Ta-Da! Here it is….our new look! Welcome to our new website! It is still a work in progress, so please, if you find errors or something missing, don’t hesitate to shoot us a line and let us know about it. You know what it is like when you are putting together a new website …you know, we gotta get the bugs worked out! So part of the motivation for this change was the ability to set up an on-line store. Of course, we didn’t manage to get that up and running yet, so that will continue to be developed over time. For some crazy reason, I assumed that February and March were going to be icky weather and I would have all kinds of time to work on this, but goodness-that certainly hasn’t been the case, has it?
So, what else is up on the farm this month? We just did a major spring cleaning in our little creamery in anticipation of our new (so cute) ‘bulk’ tank. ‘Bulk’ is really a matter of opinion. It is 30 gallons…that hardly qualifies as a huge capacity fluid milk holding tank, but for our purposes, it is bulk! We are very excited about the arrival. It will make our cheese making process so much easier. Stainless steel-it is truly beautiful, isn’t it?
Not really sure how it happened, but Shaun managed to find the BEST EVER Valentine’s day gift for me on Craigslist (well, except maybe the manure spreader that he gave me for our Wedding Anniversary one year). What was it? A Glengarry Cheese Company double Dutch press!!!! IT IS BEAUTIFUL! The real bonus of the whole transaction was meeting some really wonderful people that (sadly) had to go out of the dairy business. They did give us some very interesting information and we have some new and exciting things on the horizon. In fact, this weekend we will be taking a little road trip to Nevada to pick up a **special** piece of equipment for the creamery for the launching of something that Shaun has been harping at me about for literally YEARS to do. Yes, I am going to admit it…he was right! We ran the numbers and developed a plan and he was right!!! We can’t wait to tell you what we have brewing (and I am sure Shaun can’t wait to gloat a little)! Slowly, slowly, slowly we are getting there-this one feels like it is going to tie everything together for us!
I had the privilege of speaking at the OSU Small Farms Conference last weekend and was so motivated by my co-speaker, Christine Deck of Deck Family Farms, and the other small farmers at the conference that I came home feeling very gratified about what we do and how we do it. We might not be big, but we work really hard at doing things right.
We currently have 10 new mommies rolling with milk and they are doing spectacular. We have a little break in the action until the end of the month with the goats, but we have the ewes ready to go shortly. So far (fingers crossed) we have had things pretty easy. All our first time mommies handled kidding like pros. Plopped those babies out and hit the ground running. We love, love, love that! We are hoping that trend continues through the rest of lambing and kidding.
Our hope is that with our new website up and rolling we can post blogs a bit more often to keep you all up to speed on what we have going on here at the farm. We’ll see how that goes. It always sounds good in theory, but then when it comes down to it, we are so busy outside, it doesn’t seem to happen. I honestly will give it my best shot though. I think I mentioned in our January 2015 update that this year promises to be the best year ever and we want to share it with all our wonderful farm friends, so check back often to see what we have going on, how the website is developing and what new recipes we have to share. Hopefully, the website will be a bit more interactive and informative for all of our frequent visitors.
Signing off for now…off to Reno to pick up ???? Aren’t you curious?
Peace+
Shaun & Lorrie