Sweet Garden Petals

Tigger kidded a text-book perfect quad delivery on Sunday morning, three bucklings and one doeling. She did a great job and I'm so proud of her. I plan to keep the doeling, so, ladies and gentlemen, presenting "Sweet Garden Petals."

Petals was the smallest and the last to be born, so she was pretty stressed afterwards. She couldn't stand and it was difficult to get her to nurse at all.

After some expert advice, I gave her some extra selenium, a shot of nutri-drench, and started feeding 1 oz. every two hours. By the last feeding last night she was sucking down 2.5 oz. Today she has gotten increasingly strong, now able to walk around and is nursing very well from the bottle.

Petals will join Tigger and Una as a milk doe for me next year about this time if all goes well. It's certainly hard to imagine the sweet little thing actually giving birth like Tigger did on Sunday!

I was getting pretty concerned about her yesterday morning, but she is really thriving now!

Welcome to the world Miss Petals!

I love Turnips -- Who knew?

Eddie's uncle plants a large patch of turnips in the field behind our house every year. Since we built the root cellar last year, we decided we should really store up some turnips for the winter. So, my dad, Eddie's cousin Carrie, and I picked more than enough turnips to last us all through the winter and stored them in our root cellar.

I tried a simple saute with them, OK, but nothing great. Then I tried a turnip and apple saute, better. Next I found two other recipes, Turnip Supreme (turnips and cheese), and Glazed Turnips and Carrots... WOW! So good! The recipes both start the same way, then at the end you add either brown sugar or sour cream and cheese. Here's how it works:

Turnips Supreme or Glazed Turnips and Carrots
2 T butter
2-3 turnips, cut into small cubes
salt to taste
pepper to taste
3/4 c. chicken broth (bouillion works fine)

For Glazed Recipe: 1-2 carrots, thinly sliced, and 1-2 T brown sugar
For Supreme: 2 T sour cream or yogurt, and 1/2 - 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Melt butter in large skillet over medium low heat, pour in turnips (and carrots if making the glazed recipe). Stir until covered with butter, then let cook for 4 minutes without stirring. Stir, then let cook for another 4 minutes. Add chicken broth, cover and simmer for 8 minutes. Take off lid, turn up heat, and let water cook off. When mostly dry:

For Turnips Supreme: Stir in about 2 tablespoons sour cream and 1/2 to 1 cup of cheddar cheese. Let cheese melt and serve. YUM!

For Glazed Turnips and Carrots: Stir in 1-2 T of brown sugar. Let melt and serve. YUM!

Eddie and I found that we did not like the leftovers from these recipes. The turnip flavor was way too strong in the leftovers. So, clean it all up at the first sitting!!