Welcome JoJo!

We were rather anxious this past Wednesday morning because we knew our Jersey cow "Jilly" (who we cross-bred with our Highland bull "Gunner") was due to have a calf at any time. TA DA! A ball of slightly damp fuzziness was parked in a bunch of hay and mom was cleaning up. The fuzziness has thus far served it well because it was a cold and windy day when "JoJo" was born.



This is JoJo in mid-baby moo!

We were very concerned that it was too windy in the open pasture where Jilly gave birth so we prepared a stall in the barn with plenty of straw for bedding and hay and water for Jilly and proceeded to "coax" this cow down the driveway to the barn. Easier said than done! My husband picked up this shivery, leggy fuzz ball and held her as I drove us slowly in the mule, hoping that Jilly would follow her calf.

Jilly had other plans. After getting her through the gate, Jilly decided that she had found grass nirvana and wouldn't budge while JoJo baby moo'd and pooped on my husband's coat. After 15 minutes of trying to get Jilly to follow, we took the baby down to the barn, settled her in the hay and drove back up to get Jilly to move along. Once she rounded the corner of the house and saw the other cows, she remembered being down there before and headed straight into the barn where she found her calf in the warm straw and plenty of fresh hay to munch.

This morning I had a feeling that JoJo wasn't nursing--she seemed too hungry and a bit too bony. She needed the fat in her mama's milk to bulk her up and keep her warm as her fuzzy coat won't do the job alone. We got out the old stand by calf bottle, prepped milk replacer and tried to get her to suckle first with my finger and then with the nipple. She didn't seem to know how to suckle and I also think something is off with her lower jaw so this had me very concerned. Thank goodness my husband grew up on a dairy farm...he poured some of the milk replacer in a bowl and JoJo started to drink it! Yes!!! He said we may have to milk Jilly and feed JoJo from a pail.

However, this little exercise in "hey, this is what I've been missing" with JoJo seemed to get her appetite rev'd up because she got up and started to actively search for mom's teats. We were the quietest cheerleaders on earth with all our encouraging words spoken in whispers as if JoJo were able to process any of the instructions! "No JoJo, go to the left", "don't let go of the teat", "that's mama's leg, not the udder, keep searching", "now hang on and suck and you'll get the good stuff". Maybe it helped, maybe it didn't, but when we headed back to the house JoJo seemed to have finally figured it out. Whew!

Christmas Came Early Along With My New Addiction! Shetlands Have Arrived!

Lacey on the left, Lensey on the right. Aren't they beautiful?!

Monday morning my two Shetland sheep arrived from their previous home near St. Louis at Wild Flower Farm (www.wild-flower-farm.com/shetland-sheep/). These lovely ladies are more petite than I remember (we saw them back in March) but definitely as pretty and fluffy! They are twins, so I am hoping that when we breed them next year we'll get sets of twins. Their names are Lacey and Lensey. 

There are a whole host of different colors AND patterns for the Shetland sheep. And although they are twins, Lacey has a lot of shaela (pronounced "Shay-la") in her coat, which is a beautiful dark grey color and looks as though the hair has a coating of frost on it or as though steel wool is growing out of the color. Lensey has, thus far, Shetland Black. You can see more colors here at this site: http://www.shetlandsheepinfo.com/FLEECE/colours.htm . Their dark faces with their pretty light amber eyes make them look that much more striking.

I can tell you that they do not take ANY gruff from the dogs--they literally walked Grizzie (our 13 month old Anatolian Shepherd) backward and he's twice their size (and nearly as fluffy)! They put their pretty heads down and stare with their eyes and the big guy turned around and ran! He is used to his other sheep, Penelope and Petunia, who follow him like puppies and snuggle up to him in a pile of hay or their shelter. Lacey and Lensey are proper ladies and they do NOT lay down with the dogs. Haha! They have, however, gently touched noses with our new Anatolian, Fiona (8 months old). The meeting was brief but thankfully uneventful.

Why Shetlands? Outside of their fiber being soft, easy to work with, and coming in so many beautifully natural colors to spin and weave and knit and crochet...they are flat out the cutest critters! I've always wanted to learn to spin and weave and now I have the start of my own source of wonderful fiber for that very purpose!

I've already warned my husband that I'll have to have a few more. He just grinned at me and said "yeah, I know." Don't ya love it when Christmas comes a little early?! Merry Christmas everyone!

The Blessings of Baking

If there is any skill one should absolutely positively cultivate is that of baking bread. I know, I know, everyone is so busy running hither and yon--it is so much easier to pull a loaf of plastic wrapped Styrofoam off a grocery store shelf than to go through the drudgery of baking. Baking bread takes so much time, blahblahblah...NOT! 

Even when I lived "in town", I made time for baking bread. I'm not saying I was a baking saint and that I baked bread (or cakes, cookies, pies...) religiously every weekend because I didn't. Yeah, I was busy and yeah, it seemed like a hassle at times. However, there is truly no substitute for homemade bread and the satisfaction of knowing exactly what is IN the bread makes it worth the time and effort. What about bread machines? Well, I know busy folks who use bread machines and it just isn't the same. Dumping pre-mixed "stuff" and water into a machine and pushing a button, in my mind, doesn't count as homemade bread; you must put your hands on the dough and squish it at least a few times, you must breathe in the scent of the yeast as it is working, your mouth must water in anticipation of tasting the warm bread.

I found a fabulous bread recipe from Mary Goldman's A Passion for Baking (which, btw, I don't have in my cookbook library...this is a not so subtle, Christmas-is-coming hint to my family!). Additionally, she has a website, which I am so pleased to be able to pass on to you: http://www.betterbaking.com/.  You cannot go wrong with Ms. Goldman's recipes, so please check out the site as well as her book from your local library.

Ms. Goldman's primary recipe uses bread flour, but yesterday I took home baker's license and substituted several cups of bread flour for stone ground whole wheat. I do use a mixer with a bread hook for the initial mixing/kneading aspect, but after the first rise, I divide the dough and beat it up some more by hand. I don't do anything fancy with the loaves other than lightly roll them and tuck the ends under so they fit into the pans.

I also spritzed water on the inside of my oven every couple of minutes for the first eight minutes or so of baking. I do this when baking French bread (along with the use of ice cubes) and this technique makes the crust truly crispy-wonderful. Although the whole

loaf wasn't exposed to the added humidity, I think it made the top crust super.

Voila! Two of the most perfect loaves of whole wheat bread I have ever baked! And they taste fabulous...want some?! Come on over!