Honey Goat Cheese Recipe

Today I made a great honey goat cheese, I used Meyer lemon juiced that I canned this spring and honey from our farm. This cheese was easy to make and will be great on toasted bread with fresh herbs and heirloom tomatoes.


Honey Goat Cheese

1 Quart goat milk
1 third cup Meyer lemon juice
1 Tablespoon Honey

Bring the goats milk to a good boil over low heat, stir in honey, add the lemon juice and let cool on the stove. After it's cool strain through cheese cloth or a handkerchief until most of the whey has drained off, for a softer cheese leave more whey or  for a harder cheese weight the top of the cheese to force more out. Refrigerate after you've reached the desired consistency.

Rainbow Fish

Inspired the beautiful colors of the radishes, beets, and carrots I harvested today I made "Rainbow Fish" for dinner. This recipe is simple and quick, plus it only takes one pan! Enough for 4 people it took about 15 minutes to put together.



Rainbow Fish

1 cup Quinoa rinsed and drained
2 cups water or broth
Variety of radishes, beets, and carrots sliced thinly
3 Tablespoons fresh herbs (I used sage and oregano)
2 Tablespoons butter
4 fillets of fish (I used Tilapia)

Rinse and drain the quinoa, a fine sieve with a handle works the best for this job. I've always had trouble with the quinoa floating away if I rinse it in a bowl. Put quinoa and 2 cups liquid in a baking dish. Chop the veggies and herbs, add to the the baking pan with quinoa. Put fish fillets on top of the vegetables and quinoa, top each fillet with a half tablespoon of butter (note: I used frozen fish so it didn't over cook in the time it takes for the quinoa to cook, if using fresh fish you may want to bake it for about 10 minutes before adding the fish). Grind fresh pepper and sea salt over the entire pan. Cook for about 20 mins on 400 until the quinoa and fish are fork tender.

Buckshots Booby Trap

Today my neighbor "Pops" and I were out farting around in the pasture. We checked out the baby goats, speculated on when the other does would kid, and had a nice time scratching the horses. When we went to see the bees we noticed all three upper boxes on the hives had been knocked askew leaving the frames slightly exposed. I figured Buck must have knocked into them a bit or gotten nosy while sniffing for honey. I mentioned calling the beekeeper to straighten them out since I try my best not to mess with them but Pops just started fixing them. He straightened out the first one and the bees were relaxed so as he started to fix the second as I tried to fix the third. It didn't go well for me and instead of the top box sliding into place the whole stack moved. Of course the bees came out and started buzzing me, then chasing me and getting in my hair. A couple landed on my arms and face but by this time I was getting away from the hive as fast as possible. I got stung on my arm as I pulled my pony tail out and was shaking them out of my hair, then stung in the middle of my forehead as I flailed my arms like a moron and screeched like a harpy. While I was running around like a dummy Pops fixed the third box and didn't get stung at all thank grilled cheesus, but my dog Jack and I each earned ourselves a few bee induced welts. Lessons learned- Buck and I are both stupid for getting near the bees. DO NOT TOUCH the BEES!!

Spring has Sprung!

Spring is rushing in to meet me. With so many changes coming fast it's been hard to focus on the farm. It finally hit me smack in the face though when I came home to KIDS!! Holy crap they are the cutest not-out-of-my-hoohaw babies ever!! I of course invited some friends over to meet them and they proved to be the cuddliest most enchanting little goats ever! Here are some great pictures taken by my girl "S".

We named them Apple and Aja, Apple being the girl. Even though they are squish-em-til- they-squeak cute now, I know that with out training they will soon be evil on four legs that cannot be contained by fences. So let the training commence. Aja will be up for sale in a few weeks and Apples fate has yet to be decided. Taffy their super sweet and shy mommy (she was a baby that I traded for last year) has also started training as a milk goat. I must admit, she already has better manners that those two turds Rosey and Posey. Rosey and Posey have a little game they love to play called "stick your nasty foot in the bucket" and they always do it right as I'm finishing up! A few angry times I've even had the entire bucket of milk dumped on me by one of the goaty minxes! You know how in the bible the "goats" are the bad people and the christians are lambs? Well now you know why, goats can be a royal pain in the ass, even gods ass evidently. Anyhow check out these photos and appreciate the peace and quiet at your place.

The Egg-speriment

One evening while making dinner Squawk says to me "Mommy, what happens if you freeze an egg?" Of course I get excited, I love it when they ask me questions! I tell him that the egg will crack and we proceed to set up our egg-speriment.

First, we stick a banty egg in an empty yogurt cup. Why a banty egg? Because using a big egg would be wasting food that we worked hard for, duh! We left the egg in the freezer over night and came back the next day. The egg was cracked!

Awesome experiment but Squawk is full of questions. Next on his list? Will it still smash if it's frozen? I tell him to give it a whack and find out. He smashes the crap out of it and what do you know... the egg cracks and I crack up.

Changes, coming soon to a life near you...

Well, I totally deserve the worst blogger ever award. I haven't blogged in months and life's been changing so fast I don't even know where to start. I guess the beginning makes sense so here we go! I'm going to skip around a bit but it all leads to today.

My marriage has ended. What took moments to start took years to fade and we're moving on. Hence the name change of my blog "the farm wife" no longer seems appropriate or realistic. I have nothing but love for the soon to be former "hubs", even our breakup was fantastic. That being said I cannot wait until he moves off the farm. I greatly appreciate that he is so supportive and didn't just bail, but I am looking forward to (and panicking!!) the moment when I'm on my own again. I keep flashing back to how peaceful things were when it was just me and my cat in our little house. Of course that will never be the same with two kids and a crap ton of animals running around and I'm terrified that it will be a constant struggle to stay here but life's an adventure even when you're misadventuring right?

I went to Burning Man! Wow that was frickin awesome and I'm doing it again this year. Being me I over prepared for everything that I could and killed it. What I didn't plan for was meeting myself and being forced to confront my life. That being said choices were made and I regret nothing. Ok, except maybe not going sooner.

The farm is changing. The things I set in motion last year are starting to come to fruit. I reflect on the work that I did (and didn't do) last year and I see so much room for improvement. The months of serious funk that I went through and did nothing around here are really showing but I am once again feeling strong and inspired. Don't get me wrong, I still have my days when I feel bluesy and don't want to work but the spring sun is burning the fog off my life.

My blog is changing. The title change is only part of it, as I've been reading other blogs lately and I've realized the things I've held back (my kids, emotions, and snarky sense of humor) could make me a more honest blogger and human being. I looked through my previous posts and realized that though my blog is about family and farming I never show what isn't pretty (or pictures of my kids even for that matter). As it turns out life isn't perfect and the premium that I put on perfection only exists in my mind. Some of my best recipes have come from screw ups, hell, the best things in my life have come from getting in my own way and messing up my plans!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'll try harder, laugh louder, and stop only showing you the moments that I think are perfect. This is a farm and we're all gonna step in shit sometimes right?

Well, it's fall here on the farm. The leaves are falling from the oak, things are getting a little greener, the mornings are frequently cold and afternoons hot, but mostly around here fall means babies. You might not think about it but here in on the farm fall means batches of chicks to be raised, winter gardens bountiful and lazy must be planted, and it's breeding season. This is our first year breeding our does since I bought them in milk this spring. Rosey, Posey, and the adorable Taffy will all be bred to Tahoe.

I bought Tahoe this spring when he was only 8 weeks old. He came as an unexpected addition to a Nigerian Dwarf milk doe I bought. I seriously considered wethering him and taking him to the auction but he was so cute and sweet. He frequently escaped and he was so friendly I would pick him up like a baby and carry him all over the farm. After we realized that a Nigerian Dwarf doe wouldn't give enough milk to sustain a family of four we traded his mom for a young La Mancha doe named Taffy. I chose to keep Tahoe for breeding because of his smaller size and friendly personality. I didn't realize that Nigerian Dwarf goats could become fertile as young as 8 weeks old, and this lack of oversight means that Posey may be giving us fall kids instead of spring kids, whoops! This will be Taffy's first freshening and I'm excited to see how she milks, he mother and sister are 2 gallon a day milkers! Rosey also seems to have gone into heat so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that in five months we'll have a bunch of sweet kids playing king of the mountain in our pasture.

Fall also brings rain and mud. The pond is back and the stream is half full. The stream bed is going to have to be dug out, it's running slowly. It's been raining for a couple days and the mud at the pasture gate is two inches deep already. Of course I was busy playing this summer and still need to gravel the pens, thank Grilled Cheesus for 4WD. I've also been thinking a lot about kidding season and am looking forward to the cooler weather allowing us to build some new pens. The ground's much easier to work now that it's soft too.

One of my favorite things about fall is not having to water the as garden often. I've started putting in the fall and winter crops. Lots of root vegetables, chard, and some herbs. I let the lettuce reseed itself and our soybeans are starting to produce. The pineapple sage I've been cooking with all summer has beautiful delicate scarlet flowers. Tiny radish and carrot seedlings were brutally thinned by the chickens a few days ago so I'm going to have to reinforce the garden fence. Chickens are devious about sneaking in and snacking on the sprouting seedlings. Stay tuned for pictures of the newest residents of the farm...Snowflake is the proud nanny of a new batch of chicks and the babies Mama hen has been raising in the garden have fancy feathered feet.