happy fall!

Since it's fall we are harvesting all of our stuff now, like this popcorn that we harvested about 2 weeks ago:

it may not look that good, but it will look much better when popped, with maybe some salt and a pat of butter.

Just Some Derp

I got like 5 hours of sleep last night and I'm too sleepy to make a regular post so just enjoy this:


                                     picture from goats goats goats.html




                                           images from memegenarator


I hope u enjoyed this and if u wanna see more just click dat follow button

How we Egged the Trailer

This is just a funny story from a while ago at the club.

So whenever we collect eggs from the chickens, there's bound to be a few broken ones, right? Well one day, me and a couple of my friends at the club decided to draw faces on them. So we took the eggs and drew faces on them. It was mostly faces of people we dislike, like teachers.

Then we took them over to the open trailer where everyone throws all the compost, and threw them in, because that's where we should put the broken eggs, right? Maybe, but put them in does not mean hurl them so hard that they stick to the bottom. So when we were tending to the animals a few minutes later and one of the club leaders stormed in and demanded to know who had thrown eggs at the trailer, because they had dried in the sun and were now firmly stuck to the bottom of the trailer. oops.

Recipe For Chive Vinegar

 This is the recipe that my club uses to make the chive vinegar that we sell at our stands. The chive blossoms should be available at most farmers markets, or if you have a garden at home you can grow them there as well.


1. pour vinegar into whatever container you are using.  (I recommend mason jars)

                                                                 these are chive blossoms

2. take the chive blossoms and separate them from the rest of the chives. (you will need about 8 per jar of vinegar, but the more chive blossoms you add, the stronger the flavor is)

3. put the chive blossoms into the jar with vinegar, screw the lid tightly on, and put them in a cool place for a few days. The chive vinegar will be ready when the liquid is a darkish pink and the blossoms have turned from purple to white. (you can take the blossoms out before you use the vinegar, but that is up to you)



it should look something like this


I hope you enjoyed this post, and remember,

Jenna

I think it's time that I talked about one of the most respected member of the club. Jenna the goat. I'm not joking. Jenna is the leader of the herd of our goats, and she is the toughest, largest (weighs more than 200 pounds) sassiest goat on our farm. And the smartest, too. She is the only goat so far that has learned how to open doors by pushing the handles with her nose, and in this way she often opens the door for all the other goats to stampede into the barn an destroy/eat everything.

                                       me showing Jenna at an Oakland county fair (I'm the one in the white shirt)

Jenna is also one of our best fair goats, and has won a ton of blue ribbons, but it is quite a challenge to get her into the ring if she does not want to go.

Pumpkinfest

Hi, guys, sorry for not posting in such a long time, but I have been really busy. Anywho, I am posting about the event where I was all morning, at the 4-h Oakland County Pumpkinfest. This probably the most fun and least known event in Oakland County, and it was awesome today. The sun was shining, people were taking hayrides or roasting s'mores, and the 4-h booth had all its products and goats out on display. We had all our stuff there, vegetables, goat milk soap, dried apples, and even goats! (though they were not for sale unfortunately) I was walking around with one of the goats on a leash and letting people pet her.

Pumpkinfest seemed pretty busy, which is good, since we had a lot of produce and stuff to sell. (I also tried to get some publicity by walking around with the goat)

Farmers market

Hi guys, I'm back with another post. I know I did not not post yesterday, but that was just because I was busy and I will still be posting on a daily basis. Anywho, Since we grow all of these things and get the eggs and stuff from the animals, we need something to do with it all, so once in a while, we hold farm stands and sell all the things we make and grow.

carrots 

The things that we sell at these sales vary, but we usually have the following things at our farmstand:*

• carrots
• tomatoes
• peppers (sweet and hot)
• dried apples
• goat milk soap
• other vegetables

*in the winter we don't have vegetables, but we have everything else

FYI, there is a farmstand this Saturday, and it is at an incredibly fun celebration called Pumpkinfest, where you get to shop, roast s'mores, and go on hayrides. This is taking place at the MSU Tollgate Education Conference Center on Meadowbrook road. 

Animals

As you know from my last post, we do a lot of gardening in 4-H, but that is by far not all we do. We also raise animals, mainly goats and chickens, but we do get the occasional sheep or cow, too. We sell the chicken eggs and make soap from the goat milk, so the animals are not just for show. (they are also very cute :)

                                                                         our new baby goats                                                           
 we also enter the female goats into competitions every year, and we sometimes even win these! (yay!) We come to take care of these animals twice every saturday and sunday, which can be a lot of work, but just try to look into a baby goat's face and say it is not worth it.

                                                       

The Average Workday

Hello, this is another post from the adventures of the wonderful tollgate farm. This time, I  will tell you what goes on at most of our workdays. A workday is a meeting where we get most of our garden work done.(workdays happen on saturday once or twice a month) This generally includes working in our greenhouse

                                                         the greenhouse
and in the outside garden, where we have most of our plants now, and where we mostly work now. (I do not have a photo of the outside patch at he moment, bu i will find one soon)

 This is not all we do though, and what we do at these workdays usually depends on if we have any events coming up. For instance, if we have a farmers market the next day, we will generally pick produce and put stuff in bags, whereas if we have a goat show coming up, we will usually train our goats and walk them around. But one thing is the same about all workdays. They are all awesome. It is usually pretty awesome to work in the garden and get some fresh air, and afterwards someone usually orders a pizza and we sit around and complain about teachers.