Raising goats to make your own cheese is a great goal. Today I’ll go over the basics of how to get started. Making the cheese is another topic for later. Let’s just start with what it takes to raise and care for the animals that make it happen.

First let me 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. As always, I appreciate you all so much. Thank you. There is no show without you.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

Before I get started on today’s topic, just a very brief update on our animals. All of the animals are doing really, really well. No issues so far, even though we had that really deep cold snap. Fortunately, we did not have any lambs born during that time. That was my only concern. Right now, it looks like it will be February before we have lambs. It always takes longer than I think.

Lambs

Lambs gestate for about five months. And the pregnant ewes end up looking like they are going to burst for days and days before the lambs actually arrive. You would think I would get used to it. I looked at one of our ewes a few days ago and thought to myself, “she’s going to have her lambs in the next couple of weeks.” Then I looked at her again yesterday and now I’m thinking it is going to be much later. This is the way of things when we leave the animals on their own for breeding.

Scott keeps really close eye on the cows because they come up to the milking shed every day. The sheep and goats stay out in the pasture, so knowing when they come into heat is just not feasible. Because we know the date that the breeding ram or buck goes in with the ewes and does, we know the earliest date that babies can be born. But after that, we just wing it and figure that all will be born within two months. That usually works. These animals are healthy and can be bred easily.

Cows

We expect our first calf of 2023 the first week of March. The entire herd is all in one lump except for the two heifer calves that were born last year. They are too young to be bred and must be kept separate until we are ready for their breeding to commence. If I remember correctly, that will be some time in the summer. June, July or August. They will go in with the bull and have their first calf about the time they reach two years old.

Chickens

The chickens are doing well. At least three of the four roosters did get a little bit of comb damage during that cold snap. We kept them locked in their coop so their combined warmth would help keep everyone warm. Unfortunately, our roosters have very large combs. Those are those big red things sticking up from the top of their heads. They are quite subject to frostbite. There is only a small bit of damage that I saw. Maybe a ¼ inch or less on the tip of one or two of the points.  

So other than that, all is well with them.

Goats

My young goat girls are doing fantastic. They are still quite small, but will enter the breeding cycle in less than a month. They also require five months of gestation for their kids. We will be looking for our first kids from them in the height of summer. July and August should brings us those cutest of cuteness, goat kids. Well, it’s kind of a toss up between the kids and the lambs. They are both just as cute as they can be when young.

Speaking of goats, how about some info on how you might get set up for raising your own goats?

Raising Goats

I’m going to recount, to the best of my ability, the steps we took to prepare for raising goats. Then I will talk about some of the challenges. The rewards of owning and caring for goats far outweighs the challenges. Keep that in mind if you decide to go on the goat journey.

Getting Set Up

As you are making your plans for bringing goats into your life, the second highest priority is deciding how you will contain them. I’m going to say with near complete certainty that no matter how well you plan this and prepare for it, your goats will escape. Why do I say that? Because they are goats. It’s what they do.

What Do Goats Eat?

The first priority is deciding how you will feed them? Grazing is always the first choice here, but there are times when feeding a little grain is useful. And then there are nutritional supplements to be considered. Today it is popular to think that we are going completely back to nature and they can just live on grass. That is a fallacy in today’s world. Domesticated animals have been bred for generations to be cared for and so we must continue this practice. Our soils are depleted and the grasses that grow no longer have all of the required nutrition for healthy animals.

You will need to give them mineral supplements. You will need to manage their pastures. And sometimes, as much as you may try to prevent it, you will need to use modern medicine to save the life of your animals. These are skills you will build over time and I’ll try to cover the basics a little later.

Grass vs Browse

There are many types of grasses such as orchardgrass, crabgrass, fescue and so on, and your goats will eat them. However, they prefer what is called browse for well over half of their daily diet. What is browse you say? It’s brush, small deciduous trees like those small pines intruding at the edge of your pasture, and small saplings. They love things with thorns like briars, brambles and small black locust trees. They like wild roses and wild blackberry plants, also thorny. Then there are what we normally call weeds that they love. Things like pigweed, various kinds of docks, plantain and lambs quarters. The pigweed and yellowdock have deep roots and are hard to get rid of like dandelion. Plantain and lambs quarters grow wild all over the pasture and are great goat food, while we spend hours trying to get them out of our gardens before they take over.

So, keep that in mind when deciding what your goats might eat.

Grain

What about grain? We personally don’t use a lot of grain with our goats, or the sheep for that matter. But there are uses for it. In the commercial world, young lambs and goat kids are fed what is called “creep feed”. It is used to get their weight up so they can be weaned off of mother’s milk at an earlier age and remain healthy. As far as I can tell, its purpose is to get animals to market quicker and at less cost. Neither of these goals are our goals, so we don’t use creep feed.

We do use grain for other reasons. The number one reason is the health of a doe about to give birth as well as her kids. Where we live, the soil is depleted of selenium. You will need to check your area to see if this is the case where you will be raising your goats. Selenium is vital for the health of your animals.

White Muscle Disease

In the beginning, we used to have kids just disappear after a week or so. Our first goats were really wild and we couldn’t even catch them. They had their kids out on the pasture and we let the does take care of the kids without any intervention. We assumed that predators were getting these little guys. Then one day I caught one of the week-old kids not able to get up and stay standing up. I quickly drug out the book on goat health that I had on my shelf and discovered the problem.

It’s called white muscle disease and it is a result of too little selenium. In our case, the kids would not have enough selenium and quickly became too weak to stand. The kids are very clever at hiding and that is why they just seemed to disappear without a trace. I found one once hiding under a small pile of wood and once in the trunk of a tree. They are small and very easy to miss. Anyway,

White muscle disease is quite easy to remedy if you catch it quickly. A bolus of selenium and vitamin E and the kid is back on its feet within hours. But the better treatment is the preventative treatment. We feed our does just a bit of grain containing selenium supplement every day beginning about two weeks before we estimate they will give birth and then for about a week after. That ensures that mom has the selenium she needs and is passing it on to her kid via her milk. This completely eliminated losing kids to white muscle disease.

Goat Taming

The second reason we use a little bit of grain is to tame the goats. Right now my two baby girls will follow me anywhere. I can even pet Lian and she doesn’t run away. Admittedly, I do have to wait for her to come up to me. If I try to walk up to her in the pasture, she might walk away if she doesn’t see me with a bowl in hand. It is a very small amount, less than a cup between the two of them, and not every day. I’m loving the friendliness that I have not had in the past.

Just a quick note. Our first goats were purchased while we were still traveling back and forth from Virginia to South Carolina and back every single week. I didn’t have the time to spend with my goats that I have now. And they were wild. We could not get within 50 feet of them. It was a real learning curve to get them into the corral. The tasks was accomplished but not without frustration.

Travel Lanes

Scott has built the useful system of fences to move animals from one large area to another. We call them travel lanes. These were so useful in herding the goats. If we could get them into a travel lane, we could move them to a smaller and smaller area until we could catch them up to check on their health. One, we called her Julie Jumper, could escape even this arrangement. It was nearly a year before we were able to give her a health check. Every time we would corral them, she would jump over the five or six-foot fence. It took Scott building that fence up to 10 feet high to keep her contained. It was a small area, so it wasn’t like we had to redo all of our fences. Just those in the corral.

So, grain feeding for taming it a great thing. You want to be able to catch them up to check for general gut health and hoof health.

Ok, enough about grain. Let’s get to creating the most nutritious pasture for your goats.

Rotational Grazing

We set up a rotational grazing system. This system is the best way to maintain their health with minimal intervention with things like worming chemicals. I’ll talk more about worms in a minute. Rotational grazing is also the best way to maintain your pasture. Maintaining pasture is essential for having good foraging and grazing for your goats. You want them to have lots of good grass and browse to maintain their weight and for nutritional support.

How much pasture you require will depend on where you live. In Texas and Oklahoma, you will need more acreage per animal than we require here in Virginia. If you have questions in that regard, email me and I’ll try to give you resources to find out what is best for your part of the world.

Basic rotational grazing for us was setting up a perimeter fence around all of the pastures and then creating smaller paddocks within those larger areas. You will want to set it up so that each paddock will have no goats for a couple of months. This has to do with letting the pastures regrow as well as keeping the parasite load under control. That means those pesky worms I mentioned earlier.

Fencing

There are a couple of different approaches you can take with fencing. One, a permanent fence system. Two, an electric fence system. In my humble opinion, option two still needs a permanent fence perimeter. What do I mean by that?

Permanent Fence

As I mentioned, the goats will get out. Even with a “permanent” fence, they will find a way out eventually. You will want to be able to catch them up quickly so be ready for that. But here again, prevention is best. We can’t have them getting injured by getting out in the road. And we can’t have them damaging the neighbor’s property. A good strong perimeter fence is your best insurance for managing this risk.

Permanent fence needs to be designed specifically for goats. The wires nearer the bottom are closer together so the smaller kids are contained. I’ve seen our full-grown goat girls get through a fence wire that was barely 6” square. I can’t remember her name, but any time of the day we might find her grazing outside of the perimeter fence. Thankfully, they are herd animals and she never went far from the rest of the herd. Later she would be back inside just going on about her business.

Taller is better. Most goats like to jump and some can jump really high – Julie Jumper was as pro. Keep it close to the ground. If the land is not level and uneven, be aware of gaps at the bottom as you move across terrain. We use two strands of barbed wire at the top for extra height and deterrence from jumping.

As far as the dividers between paddocks, this is where electric fence is an option. We chose permanent fence here as well, but it is not absolutely necessary.

Electric Fence

The advantage of electric fence that is commonly used for all sorts of pastured animals is the ease of moving it. In the spring there will be lots of grass and browse, therefore, you may keep them in a smaller area to make sure they eat everything before moving on to the next paddock. Later in the summer, they may require a larger area for the same amount of time grazing as the grass is not as tall and definitely not growing as fast. Being able to vary the size of the paddock is easily accomplished with electric netting. It facilitates a more regular schedule for you.

Again, we chose permanent fencing so our trade-off is that sometimes they might be in an area for a week and other times as much as two or three weeks if the grass is strong. It’s a little different way of thinking about it than just automatically moving them every few days or every week or however much time you decide is optimal between rotations. We move on their schedule. Electric wire lets you move on your schedule.

Source of Electricity

Things to consider with electric fencing is whether you have electricity available close to your pasture, or are you going to use a solar charger to keep the electric fence hot. While a hard wire is more reliable, it’s not that practical unless you have only a few goats that basically in your back yard. If you have more extensive pasture, then solar becomes almost a requirement. The solar unit moves with the fence.

You can also use a marine battery that will move with the fence. All things to consider in planning your system. Plus, these are great conversations with your spouse. I love our dream building conversations probably more than anything else we do together. That’s just me. I’m not sure Scott would rate the conversations that high, but he does like spending time with me. So, there is that.

Housing

Sheep will stay outside in the worst of weather. Goats do like a bit of cover from the worst of it. Though it is not absolutely essential, it is recommended. Of course, how elaborate will depend on your individual situation. They really don’t require a lot of space and will bunch together and snuggle each other.

We have a calf hutch and a couple of dog igloos. Some people build wooden structures including a space where hay can be stored close by for use in the winter. A simple lean-to or covered area with open sides are also options. Just a little something they can get under when the rain comes down hard.

Supplements and Disease Management

A couple of last things to consider in your planning is how will you supplement their minerals. This is a requirement. They must have access to free-choice minerals. Options here include a simple system of buying a pre-mixed, all-purpose mineral or going the more elaborate route. There are systems were you can buy each mineral individually and keep them stocked in their own box. The animals choose how much of each mineral that they want to consume. The prepackaged minerals leave less choice, but are balanced for the average needs of a goat. It must be goat minerals. They need copper more than other animals. Minerals made specifically for goats will address that need.

Wormer

As far as disease management, there are a few things that you should have on hand. First, a good worming medication. While you may not want or need to use these chemicals, there will be times when it might save the life of one of your animals.

Hoof Trimmers

Hoof trimmers are essential for most goat breeds. If you don’t keep them trimmed, you are going to see your goats limping around every time it rains. It is an easy and necessary skill to learn. We got Kiko goats to minimize the need, but I have no doubt that it will be a need from time to time.

Final Thoughts

There is so much more to know, but I am going to leave it here for today. How will you feed them? How will you contain them? How will you house them? How will you care for their physical health? These are the main areas to consider first. Building the physical structures will be led by the decisions you make after having these discussions and thought exercises. Let me know if you have questions.

As always, our Locals subscribers have direct access to us. And you can always drop me an email if you have specific questions. Again, I covered only the very basic thoughts to consider. There is so much more. And should you decide to embark on this journey, I believe it is one that you will have a blast learning about with your family. Jump in with both feet and enjoy the experience. There is nothing like raising and caring for your own animals.

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Have I mentioned that knitting is my favorite winter activity? Things have slowed down and I can have some time to catch up on my knitting projects. The garden has been put to bed. I’m still making cheese, butter and yogurt, but canning is done for the season. I have even gotten all the frozen fruit out of the freezer from this past spring and made the promised cherry and blueberry jams. For the first time, I made brandied figs. This and so much more coming up in this podcast episode. But first . . .

Welcome to all the new listeners and a hearty holiday season welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate you all so much. Let’s get on with some homestead updates.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

Let’s talk about the animals first. We love all of our animals. What would our homestead be without our animals? Pretty boring, don’t you think?

Cows

Finally, we have good news on the bovine front. We believe that all of the cows are now bred. Glory Be to God. Natural breeding is superior by far. We have one calf scheduled for birth on March 5^th 2023. Then the next two will be around the 16^th of July. Then the bull comes along and we have six that will give birth between August 4^th and September 4^th. Here is the run down.

Princess

Princess is a lovely purebred A2A2 Jersey heifer, soon to be cow, giving birth to that first calf around the 5^th of March. We used sexed AI semen for her so her calf will be 50% Jersey and 50% Normande and likely a girl, a heifer. She looks great and we are anticipating great genetics in her calf.

She is small and so is her mom. Not quite miniature Jerseys, but close. Rosie is her mom and in her first lactation cycle she was giving us about three gallons of milk per day. We will expect a similar amount from Princess. We plan on selling her in the future as we move to a 100% registered Normande herd. Keep your ears open about when she comes up for sale as she will make a fantastic milk cow for some lucky family.

Rosie

Speaking of Rosie, she is in the second group of two giving birth in near the middle of July. Rosie is also a registered A2A2 Jersey. She was bred via AI to the bull Fullblood French bull Jacaranda. The semen was unsexed so the gender of her calf will be a surprise. This calf will also be 50% Jersey and 50% Normande. We will be keeping heifer calves that are 50% Normande, but like her daughter, Rosie will come up for sale sometime in the near future.

Ginger

Ginger is the second animal giving birth in mid-July. She is 75% percent Normande. That means she is not recognized as purebred, but her offspring will be as their percentage will be high enough to meet the minimum standard. The sire is also the Fullblood French bull Jacaranda.

Ferdinand’s Offspring

The last group of six are all bred via Ferdinand. You will recall that he is the Guernsey bull that we purchased a couple of months ago. He did his job well. In one month, two hormonal cycles, he has impregnated all of our remaining cows and heifers. At least it appears so as of this recording.

I’m not sure if we will be able to registered his offspring as 50% Normande. I’ll have to check on that. Violet, Virginia and Wanda are all purebred Normandes but it may not be enough for proper registration. We shall see.

Butter is a registered A2A2 Jersey. And the last two, Molly and Cookie are mostly but not registered Jersey cows. Though they are also A2A2. We will be keeping Molly as she does have 25% Normande genetics, but Butter and Cookie will also be moving on to another family.

In the end, four of our cows will be up for sale in the next year or two. They are all great animals, but again, we are building a 100% Normande herd. Each year we will probably move out a couple more as we slowly inch toward our preferred genetic goals.

Nickel

We have Nickel waiting in the wings to get big enough to be our breeding bull. Ferdinand will have one more round of breeding our cows and then we will also sell him. As you can tell, he is a great bull and will be a wonderful addition to someone’s herd. After that, Nickel will be our herd bull for a couple of years. And we will continue using AI as we can to improve the herd genetics. Scott is coming on board as our primary AI technician.

Scott’s AI Training

This is a really great piece of news that I have to share. I mentioned in the last podcst that the idea was for Scott to be able attend an AI workshop and learn to do the procedure himself. Hallelujah, he was able to attend an AI tech training session just a couple of weeks ago. It was literally only an hour away and we made it happen so he could attend. He now knows the basics of how it is done and what challenges he may face. And we have lots of cows for him to practice on as he builds his skill.

The first day he came home a little frustrated with his lack of skill. According to him, it is much harder than it looks from the outside. On the second day of the training session, he got the hang of it and all that is left now is for him to practice.

The very next time that any of our cows get bred, Scott will be trying out his new skills. That is months and months from now but we are both excited about the prospects of being able to use AI much more effectively. We will share how that goes when we get there. The timing of this training session was truly a Blessing from God.

Mack, Finn and Charlotte

Now on to the livestock guardian dogs. There is not much to say here. I am still feeling so blessed that Finn returned after six months of roaming the countryside. We are still treating an infection in his left eye. It is a stubborn infection. Sometimes his eye is clear and then it will cloud up again. Just today we aggressively upped the amount of antibiotic cream we are using in that eye to see if we can knock out that infection once and for all. Otherwise, he is putting on weight and is very happy to be home. There was an early escape and one a day or so ago that was my fault for letting him loose with an open gate, but he is still with us.

Charlotte is going along just fine. Sometimes she tolerates me petting her and sometimes still she won’t let me near her. I just go along and pet her when I can. She is a great dog and I love her so much.

Both Finn and Charlotte are currently with the sheep and the goat doelings. There are a couple of calves in there as well. I forgot to talk about Jill and Penny. Jill is currently up for sale if you know of anyone looking for a young heifer calf. We will be keeping Penny. She is 50% Jersey and 50% Normande. All is well in that pasture for the moment.

Mack is with the cows. They don’t really need him, but what else are we going to do with him. At some point, I would like to see all of the dogs and animals together. I’m not sure that will ever happen. We will always have heifer calves that need to be kept away from the bull and/or vise versa, but bull is kept away from the cows/heifer calves. And then there are ewe lambs and doelings that need to be kept away from the breeding ram and buck. I’m pretty sure we will always have two groups of animals. The best I can hope for is that all the of animals and dogs will eventually become interchangeable. At the moment I don’t trust the large animals with Finn and Charlotte and I don’t trust the small animals with Mack. So, there you have it. This may be our standard operating procedure going forward. I’ll keep you posted.

Kiko Goats

Now for a little update on the goats. Things are going fairly well in that area. I have managed to tame all of the goats a fair bit. They will follow me anywhere if they think there might be a treat at the end of the road. All are growing nicely. It will be another two months before the girls can meet up with the boy.

Lian and Amys are with the sheep and Rhuarc is right next door in the lower garden with a ram lamb as a companion. As soon as the girls are old enough, these two boys will be able to join the main group of sheep and goat girls.

Sheep

Several ewes are looking quite plump. I expect that we will have lambs in January or February. Not the best time of year, but I have found that these Katahdin sheep are really good moms and the lambs are generally hardy even in winter. If the weather is particularly bad, we can take them to shelter. Otherwise, this breed is very used to giving birth out in the pasture, even in the winter.

I have heard of several breeders that specifically breed for birthing in January and February as they are looking for their lambs to reach market size by the time November rolls around and the various religious groups are looking for lamb and goat for their feasts. We may look at that market as well. Otherwise, we like to keep ours all the way up to the 12^th month of growth. I’ll keep you posted, but the sheep have dogs protecting them at the moment and I expect that we will actually have lambs soon and that we will be able to raise them to market weight without predators running off with them. At least that is the current expectation.

Chickens

The last animals to discuss are the chickens. Last time I mentioned that Mack had made mincemeat of one of the hens. We still have all of the rest of the hens and roosters. Just a few days ago, we added six new hens to the flock. One of our herd share members had more chickens than she wanted and she gifted us these hens. We are not sure whether they are Cinnamon queens or Rhode Island reds. Either way, they are providing us a couple more eggs a day.

Of the eleven others that we have, we were getting 2 or 3 eggs per day. We added half as many hens but doubled our egg production. Now we are getting 5 or 6 eggs per day. Go figure. I don’t know if I mentioned that I am looking at perhaps changing my mind of what breed of chickens that we raise. There are always good logical reasons for the breeds we choose for any given animal. However, the literature seems to be flawed on the chicken breeds I chose. I expected way more eggs from the American Bresse and Black Copper Marans. And it seems that the traditional Rhode Island reds are just better at producing eggs. I’ll have to look it up. It may be that they are primarily egg producers and not a dual breed chicken.

In the end, I may just give up on the whole dual breed idea for chickens. I’m really in it for the eggs. We just don’t eat that much chicken so the meat is not a really big deal. That’s for another day. In the spring we will do some incubations and hatch out some birds and see where we go from there. In the end, we may just have mutt chickens and forget about trying to raise specific breeds. Right now, as long as they lay lots of eggs, I don’t really care.

Creamery

Let’s move on that huge creamery project. Where do we stand with that? All of the floors are complete. As I mentioned in the last podcast, Scott was racing the clock to get that done. The temperature-sensitive nature of the glue and grout were driving that carriage. He made it. There were a few cold days where he had to wait, but in the end, he got it done.

There are a few details he is working on for the pull box covers, but other than that, the floors are complete. Next up is the electrical. And of course, the plumbing. That is still looming large in my mind. I don’t know how he will do it, but I do know that he will make it happen. It’s just who he is as a person.

At the moment he is moving his attention to fixing fences in the back fields. There is a good bit of standing hay back there but trees on the fences need to be cleared and those fences repaired. Another task on his calendar is gathering up pine wood for the wood stove this winter. For the past two winters we have not used the wood stove as other priorities and factors interfered with the collecting of wood. This year should be the time that we get back on track with using wood for fuel in the winter and getting that electric bill back down to a reasonable cost. Especially at this time in our economy when prices are rising.

These tasks will take away from the time he has in the creamery. But I’m pretty sure we are still on track for USDA certification sometime in the spring or summer.

Knitting, Cheesemaking, and Other Milk Products

I want to talk a little bit about cheesemaking and other milk products before getting into my knitting projects.

Cheesemaking

Because we have had so much problem getting cows pregnant, we are currently planning to milk the cows as long as we can before drying them up for birthing their calves. Normally, that would be about a one-year cycle. This time, it’s going to be nearly a year-and-a-half. Their milk production will continue to decline over time. And the cold of winter will also decrease milk production. These are additional days of learning and having new trials of which we have yet to have.

Currently, the cows are still producing enough for herd share milk and for me to make cheese. I’m perfecting my techniques in cheesemaking and trying a couple of new ideas to improve flavor. We shall see in a few months if my efforts have paid off.

Additionally, I’m still making yogurt a couple of times per week and butter every other week or so. It’s a bit of a different winter experience to still be dealing with milk after the end of November, but it seems to be working out great for both Scott and myself. So far. I’m happy to continue the creative art of dealing with dairy products.

Knitting

My favorite winter pastime is knitting. In the summer it’s all about the garden – planting, weeding, harvesting, canning and so on. But in the winter, things slow down and I get to take a break. What do I do with all that free time? Well, to be honest, there isn’t that much free time. I just do a lot of stuff that was put off because I was in the garden and in the kitchen for every hour of every day in the summer.

It’s so funny that I have these knitting projects that sit for months on end without any progress whatsoever. Then winter comes and I can work on them. Do I get them finished? I guess it depends on the project.

Victorian Newborn Set Knitting Pattern

The one I’m going to talk about today is a really beautiful baby layette. It has a blanket, bonnet, booties and sweater. I’ve been working on the blanket for some time. It is a Victorian themed pattern. Lacy edges and cream or off-white base color. The contrast color is burgundy. I’ll put a picture on the Locals platform and maybe I can work one in on the website. Perhaps I’ll make it the featured photo on this podcast. Yeah, that could work.

I started working on this at least two years ago. It is the most difficult project that I have ever done. First it was all about getting the pattern correct. I must have started over at least four times. That was the first year.

The second year (and when I speak of years, remember that it is a few months in the winter) – The second year, it was all about starting the lacy edge. I have taken out that part at least six times. It was late last winter when I discovered that the pattern I was trying to use was flawed.

Recreating the Pattern

Here’s that little story. As I get older, it is harder for me to read small print. And the pattern that I was using was already a year or more old and the pages stuck together and the print was mangled. So, what did I do? Well, I searched on line to try and find a “clean” copy of that pattern. I did find one. It was great for the “rosebud pattern”. It is the main theme in all of the pieces. But when it came to putting the rest of the pieces together, that pattern was a disaster.

So, what do I do now? On the evening that I made the discovery that it was the pattern that was flawed and not my knitting skills, I set out to recreate the pattern from the original. And so I did. I spent about an hour in Microsoft Word. (Okay, it may have been more than an hour. At this point, I have no idea. I just know I needed the pattern to work.) I typed out every single instruction, every detail. Then I proof-read what I had typed. It all seemed to make sense. I still have the original just in case I made a mistake. I can go back with my magnifying glass and see if I can decipher what the actual instruction is supposed to be. However, I am pretty confident that I got it right. There is a pattern to patterns and I could see it clearly. After all, I had created it over and over again, incorrectly. So when I saw the correct instruction it made perfect sense.

My Greatest Achievement

Now to my greatest achievement so far. I’ve never been successful in making joins look natural. My work has always looked sloppy. But not this time. As I got started once again on this new adventure, I could clearly see the pattern this time. I could clearly see that it was working. I finished the first end of the blanket using a stitch I had never done before. But the instructions were clear and it worked the very first time. Yippee!!

That’s not the greatest achievement. No the greatest achievement was picking up the stitches on the starting edge of that blanket. YouTube helped me out. I watched a couple of videos on how it is done. In the past I just did the best I could with the instructions which read “pick up and knit X number of stitches. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that there was an actual method to make it work smoothly. So, I watched these videos and gave their suggestions a try. Lo and behold, I created a seam that looks unbelievable. The top is just a continuation of the knitting. The bottom has to be created as if it is a continuation.

Finishing the First Piece of the Project

I never knew I could do such good work. I can’t wait to start up the sides. I’ve already watched that video and I will watch it again before I start on the sides. First, I have to finish the bottom. And I have every confidence that I will make it look just as awesome as the top. Take a look at the picture to see what I am creating. This will be the most awesome knitting project I have ever done.

Did I mention it was the hardest thing I have ever attempted? It is going to give me confidence to make the other really complicated pieces. That sweater, hat and booties are waiting in the wings.

Now, in closing, I must mention that once I finish these difficult pieces that I already have in progress, I’m going to switch to making hat, scarf, mitten sets to give to the homeless. It’s going to be my new mission for quite some time. These are simpler projects, but with a great deal more purpose. I have all of this yarn and patterns for Afghans and such that I have collected over the years. If you are a knitter, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Large Afghans are a lot of work and, when finished, I can only give it to one person. For the same amount of time and yarn, I can make something useful for those in need, several somethings in fact. I don’t really know how many hats, mittens and scarves will come out of the vast amount of yarn in my closet. But I’m going to find out.

There you have it and that is the end of my knitting story for this podcast. Take a look at the pictures of my current project on our Locals platform. That’s peaceful heart farm DOT locals DOT com.

Final Thoughts

Well, that concludes this podcast. There is always something going on the with animals and I love sharing our stories with you. I hope you have your own dreams going and adventures going on. It may be the trials and tribulations of your children, your career or your family. Please share with us on our Locals platform. We’d love to hear from you.

I hope you enjoyed my knitting story. I’m so excited to be getting back into the groove and feeding that creative impulse. What do you like to create? Let me know.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify or whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review. It really does help. If you like this type of content and want to help us out, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it on all of your social media platforms. Share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast. And come on over to our Locals community. Subscribe at peacefulheartfarm.locals.com. We’d love to have your support and input in the community. And we’d love to help you out by answering your questions. See you there!

Thank you so much for stopping by our 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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I’m back from my podcast vacation. It has been three months since I recorded anything. We were both very, very busy and the things that keep the homestead financially solvent become front and center. It’s good to be back in front of the microphone.

Let me take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners. The subscriber numbers continued to go up even though I was absent. Again, thank you so much. And a big welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. I’m not sure how much I’m going to include in today’s episode. As I said, it has been three months and a whole lotta stuff has happened in that time.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

Those of you that are members of our Locals.com community will have heard about some of the things I’m going to talk. That’s thanks to Scott. He posts weekly about the cows and the creamery. If you’d like to hear his perspective, go to peacefulheartfarm.locals. com and join our community. It’s free to sign up. We also have specific data that is for subscribers only. Also, anyone can read, watch and listen, but only subscribers can comment and make their own posts to the community. There is a minimal fee $5 per month to subscribe, though you can support us at whatever level you choose. And again, read, watch, listen for free.

A shout out and huge “Thank You” to our Locals supporters. You help us keep going. Again, for those of you interested in more content, the address is peaceful heart farm. Locals. com.

Let’s start with the cows. The centerpiece of our operation as a small dairy and creamery.

Cows

Breeding season with artificial insemination began the last week of May. In August, when I last published a podcast, we had one confirmed pregnancy with a second AI procedure in progress, waiting on preg confirmation the first week of September. Today, we STILL have only one confirmed pregnancy and the last AI appointment for this cycle was completed about three weeks ago. We have spent hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars on this AI process. I believe there have been a total of three tries. We have to work with the vet’s schedule so the timeframes have stretched long.

The second attempt produced three or four additional pregnancies and we set up the third AI appointment to try and get the four remaining cows impregnated. The second attempt girls were preg checked with ultrasound and three or four confirmed. However, before the next AI session, they all aborted. The aborts were likely related to a spirochete infection that is spread via deer urine. We treated all the cows. The next AI appointment was scheduled so we could start all over again and get them cycling all at the same time. Time just kept moving forward and here we are in November and still only one confirmed pregnancy. The third attempt is completed.

Last AI Vet Visit

The vet will come again a few days after Thanksgiving to see where we stand. One of the reasons this has stretched so long is the vet waits 65 days or so to be able to confirm pregnancy with ultrasound. We already know that only two have not come into heat again. Five have been bred by Ferdinand. We can tell because of what are called “heat stickers” If they get mounted, the stickers are rubbed clean and the underlying fluorescent orange becomes visible. That means possibly two out of seven on this last try.

So why do I keep saying it is the last try? Well, that’s because we finally bit the bullet and bought the bull I just mentioned. We purchased Ferdinand about a month ago. He’s a gorgeous guernsey bull. Of course, this is not ideal because our plan is to have 100% registered Normande dairy herd. But we had to do something just to get calves so the cows would be in milk.

We can’t support the herd shares and make cheese without lactating cows and we don’t have lactating cows if they don’t give birth to calves every so often. Even if we are able to continue milking them, their milk production continuously declines the farther they are from their last delivery. We don’t know how long they will produce milk before they naturally dry up. Some say around 12 months. Others say they have had cows lactate for two years. We may just find the answer to that question for our girls.

Ferdinand is Our Hope of Success

The bottom line is that Ferdinand will get our girls pregnant and we will have milk in the fall of 2023. Most of the calves out of Ferdinand will be sold as they won’t add to our goal of a 100% Normande herd. I believe I talked about our particular plan was to always have calves in the spring and not milk in the winter. That plan has been completely turned on its head. We may end up milking year-round for a little while. I won’t explain the details here, but it requires going without calves again for more than a year. It may work out just fine, but it will take time. Again, keeping up with the herd shares and having milk to make cheese is the priority, whatever it takes. Otherwise, we simply cannot remain financially viable.

Nickle is on Deck

On the upside, we have a registered purebred Normande bull named Nickle that was born in April this year. We kept him intact because a neighbor wanted to buy him after he was weaned. In the end, we backed out of that sale because we do actually live and learn. We will keep Nickle around for at least two or three years, perhaps more, before replacing him with another. Ferdinand will likely have another chance next year as we expect Nickle to be still too small to get the job done.

It was a good idea on paper to not keep a bull around and feed him hay through the winter for just two months of work in the early summer. AI seemed to be the best way to go – and to be sure, we have not given up on that completely. However, our AI experience has now shown us the necessity of keeping a bull.

Scott Needs to Learn the AI Procedure

The first two years we used AI, I believe we had about a 50% success rate on the first try. And that’s pretty average according to the stats. But this last go round has been a nightmare – a very costly nightmare. So where do we go from here?

The plan is for Scott to learn how to do AI himself. There are workshops available and he will be attending one sometime in the future. I’m sure he will be very good at this task. He has a strong medical background. Right now, he is still very busy with building the creamery (more on that later), and with the bull, we are good-to-go for breeding at this point.

As we get to the place in our journey where Scott can act quickly when a cow comes into heat and we are not reliant on the vet to perform the procedure, I believe AI will once again become a good fit for us. We will still keep a bull on hand. A bull is going to be needed if we expect to keep our calving season in a specific window of time. Ok, enough about the cows.

Dogs

Have I got a story for you regarding the dogs? It is pretty wild. I’ll start from where I left off, but stay until the end. About a week ago, something crazy happened.

We started with three livestock guardian dogs. Mack was born and raised with sheep and cows. His owners sold all of their livestock and Mack needed a new home. Charlotte and Finn were guarding chickens and turkeys and their owners also decided to get out of the business. Let’s talk about Mack first.

Food Aggression

I have mentioned several times that Mack is a great dog, but food or resource aggressive. In the last episode I talked about trying to get him to bond with the sheep and getting the sheep to be okay with him in their space. And I talked about how he barked and growled at them to keep them away from his food. Well, that situation escalated a bit because Charlotte also became food aggressive and the two of them went at each other’s throats twice before I separated them.

Finn disappeared and Charlotte ended up hanging with Mack and the sheep. The first time there was an incident, I saw Mack go to Charlotte’s bowl. He was finished eating and she was goofing off with a treat a few feet away from her bowl. As she saw him invade her bowl, she went after him. It was pretty intense for about 5 or 10 seconds. She won that battle and I thought it was over. Fast forward a few weeks. They have now been moved a couple times. They go with the sheep when the sheep need to move. They are all back in paddock #8 when it happened again. This time Charlotte tried to eat out of Mack’s bowl. They went at it again for 5 or 10 seconds. It’s a really scary thing to see. They definitely meant business. The next day, Mack would not approach his bowl when I brought it to him. I knew that was very wrong.

Progress at Last

After a quick consultation and a post to the Livestock Guardian Dog Training Facebook page, I was informed they were both now food aggressive and needed to be fed separately or it would end badly, with one of them cowed and skinny or dead. I immediately began taking Mack completely out of the pasture and over to the garden area before giving him his bowl. The garden is fenced so he could not wander very far and he is easily moved from one place to another. I gave Charlotte her bowl in the pasture well away from the livestock.

Mack always eats right away. Charlotte did not. But she is a very smart girl. It only took one time of me picking up that bowl and walking away with it and not returning until the next day for her to learn that when I bring it, she needs to eat it. We have not had a problem since.

This change of feeding practice has changed everything. This change provided such an immediately productive outcome that I was, and still am, elated. I talk a lot about our challenges with one thing and another here on the homestead. And when one challenge is not only overcome but produces this kind of productive outcome, I’m on cloud nine. Within days of beginning the new feeding regimen, these two dogs became the best of friends. Charlotte was immediately willing to work with and hang out with Mack. Up until then, she had been aloof with Mack. And better than that, she started becoming more friendly toward me.

Charlotte is My Friend

It has been a while since I talked about this, but all of our dogs have had some kind of issue that I deal with on a daily basis. Charlotte’s issue was that she would not let anyone near her. We had to trap her in smaller and smaller areas just to get close enough for the vet to examine her. She is a really beautiful Great Pyrenees and I just wanted to love on her. It was frustrating that she would never let me close. A few weeks after the change between her and Mack, she started to change her attitude toward me as well.

Oddly, she still runs away from me and won’t let me touch her when I bring her food. But when I come at any other time and even after she finishes her food, she lets me pet her now. She will still shy away if I move too quickly, but I’m so pleased to be able to actually pet her. And this morning, while I was out checking on the baby goats (more on that later), she actually put her paw on me to get my attention while I was looking away at the sheep. She touched me. Twice she did this. I feel so blessed to have finally made so much progress with her. It has been just barely over a year since we got her and finally, she will let me love her.

Finn is Back

Now for the bombshell. Finn is back. Some of you are new and have no idea what I am talking about. Here’s the scoop. Last year when we got Charlotte, another dog also came with the package. Some of you will remember him but I’ll recap here for all the newbies.

Finn is an Anatolian/Great Pyrenees cross. He is like a big cuddly bear. As I said, there are challenges will all of our dogs. They were all rehomed to us as adults and, as is common, they have not been the perfect livestock guardian dogs that we imagined. Many of the posts on the Livestock Guardian Dog Facebook page are about issues with rehomed or rescued dogs and the consensus is that these dogs are always a roll of the dice as to whether they will actually work with your livestock and your operation. It is just about the only option, though, if you want an adult dog. With a puppy, it is two years before it can be trusted alone with the livestock. Anyway, Finn’s vice is that he roams. It was impossible to keep him inside our perimeter fence. And that fence was built to contain goats. But goats got nothing on a dog that loves to roam.

Finn’s Story

In the first six months of his time with us, he escaped at least three or four times. Luckily, I had immediately gotten tags for all of the dogs that have our farm name and phone number printed on them. He may have escaped even more than four times, now that I think about it. Three times we got a call from a neighbor and we had to go pick him up. One time he was about five miles away. I’m pretty sure there were other times when he didn’t go far and we were able to get him back home quickly. It’s hard to remember, so much has happened since then. It seemed like he escaped every day.

About six months ago, he escaped and never returned and there were no calls from a neighbor to tell us where to pick him up. Up to that point, he had never been gone for more than a day or two before someone called us. Six months ago, he disappeared. We grieved the loss. Charlotte grieved the loss also. Then, about a week ago, Scott found him walking along the fence line near the road. It was easy to get him to come inside the fence and he is happily residing with Charlotte once again. Is that not the most amazing thing? Six months and he just showed up. His tag with our farm name and number was missing. Did someone keep him for themselves? I never thought that was possible. Mainly because he was impossible to contain and he would have escaped from that person also. We will probably never know.

Finn’s Health Upon His Return

He was covered with more cockleburs than I have ever seen and his left eye is injured. He will not hold it open. I tried a couple of times to cut out the cockleburs but he was having none of it. We were exploring ways to be able to get this done without him biting us. The point became moot. He cleared those cockleburs himself within two or three days. I have no idea how he got the giant mat of them from under his neck. I can see how he probably pulled them off of his legs and I had successfully clipped them free from his back. There are still a few and it is good to know he is so good at keeping his coat clean. Anyway, he is a little thin and has that issue with his eye and I’m monitoring that, but otherwise he looks good.

What Happened with Mack?

There is one other bit to throw in here. Only a few days before his return, we had decided that Mack was simply not going to work with the sheep. He kept charging at them to exert his dominance. He didn’t really chase them, but he would bark and run toward them until they moved, then he would stop and trot away. Then he killed a chicken and that was sort of the last straw, though it was not all his fault.

The chickens go anywhere they want and I was worried in the beginning about him chasing them. Charlotte was guarding chickens at the farm where we picked her up so I was not worried about her. Anyway, it only took about two weeks before my fear was realized. I went down to feed him and he did not come when I called. I found him guarding his prize. She was not quite dead, but mortally wounded. We processed her and put him back in with the cows and left Charlotte with the sheep.

Charlotte and the Sheep

Charlotte was doing fairly well with the sheep, though she is actually afraid of the them. She runs if they come close. But she was staying in their general vicinity as they mosey around the pasture grazing. So, when Finn returned, we put him back in with her and the sheep. What else could we do? The paddock she was currently occupying seemed to satisfy her – she used to escape just about every day also, but she seemed to be bonding with the sheep to the point of actively protecting them even if she did still run from them. And she stayed in the pasture with them.

When Finn arrived back on the scene, she went immediately up on the hill where the sheep were grazing. She greeted Finn but seemed to have no interest in him and returned to her job. That was the first day. It didn’t last. Now a week later, she has warmed up to Finn again and is not really staying with the sheep anymore. That was our original problem that led to the final escape of Finn. We had given up on Charlotte and Finn being useful for guarding the sheep. They were more attached to each other than the livestock. They bark much more when they are together than Charlotte alone. And they both escaped regularly. We were looking to rehome them and just work with Mack.

That was the fateful time when Finn escaped and did not return. As I said, both Charlotte and Finn escaped regularly, but Charlotte was always right back in the morning or sometimes even the same evening. Every time we moved them to a new place where they had never been, we spent days finding and fortifying their escape routes. On that fateful day, we put them in the orchard while we moved Mack in with the sheep. This was their first time there and it was not fortified. Less than half an hour in the orchard and they were gone. Charlotte returned before dark and Finn was gone for six months.

It is good to have him back, but we are back to square one. In the end, Mack didn’t work out with the sheep any more than Finn and Charlotte.

We Still Have Issues

I know I’ve rambled on and on about our defective livestock guardian dogs. And we may still have to make some hard decisions. You probably realize that at this point, I’m really attached to all of them. Now, only a week after his return, Finn has converted Charlotte back to her original self. She escapes and goes wherever she wants, never staying where we put her, not really staying with the sheep. She hangs with Finn.

So far, Finn escaped a couple of times but seems to be secure at the moment after Scott spent time patching up his escape locations. Not so with Charlotte. She could always get out no matter what we did. But again, she always came right back so she was not so much of a worry. Without Finn, she had stopped that behavior. I have no doubt that Finn will eventually escape again and he may disappear again.

We are back to square one with all three dogs. My rational self tells me that we need to get some actual livestock guardian dogs that will work with our animals. And then my emotional self can’t seem to get moving on that, can’t seem to imagine being without them. Sigh.

Enough of that. Let’s talk about the goats.

Kiko Goats

I’m not going to say a lot about the goats as the podcast will get too long and I want to talk a bit about the chickens and the creamery.

We have had our new registered 100% New Zealand Kiko goats for a little over a month. They are so cute. Rhuarc is the buck. The does are Amys and Lian. All of those names will become familiar to you if you watch Amazon’s Wheel of Time series. At least I hope they will. I’m not happy about what they are doing with my all-time favorite book series as they adapt it to the screen. Not true to the books at all and those names may never appear in the screen adaptation. But there is always the books.

These are beautiful animals and they came from a great Kiko goat operation right here in Patrick County Virginia. The farm owner is a wonderful woman with a wealth of knowledge about this breed of goat. She has a couple hundred.

Small Challenge

The only challenge I have had so far is getting them tamed down a little bit. We definitely did not want a repeat of the last goats that we had that ran from us wildly for the first couple of years. This time we put them in a 16’ x 16’ pen where we could begin to make friends with them before sending them out to the larger acreage.

The buck is now separated from the does. They are not old enough to be bred though at this point it is likely possible. So, the plan is to keep them separated for a few months until the does get old enough to be bred. Rhuarc now comes up to me and eats out of my hand. I can’t actually catch him up, but he does not run wildly in every direction when he sees me as they all did in the beginning.

This plan has worked out really well. Just this morning I let Lian and Amys out of their pen into the paddock with the sheep. I introduced the dogs to them. Both seemed quite disinterested so that was good. It was important that they not hurt my new babies. So far, so good. That’s about all I have to say about the goats. I’ll check on them in just a few minutes. I pray all is well on their first day out.

Chickens

Moving on to the chickens. To recap, we have two breeds. Black Copper Marans and American White Bresse. The Marans lay chocolate brown eggs and the Bresse lay tan eggs. I’m not happy with the current egg production. I was looking for more eggs, but the jury is still out on whether we move forward with these breeds or switch to another.

I hatched 14 Bresse and 9 Marans. When they reached maturity, we processed the excess roosters. There were 8 Bresse roosters and we processed 6 of those. We were blessed with six Maran hens, exactly what I wanted, and we kept two of the three roosters.

The Chicken Plan

Right now, the rooster-to-hen ratio is way off. We need lots more hens. That will come in the spring when we hatch out lots of baby chicks. We wanted to have backup roosters but now I think that if we lose a rooster, we could just buy another group of chicks and raise a new rooster. That is the likely path we will take. In the next processing cycle, we will downsize to just one rooster of each breed.

These are great chickens. Well, I can say that chickens in general are very interesting creatures. And they are easy to care for and maintain. The American White Bresse are a special breed that has been bred to eat milk-soaked grain in the last two weeks before processing. Their meat becomes almost like marbled beef – or so they say. We haven’t tried it yet. We processed that first batch without the milk-soaked feed.

That’s it for the chickens. I’m not going to talk about the garden and orchard. They are going to sleep for the winter. I do have some thoughts there, but not for this podcast.

Creamery

Let me finish up by talking about the progress on the creamery. We are nearing the end. The light at the end of the tunnel is now visible. Floors, electrical, plumbing and hooking up the gas will finish it out. I expect we will be a USDA inspected cheesemaking plant in the spring. That’s about six years from start to finish on this project. Without Scott’s bout with cancer last year, I would have been able to say five years. I am so blessed that he is fine now. So, six instead of five is just fine with me. It was a bit of a scare and a very tough season of life for him, but he is strong and healthy and continuing on with the crowning creation of his life. I hope you will visit once we open for business and see all that he has done.

Tile Floors

Currently, Scott is in a race with the weather. He is working on the tile floors. Both the glue that holds the tile to the concrete floor and the grout that goes between the tiles are temperature sensitive. The temps need to be above 50 in order for the chemical processes to work effectively. As of today, he has all the tiles in place and is working on completing the grout. That is going to take several days. I’m not sure how many. He has probably posted about it on the Locals page. It’s hard for me to keep up with the exact days, especially when it can change on a daily basis if something goes awry or another task for the animals takes president. Caring for the animals always comes first. 

Electrical and Plumbing

Once he has completed those floors, I believe he will go back to the electrical. If I remember correctly, he said he is about 50% done with the electrical. The next big thing is the plumbing.

He wanted to contract that out. It has probably been nine months since he started trying to find someone to do the work. That was like pulling teeth. No one was even willing to take on the job. No one had the time. Then when he did find someone, the bid was double what he expected to pay. We found that out just yesterday. At this point, he is back to having to do it himself. That means lots more time with YouTube videos and phone consultations with his brother in Florida. This makes me sad, but I also know he will get through it. My Scott is a tough guy and very goal oriented. He will get it done, whatever it takes.

Large Cheese Cave on Hold

He does have one room that is sitting untouched. The large cheese cave will not be completed until after the initial USDA inspected status is completed. Once winter sets in, he won’t be able to do the tile in that room until the spring. Until then, we have the small cheese cave functional and available.

I’m going to end it here. There is a lot more I could say but this has already gone long. You can find lots more information on the creamery posted on our Locals platform. That’s peacefulheartfarm.locals.com. Scott is always uploading videos of the animals and his work on the creamery.

Final Thoughts

That’s it for today’s podcast. It feels good to be back. Things are slowing down for me for the winter, though there is still a lot to do. I hope to get back on schedule with regular podcasts. Even in the winter there are exciting things going on here at the homestead. Scott will continue his hectic schedule even through the winter. I am feeling the excitement of this project coming to fruition.

Even with all the challenges of getting the cows bred and dealing with our less-than-perfect livestock guardian dogs, we keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I went on and on about the dogs I know and there is still so much that I did not say. I hope you enjoyed life on our homestead through my eyes and that you will continue to follow our journey as we build on our homestead dreams.

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

And come on over to our Locals community. Subscribe at peacefulheartfarm.locals.com. We’d love to have your support and input in the community. And we’d love to help you out by answering your questions. I’ll be posting another episode in the productivity series that I started on the Locals platform. The first was on concentration and the next will be on developing and maintaining memory. See you there!

Thank you so much for stopping by our 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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Multitasking. How do I get so much done in one day? This is a question I get often. I do a lot of multitasking on the homestead. I didn’t just wake up one day and do this. There was a process that I went through to get from a scattered, unfocused, ineffective person to one who can just get things done. Now of course, I’m not always in that zone and there are days when I’m going into a room and wondering why I am there, multiple times a day. There are remedies to the unfocused mind. And I’m going to talk about that today.

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’ll keep this part brief as I give you the updates on our animals, gardens and the creamery.

Cows

The cows are still undergoing various artificial insemination routines. The first attempt we inseminated eight of our cows. Cookie had just given birth a few weeks ahead of this so she was not in this first rotation. Princess is the only one that took. We did eight again. No Princess but adding in Cookie this time.

We checked the semen and it was viable. However, the bull with the semen sexed to produce heifers was much less active. In the end, we used this semen on our Normande cows and we used the unsexed semen on the jersey girls. We will pray for greater success this time and know for sure in about three weeks. I don’t expect all of them to take. That would be wonderful, but it is not statistically likely. At that point, we will need to think about the next step. We would be getting very late in the breeding cycle. We may continue on anyway because we need the milk to make the cheese.

It’s just so frustrating right now. We plan for births in March and April. If we try again, it would push the births back into May and June. Then we get into the situation like we had with Cookie this year. The cows will not be ready to start the breeding process again in the first week of June if they give birth in May. I think I’ve mentioned this before that we make choices every single day trying to create our homestead exactly as we imagine. In the end, it never happens as we imagine and we must roll with the punches and make another plan.

Dogs and Sheep

The dogs and sheep are doing well. I have them collected together so they can get used to each other. I’m still waiting on that magic moment when the dogs and the sheep bond. So far, the sheep are still afraid of the dogs. Sooner or later, they will cave and become used to these noisy beasts in their space. We closed them up into an even tighter space so they are more likely to get to know each other a little bit better.

I’ve watched the sheep watching me feed the dogs. I even saw one start to approach Mack’s bowl while he was off munching on a bone. He is very sharp and spotted the advance right away. He immediately went to his bowl and growled very ferociously at that sheep and she backed away. As I said, I don’t want them to be afraid of the dogs, but I do want them to respect the dogs and their food. I’ve considered making a separate place for feeding the dogs and that may still happen – likely will happen. But I’m going to wait a little longer. I want the sheep to know that he will only growl at them when protecting his food. Any other barking, I want them to assume he is doing his protection job.

Goats

I’m getting a plan outlined to integrate the new goat kids into the group as well. It looks like that will happen sometime in early fall. We will have three new goat babies to add to our family. I’m excited about that and a little apprehensive as well. They are young and small and I’m still learning about these dogs. Praying it all goes well. The goat kids will also have to learn to leave the dog food alone. It’s not likely that they will learn. That’s the point when feeding the dogs separately will become most important. The goat kids will change that dynamic and I will need to get that separate space going.

Creamery

The electrical wiring is getting moving along rapidly at this point. Scott has gotten the hang of it and that part will soon be complete. I’m helping out by occasionally holding up pieces of metal as we get the ceilings in place. We’ve completed the barn, milking parlor and milk storage room. The cheese make room is in progress. I’m not sure what room is next. I just show up when he asks for my help.

Garden

The garden is in full growth and production mode. That keeps me moving too. Like the fruit, vegetables need to be taken care of quickly or they spoil. Fortunately, I’ve had some customers lately that needed squash and cucumbers. What a blessing they have been in taking my excess veggies home with them. I’m about to have lots and lots of eggplant as well.

It has been a while since it rained and I am back to watering in the evenings again. Some of the cucumbers are looking a little worse for wear as is the zucchini. They may be close to completing their cycle this time around. Now that I think about it, I could start more plants inside and have summer squash and cucumbers back in the garden in time for a late harvest. That sounds like more work than I have time for but I will still consider it in the next few days.

Chickens

I’m looking for my first chicken eggs any day now. Scott has completed the nest boxes and the hens have been trying them out. I think they like their new boxes.

We have six white and one black rooster that need to be processed. That will be enough for quite a few months for us. We don’t eat a lot of chicken but I am looking forward to these American Bresse chickens. They are supposed to be prize winning meat birds. I’ll let you know how that goes.

That’s it for the homestead updates. Let’s move on to the main topic. Multitasking. How do I get so much done in a day? 

Multitasking – Concentration is Key

I have several things in motion today. A gallon and a half of yogurt and a pot of bone broth are both long term tasks that I don’t have to monitor. Well at least I don’t have to monitor them after I get them set up. The yogurt has an in-between step where I need to cool the milk and add the cultures. Then it just sits in the Instant Pot for eight hours.

I have the juicer/steamer going. That is full of blackberries. I’ll extract the juice and then make seedless blackberry jelly. It’s a crowd favorite. I also need to process about a gallon and a half of strawberries and get them into the jam pot. That should keep me pretty busy throughout the day.

Waiting on the sidelines are the cherries and blueberries still in the freezer. Grab them as they ripen and put them in the freezer. Putting them in the freezer is a great method of getting done what would otherwise be an overwhelming task. Fruit can go bad quickly so it needs to be dealt with quickly. I can go back later and make the frozen fruits into jams and jellies. I love it. Low stress is great.

So, what is the secret to being able to juggle multiple tasks efficiently?

What does it take to multitask effectively?

A strong mind with skills in concentration, memory and imagination. Everyone has these capabilities. As far as I know, none of these mental skills is related to intelligence. To develop these skills require specific exercises, just like you would exercise a muscle. The more you exercise a muscle, the stronger it becomes. Perhaps there is a limit to how strong your mental muscles can become, but I am not aware of one.

On a side note, I am aware of the physical limitations of memory. Alzheimer’s is a real thing. Dementia is a real thing. The physical changes in the brain are real and strength in memory requires a healthy brain.

Past, Present and Future

Concentration, memory and imagination. These are three mental capabilities and they relate to the past (memory), the present (concentration) and the future (imagination). There are exercises for each of these mental muscles. When they are all strengthened and working together, juggling multiple tasks becomes easier. Staying focused becomes easier. Regaining focus after distractions is easier.

Developing the Skill of Concentration

Today, I’ll start with concentration. This is probably the most important area for me. Indeed, this skill is required as a foundation to develop memory and imagination. We will get to those two in later podcasts.

Practicing concentration is where I always start when I feel out of sorts. Focusing my attention into the present moment relieves a great deal of stress and calms my anxiety. The key is to practice concentration and focus of attention outside of any stressful situation. In other words, you need to train the muscle so when you need it, you simply call on it and it is there.

Trying to learn how to concentrate in the midst of chaos is futile. Set aside a specific time to practice. Make this a time when you will have no interruptions. Turn off your phone and any other electronic devices that may distract you from your practice session. You want to set aside this time to develop muscle memory related to concentration.

First Develop Muscle Memory

If any of you have had dance, music, art, or singing lessons you know what I am talking about here. Let’s say you are dancing the ballet. You did not just wake up one day and perform. It takes hours and hours, weeks and weeks, months and months and years and years to perfect your dance steps. You practice them in small pieces, repeatedly moving your feet, arms – your whole body in particular ways. You are repeating particular motions over and over again. And when the time comes to put it all together into a dance, you are simply repeating those motions in various combinations. Your body knows exactly how to position itself when your mind calls upon it to perform a long-practiced motion.

Another Example of Muscle Memory

The same with playing the piano. Hours and hours go into playing the scales. And not just playing the scales, but playing the scales with your fingers in particular positions and repeating the names of the notes in your mind. Those notes become drilled into your brain’s memory. Eventually, when someone puts a piece of music in front of you, commanding your fingers to play the notes you see before you will come easily. Each note is engraved in its own memory hole along with the hand and finger motions to make it happen. The training embeds into your memory muscle memory what it takes to play a G# or middle C without having to think a whole lot about it. Without that foundation, you are left to pick out a tune and play the same tune over and over until you get it. Sure, it can be done. You can learn the song, but you will always lack the flexibility that someone with the muscle memory has ingrained in their brain.

Concentration is Also a Learned Skill

With concentration, the same is true. Instead of a physical muscle memory, I built a mental muscle memory. Because I have practiced the skill of concentration, usually it takes little to no effort to call on it anytime I feel scattered or unfocused. I can play my mind and make it dance according to my desire.

Your Physical State Affects Your Ability to Concentrate

I say it “usually” requires little effort because I am also aware of how my physical state of being can affect my ability to concentrate no matter how much I know what to do, I may have something else going on that overrides my skill. Perhaps I didn’t get enough sleep, or I ate lots of sugar or I’m in pain and all of my attention is naturally drawn to it. I can practice and develop the skill but I also recognize that human beings are complex and even with the best of intentions and the best will in the world, God and life can step in at any time and rearrange my carefully constructed plans. In any case, even if my life is scattered to the wind, I can regain some control in any situation. My ability to concentrate may not be perfect in times of stress, pain and poor nutrition, but it definitely is much better than no skill at all with concentration.

Here is an exercise that I used to develop my concentration skills.

You will need several items. 1) a candle, 2) piece of paper and a pencil, 3) table and chair, 4) timer. The candle will be burning for 10 minutes at a time. Keep that in mind as you choose the size of your candle. A kitchen timer is fine or even a timer on your phone.

Concentration Exercise Steps:

• Sit comfortably in a chair at a table
• Place the candle directly in front of you
• Place the paper to the right or left, depending on your right or left handedness. Place it where your arm is comfortably able to hold the point of the pencil on the paper
• Light the candle
• Set the timer for 10 minutes
• Focus your attention on the candle flame and start the timer
• Hold your attention on that candle flame.
• Each time you notice that your attention has wandered from the flame, make a mark on the paper and bring your attention back to the flame

That’s it. Practice this exercise every day. Set aside 10 minutes a day to train your brain.

There is no need to keep the paper. The paper and pencil marks serve as a physical stimulus to refocus your attention. That’s all. It’s not about how many marks you make. That is irrelevant. The pencil marks are a way to grab hold of your attention and then move your attention back to the flame. You may want to keep the paper with marks as a record of your consistency with the exercise. Your goal is to do this exercise every single day.

If you run into trouble, let me know. I will be offering guidance on the Locals platform. Again, that is Peaceful Heart Farm dot Locals dot Com. Support my work over there and I will be there by your side to support you in your work. Further instruction in memory and imagination will also be available there. I’d love to help you reach your goals and improve your concentration, memory and imagination.

Final Thoughts

That’s it for today’s podcast. We are moving along at lightening speed here on the homestead. I’m practicing concentration and mental focus every single day. It makes my life so much easier. I hope this exercise helps you as well. Oh, I need to mention that you will want to give it time. You’ve spent a great deal of time letting your mind move you. It will take some time for you to get ahold of those reigns and begin to direct your thoughts more purposefully – for you to move your mind. There will be some good days and some days when you won’t be able to concentrate to save your life. But gradually, you will develop greater and greater skill. You will see the results in your daily life. All it takes is a little practice. Okay, okay, a lot of practice. But it’s just 10 minutes a day. You can do it!

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

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