Goatable quotables. . .

Goats are the ultimate source of success in life. 

Dalai Lama

Well then, we have made it BIG!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On second thought, I think I am more crazy than my goat. 

Remedios Varo

Depends on who you ask. . .

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which goats are not necessary. 

Robert Louis Stevenson

Although both often drive me to drink. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I grew up on a farm. I have seen animals having sex in every position imaginable. Goat on chicken. Chicken on goat. Couple of chickens doing a goat, couple of pigs watching. 

Dwight Schrute, the Office

Capone and his friend, Blackie, aka the penguin chick, all grown up.  The three bucks are responsible for most of the disgusting occurrences around here. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side. 

Yiddish Proverb

Don't approach Queen Elina at all, unless its for a backrub. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I actually would love to live in New York. But I need land; I need space. I'd love to move to a place where I could have a lot of land and a goat. 

Lusia Strus

The longer we're here, the more hermit-like we become. The city is good for only one thing, shopping. OK, two things...eating at a non-chain restaurant. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who has the goats. 

Anon

We are freaking loaded!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep. 

Cowboy Proverb

But it 'do' take great restraint for me not to alter that quote and change 'don't ' to doesn't. I 'seen ' the mistake, does you?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.

Cicero

Precisely 21. Friends...I'm not sure, they keep moving away! Yes, I mean YOU Tiffany Olsick!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A dirt and smelly nanny goats is invariably the victim of dirty and insanitary living quarters and of an owner who is too lazy to groom her.

David Le Roi

They look terribly unhappy don't they?  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All goats are mischievous thieves, gate-crashers, and trespassers. Also they possess individual character, intelligence, and capacity for affection which can only be matched by the dog. Having once become acquainted with them I would as soon farm without a dog as without a goat.

David Mackenzie

Cute, affectionate, addictive.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trumpet in a herd of elephants; crow in the company of cocks; bleat in a flock of goats.

Malayan Proverb

Ma-a--a-a-a-a-a. Speaking goat is a lost art. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Goats cannot live in a heard of leopards.

African Proverb

Look at that face! It will guard us from leopards, coyotes, poorly-contained-neighbors-dogs...more to come on this topic.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Parties who want milk should not seat themselves on a stool in the middle of the field in hope that the cow will back up to them.

Elbert Hubbard

No, they shall first enter the pen, chase the goat, grab its collar, drag it out, lift its front end on to the suddenly terrifying milk stand, hoist its rear end up next, get farted on, possibly pooped on, wash, wash, massage, massage, squirt, squirt, dip, dip, drink. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not every man remembers the name of the cow which supplied him with each drop of milk he has drunk. 

Shmuel Y. Agnon

Magpie, Luna, Molly, Strawberry, Massie, Marigold, Francesca, Luci, Minnie, Macy, Lunetta, Mallory, Elina, Emilene, Echo, Persimmon, Willow, Stella, Lola, Matilda, Cammile, Cassie, Petunia, Serafina

Eeeeew......barf...

From : Chemical & Engineering News Magazine

Volume 90 Issue 52 | p. 48 | Newscripts
Issue Date: December 24, 2012

Before you pass the cheese plate at your next holiday shindig, molecular biologist Christina M. Agapakis wants you to stop and think about why those blocks of dairy goodness smell the way they do.

Along with artist and odor expert Sissel Tolaas of Re_SearchLab, in Berlin, Agapakis recently explored the relationship between emotions and odors perceived by humans (Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol., DOI:10.1016/j.cbpa.2012.10.035). The researchers did this by making their own cheese—literally. They swabbed their armpits, hands, noses, and feet to collect starter bacteria cultures for cheese fermentation.

Typical cheese making involves a Lactobacillus starter culture that ferments the lactose in milk, says Agapakis, now a postdoc at the University of California, Los Angeles. The lactic acid generated during the process curdles the milk, leading to clumps of fat and protein (curds) that eventually get pressed and aged.

When asked what possessed her to make cheese from body microbes rather than Lactobacillus, Agapakis says, “We were thinking about body odors” and why people are disgusted by them. “Then we were struck by the fact that those same odors and the microbes that make them are actually part of cheese,” she adds. For instance, Propionibacterium is used to make Swiss cheese, but it’s also a contributor to armpit aroma.

Knowing that people already accept bacteria in cheese, the pair wondered whether humans would become more comfortable with their bodily microbes and odors after seeing and smelling the connection. The answer, so far, seems mostly to be no. According to Agapakis, when presented with the experiment, people usually say, “You’ve ruined cheese for me forever,” she laughs.

Agapakis, though, assures Newscripts that body cheese isn’t that bad. Armpit cheese is especially pleasant smelling and tastes like a fresh farmer’s cheese, she says. On the other hand, she warns, “I would avoid the foot cheese.”

Happy New Year!

So far, so good in 2013. The holiday rush is over, the eating madness has slowed down, at least somewhat...we even managed to stay up past midnight on New Year's Eve! Silly string and bottle rockets are artfully frozen onto our back porch as proof. A few highlights from the holidays at Capra Lane. . .

Our lovely tree is no longer decor, but goat food! They love the needles and bark, pine is like ginger for goats, a gut-calmer. They are not so careful to eat around the sap, their muzzles are sticky and crusted with bits of hay and grain, but they are all smiling.

Ever been on www.dogshaming.com? Basically it is a forum where you can post a pic of your embarrassed dog wearing a sign proclaiming what he did wrong that day. Some of them are quite funny. On Christmas Eve morning I had my own opportunity to nominate one of our mischievous own. The night before I had made a batch of torrone, Italian nougat candy with almonds that is a real pain in the arse to make. After cutting and individually wrapping them I packed up all but a dozen or so to bring to my parents house. A dozen I put in a dish on our dining room table because we were having guests the following night. I woke up to this. . .

That is Tinder's bed. Full of one dozen wrappers!!! The 5 pound chihuahua, not the 80 lb weimaraner, somehow climbed up chairs to the dining room table, carried them one by one to her bed and unwrapped and ate them. She didn't even try to hide the evidence, the little shit!

She raced immediately into the bedroom and climbed in bed with Rog. She hates Rog. Possibly more than I hate birds. Can't you just feel the guilt emanating from those little bug eyes? Surprisingly there were no after effects from eating half her weight in buttery nut candy.

To end 2012 with a bang, we cut the cheese. 3 months of sniffing, turning, panicking all came down to this. We pulled the two small wheels and one large wheel out of the 'cheese cave'. The large one, as we suspected early on, was too wet and full of 'undesirables' and smelled a little like feet. And death. After disposing of it we cut a small wheel. Everyone stood back, half expecting it to explode, or creatures to crawl out of it, or for it to deflate like the turkey on Christmas Vacation. We bravely sliced down the center and saw this. . .

It was beautiful! Angels were singing, the goats were rejoicing, the sky filled with rainbows and unicorns and shooting stars. We took the next reasonable step. . . we made our husbands taste it. When they asked for seconds, we tasted it too. Not too bad for rookies! The rind is inedible and scary, but the cheese itself is nutty, buttery, salty and firm. I could lie and say I taste the terror of the land, the homegrown alfalfa, the kelp, but I'd be lying. It was good but in my head I was still a little worried about botulism to analyze it furthur. We'd set out to make a tomme, an un-cheddared cheddar, but ended up with this, something reminiscent of a goat parmigianno. Now that we have at least partial success, we are anxious to move forward. So much so that we don't want to wait until spring, soon I'll try to get a hold of some fresh raw cow's milk and try again.

Mystery meat quiz. . . winner gets a ....squirrel nugget! In the past I've only prepared squirrel in squirrel-pot-pie so this time we went the more purist route. Yes, we eat squirrel. No I'm not a drug user. Yes, I realize  it is a rodent and our freezers are stocked with 'normal' meat like chicken, beef, pork, venison and goat. The squirrel reached our table this weekend after a friends' 6 year old had his first hunt here with his dad and Rog, which resulted in one fat squirrel. Carrying the squirrel home, cleaning it, skinning it and repurposing the hide helped him to realize that meat isn't made in the store. It came from somewhere, from something that was hunted or killed by someone to provide food.

A lot of us refuse to entertain a world that requires people to hunt and fish to survive. However, this was the fact of life for most of human existence, only more recently has farming / agriculture technology allowed us to eat a variety of meats without having to chase after them first. Teaching hunting to children as not just a sport, but as necessity can also induce a sense of reverence for the meat they consume. Learning to hunt wild game will inadvertently teach the child about the behavioral habits of the chosen target, the necessity of controlling the population of predatory species as well as a respect for nature in general. During the brief and successful squirrel hunt, Sam learned about proper handling of a weapon, to respect the animal that was killed by not wasting it by killing simply for sport but by using the meat to feed our families, secondly, cleaning and tanning the hide for warmth and thirdly, he gained confidence by being able to provide this to his siblings and parents.  He is 6, after all, the highlight of the whole experience was being promised the fluffy tail that will someday adorn his cub scouts cap!

My Holiday Wish List

1. A Pressure Canner

My 2012 resolution to stop freezing and start canning never got off the ground.  But the freezer is chock full of goodies! I was recently reminded of how easy it is to can, especially milk. The gallons of milk frozen and stuffed into every crevice in my freezer would be gone and I could simply fill the shelves with quarts of pasteurized, canned milk that only takes about 10 minutes to process. Goal for 2013.

2. A Giant Mudroom

Not white, for sure. A place where dripping muddy boots can leave puddles on the floor, where bucky smelling clothes can hang alone without contaminating our 'good' clothes. Where hay bits and goat berries can fall off our overalls without getting dragged into the house. Maybe in the next house. After I win the lottery.

3. An Amish boy with a pitchfork.

They work hard. We need help!

Although, substitutions can be negotiated on a case by case basis.   Good thing Rog never reads this blog.  I found these on ebay, if you select priority shipping they will get here before Christmas.

4. Hay. Alfalfa. Green, lush, non-shitty hay.

Prices are high, quality is low. I swear the goats give me the stink eye when I feed them.  Were spending 3 x normal  expenses to get poor quality hay. Next year we will load up early, drought or no drought. We did, however, just trade some cow-quality round bales for a new haywagon, so its not all bad. 

5. A maid, preferably live-in.

Someone who enjoys following us around and picking up hay bits and wiping up dog prints and nose prints.  A bonus would be if he/she enjoyed picking hay bits out of our hair and clothes as well. Also who is specially skilled to clean the drips of milk that inevitably seem to spill between the glass layers on my oven door where they would otherwise stay for all eternity. Also is passionate about cleaning milk bottles and plastic goat nipples. 

6. A milkroom

Shiny, clean and smells like bleach. No flies, climate controlled, hot water, oooh! and a window.  I'd get rid of my plastic hawk that currently hangs above our milk stands to keep the tresspassing birds off of them. Really I'd settle for a canvas sheet / wall. And maybe some concrete on the floor. Or maybe Rog will let me move his hunting blind in to the barn and I'll sit in it. 

7. A sickle bar mower

This is for Rog. The last item to make us self-sufficient at baling our own hay and not having to rely on a neighbor to cut for us. Selfishly its for me too, so I can stop hearing about it and stop finding issues of farm and dairy and farm tek littered with post-it notes and page markers. 

8. Chickens

Why on Earth would a girl who hates birds be asking for chickens?  Because I'm asking for chickens that don't peck eggs and eat them. And don't perform daily Houdini escapes to poop in our bucks' water buckets. Who roost on roosts, not Capone's back. Who lay eggs in nest boxes, not hay racks. Only a select few are misbehaving, I'm going to start picking them off soon...

9. Head Gear

For when I get brave and try to catch the chickens. And to protect me from the  little wrens that made a nest in the loft in our buck barn and scare the pants off me daily when they dive bomb my head. Also for when Hemi tries to attack my hair. 

 10. A joyful and healthy 2013 for yours and ours.

Time flies

Today = 2 months until kids start arriving. Yikes! I feel like I just bred them! As it stands now I have 17 bred does, but I just decided to post a couple for sale so we will see. If they weren't so stinking cute I wouldn't put myself through this every year...

We have some breedings we are excited about this year, our 2012 doe kids are all quite strong, so we are hoping to fine tune things this year. In the Alpines, We have the majority bred to Bugs and our first Bugs daughters, Sage and Lottie will freshen this year and we can get a better indication of what he can produce. We bred both Cammile and Sage to *B Windrush Farms Kona Samson, whose dam, SGCH Windrush Farms IRS Saffron is just beautiful and finished high at Nationals the past few years.

In the Saanens, we bred to Mickey again, I didn't dislike any of his kids so far and I want more of them! Mona Lisa was bred to Bugs out of convenience. She will be a first freshener this year and after we evaluate her udder we can choose a more "planned" breeding next year.

For the Toggs, Elina, Emilene and Macy were all bred to Capone. Now that we are off his "all buckling" streak, I admire and have retained most of his daughters and now we will have a few more. Mallory is breds to Rowe's Fairtrade Freetrade, who will hopefully pass down more lovely Rowe genes that she received from Macy's sire, Rowe's Falcon Redbird. Esmerelda and May were both bred to GGF Alpha Snowbuck's Jerry, Snowbuck has several impressive progeny and Jerry's dam, Jayla, is beautiful as well.

Soon anticipation will turn to excitement, then to exhaustion as they arrive by the dozen! For the coming weeks I'm going to enjoy the reprieve from milking and keep stockpiling hay. I am not overly excited about pulling out the bucket feeders and the many many hoses that come with them...

Prepping and waiting for winter

Another winter like last year would certainly make my commute more enjoyable. Probably too good to be true though...

A mild winter thus far follows a summer drought and results in hay prices so high that my shoe collecting is on hold. Gotta feed those expectant momma goats well so every week we search for usable alfalfa and grass. We are down to 2 months until the spring babies start arriving, it seems to go faster every year. Just last week we cheered in celebration of hanging up the milk lines for good as we finally managed to get all of the does dried off so they can store their energy and focus on their growing kids. Based on the growing bellies in the barn we will have plenty of multiples this year!

So the turkey newbies screwed up...we realized a couple months back that we had two males, they strutted and displayed their feathers proudly. So we assumed a lot of their girth was just that .... feathers. They dressed out at 35 lbs...each! That's a lot of turkey for a household of two, especially since we were only planning on 6 for dinner. Luckily we had the foresight to have them halved, planning to smoke some and roast some. Half went to the neighbors who kindly pointed out that the turkey leg would be plenty to feed them both. Half went in the freezer for Christmas-time. The two smallest halves went in to a brine for Thanksgiving dinner, the necks made an extremely rich gravy, they were so large I had to put them in the crock pot overnight. Here is a wing on a standard 10" dinner plate. Needless to say we had plenty of leftovers.

Post holiday pig-outs gave way to hunting and gathering mode. Spreading manure to boost next years harvest, turning over the garden and planting rye grass to serve as mulch for next years veggies. We harvested the last few carrots of the year.

The first deer hunting day of the year was a success for Rog and we quickly processed the doe for the freezer. As soon as we find some spare time we plan to load the smoker with homemade jerky and sausage made from the venison, goat meat and ground piggy-pork.

We have to take time to enjoy the few remaining pleasant nights before the winter dull settles in. We may not see the sun until May!

More evidence that we are destined to eat cheese...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121212134044.htm

Dec. 12, 2012 — The first unequivocal evidence that humans in prehistoric Northern Europe made cheese more than 7,000 years ago is described in research by an international team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, published December 12 in Nature.