Chica, Rat Terrier Puppy

This is Chica, the little ball of mischief that John's holding! She's only 4 months old right now and just as cute as a button! She doesn't like to be cold (me neither!) so she came in immediatly after pictures were taken!

Make Your Own Cheese by Rona Sullivan from the July/August, 2006 issue of Dairy Goat Journal. Presenting information, ideas, and insights for everyone who raises, manages, or just loves goats.

OK! It's late fall and the dairy is closed for the season, so now I've got time to do little things like post pictures and links I've found:

Make Your Own Cheese by Rona Sullivan from the July/August, 2006 issue of Dairy Goat Journal. Presenting information, ideas, and insights for everyone who raises, manages, or just loves goats.

Snack Time!

Just found this in some pictures I downloaded from the camera, just too cute!!!

Baby Goats

I am way behind in posting baby pictures! This is from April and show's Jill from Chicago feeding one of the babies while petting another who is demanding attention as well!

Processing Wool & Mohair Fleeces

Sarah, Laura, Kaitlin, and Belinda are learning how to process fleeces.

First you have to pick the fleeces and get out the largest pieces of hay and dirty wool/mohair. Then you soak them in hot soapy water and rinse, rinse, rinse, until the water runs clean. Then we take them and laty them out in drying racks so the sun and summer breezes can gently dry them.

Then we get to card the wool into bats....here is Kaitlin learning how to card with some Jacob fleece a friend gave her when she visited her farm a couple of weeks ago....

And here are some of the finished bats, while carding the fibers are all combed so they lay the same direction and make it easier for the spinner to spin into yarn.

Mama Chicken and 13 baby chicks!

Mama Chicken suprized us with a batch of 13 chicks last Sunday! Had no idea she was hiding a nest let alone so many!! She's proving to be an eggcellent mom and takes after anyone who dares get too close to her babies!

They are just too cute!!!

Milking The Goats!

We have helpers here to learn how to milk goats! Belinda, Kaitlin, and Sarah took turns milking the girls. They have never milked a goat before and had a great time learning how!!

Bringing in the hay!!

OK! Lets make hay!!!

July is the month for local hay around Western Washington. My BIL has about 7 acres in hay that we buy from him every year and this is what we've been up to for the last few weeks! What you see here is the loading of the shed at BIL's place with all the kids and neighbor kids to help out!

Curds & Whey

The G'sons are visiting and for a quick snack I made quick ricotta but spooned the curds and whey into a bowl, added locally raised honey and cinnamon! You can see they think it's like candy!!!

Jack Cheese Round

Made about 5lbs of Jack Cheese! It's ready to be dropped in a brine and then aged for 4 months...don't know about waiting that long though!!!

YouTube - Fresh Mozzarella at Tutto Italiano

YouTube - Fresh Mozzarella at Tutto Italiano

YouTube - Mozzarella Making Class

Check it out! I decided today is a good day to make mozzarella and started looking online to see what videos there were on the subject, this one is fun! It's a class at a restaurant with an old cheese maker in the Pastosa kitchens:

YouTube - Mozzarella Making Class

Saturday Afternoon Canoe Trip & Paneer

A Saturday afternoon canoe trip with the girls on Buck Lake.

Then a stir fry dinner with vegies from the farmers market and some fresh Paneer cheese I made after getting home. Hillary said it was the best tasting Paneer she's ever tasted!!

Kid Heaven!

Truely a kids idea of heaven!

We get 4H kids here frequently and they all love to play with the goats, expecially when we have a ton of baby goats on the ground!! These two kids took home another goat for milk, last year they bought two young doelings to show.

Hansville Creamery

Hansville Creamery Goes To Market!!

The kids are selling milk! Ok, not the goat kids, my children! We've been going to the farmers market in Poulsbo for the last few weeks and it's been great. People are really suprized when they taste our milk cause it doesn't have that 'goatie' flavor they seem to expect. It's all in the diet, we feed alfalfa hay and a special dairy mix which they only get when they are on the stand being milked, it helps keep them busy while we get all that milk!

It's a nice sunny day in the first picture, which is not what I see now when I look outside! It's pouring rain! I looked at the radar on K5TV and it’s a solid mass of green and yellow, it’s a wet day all day according to the weatherman. I suppose that's good, it means I'll not have to water the garden today! But milking is going to be a muddy sporting event...did you know that goats hate rain? All the goats are hiding in the barn! I see an occasional nose stuck around the corner as if to answer the eternal question – is she coming yet? Nope! She’s not there yet! Is that her? Nope! That’s the stupid chicken laying eggs under the feeder! Is that her? Nope! But she let the dogs out so she should be coming soon!

Hansville Creamery is open!

We're so excited!!!
The girls are finally producing some wonderful sweet milk!

Here is Chief and the babies, we put them outside for a few hours to play in the sun with Chief to look after them.

Here are two paying King of the Rock!

Here are the babies and Chief making sure everyting is safe, the little one next to him is my favorite little doe, she so tiny she was only 5lbs when she was born!! But she makes up for it in moxie, she trounces all the larger boys as she is so light she can walk over their backs to get to the bottle with milk!!

Baby Alpine Goats

It's baby season!!!

Here is Penny Pink Nose and her two new babies, they are wearing sweatshirt sleeves to help keep them warm as it's been really chilly.

Here is Lindsey and the two new kids.

Great Pyrenees Livestock Guardian, Chief

Here is our boy, Chief! He turned 2 years old in Januray and the lights went on and he started guarding the sheep, chickens, cats, and small dogs!! We're still working with the goats, not because he's not good with them but because they are still scared silly of a big dog in their area. I introduced him again (after living next to them for the last year) to the goats and things are going well in the last few weeks, I even caught Chief licking the bucks ear - and Cochise was letting him!

This is a look: Can I get a cookie?

Here is his way of lounging so he looks like he is awake...his head is wedged in a square to hold it up so he can sleep and not look like he's asleep! Smart dog!!! That'll fool the coons!!