Thursday, December 3, 2009

Season's end

Well at last the ewes have said 'no more milk' so we have dried the herd off and made the last wheels of pecorino and buckets of yoghurt. Playing with the sheep milk will be missed but it will be nice to be able to unchain ourselves from the dairy until next year. Some of the girls defied the trend and were determined to keep giving milk, and the maidens were still milking well but we convinced them to get with the program as we've got plans for Christmas! The good news is that there is a good store of pecorino in the cellar for everyone to enjoy over the summer. It has become distinctly nutty and smooth textured. So the next page is tackling shearing, make the ewes comfortable to summer over in the high country of Red Hill, and enjoy some prime lamb. The ewe lambs are starting to loose the wool around their East Friesian tails and promising to become good strong milkers in the years to come.