Let Us Eat Cheese!

This morning's milking went a little more smoothly that yesterday's. Tinkerbell is very clever and seems to be getting the hang of our routine. Of course, it is really nice to have Justin there to talk and pat her while I milk. Today she was more relaxed. Now I just have to get these milking fingers back in shape so I can get the chore done faster for her.

Other than our mild success on the stanchion I am happy to report that by tomorrow morning we will have more than enough milk to make a good amount of soft goat cheese! I am going to get the mesophilic starter today. Spreadable cheese is only the beginning! Soon we will have yogurt, cheddar, kefir, moldy cheese, and ice cream. This farm girl loves her dairy products and her farm guy loves his ice cream. Thanks to Tinkerbell for making it possible on a very small budget!

On another exciting note, we will be putting in our first grass seed to make a small grass pasture for the goats and chickens. I didn't think this would be a possibility for us, but after having the goats and meat chickens clean out a spot that was heavily grown over by manzanita and deer brush we have a nice sunny patch to start a pasture. This might not seem like a big deal, but on a 5 acre property that is composed of 80% manzanita forest any little victory is celebrated. The cool thing about all this is the minimal amount of human effort that went into clearing the spot. All we have to do now is saw out the large trunks of manzanita and cut them up for firewood. Space for pasture and warmth for the winter, its a win-win! I'll try to document the process for ya'll.

Meet Tinkerbell

On Sunday afternoon Schone Vida welcomed a new face to the barnyard, Tinkerbell. Tink is a 3 year old (we think) Nubian doe. The real awesome part about her is that she is currently producing milk! That means in a short span of time we are going to be enjoying fresh raw goat milk and more excitingly cheese!

Tinkerbell on the right

Now taking on this big responsibility was not something I, nor Justin, took lightly. Bringing a milking doe onto the farm requires us to make sure she gets milked every day. Yes, we already have Charlotte, but she will not be in milk until next spring. Because of my full commitment and uber excitement for this lifestyle, I knew this wouldn't be a problem.

Tinkerbell came to us from a lovely woman in a neighboring town. She told us that she'd tried to milk Tink for a while, but that it was always a struggle to get her on the stanchion and to hold still during the process. I knew that training Tink to get on the stanchion and quietly stand through milking would take a few weeks. She is strong girl, so getting her to do something she might not necessarily want to do is a struggle. My job is to show her that milking is a relaxing time for her to eat her grain away from the other goats. In a couple weeks I should be able to go out to open the barnyard gate and have her calmly put herself in the stanchion. All it will take is patience and lots of consistency.

The first day I put her on the stanchion I was nearly finished milking her out when she kicked putting her right rear hoof directly into the milk pail. As they say, there's no use crying over spilled milk. I calmly took a deep breath removed her foot from the milk pail and continued milking her out. Once I was finished I patted and talked quietly to her. She and I are going to spend a lot of time together, so I want her to trust me.

That night I read up on all things goat, finding this amazing website from a farm back east called Fias Co Farm. They have a large herd of La Mancha dairy goats that they raise holistically. The owner, Molly, is very knowledgeable about herbs and their various uses. On her website, she talked about this goat hobble she uses on nervous milkers. Essentially it is a 2 in wide piece of nylon with Velcro that you wrap around the goats upper legs to put pressure on the rear ligament. The pressure is enough to render the goat unable to kick. In time, Molly says 2 weeks, the goat learns to stand quietly without kicking at all. I immediately ordered one for us. It cost me $10, but will save me lots of frustration and tears later. I know Charlotte will definitely need it when she's in milk since she's the biggest punk ever.

After milking Tinkerbell had another milestone to pass before she was in the clear. She had to meet Charlotte and Buttercup. First, I introduced Charlotte knowing that grew up in a large herd of goats. They sniffed each other then happily ate hay nearby. Next I brought in Buttercup. She is the dominant goat since she has horns and a major attitude. Well she calmly met Tink then came back around and challenged her with a mock head butt. Tinkerbell played it right by immediately putting Buttercup in her place with a well back up head butt and push. Buttercup quickly got the point and moved on. Now the three of them are calmly munching on food in the barnyard.

Welcome Tinkerbell, I know we'll have many of great years together at Schone Vida!

A Wonderful Summer Day

Yesterday was the type of day full of activities that make Summer so wonderfully special around here. Farming, swimming, and canning. That's pretty much what my days off will consist of from now until the first rains in late Fall.

Justin and I started the day off with our usual copious amounts of coffee and my now ritualistic morning yoga routine. Then it was time to farm before the day got too hot to think straight. We took wheelbarrow fulls of compost here and there throughout the garden. It's been 2 months since we actively began composting this pile and I'm still amazed that this dark brown earthy-smelling substance was nothing but a giant pile of cover crop, straw, wood chips, and sawdust at the start. Composting is gardening alchemy at its best and I am unnaturally intrigued by the process. Everything literally explodes with growth as soon as we top dress it with the stuff.

We had a lot farm maintenance and improvements to do because of our looming family vacation next week. In an effort to make the farm chores more automated and streamlined we've installed low-flow automatic waterers and Justin built the goats a fancy new feeder that reduces their wasteful eating habits to nil. Right now we have 2 goats, 19 laying hens, 1 rooster, 30 meat birds, 2 turkeys, 2 cats, 2 dogs, and 1 fish. That's 59 heartbeats that regularly need food and water to get through the day. For us it's not such a big deal because we are used to the usual tasks. At most the farm take 30 minutes to get all the animals taken care of and the watering done in the garden each day. We're cutting that time in half with our new improvements, so the gal coming to take care of the farm will not be completely overwhelmed.

Before we left for the river at 2 pm we had trimmed goat hooves, cleaned out the barn, top-dressed plants with compost, cleaned out and prepared a spent bed for winter crops, harvested a ridiculous number of cucumbers, planned a watering system for our front yard (which we installed later that night), and started a batch of compost tea.

The Yuba River was wonderful. We explored a new spot where the river is wide and lazy and surprisingly warm. We swam with the dogs in the gentle current for hours. The water is so clear blue that you can see straight to the bottom where the fish are swimming just beyond your reach. I was surprised at how docile their were since I don't think people fish in this spot. Daisy spent most of the time in a shallow sandy eddy pawing at the school of minnows swimming close by. Ayden just swam in and around our little rock jetty using the current at his personal doggy treadmill. It's days like this that make you appreciate the seasonality of Nevada County and the special things you can only do for a short time each year. Right now we've got juicy peaches, beautiful sunshine, and the swimming holes. And might I add that my tan is fabulous!

The end of our day was spent processing the fruits of our labor, literally. We are now beginning to ride the tidal wave of vegetable harvest. It begins placidly enough with cucumbers and squash before rising to a crescendo of tomatoes, beans, corn, peppers, more cucumbers and squash. Then in the fall will crash upon us with pumpkins and other winter squash, melons, onions, garlic, and leeks. Pickling ingredients dusted the bottom of brand new Ball jars then were joined by some sliced jalapenos and speared cucumbers both fresh from the garden. Fifteen minutes later Justin poured the simmering brining solution into the jars, we tightly sealed the lids, and turned all the jars upside-down to sit until cool. In the morning we would have 7 sealed jars of spicy pickles.

I am so thankful for all of this.

Back in the world of the technological!

I was looking at the date of the last blog post I did: March 26 huh? I cannot believe I've been without a computer for that long. The first few days after our Mac crashed I felt major withdrawl pains. By July it felt perfectly natural. In fact, I don't think I've been more productive in my life, but I did really miss sharing our farm story on the blog. So, thanks to my wonderful dad we are now in possession of the family's old gateway desktop computer and boy is it wonderful!

Let's breeze over the catch up. The garden has been exploding with green and delectable fruits and vegetables. Our baby laying chickens are now gangely teenager chickens and one of the older birds decided she wanted to have a clutch of her own, so we have 4 mixed breed baby chicks running around like they own the place! Justin and I got in a new flock of 32 meat chickens and 4 Bourbon Red turkeys. Away from the farm Justin and I have achieved some wonderful feats too. Justin and his friend Ryan climbed their longest multi-pitch route to date in Yosemite. I've been awarded a promotion at Yuba Blue! Things have been on the up and up.

My dad, step-mom, and step-brother came to stay at the farm last weekend. We had such a good time cruising around Nevada County taking in the heat and great food. It was really cool to show my family, who haven't seen the farm at this stage in it's life, just how much we have accomplished in the passed few months. They also got to experience the realities of farm life first hand when a critter of the raccoon persuasion helped itself to one of my prized turkey poults in the middle of the night. We didn't realize what happened until we were doing morning chores and noticed the chicken wire pulled away from the pen and 1 turkey missing. These are the lessons I hate learning on the farm. While I realized long ago that this life we have chosen on this farm will include regular deaths of creatures he have cared for, I would rather my animals feel that death at my hands than at the vicious paws of a wild animal. Justin and I made a promise to the rest of our flock that day to do a better job protecting them from such attacks. We were lent a pellet gun from Justin's step-dad and reinforced all the edges of the chicken pen to prevent a second raccoon feast.

More to come soon!

The Pursuit of Hap-peep-ness!

A big storm coming in today has allowed me to go into work late. For some reason people aren't as excited about coming in to buy things when there is snow on the roads (go figure). Although the weather is poor, there is a flurry of activity going on in the living room brooder, a chick party if you will. Fluttering, chirping, and pecking noises are driving Daisy absolutely insane. So far the chicks are doing great and growing so fast that every morning I can see new mature feathers growing in. Our neighbors decided to add 6 chicks to our flock so they'd have some eggs too. Now the flock has grown from the original three to eleven with only three left to arrive next Thursday. Come June we should have enough eggs to keep our fridge stocked and have enough left over to sell to friends.

Meat Chickens: We are gearing up excitedly for this years meat bird flocks. This year we've decided to do multiple smaller flocks and try some of Joel Salatin's intensive grazing techniques but with more of a free range flavor. We will do the Freedom Ranger chickens again since we had so much luck with them last year. Since this property is thickly packed with manzanita we will utilize the cover to send out our meat flocks in the relative safety and protection of electrified netting. I'm thinking we will keep the space available small, so the chickens are forced to range the ground intensively. Their manure will fertilize the ground and hopefully improve the red clay with time. Since reading Joel's books, I have really begun to think of how the animals can do the work of improving the soil for us while turning a small profit at the same time. We will begin the free ranging chicken experiment with the meat birds first, then adding the goats to brush the manzanita back a bit. The pressure will be healthy for the soil and add nutrients back that have been depleted during the heaving rains and snow we've had this winter/spring.

Goats: The girls are doing great. They are both enjoying their coats right now especially with the extra chilly night here. Justin was worried that Buttercup was too cold, so wrapped her up in Ayden's extra dog coat. She's one toasty little goat now!

Now it's time for me to head to work. I cannot wait until I can just stay here at the farm working outside with the animals, making things grow, and providing gourmet locally grown food to customers. For now I'll just have to be happy with the small steps that comprise my pursuit of Hap-peep-ness!

Enticing Spring to Come

As I write there is a quiet blanket of snow forming on the trees outside my window. Living at an increased elevation of 2800 ft means that winter holds on to the chill like a vice until Spring can beat it into submission. The weather at this time of year is unpredictable at best. In fact, yesterday we checked the weather in order to decide where to park the cars. Rain was the plan, but snow is what we got. It's so weird for this Southern California born and raised girl to live by the weather forecast and pray for sun whenever possible.

On wintery Spring days like these I need to take steps to pull myself out of the funk consistent clouds and snow bring. The first step was purchasing a seed starting mat. Essentially a heating pad for your seeds, it has allowed me to put some faith in the coming spring thaw by starting multiple heirloom flowers and vegetables. Hollyhock, bee balm, shasta daisies, tomatoes and much more are happily growing in their little plastic greenhouse near the kitchen window. The little seedlings stretching out to the sky are like a beacon of hope that we will have some warm days soon!

Our next spring inspiration arrived yesterday in animal form. Three 2-7 day old chicks came home chirping away in their carrier: an Americauna, a Barred Rock, and a Red Sex Link. They are just the beginning of our 2011 egg flock with more arriving this Thursday giving us a grand total of 8 new chicks. We're hoping to get about 12 eggs a day come the end of summer! We used the galvanized water trough our friend Phil gave us as a sizable brooder for the new additions. With food, water, fresh shavings, and a heat lamp all provided the brooder will be a wonderful home for them for 2 months or until they have all grown in their adult feathers. Right now they cannot maintain their own temperature, so the heat lamp does that for them. Their homecoming was quite comical. The two cats and Daisy watched the brooder with a little bit too much interest. At the time I was thankful for the welded wire top we'd fitted to the trough to protect our newest additions. I think this will be a good experience for Daisy especially who has a slight issue relaxing around the sights and sounds of chickens. In two months she should be completely used to resting around the chick noises.

While we are thankful for the respite winter provides, the increasing daylight begs for us to go outside and get things started. For now we'll just have to be satiated with our indoor endeavors and have faith that Spring will arrive soon.

Schöne Vida gets an upgrade

Since farming has become my absolute passion there have been many things that we have needed to make certain things around here work. The biggest challenge for us is acquiring things that are necessity and knowing what things are luxuries that will have to wait. For example: we need a substantial shelter that can house the chickens and goats while protecting everyone from predators, but we don't need a sprawling red barn with a hay loft right now. My obsessive bargain searching has paid off well. We knew that we needed a new shelter for the animals at the new farm and we knew we wanted one slightly larger than the current one. I found a man on Swap Shop (a local radio station's craigslist-like website) selling a 8' x 16' shed frame constructed with 2x4s. This gentleman had built the frame years ago and covered it in plastic sheeting in order to protect his tractor. The price for this beauty: $50! Really nothing in comparison with how much all the wood would cost to build it. Justin and I promptly drove over and loaded the disassembled shed into the truck.

When we were lucky enough to have a break in the weather our neighbor was kind enough to use his new tractor to level a building pad for us. Then for the next week Justin used his amazing skills to build the barn frame then cover it in plywood and tar paper for the roof. And what good timing. Right as he was finishing putting on the tar paper a huge rain storm came through. We managed to move over all the animals in the down pour during the most miserably wet day I've been through in a long time. Being cold and wet is no fun especially with the added stress of transporting 7 frightened animals and tearing down their old shelter for scrap wood and chicken wire, but we did it. We banged together some last minute essentials and called it a day. We slept terribly that night, waking up to every little animal sound we heard, but everyone made it through the night just fine.

The shed has been complete for one week and the animals seem to love it. Their new enclosure has plenty of brush to eat and bugs to search for. As for us, we are so happy to be here in the new house. This is a great place to learn more about farming and save more to buy a farm of our own. Things continue to get even better!

Putting the Cart Before the Horse.. Adventures in House Hunting

Today was a great lesson for me in patience. For about a month I have been preparing to turn in my loan application to the USDA Rural Development Office. All the while many hours have been logged on the Nevada County MLS website. What started as a innocent curiosity about the "the market in our price range" turned into daydreaming about how a certain property could perfectly fit our needs, then led to a phone call to the listing's agent to find out more information, and ended up with us looking at a couple properties today. The prospect of real estate turns me into a monster!

We looked at a beautiful property in Grass Valley. Nestled on 10 rolling acres between Grass Valley and Auburn. Basically, its a perfect location to place ourselves for easy availability to customers buying our produce and meat. We were elated and giddy on the dream of our own property with so much promise. Sure, the house was in dire need of some work, but Justin with his years of construction experience didn't balk at its state.

This is it right? No more searching, we've found our future home, right?? Nope. While riding on the wave of sheer real estate ecstasy my cell phone brings me back to reality. It's Mary Jo, my mortgage broker expert calling to make sure I wasn't getting ahead of myself. "I don't want you to waste a lot of time looking at properties until you have been approved by the Rural Development Department to go for it. This 10 acre property doesn't sound 'modest' to me, so don't get your hopes up." Now I know I wasn't supposed to get ahead of myself, but I've been swept away. Damn.

Thankfully I have a wonderful partner in Justin to bring me out of my post euphoric real estate slump. Feeling sorry for myself, I told him about what Mary Jo said. In his usual buoyant manner he said, "All we can do is wait for the application. There's no point in getting ahead of ourselves until we know what's up. We're going to get whatever place we are meant to have." That was just what I needed to get out of get out of my funk. That's why I love this guy.

Now it's time to move on with new resolve and wait to hear about our application. Patience really is a virtue....one I don't always have.

Everyone, Meet Jack

Meet Jack, the rooster. Justin and I decided the girls needed a strapping man to protect them after the dogs got in and killed a hen. We knew we wanted one that wasn't mean to people and able to be picked up if we needed to do any first aid or treatments. We found Jack, a Light Brahma on a little farm in Colfax where we also scored a beautiful tiny Aracauna hen, "Thumbelina". At first we were worried about his flock-leading prowess. The hens picked on him mercilessly at first. The whole right side of his neck was torn up from other roosters at his old home picking on him and he hardly had any tail feathers. He actually looked like a butch hen when he came to Schone Vida. Well, now he's come into his own. His ladies adore him, following him around everywhere he goes. His feather have grown back and now he is quite a handsome sight. Moreover, he takes very good care of his girls. In return for some "tail" whenever he wants it (which is about 5 or more times a day), he alerts the girls to predators sp they run for the shelter of the barn and during feeding time he steps back and let's them have their fill before he takes a turn. Yesterday as I was making the pathway down to the barn and uncovering shovelfuls of worms in the soil. Jack would scrutinize the soil until he saw a delicious morsel then trill to his ladies to come running. Pulling the worm out by his beak he'd fling it toward one of the hens and point at it with his beak. The girl went nuts for this and went to bed with full bellies. Guys, you can learn something from this: Woman like to be fed and protected...most of the time anyway.

Moving and Shaking

Time for an update! With spring approaching I have been getting antsy to begin the growing season madness. The chickens have already begun celebrating the increasing daylight by leaving 5 little gifts for us each day. Even Blondie (the meat chicken) has taken up the challenge of providing an egg a day and always with two yolks! I think she's saying "thank you" for not slaughtering her last summer with the rest of the meat flock.

Because our neighbor told us she was worried about her horse stomping Charlotte and Buttercup over food we have opted to keep the goats and chickens in the large garden area for the duration of our time here. They don't seem to mind the arrangement at all as long as we keep on feeding the supplemental hay. They next big question for us was: Where do we have the garden now? The conclusion was to have an elaborate potted vegetable garden on our front porch. We have been calling landscapers around the area and making deals to buy their used black nursery pots for cheap (i.e. 75 cents for a 15 gallon pot). It won't be the most beautiful garden, but it will get the job done until we find a place with enough room for everything. Our good friend, Phil, made us an even better deal and sold us three 150 gallon galvanized water troughs for an unbelievably good price. They were brand new and just sitting around his property without a purpose until I laid eyes on them. Now they are holding beautiful soil from Hansen Bros. landscaping and the promise of happy veggies come spring. So far I've planted asparagus, rhubarb, raspberries, garlic, onion, and potatoes. I've got some beet seeds soaking in water for the day and carrot sees on a damp cloth to jumpstart the germination process. Those seeds will go into the soil tonight along with lettuce and spinach. Peaceful Valley nursery has promised that my back ordered strawberries will arrive in a few days. Can't wait for that!

In the mean time, Justin and I decided to put a nice path with steps leading down to the barn. We are lining the path with rocks and filling the path with left over bark from our wood-splitting activities. There was a sizeable pile just lying around and I've been vexed to find a good purpose for it. The bark will break down every time we step on it, putting useable carbon back into the soil, and it looks pretty! We want to leave this place nicer than when we came and I think the next renters would appreciate such an effort. So far it's looking quite nice.

The biggest news to share was my attendance of the inaugural Sustainable Local Food and Farm Conference in Grass Valley on January 22nd. With over 300 people there to hear the wonderful lineup of speakers, the Holiday Inn Conference Center was buzzing with excitement. The first speaker was Aaron Lacich, a smart guy who used to work for Fox and CSNBC behind the scenes, but had a child and realized he wanted to do more for the world in which his baby girl was going to grow up. He has spent about 6 years working on a film documentary called We Are What We Eat. You can check out his website: www.wearewhatweeat.org . The documentary looks promising and very educational.

The next speaker was Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy. He is all about raw milk and actually sells his product to our Local Co-op, The Briar Patch. He asserts that food has been disconnected from health. His presentations spoke about the wonderful health benefits of drinking raw milk and the FDA's regulations on the sale of that product. They are asserting that raw milk is a dangerous product with a high likelihood of killing people who drink it. Guess what? Not a single person has died from drinking raw milk in hundreds of years, but the untested pasteurized milk most of us (including myself) drink has killed 3 people last year alone! His presentation makes me wish Charlotte was in milk right now. I miss having raw milk available to me whenever I want at a cheap price.

Will Winter, DVM spoke next. His presentation opened my eyes to the importance of maintaining healthy pastures. Grass is the best way to feed cattle, he asserted, and healthy cattle are grown on healthy pasture. He taught us how to mob cattle up into small spaces by using portable electric fencing. This is called an intensive grazing system. You forced the cattle to become more of a herd again and by doing so make them eat every bit of the available feed in that small area before moving them to the next space in 24 hours. This challenges the grass to grow stronger and more lush during times of rest between grazing. It's an elegant system that reduces erosion problems, increases plant biodiversity, and improves herd health.

Finally, the keynote speaker and the person I wanted to hear speak most came had his turn, Joel Salatin. He is a revolutionary farmer and a self-proclaimed lunatic. He is the owner of the very successful Polyface Farms in Virginia. His keys to success are a highly diversified farming model with lots of movement and no debt. His farm is raises beef, meat and egg laying chickens, rabbits, and pork. He uses these animals in rotation on his pastures and woodland to improve the soil and wildlife on and around his farm. The system is so beautiful and simple that I cannot believe more people aren't following it. He says it's because people these days have "constipation of imagination". But by allowing his animal herds and flocks to express their "phenotypical expressive states", disease issues drop dramatically and animals are much happier. Chickens are allowed to range out on pastures three days after the beef herd to scratch out fly larvae that have grown on the cow patties. This fertilizes the pasture and promotes healthier soil. Pigs are mobbed up into the forest areas to root and disturb the soil, stimulating undergrowth. He completely blew my mind with his business model. I know that as Schone Vida grows we will apply many of his ideas to help us toward success. I'm glad I went to the conference and have decided to attend as many as possible. The knowledge is priceless and I want the locals to get to know us better.

Well, its time to head back out and put more time into the barnyard. Peace out!!