The only thing I’d ever milked before yesterday was out of my own breasts. The good old days of pumping and the woosh woosh of my electric pump every three hours for 14 months because my youngest daughter never took to nursing. Yes, that’s how dedicated I am to giving my family REAL food. I did not want my daughter to have the supposedly hypoallergenic formula made of corn syrup. Crazy me, I wanted her to have what was natural and healthy. I did not have access to raw goats milk at that time; if I had I’m not sure if I would have given her that instead. My older daughter was the opposite and never would take a bottle, so I never had to pump. I was given a hand crank pump but what a pain! My body didn’t respond to that well at all, but luckily I didn’t have to ever pump so it wasn’t a problem.
So that’s been my only experience with “milking” something.
Yesterday morning we woke up at 4:45am, left the house at 5:15am, and arrived at the goat breeder’s house at 7:30am. The alpha goat (do they call them that?) went first and the goat breeder, Maggie, walked us through everything. She’s a holistic goat owner and she’s become someone I consider both a mentor and a friend.
The steps she took were:
1) Throw chaffhaye, grain, and sunflower seeds into the feeder
2) Let Goat #1 into the milk parlor…watch her jump onto the stand, put her neck into the V on the stand, and attach one leg hobble as a reminder to stay put.
3) Brush Goat (Kerrygold, the mother of the twin doelings we have purchased) and Inspect for Wounds
4) Massage bag
5) Apply teat wash (lavender water) to bag and teats
6) Dry off bag and teats
7) Position goat so that legs are spread wide for easy access to both teats
8) Hand Pump
9) Switch to machine milking via Henry style milker…essentially a pump, tubes, and suction cups that take the milk into a Mason Jar.
10) Massage bag again, and hand milk again. The massaging sometimes means a whole extra cup of milk more
11) When milk stops flowing, move milk out of the way
12) Dip teats into lavender teat wash
And that’s it! I think. Hopefully I did not forget any steps. The important thing with goat milk is to put it on ice immediately and then transfer it to the freezer once you are inside the house and have strained it for 30 minutes to 2 hours. That helps eliminate any goaty taste supposedly. It’s also supposed to help with germ prevention.
So she showed us on her first goat, and then my goat was next in line, Miss Hershey Kiss, just called Kissy. My youngest daughter who is obsessed with cats wants to call her Kitty but apparently that is a no-go with Christine. Ah well. I got to practice milking my goat! I was so proud because she said I was the best new goat milker she had ever seen.
I had so much fun that I consider yesterday to be one of the best days of my life! I feel like I’m born for milking, although I admit I’m a bit tall for her setup and will have to modify mine so my back still functions afterward, and I also noticed how much more easily Maggie’s shorter fingers wrap around the teats while my very long fingers have a harder time with it.
Then my goat was done and went on her way, and up stepped the third and last goat to be milked, Dorie. Christine got to practice on Dorie and what happened? She was an even better milker than I was, taking my title of the best newbie milker. Darn it, that was short lived! Well, she will be a good back-up milker when I don’t feel good or go out of town (just kidding, I never go anywhere anymore).
We got to see our twin doelings and ever since being weaned they are MUCH more people focused. Before they were pretty wild and didn’t really care to say hi. Christine has been disappointed in them all along and I definitely think of this bunch as “mine” since I’m the La Mancha Queen and Christine prefers the Nigerian Dwarves. But this time these girls were so friendly and curious that they may have grown on Christine a little bit. We’ve named the one that is more orange after her mom, Kerrygold. The other little girl I named Sassafras, Sassy for short.
We had our youngest daughter with us and she enjoyed meeting the goats. We left the goat farm to purchase a work truck from the next door neighbor and then when we came back we got to hang out inside and socialize a bit. It’s rare to find people we totally click with because let’s face it, we’re rather unique, but Maggie is one of those people I could spend all day with. She’s got so much knowledge to share and she has so many similar values. Her daughter is also the same size as ours so we ended up going home with some tiny overalls for our tiny little farmer.
She sent us home with milk (she said we worked hard! Don’t tell her I enjoyed it so much!) and then we headed home. On the way home we stopped at the garden store we love so much that is unfortunately closing due to Austin’s ever increasing rent costs. They have a model train set with all sorts of decor around it and I adore it! I am so into model trains and have considered decorating our own land with a few, but I was disappointed when I found out a while back that Christine isn’t into them. Actually I haven’t found anyone else who IS. But I thoroughly enjoy them and had fun showing my daughter. Then we picked out a few more trees for our property–2 pecan trees that are already 7 years old (3 more years til nuts appear, woohoo!), another fig tree (that is our third now), and a mandarin orange tree.
Such a great day. Aside from wasps I am just loving farm life SO much. Oh yeah, I was showing Maggie my arm that is still quite red and swollen from the wasp stings and when I told her that I’d never gotten a sting before this week she said skeptically, “NEVER?!” and I said no, that I was always an indoor girl. She gave me the highest compliment, she said, “Oh really? I never would have guessed that!” <3 <3 <3 It made me swell with pride. I work hard. I embrace farm life. The good, the bad, and the ugly.* I do not miss city life, though we go to Austin often enough for me to be reminded of how much fun it is to sit in traffic and also to feel “rushed” everywhere.
I love this life. We are so incredibly blessed.
*not the wasps