Thursday, May 20, 2010

Meet the New Girls - Freedom and Liberty?


Just in time to keep the goat's milk soap in production (I used the last of my stock of goat milk in the Jasmine Rose soap, available now http://www.mrsdshomestead.com/) enter Freedom and "Liberty", two lovely Nubian mix does with prolific milk supply.  We are already restocking for soapmaking, not to mention enjoying the fresh milk, cheese and yogurt ourselves. 

Ah, but a bit about their names...Freedom is so called because of her determination to jump fences.  She will stay in her cozy stall until such time as I am willing to supervise her in the yard.  "Liberty" came to us unnamed (she was called Goaty-girl).  I really was thinking of naming her Liberty, to go with Freedom, but as that may just have been inviting trouble, I agreed to my son's choice of "Gloves", in honor of his brand new batting gloves which he was so enamored of.  Gloves, in contrast to Freedom, is very good-natured and stands calmly for milking, producing about a half-gallon a day out of just one side.  Her other side is not producing, perhaps due to some injury when she was younger.

Freedom, on the other hand, milked fine on the first day, producing a gallon of white, creamy milk.  On the second day the testing began.  Wrestling a gallon of milk out of a dramatically inclined goat is no mean feat, and by the end of the day I was beat.  The purchase of some sweet feed for the next round calmed her down a bit and hopefully milking time will soon be, once again, a relaxing experience for all involved.  Hey, I can dream, can't I?