Wow, where is the summer going? Still no goats, because every weekend, I realize another week has passed with out me getting anything fenced. Number one, I hate fencing. I know this because of the few fencing experiences of my childhood. Number two, it isn't as if I can just go to the store and buy sheep panels. Because, you know, expensive. And number three, there is always something else to do.

I am happy to report that since my last post, all sixteen chicks are alive, ravenous, and healthy. Even Mr. floppy neck.
I am not sure if it was due to my duct tape fix on his neck (I cut a strip of duct tape, stuck a rolled up shred of paper towel to the sticky side, and wrapped it around it's neck for a makeshift neck brace- it was so heavy it made him tip forward onto his face, but it also may have convinced him to hold his head up) or maybe it was just nature, but the little guy is just one of 16 happy chickies now. They are getting so big, too. I introduced one of them to Andy in a controlled environment yesterday, just to try to get it into his head that chicks are not snacks. Unfortunately, I told him to sit before I showed it to him, without thinking that I was presenting it like a post-trick treat. We humans are so obtuse sometimes. And then we wonder why our puppy opens his mouth for the fragile bird in our hands as if it were a milk bone. We humans just take it for granted that some things are meant to be enjoyed in a non-consumption sort of way. But he soon got the message, and soon was watching the chick's every move, drooling and smacking his lips, but not attempting a taste. So that was good.

We have covered the second half of this blog's name, the manure half. The complicated relationship we have with the area's factory farms, the way we bridge the gap between factory farms and organic growers. The way we make our living from poop from factory farms in order to fund our dream, a small farm that "does it right". But now I am finally getting to experience the other half- mulberries.

Mulberries are one of about three edible fruits that grow wild out here. Mulberries, small, mild berries that grow on trees and look a little like miniature blackberries, turn bird's poop purple in the summer. Sand plums are small fruits with very bitter skin and a tiny blanket of plum-like meat around a large pit. And chokecherries are extremely bitter cherry-like fruits that leave a furry film in one's mouth, kinda like an unripe persimmon. And that is about it. Of the three, mulberries are the most common, and lucky me, on my farm I have four mulberry trees and a hedge of sand plum bushes.

Not on my actual yard, granted. That would be too easy. But out in the pasture around the area where a baseball diamond once stood, a homemade backstop welded together by my grandpa, plates made from old disks pulled from his disking implement after they became too worn to cut the soil anymore, holes welded shut so nobody would accidentally stick a finger into one and break it while sliding into third, benches also welded together in his shop...shaded by tall cottonwoods and twisted mulberry trees. The cottonwoods have since died, and a neighbor begged for the backstop until we "borrowed" it to him for his own backyard softball games. So now the only enjoyment derived from the area belongs to the neighbor's cows and horses, and my rediscovering the mulberry trees. I do not really know what I am going to do with them yet. But I do know that they are a wild fruit, native to the area, and as such, I had better not let them all go to waste. I am obligated to do something with them. I need to take a couple of buckets out there and see how many I can find.

And the sand plums are six miles away on a tumbledown farmstead that sits on the corner of one of Grandpa's fields. The ground has been rented to another farmer in the area, but I still have access to the sand plums and am crossing my fingers for a good harvest. Sand plums make the most wonderful jelly, rosy pink and tasting of sun and warmth. I want to find a slightly healthier use for them. Like frozen and in smoothies.

I am pretty serious about one day being totally self sufficient, and the one thing that I would really miss about supermarkets is fruit. I love fruit. Life without fruit would be sad for me. Maybe mulberries and sand plums can be my fruit. several classes I have taken lately in my nutrition school have been about the importance of eating seasonally and locally, simply because nature provides us with what we most need when we most need it. So I have been considering the implications of this, eating as our ancestors did, warm, heavy grains and meats in the winter, milk and eggs if the chickens are laying and the goats are not pregnant, lots of greens in the spring, as well as whatever meat we need, berries and an explosion of garden produce in the summer and fall. I would like to see if it could be done, a total dependence on my farm and my farm alone for our diet, with the exception of grains from my local mill, organically grown by neighbors. Yes, I would even consider returning to my old omnivorous ways if the meat was sourced by me. At least as much as I needed to to survive the winter.

The problem with this idea of 100% local is oils, salt, and fermented products like vinegar, which I am sure I could make but have no idea how. Salt is a no go. Oils, other than animal fats, I do not know. I don't know if life without olive oil would be worth living. I have discovered how to get the oil out of dried coconut, so oils in a tropical climate would be as easy as cracking, shredding and drying coconut, heating water and using a blender and a strainer. But news flash, coconuts do not grow here.

Here is a menu that, once I get goats for cheese and butter, I will be able to make using about 98% local ingredients, the only non local ingredients being the vinegar and/or lemon juice. Rhe flour comes from my local mill, a mill that my dad was hired to design and build from the ground up. Which he did like the mechanical savant he is- two entire milling areas filled with one of a kind apparatuses- uniquely designed sifters, shakers, grinders, sorters, all taking shape under his welding wand, at the tip of his torch, in his lathe. However, I fear the kind of flour this recipe needs to turn out the best is an extremely high protein kind, milled from the high protein wheat grown in the Dakotas and shipped down here. Yes, even my all local recipe may be a lie.

Tortellini

Noodles:
2 eggs
A generous shake of dried basil
1 cup Durum Patent Flour (http://heartlandmill.com/)
Water

Ricotta:
one gallon whole milk- goat or cow, whatever you happen to be milking
3/4 cup vinegar or lemon juice or a mixture of the two
Bring milk to almost boiling, dump vinegar/lemon juice in, turn off heat and let sit to curdle. Strain curdles out and work with fingers to make smooth. Rinse with cold water to get rid of strong vinegar taste. Add whatever flavors you want: sun dried tomatoes, fresh basil, Parmesan cheese, chopped mushrooms, etc)

Butter sauce:
Three tablespoons butter
1/2 yellow onion, sliced
1 small clove garlic, crushed/pressed
4 fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces
2 thyme leaves, torn down to small pieces

Tomato sauce:
One or two pureed tomatoes, skins on
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon dried basil
1/2 diced onion
1/2 diced green or red bell pepper (I like to dice, then lay skin side up on a cookie sheet under the broiler for a few minutes to slightly blacken and give it a roasted pepper flavor)
Put in a pan, cook down to a thick sauce

Kneed noodles and add water until lump resembles biscuit dough, coat dough ball with flour, and roll out to thin sheet (light should be visible through it but not so thin it will tear when being shaped). Brush with water, cut into three inch squares. Place small ball of ricotta in the middle, pinch shut and seal, loop around finger to form "pot sticker" shape. Boil until puffed and starting to float, take out and finish in a skillet in butter with fresh basil leaves, crushed garlic, and sliced onions. Toss Lightly in tomato sauce. Serve immediately- they lose their heat quickly.

Serve with spinach salad- Spinach, roasted sunflower seeds, mulberries or sliced strawberries, soft goat cheeses. I have yet to come up with any ideas for local salad dressing, with my lack of oil and vinegar options.

And now, enough dreaming. I must go out and resume working on my goat-proof fence. I say this ironically. Anyone who has had goats knows there is no such thing. But I try. I spent all day yesterday trying to think like a goat, analyzing my fence for weak spots that the goats will be more than happy to exploit. I should be getting them next week. To start, my neighbor is bring over an undisclosed number of mamas who have been nursing. The babies will stay at her place, and thus will become weaned, and I will continue with milking at least one of the mamas until the neighbor takes them back later this summer to put them in with a billy to breed them. I will have a dry spell through this winter as they are pregnant, relying on frozen milk if i need milk, then plan to start my herd by buying several of their kids. Until the kids are big enough to be bred, I will still have to rely on the kindness of the neighbor lending me her goats to keep my corrals grazed down.

My big project of the day is going to the barn and devising a plan to keep the barn open to both chickens and goats to come in and cool off n the heat of the day, but a way to keep the goats out of the chicken's feed. This may involve a bit of sawing, and probably building a door with a small opening in it, large enough for cats and chickens, but too small for goats. And I need to clean out the barn one of these days. I hate that the barn was used to store seed corn and chemicals in, and there is no way the fungicides, herbicides and pesticides did not leak into the dirt and concrete floor. I dream of the day when all the family's stuff, a truck that will never again run but is a family heirloom and therefore cannot be parked outside, boat that may or may not run, antique tractor and planter, can find other homes and the barn can again be used in the capacity for which it was intended- a luxurious home for four legged friends. And two legged ones, of course. Can't forget the chickens.

So until later, folks. It past time to get out of this house. A small, gangly German Shepherd and a freshly shaved down Golden Retriever are napping under my feet, emitting odors that speak of too many apricots yesterday and make the fresh air outside seem more appealing by the minute. My uncle and aunt visited and brought several bags of apricots from their trees in Atchison, KS, a rare treat. The dogs may have actually been more excited about the overripe, wormy ones than the chickens. But by today, whe-heew. It is time to cut them off. I am not sure how to do this, since they have been snacking on the compost pile in between snacking on chicken poop and poop from the 30 cow/calf pairs that now roam our pasture, courtesy of the neighbor who rents our grass until we are ready to put it to use. On second thought, I really have no idea what is causing the air to turn foul around the napping puppies. It is easier to ask what they have not been eating than what they have been.