Today's haul

Six, count 'em, six rainbow trout hauled in by me and my boy while his Daddy kept bait on the line. It's only the second time Devon has ever been fishing and he did great, catching three of them himself.

Name-change coming...

As soon as I get word back from ADGA (American Dairy Goat Association) and AGS (American Goat Society), I will be changing the name of this blog. I have a few herdnames that I've picked out, so we'll see which one gets the thumbs-up.

I read through a couple of my old posts and remember writing that I didn't particularly want or need registered goats. I guess I'll explain why I ended up going with registered instead of grade or mixed-breed. The basic reason was milk production. The two breeds I was considering were LaMacha and Nigerian Dwarf. Reality is we have under an acre and a half, so the smaller option was the better one. The problem...lots of folks breed Nigerians just for pets. If you can't be sure how well a doe's dam milked, then you cannot begin to guess how well she will milk. Lots of grade and mixed-breed standard goats milk well, but I didn't want to take a chance with a grade Nigerian. I would really love to have a mini-Mancha one day though...

Damping Off Prevention

Damping-off: 2 Me: 16

The casualties: 1 giant grey-stripe sunflower seedling, 1 borage seedling.

But the battle's not over yet. I had to do some research tonight on 'natural' prevention and have three methods I'm going to try.

1. Lightly sprinkle cinnamon on soil, only needs to be done once. Done.
2. Water with chamomile tea at 2x normal drinking strenth. Brewing now.
3. One cup hydrogen peroxide to one gallon of water. Tomorrow's project.

If I have to, I may give in and buy something made to prevent damping off. I would rather not spray my little seedlings with chemicals but if it means no seedlings at all...

The Bread Trials

Bread is another area that continues to show me up. I have never baked one of those mouth-wateringly fluffy loaves that so many others seem to have no problems producing. I carefully weigh and take temperatures each time...but still, no success. It's disheartening to put all day into making something that no one wants to eat in the end, so I gave up for a while. Now that we have pounds and pounds of wheat, I decided to give it another shot...and had another flop. This particular loaf was more like a wheat brick. At least the hens enjoy eating my mistakes.

Sprouts

The seedlings are coming up nicely now and seem to be doing ok - though the damping-off fungus is just itching to raise it's ugly head. I have to leave the cover off the tray, and water next to the seedlings or the ugly white hairs start creeping over them. So far, I believe I may have lost one borage seedling. It has yet to poke through the soil, and white hairs are criss-crossing over the soil where we planted it. The other borage seedlings have all sprouted, along with a few sunflowers, one of the nasturtiums, and a few more tomatoes. They are currently in a very sunny window, but we're going to rig up a real light for them this weekend. Hopefully my other seeds will get here soon, I'm really looking forward to starting the strawberries!

Seed-starting

I am really terrible at it! For three years now I've started seeds and to date I've lost nearly all of my seedlings to damping-off. I planted seeds a few days back. The borage seeds are just starting to sprout and already I can see the thin white hairs that indicate damping-off. I have the seedling tray sitting in on the sill of an open window. I put a few drops of garlic water on the hairs themselves to try to curb the growth until the soil dries out enough to kill the fungus. At least I have plenty of seeds year - guess I'll just continue to practice until I finally get it right.

Sign of Spring

Our apple tree is going gangbusters with the blossoms this year! I probably will not let it produce at the rate it wants to (average 15-20 blooms per branch tip!), but wish I could! It's nice to see that the tree seems to approve of the care it is receiving. What is telling is that I haven't seen a single honey bee around the flowers...After our new trees get settled in and start blooming we will be starting up a little hive of our own.