Sunday, October 08, 2006

Milk Beggar



We are currently milking only one goat. All of the milk is going to other animals. We give some to the dogs and cats. The rest goes to the pigs. Since no humans are consuming the goat milk right now, we are not quite as careful with our milking procedures. When we go out to milk, we now have 2 dogs, 2 cats and 4 kittens who beg for milk. The funniest one to watch is our dog, Belle. She is so intense on the milker's hands. Her eyes shift from right to left as the milker empties one teat and then the other. Back and forth they go with no movement in her head position at all. She is just totally mesmerized. If you try to squirt milk to anyone else, you have to make her get back or she leaps into the way and sticks out her tongue to intercept. =) The first picture here is of her intense look. Then you see the milk going right to her. Any milk she drops or spilled is quickly cleaned up by her or another animal that beats her to it.

The last couple of days have been beautiful. The sun has been shining, the temperature has been in the mid to low 70's. If you stand outside, you can hear things that are sounds of fall. I can hear the traffic on the road a lot more now that the underbrush is going to bed for winter and the leaves are falling a bit. I love the dry rattling sound of the cornstalks and their leaves brushing together in the breeze. The bird sounds are different. You no longer here the incoming loud buzz of a hummingbird, diving down to the feeder. The song sparrows are not as plentiful. You hear geese honking as they fly overhead in their vee formation. Pretty soon we will hear the sound of the huge combines as they start to harvest the soybeans and corn. Most all the soybean fields are very dry and brown now. I now hear the clip clop of horses hooves more clearly as the Amish go down the road.

I am trying to pick one thing to commit to do every day this week. There are lots of things I have not kept up with that I need to. I figured I would try to add one back per week until I am doing like I should. You can pray for me in this endeavor.

6 comments:

Lynn Bartlett said...

Our goat dried up, so we aren't milking any more. When the boys did, they would have to chase out any cats, because the goat would tense up and start stamping her leg, which would then spill the bowl of milk. They would have quite a time when they had to keep one eye on milking and the other looking out for cats!

LadySnow said...

Belle is so funny! I will pray for you if you will pray for me. I too need to commit to doing one "big" thing a day, but don't know how it will work out. ;) Oh yeah....for those of you thinking about adding your name for her new contest...do it...We have that book and it is very good!

Carole Burant said...

Awwww I love the pictures of your dog getting the goat milk..how precious is that!! lol I was giggling at the first picture...you can really tell how intensely she was concentrating! hehe Glad to hear you're having some good weather...it's the same here but really getting cold nights now.

Kristi said...

The pictures of your dog getting the milk snack is so precious. Aren't animals great?

~Kristi

Marci said...

Patti, Belle is a red tri Australian Shepherd.

Marci said...

Patti, I agree. I am sure they are related somewhere. I wish they would leave the tails on the Aussies.