Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Milking the goats

Everyday the dogs and I set out to milk our goats Penny and Cupcake.  Right now we are only doing once a day milking and I try to get out there at around noon each day.

Here’s Penny in the stand with Bella patiently waiting for milk.  I use a small vacuum pump on Penny so milking her is quite fast.  She’s such a baby and she likes to hang around and get petted before going back into the run.

1Penny Bella

After washing her udder I squirt a few drops of milk into a container and give it to the dogs.  Mini, Popi, Chicky, and Bella have all learned to share, and believe me THAT was not easy for any of them!

3Goats Milk

After finishing up with Penny in comes Cupcake.  She’s quite a character.  I can’t use my little machine on her and have to handmilk her.  It seems no one knows how to handmilk but me even tho’ I’ve tried to show everyone in this house how to do it!

2Cupcake

Between Cupcake and Penny I’m getting about 1.5 quarts per day from them both.  I use a coffee filter to strain out any impurities. 

4Goats Milk

After finishing up the milking and collecting the eggs from the chicken coop I made Gummy Treats for Jevan.  I really hope he likes them because they are sugar free!  I made them with xylitol.  Here’s a picture of them in the dehydrator.

5Gummy Treats 3(3)

6 comments:

David T. Macknet said...

Ooh! I hope Jevan exercises some restraint on those gummy treats - xylitol can be a bit of a laxative, if taken in quantity!

Thanks for the view into things, and glad to see you back online!

KansasA said...

We've been using Xylitol for quite sometime so he's pretty used to it now.
Yes back for a bit, not sure how long! :) Nice seeing you David, how's Tanita doing?

David T. Macknet said...

We're both well, moving towards more of a low-carb diet so not much baking going on. Both of us are just working, really.

We've found that mixing sugars works best, because xylitol seems to only get sweet to a point and it needs a boost from something else. Trying to find that perfect balance, so that things are sweet enough. It's tough!

tanita✿davis said...

Hi Kansas! I'm here!
You'll see more of us blogging as gardening season kicks off - we have Plans.

So, that gummy recipe - is it a milk-based sweet, like a caramel, but ... not? If so, interesting! I'm all about the new/interesting desserts. I have a recipe for chickpea blonde brownies that I'm hanging onto - mashed beans and agave sweetened with chocolate chips... yum!

KansasA said...

Hi Tanita! No it's not milk based but made from Clear-jel and fruit juice. Here's a link to the recipe: http://www.sbcanning.com/2013/09/clear-jel-for-making-gummy-drops.html
Oooo the chickpea blonde brownies sound good! I bought a bunch of agave and keep swinging back and forth as to "is it good for us or not?" lol

tanita✿davis said...

Oh, cool. Great use of a dehydrator.

The brownies are here. I'm still on the fence about agave, too - we tend to use a tiny bit of raw honey these days and then a stevia/erythritol blend like Truvia or a little of whatever xylitol blend we have on hand to kick the sweetness up a notch. The biggest adjustment was to dial back our taste buds - it's taken awhile, but we really less refined sugar, so yay.