Farming just keeps going, and going and going - like an battery!

The leaves are so beautiful today. A good rain and wind bring down the leaves. Our cement pad in front of the processing plant is covered with red leaves while the path leading to the buck pens is covered with yellow. The mountains show such pretty colors all around us. I think Fall is one of my favorite seasons. And Thanksgiving falls in that season and thats my favorite holiday.
Well David is going up to Pikes Place everyday. What a grooling week. The market hasn't done very good since we started going back up there.
Yesterday we had two girls on holiday from Australia stop by and tour the dairy. What sweet girls. They headed onto Portland to visit a friend there then onto Calf.
I made Chevre - 42 gallons, yesterday and so this morning I hung it to drain. The left over milk was picked up also yesterday. We are down to about 113 gallons a week now and dropping. Not sure I'll have any milk to pick up next week for them. I want to make a batch of Northwest Comfort and Black Jewel. And some feta, that should use up all the milk I get this week.
This evening we have to milk early in order to be at Grange by 6:00. I am the lecturer and its kind of important that I am there. We are having a guest speaker tonight, he is a Cowlitz Indian and he is going to tell some Indian stories for us. He is such a nice guy and we sure enjoy having him in our grange.
I think I'll make a refrigerator soup for the potluck. That is all the left overs in your refrigerator - no older than three days old - It always is very interesting. So I know there is stir fry and rice, spaghetti, roast with carrots and onions to start with.
I made chocolate cake donuts yesterday. YUM! Needless to say they are gone this morning.
I got grain last night too. I remember when we first moved here and was paying about $6.50 a bag for our wet cob and then $7 for our alfalfa pellets. We are now paying over $10 for both of those grain today. We shop around to find the best deal. Right now we are spending close to $300 a week on feed for our dairy, where it was about $450 a month for grain before. That is crazy. Our finances are really tight due to this huge increase in feed. Thank goodness gas prices are down. But the grain prices haven't started coming down yet and I expect they won't either.
I am taking our ballot into the court house this morning.
I just want to thank all the people that have bought our cheese and supported us through the year. We are also going to have holiday baskets for sale this year... if anyone is interested just contact us.
Well have a nice day. Will talk to you all very soon.

Start of Pikes Place Market

Good Morning: The weather is warm out and the sky is clear. We have been working to get things winterized. The sunshine was wonderful and the goats were all outside. We got the fencing done up behind the barn so the goats can go up there and there is lots of grass up there.
David started Pikes Place Yesterday. He leaves at 6am and gets home about 8:30pm. It is a really long day. He is going to try and do five days in a row. He didn't do so good money wise, but now the word will be out that we are back and I am sure things will pick up. The market has a $5 coupon redeemable at our stand - our name is on it. Pretty Cool!
I stayed home yesterday and worked on homeschooling the girls, and c leaning house.
I packaged up garlic and dill chevre and plain chevre for the market today. I went and got two large rounds of hay and unloaded it into the barn.
We have a 4-H meeting today. We will be planning our sleepover in March.
I had a couple come and talk goats yesterday, they want to buy two of my meat goats to eat brush and be pets. They will call me in a week once they get the fencing thing done.
I have to run to the Farm Store this morning and get some more teat dip for the parlor. And also a couple of markers to mark the goats. Danyel wants to start moving some goats to every other day because they are drying up. I need to make cheese today - probably not until this evening.
My daughter from Texas flew in yesterday, her dad (my X) is in the hospital. We will probably drive to St. Helens Oregon tomorrow after school is out - they have half day- to see my big kids.
Well not much going on today.
Have a great day.

Good Morning. What a weekend. The Sat. cheese class was really great. I thought I was going to run out of soup though. It didn't happen. After cleaning the hall up I came home and unloaded the stuff into the house. The girls did chores and loaded up the goats and I started milking them so they could leave at 4:45. David took the girls to their CAP (Civil Air Patrol) gathering in Chehalis. They got to have pizza and watch a movie and meet some new officers from up by Seattle. I actually enjoyed milking, except for the second load that got out of the stantion while still hooked up to the sucker things. All the rest of the loads I locked the stantion. Its relaxing to do milking ONCE in awhile. After milking I took some aspirin and laid down. I started getting a headache. I ended up falling asleep on the couch until about 9:45pm when I heard David talking to the girls on the phone. He went and got them then and I went to bed. My headache felt better, but thought I should get some rest.
Got up Sunday morning at 7am and went and cleaned the parlor and the girls did the milking. The girls were going to hang out at the airport and help with the glider flights. So when they were done with chores they got dressed in their BDU (camo clothes). We left at 9:50 for the airport and dropped them off before we went to church. After church we called them and they were ready to come home so we went and picked them up and went and ate some lunch. The rest of the day was pretty mellow. I worked on the library in our basement. My headache came back and by 8:30pm I was ready for bed.
This morning I felt pretty good and was up by 6am. The stars are out and its does not feel cold out either. Though its 33. Today my milk gets picked up so I will just be working with the girls and our homeschool.
NEWS BREAK: CHEESE CLASS SCHEDULED FOR NOVEMBER 22 AT THE HOPE GRANGE. It will be posted on my web page. So if you couldn't come in October how about November. Get signed up first 25. This makes great Christmas gifts and holiday goodies.

David is working on the fencing behind the barn so the goats can start cleaning up the brush up there. I did alittle more caulking in the milk parlor too.
Well you have a great day and think of Warm Summer days.....only when your not having a hot flash!
This is Danyel's new puppy -boarder collie and blue heeler cross. 10 weeks old.

Cheese Class

Good Morning. Today is my cheese class.
Yesterday I had to make up some garlic and dill chevre and plain chevre for the Longview Market, Sat.. David went and vacuumed the marinated feta and grande rosa and the pepper rosa Thur. Our lables are in, but we both got to busy and forgot to go get them. So we have temp. lables on our grande rosa and pepper rosa.
We worked on making the farm presentable for the tour today. David put carpeting on the cement for walk ways for the winter. Its so slippery on the cement basketball court (soon to be new processing plant). I cleaned the Parlor this morning so it would look clean for the tour this afternoon.
I took supplies over to the grange last night. And then this morning I went over at about 5:15 to set up most of it and take the rest of my stuff over. I will leave at 8am to go over there to finish setting up and make coffee and put the tea water on. I have to cut up the cheese samples. I only got cheese from the sheep dairy too. The cow/goat dairy is no more. I guess after the flood it was to much to get going again.
David's Book signing gig in Kalama went pretty well. He said that just about everyone bought some cheese.
The girls have CAP (Civil Air Patrol) this morning and will be leaving about the same time as I leave. Afterwards they will be dropped off at the grange to help me clean up. And they can eat lunch there too.
David will get home about the time the tour is on the farm.
Well got to run. I think I have everything if not its a short hop to get back home.

The Farm from the Air!

Good Morning. Wasn't yesterday great! Sunshine and warm weather. Yesterday was a run day and alot didn't get accomplished at the farm. I got most of my grocery list taken care of for the cheese class, just ran out of time. I'll finish today. I took the chevre down that I stared on Monday. I got about 70 pounds to my 33 gallons I made. Which is good numbers.
I am going to be cleaning the creamery really good today, and the milk parlor too. So I have less to do tomorrow. I also will be making a gallon batch of cheese for the cheese class. David will be vacuuming some cheese today. I have computer class this morning, Danyel has Biology and we have our first 4-H meeting today and then the new caseworker is coming to meet us and our foster son. This evening will be all around packaging cheese for Friday evening's book review thing in Kalama that David is going to.
The weather is suppose to be great this weekend.
The girls had a great day to fly planes yesterday. I thought you'd like to see this picture of our property from the air. We are the farm right next to the gravel pit on the right - on the other side of the brown dirt pile. Our barn is the long building and our house is in the trees below the long barn. Our property is the pasture in front of the barn and a small green patch behind the barn. Hope you can all understand my directions.
Have a Great Day.

Flying in the Sky

Good Morning to all. The sky is clear its alittle chilly out, but sunny.
Yesterday I got my chevre hung up and packed my other chevre for the freezer (about 50 lbs). Danyel gave her biology report and did a good job - no grade yet. And then we called a CAP piliot who was offering O flights. The girls got booked for a 1:30 flight. They didn't get to fly because Danyel got alittle sick from the other kids flying. So they were down by 4:30pm. I went and picked up the girls, and we went to Rochester to pick up an Australian cross blue healer puppy for Danyel - Free. She has wanted her own dog and since she is a 10th grader it means she will only be around a few years - I thought she should have her own dog now. That brings our total up to 5 dogs. And I am the one who doesn't even like dogs.... Yikes!
So today we have a busy schedule I will go pick up my foster son and take him to his dr. appt. and David will take Danyel to her biology class. When I bring the foster son back to school - I'll pick up Danyel from her class. While the foster son is in his Dr. appt. I'll run to Walmart and get my supplies for the cheese class (the food). After that the girls will go fly today at 1pm. And its going to be a beautiful day to go flying. They both will fly. They must wear their uniforms and be all proper today too. So after the flying there is chores and church this evening.
Danyel named her puppy Michelle, she is black and white like a boarder collie.
Well its about time to go so, you have a great day and enjoy the sunshine.

Good Morning. Its a little foggy out but its not freezing.
David hooked up our propane heater and got the propane tank filled so its not so cold in the milking room. He added a small fan that blows over the top of the heater so the heat spreads around the room better. I did some more caulking yesterday too. The holes and cracks are slowly disappearing.
I made a 33 gallon batch of chevre yesterday. Today I will hang it to drain. I have about 28 people signed up for my cheese class on Sat. I have all my books made and put together. Tomorrow I'll go get my supplies for the lunch.
Danyel has to give her presentation today in Biology. I think she is ready though.
David is heading to Longview for the farmers market this morning. He is returning the water pressure cleaner to our friend after the market too.
Our milk was picked up yesterday also. So before milking I had the tank to also clean. I scrub the sides and top, with the same stuff I clean my milk lines with. It takes about 15 more min. to my cleaning schedule.
This morning I let the girls sleep in until 6:20 - Its because I slept in till 5:45am. Anyway school will be normal today. And I'll be in the processing plant messing with my cheese. I need to go and vacuum pack some marinated feta for Thur. book signing gig. in Kalama Wa. and then Sat. Market in Longveiw across from the fairgrounds. This is the last Sat. market for the Longveiw one.
This is a picture off our deck, taken by Ali Rider
Have a great day and know the little mountains you must climb are only bumps in the road.