alpaca farm.  While I was learning about “fiber animals” and preparing for alpacas, I discovered angora goats.  Completely enamored with them (Who doesn’t love goats?! Add the sweet curls! It was all over!) I began looking for a couple to bring home.  It took a while to find angora goats, they are not as common as other breeds.  Finally, I found a farm not too far away.  According to their website they had good quality goats (meaning well-bred and producing quality fiber) and had some for sale.  I called and talked with the farmer and agreed that we would buy two young ones – twins!  A boy and a girl, a little over a year old.  We were very excited! 

We set a date to go meet them and if all was well, take them home.  The man agreed to vaccinate them and have the boy wethered (castrated) for us since we did not plan to breed them and they would stay together. The family also raised meat goats, sheep and cattle and were happy to give us a tour.  When we arrived we were met with many Boer goats and sheep in the barn area and the cows were out on pasture.  We talked a while about them and met some fabulous animals.  They talked about some of their practices for raising meat animals including tail docking of the sheep.  This bothered me, but I didn’t quite understand and wouldn’t realize until much later that this was the beginning of my initiation into the world of “Live Stock” and “Animal Agriculture.” We were anxious to meet the angora goats! 

Finally, we were taken into the barn to meet our newest family members.  There were a number of small stalls with angora goats in them.  The breeding male was alone in his stall and the others were crowded into other stalls.  It was dark in the barn.  We got to the stall with our little guys in it.  They were very small and had tons of matted, long hair full of hay and tangles.  We could see right away that they were not well taken care of.  Now, I know not to pay for this sort of care and encourage people to carry on, but I wasn’t about to leave them there either.  In fact, I would have liked to take all of them. 

We were preparing to take them home and asking questions about their care.  The farmer had wethered the little boy for us as we asked.  (By using a banding method.  Banding goats is a method used to castrate them before they reach sexual maturity. Banding refers to applying a small, thick rubber band to the top of the testicles constricting the flow of blood to the testes and scrotum, leaving them to die and fall off in approximately 2 weeks.  This is usually done without anesthetic.)  The man was happy to tell me that our little guy hardly screamed at all like most do and told us to just keep an eye on the area and the testicles would dry up and fall off in a couple weeks.  (I now know that most male farm animals are castrated using this and other methods, most often without anesthesia.  Keep in mind please that they feel pain just like humans.  We all know how sensitive males are.  Now imagine being castrated with no anesthesia – routine farm practice.)  My first initiation to animal agriculture. 

Next, we were preparing to leave when they informed us that the female needed to be ear tagged.  Could this not have been done before we arrived?  I explained that we do not believe in ear tagging our animals and did not want this done.  We were told it was the law and she couldn’t leave without the ear tag.  Again, I tried explaining that we would keep the tag as identification but did not want it in her ear.  (We only had two goats and were not planning to breed them.  It would not be difficult to identify them.)  Without listening to me the woman held her while the man tried to put in the ear tag.  The sweet girl panicked, cried, struggled and turned her head.  The tag ripped out of her ear.  With blood dripping from her split ear, still not considering our wishes or her obvious distress, they simply turned her around and put the tag in her other ear. (This is another routing farm procedure.  The first step in animals becoming merely numbers and far from painless.  Take a look at the ear tags at Farm and Fleet some day while you are out.  Would you let someone put one of those through your ears?)  So, we were handed a bleeding, crying baby goat.  We loaded them into our van and took them home.

Our first task was to give them love, fresh air, sunshine and care.  Once we got home, it was hands off for a short time while they recovered from the ordeal of the move.  I don’t believe they had ever been out of their crowded stall in the dark barn in their lives, so fresh air and sunshine were a must!

Once we were able to get a better look at them, it was obvious that these little guys had never been sheared.  Angora goat’s hair grows so fast that they need to be shorn twice a year.  Both of them were matted, dirty and full of feces and urine.  Their hooves had never been trimmed and were so overgrown that to this day Soul’s hooves are still incorrect.  We scrambled to find a shearer and learn how to trim hooves.  I called goat farmers nearby to ask for advice on trimming hooves.  The few I called said they really didn’t do that. (A goat’s hooves grow like dog toenails or horse’s hooves and need to be trimmed.)  We followed directions we found in books and on line and did the best we could.  I remember being terrified that I would hurt them.  Especially when their hooves were so bad and I had no well-trimmed hooves to look at to know what I was aiming for.  We did it little by little until over time I feel comfortable and confident in trimming their hooves.  We got them to a sheep shearer as soon as we could and got the matted dirty hair off to find that they were covered in lice and cut by the shearer.  (More about shearing later… this is not always an easy gentle process we were to learn.)  We cared for their wounds and got rid of the lice, we loved them, played with them, took them for walks, gave them nutritious food, fresh water and sunshine.  We named them Soul and Fancy.  Soul because even at his very young age, when he arrived, his hair was so long, he had a long old-man beard and his eyes are full of wisdom.  So, he became Old Soul.  Fancy because even though she was a mess and very fearful, we knew she was a beautiful Fancy Dancer underneath.

Goats are thankfully goats. They are blessed with joy and love.  They were soon running, leaping and playing, and healthy.  We loved to watch them and laugh at their silly antics.  Soul was immediately friendly and loved to be scratched and snuggled.  Fancy, however continued to be afraid of us and would run away and very often slam me with a head butt.  I tried to tell her I was sorry and gave her all the same love we gave to Soul.  I tried to help her forgive; but I believe she connected me/us with that terrifying day and could not trust us.  We talked about it so many times and were angry.  I asked a number of times if we could take the ear tag out, but we thought it could not physically be removed. 
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It was a few years later that one day, I was shopping at Farm and Fleet and somehow came across the ear tag section and found a tool that removes ear tags.  We decided to give it a try.  We held her and explained what we were doing and why and were able to remove the tag.  From that moment on, Fancy has never head-butted me once and although she is still shy, she loves being scratched and pet and I truly believe she understands and finally forgives us.
We love these two so very much.  They gift us with so much laughter and life.  They give us love and joy and we are grateful we were able to give them the life they so deserve.

 

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A Fun First Day of Spring Meal

3/20/2016

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Happy First Day of Spring!

We celebrated with a special fun meal this afternoon. Thought I would share a couple of the recipes we enjoyed with you...

Simple Tofu Quiche
(recipe follows)
Hash Browns
(simply grated organic potatoes, seasoned as you wish and fried in olive or coconut oil)
Vegan Bacon
(we usually skip the processed/fake meat but once in a while it's ok :)
Watermelon
and
Strawberry Tarts
(recipe follows)

Simple Tofu Quiche

from The Minimalist Baker
http://minimalistbaker.com/simple-tofu-quiche

Vegan Pop Tarts


http://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/2014/03/27/vegan-strawberry-pop-tarts/






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It's Chick Season!

3/14/2016

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It’s chick season!  I used to look so forward to this time of year!  Seeing the adorable, sweet babies at the farm store, picking out a few to add to our flock. The girls all smiles and giggles!  Or, ordering some from a hatchery and having them arrive in a peeping box at the post office!  Best of all, hatching our own eggs in the incubator; watching the miracle of life right before our eyes!  I know how wonderful it all seems, how absolutely adorable those chicks are, how so many people have backyard chickens now and how the kiddos beg you to let them have one.  I thought it was just wonderful too and we have had chickens in our family for many years now.  We have done it all.  Picked out our new chicks at the store, ordered special varieties from the hatchery and waited excitedly for the box to arrive and hatched our own eggs in the incubator in our own kitchen.  Are you kidding, I still LOVE the babies!
 
However…. please let me tell you what I have learned through all of this.  As we enjoyed each and every part of this, there was something else.  Something nagging at me.  Something unselfish and sad.  You see, in each of these instances there was something missing.  We loved our chicks, we gave them the best care, we had a special brooder with a warm light, good food, fresh water and we loved and snuggled them.  But, there was still something missing.  Their mother.
 
A couple times we allowed a mother hen to hatch and raise her own chicks and the guineas do this on their own every year. This is truly a beautiful thing.  A hen will choose a perfect spot for her nest; a protected area hidden from predators and usually tucked away safe and cozy.  She will prepare the nest and begin laying eggs, about one a day or every other day until she has a nice clutch of eggs in her nest.  She moves the eggs into a perfect grouping and then she will sit on those eggs dedicatedly for twenty one days.  She will only leave for a short time to eat.  Through rain, storms, heat, cold and fear she will sit on her eggs and keep them the perfect temperature, turn them and love them until they hatch.  The day of the hatch is full of joy!  Just like when a human child arrives.  The mother is proud, beaming, exhausted and so, so happy to have her little ones under her wings.  If you have never seen a mother hen with her children you are missing something of pure love and beauty.  She keeps them warm and safe under her downy body and soft wings.  They feel her love, warmth and heartbeat.  She leads them in a little line or a little flock trailing behind her, teaches them how to scratch for food, find water, eventually roost in the evening, find their place in the flock and always, always protects them.  A mother hen will risk her life protecting her chicks.  If a hawk flies over the hen will quickly gather them up under her body and wings to protect them.  It is truly precious to see a little head peek out from under a mama hen.  As the chicks grow, they become part of the community.  They find their place in the flock.  In a natural flock, chickens move around all day, scratching, eating seeds and bugs, dust bathing, and enjoying the sun and fresh air.  There is a balance of hens and roosters and the circle of life carries on.


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The chicks that come from hatcheries (either that you order or buy at a farm store – both come from hatcheries) have never even seen their mother.  The hens kept in hatcheries live in cramped small cages, just like factory farms.  They are repeatedly artificially inseminated against their will.  Their eggs are taken from them each day and they never have the opportunity to raise their own children.  Once they are no longer producing eggs well enough they are shipped for slaughter.  The eggs are placed in giant incubators where they are mechanically heated and turned in mass quantities.  As the chicks hatch and dry they are poured onto conveyor belts and sorted on the day they are born.  There are different varieties of chickens available.  There are the layer breeds and the fryer/meat breeds.  Both have been selectively bred to meet our desired outcomes.  When people order laying chicks, generally they want hens.  Obviously roosters don’t lay eggs.  Most people do not want too many, if any, roosters and in many municipalities, roosters are not allowed in backyard flocks.  As nature is, generally 50% of chicks will be female and 50% will be male.  The industry has no use for male chicks of the layer varieties and considers them byproduct.  As the day old chicks are tossed onto the conveyor belt, they are sexed and sorted.  The females prepared for shipment and the males tossed into a macerator (a giant grinder that grinds them alive the day they are born) or into large trash bins where they suffocate and die in a pile.  The remaining chicks are packed into boxes with no food or water and shipped all over the country.  They remain in these boxes often for days, in dark, cramped conditions where there is no temperature control, and no mother, tossed onto mail trucks and eventually arrive at the post office or farm store.  Many do not survive. 
 
The process is not a whole lot different hatching our own in incubators.  Born on a wire grate, dried under a heat lamp and never ever having a mother to love, nurture and protect.  It is a smaller scale, but no less sad. 

 
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This is where we began.  They are adorable aren’t they?
 
I hear that you love your chicks and that you take the best care of them.  I did too.  But this is a selfish love.  The best care is given by their mother.  Each time you purchase chicks from a store or a hatchery you are paying for this to happen.  You are supporting the industry.  Each time we keep a chicken for our purpose we are taking away their own natural purpose and place in the universal web and intelligence.  They are not ours.  Nor are they here for our purposes.  The eggs they lay are intended only to be their young.  Just like humans, they have their own purpose, desire, emotion and place on this Earth.  I loved them too, but it was a selfish love.  Now I see and love them even more. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Dessert!

3/10/2016

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Sometimes we overlook easy meal ideas.  

Tonight was a quick meal of spaghetti:
-organic noodles
-a jar of organic marinara
-add some sauteed onions, mushrooms, pepper and zucchini
and garlic bread
-organic whole grain bread, brushed with olive oil and fresh garlic and baked

Dessert was organic strawberries sliced with whipped coconut cream.  Amazing!  No dairy like whipped cream and no nastiness like non-dairy whipped toppings.


Whipped Coconut Cream
1 - 14 ounce can full-fat coconut milk
1 - 2 T. sweetener (powdered sugar, maple syrup, agave, natural cane sugar)
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Chill the can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight (or at least 8 hours)
Flip the chilled can upside down and open.  Pour off the coconut water (save for smoothies) and scoop the solid coconut milk into a chilled bowl.
Add the sweetener and vanilla and beat with a hand mixer until fluffy.  Cover the bowl and return to the fridge if needed to chill and firm.  Delicious!!!!

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Considering Honey Bees

3/7/2016

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I am feeling inspired to share my thoughts on honey bees this morning. 
 
Every day I see posts and articles about the plight of the honey bees; the dramatic loss of honey bees all over the world, the cause, and efforts to help them. I agree that pesticides and GMO crops are of the greatest concern.  With about 40% of the Earth’s land surface being used for crop production and the widespread abuse of our Earth with pesticides and GMO’s being used on theses crops it is not surprising that the bees are dying.  This is the main source of their food.
 
I am happy to see the apparent great concern and effort to do something for the bees.  But,  is it rather a great concern to do something to keep the bees providing for humans?  There is a huge difference in that small shift in perspective. 
 
I have recently seen an incredible rise in the availability of equipment, classes and information on keeping bees.  There has been a huge increase in interest and the number of people choosing to “keep” bees.  Many of these new beekeepers genuinely wish to help the bees.  We are among those people who thought that keeping bees was somehow helpful to them.
 
When our first bees arrived six or seven years ago we were excited and proud to be doing our part to help the bees and looking forward to the delicious, nutritious honey they would happily give us.  We read all the books, took classes and for the first season followed all the directions we were given minus the use of any chemicals or medications as we were taking a “natural and organic” approach to farming at that time.  Being who we are, we like direct learning and began watching what we were doing, watching and listening to the bees and really paying attention to what goes on in industrial beekeeping as well as small scale, backyard beekeeping.
 
We fell in love with the bees and spent hours watching them in complete awe.  Watched them work and create with perfection and beauty.  We laughed at humanity’s naïve and egotistical perception that humans are the most intelligent beings on Earth.  And we were ashamed.  You see, first of all, honey bees are not native to our country.  So it begins with the importing and breeding of honey bees in large apiaries.  Artificial insemination and human rearing of queens is done to meet our desired outcomes.  Hives are divided (families/colonies are split) and then packaged. One small cage is filled with a few thousand queenless honey bees and a can of sugar water and queens are placed in separate tiny cages.  They are stacked on pallets and shipped all over the country.  The bees spend days and sometimes weeks in these conditions until they have arrived at their new home.  The bees are then dumped into a hive and a queen placed in the hive, still in her cage for a few days to give the rest of the colony time to acclimate to her as their new leader.  Once she is out and hopefully accepted and the confusion and fear settles they begin to work. 
 
In a new hive there is nothing to start with.  They must build their comb and create food to feed themselves and the new larva which will be arriving shortly.  It takes a tremendous amount of time and work to build comb out of wax that is created in the bees abdomen.  The youngest worker bees get to work building the comb.  They must chew the wax to soften it and then create a magical, perfect, sacred geometrical pattern of cells where they will raise their young and store food for the colony.  Bees have been on Earth for millions of years and know exactly how to create perfect comb.  However, in order to force the bees into more extensive honey production, conventional hives use plastic as a guide for the bees to build bigger cells.  As the combs are being built by some of the workers, the queen begins to lay eggs and other workers head out to gather pollen and nectar to feed the hive.  The process of collection and conversion of nectar into honey takes an incredible amount of energy and time. The bees must visit between 100 and 1500 flowers in one trip to fill their honeystomachs, which then weight almost as much as the bee herself, deliver it back to the hive where another worker works on chewing the nectar and then placing it into the cells where the water will evaporate from the nectar and turn into honey.  One bee may visit 2000 flowers each day, all day long repeating these trips to forage, which puts a lot of wear and tear on her body. A hardworking forager may live just 3 weeks.  In a lifetime, one honey bee will produce only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey.  During this initial process of establishing the hive, the beekeeper will feed the bees a mixture of sugar and water until the bees have established their own food supply.
 
Once the hive is established and growing, the beekeeper often looks into the hive and manipulates the comb to maintain the health of the bees (???) and manage the hive.  To make the bees more docile and keep the beekeeper safe, most beekeepers pump smoke into the hive before opening it.  Imagine someone lifting your roof and filling your home with smoke!  Hive manipulation is done to prevent swarming (a colony’s natural evolution of creating another queen and splitting the hive into two to create another colony or leaving the hive if it is not suitable), to encourage honey production and to make access easier for the beekeeper. 
 
In industrial bee operations, multiple hives are loaded on trucks and delivered to large agricultural crops, dropped off and left to pollinate the crops (often drenched in chemicals and planted with GMO crops) then picked up and taken to the next location.  Over and over again.
 
Once fall arrives and winter is peeking around the corner, the bees are preparing for their survival.  They have spent the last few months working diligently to create comb and finally have honey stored and ready to ensure the survival of the colony over the winter.  This is when the beekeepers harvest the honey.
 
There is a general tool beekeepers use to determine how much honey is acceptable to take.  They generally leave a pre-determined amount per hive that is considered acceptable to feed the bees through winter.  Although we all know that there is no certainty about what each winter will bring.  The rest of the honey is taken from the hive.  The comb containing the honey is either completely destroyed and harvested for wax or severely damaged and returned to the hive and the honey is happily taken for human consumption.
 
The bees get what is left (some beekeepers take all the honey and feed the bees sugar/water or worse a corn syrup solution) to survive through the winter.  When spring arrives, if the colony survived (a very large percentage do not) and the honey store is empty, the process begins again with rebuilding the comb, the honey supply and the colony.
 
It didn’t take us long to question theses methods and stop ourselves from participating in the exploitation of the bees.  We still have honey bees who live here with us.  We offer them a home, love and respect.  Their hives are their homes.  There is no plastic in them.  They build their combs beautifully and perfectly, raise their young, create their honey and keep it.  All of it.  To feed themselves over the winter.  They swarm and it is the most miraculous event that we are eager to witness and have been blessed with the opportunity to see.  We offer them space for the swarm if they choose it.  They pollinate our plants and trees and grace us with their beauty and magnificence.
 
It is time.
 
It is time to understand that the honey bees are not here for us.  They are wild and need to be returned and allowed the freedom to live.  They do not create honey for us to consume.  They gift to us within the great interconnected web, the pollination of flowers and plants which in turn provide us food.  We need to reconsider perhaps our way of looking at the honey bee (as we do all the beings who share the Earth with us, and the Earth itself) as a clue to their destruction and question ourselves.  Do we wish to save the bees for the bees or for our greed?  In this may actually be the answer to why the bees are dying.
 
 
*** Did you know…
 
 A honey bee colony can contain up to 60,000 bees.
 
Honey bees choose the sex of their larva by the size of the cell the egg is placed in and what they feed the larva?  They can create female workers, drones or a new queen depending on the needs of the hive.
 
Worker bees (who are all female) must perform different roles throughout their lives. Housekeeping, undertakers, nursing the young, attending to the queen, taking in nectar, fanning the hive (to maintain temperature), building the comb, guarding the hive and finally becoming a forager.  Foragers must find flowers, determine their value as a food source, navigate back home, and share detailed information about their finds with other foragers. 
 
The honey bee use one of the most complex symbolic language of any animal on earth.
 
The queen bee lays up to 1,500 eggs per day, and may lay up to 1 million in her lifetime.
 
Drones, the only male honey bees, whose only purpose is to mate with the queen, die immediately after mating.
 
The average life of a honey bee is only six weeks
.
 
 
 
 

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Banana Berry Breakfast (quick, easy and Oh So Good!)

3/4/2016

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I will try not to get carried away with good food recipes to share.  We have so many favorites!  Our breakfast today is just too good not to share!

From
Eat to Live
Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
Quick Banana Berry Breakfast To Go

2 c. fresh or frozen blueberries
2 bananas
1/2 c. old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 c. pomegranate juice
1 - 2 T. chopped walnuts
1 T. raw sunflower seeds
2 T dried currants

Combine all ingredients in a small microwavable bowl and heat in the microwave for 3 minutes.

The recipe says it serves 2.  This is for a very healthy appetite!  I usually make 1/2 the recipe and Sammi and I split that.  Although this is so good for you, feel free to eat all you like!

I also do not regularly use the microwave to cook food.  This could be made on the stove but to be quick on a busy morning, the microwave is handy once in a while.

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Pure Deliciousness!!!!

3/3/2016

2 Comments

 
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I love to cook (delicious, nutritious, plant-based, cruelty free, vegan, whole, fresh, organic, :)  food for my family!
For those of you who have asked for recipes, have asked "what do you eat?", think this is too difficult, wonder if it could possibly taste good or worry about getting all the nutrients your body needs.  I would like to help! As part of our effort to share what we do here,
​occasionally while I am cooking,
I will share a family favorite with you.

Lunch today was:
Minestrone Soup with Sourdough Bread and Apple Juice

Dessert:
Snickerdoodles and Chai Latte (OMG!)

Our Family Favorite
Minestrone Recipe
From The Family Vegan Cookbook

Chef Brian P. McCarthy

2 carrots, diced
3 ribs celery, diced
1/2 onion, diced
3 T light olive oil (I substitute water)
4 C vegetable broth
1/2 C uncooked elbow pasta
1/2 bunch spinach, chopped
1 - 15oz can diced tomatoes
1 - 15oz can kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 1/2 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic (optional) *YES GARLIC
salt to taste

In a large pot, saute the carrots, celery, onion and garlic in oil (or water) until tender.  Add broth, spinach, pasta, tomatoes, kidney beans, basil and oregano. Bring to a boil, stirring often.  Reduce heat to low and cover.  Let simmer for 15 minutes or until pasta is cooked, stirring occasionally.  Add salt to taste.

6 servings

I always add the fresh squeezed garlic and often use frozen tomatoes from the garden.  Quick, easy and delicious
!    

The Snickerdoodle Recipe
is from one of our favorites:

Oh She Glows


here is the link to the recipe:
http://ohsheglows.com/2014/12/17/snickerdoodles-vegan-gluten-free/

Be sure to check out her other recipes!  We use them and love them all the time!  I would highly recommend the cookbook!
Chai Latte

simply brew a cup of chai, add a little vanilla almond milk and a touch of maple syrup for sweetness if desired and enjoy!
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Feel free to ask cooking questions!  
​I am happy to help!
Enjoy!!!!
2 Comments

    Author

    Brenda

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"Love dissolved in Space for one can touch the hearts of many."    
~ Anastasia