Saturday, December 31, 2005

Hard Cheese

It is the last day of the year and we are down to our very last milk of the season here at the farm. There is only one little yearling Nubian, Boo, still milking. And according to the farmer, Boo's style of milking is "a long walk on a short pier," whatever that means. I did see Boo kick the milk bucket over a few times but I'm sure it must have been an accident. It is a well-known fact all over the farm that Boo is not a rocket scientist.

For example, one morning the farmer came in to feed us and Boo jumped up yelling in alarm and asked me, "who on Earth is that?" I told her, "doh, Boo, that is the farmer who comes in here ten times a day and gives us all our nice grain and hay and straw and water and sometimes even peanuts or licorice." And Boo said, "oh." I realized later it was because the farmer had a new hat and so Boo thought it was a different person. Nubians.

Anyway, this upcoming milk shortage makes the farmer very grumpy because it means no more jack, no more goat milk fudge, no more honey-rosemary chevre, no more panir, no more goat milk lattes (try one and you won't go back), no more goat milk ice cream, no more nothing. How would you like it if you had fresh goat milk every day and then one day you had to go to the grocery store and buy a cardboard box full of that watery overcooked stuff they call milk? "Yuccch" would be the word that springs to mind, or maybe "barfola". If you would like to read about real milk, you can go to the real milk site.

Today the farmer said, "I will be glad when Winnie comes back in milk."

That's all we hear about, Winnie Winnie Winnie the LaMancha. Just because precious Winnie milked for two years as a first freshener, big deal. "Winnie comes from a lot of milk," the farmer says. "Winnie is so pretty, she is going to the state fair when she comes back in milk." SO WHAT. Who cares about going to the state fair and lying around in a tiny pen all day so a bunch of city people can goggle at you and ask questions like "how old is this cute little lamb?"

When the farmer isn't here we call Winnie "farmer's pet" and "brown nose" - it's true, she does have a brown nose. And then we RUN.