Goats!

Don’t ask me why I’ve wanted to milk a goat—no logical explanation can possibly exist, especially if you know me at all. Put me in an organic garden, and I’m a farm girl, mud up to my elbows, yeeha. Put me around farm animals, and I’m a suburban spectator, placing one finger gingerly on the animal, declaring it eew-bristly, and backing away. Yet this bizarre milking-a-goat dream lives in me. When Kathy and Charley Wood of European Experiences announced we’d go to their friend Marianne’s goat farm, Cabriole, and there might be a possibility of milking a goat, I was excited. A wee bit apprehensive, but kind of giddy too.

Next to Marianne’s driveway, about forty goats grazed in a field of poppies! One goat came over bleating up a storm. Marianne explained she (that momma goat) was crying because she had lost her baby; it had gotten loose the other day and hadn’t come back. Our group felt sad and offered to form a search party, but Marianne said a wolf had likely gotten it. And here we’d been worried about mosquitoes when wolves roamed the countryside. Hah!

We fed leaves to some goats and met three males, kept separately. They had been born on that farm and had big curved horns and long black (eew-bristly, I imagine) goatees. Marianne explained her goats live about ten years. 

Alas, our visit did not coincide with the milking schedule, but we did get to see the clever contraption used for daily milking. A goat stands on a table and sticks his head in a slot to reach a wooden food trough. The slot keeps him in that position while food pleasantly distracts him from the fact he’s being milked from behind. I took a close look at the milking tubes, and by gum, I think I could do it.

Marianne introduced us to three two-day-old babies. Okay, I did pet this one, who was the cutest, softest, sweetest little thing.

Slipping blue plastic booties over our shoes, we then entered the cheese-making room. Marianne showed us how she makes cheese and then prepared a tasting for us. She makes fresh, creamy, and dry from the same cheese. Some she coats with pepper, ash, tomato, herbs. My absolute fave is the just-plain, one-day-fresh one for its smoothness, although the tomato-enrobed one tingled the tongue with such a bright tomato flavor, I hesitate to relegate it to second place.

Interesting and very personal tour. We were delighted to see Marianne at the Friday Bonnieux market with all her cheeses and yogurts. And I still have my dream. :-)