Exciting News from Arizona

First of all I need to thank Ironwood Ranch for sending me these pics. They have been fantastic not only in letting us have our little buck Irondwoodranch A Good Intrigue*S/*B. but have kept us informed about all sorts of happenings that relate to our herd. This is the gorgeous dam to Intrigue (or 'Trigue as he's known around these parts). Pecan now has two legs toward her MCH and has pretty much been commended for her LOVELY udder by every judge she's been show under this year. She was #4 in the nation in AGS for milk production, butterfat and overall on 305 day test.
The Lovely Pecan's udder (rear view)
Also, earlier this year I sold one of my favorite does - CBF TD Kokoro Kiseki to Pecan Grove in AZ. I sold her thinking I could breed my Tirzah to Koko's dad this year but it wasn't until after I sold her that I found out Tapdance had passed away. SAD day for me.

Especially after seeing this FF udder of Koko's. An improvement over mom's udder whose udder isn't horrible so I'm pleased. She kidded two bucks out of Piddlin Acres H Calm the Storm this year.
But I think she sure matured out as a very very nice doe. NOT disappointed by her at all.
This is Nizhoni's Joie de Vivre *D/*M. Joie was 2nd in the Memorial day show behind Agape Oaks Fire Hazard*D/2*M AR, also owned by Pecan Grove who would have been nearly impossible to beat. Hazard also tied the record in AGS for 1 day test Milk Production at 7.0#s.

Thanks again Ironwood Ranch for keeping me up to date on all the happenings in AZ and sharing these great photos!

Introducing Camino Allegre DD Brisa

I traded Feathered Goat Farm a buck for a doe of choice. I was going to wait until next year but then, this little doe was born. AAAAH, it was love at first site.

MY plan this year was to breed my lovely Tirzah to Piddlin Acres KR Tapdance but he passed away this last winter. I was heartbroken as I had sold all the offspring of his I had thinking I'd get more. I did sell Nizhoni's Joie de Vivre *D/*M's 2009 buck kid to Camino Allegra to use on all their does. They in turn decided to get out of Nigies for the most part and concentrate on Nubians and Boers so they sold 4 pregnant does to Feathered Goat Farm. LUCKY ME!!! This doe is out of CBF TD Daredevil and Grey's N Goats Zelda. Brisa looks a lot like her lovely Auntie Kokoro Kiseki who now resides in Arizona at Pecan Grove Ranch. I will be doing a post about my beautiful Koko later but had to share our newest addition - she's only 2 weeks old now. Her littermate sister is already sold but her brother is still available if anyone is interested.

Shaved some goats just to see!

Here is a shaved picture of little Hope. Wow. What a lovely doe under all that lovely soft hair. BUT what really surprised me was her color. She looked like a regular Chamoisee under all that but now she looks ALMOST like a carbon copy of her dam.

and Granddam. She also sort of cooperated with the picture session which is nice since the last time I tried to set her up she just turned into jelly and flopped onto the ground. Maybe she realized we weren't actually trying to kill her. Also - it's apparent she eats well. NO, I don't think that was ALL body capacity - she's just a piggy!
I think we need to learn to use the zoom on the camara a bit but here's a nice butt shot of Tirzah - er ah - ESCUTCHEON. Any way - she's not full but still she's so pretty all shaved up.
That's my pretty girl. I sure do adore her. She has been a real blessing to my herd and I'm enjoying milking her and having her daughter around.

Flowing with Milk AND HONEY

So yesterday I was planning a day in Albuquerque and woke up to a sick child. Bummer - so we have to stay home. I did my usual things, and later in the afternoon Hubby calls and says to me

So, what would you say to getting a beehive tonight. I have been dreaming of a beehive for YEARS! As a matter of fact before all the does began kidding - I recall saying to hubby - if we have another good doe year I'm going to buy a beehive set up. ( UNfortunately, it has NOT been a good doe year - byebye Hive) So of course I said A HIVE? When, Where, HOW?
One of the student who works for Hubby, his parents are beekeepers and avid gardeners said they wound up with too many hives and bees. So After Hubby and student were talking about gardening, goats, etc., talked to his parents and they offered us a hive and the bees they ordered but because they had eaten all the honey in their shipping container had to be released last night.
Soooo, Hubby's student employee and his dad (very sweet folks by the way) came down, set up the hive, talked to us about how to keep the hive. WE loaded them up with soap, homegrown apple chips, goat cheese and homegrown lettuce plus some herbs
And NOW we have a real beehive with bees in our garden - a DREAM come true at last. Isn't that so cool?
Here's Hubby with his thrown together bee suit (that's a lingerie bag on his head - INGENIOUS!!!!! LOL!) He said he's heading to Hay's Honey Farm today to see if we can get some used equipment - smoker, bee helmet and gloves. Otherwise - guess what hubby is getting for father's day?

OH, we can't harvest for a year but that's okay - we will spend a lot of time dreaming about all the fun things we can make out of the wax and honey (soap, candles, ornaments, use it in other products........)

Daredevil, Stars and other musings from the Hobby Farm

So over the last few weeks I've been trying to decide if my Stars was pregnant. The consensus is, that she is not - she's due June 22 and there is NO UDDER.

I wanted to go take her back to Jazzy Blues but my time right now is pretty limited. Then, I started getting pictures of the udders of Joie's 2009 set of babies. And the kids from Joie's buck kid CBF TD Daredevil) from last year - out of Tapdance who is now passed on.
My desire was to breed Tirzah to Tapdance this year but after finding out he had passed away......and after seeing Daredevil's kids.......and after discovering that Stars wasn't bred.....I took Stars to visit Daredevil. So NOW I hope I will be seeing some Stars/Daredevil kids in October.

This is a close linebreeding on Joie who was my Supermilker so I am really looking forward to these kids. A little side note here: Stars' dam, Twinkle Lil' Star has now been in milk over 400 days.....she was just bred so we will look forward to seeing her second freshening shortly before

Stars kids if she gets bred soon.

What do you do with a Fridge full of goat milk? Make CHEESE (and soap, and yogurt, and, drink it!) so I wanted pizza and we made mozarella and someone asked me to post directions with pics! Here it is!
Take 1/4 C. Cool water and add 1 1/4tsp citric acid (Hoeggers goat supply and some health food stores carry it) and add it to a large stainless steel pot. Add 1 gallon of fresh goat milk to the pot and bring to 88 deg. F. Remove from heat and add 1/4 C of Cool Water with 1/4 tsp rennet (again hoegger's or a cheese supply company will carry this) Stir in well. Let sit for 15 min. Cut the curd and then let sit for 10 more minutes. Immerse in a HOT bath for 35 minutes.
Drain the curds in cheese cloth for about 15 minutes to let all the whey drain off.
Heat in Microwave for 50 seconds and use a spoon to begin stretching the cheese. after about 8 minutes, reheat for 25 seconds and continue stretching until you can handle the cheese with your hands and stretch more!
We use our mozarella for many different things - crackers with cheese and salami, pasta salads and PIZZA of course!!!! Nothing better than fresh, homemade mozarella.

Back in Business!

Our milk supply was quite small and most of my soaps have sold but we are back in business. Miss Priss is milking 1/2gallon plus once a day and Tirzah is milking about 3/4 quart 2X a day so I'm making soap and cheese. Here is my first batch of soap out of the molds.
This one is Gluten/Wheat/Corn Free Lavender with a slight purple tint from Mica.
My kitchen smells so good!
I also just made a batch of Cucumber (this one is not gluten/wheat/corn free.) The soap will be ready for sale in about 4 weeks. IF you would like some - get your orders in now! The gluten/wheat/corn free soaps don't last. Neither does the cucumber scent for that matter.
G/W/C Free soaps are $6.00 a bar and the Regular bars are $5.00 a bar. They are over 4 oz each. Some smaller bars are available. Next batch is G/W/C Free Lavender Peppermint.

Perfect Mozarella and Tirzah.

My beautiful Tirzah has been in milk now for a little over 2 months. She has dropped some from the last time I weighed her milk but that was my fault. I separated her son from her because he's a bit of a randy little fellow and was irritating the girls in the pen with them so i began bottle feeding him. But Hope was really only nursing off of one side while the other side was dropping. When I noticed the drop finally I separated Hope off as well and began milking 2X a day. I am slowly bringing Tirzah back up but I did weigh her milk yesterday and the amounts aren't as horrible as I expected. Yesterday she did 1.3 and 1.4 lbs of milk in her am and pm milkings. NOW, to put all that milk to use.......

I stayed up WAAAAAY too late but for good reason.

I made PERFECT Mozarella cheese. Oh my what a rush! I really do enjoy making cheese.

I want to learn to make lots of different kinds of cheese but so far I can only boast 3 - Chevre, Mozarella and Ricotta. I've made Feta twice and it only turned out good ONCE! Lame. It's funny what little things get you excited.

We are 3 weeks away from our next kidding - Coral. Keeping fingers and toes crossed for twin doelings. Still am unsure if Stars is Pregnant or not - she sure doesn't look it but I never saw her come back into heat. I am thinking about sending her blood in (with Corals) for CAE, CL and pregnancy testing. (I'll skip the preg test on Coral though, she is very obviously pregnant!)

If she's not - she's got a hot date with the new buck.....

SWNDGC Milk Test in Edgewood.

May 7, 8th of 2010 I was honored to perform my first milk test ever as a certified milk tester through Langston DHI. Wow was that every fun. We tested 17 does.

What a way to start my "career" LOL!

Several herds were there being tested, and several more folks showed up to lend a hand and help. We had a potluck Friday night and Dan made his awesome breakfast burritos Saturday morning (Thanks Dan!) and it was hosted by Prairie Wood Ranch in Edgewood. Some of the does were really good - and some required a lot of "wrangling" to get them milked. But all in all I do think we will have a few stars out of this group! Will post when I get official results for everyone!
YES, it really did take 3 folks to get this doe milked. She sure is a pretty doe though. She just earned a leg toward her permanent Ch. at the last show.

I hope PrairieWood keeps her in milk for the June show so she can maybe finish.

May 7, 2010

Today as I headed out to the canyon to perform my first milk test (as an official tester) I stopped by the Dennison's place who bought two of our does last year and bred one (CBF Ent's Whistling Dixie) to our Piddlin Acres H Calm the Storm. I got to see Chocolate Truffle (see here) pregnant with my hopefully future doe out of MCH Lost Valley ML Nekoda *S).
And two of the cutest babies. Wow did Storm and Dixie do good. This is Karmel. a Lovely little blue eyed chocolate buckskin.
and Hershey and lovely dark Chocolate Chamoisee doe with white belt. Oh my goodness are they both lovely does! Congrats Dennison's we'll be waiting on pins to hear about your next two kiddings (Prairie Wood Memo *D/*M X Rosasharn's HB Gideon *S/*B - yes ! buck kids from this breeding will have their *'s inherited!) and CBF CS Chocolate Truffle X MCH Lost Valley ML Nekoda *S/*B. It looks like you are off to a great start on your little herd of Nigies!

Alyssa Update.

Yesterday was another very interesting Hospital day for us.

Our first appt was at 8 am (that's what time I usually milk goats - hah!)

to get her IV in and her labs drawn. While we were there they informed us that our insurance wasn't going to cover our CT scans. OH! Great! Sooooooo we went anyway and at the last minute were informed that no indeed - we'd have to wait until June for them to cover the CT scans.

So we had 3 hours before our next appt - which was at 1pm for a DEXA (bone density) scan.

Alyssa got a new bathing suit for Camp Enchantment (Camp for Kids with Cancer) which she goes to at the end of the month. We also have more tests on May 20th which include the ECHO and Pulmonary Functions tests. Then we should be meeting with Dr. Winter for our next move (game plan?) Oh, and this month is CLIFF's Amusement Park. The kids are sooooo looking forward to this one.....I guess you could consider it a perk to having a kid who had cancer (thanks but I'd skip Cliff's and Cancer if I could!) if there is such a thing. HOPEFULLY I will remember to get pics this year but I'm not counting on it. I am the milk tester for SWNDGC One Day Milk Test and will be driving back and forth to the canyon on top of going to Cliff's , I am not counting on having my brain fully functional.....But it will be a fun FULL weekend!

TinFays Cleopatra Home At Last!

Cleo finally got to come home. She's weaned and is here making friend's with her new buddy Hope! It has been really hard to wait for her to be weaned and come home but here she is!
No updated photo shoot would be complete without our mandatory butt shot - I mean Escutcheon shot!
Look at that long strait back and neck! She looks like a little deer wandering around the goat pen. And wow is she uphill like her beautiful sire Gideon. LOVELY angularity and the dairy character is all there.
Cleopatra is a wonderful collection of some wonderful Bloodlines that all sort of fall into my herd very nicely and she brings in some much desired bloodlines that I have admired for a long time now! She has the Peaceful Voyage and Baywatch from her Dam's side along with some of my favorite Twin Creek's and Piddlin Acres animals which is already in my herd through Storm, Joie and Tirzah. And she brings in the Rosasharn's bloodlines through her Sire - Rosasharn's HB Gideon *S *B. There are lots of milking stars, *Sire's and Dam's and around 10 ARMCH's. Including Rosasharn's TL Arwen, Tiger L, Elfin, Buckwheat Honey, and Eclipse and Goodwood WaterLilly, Kauri Tree and Tom Thumb.

CBF CS Hope Diamond

This is my little beauty! Well, actually she belongs to my daughter and I. I like this little doe more and more every day and she is really beginning to tame down. Tonight she would not let me get pictures as she decided she wanted me to pet her instead.

IF I had to choose which does to keep and I could only keep one - She'd be it. But, alas, I don't have to choose!
With her dam, Nizhoni's DW Tirzah. It will be cool next year when they both freshen and I can get side by side udder pics of these two!
There is the princess. I am beginning to think this doe isn't black and brown but brown with chocolate brown points. I think I'll know when I shave her but unfortunately it looks like we are having another bout with winter weather (despite it being MAY 1). I won't be shaving her yet.