Sprout Creek Farm's Goat Herd
Sprout Creek Farm does something that is really crazy. Double dairying. Not only do we have a cow dairy from which we make delicious cheese, now we have a goat dairy from which we make delicious cheese. But if you have the relatively calm and steady temperament of the cow, why on earth would you want to milk animals as capricious as goats? If you use human levels of development as a benchmark, the goat is about equal in mischief, stubbornness and independence as a 2-year-old. If “no” could replace “baa,” you would have instantaneous comprehension of this truth.
Goats have been partners with humans on a utilitarian and a social basis for around 15,000 years. That gives them ample experience of the likes of us humans, so they know well how to work us! The partnering comes in when they agree to be milked by one of us. But then they prefer to be milked only by that person.
How is it then that children enrolled in our overnight programs — who number in the hundreds each year — are allowed to milk these perspicacious (look it up) creatures? Because once they trust the person they have trained, they will agree to trust those he or she is training. The only condition is that the trusted milker must always accompany the new milkers. One has to admit that this is quite remarkable and requires a degree of forbearance not characteristic of a 2-year-old human at all. So perspicacious is a very good word to use to describe these animals. They are ruminants (look it up), and browsers, opportunists of the first order, but we like to think of them as colleagues. They are, after all, some of the best educators in the world. Ask the children. MORE
