I Love Mold

Wow, so it's already been three months since we began the first milking season (and since I posted last). Twice a day, every day of that three months the sheep have been lined up in the alleyway and run through the milking parlor to extract their precious milk. Each time it got a little easier--now they actually fight each other to get up the ramp to the stanchions where their grain awaits. Every week we added a few more ewes to the line-up as their lambs were weaned until we were milking 66 ewes at the peak, for a maximum of 20 gallons of milk per day.


But now we are on the other side of that slope, taking ewes out of the milker group as they reach the end of their lactation and dry up. As of this weekend we are down to milking once a day so the ewes can gradually slow their milk production. By the middle of the month I hope to have dried off all of the milkers. They will get a month's rest and chance to fatten up before being separated into groups and paired with my three rams for a late fall/early winter lambing season. Then the milking and cheesemaking will begin again in earnest.



My focus now is switching to caring for the aging cheese and getting ready to sell. My cheese cave--a concrete-walled garage built into the hillside--has about 200 6-7 lbs wheels of cheese sitting on wooden shelves, growing all kinds of mold. I am quite pleased that even without any type of air-conditioning the room is staying between 55-65 degrees and around 90% humidity. It is not really the most pleasant environment to hang out in--a little dank and musty. I spend about four hours a week in there methodically turning the wheels and cleaning off the mold growth with cheesecloth and a brush soaked in brine solution. It is quite fascinating to watch the succession of mold cultures as they populate the rinds of the cheese of time. The fresher wheels are covered in fuzzy white and grey-blue molds which gradually give way to the sticky red of b. linens. The hard part is waiting for the right time to declare the cheeses finished and cut into them for sampling.


Yesterday I opened up the first two wheels for tasting, having declared them "aged enough" at three months. I have been making two different types of cheese. The first one, which I will be marketing under the name Moonflower, has a washed rind and a supple texture--smooth and tangy with a hint of something stronger at the rind. The second, called Black-Eyed Susan, is a bit drier and has a creamy, fruity flavor. If forced to compare them to known cheese varieties I would say the Moonflower is similar to a Tomme cheese and the Black-Eyed Susan, a Basque style.

This next week should mark the officially beginning of my cheese sales to the public. I will be selling at the downtown Santa Cruz farmers market on Wednesdays and at the Westside Santa Cruz market on Saturday. By early July I will be offering lamb sausage for sale in addition to the two aged cheeses and a raw-milk feta. I still have to determine how much cheese I will sell where, but I will probably be wholesaling some cheese to a few local stores as well. When I know when and where it will be available I will post that information.

Point of No Return

For months now I've been working on the final pieces of this jigsaw puzzle that is putting a working dairy farm and cheese plant together. The building was pretty much ready to go by winter, but the concrete floor needed to be fixed because it was finished wrong. I had to wait for my loan money to order all of the equipment. I waited for the equipment to arrive (some delayed by months) and then had to figure out how the equipment worked and went together [despite what it says in the "instruction manual" that came with one piece, it was not "pretty much self explanatory"]. Pretty much all of the dairy equipment that I purchased was small-scale and from specialty manufacturers or from Europe. This meant that I received next to no information on set-up or operation and there was often no one who could answer my questions. My father was incredibly helpful in devising ways to make all of the equipment work together and researching information about heat transfer and thermal units and PSI and recirculating water systems, etc. This Monday I finally received the final puzzle piece in the form of an adapter for the outlet to my bulk tank which converts a 3" German-threaded opening to a 1.5" standard dairy fitting.



Then we needed a fenced, paved path for the animals to move to and from the building. A system of gates was designed to make a secure animal path that crossed the driveway without permanently blocking the road to the pasture. With weeks of unseasonably dry, warm sunny weather behind us, we decided it was time to pour concrete just as a very wet February began. I've been checking all of the weather forcasting sites every day looking for dry windows to work in. Ironically, the wet weather and bad economy have helped my construction efforts in a way because my friends who work construction have been available to pitch in on fence-building and concrete pouring on days when they couldn't work their regular jobs.

After way too many months of feeding my sheep alfalfa hay in the corral, and anxiously waiting for my pasture to germinate and fill in, I finally have some quality pasture. So, last week I ran some electric fence and let the ewes out to eat fresh green stuff.


And then all of a sudden I realized it was ready. Looking at the individual puzzle pieces for so long, the bigger picture had gotten to be a bit fuzzy and indistinct. It almost snuck up on me. But here it is:

It's finally happened. I've started a dairy farm. I am no longer just that chick with a bunch of sheep (as my friend Adriana said) but an actual dairy farmer and cheesemaker now. It will be at least two months before I have anything to sell and am technically in business, but I made my first commercial batch of cheese yesterday. The dairy inspectors from the California Department of Food and Agriculture have been coming out to the farm regularly over the past few months to consult on the construction and check out my equipment and layout. So, it was a pretty simple process Monday for them to come out and give me approval to begin official production.

Last Friday I separated about 40 ewes from their lambs, and with the help of my dedicated crew (Randy, Pete, and Brian) and a few extra helpers, we did the first large-scale machine milking in the new parlor. It was definitely a bit rough at times. The sheep were not particularly keen about going into the alleyway up to the barn or climbing the ramp to the stanchions. Most of them also had some difficulty figuring out how to extricate their heads from the stanchions when they were released after milking. They did all, however, enjoy the grain treat they got in the parlor. That first batch of milk went to the neighbor's pigs, but over the next few days we accumulated about 40 gallons that went in to making my first run-through cheese batch.

Every milking the sheep seem to be getting the idea more about lining up to be milked, although they still need to be encouraged to go up the ramp. By this morning most of them had figured out how to release their heads from the stanchions and exit the parlor. With all of the moving around of sheep Sedona, my faithful border collie, is in heaven. She is finally able to live out her destiny and breeding and boss those ewes around like she was born to do. Once she gets them lined up in the alleyway up to the barn, she paces back in forth in front of them like a sinister prison guard.

Like the sheep, we (the crew and I) are getting more accustomed to the milking routine and equipment and things run a little smoother every time. We have gone from five people per milking to two and are at about three hours to set-up, milk, and clean up. The goal is for one person to be able to milk about 80 sheep and clean up in two hours. We'll get there some day maybe.

In the meantime I've realized that I've reached the point of no return. There is no turning back. I have to keep milking these sheep twice-a-day, everyday as long as they have milk if I don't want them to stop producing. That means I will have a big tank (well not THAT big--50 gallons max) full of milk every few days that has to be made in to cheese if I don't want it to be wasted. Then there will be the wheels of cheese to wash and brush and turn as they age. And then they will have to be cut and packaged and sold. The sheep will have to be bred so they make new lambs and come back into milk again and then it will all start over again. whew. What was I thinking?

I love my job.

(BTW that's my mantra whenever I have to deal with something particularly unpleasant at the farm--like lancing cysts before breakfast)

So Cute You Could Barf

I am definitely not a religious person or even all that spiritual, but I do believe there is a basic drive in the universe for balance. It's the fundamentals of statistics, gambling and dharma--sure there will be peaks and valleys but things always kind of even out in the long run. Lately, I've been pretty stressed out and more than a bit beat down about the dificulty in getting the dairy business up and running and worrying about money and everything else. The universe's response: you need a little bit of levity and love in your life. This came to my doorstep one day last week in the form of a 6-week-old border collie puppy. My neighbor held two tiny black and white pups in her arms, looking to find them a home, and said, "They were gonna drown them if i didn't take them!" How could I resist that? At least I had sense enough to only take one! Sedona, resident Greatest Dog Ever, is more than a little bit bent out of shape about this, but I think she'll eventually get over it and be friends with Django, the new pup. He's so friggin' cute I almost don't mind the pee and poo all over the house and the constant worry about what trouble he's getting in to.

Where is that freakin' pot of gold?

It's amazing how time flies while simultaneously seeming to drag on day-to-day. I had set the goal of late November for having the dairy completed and up and running, with cheese to sell some time in February. However, equipment deliveries got postponed and delayed, the concrete floor got poured incorrectly and needed to be patched and repaired, and the set-up of the equipment became increasingly complicated the closer we got to installing it. Now it is within the realm of reality to think that I will have a finished product (cheese) to sell some time in April. (Which means just two more months of no income! yeah!?!)

Looking back over the last couple of years to when I initially began planning my dairy operation and setting goals and timelines I think of the number of projected starting dates for the dairy and the number of times that date has been moved back. I can't help but also look back over that stretch to the start-up funds that I started-up with and have exhausted getting to this point (what can I sell on E-bay now?). I feel like I have been chasing the proverbial rainbow which continues to escape me the further I travel in search of it. While I believe that I really am in range of touching, smelling and tasting my goals, on a gut level it all still seems like a pipe-dream that will never truly come to fruition. But, every day another challenge is overcome and another task completed. When I look around the farm and the house and the dairy I can see how far it's come and how close it is to being complete. And every day now there are at least two or six lambs born--adding to the romping, tumbling mass of legs and fuzz in the corral at feeding time every night. So don't worry, I am nowhere near giving up! I'm just looking forward to the load lifting a little.

Sooo, I am expecting to receive the bulk tank (which cools and stores the milk) and press, the controller to the cheese vat motor, and a heat exchanger by the end of this week, enabling the cheese room to be completed. Last week Pete (my full-time assistant shepherd/cheesemaker-in-training) and I put together the stanchions and platform for the milking parlor and tested it out with the three ewes we've been hand-milking. I am not particularly excited about the task of training all of the lactating ewes to the parlor. It is going to be a trying few days dragging them one-by-one up the ramp and enticing them to stick their heads in the stanchions for their grain reward. Fortunately (like most of us) they respond quite readily to treats and rewards, so once they make the connection between the parlor and grain we'll be good to go. At least I know better than to try to train the ewes to the parlor and milk them for the first time on the same day. I've heard the tale of intrepid souls who attempted such a feat and the word is it's not pretty!

With the decent rains we got in December my pasture planting germinated well and has started to fill in. It actually looks green from the road now. Hopefully the forecast for rain tomorrow will hold true. Although I have personally enjoyed the balmy January weather, and like to believe it has encouraged my grass to grow, I do not particularly relish irrigating in the winter. The purchase of new, special order gaskets for my used pipe has made the task incredibly easier, with a lot less kicking, swearing and tweaking. However, it has not eliminated the need to walk up and down the hill repeatedly, carrying 30ft lengths of pipe. I'm going to have buns and calves of steel to show for it, without the nuisance of a gym membership.

It's on the List

My life for the last couple of months has revolved closely around an ever changing series of lists. At some particularly hectic points in time, it has actually been a list of lists, subcategorized into project areas such as dairy barn, house, tractor, sheep, lamb sales, administrative.... While there is nothing more satisfying than crossing completed items off a list (I've been known to add an item to a list just for the sake of seeing it crossed off) there always seems to be two new items to fill the place of any one task completed. Every time I am given a suggestion of some improvement I could make to the farm or a problem that needs attention, my response has been, "It's on the list." Often the issue at hand does not rank very highly on my list compared to tasks such as buy hay, pay credit card bills, move out of trailer into house, but I like to acknowledge that it has not escaped my notice. It's just that my ability to handle problems and accomplish tasks does have its limits and a triage is necessary. Sadly for you, dear reader, updating my blog has often been given lower attention status and it is a list item that finds itself transcribed from one to-do-list to another.

So, what are the items of higher importance that have occupying all of my attention and energy, you may ask? Here is a summary, in list format:

DAIRY BARN: With the help of the contractors the dairy barn has quickly transformed from a raw old garbage-filled barn into a modern dairy building with glowing white walls and ceiling and specially sloped floors.

After finally receiving the funds from my start-up loan from California Farmlink, I have rapidly exhausted most of them procurring all of the various pieces of equipment I am going to need to milk 100 ewes and transform their milk into cheese.

HOUSE: I am not sure exactly how many feet of Pergo have now been lain on the formerly carpeted (very stinky, dirty carpeted at that) floors of the main house and the rental, but it must be getting close to the mile mark. A friend of a friend happened to have just arrived in town in search of employment at the same time that we started fixing up the houses, so Randy has been pretty steadily occupied with Pergo-ing, painting, and general handyman-ing for the past several weeks. I have finally moved out of my beloved Airstream trailer (which I need to sell to pay for my dairy if anyone's interested) and into my very own master bedroom--replete with not one but TWO walk-in closets! The contractors are now installing the new kitchen cabinets as I write and the dark, dismal wood-paneled living room is soon to be a cheery, bright yellow.

SHEEP: A late summer/early fall baby boom has put the young lamb population at about 25.
There's been about a month-long pause in lambing, but judging by the swelling udders in the flock, it will resume with a bang shortly. All of the mature ewes should be birthing over the next couple of months. Cosmo the ram has taken gladly to his task of impregnating the yearling ewe lambs as they come of age, and that group should start lambing in early spring.

MEAT: While my flock has been growing, it has also been shrinking by the harvest of plump wether lambs. So far about 30 of last years lamb crop has been slaughtered and sold (and mostly eaten), leaving only 15 left to feed. A neighbor of the Arab persuasion recently stopped by and offered to purchase most of these remaining lambs on the hoof so that they can be slaughtered Halal-style for the upcoming religious holidays. With the scarcity of options for slaughtering and butchering small numbers of livestock for resale (the nearest USDA slaughter house is 3 hours away--if I want USDA cut and wrap its 6)the option of selling the lamb live for someone else to deal with is very appealing.

PASTURE: The entire farm perimeter has now been fenced with livestock fence, as well as a holding pen/corral and an alley way to the milking barn. The entire irrigation system and well have been replaced and are finally completed. We received a nice soaking rain at the beginning of November which sprouted the dormant grasses in the fields. About ten days ago I had the main pasture, which is approx. 17 acres, disced and seeded with a dairy pasture mix of perennial and annual ryes, fescue, various clovers and a lesser amount of other grasses and forbs.


Last week was my first attempt at employing my new-used 3" irrigation pipe and the new well and buried mainline. I started at the top of the hill, which is the most challenging spot to irrigate as it is about 200 ft higher than the well, and the well pump itself is about 240 ft down the well. I've been anxiously hoping for rain, while at the same time waiting for the arrival of the canvas tent I ordered to cover my 26 ton load of organic alfalfa hay (which cost more than my Ford F-250). The tent finally arrived mid-day Monday, and rain was forcast for that night. By luck, my good friend Dave happened to be working at the farm that afternoon (he works for the sheet metal contractor who has been installing the gutters and downspouts on the barn) and I was able to rope him in to setting it up with me. We finally finished it at about 6 pm in the dark by aid of a headlamp. While it didn't rain that night or the next day, there was a nice solid day of gentle rain this Wednesday. Halleluah! My pasture got irrigated and my hay stayed dry. Whew.

Well, this is just a glossing over the surface of all that's been going on around here, but I think it gives you a pretty good idea of what I've been up to. While there is still an endless amount of work to be done, it does seem like a corner has been turned and things are starting to come together and take shape.

Market to Market

I was featured in a segment on the Iowa Public Television farm program Market to Market. The segment was about California Farm Link and the work they do to aid beginning farmers like me. You can see the full segment at this link.

BUY MY LAMB!

I am now taking orders for whole and half lambs. I've listed an approximate breakdown of what cuts you'd receive, but if you have specific requests (bone-in legs, shoulder chops, etc.) that can be arranged.

Whole Lamb $9/lb
30-35 lbs of meat
here is the approximate breakdown:
4 shanks
16 rib chops (or racks)
4# loin chops
10-12# boneless leg
2-3# stew meat
8# ground meat

Half Lamb $10/lb
14-17 lbs of meat
(half of the above cuts)
2 shanks
8 rib chops (or racks)
2# loin chops
5-6# boneless leg
1-2# stew meat
3-5# ground meat

organs (heart, liver, kidneys) $5/lb


The meat will be processed at Willow Glen Meats located in San Jose. If you are really interested in getting some meat, but don't think you can manage a half or whole, let me know and I'll see if I can find someone for you to share it with. Feel free to forward this to friends and family. I will also be selling whole lambs wholesale for restaurants, etc.

FYI: This lamb has been naturally raised. I have been following organic practices for lamb production--no chemical wormers (I use garlic juice and rotational grazing for parasite control), no antibiotics or hormones, grazing on organic pasture, and feeding spent organic grain from the Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery and (since July) certified organic alfalfa hay. The exception is that the lambs were fed conventional alfalfa hay for the first few months of their lives until I was able to purhase a truckload of organic hay. They have been castrated but their tails were not docked. They've also gotten a lot of personal love and attention!

TO PLACE AN ORDER, OR FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT ME AT:
rebeccajaneking@gmail.com
831-406-0213