Goat Milking Demonstration
On the 8th October, we were finally able to hold our long-awaited field day, at Te Hua Farm in Oxford. It had originally been scheduled for October 2010, but was postponed to March 2011 after the September quake, and then postponed to October after the February quake. We had a working bee the day before, which saw a good number of club members giving up their free time to come and help sort out the signage and organise where everything was going to take place. We had a rain contingency plan as well, but even that was scrapped when the next day dawned overcast and bitterly cold. By an hour from when folks were due to arrive the wind was up and blowing heavy rain sideways. All the signs which were set up outdoors had to quickly come in from the rain.
Fortunately, about half an hour later, the wind stopped blowing, so all the signs were able to go back out, but under cover just in case. Many of the non waterproof signs stayed in the house, which is where we ended up holding much of the day’s activities. By start time, people began arriving in droves, and everyone crammed into our small lounge to have a hot cuppa and biscuits. There was a break in the rain before the homeopath was due to give her talk on homeopathy for goats, so we all scooted out to the paddock to have the one and only goat walk of the day. The goats were pleased for a brief respite from the rain, and happy to come out and say hello. After an informative talk by homeopath Rhonda Hamilton-Cross. We broke for lunch, a few people left, a few more arrived, and then the weather cleared nicely, so we could go out to the milking shed for hand-milking and hoof trimming demonstrations. One young boy, who had been asking a lot of great questions throughout the day, wanted to have a go at the hand-milking. He was very keen, the doe was very patient, and he was able to get a few squirts out of her. Her teats outsized his small hands by a bit, or I think he would have got quite a bit more!
Finally, we did a quickie-cheese making demonstration followed by a cheese tasting. I made a vinegar cheese, very easy to do and demonstrate, and very easily shows the separation of curds from whey. It’s a versatile, non-cultured cheese, bland on its own, but you can add anything you like to it, and it even fries without melting! There were probably more than 50 people there on the day, adults with children, down to the babes in arms. The children were all very well-behaved, and not a peep out of the babies! Everyone who was there was quite keen to be, and very interested in learning more about goats. We even got a couple of new club members out of the day, and hope to make this an annual event.
Many thanks to all our club members who helped make this day a resounding success!
