Applesauce and Triplets!

I sit here with the ticking of an old fashioned timer keeping me in check.  There is a kettle of apples cooking down to mush on the stove, and I have a tendency to zone into whatever I'm doing and lose the rest of the world, including the soon to be applesauce and apple butter.  I bought the timer because I thought it might be low tech enough for my daughter to ignore it, she makes all my timers disappear into the blackhole of her room.  It seems to be working.

About the apples-last week I missed the farmer's market, but I wanted some of the apples from the orchard that is just a couple of miles from my house, most of the markets they sell at are around DC, and that makes it harder for us in the 'burbs to get apples from around the corner.  I spoke to them on the phone and they encouraged me to come the next day at a time when they knew that they would be around.  I arrived to find two women running a machine cleaning apples, one was one of the owners. I chose some Johnathan apples, Asian pears, and a jug of cider.  I mentioned that eons ago my family used to buy drops for making applesauce and asked if those days were gone due to issues of food safety.  It turns out that I could get drops, and that if I picked them off the ground myself they were free.  My favorite price, free.  Her husband had promised me the 25cent tour over the phone the previous day, and he soon showed up with his jeep to give me a look around the property, so while he was giving me the tour we picked 3/4 of a bushel of apples off the ground.

The bag, almost empty!

I was giddy at scoring the big bag of apples.  I had thought the days of being able to afford to make apple sauce were gone until our own apple trees mature.

As soon as I arrived home I pulled out my canning kettle,

the canning jars and the food mill.

 Washed everything and started chopping, simmering and squishing.  The second batch is on right now, but I think I scorched it a bit, maybe I'll make that chutney or an apple BBQ sauce to hide the smoky flavor...hmmm.

On the goat front, the goat lease is moving forward and the mamma  goat delivered her babies on Tuesday morning.  The triplets are adorable and their mom's milk will be available in a few weeks, yaaay!

Rent-A-Goat?

We've taken a step back from buying a goat.  As I said in the final line of my last post, I was feeling like this goat was taking over my life, and I wasn't liking that feeling.  We were talking to a goat farmer who mentioned that we should register any goat we bought in my daughter's name, because she would be showing it in 4H.  Later my daughter took me aside and asked quietly if having her name on the goat meant that she had to take care of it.  It gave me pause.  She clearly does not understand the meaning of showing animals through 4H and everything that entails, because, yes, she would need to care for the goat. 

I realized that my daughter wants to be the goat's "auntie", not "mommy".  She wants to play with it, brush it, shave it and trim nails (if she feels inclined that day) and then leave it with someone else to clean the barn, nurse it when it is sick, and to do the drudge work of feeding and watering it every day. If we boarded it most of that would be taken care of, but the farmer did note that most people end up taking the goat home, because they get tired of driving back and forth all of the time.  I knew that I would end up the primary caretaker, even if my daughter did do much of the physical care, it  was going to be up to me to provide the necessary nagging to insure that it actually happened.  Goats can live 14 years, my daughter will probably be home for seven more and then be sent off to college.  In order for goats to give milk they have to have babies pretty regularly, I could see the future, the passionate pleas to keep the cute little babies,  and me left with a full herd to care for.

I spoke with the farmer and let her know that I needed more time to think about it and that I didn't think that we were ready to make the jump.  She suggested that we lease a goat instead, we can legally drink milk from a goat we are leasing.  I haven't seen any paperwork yet, but it sounds interesting.

As I said before, all this for pudding!

All this, for Pudding

Before I dive into my topic today, I just thought I would note that we were very happy to discover that the baby bunnies are alive despite all of their early trials.  My daughter and her friend spotted them hopping out of the zebra grass onto the lawn yesterday evening. 

Onto my topic:

I would really love to have a glass of milk, but at the moment I cannot.  A glass of milk will probably cost me in the neighborhood of $200-350, to start, and I will have to wait a year for it.  I haven't had cow's milk since 1995 when I discovered that the reason I was always sick was that I was flooding my system with a food that I loved, but sending my immune system into the stratosphere.  My sister's allergist suggested that she give up milk to see if it helped her and within a few days she was on the phone with me saying, "You have to give up milk, just for a few days, to see what happens!"  I did.  Within three days I realized that I was making myself sick with cow's milk, my energy returned, my skin cleared, my head stopped hurting, the fog lifted...it was a revelation.

I'm allergic to cow's milk and anything with the slightest trace of cow's milk.  It took a while in the early dark days of the internet to find all the secret names of cow's milk that appear on food labels and all the sneaky places that it turns up--canned tuna for example, who would think to check canned tuna for cow's milk products??? Frozen whole chicken breasts? Whole turkeys (injected with broth and whey for moistness)?? Pepperoni?  French fries? Salt and Vinegar chips??  It was goodbye to most of the processed foods in my diet.

To get real milk, I have to have goat's milk, which isn't easy.  The goat's milk and goat's milk powder available in grocery stores tastes like the smell of a male goat when the females are in season, "musk" is too nice of a word for it, "rank" and "stench" are getting closer. 

I know from experience that goat's milk directly from the farm can be glorious, in Florida it was pretty easy to find.  I just had to tell the farmer that it was for pets and/or livestock and they could sell it to me, in the state where I live now that won't work.  There are no dairies that have processing facilities in the area, so to have a glass of milk I am going to have to buy a goat.  Since we don't have the facilities or experience of raising goats and since we can't afford to buy two (or more) and equip a mini farm, I am buying one and it will board with a farmer not too far away.  She'll provide the care it will need and lots of buddies to hang around with. 

I'll get the milk.  I'll be able to make pudding that sets, a white sauce once in a while, my decaf will taste better and it goes really well with Oreos (thank you Nabisco for taking the milk out of Oreos a couple of years back, I had missed them) and big slices of cake (the couple of times a year that I have them).  I will make my own yogurt and cheese and not have to drive nearly thirty miles to the closest health food store.

I like the idea that it is not a highly processed food like soy milk and almond milk, that the calcium in it is not just calcium supplements ground up and blended into it.  It has significant protein, unlike rice milk and almond milk. 
Best of all it tastes like milk, cow's milk drinkers might disagree, but it tastes like milk to me, a person who hasn't had milk (on purpose) in 18 years.

My daughter, who has spent many of her weekends over the years on goat farms is ecstatic, she loves goats.  In Florida, it took about two hours every weekend to buy our milk. She loves the fact that we will go visit our goat regularly, she has been helping the farmer already trimming hooves and shaving them.  We haven't even picked out our baby yet, we need to look at some that have been born already on another farm and decide if we want one of those or one that will be born in September from one of the sweet and very pregnant goats we have met so far.  My daughter is all ready to show it in 4H, we just found a group nearby...this goat may take over our lives.  All this for pudding.