Farm Visit: Weed Dance Farm

Maya and Elly at the entrance:

Maya feeds baby Willow (read here amazing story here, and followup here):

Shawna milks her Alpine goat (whose name I cannot remember – sorry, goat!):

Last Thursday, we drove up to Gobles to visit Shawna at Weed Dance Farm.  She has a charming homestead with a big garden, chickens, pigs, goats, and of course, her husband and boys. She teaches classes at the farm on herbs, food preservation, homesteading, fermentation, and more. (If you’re local, you should check her website out.) Maya and Elly really enjoyed playing with Indio (10) and Ben (7), who showed them how to swing from the rafters in the barn, eat tomatoes right off the vine, tromp through the wooded paths, climb trees, and play in forts. (I had more pictures of this fun, but alas, my computer ate a memory card’s worth of photos!! Thankfully, it was my smallest memory card, but still. I’m very sad.)

After we arrived, we headed straight for the barn for the morning milking. The boys got the first goat on the stand (a Nubian, I believe), and Shawna cleaned the udder and teats and began milking. She was so fast and rhythmic, it was almost hypnotic. The sound of the milk hitting the bucket was very relaxing; someone should make a CD out of that (like those nature sounds CDs with ocean waves and babbling brooks). Then she took a break, grabbed her steaming coffee cup, milked a few squirts in, and took a sip before setting the mug down and continuing with the milking. (Brilliant! Fresh, and no cooling your coffee down. =) Suddenly she turned to me and asked, “Do you want to try?” Well, sure I did, but I had no idea what I was doing.

I sat down, clumsily grabbed one teat in each hand (goats have two, whereas cows have four), and tried to squeeze. (Asher was on my back this whole time.) It was really awkward. This goat’s teats were very small and so hard to handle. The milk I did get out squirted everywhere but the bucket, including on my jeans on all over my hands. I laughed and handed the reins back to Shawna. She told me that this goat is not the best milker and is difficult to milk. When she was done, there was maybe a pint of milk in the bucket.

(Shawna told me that the first time she milked a goat, she just went home and cried. I can understand why!)

Indio took that goat back into her pen and brought out the other goat, an Alpine. While Nubians are known for their rich milk, Alpines are known for their volume. I got to milk this goat, too, and what a difference. Her teats were the perfect size for my hands, and she had a ton of milk. All of the milk went into the bucket this time, and I was encouraged. It was like night and day. (I should note that plenty of Nubians have nice teats for milking – just not the particular one that I milked.) I learned that it’s really important to pay attention to things like bag and teat size when buying a dairy goat. After Shawna was done milking the Alpine, there was probably three to four pints of milk in the bucket.

Shawna filled up a bottle with milk, and Maya and Elly got to feed milk to baby Willow. (Shawna usually lets her kids nurse from their moms, but Willow was very sick and ended up being rejected by her mom. Again, read her story at the links above her picture.) They both enjoyed it immensely.

We went into the kitchen to filter the milk, then walked through the garden. Due to the excessive rain, the tomatoes were pretty much shot, but the boys got the girls to try them. Despite the fact that they weren’t at their peak anymore, the girls were raving about them. Just more proof that kids and gardening go well together – picking their own tomatoes off of the vine, no matter how tasteless and split from rain, makes them eat and eat and eat. They kept saying how good they were, going back for more, and offering them to me over and over.

The girls finished off our visit by wandering the farms paths with the boys, and climbing trees and forts. They could have stayed for days. I had so many questions, and Shawna was so gracious in answering all of them. All too soon, our visit was over, and we were on our way home with fun memories and a chunk of comfrey root. (“Just plant it, and it will grow,” she said. I did it, so we shall see!)

It was really encouraging to see what a small scale farm looks like, how it runs, and a little bit of the details behind the scenes. It’s great to have someone in the area who is further along in her homesteading journey to learn from.

COMING SOON: A write up on our visit to KalCarbon Acres on Saturday!