Quick Oat Flour Pancakes - Gluten Free!

I've got another recipe for all of you  :)  These pancakes turned out SO fluffy and personally, I like them WAY better than the ready mixed batter you buy at the store...especially since they're gluten-free!  For the oat flour, I make my own out of regular oatmeal.

Pics of how to make your own oat flour below:

Grind oats in a blender

This is what you should wind up with...fluffy oat flour

This recipe makes about 15 pancakes.

Ingredients:

-4 egg yolks
-4 egg whites
-1 1/2 cups oatmeal
-1 1/2 cups oat flour
-2 cups milk (I use raw goat milk from my farm)
-4 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp salt
-8 tbsp sugar
-4 tbsp oil

Directions:

1.  Mix the oat flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl.

2. Pour milk into a pan and cook until slightly hot.  Turn off the heat and pour in the oats (not the flour).  Let that sit in the pan for 5 minutes.

3.  Separate the egg yolk from the white and put them in two separate bowls.  Then beat the egg yolk and oil together.

4.  Then, mix the egg yolk mixture into the dry ingredients.

5.  Beat the egg white until it's a bit frothy or has some air whipped into it and pour it into the main flour mix.  Don't just stir it in, but fold it until the batter looks fairly smooth.  Now you're ready to make pancakes!

6.  Take a spoon and just pour small amounts of batter into the pan (make sure you grease your pan).

Hope these turn out for you and are as delicious as they were for me :)

Goodnight!

~Hannah

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Choco Apple & Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal

This is one of the easiest recipes to make and only takes about 50 minutes until it's ready to gobble up!  Being one of my family's favorite breakfast recipes, I make it all the time!

Ingredients:

-2 eggs
-6 cups oatmeal,
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-2 cups milk (I use raw goat milk from my farm)
-2 cups sugar
-2 tbs ground cinnamon
-3 apples slices super thin
-1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all of the above ingredients except the apples (save a few chocolate chips for the top).

Oil a 10x10 pan and then lay the thinly sliced apples on the bottom until covered.  Sprinkle just a little bit of cinnamon and sugar on top of the apples.

Pour the mix into the pan and even it out with a spoon.  Then (this is optional) lay a few apple slices and chocolate chips on top to make it look pretty :)

Pop it in the preheated oven and set your timer for 40 minutes.  You're DONE! 

Enjoy!

Thanks for reading.  You can also just make the simple baked oatmeal with this same recipe...just take off the apples and chocolate chips.


~Hannah

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Ups and downs

Well, it was a sad day yesterday.  Ginger, our oldest Grandma goat died at age 14.  It was sort of expected by me and my sister, as she wasn't acting herself at all for the past week.  God gave her a long life and made her produce some beautiful goats!

1 Samuel 2:6-7

 ⁶ The LORD kills and makes alive;  
    He brings down to the grave and brings up.
 ⁷ The LORD makes poor and makes rich;
    He brings low and lifts up.

On a brighter note, we bought another goat...a beautiful Nubian doe and she's pregnant, due in August!  She's now the second biggest goat we own  :)

Is this a goat or an octopus?

Stay cool!
~Hannah

Weekend projects

WOW is has been SO hot outside!  The UV index was 110 yesterday and today it's 105, so you can just imagine...working outside can be exhausting.  Thankfully, our little ranch has accomplished a lot in the last few days!

SUNDAY July 10th
My dad was able to dig 4 holes for our new meat rabbit barn...and considering the fact that we are in "rocky soil" country, that is a BIG accomplishment!!

I got to trim all 17 goat's hooves yesterday and groom them all some.  I also started two new compost piles in my bins, since the compost I started back in April is done doin' it's thing and now the rich, dark soil is in the garden, feeding our plants.

After I was done with all of that, I decided to re-take all the goat's pictures and do more "professional", show type pics.  Here are all of the pics I took yesterday...

MERCYFARMS JC INDY

OAK WHISPER KWS ATHENA

MERCYFARMS MO2 OHARA

COSO FARMS RCBY HOLLY

OZARK HIGHLANDS MAUREEN OHARA

7 THUNDERS STORMY GAIL

UHOH BLUSH NOISETTE

7 THUNDERS COCOA CASCADE

MERCYFARMS SNICKERS CREAMSWIRL

7 THUNDERS LS WILD DIXIE

UHOH OREO DANCY PANTS

7 THUNDERS BABY DREAM BLOSSOM

MERCYFARMS BROWNIE SUMMIT

7 THUNDERS CLOUDY DELIGHT

JUST BECAUSE DC FUDGE BROWNIE (took this pic a couple days ago)

If you'd like more info on the goats above, please go to the "Does" page...Click Here

I'm also selling the NuMancha wether.  If anyone is interested in him, please contact me at:  bannerbonanza@yahoo.com  -  Here are pics of him...

MONDAY July 11th

I think I might know why our breeding season didn't go very well this year.  We own a buck, but he's about 10 miles away being housed at a friends house...so we would take our does over there when they were in heat.  Unfortunately, I heard that they can lose their heat on the drive there, and that might explain why the buck wasn't interested at times :)  So, since that didn't go over very well, we built a buck pen on our farm, that way the does don't have to travel very far and be all stressed out when the time comes to get bred.  We had already made the pen, and all I needed to get done was get a shelter up, but I haven't had the materials to do it.  Today, I finally mustered up some materials to build the temporary buck shelter and now the pen is finished and ready to house a buck!  Praise God!

Here are some pics of the shelter and pen...and yes, it's very "okie", but hey, if it houses a goat and keeps it dry for a couple of weeks, it's fine with me!

Inside of the shelter

I built it with 3 pallets, a piece of particle board and some junk sheet metal I had laying around.  It was pretty simple to build and almost free  :)  I'm planning on putting a tarp around the outside when it rains, but for now it's gonna be nice and "airy".

Stay cool!

~Hannah

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New Arrivals!

Yesterday and today have been exhausting, but exciting at the same time :)  Yesterday, I picked up a free whether NuMancha (Nubian/LaMancha) someone gave me.  He's only 5 1/2 months old...look how stocky he is already! 

I'm hoping to either sell him or keep him to eat (yes, this might sound cruel to some people, LOL!)  Goat is SUPER good, especially when they're young...YUMMY and tender!

Then today I got 3 more goats, LaManchas of course!  2 are in milk and one is a yearling :)  I got them from Just Because Farms...they raise AWESOME LaManchas!  Thank you Jenny!

Holly

Athena

Holly and Athena did GREAT on the stand and it was a flawless milking tonight :)  They hopped up on that stand like it was second nature!  I'm VERY happy with the goats...they seem very happy here.

Fudge (the yearling)

Anyway, that was my adventure yesterday and today.

Goodnight everyone!
-Hannah

Ginger's hoof: Canker

Well, I've been dealing with one of my senior does, Ginger, who is 13 years old with a bad hoof.  We think it's Canker, which is not contagious to other animals or to humans.  This growth on her left back hoof has been there for quite a while, but as she gets older, it's growing bigger and bigger.  The only thing that we can do at this point is keep it trimmed down by cutting it off every 2 months or so.

 The pictures below are NOT for those weak in stomach!! 

The two pictures below are of the growth before it was cut off.

Side view of the growth

Top view of the growth

Canker is the progressive growth of extra flesh (Horny Flesh) on the hoof, primarily found in horses, but this does happen occasionally in goats, obviously.  So, my friend came over, who has experience in dealing with horses that have canker.  So here goes the pictures...

Maggots in between growth and hoof

Though you might be saying "EWWW", maggots actually play a huge role in the cleaning process, as they only eat the dead, rotting flesh.

Making the first cuts

Looking more "normal" :)

This part of the growth didn't actually hurt her until we got down to where her hoof was looking more like a hoof!

As you can see, the blood is squirted everywhere.  That's because the growth (Canker) has it's own little arteries and blood supply in it, therefore making it a very messy job :)  Since we didn't have a disbudding iron, we started a fire and got it SUPER hot.  Then we put a piece of rebar in it and waited till it got red hot in order to cauterize it.  Placing the hot rebar on her hoof helped stop the bleeding fast!

All done cutting.  Just gotta clean it up!

So, that was my big adventure last month!  Fun huh!??

I hope this is able to help someone in the future :)

-Hannah

May 2011 overview...NOT for the weak in stomach!!

Hi everyone!  I have been such a slacker on my blog, but it's been a really busy month!  Let's see, where do I start?  Here's an overview of my month (photos included)...

May 16th, 2011 - Saturday

At around 9:30 a.m., my sister comes and wakes me up saying that Sprite, one of our junior does is dead (I was sick in bed).  I ran as fast as I could down to the barn, being sick and tired...I was definitely running on adrenalin at that point!  Sprite was only 1 1/2 years old and had never been bred.  She was acting so happy the day before, just like she always is...no sign of going downhill.

After the tears settled, it was time to find out what the culprit was.  Some good friends of mine came over and helped us do a necropsy on Sprite, to determine what went on.  I've included some pictures for all of you "farmy" people who'd like to see what I saw...NOT FOR THE WEAK IN STOMACH!!

This is what we saw upon opening her up...fat attached to the whole gut

The fat was actually attached to her gut, which was SUPER strange.

This is the small intestines, all encased in thick fat, preventing an easy flow of the rumen.

Circled is the heart and lungs, embedded in fat.

Left:  a part of the thick fat that was previously encasing the heart and lungs.  Right:  the heart and lungs after fat was taken off.

The large intestines encased in fat

This was the most bizarre thing me and my friend, who's been doing goats for a LONG time, had ever seen!!  It was exactly like pig fat...hard like plastic, but soft enough to bend and pull off.  So, any input from experienced goat people would be HIGHLY appreciated!  I personally think it's a genetic mutation, but it could be something else too.

This is a good example of why doing a necropsy on an animal that has died in your herd is so important...for your knowledge and the health of your herd, that way you can determine if it's contagious to other goats and watch for any "off" symptoms in the herd.

I've learned loads from this experience and hope that this will help others, although I'm not sure of what exactly it is.  I encourage you, if you are feeding your goats a lot of grain, or any other fattening feed, please do it with caution and moderation!  I'm not saying this was the cause of Sprite's death, but it can aid to it and is something that ALL livestock owners should be aware of.

So that was my first goat death, and hopefully the last for a long time :-(

In loving memory of Mercyfarms MI Sprite - 2010-2011

May 17th, 2011 - Sunday

The whole herd gets really sick with coughs, runny noses, scours and...you know, all the nasty parts about being sick!  I felt like I spent all day drenching the goats with various things!  I was so tired by the end of the day :-)

May 18th, 2011 - Monday

Ohara, my 7 year old LaMancha doe sprains her ankle.  It was really swollen and she couldn't walk on it at all.  I gave her a strong dose of Turmeric powder for a couple of days and she healed up very quickly!


Turmeric is an herb that I keep in my barn at all times!  It's an anti-inflammatory and helps keep swelling down, which speeds up the healing process.

May 20th, 2011 - Monday

The whole herd is better now...Praise God!  I treated them with a bunch of my homemade concoctions :-)

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Here are a couple of cool cloud pics from May!

Clouds just before a HUGE storm moved in

A cool picture of the sun!

Have a good night!

-Hannah

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