The Effects of Weaning

I mentioned in my last post that I have been weaning Elly May.  It is amazing how this affects Charlotte!

Without Elly May stealing milk, Charlotte's milk production is skyrocketing!  Yesterday, she produced 10 1/2 total pounds of milk.  That is 5 quarts of milk!  I feel like Charlotte is resolving in her goat brain that she doesn't need to hold back milk for Elly May, so she is letting me have it!  Hurray! In fact, Charlotte is even getting reluctant to even let Elly May nurse.  The down side is that Charlotte is producing so much milk that she is getting a bit thin.

Also, the freezer is getting waaaayyy too full of milk jars!  I have scrounged around the kitchen cupboards and filled every single glass jar.

So, I am planning to turn much of the milk into this:

 Chèvre

My first two batches of Chèvre were flops.  The first batch I had a surge of impatience and I squeezed the cheese to drain the whey instead of letting it drip.   It completely messed up the texture (although it smelled great)!  I won't do that again!  The second batch did not form a curd for some reason.  This is the third trial pictured above.  It is "dripping" this morning, so I hope it turns out!