Goat Milk Euphoria!

Three cheers for goat milk!  You wouldn't believe how hard Peaches and I have worked for this skimpy half cup of milk.  Someone's helpful advise was to plan on getting to drink zero milk during the first week of learning to milk.  She said during that week I would be so frustrated I would question my life choices!  Ha! 

The first time I tried to milk Peaches I got about a tablespoon of milk in my bucket, but I also got a dirty goat foot.  Peaches probably got sore teats.  The second time I tried, I managed to squeeze more than a tablespoon out, but didn't catch most of it in my bucket.  It's hard to aim those things!  

It's not funny, Rufus!  By our third try, I was happy to get the half cup and no goat feet.  Whew!  Peaches and I were both pleased with our progress.  

Considering what I'm doing to her, Peaches has been very patient as she teaches me.  I've learned that I can sit on her right side, but not her left.  I can maneuver her right hind leg, but I'm not to touch the left.  I'm permitted to wash, dry, and squeeze her as long as she has something tasty to eat, but if she runs out of food or isn't hungry, she loses her patience and kicks her feet and blocks me.  It's best if I don't pull her hair.  I see now why people shave the udder.  

This morning, which would be milking session number five, I barely got a half cup because Peaches wasn't hungry and would not hold still.  She didn't even want to get on the milk stand.  Her belly was still sticking straight out on both sides from gorging herself twice, the day before, plus eating a whole basket of hay.  I've been filling the food dish on the milk stand with alfalfa pellets, beet root pellets, and sunflower seeds, and then mixing in a hand full of dried sea kelp and a small scoop of probiotic powder.   When she is hungry, she snuffles up the food as fast as a vacuum, so I've probably over fed her to give myself more time milking.  

I think as I get faster, and as Peaches body recognizes the need for more milk production, I will be able to get more than a half cup at a time.

There's a lot of satisfaction with that half cup of goat milk, even if there aren't many calories.

The first time I walked back to the kitchen with clean milk in my bucket, I stopped for a moment just to savor the moment.  I looked around at the blue sky and green grass, and listened to the birds in the air and the chickens on the ground and I thought - I'm doing it.  I'm raising animals and plants for my food, and it's fun, and it's clean, and it's spring!  Goat milk induced euphoria.

It's not gross, Rufus!  I filtered my meager milk serving, and tried to talk myself into drinking it.  Go ahead, Rain, drink some fluid you squeezed from a goat.  Do it!  I finally poured it into a crystal glass.  Everything looks appetizing when it's served in a fancy glass.  The very first taste had a goat milk flavor that is different than cow milk. It was very faint, and I couldn't even detect the flavor on the second or third drink.  The second time I got enough milk to drink, I chilled it first and shared it with Brandon.  There was no goat milk flavor once it was chilled, and Brandon said it tastes just like milk to him.  After a few minutes he said it might have a different after-flavor than cow milk.