• The Mystery Culinary Challenge

      A surprise ingredient or theme, cooking, finding new recipes… Those are the 3 elements that make up the Mystery Culinary Challenge the Castle Keepers have to do each month. It’s a spin off of the television show called Master Chef Junior. In that show, they are given a mystery ingredient and once that is revealed, they are to make up a dish using it… all in a certain amount of time. Then the judges taste the dish and decide which contestants will stay for the next level and which are let go. With the Castle Keeper girls, we aren’t so involved because each of the girls complete the challenge…

  • A New Castle Keeper Year Has Begun

    Our 3rd year of Castle Keepers has begun. Well, it actually began a few months ago. We have 29 girls involved in the club now but only 11 of them are local.  Most of our members are located far away from our state of Arizona. It has been really wonderful to see the girls getting their challenges done and encouraging one another with their projects. Fall means cooler weather and it also means it’s time to find a tree that you can pick apples from here in Arizona, so we started the year off here locally learning how to make applesauce and apple butter. September “…he kept him as the…

  • An Award for Gaining Weight Quickly

    Having a steer as a 4-H project is more time consuming and intimidating than any other livestock project but Serenity wanted to give it a try at least for 1 year. Sir Kendrick was a sweetheart weighing only 750 pounds when he arrived here at the farm last February. He was very sociable and if he heard us outside he would push the top half of his barn door open so he could see us. One time I heard all this noise and wondered what it could be. It was just Sir Kendrick bellowing because he could hear us all in the backyard. To get him ready for the show…

  • 3 Things We Can Learn from 4-H

      For the last 8 months or so our little farm had some additional critters besides our normal chickens, goats, cats and dog. As part of the kids’ 4-H projects… …we had Sir Kendrick… and   …Bacon & Daisy… I think 4-H is a great program and for those that are looking for ways to make the most out of your projects, you can also let this count for animal husbandry. In 4-H they learn what it takes to make their pig grow to the proper weight besides basic information about the species of animal they’re raising. They are required to give an oral presentation on something related to the…