they got our goat!

today was the first day that emily and i were to milk the goats alone (shiver). we had both seen it done several times before and helped out, but we were never left to run the whole show. now, let me qualify: we weren't abandoned through the process. jesus, the regular milker (and resident comedian) and ivan were there to observe and help out if things went amiss. and so it began!

there are 12 goats, and the milking goes as follows. the goats are herded into a small pen that is enclosed with an electric fence. we take out one at a time, "strip" the utter with our hand (which means to basically start the milking manually, get it flowing), then hook the goat up to a milking machine that does the rest. at this point we give the goats a little treat. (my favorite part) when the milking is done, we put the goat back in the electric pen and take another out. eventually we put the goats that we have milked back in their pasture so that we are able to keep better track of who has been milked and who hasn't. so this is the basic overall process.

jesus who has been doing this for 3 years twice a day has a great system and is fast. the goats know him and listen to him. so we weren't concerned when we started milking. the biggest problem at first was the stripping part. its really hard to milk by hand at first; you really need to get a feel for it. by the end of the morning though both emily and i were master strippers, woohoo. if only we knew the mess that would follow.

at first, things were slow and clunky, but we hit our stride. things were going well until we had 3 goats left: peanut, red mamma, and baby. (i know, i know). red mamma has an utter problem so her milk is bad; baby is the goat whose baby goat just died, so we don't keep her milk either. those two goats always are the last to be milked and we give it to the dogs. peanut's milk is fine, so we were going to milk her, empty the machine and then do the last two. well, right before we milked peanut we were milking brownie, and i noticed suddenly jesus was running toward the pen! i was totally confused but then saw that peanut somehow totally hopped over the fence and escaped! luckily she didn't run off, but she could have. he moved her back but a few minutes later i saw her on her hind legs chewing leaves HIGH up on a tree branch. i should mention that peanut is an odd goat; she's very sociable and pretty wild. generally, the goats we have don't act like this. after a few leaf nibbles both emily and i knew she was gonna make a run for it again and she did. ahhh! i tried to catch her but jesus ultimately saved the day again.

finally, after all of this we managed to milk peanut, then put her back into the pasture. now we had baby. she's not used to being milked, so our routine isn't familiar to her. she needs to be picked up and put on the platform; however, she has long horns, nails, and is quite large. god bless little emily for trying to accomplish this. she nearly picked her up but then i think the goat stepped on her and cut her finger. bad. she went inside to take care of it while i tried to coax baby up to the platform with grain. nope. suddenly, in the meantime, red mamma who was in the holding area went under the electric fence into the pasture! thankfully ivan was there to go grab her. afterwards he came and put baby on the platform. we milked her, and as we were finishing, guess what? red mamma escaped again!! (I just realized how long I've been writing about this and I'm getting concerned about myself). this time, red mamma had NO interest in being caught and put back in the pen. ivan was running around the pasture trying to catch her, lasso in hand, but she knew what he was up to. he tried to station emily and I so that we could prevent her from going further into the pasture, but as soon as red mamma turned on her jets and began to charge at us, we rolled out the red carpet and stepped aside. he finally had to fool them by giving them hay and managed to trap red mamma this way, thankfully.

so red mamma was being milked and it was almost 8:30. milking takes jesus usually about 1.5 hrs; took us 2.5. we were exhausted and wiped out with all of the escapes and emotion. finally, as I was putting red mamma back in the pasture, I somehow tripped over the milking machine and completely lost my balance. picture it: lasso around goat head in one hand, me teetering and almost about to fall on a milking machine, slab of solid wood and metal, and an inevitable array of injuries.

how I managed to regain my balance is beyond me, but it happened. i returned our last goat to her pen, cleaned up and called it a morning.

so, a mess it was, but we did it. john says that when the goats don't know you, they push the boundaries a little to see what they can get away with. well today, push they did.

somehow we need to figure out how to do this without being abused again.

regardless, i really liked the process of doing this. i think i'd to do it fully by hand to see what that's like. there's something very artesian about it that i enjoy. and i really, really like knowing what goes into milking goats and using that milk for cheesemaking or yogurt making or just simply drinking. it gives those products at the market much more character and importance, and us so much more appreciation.