Farming is a profession of hope

Farming is the profession of hope...

Right now I have hope for goats.

My beloved goat is sick with pneumonia. Her name is Imp and I haven't had her for very long so this is certainly a heartbreaking turn of events.  It seemed to happen almost overnight, Saturday I milked her and we had a grand ol' time singing milking songs and spending some quality time together.  Sunday morning I gathered my milking supplies and stepped out of the house calling my usual greeting "Good morning Imp!".  As I neared the milking stall I noticed that she did not look her usual chipper self,  she was out of breath and seemed to be hiding under her milking stand.  I went in to see her and she just layed down in front of me.  I was terrified, I dropped my milking supplies and headed back to the house to call for Ken to come help in a panic.  This is my first goat related health issue and I sure wasn't ready for it yet! (Are you ever ready?!)

We whipped up a mixture of warm water, molasses and vitamin A,E,D fluids, grabbed an oral syringe and headed back out for my first solo mission in drenching (Imp, as it turns out, is a model patient).  I called the closest vet in Steinbach and asked if they could come out and see her as well as take care of all the worming and vaccinations for the other three. On Tuesday morning Dr. Olsen painted a rather grim picture of the likely outcome of a respiratory illness this advanced.  Even though the illness seemed to come out of nowhere she must have been hiding it for awhile before it became too much to bare. She prescribed daily injections of penicillin and left with a word of warning that she may be too far gone.  

Tears in eyes and needles in hand I decided I was going to do everything I could.  Imp and I would not go down without a fight.  Digging into my herbal books and scouring the internet I came up with a formula for respiratory ailments, I've dubbed it 'Imp Saver'.

So as a compliment to the penicillin shots I have been giving the following herbal infusion twice daily. 6 x 35cc in the morning and again at night.

In a 1L Mason jar overnight I infused equal parts of Peppermint leaves (Mentha Piperita), Hyssop leaves and flowers (Hyssopus Officinalis), Echinacea powder (Echinacea Angustifolia), Pau d'arco (Tabebuia avellanedae), Slippery Elm Powder (Ulmus Fulva).
We are on day 5 of this regiment and she seems to be responding quite well, she is showing a lot more interest in food and water, as my dad says "oats are an important part of goats!"  She is a little more feisty and her breathing seems to have calmed down a bit although she still seems to be breathing slightly heavier than usual.  Today is the last shot of penicillin and I will continue on with the infusions for awhile and start including into it some fennel seeds to try to help boost her milk back up again.

Earlier this week I was feeling very down and I didn't have much hope, but now I have hope for goats!

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If the farmer's lying under the table, the food wasn't really fresh!

A fresh egg is a beautiful thing.
The yolks are plump and will rise up out of the whites like a glorious colourful sunrise triumphantly rising up over a gelatinous translucent sea.

There is no comparison in store bought eggs. 

Store bought eggs are like the beginning, black and white part of the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy falls off the fence into the pig pen, fresh eggs on the other hand, are like technicolour magic.

I was so shocked the first time I broke open a fresh egg from our hens, all my life I grew up with store bought eggs with  flat, dull, greyish yolks.  Bright yellow/orange scrambled eggs took a little getting used to.

I like to think of the the yolks of the eggs as a big indication of the life lived by the hens.  Plump, sunny yolks come from happy and healthy hens who live a life full of fresh air, sunshine, rolling in dirt, chasing frogs, skipping down the yellow brick road and eating bugs...so what does that mean for hens who lay flat, greyish yolks? I imagine it's something along the lines of slaving away at a un-fulfilling job in a cubicle farm only to be replaced by a younger employee to increase production, only instead of just replacing you, they chop your head off.

Another thing that your egg yolks will tell you (she's listening to eggs, man)  is how old they are.  Think about what an egg goes through before it ends up in your food? A store bought egg must be processed and packed, shipped to distribution centres, distributed to stores, sit on the shelf waiting to be purchased and then sit on the shelf at your house waiting to be eaten. Some eggs can be upwards of a couple months old before you ever use them.  Mother Earth news did an article about the storage of eggs and found that some eggs kept for up to 7 months.  They have an incredibly long shelf life, contained in their perfect little calcium "containers". That does not mean that you can toss your eggs into the fridge or pantry and forget about them for over a half a year and expect that they will be perfectly fresh when you decide to make an omelette. (For omelette making instructions please refer to This video, make sure you have plenty of wine and someone to help if your "cheese is trapped")

But Leiah?! you say...how do I know if my eggs are fresh?!

Well let me share with you the magical secret of the following simple float test to determine the freshness of your eggs:

SCIENCE!

All eggs have a small air sac in them, the older the egg is the larger the air sac becomes.  A fresh egg will sink when submerged in water and an old egg will float.

How to do it:
Fill your sink with cool water and carefully lower your eggs in.
A fresh egg will immediately sink to the bottom and lay on its side.
An egg that sinks to the bottom but tips up onto its end is still good enough to eat.*
An egg that does not touch the bottom but instead floats either under the surface or pops up to the top of the water should be discarded and not eaten.

*fun fact: older hard boiled eggs peel easier than fresh hard boiled eggs, so save your older eggs for making egg salad sandwiches!

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