Goats

We've been milking Prudence and Mercy for a little over a week now, and it's starting to settle into a routine, though they still do their best to kick the pail over when they decide it's time for more grain. When they do make such a mess, it's all right for now since we can just feed the milk back to the kids. We're down to three now; the little black guy is a pet for three cute children, and the big brown one is, satisfyingly, the new breeding buck for a nearby dairy. I'm amazed to have gotten $80 each for them, even though they're purebred and registrable; but then, I'm a cheapskate. I wish they'd all been does, so we could keep them--they are so astonishingly cute! Unfortunately, out of five kids, we got only one doe--what are the odds? (Thank you, that was a rhetorical question.) We've named her Temerity, for her bright, bold manner, and are deciding whether or not to keep her pretty fawn-colored brother. I think we're stuck with their cousin, dubbed Dumbo for his difficulty with feeding; we'll see if he makes it.

I've decided to try a new experiment every day, with the clean milk not needed for the kids; I found several recipes for making chevre and other cheeses, and plan to make ice cream, yoghurt, and kefir as well. Should I succeed, we'll market our lovely homemade artisanal products and watch the money pour in! I'll admit it started poorly, with an unclear recipe that left me with lemony sour milk instead of cheese, but today's trial went much better. I used this recipe, and the milk curdled beautifully. I'm letting it drain overnight, in hopes of a drier chevre-like cheese rather than cottage cheese or ricotta; we'll see how it goes.