Why didn't he know? Label GMOs on EVERYTHING!!!

We had to pick up hog feed this morning, so we headed out early this morning on our 3 hour round trip to the feed mill.

On the way there we talked about the questions we wanted to ask about the goats grain as well as the horses. Our goats grain has Ammonium Chloride mixed in it, which is something that is beneficial for bucks to help prevent Urinary Calculi aka Urinary Stones. Since we don't have any bucks we wanted to know if we could get the feed without it.

Mr. Wild wanted to know if we could feed the horses and the cattle the same grain mix, with the exception being our Jerseys (but they don't run in the same field as the rest of the cattle & horses, so they are fed separately).

The manager was there so we started asking questions. He said we could have our own goat grain mixed, but they only mix it by a ton & a half. If mixed at a smaller ratio they said it wouldn't get mixed in properly and that it would cost us MORE per bag if we bought in a smaller amount. We buy 300 lbs at a time and currently don't have a dry location to store a ton of feed that isn't for ALL the animals. We decided to call around to the other feed mills before buying. Kinda disappointed, but we understand they are a big mill and we are a small farm (for now).

Next we asked about the horse & cattle. He said they do carry a very basic mix of SOYbean meal, corn gluten and shelled corn. As soon as he said SOY I started shaking my head NO. I let him finish and then I said NO, I will NOT feed ANY of our animals anything with SOY in it. The manager asked why and I told him that 95% (its more like 98%) of soy that is grown in the U.S. is genetically modified. He looked at me like I had suddenly grown a fish face and said he wasn't aware of that. I asked him if he knew if their corn was GMO and he said he didn't know, that he wasn't aware of that EITHER!!

This man, whose family not only owns the feed mill but the hundreds of acres surrounding it where they GROW many of the ingredients in their feed DOESN'T KNOW IF THEY ARE GROWING GMO!

Now we needed 500 lbs of hog feed, 300 lbs of goat feed, 500 lbs of cattle feed & 250 lbs of horse feed. We didn't buy any of it. I told Mr. Wild that I was not going to feed our animals THAT WE ARE RAISING FOR FOOD modified anything! And that I am sick to my stomach that we didn't ask these questions sooner, because we've been doing just that for months. The manager of the feed mill isn't the only one who showed his ignorance today =o(

Hard decisions

Belle (black/white pygmy) & Cloudy (white ND) in Vegas.

When we moved to KY from NV, we brought 2 of our goats with us. I couldn't handle leaving them behind, they were my bottle babies, one of which I got when she (Heinz) was 4 hours old, the other when he (Stripies) was 8 days old. Both had lost their mamas, Stripies mom died when he was 3 days old & he was the only survivor out of the 4 kids. Heinz was also 1 of 4 and her mom rejected her. Stripies came from a friends ranch, she begged me to take him as she was already bottle raising 2 lambs and was so sad after losing the goats (she lost many kids that winter). Heinz came from a local goat farmer (in Vegas!) and she cried as she put Heinz in my arms. She gave me her email address and asked that I send her pictures and updates. We still keep in touch =o)

Heinz (black Alpine) & Stripies (white ND wether) in Vegas.

Before we left Vegas, we had 4 goats, Belle, Cloudy, Stripies & Heinz. Belle was pregnant and I didn't want to risk her losing them. We contacted a farm outside of Vegas, they came and bought her and Cloudy (they were BFF's).

Cloudy (left) & Belle (pregnant, right) in Vegas.

After we got to KY, we started looking for goats. They are such intelligent, charming, mischievious animals =o) They are beautiful, gentle and sweet. They are naughty, rambunctious and curious. They are nosy, pushy and lazy. They are foragers, tree climbers and natural fertilizers. We found many goats and we started building our herd.

In Kentucky, after bush-hogging.

Vegas was very dry and very rocky. We trimmed the goats hooves twice a year because they had rocks to play on that kept them worn down. Eastern KY is very wet and very green. We've had to trim the goats hooves every other month. We've also had to fight foot rot because of all the wet mud that is a big part of the farm, especially when the grasses have been eaten and trampled. In Vegas we didn't have coughs or wheezing or pink eye. In KY, we've had it all and then some. We've had to use medicines that we swore we'd never put into our animals. We've had to hold them down and we've had to put 1 down.

One of the mama does, in Kentucky.

Mr. Wild and I have been discussing whats in everybodys best interest. We can't continue this way, not when animals are in pain. We had the vet come out, we've had old-timers come over and they've all said the same thing. The mud is a huge problem. We need to put down rock. The amount of rock we need is expensive, almost $4000 expensive. We've got a LOT of animals that we need to feed through winter. Our goats are not raised for food. Not for us anyways, I don't like the taste of the meat, never have. We were told that we could have them processed into pepperoni. We don't eat that much pepperoni and its illegal for us to sell any of our meat as we aren't set up for that.

Oreo (American Alpine buck) hanging with the chickens (In KY).

So we decided we needed to sell most of the herd. We contacted the man we bought our 1st cow from as he use to be a Boer goat breeder. We told him our situation and asked him if he could help us find new homes, good homes, for our goats. Last night we took 11 of the 15 goats to his ranch and sold them. I tried really hard to not cry as we were loading & unloading them. Mr. Wild & I didn't talk much in the truck on the way there. They all have names, they come when called, they know the routine at our farm, they are talked to, petted, loved. The cow man assured us that the people we sold to are good farmers, kind farmers that will take great care of our herd. And their farms aren't big mud pits because farmer Paul talked Mr. Wild into bush-hogging too much. Yeah, I'm a little mad about that!

Homemade goat treats - ginger crisps

Occasionally we give our goats little treats like raisins, bananas and ginger snap cookies. They go absolutely NUTS over the cookies! I came across this recipe in The Old Farmers Almanac 2012 and started making our own version. Everybody likes them!

For the horse, we crumble up a couple cookies with chopped apples. For the cows, we crumble a dozen into their grain trough.

For the chickens, turkeys, guineas & peacocks, we crumble up half a dozen and mix it into their scratch.

The dogs get a couple too.

Here's the recipe (I made a couple of ingredient swaps):

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 3/4 cup acorn flour, 3/4 cup all-purpose flour)
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt (I used 1/8 tsp sea salt)
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup dark-brown sugar
1 large egg (I used a duck egg)
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses (I used black strap molasses)

Here are a few links about using acorns in recipes:
Acorn Pasta and the Mechanics of Eating Acorns, Acorns and the Forager’s Dilemma, and Rich, Sweet & Wild: Acorn and Pine Nut Infused Butter, Wild Things Roundup: Acorn Sweets by Kiva and Loba.

Goat introduction

Blue - blue-tick Boer doe

 Oreo - American Alpine buck

Cinna - Boer doe

Dirty Deeds - Nigerian Dwarf buck (soon to be wether)

Mad Hatter - Alpine/Nubian mix buck

Big Mama (back left) - Boer doe, pregnant; Silver (center) - Pygmy doe; Mad Hatter in the corner

Snickers - Alpine/Nubian mix doe with her babies, Sterling (front) buck & Fiona (middle) doe.  The lady we got her from said she was in with a Pygmy buck as well as an Alpine buck and she didn't know which one got her pregnant.  We're thinking they both did!  Sterling is much tinier that his sister and his face is different.  We're hoping he is a Pygmy mix so we can breed him with our Pygmy doe, Silver.

Oreo again with Heinz .  She's almost 10 months old now!

I need to get updated pictures of Stripies and our other doe, Alice.  Right now all the goats are on an acre with electric fence surrounding it.  We've only had a couple of escapes, mostly because the smaller ones went under it following the ducks!  We're working on getting our whole perimeter fenced with 5 ft wove wire with 2 stands of electric, it's a LOT of work!

Time flies, right!?!

Well, so much for posting all the time!  So much has happened since March, so lets play catch up, the summarized version.

We left Las Vegas May 16th and arrived at the farm in Kentucky May 19th around midnight.  We spent the next week in a hotel because super tiny rural farming areas take their time turning on power & water.  The phone & internet took almost 3 weeks after the 4 days of waiting on power/water.

We've been working around the clock to get things in order, fixed up & cleaned up.  The main house needed plumbing repairs in the bathroom and kitchen as well as new insulation on the pipes under the house.

We had part of the hill in front of the barn dozed/flattened and put a trailer on it.

We had the upper pond drained, mucked out & widened and the dam rebuilt.  Its fed by a spring, so we haven't had to wait on rain.

We've fenced off the hills behind the barn for the goats, which we now have 11 of.  The original 2 we came out with are doing so much better than they ever did in Vegas!

We bought a horse, his name is Fury, but everyone calls him Buck.  Still trying to learn the story behind that.

Our neighbor down the road bush-hogged our front field; the grass was about 3 feet tall, maybe more.

The neighbor on the hill behind us plowed a plot for a garden.  We got that tilled and broke the sod chunks out best we could and got to planting.  We've gotten tons of tomatoes, potatoes, beets, zucchini, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, honey dew and the pumpkins are growing like crazy!  A couple of weeks ago we planted lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, basil and cabbages.

We bought chickens, ducks, turkeys, guineas and rabbits.  We've built hutches and cages.  Then we built 8ft x 8ft chicken wire enclosed raised cage/rooms for the turkeys, they grew fast!

For our anniversary, July 1st, we bought 2 great pyrenees puppies, both boys.  Their names are Sledge (right) & Hammer (left).  Cute huh!  We've been working with them in the chicken/goat/horse area.  They are almost ready to start staying in the yard with all of them.

We bought 5 hogs.  Have them put up and have been feeding them corn, getting them ready for butcher in October/November.


And lastly, we bought 2 jersey milk cows, one in her 2nd phase of pregnancy, both in milk and healthy.


We've gone fishing a few times, lots of hunting too!  The laws for hunting on your land are interesting.


We started our 2nd year of homeschooling August 10th.  We've studied the Civil War, canning/preserving, gardening, animal husbandry, breeding rabbits, studying the animal tracks that we find behind the house in the morning, identifying the plants and trees.  We've made jelly out of Queen Anne's Lace, which everyone around here calls chigger weed.  We've gone walnut & acorn picking, then did rubbings of the leaves.  Also lots on dinosaurs, because those are a huge favorite here!  Oh! and the caterpillars, they absolutely fascinate Tyler.  They spin these huge web looking cocoons that hang in the trees.


Oh!  And we had a baby deer adopt us, so we've been bottle feeding her since June.

I'm promising that we'll be updating frequently!  There is so much to share and in detail!  We're working hard on becoming self-sufficient and want to share our journey as so many others have that inspired and helped us along the way!

Moving forward & other changes

I'm trying really hard to remember to blog about all the stuff I'm thinking about blogging about!!  I get so distracted so easily and then next thing I know, its 2 weeks later and no blog posts.

So, first major change.  We are moving to Kentucky, to an old tobacco farm (I'll post more in detail soon).  Finally leaving Las Vegas, NV!!!  I've been waiting for this day for 14 years.  My plan is to keep track of all of this change, the move, getting the farm set up and running all the while homeschooling.

Which is the second major change.  I pulled the boy out of school.  I've had enough.  Schools in Las Vegas are some of the shittiest, and because they pay so little, they get the crappiest don't-give-a-shit teachers.  My son is 15 for those wondering, he has been in self-contained special ed since 4th grade (after 4 years of fighting to get him in regular special ed).  He has been on an IEP and doing awesome.  Until high school.  So after getting yet another progress report of him failing, I drove over to the school and pulled him out.  Best decision EVER!!!

Lets see, the baby goats are now 3 weeks & 5 weeks old.  Still getting a bottle twice a day.  Our duck is sleeping with them in their house.  That makes me smile.  BIG HUGE SMILES!!