Getting Caught Up on a Rainy Saturday

This rainy day has allowed me to work on some things around the house that I haven't been able to get to (like the blog?).

My parents gave me a cream separator for Christmas; however, in the world of dairy goats, there's not enough milk to separate at Christmastime. I finally broke the machine out. It's from Ukraine, so the instructions are helpless. Fortunately I found this great video showing how to set it up.

Without the video, I would never have known to take this mechanism apart. Can you believe all these cones? This is what it looks like put back together.

And the whole thing assembled:

Hubby and the boys are stopping on their way home to get some Marvel Mystery Oil so I can get this baby cranking.

It feels so great to have extra milk again! Trixie's milk took over two weeks to get sweet so imagine my surprise when Onyx's milk started looking like milk after 4 or 5 days.

Poor Baby Girl is destined to be lopsided. I called Auburn University Large Animal clinic the day before she delivered to ask if I should milk out her left half. That was the side that had mastitis last summer and we were afraid wouldn't ever produce. It had started dripping a little the day before she delivered. Scared me to death. I felt sure the mastitis was back. The vet wasn't convinced and said that most likely the connective tissues in that half were damaged from the infection last summer. That half would look different, but she'd be fine.

I decided not to milk her and she kidded the next day. The kids don't like that teat though because it's so much bigger than the other side, so I started milking it down twice a day so they could latch onto it. On Wednesday evening, the milk looked and smelled so good, I decided to try it. Yummy! I ran a CMT (California Mastitis Test) and it's negative!

I am so thrilled. I am getting half a gallon a day from that one side and I'm only milking it down enough for the kids to handle. Looks like I have my first gallon-a-day milker!

Now for hubby to get home so I can make some butter, or cream cheese, or whatever. I haven't decided, I just want to play with my machine.

I sold little Iris to Phoebe and Scilla's breeder. She is such a dear, sweet girl, but Phoebe won't let her nurse unless I put her on the stand. The lady I sold her to will be bottle feeding other babies so it won't be any trouble to add Iris and I'm happy to know that she will have a great home.

Don't forget Derby Day! I love horse racing. And mint juleps.