HOMEGROWN Life: BM (Before Milking) and AM (After Milking)

Reader Contribution by Farm Aid And Homegrown.Org
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It’s spring. You can’t tell by the weather since, most mornings, the kitchen-window thermometer is still showing temps in the 20-somethings when I’m busy filling milk bottles for five babes. But other signs of spring are evident as I glance out that same kitchen window and see six lambs sitting atop their mamas or wandering around the sheep pen, waiting—patiently or not so patiently—for me to appear and open the gate to the pasture. Spring has blown into full-born sweetness in the barn, as three new goat kids nicker away in between munching on the bits of alfalfa and grain left over from their evening feeding. They, too, are anxious for bottles full of their mamas’ milk.

Dollie, my sweet Saanen girl, got spring rolling here back on March 10 when that thermometer was showing 10, and 30-mile-per-hour winds were blowing straight out of the north. She delivered twin girls, Seashell (Shelly) and Periwinkle (I’ve taken to calling her Winkydoodle). Deliveries followed soon after in the sheep barn, a single lamb I call Harp, on another brutally cold day, followed by Mairead’s delivery on St. Patrick’s Day—one of whom, of course, I call Guinness. On March 18, Colleen presented me at dawn with a set of twin girls, and finally, on Easter Sunday, my gorgeous Maeve brought two more coal black twins into this life, a boy and a girl. Who needs crocuses when you can have six lambs, all black, appear on the landscape? They are like a breath of fresh air after the long—and I mean long, and still not letting up—winter.

I now label the times of my day BM (Before Milking) and AM (After Milking). At 4:30—I know, I’m a lazy farmer; 4:30 a.m. is midafternoon for some folks—it all starts with filling stainless milk buckets with the richest, creamiest, freshest-tasting milk I’ve ever had. I’m not saying that just because it’s from my girls. Honestly. I had never tasted goat milk in my life before I decided to take that left turn to Seabreeze Farmon Open Farm Day four years ago and took a chance on buying a quart. I am not what you would call an adventurous eater. I know it’s probably good, but I just can’t get past those little suction cups on octopi, and I wouldn’t eat sour cream until I was a teenager because of the name. I love sour cream now, although I’ve replaced it with goat’s milk yogurt because, frankly, my life literally revolves around goat milk.

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