Settling into a Delicious Routine

It's amazing how something totally new and overwhelming one week can soon become a natural part of life. It seems impossible that I have been milking goats for only 5 weeks! The twins are now 7 weeks old, big Dill is 8 weeks old. Twice a week I am cooking up a variety of mouthwatering chevre which never lasts long. I am now up to 7 cups of milk a day and soon will be milking all the goats twice a day...look mom 2 hands! An adorable family came by the other day to see the kids and put a deposit on Dill and Zeus, who they will name Toot and Puddles. We would have been heartbroken to let them go, except they were in many ways like a younger version of ourselves and there is something cool about imagining all the fun in store for them as goat owners. They will go to their new home at the end of the month. On an especially overzealous day, I ordered 500 deli containers so I can begin giving my cheese away to friends and last night we made a delicious new version: chevre on the bottom layer, covered with fresh pesto and a few slivers of roasted red peppers. YUM! Now as a reward for delicious goat cheese at dinner, we let the whole herd out to play. If someone starts running, they sprint after in a huge mass that can only make you laugh. They will run back and forth to the barn after the kids until they are all panting and ready for bed. Check out the video for a laugh. Chianti is still a mystery milker. To get any milk out of her, I need to hold up her udder with one hand just behind the teat and then squeeze with my free hand. This results in a slow process. I am still not getting the amount of milk that I should be. Everyone talks about the Quart for each milking per Nigerian Dwarf goat, but I only seems to get 2 1/2 cups at best. When I start to worry about this I have to laugh recalling just 5 weeks ago when I entered the kitchen proudly carrying my 1/3 cup of milk. Now a little more than a month later, I have a fridge full of fresh cheese and another month off from school. It's hard to worry too much!