Guaging Success

How do you gauge  meal success? One of the ways I know I'm cooking fairly healthy is when the amount of jars in the dish washer is substantial.  If the bulk of the week I have four to seven jars to unload, then I know I'm cooking with home-grown foods. Without a root cellar, the food we raise goes into the freezers or jars and so empty bags and jars tell me I'm cooking with what I squirreled away for the winter. And yes, it is still winter in many areas of Wyoming. By Laramie and Cheyenne some of the roads were closed the last couple days because of winter weather. Also over in the Yellowstone Park and down towards Jackson Hole. I'm getting seriously tired of waking up to frost, though we haven't had snow for a week and a half or so. I am still hovering most days in my winter coat because the wind still has a cold bite.

But wait a minute, I was talking about food. One of my favorite things. One of those empty jars held stewed tomatoes that I simmered with a can of tomato sauce, olives, mushroom, onions, oregano, basil, salt and pepper. This became the Italian sauce in egg Parmesan, something my oldest daughter told me about a few years ago and I've always wanted to try. It was easy and delicious. I found the recipe on the Internet and yes smarties, I did NOT follow the recipe as written but took large liberties with it. I prefer to see recipes as suggestions.

 

Kirk commented that he must be a guinea pig for poor man was hit with two experiments in a row. Kind of poor man for he did like the food both times. The simple eggplant Parmesan that reminds me of a creative rendiditon of lasagna was really good and the cilantro pesto on a grilled turkey sandwich with Jarlsberg cheese and home-made sourdough bread held great possibilities.

I confess. Guilt is making me say this, I strayed off the track, way off the track from the original recipe. I had to, it looked well, boring. Instead, I slanted towards a sauce I make for fish. The big difference between it and pesto is I don't use walnuts or Parmesan cheese in my sauce and the base of the fish sauce is mayonnaise. That's where I thought the sandwich went wrong. It was too dry. The mayonnaise would of helped. 

The other pesto I made was parsley pesto. It's yet to be tried. I just through it in the freezer and I'll probably use it in rice.

  

The other jars in the dish washer held  jam, pumpkin, applesauce, applesauce, and some more applesauce. Our grand daughters love applesauce and when they saw I'd used some in a pumpkin cake recipe to replace part of the oil, they wanted some too and some more, and some more.  

So what I really want to know, after I've talked your ear off, is do you like me, gauge whether you are cooking healthy by how many jars are in your dish washer? 

Yak Meat

With the yaks came yak hamburger and ribeye steaks. We've had yak hamburger before and it was wonderful but not steak. So for Mother's Day we had the ribeye steaks Larry and Christy gave us.

I was naughty and didn't take pictures. I know, I should have for they looked as good as they tasted. I was selfish and just enjoyed them and oh my, were the steaks phenomenal, worthy of a five-star restaurant.

Yes, you do have to know how to cook yak or you will think your gnawing on shoe leather. One gal told me her in-laws thought yak was horrible because they couldn't hardly cut their roast. That was probably true but any of you that cook wild game on a regular basis know that done right it is delicious, done wrong, it is hardly edible.   The same could be said of Buffalo which I've heard enough bad about also but we use to buy buffalo and really liked it.  Bison and elk are very lean meats along with yak which is 95%  lean. 

So how do you cook yak? For the steaks, we turned our Weber grill all the way up and when it was hot, hot, we tossed on the steak putting nice, dark charred grill marks on both sides. When the inside was red but not running bloody juices, just a hint of pink, we pulled them off. The hamburgers are done the same way though ours were not red inside but that stage lighter than red but not quite a true pink. I can't emphasize enough that you don't over cook your hamburgers or steaks.

 Roasts, Christy ( from Spring Brook Ranch where we got the yaks) said to do like you do an elk, cook at low heat and for a long time.  So if you are a well done, or even medium well done person, you really need to learn to eat differently. Beef steak cooked to well done or medium well done is far tougher than those with a nice light red inside.  Oo...w, yuck, you say. Well, I use to be one of you but I've refined my tastes considerably since then. Come on well doners join me, close your eyes, open your mind and eat something that hasn't been cooked to death. You'll be surprised at the difference in flavor and tenderness.

When we looked at the price of the steaks, our mouths about dropped. Wow, they were expensive but then we've no idea what a beef steak in the grocery store costs either or bison for that matter. Beef -we've raised our own, bison - we've bought off one of the two buffalo ranches nearby, and yak - has been a gift twice.

The flavor of yak is hard to describe. It isn't quite a beef flavor. It's lighter, not as in less flavor but in not as heavy tasting and there is not a greasy after taste. I wouldn't describe yak meat as a sweet beef flavor, as some do, but I would say it is phenomol. My research says it gets its flavor from its unique distribution of fatty acid percentages. Yaks are extremely low in palmitic acid which I have no idea what that is but it is bad for you. It is low in calories, saturated fats, cholesterol, and triglycerides.Yak meat is much higher in stearic and oleic acids that are good for us and high in protein. Combine all this and yak meat may be the healthiest meat you can eat. Certainly healthier than beef, or even buffalo, or skinless chicken breasts. Yak is even lower in fat than salmon. So if you get a chance, try some. I think you'll become a fan.

With all the research I've been doing on all the different assets of yaks, you know what I've been up to. Yup, we're thinking about getting another yak. One we can eat. As for Gracie and Jasmine, we've been combing the bull possibilities and studying their dads and grand dads and great grand dad's pedigrees to make sure we don't cross too closely. For Gracie, I think we will go with a Royal bull. That is the black and white ones. Her dad was a Royal but somehow she didn't end up with any white. We plan on her producing our meat and Jasmine, we want to breed to an Extreme Wooly to produce more fiber. So though we can't breed our yearling for another year, we're studying so when the time comes their backgrounds are memorized. Something we can rattle forth in our heads and make a quick, wise, decision because of the solid foundation of knowledge. We've also been reading web-site after web-site learning about different herds near us. It is surprising how many yak ranches are within a six hour radius and we keep finding more all the time.


Yesterday, I've washed the yak wool Larry and Christy brought.  It's drying but I can hardly wait to try spinning it. I've got some research to do because I wondering about the silky hair and wool that Jasmine has versus the crimpy hair and fuzzy wool of Gracies. I'll let you know but I'm sure the stuff I have is like Jasmines. 

 If the lure of fiber and meat aren't enough, those bushy tails held high in the air as Jasmine and Gracie come high tailing it toward us thrills us that they are excited to see us. Yes, we are making progress on getting them use to us. Their is less tipping of their heads in a threatening way because they are nervous and they've even starting grunting. Yes, grunting, for a yak doesn't moo, it grunts. So if you haven't seen the comedy act of Rexroats versus yaks, come watch. We grunt, they grunt, we grunt, they grunt.


We've got to hurry for the girls will soon start shedding and we've got to have them tame enough to comb them to remove the wool that is compariable to cashmere. There is no squeeze chute in sight to place them in so I want them to become like my mare which just stand there without a halter and begs to be groomed.

Our youngest grand daughter and her mother sitting outside the yaks pen watching before she ran off to play with her beloved goats.

What do our grandkids think of the yaks? They like the goats better. LOL That's okay. It is probably for the best since the yaks have horns and would use them if they felt threatened.

The Yaks Are Here!!!

Our girls have arrived, whoo, hoo!! Let me introduce you, Gracie is on your left and Jasmine is on your right.

At first I panicked. How was I going to tell the girls apart. No white marking, nothing. Then I saw their names on their ear tags and I breathed a big sigh of relief. By the way, this is Gracie. I can't see her ear tag in this photo but I have now got it figured out who is who without them. Beyond two brown hairy bodies I can see that their faces and bodies are nothing alike. 

No, really, there not. Look carefully. This is Gracie. One way you can tell is that her hair on her forehead isn't very full in comparison to Jasmines. Do yaks have foreheads? See, I know nothing --yet. 

Look here at Jasmine. Hint, hint, look at the name on her ear tag. But beyond that blatant clue, look how wide her head is and how full her hair is acrossed it. Gracie's hair is scant across her head and comes to a V. Give Jasmine another year and we may have to trim that hair so she can see.

Jasmine here has big wide, long chaps and her hair is much fuller than Gracie's. By next year her hair will be really long.  Jasmine is what they call a silky because of the way her hair is smooth and well, silky. It doesn't look soft in this picture but it is comparable to cashmere. It doesn't get much nicer than that.

She would be a good candidate to breed to an extreme wooly to come up with more fiber. She is one nice looking yak between the size of her bone structure, which is large, and her full hair. Jasmine will be one big cow when she grows up.  Her dad weighs 1780 lbs.,  a really big boy and her mother was a big cow also.

Now look at this side shot and ....

...then look at this one.  Yup, you guessed it, the first one is Jasmine and this one is Gracie. Didn't guess it. Well, note the smooth silky hair on Jasmine, the first side shot, and the crimp in Gracie's hair here in the second.

Gracie is the more friendly one and is very jealous of any attention given to Jasmine. They aren't comfortable around us yet and tip their horns in a, I can defend myself so watch out, kind of way. But then again, it has been less than twenty-four hours since we picked them up. I was thrilled this morning though when Gracie grunted at me. My mare was whinnying, the goats were maa...ing and Gracie grunted. It was so... cool. Yes, yaks don't moo, though they are a bovine, they grunt instead. 

I wonder which type of hair is more desirable to spin? Hm....? I really need that yak tour I've been wanting to take. I've questions and questions to ask the ranchers who raise yaks for meat, for fiber, and yes, we found one family that is working on a yak cheese line.

But right now I want to thank Larry and Christy from Spring Brook Ranch who were kind enough when they met us last night with the yaks in Gillette to give us a little yak meat to try and some fiber for me to spin. Since it is Mother's Day, we are having yak ribeye steaks tonight. Yum, yum! We've go to get the grill hot, hot for that's how you cook them. 

To all you Mother's out there, Happy Mother's Day.

Hunters and the Hunted

My camera has reached the end of its memory. I've got to clear it so I can keep snapping away. I do have yaks arriving tomorrow and it would be a crime if I couldn't take lots of pictures.

 So I'll let you peek at some of the photos I've been taking the past couple weeks. This is Cally, our calico barn cat who is extremely loose moralled. Yes, Cally fits in cuddle time for every male in the neighborhood. How do we know this? Well, every batch of kittens is a melting pot of colors and types, Siamese, tabby, gray, black and white, you name it. This means that we hear a chorus of toms serenading her and fighting over who she admired most.


This sadly also means that she has already had her first batch of kittens and they have not survived the cold. She does this every spring.

 Cinders here is a real lady and only has a batch or two of kittens a year. They are always a carbon copy of herself and I think she must only be friendly with the black tom that comes around now and then. She is my partner in the chicken coop at night. I spotlight a mouse who is pilfering the grain and she rounds it up removing it permanently.

 Percy here has just started hunting with me when Cinders isn't around. I feared he was a worthless bum but I've slimmed him down a bit and he's begun to hunt.

This is Sue, a male. Now don't kid me too badly but I truly thought this wild kitten was a female and when it became apparent he wasn't. It was too late, the name had stuck. OOOPS!! He lost his leg when he was two and now this hero of mine is seven. The oldest cat we've ever had at the corrals. As you can see by his rough appearance, he is one tough hombre.

 These are a few of my favorite bird. This is the Horned Lark. Horned because he has a feather that stickes out on each side of his head.

 And someone asked me what a Meadow Lark like. Well, here it is. I've done my best but this bird does not let anyone up close. It  makes the most beautiful sound in the springtime. It's flight reminds me of a ducks. It beats its wings very rapidly because its body in large in proportion to its wing size. It does glide much better than a duck though. 

You do not see a Meadowlark or a Horned Lark in town because they are a strictly prairie bird. We are blessed to have our home with its backside to the open countryside, for we can frequently listen to its call. 

 We see this bird, the yellow headed blackbird, a great deal at the corrals but not in our yard for it never comes into town. The black birds and the red winged black birds are in our yard and all over so why does this cousin not come?

We keep a bird feeder on a metal pole in our backyard for birds are truly one of our favorite things and our cat who is an excellent hunter can't climb it to get to them. Hence, our cat and the birds co-exist nicely. And with the bird feeder, we have a natural way of knowing if a big storm is coming. The birds empty the seed out in record time, filling up their tummies before holing up. Small storm, then they take their sweet time. 

There a Buzzing!!

 Remember those bees that stung me fifty time on my arms last fall? Well, they are sweethearts this spring. Call them bi-polar if you want for yes, they were really, really, cranky last fall when I went frame by frame through the hives but yesterday when I went through looking for brood and putting new frames in the brood chambers, they weren't at all interested in me. I could of almost done it without suiting up.  The difference was that in the fall they new that if I stole their honey, they would starve to death come winter. In the spring they are too busy bringing in the food.

Note, the pollen baskets on their legs.

Yesterday, I also hauled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of manure, spreading it on to the garden. Today, I'm rototilling and getting ready for the yaks which will arrive tomorrow. I'm am sooooo.... excited. Stay tuned for pictures.

 Today, the chicks arrived in great shape.

They ate and ate and ate, and when they weren't eating they were drinking. Twenty-five chicks have downed a quart of sugar water already today. Wish I had time to sit down and watch them. Oh how I love chick vision but I've  no time. The weather is nice but tomorrow afternoon it is to begin raining. I've got to hussle and get my work done outside and I've no time to chat. For those of you who have commented, I promise to chat soon. It's early May, the warmth and nice weather unfortunately, won't last long. So high ho, high ho, it's off to work I go.

Oh My, How Does One Keep Up

 Busy as a bee, that's me. And speaking of bees, I really, really need to take all the boxes apart and pull the empty ones off and put new brood chambers on one hive and add another one on the other and... and... and... But I need a day that is warmer. Yes, we've had a few warmer days but still pretty cool. And that warm day needs to come when I've not four little kids in need of Grandma time. Yes, our daughter re-married and instead of three, I have four children to watch, ages 2, 4, 6, and 8. The last being a boy. Another babysitter is watching the kids one day a week, two hours another, and half a day another but I'm still the school bus, the cook for breakfast, the lunch maker, and Grandma. 

See the yellow pollen on the bees legs? We have a few dandelions along the house's foundation and a prairie flower, that I've forgotten the name of, blooming. Slim pickings but I hope the queen is laying lots of eggs. I need to see but how does one get it all done? 

 I did make it to the hoof clinic last weekend and didn't learn so much about hoof trimming as I did conformation but I took pictures so you could see just what a well trimmed hoof looks like. Notice the rectangular appearance and that the heel is level with the toe.

 It is a temptation to take more off the heel than the toes. Though if you aren't consistent with trimming, you may have to leave the heel long as you work a little at a time on the toe. This being over a course of weeks. The blood flow keeps up with the growth in the toes and you'll cause your doe or buck to go lame if you trim to much too quick. Not to mention cause the hoof to bleed opening it to infection.  

The moral being - keep up with the hoof trimming. I'm as guilty as the next on this.

 You can see just why the letting the feet down to check to see that each side of the hoof is level  is so important when you have a goat like Chicory. I didn't trim her feet the latter part of her pregnancy because she was rather large if you recall. If I'd of picked up a foot, she'd of fallen over, needing all four to bear the weight.  

 And as I trim, I have to try and make the inside half of the hoof shorter than the outside. That is where I need to do some major catching up as you can see. Perfection isn't going to happen. That is why we were able to buy this sweetheart because she had bad feet and weak pasterns. The weak pasterns I've solved, the feet - not even close. Hopefully this week I'll get her done again and can start getting her feet in better shape. 

 
 For now, I'm going to go outside again and begin working on this big heap of manure that needs to go into the garden.

Conformation

                                                 Chicory

I went to a friends, the same one that taught us to de-horn last weekend, and she had Chicory's previous owner's daughter (I know that's kind of confusing), over to teach a hoof trimming seminar.  Chicory's owner shows nationally and hence, this well taught daughter knows a whole heaping lot more than I do. In fact, I know nothing about Nubians (think Jersey cow) except they have a tendency to beller a lot and they produce more cream than a Saanen (think Holstein cow). 

So since I decided to become serious about the breeding of my animals, including Chicory, I'm taking a crash course on Nubians and goats in general. What are the breed characteristics of a Nubian, what am I looking for in conformation etc.? The first question I never knew and the last I can't remember any more so I really do need some help. 

After the seminar, this wonderful daughter of my goat's previous owner, Erin, was kind and came over to my pens excited to see Chicory once more and pleased that she was doing well. 

I begged her to rescue me. You see, I left the seminar completely bewildered. Anne, the de-horner, has stocky goats and mine are lanky and very dairy looking. One style is not better than the other, just different. So here I was staring at goat after goat of Anne's and trying to compare her kids to mine, wondering if those beautiful little kids of mine weren't so beautiful after all.  When Erin was kind enough to point out the fact that the two styles were like comparing apples to oranges I felt much better. Then she asked me which do you like better? For that is what it essentially boils down to - preference. "This look", I replied pointing to my kids. "I do too." she said. Which didn't surprise me since Chicory was her mother's before she was mine.

My other big question was whether or not to band the buck kid making him a wether (an it in other words). After looking at his smooth shoulders, good legs, and awesome top line, I decided he deserved to remain in-tack to hopefully pass that on. Erin wanted to know if I was going to keep him.

Who would I breed him to, his mom, his sisters?, was my first thought. Then I figured she maybe thought I was going to buy a bunch more goats because though this IS livestock, the idea seemed just too perverted. "He's for sale.", I said. Of course thinking, you want him? No, I don't know about selling breeding stock either.

Just in case someone is interested, I'll get his pedigree up in a couple weeks along with some photos. First, I got to figure out who is on Chicory's registration papers since the names mean nothing to me. And, what does the asterisks and pluses mean below the names? I do know what the AI means below Chicory's. Yes, she must have been the offspring of an artificially inseminated dam.

Erin said they had high, high hopes for her but her feet stayed tipped and didn't improve with trimming. Alas, she was sold to me. Yeah, for me as she doesn't pass on the ugly to her kids!!! As for this little buck we call Dock as in Chicory Dickory Dock.  I saw pictures of his and his sister's - papa's mama. I know, there I go again. Just stay focused and read that line again.  Her udder made my jaw drop. I admit I almost drooled and longingly thought, "I want a doe with one of those." 

 

I won't know until at least another year if my girls inherited that gorgeous mamary gland. For now, I'm trying to figure out body comformation. Funny, but it wasn't until Erin pointed out the faults and strong points on the doelings that I recognized them also. Now why is that? Cheyenne here has  a nice top line though not as nice as her brother and no, it isn't downhill from the rump to the front. It's just the ground she is standing on. Sorry, with the sun shining today it was hard to catch them holding still for even a second before they dashed off bucking. We've had snow and hard frost, snow and hard frost, snow and hard frost, so a day of sunshine  is a luxery.

And now that I've said something nice about Cheyenne, I can say I noticed, after it was pointed out, that her shoulders were a little thick and  didn't have as nice of an A angle from the top down as her brother and sister do. (Sh... I know, I know, the saying, " If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all.",  but it does not apply to livestock.) Erin said Cheyene might just become a larger doe and to wait and see what those shoulders do.

Besides, have you noticed that babies no matter whether they are human or animal, grow out and up and out and up and not always in proportion either. So it is a wait and see thing. After all, she is only three weeks old.  Her younger sister, Florence has pretty shoulders BUT might be a hair bit cow hocked. Hard to tell as active as she is and an udder will solve that slight problem in a hurry pushing those hocks outward.

What I wanted a picture of but the doelings were too modest to show was the space between the number 1 hole and where there escutcheon would begin. Confused? Well, when I was in grade school  we had to raise one finger or two so the teacher knew approximately how long we would be gone to the bathroom. In goats that means dingleberries or water fall. We are talking about the distance between the head of the waterfall and the escutcheon line. It needs to be short so the udder will be held up tight. 

I got to see a kid - not mine-  with pasterns too long which makes them weak when the kid grows up. So I checked that out too but my kid's are good. 

You want with Nubians, long pendulous ears, an inch past the nose if possible, and an ugly Roman nose, oh, I said that out loud didn't I? Okay, a huhum... (oh dear I can't lie so what can I say that is nice about their nose? ) a eye catching nose, (how can you miss it?). I know, I know some of you love that nose but I'm use to Saanens so give me time, maybe the thing will grow on me. It definitely grows large on them. 

Does should have a nice girlish, slim neck, and a downward placement of teats. You think I'm joking don't you? Have you ever  squeezed a teat like you were playing the scales on a piano and had to work like crazy to get the stream shooting into the bucket and not spraying the wall? Then don't laugh, sometimes milking is a real challenge even if the goat is standing perfectly still. 

And please for my sake, let the doe be born with good sized orifices. Not to big to allow in infection and not too small so that I have to play hee-man trying to extract the milk. And two not three or more teats is a must. Yes, goats can have more than two teats. Sometimes they are just small decoration, in poor taste I might add, and sometimes more than two teats work making you think they are doing a cow impersonation. 

Basically, I've learned you look for a good looking kid and hope it stays that way when it grows up. It's why I've never wanted to gamble in Los Vegas. I'm gambling already with all I can afford on how well the combination of genetics I've chosen will pan out. I've heard with Nubians it's trickier than Saanens. And this isn't a small chunk of change when you consider, breeding fees if you have any, keeping a buck or two, and the cost of hay and grain along with the gas to haul it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, about the sheds, and fencing. Well, you get the drift, so just call me the big time gambler - on our budget you wouldn't be too far off.