Land of Milk

Now that one of our goats has "freshened" again (fancy goatherder talk for "the goat had kids"), we're excited to have fresh milk.  So what does one do with a gallon of milk a day?  The possibilities are myriad.  In the decade that I have been raising goats, I have narrowed my goat milk uses a bit.  We love to drink it raw, cold is better. 

We use it for soap - just made a batch of mudbath that's curing, and getting low on lavender tea tree, so that's next. 

Butter is just too much work.  Goat milk is naturally homogenized, so by the time the cream separates on its own, the flavor is a bit too strong for our tastes.  Thankfully, we have the jersey cow's milk for that.  Goat cheese curds are wonderful.  As is cottage cheese, farmer's cheese, and goat mozzarella.  Then there's yogurt and ice cream.  Doesn't sound like such a narrow field at all, once we get going, does it?  That's a good thing, because there's lots of milk to use up!  And then there are still the other odd uses - on cereal, creamy rich potato soup and chowders, pancake batter, and on...

Triplets!

We are blessed with so many miracles around the homestead.  Our old billy goat died over the winter, but he seems to have done his job before checking out.  The other day we went out to feed and discovered this.

The other good news is that we will be back in fresh milk again.  Momma, Freedom, is our heaviest milker, so fresh yogurt and cheese will be back on the table again soon as well.  Not to mention our luxurious goat milk soaps!

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?