Summer review

Well the farmers markets have been going well. We seem to be selling alot of cheese and alot of those sales are repeats. I guess this is what we are striving for.... repeats.
Our goats have generally been pretty healthy. This last week one of our does got blue bag. Its the worst kind of mastiti your goat can get. One half of the bag that gets this infection actually rots and falls off. Its pretty ugly. Well its one of my daughters does and she is doing all the vet. work on the doe. The goat is eating and drinking and actually giving milk on one side. The other side will fall off pretty soon.
We are gearing up for homeschool for our high school daughters and middle school for our foster son. With all that comes more of my time divided and more running and less relaxing for me. I guess it keeps me young. Anyway everyone is ready for the school year to begin.
I am starting to get the word out that we are having a cheese class on October 25, 2008. I charge $35 for a 4 hour class. I feed you lunch and you get to sample other local dairies cheese. We have alot of fun at my class. Its hands on and lots of question and answer stuff. You get to go home with a booklet I put together with all the information that I talk about and show you. I teach how to make chevre and mozzarella. I have for sale rennet and milk and cheese clothe and sometimes I get ahead of my self and order cheese making books that I like to use. Anyway if anyone wants to come to the class its in Winlock, Washington at the Hope Grange. We also take a tour of our dairy and cheese making process plant.
Come have a good afternoon and enjoy some great company and make some cheese and eat some good food.

New Cheese, or old one

This last week we worked well as a family. The dairy ran smoothly and the cheese curded up firmly. I made a 30 gallon batch of my Grande Rosa and one round of pepper cheese. We took it to the markekt and people are really liking it. This cheese is pretty cool, its got the texture of a mozzarella and it melts like that, but it has a little attitude. I made up the recipe or rather stopped a recipe where I thought it would make an interesting cheese. And actually if I was totally honest - it was a mistake that turned into a great cheese. I made this cheese last year and it did very well too. I just hadn't tried it since the cave was wash away in the December flood in Lewis county. But remembering it wasn't an actual aged cheese I thought I'd give it a try. The trick is to package it ALL up, where before we put it in the cave and packaged as we went. We have three refrigerates going with cheese stuff in them, so we have the room for all that cheese to be stored once packaged.
Our markets were all pretty good this week. The Longview markekt wasn't happening this weekend due to the Cowlitz Fair running. And they use the parking lot for the fairgrounds for the market. Could of been Messy.
Our two daughters worked at the Airshow in Centrailia this weekend which ment MOM had to round up the goats and milk them. Lucky for me they got home with still two loads to milk and I was relieved of my milking duty to go in the house and start dinner.
I painted the milk parlor this week and then drew a goat body on the wall above our milking stantions, well I finished lableing all the parts on the goat. And if I say so myself it looks pretty good. It will give visiters a chance to see the parts of the goat and be able to follow along as we discribe how we milk the goats. It will help our 4-H club know the parts as they can touch and see the parts of the goats while they are milking.
Our house has been hoping making cheese, leveling the processing plant again, painting and even fencing. It seems on the farm our work is never done, but we can sit around in the evening and watch the sun set.