Milking Flurry

First Homemade Sourdough Bread!

Other than making my first successful sourdough bread from my slightly questionable sourdough starter (with help from Kenzie--thank you), I milked alone for the first time last night, changing our milking routine from a meditative practice to a flurry of milking tubes, iodine, and circling the stanchion to check both sets of tubes for driblets of milk. The milking routine has usually gone like this: Fill 2 shot glasses of iodine, pour grain into buckets, get 2 goats (They always go in the same order, on the same side of the stanchion, next to their same pair, otherwise they freak out...creatures of habit!), milk a few squirts out of each teat to get the bacteria out, dip teats in iodine, wait 30 seconds, dry off teats, turn milking machine on and attach teats to milking machine, get into meditative state, wait to see only dribbles of milk pouring through the tube instead of large spurts, turn machine off, finish milking the goat out by hand, dip teats in iodine, wait 30 seconds (and meditate), dry teats off, rub teats with olive oil if skin feels chaffed, make sure Kenzie is also done, take goats back into main pen, and re-set for the next pair. Now, this routine has to be re-set to account for managing both goats at once, timing the milk machine so that one goat finishes slightly ahead. Usually, I am chilly sitting on the Swedish milk stool, watching my tubes, but last night I was sweating, squatting instead of sitting, and propelling off to the next goat. Iodine, milk squirts out of other goat, iodine, dry first goat, milk machine, dry second goat, milk machine, hover watching both....I guess I was overcompensating for not having Kenzie to complete the routine, feeding, moving goats, carrying water, milking, and after running from task to task, barely nuzzling my favorite goat, instead of milking taking the usual 2.5 hours, I had finished in only 2. I think I will calm down tonight, phew, knowing I can do it alone, and actually enjoy it.