Holy Goat Milk Batman!

Her name is Chaos; I couldn't resist her.
I needed another Dairy Goat like I needed a hole in the head, but she was so beautiful!
She has turned into a pretty decent milker for a young little girlie. Unfortunately, she had her babies in late JULY! That means she will be milking all winter, in fact, my other goats will deliver their babies before I manage to get her dried out. I'm going to try to get her bred before the end of December, so I don't have to milk all next winter, too! But I am getting really tired of milk....I've been at it since last March, and it is looking like I'll be milking until at least next September.

I finally broke down and ordered a cheese press so I could get some of this milk under control. I can use 2 gallons at a time to make hard cheese now, so that gets rid of larger quantities of milk at one time than I have been used to. I have made cheddar and gouda (2 pound cheeses) and I am getting really excited about trying them (in FEBRUARY). Anyway, tune in in February to see if the cheeses thrived and turned out edible.

People don't realize that cheese is full of living organisms and such things that kind of make it into a live thing in and of itself. It has to be treated gently, and given just the right amount of humidity and optimal temperatures to mature into a good tasting cheese. Otherwise it will just rot. Cheese is similar to beer and wine in that respect. Feed and care for it and it will reward you. I hope.

Other than cheesemaking, I have been making lotion and soap about as fast as I can. I have shows almost every other weekend until Christmas. I love making and selling soap, I love hearing my customers tell me how much they love using it, but like milking, it can really get old.

I am ready to do something different for a while, so in a couple of months you will probably be reading about how I am tired of making sausages (my next scheduled endeavor), and how my freezer is full of sausages, and I'm tired of eating sausages, but for some reason, I just can't sit around and do whatever it is that normal people do to pass their time. I MUST be making something. Maybe I should take up woodworking...at least I could end up with some new furniture!

Syd