Category Archives: Milking

Tuesday Twister ~ December 8, 2009 ~ Celebrating Mom's and Baba's Birthdays!

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First of all, sorry for not posting until Thursday! Our water pipes froze and we’ve been out of water for two days. Last night, thank God, we fixed it! :D The pipes leading to the house from the barn froze, so we could still get water if we carted up pots of it from the barn (which we did).

Spelt Lemon Cake: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND BABA!!! :D I made this cake for their birthdays this weekend. It was really good. Mom made vanilla ice cream with Jersey cream and together, it made a delicious dessert! I doubled the syrup and used plain Rapadura instead of powdered. The result was a slightly firmer cake.

Milking: I’ve stopped milking Paisley completely. Gingham is giving around 3 1/2 to 4 cups per milking. And Pegs… *drumroll* …is giving 6!!!! It’s amazing. 6 cups is the highest yield she’s given so far. YAY!

Buttercup went in heat for the first time over the weekend. :D Daisy and Piper haven’t done anything…yet.

Haniya

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister Blog Carnival at gnowfglins.com.

Tuesday Twister ~ December 1, 2009 ~ No-Bake Cookies, Quiche

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No-Bake cookies: I’m practicing for the Gallery of Christmas Cookies at gnowfglins.com. :D I had to soak and dehydrate the oats called for in this recipe, because that’s the only way I can eat them. Mom and I soaked/dehydrated about 13 cups of oats because we both need them! The recipe said to scoop heaping spoonfuls of cookie onto the baking sheet. I followed that exactly. ;) Mom ended up having me cut the cookies into halves because they were so big! Above is a one of the monster cookies. The picture really doesn’t do it justice.

Quiche: Mom has made quiche almost every Sunday for a month or so. This week I made Sunday’s lunch for her! The quiche turned out very good. We enjoyed eating it while watching a 40 min. episode of Survivorman. ;)

Thanksgiving Menu: I made my stuffing for Thanksgiving! I ended up lessening the amount of salt originally called for in the recipe.

Milking: Pegs, Paisley, and Fiddlesticks have all been in heat the past week. Pegs’ milk yield went down several cups when she was in heat and is now climbing again. Paisley was in heat Saturday night through yesterday night. She and Fiddlesticks were in heat at the same time and Paisley just STALKED Fiddlesticks. We ended up locking Fiddlesticks in the babies’ stall with some hay because she was getting worn out. Baba says if we hadn’t, Fiddlesticks could have died. :( Poor thing. The first thing she did was lay down and fall asleep!

Haniya

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister Blog Carnival at gnowfglins.com.

Tuesday Twister ~ November 24, 2009 ~ Sprouted Biscuits, Sprouted Muffins, Soaked Muffins

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Sprouted Biscuits: I made these yesterday so we would have something to eat today (when we go to town). They were really simple! I think the hardest thing was grinding the spelt flour — and that was only hard on your ears! ;)

Sprouted Muffins: These I made yesterday, too. In fact, everything in the gallery I made yesterday! :D I followed Mom’s recipe almost exactly, except I left out the add-in of chopped nuts because they’re hard on my braces. But the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, raisins, and coconut all made it into the bowl!

Soaked Muffins: Everything went all right until these. ;) Because I had to soak the whole wheat pastry flour, rolled oats, raw milk, and apple cider vinegar (or Kombucha), I got mixed up with using two bowls (one for the eggs and Rapadura, one for the spices and flour — basically one for liquids and one for solids). I mean, the oats and wheat have vinegar and milk with them, so I just dump the eggs and Rapadura in with them, right? Anyway, Mom came over and set it all straight — like moms always do!

Recipe book: Mom helped me set up a recipe book! At the moment I have the muffins and biscuit recipes above, the vanilla frosting recipe, and the eggnog recipe. :D

Milking: (I’m going to make this a permanent ‘column’ in here.) Pegs is giving almost 6 cups every morning! :D GO PEGS! Gingham is giving around 4. Paisley isn’t doing too good. The bumps have definitely spread to the good teat. We’re drying her up (just milking her enough to relieve the pressure on her udder) and probably only going to use her for breeding from now on.

Haniya

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister Blog Carnival at gnowfglins.com.

The OUTSTANDING Milk Yield of Pegs

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Pegs gave 5 1/2 cups this morning! :o Amazing! She was at 2 cups a couple weeks ago!

Gingham used to be our best milker…but now Pegs is. Gingham normally has 4 cups every milking.

Paisley isn’t doing too good. We’re drying her up because she’s got some kind of virus on her udder. Her bad (left) teat has external bumps over the top of it and now her good (right) teat has a bump over it, too. :( Now we’re only giving her half her normal serving of grain and only milking half of what’s in her udder.

Haniya

Tuesday Twister ~ November 17, 2009

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It’s not September, not October, but NOVEMBER! It’s been forever since I’ve posted a Tuesday Twister. Hopefully I’ll be able to make that up next week.

Vanilla frosting: I made this last night to go over our pumpkin pie! :D It’s super easy if you have a strong arm (and apparently I don’t, as you will find out ;) ). When I started blending everything together, it would not get smooth, like you’d want it. The problem was my getting little flakes of coconut oil out of the bucket instead of chunks, like Mom does. So she redid my frosting while I was out milking the goats with Naomi. :D It tasted awesome with the pumpkin pie.

Dishes, dishes, dishes: Dishes make the majority of why I’ve been in the kitchen this week! Our dishwasher broke down in October and we kids have been doing the dishes ever since. Naomi and I get up every morning at milking time (7 am) and do the previous evening’s dishes (including the evening milking jars and strainer) while Mikah and Mom milk the goats. Then Mikah (helped by Mom a lot of the time) does the breakfast and lunch dishes sometime in the afternoon. Naomi and I then milk Gingham and Paisley at 6 every night. So everything works out! :D

Milking: I’m milking Paisley now, while Naomi milks Gingham. Paisley gives about 2 1\2 to 3 cups while Gingham normally gives4 cups. Ever since our trip to Montana, they haven’t given as much. Paisley’s bad left teat also has bumps over it. She is more irritated during milking and kicks a bunch.

Haniya

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister Blog Carnival at gnowfglins.com.

Milking Statistics

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Just thought I’d tell everyone how the milking is going!

Naomi is milking Honey and is getting a little less than 4 cups a day — and Honey is only milked in the morning because of Bunny, her baby. Mom is getting 4 cups from Paisley every milking and 5 to 6 cups from Gingham every milking. All of this totals to about a gallon and a quart a day! Mom has feta cheese aging, cottage cheese aging, cream cheese and butter, and then ricotta (which doesn’t taste good and looks a little brown; Mom uses it for cooking).

Some friends are coming over today to work again. :D They’re the same ones who have been coming over and working for us for the past couple months. They should be here soon…

Haniya

P.S. Oh yes, and my mouth is totally healed! It’s not sore anymore — except when I put on my neck gear every night…which DOES hurt. :( Last night I didn’t get to sleep until 11 or so. I’m really tired.

Over the Hills and Around the House: Fencing

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We’re finally putting up fencing around the house/barn/driveway! :D Baba is going to work on it every night while it’s still light for two or so hours. By Thursday it’ll be done…we think… Anyway, I can’t wait for it to be done!

Next Wednesday I’m getting braces. The day after tomorrow I’m going in to get my lower braces fitted and stuff (don’t know exactly what’s going to be done). Next week, though, everything is going on. Yikes.

Naomi is milking Honey, again. She’s giving us about 3 cups a day! :D

Oh, yes, and one more thing before a sign off. Trouble has a new coat! ;) He shedded yesterday. Apparently, he’s some strange breed of snake/steer. ;) Just kidding! He’s been having really bad fly problems so we smeared pine tar all over him. No flies anymore! ;)

Mom, Naomi, and I are going to a wedding on the 27th. Our singing teacher is getting married. :)

Haniya

Thunderstorm

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Last night we had a thunderstorm! :D I counted 165+ flashes of far-off lighting and actually saw 10 bolts of lightning. The thunder was so loud. We were in the barn, milking Gingham and Paisley and at first the thunder was far off and we couldn’t see any lightning. Gradually, the thunder grew louder until we saw flashes of lightning off in the distance. We started to see bolts of lightning. At one particularly loud thunderclap, Daisy burrowed into Belle’s side! The rain started to pour down — at first just a drizzle but then harder and faster. The thunder sounded as if someone was pounding on a drum right in your ear. Naomi and I screamed a bunch and scared the goats. ;) Ooops. The goats were all in the barn ’cause they don’t like the rain. Their ears were pricked up and alert. When the milking was done, we had to drag the goats out of the milking section of the barn and into the sleeping area of the barn. They really didn’t like that. ;) Then we had to close the gate and dash up to the house — oh, yes, and I forgot to mention that I was in a tank-top and shorts the whole time. I was drenched by the time it was over. Baba had to go to work in the night. He still isn’t back. :(

Haniya

Piano Recital

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daisyTomorrow Naomi and I are going to play a couple songs in a recital. Our teacher and her students are the only ones that will be going, but I’m still nervous! The song I’m playing is called “Rainy Day Blues” by Martin Cuellar. Naomi’s playing “Arkansas Traveler”.

We’ve got sick goats. Belle and one of her babies have pneumonia. We bought some antibiotics — believe me, we really didn’t want to, but Belle’s baby was going to die if we didn’t do something — on Tuesday. Belle bawled when we gave them to her. I was in tears. :cry: Daisy, Belle’s baby, took the antibiotic pretty well. She yelled a little bit but she had a lot less medicine.

Bunny, Honey’s baby, might be sick. :( We’ve found out that goats get sick all the time, especially when they’ve just been moved and are stressed out. So. Let’s pray no one else gets sick. Naomi and I are bottle-feeding Belle’s babies to make sure they get enough milk. Mom’s stopped milking Belle and Honey so they can feed their babies. Paisley and Gingham we’re milking three times a day to get their milk yield up. This morning Ginham gave us just shy of four cups while Paisley gave us about three cups. :D Yay!

Haniya

P.S. The picture above is of Daisy when she first got pnuemonia. She is much worse now. As you can see, she was just standing around, not eating. Now she doesn’t even stand, she lays down. :( Poor goat.

How the Milking is Going

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daisy-lookingWell, we just got back from milking our four milking does. Paisley and Gingham weren’t very good today. Neither were Belle or Honey. :( We got 12 cups today, but still, that’s good! We’ve got tons of milk in the fridge. Mom made chocolate ice-cream with strawberries in it for desert last night. That was good… :D All of us had a full cup of milk yesterday and we still had ice-cream and had another full cup of milk with the ice-cream. Yesterday was awesome. ;)
Haniya