Earlier this week I picked some blackberries from my sisters garden & have been trying to figure out the best thing to make with them. I decided on blackberry butter! It's SUPER EASY and tastes delicious! Would be SO good on a bagel with cream cheese or french toast! Ingredients
DirectionsIn a small sauce pan, add 1/2 cup of water & berries, bring to a boil and add 1/4 cup sugar. Mix well and set aside to cool. When cooled enough to touch, pour into a tea towel or cheesecloth and strain all of the juice out. {This step is optional, I don't like seeds in mine but if they don't bother you then just pour mixture straight into a bowl} Add softened butter to berries & use a mixer until it thickens {about 2 min}. Then add powdered sugar + honey. Mix again for another 2-3 minutes. Put in fridge. Can be stored for up to 2 weeks. Enjoy! If you make this recipe and post it on social media be sure to tag me or use the hashtag #HerrmannHomestead so I can see it!
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WE GOT MORE GOATS! Meet Willow & Daisy. We've been looking for more girls so that way we can breed them when they're older & I found a local farm that had Nigerian Dwarfs they were selling. When I saw these 2, I knew they were the two we needed!! They are twin girls and only 3 weeks old! How ADORABLE! The one on the left is Willow & the one on the right is Daisy. Daisy is quite a bit smaller! They have the cutest curly hair, I love it! We got them when they were 23 days old. The previous owner had told us they had started eating some grain and that they had never been bottle fed before. I wasn't sure how things were going to go taking them away from their mama's so early but also trying to introduce bottle feeding after they were already 3 weeks old. We brought them home and I gave it a shot, but no luck. I spent several HOURS out there trying everything to get them to drink from the bottle but it wasn't working. It was pretty saddening for me because I knew they needed the nutrients from the milk a little while longer but they didn't want anything to do with it. I had posted in one of my homesteading groups asking what others would recommend and everyone gave really good advice! Several people told me to use the Pritchard nipple, which is what I was using. (We got it from Atwoods) Some said try forcing their mouth open and I tried that, or to dip my finger in milk and try letting them suck on that, no such luck with that either! Others told me I should just take them back entirely so they could nurse their mama & pick them up in couple of months....it all just became quite discouraging. After trying several tries that day, I just gave up. I started praying like crazy and decided I would try again in the morning. I talked to Samuel about it and asked him to help me. He went out there with me the next morning and he tried bottle feeding them and they took to it right away! I was SO HAPPY! He still had to open their mouths a little bit for them but they got the hang of it and they've let me bottle feed them since then! So if you've got a stubborn little kid that won't take the bottle, prayer & persistence pays off!
Don't give up! Apparently they'll get hungry enough to cooperate, just keep trying! :) -Mikayla {Herrmann Homestead} When we bought Cow & Chocolate Chip, their previous owner had told us they had been exposed to a fainting goat buck, but he didn't think either one was pregnant. Well...the more we looked at cow the more we thought surely she was pregnant because her stomach was so much bigger than Chocolate Chip! I did some research and it sounded like Nigerian Dwarfs don't really show they are pregnant until they are almost due! So we figured we'd better keep an eye on her just in case. We had planned to go to Colorado for a wedding the first part of March. The night before our trip it looked like the road conditions weren't the best and it was absolutely freezing! We had planned to leave at 6am so that morning we got up while it was still dark out and went outside to feed the goats and to our surprise THERE WAS AN EXTRA GOAT!! Cow had her baby! How exciting! It was kind of a bummer that we had to leave right after it was born but we had a lot of people near by to go check on him and make sure he stayed warm and that his momma was alright! We decided to name him Denver since he was born the morning we were leaving for Colorado (what crazy timing!!). I was VERY anxious to get back home from the trip and see how he was doing. He was so little and cute!! Denver was born on February 28th, 2019. He is so entertaining and I love just going outside to watch him. If I pat my legs, he will jump up on my lap just like a dog! So adorable! He really likes climbing on things and playing with the dog, cat, & chickens! He gets out of the fence a lot and sits up on my porch, which is kinda cute!
I would really like to keep him but that's the whole reason we got goats in the first place was to breed them and sell them. He should be ready to sell in May, until then, I am going to enjoy him as much as possible and I can't wait for our next round of kids! :) -Mikayla {Herrmann Homestead} Here is a list of 5 things I didn't know before getting goats.
My boy is mostly the culprit but sometimes the girls too! They yell when the are hungry or thirsty. They yell because they want attention. They yell because they want let out to explore and graze. They yell if you go outside and pet animals that aren't them. They yell when the sun comes up to let you know it is morning. They even yell sometimes because the dog looks at them. So if you plan to get goats, do not put them right beside your bedroom window like we did. lol
trying to figure out why her stomach was so big looking. Apparently some goats, if they aren't used to eating green grass, when out for long periods of time can get bloated. Which brings me to my 3rd thing...
Sometimes the baby will naw on my jeans, but the ones that are grown have never done that and they have never ate anything I didn't want them to eat. So that is a myth that goats eat everything!
They know to get back in their pen when I tell the dog, "Get the goats!". They will take off running most of the time before the dog does!
I've ALWAYS loved animals & when I was little I begged my parents to let me get a dog. I remember blowing out my birthday candles and wishing for a puppy & every Christmas asking Santa for a dog. My parents had a dog that passed away right before I was born and they thought it would be too sad for me if something was to happen to another one. So I didn't have a dog growing up. One night (when I was about 6) I had a dream that I had a pet rabbit & so the next morning I pitched that idea to them and to my surprise they liked the idea! We ended up getting 2 female dwarf rabbits (I guess I've always liked dwarf animals lol). One for me and one for my little sister. Cinderella & Jasmine. I did not realize how LONG rabbits live! They should've let 6 year old me give it a different name because I had a pet rabbit named Cinderella until I was 20! It was crazy! In 2012, after one of the big tornadoes in Moore, we found a rabbit in our front yard. It looked like a wild rabbit but was light grey. I don't know if it was someones pet and maybe got out during the storm or what, but it looked very unhealthy & scared. So we took it in and started feeding it and it kept growing and growing until it was HUGE! We put it in a chicken coop because it wouldn't fit in the rabbit cage comfortably. One day he went to the 2nd floor of the chicken coop and was so chubby he fell through the floor and broke the coop! When me & Samuel got chickens, my parents gave us the broken chicken coop! It was old and needed several repairs. I painted some of the trim white & the rest of it red! Then Samuel replaced the 2nd story floor and a few other things. Obviously this chicken coop is only going to be temporary, we now have far too many chickens to fit in there. We plan to build another bigger one out on our land where we will be moving to in the next few months (hopefully). We now have our first batch of chickens in there (7 of them) and they are loving it! But I think Denver might be loving it more! -Mikayla
As you know, we got our first round of chickens a couple of weeks ago. We got 2 Blue Laced Red Wyandottes and we named one Rosie & the other Ruby. They were very cute! They were both suppose to be females... but as Rosie grew, we found out SHE was actually a HE. So Rosie then became Ronald!
Out of all of the original 10 we bought, Ronald was the only one who ended up being a rooster (as far as we know lol)! I was starting to get kind of excited to have a rooster so I could buy an incubator & eventually have more cute cuddly baby chicks! Have you ever heard the statement, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" ? I'm starting to figure that out... Not long after we discovered Rosie was Ronald, I spent the day running a few errands & when I got home there were chickens RUNNING AROUND MY YARD! They were being chased by our red heeler, Copper! It was a recipe for disaster! I frantically gathered all of my chickens, who all appeared safe, and placed them back inside of their stock tank we were keeping them in. It looked like the wind had blown their covering off of the top of their stock tank. I was still puzzled at how they escaped so I watched them for a few minutes. Apparently, when the top is off, they are just barely big enough to fly on top of their feeder, & fly OUT of the stock tank. Should've named it Houdini! Chickens are much smarted than I thought! I decided to do a quick chicken count to make sure they were all there and one was missing...Ronald. I went on a search for that rooster for about a hour when I finally gave up and just figured he'd come back when he got hungry enough. Later that evening we found Ronald in our puppy's mouth...I'll spare you the details but it was NOT pretty! If you have any advice on training your dog that chicks are friends, not food, definitely message me! I've been doing some research and trying some different things but it seems like he only wants to attack them when I am not watching! So maybe I will get another rooster in our 2nd batch of chickens...we will see! This farm is getting crazier by the day! Wish me luck! -Mikayla I have always LOVED the way Silkies look when they are full grown & have always wanted one, so when I found someone in Oklahoma that sells them I was so excited to get a few! We got these three tiny ones! They are seriously so small & adorable, it's INSANE! They are only 1 week old. Right now we have them in a box inside because I'm not sure how they would do outside with the other chicks being so little! I'm excited to see what they look like when they get older! We also got 5 Ameraucanas & 2 Cuckoo Marans. I plan to have some very colorful eggs for sale in the next couple of months! I just bought a bulk bag of egg cartons so you could say I'm a liiitle excited already... That makes our new chicken total 18!
(After we had 2 fatalities the other night due to our heat lamp exploding in the middle of the night) The chicken coop we have has a max of 5 full grown chickens, so I am already checking out plans for building a big chicken coop! :) If you have any cute large chicken coop plans or ideas be sure to send them to me! I'd love to see them & get some more inspiration. Until next time, -Mikayla Hello guys! Since posting on instagram I've had a few of y'all ask me about how I got my seeds to sprout so quickly so I thought I would just make a post about it! By NO means is any of this coming from a professional or someone who even knows what they are doing. In the past I've been awful at gardening or getting anything to grow. I don't have a green thumb & I could honestly kill a desert cactus. ...That being said, let me tell you what I've done differently this year that has made all of the difference! A few months ago me & Samuel were at Lowes & picked up a ton of seeds for different fruits, flowers, veggies, & herbs. I did research on each kind & tried to get a good understanding of what each one needed. I started my seeds for Tomato, Onion, Bell Pepper, Jalepeno Pepper, Parsley, Thyme, & Peppermint inside in the middle of March.
I put each packet of seeds into a wet paper towel, then placed it inside of a ziplock bag in the sun for about 3-5 days. I had read that plants love coffee grounds & I love coffee so I had about a half to full cup of coffee grounds a day that I started saving in a big jar. After the seeds had began to sprout in the bags, I got some egg cartons, poked 2 tiny holes in the bottom, & filled them with a mixture of dirt & coffee grounds. I watered them as needed and it has only been about 5 days since I planted them that they now look like these pictures! I've wanted chickens for a long time & I think having multicolored eggs would be so cool! So I'm official turning into the crazy farm lady, and I love it! We've found someone local who sells the breeds I've been looking for so we arranged to meet up and brought home 10 little chicks! We got 5 Easter Eggers, 2 Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, 1 Jubilee Orpingon, 1 Black Orpington, & 1 Cuckoo Orpington. All about 3 weeks old! :) The Easter Eggers are known for laying beautiful eggs like this... I'm very excited for them to start laying but that won't be for another 6 months most likely. Right now we have them in an old water trough with a heat lamp & they seem pretty content! My parents gave us an old chicken coop they had from raising rabbits when I was little. I've been repainting it & getting it all ready for it's new occupants who will be moving into it in a few weeks when they're a bit bigger. I'll post more pictures when it's all finished!
Until next time, -Mikayla I once heard someone say... "Goat's are like potato chips, you can't have just one." And they most certainly knew what they were talking about! lol The NEXT day after we brought home Cow & Chocolate Chip, we found an ad for a male goat who looked absolutely adorable. Since we want to breed them we've got to get a male at some point, so why not the next day! So we contacted the lady and was able to meet her that evening to get our third goat. Our little goat farm was growing fast! Samuel named him Buckwheat! (he's not allowed to name our future children lol) Buckwheat is the friendliest of them all. He is a 2 month old Nigerian Dwarf. He is EXTREMELY loud & likes to be shown a lot of attention. If he thinks you didn't show him enough attention he will proceed to yell at you for the next 30 minutes....but we love him anyway! We had to stop at Atwoods to get more supplies & when we were checking out, our cashier asked us if we had a goat in our truck because the employee's could hear him yelling from the check out desk! Haha! At first, the 2 girls were very unsure about him and wouldn't let him get near them but now they've warmed up to each other and are pretty good buddies.
I'm loving our little farm so far! We are suppose to be adding a few more animals, so you'll be hearing from me soon! Until next time, -Mikayla |