When I moved on to the small pond, I warily eyed the geese gathered there. After the angry reception from the ducks, I couldn’t shake Agnesa’s warning about the asshole goose. It was easy to spot the biggest one, and almost immediately, he started honking furiously in my direction.
“Oh my God!” I saw the teeth lining his beak and grimaced. What kind of demon bird had teeth?
The asshole goose rushed toward me, and I quickly pivoted to avoid its snapping beak. “Shoo! Go away!”
Not the least bit intimidated by me, the goose slapped me twice with its wings, the snap of the feathers stinging my skin even through my jeans. “Stop! You feathered demon!”
I stumbled backward and realized I was running out of ground. Either I escaped this murderous psycho bird, or I was going to end up in the pond.
“Ow! Shit!” The goose bit my thigh with its evil bird teeth and snapped its wings again, pushing me closer to the pond. “Stop! Go away!”
The male dog that had taken meat from my hand rushed toward the goose and barked until it moved away and rejoined his flock. He stopped in front of me, guarding me from the gaggle of grumpy geese, and barked a few more times for good measure. Grateful for his help, I scratched between his ears. “Thank you.”
The dog nuzzled my hand and panted happily. I didn’t even care that he was getting his dank wet dog smell all over me. After rescuing me from that demon goose, I would overlook any faults he had.
The dog escorted me as I finished tending the geese and then trotted alongside me when I searched for Agnesa on the other side of the barn. I followed the bleating noises the goats made to a shed. Agnesa was leading a goat up onto a raised platform. She shot me an amused smile and asked, “So, how bad was it?”
“That bird needs an exorcism!” I gestured to the bloody stain on my jeans. “He tried to eat my leg!”
“I warned you.” She situated the goat on the platform and reached for a faded green rope tied to one of the support posts. “You want to learn how to milk a goat?”
“Um...sure?”
“Come over here. Watch.” She looped the rope around the goat’s hind legs and secured it to the other post. “This one likes to kick when she’s being milked. She put her hoof in the pail three times last week. This will keep her and me and the milk safe.”
She picked up a strange looking device that resembled a bear trap on a stick. “Comb,” she explained. “I like to brush them down before I milk. Gets rid of the loose hair that might end up in the pail.”
“Makes sense,” I murmured, watching as she brushed down the goat. Tiny white hairs fluttered free.
When she was done brushing the goat, she reached for a blue bucket of soapy water behind her. “We use this to clean off the udder and teats. You use one rag per teat. Don’t cross-contaminate. When you’re done, they go into this bucket here.” She gestured to a red bucket filled with used rags. “These get washed and then loaded into the bucket for tomorrow.”
“How often do you have to milk these goats?” I tried to make sense of the workload she handled every day.
“I milk them every morning. I let my kids feed from their mothers so they also need to have enough milk for the babies, too.” She finished washing the udder and teats. “I only have five or six goats at a time, though. It’s manageable.”
“Do you drink the milk? Or sell it all?”
“I can’t stand it,” she confessed with a laugh. “I don’t mind goat cheese, but the milk.” She made a face and shuddered. “Not for me! So I sell the milk to Afrim and his wife Sara. They have a small artisan cheese, yogurt and soap business. They’ll come by and get the milk in a couple of hours.”
“Is it a lucrative side business? Selling the milk, I mean.”
“It’s not bad. My main source of income is the sheep, but the goats I can sell for milk or meat. The kids I can sell to other farms. Basically,” she wiped down the freshly washed teats with a clean rag from another bucket of water, “I’ll sell anything I grow or raise.” She gestured toward a bucket of steaming hot soapy water. “Wash your hands. Then, come sit on the stool.”
I did as she instructed, and nervously eyed the bleating goat. After being bitten by that goose, I was reluctant to get close to another animal with teeth. I stared at the bulging udders hanging between the goat's legs and winced at how painful they looked. “Are they always this swollen?”
“This one is one of my better producers,” Agnesa explained. “Even when she’s feeding her kids, she still makes plenty of extra milk.”
“Do they hurt?” I didn’t want to touch the animal and cause it pain.
“Her udders? They’re probably a little sore because they’re so full, but once you start expressing the milk, she’ll be much more comfortable.” Agnesa moved behind me. She crouched down and placed her hands on mine. “Now, when we milk, we squeeze and roll. Like this.”
I watched her hands move and felt the motion on my skin. I tried it, and she adjusted my hands.
“Put your hands on her teats. Gentle but firm,” she guided. “And now squeeze and roll.”
The first attempt didn’t do anything, but when I tried again, squeezing the teat and rolling my fingers down the length of it, I managed to make a stream of milk shoot out. “Hey! I did it!”
Laughing, Agnesa stood up. “Now, give both teats a squeeze. Let the milk hit the platform. You’re clearing the nipple of any dirt or hair.”
“Okay.” I bit my lower lip and milked a few streams from the goat’s heavy udders. The goat seemed relieved by the milking, and I relaxed with the reassurance I wasn’t hurting her.
Behind me, Agnesa produced a sealed metal bucket and placed it under the goat. She removed the lid. “Milk her into this pail. It’s been sterilized. When you’re done, I’ll show you how to filter and transfer the milk to be cooled.”
Squeeze. Roll. Squeeze. Roll. I repeated the directions over and over as my hands moved up and down the goat’s teats. After a few minutes, my wrists started to burn. I glanced up at Agnesa who smiled knowingly. “The pain will ease up once you’re warmed up a little more.”
“Do your wrists hurt like this every time you milk?” I kept working the goat, shooting streams of frothy milk into the gleaming pail.
“Yes, but that’s part of the job.”
“What about those automatic machines? Like breast pumps but for animals?”
“Too expensive for my little herd,” she scoffed. “Sometimes, the old ways are better.”
“I guess,” I replied skeptically. My wrists were on fire, and I could tell there was still a lot of milk left to be expressed. As the pail filled up, I thought I had reached the end of it, but Agnesa stunned me by stepping forward and whacking the goat’s udders. “Whoa!”
“It’s fine,” she assured me. “You should see how the baby goats headbutt their mothers to get more milk. This is just a tap compared to that.”
“If you say so,” I said uncertainly. The goat didn’t seem to mind at all. If anything, the goat seemed mellowed out now that the pressure of all that milk was gone.