The school year has begun.

School is in session here at Kleinshire. St. Therese's little flowers have been busy!

The first week I was happy with all the boys accomplished. I have a guideline as I stated in an earlier post. The guideline is a definitely not set in stone. We went to Mass Friday morning instead of Wednesday Evening. One morning instead of starting at 9am, we spent over an hour out in the pasture. We watched piggies, and played with the goats. I trimmed the hooves of some of the goats. The boys ran races and picked flowers. It was purely a delight for all of us to spend the cool morning romping and exploring in the pasture. I am not sure if that was what prompted a man in a truck to stop and ask if he could take our picture. The boys must have been picturesque. I said it was okay. Then Franz latter made me worry that maybe it was a bad idea to let the man take a picture. I think the fact that he stopped and asked for permission, that hopefully he wasn't some crazy person. Who knows, it is frustrating that we feel such a need to be suspicious now days as to a person's intentions. I had Chrysogonus on my back in the backpack. Most days Chrysogonus rides on my back in the pack.

Can you guess where Edelweiss is? Clue: her white ear is visible behind one of the other goats back.

Too, I am starting to teach the boys and myself the plants and trees on our property. Partly what prompted this immediate desire is that the day before the pasture excursion, Cletus ate poke berries. I heard him exclaim, "these blueberries not ripe." That clued me into the fact that he ate something. The only thing he was next to was a poke berry, and he had the purple juice on his lips. I hurriedly looked it up, because I did not know what a poke berry was. The plant is toxic, but the fruit is the least toxic part. I called poison control for the first time. I have activated charcoal on hand but have never had to use it. I did not have to use it as Cletus must not have really ate much. He only had a little bit of an upset tummy. It is an understatement to say that Cletus is a busy body.

Cletus opening the gate for Franz

This week has also already had some excitement. Cyprian decided to try and knock down a bee nest. NOT A GOOD IDEA! When Cyprian was a toddler in Texas, he stepped on a bee nest. He was stung so many times that we brought him into Urgent Care as a precaution. I have a brother who is allergic to certain bees. So needless to say, it makes me nervous when someone gets stung. Baking soda can work wonders. When it happened I was doing animal chores and I heard Cyprian cry out loud that he got stung. I ran him inside and asked where he was stung. He pointed by his eye. So I wet it and applied baking soda. I also gave him a frozen pack. I told him to rest where I could see and hear him while I went to finish my chores. He was sitting on the deck when ten minutes later I noticed from the barn that his eye was looking swollen. I said, "Cyprian, is your eye swelling." He said,"yes, I was stung on the eye." I had not put the baking soda on his eyelid because he had said beside the eye. I went and got more baking soda and put it on the eye lid were the sting was. I asked Cyprian why he told me beside the eye. His replied, "It hurt so bad I didn't want you to touch it."  BOYS....

BEEware of the bees!

So, so far we are having a good start to the school year. Cyprian, Clement, and Cletus have been doing prayers, the pledge of allegiance, drawing, storytime (Little house in the Big Woods), phonics, colors, and shapes together. Clement has also been doing handwriting (letters sent in the mail, psalms), recognizing and sounding out the ABC's, and counting and recognizing numbers. Cyprian is doing the Abeka math 1, 100 Easy lessons to reading and the McGuffy's First Eclectic Reader, Catechism memorization and understanding, and handwriting (letters sent in the mail, psalms). Cyprian and Clement have rememorized "Happy Thought, and "Rain," by Robert Louis Stevenson, they can sing "Are you Sleeping." Even with all the exciting things the boys think of doing to make me a bit anxious. I am happily taking it one day at a time. I have some lesson plans in place and so far it seems to be working. What is fun is I find more ideas as we work.

Though he may be young, Chrysogonus is busy working on his skills too. He is officially crawling, sitting up, starting to eat food, has two teeth, finds his brothers hilarious, and chatters up a storm. His is an adorable chump! All the older boys adore Chrysogonus.

Chrysogonus is six months old!

Picture of Clement holding one of his cat Siena's kittens, courtesy of Cyprian.

Snowy is maturing into a nice looking dog.

Kittens! These kitties need to find new homes soon!

Breeding like...

...rabbits. That's how the phrase goes. But here at Kleinshire we are more concerned, at least at present, with breeding goats. It's actually not much harder to get goats to multiply than rabbits. In fact, we've found that oftentimes the hardest part of breeding goats, especially when the bucks are in rut, is actually preventing the breeding that you don't want to occur. This is especially the case with our main herd sire, Oreo, who is living up to his reputation--in the words of his former owner, he "gets the job done."

This is actually a picture from last August's breeding. This year we're hoping that Rocky successfully covered Caroline.

In his desperation to "get the job done," Oreo has recently taken to daring and dramatic escapes that would put the most famous of prison escapees to shame. He actually jump-started our breeding plan by jumping the fence a few weeks ago. Though we caught him within minutes, he was happily wooing Tam, whom we emphatically had decided not to breed to Oreo this time.

Oreo is an excellent sire, and for the most part we're happy to let him have his way with the does. He has an excellent pedigree, together with a large, strong build and, except when he is in rut, a calm, docile temperament. We retained a very nice doeling from the twins he threw for Caroline last winter, whom we've named Lucia. The triplets from Tam and the single he threw for Edel sold for nice prices as well. But we are also trying to be intentional and selective as we work to bring out the best traits in each goat.

We noticed, for example, that Oreo's slightly toed-out legs carried over into Lucia's own build. So, our plan this year calls for Caroline to breed with our other buck, Rocky. Another goat with an excellent pedigree, Rocky has a very desirable "dairy" build. Rosemary describes his legs as "square and clean." We're also hoping to get a few does from Caroline who have more supple udders. Although Caroline gives plenty of milk, the fibrousness of her udder makes her difficult to milk out completely.

So, after Oreo's leap of love caused us to leap into action ourselves, we put Caroline with Rocky. For her part, Tam showed ample signs of still being in heat. Nigerian Meadows generously offered us the services of a buck of theirs, Donkey. Tam already has a large, supple, well-attached udder, and we were hoping to complement these positive traits with Donkey's wide escutcheon. Donkey did attempt to cover Tam, but we'll just have to wait and see whether the kids are his or Oreo's.

As for Edel, our other Nigerian currently in milk, we left her to a very happy Oreo. Though she is also a nice-looking, registered Nigerian who gives plenty of milk, her appearance is a little on the stocky side, perhaps even a little like a pigmy goat. Hopefully Oreo's larger, powerful build carries over into Edel's kids. It certainly did last year when Edel's single buckling sold at a very nice price as a potential future herd sire. This buckling looked great when the purchasers brought him back this summer to be tattooed.

After we waited a few days to ensure that these pairings "took," we separated our young Saanen, Belle, and the other doelings who are too young to be bred and left the two bucks in the main pasture for awhile. Most likely Oreo also covered Dreamer, our new Alpine doe, at this time. Full-sized goats don't cycle every three weeks or so like Nigerians, but the presence of a buck can throw them into heat. Since Dreamer showed the characteristic signs, there's a good chance that she is all set as well. Her offspring will be "mini-Alpines" and will be an important component of our dairy herd as we look to begin selling milk in the spring.

And that's our breeding season in a nutshell. We'll be drawing blood soon, and maybe we'll be able to test for pregnancy at that time. It would be good to make sure everybody is all set. Since gestation is about five months long for goats, it could be a busy Christmas!

In anticipation of starting School on Monday

Planning a school year can be daunting. I am by nature a perfectionist. My life is not perfect. So, I have to learn to let go and live with imperfections. That is okay. It means I can constantly strive for better, because I will never reach perfection till hopefully going home to heaven.

Let's get this school year rolling! How to for me.....

First, we have named our school St. Therese's Little Flowers and registered with the state. At this point I have been reading several books. Currently I am reading Home Education Volume One: By Charlotte Mason, Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum: By Laura Berquist, Honey For a Child's Heart: By Gladys Hunt,A Catholic Homeschool Treasury. My other big resource is http://www.amblesideonline.org/New.shtml. Also valuable, is talking to veteran home schooling moms. 

This is a layout of what I have come up with for a guideline. It is definitely subject to change as I see fit.

During the week Monday through Thursday is school work days. 

Monday: 6am Animal chores, 7:30am Breakfast, 8am clean up/play, 9am Math, 9:30am Phonics, 10:30am Religion, 11:00am Poetry, 11:30am Lunch, Noon Recess, 1pm Naptime, 2pm Computer/Play/Phy ed., 3pm Literature/Music, 4pm Animal chores, 5pm Make supper, 6pm Supper, then milk goats, 7pm clean up, ready kids for bed, play monster/storytime, 8pm Rosary/bedtime, 9pm my and Franz's time to unwind, 10pm bedtime for me:') 

The only thing that will change is that Monday through Thursday at 11am. Monday it is Poetry, Tuesday Art, Wednesday (Something Special0 I will choose what ever I feel like, Thursday 

Poetry. 

Cyprian sporting his new reading glasses. He may out grow the need for them. I wore reading glasses for a short time as a child.

Basic Curriculum is religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Religion: Cyprian is learning from the catechism, we will read the children's Bible, study a saint and virtue each week, go to daily mass once during the week (probably Wednesday evening at 6pm), learn prayers in Latin, etc. Reading I am using: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, simple readers (still gathering good books). Writing: choosing a passage from the Bible or short story, also free expression of interpretation, writing letters to family and friends, spelling test once a week. Arithmetic: we are starting with Abeka book 1 and the speed drills and tests. After looking at it, I think we will be into book 2 soon. I accidentally used a second grade curriculum last year with Cyprian. Actually I was too cheap so we worked with what books we had around and it happened to be Saxxon 2 :')   

Extras: hands on science being outside exploring and understanding our surroundings and sketching them, making simple experiments and reading (nature study). History: reading books and relating to today's current events, projects in history about important people and incorporating geography. Art study of a composer and his works each month of the school year, making a lot of artwork ourselves. Music reading about a specific composer each month and listening to his works. Basic piano instruction and play, learning hymns and folk songs. Literature is all the various subjects readings and also making sure to have a good story book for story time. Building projects, hands on creations. 4H showing goats and participating in events. Museum visits, we fortunately have great access here. Field trips yet to be determined. Clement will be going to the Good Shepard Catechesis on Fridays at 11 am. I will be doing Tae Kwon Do Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 pm.

Fridays besides Clement's Good Shepard Catechesis is a free day to do

 something of our choosing. 

There is a beauty to home schooling. It looks like a lot and to be sure it is. But, a lot of these subjects flow right into one another making it not so many individualized subject times. Too, just living life is a lesson. Like impromptu dancing to some music, going for a swim with some friends, taking a hike and discovering something in nature, going fishing, working with animals, using your imagination and playing make believe, bantering back and forth making silly rhymes, and it just keeps going on......

Philosophically we are classical using models such as Charlotte Mason, Maria Montessori, and some awesome Kleinshirism! Our curriculum is a mix and very well will change as we seek the best method for each child. I am going to try and faithfully journal our whole school year. In hopes that it will give me insights for planning the next. 

Each day needs to start and end with prayer.

The sun is rising on the horizon!

         

So when my Honey leaves me...

I got home after spending the afternoon dropping Franz off at the airport. Then swimming and eating pizza with friends. After swimming I showered and dressed each boy in his pj's.

On the way home we prayed the rosary. I also received a call from Franz informing me that he was still sitting at the Raleigh airport because of a major delay and that I needed to add minutes to his cell plan because he was just about out. So when I got home I had all the boys sit in the living room while I unpacked the van. Then while they entertained themselves I called Franz and he got me into his account so I could add minutes before he completely ran out.

Next I headed out do milking. Before leaving mid afternoon Franz and I did all the chores except for milking the goats. As I am walking out Snowy races to the back pasture by the gate. Suddenly I hear screaming. I call Snowy off and go investigate. The screaming came from a rabbit that had caught itself in the netting on the bottom of the back pasture gate. A rabbit screaming is not a pleasant sound. So I am standing there looking at the poor thing and wondering if I should help it or kill it. Now my first pet ever was a rabbit, and I always said I would never eat one. So in accord with my earlier feelings I decided to help. My goodness, the rabbit really managed to get stuck. I managed to after five or so minutes get the hind legs unstuck. The rabbit was screaming for most of it. But I talked soothingly and it stopped, as soon as it realized it was free it shot off into the woods.

Finally, I quickly milked the goats. I came in the boys were all going crazy. I made them brush there teeth and sent them packing to their beds complaining. I had to remind myself that they were really tired and so was I. I blessed each then took Chrysogonus in the back pack with me to go catch a few stray chickens who were roosting in the goats pen. We have decided to start locking the coop again at night. We for a couple months have been just leaving the outside door open. The other morning Franz discovered a pile of feathers on and around the roost. I searched out all the chickens to see if I was missing one. I finally was able to count all the hens, but noticed a buff was looking pretty bare.

Our guess is that Dino our tom kitty decided to attack one of the chickens and got carried away. We have seen him chase and hassle the chickens when they wander in the barn. Naughty kitty! He also has taken to nursing on Snowy, yes, that is right he nurses on the dog. Too the complete rascal hangs on the screens of the screen porch trying to catch the parakeets. Oh he is a like a wild little tiger sometimes, yet very affectionate with us.

Oh yeah back to my night. Once Chrysogonus and I made the final check on all the animals we came in. I finished the fresh cheese that we had hanging in cloth. I took it out of the cloth added some sea salt, Italian seasoning, and minced garlic. Then I pressed it into a container. Next I did the last few dishes. Then I took Chrysogonus out of the backpack and got him ready for bed. Here I sit typing when I should probably get some sleep before going to Mass in the morning by myself with the Klein army. 

The newest batch of chicks has arrived; and a related announcement

This morning the newest batch of chicks arrived at the Wendell post office, all the way from Hoover's Hatchery in Iowa. Sometimes they take two days to arrive, a lengthy duration that pushes their endurance to the limit. But this time they made the trip overnight, and thankfully they were all alive, healthy, and active.

Now they're tucked in for the night on the screen porch as our cats, Siena and Dino, look on ravenously (and futilely):

We ordered a few Rhode Island Reds and Americaunas to continue to build up our laying flock. But the main part of the order was the next batch of meat chickens. We ordered ten of our regular broilers, the Cornish Rocks, but they actually sent us eleven, probably because a few of our pullets died in transit last spring. We are also experimenting this time, having ordered ten Red Rangers as well. The Rangers will not grow as quickly as the Cornish Rocks, but the slower rate of growth could also yield meat that has a little more character to it. Raising the two meat breeds side-by-side, we'll be able to discern how much more slowly the Red Rangers grow and how food they consume in comparison to the Cornish Rocks, the standard fast-growing commercial broiler chicken.

The announcement is that we've decided to go with conventional feed this time. By way of explanation, we had some difficulty selling all the chickens that we had available, and we think that price has something to do with it. For some time, Rosemary and I have discussed the $4.25/lb. that we charge for whole chickens. Although we're aware that it's a steep price, we're certainly not gouging our customers. Rather, we've taken the price of broiler chicks and Reedy Fork organic broiler grower and carefully calculated how much it costs to bring them to market weight. Of course, if we scaled up production, the price could come down a little, but we don't have any plans to make our operation bigger at this point. We could also approach well heeled customers in the Raleigh and Chapel Hill farmers' markets, but again, we're not planning to become a big operation at present.

So, Rosemary and I have a feeling that more people we actually know--people in our parish and in our local community--would be interested in our chicken if we could bring the price down. Sure, we'd love to do organic if it were possible. But the fact of the matter is that we're not the die-hard, organic-or-bust type. There's plenty of literature, in fact, about the commercial standards that drive what qualifies as organic in terms of pesticides and herbicides. It would be more accurate to say that we're concerned with using few chemicals as possible, and with keeping our food free from contamination and disease. We want to know where our food comes from and the people who raised it, and we think there are a lot of people out there who want something similar.

In short, the only thing that will be different this time is that the feed will be locally sourced--produced nearby in Statesville--rather than certified organic. Our chickens will still be happy, free-range birds who get a great deal of additional nutrition from table scraps and their own foraging.

Oh, and of course the price will also be different--probably more than a dollar cheaper per pound!

Soil Sampling, 4-H, and God's many blessings

We've recently discovered the Franklin County "Extension Office." Like most states nationwide, North Carolina has an "agriculture and mechanic arts" land grant university, and here it's N.C. State University. Sure, they're the "Wolfpack," and they have a basketball program that some people are vaguely aware of. But more importantly for most people's purposes out here, they offer important advice and services to farmers--even, we've happily discovered, small-scale farmers like us.

The first thing is soil samples. Earlier today, Rosemary and I packed off soil samples from throughout Kleinshire for free analysis.

We took samples from the front garden, from the front and back of the back pasture, and from the front pasture. We're particularly interested in our soil composition because as we work to improve the forage for our horse Tarcy and for the fast-growing goat herd. It's also important because a sheep farmer down the road--Mr. Cheves, after whose grandfather our road is named--recently stopped by and told us the reason our tomatoes are doing so poorly is because the previous owner of our property made heavy use of an herbicide that is poisonous to nightshade variety crops (most importantly in this region tobacco, but certainly tomatoes as well).

So, we're eager to find out what our soil is like. And we were happily surprised to find that N.C. State will provide a soil analysis free of charge via the Extension Office in Louisburg, the seat of Franklin County.

The other discovery via the Franklin County Extension Office is 4-H. I was involved in 4-H throughout my childhood, showing chickens at the local Rosholt Fair back in Wisconsin. I'm excited that my own children will have a similar opportunity here in North Carolina. Cyprian is currently old enough for Cloverbud projects, and a few days ago he traveled to Wake Forest with other kids from the area to a paint studio. He's proud of his first project:

There is a local club in Bunn--the "Dirt Club," sponsored by Ray Family Farms. Cyprian won't be able to join until they open enrollment at the beginning of the next year. Nonetheless, he will be able to show goats at a 4-H fair in Henderson this coming September as an "at large" 4-H-er. We're excited about that--and he is too.

The last thing to reflect on at present is the neighborliness of our neighbors here. Besides Mr. Cheves stopping by with his gardening advice, just the other day I stopped by the hardware store in Bunn to find a socket with which to wind an old clock that I had purchased in Louisburg. It's a really cool clock, most likely from the woodwork dating to the mid or late nineteenth century:

Unfortunately, the winding mechanism fell right between two socket sizes. BUT, the gentleman at the hardware store said that he thought that he had an old clock key at home, and that he could bring it in tomorrow. To my surprise, though, he stopped by this evening to drop off the key. Now, Wisconsin is not the Northeast, but even back home I can't imagine a local hardware employee stopping by my house back home to drop something off. That's a positive reflection upon Southern hospitality, and upon the rural culture here in North Carolina in general. We're a long way from home, to be sure. But sometimes it's nice to be where we are.

"Say cheese!"

We've been milking our Nigerian goats for more than a year now. Though we've always known there are lots of things to do with the milk besides simply drinking it, they've always been a little intimidating for the learning curve they usually involve. But today, after watching YouTube videos and reading several accounts, I finally tried my hand at cheese-making.

I have fond memories of loading my plate with a few mozzarella balls every Friday during my two years studying in Italy, and, really, I haven't had anything that tastes like what I remember since that time. So, though it might not be the easiest of fresh (non-aged) cheeses, I had to start with mozzarella. The first step, of course, involved obtaining a gallon of fresh milk. It was harder than one might think since the boys consume the half-gallon we're currently getting each day practically as soon as it's out of the goats. Thankfully we have a nice store of frozen milk from the Rosemary's and the boys' time in Wisconsin in May. They got to drink thawed-out milk for two days until I had a full gallon to work with.

A gallon of the freshest Kleinshire goat milk

The next step involved adding some citric acid and carefully heating the milk to 90 degrees. Then I added rennet, the product that causes the milk to form into curds. It's a delicate process, and I must say that I was especially nervous when Rosemary came home an hour into the process and casually informed me that the thermometer was probably off by about ten degrees.

Nonetheless, a solid curd did form in the pot of milk after about an hour. I was able to cut the curd, heat it to 105 degrees, and then ladle the pieces into the colander.

The curd separated from the whey.

According to numerous Internet recipes, the next step involves evaporating most of the remaining whey by heating the curd in a microwave. But since I think this would zap many of the enzymes that make making cheese worth it in the first place (and since we don't have a microwave anyway), I opted for the time-consuming old fashioned method. This involved dipping balls of the curd in water heated to 170 degrees and squeezing and massaging the remaining whey out of them.

Dipping the mozzarella balls in hot water to get rid of every last bit of whey.

When the balls were finally stretchy, like mozzarella should be, then the process was finished.

Stretchy mozzarella, just as it should be.

In the end, I had five tiny balls of mozzarella cheese. Frankly, it was a lot of work, and I was surprised by how little cheese a gallon of milk yielded.

This is all the mozzarella that a gallon of milk yields. I think I'll experiment with a finer straining device to ensure that I'm getting all the curds separated from the whey.

BUT... Rosemary's discerning palate pronounced the cheese phenomenally good. A little more salt next time, though.

Rosemary's discerning palate pronounced the cheese good.

AND... the byproduct is not worthless. For starters, the whey can be heated a second time, to 200 degrees this time, and then strained.

The whey draining from the ricotta cheese.

This produces five or six ounces of ricotta cheese, to which I added some more salt, per Rosemary's instructions, and some Italian seasoning. It will taste delicious spread on some sort of bread tomorrow.

Ricotta cheese, the finished product.

AND... even the remaining byproduct is not worthless. The doubly strained whey can be used for any cooking endeavor, perhaps tomorrow's bread.

Cletus isn't so sure about the whey.

A lot of work, to be sure. But very tasty too!