A New Cart for Ali

A trip to the zoo for Father's Day

A bunch of Fluff!

This is the Good Life!

Ali and Waldo and her New Pink Cart!

Good Morning:

Well Blue Rose Dairy has been busy this week. We are doing 8 markets a week. We picked up our 10th market on Wed. at Steilacoom. We sold 350 pieces of cheese this week which is up from last week by 20 pieces. We are supplying cheese to 94th Stewart Restaurant in Seattle, Country Folks Deli & Bistro in Longview. And will have about two more restaurants ordering this next week.

I made Chevre this week as well as Black Jewels, N.W. Comfort, Grande' Rosa and Pepper Rosa. As well as 9 gallons of yogurt. We are naming our yogurt "Goat- Gurt". My parents came over on Tue. and Friday and helped label and weigh cheese. This is a family affair for sure.

Our house looks so nice. My brother will come after the 4th of July and finish the trim and deck. One of our refrigerators went out this last week. I am down to three refrigerators and its hard to keep everything cool. We are going to go next week and buy another refrigerator. (One of those is in my house). Today we got me a industrial style Kitchen Aid mixer. David will take my other one and have it refurbished so I can move it into the house. The bigger one will work great in the processing plant.

We had a new great niece born this last week too. Cassandra had her baby. Congrad's to You.

It seems we keep running around here. I don't think I get much time to rest. We are still homeschooling too.

Danyel took her dog, Maggie and had her spayed on Monday. So she has been on bed rest for this week - the dog.

I should make note the girls are paying for these things themselves. I still can't believe Ali saved $500 for that cart.

Fathers Day was spent at the Zoo in Portland. Heather and Jamie and our grandson CJ met us there. I had made a picnic lunch to eat at the Zoo. We had chicken, salads, rolls, cookies. It was a great day to visit the zoo.

Well enough. I have to get dinner done so we can go see Star War's at 9:45pm tonight.

Have a great evening and think of me at 5am cleaning the parlor and getting ready for a busy day tomorrow.

New Look to Blue Rose Dairy

My brothers business
Before

After

Well I guess the biggest news is our house. My parents paid my brother to paint my house. Well this week was the week. They worked on it for 5 days and then the rain came so they will be back to finish the last of the trim and stain the deck.

It looks great! Thanks mom and dad and Steven.

The farmers markets are going well. We are all feeling tired but still going strong. We pick up our tenth market on Wed. of this week. People are looking for us and the Chefs at the markets are using our cheese to demonstrate with. That's great. The more people know how to use our cheese the better for us. We have picked up a couple more small restaurants. Keeping up with making cheese three days a week is quite the challenge. I need to stay home those days and that almost seems impossible. There is always something pulling me away from the farm. Anyway it is getting done. I am not getting a head though as we seem to be selling it about as fast as I make it. One of our refrigerators went out so I am down to three refrigerators and that doesn't hold all my cheese. So I am having to package more cheese than usual. A friend has an extra refrigerator and they are going to sell it to us... soon I'll have my fourth back.

The car's water hose to the heater broke the other day and it goes to the doctor on Monday to get fixed. Danyel is having her dog, Maggi fixed on Monday too.

Ali went and ordered her goat cart this last week and it will be here this next weekend, florescent pink with a pink seat too. She can't wait. She saved up $450 and bought it.

Today is Father's day, Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads. So for David's gift we go to the Zoo. This year its to the Portland Zoo. A long time ago we asked David's parents to buy our family a zoo pass and they have done it ever since. We use to go all the time --- but farm life and cheese making and Farmers Markets keep us from enjoying it very often. But David's favorite place is the zoo. So we will be leaving as soon as the milking and chores are done.

Danyel just came in and said Waldo (Ali's cart goat with big horns) just had one of my younger boar bucks stuck in his horn and now the buck can't walk. So David is moving him to a pen. And Waldo is going to have a pasture all to himself. Possibly one more goat to add to the butcher pot too. (Not waldo - I already threatened Ali with that and he was saved last year).

There is never a dull moment on the farm that's for sure.

The puppies eyes are starting to open. We have to chain Cloe in the pen - she wants to hide the puppies. We don't let anyone in the pen so she will feel more protected. Once the eyes are all open she won't want to move them anymore. Those babies are chunky and cute. I don't have a new picture of them yet. As soon as their eyes are open I'll post another one. Heather has picked her puppy out and we have picked ours out. So now the litter is open to get your puppy. We are doing a stimulus package special $1500 a puppy.

Both parents are working and are AKC

They can leave in one and a half months from now. So Aug 1 they are available to take home.

The girls babysat some friends animals this last week. So every evening after chores we drove over to their house and fed their animals and watered their plants. We had their milk doe at our house too. They got home yesterday and had to come right over - bearing gifts of Thanks. I even got something. That was so sweet of them.

Oh yes I started a cleansing diet this last week. Candida. Anyway I am feeling better and its been a challenge. I can eat veg. and meat. I am doing well on it. I haven't killed anyone yet so that is good. My mom is on the Atkins diet for a few months too. So its good to have someone to talk to about the NOT EATING.

The girls and Amanda (sort of an adopted daughter) gave a goat clinic this last weekend and they had about 10 people come to it. It was great. The girls each gave demonstrations about different things and then they followed up with a tour of the dairy and some cheese tasting. The comments the kids got after the class encouraged them to do some more classes. So if your wanting to learn more about goat care from some down to earth kids that have been there done that and are still doing it - this is a few classes that you'll want to check out. They are doing four classes each with a different topic and they are not connected so you can take the ones that interest you. They are charging $20 for each class.

#1 Breeding July 12th from -2-5pm

#2 Goat Nutrition Aug. 9th- 2-4pm

#3 Goat Hoof Trimming Aug. 23 -2-4pm

#4 General Goat Class Sept. 13 - 2-5pm

My next cheese class is fast approaching too. So if you haven't sent in your money do so cause there are more than 25 that want to attend. It will be first come first serve. Thanks to for all the participation in those classes.

Well I'll stop with the news and say have a Great Day and smell the roses.

Puppies and Cheese!

This is Cloe and her puppies on 6/12/09

Good Morning:

I thought I'd up date you since the puppies change so fast.

On Wed. we got our cheese ready to go to Olympia and Broadway in Tacoma. We packed the cars that night ready to leave Thur. am.

The markets on Thur went well. People were buying for graduation parties - so that went very well. David brought home from his market strawberries and I brought home smoked salmon. We had strawberry shortcake and garlic and dill chevre and salmon on bread --YUM! On my way home from Olympia I had to run out to Adna and pick up two rounds of our aged cheese so David could take them Friday to a new Restaurant - 94th st. Restaurant in Seattle. Danyel and Ali cleaned the house while they were home. We unloaded cheese and started chores. Then I could sit down and relax.

Friday I was swamped with cheese.... had to package, label and cut, about 250 pieces. My parents came over and helped me cause I wasn't going to get done. Danyel's last day for Biology. One less place to drive to everyday. We will continue homeschooling through the summer - just three days a week and only work on three subjects.

The girls are babysitting a friends farm so each evening after our chores we drive 6 miles and go do their chores. Luckily they don't have near as many animals as we do.

David got home about 9pm after really bad traffic. He worked at Pikes Place Market all day. He also got new orders from the Pikes Place Creamery, which is carrying our yogurt and our chevre.

We unloaded David's coolers and then loaded up both or our coolers for Sat. market.

Sat. I was up at about 5am cleaned the parlor and packaged yogurt and put the feta in the refrigerator - and was on the road by 6:15am for Adna to load up and pick up Meg at Blacksheep creamery. We were on the road by 6:40 for Puyallup. David got up and hayed the goats and filled the grain cans in the parlor and then he was off for Longview at 7:30am. Danyel and Ali were also getting picked up for Civil Air Patrol at about 7:30am. They will get home about Noon. David got home about 3:30 and got unloaded and paperwork done. I got home about 4:15 after dropping Meg off at Adna. David helped me get unloaded and cheese counted. And he turned around and headed back to Longview to go pick up a pressure washer at Rogers our friends house. He was home by 9:30pm. Amanda got here about 9pm - she is spending the night and tomorrow the girls and her are putting on a goat clinic here at the farm. I ran the girls over to the Jones to take care of their animals at 8:30pm and was home by 9:30pm. I think I went to bed about 10:00pm. I have to say since the TV switch thing - our TV isn't on so much. We get 7 channels - most which are OPB. Its awesome.

Sunday is crazy; 5am up to do chores and milk. 7am the girls get dressed for Civil Air Patrol - I'll take them to the airport. At 8:30 one of them will be fl ying a glider, and the other will follow in about 1 1/2 hours. David and I should be picking them up about 1pm no later. David and I will go to church at 10:30 where we will meet up with Shawn and Susanna and they will come home with us. I'll heat up some chili and we'll have lunch. Heather and Jamie and CJ will also be here about 1pm to eat lunch with us. Then Amanda and Danyel and Ali will put on their goat clinic at 2-4 today. At 5pm our Worship/Potluck starts and so do chores. We will probably worship until about 9pm. I want to make a batch of my non-pasteurized cheese today too It will take about 2 hours to get it into the molds. My new hose works so good and sure makes my life easier. Then its to bed for this one tired lady.

Well I hope I didn't give any of you heart problems or Anxiety after reading my week.

Have a Great Day - Plan our your days so they don't look like mine.

Puppies!

These are three of the 10. The different colors.

WE HAVE PUPPIES!!!!

Hello: Here I am again. Another month has almost passed by since I last wrote. We are crazy busy now. We are doing 7 markets a week and by the end of this month it will be 8 markets a week. We are rotating 4 markets on the weekend. As you can see these are a few of our new additions to the farm. Cloe had 4 males and 6 females. They are cute. We are going to run a special economy stimulus sale on these puppies.... $1,500.00. So get your order in. I'll be putting up pictures here as they grow, so everyone can see what these pups are going to look like. They should be ready to go to homes in 8 weeks - First week in Aug.

Last week we sold almost 400 pieces of cheese at the farmers markets. Thats about 57 pieces per market. So I am making cheese and packaging it. It seems packaging is the bigger project. We have picked up a couple more resturants and possibly two wholesale distributers too.

My parents are paying to have my house painted this next week. My brother is a house painter and he will be doing it for me. It will be white with Navy blue trim and a purple back door. I can't wait. Thanks MOM and DAD!

The new hose that brings my milk down to the processing plant works great. It takes about 15 min. to fill the pasturizer. My back will be saved now. The cheese is turning out great. Our aged cheese is now out of the cave and selling well. I am also selling quarts of yogurt - only by order though. And that seems to be going well too.

We had a load of chips dropped off today so we can pick the date to clean the barn. Probably next month.

Two of our vehicals are having issues. The van is having altimers ( it can't remember where to put the gas to run the van) The car's heater hose from the radiator broke - we have a bypass one on right now with the part on order. We don't know what we are going to do about the van. I guess that one costs a bunch of money to fix the computer.

Our house loan is being looked over to see if we can redo it for a better rate. So don't know how that will turn out.

Our does are done kidding for the season. And we have one kid still on bottle - Ali's pack goat for fair.

The girls are both saving thier money for big projects. Ali is buying a cart for her goat. Danyel is paying to have a hernia removed from her pack goat kid. I sure am glad its them and not me.

Today I have to package about 100 pieces of cheese and lable it too.

Danyel only has one more day of school for her biology class. We will be homeschooling all summer - a few days a week. We are paying the girls to clean the house on Thur. when David and I are both at markets. Its nice to come home to a clean house.

My parents are up from Arizona for the summer. This year they brought up thier bus and are staying in it, in Centrialia at some friends house.

The girls and another friend are putting on a goat clinic here at the farm this weekend on Sunday the 14th at 2pm. The cost is $15 a person. They will cover health, feet, feed, and good care of your goat.

So I wanted to get you all alittle caught up on our life here on the dairy. You have a great day. And put your feet up for me.