Milk Recipes and More Baby Goats

We've got oodles of milk thanks to our four lovely ladies.

Fresh Raw Goat's Milk

We are getting roughly 3 of these full jars a day (only milking when the udder is full, so that there is plenty for the kids) The fresh milk is the milk that we drink. Part of the reason for having dairy goats is because don't subscribe to a power company and we choose not to use a refrigerator. Instead we drink milk that is fresh from well cared for animals and has not been pasteurized.

I came across this fabulous and easy buttermilk Boston Brown Bread Muffin recipe on Thimbleanna's blog. There are lots of great recipes over there of the kind of food I like to make!

 I make buttermilk by letting raw milk develop it's natural culture in a warm place for 24 hours.

(Sometimes I do pasteurize the milk first, like for kefir and yoghurt, which are made by adding a pre-packaged culture that you can get at health food stores. You can pasteurize raw milk at home just by heating it in a saucepan to about 185-190 degrees Fahrenheit. I also do this when I make cheese.)

Many recipes call for milk or buttermilk - biscuits, muffins, cakes, cream of vegetable soups, and  homemade cheese. The whole and naturally homogenized goat's milk adds beautiful texture and protein.

Because I have been getting up really early I have been eating a hearty breakfast. Goats milk is in the biscuits and the omelet. It was delicious.

All four of our goats have now had their babies. Two sets of twins (to Bessie and Firefly) and two lone billy goats to Ken and Nemo, who each had singletons. Total count is three doelings and three boys.

Bessie with her two kids, the twin does.

There was a small miracle as Bessie Mae came to accept and nurse her babies on their 4th day. I penned them up together and I forced her to Nurse them by tying her up at the collar and holding her back leg or legs. I also was bottle feeding them to make sure they were getting enough milk, and when Bessie finally smelled her milk in their poo she properly regarded them for the first time. Sounds bizarre, right? But it was magic.

Last night I witnessed Firefly's perfect birth of two kids.

She makes a great mom (did a great job licking the kids clean and then even lifted her leg up to help them nurse) And her babies are so cute. They are my only kids this year from the black haired line, all the rest are Barney's. (I blogged about him on Knits n Goats).

My little guy was a good shepherd and he thought the goats were hilarious as they nibbled his fingers, and sneezed on him.

I think he enjoyed watching them drink from a bottle just like him.

It was wonderful to have the experience of bottle feeding and I am so glad I got to do it but still very grateful that their mother is now doing her job.

I even took a selfie with the elf baby. My little gal pal. This goat has LaMancha ears - my favorite breed for their quietness and sweet temperment. (Nubians are loud!)

 Still so much sewing to do - and I need to start garden seeds.

Baby Spinach Seed Starts

Onions, Leeks, Tomatoes and Peppers, and greens can all be started now, in little trays of dirt, inside on a sunny windowsill. I wait until the first week of April to sow seeds directly into the ground -and even then only for cold hardy rootcrops like beets, carrots, and parsnips.

I want to host a crafty give-away to drum up comments on my blog. Any requests? A knit creation? A quilted bag? Some fabric? A beautiful tea cozy?

I am a grandma trapped in a 26 year old's body.

What a whirlwind week. 

Just Kidding! Get it?