Friday, March 21, 2008

Cat meets cat: garage time at Seven Trees

Job site inspector strikes again!Wow! Who would have thought a tiny building needs this much destruction! It's a big shock to have a giant dirty empty space, but the builders will start Monday and soon it will be our garage, with lots of nice trees & shrubs planted around it.
We did manage to squeeze in a brewing session. This is an English pale ale getting started. Next week we'll brew another batch of milk stout.
Mark says bye for now! Stay tuned for lots of photo-updates this busy busy spring....

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Milking log:

3/19 - 1.5 quarts in a few minutes. We decided to go out to dinner, so I just milked enough to keep Stella in the routine.

3/20 - 2.5 quarts after being separated 5 hours. I left some for Doug since my hands got tired. I think Stella could easily give close to a gallon in the evening milking.

And Stella's in heat. We'll get a few months to count cycle days before Bob comes back, which will help us eatimate when she gets pregnant again.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! The scablands of Everson! ;)

Oldnovice said...

She's in heat while still nursing? Interesting.

Seven Trees said...

Stella will have a few heat cycles, continue nursing, get bred, be pregnant, all while giving a good supply of milk. In fact, we'll have to dry her off 2 months before her next calf comes so she can recover a bit.

I've read a lot about milking Dexters, and it seems like a good producer can raise 2 calves and have some left over for humans, as long as she's getting good quality feed.

It seems like Stella is stepping up to the plate in true Dexter style. A sturdy, smart, easy-keeping, productive family milk cow. We're really proud of how well she's doing, given that we're all newbies to this.