New product - golden milk (tumeric tea)

Exciting news!



We just added a new item under the herdshare... Golden Milk, sometimes known as tumeric tea.

This is not a mix, not a gritty powder, but ready to drink smooth milk drink... made from extra creamy raw goat milk!

Golden milk is a recipe of tumeric, black pepper, and coconut oil (all organic of course) prepared into raw goat milk. You can enjoy it cold or warm, either way this drink is super healthy!

Tumeric is one of the most valuable root spices available. It is anti inflammatory, and pretty much "anti everything bad"! Tumeric should be a part of our daily diet for optimum health. The problem with most tumeric is absorption. Combining this root with coconut oil in a base of high fat raw milk helps significantly with absorption. We add in a tiny amount of black pepper, not enough to taste, to also increase absorption.

This golden milk is prepared by actually warming the tumeric slightly in the coconut oil to soften and hydrate it, so that there is no gritty specs left once it is mixed into the milk. Never heated enough to alter the goodness, just enough to make it "melt" into the milk. The result is a yummy milk drink. You can even add some honey if you prefer it a little sweeter, but it's fine just as is!

Golden milk is now added to the list of things you can choose to turn your milk into under the herdshare. For a small fee you can convert milk into golden milk by the quart, on any delivery. This is just like yogurt and kefir. The only requirement is to have enough herdshare quantity to produce the products, as the milk used to produce yogurt, kefir, or golden milk is your herdshare milk and reduces the amount of fluid milk you will receive.

If you do not have a herdshare yet, hurray and but you're, the shares are selling out fast. Just contact us for the details.

posted from Bloggeroid

Milk Prices... Is this real?

Sometimes the math just doesnt add up, and that should always make us suspicious... The price of milk and dairy products is an example. Let me explain...

Milk in the grocery store can run form $2 to $4 per gallon.  Seem reasonable, right?  But... consider the price of yogurt  made from that milk. A tub of good quality yogurt made from that milk runs about $10 to $15 per quart, or $40 to $60 per gallon! a HUGE increase in price. But why? Yogurt is a simple process of adding a starter, letting the milk sit overnight, and packaging it for retail. That's it! Where producing that first gallon of milk is a long drawn out process of raising cows or goats, feeding, housing, milking, cooling, transporting the milk... not to mention health requirements for the cows and calfs and facilities for all of this. The workload, cost, and investment in producing milk is absolutely HUGE compared to the workload of changing that milk into yogurt.  Something is wrong with this math! How can yogurt sell for 10x the cost of milk it is made from, if the vast majority of production cost is to produce the milk itself?

One answer can be found in the gory details of "milk production". Producing milk is not "milking a bunch of cows"... no. Big dairies run according to thew "government process" that dictates the fat and solid content of the milk. To meet these requirements, the dairy processing plant must first dismantle the milk into raw components! Yes.. the fat is removed from the milk and sometimes the solids are also removed. Then the processing plant reassembles the milk to government standards. The resulting "whole milk" is nothing of the sort! Even "whole milk" is a creation in the plant by recombining parts of the original product in desired rations. None of this is "natural" by any definition.

Example of a milk processing disassembly - reassembly line

Interestingly, the amount of fat required by law for "whole milk" is below the actual fat content of "milk". So ... if they dont add all the fat back, where does the extra fat go? What about extra solids ?  I think that therein is part of the answer to the cost being so off. The "extras" are sold off as other products that cost way more than the original milk! In other words.... the milk is the "waste product" left over from extracting the valuable stuff that produces the profit.

Strong words.. but think about what is happening.. the milk is "torn apart" into raw components, some extracted and sold as other products, some reassembled and sold "at cost". The milk, is the leftovers!

At Little Sprouts, we have reversed this. We manage goats under a "hard share" arrangement where our farm members own the goats, we mange and milk them and provide the milk produced in raw form, just as nature intended. We do not break apart the beautiful liquid gold to recombining it according to some government established ratios. We let nature dictate the components and rations and nutritional qualities of the milk.   Then, we offer a service of converting the owner's milk into yogurt or kefir for them. The cost for managing the herd is by far the largest portion of this process, and the cost to the members reflect this. The milk "seems" much more expensive by comparison, perhaps prohibitively so. But then.. converting that milk into yogurt cost very little (becasue it is so easy by comparison) and the resulting price paid to acquire a quart of yogurt is BELOW the grocery store price!

yes.. consider this.. the milk costs 10x more than grocery store milk, but the yogurt and kefir ends up CHEAPER than grocery store yogurt or kefir.  We base our prices on actual costs to produce, and that's how the real math works out.

So  next time you are buying milk at the store.. check the yogurt prices.. convert it all to a per gallon price, and question how this can be. Raising animals and milking is much much much more involved than turning milk into yogurt. Something is wrong...

Milk is a golden product, a mainstay of a healthy diet, IF it is produced right and in it's raw form unchanged by man. Especially goat milk, which is much more nutritious and digestible as well as less problematic for humans. I encourage you to consider the milk sold in the stores, how it got there, what you paid for those "leftovers" and then find a local farm that raises "real milk".

Raw Milk, The Vaccination Debate, Probiotics, Babies, Farming, Leaky Gut... how it all fits together

Ever hear... "Cant see the forest through the trees" ? Seems a common expression, and true. Often we dont see the big picture because we focus on individual trees. In fact, I am coming to understand that a lot of whats wrong with modern science is just this... the constant focus on trees. 

Recently I had a revelation of the forest... and how all the seemingly unrelated items in the title of this post really do fit together.  Lets take a train of discovery.. each train car linked to the one before it.

Raw Milk.... many say that it is just a normal food, and heating (cooking) it doesnt change anything. Others would disagree, claiming to see different benefits from raw and pasteurized.  An ongoing debate. Sure, there are some live bacteria in the milk, and some heat sensitive enzymes, but does it really change it that much to pasteurize it? Are the benefits worth the risk? Well, lets hop onto the next car to explore.

Vaccines... lots of them... given to newborn babies. Debate.. help or hurt? worth the risk? This is not the debate today.. But in researching this debate I ran across a very interesting link to raw milk. In fact two.  It is a known fact by medical science that the immune system of a newborn is too inactive to build immunity to a vaccine. In fact,  the vaccinations are useless for the purpose administered. The only reason to vaccinate a newborn is.... to train the parents.  This is a fact easily discoverable with little searching. 

A related fact is that in researching some vaccine actions within a newborn, there was a discovery... breast milk actually further lowers the effect of the vaccine. In other words... the breast milk itself will combat the virus or bacteria to the extent of making the shot ineffective even for an older child that has an immune system working. A breast fed baby is FIRST protected by moms milk. The recommendation from that study was to pause breastfeeding for several days to allow the immune system to fight the vaccine. 

Wow.. so what these two mean together is that raw breast milk actually works as a medicine, directly fighting the infection for the baby until the baby's own immune system is activated and working.  That's a revelation! Milk is not a food, its a medicine. It is majorly antibacterial AFTER consuming it. 

Why would we assume animal milk is any different? It appears that milk in general is designed not only to nourish but directly kill any infection that gets to the baby, human or animal.  This.. is a game changer. 

We know that leaky gut is caused largely by a bacterial imbalance in the gut.... and that we are first inoculated with bacteria at birth. It would seem that nature has designed in it a way to then encourage the proper balance populates the gut... mothers milk. It must kill off the bad and leave the good. Fortunately... babies nurse often.. every 1 to 3 hours. That gives them a constant stream of this magic antibacterial fluid to cleanse and populate the root of their immune system... their gut. 

Cow milk, goat milk,  it is no different in purpose than human milk. Therefore... those milks must also be naturally antibacterial. They are medicine as much or more than food! Would you cook antibiotics before taking them? I think not... why would you cook the milk you drink? IT kills bacteria FOR you. Not that it strengthens your system.. but it kills invaders as part of your system! Whoa... thats a whole new way of looking at milk!

We know how important probiotics are, especially those of us dealing with leaky gut and its related problems. Now we find that raw milk is like a selective smart antibiotic! (as long as it isn't altered in)pasteurizing).   If this isn't a reason to keep milk raw, I cant think of a better one!

I love farming, you get to see how life fits together from a very personal perspective. You can see forest, trees, leaves, and surrounding land!

Homemade Milk Measuring adapter

Managing a herd of dairy goats requires some reliable way to measure the amount of milk each goat produces each month. That way it is possible to tell when their natural cycle is coming to an end, and when to rotate them around a rest / breeding cycle that is best for them as well as maintaining the milk production constant year round.   To do this, we recently purchased a Waikato milk meter.

This is a simple manual device that goes inline with the milk tubes, and captures 2% of the milk into the graduated tube in the front. IT works great... for larger goats. With the mini nubians it does a wonderful job as is. BUT for the Nigerian dwarfs, 2% is not enough milk to .. measure! SO i took it upon myself to modify it. or rather to create an adapter that will capture 90% of the milk instead.

First, heres how this device works:

The milk flows up the middle pipe, entering the chamber at the top in the center with force. It splashes against the dome which has a ring on the inside. This ring serves to direct the milk down. On one side is a square pipe that captures 2% of the milk and sends it down to the measuring tube. The rest of hte milk exists at the bottom back towards the vacuum.

From the top you can see the center tube, the ring around it in the dome, and the tube on the left (the front) that captures the milk

With the dome removes you can see the center tube and square milk capture tube.

So now the "adapter". I took the lid from a mason jar, a plastic lid, and drilled a center hole, then cut a square on one end, to fit over the pipes. This then slides down over the pipes and forms a catch cup that catches most of the milk. I then cut a slot in the side of the square tube at the base of the adapter, which allows the milk to flow into the square pie and the measuring cylinder.  the slot should not bother the use of hte device without the adapter, so it can go back and forth from a nubian to a nigerian measuring device.

View of the "adapter"

Here are some shots of it in place:

So tomorrow morning we shall see if this works!

Its the little things..

So, the way this works at Little Sprouts is twice each day we gather up the ladies (milking goats) and escort them one at a time into a holding area where they await their turn to enjoy treats and be milked. Lately one of our gals has discovered a new talent. She has figured out how to pull out the pin we use to latch our entrance and exit gates. Having two entrance gates it was a bit comical and only a small set back when she would enter the milking room before it was her turn. Keep in mind the rest of the herd were close behind her. About a week passed and she was bored with coming into the milking barn and decided to try her luck at the other gate. Needless to say... we spent some time sorting the girls that had already been milked from those who had been ever so graciously returned to the sunshine!
To my delight, Uncle Bradley has installed a new piece to the puzzle for the ladies to contemplate for the next while. Order has once again resumed in the milking barn.
Take a look at his design, we will be sure to let you know not if, but when they challenge us with their crafty nature!

Dont cry... But

We all  know the old saying...  "dont cry over spilled milk"  ....

But you know...  When your up every day at 6am, and every evening at dinnertime milking the goats...  Well..  This brings a tear to an old farmer's eye.

How great thou art!

Simple pleasure of farm life....

Watching the winter sunrise while listening to alan jackson version of "how great thou art"  for morning milking.

Sometimes we just need to take a moment to contemplate this life we live,  in all its beautiful glory.

Then....  Back to milking.....

Maggie 's little miracle

Here he is...  Maggie's little boy,  sleeping peacefully on the straw.  You would b never know his birth almost killed both him and his mom.  How quickly things change!

Maggie has now rejoined the milking herd,  providing lots of healthy fresh milk for the herdshare owners. 

All is well

Goat rodeo?

Sometimes...  Things dont go according to plan with gates and such...

Got milk?

Milking room upgrade

Sometimes its the little things that make a big difference....  Like this new addition to the milking room where we spen 4 hours a day,  every day.

This is new new tea station,  entertainment center,  and communications hub.  Everything a lonely milker could want!

Raw milk being unfairly attacked, again

I ran across this article, with some very disturbing information. The CDC has taken a very misleading and dangerous stance on statistics around food safety pertaining to raw milk. The numbers they are artificially generating are so extreme that it might be the thing that prompts those in power to panic and pass laws, rules, regulations that finally eliminate this natural food from our nation.

Here is the article, which says it better than I can:

http://thecompletepatient.com/article/2013/december/13/presto-21-raw-milk-illnesses-20000-plus-cdc-math-carries-dark-message-rawmi

Milking goats... So much to learn...

Every day is a new experience in learning around here.  Recently we have been focusing on a fee specific areas to improve those areas one by one in some way.  This post i would like to share about our milking herd of goats.

Milking is tough.  Any farm will tell you there is no money in raw milk.  The equipment cost,  constant cleaning,  facilities required,  Huge labor needs,  supplies,  feed,  etc..  All add up to milk that is outrageously expensive.  It is quite common at farms to cut where ever possible,  usually resulting in reduced nutrition quality if the milk through cheap feed or breeds that produce higher quantity with lower fat.

We seek a different approach.  As you know from this blog, we seek quality first,  nutrition us the goal itself.  So what can we do to maintain quality while making some profit to offset the Huge commitment?

We may have stumbled on and things that work....  Here's what we have done so far:

1. Added a third breed,  LA Mancha goats.  These girls produce similar fat content to mini nubian at slightly higher production.  Production is up without lowering quality and flavor by mixing proper ratios of la Mancha,  mini nubian,  and nigerian dwarf.

2. Changed filtering method.  All our milk is filtered,  but we were using a gravity method. This is cheap but strips more fat than we liked.  So we changed to an inline filter system...  Same daily price but faster filtering and more fat (cream)  left in the milk.

3. Feed...  In addition to organic alfalfa and grass hay,  we added our own crop of organically grown oats and peas, mixed with some sunflower seeds.  Thus has greatly increased the production over just alfalfa,  increased fat (cream),  and lowered cost you!

4. Minerals...  We add our own blend of sea minerals,  essential goat supplements and organic nongmo goat feed.  This balances and rounds our the nutrition for health.

So far this plan is working wonders to quality and quantity while  keeping costs lower.  There is only one problem....  Since the  girls aren't hungry on the stand,  and we offer plain oats on the stand....  The milking experience is no longer special for them!  Behaviour has suffered making milking itself a chore.  We need something really special as a treat while milking....  But what is left?

Hunter came up with what may be the perfect answer...  Scratch and corn!  It is organic,  non gmo,  and then LOVE corn!  We can't free feed corn because of the high carb content throwing off their nutrition but...  A fee bites on the Stand to milk with mat be just enough incentive to make milking the highpoint of their day again!

We will try it today and see if this is the missing piece.  If it all works out we will be able to increase the herd share while increasing the quality and flavor...  And actually make a dollar or two without raising prices.

Stay tuned!

Why stores sell milk so cheap

Ever wonder why milk sells in the store for $2 to $3 per gallon while milk direct from a farm cost $10 to $20 per  gallon?  How can the farmer, the bottler, two transportation events and the grocery make a profit at 5 times lower cost than farm direct  to consumer with no transportation? The assumption is usually that economies of scale are at work here, and there certainly is some of that. However economies of scale can't explain 5 to. 10x difference with 4 levels if business removed. There must be something else at play here....

There is. The government pays certain farms, larger farms, to produce milk. The price those farmers sell for had little to do with supply and demand, cost of  production, or any normal free enterprise businesses principles. It had to do mostly with how much tax money goes to sellers to producer milk. As soon as the tax payments to farmers end... Prices go up dramatically as large farmers are forced to actually price according to cost of production.

But this is good, many think... The government keeps food costs down. Well hold on. Someone pays the taxes... Government doesn't make money, it takes it from citizens. So this is just shuffling money around, not keeping food cheap. Those that don't drink milk are forced to pay to produce milk for this that do drink it .

More importantly, this tax scheme called the farm bill is unfair competition. Add a small farmer producing real milk, our prices can not compete. We have to actually cover costs of feed, labor, insurance, facilities, maintenance. Etc through only milk sales. The larger farms exist on tax money instead. If the government would stop paying for milk, direct farm prices would seem much more in line.  Then we could talk about economies of scale vs quality.

Even deeper than this is the forcing of centralization in agriculture through government control through handouts. If only one type or size of business get large handouts, government is essentially controlling the entire market. Tax supported milk is cheap, only large companies get tax supports, so small farms can not compete. Soon you Gav centralization into only large corporations. Quality slides since size of producer determines method of production. And method of production determines quality.

So next time you pay taxes, remember that you just paid, in part, your milk bill. The part of you milk bill that you don't see.

This post was inspired by the following new story.... Intended to be as political news story, but what I see as a small farmer is government sanctioned unfair competition through forced taxation.

"Trouble for Boehner, dairy prices? Guide to farm bill defeat - Fox News" http://feedly.com/k/12Zo62U

Raw Milk Officially deemed a LOW risk food

Raw milk, the food of humans for thousands of years, vilified by the US government in the 1930's, is finally emerging as the safe, healthy food  that it has always been.  The Canadian government (CDC of British Columbia) has issues studies showing scientific proof that raw milk is in fact a LOW Risk food.

Here is the article published in the Wall Street Journal

The reviewer, Nadine Ijaz, MSc, demonstrated how inappropriate evidence has long been mistakenly used to affirm the "myth" that raw milk is a high-risk food, as it was in the 1930s. Today, green leafy vegetables are the most frequent cause of food-borne illness in the United States. British Columbia CDC's Medical Director of Environmental Health Services, Dr. Tom Kosatsky, who is also Scientific Director of Canada's National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health,welcomed Ms. Ijaz's invited presentation as "up-to-date" and "a very good example of knowledge synthesis and risk communication."

That says a lot! so today, instead of banning rw milk, the government should be banning leafy green vegetables! they are inherently dangerous due to modern farming practices.

Will the US government follow suite? probably not. Our own government is pushing GMO everything to the world and exporting chemical based farming methods, already proven to fail in the long run even today. America is leading the world in destruction of the most basic commodity, food.  So, I would not expect to see anything positive from our government about raw milk for decades to come.

Now, that said.. in defense of our government.... raw milk WAS extremely dangerous in the 20's and 30's.  This was due to sadly faulty farming practices, geared to raise profits at all costs. During those days, brought on by unscrupulous dairy farmers, the government was right in trying to protect the public.  However, the mistake they made was blaming the milk for the farmer's mistakes. Milk was never inherently dangerous, any more than leafy green vegetables are dangerous. It is the farmers, agriculture focused on profits and conventional methods, that sicken people.  Any food can be dangerous if produced improperly.

So, we applaud the Canadian CDC for their bold admission of the truth.

Why is Little Sprouts Milk, Yogurt, and Kefir so Creamy?

Incredibly smooth and creamy is one way to describe our milk, yogurt and kefir.  The yogurt is naturally thick without added gel or stiffeners, and the milk has an incredibly smooth soft flavor and texture.  How is this possible? This picture tells all:

This is a half gallon of milk that was left untouched in the fridge for about 3 weeks as an experiment. When milk sits undisturbed, the cream separates out and floats to the top.  With cow milk this happens almost overnight, but goat milk takes much much longer. We wanted to see just how much cream is in our goat's milk so we let this set.  Look closely and you will see the cream line just about half way down the jar. This means that the cream content is just about 50%.  Not bad! You can also see the thick cream across the top edge. It is really thick!

Cream in milk is what makes it taste, well, creamy. It it what makes the yogurt and kefir thick and smooth. Cream is the magic. Not only is this tasty but also naturally healthy. Goat milk is highly digestible and nutritious compared to cow milk. In fact, most people allergic to cow milk can drink goat milk without a problem. 

How do we achieve nearly 50% cream content? I cant say I am an expert, but it seems to be a combination of breeds and feeds.  We use a combination of Nigerian dwarf and mini Nubian breeds in a tightly controlled ratio. They are fed a majority of organic non-gmo alfalfa and grains (only as a treat), plus plenty of wild brush.  We are also very diligent about keeping the bucks away from the milkers, and quick cooling to prevent any "goaty" flavor. 

Goat herd expands again

This week we added 11 new Nigerian Dwarf milking goats to the herd. These girls are all in various stages of milk production and pregnancy. They also came quite a ways to enjoy life here at Little Sprouts.

We needed more Nigerians because recently our milking Mini Nubians increased through births .... bringing milk production up. While this is welcome... it presented a problem. We are committed to maintaining the quality of our milk through mixing these two breeds in a magic proportion to create a volume of milk that is rich, creamy, and flavorful. With more minis milking we realized we would need more Dwarfs for the winter milk to stay up to our standards. So...

The new girls are in various stages.... some milking, some pregnant, some very pregnant. The stages match the needs over the next 6 months to maintain that magic ratio. It wasn't easy! Brenda spent hours each night for days finding trusted breeders and farms that had high quality goats at the right stages. What a project! Fortunately we are now done... we should be able to continue indefinitately with the herd as it is through natural cycles of birth.

Another aspect of the project is genetics. Brenda tracked the potential goat's lineage in order to provide as broad a genetic base as possible. This helps the herd in many ways and through several upcoming generaations. A Broad genetic base creates a robust herd, able to withstand health issues, give birth easier, better dispositions, etc.

I applaud Brenda for her efforts on this project. Her meticulous attention to details was well worth it, and her persistence has given us a goat herd that is healthy, good producers of high quality milk with a steady supply all year, and maintained a balance of two breeds so that the milk we offer is unbelievably creamy, rich, and tasty.  She has produced something truly unique in this herd... and now is finished.

If you are local but haven't tried Little Sprouts goat milk.... contact us. We still have a few slots left on the herd share. The milk is very different from storebought goat milk... most people can't believe it is truly goat milk.

Inexpensive electric milker

Today we graduated from our hand milker (the Henry milker) to an inexpensive electric milker. this home built model cost under $200 total.
The pump was $100 brand new. It is a  vacuum pump used by auto mechanics to purge auto air conditioner lines. I attached a auto fuel pressure/ vacuum gauge for about $10. The only other pieces are misc lines and connectors. The tall black thing is a 3 foot section of 411 inch abs pipe. To control the mac vacuum there is a plastic valve from a fish tank line on the back as an air bleed.
I strapped the black tank to the end on the stand for stability.
We are using the "syringe" style attachment for the goat teats that came with the Henry milker except there are two with a tee  so both can be done at once.
All together it only took 20 or so minutes to milk all 6 goats! And it is a relaxing experience...almost a spectator sport!
We are considering manufacturing these to sell to other small goat keepers.it is incredibly hard to find an electric milker for under $800 these days.if you are interested...email us!

What is the white stuff we call milk today?

There are so many reasons to shun the white stuff sold in stores today under the name "milk", that it is literally hard to explain why it is not really "milk".  I ran across this article that does a great job of walking you through the history of how we got to this ultra-processed food that is sold as milk, instead of real natural milk.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/real-milk-zmrz11zalt.aspx

the problem, in my humble opinion, is that the situation with our food industry is so bad, the average american can not fathom how bad it truly is. We have a generation or two that has grown up on nothing but artificial food substitutes, and that is considered normal. Unfortunately this is the same generations that require the largest health care spending in the history of the world. Our ability to degenerate with a variety of diseases is still exceeding our ability to repair the damage caused by those diseases.

So I urge you to sit down, take a read through this article, and consider all the similar stories about other foods.. virtually every food available in the market today.

Kefir Grains for sale

We have been making our own Kefir at home for quite a while now from our own organically raised goats milk. Making Kefir is much much easier to make than yogurt, and many people say Kefir is healthier than yogurt. Now our grains are more than we need so we are offering them for sale so you too can make this super healthy probiotic drink at home.

Kefir is an age old drink made from "grains" and milk. The "grains" are actually small colonies of bacteria and yeasts that live in a symbiotic relationship, growing each time used to turn ordinary milk into a super health drink. There are plenty of website listing the history and benefits of Kefir, just google KEFIR and browse the list.

Kefir is much like yogurt except :

It is smoother and more liquid, more like smoothie.
It is made with both bacteria and yeast, so is a more complete probiotic food.
Easier to make - grows at room temperature.
The grains or starter culture last virtually forever.

To make Kefir all you need do is drop the grains into a fresh milk and let it sit on the counter covered with cloth or paper (let air flow in and out). The next morning the milk magically will have turned into Kefir.  It's truly that easy!

If you;d like to get started making this tremendous drink at home, just buy the starter set of Kefir grains from us, and we will walk you through the process. You never have to buy grains again! They are reusable and grow so each ime you have a little more.  Eventually you can share with your family and friends !

Our price for the Kefir grains is $10 per teaspoon.  A teaspoon makes a cup or so of kefir. If you;d like to make more at a time, before the grains grow and expand, just buy more to start. The more you add to milk, the more milk you cna turn into Kefir.

Just call or email to purchase your Kefir grains. .. $10 per teaspoon.  The are fresh, and ready to drop into your own milk and start working for you.

More Tree Trimmings -- Milk production increasing

Two very encouraging things are  in front of us. First.. people are calling from all over offering their tree trimmings and brush to Little Sprouts. From the Craigslist ad we are getting 2 or 3 calls per day now. It is so encouraging to meet so many truly caring and generous people in our world. What a great experience for our family to get to know these good people and share a few minutes of chat and labor with them.  It demonstrates to us just how much good is left in this world.

The other encouraging thing is that the goat's milk production appears to be restored, after only 3 days on tree trimmings. That was one of the motivations in this experiment... The goat milk production had decreased as expected when we cut our their daily grains. over a week or so without grain it dropped to about half. All the dairies we have spoken with tell us this is expected, it takes grain to make a decent milk yield. Considering this  we fell back on our Farm Rules. One of them is that we create as natural an environment as possible for each animal. Goats in the wild would not exist on just grains. Studying them, we see that they are drawn to trees.. leaves specifically. Whenever they are loose in our yard they go right to the bushes and trees and strip them clean. Leaves seem to be their food of choice. So we started collecting tree trimmings. After 3 days of as much tree trimmings as they want... plus their grass and alfalfa hay, the milk production is back from half to full. It is a bit too early to tell, but so far this is very promising! If we can sustain a full milk production without feeding grain, by feeding what they are naturally drawn to, I suspect the milk will e of higher nutritional content. This is, after all, the end goal, nutrition - not quantity, BUT if  we can achieve quantity plus nutrition... thats the best possible situation. We will do some more experimenting and have the milk tested as soon as we can to tell for sure. For now.. more tree trimmings!

Today we headed over to ashland to pick up a variety of tree trimmings and leaves. We managed to pretty much fiill the trailer and had a great time doing it. Our many thanks to those who contributed to today;s collection!

Packing dried leaves into bags

More leaves

Kaelyn takes a break for some fresh organic grapes

Working together!

One last bag

Kaelyn helping dad load cut branches. Always by my side. 

Is this too big to life?

Look out DAD!

Hunter loads into the trailer, stacking for best fit.

Wow Dad, look at this one!

What could be better than that smile for a job well done?

Keep em coming!

Whats this little guy have on his mind?

Up on one leg!

YES! Standing!

back down :) maybe try again after a rest

What a team! we loaded the whole trailer togther!

Levi heads back in to check things out

The job quality inspector

What do you think? are we done?

Yep.. looks like time to head home -- he is smiling :)