Surprise...Milk!

I am a goat 'newbie'.  Several months ago, out of the blue, my husband called and asked if I wanted some goats.  I thought to myself, "Yes, next spring...", but strangely I found myself asking 'why?'.  He said he had a patient who bought these three goats and now didn't want them.  There mother was supposedly a great milker.  They were a great price so I (surprisingly) said sure.  We had our 3 Nubian-Alpine girls (Jewels, Heather and Elizabeth) delivered to our home in May.  The gentleman told me their mother and grandmother "always" had triplets.  He said our girls were, in fact, a group of triplets.  I have to admit, I was excited. 

We took the water hose and gave them a good bath the first day.  The light brown color I thought they were changed to the purest white I have ever seen.   They were lovely in every way you can imagine.   All my fears about their temperament were quickly set aside.  We discovered they had the sweetest personalities. They were loving and social.   They seem like they were made to come and live with us.  It has been a fun summer watching them grow and play together.

A couple of weeks ago I had our youngest girl, our future veterinarian, take the ladies out of the field to get them use to being walked.  I was starting to think about the spring, when we would be having babies and start milking the goats.  I knew the goats would need to be able to walk on a leash to be milked everyday.  Our daughter noticed Jewels udder was getting bigger.  I looked at her, pushed on the teat and out squirts milk.  I was shocked.

I did some research and found out that Jewels is a "precocious" milker.  Even though she has never had a kid, she is in milk.  This is a great opportunity for me to practice milking and to see if I even want milk goats before we breed our girls.  We milked for the first time this morning.  I had about 1 cup of milk once we finished straining it.  And yes, it tastes just like 'real' milk!

A new school year at Hagan Academy.

I can't believe we just started our 5th year of homeschooling.  When we removed our youngest daughter from public school, I really wondered if we were making the right decision.  When I tested her to see what level she was on we were shocked.  She should have been going into the 6th grade but she tested at the 4th grade level in EVERY subject.  She was so embarrassed.  I reassured her that we would get her caught up and by the end of the first year she was right on track.  Her reading ability increased by leaps and bounds.

The second year everyone was telling me that "if you homeschool one, you might as well homeschool them all."  My son's teacher had completely destroyed his self-confidence by the end of 2nd grade with a few cutting remarks and I was very upset.  I thought it was a wonderful time to pull him out of public school and bring him home. 

Last year, when we moved to Oklahoma, our oldest daughter decided to be homeschooled for her senior year. What a joy to be able to hand her the diploma ourselves. It was a beautiful day.


Now, here we are in our 5th year and going strong.  This is the first time I have had little ones to teach.  Our twins started kindergarten a few weeks ago.  I can't believe how much their hand writing has improved.  Our youngest daughter is taking Latin this year.  She has taught our kindergartners a Latin prayer.

I am hoping that this year will be the best year ever.  I am more confident as an overseeer and teacher to the kids.  They are confident in their studies and seem to be having fun with their classes.  We are team teaching our littlest students and that is a great joy.  Not to mention, we have only blown up one science experiment this year....so far, anyway.

What's the buzz on the bees?

It is official, we will not be getting any honey this summer.  I am sad but not surprised.  We did not bring our hives home until well into the spring nectar flow.  We brought home two, 9 frame hives (10th frame was a feeder).  The first hive was a new start-up so they had about 3 frames going when they came home.  Our second hive had seven or eight nice frames of bees but we immediately added a second hive body. 

My son working our first hive in May

To put it simply, there was too much work to expect them to make excess honey for us.  The important thing will be that they have enough honey for themselves to get through the winter.  We will be heading out to pull the empty suppers off them in a week or so and need to do a full inspection.  We will be feeding them this fall just to be sure.

Now my attention can shift to the other animals on the farm and getting ready for fall pest treatments for the bees. Not much else to do with them except wait for spring.  Thanks for trying ladies!