Today, I'll follow up on the basics of getting started with gardening with an intro to seed-starting indoors ahead of planting in the garden when the weather warms. But before we get to that, more homestead updates are in order. I'll be talking about our beautiful livestock guardian dogs for the most part. There is so much to share about these fantastic dogs.

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I appreciate you all so much. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now, on to homestead updates.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

I have a bit of cow news that I'll add at the end. Let's talk about the dogs.

Our Livestock Guardian Dogs

We have added two new wonderful dogs to our homestead. I can't tell you how ecstatic I am about these beasties, Finnigan (Finn for short) and Charlotte. We purchased them from a fellow vendor at the market who is scaling down and exiting their business. They were guarding chickens and turkeys. We don't have these kinds of birds yet but we will at some point. It's nice to know that we have dogs that have at least some experience with poultry. It can be hard for livestock guardian dogs to learn how to guard and not chase and chew on poultry.

Finn is ½ Great Pyrenees and ½ Anatolian Shepherd. He is a big baby. Loves to have his tummy rubbed. Follows us everywhere. We have had these guys since mid-October so they are still learning about us and the sheep.

They are kept exclusively with the sheep. At first, we had to hold Finn in a fenced area next to the sheep because he was chasing them all over the place. He has since proven he can be trusted to not run them to death and now resides with them and Charlotte. I have not seen much evidence that the dogs have bonded with the sheep. That will come in time. Right now, they are learning to love us and we definitely love them.

Charlotte

Charlotte is a Great Pyrenees. She is the most beautiful dog I have ever seen. Well maybe I'm biased. For whatever reason, she is very shy of humans. At first, I thought she had been mistreated. Lately though, I'm thinking she was not socialized to humans at an early age. She just has an innate mistrust of humans. She is not aggressive or anything. It's just that we cannot walk up to her and pet her.

The first time I was able to pet her was when the vet was here for a general exam and heart worm tests. While the vet was working on Finn, Charlotte came over next to me and was kind of hiding behind me. I was able to pet her and hug her. Alas, it was only for the moment when she thought she needed protection and Finn was not only unavailable, but may have needed protection himself, in her mind.

Getting to Know Each Other

From the beginning, she would come up and quickly take a biscuit from my hand as long as I had Finn between us. I reached over his back and she would take the biscuit and run off to chomp on it. A few days ago, she started coming up without Finn between us. I still can't just walk up to her but she has improved greatly in just a couple of months. Yesterday I was able to pet her and give her some love. She is tied on a lead at the moment and allowed me to walk up to her fairly easily. It is so satisfying to finally be able to love on her. For weeks and weeks, she held back and just watched Finn get petted and babied and loved. Now she is getting some of that.

She is scheduled to be spayed next week. We don't like having her tied up, but she has escaped twice in the past couple of weeks. The Great Pyrenees breed is harder to contain than goats. Who knew? Well, I knew there was an issue with roaming with this breed. However, I had no idea they were so successful as escape artists. We have been so concerned that she will escape and get pregnant. I'll be so glad when this escape artist is safe from pregnancy.

Finnigan (Finn)

Now let's talk about Finn. That's short for Finnigan. He is such a sweetie – as long as you are not the veterinarian. He does not like the vet. Yesterday, he showed her his teeth and growled relentlessly. Even with me standing there assuring him it was okay, he was in full protect mode. She is a brave vet and also quite familiar with working with livestock guardian dogs that are aggressive with her. We were able to get their vaccines done without much incident. I just had to be very careful to have him contained and tied before she approached. A quick stick in the rear and it was done.

Normally, we can introduce him to new people and he is fine with them. Though trusting him with someone new without us being very close is never allowed. He is very protective of us. And such a big baby when interacting with us. He loves to lay down on the ground belly up, begging for a rub. Brushing and combing him is also something he enjoys.

Escaping

We love both of these animals, but they have been causing us grief when they escape. I mentioned Charlotte escaping. She is the leader in that regard. Once she makes it out, she has shown him the way. For the most part, he is the leader. Only in creating the escape path does she lead.

The first time they escaped, she returned home sometime overnight. Finn was found about 5 or 6 miles away. He was hanging out around a local farmer's barn. After a few hours, the farmer ventured close enough to read his collar. We have a large yellow tag on all of our dogs that has our farm name and phone number plainly displayed. Finn allowed him close and he got our phone number. I was so relived to get that call. He was missing nearly 24 hours. We had Facebook messages posted to our friends.

The local radio station also broadcast it. We know this because the second time they escaped, another local farmer, only a quarter mile away this time, remembered hearing it on the radio and gave us a call. They were only gone for a couple of hours that time and Scott walked them home on a leash. Unfortunately for Charlotte, we were done with worrying ourselves over them. She is secured until her surgery next week.

Mack

We have one other dog, Mack. He is now comfortably bonded with the cows and calves. We started him with the sheep, but he also chased them. Mack is just over 2-years-old and still exhibits puppy behavior from time-to-time. As we knew the other two dogs were coming, we decided to try and get him bonded with the cows and save the intense sheep training for the older dogs – Finn and Charlotte.

He was fairly easy to acclimate with our cows. We started with a few calves from this year and then added the yearlings. Once he got comfortable with all of them, we added the three new heifers I talked about in the last podcast. And finally, all of the big girls were added to the mix. He is very comfortable with his new charges and takes his responsibilities quite seriously. When we are looking for him, we simply find out where the cows are hanging out and he is sure to be close by.

Mack is also a sweetheart and also a loaner. He is very comfortable on his own. Where Finn and Charlotte want more attention, he is fine with seeing us once a day with his food and some petting. He was born and raised with sheep and is used to being completely on his own. The only issue we have with him is his coat mats so easily. At this point, he is matted all over and will likely need some serious trimming in the spring. After consulting with the vet, it looks like he will likely get a spring trim every year. We can comb him out regularly, but he is still going to get mats that will need to be cut out. It's just the nature of his coat. The fine undercoat is very similar to that of our cashmere goats. It is so fine, that rolling it between your fingers makes it instantly matted.

We love him very much and he is definitely worth this extra effort. Let's talk about the sheep.

Sheep

I briefly mentioned the dogs being in with the sheep. Did I mention in a previous podcast that we had replaced some of our sheep? I can't remember. Anyway, we purchased registered stock from a local farmer and now have five breeding ewes, one breeding ram and a whether that will go to market soon.

When the Finn and Charlotte first arrived, they were both in a separate pen next to the sheep. The new sheep, who had been raised around dogs, would lay down just outside their fence. Then we put the dogs in with the sheep and all of that changed. Finn chased them and the veterans who had already been chased multiple times by stray dogs showed the new girls and guy how to hide in the woods. Even after putting Finn back in the separate pen, they pretty much kept their distance from the dogs. That was a small step backward.

Dogs are Okay

In an attempt to get the dogs to attach to the sheep and to get the sheep to overcome their fear of the dogs, we began feeding the sheep a little treat each evening. This seemed to work. Number one, Finn saw that we care for them and does not chase them anymore. The sheep were still very standoffish at first and would watch every move that Finn made. In the evening we let him lose in the field. We would supervise him either on a leash or let him run freely and watch him closely. After a few times of getting their special treats, the sheep no longer warily watched Finn's every move. In fact, they come right up to where he is to get their food. They are jostling around with each other trying to get their head in the feed trough. We feed both the dogs and sheep within a few feet of each other. The sheep have now become so friendly that we can actually touch them a little bit while they eat. Once they are done eating, they still go back to the woods. But they are calm about it and do not stand up with their ears pricked forward listening for the evil beastie. They will calmly lay down and chew their cud.

They are all together now. During the day, I can see both of the dogs sleeping in the field and the sheep wandering around and grazing. The day I am looking for is the one where the sheep let the dogs lay down next to them. I plan on keeping them close where I can watch everything until well after the lambs are born in the spring. That may be a great challenge for the dogs. New animals and blood and afterbirth and so on. Hopefully, they will see the new lambs need to be protected and not eaten. That's a worry for another day. God gives us each day in its turn. Right now, we are happy with how things are progressing.

Creamery

I cannot tell you how many hours and hours of work Scott has put in on material lists. Prices for construction materials are skyrocketing so we are trying to buy all materials now, though it may be months before they are installed. Ceiling panels for the milking parlor are the same material as the roof. Quotes showed now double the price. Scott did get a price break and got it down to perhaps 1 ½ times the price he paid last year. That has been delivered.

Meetings with the power company and propane gas representatives have been accomplished and orders placed for materials. Electrical wiring and conduit and all the bits and pieces for that project have been ordered. I believe Scott is still chasing down some of those parts – again availability is an issue for some things. He might even have gotten the flooring materials ordered. Are you starting to get the picture of how much time he has spent thinking and thinking and calculating and thinking and calculating some more in order to accomplish this monumental task?

The plumbing is going to be contracted out. We shall see what the estimates are for that bit of work. I don't know what his plans are about whether the commercial kitchen will be plumbed and outfitted at this time. We are just ready to get this project completed and to get started selling our cheese to the public. The fifth year of construction just began. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Starting Plants Indoors

Following up on the last podcast where I talked about getting the soil ready and improving it over the years, I want to touch on what it takes to start plants indoors. The goal is to get them large enough and healthy enough to plant out in the garden when the ground temperature has reached the proper level.

The first step is calculating when to start them. Some plants require six weeks of growth and others eight weeks or more. For instance, tomatoes and peppers are on the eight weeks side of that calculation and summer squash and melons hang around closer to the six weeks mark. If want to venture into celery, that may require as many as 12 weeks of indoor growth along with repotting and so on. Perhaps save that for after you have a year or two of success with other plants. I do recommend getting to the point of growing your own celery. It's not commonly grown but it is so good. That tasteless stuff purchased from your local grocery store will fall by the wayside once you know how to grow your own.

To recap, read the descriptions on what you plan to grow. They will clearly state how many weeks ahead of last frost date to start your plants. Last frost date is determined by where you live in the US. It is divided into "zones" with zone one being the farthest north and zone 8 and 9 are way down in Florida. Here in southwestern Virginia, we are in Zone 7A. Just a few miles from us, the elevation is significantly higher and those living up the mountain are firmly in Zone 6. For Zone 7, the last frost date is April 15th. For Zone 6, I believe it is May 1st. Not sure on that as it is not my zone. Look up USDA planting zones to find out where you fall in the schemes of things.

USDA Zones

Once you have your USDA zone identified, you have your first and last frost dates. And let me be clear on this. When they say last and/or first frost dates, what they are referring to is the approximate date when the chance of frost is 50%. You can have a last frost after the official date, which can be devastating to whatever you have already planted outside. Same for first frost date in the fall. You can have plants still out in the garden that you hope to harvest before the first frost comes. It can come earlier than expected and ruin your fall harvest.

Now that you have all of that straight, you will count back from your last frost date the number of weeks recommended to grow your indoor seedlings. I usually transplant my tomatoes out into the garden two weeks after the expected last frost date. That is around the 1st week of May. I count back eight weeks from the first of May and that will be when I want my tomato plants to be started. Check your package instructions. No matter the plant, it is generally clearly stated when is the best time to plant outside and how many weeks to grow the plants indoors prior to transplanting outside. Post on Locals if you have questions.

Seed Starting Mix

Purchase good organic seed starting mix. There are all kinds of bags of potting mix and planting mix and garden soil and so on at your local Big Box stores and even more choices on line. You are looking specifically for "seed starting mix". Jiffy and Miracle Grow are popular organic brands. There are others. Just make sure it is seed starting mix.

Decide how many tomato, pepper, lettuce, squash, etc plants that you plan on growing in your garden. I try to start that many seeds for each item plus 25%. So, if I want four tomato plants, I start five or maybe even six. It's nature. Not all seeds will sprout and some plants may be obviously weak. Strong plants are important. Once you know how many of each plant you intend to start from seed, you will have a better idea of how many containers you need.

Filling Containers

For planting containers, I use the 6-cell seed starting trays. They are about an inch and a half square and about two inches deep. It is beneficial to also have purchased plant trays that hold the 6-cell containers. These all come in standard sizes. The standard tray will hold 12 of the 6-cell containers. That's 72 plants in one tray. There are other sizes of pots you can buy, but this is my choice for starting from seed. Once the seeds have reached a larger size, I transplant them into 2" x 2" containers. Each of the standard sized trays will hold 32 of the 2" x 2" pots. Additionally, you will want those clear plastic covers. Sometimes they come with the tray and sometimes you need to purchase them separately. You will need them.

You have a couple of choices about filling your containers. There is the option to fill each cell with dry mix and add water or another option is to wet the seed starting mix first and fill the cells with damp soil. I'll leave that to you. I like to fill it dry and add water after. In either case, give yourself time to do this right. It takes some time for the seed starting mix to absorb the water. You want it just damp enough to clump together but not soggy. When wetting it ahead of time, don't get in a hurry. Add a good amount of water and wait for it to incorporate fully before adding more. Keep it up until you reach the consistency you desire. If adding water after the fact, I use a two-step method. I wet from the top and then add water to the tray. The dry mix will pull the water up from the bottom. You'll want to get good at adding water to the tray. It is the preferred method of adding water once your plants have sprouted. More on that later.

Planting the Seeds

Once you have the soil in the containers and dampened, you are ready to add the seeds. Many seeds are tiny and it is hard to get just one or two in the cell. Don't worry about it. If you have several that sprout, you can thin them out by pulling the weakest sprouts out and focusing on the strongest for each cell. Tiny seeds can be laid on the surface and then sprinkled with a little dry soil. With a spray-mister you can dampen this additional layer after you have filled all the trays. I plant larger seeds by making an indentation in the seed mix with a pencil or small stick, placing the seed or seeds and gently moving the dampened soil over the seed.

The rule of thumb is that seeds are planted at a depth equal to their diameter. Lettuce seeds are laid on top of the soil. I use the pencil idea for tomatoes and peppers. Cilantro is planted a little deeper as the seed is even larger than the tomato seed. Each seed has just enough energy within it to push above the soil and begin to get sunlight. If a seed is planted too deep, it will run out of energy before reaching the surface. If planted too shallow, its roots may not get a good grip on the soil which makes a weak plant. Planting too deep has always been a bigger problem for me. I can always add soil if a seed sprouts on the surface.

Cover, Wait, then Fertilize

Once you have all of your precious seeds nestled into the potting mix, you will want to cover that tray with the plastic cover. This keeps the moisture high. Now we wait. I've had seeds sprout within days that the package said would take 7 to 10 days. You just never know. Check daily. Some seeds require 2 weeks or more to sprout. Do not give up too early. Once the seeds sprout, take the plastic covers off. You want to let the air circulate. Molds can kill off your seedlings overnight.

Once your seedlings have their first set of real leaves, it's time to fertilize. There is usually a pair of initial leaves that sprout. They are generally roundish. After a day or two, a second set of leave will sprout that are usually shaped differently, more in line with a full-grown leaf of the plant. Look for leaves three and four coming up out of the center. You will see what I mean. To fertilize, I use fish emulsion in a spray mister. My particular mister model has a stream setting. I mix the fish emulsion and spray right at the base of the stem. Just one or two squirts is plenty. This fertilization is important at this stage. Do not leave out this step.

Light and Water

Now you are cooking. Keep lights on your plants 12 to 14 hours. Water about once per week. Don't let the seeding starting mix completely dry out. Don't make it too wet. Remember the mold. I like to water from the bottom as it encourages the roots to reach down for the water. It's also easier than trying to spray-mist those delicate seedlings when they first sprout. It's so easy to just drown them with even the smallest of squirts.

Okay, that will get you started. I'm going to put together a more comprehensive list of materials and such to help with the planning stages as this was more focused on the actual planting. You will find that information at peacefulheartfarm.locals.com.

Final Thoughts

And we are done for this podcast. I still have lots more updates on the homestead to share. I hope you enjoyed the update on the livestock guardian dogs. I never thought I would love dogs so much. But I truly enjoy these wonderful animals. I was so worried I would be a really bad dog owner, not knowing anything about raising dogs. As per our usual, we read a lot, asked lots of questions and found that it was not as hard as I thought. Oh, for sure, there are challenges we are facing, but I feel up to the task. The vet has helped tremendously. I can always ask the expert if I ever have any doubts.

It's not quite time to get started with the garden yet, and I hope this podcast topic is just in time to get you in the mood for the planning parts. We will start around the end of March, perhaps a little earlier. We shall see. It all depends on what I decide on for the garden this year.

I hope you will check out our Locals page. Again, that's peacefulheartfarm.locals.com. You can support us there either financially or just by visiting us and sharing this post on your social media pages.

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Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

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I'm back, finally with a new year, new projects. Hope you are doing well. I hope you had wonderful Christmas and New Year celebrations with your families and friends. It has been four months since I've talked with you all. It takes a great deal of time, energy and money to make this podcast happen. More on how you can support us later in the podcast. For right now I want to say how much I appreciate all of you. I'm putting forth the effort to get back on track and to once again interact with all of you. I've been slacking and you deserve more from me. We've all been lonely and isolated these past two years. I intend to bring a little bit of love and light into each of your lives.

I've always talked about tradition and the value of tradition. From summer 2021 into winter 2022, I've come to appreciate God and our Lord Jesus Christ in a deeper fashion. Probably none of you know that I am Catholic. If you do know that, it will probably not surprise you that I attend the Traditional Latin Mass. It's just another place that tradition permeates my life. I'll continue to talk about traditional homestead living and our traditional raw milk products and artisan cheese. But don't be surprised if you hear more exclamations like glory to God or praise God or praise Jesus. We all need more reminders that we are loved.

Locals

I've started a Locals community. It's a place where we can come together and talk about whatever we want. There is no censorship. Think along the lines of a Facebook Group page. Everyone is posting, commenting and supporting one another. There is no cost to become a member and get access to these podcasts as well as select other content. Pictures of the animals I talk about. Maybe even some short videos.

In order to support me and this podcast, I'm looking for people to become paid subscribers. The biggest advantage you have in becoming a paid subscriber is that because there is a little bit of financial investment, there are no trolls. Should someone be willing to paying the minimal monthly fee only to come in an harass our community, I can remove them. We have complete autonomy within our community. And no one is going to collect your data and sell it for advertising. That's not what Locals is about. In fact, it is designed to free us from that intrusion into our personal lives by technical oligarchs getting rich from our love for each other. I urge you to check it out. Support this podcast by becoming a paid subscriber – or just enjoy the free stuff. That's perfectly fine too.

I'm considering starting a subscription-only group of followers over on the Locals platform for those that are looking for more faith in their daily lives. Whether you have your own homestead, dream of having one or are perfectly satisfied living the suburbs and purchasing food from your local farmer, faith plays a part in all our lives. And definitely let me know if you are interested in participating in religious conversation in an interactive way on the Locals platform. I'm still trying to figure out how the plat form will allow me to separate this content from the rest. Sort of like how to make a playlist for specific content topics.

Again, to support the show, become a paid subscriber. Again, it's not required. However, when I make a post, a paid subscriber (which is $5 per month) can do more than comment. You can make your own post on the topic or post o a topic of your choice to start a conversation. Other paid subscribers can comment on your posts and/or mine. It is a community. Enough of all that. Check it out and let me know what you think. If you have trouble figuring out what you need to do, email me (at email address).

Let's get on with the podcast.

Appreciation for All of You

It has been about four months since I've talked with you all. There is so much that has happened I can't possibly just pick up where I left off last fall and go forward. Nope, I'm just going to start from where we are and go from there. If there is something I've talked about in a previous episode that is still hanging in the air that you need an update on, just let me know in an email. Messaging is also available on Locals for paid subscribers and free on our Facebook page. Just type in Peaceful Heart Farm in either platform and we should pop right up.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

It's 2022. Scott is healing well. I'm still a little unsettled but on the upswing at the moment. There is so much going on I hardly know where to begin. As usual, the cows are the stars. But keep listening. I can only do so much in one podcast. While today may be dedicated to the cows, I've got some wonderful dog and sheep tales to tell. I'm going to keep to the cows in this podcast and expand to the others animals as I go along so you can all catch up with the homestead's evolution.

Additionally, I'm going to start a series on developing your own food production system. Today I will begin with the basics of gardening. But first, the cows.

Cows

If you are a veteran listener, you already know about our girls. For the newbies, here is a rundown of our Normande and Jersey girls.

Claire and Buttercup are the oldest Normande girls. They were the original stock we purchased way back in 2011. From the moment we purchased this breed, I fell in love. They are the gentlest cows I have ever had the pleasure of husbanding. If you haven't ever heard of this breed, check out our Locals page or our Facebook page. You will be able to see pictures of these beauties. Their coloring is unique.

The two matriarchs are now 12 and 11 years old respectively. Cows can go up to 15 to 20 years depending on the breed. But this is likely Claire's last calf before she retires. She has had consistent issues with mastitis and now produces only enough milk to feed her calf. To be a viable business, we need more than that. It has been fine over the past years because we were not fully operational as a dairy, but that is coming to an end this year. At least we hope so, barring any further unforeseen medical issues or some other catastrophe. And, according to the vet, Buttercup has gotten too fat to conceive easily. She has not taken this year or last year. That means early retirement for her as well. Who knew that we had such healthy and abundant grass? But she is not even giving us a yearly calf. It's just money down the drain because the girl can chow down on some grass and hay. We love our original girls and it will be hard letting them go.

Violet and Cloud came to the homestead next. Cloud is a year older than Violet but she is also slated for replacement. Cloud is ¾ Normande and has never been an ideal cow for milking. I don't recall why we purchased her. Perhaps because she was bred at the time and Claire, back at home, was not. Anyway, she is a lovely cow but does not fit our dairy operation.

While Violet has been a bit of a problem, we will get her back on track next year. Last time she was bred, she didn't deliver until June. That's the exact time that we are breeding again for calves to be born the next spring in March and April. Cows have a nine-month gestation period just like humans. Because she delivered so late in the year, she is out of the rotation for breeding this time around. We expect her to be fine for next year. She's a great mom, a moderate milk producer, and she produces beautiful calves. That's it for the older girls.

I'm going to throw in here a short saga of how we came to purchase Jerseys which I will get to in a minute. They are next on the list of cows added to the homestead.

Some years back, we ran into a drought situation. I'm thinking it was around 2014 or 2015. We had lots of cows, calves and about 70 sheep. No rain for an extended period of time and all of sudden the pastures were gone. Pastures are the lifeblood of our operation. We aren't animal farmers so much as grass farmers. We acted quickly. We sold all of our steers and heifers as well as most of the sheep. We dropped the sheep count to six, one ram and five ewes. I don't recall how the number of cows that we kept. I'm thinking about 5 or 6. Claire, Buttercup, Cloud, Violet, Lilly (who is gone now) and Dora (who died a few years ago following a premature delivery and infection). So that is six. The pastures began to recover now that there weren't so many animals eating it down.

The next year after the drought, we sold all the calves again and the pastures recovered. Following that recovery, we seemed to have had nothing but bull calves. So here we are in need of cows that we can milk. We also culled one cow, Lilly, that we probably should have kept. Two years in a row she didn't conceive so we culled her. Later we found out that we probably could have treated her and she would have been fine. These are learning experiences that we will share with you as we talk more about raising your own food. And then Dora died nearly three years ago. She had some kind of infection and delivered about two weeks early. The vet saved her calf and treated her as best she could, but did not give us a favorable prognosis. Dora died three days later. At that point we were reduced to only four milk cows. So, bring on the Jerseys.

Jerseys

About 3 or 4 years ago, we purchased a registered A2A2 Jersey heifer. A fellow vendor at the farmer's market was getting out of the herd share business (that's the legal way to provide raw milk to families in Virginia) and asked if we were interested in picking up the slack. We purchased Butter from her to supply the extra need for milk. That's how our herd share operation got started.

The next learning experience was artificial insemination. We had also sold our herd bull somewhere along the way. Our first AI experience produced a shortage of cows having calves and freshening with milk. In short, even with Butter producing her wonderful abundance of Jersey milk, we did not have enough milk for our herd shares and cheesemaking.

In comes Rosie. Rosie was also a registered Jersey A2A2 heifer. I was skeptical, but Scott said he had a good feeling and we made the leap of faith. Rosie was bred when she was just nine months old. That's equivalent to a young teen pregnancy. She was scheduled to give birth at 18 months. That is a whopping six months too young in conventional wisdom. But again, Scott had a good feeling about it and she produced a beautiful heifer calf. So now we have three registered Jersey cows/calves. It was beginning to look like the herd was shifting to another breed. But Au contrare. I'm not putting up with that. We want the center or our operation to be Normande cows.

Wisconsin

Being aware of our continued shortage of heifers, we have been on the lookout for replacement stock for a couple of years. Normande cows and heifers are not easy to find in this area of the country. This fall, we finally bit the bullet and Scott drove all the way to Wisconsin to pick up three new heifers. (By the way, for newbies, a heifer is a female bovine animal that has not yet had a calf. She doesn't graduate to officially being a cow until she has successfully delivered her first calf.) Anyway, Scott and "almost son-in-law" left for Wisconsin around 11:00 pm on a Saturday night. They drove through the night and arrived Sunday evening nearby to the target farm with just time enough to have a nice dinner and get a good night's sleep at a local hotel. The next morning, they arrived at the Wisconsin farm and were loaded up in ½ an hour. It's now Monday morning about 8:00. The return trip took almost 24 hours. Yes, it was Tuesday morning around 7:30 before they got home and unloaded our new girls.

Our New Girls

It's time to meet Wanda, Ginger and Molly. For our cheese operation we need specific genetics to make the best cheese possible. These girls have it. Genetically they are all A2A2 with the BB kappa casein protein. Wanda and Ginger are percentage Normande. At 75% Normande and 25% Guernsey/Milking Short Horn, their calves will be considered pure bred Normande when adding in a pure-bred French bull. We like the 25% being milking genetics. Another issue with getting Normande cattle is so many of the large breeders are breeding for meat. We will still get decent meat production from our steers, even with milking genetics. But we need good udders and sufficient milk production to be a profitable dairy and cheesemaking operation. So, these girls fit the bill perfectly for everything we were looking for in breeding stock.

Wanda and Ginger are mostly Normande. Molly is quite beautiful, but she is 75% Jersey. Again, good milking genetics. She will be bred later this year along with everyone else and we will use full blood Normande semen. Her calves will be 62 or 63% Normande. Those calves will be registered and then bred again to a different full blood Normande bull and that offspring will be 82% Normande and considered pure bred. And the percentage continues to go up from there. Sometimes the only way to get what you are looking for is to breed it yourself. Another trip to Wisconsin is just not what we want. Molly had the genetics and could be quickly useful in adding Normande genetics to our herd. And did I mention how beautiful she is?

Breeding for Genetics

The bull semen we purchased also has the proper genetics. A2A2 and BB kappa casein protein. All of the offspring from these new heifers will have the proper genetics. I guess I left out the piece that none of the current cows had the complete set of proper genetics. Butter, Claire and Buttercup have the A2A2 genetics. Violet is A1A2 but has the BB kappa casein trait. We have one other heifer who will have her first calf this year. Luna is out of Cloud. Cloud is also A1A2 and she does not have the bb kappa casein trait. Again, she is a wonderful cow that we used as a nurse cow, but we really need the proper genetics and we only have so much land to raise these animals. Those that don't fit the bill need to go somewhere else.

Luna's test has been sent off but we do not have the results yet. She has very strong Angus genetics and I am not hopeful that she has what we need. It shows in her coloring. Likely she will not actually produce milk in the quantities we are looking for in a cow. On the upside, she will make someone a great family cow and we will sell her as such next year or later this year. Likely her production will produce just enough milk for a family looking to provide milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter for themselves and their children. She will also produce beautiful calves that can be raised for beef. It's a win-win for a family.

So, to wrap that up. We are culling our three oldest cows for one reason or another and replacing them with these wonderful new heifers. Going forward we are looking to grow the herd with the proper genetics.

Quail

Just a brief word on the quail. I have no idea where I left off with them. Their actual number at this time is even a mystery to me. We had one last batch hatched out in September. It was a poor hatch rate. I was trying to refresh our genetics but it was a little late in the year for hatching quail.

These newbies went into the upper left penthouse to finish growing. All of the roosters had been cleared out of the other cages. I was looking for new roosters from this last hatching. When they were big enough, I took roosters out of that penthouse and put them in with the girls in the other four cages. One got mauled and died, but the rest are doing fine as best I can tell. We also lost one or two hens that just up and died. It is not an unusual occurrence. You go out there one day and one of them is just cold and lifeless. I'm not so attached to the quail as to the cows, sheep and dogs, so I don't lose much sleep over this.

Anyway, they are doing well. I feed them once a day but need to refresh their water usually twice a day if it is freezing outside. We usually get anywhere from 24 to 30 eggs. Although yesterday I got a grand total of six after a really cold couple of days. I have lots of quail eggs and we just started giving the dogs and occasional quail egg treat. They loved them.

Dairy Parlor and Creamery

Scott was temporarily out of commission over the past six months or so due to his cancer treatment but he is back on track now. He takes all of the cow girls through the dairy barn area a couple of times a week. It's important for them to get used to the routine there. Right now, he just lets them mill about and get used to everything there. In the future he will move them around inside the parlor and get them used to going where he wants them to go. But getting them familiar is the first step. Cows are very wary of anything new or different. Once they have been there a few times and found that nothing actually happens, it's time to move to the next step.

As far as the building aspect of the creamery, the electrical wiring is the next step. On the drive home from Sunday Mass, we often talk about plans. Scott told me yesterday that he only needs to get the milking parlor, milk room and cheese make room up and operational to get us inspected. After that, he will gradually put together everything else. The bathroom, the large cheese cave and the kitchen. It is important that we get to a point where we can pass USDA inspection so that we can actually begin making money. This has been a long project, has cost us a lot more money that either of us ever expected and with the medical bills, it's time to get some cash flow coming our way, God willing. I love selling meat, sauces, and jams at the smaller farmer's markets but look forward to selling much larger quantities of cheese to local restaurants and wineries.

Garden Planning

If you are one of those that is getting more and more interested in growing more of your own food, this next part is just for you. I'm going to lay out, to the best of my ability, some thoughts and actions that you can take to start growing more of your own food. We'll start with gardening and later add growing various meat products and processing them.

Raised Beds or No Raised Beds

From large plots of land that contain acres down to a few containers on your balcony, everyone can do something to grow their own food. With the current supply chain disruption, this becomes more and more important for simply feeding your family.

Let's start with what kind of gardening you will be doing. I'll stick to what I know and offer a few additional notes as I go for ideas on how you might modify my ideas to fit your particular situation.

I prefer the raised beds. They are not required. You can even begin in containers on your balcony if you live in an apartment. There is always a little bit that can be done. Of course, sowing your seeds directly into the ground is an age-old method of gardening. In any case, what becomes most important is the soil. Let me go over what to expect in that regard.

I'm assuming that you have not done any vegetable gardening up to this point. Or perhaps you did a little and gave up because it just wasn't working out. You decided you had a brown thumb. Well perhaps you just need a little more information to be successful. And keep in mind that it is a process. The soil will need to be worked and maintained throughout every single year of gardening. As each year passes, the soil improves.

Container Gardening Soil

First let me address container gardening. This may be the one instance where the soil is nearly perfect from the start. Don't use garden soil. Use a potting mix. You can't till or work the soil very well in a container. Therefore, you need soil that will be loose and retain water. There are several organic fertilizers that you can use to amend the potting mix depending on what happens with your plants. We will get to that later. Right now, we are trying to create the environment where seeds will sprout and plant starts will take hold. For container gardening I recommend using potting soil as it comes complete with vermiculite to keep the soil from compacting and to help with holding water. Every one I have seen also comes with fertilizer included. Let me know if you have any questions about this. I'll put a more detailed description and explanation on Locals.

Raised Bed Garden Soil

Because you are using a specific sized area to garden, often it is not too expensive to fill your beds with organic soil. It depends on how many beds you want to create and how high you make the sides of your raised beds.

In our case, the raised beds are 24" from the ground. Scott stacked cinder blocks 3-high. They are 8 inches each so that is 24" from the ground. Next, he put in lots of old chunks of wood. This serves two purposes. It fills in a lot of the space that would otherwise need to have some kind of soil and it also provides a longer-term source of fertilizer. The tree chunks eventually break down and create nutrients in the soil.

Next, he added any kind of soil that he could scrape up from around the farm. We have several piles of dirt that were scraped up when some trees were being cleared. He filled each bed to within four to six inches of the top.

The last few inches, contained organic material from other places around the homestead. When the cows are eating hay in the winter, they all gather around the bale and eat to their heart's content. Out their other end, the fertilizer is deposited on the hay that has been pushed out of the hay ring. While going to and fro to the hay ring, they tread on this mess of hay, poop and pee and mash it up into a great big pile of soon-to-be composted material. Each year, Scott moves the hay rings around to other locations. That spreads out the mess – I mean compost. At any given time, he can go out there where a hay bale was a year or two earlier and just dig up that black gold and put it on the garden. He scoops it up in the tractor bucket and brings it over to the garden.

Every year, new composted material needs to be added to the soil. After about three years or so, the soil will be getting really, really good. But don't expect too much from the first year or two, even if you purchased the most expensive compost you could find. It takes time for the soil to settle down and begin to create all the little bugs, bacteria and such that are necessary for really fertile soil. The longer you work a particular piece of earth, the better is gets. That is, if you are continually amending the soil.

Till the Earth

If you've got the time, the energy, and the space, you can till up the soil and plant directly into the ground. This method takes the longest to start to produce a crop that will fully meet your expectations. Start with a few inches of compost on top – and it will take a lot of compost for even a ¼ acre. Every year, add another layer of compost on top. That, combined with regular fertilization during the growing season is the way to creating the perfect soil.

That's about all I have time for in this podcast. These were just the briefest descriptions of what it takes to get started in gardening. Look for more information on our Locals.com community.

Final Thoughts

That's it for today's podcast. It's so good to be back with you. Again, I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Christmas and are experiencing a joyous New year. We had friends and family over and had a wonderful time. I hope you did as well.

We continue to move forward with our homestead plans. The updates on the cows are just the beginning. There is so much more with the sheep and our beautiful livestock guardian dogs. Look for more on that in the next podcast.

I hope you enjoyed the garden planning topic and if you have questions, check out our Locals.com community for more information.

The Locals platform is where we can come together as a community. I will be posting these podcasts there as well as other content that might have previously gone to Facebook or Instagram. You will need to be a subscriber to be able to comment and post. Subscriptions can be as little as $5 per month. For premium subscribers it is $25 per month. That gives you access to me via direct message on the Locals platform. I truly appreciate any and all support that you give to this podcast and to the traditional life.

If you like this content and want to help out the show, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts or whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

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It has been a while so how about a homestead update and health update. I republished a couple of podcasts. I hope you got a chance to listen for the first time or relisten if you were interested in the topic of cheese.

It's going to be close, but I think I can get this podcast published today. Let's hope all goes well and I am able to accomplish it. If it doesn't, I am likely to abandon the effort for another week. My life is topsy-turvy and I only have so much time each day to take care of any given task. When things don't go well, they get pushed to the next day. It's my method of reducing stress. Let's pause a moment.

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. Thank you for hanging in there with me. I appreciate you all so much. Let's have a homestead update and then a little info on the status of our health here at Peaceful Heart Farm

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

The cows are coming up first.

Cows

Last night at about 9:15 we got a call from the neighbors across the street. Two of our cows were in their yard. Who could they be? There were two groups of cows with two animals. I knew it was most likely the two that were scheduled for freezer camp this morning. Sure enough, those two guys were out there wreaking havoc in the neighbor's yard and trying to get into the pasture with their cows.

It was a little harrowing to be trying to work with two very large boys in the dark. However, all of our cows are fairly docile. They were upset and confused of course. I believe that I've mentioned before that a cow does not like anything out of the ordinary. They want things to be the same all the time. Routine, routine, routine. So needless to say, everything about this situation was out of the ordinary.

Perrin is Secured

Nearby, just 20 or 30 feet down the driveway, was a gate to a paddock. Scott opened that gate and Perrin almost immediately went inside. Rocketman was a different story. He went back and forth in front of that gate at least three or four times, never venturing inside. Finally, he started down the driveway and Scott herded him that way and away from the neighbor's cows. I followed with the car. Of course, once we got him down the driveway the next challenge was finding a way to get him into a pasture.

Scott chased him up and down one fence a couple of times. I opened up a couple of gates. One was a gate back to where he escaped. The other was into the field with our nursery girls. It was a little risky letting him in there, but we needed some way to get him into some fence somewhere. Once he was back inside our perimeter fence, there were many options as to how to move forward.

Rocketman is Secured

Rocketman eagerly went through the very wide-open gate into the pasture with the girls. The girls themselves were way out in the field. We needed to get him contained before he joined with them. That would be a disaster if we had to single him out from that crowd in the dark. Scott quickly contained the girls in paddock number one. Perrin was in paddock number two. And Rocketman was in the travel lane that joins with all paddocks.

The goal was to isolate both boys in the small holding area just inside the gate I opened for Rocketman. He had already walked most of the way down the travel lane toward the other paddocks. Scott met him coming the other way while herding Perrin down the travel lane toward the holding area. I was over in paddock number four which runs directly alongside the travel lane. I wanted to be close but not in the travel lane. That would have just confused everything and possibly herded them back out into the field in an attempt to get away from me.

Chasing Cows Around Paddock Four

Now for the next debacle. There are two gates at the bottom of a hollow. One opens into paddock four where I am and one opens or closes the travel lane where Scott and the boys are walking. I'm a little way up the hill in paddock four, just monitoring how they are moving. Everything looks Ok. Scott is coming down the travel lane headed toward the holding area. I just happened to mention that the gate into paddock four is open and they might come in there instead of continuing up the hill into the holding area. And you know what? That is exactly what they did. Now we are reduced to chasing them around paddock four, still trying to get them to go back through the gate and up to the small holding area.

All Ends Well

At some point I went down and closed the gate to the travel lane. No sense in letting them run back up that way. Now all we needed to do is get them to go through the other open gate out of paddock four and into the holding area. Somewhere along the way in this process, I noticed that part of the problem we were having is that they would go wherever the light was shining. Our headlamps and flashlights were actually confusing them. As Scott brought them back down the hill for the third or fourth time, I had just finished latching that travel lane gate. I shined my flashlight in the exact place I wanted them to go. It worked. Right through the gate they went. The travel lane gate was closed and now the gate into paddock four could be closed.

Whew what a trip. It lasted about 45 minutes. Shortly after 10 o'clock we were back inside and grateful for it.

The Girls

The girls continued to happily exist up in paddock number one until the next morning. After loading the boys into the trailer, he opened the paddock gate allowing the girls access to the pond for water and cooling baths.

Last week we had our vet and AI tech out checking to see who is and is not pregnant. There was good news and bad news. Three are pregnant and three are not. We are going to roll with that for the spring.

Buttercup

The vet gave us health information on the entire herd. Buttercup did not conceive. This is two years in a row. The vet talked to us about her weight. Too much fat is not a good thing, especially in an aging cow. I won't go into the details, but her opinion was that, not only had she not conceived, but it was going to be harder and harder for her to conceive as she ages more. She will need to be replaced.

Cloud

Cloud was pregnant but miscarried. The vet was not too concerned about this. A late term spontaneous abortion would be a different story. But aborting early in the process is not so uncommon. We decided against trying to start over with any of our girls. Cloud is also marked to be replaced. Not because of her miscarriage, but because she kicks so much that we cannot milk her. Due to her strong angus genetics, she is also not really ideal as a milk cow. She simply does not produce as much milk as the others. Not by a long shot.

Claire

Claire appears to be pregnant but the vet could not 100% confirm it. She did mark her as pregnant but noted that she could not move the uterus to a position where she could know for sure. However, the fact that she could not move it was a good indication that Claire is pregnant. We shall see. Claire is also marked for replacement as she is getting on in years and is prone to mastitis. Her udder is in bad shape. She produces enough milk for her calf and not much more.

Luna

Now on to one we will keep for a little while, though we may offer her up to anyone looking for a family cow. Luna is pregnant. She is a heifer which means this will be her first calf. We do not expect her to produce lots and lots and lots of milk. Her mom is Cloud and Luna exhibits a lot of the angus coloring traits. We don't really know how much milk she will produce, but it is likely that it will be substandard for what we are looking for in a milk cow. However, it may be perfect for someone looking for a little milk for their family and a good beef calf every year. We shall see. At this point, her fate is still up in the air.

Violet

Just a brief note on Violet. She did not make it into the rotation for artificial insemination. And we did not expose her to the bull. She is not pregnant and will remain open for the coming spring birthing season. In June next year, she will make it back into the breeding rotation. Violet has really good Normande breeding genetics. She has the BB kappa casein genetic trait that we want for cheesemaking. I asked about her weight and the vet said that even though her belly is really big and round, she is not overweight near her ovaries and therefore does not have Buttercup's issue with weight. She's a keeper for now.

The Jerseys, Butter and Rosie

Now on to the Jersey girls. Butter is a champ. She is pregnant and looking good. No issues there. Rosie, on the other hand, is not pregnant. The vet had already warned me that this was the most likely issue with a heifer having a calf when she was so very young. Getting pregnant again might take a little time.

Scott and I were just discussing this morning that we might want to have one cow that gives birth in the fall so we have some milk year-round. Right now, we dry them up in November and have no fresh milk products until March or April the following year. Rosie might be an ideal candidate for a fall delivery. We shall see. There are still a couple of months ahead of us before we would need to make that decision.

Special Cheeses

Any cow that gave birth in the fall would be completely out of the rotation for making cheese. Do we really want to give up that milk? It's still under consideration. It would be nice to have a very small amount of milk to make cream cheese and yogurt throughout the winter. And perhaps a bit of camembert, reblochon or other cheese that we might make in smaller quantities for personal use.

Calf Sharing

If we decide to do that, we would do what is known as calf sharing. That means the calf stays with mom. Anytime we want to have milk, we simply separate them overnight and milk in the morning. For any of you thinking about having your own milk cow, this offers tremendous freedom. Normally, cows get milked twice a day. But if you are calf sharing, the calf takes care of the milk during the day. Overnight mom makes lots of milk and we get to keep that part. The calf rejoins mom and gets all of the luscious milk throughout the day. As I mentioned earlier, even Luna would produce enough milk to make this work. And if the day comes when you don't want to milk at all on any given day, just leave calf and mom together for the entire day and night. It's a win-win situation. The calf really appreciates the extra juice and the homesteader gets a break from milking every single day, seven days a week.

Well, that was a lot of cow updates. On to the sheep. I won't be as long-winded here I promise.

Sheep and Mack

Mack is doing a good job of protecting the few sheep that we have left in the flock. We had one ewe that had an abscess on her chest. The vet drained it and gave us instructions on how to care for it. She is nearly healed already. Lambert, the ram had deeper issues. We don't really know the cause but he had some pretty severe hoof issues. The vet seemed to think it was perhaps related to running around trying to get away from predators that precipitated this issue. His feet were really sore. She tried trimming his hooves but there wasn't really much there. We treated all of the sheep for hoof scald and hoof rot. This is a problem that we are aware of but have never encountered. It usually happens when their hooves are not in top shape and they are exposed to a lot of water. And it appears, that lots of stress on the hooves can caused problems.

Worms Again?

In addition to the hoof problem, Lambert also had an enormous worm load. He had lost lots and lots of weight. He is still actually quite weak. The worms suck the blood out via the stomach. The animal becomes very anemic. It does take some time to heal. Hopefully, Lambert will turn the corner soon and regain his weight and strength. He was pretty far gone and his health is still up in the air.

The remaining two seems to be in relatively good shape. We wormed all of them just to be sure. Lambert's worm overload was also likely precipitated by the enormous amount of stress they all endured during the predator attacks. Stress can weaken their systems enough to give the worms the window of opportunity they need to begin to multiplying uncontrollably.

It has been a good long time since we had any issues with worms and we may have been a little lax. Going forward we will be keeping a closer eye on these guys. Hopefully, they will all stay relaxed and continue to live peacefully on the homestead.

We are also still looking to add a few more ewes to the flock soon. Rebuilding will take some time and we want to get started on that process. Two more dogs are lined up to help us out as we rebuild from the disastrous spring and summer. More on that later.

Personal Health Update

Before closing today I'll give a brief health update for both Scott and myself. Scott is doing very well with treatment. He is two and a half weeks into seven weeks of radiation treatment. No chemo, thank the Lord. He drives an hour each way to receive the treatment, Monday through Friday. I will be accompanying him in the coming days.

He is managing the treatment very well. A sore throat makes it more and more difficult to eat. There are lots of treatments to help with that as well. Taking daily naps is a way of life for him. Sometimes for a couple of hours, but yesterday for only a half hour. We are still fairly early on in the treatment so we will see how he progresses.

Treatment Side Effects

At this point in the treatment, the worst side effects start to manifest. I already mentioned the difficulty in getting food down due to the pain in his throat. Add to this that his taste will change. Doctors have let him know that everything will begin to taste horrible. Their experience has shown that the taste issue will continue for a month or two or even more past the time when the treatments are complete. As you can imagine, this adds insult to injury. He already has trouble swallowing. How much worse will it be when he has to force himself to even put anything into his mouth?

Scott is a trooper. He is a stoic individual. I fully expect he will plow through this just like he does any other issue that presents itself to his world. I am here to support him in any way that I can.

My Health

My state of health is stable. That is the best way I can describe it. The time prior to the treatment starting was more stressful. I can say that at this point. Who knows what the future will hold? I could be off-the-scale stressed next week. The uncertainty of what the future would hold, one appointment after another in preparation for treatment and my own insecurity about whether I was mentally and emotionally up to the task of caring for Scott was wreaking havoc on my normal schedule and making me a little cray-cray. Now that we are settled into a routine, I am handling it much better. I feel much more relaxed and confident in my ability to respond to Scott's needs as they arise.

We are blessed to have all of you praying for us. Thank you so much. Please continue to pray for us and we will pray for you.

Final Thoughts

That's it for today's podcast. I know the cow updates were long and perhaps too detailed. I didn't even get to the quail. Well, too late now. I need to get this podcast published and then on to the evening chores. It's time to wake Scott up from his nap so he can start on his evening routine. The regularity of routine is a life saver when your life is topsy-turvy.

Again, thank you so much for your prayers.

And I will add the shameless plugs because we need your support. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go to Apple Podcasts or Google Play whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review. If you like this content and want to help out the show, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

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• Visit our website Herd Share page

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How Cheese Makes You Happy!

Today's Show

• Homestead Life Updates
• Cheese and Nutrition
  • Nutritional content
  • Cheese tastes good
  • Facts about fat content
  • Lactose intolerance
  • Why cheese makes people happy
• Cheese Fondue Recipe

Homestead Life Updates

Scott is working hard on getting the creamery built. Every day that does not bring adverse weather sees him out there building the walls. There are also lots of other odds and ends and details he adds in there that breaks up the monotony. I'm am so blessed to have such a wonderful life here with him. Our life has purpose and meaning as we both work hard to bring you the benefits of traditional hand-made artisan cheese.

The winter drags on. Seems like a long one this year doesn't it? Every year winter is the same 13 weeks on the calendar but the weather conditions during that period of time alters our perception of time, I think.

There is a common winter ailment called seasonal affective disorder. I'm sure some of you know of what I speak. It's a type of depression that's related to changes in the seasons. Symptoms can begin as early as the fall and continue into the winter months. Occasionally, SAD causes depression into the spring or early summer, but that is rarer. Spring usually brings a rush of relief.

I experience SAD every year. This year is different. I've significantly changed my diet and it shows. While I can still feel the effects of this winter season, it is muted compared to previous years. I feel kind of heavy sometimes; slightly weighted down by life in general.

As an aside, I generally just suffer through it. However, there are things you can do. Light therapy or phototherapy is the most common treatment. Some schools of thought attribute the issue to reduced vitamin D from the sun as there is less light due to the length of the day. More severe cases may require medication or psychotherapy.

The symptoms may start as a minor issue such as having trouble sleeping or a general loss of interest in doing anything. Low energy, feeling sluggish or maybe agitated for no reason. As the season progresses, the symptoms get worse and worse. In the past it has seemed overwhelming to me. And then, poof, spring arrives and it all evaporates like mist.

Let's talk about how cheese might help with that. Did you know that cheese has nutritional properties that stimulate our happy hormones? First, let's cover the basic nutrition in cheese.

Cheese and Nutrition

Cheese is a delicious and tremendously efficient source of nutrition. It supplies many valuable nutrients, including proteins, sugars, vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. A 4-ounce piece of solid farmhouse cheese, for example, supplies more than half the adult nutritional requirements for protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus as well as significant portions of vitamins A, B2, and B12. If you compare the nutritional content of a 3.5-ounce chunk of a hard, aged cheese such as Cheddar or Emmental to an equivalent amount of chicken eggs (two eggs are about 3.5 ounces), the cheese contains about twice as much protein and one quarter the cholesterol.

The miracle of evolution has ensured that milk is an extremely nutritious food. After all, without it how would mothers, down through the eons, have guaranteed the survival of their babies? Cheese concentrates the nutrients in milk. It's a highly efficient method of getting vital nutrients for our bodies.

Another advantage to cheese is that its nutrients are "predigested" by bacteria and enzymes during cheesemaking and aging. That means the process of breaking down the proteins, fats, and sugars began before it was savored on our palette and began the journey to our tummy.

Plants in the pasture have absorbed nutrients from the soil; the dairy animals have extracted those nutrients, packaging them in the form of milk. That's another place that a lot of gathering nutrients has already been done for you. Your body has to devote less effort to processing cheese than it does with many other comparably nutritious foods.

Cheese Tastes Good

Cheese tastes good and satisfies us. A big reason for that is the fat. There are beneficial fats available in milk. Many of them work as antioxidants and also provide fat-soluble vitamins good for our skin and other organs. In cheese, milk fats undergo lipolysis, which breaks them down into more easily absorbed and beneficial fatty acids, some of which in turn enable us to metabolize the fats from other foods.

CLA

Cheeses, especially those made from the milk of grass-fed animals, are a good source of conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, a highly beneficial nutrient. In small studies involving animals, CLA has been shown to prevent heart disease and several types of cancer. It also appears to enhance the immune system. CLA is considered a fat-reducing fat. You heard that right. There are studies on this. Let me give you some info from one study. I'll put a link in the show notes.

Jean-Michel Gaullier, PhD with the Scandinavian Clinical Research Group did the study. It was a relatively small number of participants. 180 men and women were followed for a year. A third got a typical off-the-shelf pill of 80% CLA. Another third got a 76% CLA syrup formula, disguised in a capsule. The last third took a placebo capsule of olive oil.

No one had to change their diet or exercise habits. All reduced their calorie intake a little bit during the study. Likely that was due to tracking with a food diary. That can really wake you up to what you are actually consuming. As far as exercise, all got about the same amount.

The results were:

• Both CLA groups lost weight – about 4 pounds; the placebo group stayed the same.
• The CLA syrup group had a 9% body fat loss; the CLA pill group had 7% body fat loss; the placebo group had no body fat loss.
• Both CLA groups had similar improvements in muscle mass.

Good news ay? Losing weight was good, but I found the conversion of fat to muscle mass to be the most interesting to me.

CLA is found naturally in beef, lamb, goat and dairy products.

Facts About Fat Content

Because cheese contains fat, naturally, it raises concerns. There are some valid concerns there. Not for the fat, but for the calories. A little bit of cheese goes a long way. Real cheese delivers a lot of nutritional bang for your buck and a lot of caloric bang for your buck. The fat is the culprit there. The key is to eat moderate amounts along with your other dietary choices. Let's talk about the fat content of various cheeses.

Contrary to appearances, hard, grainy cheeses such as Parmesan may actually contain more fat than creamy, luxurious ones such as any triple cream cheese. The rich triple cream types are labeled "75% butterfat" while a Parmigiana–Reggiano claims around 35% butterfat. The trick is that cheeses are labeled by percentage of fat in their solid materials, not in their total weight.

Cheeses retain water, even after much of it is extracted during cheesemaking. The less water a cheese retains, the harder or denser it will be. A dense cheese with, say, 50% butterfat, could actually deliver more fat per serving than a soft, gooey one with 70% butterfat.

Lactose Intolerance

Let's talk about lactose intolerance. Well–made, aged cheeses are actually one of the few dairy products that will not cause problems for many people with this difficulty. The first and most important step of cheesemaking, alongside protein coagulation, is the conversion of lactose into lactic acid – the souring or fermentation action of lactic acid bacteria on milk. The small amount of lactose left over after active cheesemaking ends is further broken down by glycolysis during aging.

What this means is that for people who have trouble digesting lactose, it's not a problem because the digestion has already been done for them by the cheesemaking and aging process. Give it a try. You, too, can be a happy cheese eater. Speaking of cheese making your happy. Why is that?

Why cheese makes people happy

A wonderful piece of info I ran across wherein a neurologist talks about how cheese literally makes you happy. Dr. Thomas C Morell is the neurologist. Link to the article will be in the show notes. The title of the piece is Nutritional Neuroscience. The central core of the article is using nutrition to help heal TBI or traumatic brain injury.

There is some really good information about how the brain functions along with how and why nutrition is important to maximize brain function. Later in the article he gets specifically to cheese as "the first food that will help your brain." He cites cheese as an extraordinarily rich source of proteins and amino acids. One of those amino acids is Tyrosine. Dr. Morell's comments on the relation of tyrosine to neurotransmitters in the brain are noted in the article.

Some quotes from the article: (again, reference in the show notes) "The body does not produce Tyrosine so it must be obtained from outside sources, of which cheese contains very high concentrations. We quickly began to realize that cheese is one of nature's perfect foods for the body and for brain functioning! Furthermore, the pleasure of eating cheese in its multitude of varieties is not just for the sensuous pleasure of taste and smell, but actually has nutritional importance that will help the neurotransmitters in your brain. Cheese not only supplies calories for metabolism as well as being an excellent source of Calcium, but contains proteins and amino acids that are intricately associated with manufacturing many important brain chemicals."

Then he talks about how cheese makes people happy. "Cheese can make people happy. Why? It starts with Tyrosine which is a building block for many of the neurotransmitter chemicals in the brain. It can improve mood and well-being particularly during times of stress. Tyrosine is a substrate of many well-known neurotransmitters including adrenaline, norepinephrine, and dopamine. Cheese may be one of the basic primordial foods that improved the performance of our brain, with deep connections from the olfactory bulb to the parts of our brain responsible for memory and emotions. Cheese may just be the perfect food to capture the nutritional-emotional duality that our bodies and brains need!"

I find it so refreshing that our medical profession is starting to look at food as nutrition for building, maintaining, and healing the body. "Cheese contains high levels of casein which is the primary protein found in milk. As casein is broken down and digested it is converted into Tyrosine. Casein is also broken down into the chemical casomorphin, an opioid molecule in the same family as morphine. This may explain some of cheese's addicting qualities!"

I can relate to the addicting quality of cheese. As my diet has improved, my urge for eating too much food is strongly diminished. However, once I start eating cheese, I may overeat if I don't pay attention. "There are many receptors for the Tyrosine molecule in the olfactory bulb where our sense of smell courses through the Central Nervous System. The Tyrosine in cheese is broken down into several chemicals. One of them is epinephrine (adrenaline) which has many positive physical and mental effects to make us more alert. Epinephrine also increases the flow of oxygen and glucose to the brain and muscles which elicits the "Fight or Flight" response to stressful or dangerous situations. Norepinephrine helps fight off depression and can improve our attention and concentration skills. Dopamine is a powerful neurotransmitter involved in mood stability and accounts for pleasurable feelings and activation of the brain's reward systems. Tyrosine is also a precursor to levodopa which is used to replace deficiency of Dopamine in Parkinson's disease. Finally, Tyrosine is also a precursor to Melatonin, the skin pigment that protects us from ultraviolet sunlight damage but is also associated with insulin production which regulates blood sugar levels." How perfect is cheese? It makes you feel good with the neurotransmitter action and supplies energy and protein. All are critical for brain performance and memory retention.

As a final note on the topic, have you ever wondered what those little crunchy pockets that develop in the paste of well-made aged cheeses are? Those are crystals of tyrosine embedded in the long chains of amino acids of the casein molecules. When they make your mouth water, they are not only providing cheese eating pleasure but they're also setting into motion a series of very real and tangible benefits to your body and brain.

Let's move on to today's cheese fondue recipe.

Cheese Fondue Recipe

Cheese fondue can be fancy or it can be a quaint and close tradition in any family or group of friends. As an added bonus, it's easy to make. The only skill needed is the ability to stand at a stove and stir.

Cheese fondue is a Swiss invention which became popular in the US in the 1960's. I'm looking to revive that tradition. As its core fondue is melted cheese served in a pot over a portable heating device and enjoyed communally. It can be made with or without the official fondue set. A double boiler set up will work just fine. Using a crock pot is also an option. The key is low, slow heat. Add some wooden skewers and your homemade fondue set is complete.

How to Make the Perfect Cheese Fondue at Home

The perfect cheese fondue is rich and smooth. First, I want to go over a few tips to make it easy for that to happen for you. Stick to them and your family and guests will be transported to the Alps from their first bite.

• Use Good-Quality Cheese. It will be more expensive but worth it. Even if you ignore all of the other tips, keep this one. Fondue truly is all about the cheese, and the quality and types of cheeses you use will have an enormous impact on the final product.
• • For classic Swiss cheese fondue (meaning one like what you would find in Switzerland), a mix of traditional, firm alpine mountain-style cheeses is best. Gruyere and Emmental come to mind.
  • We make a cheese called Pinnacle that will serve you well. There are lots of other cheeses that will also work. No need to be bound by the "Swiss" label.
  • You want a buttery, creamy cheese that melts smoothly. Cheddar cheese would work. Even though the flavor would be less traditional, it would still taste fantastic. I've used our Clau d' ville Cheddar mixed with alpine-style Pinnacle and the blend warms the heart.

• Grate – do not chop – the Cheese. Grated cheese will melt much quicker.

• Toss the Cheese with Cornstarch Thoroughly. Cornstarch helps thicken the fondue and prevents the cheese from clumping. You don't want lumpy cheese!

• Classic cheese fondue does call for white wine. Use a good wine. Choose something dry and high acid, such as Sauvignon Blanc.
• • The taste of the wine directly impacts the taste of the fondue. The acid in the wine helps keep the cheese smooth and gives it an even texture. Again, we don't want lumpy fondue.
  • You can substitute unsalted chicken or vegetable stock if you do not want to use wine.
  • For beer cheese fondue, swap out the wine with your favorite beer. Beer works really well in a cheddar cheese fondue.

• Add the Cheese Slowly and Stir Constantly. This is SO important to make sure the cheese fondue is buttery smooth.
• • Grab a small handful and sprinkle it into the pot. Stir constantly and wait for each addition to melt before adding the next.
  • Don't try to rush it—you won't win. Just enjoy the moment at the stove at peace with yourself, the cheese, and the promise of a luscious fondue.

What Should You Dip?

• Bread. Always delicious. French or sourdough cut into 1-inch cubes so that it can be easily skewered.
• Apples. Tart apples like Granny Smith are fantastic dipped with cheese fondue. Cut the apples into cubes.
• Cherry Tomatoes. One of my absolute favorites!
• Roasted Baby Potatoes.
• Steamed Broccoli. Reminds me of broccoli cheese soup.
• Mushrooms
• Game Day Delights:
• • Potato or tortilla chips
  • Soft or hard pretzels
  • Ham, Turkey or Beef
  • Bacon. Even better than you think it's going to taste. Make sure the bacon isn't too crisp or it will break off in the pot.
  • Shrimp or mussels
  • Kielbasa or hot dogs
  • Pepperoni
  • Meatballs
  • Pickles.

The choices are up to you. There are no rules there. Anything that tastes good with cheese it going to be heaven. It takes about 25 minutes to make the fondue.

What You Need

• 1 pound (4 cups) of 2 or more cheeses of your choice – Gruyere, Emmental, Appenzeller and of course our Pinnacle
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 cup dry white wine — such as Sauvignon Blanc
• 1 clove garlic — minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon kirsch – Kirsch is a clear colorless fruit brandy. You may substitute a brandy of your choice
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg – ground
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (optional)
• Assorted Fondue dippers

What to do

1. Grate all of the cheeses. In a medium bowl, combine the cheeses with the cornstarch, tossing thoroughly to coat all pieces.
2. In a stove-safe fondue pot or large heavy saucepan, bring the wine, garlic, and lemon juice to a simmer over medium-low heat. Add the cheeses to the simmering liquid a little at a time, stirring well between each addition to ensure a smooth fondue. Once smooth, stir in the brandy, nutmeg, and mustard.
3. Arrange an assortment of bite-size dipping foods on a platter. Carefully pour the fondue into a fondue pot. Serve with fondue forks or wooden skewers.
4. Dip and enjoy!

Recipe Notes:

If using a crock pot, no need to wait for the wine and lemon to simmer. Put it all in there and stir as needed until the desired consistency is achieved.

Final Thoughts

I've run out of words for today. I hope if you have the winter blues you are taking time out of the day to pamper yourself. And remember, this too shall pass. Enjoy some cheese to get that tyrosine going and get happy.

I hope you'll try the fondue. You can let me know what creative ideas you used and traditions you started by commenting on the Facebook post @peacefulheartfarm.

As always, I'm here to help you "taste the traditional touch."

Thank you so much for listening and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

Recipe Link

Cheese Fondue

References

• CLA: The New Miracle Weight Loss Pill?
• Nutritional Neuroscience – Dr. Thomas C. Morell

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A cancer diagnosis is causing temporary changes to the podcast. We have had a cancer diagnosis and that will affect what I am able to do on a daily basis. I will be caring for Scott and picking up a lot of tasks he normally handles. In the end, it looks like he will be fine. However, getting to that end point will entail traveling a very difficult road of chemo and radiation.

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I appreciate you all so much, even more so right now.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

I'm going to start with a few more details about our health situation and then give you a few livestock and garden updates.

A Cancer Diagnosis

Over the past four weeks we have been to one appointment after another. Specialists, CAT scan, biopsy, surgery and a couple more specialist appointments all in little more than 30 days. Scott has had both tonsils out and the healing for that procedure is quite lengthy for an adult. I've been milking the cows on my own and with a little help with the heavy lifting from a neighbor. It has been going pretty well.

Getting things in Order

Scott and I are streamlining as much as possible so we can get through this time period with less stress. We have plenty of cheese stored up, so I will not be making any more cheese for the rest of this milking season. Milking twice a day changed to once a day almost immediately. That reduces the amount of milk that we are handling on a daily and weekly basis. Between the great herd share folks, feeding the calf, making yogurt and having drinking milk for ourselves, I think we will be in good shape here. Oh yeah, and making butter every so often as well.

Cheese Cave Changes

We are changing how we store the cheese in the cheese cave. Scott handles all of that, and rather than me trying to add that to my already full schedule, we are going to try vacuum packing a lot of the cheeses. I'll let you know how that goes.

Garden Changes

The garden is in full swing and there is not much I can do about that except get out there every day or so and bring in the harvest, process it quickly and move on to the next task. I've determined that if I get behind on that, the compost pile will be loving it.

Podcast Changes

The biggest change will be with this podcast. It takes a tremendous amount of time to put out each episode. My plan is to replay some of the older episodes. If you are new this will be a benefit for you. And if you are a long-time listener, I hope you will bear with me as we get through this time. The doctor let me know to expect drastic changes in lifestyle for four to six months. We can do this.

Now for a few homestead updates.

Creamery

Of course, the creamery is completely on hold. This will be my last mention of that for several months.

Cows

The cows are hanging in there. I'm a little worried about getting hay to them in the winter. I'll be looking for help from a neighbor or two in that regard. Moving them from one pasture paddock to another is something I can easily handle. But when the grass runs out, they will need hay brought to them. That means someone who knows what they are doing with a tractor. That's not me. Fortunately, that task can be done once or twice a week in an hour or so and should not be too much of a burden for those helping us through this time.

Sheep

The sheep are hanging out with Mack, the sheepdog. They seem to be getting along quite well. We may add a few sheep back to the flock over the next few weeks. Again, moving them from place to place is not hard. So, having six or eight instead of four is not a big deal. We shall see how that plays out. If it seems stressful to try and accomplish it, I will let that do as well. There is always next year.

Donkeys

Because we now have a livestock guardian dog, the donkeys are going on to another home. This is a high priority in the next few weeks. The donkeys require regular hoof care that I simply will not be able to provide. It will be better for all of us if they get resettled soon.

Garden and Orchard

The green beans are done. I'll be canning the last batches this week and next. The crowder peas are just coming on. Today, I packed up quite a few one-pound bags for the farmer's market tomorrow. There are more out there to pick. Crowder peas are an overall joy for me. I like picking them, shelling them and, most of all, eating them.

The tomatoes are also just starting to ripen. They are ripening quite late this year. I'm happy that there is a lot of plant and not so many fruits. I really have no idea what I am going to do with these tomatoes. They are slicing tomatoes. Perhaps I will make the effort to get them to the farmer's market.

Again, if any of these tasks falls behind or becomes overwhelming, the compost pile is always open to new food additions.

The last of the fruit is picked. I have several gallon bags of blackberries in the freezer. I can make jelly out of that at my leisure – even next year if needed. Scott harvested the elderberries this year. The bushes have been producing for a few years now but this is the first time we've taken the time to harvest the berries.

Elderberries are really, really small. They form small tree-like bunches all over the bush. Scott snipped off each little tree and filled a five-gallon bucket. Then he gently stripped the berries off of the twigs. I believe I have maybe a gallon and a half of those berries. I'll be processing those in the next few days. They will be made into elderberry syrup. It's good for sore throats and general immune system support. Lots of vitamin C.

Final Thoughts

That's about all for today. Again, I will be rerunning some older podcasts beginning soon. If I feel up to it, I may create a new one here and there. Please bear with me and please pray for Scott over the next few months.

Oh, I almost forgot. So many have asked how they can support us. Number one is please pray for us. Number two, if you live near, I may need your help from time to time to get Scott to and from his appointments – and with the hay, as I mentioned above. These are my most pressing concerns.

This will be a huge financial hit for us between the medical bills and the loss of income from products we would normally produce. If you feel moved to help us out financially, there is a very large "Donate" button on our farm website. You will find it on the podcast page.

I originally set this up for donations to support the podcast in general. I have not promoted it, instead footing the bill for the podcast from our profits. At this time, I will open it up for all of you. Not only will you be supporting the cost of the podcast, but at this time you would also be supporting our homestead in general. You can make a one-time donation or set up a recurring, monthly donation.

You can also send money via PayPal. Our PayPal email is melanie at peaceful heart farm dot com.

Please know that listening and sharing the podcast is also supporting us. It is absolutely one of the best ways to support us. Share it on all of your social media and with friends and family. That helps the most to grow the podcast.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

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Today I want to talk about what I love about homesteading. Quite a few of the previous podcasts have contained lots of information about animal predator issues we have been having. I know it has been a real downer. As for me, it has definitely been a downer and I want to do this podcast to bring a balanced perspective and more positive outlook on our life here on the homestead. We don't always have such a bad time of it. In fact, what I love about homesteading is a much better representation of what it is like for us most of the time.

Let me take a brief minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I can't thank you all enough. I appreciate you all so much. And I'm so excited to share with you what's going on at the farm this week. We have big news.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

The greatest thing is finally happening. If all goes well over the next few days, we will have a new dog on the homestead.

Sheep and Goats

We had yet another attack on our sheep. This time it was dogs. The tracks left behind were definitely from dogs. At least two. I'm not going to give the details this time, but we are down to four animals. The flock ram, a yearling and two breeding ewes. Thank God for the imminent arrival of a livestock guardian dog.

We can now rebuild our sheep flock and start a new goat herd. The most stressful thing about the whole situation is that we could not rebuild the flock or introduce the new goat breed we are adding to the homestead. I wanted to get back to normal flock size but we simply could not risk bringing new animals onto the homestead that would simply be killed by stray dogs. They are still out there. Yesterday we found dog tracks down in the very creek bed where the previous destruction occurred. It had rained hard the day before. These tracks were fresh yesterday. I'm so grateful that we have finally found a dog. Let me tell you a little bit about him.

Mack the Catalonian Sheep Dog

Mack was rehomed from a family that sold all of their sheep and therefore he no longer had a job. He was born and raised in the pasture with livestock, which is what we were looking for in a guardian dog. The lady from which we are getting him has had him for just a few months. She began having a bit of an issue with him going to visit the neighbors while she was not there during the daylight hours. At night he protected his animals.

Wandering is Not Good

As she does not live on that farmland where he was housed, he began seeking company elsewhere. She expected him to stay with the animals all the time. It seems that while she was only a few miles away, he still needed to know a human was around and sought out the neighbors to fill that role. We are hoping that because we are here all the time, he will be comfortable knowing we are always around and that he will be diligent about staying with the sheep. We shall see. It has been many, many years since either of us has had a dog. I, for one, am looking forward to this new adventure. I hope Mack will be happy with us and with his new flock of sheep.

Adding the goats later will be an interesting exercise in introducing new animals to Mack. I'm sure I'll be regaling stories of the ups and downs of livestock guardian dog ownership. Stay tuned.

Cows

We are still waiting on Violet to come into heat. Does it seem like to you that we are always "waiting on Violet" for something? I know it seems like it to me. We are pretty confident that all of the other girls are gestating a new calf. Will Violet get with the program? Only time will tell. She needs to conceive in the next few weeks or we end up in the same situation again. We have just a few weeks to meet our schedule of having her pregnant and due for delivery no later than the last week of April.

Quail

New quail babies will hatch in a few days. I have 84 eggs in there. I'm not sure what is going to happen this time. A couple of days ago we had a power outage. A tree fell on a line during a particularly heavy thunderstorm. We were out of power for several hours. This is not a problem during any time when the incubator is not running. After about an hour, we started the generator and plugged in the incubator. The temp was quite low and the humidity was really high due to the moisture from the rain. It stabilized quickly but I have no idea how this will affect the hatch rate.

I was going back and forth trying to decide between getting a battery big enough to jump start the car or one that would simply be enough for the cell phone and credit card reader. I need those two things working when I'm at the farmer's market. This power outage clarified that decision.

HALO Bolt

There is a product called Halo Bolt and there are several different models. It comes with a small set of jumper cables, a couple of USB connections and even a place to attach a small device with an AC plug. It costs just under $100 dollars.

On the other hand, I can get a small charging device without the AC outlet and jumper cable capability for about 20 bucks. I was leaning in that direction. I just got a new car battery and don't expect to have to use the jumper cables for quite a few years. But the experience of being without power for the incubator has convinced me to invest in the more expensive unit.

Let's Get One and Test It Out

We cranked up the generator. But that was overkill for one little incubator. The more practical solution would be to be able to plug it into that battery for a little while. At least I think that will work. It is designed for charging a tablet or laptop, but I believe you can plug in any AC cord and run the device. We shall see. I'll give it a try and let you know how it turns out. These are the kinds of things for which everyone needs to be prepared. You simply never know when the power is going to be out. For you it might be that you need to be able to charge your cell phone. For us, it's going to be keeping the incubator running for those quail eggs.

Garden

I have three 5-gallon buckets of green beans in the cooler. We picked them Sunday evening. Tomorrow I'll be packaging them up for the farmer's market. They look beautiful. I'm so glad we got this great harvest. In the next few weeks, the Mexican bean beetles will come out and take over the plants. We don't use any pesticides on our garden, not even the organic ones. We pick them off or squish them. But using this method ensures that eventually the bugs will win. Planting extra and making sure the plants are healthy and not a magnet to bugs are my two strategies for pest control and reaping a decent harvest.

There are small tomatoes all over the place out there. That's going to be another great crop to harvest in the very near future.

Orchard

In the orchard, the blackberries are all that is left to pick. Scott cleaned out the wild blackberries that have thorns so it is easy for me to pick the remaining blackberries. We still have quite a few that are red and not yet ripe. I have a couple of gallons in the freezer right now. My plan for those is to steam the juice out of them and make seedless blackberry jelly.

I don't know what happened to the apples. We had several trees that had apples for the first time ever but those apples disappeared. I suspect the deer that briefly invaded the orchard area is the culprit there. There is always next year.

I was hoping to see the strawberries bloom again. They are supposed to be everbearing. The deer ate all of the green leaves a while back, but they have grown back and the plants look great. Still waiting on those blooms and more strawberries.

Creamery

Still nothing going on here. It may be another couple of weeks before anything gets going again in the creamery. Scott is so busy with the high summer tasks of keeping the fields and orchards cut. Repairing fences takes up him time and so on. He has three or four more fields to mow and then maybe he can get back on the creamery tasks. You never know though. Some other tasks may come up. We shall see. Let's talk about what I love about homesteading.

What I Love About Homesteading

I'm just going to run through a list of things that came up when I thought about what I love about homesteading. They are not in any particular order.

Setting my own schedule

The first thing that I love is that I'm in charge of when I get up and go to work. I say this with some ambiguity. It's not like I can sleep until noon on any given day. In fact, there are still chores that need to be done on a regular basis, usually at a particular time. But as I have chosen to make those chores part of my life, I'm still in charge. I'm free to change the routine at any time. It might involve changing what animals we house here, but I certainly have that option.

Daily Planning Meetings

Another thing that is an absolute delight is having daily meetings with Scott about what we are going to do on any given day. It is a continuation of the hours and hours that we spent dreaming about what we were going to do once we were living here all the time, no longer working for someone else. We still dream together on a daily basis.

Making cheese

Once a week I make cheese. I love making cheese. It is a peaceful occupation. Sometimes it requires a bit of heavy lifting and that makes me tired, but in the end, I get these wonderful masterpieces of cheese on which to gaze. The entire process is still so amazing to experience, even though I've done it hundreds of times. To see liquid milk turn into a solid wheel or two or three of cheese is still awesome to see.

Gardening

Gardening without having to work it in around other things, well for the most part. This is like saying I set my schedule. There are sometimes when I need to do things in the garden but I also need to make cheese or go to the bank or clean the bathroom and so on. So, I do end up working it in around other things. But what I don't have to do is try to work it in after a day at the office or in a limited time frame on the weekend. I have the whole week to figure out where I am going to fit in the gardening.

Perhaps this sounds too simple. But we spent years and years driving back and forth from Virginia to South Carolina for work. I had all day Saturday and Sunday until 6 pm to get all of the gardening done as well as laundry and cleaning and on and on. The garden was always overrun with weeds. It was not really that fun. Now it is a joy. And of course it is hard work when it is 85 or 90 degrees out, but it is a good work out. And if I don't get it all done in one day, I have other days in which to work out when to get out there and water, weed, and pick veggies.

Experiencing the Seasons

Experiencing each of the seasons up close and personal is part of our everyday life. The gardens brought that to mind. In the past, we experienced spring, summer, fall and winter as changes in temperature. Perhaps whether it snowed or rained was the most important aspect of the season but daily activities remained pretty much the same. Get up, go to work, come home, watch a little TV, go to bed and then do it all over again.

Now, each season brings us a change in what we do on the homestead. There is a lot of activity associated with spring, summer and fall. But each activity is different. In general, spring time is for planting, summer for weeding and watering and the fall is all about the harvest and preserving the harvest. Some of that happens all along the way, but in general, this is how I think about my life. The primary focus in the spring is getting the planting done. The primary focus in the summer is weeding and water, though there is a lot of harvesting happening as well. It just moves around a lot from one plant to the next to the next. In the fall, it is all about getting everything in and preserved for later use.

And I never thought I would say this, but I love the winter now. It is a time to slow down, take stock of what worked and what needs to be changed in the next season. I used to hate winter. Seasonal Affective Disorder is something I have struggled with most of my life. As the winter season wore on, I would get more and more inactive and more and more depressed. Recently, in the last few years, I've changed my diet, eliminating most carbohydrates. My moods stabilized. Now I experience the winter with joy. I still slow down. That's why winter is useful. It is a time to rest up and revitalize the roots so the organism is strong and bursting with energy in the spring. I'm having a great experience with that deep revitalization in the winter. And I'm ready to get up and go when spring arrives.

Losing Track of the Day and Hour

Not knowing what day of the week it is or what time of day it is can be a little disconcerting. But I really only have to think about it once or twice a day. In the morning I determine what day it is and what I need to accomplish for the coming days. Things like getting ready for the farmer's market or doing a podcast or newsletter. These things are done on specific days so I need to be ready for that. Otherwise, I check my list of things to do and get going on the first item. In the evening there is a bit of reflection on what to prepare for the next day. One of the farmer's markets requires me to get up at 5:15 am and the other 6:00 am. Other days of the week, the alarm goes off at 6 but we may or may not get up immediately. We have some leeway on those days. But market days, we pop up and get going as soon as the alarm sounds.

New Life

The new births that happen in the spring. I never get tired of the new births. It is stressful for me, as I've said before. But I wouldn't trade that joy of new birth for anything in the world.

Tours for Kids

Sharing our homestead with kids that come to visit. They love it so much. I watched a group of 8 kids just a few days ago which they explored the quail. They delighted in watching these quirky birds. They didn't just look at them and say, "Oh they are cute." No, they watched and watched and watched them. They looked into each section of the cages. They opened the cage doors and looked for eggs. It was so beautiful to see.

Clean Eating

Another thing I love about the homestead is cooking with ingredients that I raised myself. I know the exact contents of everything I eat. I either raised it myself, purchased or bartered for it from another farm or homestead, or I purchased a single ingredient item in the store. This was the first and most important reason that we started our dream of living the homestead life. I get so tired of reading the labels on foods in the grocery store and seeing all kinds of things that I cannot even pronounce. There are so many fillers and everything has sugar or wheat or gluten added. Even the meats now are injected with flavoring and fillers to bulk up the product. The label says something like, "contains 10% of something or other" to maintain freshness or enhance flavor or whatever. That's 10% of the meat that is something that did not originate with the animal. I'm so glad those days are past.

Spending Time in the Kitchen

I get to spend lots of time in the kitchen storing food and being food self-reliant. When working for someone else, time in the kitchen was a dreadful activity. I wanted to eat out as much as possible. Who wants to cook after working all day? I'm ready to sit down and let someone else do the work. Of course, I was eating a lot of really bad stuff. Chinese take out was a favorite. There is a lot of sugar in that stuff. So that is all in the past. I spend time in the kitchen when I choose. Sometimes I make a meal that will last for days. In the intervening days, I might be making jam or canning pickled peppers. Canning is another task that I used to dread when I worked for other people. It was something I had to do and I had to do it right away in a limited time frame on Saturday or Sunday. It was stressful. Now there is still stress to get the harvest processed but the window of time has expanded. I have every day, seven days a week to plan for the next harvest and canning session.

Long Term Dreaming/Planning Sessions

Long term planning of the next step in our journey or modifying the previous plan is just as wonderful now as it was when we were just dreaming. We spent years dreaming about what we were going to do once we lived full time on our homestead. We wanted to do everything. We soon found out that we had to pick and choose what to do. There are simply not enough hours in the day to do all of which we dreamed. But the dreaming and planning is so much fun. And it continues. There is always something new to be added, changed or deleted from our homestead.

Daily Communion with God

And the final thing I want to say about what I love about homesteading is just getting up and going outside and communing with God. Living the homestead lifestyle makes it effortless. While all the work is going on and on and on, seemingly endless, there is always time to just stop and listen to the birds, feel the sunshine and soft breeze, and to watch God's creations grazing in the fields, the children playing and the amazing plants growing and changing each day as they blossom and produce their fruits. We are truly blessed.

Final Thoughts

That's it for today's podcast. I may have rambled a bit here and there but I hope you enjoyed the uplifting ideas I talked about. Let me know what your dreams are and how you are progressing toward them. It doesn't have to be the homestead life. We are all unique in our hopes and desires. Please share your dreams with me. I'd love to hear your story. Send me an email. Let me know what's beautiful in your life.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts or whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review. If you like this content and want to help out the show, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

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A day in the life on our homestead. My brother-in-law says we are always working. He is so right. And we love it. There is never a dull moment around here. For sure, sometimes it seems like just too much and wouldn't a life of leisure be preferable. No, not really. As I imagine that life, I can only see boredom and always searching for something new and interesting. Here we don't have to search for it as it comes to us every single day. Today I'll give you an overview of a whirlwind day I recently experienced.

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I appreciate you all so much. I'm so excited to share with you what's going on at the farm this week.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

I'm going to skip most of the updates on the animals as they will show up in my rendition of a day in the life on our homestead. I will just briefly mention that Sweet Pea and Johnny are still looking for a new "forever home". We love them but we simply do not need four donkeys. We intentionally reduced our sheep population and now the coyotes have reduced it even further. It will take time to rebuild what we have lost. In the end, we will still have only a small number of sheep, perhaps a dozen or so, compared to our high of 70 animals in the flock.

We are winding down our cashmere goat herd this fall. Next up will be bringing in a few Kiko goats. Perhaps I will do a whole podcast on this breed of goat. They were bred in New Zealand. The wild goats were bred with domestic stock to create a breed that is disease and parasite resistant. And my favorite attribute they bred for was little to no hoof maintenance. Most domestic goats in the US have a really hard time with their hooves. I look forward to raising goats that can be comfortable on their feet without constant attention.

That's it for now. I want to get on to the topic of a day in the life on the homestead. I hope you enjoy this brief glimpse of the story of our life.

A Day in the Life

Our day begins the same every morning. Scott and I pray the rosary together. It's a great meditation and starts our day off in the right frame of mind. God first.

Morning Milking

Now we get ready for morning milking. There isn't much for me to as Scott handles most of the milking tasks. I handle some of the cleanup at the end. The only thing I have for this morning is to tend to the baby quail chicks. I make sure they have food and fresh water. The little ones get checked on twice a day. The grownups, only in the evening. Everyone looks good this morning and they are happy to have food and water.

Morning Gardening

Scott is still working on the milking so I take the opportunity for a brief walk through the garden. I decide to harvest some fresh herbs for the farmer's markets. It's a spur of the moment decision just because I have some time and it's a beautiful morning to be in the garden. I sprint back to the house, pick up some scissors and a bucket and I'm back out in the garden in a flash. I love cutting fresh herbs. This morning it's basil leaves, oregano sprigs and bunches of thyme. The smell is heavenly. The herbs are quickly stored in the cooler. I will package them later – probably tomorrow.

Making a Snack

I need to have protein snacks quickly available. Hard boiled eggs are one of my favorites. My Corsori, an Instapot lookalike, can handle 18 eggs at a time. Six minutes under pressure, six minutes cool down and natural pressure release, followed by a quick pressure release and open the lid. Six minutes in a cold-water bath, then peel. I like using my pressure cooker because the shells always just fall off when I am peeling them.

We generally eat just two meals a day. Scott makes us brunch somewhere between 10:00 am and 1:00 pm. It is usually in that 11:00 to 12:00 range. If I plan well, dinner will be around 5:00 pm for me. Scott's dinner is always much later. Well, not always, but usually his preference is to work outside right up until milking time in the evening. He will eat after all of that is done and he has had a shower. That's an Italian evening meal time around 9:00 or 10:00 in the evening. Sometimes he even gets the Italian siesta in the afternoon. Most times not though.

Starting Strawberry Jam

I've got four quarts of strawberries that need to be attended to today. I'll be making jam. I love strawberry jam. It's a quick job to cut out the stems and dice them up. Two quarts of cut berries and six cups of sugar. I'll add a dash of lemon to help maintain the bright red color.

Well, the strawberries are mixed with the sugar in the pot on the stove, but I've got to interrupt that process and forego the cooking and canning part. I'll cover the pot with a clean towel and get back to it in a little while. This is a day in the life on the homestead. We need to take care of some animals. I have cream warming up in the butter churn. There is still about an hour before it will be warm enough to churn into butter. It should be possible to get it all done in time.

Cattle Husbandry

The flies have been horrendous. We have two suffering from pink eye. In humans we call it conjunctivitis. It is a bacterial infection of the eye. The flies irritate the eye and make it susceptible to the bacteria. The flies are also spreading it from one to another. Anyway, we put antibiotic cream directly in the eye and then followed up with injectable antibiotic. We are as natural as possible in raising and caring for our livestock. However, I'm sure you have heard me say this before, if they need medical treatment, they get it. In this case, blindness is a real possibility if the condition is left untreated.

We spent quite some time checking on each and every cow to make sure there were only two affected. I even treated Newton, the youngest calf at three weeks of age. This was prophylactic just in case. The younger calves are often the most susceptible. He looked fine but we treated him anyway. Just the cream, not the injection.

Time Trials

The whole process took more time than I had planned. There were four different groups of animals. There are the milking girls. Then there is the group we call the nursery girls. We do not milk them, but they are nursing calves three calves between the two of them. We also have Luna in that group. She is a heifer and has no calf. And Buttercup is also in that group. She did not have a calf this year. The boys are always in a group by themselves because two of them are bulls. They can't just run with the girls. That would be a breeding disaster. And then there was Virginia and baby Newton. All in all, it took longer than the hour I had set aside but the cream was still in good shape for making butter.

Making Butter

I'm back inside now running the electric butter churn while the strawberries are heating up and cooking for the jam. It's a little risky to do both of these things at once as they both have a break point that must be met. I gambled anyway. I figured the butter would get done long before the strawberries and sugar reached the gel point. It didn't.

I don't use pectin in my jams. I just cook it to gel point. That usually takes about 40 minutes or so. The butter got done just a few minutes before the jam reached the gel point. So, what do I do now? Well, I just turn the churn off and let the butter sit in the churn until I can get to it. I still had to be quick. The problem there is that the warmer the butter gets, the harder it is to work with. It is literally melting in my hands if it gets too warm.

Finishing the Strawberry Jam

The jam is ready. I quickly fill the jars, clean the rims, secure the lids and put them in the water-bath canner. Now I have time for the butter. It will take a while for the water to heat up to a rolling boil for the jam. Once it reaches that point, it is just a matter of setting a timer for how long to process the jam. That's 20 minutes at my altitude.

I clean up the butter by rinsing it over and over with cold water. Then squish it firmly into 4 oz silicon soap molds and put the mold tray into the freezer. Tomorrow I will remove it from the freezer and pop out and wrap each 4 oz block of butter in paper. Now that the butter is in the freezer and the jam is processing in the canner, all of the clean-up for these two tasks is happening. I'm pretty messy when filling jars. There are bits of jam all over. And the butter? That requires lots of soap to get all that greasy mess in the churn, the bowls and utensils cleaned up. Whew, it feels good to get all that done. What's next? Yes, there is more.

Making Blueberry Jam

Now I'm ready to make blueberry jam. I smashed them, added the sugar and got started heating them up. That takes a while. I have time to get more jars ready for the blueberry jam. The jars of strawberry jam are finished and need to come out of the water-bath canner. I'll keep the water in it near boiling waiting for the blueberry jam. That makes the second batch quicker as the time to reach boil after adding the jars will be shorter. As the blueberry jam nears the gel point, I'm stirring constantly to keep it from sticking. Make sure to have my clothes covered. It begins to spit out blueberry goo all over the place. Stir more to keep that under control. That's another mess to be cleaned up later.

Now it's reached gel point, repeat the filling of jars, adding lids and put them in the canner. I'm a little tired but there is still so much to do. I think I'll take a much-needed short break while this second batch of jam is processing. I have about 45 minutes or so to relax.

Weekly Newsletter

It's now late afternoon and I need to create the weekly newsletter for all who are following what we are up to on the homestead. I like communicating with all of my customers and those who just follow us because they like hearing about our progress on the homestead.

It's important to get the information out weekly. There are always updates and changes to what is happening at the farmer's markets. I've done this so many times, that I have made the process quick and efficient. The newsletter is done and out in the email ethers. Now it's probably time for evening milking and other chores.

Evening Chores

We start each milking event by warming up Newton's milk. He gets two half-gallon calf milk bottles morning and evening. That's two gallons per day. As a side note, tomorrow, I'll spend quite a bit of time filling up gallon jars for just this purpose. We store his milk in one-gallon jars. Twice a day we put a gallon jar in a bucket of hot water. After about a half hour, we pour out the now cold water and refill it with hot water again. In another half hour it is warm enough for him to drink ready to be poured into the calf bottles.

All of this minutia becomes second nature as we do it twice a day. Go get the cows, get them prepped for milking, turn on the machine and put the milking inflations on their teats. Wait for about six minutes and they are done. Two at a time so there is a second round for Violet. The milk gets filtered and poured into five-gallon cans which are stored in the bulk cooling tank. The milk must be cooled to below 40 degrees in less than two hours. Then the clean-up procedures begin.

While Scott is doing those milking tasks, I'm taking care of the quail. The babies get food and water again. I collect eggs from the big girls, give them feed, and check their automatic watering system. I refill the 5-gallon bucket that automatically feeds into little cups in their cages as needed. Not a lot to do here, but a daily tasks nonetheless.

Clean Up Time

At the end is lots of clean up. Calf bottles, milk filter, milking machine – all have to be meticulously cleaned and sanitized. Then dinner, a shower and it's time to wind down for the evening. For me that is usually around 8:00 or 8:30. Scott is sometimes just eating dinner at 9:00 or 9:30 – he may or may not have had that wonderful shower.

Tomorrow's To-Do List

There is a lot more to do tomorrow. It will be Thursday. I need to get ready for the farmer's markets on Friday and Saturday. That means making labels for those two new jams. And do you remember those herbs I cut early this morning? Yeah, those have to be packaged. I have three more half-gallons of cream and need to make another butter. I'm not sure how I got behind on that, but it will be good to catch up.

The Milk

All milk cans need to be emptied and cleaned. I'll pour milk into 14 one-gallon jars for feeding Newton for the next week. And I will pour up milk for Friday and Saturday herd share pickups. I'll need a gallon and a half of milk put back to make yogurt on Monday or Tuesday next week. I may even pour up some drinking milk for us. Any remaining milk gets the cream skimmed off the top. I store the cream in half gallon jars.

The Cream

The remaining cans usually have enough cream to skim to make one batch of butter. That will also happen next week on Tuesday or Wednesday. I make three pounds of butter at a time, usually once a week. I'll have some extra cream to add back into the skim milk to make Scott's half and half. He loves his coffee. In the end, there will be leftover skim milk and that gets poured on the garden. The green beans and tomatoes are loving that milk fertilizer. They look amazing.

Not a Typical Day in the Life

The day I just described is not every day, but it is very often the life that I live. It is wonderful. Actually, on most days, I laze around and would only make one batch of jam and maybe no butter. Some days, Scott takes a nap in the middle of the day or comes in and just vegges out on Facebook or YouTube. Sometimes he is doing more than vegging out. Sometimes he is sharing his day in the life on our Facebook page. If you are not following us there, please do. You get my perspective here, and Scott's perspective can be found on the Facebook page with pictures and videos. Just search for Peaceful Heart Farm and it should come right up. Like us and share our content.

Well, I got tired just talking about all of that. I think I'll end early today. We have that luxury any time we want – within limits. The cows still need to be milked twice daily and the quail need daily care. But other than that, we set our schedule.

Final Thoughts

So, my brother-in-law says we seem to always be working and when is age going to slow us down? We hope that's a long way in the future. I'm 66 and Scott will be 66 next month. This lifestyle keeps us fit. We get to eat healthy food that we have produced ourselves. Or at the very least, we know the farmer from which we purchased those eggs and hydroponic lettuce. And the blueberries and strawberries that went into the jams came from local farmers as well. We all grow good food and support each other.

I hope you enjoyed that walk through a day in my life. As I said, every day is not that busy, but I really enjoy the challenge in finding out how much I can accomplish in a day. I'm not crazy enough to do it every day though. I also need to spend time sitting at my computer making podcasts for you guys. I love you so much. Thank you so much for listening and sharing our joy.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts or whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review. If you like this content and want to help out the show, again, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

To learn about herd shares:

• Visit our website Herd Share page

To share your thoughts:

• Leave a comment on our Facebook Page
• Share this show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

To help the show:

• PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW for Peaceful Heart FarmCast on Apple Podcasts.
• Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play Music, TuneIn or Spotify
• Donate on Patreon

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Canning peas is great fun. We have been shelling peas for several days. That is also quite fun. I'll be talking all about that and more in today's podcast.

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I appreciate you all so much. I'm so excited to share with you what's going on at the farm this week.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

It's a beautiful time of year. Summer has arrived in full force. The days are often sunny and hot. We could use a lot more rain, but again, it is summer. The rains will be few and far between for the most part. That means watering the garden and orchard a lot. We really need to get that irrigation system back up and running. Oh well, it's on the very long list of stuff we would like to do. Right now, life is all about canning peas. But first . . . how about some animal updates?

Cows

Surprise! Hansel and Gretel, the twin calves, have a new home. Each day I went out there to give them their bottles I looked and them and mused about what we were going to do with them. Then God provided. A man called out of the blue. He actually lives relatively close, about an hour away. He was frantic for a calf. Just that morning one of his cows, a Holstein, had lost her calf. I was happy to say that we did have a calf he could buy. In fact, we had two and the cow being a Holstein, she would produce lots and lots and lots of milk. He could probably use two calves.

It all happened so fast. Before nightfall, this wonderful man and his wife were here picking up those two calves. It was such a win-win situation. Again, it all happened so fast I didn't have much of a chance to think about how much I would miss seeing those baby faces every day.

Artificial insemination is in progress. It is less than a week before we see if the AI took. We look for signs from any of the cows coming into heat. If so, we do it again. Fingers crossed all seven cows and heifers are pregnant on the first try.

Donkeys

Scott got all of the donkeys spiffed up with their hooves trimmed nicely. They are going to the sale barn. If you would like one of these great animals, let us know soon. Their purpose on our homestead was livestock protection. Now that we have decided to use livestock guardian dogs for that task, their jobs no longer exist and they will have to move on to help out someone else.

I will miss them, especially Daisy and Cocoa. Well, Sweet Pea and Johnny will also be missed. It was a hard decision but we have to do the best we can for all of our animals and the coyote pressure was too much for them, I think. They are miniature donkeys. Perhaps if they had been full sized donkeys, the job would have been an easy one. In any case, we are moving on with the next plan. It's how we roll on the homestead.

Sheep and Goats

I just checked the possible delivery dates for the sheep. We couldn't find the day that we put Lambert back in with the ladies, so we guessed based on the log entries for when the animal predation stopped. Our best estimate indicates we could have new lambs the last week of October. That would be such a blessing. We really have no idea how it will go as we've never tried to breed the ewes for a fall lambing. Many sheep and goats will only breed in the fall for spring lambing. The katahdin breed is supposed to be able to breed year-round. We shall see.

Orchard and Garden

Just before I started this podcast, I went to the spare bedroom and looked out the window to see if Scott might be in the garden. It was not likely but you never know. He has been working on fixing the deer fencing that was annihilated a few years back during a particularly difficult thunderstorm. Trees were down all over and one took out some of the deer fencing.

The game cameras we have out there indicated to Scott that there are two deer that are regularly invading the orchard. That's why the blueberries disappeared. Likely the blackberries will be next. Something was also chomping on the green beans. I knew that would be deer. They love green bean plants.

Deer are Dear

Anyway, I'm looking out the window for Scott and what do I see? There is a deer pacing up and down outside the garden. She is looking for a way to get in and steal more of our bean plants and fruit. I watched her for a little while. Then she laid down right in front of the gate into the orchard. Just plopped down. A half hour later, I looked again and she was still laying there in front of the gate. Of course, if I opened the door and looked out, she would hear that noise and likely run away. I let her rest. It seems Scott has her fenced out. No need to upset her even more.

Tomatoes

The tomatoes are doing well in the garden. Again, we have to water nearly every day. Fertilizer needs to happen as well.

The tomatoes were planted just in front of the green peas. Green peas produce a whopping amount of peas and then die off pretty quickly. I had two 70-foot rows of peas. One was a shelling variety and the other were those lovely sugar snap peas. My original plan was to take them to the farmer's market. Then life happened. They came on so quickly and there were far too many for me to pick, clean and package in time for market. I did pack up two 5-gallon buckets full and sold nearly all of those. But there were so many.

Green Peas

Because they ripened so quickly and it was hot and they were drying out quickly, I simply pulled up all the plants. There was a lot of green material along with the peas. But I needed to get them out of the sun quickly. The living room floor was filled with lots of greenery for a few days. Each evening, we went through the plants and pulled off the peas.

All together there were five more 5-gallon buckets of peas in the pods. These were too far gone to sell fresh at the market so the next challenge was getting the peas shelled out so I could can them. That is still a work in progress. And that brings me to the topic of the day, canning peas.

Canning Peas

Within a couple of evenings, my 3-gallon stainless steel pot was full. In quart jars, that is a nice even dozen. I figured with leaving head space and all that I could stretch that to 14 jars and fill my American Standard canner. It is tall enough to hold two levels of 7 jars each. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Shelling Peas

Scott and I have spent three or four days so far shelling peas in the evening after chores and dinner. We are re-watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy. When Scott saw what I had picked for entertainment while we shelled peas, he commented something along the lines of, "I guess you are expecting this take a while." And indeed, I did . . . and do. We are nearing the end of the extended versions of the movie. I don't really know many hours that entails. I'm thinking three plus hours for each film, so that would be somewhere in excess of nine hours so far.

We have three of the five buckets of peas shelled. I have one canner full from the first two buckets and enough peas for another seven jars from the third bucket of peas. That leaves two more buckets for tonight and tomorrow night. That should make another 14 quarts. All together I will likely have 35 jars of canned peas. That should last us a while, don't ya think?

Canning is the Easy Part

Canning the peas is the easiest part of this whole scenario. I know that some of you may be hesitant about canning. But once you know and understand how it is done, it comes down to what size jar you use and how much time will that be at 12 pounds pressure. Well, twelve pounds for us. We are over the 1,000 feet elevation mark. The standard is 10 pounds of pressure for canning just about anything that requires a pressure canner.

I have a nice gauge that allows me to bring that pressure up to 12 pounds. If I use my smaller canner, I end up using a pressure device that just wobbles and spits steam when the pressure is reached. I use the 15-pound pressure gauge to make my canning safe. And I'm ahead of myself again. Let me give you the basics of canning in a nutshell. Hopefully, you will see that it is not as onerous a task as you might think.

Experience Develops Confidence

I used to think that canning was really, really hard and I dreaded the late summer as I would have to begin canning the harvest. That was years ago. After the first couple of years, it became second nature to me. You can get there as well. When canning peas, beans, carrots, corn, greens and so on, the steps are the same. The time to hold the jars at pressure is the only thing that changes. I simply bring out the Ball canning book and check the time for the vegetable I'm canning.

The steps are simple for cold pack canning. That means the vegetables are not cooked or otherwise heated. The jars are supposed to be heated, but I never actually do that.

Step One – Get Your Equipment Ready

Step one is getting your equipment ready.

The Canner

I set up the canner on the stovetop, fill it with three quarts of water or just enough to have about an inch and a half of water from the bottom of the canner. I add about a tablespoon of vinegar to the water. It can be detrimental to the rings, making them rust, but it makes keeping the inside of the canner clean a breeze. That's a tip I picked up a couple of years ago. The inside of my canner had become dark and discolored. Then I saw a canning video on YouTube and the Youtuber added vinegar to prevent that. I started doing that and my canner now looks like new inside.

Anyway, get the canner set up. I turn the burner on low and slowly heat that water and vinegar. It will be just about at a boil by the time I get everything else done.

The Jars

Prepare the jars. That means making sure they are free of cracks and knicks at the rim. They need to be clean and sterilized. Lots of folks immerse them in boiling water, I use bleach water. It's faster and that means a lot to me. The canning is not hard to do but it can be time consuming waiting for this to boil and that to boil and so on. If using soapy bleach water to clean and sanitize my jars is not safe, someone let me know in the comments, along with why. My mom used to put her jars on a baking sheet and stick them in the oven for a few minutes. That was her method of sterilization.

Large Pot of Boiling Water

You will also need a large pot of boiling water to pour over the vegetables once they are in the jars. Go ahead and prepare that now. There is no set amount. Guessing is my method there. Twelve quart-jars filled to the brim will hold three gallons. The peas take up lots of space so I figured no more than a cup or two of water per quart jar of peas would be plenty. In the end, I used less than a gallon and a half of boiling water for 14 jars of peas.

Canner set up, jars cleaned and sterile, water to pour over the veggies. Equipment is all set up.

Step Two – Prepare the vegetables

Step two is getting your vegetables ready. For canning peas, that means shelling them out and cleaning them up. That has been the hardest part so far. It was much harder than shelling them out. That just takes time. Getting the little bits of shells, twigs and leaves out was a real challenge.

Step Three – Fill the Jars, Put Lids in Place

The next step is filling the jars. Oops! Almost forgot. Add salt if you desire. I always do. One half teaspoon for pints and one teaspoon for quarts. Again, it's the same for all vegetables. That's why this gets easy. After a while you don't even have to think about it.

Add salt to the bottom of the jar. Loosely fill the jar with vegetables, don't pack them. I fill mine to just below one inch of headspace below the rim.

Next fill each jar with boiling water to one inch below the rim. I'm making sure the veggies are covered under the hot water.

Wipe the rims with a damp paper towel or washcloth. Place the lid and ring. Screw lid on to finger tight. Put the jar in the canner. After all jars are in place, put the canner lid in place and secure it according to manufacturers instructions.

Step Four – Bring the Canner up to Pressure and Start Timing

Now that everything is in place, turn up the heat on the burner. Leave off the pressure gauge. That's the big weight that lets you identify when the proper pressure has been reached. Because I have the analog reading on my big canner, I use the 10-pound pressure gauge. It will actually come up to about 12 or 13 pounds of pressure before that gauge starts dancing and letting out steam. It should dance around a few times each minute. More than that, and you have too much pressure. Turn down the heat.

Once I get that dancing pressure gauge, I turn down my heat to medium low. That is three on my stovetop dial. After doing a few batches, you will know exactly where to set your stovetop to maintain the proper pressure. Again, mine is at three. Set your timer for the recommended amount of time. For quart jars of canned peas the Ball Canning book says 40 minutes at the recommended pressure for your altitude.

Step Five – Remove the Jars

When the timer goes off, turn off the heat and wait until the pressure gauge has completely returned to 0. If you don't have the analog dial, what you will have is a pressure relief button. Once the button falls back to its resting position, the pressure is zero. If you are ever in doubt, just wait 15 more minutes.

Remove the Gauge

Once the pressure has returned to zero, remove the gauge. Some steam may come out still. Do not do the "quick release" like you would do with your InstaPot. Let the pressure return to normal without any help. If the pressure comes down too quickly, the water will bubble up out of the jar. You will lose liquid leaving your veggies partially out of the liquid and you may have jars that do not seal well if bits of the veggies got under the lid. Let all return to normal naturally.

Remove and Cool the Jars

After removing the gauge, a waiting five minutes to ensure all pressure is normalized, remove the lid. Using the special tool for removing jars from the canner, gently place each jar on a towel or wooden cutting board. Do not adjust the lids. Let them cool naturally.

At this point you are all done. And what a great job you did. Once the jars are completely cooled, label them and store them with your other canned foods.

Final Thoughts

That's it for today podcast. I hope you enjoyed hanging out with the animals on the homestead. Sharing it all with you is a blessing for me and I hope it is for you as well.

I boiled the steps of canning down to five. Get your equipment set up, prepare your vegetables, fill the jars and place the lids, bring your canner up to pressure, and then a proper cool-down afterwards. That's it! I hope I've inspired you to give canning a try if you haven't already. And I know you probably have lots of questions if you are just starting out. Feel free to contact me if you would like me to answer your questions. I'd love to assist you in developing your homestead skills.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts or whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review. If you like this content and want to help out the show, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

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Today's topic is cheddar cheese. That's right. It's time for another trivia podcast and this one is all about cheddar cheese. Is your mouth watering yet? I must say that I make a fantastic cheddar cheese and I hope you get to try it one day.

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I appreciate you all so much. Before we get started on the cheddar facts, let me give you an update on what's going on at the homestead.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

If you are listening to this podcast sometime in the future, your date marker is that we are in the middle of June. Almost at the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. That the crops are starting to come in already. We are continuing the overwhelmed portion of the year. It starts in spring and continues right on through the fall. Planting, weeding, harvesting, and storing food. Along the way, the animals need additional care. Breeding cycles, milking twice a day, and flies. Always the flies. This year they are particularly high in population. Large dumps of wet rain at the perfect time of year for the propagation of flies is making the animals miserable.

Cows

The artificial insemination process has officially begun. The first step is to get all of the cows that are being bred to cycle at nearly the same time. This is especially important for a dairy. Ideally, the calves will be born within days of each other.

In the first few days, the cows produce a thick nutritious milk product called colostrum. It is high in fat and most importantly, it is filled with the antibodies the calves need to survive and thrive. We can save that milk for making cheese or fulfilling herd share obligations. It must all go to the calves. And there is a lot of it. We save it in jars and cans and gradually dole it out to the calves. Once we get into keeping the milk, we get to keep every single drop of it until this backlog of milk/colostrum is consumed. Then we share the awesome milk with the calves and we get less milk for making cheese and herd shares.

The reason that we need the births to be close together is the timing of who is in colostrum and who are we milking. We milk two at a time. If the calves are close together, then it is easy to just milk everybody the same. If that doesn't happen, then we end up milking out the ones who are in the stage of producing milk we can use and then lastly, we milk out those who are still producing colostrum. Again, ideally everybody produces their colostrum all together and then we can get on with just milking everybody and not worrying about stopping, pouring up the milk and then starting again for colostrum milk for those late birthing cows. This is our second year of AI. So far, it is going well. Tomorrow, the placing of the sperm happens. Then we wait for three weeks to see if anyone comes into heat again. Of course, we hope that everyone takes on the first try. But how often does that actually happen? I don't know. Again, we are new to this process.

Sheep

The sheep are still grazing safely right outside my living room window. I think we are past the predator issues for the moment. We are still looking for a dog to add to the homestead. I don't ever want to go through that kind of predator loss ever again.

Lambert is in there with the girls. Perhaps we will have lambs again in the fall.

Quail

I don't think I said anything about the quail in the last podcast. That's a first, right? Well, the first batch has been processed – well we kept almost all of the girls. They filled out the breeding groups that were missing a hen, replaced one complete breeding group that was older and the remaining 10 we kept for extra eggs. They are all laying pretty well at this point.

The second group that was a really small hatch, only 19, is now in the penthouse growing. They are growing like weeds. We did lose one and so there are 18 up there on the left side of the grow out cage. Again, the right side of the grow out cage has the extra hens we kept to lay eggs for us.

Now we come to the third batch that are in the incubator. There are 72 eggs in there and they go into lockdown in two days. Two days after that, we will begin to hear some peeping. Let's pray that we have a better hatch rate this time. We shall see.

Garden

The biggest news I have at the moment is the garden. We planted lots and lots and lots of peas. I wanted them for the farmer's markets. Well, I got my wish. There are soooo many peas out there. Today, instead of trying to pick from each plant (which I did a few days ago), I decided to just pull up the plants, peas and all. I needed to get the plants out because the tomatoes are planted right in front of them and they will need that trellis soon. It was really quick and easy. I now have piles of plants with pea pods hanging off of them. After I finish this podcast, I will be out there pulling the pods off of the plants. And the plants I pulled up today was only half of what is out there.

The beans are doing really well. I would like to get a bit of time to go out there and fill in the blank spaces where a seed here and there did not sprout. But even if I don't get that accomplished, I'm going to have lots and lots and lots of beans and crowder peas.

There two beds of peppers. One is a wonderful bell pepper called California Wonder. Those plants produce beautiful large green bell peppers like you find in the grocery. If I leave them on the plant, they will eventually turn red. The red ones are really sweet.

The other peppers are Italian pepperoncini. I'm going to pickle them. I'll probably sell the pickled pepperoncini at the farmer's market. Oh, and I think there are a few banana peppers out there. I don't know what I will do with them. Perhaps, pickle them as well. We shall see.

The onions look fabulous. I'm not sure how much longer they have before they are done. It's easy to tell with onions. The green tops will just fall over, dry out and turn brown. That the indicator for when it is time to dig them up and cure them for storage.

Fruit and the Orchard

The strawberry plants look great and there were lots of strawberries. However, something was eating them and we haven't gotten very many for ourselves. That's yet another project that got on to Scott's "To Do" list. Fix up some kind of barrier to keep out the squirrels, rabbits, birds, etc that are eating the strawberries. He just doesn't have the time right now. More on that later.

I checked the blueberries a few days ago. There are a lot fewer berries than last year. That is likely due to the bee hive dying off. We really relied on them to pollinate everything. This year we were dependent on the bumble bees for all of our pollination.

One thing I noticed while out checking the blueberries and blackberries was that we finally have a few apples coming on this year. I don't really know how old these trees are, but we have been anticipating apples and pears for a while. Looks like the apples are coming this year. Yay!!

Creamery

The creamery is on hold yet again. Scott is off doing other things. Mostly gathering hay. We tried to grow our own hay for a year or two and just found that it was simply not worth it for the small amount we need. Maintaining the equipment is always a challenge. Better to let someone else have those headaches. The person who normally supplies our hay is growing his cow herd and the lack of rain at the appropriate time led to a smaller than usual harvest. So I got on Facebook and found a couple of places where Scott could get hay. Unlike the previous arrangement, which was quite close and the hay was delivered right to us, Scott is having to haul the hay here. These are large round bales. He can handle eight bales at a time. It is a time-consuming task that requires days and days and days to complete.

In between, he is prepping the cows for the AI appointment and doing most of the milking tasks. He helps me on Mondays with making cheese and spends quite a bit of time cleaning up the large cheese vat and the large utensils. I handle the small stuff. On Friday and Saturday morning he does the entire milking routine by himself as I am at the farmer's market. The creamery will get back on the schedule soon, I'm sure. Speaking of making cheese, It's time for me to get to the topic of the day. Cheddar cheese.

Cheddar Cheese

Let's start with the basics of describing this great cheese. It is a relatively hard cheese. Ours is off-white and the stuff in the store is usually orange. Cheddar cheese originated in the English village of Cheddar in Somerset. Now it is produced all over the world.

Background

In the UK, cheddar is the most popular type of cheese, accounting for over half of the country's annual cheese market. It is the second-most popular cheese in the US. The most popular is mozzarella. In the US the average annual consumption of cheddar cheese is about 10 lbs per person. In 2014, the US produced about 3 billion lbs of cheddar cheese.

The term cheddar cheese is widely used and has no protected designation of origin even when the UK was part of the EU until 2020. Many cheeses have a protected designation of origin name. Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) is the English name for an identification form used by the EU that is meant to preserve the designations of origin of food-related products. This labeling was created in 1992 and its main purpose is to designate products that have been produced, processed and developed in a specific geographical area, using the recognized know-how of local producers and ingredients from the region concerned.

PDO

The characteristics of the products protected are essentially linked to the terroir. That is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a food or crop's unique environmental contexts, farming practices or growth habitat. Collectively, these contextual characteristics are said to have a character; terroir refers to this character.

The EU's regulation is meant to guarantee the reputation of regional products, adapt existing national protections to make them comply with the requirements of the WTO and inform consumers that products bearing the PDO logo respect the conditions of production and origin specified by this designation.

The regulations cover all sorts of foodstuff like wines, cheese, hams, sausages, olives, beers, fruits, vegetables, breads and animal feed.

Foods such as gorgonzola, parmigiano-reggiano, asiago cheese, camembert de Normandie and champagne can be labeled as such only if they come from the designated region. There are other requirements. In the case of camembert de Normandie, not only is it required to be produced in the Normandy region of France, it must also be made with raw milk from Normande cattle.

History

Cheddar originates from the village of Cheddar in Somerset, south west England. Cheddar Gorge on the edge of the village contains a number of cheese caves, which provided the ideal humidity and steady temperature for maturing the cheese.

Cheddar has been produced since at least the 12th century. Financial records of King Henry II from 1170 records the purchase of 10,240 lbs. Charles I also bought cheese from the village of Cheddar.

In the 19th-century Somerset dairyman Joseph Harding was central to the modernization and standardization of cheddar cheese. For his technical innovations, promotion of dairy hygiene, and volunteer dissemination of modern cheese-making techniques, he has been dubbed "the father of Cheddar cheese". Harding introduced new equipment to the process of cheese-making, including a device for curd cutting call a "revolving breaker". The "Joseph Harding method" was the first modern system of Cheddar production based upon scientific principles. Together, Joseph Harding and his wife were behind the introduction of Cheddar cheese into Scotland and North America. His sons, Henry and William, were responsible for introducing the cheese production to Australia and facilitating the establishment of the cheese industry in New Zealand.

According to a USDA researcher, cheddar cheese is the world's most popular variety of cheese, and it is the most studied type of cheese in scientific publications.

Cheddaring Process

"Cheddaring" refers to an additional step in the production of the cheese. After culturing, cutting, cooking and draining, the cheddaring begins. It is a lengthy process of stacking and turning slabs of curd. The curd is then milled or broken up into small pieces again and salted before being placed in a press. The press forms the final shape of the cheese.

The cheese is kept at a constant temperature and humidity level. Special facilities or a cheese cave as mentioned before are needed to complete this part. And it will mature for anywhere from three months to two years or more.

Character of Cheddar Cheese

The ideal quality of the original Somerset Cheddar was described by Joseph Harding in 1864 as "close and firm in texture, yet mellow in character or quality; it is rich with a tendency to melt in the mouth, the flavor full and fine, approaching to that of a hazelnut".

Cheddar made in the classical way tends to have a sharp, pungent flavor, often slightly earthy. The texture is firm and can be crumbly. Cheddar cheese aged over one year should also contain large cheese crystals consisting of calcium lactate.

Cheddar can be a deep to pale yellow color, or a yellow-orange color when annatto is added. Annatto is extracted from seeds of a tree. Originally it was added to simulate the color of high-quality milk from grass-fed Jersey and Guernsey cows, but it may also impart a sweet, nutty flavor.

Clau d'ville Cheddar

We don't use annatto in our cheddar cheese. We produce a beautiful light cream-colored cheddar cheese. Bright, citric flavors at the six-month mark complement a smooth, creamy texture. As each cheese approaches it's first birthday the pineapple notes give way to a deeper, more savory cheese with a buttery, malty finish, offering a delightful taste sensation.

At six months it is smooth and almost creamy. Aged a year or longer, it becomes deliciously crunchy, crumbly and tangy. Pair it with a fruity Pinot Noir, a strong ale, apple liqueur or cider, or a vintage port.

Our cheddar is currently only available via our Herd Share program. If you are listening to this in 2022, this statement will be out of date. We plan to be in our inspected facility in early 2022.

Final Thoughts

That's it for today's podcast on Cheddar cheese. The homestead is moving along nicely. We are moving into the summer routine. The animals are doing their thing, eating grass out in the fields. The gardens are flourishing. And the work continues to keep us on our toes. It is healthy activity and we appreciate the opportunity to share our journey with all of you.

I hope you enjoyed the Cheddar cheese information and we look forward to serving your cheese needs in the future.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts or whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review. If you like this content and want to help out the show, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

To learn about herd shares:

• Visit our website Herd Share page

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• Leave a comment on our Facebook Page
• Share this show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

To help the show:

• PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW for Peaceful Heart FarmCast on Apple Podcasts.
• Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play Music, TuneIn or Spotify
• Donate on Patreon

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Today is going to be all about honey. How sweet is that? Honey is a yummy treat that has lots of health benefits. But what is it really? And how is it made? What's the best way to store it and how long will it last? All of these questions and more will be answered in today's podcast.

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and, as always, welcome back all of you who are veteran homestead-loving regulars stopping by the FarmCast for every single episode. I appreciate you all so much. We have lots to talk about regarding the goings on around the homestead.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

Let's start with the cows. I love our cows so much. They are definitely my favorite. Well, I love those lambs too. And the goats. And the quail. And what about the donkeys? Okay, I can't decide on a favorite.

Cows

We tried again to put the milking moms in with the rest of the herd and the other three nursing calves. There is a video up on our Facebook page of Princess following Rosie around. And as you can imagine, Rosie came up short a couple of gallons of milk this morning. Well, it was worth a try anyway. Princess is a very resourceful young lady and will latch on anywhere that anyone will let her.

Violet is "bagging up". That means she is approaching her delivery. We now have her in with the Rosie and Butter. They come up every day, twice a day so we can check on her more often. The rest of the crowd will come up once a day. They are getting retrained for the upcoming AI procedures. There are three. There is a hormonal implant that is done a week ahead. Then there is a hormone shot three days ahead. And then the AI implantation takes place. After all of that, we wait for three weeks to see if they come into heat again. If so, we try the implant once again. And that circle of life is continued.

This will be our second year of using artificial insemination. I hope it goes better this year. I expect it will. Experience always makes things go easier. Violet will be the only one not involved in this first round of AI as she will either not have delivered yet or will have freshened only a day or so ahead of all the prep. She will need six weeks before she is ready to start her next calf.

Sheep

We lost yet another sheep, this time to a rogue dog, or so the tracks would indicate. They were much too large for a coyote. I say it was a rogue dog because we never saw another indication that it was still in the area. There was a very large lost dog that was listed on our county Facebook page the very next day. Are they connected? We will never know. The losses are devastating but we keep moving. We continue to search for a livestock guardian dog and pray the right one comes along soon.

Garden

Scott is out in the garden today putting in a whole lot of plant starts. We have been so busy with other things that the garden tasks have just been pushed back and pushed back and pushed back some more. He is out there trying to get us caught up. What a wonderful man he is as he picks up the slack that I'm leaving out there. I sprained my hand last week and it will hurt like crazy if I work it too hard. Scott has been doing lots of things to help me out. The garden work is only one of them.

Culinary Herbs

I have two perennial herbs that are going in between the sections of the strawberry patch. I already have oregano and thyme out there. Today Scott is adding the rosemary and garden sage.

Other herbs plants he hopes to get in the ground are the parsley and basil. I'm raising those as annuals. Perhaps when I have an official herb garden I will plant some that will reseed each year. We shall see.

Peppers

On the vegetable front. He has two flats of peppers that will fill another two raised beds. It's a lot to accomplish in one day. Will he reach his goal? We shall see. Whatever he gets done is so appreciated.

The peppers are those lovely California Wonder bell peppers and pepperoncini. I'm going to pickle some this year. Look for those at the farmer's market this fall.

Tomatoes

One other garden topic is the tomatoes. I only have two flats of tomatoes left. I'm taking them to the farmer's market this weekend. Whatever is left will be planted just behind the shelling peas along the orchard wall. Scott put up a fence for a trellis there. It is working great for the peas right now. And as they come out in the next few weeks, the tomatoes will pick up where they left off.

Still to come are the beans and crowder peas. It is so much all at once and then the maintenance of fertilizer and water is all that is needed. We already have some compost tea brewing in a couple of 55-gallon barrels. We have plenty of poo that Scott gathered and put in there, then filled the barrels with water so the tea can brew. It's a great fertilizer.

Creamery

With all that garden stuff going on, what is happening with the creamery. The answer there is "nothing". We are still waiting on the guys who will build and install the milking stanchion setup. We have now decided to add the other option that was offered to us a few weeks ago. To recap, the quote for the stainless-steel overhead complete pipeline system was way outside of our budget. We nixed that and asked for just the milking stanchion setup. They quoted us that and then added that instead of the complete pipeline system, they could hook up our vacuum pump so we could milk into buckets and then pour them into the bulk holding tank. I kind of balked at that as well. The price quote was certainly within reason and we could swing it financially, but I didn't see the real benefit. Now comes the part about how I injured my hand and how we are likely going to get that vacuum pump working.

Broken Equipment

I didn't see the benefit because we already have the portable milkers that pump the milk into a can. It's on wheels and easy to move from cow to cow. We can do two at a time. It really works well for us. Why change? Well, because it can fail quite easily. One evening during cleanup after milking, the cover over the vacuum tank on that little machine suddenly collapsed and was sucked into the vacuum drum. Scott and a family friend worked on getting something patched together for the morning milking. They worked well past midnight.

In the morning, we tried the newly engineered vacuum tank cover. It failed within a minute or so. Rosie was maybe half way milked out. Butter was not even close. I quickly got together what we needed to hand milk the cows. Butter was done in a little over 20 minutes or so. Then we moved to the really hard one, Rosie. She was already milked out some but there was probably close to a gallon still to go. Rosie's teats are about as big as my little finger. There is no way to get a good grasp on it. We were getting about a quarter teaspoon with each squirt. I cannot imagine how long it would take to completely milk her out. We finally decided to just let her go and make sure we had a system in place to milk her out in the evening.

The Backup Portable Milker

One other thing we tried along the way was using the other portable milker that we keep as a backup. It had been so long since we had used it that we didn't even remember how to set it up correctly. There are lots of hoses that have to be hooked up just so or it simply won't work. This particular milker needs to be oiled in order to function properly. Here is where I fell.

Scott turned it on and the oil shot up out of the top like a geyser, splashing on the roof of the shed and splattering everywhere. I tried to quickly jump out of the way. My foot caught on a piece of wood that we had in the ground from a couple of years ago when we had to tie one of Butter's legs back so she wouldn't kick the milking inflations off of her teats. My foot caught and down I went. I fell to the side and landed on the outside of my right arm and hand. Within a few minutes I felt alright. The pain subsided. I continued to do everything I had planned for the day. Basically, that was making cheese.

My Fall and Injury

Over the next few hours, the pain escalated to the point that I had to get Scott to finish the cheese while I went to the urgent care clinic. No broken bones, but a good sprain in that hand. According to the PA, it was likely my osteoarthritis causing the biggest part of the pain at that moment. He wrapped it up and I kept it wrapped up for a couple of days, but it seems like everything I do involves water. I finally gave up on the wrap and have been using pain to temper my activity. It's an imperfect method. Usually by the end of the day my hand is throbbing. Today, the swelling is almost gone but it will still be a few more weeks before it is back to normal. Scott is picking up the slack for me. He is always there for me.

The bottom line is I can now very clearly see why we might want that vacuum pump hooked up and working, keeping the portable milker as a standby. Experience is a great teacher. And all of that to say that the creamery is currently on pause while Scott does other things and we wait on the milking stanchions and vacuum pump work to be completed.

The primer coat of paint is complete and Scott has decided on the wall coloring it will be a color that is between the color of milk and butter. Nearly white, but with some yellow tone. It's going to be glorious.

Okay that went on longer than I anticipated. Let's get on to the topic of honey.

Honey

We have had one single beehive in the corner of the orchard for several years. We have never worked this hive. The bees fended for themselves. We never took their honey. They kept it all. This likely would have continued for another few years except that our bees did not survive this past winter.

I asked one of the guys that sell honey at the farmer's market what might have happened. He said that they also lost more than usual. If the bees unclump because it gets warm and then it gets cold again, they will freeze. They clump together over the winter and keep the queen bee in the center of the clump so she is warm. Throughout the winter more and more bees on the outside will die. The rest keep going and going, keeping that queen safe and warm. Again, if they unclump too early, the cold can kill them. We did have lots of warm and then freezing weather right behind it.

Once the weather got warm for a longer period of time, all sorts of bees came around that now unprotected hive to steal the honey. An active hive will have an army of bees that protect the entrance from just this sort of activity. Any bee will steal honey that they find undefended. It was an angry mob out there. Scott waited until it got dark and the bees went home. Then he pulled off the top three boxes, or supers, full of honey. We kept the boxes covered in a plastic garbage bag inside and away from the robber bees.

Another one of those tasks that got pushed back and pushed back and pushed back, Scott started working on getting the honey out of the comb just a few days ago. We have the honey extracted and will begin seeing what we can do about preserving the wax in the next couple of days.

So, we have lots of honey now, perhaps five gallons or so. What will we do with all of that? Let's talk about honey.

What is honey

How about a few trivia facts to get started? The honey itself is produced from flower nectar or from honeydew secreted from other insects. The bees eat the nectar or honeydew, add some of their stomach enzymes and then regurgitate the result. It goes into the wax structure or honeycomb where they proceed to fan it with their wings causing the water to evaporate.

So what makes it sweet? Whenever you see that O S E on the end of a word, "ose," it means a type of sugar. Honey gets its sweetness from fructose and glucose. Honey has about the same relative sweetness as sucrose which is table sugar. Those of you counting calories will want to know that one tablespoon of honey is about 46 calories.

Honey use and production have a long and varied history. There are cave paintings in Cuevas de la Arana in Spain that depict humans foraging for honey. These paintings were done at least 8,000 years ago. Large-scale meliponiculture has been practiced by the Mayans since pre-Columbian times. Meliponiculure beekeeping of stingless bees. Stingless bees are meliponines. They actually have stingers but they are small and not used for defense. There are other types of stingless bees and they can have painful and powerful bites.

Global production of honey in 2019 was 1.9 million tons. The leading producers are China (with 24% of the total), Turkey, Canada, Argentina, and Iran.

How is Honey Made

I'll expand a little on how it is made. There is more to it than eating pollen, regurgitating and drying it. It all starts with the queen. Each hive must have a queen. She keeps the hive functioning. There can be only one.

The Queen

When the hive gets too large, the queen will begin laying queen cells. Nurse bees take care of this cell by feeding the queen cells nothing but royal jelly. Other eggs only get royal jelly for the first few days.

Once the new queen hatches, the older queen leaves with a small swarm so the new, younger, stronger, queen does not kill her. If multiple queen cells hatch at once, they will fight to the death. There can be only one.

The Mating Flight

Now that the new queen is hatched, it is her job to lay eggs and keep the hive thriving. Of course, that means she has to mate before laying eggs. This is where the worker bees and drones come in. The worker bees mainly lay drone eggs. The drones are the male bees. The virgin queen bee will only mate once in her lifetime. These drone bees wait their entire life for the chance to mate with the queen. After that they are just another mouth to feed.

The queen flies high into the sky. The drone bees are hanging out waiting for their opportunity. The strongest and genetically best drones will make their way to the queen. It's a short life though. The drone's genitalia will be ripped free after mating leaving a hole that will ultimately lead to his death. It's a short life filled with purpose. His life mission to continue his DNA is completed and he dies. The queen has a storage sack where the sperm is stored and utilized for the rest of her life.

The Queen Lays Eggs

The queen now returns to the hive and begins laying eggs. She lays in the cells called brood chambers. Based on the needs of the hive, the queen will determine what type of bee each egg will produce. I mentioned the queen cell earlier. It is peanut shaped. The drones are larger cells, the worker bees are smaller cells. Young worker bees are called nurse bees. They feed all the cells in which she has laid eggs.

Bee Employment

The bees start out as larvae, they graduate to whatever their job is going to be when they mature. The drones, as mentioned above, hang around and get fed, leaving the hive during the day to hang out with other drones searching for a virgin queen in flight.

The worker bees are all female. Some gather the pollen, while others stay in the hive receiving the pollen and other things that are brought to her. The others will also help with making the honey. There are some worker bees that become nurse bees, caring for the eggs and larvae. Some, called attendants, even care for the queen.

Most bees live for about two months or less. All of this is happening very quickly.

The queen bee's job is to lay eggs. She will lay around 1,500 eggs per day. And that's a full-time job.

Collecting Pollen

The older, scavenger bees will travel within a 5-mile radius of their hive to collect food and pollen using their proboscis like a straw. What they don't use for their own nourishment in their first stomach goes to their second stomach. This is like a storage pouch for transferring what they collected. They return to the hive.

The worker bee in the hive will use their proboscis to suck the nectar and pollen from the scavenger bee's second stomach.

Filling the Honeycomb

The worker bees spread what they collected over an empty comb constructed by other worker bees. Once a comb is full, the honey needs to be dehydrated. Pulling the water out of the honey keeps it from spoiling. They dehydrate it by flapping their wings at just the right speed for just the right amount of time. Their instincts tell them when the honey is ready.

Capping the Honey

Next, the honey is capped. Bees create wax from their abdomen and they layout sheets of it, capping the newly filled comb. This keeps the water out. They eat it in the winter.

That's it. The honey is made. This is where the beekeeper will come in and make the harvest. Again, we have never done this in real time. We only saved what was left when the hive died. That's yet another learning experience for another day.

How is Honey Stored?

Honey is a staple in the kitchens of many around the globe. It is a very useful sweetener. It never goes bad and is very easy to store. Even if it starts to crystallize, it can easily be restored.

All you need to do is keep it cool and away from direct sunlight. Use a tightly sealed container. Glass or food-safe plastic are the best containers. Honey can oxidize metal.

You do not need to refrigerate honey. In fact, it will become really, really thick and harder to use when you need. You end up heating it up a little to return it to liquid.

Shelf Life

Honey will keep for a very long time. The high concentration of sugars makes it one of the most stable natural foods available. It can have an almost indefinite shelf life if stored properly. You may notice that honey producers put a "best by" date on their products. It's usually about two years. According to the National Honey Board, this is done for practical purposes because of the variability of honey. However, they do note that honey can be stable for decades and even centuries.

Do not be alarmed if your honey becomes cloudy during storage. This is simply the honey crystalizing. It is not an indication of deterioration. Raw honey with high pollen content will crystallize faster than commercially produced honey. Sometimes crystallization is produced on purpose by the beekeeper.

Crystalized honey can be easily re-liquified. Place the jar in a pan of hot water. Stir gently while heating. Do not overheat. Excessive heat may alter the flavor if the sugars begin to caramelize. The microwave will get too hot too quickly. Avoid at all costs.

Health benefits of Honey

There are so many but I am only touching on five today. Raw honey has been used as a folk remedy throughout history. It's even used in some hospitals as a treatment for wounds. Many benefits are specific to raw, or unpasteurized, honey. Most of the honey you find in your grocery store is pasteurized. The high heat kills unwanted yeast, can improve the color and texture, removes crystallization and extends the shelf life. Unfortunately, many of the beneficial nutrients are also destroyed in the process.

Good Source of Antioxidants

Some types of honey have as many antioxidants as fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants help to protect your body from cell damage due to free radicals left behind in chemical reactions.

Antibacterial and Antifungal Properties

Research has shown that raw honey can kill unwanted bacteria and fungus. It naturally contains hydrogen peroxide. Its effectiveness varies but is clearly more than a folk remedy for bacterial and fungal infections.

Heal Wounds

Manuka honey is used in medical settings to treat wounds because it has been found to be an effective germicide. It also aids in the regeneration of tissue. Honey used in a medical setting is inspected and sterile. Do not treat your cuts with honey from the grocery store.

Digestive Issues

Honey is sometimes used to treat diarrhea, though there is not much research confirming it. It is proven effective as a treatment for H. pylori, a common cause of stomach ulcers.

Honey is also a prebiotic, meaning it nourishes the good bacteria living in your intestines.

Soothing a Sore Throat

Hot tea with honey and lemon is a very common sore throat remedy. It's easy to make and tastes good too. It also works as a cough suppressant. One or two teaspoonfuls, straight should do the trick.

Are There Any Risks?

There is only one risk of which I am aware. Honey should never be given to an infant under one year. I believe it is the danger of clostridium that is the problem there.

There is so much more I could share about honey but this podcast has already gone on a bit longer than usual.

Final Thoughts

That's if for this this edition of the Peaceful Heart Farmcast. I hope you enjoyed the homestead updates. Let me know if there is anything else in particular you would like to know about what we do here. Drop me an email. I'd love to hear from you.

The animals are all doing well. I didn't get to the quail so more on that in the next one. As I said, there is so much more I could share about honey. Let me know if you have questions. I'll do my best to answer them.

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Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

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