July 25,2008

The chores went well this morning. Nothing to exciting happening today. I had a thought though.....Why are we farmers.... not the usual answer like, we love the land, we love animals, we in hesitated the farm. No, really why do we do farming. Its a gamble and we always seem to be waiting for the big pay off. Its alot of back braking work, we sweat, ache and even cry. Its harder than being a parent. The paybacks are ..... I am still wondering. Is it the peacefulness of the farm..... when is that? The slow pace of farming.... I look at my life and cant hardly find the time to sleep. Its surely not the simple life.... where you own nothing and owe everything. So what is it that makes us want to farm? For us it must be the romance of being a farmer. I think this is the reason because I have always dreamed of having my own land and making a living on the land. If you could see the future I wonder how many of us farmers would of taken the easy road.... a house in the city or on the outskirts, a factory job, a clean car, small yard and a little garden. We could of had a social life, picnics, vacations, church activities and a nap now and then. So what drove us to this place in time where we thought we would make a difference in this whole world thing? I have no answers for these questions..... wait ..... I believe in God and that he has a plan for my life and my families... so I guess the answer to all those questions is ..... I trust The Father in Heaven is going or is doing wonderful things in our lives because we are doing as He has asked and provided for us.

July 20, 2008

Today was a pretty laid back day. We started chores at 7am. Just to give you a clue of what that means I'll detail the chores: It starts with cleaning and reading the parlor. This takes about 1/2 hour to complete. One wash with cold water, second wash with lye and third wash with acid. Then hook up all the machinery and get warm soap water, to wash teats, and rags. Water all the buckets/ clean them if there is green in them and empty them and then fill with fresh water - about 11 buckets. Feed the goats - There are the bucks the meat kids, doe kids, sick goats- this takes about 20 pounds of feed. Then round the goats up that are to be milked. That means to shut gates and separate the milkers from the non milkers and load them into a big pen that leads to the milk parlor (65 goats). Then start milking, which takes about 10 min. a load--- there are eight goats a load and four milking apparatus - so we can actually milk four goats at a time then switch and milk the last four. These goats are eating their breakfast while they are milked. We do this twice aday. Today was normal chores.
I then went out to the Green House -processing plant- and washed all the equipment and wrote data on the eraser board of the farmers market sales.
I am ready to make cheese and maybe some yogurt tomorrow. Tonight I will make some lemon chevre for the market tomorrow in Tacoma.

July 20, 2008

We got up at 7am after being at market yesterday it seemed we needed alittle more sleep today. Yesterday we did well at both our markets. We were down about $200 from last weekend. But there are so many activites going on that people try and make it to the Sat. markets as much as possible. From last year our numbers slowly went down from the first market, so its to be expected. The weather yesterday was really nice, a little wind. We left yeaterday at 7am in the morning and we both arrived home around 5pm. I stopped off and picked up one of our foster sons. We unpacked the cheese and counted it. We also unloaded both vehicals and then did chores. Doing Farmers Markets is so nice.... they are short in hours and intense while there.
Today I will be painting more in the milk room and finishing the parts lables on the goat in the milking room. The parlor looks so clean and it feels that way too. Milking went without incident and so did the chores. Ali is gone for a week so Danyel is milking for me this week. I am going to freeze the last of the chevre I made on Monday, there is only about 13 pounds left. I have washing equipment in the processing plant, which we call the Green House - due to its outside color. And my confusing the two houses when referring to them.

Life at Blue Rose Dairy

July 18,2008
Today we packaged up some Marinated Feta and Fresh Feta. David drove the cheese over to Adna, WA. to the Black Sheep creamery to vaccum pack the feta. We also took down about 82 pounds of Chevre that was hanging since last night. It turned out perfect too. I washed molds and rinsed out the cheese bags I use to hang my chevre in. This afternoon I worked on the milk parlor painting job. I have about 1/4 left to paint with primer. I also drew a saanen goat above the milking stantions and started labeling the parts of the goat. This will add a nice touch to our tours this summer.
Tomorrow is market in Longview and Des Moinse WA. David does the Longview one and I the Des Moinse. We have the truck and car loaded to go. Its always a busy morning, Sat.
Our morning will start at 5am, when I go out and clean the parlor to get ready for Danyel our 16 year old to start milking the goats. Ali will help Danyel to milk, so that she is ready to leave the farm for Civil Air Patrol at 7am. Ali will get herself ready to go to camp, where she is a counciler this year. David has to take one of our foster sons with him tomorrow due to a behavior problem. I will be taking Dutches, my papillion, to market with me.