Definitely NOT a Cake Wreck!

My mommy made me a cake. I asked for a "nice" cake for a party we had a few weeks ago. Well, when she arrived all the way from Buffalo, she was carrying the biggest, most extravagant cake I could imagine! Here is a picture of the cake in all its glory:

The cake is two layers of chocolate and two layers of vanilla. My mom frosted the whole thing with chocolate frosting and then made "bark" out of pieces of chocolate and attached them to the cake. She made the roots, knot-hole, and shelf fungus out of rice crispy treats that she molded and then frosted. The pine cones are pieces of cake that are frosted with chocolate frosting and then have almond slivers stuck in them. She made leaves by coating real leaves with colored chocolate and then peeling the leaf off. The top of the stump and butterfly are made from marshmallow fondant. Pretty impressive, huh?

Here is a close-up of a fondant snake that she made to hide among the leaves. Also she made mushrooms out of meringe and coconut.

No cake shaped like a tree stump would be complete without a fondant toad sitting on top!

I am addicted to Craigslist!

I admit it, I am completely addicted to Craigslist. Well, at least partially addicted. I only cruise certain sections. Not a day goes by where I don't check out the "Farm and Garden" section in both New York and Vermont. I am not in the market for anything in particular, I just like to look at the pretty pictures of the animals that people have for sale. Where else can you find a pair of trained Belgian draft horses for $900? Or free chickens? Or an apple cider press? It's wonderful. There's everything you would ever need for sale by someone, somewhere. I have sold a couple of goats and chickens on Craigslist and I have bought a couple of bunnies and goats through it.

Sometimes you find really weird things on Craigslist, which is part of the fun. Like today there was an ad for a "chicken/poultry rescue". Some people are actually getting together to rescue birds from people and giving them to foster homes. I thought of responding to the ad because I can offer a foster home for an unwanted chicken -- in my crockpot! Hah! Other times you find some really funny ads for things, like the person that was selling his black locust trees from his backyard. They were for sale for only $1000 a piece (including clean up of the branches and chipping). I printed that ad off for my husband so we could have a good laugh over this person thinking someone would actually give him $1000 for a black locust. In reality, he would be lucky to have to PAY someone only $1000 each for them to be removed.

Another weird part of Craigslist that gives me a laugh is the way people sell pets. Most farm animals are "sold" to someone who "buys" them for a "price". Most pets are "rehomed" to someone who "adopts" them for a "rehoming fee". It kills me! Hah! If you pay a price for any animal and bring it to your house to live, then you aren't "adopting" it for a "fee" to be "rehomed" -- YOU ARE BUYING THE DANG THING!! I get a total kick out of people's use of manipulative language to guilt other people into buying their unwanted dogs and cats. It's like it isn't PC to sell an animal anymore. Also the overuse of the words "rescue" and "adoption" baffles me. I think those words are used to make people believe that they are giving the animal a better home by taking it, when in reality, they are probably just getting it from someone that no longer wants it for some reason -- and those reasons can be anything from "it bit someone's child", or "it barks all the time", or "it's 6 years-old and still poops on the floor", or "it claws me every time I touch it".

This kind of stuff really makes me laugh because I truly believe that there are some animals in the world that just don't deserve to be. Some animals can't be rehabilitated, can't be fixed, can't be tamed. Some animals just aren't going to figure it out and live peacefully with each other or with their human caretakers. There's so many "rescue" places out there and so many animals that need good homes but there aren't enough good homes for all of them. Some animals will have to be euthanized humanely in order for others to live up to their full potentials. I am not saying at all that any animals deserve to be purposefully mistreated. But I do believe that for some animals the only option should be to humanely and safely put an end to their lives. This is how we need to act if we are truly going to represent the lives of the pets and animals we own. We need to stand up and take account for our husbandry decisions and be responsible for our animals. We shouldn't just pass them on to someone else to be stuck with.

She's Gotta GO!

I have finally come to my senses and I have decided that two Nubian goats is just one too many. This year my lovely Nubian, Pepper Ann, had two gorgeous kids. They are strikingly pretty and I decided to keep the prettier of the two. The only problem is that the lovelier of the two is also the LOUDER of the two! She screams all the time! There's nothing wrong with her, she just won't shut up! So finally after being screamed at all morning for no apparent reason, I decided that she just wasn't pretty enough to continue to put up with. I have had enough. Besides, I love the four other does that I am keeping this year. I really enjoyed only having four give birth this spring. To keep a fifth, noisy goat for the sheer reason that she is pretty, is kind of ridiculous. Hopefully some new family will love her in spite of her mouth!

You say "potato", I say "AAACKK!!"

Potatoes, potatoes, my how I don't like potatoes. I mean, I do like potatoes. I like to eat them and make french fries, and hash browns, and baked potatoes, and potato donuts. I just don't like to grow them. For an easy to grow crop like potatoes, they sure can be the scourge of the garden.

A few years ago my husband brought home 300 pounds of potatoes from a local potato field. He thought that our pigs could eat the potatoes and get fat. Well, pigs can't have lots and lots of raw potatoes because that will give them stomach ulcers. I was not about to cook for the pigs so we threw the potatoes in the compost/manure pile and thought that was the end of that. The next year I noticed some potato plants growing on top of the compost/manure pile. I didn't think much about it. The next spring we took the compost/manure pile and put it on top of the garden. Little did I know what kind of beast we had unleashed by throwing those potatoes in the pile so long ago. That year there were a few potato plants in the garden. The had grown from some of the leftovers that had been in the compost/manure pile. I was happy to see some plants growing and happily harvested the fresh potatoes in the fall. I didn't think any thing more of it.

This year my husband tilled the garden spot with a rototiller. The dirt that was kicked up from the rototiller was beautiful and black and wonderful. Unfortunately the tiller did an unexpected thing of basically waking up all the little pieces of potatoes that had laid dormant from when we had transferred the compost/manure pile over to the garden. This year we didn't just get a few potato plants growing unexpectedly in the garden, we got a few hundred! There are potato plants everywhere! They are in the middle of my rows of peas, in my rows of carrots, next to my tomatoes, in my squash hills, everywhere! These surprise garden guests are crowding out all the plants that I actually planted this year.

It got so bad that last night I decided to take out some of the potatoes so that my other plants could continue to grow without being choked out by the potatoes. I harvested 1/4 of the plants and got 5 gallons of potatoes!!! I harvested the potatoes with a sinking heart because I found there was lots of little, tiny seed potatoes growing. These potatoes won't be big enough to make plants this year, but they will be lying in wait for next year. They will be just sitting in the dirt waiting and hoping for their opportunity to strike out and choke my garden next year! I am sure every single potato that I missed harvesting this year will greet me again next year. AACK!

Baby Bunnies!!

Well, my two "female" rabbits that I purchased a few months ago have let me know that they are both not females! Luckily I did realize it before it was too late. All was going well with both bunnies. They were getting along and loved to snuggle in the same nestbox together. Then one day I noticed some fur out of place and thought they might have had a fight. It turned out that fight was a lover's quarrel! One of the bunnies was a boy and the other was a girl. I quickly separated both of them and waited 30 days to see if something developed from the quarrel. Luckily nothing happened and my girl bunny was not pregnant at the time. After a few weeks of keeping them separated, I decided to breed them and purposefully get some baby bunnies. I put the male in with the female for 5 minutes and then separated them. Thirty days later came four cute little bundles of fur. They are getting big now and here are some pictures of the cute bunnies.

Goats Coming and Going!

A few months ago I tried to purchase a Nubian male goat. I have one Nubian doe and I want to breed her to another of her breed. My friend said that she had seen this "Nubian" buck at a farm that she had visited about one hour away from my house. I called the farm and talked to the farmer and she said that yes, she did have a "Nubian" buck for sale. He was brown and white spotted and both his parents were "Nubians". Here's the catch: A Nubian is a breed of goat with long, pendulous ears and a Roman nose. They are very distinct in their appearances. Unfortunately some people do not understand that just having long ears does NOT make it a "Nubian". Anyways, my friend volunteered to pick the goat up for me since I was not able to go that day and she was going that way already. I said sure, but did have a nagging feeling that this wasn't going to work out quite right. Well, my friend stopped by my house to drop off my new "Nubian" and I could see from my front door that this goat in her truck was most definitely NOT a NUBIAN. At most he was a Toggenburg with long ears. Maybe his mom was a "Nubian" but he was definitely not.... So I told my friend that she just bought herself a new goat and that I was not interested in that goat at all.

That night I told the story to my husband and his only reply was to say, "You're not going to be one of those crazies with 8 million goats, are you?!". (We already had 12 goats living on the farm and here I was trying to buy another one to add to the collection). The funny part is that the next words out of my husband's mouth, the very NEXT words were, "But you are going to keep those two cute Nubian babies, right?". To explain, we had had two really cute Nubians born this year from my older Nubian doe. They were really cute. I had to laugh at my husband for not wanting me to get any more goats, but also not wanting me to get rid of some of the existing goats!

I did finally find a real Nubian at a farm up in Canton. It was the same farm where I had gotten my first Nubian and I knew that the farmers had never bred anything to their Nubians, except other Nubians. The guy is a real cutey! He is black and white with a little brown. His ears are really long and his nose is really Roman.

I am proud of myself because along with adding goats to the herd this year, I have already sent some away. Just this weekend someone came to pick up Hefty, my 11 week-old Toggenburg/Alpine male. His twin brother, Black Bart, is staying at my farm to be used as my stud this year. Hefty went to a nice farm to be their stud for the year.

And just last night someone came to pick up Matilda and Madge. I sold them both to a nice family that wants some goats to get milk and mow the grass. I sold Matilda because I am keeping her daughter to use for breeding. Matilda was a really good goat and I will miss her not being in the herd. Madge left because I didn't have room for her. She is Gloria's daughter, which I am sure will make her a lovely, friendly goat with a good udder and great personality. She already had plenty of personality!

So goats are coming and goats are going. I have two more goats to get rid of and I am just waiting for the person that is buying them to have a place to put them at his farm. Then I will be down to a herd of only 7 goats and that will be a good thing.

Lucy's New Blog!

My goat Lucy will be starting her own blog soon! She wants to carry on the tradition of Baby Belle over at www.goatcentral.blogspot.com. Please stop by and visit Lucy over at www.lucythegoat.blogspot.com. Thanks!!