A berry exciting month!

I haven't made elderberry jam in years, so it was a real thrill to see two bushes sprout dozens of flowered sprays this Spring. Every few days throughout July, I would wander past the barns and down the tractor path to check on the bushes. The climbing evening nightshade was growing faster than I could pull it out, but somehow I managed to keep it away from the elderberries.



While waiting for the elderberries to ripen, I kept finding patches of black raspberries hidden among the burdocks, teasels and Queen Anne's lace. The raspberry bushes bore fruit for weeks, which meant that I had thorn scratches on my arms and legs in various stages of healing. But it has all been worth it! After lightly rinsing each morning's gathering of the berries, they were placed single-layer on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer. As soon as they were nicely frozen, I packed them in a freezer ziploc bag.

I used the same method with the elderberries, freezing them while still on the stem, on cookie sheets in the freezer. It was so much easier to remove the berries from those pesky stems and disposable plastic gloves kept my hands nice and clean. Once again, I decided to freeze the gathered berries in small ziploc bags until I had enough to juice them for jam.


As I did more and more research on elderberries, I discovered that this amazing little berry is good for more than just my favorite jam. It's a favorite among home wine makers. Elderberries are very high in Vit. C and I found a lozenge recipe that will be fun to try with the remaining juice. A tablespoon of elderberry syrup every day will be a terrific winter tonic, besides being a delicious syrup for french toast, pancakes, over ice cream or added to homemade frosting for a unique twist on cakes and cupcakes.

Since the elderberries yielded many pints of jam and apple season is still ahead of me, I decided to take a different route with the black raspberries. First up, a raspberry liqueur. The jar is filled with the black raspberries and the vodka is poured in. This will remain in a cool, dark place for 2 months. Then there will be several strainings of the mixture through cheesecloth and a simple syrup of water, sugar and lemon zest is made and added. The mixture will then be matured for another month. Voila! Just in time for the holidays!


I made two raspberry vinegars, one with white vinegar, lemon peel, thyme and peppercorns; the other with an equal mixture of balsamic vinegar and Italian red wine vinegar. Both will age in a cool, dark place for at least one month and then strained and bottled.

It's going to be a berry wonderful winter, made better if I can get back to making goat milk cheeses.

Goatology 101

If you want to buy a few dairy goats, I hope you don't get them the way I got mine. "Happy birthday!", he said, as I stood speechless, looking at the two black & white full-grown females in the back of his truck. "Oh, and one of them has to be milked..."

It didn't seem to matter that we didn't have a barn for these animals. "That's okay," he replies. "Ralph says we can just tie them up to concrete blocks and leave them in the back yard." Uh-huh. You mean, like coyote bait?

But I've only seen one goat in my entire life and that was a poor old buck tied up at a local farm stand. Milk a goat? Oh boy...

So while he set about throwing up a temporary shelter for Hillary and Hattie, I tried to make Hattie stand still while I figured out how get her milked out. It wasn't much fun. Turns out she had been a field goat and had never been milked. She kicked and stamped and bounced around until we both ended up with milk all over our hind quarters. But I did it. Yes I did! I milked my first goat! Huh? I have to do it again in 12 hours? Every day? For how long? Oh boy...

Lesson learned and advice to others:
Threaten (with life and limb!) any spouse who even thinks it might be a cute idea to buy you a farm animal as a present, without doing some planning. Planning is defined as (1) FOOD, (2) SHELTER, and, oh, maybe something like a (3) BOOK on how to take care of said farm animal.

Somehow we all survived. They endeared themselves to me, despite their very different personalities. Hillary had been a pet and thought her future was always going to be a frisky, carefree debutante. Hattie the field goat figured that the trade-off to being pastured and delivering her babies on her own wasn't too bad considering that no one was herding her around and telling her what to do. It was a three-way battle of the wills, but in the end, they acquiesced and allowed me to be the Queen.

I'm one of those people who doesn't like to not know something that I should know. It wasn't all that easy, back in 1993, to get access to information about goats. No books at the library. No internet. I called and wrote the folks at Cornell. I talked to farmers. I met alot of people who "used to have goats". The advice (and warnings!) I received told me that this whole idea of keeping and raising goats was going to require more than just a passing interest. But what the hay...I didn't have much to do. Renovating an 1850 farmhouse on 40 neglected acres, that's all. Scrambling to get it finished before winter set in, that's all. Filling the pantry with home-canned goodies, that's all.

Take it from me: raising goats isn't an impossible task, but it is difficult if you don't take the steps to prepare for their arrival and long-term care. You can do it the way I did and still fall in love with goats. Yes, they're that wonderful of an animal and worth every moment spent on them and with them.

New beginnings

It's been just a few days more than a year since we sold the farm and the goats and my husband and I separated.

I'm still in farm country , but making the adjustment to life without goats is every bit as difficult as I expected it to be. I miss caring for them, milking them, playing with them. My passion for All Things Goats is as strong as ever. This blog is my online journal to share what I have learned about these wonderful animals and their milk. Maybe, just maybe, goats will find their way back into my life and my heart again.