New Year.... or is it

hello everyone... its been a while. Life here at the dairy is quite busy. We are in 10 farmers markets a week. I am making cheese 3 days a week and doing 3 markets a week,. David is working the other 7 and our soon to be (HOPE HOPE) daughter-in-law is doing our Longview market. We are milking 66 goats and have about 120 goats on our dairy. Ali now has 40 chickens and is selling thier eggs. Well I have to go check on my cheese that I am making today. Hope I can get back on this blog soon to fill you in on whats else has been happening.

Catch up to date

Well so much has happened. I'll say we have been busy as bee's around the farm. Our Anatolian shepards puppies are all sold but one - a female - Lea.
I am a grandma again. I flew to Austin Texas to be with Tami and Mike for thier first baby. They were not due until March and so I had bred my goats to kidd the first part of Feb. and to hopefully be done by the first part of March. Well they enduce my daughter and I had to fly out the 9th of Feb. And the goats kidded in 9 days as soon as I was off the ground in the plane. David and Ali were the only ones home and our Intern Francis from Texas arrived the day before I flew out. They all did good with the kidding season - 130 kids romping on the ground. I came home the first week in March - proud grandma of a new grandson - Erick.
When I got home I hit the ground running. Almost all the babies were sold before I got home which ment I had to make cheese. Our Farmers Markets started the end of March. We were ready and David was off to make money. We are signed up for 10 markets again. Longview(Sat), Olympia (Thur. & Fri), Tacoma (Tue, Thur., Sat., Sun), Stilecoom (Wed), Des Moinse (Sat), Pikes Place (Fri). And possibly the Market in Winlock too.
Francis is helping alot, he has gone to farmers markets and will be going to a wine tour, college presentation. He lives here with us and helps around the farm. He as got to make cheese and lable, weight and sell it. He is a nice young man and I think he will go far.
We introduce a new package to our sales its a sample pack consisting of Chevre, Garlic & Dill Chevre, Feta, and Marinated Feta its price range is from $10 - $20, and they are selling well.
We are milking 56 does and bottle feeding 23 kids. I am currently making cheese 3 times aweek. When we wean the kids in two weeks that will give 40 more gallons a week for that 4th batch of cheese. We have picked up a few more resturants so I am busy packaging for that too.
Well I will catch you up more in a few days.

I am BACK!

Hello everyone. Its been along time since I got on the computer to blog. Most of that was that I was sort of depressed about out situation and thought we were going to loose the farm. Its not a big deal to loose the farm, its loosing all the work we have put into it. Anyway the bank decided to give us another chance. I am here again saying things look bleak again. This time of year everything slows down and we have not enough sales to sustain the farm. So bills get unpaid and we get notices.... we pray God will bring in the money to let us keep going for one more year. Anyway so much for the sad news....
Kidding should start in about 3 weeks. We are down to about 90 goats here at the dairy. Which is alright... less hooves to trim and less feed to feed. We cleaned the barn this last week and have new shavings on the floor. We have all the baby pens now cleaned and ready for kids. We thought our first goat started labor about 1 week ago and so off to the vets we went to see if we needed a C-Section or what. We got the what..... took her home and gave her some penicillin and she is fine and now out with the herd. We have started graining in the milk parlor (1 month prior kidding) and adding our apple cider vinegar and their kelp,dolomite lime, linseed and soybean mix on the grain. Training the yearlings how to go through the parlor is such a fight. Hopefully by the time they kid they will have it down.
We were featured at Ray's Boathouse restaurant a few weeks ago... we got to talk to each table when our course came up. It was really neat.
We shipped Ali off to Texas to spend a month with her sister. So Danyel and I got to get into a routine for two. Ali is back and Danyel ships out tomorrow for her month. This is these girls vacation. Their sister and her husband are spoiling them rotten.
We are having some plumbing done today too. Our ceiling in the spare room downstairs fell .... from a leak in the bathroom upstairs. My son and husband did all they could do to fix it and now we have a plumber working on it. So we haven't' had any water all day yesterday and today. Dishes are high and can't wait to get the kitchen cleaned.
We will go out and start chores at 4:30. And I have to start dinner too.
The wind was really loud and strong last night. No damage to anything at the farm.
I also was a Grandma in October to my 8th granddaughter.... she was born on my birthday too. I got to be in the room when she was born in the pool in the birth room. How cool is that. Her name is Samantha. Mom and Dad and baby and brother are all doing fine. Nana too! (me)
Well I'll write more hopefully soon and add some pictures on too.

A Long Stretch without a Word

Heather our #2 daughter due the end of October.

And a goat accident that ended with having her bag sewn up. (Story below)

Trip to the Zoo for David's birthday. His brother and parents came with us. The puppies are ready for new homes and are eating us out of farm and milk. (16 pounds of puppy food and 2 gallon of milk a day)

Got to deliver a baby for a friend. Both neighbor and goat are doing well.

Heather, her sister, is pinning Danyel at her Civil Air Patrol ceremony. Aug. 29.
Danyel is now ahead of Ali in rank!

My new front door screen is done. My dad built it for me and stained it to match the deck. It is really great to be able to open the front door and turn the fan on and no flys come in - or puppies.

Since I'v not wrote in such a long while, I thought photo's would be the best way to sum up the last three weeks. We have been very busy and I have been very tired. All our farmers markets are going well. We finished Stilecoom which was only a 9 week market (thier first year), it went very well. I went to the last market with David so that the folks there could meet the cheese maker in person. It was a great market, both financially and community.

The girls got to go flying again in the power plane. We have just bought the first airline ticket for Ali to go to Texas in December. She'll be gone from the 16 to Jan 13. Talk about excited these two girls cant wait. Danyel will go the middle of Jan. to the middle of Feb. They both picked the best time when we are not milking or kidding to go.

We got news that we are going to be grandparents again. Heather is due the end of October and Tami our daughter in Texas is due in March. So I will be heading to Texas the first of March for a week. This is right when we start kidding at the farm. Danyel will then have to earn thier keep while I am gone.

One of the sort of suttle notes I have mentioned was the financial part of our dairy. What I didn't say was we were a thread away from loosing the dairy. But the bank has decided to give us another chance. I am so thankful to MY GOD for blessing us with this dairy and our way of life. We have worked so hard these last six years (in Dec.) to loose it all. We are now looking at servicing about 12 resturants, we are currently working 9 farmers markets. So we are here for another year at least.

My parents went on vacation for a week and I had to go back and start labeling cheese again. WoW! Its true you don't know what you have till its gone (even if its for only a week). We have talked to a young girl that loves animals and has helped us out before - to see if she would like to come to the dairy this spring and help with the kidding and maybe lable some cheese for me.

I was suppose to go to Africa in October, but that has been post poned until Jan. or Feb. as the cheese processing plant hasn't been finished yet and will take longer than they expected. So that is a good postponement though... . gives me more time to make cheese and get it stored away for winter.

We went to a friends 70th wedding anniversary. That was alot of fun. Got to see people I hadn't seen a long time.

The goat - So here is the story. We went out to milk in the morning and everything was great. But the evening milking was interesting. Danyel came to the processing plant to tell me a goat had a hole in her bag. I am thinking she got poked with a stick kind of hole. When I got there - there was milk and blood comng out of the same space. It looked like someone had cut her teat almost off and straight across. I was on the phone to the vet and had the doe loaded into the truck in about 15 min. Our vet sewed up inside her bag and the outside. The picture is at the vets right after he got done sewing her up. The goat is doing great, she has mastitis on the hurt side - but the vet said that would happen. We are still milking both sides. She had her stitches taken out on Friday and is out in the pasture with the other goats.

The puppies have gotten their shots, wormed and are growing leaps and bounds. We let them run around the farm twice a day and then get them back into thier pens with goat milk.

We will start breeding does in Sept. and that should start kidding in Feb. this year. And the cycle starts again. We will dry up the does the middle to end of November. That will give every one thier vacation.

We started homeschooling three weeks ago so that the girls won't have to do schoolwork in Texas. They will each take two classes at the High School this year. Danyel is taking woodshop and keyboarding, Ali is taking Biology and Drawing. It will work out great as its the last two classes of the day so they can ride the bus home. We will get Danyel's permit for driving so she can get her license when she is 18 in May.

Well I hope this makes everyone happy, cause I know you'v been wondering whats going on with Blue Rose Dairy.

Stressing Week

Our front door complete!~ The goats and puppies meeting!

How time flys when your having fun. Its been two weeks since I last wrote you. Well I can assure you I wasn't sitting around tanning on the deck (not that I didn't think about it). We have been busy beavers here. Those 8 markets a week sure keep me hoping and I am not gaining on my cheese supply. It seems as fast I make it, its selling. I haven't been faithful with my three batches a week, which might explain some of my wow's. Its a good delema to have but means more work for me. Such is life. I am going to go backward this time.

Yesterday it was HOT! David put a sprinkler on top of our huge barn to keep the roof cooled down, we have a swamp cooler (David made it) in the barn too. We have a sprinkler keeping the ground wet in the bucks pen. And the girls have been going out three times a day to fill water buckets. So far the goats are fairing pretty good. Had one come down with diahreah but she seems to be doing good now. We gave a tour to our neighbors family yesterday. I am not sure but I think the puppies trump the goats. They sampled cheese and loved it. Gave our business cards out so they could find us at some of the markets.

Sat. the market was good, David went and introduced himself to some more resturants in the Pikes Place Vacinity. Hopefully we'll hear back from some. And I held my 2nd cheese class for the year - one more to go. Everyone seemed to have learned the lesson and was ready to go home and make thier first batch of cheese. I haven't heard back from any yet. I had 25 people come for the class. One couple who own a tavern/resturant came and spent the night in thier camper at the farm. They were awsome people. David and I enjoyed their company so much. We stayed up till 12:30pm visiting. The funny story about Nancy and Chris happened early in the morning, about 4:30am. Nancy heard the rooster crow and thought I was yelling "Nancy and Chris", She shot up out of bed checking the windows in the camper seeing if she could see anything. She woke Chris up and he told her it was a rooster and she tried to convince him it was me yelling for them. She thought I had cut off my arm or something and needed thier help. She finally layed back down. Chris said he didn't go back to sleep and when we went out to milk goats at 5am he came out to help and take pictures. So by the end of the day they were both pretty tired. What a great couple. Hope we get to visit with them more.

All day Friday I was getting things ready for the cheese class. Made my soup and in the afternoon I took all the stuff down to the grange hall and set it up. We or I should say the girls shampooed my rugs. We had a farm tour, a young couple from Idaho, Boise. They sampled our cheese and asked a bunch of questions. They want to do a small scale dairy someday. Danyel and Ali went over to the neighbors for a birthday/swim/sleep over. They came home in time to milk the goats and we traded children. Ali went to thier house for the night and Katie came here to help at the farm. Our guest arrived about 8:30pm from Tacoma. David got home about 9pm - took him 4 hours to drive home from Seattle. Our guests brought Pizza for dinner from thier resturant....Yum Yum!

Thur. Our Markets were really good. I brought home a couple new plants - one is a red seedless grape. I am so excited. David brought home veg.'s. Yum! We were tired so things went well and bed came soon.

Wed. David started the Tumwater market and Danyel and I finished it. David and Ali headed for Stilecoom for the 3-7pm market. This was the first time since it started that Ali got to hear the concert. Each time she has gone the threat of rain loomed and they moved it in doors.

Tue. I had a 4-H meeting so we could plan our fair decorations. It went well and I was back on track getting ready for the cheese class. Mom and Dad came over and helped lable and weigh cheese. Dad is building screen doors for the house and he sure enjoys it. It will look so nice when its done. He is about ready for the screens. We'll paint it before he does that though.

Monday - David and I went to Intel @ DuPont to demo our cheese to the employees there. It was a nice afternoon. And hopefully we'll be getting some cheese orders from them too. I got up at 5am and made cheese before we left. We also had a new refrigeration unit delivered. We bought it from Black Sheep Creamery. Its big and will sure help with storage of my cheese. It actually all came together too.

Sunday -We all went to church. David and I ran to Cash and Carry and got some supplies. We ran to the fabric store and I bought some muslin to try on my cheese. (It worked great too!) I made 2 gallons of yogurt and Mom and dad cmea at about 3:30 to help lable and weigh cheese for me.

Sat. My daughter came to pick up Kiara, my granddaughter. I was so tired from doing market and the heat. I don't think I was in a very good mood when I got home. I found my house a total mess. After I had paid the girls to clean it on Thur. It all ended alright with saying I am sorry, but what a stress out! Oh yes, a main water line broke in the basement and flooded the carpet again. This happened when we were at market and the girls were home. They couldn't tell where the water was coming from. When David got home at 4pm he called a plumber and they fixed it for a couple hundred dollars. We had the fans and such down there trying to dry out the carpet. The girls helped David move all the funiture and and stuff into the library. Now my basement is a total mess.

Friday. I was getting cheese ready for Sat. markets. Had alot of packaging and lableing and weighing to do. Mom and Dad were here to help.

So I think that gets us up to this week now.

Have a great week. Stay Cool! but enjoy the Sunshine.

The new Chevre Flavor

This is the before of the front door and the other photo is what it looks like now!

Hello: As usual its been crazy around here. We sold about 400 pieces of cheese last week not counting the yogurts or restaurant orders. We are packaging and weighing alot of cheese.
Our new cheese is, "Summer Breeze" Its a chevre with fresh zest of a lemon and then the juice from the lemon and some fireweed honey. Its been the big seller this last week.

This is a picture of two of our puppies eating breakfast. The other picture is the garden in front of my milk parlor this year.

Last week we had a grange meeting at the Porters Patch, we watched a 4-H club do some horse demonstrations and at great food. Wed. we did our two markets, Tumwater and Stielacoom - the weather was pretty iffy all day. But the markets did pretty good. Thur I did the Olympia market and I did pretty good. David did the Broadway market in Tacoma. When he got home he had to turn around and head for Olympia for a schoolboard meeting. David had such a headache it was a good thing he was a passenger not the driver. He has been having this headache for a few days and that makes it hard for him to sleep. I made cheese on Wed. Friday and on Sunday. David didn't do the Pikes Place Market this week cause his head was hurting to bad. So he stayed home and supervised the finishing of the painting of our house and deck. Sherwin came on Friday and helped package and make some Grande' Rosa and Pepper. Mom and Dad were here labeling the cheese and weighing for me. We were done with all the extras by about 6pm and then we did chores and ate dinner. We then packed up our car and truck for market.

Sat. I was in Puyallup and David was in Longview. When we got home about 4pm the girls had already started miking the goats. We were done unloading and getting things ready to go to Rainier Daze in Rainier, Oregon for the Fireworks at 9pm. We met our daughter and her husband and their three kids and my son and his girlfriend and her two kids and saw a bunch of our old friends. It was a great fireworks and the company was great. We got home about 12pm with our granddaughter. We had to be in Tacoma for Art on the Ave. event at 9am.

Sunday I got up at 5am to get the parlor cleaned and start loading and cutting samples for the event we were going to today. It ran from 11-5pm. We did alright but the music was really loud and that made David's headache even worse. So he went to the truck and slept and I worked the event. We packed up at 5pm and headed for home. David and I stopped on the way home to eat some Mexican food and relax. When we got home David went to lay down and I unloaded the truck and counted inventory. The girls had to give a tour on Sunday while I was gone and from their report it went well. So all in all the week was a success.

Monday we just kind of hung out. I went and got our weeks worth of grain. David ran and got dog food. David had a DR. apt in Longview for his headache's and Ali had Waldo castrated today so she can take him to the fair this year and her cart. The girls milked early so they could go to the movies at 8pm - Ice Age. Picked them up at 10pm. They went to bed and so did I.

Today I have to hang chevre and package and weigh an label cheese. My parent who usually help me are visiting some friends and won't be here to help till Friday this week.

I hope I haven't tired many of you with my week. I actually feel pretty good. David is on his way to 6th Ave market in Tacoma and I am working in the cheese room.

Have a great Week and relax when you can and work hard when you need too.

A Weather Change

Good Morning;

Well its been about one week since I wrote to you all. So lets do the usual catch up.

We gained a new Restaurant - Il Fiasco in Tacoma is now using our cheese. We are scheduled to do a Sustainable Farming talk at Intel at DuPont, Wash. next week. Our markets are busy. The newest Market we picked up is Stilecoom and its a really fun market to do. We sold 350 pieces of cheese last week. WOW! My parents come over on Tue and Friday to help label cheese and weigh it for me. Other wise I'd be up all night. My yogurt is selling like hotcakes too. I made 7 gallons of it this last week and only had two people didn't pick up their orders.

Danyel was in the Egg Day Parade on the Hope Grange Float. The girls had fun attending the parade in Winlock and checking out all the fun things going on.

Our puppies are growing like weeds. They are so rolly polly. They are eating about 1/2 gallon of goat milk and baby cereal mixed with it twice a day. What they don't eat Cloe does. Our milking is going well. The goats are getting wormed today. I use a pour on wormer and I watch for shaggy goats and then worm - it comes out to maybe two or three times a year. Ali has been working with her cart...... as you see in the picture. She has hooked her goat up a few times this week.

The 4th of July is a very stressful event around the dairy. David and I walk to all our neighbors and explain why shooting off fireworks is harmful to our dairy and the big rockets that boom. Our goats as usual ran from one side of the barn to the other trying to escape the booms and the flashes of light. One family around us did the fireworks thing and they had ammunition from the reservation. David stayed up until 3am to try and keep a handle on the upset goats. Needless to say they were very tired the next morning and production was down. Most of our neighbors understand and comply. But you always have to have a few that are compost.

I made three batches of cheese this week - in two days. I don't know where times goes but I have looked for it under the bed and in the dryer and cant seem to locate the hours I'v lost this week. I have to say the weather was so great this week. But the rains or at least showers are coming back for a quick reminder - and that's alright too. I work inside when the weather is bad. I am starting my veg. and meat diet again after taking a week off. I just need to cleanse my body of toxins - so maybe I can gain a little energy and feel ready to run away with the wind. Ha! Ha!. My granddaughter is coming to spend a week here at the farm next week. She is a sweety. My daughters really enjoy her too.

This week is always playing catch up. We may be going down to Tacoma for the ART ON THE AVE on Sunday.... but we are trying to move scheduals around. Ali may be getting baptized on Sunday and we won't miss that. Also the girls have thier goat class this Sunday on Breeding.

You have a great week and I'll be chatting with you all next week.