The nice thing about living in tree fruit land is, well, all the tree fruit. Summer began with cherries, and once we bought a cherry pitter, we were pitting pitting and freezing cherries for winter … and thinking we ought to get ourselves a dehydrator.
Peaches and nectarines came a month later. Because I work for the tree fruit research center, we got to go pick free (post-researched) peaches in one of the center’s orchards. And so after bringing home way too many, we tried peaches in brandy -- but didn’t use enough brandy, so they botulism fermentedized rather than preserved… grumble grumble.
Next came free almost-overripe plums from Mike’s work at Farmhouse Table, the new town CSA (community supported agriculture) that packs local produce into weekly shareholder pickup boxes at its cute downtown storefront. We tried crock-pot plum butter, but ended up with a somewhat burned, sour, mealy mess – one more sacrifice to the learning process...
But then, success with peach butter! And now, well into apple and pear season, success with applesauce! And success with oven-dried fruit leather! We’re waiting for one more shipment of plums from our friend Michel, who is overwhelmed with them in her backyard, for trying plum butter yet again. We need to buy more canning jars. Outside the fruit realm, we decided that if we have goats, and if we’re hoping to milk them eventually, we should really know how to make cheese. Started with lemon cheese, a soft cheese curdled with lemon juice and hung from our pieced-together kitchen string contraption to solidify. It ended up being a lemony ricotta/cream cheese type blend.
We have just been invited to a cheese making party next weekend at the house of two chefs recently moved into town. And this weekend brings an apple cider making party at another friend of a friend's house, and a potential mushroom hunting outing next weekend... so much food to squeeze in before winter!
If only we had more freezing, canning, drying, storage space, we’d be all set. Or on second thought, maybe it’s better to start small.
P.S. Stay tuned for pending updates on hiking travels, goat escapades, and people pictures.
P.P.S. Speaking of food, hope those of you who celebrate had meaningful yom kippur fasts and a shana tova.
Mike and I decided we should knock on all the neighbors’ doors one night and check that they were okay with us getting goats. We started with an older woman across the street who had lived in the neighborhood forever and had even employed our (50-60-something) landlord in her pizza shop when he had been in high school. Jessie invited us in and we found ourselves having a tour of her (enormous) garden & winter craft studio, and watching politics on TV before we could broach the subject of goats. She approved, but we were out of time for the other neighbors that night.
The next night we went kitty corner to Glen and Miriam. We brought some zucchini bread we had made with a squash they had given us. Again, rather than a quick check in, this turned into hours of garden tours and tea and cake and harp music. Both are retired schoolteachers (with family in Minnesota). They play music (one harp, and one in a polka band) in nearby Bavarian tourist town Leavenworth on the weekends. Again we got the okay on goats and postponed our next visit to later in the week.
Again and again, each time we went over to introduce ourselves and scope out the goat approval ratings, the drop-by turned into a one-two hour affair. But all the neighbors consented, and as it turned out, our visits served even further diplomatic functions. Our house is a lone rental amidst houses where people have lived at least 20 years. And apparently there have been some problematic renters coming in and out – big dogs, drug dealers, we don’t really know all the details, but the neighbors tend to be wary of whoever is renting our house. So not only did we get goat approval, we also reassured the neighborhood, and became neighbor-friends. It ends up also being nice to have extra eyes and hands in goat-land to watch out for them when we’re working and (grand)kids around with to help socialize them.
Stage 2: Keeping the goats in the yard.
We bought a large 8 x 13 kennel (i.e. fenced area) and Mike put it together one day when I was at work. Actually it was the day we were supposed to go pick the goats up. And as usual, those “put-it-together-yourself” things are never as easy as they say on the directions. So we found ourselves ready to leave for Moses Lake (where the goats are from, an hour and a half away from Wenatchee) at 5:30pm, and realized that the fence had pulled and stretched and taken on a life of its own after assembly, and that there was a big gap in the fence. As it has been getter dark earlier already, we ended up giving up on picking them up that night in favor of emergency fence repair.
Part II: Goat basics
Stage 1: Pick up.
Goat pick-up itself was relatively easy. The previous owners showed us how to trim their hooves, worm them, and vaccinate them. We put them into a dog carrier
and into the car and brought them home, although they developed a bit of a cough en route (apparently normal for changes in weather & environment). Their names are Frosty and Clay -- Frosty because she is black with white frosted color on top; Clay no idea why. We were thinking of changing their names, but I have to admit I’m used to them by now. So they may stick.
Stage 2: Goat FAQs
What do the goats eat? They eat our grass.
So we let them eat up all the lawn within their fenced-in area, then move the kennel every day or two to give them new grass.
They don’t seem to like vegetable scraps, or even overripe pears. They do like grain, i.e. goat chow, from the ag supply store – but the advice we received was to use grain sparingly and to our advantage, like snickers bars.
What do they eat in winter? Hay, still to be purchased.
Do they get cold in winter? Apparently not. But we found a cheap-o “Dogloo” on Craigslist, i.e. a somewhat insulated plastic igloo-shaped dog house, which should give them a warmer sleeping place in winter. Our house is too small for indoor goats, plus they’d have to wear diapers.
Are they full sized in these pictures? They are 5 months old, and about the size of small dogs. Will get to be the size maybe of medium sized dogs by age 2.
Are we going to milk them? Clay is a wether, i.e. a sterilized boy goat. Frosty is a doe, so in theory we could milk her once she’s old enough (at least 9 months). To do that, we’d have to bring in a buck (i.e. unsterilized male) to breed her to have kids, and after a month or two we could wean the kids and keep milking Frosty. But first we have to get her friendlier with us. And learn how to make better cheese (see future blog posts).
Are we going to take them for walks? We did get collars and leashes, so maybe we can train them to go for walks. It would be nice if we had a fenced yard they could run around in, but that’s a bit of work and investment for a rental. Meanwhile, they seem okay with the moving rotational kennel system.
FAQs column is open and ready for more inquiries.
Part III: Adventures in Goat-land
Stage 1: Mike's shift
The first couple of days we had the goats, I had long work days. Mike had shorter days so he did a bunch of hanging out with them. One of the neighbor’s kids works at the U.S. embassy in Bolivia, and his family had to come back to Wenatchee for a while for political expulsion reasons. And so the grandkids, now homeschooled and living across the driveway from us, would come over and keep Mike & Frosty & Clay company. Cookie, meanwhile, the other neighbor’s dog, got a little spooked by it all. So we’re now on operation-get-Cookie-to-like-the-goats so that she doesn’t keep running down the block into traffic-ier areas.
Stage 2: Nadine's shift
Mike went to Minnesota this weekend for his high school reunion. So I’m on solo goat duty, but really happy for a weekend at home (It had been a busy month of travels and visitors, hopefully some of which will get onto this blog soon). I got up Saturday morning to move the goats onto a new patch of grass. The kennel’s a little heavy, but move-able, although easier to move once you take out the water dish and the rocks for climbing and the salt block they lick to keep nutrient balance in a selenium-poor environment. Moved the kennel just fine, and was bringing all the accoutrements back in. And when I went to bring in the (50 pound) salt block, I didn’t kick the kennel door closed all the way, and in a second Frosty was out. She didn’t run off – she had no interest in escaping. She just wanted to taste the grass over here and the sticks over there and the weeds in this other corner. And she was having no part of me trying to catch her.
Note that these goats are still skittish. They don’t like to be touched too much yet or chased or petted or picked up. So they had been staying far away from me as I moved things in and out, and Frosty was staying far away from me as I was trying to get her back in the kennel. I would even lure her in with grain or with a tasty stick and she would chomp on it within grabbing distance. But as soon as I even thought about thinking about trying to grab her, she read my mind and ran off. Ooh, jump around over here! Oh, you’re coming from the other direction? Gallop over there! Run around and around the kennel – jump and hop -- fun fun! For her, not for me (notice there are no pictures of this episode). One neighbor came home from a night shift at Tree Top (yup, the apple juice factory) and tried to help for a little bit but we were riling her up too much with two of us.
I really thought for a while there was no way catch her. And all the while her circle of exploration was getting bigger and bigger… and the bigger it got, the lower the chances of catching her became. She was just way smarter and way faster than me. I had wanted to open the door to the kennel and put something yummy inside and let her go in there, but I didn’t want Clay to just leave instead and join his half-sis. With two of them out I would have no chance. In fact part of what was keeping Frosty nearby, I think (aside from familiarity) was Clay. The two are very protective of each other. They each get very upset when someone picks up the other, and don’t like to be separated. As our evangelical pastor neighbor was pulling out of his driveway, I flagged him down. He had babysat for escape artist dogs before, and suggested tethering Clay inside the kennel and leaving the door open so Frosty could return. Duh. Luckily I had just bought collars (and grain) the night before, so I caught & tied Clay inside, brought some grain into the pen, and within minutes (after about an hour of unsuccessful tricking and chasing) Frosty was home. And then she started bleating at me, unhappy for ending her game. No sympathy on that one, lady (although it did make me try to come up with schemes for giving them more play space).
Stage 3: Settling in
Escape adventures aside, the two goats are indeed getting a little friendlier. Between the neighborhood grandkids hanging out with them, and them just getting used to us and their space, they will now come over and smell fingers sometimes, and even occasionally eat from a hand briefly before running away (Clay more than Frosty – Frosty’s dominant and more suspicious and trickier). And they’re cute. Today Frosty discovered that she could jump up on top of the dog carrier that we left there as a sleeping spot. I have not seen them even ponder entering the carrier, but sitting on top of it, now that’s good fun.
(This post was actually written back in July... stay tuned for actual current posts)
Okay, so despite the blog title, we don't actually have any goats... yet. There are, however, a few for sale on Wenatchee Craigslist. Official Wenatchee code says no livestock within city limits if you have less than 1/2 an acre (like us). On the other hand, some houses have been grandfathered in to allow livestock because they used to be county land rather than city land. On the phone, the city said they said they didn't know if dwarf (miniature) goats would be allowed. They suggested I call the Humane Society, who said no to all livestock. But the Human Society also said that if your neighbors complain, you'd (just) have to move the animals elsewhere.
Meanwhile, mowing the lawn is part of our house rental agreement, lawn mower not provided -- so goats would be the perfect solution (with a mechanical push mower found at a yard sale as a supplement). Our landlord is okay with goats as long as they are legal. He works at the jail. So, how to proceed? Our tack has been to ask the neighbors if they're okay with the idea, get the landlord's go ahead, and give it a try. One neighbor already gave us squash from her garden. Another commented on our push mower.They seem to be amenable.
But let's back up a bit first. Where's Wenatchee? Who's we? What house are we talking about? Why goats?
Wenatchee is in central Washington State. It's just east of the Cascade Mountains, 3 hours east of Seattle, in a dry sunny valley, and is known as the apple capital of the world. Major employer here is the tree fruit industry -- apples, pears, and cherries. So it makes the Wenatchee area both a yummy and a beautiful place to live (first picture is from our mailbox, second is 15 minutes towards the desert near Malaga, third is 20 minutes toward the mountains near Dryden).
Working at a tree fruit center, I keep getting free cherries, and am struggling to keep up. But no complaints there. Mike, the nice and bearded and tall Minnesotan boyfriend, for those of you who don't know him, has moved out here too. And we're renting a house in the part of town called Canyon #1. It's up near the hills, there are tons of birds, lots of quail, apparently rattlesnakes (although I haven't seen any yet), and nice partial views of the valley. The neighborhood, like much of Wenatchee, is in a development boom, but our piece is a little quieter, higher in the hills. The house was an old motel cottage in the 1960s -- tiny and still a little bit dirty and smelly right now, but super cute.
It's a work in progress, and the second house I've lived in in Wenatchee in four months. The first house got sold. It had been a month-to-month lease, which was great for flexibility, but meant searching for a new rental sooner than anticipated.
I came to Wenatchee for a job working with the tree fruit sustainability, through Washington State University's Department of Community & Rural Sociology and the Tree Fruit Research & Extension Center. Basically, Washington's apple industry (the biggest in the nation) is phasing out the use of its most-used pesticide (as mandated by new Environmental Protection Agency regulation), and is trying to educate growers on alternative forms of pest control. Pheremone mating disruption, where lots of insect pheremones are emitted into the air in an orchard to confuse male codling moths and prevent them from finding the females. All sorts of alternative "reduced risk" insecticides. Basically the idea is to take mainstream fruit production one big step towards greater environmental protection and health/safety for workers.
AZM (the pesticide to be lost) was designated for phase-out because it's a neurotoxin. And so this pest control transition is really relevant for farmworkers in the area -- most of whom are Latino, some of whom are migrant and pick fruit from Texas to California to Washington and back again, but many of whom live in the area permanently. Which makes Wenatchee an interesting place culturally -- small old Western orcharding town at the foothills of the mountains, where the local bluegrass festival bands play on a stage made of apple bins, plus really big influx of Mexican immigrants. And a new big influx of Seattle retirees looking for sun. Lots of tostada trucks and cowboy hats plus an older but reinvigorated downtown strip sprawling out into what has become quite a big city, with a small town feel.
Small town feel in that the person you meet as the wife of your colleague turns out to be the same person you blindly contact by email as a migrant health clinic outreach coordinator.And the other woman from the migrant health clinic shows up in front of you in the port-o-potty line at the outdoor community production of the Sound of Music 20 minutes up the mountains in Leavenworth. The same person you meet in a local food group meeting also comes to the camp where migrant cherry pickers live to do a presentation on diabetes in the Hispanic community. Same guy who's your landlord turns out to solicit free post-experimental apples from your work place to feed to inmates at the jail. And yet it's getting to be a big town, with its share of Walmart, Home Depot, Safeway... ah, and espresso booths.
Here's the Seattle influence. Little stand-alone huts all over the place on the side of the road to get drive-through espresso and lattes and capucchinos. And yet, the east side of the Cascade Mountains has typically been more politically conservative than the west side. Which plays into a lot of things, including my job, where west side environmental groups from Seattle the eco-capital of the U.S. come into conflict with pesticide use in agriculture on the east side. My job, basically, is to try to get industry and enviros to get along better, work on some of the language/culture barriers that keep Latino farmworkers from being fully informed of changes and developments in the industry where they work, and see how effective this pesticide transition program has/is/might be. So it keeps me on my toes. Sometimes I think it's fascinating, and I have the coolest job ever. Sometimes I think it's too hard to be the go-between among all these apple-interested groups and get anywhere with it. Sometimes it's too much of a desk job. But for the moment it works alright.
My hoped-for job, before I found this one, was to pair raising sheep with writing broad-public-lay-audience articles about agriculture. But given the current apple job, a flock of sheep seemed to be too much. And sheep really like to be in a flock. So this idea has been deflected into goats, who do alright in pairs. Meanwhile, we'll clean the new house, think about fencing potential, get the neighbors on board with goats, and walk my pretty mountain valley orchard walk to and from work.
One other high point of living in Wenatchee is the close proximity of hiking and walking and river and general outdoor sportiness. Weekend afternoons can be good for driving 20 minutes up into the mountains for a short hike with great views. Pretty neat. (These pics were early summer -- now it's a lot drier).
So the plan is to be here for two years, and then see what happens. Having emerged from the cocoon of graduate school, and therefore having a little more time and energy and mental/emotional space on my hands than I've had for several years, I thought I'd try to enter the 21st century and see what this blogging business is all about. Stay tuned. Maybe there will be some goat pictures in our future. Maybe we'll get Mike posting too and you can get a second opinion, for greater credibility and reliability on this "new to Wenatchee, WA" blog. Or just come visit. We'd love to see you. There are lots of apples waiting to be eaten, lots of hills asking to be explored, and lots of views to soak in. Airport code is EAT, or fly to Seattle or Spokane and we can get you here from there.
Best wishes, glad to be online, and hope to be doing this more.
Summer began with cherries, and once we bought a cherry pitter, we were pitting pitting and freezing cherries for winter … and thinking we ought to get ourselves a dehydrator.
we tried peaches in brandy -- but didn’t use enough brandy, so they botulism fermentedized rather than preserved… grumble grumble.
And now, well into apple and pear season, success with applesauce! And success with oven-dried fruit leather!
We’re waiting for one more shipment of plums from our friend Michel, who is overwhelmed with them in her backyard, for trying plum butter yet again. We need to buy more canning jars.
Outside the fruit realm, we decided that if we have goats, and if we’re hoping to milk them eventually, we should really know how to make cheese. Started with lemon cheese, a soft cheese curdled with lemon juice and hung from our pieced-together kitchen string contraption to solidify.
It ended up being a lemony ricotta/cream cheese type blend.
