It's a girl

Dorothy presented us with a beautiful little heifer in the wee hours of the night.  She is beautiful and mother and daughter are doing well.

Dorothy woke me at 2am mooing - I knew something was up - she never moos.  I woke Brad up and we went out to find a beautiful little heifer.  Brad had last checked her about midnight, so she was born sometime between midnight and 2am - a memorial day baby. We gave Dorothy a bucket of molasses water and a tube of CMPK Gel.  We helped the calf nurse, we dipped her navel and put a goat blanket on her, she finally got the hang of it and nursed some, not as much as we would have liked, but she was standing.


Now we need to come up with a name.  And while we are at it, we need to come up with a farm name too.

Goat Milk

A while back I posted that we had some lovely goaty girls here.  We are loving them and their milk.  Right now we are getting about a gallon a day from BoPeep, and about two and a half quarts from Velvet.

Velvet, ever on the look out for a treat

Velvet resting near the calf hutch (aka goat house)

BoPeep prefers to rest in the feed tub

BoPeep - looking to see if she missed anything

Milk, lovely white gold!

BoPeep's milk on the left and Velvet's on the right - morning milking

Not Fast Food

The kids wanted hamburgers, fries and milk shakes for supper - home made at that.

Definitely not fast food

I started with fresh cold goat's milk and made vanilla ice cream, then added more cold fresh goat's milk and chocolate syrup to make the milk shakes.

The beef was locally grown and pasture raised.  My first attempt at hamburger rolls was a bit lacking, they were too small and a bit thick, but tasted good.  Instead of fries, I made chips - they cook faster, and the kids like them just as well.  Over all the meal was a success, a lot healthier than fast food BUT a whole lot more work.

Hamburger Buns

Chips in the making

Chips - the finished product

We have goats!!!

Meet the newest members of our farm family.

Brad built a nice little goat pen along one side of the milking area.

Bo Peep

Velvet

These lovely girls arrived on February 23rd.  They belong to Welbian Farms.  Donna and Glen Pearce are loaning them to us until the goats we plan to buy from them kid.

Why goats you may be asking.  Well Dorothy is 18 months into her lactation and is due to calve in late May, so we needed to dry her off.  We needed a supply of milk during her dry period.  And since I have wanted goats since I was 9 years old, and specifically Oberhaslis for the past 3 years, we decided to get some.  We contacted Donna Pearce - a well known Oberhasli breeder to see what she had available. She did not have any Oberhaslis that would be in milk as soon as we needed them, but she kindly offered to loan us 2 lactating goats until her Oberhaslis kidded.

We are loving the goats and the milk. I have to say, I think I like goats milk better than cows milk, but shhhhhhhhhhh don't tell Dorothy, she'd be upset.

Bo Peep ready to be milked

Velvet ready to be milked

A Horse Of Course

Reed

Earlier this week, Rhiannon's dream came true.  A horse of her own! Reed is 27 years old and is retiring at our place.  Reed is the horse Rhiannon learned to ride on, so having him here is pretty special for us.  He's a good boy, and Rhiannon is having the time of her life.

Checking each other out.

The cows weren't quite sure what to think.

They look like they are saying - WHAT is that?!

Beamer our watch cat supervises.

Getting your nails done takes on a whole new meaning when you are a cow

Finally getting around to posting about Dorothy's pedicure - from last October.  Her feet were not terrible, but did need trimming.  We called some friends who have a farm, and our local cooperative extension office to get some names of reputable cow hoof trimmers.

We found a guy not to far from us, he said he usually got $12 per cow on a dairy, but would need to charge us around $100.  Turns out he had to sort of go by our place to take his daughter to a college open house so he only charged us $60.  He came by in the morning and dropped off his equipment (which looked to me like a torture device), then in the afternoon he came back and trimmed her hoofs.

I was all nervous about it.  But it went very quickly and very well.  Dorothy came right over when we called - the hoof trimmer was impressed.  Brad grabbed her halter (he had a bucket of grain and a couple of cow cookies), and she walked right out the gate and into the machine without batting an eye.  We fed her corn cobs while she got her nails done, she was very good...didn't struggle, and only "did what cows do when they get nervous" a few times.

 

Making Butter

One of the great things about owning your own cow (especially a Jersey) is all that lovely cream.  One of the easiest things to make with that cream is butter.  On this occasion, 8 quarts of cream yielded 5 1/2 pounds of butter.

I start with fresh raw milk and let it stand in the fridge for at least 12 hours, this allows the cream to rise. Notice the yellow layer in the bottles below, that's the risen cream. 

Milk that has been sitting 12 hours and ready for skimming

You can buy electric or hand crank butter churns, and shaking the cream in a mason jar will work as well, but I like to use my food processor.

1 quart of cream in the food processor

The butter breaks

Butter

Once the butter breaks, you need to strain it to remove the buttermilk (this can be saved to use in cooking later).  You need to rinse the butter until the water runs clear.  I use a kitchen sieve.

Straining the butter to remove the buttermilk

I like to bounce the butter in the sieve after rinsing, this removes some of the water and buttermilk, and forms a nice butter ball to work with later.

Butter  ready to be worked

Once the butter has been rinsed and most of the buttermilk strained out, you need to "work" the butter to remove even more buttermilk. The more buttermilk you remove, the better and longer your butter will keep.  It is at this point that you add salt to taste.  I work the butter with my hands, kneading it almost as though I would bread.

Worked butter

When I am done "working" the butter, I like to form it into balls. I don't measure it, but the butter balls end up being about 1/4 to 1/3 cup each.

5 1/2 pounds of butter

I like to freeze the butter balls on a plate and then pop them off and store them in a jar in the freezer.  Freezing first keeps them from sticking together in the jar.

Butter balls ready for the freezer

Jelly jars make nice butter containers.

Butter ready for the table

Milking - A Family Affair

We like our milk fresh....really really FRESH.

Dorothy - our very patient family cow

 

Practicing for the 2010 Olympics - Pairs Milking

Udderly fantastic

 

Look at that cream line!