Nutmeg

I can’t believe I haven’t written about Nutmeg yet! After we sold our ATV, E. wanted to use some of the money to get another female kid. He found this sweet brown dwarf goat on Craigslist and drove over with the (human) kids to pick her up.

The owner apparently reads my blog, but of course E. couldn’t remember any details. So hi, blog reader! Thanks for the super sweet goat!

Faith (mama to Hope), has been busy head-butting Nutmeg to teach her her place. Her place, was, apparently, no where near either one of them, ever. Hope (Faith’s baby) and Nutmeg get along really well when we separate head-butt-happy-Faith from them. The head-butting has calmed down a bit lately; we are hopeful that Faith has realized Nutmeg isn’t a threat to their way of life.

We’ve been milking Faith morning and night, filling Mason jars in the fridge. We’ve made soft cheese and Feta, but would like to expand our skill set. I ordered this booklet after researching a bunch of other cheese making books — this one sounds like it’s cheaply produced, but full of good information. I hope it won’t intimidate us! I’m also eyeing this Goat Cheese Making Kit, and may purchase it as soon as I receive my Amazon affiliate payment this month.

Just to round out our goat-milkiness, I purchased a couple of goat-milk-soap bars from a friend at the Farmer’s Market Saturday. I’m working on their new website design and hope to launch it this week… In the meantime, the soap is fantastic! We got the Worker’s Hand Bar soap which is absolutely lovely after pruning tomato plants and pulling (giant) weeds.

For the curious: We live on an acre, though our shop takes up a large portion of that. The goats have a gated area with the chickens, but they are allowed to ‘free range’ through the backyard a lot. Though folks warned us they’d destroy our grass, we just have too much of it for them to make much of a dent. They have done a number on one of my thorny bushes (that I hate anyway) in the flower bed.

They poop everywhere, and E. has to pressure wash the patio regularly. Especially when the chickens are out too. There isn’t a smell from the goats – we have chickens, dogs, and goats pooping in the backyard, so E. has quite the poop scooping job – but I haven’t noticed any increase in smell from these girls.

They are so, so sweet. Erm, aside from that head butting thing. They come when they are called, seem to recognize their names, and love to be petted. I think the sound of their teeth crunching on a carrot is just about the cutest thing ever. They all love the kids and will allow them to snap leashes onto their collars to lead them back into the gated area. Nobody has ever head-butted a human – adult, or child.

Since they are dwarf goats, they are pretty quiet. My friend Jennifer’s goats are full size Nubians, and they are much louder. No complaints from the neighbors, though our ‘hood is pretty laid back about this sort of thing. We all voted several years ago to destroy our neighborhood covenants. High five for country living!