2013 Nigerian Dwarf Kidding

 We are making preparations for our 5th kidding season!  With seven expecting Nigerian Dwarf does, 2013 will be our largest and most diverse group of kid goats, with outstanding genetics including progenitors from Old Mountain Farm, Rosasharn, PromidedLand, Sugar Moon, Dragonfly, and Twin Creeks!  We will have a fairly even mixture of first, second and third fresheners.  Based on previous seasons and reasonable expectations, I expect to have 16 bundles of joy bouncing around in the barn. 

Milking time has been temporarily suspended for our girls as their bellies grow and bodies miraculously adjust to the gift that is pregnancy.  They will receive an extra copper bolus, shot of selenium/vit-E, and an annual booster vaccination for CD&T, within the next several months.

March will usher in another three weeks of lost sleep over nighttime pregnancy checks, birthing participation, and hand-scrubbing goo out of all my good linens.  It will be a great month of hard labor and much love.  May will bring a work reprieve and sadness as we see our babies to new homes.  Summer-time is filled with milking and cheesemaking, fall breeding and finally a winter rest.  Which is where we are now.  It's a wonderful cycle that I am eager to repeat.
  
Join me and many others in raising these curious, intelligent companions, who support your homestead dairy.  Our kids are weaned from unpasteurized Nigerian milk (CAE-free herd) at 8 weeks and eating hay/grain supplemented by kelp and minerals.  They are also disbudded (no horns), vaccinated against CD&T (Rabies is optional), and castrated (for wethers).  Does and bucklings are tattooed for registration purposes.  I demonstrate hoof trimming and vaccinations (subcutaneous injections) to new goat owners and offer full support after kids go home.    

photo courtesy M. Mesler

If you are interested in reserving a kid(s) in 2013, please send me an email capsandcreamery@gmail.com.  We accept verbal reservations until all of our kids are born.  After which, a deposit is required to hold a kid until weaning age.  We offer a breeding service, at reduced rates and optional boarding for doe kid customers!  I will also demonstrate milking and cheesemaking to customers, when the time comes.

For now, though, I will enjoy my break along with the hard cheeses and frozen chevre that I've been fortunate to set aside for our winter meals.  Happy Solstice!!

Guest Blogger Postings

The newly established Vermont Farm and Garden Exchange has been a wonderful source of information and opportunities to barter farm items, but most of all it has introduced me to extremely generous folks with interests similar to my own.  Every locality should have such a dependable resource and connection to their community such as this, in my opinion.  Being graciously offered the opportunity to contribute to their blog forum, I have written two posts, which I will reference (and provide links) here instead of repeating the information.  The first was an introductory approach to making a soft cheese from fresh goat's milk entitled "Easy Home Cheesy" and the second, a cursory guide to processing acorns for human consumption named "Robbing Squirrels".  I hope you will enjoy them both.

I have many posts to contribute to my own blog.  At the moment, however, the time dedicated to actually tending a farm is keeping me off the computer, temporarily.

Busy Days

May is turning into a blur.  We have been that busy.  I admit there is something addictive to accomplishing an overfull workload in a short amount of time.  I can only conclude that there is some evolutionary advantage to multitasking the day away that fuels our innate urge to do more.  It may be best described as squirrel-like behavior, darting frantically across an expanse furrowing nuts so quickly away that one has little chance to eat.  I am certain that it is genetic, if not contagious.  My sister exhibits this phenotype, working full time at a high-stress job with three young kids in sports while running marathons on the weekend.  I spin my wheels in other ways, but come nowhere close to her beloved insanity.

This month began with sending the goat kids to new happy homes, which meant weaning, deworming, hoof trimming, shots and demonstrations to new owners.  Last week we added two new goats to the herd, a yearling doe from remarkable milk lines and a week-old buckling with even better potential.  It's good to add some genetic diversity every year.  I have no interest nor enough knowledge to begin line-breeding (inbreeding) our animals.  We want to improve our foundation herd by breeding to the best dairy quality animals that we can afford.  Of course that sounds like an advertising line, but I want to be a responsible breeder with an eye on conformation and dairy potential.  I want our girls to have what it takes to win in the show ring, if my daughters ever chose to exhibit with 4-H.

We will pick up our piglets this week.  Of course, there's much work that still needs to be done before then.  I converted our old milking stand (formerly a failed garden cart) into a crate to transport the piggies.  Today, I will finish installing their electric fence and get the food/water stations ready.  The orchards in our area have apple pumice for the taking, so I'll plan a dumpster dive adventure for the two little boars.  As a heritage cross of Tamworth/Berkshire/Old Spot, they will grow until slaughter in November.  I have 4 gallons of whey waiting for their arrival and at least three households worth of compostables.  Any volunteer pumpkin or mystery squash plants get transplanted in the piggie patch for fall eating.  Having the pigs will also push me to set aside time for more homebrewing, since any spent grain will find its way into their slop trough.  

Every two or three days, we spend the morning hours making a hard cheese.  My goal is to put up 24 2.5 kilo rounds of Gouda for our annual consumption.  We really cannot eat any more than this without damaging arteries.  We've been dairying for two months and with seven 3 lb wheels of cheese, I'm already a third of the way to this goal.  Any excess cheese will be used to barter for other edibles we've either run out of or would like to have.  We have exchanged cheese for perennial starts of sunchokes, horseradish, rhubarb, pickles, garlic, and a half pint of cassis, which went entirely too fast. 

In the meantime, we have also achieved two long-term goals by starting an outdoor mushroom patch and fishing Lake Champlain from a boat.  I'll post some other time about the mushrooms, if any chance to grow.  Taking the girls (4.5 and 1.5 yrs old) fishing in a canoe was a better adventure and provided a solid dinner of yellow perch.  It would have made my father smile, I think.    
   

Honorable Mention

Our neighbor was interviewed by the local paper about home cheese making using our own goat's milk!  Read the article here...

image owned by The Burlington Free Press

image owned by The Burlington Free Press

Bloomy-rind Divine

I finally stopped eating one of our recently made bloomy-rind cheeses called St. Maure just long enough to take a picture. We've been making this cheese for awhile now providing ample opportunity to make mistakes, repeat mistakes and finally I feel comfortable with it. When I get it right, the young cheese (two weeks after production) is a little firmer than brie with an excellent clean flavor and no hint of bitterness. At this stage, I feel a little salt really enhances the taste and we devour it on crackers. As it ages wrapped in the fridge, the texture becomes soft until it is runny and it begins to develop an acidic bite that most people shy away from. We sampled one at 8 weeks and despite its pungent smell the taste was still wonderful.

The mistake I've made with this one is letting condensation drip onto the aging cheese from the fridge's upper coil. It's not noticeable at first, always dripping when I'm not looking/thinking, but then I start to notice that the rind is smooth and yellow, instead of furry and white, and it is LOOSE. The cheese becomes gooey between it's body and rind and flipping tends to tear the rind. Despite all of this, the cheese is still yummy but definitely lacking in appearance and more likely to become contaminated. I keep the aging cheese dryer by inverting a plastic tub over it, between the cooling coil and cheese so condensation drips are diverted away. Any moisture originating from the cheese drips/evaporates away from beneath, since the rounds age on a plastic mesh mat supported by a standard plastic coated wire fridge shelf. It sounds way more complicated than it really is. Don't let the smell fool you, this type of cheese is divine and it's only a little more work than chevre.

Gouda makes everything Good

I waxed our first wheel of raw goat's milk farmstead Gouda yesterday. It's a little lopsided from uneven pressing and the dribbly white wax went on a bit thick. I would take a picture but it looks just like a waxed wheel of cheese (Ostara's udder is more impressive and not lopsided). Tuesday morning at 5am, my husband and I awoke to a loud crash. Still half asleep, our responses to the noise were alarm that either someone was breaking into the house or the mice in the ceiling were getting too healthy. The gym weight that was teetering on top of my Kadova mould slid off and onto the floor. There is always room for improvement. Despite it's ragged appearance, in 60 days, after it has matured in flavor, we will cut into this first cheese and appreciate the taste as well as the effort involved in producing such a beautiful thing.

This type of cheese can age for years, if it's done properly. I'm eager to have another option on hand besides freezer chevre. We consume large amounts of Cabot cheddar, which we're hoping to replace with this homemade hard cheese. I'm also very impressed by the yield. From 2.5 gallons of Nigerian milk, we now have a ~3.5 lb round of Gouda. Our next investment will be a kitchen scale, so I can brag more accurately.

New cheesemaking equipment

I really can't say enough about Glengarry Cheesemaking Supply out of Quebec. They have the BEST offerings in terms of moulds, rennet and cultures. Margaret Morris' book, the CheeseMaker's Manual, is now in my library and is fast becoming my favorite book of all-time. We lived in Massachusetts for several years and I attented a cheesemaking workshop by Ricki Carroll of New England Cheesemaking Supply in Ashfield, MA. I have her book, too...as part of the class. I reference it for pastuerization temps, yogurt guidelines and have relied heavily on it up to this point. It's great for the 1 gallon parties, while Morris is for the 3-5 gallon group. The irony here is that Morris' book was less expensive through Ricki's company.

In my opinion, they are in two different worlds, with separate audiences. Ricki is for novices and mozzarrella kit gifts, while Morris offers an economical source for more experienced cheesemakers. While I respect both audiences, I feel like making a batch of cheese should not require it's own sealed package of starter, which is what Ricki offers. This would result in more predictable batches from one day to another, but is not feasible when you make cheese as often as we do. One mesothermophilic bacteria culture from Glengarry has lasted for more than a year and variability is only as big as you make it by imperfect measuring. Personally, Ricki is eccentric and I believe she learned very quickly how much more profitable it was to sell reagents and information than it was to actually make cheese for sale. I remember chatting with her about my profession. It was more of a go-around-the-room and say what you do chat. She was immediately put off by my declaration of being a biochemist. I think it offended her somehow on a very personal level, as though it was counter to whatever it is she subscribes to. On the other hand, I've never met Morris.

All I can say is that I feel like we have graduated from the Ricki department into the Morris club. We purchased more moulds, mesotherm bacteria, and penicillium/geotricum bacteria, for mold-ripened cheeses. The top picture is our 1.5-2 kg Kordova mould, which is for pressing hard cheeses. It has its own mesh lining, so wrapping the cheese with cheesecloth is unnecessary. Cleaning should be a snap and the cheese won't be wrinkled by the cloth. I think it will also make pressing without an actual cheese press much easier. I'll just throw a board and weight on top of the Kordova lid. The bottom picture is of round bottom moulds for chevre, on the left, and camembert, on the right. We also ordered a plastic mesh draining mat for aging the mold-ripened cheeses. I feel like we're getting ahead of ourselves here, but then kidding is just around the corner.

Inexpensive Improvements

Some of my earliest memories are of walking the grounds at public estate auctions and begging my parents for a hot dog from the vendor wagon. Mom and Dad have an appreciation for antiques, although I think their unwaverable thrift was what beckoned them to these events. They filled our childhood home with beautiful old furniture that, as my mom would say, told loving stories of other people in different times. I attented my last auction right before leaving for college. My mother let me bid on a $20 curved leather-inlaid coffee table that I have since carted up innumerable stairs to dorm rooms and later into apartments. It has suffered scratches and dings over the years, but looks graceful in the living room of our home aside some of my parent's favorite antiques.


My best garage sale find was a $2 Hamilton Beach coffee maker that I bought more than 15 years ago and we use to this day. Since discovering Craigslist four years ago, we have made a very deliberate effort to reuse items people don't want or need before buying them new. I recently found my favorite pair of jeans at a consignment store for $4. The front button was missing, but this just gave me an excuse to wear a belt. Great finds are easy to come by when you live near a college town. Students rarely have the time or inclination to barter when they are moving, both literally and metaphorically through a turbulant period in their lives. I've also found great recycled building materials for our goat shed at a downtown shop devoted to reselling deconstruction salvage (two wood frame windows for $5). This hasn't always been convenient, but overall it has been a good experience dealing with sellers in our area. We have bought furniture, baby items and, most recently, a few things for our farm.





Several years ago, we assembled a seed-starting rack from used components. I bought each 6' stainless steel rack, with four shelves, for $25 from a local catholic church. The shelving had previously been used by nuns for storing their canned preserves. They only needed to be cleaned. We use one for books and two others for tools in the garage. The fluorescent light fixtures and bulbs are in rough shape, but they were free from my farm internship.




About two weeks ago, I found a very old and still functioning dorm refridgerator for $40. It will make an excellent cheese aging cave. This was so much more exciting for me than it really should have been. My guess is that it works better and lasts longer than anything I could have bought new.

Spending frenzy

This should be a time of year for reflection and relaxation at our chilly and snowy latitude. Instead, I'm fretting over internet orders. Shopping always stresses me out for some reason. Perhaps it's my frugality, but I have never enjoyed purchasing with the excitement and abandon of my generational peers.

So far, I have placed and received my orders from
Johnny's Selected Seeds http://www.johnnyseeds.com/,
Hoegger Goat Supply http://www.hoeggergoatsupply.com/,
Glengarry Cheesemaking Supply http://glengarrycheesemaking.on.ca/, and
New England Cheesemaking Supply http://www.cheesemaking.com/.

On my to-do list are still orders for
FEDCO http://www.fedcoseeds.com/, and
Miller Nurseries http://www.millernurseries.com/. I keep telling myself that this small investment will continue to pay dividends well into the future, perhaps unlike my retirement account.

We're less than a month from our first doe's due date as well as seed-starting and gardening mania (brassica go out in March) . I feel better knowing we have our kidding, milking and cheesemaking supplies on hand. So much for putting my feet up. Bring on spring!