Goats and Cheese

My sister who loves animals and is really good with them, is working at a goat farm in Greenville near her house. She had offered for our family to go one night and see her and the farm and let the kids come and see the kids. ha ha

Well, not thinking Matt would go with me. And not wanting to do this alone I had hesitated. My Aunt was also invited and thought it would be good for us to do this trip together. Great plan!

With all the excitement and plans Matt didn't want to be left out so he decided to go after all.

The first group of goats that we saw were teenagers who were not milked or bottle fed so we had no dealings with these guys.

Addie is such a precious girl. She just oooed and awwwwed over every single goat. "It's so koot." She would say with this sweet tilt to her head. (cute-for those needing a translation)

When we walked into the barn Liz was full tilt into her milking. This is a goat cheese farm with about 400 milking goats! Can you believe it! Milking 400 goats twice a day. Lizzy does the evening shift about four nights a week.

The goats were very interested in the party of on lookers tonight. (that would be us). But they just stood there and relaxed for their milking. The goats are milked in groups. They are tagged if they are on medication or if they have newborns, and a few other details so that their milk is handled properly.

Here is one of the mamas. Can you see her two baby bumps? Goats usually have two to three kids at  a time. We were lucky to see brand new babies that were only three days old. And Liz said that the next night a couple of the goats had babies.

This is the large space where groups of goats were to go through on the way to milking. In front of Corbin is the large male. King of the empire here. I am not sure how many males there are but he was rather excited and would jump off the wooden slats on the wall into the air and run around his pin.

Corbin and Addie wanted to get in the pin right away and pet the goats. Lizzy's only warning was that they might try and eat your shirt.

I think that this one did try a nibble of Addie's shirt.

Well, don't be afraid. Can you tell that Corbin is super cautious.

Aunt Terri was Aiden's tour guide and he loved being held and cooed over. Terri and I were joking about her "Ralph Lauren" rubber boots that she wore out to the farm. Terri is now a city gal. Dad and his siblings lived on the Ohio River off hwy 111 as small children.

 The kids started to relax and warm up to the goats.

 Addie is just so happy to pet them.

Notice that the goats are just as tall as she is.

Woah now, I think I am getting a little too close

These are the new babies that are only three days old.

We will come back and bottle feed these guys later

 Here is my little farmer girl. She had so much fun.

Matt talked the kids into letting the kids suck on their finger. They just giggled and giggled at the feeling.

Now these kids are a couple of weeks old and can feed out of the bucket now.

I thought this was so clever.

This was such fun watching the kids play together. They would run around together and chase each other.

See the children's slide outside? The goats love to jump and play on this equipment too.

Headed back to feed the newborns

It takes Liz about an hour to feed the 12 newborns by hand. She was much more efficient than us.

Corbin had fun but  you could tell he wanted to watch everything first.

Of course Matt has had animals around him his entire life. He raised cows, pigs, chickens and house pets as hobby farmers. He has no fear of animals. I try and let the kids see that and not influence them with my stand offish behavior toward animals. I don't get into them like they do.

But here I am. I did help feed the babies. I spilled milk all over my leg and sat in milk on the bucket. But we had a great time. Everyone loved seeing the whole operation at work.

So have you ever tried goat cheese? I am not a fan. I love goat milk, wish we could get some closer to us.