Mason Dixon Fair 2016

We have finished up our part of the Mason Dixon Fair this year, although the fair runs through this Saturday. There was no angora goat show this year (very sad news), so we took three of our boer-cross goats to show. Colleen and I each entered a jam. Colleen's jam placed first for her category, mine placed second. She was really excited about that (this was the first year she entered a jam).

For some reason, our goats were put in the "Sheep" tent, even though there was a "Goat" tent (as well as a "Cow" area and a "Swine" area). It was very strange. Having never been in the Sheep tent before, I cannot say if it was just this year, or if this happens all the time, but the sheep seem to enjoy escaping their pens. Then someone yells, "Sheep!" and all available bodies assemble to corner the sheep into an area where they can be caught and put back into their pen.  By the end of our three days there, the word "sheep!" seemed to be synonymous with a four-letter-word.

The cow area was behind us. I always find them interesting to watch. Many of these animals (not just the cows) are 4H and FFA projects, and you can tell the love and care that the owners put into their animals. Since we are there during all hours of the day, we see the morning, afternoon, evening, and late shifts. We get to watch the cleaning, bathing, fluffing, primping, and cuddling that occurs. The cows directly behind us (pictured below), were definitely quite tame. The lighter colored one was regularly used as a couch by her young owner, with her sprawling across the cow's back, and the two of them taking a quick nap together.

The very tame cows that were behind us for the week.

Is she picking her nose?

Below are pictures of Colleen showing the three different goats:

Colleen showing Gracie. I did tell her to smile before she went in the show ring. 

Colleen showing Luna Belle.

Colleen and Little Red.

If you have never had your goats in a fair situation, just know that they will want what the other animals are eating, no matter what it is. That's just how it is. In previous years, we have seen some interesting ways in which the goats try to go about sampling their neighbors food. Some of the sheep, like our goats, had constant hay access through hay nets and bags, while others were on a feeding schedule. The sheep diagonal to us were on a feeding schedule, and they were not happy with this arrangement; to the extent that they were eating hay that our goats had dropped on the ground by sticking their faces through the bars into our goat pen to get to it. Luna Belle (the red goat with horns) took offense to this and dealt with it in a very goat way: by head butting them. The sheep dealt with it very differently, however, and grabbed her horns in their mouth and pulled very hard. Luna Belle did not like that at all. She twisted until she was finally free, and then ran to the other corner of the pen, glaring angrily at the sheep. Unconcerned, the sheep continued eating the hay off the ground. This became too much for Luna Belle, who then had to head butt the sheep again, thus starting the whole cycle all over. At some point they either ran out of hay to eat or got tired of fighting each other, because it stopped.

Then we get to the end of our time there, and stall cleaning. It is impossible to clean a stall with three goats inside of it. The stalls next to us were empty, though, so we put the goats in there temporarily. I didn't realize that we had just put them directly across from the sheep that Luna Belle had been fighting with earlier, or that she still had a grudge against them. In very little time, she had managed to squeeze herself through the bars into their pen, and was tossing her head around in a blatant show of aggression. Enough to impress the sheep into submission. Once that was over, Luna Belle realized that there was nothing good to eat over there, so she settled for taking a drink from the water bucket, with one eye on the sheep, to make sure that they were watching. By that time I had managed to walk around the set of pens to get to the front of that one so I could open it. But Luna Belle was ready to leave then anyway. She had done what she had come to do.

Colleen and Gracie snuggling in the goat pen.

The Mill of Bel Air had a tent set up not too far from where we were. They had some free things that they were giving away.  Colleen made sure to go get one - she got a dog toy. Toby has already been enjoying it, especially when the center has peanut butter inside!

Toby enjoying his new toy.

A New (for us) Recipe: Blackberry Blueberry Jam

Happy 4th of July everyone! Americans anyway. I guess to anyone else, Happy Monday that happens to be the 4th of July!

So, the fruit started rolling in back in June with the strawberries. With the wet, soggy, grey spring that we had, our strawberry crop was just enough for my breakfast and lunches. I can go through a pound of strawberries a day by myself when they are fresh-from-our-bushes-picked berries. Mmmm, Vitamin C! Sadly, cherry season was super short due to the spring that we had, and we missed out on going to our local orchard to pick those (super bummed, as those are my all-time favorite fruit, but I am working on getting my husband to plant us our own cherry trees. We'll see if I get those or the dishwasher first...)

So now we are on to blueberries and blackberries. Our blueberries are a later variety, so it will be a few more weeks until they are ripe, but Colleen and I did go up the road this weekend and pick their early variety. Our blackberries are doing really well this year! We've been getting a 2-4 pints a day. And they are super, super sweet!

Blueberries that we picked locally, and our blackberries.

It was a rainy day, so a good one to be in the kitchen making jam. We made a batch of just blackberry jam, and I had to adjust the next recipe and cut waaaay down on the sugar, because the first jam was so sweet. (Those berries are sweet!) Ice cream topping anyone?

Several years ago, my mom bought me the "Farm Journal's Freezing and Canning Cookbook." I LOVE this book! It has so many recipes, and combinations that I would never think of, such as blackberry and blueberry jam (other people may think of these things, which I am sure you can look up on the internet now, but when you are busy picking and picking and weeding and feeding animals and also have a fractured foot, it is easier sometimes to just be able to flip through a book and have a the recipes right at your fingertips). It also has recipes for green tomatoes, pickled everything (even fruit!) and meats. The other thing that I really like about this book is that the recipes are for large quantities of fruit, such as pounds and bushels (which is what we tend to have around here) rather than cups and pints (which is generally what I find when I look online, although not always). So, if you are going to seriously get into canning, I would recommend that you look for a copy of this book.

Blackberry-bluberry jam - final product!