Deb, drinking a homemade goat milk latte with 2 tuckered out kids in her lap.
We live approximately 10 miles outside of Edwardsville Illinois. We have about 12 1/2 acres for our goats and chickens.
Deb and her husband, Gary
It took about two years of negotiations with my husband in order to get goats. Before my husband and I were married, he used to raise baby doll sheep. I’m guessing he didn’t enjoy it all that much because he said they were boring and they didn’t have personalities.
We finally purchased 6 goats – five does and a wether. We waited till the does were over a year old and started breeding. We only breed two a year.
We only raise Nigerian dwarf goats because I am only 5 foot two and couldn’t handle bigger ones, lol.
After the babies came, my husband was hooked and unfortunately refused to sell the first and second year of babies. He was hooked on goats.
Gary holding Abigail for a Christmas picture. We handle our goats a lot so they are all very sweet. That is our Great Pyrenees, Maisy who watches over our herd goat family.
The whole idea of getting goats was to raise show goats for people, but we don’t do milk testing and we don’t go around to the goat shows because my husband is still working and we just don’t have the time. So, unless they just want pets or just milkers, it’s hard to sell them. Therefore, we now have 15 goats and two does to deliver in April this year.
Fortunately, my husband is exceptionally good at building.
Gary is one of those people who is very particular and builds things to last. (So glad he is, sometimes. Lol.) The building on the far left is the potting shed/milking shed. The little building in the middle is our little munchers haven shed. The building on the far right is a very well insulated doghouse.
This building is usually used for new moms and their babies but right now has our little bucks in there for the winter since it’s closer than their original building.
The goats are quite amusing and very lovable.
We enjoy the milk as we make our own soap, yogurt, cheese, and we make our own Macchiato’s (upside down lattes) instead of buying them at Starbucks.
Oatmeal and honey goat milk soap
Our yogurt:
We use New England Cheese Making Supply products like the Y3, and Y5 yogurt cultures. We like the yogurt thick so we strain it overnight and, oh my gosh, it is wonderful. (I have tried others yogurt cultures and it was the first failure I had in yogurt making. So, from then on I have only used your products.)
This is how I make my yogurt:
1. I heat a half a gallon of goat milk to 170 – 180F for a thicker yogurt.
2. Then, I remove it from heat and let it cool to around 112-115F.
3. I remove the skin that forms on the top and add my 1 package of Y5 or Y3 culture. (If I don’t have either one of those cultures, I use the C201 Thermophilic culture, about 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon.)
4. I stir it well and then pour it into our two yogurt makers (in the picture below) for 8 hours.
I then place a large strainer over a bowl with cheese cloth, pour in the yogurt, and place in the fridge overnight. We love it thick like that.
I really love these yogurt makers because after heating, they automatically start cooling the yogurt down. In the morning I turn them off and, as I said above, get the yogurt ready and place in the fridge. So, I usually start my yogurt in the late afternoon.
Our cheese:
When making cheese, of course we use all your products.
Colby
Cheddar made in August, 2020
Our press:
Our cave:
Humidity mister we recently purchased for our wine cooler/cave
My Other hobbies:
I use the leftover whey for my bread making.
Whole wheat boule
Challah
l also love making quilts and just sewing all sorts of things. One year I made Christmas gnomes for family members.
I love gardening. We put in a pretty good sized garden every year and do some canning. He is almost finished with our small greenhouse, which he added to our potting/milking shed. Doing this will enable us to open the potting shed window to provide heat in the greenhouse.
Building our greenhouse last year
You can see how long it is.
Here it is completely finished. Just waiting on the weather to settle to paint the siding on the bottom.
My goals:
So far I have made chevre, cheddar, and colby cheeses, but I would really like to start making different kinds like swiss, blue, etc. My problem is we only breed 2 Nigerian dwarf goats a year so it’s hard to get enough milk to make any of the more (what I call) complicated cheeses.
As long as what I make tastes good, I’m happy.
