I got up pretty early (for me) this morning: 7AM. Jon was just home from working nights, and we have a goat--a doe--who needs to learn to be milked. She's a beauty, and I think she'll turn out to be one of our better milkers once she settles down some.
Yeah, Ebby's a wild one. She hates being milked, and having her udder handled and etc. (I know I deserve some crazy comments about how much I would enjoy the whole process were the positions reversed, and she's only doing what I would do --I know. But SHE's the goat. I'M the milker). So, first, we have to catch her. This involves quickly moving around the pasture trying to avoid the more willing-to-be-milked while alternately cajoling and entreating and threatening and trying to entrap the most deer-like of all our goats. Jon and I both work at this with pockets and at least one hand full of goat treats. Yelling "Treat!" is the magical way to get 6 goats thundering across the pasture at any time of day or night. Except at 7AM. Then only 5 come thundering across. Ebby runs the other way. After about 10 minutes of this, and our pockets are empty, Jon wanders off to the garage muttering something about learning to lasso, and I get a little smarter. She runs away from me, so I just need to chase her into the barn, or some other enclosure where there is only one way out. And it works. This time.
So, she comes reluctantly to the milking stand. And cowers while I LOVINGLY and GENTLY brush and soothe her with my breathless VOICE. Some more treats and a little grain in the feed bucket, and we're ready to roll. Now, if I were to try to milk her myself, she would jump around and tap dance all over the table, kick the milk bucket, wash bucket and teat dip all over the place. And Kristine would stand just far enough away and laugh so hard I'd be afraid she'd fall over. (When Kristine hears me opening the front door in the morning, she asks if I'm going to milk Ebby. And if I say 'yes' she scrambles out of bed and runs out to watch and laugh.) So I don't try to milk her myself anymore. Now, Jon helps.
He holds her back feet. In whichever of the various positions he finds them, he holds them. And he holds tight, by jimney. This morning the milk didn't get kicked over, neither did the wash bucket nor the teat dip. Jon got a morning work out akin to the Nordic track--only more frantic, vigorous and otherwise stimulating. His arms were pumping so fast, I thought I might just let go of Ebby's teats and the milk should run out all on it's own! She was standing on her front legs with her back legs up at a good angle, feet stretched out, and kicking for all she was worth! And she's half Nubian, which means she tells anyone withing hearing distance exactly what is going on behind closed doors in the oh-so-innocent-looking garage. She screams like a goat in mortal agony, and hardly stops to take a breath. Sigh.
My goat gurus say that a few more mornings like this and she'll stand as meekly as a kitten and allow herself to be handled.
We got her milked out all right, and strained that beautiful creamy white milk, and I contemplated going back to bed. But I was up and running, and I hope this blog is too. Glad to be on board. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
