Victoberfest!!

  

  

                                    

Parking for Victoberfest!

The Second Annual Victoberfest was held at Victory Hill Farm on the 14th of October. Victory Hill Farm is a dairy goat farm about five miles north of Scottsbluff run by Sarah Pena. The farm has dairy goats, some meat goats, horses, chickens, and pigs, although much of the farm's income comes from goat and sheep cheeses. Sarah makes and sells amazing chevre, feta, gouda, and cheddar from her goats' milk and ricotta and cheddar from sheep's milk. Sarah sells her cheeses and meat at the Scottsbluff Farmer's Market and directly from the farm.

The pigs were happy, well-fed little porkers, snuffling and snorting around their enclosure looking for spare food scraps. They are fed the leftover whey from the cheese-making process, doing their part to help reduce waste from the whole process. While not exactly cuddly with their bristly hair, who can resist those curly tails?

   

Happy whey-fed piggies 

                  

One of these things is not like the other...

Like all dairy animals, goats need to have kids in order to produce milk. Yes, baby goats are called kids, just like people. So small-scale dairy goat farms will have both mama goats and kids, as well as a few bucks that are kept apart from the ladies to control when pregnancies happen. The milking goats are the workers on the farm and are milked daily. Cheese is also made daily, or every other day depending on milk production.

Goat eyes are so cool.

         The giant spools are there to provide the goats something to climb on. Goats love to climb on things.

The dry goats are the baby goats that are not old enough to be milkers. These young goats are kept separate from the milkers, and were very excited to see all of the visitors to the farm. Having eaten all of the cottonwood leaves inside their enclosure, the little goatlings were politely begging cottonwood leaves from everyone on the outside of the fence. Seeing as cottonwood leaves aren't bad for the goatlings, I happily obliged their whims and collected leaves for them.             

   The goats here have all different types of ears. The elf-eared goats look as though their ears have been clipped, but they're just naturally small, delicate, and pointed.

                                                    

Elf-Ears!

And more elf-ears!

         

Swiss-type ears

More elf-ears!

I'm going to have elf-eared goats on my dairy farm.

 What celebration would be complete without pony rides? Especially with such beautiful little ponies? These little guys were tuckered out about halfway through the afternoon, and backup ponies were brought in. Unfortunately I was too tall to ride the ponies, so I just took photos.

How cute is he?

Pony wagon ride!

There was a chicken feed machine where you could put in a quarter and get a handful of chicken kibble for these lovely, laying ladies.

Elizabethan neck feathers

Communal dust bath

     

There are also a few horses that live on the farm and help with the haying and other farm chores. These beauties live between the milkers and the goatlings, and have learned well one of the hazards of living next door to goats: you lose your tail. All of the Victory Hill horses have short, sheared tails thanks to the nibbling goat neighbors.

Short tails are in fashion this season.

Fall colors have once again come to the high plains, albeit more muted this year due to the severe drought. Instead of the reds, yellow, and oranges of New England, western Nebraska has the golden browns and russets of prairie grasses and dried feed corn.
            

                      

Recent notable events: a red letter week

Exactly two weeks ago today marked a very important day in my life. No, I'm not engaged, no I wasn't abducted by aliens, no I didn't win the lottery although, since my work is funded by a grant whose funds are entirely earned from the Nebraska State Lottery, maybe I win the lottery every payday? Anyways, Monday the 24th of September marked the day I saw my first moose. Live. In the river. In the middle of Scottsbluff. Anyways, a real, live, MOOSE! And I took pictures, just to prove that I'd actually been there, occupying the same patch of time and space as a MOOOOSE.

Bull Moose in the North Platte River

MOOOSE!!!!

                              
Then, the following day, as if a moose wasn't already enough for one week, we saw and caught an interior morph Stellar's Jay at our Wildcat Hills Banding Station. These birds aren't ever really seen east of the Rockies, so one showing up in the Wildcats was, and is, definitely newsworthy. As for how I know it was an interior morph versus a coastal morph? Just check out those awesome white eyebrows! Coastal Stellar's Jays don't have white eyebrows and their heads and shoulders are darker overall.

What are YOU looking at?

                                

Look at those toes!! The jay was much calmer with the pencil in its feet.

Me holding the jay.

Check out those eyebrows!

      



Wednesday was mandolin day. I'm still learning, but thankfully the learning curve on the mandolin is way easier than on the guitar. I'm no great shakes at chords yet, though I know that with some practice I'll get there. 

Thursday I went and picked raspberries after a long day at work. The weather was absolutely glorious, especially with the cottonwoods turning yellow backlit by the golden sun. I picked three entire pounds of raspberries all by myself, and then celebrated with a raspberry-topped sundae! If only fall weather like that would last forever...then I could pick raspberries every day. Most of those berries went straight into the freezer, although a few cups became raspberry-chocolate chip-cornmeal muffins that. were. amazing.

My friend Jackie knit Frog for me this summer. He came raspberry picking with me and greatly enjoyed the sundae.

Friday I woke up at 5am to run 12 miles in peasoup fog before work. A happy discovery was that, while I was tired during the day, I was not super tired nor sore at all. This bodes very well for the marathon that is, oh, this coming Saturday. Oh, yeah, I'm running a marathon. Have I told you that yet? Check it out... http://www.monumentmarathon.com  I'll be running over the Oregon Trail, the California Trail, the Mormon Trail, AND the old Pony Express Route. Oh yeah...

Saturday was the Northern Colorado Birding Festival, and I went down to Ft. Collins Friday evening to stay over with a co-worker since we arrived at 6:30am to set up our tent and displays. The fair was a lot of fun, good turnout, glorious weather again, and I got to meet a turkey vulture up close. Or as close as I really ever want to be to a turkey vulture again. In the late afternoon I hung out in Ft. Collins before grabbing a terrifically amazing hamburger, fries, and apple pie shake at Big Al's Burgers and Fries. Seriously the best hamburger I've had in years.

Driving home I had the full harvest moon to light my way along with lightening streaking across the sky and pulsing through the rainclouds. Also, in the vein of delightfully random sightings, driving north to Cheyenne, I passed a truck hauling a trailer loaded with a giant, and I do mean giant, warty, pinkish, squat pumpkin. As in this pumpkin was the size of your average hot tub. Sadly I was driving solo, at 75mph, in the dark, and without my camera, so your imaginations will need to supply their own images. It was pretty stellar.

Wednesday night was forecast to be our first freeze of the fall, so I headed out to harvest all remaining vegetables from the garden Wednesday afternoon. A few things I left until Thursday when I went back out and gathered the rest, and now there are only a few potatoes and the crop of parsnips still in the ground awaiting digging.

Garden put to sleep for the winter...chard dug and potted

Bountiful end-of-season tomato harvest!

Sunshadowy tomatoes enjoy the last of the sun before the kill frosts hit.

Lastly, the end of this past week brought the seasonal change known as...winter? Wait...yup, we went from 80 degrees Wednesday afternoon to 32 and snowing Friday morning. And then it proceeded to snow much of Saturday as well. Sadly the ground hasn't actually frozen hard yet so no real accumulation. Keeping my fingers crossed this bodes well for a major snowfall year!

Dark-Eyed Juncos foraging for seeds through the snow. The Juncos are the ones with wings, the other little dark objects are pine cones. They are not birds (in case you weren't entirely sure)

Yup, that's a turkey.

Action shot of turkey on top of the bird feeder.

               

Lots of turkeys. Of the avian variety.

The other, highly exciting, event that happened last Friday was the start of my fall/winter CSA. I've bought a half share this year as last year's bounty was far more than I could handle on my own. There will be so many delicious meals in my future with produce such as this all winter. Just look at all of these fabulous vegetables!!!!

This week I got: processing tomatoes, winter squash, pie pumpkins, scallions, bell peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, basil, potatoes, beet greens for processing, and garlic.

Close-up of the beautiful vegetables.

Fall Farm Tour Part 2

I know you've all been on tenterhooks this week, in eager anticipation of the second installment of the fall farm tour. I promise it's worth your wait. Truly.

We had lunch at Purdy Punkin's, deliciously provided by the college. Then we had time to wander through the pumpkin patch to our heart's content. But you've already seen those photos, so we can continue on to the third and final stop now. Our last stop on the farm tour was  Ricky and Lucy's Organic Greenhouse in Sidney, NE.

Located northeast of Sidney proper, Ricky and Lucy's is owned and run by Teri and Dan Wolf. In case you've never heard of Sidney, nor thought you might ever have a reason to go, this could very well be the reason you never knew you needed. Also if greenhouses don't float your boat, Sidney is also the home of the flagship Cabella's store. 

Their gardens, greenhouses, and old stone/log house are an oasis of green life in the middle of pastures and fields turned brown from lack of rain. Teri apologized a few times for the lack of lushness in her own gardens, citing the drought, and I can imagine how their place must look in a good year.

We started off in an older building that, I believe, was originally a hothouse for potted plants, and where Teri is working to convert the concrete floor into dirt plots so she can plant directly into the soil. It was damp, warm, and smelled richly of earth inside, and there were clusters of ladybugs on the fenceposts. As an organic greenhouse and garden operation, Teri and Dan rely on alternatives to pest management, including the ever-efficient ladybug.

Ladybug cluster in the hothouse.

Next we headed back outside for a tour around the grounds. I was distracted part-way through by the appearance of an adorable barn kitten, and so don't remember the names of some of these plants and flowers. The beauty of this place was almost tangible, even in the midst of a drought year.

I call this one Purple Cabbage Flower.

 

This is what an asparagus bed looks like in September.

Peppers!

Thyme and oregano.

Bathtub Container Gardens!

                                  

               
                             Garden beds, hanging plants, and the tree nursery (L to R).                                    

I think these are hostas, but I'm not entirely sure. Mom?

Teri and Dan grow many vegetables, some fruits and nuts, and herbs at their greenhouse as well as the spice and rub mixes that Teri makes, pottery and statuary for your garden, tinctures and herbal remedies for what ails you, and other gardening paraphernalia. I have a small herb garden growing in containers on my front steps, and was pleased to find that Teri and Dan grow and sell sage and thyme, both of which I'd had growing, and both of which had died. I bought two sage varieties, one the regular sage and the other a lovely variegated variety, along with one variety of thyme. Now I'm all set for winter soups, stews, and roasts!

I'll leave with some photos of the adorably distracting kitten and his litter mates. These kittens were extremely friendly, purr-happy, and cuddly, and I was sorely tempted to bring one (or more!) home with me. However, my lease limits me to Pavlov, and, on the whole, I decided that having a nice apartment to live in outweighs having an adorable kitten to play with. Also, as you can see from these photos, the kittens are in no danger of harm or death, unless it's death by cuddling.

Snoozing in a sunny patch amongst the hostas

I am king of the hosta jungle! Hear me rawr!

Contended bundles of furry adorableness.