One of our school lessons recently was about goats. When I previewed the week's plans, I saw that it was suggested to try goat milk. I immediately thought of a family at church who has goats and knew they drank goat milk and made other things with it, so I planned for our littles to go over there for a field trip. Micah ended up passing out beforehand, so it was just me and the girls.
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| Some of the chickens we get eggs from. |
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| New baby chicks! |
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| Milking station |
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| My girls would have nothing to do with trying to milk the goat, so Vivienne had to do it for them. |
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| When we got there, Shayne had this batch of curds ready for us to begin the cheese process. |
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| The curds have to reach a certain temperature before molding... I think he said 120 degrees. |
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| The next pot of whey will be ready soon! This also has to reach a specific temperature. I think this one was 80-90 degrees. I should've taken notes! |
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| Gracie getting her gloves on. She was so excited to make cheese, then decided it was too hot to touch. |
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| Shayne showing Gracie how to form the cheese into a ball, stretch it, and get all the air out. |
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| The cheese cooling off and setting in cold water. |
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| Chloe trying goat cheese for the first time. It was really good! |
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| New pot of whey is ready! |
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| New curds drained and ready to form |
This field trip was a lot of fun. We tried goat milk and goat cheese, which was a lot like mozzarella. Both were very good. Shayne sent us home with our own ball of cheese and some goat soap they had made previously. He was also making yogurt in the back crockpot, but it wouldn't be done for several hours. We'll have to try that next time. Thank you, Riggs Family, for taking time out of your day to set up stations and show our girls your farming process! Way cool stuff.
