We’ve come along way since our first day milking Tinkerbell. She gave only a few tablespoons that first morning and put on a rip-roarin rodeo on the milkstand. It was pretty discouraging. But I just kept on milking her every morning. And she would stomp and jump and spill the milk. And I would almost cry. Even on the mornings when the milk didn’t get spilled or dirtied by a swift plant of a goat foot in the bowl, there would only be a tiny amount of milk. But I just kept on milking. Eventually, I learned a few tricks to getting the most milk out of the old girl. Here’s what I’ve learned since day one:
Keep milking!! Never let go of that teat no matter what kind of bucking bronc that goat thinks she is. Never let go! It’s worth it to waste a little milk on the stand and just keep milking to show her who’s boss. Every time I let go and try to make contact with her after she’s been doing that she just starts back stomping and jumping because she figured out the last time that it made me let go.
Use a cup or bowl with a handle when milking a wild first freshener and only milk one side at a time. It might take a little longer but no matter how fast I am she is going to kick and jump. She has a set amount of time in her head that she is going to allow me to milk quietly and calmly. It doesn’t matter the amount of grain in the bowl or how fast I go or how gentle I am. She isn’t trained yet and until she is I need to keep a firm grip on the cup containing the liquid white gold I am so painstakingly extracting from her! While you might have idyllic images of setting a bowl under a dairy animal and milking the way you imagine your grandma doing it, YOU ARE NOT THERE YET! So, just do it any modified way that works!
Never do anything that might distract you from straining that milk right away and putting it in the fridge. You don’t want to fight your goat for 20 minutes to get a 1/2 cup of milk only to run out of the house in a hurry and leave it on the counter to go bad. That is heartbreaking. As soon as you’re done milking your rodeo clown, tend to that milk!
So, on day 29 we’ve graduated from choking back tears while milking a bouncing, kicking, snorting goat only to get a couple of tablespoons to milking with only a little resistance every now and then and about a 1/2 a cup in the morning milking. Not too shabby. And it only took us a month. Whew. Homesteadin’ ain’t easy! But I’m pretty proud that we’ve come this far.
In the meantime, milking Tinkerbell is only part of the daily chores. And soon we’ll be adding to the mix again! Our honeybees will be arriving sometime around May 14th so we’ve been getting ready. There’s a lot to do before the mail lady calls us to pick up our buzzing package. Mr. Thistle got to work building the hive. We’re almost never “traditional” at our place. So, of course, we’re using a “different” kind of hive than most people. There are three basic kinds of hives in the beekeeping world. The traditional hive that you might have seen on a farm, in pictures, or in movies is usually a Langstroth hive. This is the hive that commercial operations use because it produces the maximum amount of honey. However, there are downsides to using this type of hive. For one, it creates an environment that isn’t necessarily the most natural for the bees. The foundation that the bees build their comb on is usually manmade and synthetic. Bees naturally like to build down not up when building their hives and the Langstroth forces them to build up. There are other issues that I won’t get into with the hive as well. But they do work. And most people use them. But since we’re a bit “organic” over here at our place we wanted a more natural way to get our honey. We want to be as bee-friendly as possible because we don’t want to contribute to the declining bee population with a failed hive.
The other two types of hives are top-bar hives. There are various types of top-bar hives but the two popular ones are Kenyan top bar hives and the Warre top bar hive. We chose the Warre top bar hive. The bees won’t be as exposed to the elements in this type of hive and there is less upkeep with them because they are in a more natural environment and so are stronger and better equipped to fight off disease and pests.
The first year the bees will be busy working to establish themselves in a bare hive so we won’t rob them of their honey until next year to ensure that they are strong enough and have enough food to make it through the winter. So, while this year might not be the year of milk AND honey, we hope next year will bring a bounty of nice raw food.
Mr. Thistle, as always, had plenty of helpers on hand to construct the hive. The boys are pretty excited right now but I’m not sure how they’ll feel about them once they’re here. We’re positioning the hive out of the way of the main yard so that no one disturbs them but there will still be an increase in bee activity in the yard. Our little goat whisperer is a little confused sometimes that “waspwids” (as he calls them) are the bad guys (sort of) but bees are the good guys. We’ve been having little mini-lessons here and there about the importance of the bee and how a wasp/hornet/yellow jacket are aggressive while a honeybee is more interested in just getting food for the family. Kind of like us.
Mr. Thistle wants me to start making some videos so people can see things in real life as we do them. We will probably start those videos on the day we install the package of bees into the hive. I am sure I will have to edit it because I can’t imagine that activity being completed without at least a few swear words. I’m a little nervous. Good thing that when I’m nervous, Mr. Thistle always seems to be pretty cool and collected. So, I’ll probably be the one wearing the head cam while he is engulfed in the cloud of bees. Get ready folks! It’s getting real homestead-y over here!
The post The Land of Milk and Honey (or Milking a Goat: Day 29) appeared first on Blessed Little Thistle.
