And the winner is . . .

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion with author Chris McLaughlin on Monday as we discussed composting and her new book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Composting. The winner of the book is SpinnersEnd! Contact me with your address, and I'll forward it to Chris. The book comes out May 8, so she'll mail it as soon as she has a copy. For the rest of us who didn't win, the book is already listed for pre-order with most of the on-line book sellers. And if you haven't checked out her blog yet, head over to A Suburban Farmer to see what else Chris is doing.

And the winner is ...

The winner of Sheri Ann Richerson's book is Wardhouse! Send me an email, deborah (at) antiquityoaks (dot) com with your address. I'll pass it on to Sheri, and she'll get your book in the mail!

Thanks to everyone who commented and asked questions, and thanks to Sheri for joining us!

And the winner is . . .

The winner of the holiday give-away is Sally! Just drop me an email, deborah at antiquity oaks dot com, and tell me your address, so I can send your Shetland-llama yarn to you ASAP!

Thanks to everyone for entering!

And the winners are ...

In true goat love fashion, Margaret and Karl let their goats choose the winners of the books.

CattyJackie is the winner of The Year of the Goat.

Annette wins Living With Goats.

So, CattyJackie and Annette, send an email to Margaret at Year of the Goat dot net and let her know your address, as well as what you'd like inscribed in the book, if anything special.

For more pictures of the goats deliberating and choosing the winner, you can visit Margaret over at Ten Apple Farm.

And the winner is . . .

Momanna98 is the winner of the soap giveaway. Drop me an email, deborah (at) Antiquity Oaks (dot) com, with your address and whether you want the animals or the Christmas soaps. Also let me know if you need unscented, or if a variety of scents is okay.

Thanks to everyone for your comments. It really helps me to figure out what to blog about. Sometimes I write about things, thinking that no one really wants to hear about this, and then I'm really surprised by the comments and the number of visitors to that post. Who knew that people were so interested in pigs and nuts or the relationship between pigs and chickens? It was especially nice hearing from those of you who don't comment often, so I have a better idea of what you like to read. Thanks again to all of you!

Kid news (Michelle won!)

Michelle at Boulderneigh correctly guessed that Giselle would kid today, September 7. Although she was the only one who guessed the date correctly, she also guessed triplets correctly. (I was thinking triplets, too.) Michelle was guessing two does and a buck, but we wound up with triplet bucks. So, Michelle, send me (Deborah) an email at Antiquity Oaks dot com, let me know what fragrances you want, and I'll get your soap in the mail.

This is a bittersweet post, however, because one of the kids was born dead. I should consider us lucky that this is only the second time we've had a full-term kid born dead in seven years. It's been a strange and traumatic morning for Giselle and me, and I'm not sure we're out of the woods yet. The dead kid was trying to come out ribs first, which doesn't work so well, and now Giselle is not doing very well. She is trembling and having trouble standing. I've given her a shot of BoSe and some NutriDrench and am not sure what else to do for her. If anyone has any ideas, I'll be checking comments through the day, as we are also checking on Giselle.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to tell you the whole story right now, because we have company coming to celebrate the holiday. I need to get cooking, but I promise to tell you all about the birth and have pictures of the babies up on the blog in the morning. It's so weird when company is coming and real life rears its ugly head. Talk about feeling frazzled and conflicted, and I'm in a very sour mood, as even the tiniest things are making me snippy.

Contest: Only one doe left to kid this year

Giselle will be the last doe to kid this year, and she is due sometime in September. I don't know the exact due date because she was pen bred. So, the question is:

• On what date will she kid? (It's okay to pick the same date as someone else.)
  

As a tie-breaker,

• How many kids will she have?

And if there is still a tie

• What genders will the kids be?

And the winner gets goat milk soap, of course, three bars in your choice of fragrances. We have no time to waste, so the deadline for entering is midnight central time Monday or when Giselle freshens, whichever comes first. The winner will be announced whenever Giselle decides to let us know who's right!

It wasn't easy getting a picture of her because she wouldn't stop eating, but I finally caught her in mid-munch. Of course, I can't blame her. It has to be exhausting walking around with such a big belly. I'm sure she needs all the calories she can eat!

And the winner is

Shula guessed the weight of the little ewe exactly! Guess that's what happens when you keep such good records. She said 6 pounds, 9 ounces was the average size of the lambs in her flock this year. Now I'm embarrassed to admit that this is the first time I have ever weighed a lamb, so I was really surprised how heavy she was. They weigh so much more than my baby goats! Shula, send me an email, (deborah) at antiquity oaks dot com, and let me know whether you want the roving or massage oil and which color or fragrance.

I can't say for sure whether we're done with lambing since this was all the result of a renegade ram. There is another ewe that looks a little wide, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Contest: Guess the ewe lamb's weight

It was so much fun having everyone guess the little doeling's weight last month that I'm going to do it for the Shetland ewe lamb. Here are a few hints. She weighs a lot more than the little doeling weighed! In fact, she weighs more than either doeling at a month of age, which I find fascinating since their adult weights will probably be within about 10-20% of each other. For those of you who know nothing about Shetlands, I will also add that she is well under 10 pounds. We weighed her when she was one day old, so she had already sucked down a good amount of mama's milk at that point. Of course, she'd also been going potty, so maybe the milk consumption doesn't matter much. Make your guesses in pounds and ounces.

And the prize is ... your choice of either five ounces of Shetland roving or a four-ounce bottle of my massage oil. If you choose the roving, you can choose between white, black, gray, and marbled black and white (from a spotted ewe). If you choose the massage oil, you can choose from among the many fragrances that I have available.

Deadline for entering the contest is Thursday at midnight central daylight time zone. Winner will be posted Friday.

More on beans, beetles, and the winner

I'm so proud you all for figuring out the right answer, although if you've read my blog for long, it should have been pretty obvious. Choice A is not even an option. As for B we've never used a trap, but I did buy a lure one year and hang it on the turkey pen. As the beetles were lured to the pen, the turkeys snapped them up. I do sometimes take a bucket of soapy water out to the garden and shake the leaves over it, but I've done it less each year; and since I realized that the beetles are quite happy munching on the lazy wife beans (and a weed with huge round leaves), I've pretty much abandoned that practice.

I love all the other options readers mentioned, in addition to planting the Cherokee and rattlesnake beans. Since we will have free access to the lazy wife, we'll probably plant some of them again, and since heirloom beans are so much fun, I want to try another new variety or two. Who knows what other fabulous traits I'll discover.

By the way, all three of these varieties are pole beans. After harvesting our first batch of bush beans a few years ago, our backs told us to plant pole beans forevermore. It might seem like a lot of work to give them something to climb on, but it's nothing compared to the backache of picking bush beans.

The winner of the contest is (drum roll, please) Laura and Kelly Allen. Drop me -- Deborah -- an email at Antiquity Oaks dot com with your full name, mailing address, and variety you prefer, and I'll send the bean seeds in the fall after they're dried.

Organic green beans

The first time I looked through an heirloom vegetable catalog, I thought all the different varieties of vegetables were pretty. That was it -- just pretty. I had no idea that it was important to plant a variety of the same vegetables. I didn't know that bugs find some varieties more or less palatable than others. I was clueless about garden diseases. I thought that maybe some varieties do better in one climate than another, so I ordered a few different types of each vegetable, having no idea which ones might do best in my state. I ordered tomatoes based on color and size, but with the other vegetables, I was really winging it.

Looking at my green beans and hearing Michael Pollan say that nature abhors a monoculture, I finally had an epiphany. The two pictures in today's blog post are both green bean plants, and they are planted right next to each other in my garden. The one that is covered in Japanese beetles is the lazy wife variety. The one that looks lovely is the rattlesnake variety. At the other end of the row are Cherokee beans, which are also perfectly beautiful. I have no idea why the Japanese beetles fly past the Cherokee and rattlesnake beans to feast on the lazy wife beans, but I really don't need to know. I'm just glad I planted three varieties.

In The Botany of Desire, Pollan said he used to think that organic farmers grew plants the same way as conventional farmers, but used safer pesticides. Then he interviews a potato farmer who avoids problems by not planting certain varieties of potatoes, as well as planting a number of different varieties each year. Doesn't that make sense? The Irish potato famine occurred because they had planted only one type of potato, which was unfortunately susceptible to a disease. If they had planted a variety of potatoes, the famine would not have happened.

What do you think will happen in the Antiquity Oaks garden next year?
A. We'll spray on a heavy-duty pesticide to show those beetles who's boss!
B. We'll buy beetle traps to catch the little buggers.
C. We'll spend an hour every evening shaking the leaves over a soapy bucket of water into which the beetles will fall and drown.
D. We'll plant Cherokee and rattlesnake beans.

Put your answer in the comment section by midnight Friday, and everyone who chooses the correct answer will be entered into a random drawing to win an ounce of bean seeds from my garden, so you can plant them next year. (Your choice of variety.) We will definitely be saving seeds for our own garden. That's one of the great things about growing heirlooms -- you can save the seeds from year to year, because they aren't patented. Choosing heirlooms also means you don't have to worry about GMOs. Since they are patented, you have to sign an affidavit swearing you will not save the seeds for planting in the future. If I see a contract in a seed catalog, the whole catalog goes into the garbage. I refuse to patronize companies that sell GMOs. Of course, one of the best things about heirloom vegetables is that they taste really great!

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday. Check out Kelly the Kitchen Kop for more blog posts about real food.

The nation that can't cook?

If you watch television, this is going to be really old news, but I've just discovered that KFC had a "$10 meal challenge" commercial airing last year. They claimed that you couldn't make their seven-piece meal at home for less than $10. I was gasping, choking, exclaiming, and -- according to my children who were still asleep when I saw the ad -- screaming about the absurdity that a person couldn't make seven pieces of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and four biscuits for under $10. I was even making up new dialog for the family members. When the mom and son high five at the end because the total is over $10, I exclaimed, "Woo hoo, we're complete idiots who don't realize that we don't need five pounds of flour to make four biscuits!" And as for the cute little girl at the deli counter -- buying seven pieces of fried chicken does not count as cooking at home.

It makes me think that cooking researcher Harry Balzer might be right when he says, "the skills are already lost. Who is going to teach the next generation to cook? I don’t see it." Michael Pollan interviewed him for a NY Times article, Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch, where he talks about how cooking has moved from the kitchen to the living room and become a spectator sport. As I read his tale of gloom, I told myself that it was not true. Surely people still know how to cook. Then I saw the KFC ad, and I tried to tell myself that the vast majority of people would not fall for such nonsense.

Then I googled "$10 meal challenge," which was probably a bad idea. I'm just glad I have naturally low blood pressure. In the comment section of one single blog post, I found enough idiocy to really depress me. Through 37 comments, people argued back and forth about whether or not it was possible to make the meal at home for less than $10. Seriously! And it was obvious that a lot of these people had not cooked at home in a long time since they had no idea how much ingredients cost. Really, it's too mentally painful for me to go through all the comments again to pick them apart for you -- it just annoys me that people can be so ignorant and arrogant. But the link is there if you want to check it out for yourself.

Being a doer, not a whiner, once I had recovered from my fit of frustration, I started thinking about what we can do about this problem. I am absolutely convinced that we must prove Mr. Balzer wrong! There are still plenty of us out here who can teach people to cook! The skills are not lost! Our health depends on it. And I'm going to put my sugar scrub where my mouth is! Okay, that didn't exactly come out right. Perhaps I should explain.

I recently made up a big batch of shea butter sugar scrub, and I'd be happy to send a jar of it to someone who teaches another person how to cook something. Yep, it's another giveaway! Here's the deal -- find someone who claims they don't know how to cook, or who says they don't know how to cook well enough to eat at home more often. Then teach them how to cook something, anything that's made with real food! You don't have to actually do it by this weekend, but at least find someone, talk to him or her, and set up a time to get together. Immediate family members are eligible, so if you have a son, daughter, or spouse who needs a cooking lesson, go for it! Post your experience in the comment section by Sunday midnight, and I'll randomly pick a winner who will receive a 3-ounce jar of my sugar scrub in his or her choice of my available fragrances.

And by the way KFC, you can make 90 biscuits from a 5-pound bag of flour. Even using organic ingredients at retail price, a biscuit costs less than 8 cents to make at home.

And the winner is --

Debra B. guessed the little doeling's weight at 1 pound, 6.3 ounces, which was less than one ounce away from the 1 pound, 5.5 ounces that the little doe actually weighed at birth! Pedalpower and Michelle at Boulderneigh were both quite close with guesses of 1 pound 4 ounces and 1 pound 3.5 ounces, respectively. So, Debra will be getting three bars of my goat milk soap. Drop me an email with your address, Debra, and I'll get that in the mail to you.

The little doe's big sister weighed 1 pound, 10.8 ounces, which is only about five ounces more, but she looks a lot bigger than that when you see them side by side. It's amazing what a difference five ounces can make when you're that small.

The little does are doing extremely well. It has taken them days to accomplish things that many kids do within minutes of birth, such as stand and walk. It's hard to believe that they are still being contained in the laundry basket, although the bigger one probably will find a way to get out pretty soon. She's been getting her front legs over the top for a couple days already.

I hope Joy doesn't have some sort of breakdown. I wish I spoke bichon! She has been spending just about all her time next to the laundry basket, and when the bigger one acts like she's trying to get out of the basket, Joy starts whining and yipping and looking at me as if she expects me to do something!

Contest: Guess the littlest doe's weight

As I said in my earlier post, this doeling is the smallest kid ever to be born on Antiquity Oaks, and I thought it would be fun to have a little contest. You get to guess her weight in pounds, ounces and tenths of an ounce. For example, 2 pounds, 8.9 ounces would be a decent weight for a Nigerian dwarf kid, but this little girl is quite a bit less than that. So, tell me what you think she weighs! The winner gets three bars of my goat milk soap, shipped to you at no charge. Also, be sure to include what you think her sister weighs. (Sister's pictures are in the post below.) In the case of a tie, the sister's weight will be used as the tie breaker. So, before midnight central time Sunday, post your guess in the comment section, and I'll let you know the winner on Monday. Good luck!

P.S. If you're reading this through Facebook, be sure to put your guess in the comment section of the blog, not Facebook.