July 31, 2012 Show Season

LegatoGelato

          Smooth Taste…Island Pace

 
Show Season

July 31, 2012 – almost the end of July and August heralds the frantic show season. On Vancouver Island there are summer fairs held in different communities every weekend from the beginning of August to the middle of Sept. In previous years’ I have shown the goats at 5 and 6 fairs, which basically is every weekend for 6 weeks.

          This year will be different. I have decided to limit my showing to just 3 shows. The first is already over – South Island Buck and Doe show in Victoria. The other two will be the Vancouver Island Exhibition in Nanaimo on August 16,17,18, & 19^th and then the Alberni Fall Fair, in Port Alberni on Sept 5^th, 6^th, 7^th & 8^th. Both are official shows sanctioned by the Canadian Goat Society, so the results count toward official results.

          I love going to shows but I admit I don’t love the work involved with getting everything ready. You can’t just grab the goat out of your barn, pop her into the back of the truck and head out for the show. That would be great but it’s not how it works.

          To show at a Canadian Goat Society (CGS) sanctioned show, a doe or buck must be registered with them. To register a baby goat you tattoo them, then send in paperwork and some money. Tattooing is not very pleasant for the babies. We give them the herbal bach flower tincture called Resuce Remedy. Great stuff – for us and for the goats, seems to work very well at reducing stress.

The tattoos are the goat’s permanent ID and generally last their whole lives. If the goat wins a Best in Show, Grand Champion or Reserve Champion placement, the judge will read the tattoos to make sure it is the correct goat.

          Goats get bathed and clipped before the show. FYI -  they don’t like water and don’t like to get wet, so that part isn’t very fun. Once toweled dry, the goats get clipped. I use three different sized clippers depending on which part of the body is clipped, it takes about 45 minutes for each goat. Their hooves need to be trimmed as well, this can take a few sessions to get them just perfect and like a dog, they have a “quick” in their hooves, so I have to take care and not injure it.

          A couple days before the show I bath them again, finish trimming off any stray hairs and make sure their udders are shaved clean of any hair/fur. The day of the show they will get a wipe down with a damp cloth, feet cleaned, face wiped and they are ready to go.

          As a handler going into the ring I have to be dressed in white – white pants/shorts and white shirt. You can imagine how long everything stays white when handling animals.

          The judging score card is bases on confirmation – it’s all about the correct structure that will put the most milk in the pail. Judges do like different styles and they all have their own opinions but it’s still fun for the most part.

          Most of our goat shows happen in conjunction with fall fairs. We stay for the whole weekend and generally camp – I have a camper now, the kind that goes on the back of my truck and I just love it. After sleeping in a tent for years, the camper is luxury! Nice bed, place to keep everything, place to cook, door to lock and I can stand up to change.

          Bedding is provided for the goats pens but we have to bring everything else; hay, feed, buckets, milking stand, chairs, registration papers and whatever else we think we will need & I bring lots. The fairs want decorations and displays as well. And it is a great opportunity to advertise as well. So the amount of stuff to bring along to the show gets bigger and bigger. Glad I have a camper to carry it all in J

          I’ll let you know the results from the shows later in August and Sept.

Making LegatoGelato gelato

More!

 

Flavours

          I am having a great time figuring out our flavours. Strawberry (Ironwood Strawberry Gelato) was the first one we perfected. We purchase strawberries from Ironwood Organic Farm – just down the road from us in Fanny Bay. The rest of the ingredients are organic or local: organic sugar, organic hen eggs, organic lemon juice, organic cornstarch, and Vancouver Island Sea Salt.

          We spent time figuring out just the right proportion of the fruit to add to the base (the creamy milk base) to make it WOW. Many batches made with our little Delonghi machine at home, with lots of sampling by friends and neighbours. The best taste is from the strawberries that we just cleaned, sliced, cooked, and mixed in. There is no fancy processing, pureeing, or straining. Just fresh berries, cleaned, de-stemmed & cut by hand, cooked with organic sugar and organic lemon juice until nice and soft.

          Another very cool flavour we are doing is “Wild Nettle Gelato” – interested? We go out into the forests around Fanny Bay and pick the tips of stinging nettles. Then we either dry them or use them immediately to make a strong ‘tea’. After we remove the leaves we simmer the tea to concentrate the flavour, add some organic lemon juice and organic sugar and cook a little bit more. It tastes like spring and green and… A unique flavour is very hard to describe but is wonderful.

          Our main flavour is Honey Vanilla. Did you know that almost 45% of people who eat ice cream prefer vanilla? I like vanilla but it’s not my very favorite. Nevertheless, a gelato or ice cream maker’s craft shines through in their Vanilla product – it is a very simple, straightforward flavour but not so easy to make wonderfully well.

          The honey we are using is local from the company Big Dee’s Bees. They have at least two types of honey and we are using the fireweed flavour – it is a light, subtle honey, sweet but not cloyingly so. The vanilla is from two sources; we have whole organic Vanilla pods (Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla) and organic Vanilla extract. Did you know that vanilla is the second most expensive spice, only surpassed by saffron? I had no idea but then never had to use any quantity of it before.

To layer the vanilla flavour we add the beans to the raw milk during pasteurization. The heating and cooling extract the maximum flavour and when  cooled we strain out the beans, open them and add the seeds and paste back into the milk – makes for a lovely colour. The extract mixes in when the creamy vanilla base goes into our gelato batch freezer, it mixes, freezers and adds a small amount of air to the gelato.

          Gelato has much less air whipped into it when compared with commercial ice cream. The cheaper the ice cream the more air – up to 200% increase in volume. With good gelato you are only whipping enough air to keep it from becoming a hard, solid lump in the freezer, so about 30%. 

          Gelato – less air, more flavour, better texture – the perfect choice

July 22/12 South Island Goat Show

July 22/12 – South Island Goat Show (Victoria, BC)

              Yes – I show goats. It’s like a dog show in some ways, except goats are livestock and the exhibitors don’t tend to dress up as I’ve seen at the dog shows. If you have animals and want a good laugh, rent the move “Best in Show”. It’s a bit over the top but the fundamentals aren’t that different and the personalities….

              I show for a few different reasons. One is to get my livestock into the public and show them off, hopefully generate interest and make some sales. It’s also a way to compare my goats with others & see how they stack up. However, mainly it’s the socializing and hanging out with friends I have made over the years. We talk, talk, catch up on each other’s lives, and generally have fun.

              I took three bucks to the South Island Show. A buck is what an intact/un-neutered male goat is called, not a billy. An adult female is called a doe, like a deer. Nannies are British childcare experts. A baby goat is a kid and the teens are called bucklings and doelings, or brats (maybe that’s just me).

              Mousse attended his first show, he is originally from California, & we had him shipped to us when he was 3 weeks old. His official handle is Cactus-flower VG Meadow Mousse and is a very nice buck – I hope he will sire some lovely kids to be born next February.

Two of the bucks are twins – Sultan and Max (originally called Tali and Ban). They are 18 months old and all the babies (kids) born on the farm this year were sired by them. Max fathered about 30 kids with 80% being males. Sultan fathered 10 kids with it split 50/50 male and female.

With a dairy, you generally prefer to have female babies. You can keep the girls, raise them up, and add them to the milking herd. Baby boy goats can be raised for meat but unlike calves are not kept in confinement with no exercise.

It remains a problem for our dairy – what to do with the extra male kids. All baby goats are bottle raised on our farm, and it is a ton of work but lays down a great foundation. In the end, especially with the girls, hand raising makes them into a much happier, healthier, and more “bomb-proof” adult. They look to people as part of their social herd and are happy with handling and experiencing new and novel situations.

This year we decided not to raise the boys and used the kids for meat for our dogs, at least there was no waste. It is a difficult problem and any ideas would be welcome.

The show results: Mousse won Junior Champion Toggenburg. He was the only entry but the judge is under no obligation to give him a 1^st place. Sultan won Reserve Grand Champion Toggenburg with his sire Emissary taking the Grand Champion. Emissary also won Best in Show over a number of other very nice bucks. Our good friends Sharon and Al Lamontagne, who have just received their dairy license, own Emissary (www.dogwoodridgefarms.com). It reflects well on Sultan & Max to have a sire that is a permanent Grand Champion. Well done Sharon & Al!

Making LegatoGelato gelato

Making LegatoGelato gelato

Part 1

 

What makes our gelato unique is our goat milk, and all our excellent ingredients, but the milk is the biggest part of the gelato.

 

We own Snap Dragon Dairy ourselves. These are our goats, hand raised on our farm in Fanny Bay. I love my goats and they get awesome care. Making good milk means you start from a brand new baby goat, raise it right, make sure she has had the correct vaccination program, proper nutrition and is bred at the right age. When she is having baby(s) herself, the pre and postnatal care needs to be done right. The new mums join the other does and begin their milking career. We feed the best alfalfa and local hay and source out the best grains. We don’t feed just organic as it is too expensive and the goats won’t eat some of it. We slip in whole organic grains and organic alfalfa pellets where we can.

 

Taking the right care of a herd of 40 goats takes energy and time but they are a very rewarding animal and give back way more than we put in.

 

We milk our goats in a licensed dairy parlour twice a day. Our parlour is inspected routinely and is very clean, the stainless steel equipment just gleams. The milk from the ladies is rapidly chilled in our stainless steel bulk tank. We usually save up for 3 or 4 days and then make some gelato. Throughout the milking and storage of the milk we are careful not to agitate the milk more than necessary – any mixing or frothing begins the breakdown of the fat molecules and we want everything whole and pure.

 

FYI – as a licensed dairy we are required to submit monthly samples of milk for testing at the provincial testing facility. For the last year – EVERY monthly test has come back better than EXCELLENT. For the bacterial testing the inspector stated that a 50 count means we would have to clean and retest, a count of 20 is considered good, a count of 5 is excellent. Our counts are consistently coming out as 1, so better than Excellent! Pat on our own backs for that one – it’s a very high standard to achieve.

 

So a big part of the Legatogelato is ready to go.