Smokey Mountain Breakdown

For Friday Ark

at The Modulator

I went out yesterday and sat in the pasture with my camera. I was alone for a little while. It was really warm and everyone was shacked up in the cool shelter where it is dark and sunless. It takes a while for the goats to get used to the heat. They pant like dogs, eyes glassy. I'd freshened the water earlier but everyone just wanted to stay out of the sun and keep cool.

Soon, they all gathered around me. The adults thoughtfully munching my hair. The babies playing "queen of the mountain". I am the mountain. I end up with pictures like the above shot when that happens. They can't get close enough to me, despite the heat.

I've got everyone but Vi-vi and Bridey off of the bottle and teat. Blinkin' is weaning her lot off slowly. Bridey is tall and thin so I don't mind her still downing so much milk. She is using it to grow more. Vi-vi needs to be weaned but I've come to rely on her for getting those last bits of milk out when my hands hurt too much to milk. My lupus has made my hands grow sideways and they freeze in position sometimes. The milking is good to keep them from freezing up. I knit for the same reason. As long as you can keep joints moving it's a good thing. But sometimes my hands hurt.

"Vi-Vi!!!" I call. She knows the drill so well by now. She's mother's little helper.

But I feel sort of guilty. Vi-vi is getting fat. She has little spare tires behind her widdy elbows.

She's become something of a terror around the does. She just wanders around snatching a guzzle of milk from any of them that get cornered in a tight spot. I'm wondering if I need to enroll her in some non-food related goat activities.


Phoebe is the youngest and the biggest. She's really huge, but very sweet. Her mother, Harper, spent last summer here. Harper is a giant of a doe who is a prodigious milker. I have really high hopes for Phoebe. Harper was supposed to come here from Betsy, The Goat Yoda, in trade for Maggie, "the bitch". But Harper got an udder injury and I am forced to hang onto Maggie, "the bitch", a bit longer. Hopefully I can get a doe kid out of her. Though Maggie has been suspiciously sweet recently. Except for eating my hair.

Take a bow, Phoebe.


I have closish neighbors again. My neighbors who have a cabin above my place have moved back after an absence of several years. They use my upper farm road to get to their house. Nice folks, Jeff and Phyllis.

Guess I'll have to stop mowing the grass in the nude now. I'm considerate that way. Really I am.

I've been getting together a basket of goatie goodness for them. A quart of lebneh, a gallon of milk, some homemade soap and some fudge.

I just developed a new goat milk fudge flavor...Coffee and Cream. It's every bit as good as I imagined and that's what I'm going to take to the neighbors. I don't have it up on my order page yet. But if it strikes your fancy, you could just write it in.

Since a few people got a bit distracted by the words "goat milk fudge" in one of my previous posts this week, I decided, since dairy season is gearing up, to feature it this week.

You don't actually have to use goat's milk. You may use cow cream. Goat's milk has some interesting properties that make it especially suited for candy making. For one, you can literally boil goat's milk and it will not separate. It condenses very easily on the stove top so you can make your own sweetened condensed milk. It is naturally homogenized.

Many people are aware that people who cannot tolerate cow's milk with its large protein and fat molecules can tolerate goat's milk. It is the absolute best milk for hand-rearing baby animals...including human babies...out there. My father, as a child, had a pet nanny goat that provided milk for most of the colicky babies on 37th Street in Savannah during the 1920's.

So, I do encourage using goat's milk. You can find it at the store, but many people mistakenly believe the grocery store goat's milk tastes like goat's milk. It just doesn't. It's a little gamy quite frankly. The taste does come through. Fresh goat's milk is sweet, very rich and pure tasting. That goaty aftertaste only comes on with age. It's not something you want. So if you have access to fresh goat's milk, by all means use it.


My recipe is actually altered from the old Charleston Creamery fudge icing recipe. This is a boiled fudge, rather than a fudge made with powdered sugar.
Thinned out, it also is a wonderful boiled frosting, which is great spread on a chocolate sheet cake and sprinkled with chopped pecans.

My mother always liked to make fudge on rainy days. I didn't realize until later that she was sort of bragging...sugar is very sensitive to humidity. I use a candy thermometer just to be certain. You should too. After making as many batches as I do during the season, I can guesstimate it fairly accurately. But why bother? Get a candy thermometer.


I do sell this stuff to support my dog rescue, Rosie's Cocker Rescue Referral, if you'd rather not try to make it. I've had people from all over the country including a few west coast chefs order from me. This stuff gets rave reviews everywhere it is sent. It's probably the foodstuff I'm most identified with. I make it in chocolate, white chocolate, peanut butter, peanut butter/chocolate, and chocolate with either walnuts or pecans. I make it strictly to order. It's 11.50 a pound and it comes in blocks. If you need it in rosettes it is a bit extra. If you want to set up an order, just email me .

There are so many things I want to show you on Food Porn Friday! I was just going over my fresh pasta photos and some, quite frankly, obscene blackberry cobbler photos. But for next week...I'm going to invite Betsy, The Goat Yoda, to guest blog for FPF. She's been sharing with me some of the most amazing goat cheese recipes and I'd like her to share her Goat Yoda food wisdom with us all. She doesn't know I've decided she's doing this yet. I hope she's okay with that.

Honestly, I think Betsy and I could turn into an Appalachian version of The Two Fat Ladies if we aren't careful.

"Hurrah! Get rid of all lentils. You've no idea how randy they make vegetarians".

~Clarissa Dickson-Wright