On Saturday we decided we needed more goat milk even though our gallon from two weeks before was still going strong.
See? We don’t drink much milk around here…
The timing was perfect because my family wanted to visit with us and we met halfway which put us right near the goat dairy. C. has been so helpful and has offered us a few of her goats in milk to purchase as well as some of her babies.
I’m still really wanting a La Mancha, the dairy goats that have human-shaped ears, which is funny because I used to think they were hideous. One of my farm friends kept recommending them to me because they’re excellent milking goats, but I told her if I bought one I’d definitely need to glue some bigger ears on its head.
A joke, of course, but that’s how bad-looking I thought they were!
However, ever since meeting one in person I’ve totally fallen in love with the breed! Their personalities are so amazing that their weird ears grow on you. And while our goat count is now up to three (two Nigerian Dwarves and one Nubian) I’m still hoping to find the perfect La Mancha for our homestead.
Anyway, we went there to pick up milk and I told my teenager we’d be there just one minute but a minute turned into ten…maybe fifteen…because we got to walk around again and see all the cute baby goats and learn more about what they were up to that day.
The breeder (do I call her a breeder or a farmer or both?) was giving us amazing advice out of the blue.
I love talking to her because she’s very practical and also very natural-minded in some ways, like she feeds the best diet possible even though it’s not a cheap diet around here (alfalfa!). She mentioned to us that coastal hay (the local hay that we feed our horses and most people feed all their livestock) is not good for goats and what’s more, that most coastal hay has had Picloram herbicide sprayed on it.
I’d never heard of Picloram but she told me that if we compost, even putting the horse manure into the compost will cause all of our plants that we put compost on to die immediately.
What???
How could this be…such a small amount passed from feed to poop to compost to the garden will kill my plants?
I never even thought of anything like that. I just tend to think “Hay is grass and grass is natural.” But no, it’s gotten more complicated than that.
I looked up Picloram when I got into the car and sure enough, it’s known to kill pea plants, tomato plants, lettuces, and seriously all the things we’ve got growing right now. This is a Dow chemical and as little as ONE part per BILLION will kill our veggies.
Holy shit. What is it doing to our horses??
So now I’m on a search to figure out where we can buy coastal hay for our horses that doesn’t contain Picloram. And Clopyralid and Aminopyralid, which apparently do the same thing.
This dairy farmer just saved our produce.
I mean, seriously. I feel like I owe her so much and we’ve spent under 2 hours with this woman.
I’m so grateful!
One of the best things you can do if you’re interested in homesteading is to make friends with others who are doing the same.
I am a pretty reserved person but I make a point to talk to the farmers at the farmer’s market booths now. We spend a good deal of our Saturdays and Sundays doing this; we went to three farmer’s markets in the past two days. What I’ve noticed is that farmers want to pass on their knowledge. They love it when people want to learn things. So talk to your farmers!
The dairy goat farmer also gave us a good tip, which is that we should invest in some Tagasaste plants.
Tagasaste, which I’d never heard of until she told me about it, grows well around here (and many other places) and is a great feed for goats! I’m always looking for ways to cut down on feed costs and since alfalfa cannot grow here this will be a great plant to look into. I also have learned in the past week that Mulberry leaves have been used as a grain alternative for dairy goats. Munch munch, crunch crunch. Those also can be grown locally. Score!
And my daughters love mulberries themselves, so that can be something else that we can eat.
Last week I made goat milk fudge. I used this recipe (http://www.betterhensandgardens.com/worlds-easiest-fudge/) but made it in a double boiler on the stove since we don’t use a microwave. I also used coconut oil instead of butter so my little one with allergies could enjoy it.
It came out great! I even gave some to a friend who snarfed it down when we went to see a documentary about homeopathy called “Just One Drop.”
Last night we made goat milk ice cream. We used 3 cups of raw goat milk, a bit less than a half cup of raw honey, a teaspoon vanilla powder, and 2 large egg yolks. Aside from the vanilla powder, this was locally sourced ice cream! We make ice cream quite a bit but I wasn’t sure how goat milk would work in ice cream. It was good! I would add another egg yolk next time to make it more creamy (and actually, usually I use the whole egg and not just the yolk so maybe I’ll go back to that).
Hurrah!
While we will likely never eat our own animals, I am happy growing most of food on our land. We’ve decided we will likely skip putting in bee hives this year but we will definitely add in a few more fruit trees and some pecan trees as well. Those take so long that it’s good to start them ASAP.
We already have blackberries, pear, plum, orange, pomegranate, fig, and two varieties of grapes growing that are producing fruit. Yay, fruit!