Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here's another recipe adapted from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain. I know it sounds like heresy, but I really think these are better than the original Christagirl recipe...

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups whole wheat flour (I use white whole wheat flour, which is lighter than the more common kind)
1 1/2 tsp baking pwder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugars. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix well, then stir in chocolate chips. Scoop generous spoonfuls of dough onto ungreased cooky sheets and bake 16-20 minutes. Cool on a rack. Enjoy!

Spring Updates

Here are some more baby pictures:

One of Patience's three bucklings. We've had several kids born with their ears sort of inside-out like this, which is a little disturbing at first; fortunately as they get older the ears fall forward naturally.
Another little doeling--either Temerity's or Mercy's. It got a little difficult to keep them all straight this year, since most were black and white. We just sold this girl to a lady from Bend, who was so eager to buy her that she made a 10-hour round trip!

Buckling #2--a very sweet picture that belies his rambunctious nature! He and the other buckling like to jump off hay bales and crash into people's chests--it's quite something.

This is the third of Patience's bucklings, the one who was nursed back from the brink of death. He couldn't walk for several days, but a warm spot in front of the woodstove and regular bottles from my longsuffering mother and her husband finally brought him around. They decided to wether him and keep him as a companion for our buck Faithful.


Unfortunately, poor Faithful has met a sad end. He had a short but good and productive life on our farm, and yesterday my mother found him dead in the barn. We're not sure what happened, but he had seemed droopy for a few days and his body must have been weakened and vulnerable from his difficult childhood (which I posted about some time ago). We won't ever find another buck like him--he was as sweet and mellow as a wether, while being an impressively virile father of really beautiful babies. Even tiny Lucy could run around him fearlessly.

It's been a tough spring. We had our first birth problems--two stillbirths out of twelve kids total; Temerity has hoof rot; Mercy had a bad reaction to alfalfa pellets and is producing hardly any milk; the pasture is soggy and overgrazed; Erin rejected one of her twin lambs (she's doing fine and is being bottlefed, and we've found a home for her, fortunately); 22 chicks died or were eaten by rats; the birds have been busily digging up most of the seeds I've planted in the garden; and now we've lost our buck.

We have been able to sell all the babies except the two bucks so far, all to good homes, so that is a blessing. And spring is around the corner, though it's blowing in fiercely with almost constant rain. All of us are looking forward to dry sunny days, hoping that better weather will restore our animals to health, our family to sanity, and our garden to a paradisical riot of bounty.

Baby Goats!!

It's become clear that our current arrangement, in which Faithful the buck is allowed to run with the rest of the goat herd year-round, is not going to work any longer. After Prudence's surprise twins last summer, she almost immediately became pregnant again, along with Temerity, Patience, and Mercy (who was also supposed to be retired). Because the fall was so cool, they went into heat earlier than usual, and thus gave birth earlier than usual, in mid-February.

Goats are not fond of cold and wet weather, and it's really not a good time for babies to thrive, so it's not surprising that we had our first casualties this year. Temerity, Patience, and Mercy all gave birth to triplets within a week of each other, and Temerity and Mercy both had one stillborn. Among those surviving, four had to be kept in the house for several days until they were strong enough to stand and take a bottle. Mercy's labor was long and difficult, and she's now on penicillin for a possible infection; she seems to be doing fairly well, but her milk production is ridiculously low and we may just dry her up as soon as we sell some of the babies. Temerity and Patience are also not producing as much milk as we'd like to see, but we've realized that they may not be getting enough calories, so we've increased their grain ration and added alfalfa pellets as well. We're also giving them fenugreek seeds as an experiment, and I'm thinking of concocting a quinoa/molasses/fenugreek treat to see if that perks them up a bit.

About a week after all the triplets, Prudence quietly popped out a couple of beautiful does (one of them is pictured above), and is doing very well. Since she's been such a good mother in the past, and since we don't want to milk her, she's stuck in the kidding pen for now with her two as well as all the other kids! The others, of course, are being bottlefed, but that doesn't stop them from bugging her constantly, even though she has no compunction about knocking them across the pen. They all seem to be reasonably content for now, and will be let out with the rest as soon as the weather improves a bit. We got a lot of snow last week, and no one's been venturing outside much.

So we're starting to sell off baby goats again, which is always a long and tedious process--not to mention a bit sad, since they're all so adorable. Besides Prue's twins (the other one of which is dark brown), we have four doelings (another brown one and three black and white) and three bucklings (all black and white). Among many other reasons to approve of Faithful, he's been a very good producer of does!

Cornmeal Blueberry Cookies

I have much to write about here, but am enjoying a winter lull before scrambling back into the hectic farm and garden schedule. I have made it a goal to blog here more regularly, but for now I'm just going to share a recipe, which originated in Kim Boyce's excellent new cookbook, Good to the Grain.

Cornmeal Blueberry Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups corn flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup whole milk
1 cup dried blueberries (or raisins)
1/4 cup granulated sugar, for coating

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease one cookie sheet. Cream together butter and brown sugar. Add eggs and mix till combined. Add dry ingredients and blend until flour is barely combined. Add milk and blueberries. Slowly mix until dough is evenly combined.

Pour granulated sugar into a bowl. Form dough into 1-inch balls and roll in sugar to coat lightly. Place balls of dough on cookie sheet and bake for 20-22 minutes. The cookies will puff up and crack at the tops, and are done when the sugar crust is golden brown. Repeat with remaining dough, refrigerating in between baking times if dough becomes too soft.

These cookies will keep for several days in an airtight container, and are best eaten for breakfast or as a snack rather than as a dessert.