Piglets!

Our American Guinea Hog Comfrey, who is about one year old now, farrowed her first litter of piglets. They are seven strong, three males and four females. All of the piglets are healthy and strong.

Winterizing My Above Ground Water Tanks

Last year we drained the tanks and just let the winter rainfall drain off our roofs through the first flush pipes. We didn't catch any rain during the winter time.

This year, I would like to catch winter rain and at lest divert it into our pond. The problem is that when we fill the tanks, the pipes at the bottom are susceptible to freezing. We do get some periodic below freezing temperatures here in western North Carolina. Breaking the pipes will mean expense and repair before the tanks can become operational in our irrigation system.

I am looking for solutions and it involves plumbing valves.

Ball Valve

Gate Valve

I have a one inch pvc pipe buried underground. There is a such thing as a three-way diverter valve. It allows one to operate the water flow with manipulation of just one T-fitting at the junction between the flow downstream verses the flow to the irrigation pump. However, the cost of these valves is either very high, or the reviews on Amazon were less than stellar for the lower cost alternatives. 

This leads me to conclude the most cost effective method will be to dig out a box around the tank drainage and irrigation pipes. I will just install a T joint and two separate valves. 

As long as the pipes flow down hill from the valve, there should not be any water backed up into the pipes and freeze danger will be minimized.

We already have a Mueller 1" PVC Union so we can take the pump inside where it will stay warm. I will add another Mueller male fitting attached to PVC. That PVC will attach to Poly tubing and drain downhill into the pond. This is much less complicated than the underground valve system. It might not be as freeze resistant, but the simplicity makes it a more elegant solution.

I already have valves on the tanks so I can control the drains by just turning the valves on. As long as the water can run down hill, there should be less danger of freezing. 

Goat Husbandry Pregnancy Spreadsheet

Goat Kidding Dates Calculated from Date the Doe was Bred

The Big Method: How We Make Our Yogurt

Everyone has their own methods, I guess. I tried the one where you pour your yogurt culture and milk into one of those automated yogurt-maker machines. I didn't like it because it was tedious and the yogurt containers that came with the set were too small. Therefore, I opted for The Big Method of yogurt making. 

Acquire Quality Milk

Number one. Our dairy goat, Edna, is a great animal. She produces about 1/2 gallon of raw goat milk daily, on average. If you want to make yogurt, you need a source for your raw milk. Dairy goats are the best source for us because the quantity they produce is manageable for a small family like ours. You should consider a dairy goat. 

Number two. Find a culture you like. We really have great success with Cultures for Health. Cultures for Health provides instructions for making yogurt. We followed them for a while, but have adjusted now to The Big Method. It has drawbacks. You cannot re-use the culture for one. But the culture packets only cost a few dollars and you can make about 10 pints of yogurt so that is still cost effective.

The Big Method

• Put a gallon of raw milk into a large enamel pot. Slowly heat the milk to a temperature of 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
  
• Add the culture packet to the milk and stir it with a wooden spoon for about 10 seconds. No need to stir more.
  
• Put your pot in a warm spot in your home. Our home stays between 55 and 70. We put our yogurt next to bricks of our chimney, which is slightly warmer than ambient air. (The wood stove that heats our home is down below in our basement.)
  
• Take an electric heat blanket. Set it to low. Drape it across the top and around the pot.
  
• Cover the electric heat blanket and pot up with a cloth blanket.
  
• Let the concoction culture for at least 12 hours.
  
• Check it for viscosity. If it is creamy, it is ready.
  
• Prepare 10 or so pint storage jars. You need tops also.
  
• Stir the yogurt up with a wooden spoon.
  
• Pour yogurt into the pint jars and put the tops on them.
  
• Refrigerate for a few hours. 

Fantastic!

Incubating 6 Copper Marans Eggs Under Broody Chicken

On February 26, 2015, we put six black copper marans eggs under a broody chicken. The chicken incubation period is 21 days, assuming everything is controlled well as far as temperature. If there are cold periods, the date could be extended by as many as three additional days. 

The weather here has been pretty cold at night. On the very cold nights, we use a lamp in the coop to keep it warmer. 

I created a poultry hatch date calculation table with Google Spreadsheets. So far, we just have the chicken dates. Once we find the guinea eggs we will add formulas for that column. To use the table, just copy over the "Date Started" cell under chicken and the formula will calculate your expected hatch date.

My Goat Edna and I enjoy our Snow Day

How I Make My Feta Cheese

Making feta cheese is not difficult. Here are the steps I use to make mine. 

We are blessed by the provision of Edna, our dairy goat. She is a gentle, occasionally stubborn girl who provides our family approximately 1/2 gallon of delicious milk daily. That is the first and most important ingredient, raw (unpasteurized) local goat milk. You need to scout out a source for local goat milk if you don't have a lactating dairy goat of your own. (ha)

I use about one gallon of milk to make our feta batch. It is fine to use slightly more if you want more. But we find a gallon of milk makes plenty of feta for our use over the next month.  

The first step after collecting the milk is to heat the temperature of the milk to about 75 degrees in an enamel or stainless pot. 

If you mix 1/2 gallon of fresh milk from your refrigerator with a 1/2 gallon of milk straight from your goat, the temperature comes out nearly perfect. Afterwards, I heat the milk briefly until it reaches 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

The next step is to add animal rennet. This ingredient causes the milk to form into plain cheese. 

They say that rennet was discovered by a boy crossing the desert. He packed milk in a the cow stomach skin so he would have something to drink on the the trip across the desert. When the thirsty boy stopped to take a drink, however, he discovered the milk in the skin turned to cheese. Mmmmmm, a nice gulp of cheese. (Ha-ha.) Thus, it was discovered that rennet (from an animal stomach) would mix with the biological organisms in milk to produce delicious cheese. 

The rennet product we use is shown below. You can buy it on Amazon or at Cultures for Health (link below).

You only need  four drops per gallon. This little bottle of animal rennet is nearly gone now, but it has lasted us for about a year. And, we make a lot of cheese. 

Let the rennet and the milk work their magic for about 30 minutes.

Next, add your packet of feta cheese culture powder. The product we use is from Cultures for Health.

It is ok if the rennet and milk mixture has already started to form cheese. Just stir the powder from the packet in and set the pot in a nice warm spot. (We like to put it next to our chimney because the bricks stay nice and warm even with no fire in our stove.) The goal is to keep the ingredients around 70 or 75 degrees. Let it sit for twelve hours.

After enough time has gone by, it is time to cut the curds. I do this step by using a bread knife to cut a checkerboard pattern through the cheese in the pot. I like to use the handles as a guide for my angles, but you can use whatever you like to make your checkerboard slices. Then, I shake my pot back and forth as shown below. 

I shake the pot like that two or three times over a thirty minute period. 

Then, you are ready to drain the whey from the cheese. A lot of whey will have already separated from the cheese, but the curds are still soaked with whey and you want gravity to separate the liquid for dryer cheese. 

This is simple process. Just put a cheese cloth over a large pot, and gently pour the ingredients into the pot. Wrap the cheese cloth around the contents, and hang the cheese cloth above the level of the fluid. (See pictures below.)

  

I let my cheese drain for at least 12 hours. That is longer than some recommend. But I like to let all the liquid drip out. It is still soft even after 12 hours.

The final step is a brine cure. Mix about 1/3 a cup of salt and water into a half-gallon jar. Leave enough space so you can add your cheese! Then, it is into the refrigerator to cure for up to 30 days. Here are the final pictures.

 

I tasted this batch.  Oooh, baby! This is some good feta cheese. 

As an added bonus, we now have a 1/2 gallon of whey for our pigs. They love it!