Goat update

It's been awhile since i posted about the goats, and that's really a shame. They're remarkable creatures, and they deserve a shoutout every now and again for the hard work they do.

We've been down to milking once a day for quite a while now, and some days we don't milk at all. Breeding season is over, but after contact with the bucks the ladies are smelling quite funky, and as a result the milk is a bit more...well...pungent, shall we say. I haven't really been bothered by it. I just pour it on the cereal and don't smell it. I think it's easy to psych yourself out about things like that, and i have a certain antipathy to finickiness, so i just don't allow myself to think about it too much. I couldn't tell a difference in the flavor, but when you're eating honey nut cheerios you don't really taste the milk so much as the honey nut goodness.

In any case, end-of-season milk has a much higher fat content, mostly because they're eating much less grass now and much more hay, alfalfa, and grain. Thus, less watery, succulent matter and more dry matter. This does affect the cheese, and although you might think it would be positive it's actually a pain in the ass. The high fat content promotes geotrichum growth. Geotrichum is the white mold that makes camemberts and bries so tasty. As the mold develops on the cheese it works its way into the curd and creates that amazing creamy layer between the rind and the harder curd. Unfortunately, right now the mold growth is so fast (and we have some wild geotrichum growing on the cheese too--uninvited guests) that the rinds on our lovely little bloomy cheeses are slipping off, creating an awful mess. I've been trying to wrap the cheeses before they get runny, but sometimes it happens so fast that it's all you can do to peel them off the drying mats and hope the rinds don't break off. Needless to say, we're selling the cheeses cheaper. They taste just as fabulous, but they're hardly beauties. I actually prefer a rustic looking cheese, but i have been known to love homely, even ugly things. This summer i had a passion for this monstrous looking reishi mushroom, which i thought was just the coolest thing ever.

Unfortunately, today was my last day in the cheese kitchen before i go to France for the spring semester. It was very sad. I didn't even mind tubbing chevre, which happens to be the most tedious job i can think of. To think that i still love my job after all the blood, sweat, and tears (i'm pretty certain all three were involved at some point this past summer) is really amazing. I never thought that would happen to be honest. I thought i'd end up resigning myself to a tolerable job. But no, i really love what i do, and i don't see that changing.

I've been battling a lot recently about what to do with myself. My life. I should remind you that i'm a French major. I chose this because i like it. The end. I feel i should have a degree for multiple reasons, only one of which is a backup plan. I mostly feel i should get a degree because i want to learn as much as i can while i can. I believe learning is something to be done every day, all your life. But i do know that i will not be able to do as much learning, by the book learning, that is, when i start working full-time. Hence, i am a student bearing my academic cross for now. I've been thinking maybe i should get a teaching licensure even though the thought of teaching children, tweens, or teens appals me. But then, with the advice of a former teacher i decided that would be an unfortunate mistake. If i'm not cut out to be a teacher, i shouldn't be one. Students should have teachers who are passionate about what they do. There are already too many nonchalant teachers. Besides, i'm having more and more trouble withholding what i think, and i am told that tact is important for things like teaching.

So, i've decided to forge ahead with my plans to farm. Someone needs to do it, and it might as well be me. It won't be easy, and i'll probably be poor all my life, but that's fine. I really don't think i'll mind so long as i have bread and butter (and maybe some sorghum molasses--this has been my fix of late) and goats.

Back to the farm. We recently had a buck die. You'll never guess why. It's actually funny. You have to develop an odd sense of humor when you work on a farm. See, during breeding season the bucks are "in rut," which essentially means that they are horny, in a way that only goats are horny. They give off this musk that is augmented by their own urine, as they piss on themselves and on the other bucks (if you'll believe this, they piss on their own faces--a sight to behold, really). They fight amongst themselves, hump each other, and mostly stop eating. That's right, they get so horny they stop eating. This is why bucks don't live as long as does. The stress of rut is pretty hard on their bodies. So this year our new buck, Savoy, was going through rut, and he completely stopped eating and died. I think to think of it as dying of horniness, which is essentially true. The humor in this lies in the fact that the animal died of the characteristic that goats are known for--their virility. It's like a pig dying of overeating (which also happened fairly recently--but that's really, really disgusting, and i won't describe it) or a hen literally pecking another to death or something. Again, odd sense of humor.

I plan to return to the farm when i get back from France. I'm very attached to the place. I really can't imagine coming back to anything else. So there will be more posts about the farm, just not for a while. I have contacted a farming family in France that i hope to visit and work with for at least a week or two, so that could make for some interesting future posts. I plan to have a seperate blog dedicated to my escapades in France, but i haven't created it yet. I'll be sure to let you all know when that's up and running. It is possible that i won't post much or at all during the christmas season simply because i will be very preoccupied with travel prep and just the hubbub of the season in general, so whether my next post is tomorrow or sometime in january, when i'm in France, cheerio!

goat show

Yay! I showed my first goat today! Very exciting. I was nervous before I got there, but when I saw how informal it was I realized there was nothing to worry about. I showed a goat named Colbert--a two-year old saanen (Colbert is not the goat in the picture above--that's Dominion). She was a little ornery and gave me a hard time as we walked around the show ring. She made up her mind that she did not want to walk anymore. But then, when you've got them by the collar there's not much they can do about it besides being stubborn and just making you work harder at leading them.

After you walk around the ring a few times, the judge will tell you to stop, and at that point you set the goat's position. This just means that you square up her feet (look at the picture--her hind feet and front feet are squared), hold her head up to make her neck look long and graceful, and you set her spine--you give her a little squeeze on the lower part of her spine. This makes her flatten her back.

At the end, the judge calls out who is first, second, third, fourth, and so on, and you line up in order. He (or she, as the case often is) then explains why the first place doe won over the second place and so on. My goat won something like fifth place, but I was just excited to be showing at all. I can see this being very addictive. You go to the fair, hang out with other goat people (who are few and far between), walk your prettiest goats around in a circle, and win ribbons. Many people show their animals at the fair because you get paid a premium for every animal you show. The premium varies from fair to fair, but this is the only way it would be feasible for most dairy farmers to transport their animals. Otherwise it would just be money out of pocket.

Whoa, but did I ever see the strangest thing today. I did not know there was a breed of goat that has no ears (well, they have little, tiny, nubby ears called "fairy ears"). They're called la manchas. They're quite sweet, and I could envision a few of them in my future herd. I guess that's the problem with goat shows--they make you want more goats.

the gaze of a goat

There are few things quite so humbling as the stare of a goat. When they look at you--nurturer, protector, caretaker--their eyes seem to say, "Who the fuck do you think you are? You think you're the boss? Get over it." They will never acknowledge how wonderful you are. They will not wag their tails at you. When you scratch them on that hard-to-reach place behind the withers, they soak up the attention for a while and then commence, nonchalantly, to graze as if you were never there. There are more and less affectionate goats, but ultimately, they will all give you the look at one time or another.

You cannot scold a goat. You can yell, scream, flail your arms wildly, even push them around, but they are unresponsive. They do not cower like a dog with their tail between their legs. They just look at you--the look--and defy you as soon as you turn your back. Even if you scare them into doing whatever it is you want them to do, they will not learn and alter their behavior. They are incredibly willful.

What, you may ask, is the difference between a goat's gaze and the gaze of any other animal? Well, I'm fairly certain that it is both physical and mental. Goats and octopi are the only two animals with rectangular pupils--that helps dramatize the look. You can't quite tell sometimes if goats are really stupid or really brilliant and are hatching a plan inside their weird little heads to dominate you. But I firmly believe that goats have a personality which comes through in their belligerant look. Cows, for example, seem to take more of an interest in you when they look at you. They don't just glare. Dogs look at you expectantly. Cats look at you sometimes with aloofness but sometimes with something resembling adoration--oh, yes, rub my back and I shall purr for you. Goats are altogether different. They are the one barnyard animal that can humble you.

Farm Trials and Tribulations

I had Jacob take this picture a few days ago when I was pretty sure that all the goats in this pasture were going to die. They may all still die, but the outlook isn't quite as grim, and hopefully my goats will survive. We've had an outbreak of the barber's pole worm (Haemonchus contortus)--an incredibly harmful parasite that will take a healthy goat down in a day, much less a kid with a weak immune system. This parasite is usually a problem in wet weather, which is something we have not had much of lately, so we were quite shocked to find this was a problem. We've been battling coccidia and other parasites, but until we took the time to do fecal samples on some of the animals we had no idea that this particular parasite was the culprit in the deaths of several animals. It's fucking depressing actually. You walk out into the field, which looks empty now that only about 16 of 25 goats are still alive, and all the animals just look sick. The thing about goats is that you can tell when they feel good. They frolick and get into trouble and carouse the high pastures. Lately, they've been staying down in the lower pastures, and many of the animals that are still alive have bottle jaw, which is basically a premonition of hard times. I have yet to see bottle jaw go away in spite of medication--usually at this point the animal is so infested and anemic that it doesn't survive.

So far, my two goats do not have bottle jaw. I am crossing my fingers as I write. This morning (after a good dosing of cydectin last night), my goats were actually in the high pastures feeding, which was extremely encouraging to me. These are the first animals I've become really attached to since my dog of twelve years died, and it makes me very nervous to imagine that they might die. And I suppose they aren't out of the woods yet. Until the weather cools off they will be in constant danger of infestation. The first year is the toughest. Next year they will be more resistant, and hopefully with some good nutrition I can strengthen them a little better.

Goat tits!

I'm sorry. I really, really couldn't resist. In my opinion you have not lived fully until you have stood at the wrong end of a goat. Yes my friends. This is where milk comes from. Before it is filtered, chilled, pasteurized, and chilled again, this is where it comes from (if you drink cow milk it's basically the same idea, just bigger and with more teats). It does not come from cartons. Maybe you know this, but I don't think you get it. It's easy to acknowledge that milk comes from animals, but it's not so easy to actually milk them and then clean up after them. You get to know the animals by their udders. The goats in this picture are all saanens. Saanens are uniformly white, and so it is very difficult to tell them apart by face or body alone (although some goats have unmistakable qualities--a long beard, a wide body, etc.), but you can tell them apart by their udders. Some goats are just heavy milkers. They produce a remarkable amount of milk. Some are light milkers (these are usually first time fresheners--that means they have been bred one time). Some goats have large, hard udders but do not produce much. Some have small, modest udders but produce much more than you might imagine. I found this hilarious when I first started recognizing goats by their udders. Hopefully you will find it equally hilarious.

Get on with it already

These are the last two goats to be milked, and they're probably pretty tired of standing around with full udders. But when you milk 75 goats it tends to take awhile. To coerce them to come quietly down to the paddock (the fenced area these goats are standing in) we put out beet pulp and minerals (and sometimes baking soda). Well, it's not just to coerce them--it's actually good for them too. After the goats are milked we let them out the wooden gate to the right of the metal gate, and they go back to the pasture.

small but beautiful

I started a new market last Sunday. It's the only Sunday market in this area that I know of, and why not? Why is it that Sunday is earmarked as a do-nothing day? Why can't Monday be the new Sunday? We could all be French and just cease to work altogether and call eating a really old brie our job. Anyway, I heard about it through some folks at one of the other markets I work, I checked it out, and I saw that it was good. Really good.

Now, this market is not good in terms of sales. It's ok. Probably the least profitable market we do. But then, this market is amazing for several reasons. It is in the very small, utterly charming town of Marshall, NC. Wonderful place with just the cutest little downtown you've ever seen. This market is on a grass-covered area. I don't know whose bright idea it was to have all the farmers' markets in parking lots in the heat of summer. Not too bright. And then, there are all the little hippie children running around naked, and that's kind of cute. There's bread, veggies, and even mushrooms at this market. Pretty well represented by the food groups. And so I wondered why is was that we weren't doing this market. Obviously, because we're too busy to breathe, but as I am a slave for punishment and like to overcommit I decided it was worth doing. And Marshall is more "local" than Asheville. Why not?

My one wish is that I could sell raw milk. North Carolina's government is obviously not ready for the health benefits of raw milk, because it is illegal under all circumstances. You can't even sell raw milk as pet milk. I would be quite happy to fly beneath the radar on this one and sell as much raw milk as people want, but I can't do that because a.) we don't have enough milk to sell just milk--we need it all for cheesemaking--and b.) Chris isn't willing to take a chance on the raw milk thing. I totally understand and would never ask or expect her to agree to it. She's licensed, reputable, and pretty well established. The last thing the family needs is to be fined or possibly shut down over raw milk. Not worth it. I, however, provided that I had my own goats, would absolutely love to fill that niche. Why shouldn't people have access to good, fresh, healthy, raw goats milk?

The thing about raw milk that people don't understand is that pastuerization was standardized as dairies became too large to ensure sanitary conditions. Raw milk from the family cow wasn't an issue. Raw milk from a huge dairy, however, was. Raw milk is actually a very predictable thing. In fact, even when raw milk spoils it's more a matter of certain ("good") bacteria multiplying and giving an off-flavor. You can make homemade sour cream by letting a jar of raw milk sit out at room temperature for a few days. The result is fresh sour cream sitting in a thick layer on top of the milk. When milk is pasteurized, both "good" and "bad" bacteria are killed off, and so the milk is not only devoid of probiotics, but it is also a perfect breeding ground for any invading bacteria to come in and take over. In raw milk, the "good" existing bacteria ward off the "bad" bacteria. At least that's the case most of the time.

I won't deny that raw milk can be a scary idea when you've had nothing but the pasteurized stuff all your life, or, heaven forbid, soy milk or some other absurd thing. When I first started drinking raw milk I was a little hesitant, and I was super vigilant about smelling it to make sure it hadn't gone bad. But after a year of drinking raw milk I can assure you that I've had no problems, and my usually squirrely digestive system has neatly straightened itself out. No miracle cures here. Just plain old natural raw milk. I can understand avoiding raw milk if you are sick, pregnant, or your immune system is compromised. But even then, if you have your own animals I see no reason why you should avoid it.

The interesting thing about this issue is that people are becoming more and more educated about it. I have at least one person at every market ask me if we sell raw milk, and people are often interested in the raw milk cheeses we make simply because they are raw. Also, raw food diets are becoming more and more popular, and even those of us who prefer our food cooked or at least heated know that raw foods can improve any diet drastically. If things continue on this path we may have a full-fledged food revolution with goat and cow shares for everyone. There's plenty of raw milk to go around.

I, as a cheesemaker, am jealous of European cheesemakers who can forgo pasteurization altogether. I think most serious cheese-eaters know that a pasteurized camembert is nothing at all like its richer, yummier unpasteurized sister. We work with what we have, and we make a good cheese, but how I yearn for unpasteurized goodness. If we could age our bloomy (mold-ripened) cheeses to 60 days we could sell them legally. But getting a camembert to 60 days without having it turn runny and ammoniated is something I'm not sure we can do. A cheese that ripens at 3-4 weeks won't be too pretty come day 60.

Death in the Pasture

Two in three days.
Part of me cries even though
I know
them to be animals, just animals.

Their shit stinks, they step
with cloven hooves
on my toes and are too stupid
to step off again.

But I find myself
inexplicably
unable to shake it off.
And I realize that they never loved me.

Never knew enough to love me,
my hands that brought them food
and dealt them death through ignorance.

The last days are the worst; how can they
not be? Forcing water down their throats
with a 12 cc syringe.
Hand-feeding them hay
and molasses water
to replace the blood sucked away
by tiny creatures I cannot see.

And I am so quick to deal out death
to these unseen
in favor of just another animal
but more charismatic
with dark brown fur and small horns
and eyes that seem empty

and a small, helpless body lying
lifeless in the grass.

Meet Voldemort

This is Voldemort (a.k.a. The Dark Lord or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named); affectionately known as "Voldy." He is a young wether (a castrated male goat) with a penchant for escaping from the pasture, queen anne's lace flowers, and banana peels. He's either an American or a French alpine (the two breeds have so much physical variation in them that it's impossible to tell them apart unless you know who sired them). He is probably the most people-friendly wether we have, as he enjoys following you around and being scratched behind the ears. He's my favorite, and I have plans to adopt him so he doesn't go to the butcher. There are some wethers that I really wouldn't mind seeing in the pasture one minute and on my plate the next, but Voldemort has earned a special place in my heart. He's not the most attractive goat, but he's a sweetheart, and just quirky enough to have some human-like properties. That's the trouble with raising animals for meat: there are some that you just get attached to. I have visions of Voldy and I going for hikes together, him being the pack animal. Maybe not so far-fetched, as I hear that hiking with goats is not altogether a new practice. He's loyal, anyways, and since goats are social animals he wouldn't wander off on me. That hook you see around his neck is Jacob's goat-catching crook. Very useful for when you need to catch them to give them medicine. They seem to have a sixth sense about when you're going to give them something unpleasant.

Right now we're giving all the baby goats corid treatment for coccidia. That's basically a protozoa that causes diarrhea, weight loss, the weakening of the immune system, and even death in grazing animals. It's practically unavoidable unless your grazing animals eat hay and grain only. It's been running through the herd like crazy, and with corid treatment you have to basically shove a syringe that contains 3cc corid per 20 lbs of goat into the goat's mouth, eject the fluid, and hold the goats mouth shut to make it swallow. It's not pleasant, but it's necessary. You have to repeat this treatment for five days in a row for it to be successful. This, for us, means catching roughly 75 kids every day for five days, measuring them with a weight tape, and administering the corid. Not fun, not easy. The best way to catch a goat is by the hind leg or beneath the neck. Obviously you don't want to hurt them, so you don't put them in a death grip, but they're slippery little things. You can hold them still between your legs while you measure them around their torso just behind the front legs with the weight tape. Then, when you determine the dosage, you try to shove the syringe in their mouth. Imagine a little kid at the doctor's office clenching his teeth with the doctor trying to swab his throat. It's pretty impossible to make someone unclench their teeth. So you just keep pushing it until they open their mouths a tiny little bit, and you shove it in and release the corid, trying to shut their mouth before they can spit it out. Ideally, if you shoot the corid into the back of their throat they can't spit it out, but I'm not good enough at it yet to be successful with that. I had to readminister meds to some goats because more leaked out than got in.

I guess my point is that not being organic in the case of goat farming can be more work than being organic. I'd be curious to know how small organic animals farms do it.

Innermost Circle of Hell

Dante had it wrong. The inner circle of hell is not frozen, and Judas, Brutus, and Cassius are certainly not there. The inner circle of hell is a small shed in Mars Hill, NC, and it contains 17 young male goats. The goats themselves are not all that despicable. In fact, they're downright cute. They make hilarious noises, and they're amusing beyond belief. One can be entertained for hours on end by their antics. However, goats are also shit-machines. Literally. All they do is eat, drink, shit, and piss. They have a small shed at the bottom of the pasture where we feed them hay and have several water buckets for them to drink from. We have neglected, for about a month, to clean out this little shed, mainly because we're only at that property when we're not working. And when you come home at 8 p.m. or later from a physically demanding job, the last thing you want to do is muck out yet another barn. So, what we usually do is feed them, water them, count them to make sure they're all there and healthy, and then go up the hill to the trailer to collapse after a quick dinner. This morning, though, we both knew it had to be done. We both knew that if we let the compressed poop, piss, and hay get much deeper we'd regret it.

So this morning I woke up early (that seems to be pretty much what farmers do), and went down to muck out the barn. The first challenge was getting the boys out of the shed. Goats don't like sticks or loud noises, so I waved the pitchfork around and hit the side of the shed with it. Well, this morning the goats seemed to be more interested in eating than in worrying about me. Except for Aristotle. Aristotle fled the scene pretty quickly. What can you expect from a philosopher, really? So I personally hauled the goats out and shut the door.

Let me tell you something about the wonders of fermentation and decomposition. If you have never taken it upon yourself to compress animal waste and hay and let it sit outside during the summer, you will not know what I'm talking about. When I removed the top layer of hay, a visible vapor began to rise. Then, the smell of pure ammonia hit me in the face, and I had to stick my head out the window to catch my breath. And believe me, you don't get used to that smell. When you get used to it that's probably a bad sign. It was atrocious. I uncovered some mushrooms while I was at work. I should've collected them and brought them into Asheville to sell-- organically grown hallucinogenic shrooms. Could've made a bundle. But anyways, it was something I won't soon forget, and I will, upon my word, muck out the barn on a daily basis from here forward.

Local Food (times two)

This weekend was the Farm and Garden Tour, where farms in the Asheville area have open houses all on the same weekend. Great idea, really. Consolidate everyone's open house so that it's well publicized and people are more likely to visit. However, this makes it pretty chaotic, as you might imagine. Saturday, for example, I woke up at 4:30 to get ready for the North Asheville market, which is one of the busiest markets. I set up at around 6:30. By 11:30 I had sold every last bit of cheese except for a few containers of ricotta and some plain chevre. Keep in mind that I probably take over 200 lbs of cheese to market with me. Needless to say, I beat the all-time market sales record (and bragged about it quite a bit--we're competitive). Cullen held the record previously, and so he said it was just because I'm a girl and have sex appeal. I told him to go to hell.



Anyways, after market I had to go back to the farm to help set up for the farm tour. Since we practically sold all the cheeses we'd taken to market, we had very little soft cheese. I tubbed up some chevre, but not nearly enough, so we had to pasteurize again in the midst of explaining the cheese kitchen to people. It was hectic. I think we were finished at around 7:30, but I really have no clue. It was amazing to see how many people visited the farm. I was tremendously encouraged by it, actually. People are genuinely interested in where their food is coming from. They're asking questions, listening, and supporting local farmers. It's really a sight to behold. What encourages me even more is that I have a lot of people who buy cheese from me who I suspect can't easily afford it. They're placing quality over quantity, and the intimate experience of market-going over the sterility of the grocery store. I wish out cheese was more affordable to more people (although I am told that compared to a lot of places in the US our cheese goes cheap), but in truth, we really can't lower the prices due to the rising cost of grain products. As more farmers grow corn and soybeans for biodiesel, sources of grain and hay are becoming more scarce, and so the price of the grain that we feed our goats has risen 50% within the past few months. We raised the price of the cheese 50 cents to try to compensate a little, but as gas is more and more expensive as well, you can imagine that costs often outweigh income. We love what we do, and so we deal with it, but we're not (as most organic farmers are not) raising prices to get fat off our income. We're dealing with a system that isn't conducive to the survival of small farmers.



I read a great article recently about why organic food tends to be more expensive. One example of why is that, if a farmer wants to buy organic compost, they will most likely have to order it from far away unless they live somewhere like California, and so they will have to order a huge quantity--more than they can use alone. So they might have to go in with several other farmers and do the legwork themselves. For producers of organic meat--unless the farmer has his or her own slaughterhouse, they have to take their meat to a butcher, and for their meat to still be considered organic after processing the facility has to be completely cleaned, which entails another fee and probably the use of some serious chemicals to clean the equipment. There are few facilities exclusively dedicated to processing organic meats. Then, there's the price of gas, which is almost unavoidable unless you have equipment for making your own biodiesel and vehicles that can run on it. So, in short, it's a conundrum. I'd like to think that there will be, in the near future, a farm bill that will support small farms and local food, but prospects look grim.



That brings me to another thought about local food. Is it really possible to support an entire community with food? I live in Asheville--pop. 68,889. There are few farms in Asheville since it's a fairly urban and suburban area which is losing more and more of it's beautiful land to developers and gated communities. There are lots of farms in neighboring counties and further out away from the city, but judging from the way vendors at Asheville markets get cleaned out on Saturdays, I seriously doubt that local farmers can sustain the city. It's time we thought of something more hands-on and personal--the victory garden. Sharon over at Causaubon's Book talks about this fairly frequently, but I think I should reiterate. We can rely on others for some of our food. For example, we can't all raise enough wheat to support ourselves. But we cannot expect local food to save our souls. We have to take some initiative as individuals. Yes, support local farmers, but grow some tomatoes in your backyard. If you don't have a backyard, grow veggies in containers, buckets, old boots even. Start your own little garden, screw up, learn from your mistakes, and over time you will improve.

I heard several people talking about how they used to buy shares of a cow, and that's how they obtained their milk--local, raw, clean, and safe. We had people asking us if they could buy raw milk from us (which is illegal in our case, since we aren't licensed to sell milk at all; and technically we need all of our milk for cheesemaking anyway), and it made me think--what if the state supported this sort of local endeavor? What if the state invested in some dairy cows for interested communities and sold shares of the cows through local farmers? Great idea, no? But again, you're dealing with a nation that does not (yet) value local initiatives as much as large scale operations. But I think that with a little people power we might make a slow shift in this ideology. That's my hope. And then, you never know--the government could surprise me. I've been wrong before.

Lessons from the Goat Guru

Whew...it's been quite a week, which is why I haven't posted in a while. The Owens had a goat show to attend this past weekend, which meant that Jacob and I had to work extra long hours just to get the basics done. Saturday morning we woke up at 4:30 so that I could do a farmer's market in North Asheville. It was a spectacular day, and the cheese practically sold itself, but I don't have to tell you what waking up at 4:30 does to you. Let's just say that by 2 I was feeling a little crusty (perhaps that's a bad word, but it describes the feeling), and we had to milk goats that night. The next morning was a little better. We woke up at 6:30. In a way, getting up that early is nice. I feel like I have the world to myself. But then, I am a college student, no stranger to the later hours, and it's hard to break that night owl, coffee-guzzling habit.

We've had three baby goats die this past week. That's a strain in itself. Last week Jacob and I noticed that one of the little baby billies had a swollen face. It's lower jaw was incredibly puffy. My first thought was that a bee or maybe even a snake had attacked it, but I called Chris and she said it was probably parasites. Parasites are a very common thing among grazing animals. Obviously, anything that eats grass eats everything that lives on the grass. When the weather gets hot and there's a humid spell with lots of rain, the parasite eggs hatch inside the animal. They can remain dormant for long periods of time, so an animal can have parasites without it being an issue, but when they hatch they wreak havoc on their system. It's really just a matter of catching the problem in time and medicating the animal before the parasites are so bad that the animal dies. And, as we found out, the aftermath of the parasites can be worse than the parasites themselves.

We seperated the sick goat from the herd, and moved him to a seperate pen with a buddy (goats are very social animals--if you isolate one it can get stressed enough to die). Chris brought the medication, and we just had to wait to see if we had caught it in time. At this point, the goat was still standing and eating, but by the next day it was down. It still seemed to have an appetite, though, so we hadn't given up hope yet. We fed it molasses water, which is slightly more nutritional than sugar water since it has some minerals and iron in it. What happens when the parasites are killed is that the animal must expel them from its system, and the sores where the parasites sucked have to heal. This is a huge stress on the animal's system, and for a goat kid it's even worse. Well, that night we moved the kid to the front porch where we could watch him better. We tried to feed him again, and he ate like he had an appetite, but then he got choked, and couldn't seem to catch his breath. I tried hitting him on the back to dislodge whatever was blocking his windpipe, but it wasn't working. He made such pitiful noises--gargling and coughing (they sound creepily human when they cough and cry)--that I had to leave and get away from the sound. I couldn't stand the thought that I was watching him die. I sort of surprised myself. I never thought I would react that strongly to a dying animal. But he didn't die then. He managed to get over his coughing spell, and he made it through the night.

The next day we both had to work, so we were going to move him back to the pen. Jacob went to pick him up and threw out his back. So, there lay Jacob, unable even to roll over, and there lay the goat, who at this point could no longer lift his head. I was beginning to feel remarkably depressed. So, I sat feeling helpless for a few minutes, until I mustered enough ire (for what I don't know--cruel fate, perhaps?) to get up and deal with it. I carried the goat back to the pen and put some frozen peas on Jacob's back, hoping that it didn't require emergency care.

The goat died that day. A couple days later I found another one dead--probably of the same thing but with no noticable symptoms. Until this point I've been pretty sheltered from death of any kind--human or otherwise. Most of my large family is still alive, and all of my close family is still alive. I had a great grandfather who died before I really understood what death meant. We had to put my dog to sleep a couple years ago. But other than that I've been pretty fortunate. This is something I didn't anticipate when I started working on the farm--becoming acquainted with death. And I suppose animal death and human death are two very different things, but then I can't help but think about how fragile life can be for any species. I don't want to be overly sentimental here, but we are, in fact, not in control. We die, they die, you die, I die, and we have little or no control over it. Global warming is at a point now where all we can do is adapt and teach our children to be better stewards than we have been. We can't control the weather, the idiot in the big truck that cuts us off on the highway, the lunatics in Washington. We can't even control out own emotions sometimes. Our futures are always uncertain, and always perilous. We are hanging, each of us, on little individual threads that get blown about, tossed, and eventually, that snap. I don't mean to be depressing--I don't think being out of control is necessarily a bad thing. Being out of control means that you live your life as if you will die in a minute, a second even. You let people in front of you in line, you treat your family with respect, you return phone calls from friends and even from people you might not care for. You consume less, experience more, eat chocolate (I had to throw that in), give blood, give time, take your time.

Wildlife

I feel like I'm camping every night. I've been waking up, listening to the pitter patter of little mousefeet in the walls (and some pitter pattering not in the walls), and Jacob, the poor dear, wakes up every morning with a new spider bite. This morning I discovered that the leftover apple pie I made was invaded by ants--the little black ones that my dad calls piss-ants--and, being too aware of global hunger to feel I could throw it away, I just tried to pick them off the best I could. Do you have any idea how impossible it is not to leave even a few crumbs around, especially living with a male?

This morning one of the baby goats got out of the fence. It was inevitable really. It was one of the saanens, of course. Saanens are very interesting goats. They are generally larger than other breeds, more sociable, smarter (I say generally because I know some tremendously stupid saanens), and better milk producers. Well, this saanen crawled beneath the fence and stood in the middle of our driveway, crying loudly until we came outside. It obviously wanted us to know that it had foiled our plans to keep it in the pasture. I suppose there were some tasty plants it wanted to exploit outside the pasture, or maybe goats really are as devious as I imagine them to be, and it just wanted to trouble us. Anyways, we surrounded it, and Jacob managed to grab one of its hind legs. I carried it up the driveway to the truck, feeling like Heidi and wishing my camera worked, and we put it in the back to take it back down the hill to the entrance of the pasture. It was really charming. I imagine that after the 100th goat gets out it is no longer charming, but I can see why you'd want to have goats. They're quite remarkable.

The Company of a Goat

Sorry I've been absent lately. I have minimal access to the internet, and I've been trying not to drive more than I have to, so I rarely get into Asheville to blog. Anyways, I had big plans for this blog. I invested in a digital camera to regale you with photos of the (incredibly charming) goats, but, alas...I put the battery in backwards...and it got stuck...and I can't get it out...and it's one of those $40 rechargeable things. Very depressing. So now I have to either find a way to pry it out or cave in and find a repair place. I've already tried Target and Circuit City, and despite the fact that they sell more cameras than I could have ever imagined they do not service them. Oy vey, indeed.

Well, in better news, we have goats over in the pasture at the trailer. There are 20 baby boys to keep us company, and don't they love having all that space to themselves. It's hard to convey how amazing it is to watch them frolick (and that is a very appropriate word) and wander the fields with their little baby bodies and tiny little horns. There's one Saanen (that's a French alpine goat--white all over) that seems to be attached to me. He sticks his little head between my legs to get my attention. Goats love being scratched behind the shoulder blades on their back--it's a spot they can't reach, and if you find that spot you will have a friend for life. I was thinking about how much easier it is to get along with goats than people. All you have to do is scratch their back, feed them, water them, show a little affection. People are so complicated--and that's both great and terrible. I'll admit to being a complicated, emotional, irrational human being, but it just sucks sometimes. Sometimes all I want is the company of a goat.

My Pleasure

Friday afternoon Jacob participated in the milking. I was occupied in the cheese kitchen getting ready for Saturday markets. I admit, I was a little envious of him. It's been so long since I've milked that I miss it. Odd thing to miss, really. It's smelly, wet, dirty, and hot. You stop trying to keep clean about 10 minutes into the process. But I missed it, and when we got off work I caught a whiff of Jacob's clothes...wow, I exclaimed, that's really...goaty. Did I smell like that all of last summer? Odd how you don't notice the way you smell as intensely as someone else. But I did not have to be jealous very long. I was privileged enough to milk yesterday, and I too took on that distinct odor. The only thing you have to watch out for is that you don't wear the same clothes for milking as for making cheese--milk absorbs odors. That's probably why so many people are suspicious of goat cheese. They had some from an unsanitary dairy, or perhaps one where the goats and the cheesemaking process were not segregated enough, and so they assume that goat cheese tastes like goats.

The toughest thing about milking is knowing how to set up and break down the system. By the time I got to where I could work the system at Sleepy Goat Farm I moved back to Asheville and haven't milked enough yet to get the hang of this one. There's a lot of unhooking and rehooking pipes, knowing what switch does what, and god help you if you push the wrong button. Nothing like sending gallons of milk down the drain or turning the wash cycle on when you're not finished. I haven't royally fucked up yet, but I understand that everyone does something stupid at some point.

What amazed me is the way the kids are with the goats. Sylas, 15 years old, often does the milking totally by himself. He knows every goat by name (we're milking over 60 now), which ones are on antibiotics (the milk from goats on antibiotics is not used--it gets flushed out of the system), which ones are heavy milkers and so get milked together, which ones are new milkers and so are a little jumpy, etc. I try to imagine my sister, a very prissy 16 year old, milking goats, and my imagination just fails. It isn't unreasonable for 16 year olds to have major chores. In fact, I'm sure that 70% of the world's children, possibly more, have very extensive "chores" every day. But in the developed world there are other diversions--television, internet, shopping (my sister's preference)--and so even the smallest chore (would you please put ice in the glasses and set the table for dinner, Kelly?) evokes groans worthy of a woman giving birth.

But then aren't we all conditioned to an extent? As much as I loathe advertising and having brand names shoved in my face all the time, I am accustomed to seeing billboards everywhere. I am accustomed to flipping through a magazine and seeing hundreds of ads (I once calculated what percentage of a Martha Stewart Living magazine was ads, and it was something ridiculous though I can't remember what it was). I suppose my sisters are not anomalies in that they are lazy or that they love watching reality television and chatting on the internet and shopping for things they don't need. They're probably the majority. I'm used to being the odd one in the family. The round meg in the square hole. The last time I went to the beach was two years ago, and I was so bored and restless that I became depressed. I'm not very good at relaxing. My idea of relaxing is reading Proust or baking bread or something ridiculous like that. I'm not bothered by it, and I'd rather be on my feet than drinking sweet tea in a recliner somewhere.

I'm so happy working on the farm and smelling like goat and being up to my elbows in cheese that I hardly know what to do with myself. Is it possible that I have taught myself to love this or is it just my thing? I don't really believe in human nature, and I am more inclined to believe that people are shaped by the lives they lead and their surroundings (nurture, not nature?). I don't mind smelling goaty. It's my pleasure.

tiny little plants! (and goats)

Some of my seeds have actually sprouted. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to know that unless I screw up royally we shall at least have lettuce and eggplant this summer. I planted my tomatoes today and have them nestled in the same warm place as the other seeds. Hopefully they'll prosper and I can practice my canning skills on the surplus (I intentionally bought too many heirloom seeds for that purpose). I used a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite, and perlite in equal parts for my starter mixture, if you're interested. You just mix it all together and add water. This tip was from Gayla Trail's website You Grow Girl. I am being very ambitious, to say the least, considering that I live in a dorm room and have a very understanding roommate who pretends not to mind when I drag bags of dirt and vermiculite in and out, leaving a trail of soil behind me.

Ah, it is midnight yet again and I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY!!! And so much to do but since it's reading Shakespeare I think that can wait until tomorrow, if not next week.

I started work on the farm yesterday and will be going back tomorrow AND Saturday. I can hardly contain myself. I even enjoy doing cheese-kitchen dishes. I am a hopeless case. We are preparing for the local artisan bread festival market this Saturday in the midst of watching over goats giving birth. I myself had the privilege of seeing a birth. It was really quite spectacular. This tiny, fuzzy baby goat just plops out and the mother stands there as if to say, "Yeah, I did that--what of it?" If you have never seen a baby goat you should really just indulge me and follow this link and scroll down to the bottom of the page and try not to lose your composure.

Anyways, between mixing chevre, washing dishes, and looking after does, it was a busy afternoon. Chris, who is basically my "boss" and cheesemaker extraordinaire, took me to see where I will be living this summer. It's a little sketchy. The driveway scares me. Chris put the truck in 4-wheel drive going up, and I'm thinking "But I can't really do that in my car." She says they'll be scraping the road soon and so it won't be as bad, but I'm envisioning myself parking at the bottom of the hill and just walking up. The place is essentially just this little, single-wide trailer perched (literally, perched) on top of a really big hill. It's going to need some loving to get it to where I want it, aesthetically speaking. But I'm thinking that some curtains, rugs, and artwork will be sufficient. There are several perks, though, for which I am willing to forgo luxury (the Plaza Hotel this ain't, kids)--namely, a nice garden spot, an abandoned flower bed in front of the house that is perfect for tomatoes, a view that people ordinarily dish out millions to get, and some peach trees. Not to mention the absolute solitude of the place--no road going by and very few neighbors--and some excellent hiking trails. I actually can't wait to move in, even if it is sketchy.