Mothers, Goats, and Talking Trees

For Mother’s Day, my husband and I visited Celebrity Goat Dairy bed and breakfast near Siler City. Many famous names were there. It was exciting to get to know some of the celebrities rather intimately in such a short time. They were entertaining, and some of them must have found me interesting, too, since they were eating out of my hand.
Why the name Celebrity Goat Dairy? The farm-owner's daughter, now grown, has an interest in theater; she named the goats for celebrities. The goats are fed and handled by humans from birth, which makes them comfortable around people, not skittish; in fact, the goats seem to enjoy attention. The idea of these goats being celebrities seems to fit. Rather than ear-tags, these goats sport necklaces (also known as collars). The logo for the dairy farm features a goat wearing sunglasses and a necklace.

Among the celebrities are Betty Grable, so named for her great legs, and Dolly Parton, named for the obvious, who produces quite a bit of milk. On average, a good milking goat produces between 3 and 4 quarts a day. Most of it at this cheese-making facility—about 80 to 85%--becomes whey, which is the liquid that drains off through the filters as the milk solids are collected. The whey is then mixed with water and fed back to the goats while the milk solids are made into goat cheese, called chevre. (It has an accent mark, but I don't know how to insert one on the computer.) Next to the milking room is a filtering room, and next to that is the pasteurization and cheese-making operation.
Established in 1987, Celebrity Goat Dairy has grown into a sort of “dude ranch” where guests at the bed and breakfast are welcome to try their hands at simple farm work. The goats are fed and milked at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., but since there are 80 milking goats and only 16 spaces for them to be milked, and only two automatic milkers for the 16 spaces, milking takes about two hours. I was able to feed and milk the goats with guidance from a farmhand. The goats do the herding themselves. They march up the ramp to the milking platform and eagerly thrust their heads into the stanchion (a metal headlock) to reach the feed bins. It was amazing to watch them trot in and up the ramp and then line up by themselves at the feed bin--one goat at a time putting its head into the stanchion, going in order down the row. The next goat in line couldn't put her head into the stanchion until the one to its right had done so. The very last goat into the milking room sneaked around to where I was pouring feed into the bins and stood on her hind legs to lap the food out instead of going up the ramp. Apparently she was too impatient or hungry to wait for the others to get themselves into place, which would thereby free up her spot and allow her access to the stanchion and the feed on the other side. The goats’ udders are full so they want to be milked; as soon as the rest of the goats were in place, the food-sneaking goat (Kirstie Alley?) scooted back around, trotted up the ramp, and accessed the feed trough in the proper way.
Currently the 330-acre farm has two "useless" llamas, dozens of chickens, a couple of roosters, some guinea fowl, and three cows. Also, in addition to the 80 milking goats, there are two billygoats and roughly 30 kids. All the nannies deliver babies every year, and can have three at a time. The young goats are sold for $25.00 at birth, plus $5.00 per week that they’ve been kept and bottle-fed.
The cows are a new addition. Goats and cows are considered good grazing partners because they supposedly don’t share parasites with goats, and because they eat different foliage: cattle prefer grass whereas goats prefer flowers and more woody things, according to Brit, the farmer. Since the cattle were dropped off by a neighbor before the fences were inspected and reinforced, they’ve been roaming at will—-mainly to get away from the llamas who don’t seem to want them there. So far they haven't been sharing the goat pastures, so the jury is still out regarding a decision about whether it is a good idea for cows and goats to share the pasture.
A word to Bill: The Celebrity Dairy didn’t have a senior citizens’ contest, so I couldn’t register my husband in the competition for title of “Celebrity Old Goat.” Thanks for the suggestion, though.
We ventured down the road to Saxapahaw, where the Haw River Festival was in progress. We enjoyed the art for sale, both in the booths and in the artists’ gallery beside the festival. Some of the most interesting creations were made of reconstituted ceramics (heated and reformed), decorated with pieces of metal fused into them, made into bowls and other useful objects. The old textile mill at Saxapahaw has been converted into condominiums, stores, a charter school, and a couple of restaurants…all on one site. I bet the former employees of the mill never imagined that people would be drinking five-dollar beers in their sweaty, lint-filled workrooms. For that matter, the owner probably didn’t, either. But his grandson imagined it once the mill closed.
In nearby Siler City, five buildings were used to create an Arts Incubator, with a gallery/store, a coffee shop, and 24 artists’ studios. Handmade greeting cards, pottery, and jewelry were abundant, but my favorite things at this location were the drinking glasses made from wine bottles which had been cut and polished, then etched (sandblasted?) with designs.

In the evening, back at Celebrity Goat Dairy, after milking was completed and the baby goats were petted, we sat on the porch swing by the geraniums. Nearby a duck sat on her nest on the ground tucked against the house under an eave.
We listened to cicadas and talked with our traveling companions about the cloudy sky blocking our view of the stars. In the morning we awoke to a rooster scratching outside our window—perhaps harassing the duck on her nest but maybe just scratching for insects.
Breakfast included bacon, eggs, grits, fruit, and johnnycake made with freshly ground cornmeal and flour from Lindley’s Mill, a mill that was supposedly established in 1755 and saw a skirmish during the Revolutionary War. It now produces organic flour and meal, and although everyone seems to call it Lindley's Mill, the official name now is Lindley Mills, I believe. An alternate date of establishment is given as 1781, but either way, the mill was the scene of a historic battle which you can read about at this link to Our State magazine archives.

After a filling “farm” breakfast at a communal table in the inn’s main reception room (which featured a fireplace made by a sculptor/stone mason), we said good-bye to the goats and chickens, and drove to Jordan Lake, where we took a walk over the Talking Tree Trail, featuring well-marked trees and push-button recordings that featured a voice with a southern accent…appropriate enough since the trees were definitely southern.

One of the most interesting types of trees I learned about was the Shagbark Hickory:

Some of them were quite shaggy.
Afterward, we drove over to the NC Botanical Gardens in Chapel Hill and took another walk through woods by following the Streamside Trail. At this location, on or near the University campus, trees soared over 100 feet in the air, including pine trees with such thick trunks that just one person couldn’t wrap his arms around them. Deciduous trees that were over one hundred years old were impressively tall; just looking up at them and thinking about all the storms and the history they’ve weathered helped us gain a different perspective.
It was Mother’s Day, which meant Graduation Day in Chapel Hill, so after our walk we headed out of town to avoid vying with the happy, celebratory crowds for dinner spots at local restaurants. We returned home in time to see a movie with our movie-watching friends, and then talked with children who were calling and emailing wishes for Mother’s Day. Hope yours was happy!