Happy Cooking Accidents

Goat's Milk Vanilla Cheese

Occasionally I follow a recipe, but omit a critical step. For example, I was following a recipe for vanilla ice cream I had found on the Rennet bottle.

The missed step would have produced a yummy custard type dessert that I could freeze. However, I did not notice this step until after I had created this: Vanilla Cheese. The taste of vanilla ice cream, but the texture of cheese curds - squeaky vanilla cheese.

I have since this accident made the ice cream, and it is yummy in its frozen form (someday I need to get an ice cream maker so we can have nicer textured ice cream - but we love the frozen chunky stuff in the mean-time.

We will see this week if I can duplicate the Vanilla Cheese. I want to try it on this chocolate bread my M-I-L brought over!

Full Sized Goats!

Dear readers,

I am inconsistent in my writing. I know to have a successful blog I must plan. I have grand ideas and failure to follow through. I am going to do some planning this summer, and try to come up with an idea or two and a plan to pursue.
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Here is the blog I started 2 weeks ago:

Have you ever had one of those days where you get through 3 things on your list, but still feel as though you have gotten nothing done? And not small things either. Wednesday night I wanted to finish folding the laundry, and put it away. I also wanted to bake a few more baguettes, and make another batch of goat cheese. I did all these things. I still felt that annoying, pent-up, frustration as though I had gotten nothing done. Le sigh.

I own a hobby farm or at least that is what we call it. We have chickens and goats and children and gardens. We have had pygmy goats for 2 years now, and chickens since before we moved. We had a pygmy goat in milk through last winter (January - March). She was ornery (read more about Betsy here). The goats were free range at that time, and she was difficult to catch. She did not enjoy being milked and would stomp about. She did calm a little through the process, but was never an easy milker.

This winter we got a two new nannies with babies. We tried milking Suzi, but she was so new to us, we gave up quite quickly. Then we tried Aggie, and had a similar result. Neither had been handled much, nor were they prepared for milking.

Then last weekend, my hubby found someone selling full sized milking goats for only $50 each. That is an amazing deal for anyone who knows about milking goats. When we arrived to get the new girls, she offered us two more who were in milk. Friendly, loving, easy, trained full size milking goats!

What a difference milking a trained goat can be! It was amazing that first time we brought them to the milking stand, and they jumped up onto it. I did have to readjust their heads to fit in the holder, although I do not think they really need it. They stand still once they are in place and happily munch their grain. I can milk with my entire hand instead of just 2 or 3 fingers. We get more than a quart per day. Simply amazing! My husband, who could not milk our pygmy, has taken over the milking! We are even back to milking one of the pygmy's now that we have a routine down. We have started separating her from her baby overnight (very common practice in milk goats). We came away with 9 cups on a Sunday from all 3 goats!

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Sorry - I stopped keeping track. My 40 days were sketchy toward the end. I kept dropping off things as I got busier. Easter weekend, we had a fun, free for all of sugary goodness - with some healthy stuff thrown in. I have discovered some new honey instead of sugar recipes I am excited to share in the coming weeks.

Friday: Didn't have time for buffet - hit mcdee's instead. Over-budget by $8 :(
Saturday: brought home 4 new goats instead of 2. 2 of them are in milk. They are standard sized breeds.
B: Cereal w/milk
L: sandwiches? don't remember.
D: Take out chinese (friend's treat) to make up for mcdees - shrimp fried rice & egg rolls - yum!
Sunday:
B: oatmeal w/granola
dessert at church: apple pie & a lemon bar
L: leftovers - chili
Visit to sister's: New recipe: honey "cake" - more like quick bread. still very yummy! Sampled lots of new sugar free things... check out my sister's sugar free blog.
D: roll, oatmeal cream pie
Monday:
B: oatmeal w/granola
L: Almond bread - coworker went to greatharvest again. Chowder.
D: Leftovers fried rice!
Started a batch of ww bread the 5 minute way. also tried making cheese with 1/2 gallon of goat milk - major fail. Wasn't curdling with the recipe i found, added more vinegar, still nothing. finally reheated and it curdled, but now it is overpowering in it's vinegarness - ggrrrrr.
Tuesday:
B: oatmeal w/granola - I know it sounds so boring to eat oatmeal every day - but I really do enjoy it! Especially with the added crunchy of granola on top!
L: Baked potato w/butter & spike, apple sauce, carrot
D: Leftover turkey sauteed in butter with celery, onions, on top of reheated multi-grain rice. Forgot salt - but then it was perfect! I love turkey & celery together.
Wed:
coffee w/creamer from commuter
B:Oatmeal & granola
L: Chowder - all gone now, applesauce
D: French toast bake: Store "wheat" buns, home eggs, home goat milk, cinamon, vanilla, home canned apple pie apples (cin/sugar). Kids did not like the apples, but loved the toast - they didn't notice the goat milk. I didn't notice either until I remembered I had added it, and noticed a slight difference in flavour.
Thurs:
B: quaker cin apple oatmeal w/granola too - sooo yummy. I am noticing I am eating too fast again. Need to slow down & savor!
L: Leftovers from Son's lunch - carrot/celery with dressing, cottage cheese, cinamon apples with granola (ooo apple crisp - I should make some!). end of french bread. Oh, and 2 spoons of pb. menses hunger/tension has me feeling bleh!
D: on the go - carrot, watered down koolaid, 2 cold pancakes (boy's book was in the "power night" he received some cute comments."
Fri: finally!!
B: quaker cin apple oatmeal w/granola
L: "wheat" buns w/cheese, carrot, 2 chips (boss brought in new variety), couple slices of her cheese, spoon pb. My lunches are really getting carried away. Must be more disciplined next week!)
D: Fish, rice, green beans (appears all the corn I canned last year has gone bad - luck for my chickens!)
Sat: B: L: D:
Sun: B: L: D:
Mon: B: honey muffins w/almonds (altered my posted recipe by using only ww flour.
L: Bread w/cheese, yogurt, carrot
D: Spaghetti - ground beef, home made tomato sauce, pasta, cheese, goats milk
Tues: B: honey muffin, bran muffin, oatmeal... goodness I feel alot of hunger lately. And feel very drained by the end of the day... Desperately in need of a good shopping trip to fill up on fresh foods!
L: leftover french toast bake with apples - added cheese on top - yum!, cottage cheese, yogurt, coffee - I really don't understand why I am so tired.

a plan

Well here's what I started to do:

1. write a very opinionated, offensive piece - couldn't post it - didn't want certain people to read it, so I didn't feel I should post it.

2. find time during my 24 hour website building experience to post on the night, and other things - didn't have a spare moment.

3. write a lovely Easter piece, or anything because post 1 was sitting in the back of my mind, still undecided... really don't feel comfortable posting it. I think I will polish it up a bit, and leave it here.

So here we are almost 2 months after my last post, and I will try to come up with something interesting for you to read.

Spring is lovely. Rebirth, renewal, and life everywhere you look. The gardens starting to come in, the grass and trees starting to turn green. The babies being born.

This spring we decided to order 50 chicks from McMurray Hatchery. We order their super assorted bargain, which means they can send me 50 of any chicks they have, plus they always offer 1 free "exotic" chick. This year's batch looks like it will be so pretty. We ended up with almost half of them being feather footed! I'm so excited to see what they'll grow to be. Our plan is to keep most of the hens, 1 or 2 roosters, and then let them make their own babies next year! We did lose 8 of them the first 48 hours, and McMurray allows you to be refunded for those loses. I was very disappointed, because they seemed to be all of one breed - I wish I had separated them from the rest. But we now have 43 active 4-week-old chickies in our basement! We even had them vaccinated this year to avoid what happened last year, and they'll stay separated from everyone else until they're 6 or 7 weeks old.

Our cat princess had 3 kittens this week. A gray, an orange, and a cream. Cute little ones.

Then there's Mary. Hubby brought her home when she was 4-weeks-old. She is the cutest little pygmy goat, and is being bottle fed until she is 6-weeks-old. We are hoping this will make her more docile when milking season starts for her. We have plans to use Jimmy our male as her husband, since our other female, Annie seems to be oblivious to his charms.

Then there's Betsy. I stopped milking her in March because her milk was decreasing again, and I knew I had several engagements that would take me away during milking. She didn't seem to mind at all, and actually because quite willing to let us pet her (through the fence, when she was in a pen by herself). We moved her down to the "fields" to help us start clearing it out. She happily munched away at the grass and cattails. We moved her further down, and added in Annie and Jimmy. She was so happy to see Jimmy again. She would cuddle up next to him, so content. She died this week. We don't know why. It was almost as though she died of a heart attack, mid chew. It prompted us to get the goats all dewormed and vaccinated. The vet didn't have any ideas of why. It puts a big dent in your confidence as a farmer when your animals keep dieing.

My 5 adult chickens are doing great. Pip my tom turkey has decided it is his job to keep them all in line, he follows them around, proudly on display, making faces at anyone who thinks they can talk to his girls. And the girls don't seem to mind either. Molly, my old lady - we got her when we lived in Minneapolis. She, is just as sweet and docile as ever. She is still the easiest to catch, and everyone's favorite as she's a bantam cochin (small feather footed - black puffball). Clara is a cream colored English game hen - if I remember correctly. Chicken-Licken is the same size as Clara, but is a mixture of a smaller version of Clara with a Red Star rooster we had, so she has pretty golden feathers and cream accents. Henny-Penny is of the same mixture but more standard sized. Chicken-licken and Henny-penny were both hatched on our farm last year. Then there's Peeves. Peeves was named from the morning I though I heard juvenile crowing down in the chicken pen. I figured we had a rooster on our hands until the morning I discovered the most beautiful green egg in the egg basket! Green, yes truly a lovely, pale green. Easter eggs without the dye. Peeves started laying faithfully last fall, but then stopped as they often do in the winter. I didn't think anything of it until this spring when everyone else was laying, and I still wasn't getting any green eggs. The kids & I had several of our very own "easter egg" hunts trying to figure out where she was laying - I still don't know. But finally I gave up, and put her in the hay shed with Mary, and "forced" her to use the egg basket in there and have successfully begun collecting green eggs again! Yippee. I hope I get more green layers in this batch of chicks... or maybe even some with blue tints!

More to come soon.

Me vs. sleep continued... or catching Betsy trials

In case you were wondering, I did go back to bed for an hour. I've been meaning to stop long enough to finish the post I had in mind that morning. However, my life is full and I just haven't found a spare moment to get back to it.

Betsy my milking pygmy goat is one of the smartest and opinionated goats. If she were only smart, she would have realized that by helping me out, she would get to the grain sooner, she would walk calmly into the house every day, maybe even be waiting for me at milking time. If she were only opinionated, I could count on her hunkering down in one space and just have to drag her to the house to milk her. Instead she fights me creatively. I think she is betting against my persistence, I think she knows that one of these mornings I am going to give up. Each day is a new challenge. Friday morning she ran past me from the "barn", out the door, up the hill, around the hay shed, then around the house, then started down the road. Thursday, she allowed me to catch her by luring her with a bucket of grain. The day before that, I had to crawl under the house on my belly to latch on the leash and drag her out. The day before that, the dogs managed to block her in the barn. You get the picture.

I've been chasing her down every day for almost 3 weeks now, and every time I think she has settled into a pattern, she does something new.

One day she will have been fairly cooperative and stayed in the barn and let me catch her - well rephrase that to say, I managed to catch her. Another she will get away from me. I have tried patiently luring her with grain, but just when it looked like she was going to put her head in, our other female butted her out, and she moved away. (Why couldn't it have been Annie in milk right now?!) I jog around after her, I get the dog, let the dog chase her, we go up and down, back and forth, finally blocked in under the stairs, I drag her into the house. She will no longer go under the rabbit hutch, which is the simplest place to catch her - she knows. Katie, my mama dog is not a natural herder. And Betsy, won't be forced to do anything she doesn't want to do. So very often Katie gets butted, and Katie learns to stay back, so Betsy will run for a bit, then turn around and face off with Katie. And getting Henry involved would mean chancing waking the children up - since he sleeps upstairs with them.

Once she's into the house, she'll now jump up onto the milking stand - very helpful - and then turn around backwards. So I drag her around to stand correctly, and get her latched into the head bars. I've tried putting grain and other things out for her so she'll just put her head in the bars herself - nope.


I then give her the grain, wash her teats, test her milk, remove her grain, grab the milking bowl and put the grain back. 80% of the time she stands calmly while I milk her and she munches up her grain. 20% of the time it's a different story. She'll kick, and when I resist that, she'll sit. sometimes even lying down. And even when she's behaving properly I have to be ready, because at some point she'll finish her grain, or just decide I'm done, and make every attempt to spill the milk. I'm getting better at sensing when this is about to occur. I grab the milk bowl, then her grain bucket, and ignore her while I pour the milk into the storage jar (filtered through a coffee filter.) There were a few time I just let her be done when she threw the temper tantrum, but I don't any longer, I really want to make sure I get it all, so she keeps increasing. So I head back under, only at this point she's really grumpy, and I have to either hold her leg or squeeze under her because she's decided to sit again.

Why do I persist? Cheese. I'm currently yielding 1 cup per day. I can make cheese easily with 4 cups and a little vinegar and salt. I have my third batch currently draining and drying in the fridge. Hard earned cheese - it is so very good.

Me vs. Sleep

I love sleep. Given the opportunity to choose between doing something exciting and a uninterrupted nap, the nap will win most of the time. I also am a night owl. I feel like I can get so much done after 9 or 10pm. Even now as I type, I want nothing more than to crawl back into bed even though I have been up doing farm chores for the last 30 - 60 minutes and am clearly awake. My natural rhythm is to stay up late and sleep in. My life has forced me away from that schedule.

My husband is a drivers ed instructor. He is partially disabled and by our choice, stays home with the kids during the day and works in the evenings. When we moved out here to the country, I had to change my schedule in such a way as to allow him enough time to get to his job. What this has meant is I work 7am - 3pm 5 days per week, and he works 5:30pm - 9:30pm 4 days per week. I have a 1 hour commute, his is 30 minutes. I have to leave my house by 6am to get to the office on time.

I resist life in the mornings. I am not a jump out of bed in the morning kind of girl. I am a hit snooze for at least a half hour every morning, cuddle up next to my warm husband, ignore real life kind of girl. If it were possible to turn off the alarm and just wake up when I'm ready (and not risk the wrath of my boss) I would be the first to sign up! Once out of bed I rush about and run out the door. There has been the occasional morning where I do that in 5 minutes!

Have I mentioned before that we have a little hobby farm?

I have been able to get away with doing farm chores only once per day in the afternoon, usually with my children joining me. My animals have been very obliging and have not seemed to mind only one appearance by me. I bring them fresh water, fill their food dish, bring them table scraps, and check for eggs.

When winter hit it meant a change - I have to stoke the wood stove before leaving for work, and start my car earlier. When we moved our mama dog to the basement with her puppies it meant another change. I had to let her out to potty because if I did not she would whine and bark when I stoked the stove and leave for work. And now I milk a goat...

...to be continued - if I crawl into bed now I can get an hour in before we have to get up to get ready for church.

Milking a Pygmy Goat

When we bought Betsy & Jimmy, Jimmy was about 3 months old and still nursing. We had difficulty getting anywhere near Betsy unless we captured Jimmy first; and Jimmy wasn't easy either. We didn't have a pen, we didn't have anything in place. We caught her once or twice and tried milking her, but never really pursued it. We thought, give her some time, next batch of babies she'll be much gentler because she'll know us better.

As this winter progressed, hubby was fairly certain she was pregnant again, but I wasn't. Everything I have read so far has said it was impossible to tell if goats were pregnant - you had to plan it so you'd know. Well, her son was the only male she had access to, and they were together for a year during which she didn't get pregnant. Just this week I was surprised to fine two beautiful kids (baby goats) that had died.

Death. I always thought that is was silly to have to intervene with the birth of animals. They're animals, they have instincts... both my dog & cat had babies without complications without my intervention. My chickens managed to hatch some babies without intervention. But yes, there is almost always death with the life. I thought I would get used to that - the death. But still anytime I see another animal, especially a baby, I am saddened and I now understand better why people try to control birth a little more. It is very cold outside in Minnesota - it is definitely not ideal for babies.

All that has led to this, a mother goat without kids but with milk! Eureka! I don't have to worry about taking too much milk from the baby, I can just milk her and not worry... Sites I've read say twice a day, 12 hours apart. My first milking was in our basement where we had brought Betsy to clean her up post birth - I did a few pulls, she struggled, hubby helped hold her. We didn't try long.

We kept her in overnight, and the next day hubby let her out because she was only crying. He didn't try to milk her. That evening I trapped her under the rabbit hutch and tried to milk her again. She kept sitting down, and fighting me. Got a little - mostly dirty from the struggle - gave it to the dogs.

Here begins the comedy that is my life:

Stubborn goat + Inexperienced milker/farmer + creativity = the oddest milking set up ever.

Betsy doesn't like people. All my other goats will eat out of my hand - except her. It's nearly impossible to catch her, and like I mentioned before, I don't have pens. During the winter (post harvest to planting season) they are free range. All my animals currently bed down in the summer kitchen - 3 goats, 1 sheep, 1 turkey, 5 chickens, and 2 rabbits in a hutch. The best way I've discovered to catch Betsy is to give them some corn or oats & while she's eating grab her horns. Then once I've got her horns, I can attach a leash to her collar and drag her places. Yes drag. It is impossible to get her to follow me. Even if I shake corn in front of her, or tempt her with bread, she still won't really walk. So between her horns & the leash I drag her across the snowy, icy yard, up a flight of steep steps into our mud room.

Yes, the mud room. After chasing her around the "barn" and catching her, and trying to get her to behave under the rabbit hutch, but not having enough light, and then trying to get her to stand on some boxes in the corner where there is light, I remembered the one place that was fairly small, contained, and a little warm.

I hooked the leash up, around, and through some nails on the wall, put a plastic coffee can under her bum, and put a jar under her. We struggled, we fought, I pushed and I yelled and I gave her treats to get her to stand still. We got a little more milk - it was 5:30 am. That evening I automatically dragged her to the house. The first difference, I have two monkeys following me around, trying to sled a little, and play while I dragged. Daughter's crying because I haven't waited for her. Hubby's trying to leave for work. I get her in the porch, start gathering things together, Daughter comes in then Son. They can't decide if they want to be inside or out...

I was struggling to keep her still on the porch, the coffee can wasn't tall enough, I was crouching down on the floor - these are really short goats, kids were going in & out, hubby left, dogs were fighting and scaring the goat. I tried one of our kitchen chairs to put her food on, and to tie her to, to try to get her to stay - she got her head stuck and started throwing the chair around. I dragged her into the house and tried getting her to stand on two chairs, having the kids help hold the leash, keeping her on the chairs - she kicked and fought until the two chairs separated and she lost her feet in the gap. I was grumpy, and frustrated.

We went back into the mudroom. We tried a different corner - you usually milk from the right, and I had been doing the left. I put food under her nose, I found a taller pot that fit perfectly under her bum, shoved the chair up behind the pot to keep it in place, managed to get a little more milk. YEAH!

This has been our setup ever since. It's been a week since she lost the babies and I still have to drag her up the hill to the mudroom at 5 am & pm. She's giving more milk and we're getting a little better at the milking. She still fights me if I move away from her, so I push myself up against her body and milk by feel only. I am figuring it out - it's easy to milk now when she's full. I milk a little beyond when she's dry to try to stimulate more. On the fourth day we all sampled it, and then I put some in my coffee, and used the remainder for the irish soda bread we had for dinner. I hope to someday be able to make goat cheese, if I can just get enough. I think I'm getting about 1/3 of a cup per milking now.

Oh, and now that I feel like we've got a rhythm and are figuring it out. I find out a friend is bringing us a milking stand. We'll see how it goes.