Long Overdue

When I first started my blogging endeavor, I promised myself that I would complete at least an entry a month.  Today I am embarrassed to say that I have largely failed at that attempt!  I cannot believe that my last blog was all the way back in August.  Time has flown by and a few things have happened in the meantime.

Yes, that is a baby bump in the photograph and not the result of too much cheese.  We are expecting a baby boy in January and I am using pregnancy symptoms (nausea, fatigue) as an excuse for my lackadaisical blogging behavior!

All of our animal family are doing well and have transitioned to the colder months without difficulty.  Happily for them, this has been a warm winter and although we have experienced a number of freezes, we have had very little precipitation to speak of.

Brian has been milking Wendy since Daffodil's birth in April.  Her production has slowed down with the winter season and it is a relief for Brian to only have to milk her once a day in the morning.  Daffodil is now nearly as big as her mom and is physically mature enough to become a mother herself.  We decided to hold off on breeding Daffodil for one more year as she is still a baby in our eyes (not to mention the additional work of each milking animal!).

In addition to his daily milking routine, and feeding and water the rest of the crew as I am not much help these days, Brian has been working at a local creamery in a production and sales environment.  He has gotten the invaluable experience of making cheddar and meeting hundreds of customers, both cheese connoisseurs and novices.  He is becoming a bit of an expert on cheese himself and his knowledge is reflected in his home cheese production.  We have had fun experimenting with lots of different flavor combinations, most of which have been a success!

And just to give ourselves a bit of an additional challenge in the coming months, we decided to get another adult Saanen doe.  Her name is Wilma and she is Wendy's half-sister.  She is, allegedly, pregnant and could produce some kids for us anytime between February and April.  Her former owner was quite confident that she had gotten pregnant by their buck but was very unsure of the date. 





Unexpectedly, she is still in milk.  Her former owner neglected to mention that she had been milking Wilma twice daily until the day Brian drove the hour and a half to her house to pick Wilma up.  Brian is slowly 'drying her off' as they say in the goat world and hopes to stop milking her by Christmas.  Until then, we are getting about a gallon and a half of milk daily from Wendy and Wilma and at this point have a wonderful surplus of both milk and cheese! 

2012 promises to be an eventful year at our little farm and we will keep everyone updated on the new additions!

Have a safe and Happy Holiday and a wonderful start to the New Year!