The Joys of Twice a Day Milking

Life is weird. We just got back from spending a week and half in Chicago, seeing friends and family, pretending for a few days that we lived in the city again, having a great time, and I don't think I've ever been as happy to be home.

So much has changed in the past five to ten years, somehow it feels like you don't notice until your back with people who knew when you were living in a shitty apartment in Hyde Park, eons before you even thought about milking a goat.

But now I'm home and doing something I was thinking about and looking forward, even while having a great time in Chicago: Milking twice a day.

Mostly I was just looking forward to not separating mama's and babies every night. The mornings and nights filled with screaming and crying was really starting to wear on me. So Sunday night Keith and I moved Margo's and Cupid's babies to the pasture with all the hair sheep and the screaming has not stopped since.

Mama's screaming at the top of their lungs to get their babies back. Babies screaming and crying, calling their moms to come rescue them. It's Wednesday and it's finally starting to get a little better, but I have a feeling it's far from over.

Margo and Cupid have been taking out their hostility towards me as often as they can. Yesterday morning I thought Margo was terrible when she peed and pooped on the milk stand, then she proved she could be worse in the evening when she peed, pooped, then just laid down so I couldn't milk her.

Cupid took a different plan of attack this morning when she bolted away from me and out into the pasture. I didn't even run after her. I just got Margo on the stand, where she had the one on one time it seems she needed and Cupid eventually moseyed back, jumping up on the stand in her damn time.

I would have freaked out all of this a year or so ago, trying to get all the animals lined up like they're always supposed to, instead of just leaving the gate open and letting things just work out.




Margo's lambs and Cupid's kids are their own little pack now that they're out in the pasture with the rest of the sheep. In between crying for their mama, the kids are still hamming it up as usual. I'm not sure if the lambs miss their mama or the delicious goat chow they had become accustomed to snarfing down at night, either way, they're always eating!



Two and half gallons of milk is now what I'm getting daily, even if I kinda have to fight the girls to get it. And it really adds up fast! Today I'm making a 5 gallon batch of blue cheese, the biggest batch of cheese I've ever made.





I've already make one batch of blue cheese, a 3 gallon batch that time. Today I had to pierce it for the second time-you pierce the cheese to get all the good moldy blue veins. The guys at the Rouge Creamery said to pierce the hell out of the blues (and they should know, their blues are amazing!), so I did, first 2 weeks ago, then again today. They still won't be ready for a few months, but I think they'll be worth the wait!



Tomorrow I do it all over again, not knowing what to expect. After almost 2 months of good behavior, this craziness is annoying. Hopefully the girls will calm down soon, but who can blame them for being pissed!

Back in the saddle again!

Finally! Finally, finally! I am milking again.

Today is the second day of milking both girls and they are producing just how I expected. A gallon and half the past two mornings, but today went a lot smoother than yesterday did!

Yesterday was a wild whirlwind of lambs and kids screaming, two mamas screaming to get to their babies, but also REALLY wanting to be milked and the two new sheep trying to get past everyone else on to their new favorite place-the milk stand. Then Cupid is kicking off the milk machine...

It was a mess, just like always. Today was just as loud, but so much more smooth!

Cupid's giant milk bag is not a surprise, she's a milking beast. But Margo, damn girl! Her bag seems almost twice as big as last years. I don't really know how much each producing since they are milked into the same container, but I'm guessing it's Margo at 2 quarts and Cupid at 1 gallon.

Since their babies are still on them, I'm not coming close to milking them dry. I think I'm milking them about 2/3 empty, so these girls are really producing! But you've got to leave the babies some breakfast!





So far, I've made yogurt, cottage cheese and butter. It was the first butter I've made since last time Cupid was in milk, since I just didn't have the volume to make it last year and still make cheese, but this year I expect to be using Sputnik the cream separator all the time!



The babies are going getting bigger everyday! It took about a week but the lambs and kids are finally starting to play together. I think it took so long because the lambs are justifiably terrified of getting near Cupid. I feel the same way some times!



In other news, the new girls, Maisie and Daisy are still not sheared-ugh! It is so hard to find someone to shear just a few sheep.

But they are learning all about the milk stand. Maisie figured it out on her second try! Give this girl some alfalfa pellets and she'll follow you anywhere! But, Daisy, she just doesn't get it. She's the more skittish of the two and just wants to run away from me. Unfortunately for her, in such a small space she's pretty easy to catch and I have lots of experience lifting sheep on to the milk stand. Either she'll figure it out eventually or I'll just get really strong.



I hope tomorrow goes as well as today did!

Fresh out of milk

Today is such a weird day. Today is the last day I have to milk until May.

Since Cupid was in milk in July of 2014, the longest I've gone without milking was when we were in Thailand for 3 weeks. I milked Cupid right up until I started milking Frannie this season, then for a while was milking both Frannie and Margo. Now Margo is long dry and looking super pregnant and Frannie has been producing less and less, so I have been drying her off for the past few weeks. How do you dry up a goat in milk? For a week or so I milked her every other day, then every third day, then every fourth day, today was 5 days since I last milked her and this is how much milk I got:



She's not exactly the super producing beast that Cupid is, but she's been a good milker this season. Next time I milk her, I will hopefully be milking both Frannie and her little doe Ruby, who will of course be full grown by next fall. She's still kinda small, but true to her name, Ruby's coat is turning a little red!

Just like every morning I milk her, Frannie snuck through the door to the milk stall and jumped up on the stand, without any help from me. This is so much easier than having to lift Margo or drag Cupid!



As long as she has enough food, she is a super easy milker. This morning she may have gotten a little extra, since it was her last time and all...but still there is never enough!



And then there's all the prego or hopefully pregnant ladies. For me, the most important ones are Cupid and Margo...and Snowy. It's always hard to tell if the ladies have been successfully breed and Margo's wool coat doesn't make it any easier, but she is looking larger than usual. I really hope she's got a couple of goofy, big eared lambs in there! Cupid on the other hand doesn't look pregnant at all, but she hasn't gone back into heat for a long time, so I'm guessing she is. She is also always trying to beg for more food or sneak into the milk stall for chow, so with all the extra snacks I'm giving her, she better be breed! With Margo and Cupid in milk this season, I will hopefully be getting about 2 gallons a day! Think of all the cheese! Snowy is our wild card, I'll keep my eye on her, but I'm not expecting kids from her.




Then there's the rest of the sheep. They are looking huge! The earliest they could lamb is the end of March/beginning of April, so we've still got a few months, but good lord, they are wide. It seems like no amount of food is enough and they've even been kicking the goats out of the barn to eat all their hay. Every morning I go out to the barn, the sheep try so hard to convince me that Keith has not feed them earlier that morning. The big eyes, the sad bleeting...these ladies are just a bunch of con artists!




Life is going to be pretty quiet here until March or so. It's nice to have a bit of a break, but I can't wait until we have loads of kids and lambs running around the pasture again and a fridge full of fresh milk!

More advances in Milking and Barn management

Sometimes there are just so many things going on here, it's hard to pick just one thing to focus a blog post on. We've got harvesting going on right now and everything that goes with is, breeding sheep and goats very soon, slaughtering lambs even before that, plus the same old everyday chores like milking and keeping all the animals fed and watered.

And, I'm always looking ahead to the next season. As a prisoner of the moment, it's easy to say that fall feels like the busiest season, but really it's spring. Lambing, kidding, preping and and planting the garden and greenhouse, milking potentially more animals than the year before and things I'm probably forgetting because I don't want to think of them right now. I'm always trying to think of a way to make that part of life run a little smoother.

Since we will be breeding 4 ewes-1 more than last year and 2 goats-the same a last year (more on that later), I wanted to reconfigure our barn into more separate pens to accommodate all the moms and lambs/kids. Our barn was set up for 2 horses to each have a big stall, not a bunch of small livestock having a bunch of offspring each year, but now it is!

Before Keith's dad got here, I demolished the wall between the 2 stalls to get the job going, I just didn't see it going as far as it did!

This is the new outside of the barn. We enclosed the space where the white boards are to give me more space, and of course the new fence was also being completed during all of this so there is a sturdy new gate to lock the chickens in (most of the time)!



So, let go in the barn, shall we!

There are now 4 separate stalls in the barn that will be used for any number of things depending on what time of year it is. Right now I'm using 3 of them, one for each goat to have to herself at night, but that will change in April/May when Margo, Cupid and (probably not) Snowy will have kids/lambs and be in milk.




I was just hoping that while Keith's dad was here we could get the new smaller stalls built, but somehow that didn't take as long as I thought it would, so more projects were added!

A new milking room! A new milk stand! At the moment, this is the biggest change for me and I love it everyday!



This used to be the outside of the barn, now it's my double milk stall. The morning after it was built, I popped Frannie and Margo up there and milked them both at the same time! It took a few more mornings to work all the kinks out, but now all three of us are used to it! I can't wait until next year! Cupid will be putting out her usual gallon or 1 1/2 gallon of milk a day, then Margo should give more that this seasons 2 quarts because it will be her second time in milk. But didn't you say you're going to breed Snowy too-what about her? you ask...

oh Snowy. I had a talk to the vet about her. He said that since we exposed her last year and she didn't have kids, there's a good chance she can't have kids. Either they can do some expensive tests to find out or we can just put her back out with Randy again this year. So, we'll try to breed her again, expecting her not to actually reproduce. After that it's figuring out what to do with a milk goat that will never be in milk-I'm thinking of training her to be a pack goat, but we'll see.

And did you notice the kittens in the background? Those are sisters Blue and Brie. Hopefully they will be good mousers, but for now that are good milkers, helping lap up any milk that ends on the milk stall in the morning. Blue is patiently waiting on Margo's side of the stall for a taste!



And while Blue is waiting for milk, Brie is getting all the snuggles from Bear and BJ!




And I mentioned the fence! Our fence it finished! Since it's goat proof, I've got to imagine it's zombie proof too! I love how open it feels now, I can so easily see into the garden or the animal pens.



I love that Keith's buck antlers got remounted to our classy new gate! I'm trying to think of a name for what feels like my new garden...so far all I can think of are prison references-any other suggestions?

Advances in Milking and Cheese making

First, how in the world is it September already!? Can we get about 6 weeks more of mid-August, but without all the fires and smoke this time?

With the beginning of fall harvest upon us, I could talk about all the food stuffs coming out of the garden and all the canning and such I've been doing, but NO! This post is all milk and cheese!

I am a slow hand-milker and Cupid is/was an evil creature, so obviously we needed a milk machine. This season I've been using it to milk Frannie and Margo. It really wasn't much of a surprise after using the machine twice a day for about a year and half on multiple animals, it up and died. I've had another milk machine in mind since I knew this was eventually going to happen, but I had hoped for at least a few more months and was not at all prepared for it's demise.

Turns out that Keith was going to get me my new dream milk machine for my birthday, so I just had to order it a little early!

Say hello to the Segel Milking machine!




Why is this awesome? You mean besides that I don't have to hand milk, like I have been doing very, very slowly every morning for the past week? Well, it doesn't have a motor that can die. Instead, it is a wall mounted, vacuum pump, that is super quiet, fast, and efficient. I freaking loved using it this morning! And it will be so easy to train someone to use it when we're out of town-hopefully!

But what to do with all this milk? This summer I've been making A LOT! of Margochego, but making a double batch has proved kind of hilariously difficult. Trying to press multiple cheese molds with a combination of a cutting board and tupperware containers full of change to weight this down is sadly not very effective! But this is!



Yay for birthday cheese press! The inaugural pressing was none other than a triple batch of beautiful Margochego. It started out looking like this:



And ended up looking like this:



Now they are spending the day in a heavy salt brine. I'll wax them and then try not to eat them for the next 4-6 months.

Not eating them is the hard part. We've cut into a few wheels, and damn they are good! I've got a couple dozen or so wheels of Margochego, pecorino romano, Iberico, and beer infused cheeses that I certainly hope will get us through the winter. Margo (the milk sheep) won't be in milk much longer and soon we'll breed her an wait for her to be in milk again next spring. We will still have Frannie in milk, but with only 2 quarts a day from her, there won't be much cheesemaking after October or so.

But we still have both of them in milk now and I've got to get back to a batch of beer cheese!

Milking Margo

The suggested traditional 9 year anniversary gift is willow/wicker or leather. If I got, say, a wicker laundry basket with leather handles, I'd probably smack Keith over the head with such a crappy gift. Instead, I got a combo of the traditional 7th (wool) and 14th (animals) anniversary gifts all wrapped in a sheep named Margo.

An extremely enjoyable wine tasting weekend in Walla Walla was mostly just a ruse to get us mostly to the tiny town of Irrigon. A family there is moving soon and is looking to re-home a number of their farm animals, including a few East Friesian milk sheep. It took awhile to convince Keith that getting a yearling milk sheep was the best idea ever, but finally he came around!

They had 2 yearling sheep (that just means they are in-between 1-2 years old), one was all white and the other (the cuter one) was brown and black. I was leaning towards getting the black one, based solely on looks, but a few things changed my mind. One is that we are kinda giving up on the Snowy having kids this year. Yes, she's fat and acting strange, but we really only have about a week left to be expecting kids and we just don't have the confidence that she is actually pregnant. I was planning on milking 2 animals and producing cheese for what was hopefully a nice amount of milk, but now it seems that we have just Frannie.

Then I got an email from the woman selling the sheep that one of the yearlings was in milk-not giving very much because it's her first freshening-but still! That changed my mind! Having someone else do the work of breeding and milk stand training this animal is priceless. We also didn't have to take her lamb home-thankfully! Her lamb is already 2 1/2 months old and ready to be weaned-but that also means that we don't have much more time to milk her, as milk sheep are only in milk for about 5 months-and that is if we do everything right.

Say hello, Margo!



Nope, she's not the cutest creature, but hey, who's judging! We had to start milking her twice a day as soon as we got her home. She had been milked once a day at her old home, but was also nursing her lamb. Even though Margo is a very tolerant sheep, it is taking both of us to milk her. We have a different milk stand set up and she is just not digging it.

The first time milking her we did get her on the stand, but this is what she did.



So, that didn't work. We ended up working together to hold her on the floor and milk her that way both that night and the next morning. I've been working with her, to get her less skittish and more comfortable around us and the stand and it seems to be working, but it still takes the both of us. Hopefully we figured out a different plan soon!

And I already made some cottage cheese!



I asked the kid on the farm what her name was and she responded that only little kids name animals...I have to disagree! I decided on Margo because Manchego cheese is my favorite sheeps milk cheese and I aspire to make it, but that just didn't fit. I think Margo is a nice, kind of abbreviated version of Manchego. And now I'm hungry for cheese!

Frannie's babies are still the cutest ever. I milked Frannie for the first time this morning and while I only got about a quart and half, I still count it as a success.



If anything changes with Snowy, I'll let you know!

Feeling the Heat of October

This has been such a beautiful and bountiful summer! And I'm so happy it is over. I can not can another jar of salsa, dehydrate another tray of cherry tomatoes, or freeze yet another bag of zucchini. I am just done. Or I wish I was.

Besides a handful of wickedly hot peppers that have yet to ripen, the greenhouse is closed for the season. There is a little more variety out in the garden thanks to the cold hardiness of root veggies and broccoli, but still, the garden it past it's prime too. But there is a new season that is just getting started and at times it is deafening. Goats in heat.

It's like having a bunch of teenagers with their hormones raging! It started with little Frannie first. She was so loud in the middle of the night that Keith went out to the barn to check on her. Obviously she was just fine, but Keith has to pop in ear plugs for the rest of the right. For the next two days, Frannie and Randy tried their best to get through the electric fence that kept them seperated. They only succeeded in getting repeatedly shocked by the fence. Then as quickly as it started, it was over and the pasture was quiet again. Until yesterday.

Now it's Cupid's turn. I didn't even know that goats that are lactating could go into heat, but oh yes, they can. Cupid is not interested in anything she is usually interested in, like her favorite past time of eating all the food and making sure Frannie and Snowy don't get any. All she want's to do is try to get Randy's attention so badly I think her tail might wag off. We're even getting less milk from her because she's eating so much less-dear god make this pass quickly!




Only Snowy is left. I can't really imagine her any louder or more affectionate then she is on a daily basis, but I know it's going to happen!

This is all just happening a little earlier then we want it to. We are planning on breeding Frannie and Snowy in December, hopefully we don't miss our window of opportunity!

We are going to breed the sheep in November. They all constantly have crushes on Big Sam, so I'm not worried things not working out there! And the ladies are starting grow their winter coats, love these girls!



With all this talk of breeding, how can I forget to talk about the adorable offspring!

Phoebe has been adopted but we still have the boys! They live with the lambs now are just as adorable as ever!!




The lambs are getting big. Even the triplets are finally putting some weight on! And then there's Bessie, who's so huge it looks like she ate one of the triplets!



At least with pretty much all the vegetables done for the season, I'll be able to work on perfecting my cheese making this winter. Until spring, that is, when we'll just be starting all this over!

Thank you Russia!

What the hell do you do with over a gallon of goats milk a day? Everyday. Single. Day. I've been trying to figure that out.

There are the cottage cheese experiments, the yogurt culturing, a lot of chevre in the freezer. Still, there is always more milk in the fridge.

With all of this, Keith has been pushing for cream. Separating goats cream is not the same as separating cows milk. Cows milk cream floats to the top and you just skim it off-how easy! For goats cream you need a centrifuge separator and what I had read was that these can cost $500-1000. Yeah, that was not going to happen! But where there's a will there's a way-thanks to Russia!

Keith found a Russian cream separator on Amazon for about $150 and really, how could I say no? Of course I want cream, and butter too!



This did come with instructions in English too, but they really don't look as amazing! This came in the mail yesterday and I can't believe that I had to wait until today to use it! It did take a little time to put together, mostly because it seemed too easy and there seemed like there were extra parts (there aren't!). Put together, it's a lot bigger then I expected it to be! It reminds me of Sputnik. Spherical, but quite pointy in parts.



Now that it's all clean and set up, let's get it to work! The milk has to be warmed to about 100 degrees before putting it through the centrifuge. I warmed up a gallon and a quart and started it through.





Slowly at first, then more quickly, the cream comes out the top spigot and the skimmed milk comes out the bottom spigot. I wish there was more cream! But still about a cup and half of cream is better than nothing!

I've got 2 quarts of skimmed milk culturing into yogurt. I'm not really sure how that will turn out, since it is the first batch that I have made without whole milk, but I don't doubt it will be edible!

The cream is still too warm to be able to tell how thick the cream really is, but time will tell! On to more experiments!