Snow Day

It was a quiet, snowy day on the farm.  Everyone was home from school and work including our neighbors Mary and Zans and their two children.  Mary made some delicious pizza and it was fun to spend time together with everyone in the Inn taking a slower pace to their day and enjoying the weather.

Tonight during my feeding and milking chores, I think I finally made a breakthrough.  Milking has not been easy for me.  I really enjoy hand milking, but that is only sustainable with a small number of goats.  At this point we have about 20 goats a milking, so we use a machine.  It's similar to a cow milking machine, but smaller and for two udders instead of four.  Many of the goats now milking are yearlings and being milked for the first time.  The past couple weeks I've been met with quite a bit of resistance from the mothers and my inexperience has been no help at all.  Unsure about the process and annoyed by my inability to properly use the equipment makes for frustrated goats and an even more frustrated milk maid. But tonight went rather smoothly.  For the first time I was relaxed and felt confident; I think that transferred to the ladies.