The red feather

Another glorious day for Balham market yesterday.  Freezing cold but beautiful and sunny.  Fortunately I have now sorted out my 'cold feet' problem so the only bit of me that suffered yesterday were the fingers but there's not a lot you can do about that when you're serving food.  On the advice of Clare the Egg from Wye Market, I bought myself a pair of Muck Boots.  Posh neoprene boots.  They are just amazing!  I hope that whoever invented them is VERY very rich.  I have not experienced warm feet in winter for many years and it is just so wonderful.

Market was steady but not overly busy but I was delighted to get a visit from Sara, GeeGee parrot's Mama.  There aren't many stalls on the market who have customers that walk up to them and start bleating ... it could only be Sara.  GeeGee stayed at home in the warm - she apparently had a bit of a crash landing a couple of days earlier when she damaged herself after a close encounter with a door.  Apparently the navigation equipment was a bit sub-standard in the dark.  To make up for not being there in person (or should that be 'in parrot'?), she sent Sara along with one of her beautiful feathers:

I'm sure that we all wish GeeGee a speedy recovery!  I had taken along a few walnuts from the tree at the farm for Sara to take home with her, so hopefully she will enjoy eating those whilst convalescing!!

Whilst I was watching the youngsters feeding this morning I thought I would take a few photos to show the many different colours.  Basically, we have black, white and brown goats.  They come in various shades and most of them have perfect pedigree markings - like Betty and Wilma in this picture.  This was taken at a show in 2005 when they were both young goatlings!

But sometimes, for no apparent reason, you get what the breeders call 'mis-marked' goats.  These can range from a slight white mark in the wrong place to the most beautiful spotty or splodgy markings.  These animals would not be any good for showing but we absolutely love them in our herd.  The more colours the better! 

Here are some of our little splodgy jobs - all of whom have perfectly marked parents.  Our very first splodgy goat was Diddi who was born in 2007.

She has had several kids since and all of them are perfectly marked brown and white girls.

Here are a few of last year's kids.

This is Mamkina.  She has a black mum and white dad.  Her twin sister is completely white.

This is Dottie.  She is one of Betty's daughters.  Her sister is the light brown one to her right.

And this is Mara.

Bottoms up everyone!

Willy Wonka and the escaping goats

In the mornings we feed the goaties a little sugar beet with their lucerne after milking and they absolutely love it.  Bit like having chocolate sprinkles on top of your All Bran!  It comes in 25kg bags which we carry into the barn and split open into a feed trolley.  At the moment the manufacturer (presumably in an effort to sell more sugar beet) is offering a Willy Wonka type incentive ... a few 'golden tickets' are hidden in the sugar beet.  I have no idea what you would win - a year's supply of sugar beet?  A trip round the sugar beet factory (with all the goats)?  Who knows ... and I doubt that we will ever find out as we do not usually win anything.  But at least it makes opening your sugar beet sacks a little more interesting.  Knowing our luck though, we won't spot the golden ticket until it's disappearing into a goat's mouth!

So, having eaten all our breakfast, had lots of hay and a huge new bale of straw, the goats decided that they would go for a little wander.  I had just mixed the food for the little girls in a large wheelbarrow and had walked out of the barn to get the feed sacks out of the back of the truck.  As I turned round and headed back to the barn I was greeted by over 100 goats trotting out into the sunshine.  Seems that the gates that David repaired at the weekend didn't hold together too well.

I managed to shoo everyone back in and then, having told David off for not taking pictures last time this happened (and I wasn't there), I shot off a couple of pics on my camera.  You can get some idea of the chaos:

The crowd in the centre of the picture is eating the contents of my wheelbarrow

The same black goat that jumps in the hayrack!  On top of the lucerne bale.

It was as I was taking this second picture that I noticed in the distance young Marcie.  She was the only goat in season today and had taken herself off to go and see the big boys in the far barn in pursuit of romance.  So, I stopped taking pictures and ran over to grab her, just as Navajo was getting ready to shin over the gate to see her.  He could quite easily jump the gates (and has done so in the past) but I got her out of the way just in the nick of time.

I had got about half of them back in when David's parents happened to come out to the barn - so they managed to help me get everyone back in and repair the gates ...  Never a dull moment with goats. 

Goats in the sunshine

After a bit of a rubbish start to the day, it turned out rather nice.

Sadly for my little chaps, my butcher is now back at work and fighting fit.  So, I took four of them down there this morning.  As I said, a rubbish start to the day.  But, they will be very much appreciated and at least they have had happy little lives.

So, things could only get better ... and what a glorious day it turned out to be.  Sunshine and warmth.  Strangely so for January.  David and I have a hunch that it's going to get much worse come the middle of February.  It's a pattern that we have seen before .. mild December and January and then massive snowfalls in Feb.  We'll see! 

But for the moment, the girls are enjoying the sunshine - at least, those who can be bothered to get up off their fat bottoms and wander out of their comfy barn.

Here's some of them enjoying the January weather this afternoon:

Paperwork and seasons

It's that time of year when I am trying to get all the loose ends of paperwork tied up and sorted out so that when kidding starts at the end of Feb, I can devote myself fully to the mums and new arrivals.  Of course, there is always other stuff to do but if I can get everything in order as much as possible then I feel much happier!

For example, my British Goat Society kid registration cards for the 2011 kids have been sitting on my desk for a couple of months now, waiting to be checked.  So, yesterday afternoon, I sat down with all my goat details and went through them all - checked that the names are spelt correctly, that parents are correct, eartag numbers are correct etc etc.  Found a couple of minor errors and one kid, Velma, doesn't seem to have been registered, so that's a task for tomorrow to sort it out with the BGS Secretary.  Then they can all be filed away and we are ready to start on the 2012 kids!

Today was a cheesemaking day - a small batch of Ellies for this week.  Only 171 cheeses as there wasn't a lot of milk left after bottling for markets last weekend.  Still, better than nothing at this lean time of year.  We have got so used to every type of food being available all year round at the supermarket that people tend to forget that we do actually have seasons (and that some goats dry off)!  Incidentally, I have a great book called 'Seasonal Food' by Paul Waddington which is an excellent book all about British food in season.  I thoroughly recommend it.

David and I went through the kidding list again tonight and spray-marked a few more goats who need to be dried off.  Milking is getting quicker every day!  Unfortunately, our lovely BammBamm who was supposed to be running through for another year looks like she has got bored of being milked and is in danger of drying herself off.  If she does, it means that she gets a lazy year off as it's a bit late to be putting her in kid now.  Nice for her but not so good for us!  Still, she's a very good milker usually so we can't complain.

Sadly, we didn't make it into the top three for the Taste of Kent Awards Artisan Food Producer.  We were pipped at the post by Quex Foods, Simply Ice Cream and Taywell Ice Cream - so congratulations to all of them and may the best producer win.  I'm just thrilled that we got into the Top Ten in our first year of entering!

I thought that I would try and get a couple of photos of the big males this evening as they were all snuggled up together for the night.  But, as soon as I walked over to them with the camera, they all stood up and came over to see what I was doing.  Typical nosey goats!  I managed to catch Fremlin as he was climbing up the gate - the camera angle makes him look rather sinister I think.  As you see by all the bits in his hair, he was very comfy under the hay rack!

I always think that it's nice to see the boys curled up together.  They spend their days 'ladding' about and snorting at the girls they can see at a distance but they are really the best of friends and always get upset if one of them is taken out for some reason (usually because they think that he is getting something that they are not!).  Despite their huge size and strong 'perfume' they really are wonderful creatures.  I am very proud of 'my boys' and I love them dearly, especially Fremlin who is such a gentle giant.

A potted history of Ellie's Dairy

After chatting to a few customers at Wye Market this morning, I got to thinking about how we actually started producing milk and cheese here at Ellie's Dairy and, while it's relatively quiet on the goat front, I thought I would do a little blog about it for those who are interested.

We started in 2004 with 3 goats - Betty, Wilma and Ellie. 

Betty & Wilma - 8 weeks old

 


Ellie


They were closely followed after a few weeks by Thelma and Daphne. 

Daphne

Thelma

All were kids, and so we did not milk our first goat until Thelma kidded on 26 Feb 2006.  Daphne kidded a couple of days later and they were both exceedingly patient as we tried to milk them by hand.  Although David and I can both milk by hand, we decided that we would get ourselves a portable milking machine to speed up the process. And here it is - all shiny and new in the newly built milking parlour.

And, believe it or not, that was what we used until August 2011!  We used to milk almost 100 goats coming through the parlour 2 at a time ...  So, you see why we were SO pleased to get the new parlour milking 12 at a time.

We did not start selling the milk until January 2008 - until that time we didn't really have enough to sell and it took us a while to get all the dairy and equipment sorted to a point where we could be licenced by the local EHO and Trading Standards.  These were the very first bottles we sold to Macknade Fine Foods in Faversham on 26 Jan 2008 (centre of pic with white lids): 

I know it probably seems odd to have taken a photo of this but this was a HUGE step forward for us.  You can't believe how excited I was to put those first bottles on that shelf! 

Before we starting selling the milk properly, we drank it ourselves of course. Previously, we had only ever tasted mass-produced supermarket milk and neither of us liked it very much at all.  I can remember the very first time that we tasted our home-produced milk. Standing in the dairy, we had a small mug of milk each and neither of us wanted to be the first to try it.  We both screwed up our faces in anticipation of something really horrid ... and then both of us burst out laughing and said 'actually, it's pretty good really!'.  We were so surprised by the taste - fresh, creamy and not goaty in the slightest.  Amazing!!! Even to this day, we have managed to maintain this freshness and flavour, as all our customers will testify.  I think it has to be a combination of how we look after the goats and what we feed them. 

We also dabbled with cheesemaking in my kitchen. Here's a pic of David taken in 2007 with our first ever cheeses in their moulds:

Of course, we didn't have a clue what we were doing and although it looked like cheese, it tasted awful!

Eventually, we produced enough milk to make it worthwhile doing proper batches of cheese and so we enlisted the help of the relatively new Kent Cheese Company (George Jessel and Geoff Parker) to make our cheese for us as we didn't have the equipment or experience to do it ourselves. 

This arrangement worked very well for all of us until Geoff retired at the end of 2009 and I was suddenly thrown in the deep end and had to start making it all myself!  I had been tutored by Geoff and had some idea of what I was doing but it's a bit daunting to suddenly be left on your own with 200 litres of your precious milk heating up in a cheese vat!

And the rest, as they say, is history.  We've come a fair way since those two little moulds in 2007:

I now make goat's cheese once or twice a week (sometimes more at busy times) and I have also invented a couple of yummy new cheeses along the way.  But, I am still very much a novice cheesemaker though and there is always so much more to learn.  It's a never-ending experience.  And, yes, occasionally it does go exceedingly pear-shaped for no apparent reason!!  And there are also those occasions when you leave your brain outside the cheese room. 

Any cheesemakers amongst you will know that leaving your paddle stirring when you add the rennet is not a good thing.  For the non-cheesemakers amongst you - adding rennet causes the milk to clot and form curds.  This happens in complete stillness ... Stirring the milk at this point is therefore not a good thing and so, having left my brain some distance from my cheese vat, I ended up with a vat full of something that closely resembled scrambled egg.  Believe me - you only do it once!

Weather delays blogging

Hideous weather yesterday.  And I came to write you all a bit of blog last night only to find that the bit of string holding up my internet connection had been blown away.  Hence the delay ...  Rural mobile broadband signal is flaky at the best of times but in bad weather it just disappears totally!

So, anyhow, here I am.  And a very big THANK YOU to everyone who voted for us in the Taste of Kent Awards.  Voting closed at midnight last night and we finished in the Top Ten.  Hurrah!!!  Further results will be announced shortly so instead of voting, you all now have to cross your fingers instead and will us into the top three.  Wishful thinking!  But I am SO pleased that we got our names into the running.  Thank you!

As I said, yesterday's weather was pretty grim and I hope that you all survived the wind and rain.  I had already booked myself in to run down to our wholesaler in Sussex and so I loaded up the van in a torrent of water and drove down there.  The motorway was horrendous and then the smaller roads were flooded with trees down all over the place.  But I got there, minus a wing mirror taken out by a tree flailing in the wind, and they were very grateful.  It's a standing joke with them that every time I go there (approx every two weeks or so) it is raining.  In fact, the only time that it hasn't rained (or snowed) was the time that I managed to crash the van on the way home! 

Needless to say, the goats stayed very firmly indoors yesterday.  The only ones who had to venture out in the weather were the milkers who put Linford Christie to shame with their sprint from the parlour back into the barn.  Fortunately, the back of the barn was fairly sheltered so they didn't get too wet.

Some of the girls are starting to look really pregnant now.  I managed to snap a picture of Footsie goat standing up at the hay rack this evening .. she is the very large one in the centre of the picture:

There are 3 kids in there.  And she's not due until 4 March.  Goodness only knows what size she will be by then!

Footsie will be 7 years old this year and is a very affectionate goat who loves to have her ears scratched.  She was born in Lincolnshire and came to us at just over a year of age.  The first time she met David she walked up to him and bit him on the leg!  But, over the years, she has become very fond of him as you can see:

Francesca, who helps us with kidding, also took a shine to Footsie and you could always tell when Fran had arrived for work as there would be this loud high-pitched call of 'Footsie-Woo' across the goat shed!  Here's Fran with one of the little people from last year:

We did not kid Footsie last year and so Francesca has the added excitement this year of her favourite goat having babies.  I am sure that she will be camping out with me in the goat shed for days beforehand, just in case Footsie needs her Auntie Fran!

And finally, in all that bad weather yesterday morning, one of these turned up in our yard:

This photo is nicked from 'Horse and Hound', but you get the idea.  A poor lost hound made his way up to the farm yesterday.  We figured that he was from the hunt kennels not too far away and David drove him back down there in the truck.  Seems that all the hounds had been out for a run on New Year's Day and this particular lad had got lost and wandered off (obviously not one of the top hunting hounds!!).  The kennels had been out for two days looking for him.  So, he was reunited with all his friends - a good ending for him.



Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all!

Jane the Cheese sent me a text last night at 10.20pm 'Happy New Year!  Thought I would catch you both before you retire'.  Shame we were in bed and asleep by 9.30pm!!  Must be getting old ..

New Year's Day is once again like any other day as far as the goats are concerned.  Only the added excitement for me of doing the VAT return.

Here's a quick video of David feeding the little people.  See how everyone runs about - it's always very exciting getting your breakfast!  Both David and I have been knocked over on previous occasions but this morning he did manage to stay upright, despite the hordes of wee goaties.

Milking time is getting quicker as more goats are drying off - the down side is that there is a lot less milk in the tank!  Fortunately, January and February are usually fairly quiet months for cheese customers and so we manage to keep all the liquid milk customers happy with some left over for a bit of cheese. 

There is also less naughtiness in the parlour at the moment as Tinky Goat is dry and so does not come in for milking any more.  She was scanned for triplets (though Michael thought that one of them might either be extremely small or not viable) but isn't due until 3rd April, so she has dried herself off in plenty of time ready for those babies!

GinnyPink, our huge great British Alpine, is always first into the parlour at the moment and David almost gets flattened every time he opens the gate.  Noone gets in the way of GP - she is by far the largest goat in the herd, apart from the smelly boys of course!  Here she is at the hay rack - she is the black goat behind.

This photo was taken by our great friend and artist Sue Clinker when she first met GinnyPink as a goatling in 2008 - GP is a bit larger now but still has that nice smiley face:

Bank Holiday for most people tomorrow but I will be busy making cheese.  There is only a small amount of milk in the tank after a mammoth bottling session over the weekend for our wholesaler, but I need to get another batch of our lovely Shaggy's Beard camembert into store and ripenening ready for later this month.