Humid Day

Good morning! When the paper you write milk weights on is so damp it’s hard to write on, you know it is too humid. The temperature is a pretty nice 71° and the humidity outside is 84%. I suspect it is higher than that in the house because I’ve had to do some laundry this morning and I’ve been busy in the kitchen.

On that paper is some interesting information if you care about such things and milk weights and I have to say that I do. I’ve been keeping the kids from the does for a couple of weeks now and decided it was time to keep them apart at night as well yesterday. Milk production for Goldilocks and Snowflake went up during the day which was to be expected and it has now gone way up for during the night which is also to be expected.  Zoey has been pretty consistent in the high 50’s and low 60’s morning and evening. This morning she was at 61.9 ounces. Goldilocks outdid her with 64.7. That’s to be expected as well, I suppose, since Goldilocks is a larger goat and half Saanen and Zoey kidded for the first time this spring. Still, now I’m going to be dealing with more than a gallon each milking. Holy cow.

Yesterday Joanna had some excitement. She cut her finger at work. Joanna being Joanna, this can be a big deal depending on where her platelet count is. She’d gone in to have her blood drawn last week but the doctor said that while her count was down, it wasn’t down enough to warrant drugs. So she cut her finger yesterday and had to go to the ER because it was bleeding so much. A bandaid did no good at all. A wad of gauze didn’t do much good although by the time the ER doctor looked at it, the bleeding had slowed. When he removed it, the flow started again but said that it wasn’t “that bad” so he wouldn’t give her prednisone either. He would give her 800 mg ibuprofen though, which makes you bleed more. He actually had to put a tourniquet around her finger to slow the bleeding while he probed the cut. I really wonder what they consider to be “bad”.

The gauze.She now has three stitches in her finger and some nasty bruises where the doctor stuck her for pain killers at the base of her finger. The only good thing is that she can't work today and that is only a mixed blessing.

This morning I got up after having slept really well (I did my stretches yesterday while I was waiting for the goats to finish eating once I was done milking) and was instantly assailed by the humid conditions when I stepped out the bedroom door. Yikes! Can we move west, already?

The pot just after I added a gallon of milk for cheesemaking.

I milked and let the kids back in with the does. I cleaned up a bunch of dog poop and pee in the library. I made chocolate, butterscotch, and vanilla pudding. I went to the basement and got one of the box fans and put it in one of the living room windows to draw in some of the cooler air. I put a load of towel on to dry and need to start another load to wash but haven’t yet. I watered the goats and fed and watered the dogs. I fed Kitty. I put milk on for yogurt and cheese. I made an awesome smoothie for breakfast and already finished drinking a glass of it. Making a smoothie included stemming two packages of strawberries: one for the smoothie, one to put in the freezer.  So far, that’s about it.

The pudding: chocolate, butterscotch, vanilla. 

Have a wondiferous day!