the cooking light

Patience may be a virtue, but laughter is the only way to survive goat milking. You can strive for the perfect fencing. You must aim for good nutrition. But, don’t kid yourself. When it comes to milking, you do not get the last word.

When I decided to add milk goats to my backyard farm I envisioned pitchers of milk cooling in the fridge while cheddar rounds age in my cellar. Spirit, my first nanny, had other ideas. There is an old saying I just made up: “Don’t expect instant gratification from your very first dairy goat lactation.” Like dating, expecting nothing is the first step toward not being let down. Perseverance is the next step toward surviving goats with your sanity moderately intact.

Spirit proved mutinous in milking. Even with twins at her side, she had ample milk to share. Generosity was simply not her forte. However, like falling off a bike or getting thrown from your horse, when you find a goat leg lodged in your right ear, you must climb right back on. To help other potential farmers deal with inevitable frustration, I have provided the following journal. It documents my first full month of milking Spirit. From this draw hope. There is light at the end of the nipple.

Day 1: Leashed goat runs around tie post kicking and bucking. Never got near the teat.

Day 2: Build “EZ One Hour Goat Milking Stand” from online instructions. Define five hours in hell.

Day 3: Adjust Goat Milking Stand so goat’s big fat head will fit through the stocks into the feed box.

Day 4: Adjust Goat Milking Stand so goat’s skinny little head will not retreat from feed box out through the stocks.

Day 5: Collect 3.5 tsp. milk from flailing goat on milking stand.

Day 6: Ditto.

Day 7: Tether goat’s leg. Goat kicks loose in .3 seconds.

Day 8: Tether goat’s leg better. Goat kicks loose dumping over 3.5 tsp. of milk.

Day 9: Try new tethering technique. Collect entire ounce of milk. Goat’s effort to kick loose succeeds only after she sheds 3.5 tsp. of hair into the shot glass of milk.

Day 10: Go to store. Buy milk.

Day 11 - 14: Discouraged. Just squirt some milk straight onto the milking stand so that the apparently dwindling right teat stays active.

Day 15: Goat now standing still while I collect three ounces of milk. Then the cantankerous witch sticks her foot in it.

Day 16 - 18: Ditto, ditto and ditto.

Day 19: Right teat has all but vanished.

Day 20: Right teat empty.

Day 21: Spirit’s legal team serves me with papers declaring her functional left teat off limits and for her babies only.

Day 22 - 23: Practice milking technique while coaxing droplets from withered right teat.

Day 24: Have mastered milking with right hand while my left hand holds the receptacle up, dodging the maniacal wenches attempts put her foot in the milk. Net bounty from flat tit approx 1.4 oz. Note: Goat still shedding.

Day 25-26: Milk rations slightly increasing. Goat and cottonwood trees now both shedding into the milk receptacle.

Day 27: Babies distract me by biting my shirt while I am milking. Spirit’s foot returns to the milk receptacle.

Day 28: Babies adamant about eating my clothes while I milk. I steal milk from their precious left teat.

Day 29: Babies try to distract me by eating my hair. I try to ignore them. Goat flinches. My foot avoider reflex overcompensates, hurling the milk directly inside my protective LASIK goggles. Startled by my French, both babies run off in opposite directions with my hair still in their mouths.

Day 30: And the beat goes on.

Day 31: Average daily yield now totals around 10 oz. Source: two milkings per day from 1.2 tits.

Remember, when the day comes, and it will, where you just walk up to your nanny and quickly squirt a little milk straight into your morning coffee then wander off sobbing, bear in mind with a little patience, all this can be yours. Oh boy!

Satirist Nola L. Kelsey is the author of Bitch Unleashed: The Harsh Realities of Goin’ Country & coauthor of the wicked political/self-help, satire Keeping the Masses Down. Both are available everywhere fun books are sold. More of Nola’s work may be read at: http://www.NolaKelsey.com

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If the parents of the bride or groom have a large home and love to entertain, a reception at their home would be cozy and appropriate. This would work especially well after a small wedding, and would be ideal for a modest wedding budget.

Many large supermarkets have Party Coordinators (inquire at the Deli), that can offer tips and suggestions. Some platters you may want to purchase already prepared, such as: Sushi Trays, Fully Cooked Party Meatballs, BBQ wings, and Classic Shrimp Cocktail Trays. You can also purchase made-to-order sub sandwiches. They are 2 Foot (serves 10-15), 4 Foot (serves 16-24), and 6 Foot (serves 25-30). They come with the following meats-roast beef, ham, turkey, chopped ham, cotto salami and beef bologna.

These are some fabulous suggestions for party trays that can be assembled for only the cost of the food!

Tags: finger sandwiches, fruit tray, party coordinator, vegetable tray, wedding receptionfinger sandwiches, fruit tray, party coordinator, vegetable tray, wedding reception

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When most people think of fruit trees, what comes to mind is usually basic information that’s not particularly interesting or beneficial. But there’s a lot more to fruit trees than just the basics.

The one thing that usually shocks new tree growers is the fact that the fruits produced by their tree are much smaller than the ones they’re used to seeing at the grocery store. “What is wrong with my tree?!”, “My God! What have I done!?” are some cried you may hear from the disgruntled tree grower. However, small fruits are a natural occurrence. But while smaller fruits might be what nature originally intended, it is possible to attain larger fruits without any genetic altering or added chemicals. It is only through advanced techniques that the professionals reach such large sizes with their fruits.

Usually in the early stages of a fruit trees growing, veterans do something called “fruit thinning”. The theory behind this process is that with less fruits to pay attention to, the tree will be able to more efficiently send cells to the leftover fruits. When there are hundreds of little fruits on one tree, competing for the available materials necessary for growth, you will most likely just end up with a bunch of stunted fruits. To take care of this problem, simply pluck a third of the fruits extremely early on in the process. You should notice larger fruits that season.

The information about fruit trees presented here will do one of two things: either it will reinforce what you know about fruit trees or it will teach you something new. Both are good outcomes.

On almost any tree, the success of each individual fruit depends on the spacing. Usually there should not be any fruits within six to eight inches of each other. During the fruit thinning process, this is the distance you should generally aim for to optimize the amount of nutrition that each fruit gets. Any closer and you’ll find they are crowding each other out. Usually this is the first mistake that a new tree grower makes. Having tons of fruit starting to grow is not always a good thing!

Sometimes small fruits are caused by conditions out of the gardener’s control. During the process of cell division that all new fruits go through, cool weather can be fatal to the largeness of your fruits. Likewise, if the weather is particularly cloudy very early in the season, then fewer carbohydrates will be available to your plants. Occasionally, if the factors are all against the well being of your fruit tree, then the fruits will drop to the ground before they are even ripe. A lack of water or certain nutrients, or excessive pests and diseases can also damage the growth of fruits. If you notice these things going on early in the season, you should do more fruit thinning than normal. Sometimes as much as three fourths of the fruits should come off, to allow full nutrition to those who remain.

The best way to find out how to gain larger fruit sizes is to experiment. If your tree has been around for a while, there is almost nothing you can do to it to cause it to die or stop producing fruit. Just test different thinning techniques or anything you can think of to make the fruits larger. You might even head down to your local nursery and enquire about what they would suggest. They will be able to give you advice based on your region and specific tree, which is better than anything I could tell you. So don’t settle with small fruits. Go out there and find out what exactly you need to do to improve the size.

Don’t limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about fruit trees. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what’s important.

Michael Gatt is an avid gardener whose passion for growing has evolved into publishing informative articles on his web site for Fruit Trees.

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