Kat’s Story
I tried goat cheese one day and knew I had to have more of it in my face. Buying it became expensive but lucky for me, Eugene is full of backyard goat farmers. So I began purchasing the milk at around $10-$15 per gallon.
I tried all the online recipes using vinegar and lemon juice as the coagulant – sometimes it worked great, usually it didn’t. But then I saw one that just explained the cultures – it looked so much easier!
I found a local store that sells your cultures, I purchased a package of chevre cultures, followed the directions and then I was hooked.
A couple of years later, I just went ahead and bought some goats!
I now teach other people to make the cheese and share my milk with them. Since the new baby goats are only a week old, it’ll be another 2-3 weeks before we can start milking the mamas again – my people are getting very impatient for their cheese fix.
I’m a self employed house keeper and my amazingly wonderful husband is a delivery driver for a chemicals company. He has a teenager from a previous marriage. I do love that kid – we have a pretty special relationship (right now we’re catching up on Wentworth before the next season comes out).
I have 2 teenagers from a previous marriage – 2 great kids and those aren’t even my words, they’re everyone else’s (but I certainly agree). They’re well behaved kids who never cause trouble and are quite helpful around the house/farm. The kids have their own lives pretty much, they’re independent creatures but they do all get along wonderfully and often go off on “social distancing” adventures together.
Most of my time at home is spent tending to my little residential farm – despite being well inside the city limits in a dense neighborhood where we have a half acre backyard. Our little farm has 22 very cuddly chickens in our little orchard of 4 large fruit trees (two heritage apple trees, a Bartlett pear tree and an Asian pear tree), 3 milking goats (although, right now we still have our stud goat on the property and 5 little sweet babies) plus a full garden.
The chickens were quite excited about getting their pictures taken. They fancy themselves as models. Our cat, Cheese, helped raise them from babies so he spends quite a bit of time with them still.
I get around a dozen and a half eggs a day which are immediately donated to neighbors in need.
Now, we’re allowing families to schedule time with the baby goats, as a sort of “therapy” to break up the monotony of a quarantine. One family at a time arrives and I disinfect the gates in-between. All the animals are getting much enjoyed love and affection from people every day and I can see how much happier they are after a full day of love being poured all over them.
Between cleaning and farming, I find my time just vanishes but I still manage to crochet some blankets for the kids (the human ones) in the evening time. Honestly, the only thing that has really changed for me since the quarantine is that I’m cleaning fewer houses, but that was just in time for the goats to give birth so I’m not bored at all.
My husband just pointed out that I entirely left out my love to cook! I make EVERYTHING: noodles from scratch, breads, pastries, candies… the list goes on. Learning to make cheeses and all the other dairy products just make sense. My poor husband has gained 50 pounds since we got together and he’s flabbergasted that cooking didn’t come up in the things about me.
The bread I made today – it was made using the original bread recipe from a couple thousand years ago.
My step son just yelled “THAT’S LITERALLY MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOU – YOUR COOKING, WOMAN!” I should’ve also mentioned our extreme sense of humor in this family – we can’t have “quarantine fights” if we’re laughing all the time.
Homemade salted dark chocolate and espresso truffle filling. It’s always in my freezer – I don’t think I can live without it.
I usually make chevre – dear Lord it’s my favorite. It’s such a versatile cheese! I make flavored rolls out of it: the favorites are pesto and herb, fig and honey (I grow the figs), and raspberry-cayenne (I grow the raspberries too).
I also make feta, mozzarella, sometimes halloumi cheese, yogurt, sour cream and goat milk soap.
I’ve been trying to make cheddar from the goat milk but I haven’t gotten it right yet – it would probably help if I had a real press instead of a stack of weights. I asked Santa for one last year, but let’s be honest, I haven’t been THAT good. I’ll get better pictures of the babies and family tomorrow. You’ll get a laugh at how tiny my little kitchen is – I am not tall but I can stand in the middle and just about touch every wall.
How does your yogurt do with goat’s milk?
It’s got such a rich flavor and it’s even creamier than regular yogurt. I find my whey comes out more like slime when I make yogurt out of it (I ALWAYS make it Greek style) and that only occurs when I make the yogurt specifically from goat’s milk. I have no idea why. Either way, it tastes soooo much better than cow yogurt, so it’s pretty often requested amongst my people. My favorite is to mix it with honey, pomegranates and granola for breakfast.
Advice for beginners?
Yes. Be ok with making mistakes because they will happen – it doesn’t always go according to plan. Go in to each batch trying your best but also knowing it could go south at any point. Be proud of each success, as there will be many.
I was doing yard work – which is how I found this large 6 leaf clover today.
