Living On A Dairy...

While we are milking Seth will come into the dairy with his cup and start saying "Goatie, milk!  Goatie milk!" while pointing to the goat, then his cup and then himself. 

He knows where his milk comes from and not only does he come in and ask for it, but we have to be careful or else he will start milking the goat into his cup!  And I didn't think his little 22 month old hands could do it.  lol

Today's Did You Know?

Did you know that I do not like milk? Yes, you read that correctly! lol The oldest daughter of dairy goat farmers Tim and LeeAnne and the person who does 90% of the pasteurizing for Swede Farm Dairy does not like milk.

And it's nothing new. It's been a battle since I was three years old to get me to drink my milk, mom would set my cup of milk down with my lunch and I would sit there for more time than it would have taken me to drink the milk plotting of ways to get rid of that awful cup with the white drink in it.

I remember sitting there thinking that there HAD to be a way to get rid of the stuff without wasting it or drinking it! And then came that wonderful day when mom said I didn't have to drink the milk anymore. By then she figured that if a girl could eat a pound of cheese in a day if given the choice (it was my favorite lunch for years--Cheese and mustard.) that I must be getting enough calcium without having to do a battle of the daily cup of milk.

Then we moved out to the country and got our goats. And people started asking how I liked drinking goat's milk instead of cow's milk. When I answered with "I don't like it." I got the all too common "Of course not! It's goat's milk and I hear it's gamey." Well, no not really it's just milk. lol

The real joke came when we opened the dairy and started selling milk at farmers markets. Me being there was almost a marketing disaster. Until I started telling the truth, but not really answering peoples questions (it's that part of me that makes some of my sisters think I would do O.K. in the political world).

You see one of the top ten most Frequently Asked Questions about the dairy (to me at least) is "Do you like it?" And what is my answer, oh me who doesn't like milk of any form unless it's got a good amount of chocolate or coffee in it? My answer is the truth of course!! "It's the only milk I will drink.".

And that's the truth, I promise! I would rather by my milk from mom and dad then drink that white stuff from the store that taste like 2%! But I would much rather get my calcium from eating cheese and drinking chocolate milk then drinking the milk straight up. lol

A Not So Normal Friday

All righty then, the first half of this post was done on Friday (during my 'lunch break') the other half has been 'stewing' in my mind since then and this is the first chance I have had to continue it. :D

Fridays are normally very busy days, this Friday was more so. I knew yesterday (Thursday 4/2) that I was going to at least have to make one batch of yogurt and pasteurize some milk. Well, for more then one reason I had to do more then that today (Friday).

The day started out with dad and me getting up way to early and thankfully we were able to, because both or our alarms didn't go off, I just happened to wake up at the right time. After dad and I got the yogurt started he left for work, leaving me to yogurt sit. While I yogurt sat for about an hour, I was making sure the temp would stay where it needed to for it to become yogurt, I had cleaned up the processing room, and did my bible study, after about an hour I headed inside.

Inside I cuddled with Noah and Seth, played with the toddlers, got hit in the face with my purse, worked on labels for tomorrow's market, printed up a flyer for tomorrow's market, ordered supplies for Swede Farm Naturals, (I have a conference coming up soon), played, read some blogs, got breakfast, and tried to direct the kids to do the correct thing at the right time (namely school). And that was all done before ten am!!

I then spent the next hour and half wasting my time on the computer, with a little bit of directing the kids on what to do school wise and trying to get the flyer finished for mom and dad.

After that we had lunch prep, lunch, and naps. I then directed everyone to do certain jobs so I knew that all would be well in the house while I was out in the Dairy. I had Christin watch two toddlers, Sara watch another, Libby on her bed, I directed Linnea, Emma, and Timothy to do a couple jobs each so that the house would be picked up when mom got home, Grace and I then headed out to the dairy to bottle yogurt and then cleaned processing the room.

As soon as I had the yogurt bottled and everything cleaned up, I immediately started pasteurizing and making chocolate milk. While that was pasteurizing I worked on getting both rooms in the dairy cleaned, since we had a farm visit at 7 that evening.

As soon as I could leave the dairy, knowing it was cleaned and the milk was cooling, I headed into the house to grab some 'gear' to take to the trailer for some soap making.

By the time I had grabbed some supplies, mp3 player, and coffee, Emma came in to tell me that milk was ready to be bottled! I couldn't believe it, I must of take FAR longer then I thought I had. But I went out to check anyways. It was not ready to be bottled right then, but there wasn't enough time to make soap before it needed to be bottled, so I did some bible study instead.

As soon as I had the chocolate milk bottled and everything cleaned up from that processing. The girls where by then done with the evening milking and our visitors had arrived. But, my job was far from being done.

I immediately started pasteurizing that day's milk for market on Saturday (4/4). The same old normal thing I do every Saturday. Though I would love to do it in the morning more often, nothing new and out of the ordinary.

As it was pasteurizing I was putting any labels on bottles that weren't labeled, making sure that the ice chests (all 7 of them) were clean for the next day, and we had our milk bottles that were full of water were frozen, and anything else I needed to do to get ready for market the following day.

After the milk was bottled, the room cleaned, and everything prepped for a quick load up the next morning I headed into the house to hit the sack and coddle with Noah happened to have fallen asleep on my bed.

At market the next day I was able to tell our costumers that their yogurt, chocolate milk, and half their milk was fresh! As in from the day before fresh! Friday was a VERY LONG day, but I got to sleep in the next two mornings (not by much, but I did get a little extra sleep). And I wouldn't trade this 'job' in for any other job!!

A Dairy Promotion?

I think I got a dairy promotion this past week. lol Before now I just pasteurized, bottled and labeled. I did the "white milk" and chocolate milk. (The only reason I did the chocolate milk is because I was the one pasteurizing the first time we did it after that it was my thing to do).

So this past week I was walked through making the Vanilla Bean Yogurt. Before now making yogurt was something that only mom and dad did together. No one else had been shown and I honestly didn't expect anyone to be shown for a while. But dad asked me if I would make it, gave me instructions and left. :D Mom and I worked on it together, since mom had helped dad with it before and knew what somewhat what we were suppossed to do, so I wasn't left completely alone the first time.

I did the milk part while mom did the vanilla bean part. (She doesn't know how to run the pasteurizer yet. :D ) After I worked on that all day Thursday (it takes 6-8 hours for the culture to make milk into yogurt). I then made a plain batch of yogurt Friday morning. So two batches in less then 24 hours. Wow!!

Then Thursday night dad asked me if I wanted to do his Kefir while I was wating for the yogurt to finish. Having given me step-by-step direction he left me to do it (he had some business that HAD to be dealt with in the house.) I did that very carefully, knowing that kefir is "alive" and could be "killed", I was very careful with every step I went trough and came back to dad to double check that I was doing it all the correct way, I hadn't forgotten anything and I would not kill it! I got it done without killing it and had over a gallon to sell at market on Saturday.

In the end, we sold over half of both yogurts and some of the kefir we brought (we only brought SIX gallons worth!!) And I felt proud that I had made them and people liked it enough to buy them! :D