So kidding season has begun and our first kids were born yesterday. I have been gone during the day for the last two days, attending cheese class at UVM/VIAC, so I missed Katie's kiddings but of course my mom and Meghan (our new intern) had things well under control. I admit it was very nice to be able to get up early and head off to class in Burlington instead of having to get up even earlier and go do morning feedings before I could even think about getting ready for class. Meghan just started last week but she has jumped right in and is doing a spectacular job of assuming a key role in the general day to day function of the farm.
Off I went to class this morning, knowing full well that after 8+ hours in the classroom I was going to have to make the hour drive back home at the end of the day and head straight to the cheese room to pasturize milk and set my weekly batch of chevre. When I got back home around 7 the only doe left to kid was Nimbus so Meghan joined me in the cheese room and we checked in on Nimbus periodically so my mom would get a break from goat monitoring. At about 10:30pm we headed out, chevre setting for the night, and I was just starting to think about warming up the dinner I'd brought home earlier - only to find Nimbus in labor.
Unfortunately it was not an easy one for Nimbus and after quite a bit of extra effort by all hands on deck she did give birth to 3 live kids - all bucklings. So, a full day of cheese class, cheesemaking, goat kidding, and 1 vet visit later, it's almost 1:45 am and my head is finally about the hit my pillow for a few hours of sleep before I have to get up and milk.
Yup! Kidding season has definitely begun :)
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Tale of Three Bellies
So as of this morning there were still not kids - here are the aerial belly shots (L to R: Nimbus, Tatum & Katie). Of course it was pretty much a guarantee that someone would kid today during the day since I was off at a cheese chemistry class at UVM all day!
And the winner is.....
Katie!
She had 1 doeling and 1 buckling, both were nice weights and are active and healthy!
With that, kidding season has officially begun!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Nope, no kids yet!
While we expect kids any day now there aren't any yet! All three moms-to-be have been moved inside the barn into the kidding area for the night, and there is definitely some serious nesting behavior going on, but nope - no kids yet.
Kids won't be coming soon enough from a cheese perspective. The does we milked through this winter and dwindling and milk production is pretty darn low. The last of our feta cheese was made up into packages of marinated feta and most of them sold at market today in Montpelier, as did most of our newer aged raw milk cheese, Tweed River.
Tweed River Tomme started out as an experiment in cheesemaking to produce an "old school" hand made cheese from our farms milk in a French tradition that would be unique to our farm and we couldn't be more pleased with the result - other than the fact that we are almost out of stock!
Kids won't be coming soon enough from a cheese perspective. The does we milked through this winter and dwindling and milk production is pretty darn low. The last of our feta cheese was made up into packages of marinated feta and most of them sold at market today in Montpelier, as did most of our newer aged raw milk cheese, Tweed River.
Tweed River Tomme started out as an experiment in cheesemaking to produce an "old school" hand made cheese from our farms milk in a French tradition that would be unique to our farm and we couldn't be more pleased with the result - other than the fact that we are almost out of stock!
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
To Blog, Or Not?
I guess I'm just not cut out for daily blogging. Or maybe it's my lifestyle? Well we'll see. Kidding season is about to get underway and I'm hoping to post information here about all the new kids as they arrive.
To start with I'll be posting a link to guess which doe will kid first on the farm this season. Last year was a little anticlimatic due to the unexpected arrival of Kim-Oh-No, our first kid of the season who arrived in December - on my birthday as a matter of fact! She was not expected so her early, pre-new year arrival was a surprise. Thus her name - Kim, oh no! Her parents names had Japanese roots so naming her after a traditional Japanese dress seemed only fitting.
As we start to get into kidding season a little I'll post a couple contests where subscribers can win free cheese! So stay tuned.
To start with I'll be posting a link to guess which doe will kid first on the farm this season. Last year was a little anticlimatic due to the unexpected arrival of Kim-Oh-No, our first kid of the season who arrived in December - on my birthday as a matter of fact! She was not expected so her early, pre-new year arrival was a surprise. Thus her name - Kim, oh no! Her parents names had Japanese roots so naming her after a traditional Japanese dress seemed only fitting.
As we start to get into kidding season a little I'll post a couple contests where subscribers can win free cheese! So stay tuned.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Who's On First?
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Artisan or Farmstead??
As January whizzes by, kidding season is fast approaching. While I am primarily a cheesemaker, being a "farmstead" cheesemaker adds a lot more to the definition than just cheese. Being "farmstead" implies that we make our cheese with milk from our own animals raised and milked on the farm where the animals are raised. Our cheese is also "artisan" cheese - produced in small batches, with attention to the tradition of the cheesemaker's art, and using as little mechanization as possible. Cheese made by hand.
With the farmstead chapter comes milking and goat care. In order to get milk - you need them to get pregnant and have kids. Seems simple enough. Well maybe simple isn't the right word. Life during kidding season is definitely not simple. My mom handles most of the kidding watch, but at least one night a week I take that duty. Sometimes it's quiet, othertimes just sleepless, and then here are the busy nights. We are always glad when kidding season is over, but somehow as it rolls around again we still get excited to see the new kids arrive and ramp up the milk production once again.
With the farmstead chapter comes milking and goat care. In order to get milk - you need them to get pregnant and have kids. Seems simple enough. Well maybe simple isn't the right word. Life during kidding season is definitely not simple. My mom handles most of the kidding watch, but at least one night a week I take that duty. Sometimes it's quiet, othertimes just sleepless, and then here are the busy nights. We are always glad when kidding season is over, but somehow as it rolls around again we still get excited to see the new kids arrive and ramp up the milk production once again.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
New Cheese on the Block
I've been working on another new cheese. So far it's just been on paper, lot's of reading and researching, and of course tasting. I actually started this idea when trying to tweak a cheese we already make and liked the results; not for that cheese but certaily for a future project.
As I've written before I have a bit of an obsession with Spanish cheeses. We already have a Garrotxa style cheese that we introduced last year to great reviews from tasters. This next cheese is indeed inspired by a Spanish cheese and will be a raw milk aged goat milk cheese, with a special aging process. I made the first trial cheese today so we'll see. So far so good!
As I've written before I have a bit of an obsession with Spanish cheeses. We already have a Garrotxa style cheese that we introduced last year to great reviews from tasters. This next cheese is indeed inspired by a Spanish cheese and will be a raw milk aged goat milk cheese, with a special aging process. I made the first trial cheese today so we'll see. So far so good!
Monday, January 16, 2012
My Bad
Wow. Things get busy and before I know it a couple weeks have passed since I posted. Not exactly a consistent start to blogging.
Winter has finally settled in, well kind of. We weren't sure if it ever would for a while, there still isn't much snow which leaves us wondering. A better illustration is to look at the numbers for our region. Last year, October 1 to mid January, we received 37.7" of snow. This year we've only had 15.1" inches of snow - and you wouldn't know it looking at the ground cover. We have had plenty of ice though. They say it's "El Nina" vs. "El Nino", combined with the North Atlantic oscillation. I'm not really sure of the technical details, but I hear tell this is also why a small town in Alaska received more than 18 ft. of snow - yikes! My understanding is that this weather pattern is supposed to hold until March, possibly as late into the season as May. I'm not sure if this makes me feel better about spring flooding this year or worries me more. Certainly our frigid January temperatures are more intact, -9 on the porch last night and below zero or close to zero temps yesterday during the day. A good day to work inside, which was a shame because we actually got some snow the day before, enough to play in! Still waiting for our first snowshoe outing.
While the cold affects the work we do outside on the farm, the cheesemaking inside continues. This time of year the chiller in the aging room is unplugged most of the time. The room does a good job of staying close to the right temp, although I do need to send in a little warm air on days like these. Of course it is a bit cold to make cheese in a 50+ degree room so the make room also needs a little heating help too.
The girls are still milking whereas last year we dried everyone off in December. We are also doing farm markets all winter this year, with plenty of aged cheese, feta, and even chevre - something we normally don't see again until March! Milk supplies will begin to rise sometime in late February when the kids begin to arrive.
Even though milk supplies are low right now there is plenty going on. We have a new Spanish Ibores inspired cheese in the works which should hit the market by summer, and of course our Garrotxa inspired cheese, Tordera, is available in small amounts now but we hope that by spring you'll be able to find it in finer cheese stores. So stay tuned!
Winter has finally settled in, well kind of. We weren't sure if it ever would for a while, there still isn't much snow which leaves us wondering. A better illustration is to look at the numbers for our region. Last year, October 1 to mid January, we received 37.7" of snow. This year we've only had 15.1" inches of snow - and you wouldn't know it looking at the ground cover. We have had plenty of ice though. They say it's "El Nina" vs. "El Nino", combined with the North Atlantic oscillation. I'm not really sure of the technical details, but I hear tell this is also why a small town in Alaska received more than 18 ft. of snow - yikes! My understanding is that this weather pattern is supposed to hold until March, possibly as late into the season as May. I'm not sure if this makes me feel better about spring flooding this year or worries me more. Certainly our frigid January temperatures are more intact, -9 on the porch last night and below zero or close to zero temps yesterday during the day. A good day to work inside, which was a shame because we actually got some snow the day before, enough to play in! Still waiting for our first snowshoe outing.
While the cold affects the work we do outside on the farm, the cheesemaking inside continues. This time of year the chiller in the aging room is unplugged most of the time. The room does a good job of staying close to the right temp, although I do need to send in a little warm air on days like these. Of course it is a bit cold to make cheese in a 50+ degree room so the make room also needs a little heating help too.
The girls are still milking whereas last year we dried everyone off in December. We are also doing farm markets all winter this year, with plenty of aged cheese, feta, and even chevre - something we normally don't see again until March! Milk supplies will begin to rise sometime in late February when the kids begin to arrive.
Even though milk supplies are low right now there is plenty going on. We have a new Spanish Ibores inspired cheese in the works which should hit the market by summer, and of course our Garrotxa inspired cheese, Tordera, is available in small amounts now but we hope that by spring you'll be able to find it in finer cheese stores. So stay tuned!
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