goats – In the Vintage Kitchen: Where History Comes To Eat

Summer’s Cast of Characters

Published on September 16, 2013September 17, 2013 by In The Vintage Kitchen10 Comments

This past weekend ushered in the first cool weather of the approaching Fall season. The temperatures brought 75 degree days and 55 degree nights, which means that Autumn is definitely on its way. How exciting! Ms. Jeannie just loves this time of year between September and Christmas.

In an effort, not to rush the season, nor lose sight of any end of summer magic, Ms. Jeannie has been compiling a little nature journal for you, of all the creatures she’s encountered in these past few weeks. They have all made her summer so memorable!

The goldfinches have been hard at work collecting seeds from the coneflowers in the garden…

It’s precarious business – getting all the seeds while still keeping your balance!

Boy-O is still looking for just the right nanny job. This is still his favorite way to spend the day…

Tomorrow morning he goes in for a little “procedure” so he doesn’t populate the world with his own little nursery full of kittens. As cute as those little legacies would have been, Ms. Jeannie explained to him that all of tomorrow’s events were really for the best. He seemed pretty thoughtful about the whole thing during the conversation…

And then went right back to napping. “Piece of cake, Ms. Jeannie,” he meowed as he closed his eyes.

The little fig that Boy-O was looking after, unfortunately has not faired so well. It got caught up in a dramatic bird rescue (see hummer story below), which cost it it’s two little leaves. So we are back again, watering and waiting!

A hummingbird got caught in a spider web inside Ms. Jeannie’s screened in porch last week. Luckily, with the help of a step ladder and an umbrella he was freed before he really started to panic. This incident really caught Ms. Jeannie off-guard – imagine how fragile a creature these hummers really are, and how strong spider webs are. This was just a regular web – nothing gigantic about it. And webs are everywhere in nature. Could they really be such a peril to light little birds?

After some research, Ms. Jeannie learned that hummingbirds actually use cobwebs as a binder when making their nests, so eventually this little bird would most likely have worked himself free. But Ms. Jeannie was thankful anyway for Mr. Jeannie’s quick abilities in rescuing this little flyer…

Billy Bob and Betty Boop have moved onto greener pastures. Apparently, Ms. Jeannie’s neighborhood didn’t really take too well to all of Billy Bob’s antics. He was constantly getting his head stuck in the fence, head butting just about everything, and climbing all over the feed bucket at dinner time. Ms. Jeannie thought these were supposed to be the fun things about having goats – their comical personalities and theatrical displays – but Ms. Jeannie’s neighbor was looking for less dramatics.

The day before they left for their new home, Ms. Jeannie filled them full of Saltine crackers – their most favorite snack.

Billy Bob most appreciated it!

Due to all of our rain this summer, giant mushrooms are growing out of the trees down by the creek, which really has turned it into a magical forest. Ms. Jeannie is half expecting to see little gnomes or fairies pop out from behind those umbrellas!

They really are quite pretty when you look at them up close!

Right on schedule and just in time for fall, a new zig-zag spider, also has built a web in a bush along the driveway.

She’s about as big as an egg from leg to leg. Hopefully those hummers will stay clear of her area!

The resident red-tailed hawks have been on the hunt a lot lately.

One of them landed in the yard just as Ms. Jeannie was pulling in the driveway. Oh how she wished she had her camera with her on that day! The hawk was about 2′ tall and just stood in the yard for a few minutes watching Ms. Jeannie watch him. It was a marvelous moment.

A blue tailed lizard, also known as a skink, emerges every evening now from its home underneath the porch steps and hangs out on the brick window ledge for a few hours.

If you’ve never seen of these guys before – they are really colorful. Their tails are a bright, bright blue and their bodies are black with yellow stripes. Interesting enough – if under attack from a predator, they can voluntarily pop-off their own tails, which will still wiggle about and deter whatever it was that was chasing them so that they can get away and hide. Eventually their tales will grow back – although their new tails will no longer be blue but instead match the color of their body. The ones with blue tails are the babies of the bunch.

These little guys have been jumping around the garden for weeks now. They are also the dinnertime band when Mr. & Mrs. Jeannie eat outside on the patio. In this picture, they are rehearsing in Ms. Jeannie’s wax bean garden. It’s good to know Ms. Jeannie’s twig supports are coming in handy for other activities too!

The scuppernong grapes are just starting to ripen on the vines. A few more days of warm sunshine and Ms. Jeannie will be inundated!

Which is exciting, because it turned out to be a dud year for the figs. With all the rain and humidity, 90% of the figs just molded in all the moisture. Most of them wound up looking like this…

Which of course was a little disappointing because Mr. Jeannie really hoped to perfect his fig barbeque sauce this year. But Ms. Jeannie’s holding out hope – there is a second batch of figs which, now that our sunshine to rainfall ratio has balanced out, might just turn out a good batch of figs yet. Here’s the ones that are still growing…

Of course, the construction site hasn’t been affected by the weather whatsoever. Those bald-faced hornets keep going and going and going. Now their nest has taken on the look of a pig snout when viewed from below and a horn of plenty (no pun intended!) when viewed from the side. Maybe they are getting into the Thanksgiving mood:)

As you can tell in this picture below – they have completely sandwiched themselves against the gutter now. It will be interesting to see in which direction they go next!

And last, but not least, a little concrete flower greeted Ms. Jeannie this morning when she went she out to water. This was a marvelous surprise, especially because Ms. Jeannie did not plant any impatiens this year – only last year. And yet, here this little beauty is – growing out of a crack in the concrete right under the garden hose. Imagine such a feat! This little seed must have overwintered and waited all summer to grow, grow, grow. She is like a little last gift of summer before the Autumn settles in.

Ms. Jeannie can hardly wait to see what the next season has in store in the nature department!

Goat Update: The Adventures of Nymph and Nyle

Published on June 24, 2013 by In The Vintage Kitchen3 Comments

The other day Ms. Jeannie came home to this scene…

That’s Nyle, as you’ll recall from a previous post, the neighbor’s goat. The flora and fauna feast he’s enjoying are Ms. Jeannie’s scrub bushes in her side yard.

On first glance she thought “Oh look how handsome that goat is!” A second later she realized that seeing Nyle standing there in her yard chewing on her bushes, meant that he had jumped the fence and decided on a visit.

Ms. Jeannie called her neighbor to let him know that Nyle had a bit of wanderlust and was traveling southbound via the sideyard shrubbery.

While she waited for her neighbor, Ms. Jeannie went out to visit with Nyle, who of course, was perfectly pleased to share stories of his adventure…

After recounting the experience, hoof by hoof, Nyle decided that the ice cream topper on this festive occasion would be a good old fashioned game of hide and seek.

"Here I go , Ms. Jeannie. I'll hide and you find me," said Nyle. — “Here I go , Ms. Jeannie. I’ll hide and you find me,” said Nyle.

Nymph looked on from her side of the fence (the right side!) like she was watching a movie unfold.

The chickens were equally captivated by Nyle's antics. — “These leaves are just as tasty as popcorn. “

Even the chickens were captivated…

Just as Nyle was debating such proportions, Ms. Jeannie’s neighbor came to collect him.

There's no hiding from the hand that feeds you. — There’s no hiding from the hand that feeds you.

Back over the fence went Nyle.

“That’s one special character,” said Ms. Jeannie to her neighbor.

“Yeah that Billy Bob, he’s just about as friendly as goats get.”

And that’s the moment when Ms. Jeannie learned that her Nymph and Nyle are actually named Billy Bob and Betty Boop. She also learned that they go bananas for Saltine crackers, that before the end of the year Nymph (aka Betty Boop) will be a mom and (thankfully), that these two are bound for breeding and not table food. So we can all rest assured on that point. Ms. Jeannie can hardly wait to see the little tiny baby goats these two produce!

Thanks for the fun afternoon Billy Bob Nyle!

Nymph & Nyle: The New Kids on the Block

Published on May 6, 2013May 7, 2013 by In The Vintage Kitchen4 Comments

The other day, Ms. Jeannie’s next door neighbor came home with two new additions.

Ms. Jeannie heard them before she ever saw them. Crying and bleating for two days straight, Ms. Jeannie thought that what she was hearing were actually small children playing in the yard. Relatives, she assumed visiting their family. As it turns out – it was a different kind of kid altogether!

To give you an idea of what they sounded like, Ms. Jeannie found this video on youtube. They sounded exactly like that (minus the chickens!).

Poor things. These two were making so much noise because they are little baby goats and they were missing their mom and trying to adjust to their new surroundings. On day 3 though, calm came, they settled in and were as quiet as can be. Which is the preferred way to keep goats. Apparently a silent goat is a happy goat!

These two are Boer goats which is a meat goat, as opposed to a milk goat, that originated in South Africa. Ms. Jeannie really hopes that her neighbor has no intention of putting these two on the dinner table. They’ve only been in the neighborhood for less than a week, but already Ms. Jeannie loves them.

At first they were very shy and skittish and stayed back near the tree line on the other side of the pasture, far from Ms. Jeannie and the fence. But it just took a little bit of time and some natural curiosity before they made friends. Now whenever they see Ms. Jeannie, they come hopping, like bunny rabbits, over to the fence and let Ms. Jeannie scratch their noses. She hasn’t spoken to her neighbor to see if they have names yet – but Ms. Jeannie has given them pet names of her own. Nymph on the left, Nyle on the right.

Boer goats have only been in the United States since 1993, so they haven’t been around long. But they are gaining fast in popularity because they easily adapt to their environments, have docile temperaments and grow quickly. Ms. Jeannie was surprised to learn that these two will weigh anywhere from 190lbs. to 340 lbs. pounds once they fully mature. That’s one big goat! (or two in this case!). Right now they are the size of a medium sized dog and weigh in the 30-50 pound range. It’s hard to imagine them growing five to six times bigger!

Because Ms. Jeannie shares a fence-line with this neighbor, she sort of feels a little bit like these are her goats too. It’s fun to have new faces in the side yard! Ms. Jeannie will keep you posted all summer long on the progress of Nymph and Nyle as they grow up. Until next time, they both send a few bahhhs your way!