España - Day 3 - Happy Solstice!

Happy Solstice!! Here is how we spent our Solstice in España:

Today we woke up early and went to a goat farm. They fed us breakfast, we had a tour of how they make the goat cheese, we made our own cheese to bring home, we saw the goats, pigs, donkeys, more goats, some raptors, Akilah held an owl, caught a hawk that is trained to fly to your hand, AND then they fed us chorizo, cheese, pan, and wine after the tour. It was awesome!!! We were there for 5 hours. Then afterwards went to the peña that Richard is a part of and he played flamenco guitar while others sang. Afterwards it was siesta time which of course Kaia likes to sandwich with naps so doesn't sleep during (aka mama and papa don't get to have siesta so our days are insanely long). The girls were kind of rowdy so I tried to take them outside to play while everyone else slept. In the process we got locked out of the house but couldn't leave the teeny tiny yard because the yard gate locks and I didn't know, ooops! Finally around 7pm and we were able to get back inside the house.

(This post is really really long, sorry! We still have a zillion more photos from this day...)

All dressed and ready for our tour of cheese making! - Tony, Ada, David, Richard, Nettie, Akilah, Sarita, Adita, and Yago. (Oh and Kaia of course; she was on my back.)

Here's Kaia too!

The refrigerator.

Yum, yum yum!

Our turn to make cheese! (All that was really involved was spooning the curds and whey into a small container and then smooshing the whey out with your fingers and a spoon. ~ Similar to when we made home made ricotta, although we let it strain through a cheese cloth.)

The family hard at work!

Our finished products; we then had to let them sit in the fridge for a few days before eating.

The milking room.

The nursery.

Nursery.

These pigs all look happy outside in the fresh air and dirt. This is where the lovely pig picture ends...

The pigs were our least favorite section (and painful to see). The females were all penned up and couldn't move and artificially inseminated. Then the mamas of all the babies were still each penned up and couldn't move. (I have some photos but will spare you the torture.) Very very different than where we get our pork in Asheville.

Princesa, the baby donkey. How adorable is she?!?!?! She was incredibly soft, I just wanted to snuggle with her.

Akilah jumped right in and volunteered to hold this owl. (It was a bit large for her arm to hold so thankfully Adita and Yago helped her!)

Akilah loved the cacti and asked me to take this photo.

Some goats DO get to play outside, YAY!

Folks were also able to have this hawk land on their arm. Akilah even took a turn but we only have a video of it. (How do I put a video on here?! Every time I have tried it has failed...)

Vino.

The post-tour spread. Woa. So. Delicious.

The courtyard (for lack of a better term) near where we were enjoying the delicious post-tour spread. (In the background folks are preparing for another event.)

Here they were preparing for another event later in the day.

(Sea urchins were also part of the preparation.) (We got to taste one though, salty!)