Cheese Please!

My friend strained the milk one more time at home into these huge pots. She put some rennet in each pot and let it set while we ate a Kurdish lunch of rice, soup, chicken, tomatoes and cukes. After it set for about 30 minutes they went outside and poured it into a big bag and all the extra water strained out and the clumps remained in the bag. They rinsed it out and let it set until afternoon.

Big Ram

This ram was picture perfect. The shepherd was doing a final glance over the sheep before going home for lunch. Of course his shepherd's staff is in hand. His father, the old wise man or "white bearded" man as they call him was a shepherd also. He's been in this business for a long time.

Clean Milk

You can imagine how dirty the milk can be. Mud and well you know what else. They filter it through a rag once in the sheep pen and again at home. Shepherd families drink it warmed up with a little sugar. Mostly people make yogurt or cheese from it.

Milk Man

The shepherd's son was milking goats when we first arrived. I gave him a hard time, because that is ladies work here. He proclaimed that he was "smart" or a good at milking. They milk so long every day that they end up with callouses on the knuckles of their thumbs. Notice the reed type wood at the top of the pic. There is another pic on the blog where Megan is cleaning off the branches from these plants. They use them for the roofs.

Hireling's girl

The little hireling's girls was cute as a button.

One Gate

The sheperd's oldest son and yes that's Tim are blocking the one doorway while three different ladies are milking inside. In the springtime it takes close to three hours to milk all the goats.

Hired hands

Our friends have 400+ goats and 100+ sheep, so they hire a family from the South to come and help them out during the spring. Our K friends still are involved everyday in the milking and shepherding process, but the Arab family lives in the tents in the background. One day we were visiting them at the sheep pen just after the Arab family had arrived. Haybet, my K friend is in the bottom corner milking as the Arab girl shoos them out.