Tag Archives: goats

Try it, you’ll like it.

Wild West Willy called the other day.   He said he was going to stop by after he milked a goat.

My ears perked up at the mention of goat milking. 

If you’ve been a reader for very long, you might know goats are my next homesteading adventure.  Just quick as I get these here chickens learnt good.

The problem with my goat adventure, is the fact that I’ve never drank goat’s milk.  It would be a bad mistake to have a goat and hate her milk doncha think?

So when Wild West said he was milking a goat, I said, “Can you bring me a cup?”  Unfortunately for me, this particular goat had an infection and her milk couldn’t be drank.  My heart sank.

But then today, who should come driving up the path but Wild West with Tom the Goat Man, as a passenger.  Just like Santa Claus, they reached into a cooler and pulled out not one, but two big jugs of goat’s milk.

“Geez Louise, I only wanted a cup!”  I exclaimed.

Tom the Goat man gives me instructions:  If you can’t drink all that in about 7 or 8 days, put a little salt in it.  If it spoils, you can make cheese.

Okay.  I’m sorry, but salt in my milk doesn’t sound good at all, and cheese made from spoiled milk doesn’t either.  Although I realize spoiled cheese is probably what I’m eating on my grilled cheese sandwiches.

You know what I find strange?  We are so conditioned to buying our food from the grocery store already “fixed” for us, that the idea of food raw from an animal is a little unsettling to me.  Deep down I know it’s better for me nutritionally, but when I think hard about it, it’s a wee bit abhorrent.  I must get over that.

The men drove off and my emotions kicked in about drinking goat milk. 

I desperately want to like it.  I desperately want to be a goat milker.

But I’m apprehensive.  The last time I ate something from the  goat farm, I contracted goat flu.

Questions flood my mind. 

Am I gonna like it?

Is it gonna make me sick?

Is it gonna gross me out?

Will it be strong tasting? 

Will it have an odor?

I open the container and peer inside.

It looks like milk.

I bend over and smell it. 

It smells like nothing.  Absolutely no odor at all.

I dip out a cupful with a measuring cup.

I rub my hands together, pick up the glass, close my eyes.

And sip.

Mmmmm. 

I take another sip.

It’s creamy.  It’s rich.  It’s magically delicious.  It tastes like milk from the store, only better.

Now, would someone please pass the cookies?

11 Facts About Goats

Two phrases I never want uttered in my home again are:

We’re out of eggs.

That’s the last of the milk.

I am remedying the egg situation soon, very soon.  And I am strongly considering a goat for the milk cure.

Now before you curl up your nose at the mention of goat milk, I must go on the defense.

But first I must start with a confession.  I’ve never tasted goat’s milk.  I have however tasted goat cheese and promptly barfed afterward.  I blogged about that.  I think I had the Goat Flu.  You can read about it here.  But who’s to say it was the goat cheese that made me retch?  It could’ve been a virus or something. 

This is my mediocre attempts to convince myself that I need a goat. 

Yes, I know you are probably thinking goats have a notorious reputation of being tin can eaters, car hood jumpers, and head butters.  I’m here to redeem the reputation of the goat. 

Much like placenta eating, we the people of the United States of America are likely missing out on something profound and wonderful.

Last night, I propped myself up on pillows in my bed and read a book about the dairy goats.

Facts I’ve learned, that I must pass on to you, my darling readers:

  • The goat is related to the deer.
  • Yes, goats might eat everything, but build a pen.  Don’t blame the goat!
  • Does are not smelly, but those bucks are the stinkiest, foulest, nastiest creatures (learned from experience)
  • Bucks are smelly due to scent glands, but also because they piss all over the front of their legs, beards, and faces.
  • Does are not smelly, rather they are dainty, fastidious, intelligent, friendly, and fun (sounds like a great personal ad)
  • In the world today, more people use goat milk than cow milk
  • There is no difference in the taste of raw, whole cow milk and raw, whole goat milk.
  • Many doctors prescribe goat milk for cases of dyspepsia, peptic ulcer, liver dysfunction, jaundice.
  • Goat milk can be used for infants during weaning, infants with eczema, and pregnant women who are puking their guts up.
  • Goat milk is easier to digest than cow’s milk due to smaller fat globules.
  • In goat genetics, white is dominant and black is recessive.

Goat’s milk should not taste funny.  If it does, it is  due to unsanitary milking parlors, unclean utensils, feed or weeds that the goat has recently eaten, the smelly buck being in the vicinity, or other reasons.  So now, I need to find some goat people.  I’d like a tall glass of goat milk to sample. 

If you’re still thinking raw goat milk is grody, you won’t believe how gross raw denim is.

This boy wore the same jeans for 15 months without washing them.

A Canadian student tested the limits of personal hygiene by wearing the same unwashed jeans for over 15 months.

While this may not be ideal for most people, it surprisingly was discovered to cause no health risks for healthy people.

Josh Le, a student at the University of Alberta, was so excited when he bought a pair of Nudie Jeans in September 2009 that he wore them every day. He even went so far as to sleep in them for a month, according to the National Post.

Nudie Jeans are raw jeans that are specifically designed to shape itself to the contours of the individual’s body. Raw denim isn’t chemically treated or washed prior during manufacturing. It is sold to the consumer stiff like cardboard. The idea is that wearing the jeans without washing them will result in the indigo color wearing away at pressure points in the fabric, showing the individual’s body contours. When the jeans are eventually washed, the individual’s shape will be revealed in the pattern that develops, according to The Star .

After wearing his raw denim for 15 months and one week, Le went to a professor of textile science at the University of Alberta, Rachel McQueen. She assisted him with an informal experiment. They took bacterial swabs from different areas of the jeans, including the front, back and crotch area.

“I expected to find some bacteria associated with the lower intestine such as E. coli, but was surprised to find there weren’t any, just lots of normal skin bacteria,” McQueen told the University student newspaper site . McQueen carries out research in the development of odour and its relationship to bacteria in textiles.

She had been expecting to find harmful bacteria, such as E. coli, in the crotch area, but there were only non-harmful, skin bacteria colonies. She did warn, however, that it was just one unpublished study on a single pair of jeans, and it may not be true for all cases.

Raw denim is growing in popularity, with other teenagers wearing the jeans for six-month stretches to get an individual look.

(news source http://www.emirates247.com/offbeat/student-wears-unwashed-jeans-for-15-straight-months-2011-01-26-1.347162)

Maybe we’re all just a bunch of germaphobes.