Milk and Honey (and Me!) settle in to New Digs

Milk and Honey has moved into Santa Fe proper. We now span two locations--my home where I live with my kids, keep the bees and make my soaps and lotion bars (and blog from), and the beautiful piece of land being shared with my goats about three miles from my home. It seems I am getting the best of city life, while my goats are still living out in the country with the chickens and the mountains.

This move into town has been a HUGE transition, but one that has brought all kinds of wonderful, new people into my life. My goats' home is on the property of an absolutely lovely woman named Louisa, who has an incredible permaculture plan in-process, one which includes goats. She is loving having them there, is eager to learn how to milk them, and helps me to feed them, saving me an extra daily trip. While we will be building them a larger shelter that will include a "milking parlor", in the meantime, I desperately needed a temporary shelter for the girls, and I was able to connect with a gentle and incredibly competent carpenter, Bill, who happened to have a day off just when I needed him. The result is a great temporary straw-bale shelter, that the goats immediately inhabited.

And before the goats arrived there, they spent two weeks less than a mile from my home, with an urban goat, at my friend Larelei's. She has just acquired two milk goats, and lives on a third of an acre right in town. I could see the Railrunner train going by as I milked, her toddler, Sebastian, fell in love with me, and her property is surrounded by artists' studios, one of which was a two storey--the artists would look down on me as I milked remarking about how cute the goats were!

So we've had some adventures, and we're finally starting to quiet down. Although goats are very sensitive to change, I am amazed at just how adaptable they have been; through it all, our milking routine has continued.

Now we gear up for the holiday season! It's even easier for me to ship my goodies out to you all all over the country, so please visit my website and enjoy!

Goats by Simon Lee-Plunket

My eight year old son has written a brilliant essay (his first) on goats. Must share!

"The goat is a ruminant mammal closely related to the sheep. They're used in many parts of the world for their hair, meat, milk, and leather. Those parts include Asia, India and Iran for their wool. Ruminant means cloven-hooved, cud-chewing animals with four legs.

"Usually with our goats, especially Taza, they smile at me when I come to feed them. The milk tastes very good--and I mean good!--after my mom has strained and cleaned the milk.

"Goat's milk is a lot healthier than cow's milk, since, being closer to human milk than the cows, it provides a rich taste.

"With Nubians, you can usually tell that they are that kind of goat because they have floppy ears and short horns.

The End."