Definitely time for an update!

Well, as you can tell by me not posting much, I have been very busy just with life in general - milking, feeding, cleaning the house, riding horses, etc, and various other things. Like, on Tuesday the guys that are putting "Skim Stone" on the kitchen counters came and started that. So they did about half of what had to be done, then we used the counters on Thanksgiving, and they are back today finishing them. And as usual, we had a big Thanksgiving party yesterday - fun and tiring ;).

We have been letting the llamas out to pasture with the goats and that is working out well. Here are some pics of them going out their first day,

oh, and a picture of the bucks coming IN from pasture ;),

Anyway, not a whole lot else to update on. Have a great weekend!

Suriyah

Been busy!

Obviously we have been BUSY! The flooring was done on Thursday and we spent all day Friday putting the house somewhat back together. Then Saturday morning our water went out and was not fixed until Monday morning. Thankfully, the well did not go dry; a pipe just rusted and broke, the "well guys" fixed that. So we are back to a normal functioning house now. There are still a few things that need to be put back in their proper place, etc. The flooring is very nice though, praise the Lord. Hopefully I can get some pictures up of it within the next few days.

On another note, the weather has got very cold the past few days, and it has been lightly raining also. So I have been feeding a lot of hay out to keep everyone warm.

A few days ago, "Grandma" (Laports Mahogany Sage), as we call her, was limping pretty bad on one of her back feet. She could not keep up with the herd going out to pasture, so we brought her in and kept her in a stall for the day. We checked her foot that night and found a sore/cut in her foot that had some proud flesh in it. Ouch! So we cleaned it and I have been putting 7% Iodine on it 2 times a day, and I have been keeping her in the stall. Now today, she is hardly limping on her foot at all and I'm sure it feels much better! Praise the Lord! Tonight I let her come out of the stall and was going to let her sleep out with the rest of the does, but she followed us half way out, turned around and decided she liked her stall better. So she's still staying in there tonight ;).

I am now only milking 7 does at night, and about 10 in the morning. Nobody really wants to be a milk goat anymore, which is only somewhat fine with me :).

That's it for now. . . I am tired (had a long day sitting in the car in town).

Here are some photos from over a week ago that my little sister took, before it got cold and it was very nice and sunny then. Anyway, I thought they were pretty.

Have a great night,

Suriyah

Update!

Good morning,

We have been busy the past few days. We are having someone put laminate flooring in the house, so we had to move the whole kitchen out and everything on one-half of the house, Sunday night. Then Monday morning the flooring was suppose to be put in but it was messed up (it came in and 3/4 of the roll was crinkled up!). So we're living in half a house, in a big mess! Hopefully they'll be able to come within the next day or two and start putting it in.

In the meantime, while we are waiting for the flooring, we decided to paint the kitchen and bathrooms since everything is out of them (they were just raw wood before). So at the moment they are stained a bunch of funny colors, but today I think we are going to put the paint over and it shouldn't look too bad ;).

I bought some llama halters online, and switched the two girl's halters to those yesterday (they had foal halters on before). They fit much better. I got them from Jeffers and they were only $7 something per halter.

We are now milking 12 does in the AM and 10 does in the PM. It's nice to not be milking soo many any more.

I also wanted to add - a week or so ago we drew blood on some of the does and sent it in for CL and CAE testing - they are all NEGATIVE! Praise the Lord. Very good and a big relief just to know.

That's it for now. Here are some pictures from the other day.

Shamrah and Aruba,

Some of the girls sleeping in the shade after breakfast,

Salty the llama,

Have a great day,

Suriyah

Insulating barns, working llamas, etc

WELL, not too much has been going on lately. It has been super nice weather, so we finished insulating the doe barn, and my mom insulated a lot of the buck barn yesterday also.

We walked in the pasture a few times this last week, and there is not much grass left out there to eat anymore. So I have been feeding a lot of hay out lately. The pasture was kind of overgrazed this past summer, so hopefully before Spring we can split it so we can rotate and have more feed that way.

I have been working with the llama girls everyday. The brown girl, Peppercorn, was a lot more "wild" and nervous when I would work with her. Yesterday though (the 3rd time I've worked with her) she was not too nervous and let me pet her and didn't "dance around" much at all. So,she is improving very quickly! She also walked well on the lead yesterday, and the first few times she didn't know how to be led at all! So that's exciting with her. We'll see how she does today.

The white girl on the other hand, Salty, has always been very easy to lead and was obviously worked with in the past. I am getting her used to me brushing/petting her also but she is not too bad at all. BUT, yesterday I started to pet her (while I had her haltered) and she turned and spit at me! EWW! Thankfully it was not green spit, but it still stunk. I think she is getting grumpy and is going to have a cria (baby llama). Today her back seems a lot "higher" than before, so maybe we will have a cria soon (hopefully a girl!)!

Me working with Peppercorn,

We are now milking 12 does - drying lots up. We have 13 dairy does bred and 8 left to breed. Plus several Boer does already bred. It's nice in a way milking only 12 does now - somewhat of a "rest" (if you'd call that a rest!).

Have a great day,

Suriyah

Llama poster

Here's a photo poster I made of our llamas. Enjoy :).

Updates

the three llamas - we named the white female "Salty",

Bill

Yesterday we got a big load of beautiful Alfalfa/Orchard grass hay delivered from Missouri. It is very nice hay at a very good price also. If anyone is looking for a good source of hay in the Missouri area, email me and I'll give you his contact info.

Since we got that load of hay, once I am done feeding the last few bales of Alfalfa that I have left, I will only be feeding the milkers the mixed hay. They seem to like it a lot better than straight alfalfa, and that way everyone will get the same kind of hay.

Not too much else to update on. It's been raining here a LOT and everything is wet and muddy ;).

Have a good evening!

Suriyah

Llamas, stalls, etc...

WELL, guess what we got today?!? 3 llamas! We've been wanting to get some for a long time now, ever since we got rid of our others. But anyway, these ones are just so pretty! We got 1 male and 2 females (who, are more than likely bred as they have been housed with the male). They are very, very soft and beautiful (& handsome). They are slightly on the wild side, but they'll come to the grain bucket and one is halter and trailer trained. The other two I am going to work with more. Here's some pictures and more info on them.

The male is the black & white one in the front. He is only 2 1/2 years old. His name is "Bill." I might be able to get him registered, we'll see.

Isn't he handsome? His sheared coat is just pure black and shiny! I'll have to get some good pix of him tomorrow or Tuesday.

This is one of the females. She is very pretty and my favorite (wait... I think) so far. Once you catch her, she is completely halter trained and loads in the trailer just like a pro. I don't know her name though - forgot it! I'll just ask tho :). She is about 7 years old.

And this is the other female. She is registered and her name is RATM'S PEPPERCORN - I call her "Peppercorn" or "Pepper." She is a completely different style than the other two - I don't know if "bulky" is the right word, but she is wider. I still have to learn all the different styles of llamas :). She is 8 1/2 years old.

all three of them,

So that's it for the llamas. The other day I straightened, cleaned and made the kidding stalls. Here's what it looks like at the moment - it may change with time ;).

Some of the "medicine cabinet". There are a lot of meds in the fridge and a lot of other care items in a big huge shelf/counter in the milk room.

Not a lot else to update on. We finally sold the two meat bucks that we had for sale - yay! Now we (only!) have 1 Boer buck, 1 Nigerian buck, 4 Mini Nubian bucks, 2 Mini Nubian bucklings, and 1 young Boer/Nub wether. So not bad :).

Have a good night,

Suriyah

Fall Photos

New Alpine Does here!

I haven't posted in a while, as I have been super busy!

Monday we got two new Alpine does - a new breed for us! Aruba is 2 1/2 years old, is in milk and just recently bred. Honey Bun is 1 1/2 years old and is in milk (she kidded in June). They are both beautiful does with nice, easy to milk udders, and come from some great Alpine lines - some does in their pedigrees were Top Ten milkers, and National Grand Champions.

They were only being milked once a day, but we are milking them twice a day and their production is picking up very quickly!

Well, here are some pictures of them (they have empty udders in these pics).

Bar-Jon Hershey's Aruba,

Bar-Jon Honey Bun,

We've been busy - gone in town doing things, but not too much other than that really! Everything is looking very much like Fall, very quickly. Seems like all the leaves turned different colors just within a few days. . . very pretty though. I'll have to go out with the camera later today and get some photos before they all fall!

Well, I don't have all that much else to update on. Have a great day!

Suriyah

Cheese Time (pictures)

I made regular vinegar/Queso Blanc/Ricotta/soft cheese/whatever you want to call it cheese this morning, and decided to take pictures of the process, like I did with the butter making blog post. So here you go!

First, put 1 gallon of milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally.

While you are waiting for that to warm up, get 1/4 cup of Apple Cider Vinegar ready.

Once your milk reaches 180 F degrees,

stir in the vinegar.

If it does not separate pretty quickly, add more vinegar. Once it separates, remove from the heat.

Let it set for 10 minutes.

While you are waiting, get a bowl or saucepan with a strainer lined with cheesecloth.

When the timer is up, pour the cheese through the cheesecloth.

Let it drain for a few minutes. It will be very hot, so be careful.

The liquid left over is whey. You can use in it soups, bread, any kind of baking, etc. OR, feed it to the dogs and pigs :).

Now take the cheesecloth with the cheese in it, twist the top (so the cheese does not fall out) and rinse it under cold water for a couple of minutes. This helps make it tastes better, IMO.

While you are rinsing it, kind of "massage" the cheese with your hand to really rinse it well.

Now put your cheese in a bowl. You can either eat it like this, or flavor it. If I flavor it or not, I always salt it.

This batch I flavored garlic/italian, and these are the seasonings I used.

And this is the cheese seasoned and packaged.

Well I hope you enjoyed that!

Have a good day.

Suriyah