Our farmstead creamery is expanding! To meet the growing demand for our cheeses and yogurts, we are upgrading our milk house facility. When we purchased the farm in December 2010, the old milk house from the early 1940's was cleaned up and put back in service. In February 2011, the creamery was constructed in one of the two existing garage bays attached to the house. While this was a great idea for plumbing, it means our milk house and creamery are as far apart as possible in the building.
As true New Englanders, we been able to 'make do with what you have', but this winter we have 5 heifers that are going to enter the milking herd. More milking cows = more milk!  We currently hand carry pails of milk from the milkhouse to the creamery - sometimes 800-900lbs (about 100 gallons) of milk per batch of cheese!
Our Kickstarter Project focuses on tying the two essential parts of our farm together: the dairy and the creamery. Funds will be used for materials to construct a new milkhouse space within the existing dairy barn. The milkhouse equipment will be moved from its current location, to the space attached to the empty garage bay.The existing creamery equipment will move into the bay, creating a back to back, more efficient work space.This arrangement will free up space for increased cheese aging space and dry goods storage.  The old creamery space is already dually certified as a commercial kitchen- with the creamery equipment removed, it will then be dedicated for that purpose.
Funding of this project will:
- Improve energy efficiency by reducing the distance hot water will be traveling. The milkhouse and creamery will be able to run off the same hot water source, eliminating frozen pipes in the creamery and milkhouse in the winter.
- New construction with high efficiency spray foam insulation will reduce energy used in heating the milkhouse. Our current milkhouse's concrete block construction is very ineffective for heating in the winter and we often find ourselves thawing frozen pipes.
- The new space for the milkhouse has higher ceiling clearance, where we can lift the bulk tank off the floor, improving sanitation and work space for bottling milk. We will also be able to gravity feed the milk from the cold storage bulk tank in the milk house to the cheese vat, improving milk safety and quality by handling it less.
- The cheese vat will be closer to the boiler, reducing heat loss.
- Farmer safety and work efficiency will be improved with the elimination of hand carrying pails of milk (especially over the snowy winter driveway- which in Maine can be 5 months of the year!)
 - Increase the types of products we can offer by separating the kitchen and creamery spaces.
 Log on to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/354080505/mooooving-the-milkhouse  top check out the short video we made about the project and see our great rewards for backers! The project can easily be shared on Facebook and other media by copy and pasting the URL.
Thanks for helping us MOOOOOVE THE MILKHOUSE!

ACS Day 2

Today was an early day. Our volunteering shift began at 6 am. We were 'cracker ninjas' as the head Cheesemonger phrased it, prepping for the morning breakfast session. We also prepared the Mexican cheeses for tomorrow's tasting event and rolled some procuitto for another event . Our shift ended in time for the first round of the educational sessions and I went to a talk about farmstead flavors in milk. We then had lunch and a quick spin around the bookstore and tradeshow. My second session of the day focused on how to incorporate cheese classes into your business plan. I also popped into a talk about milk and its nutritional qualities.
The afternoon ended with the 'Meet the cheesemaker ' event and we are now headed off for dinner on the rooftop gardens of the convention center.

American Cheese Festival Day 1

<p>Wednesday:<br>
I am staying with another cheesemaker, Jean Koons. She has a goat dairy in Sydney, Me. She has friends that live just outside of Madison. We headed into the city yesterday morning to catch a bus for the conference tours. After several trips around the one way square that surrounds the capitol building, we ended up on the right road, but locked in bumper to bumper traffic. We arrived in time to see the last bus pulling out of the road leading to the convention center. All was not lost though! We were given the itinerary, and caught up with the tour in time for the picnic lunch and tour of the Mont Bleu Dairy aging cave. The dairy makes mostly cloth bound cheddars and alpine cheeses. Some of the cheddar wheels are 40 pounds!

American Cheese Society Conference 2013

Today is day 1 of the ACS conference. I will be heading out shortly for a bus tour of creameries and dairys in the Green County area.

What a week!

It has been such a busy week! 

Monday: I made a huge batch of feta- apparently it is Maine's favorite cheese right now!  I also met our new state dairy inspector, gave her lots of product samples for the lab and walked through the facilities with her during the inspection. Doug, Jens and the Mossbraker crew worked on cleaning out the heifer winter barn and putting up new walls and fencing to convert it into a chicken housing area.  We currently have about 65 laying hens and 200 started chicks- there will be lots of eggs this winter! 

Tuesday: Doug and Jens finished the first cutting of hay on our home field. The aged manure and lime we applied in the spring has made a big difference in the quality of hay this year. 44 bales of wrapped baleage line the edge of the field and will just sit and wait to be eaten this winter by the cows.

It was my birthday today, the big 4 - 0! It was absolutely beautiful weather and my sister, mother and brother -in-law made a surprise visit and brought me plants from their gardens.  We didn't waste any time in getting them in the ground.  Plants mean so much more to me when I can look at them and remember the person who gave them to me, and know they came from that person 's garden. A new garden bed is in the works, wrapping around the porch and front of the farm store building.  I finished the day by doing my civic duty and going to the town council meeting where I serve as a councilor for District 4. My district is the largest in voter size and area because it is basically the most rural part of town. District 1,2 and 3 are described in detail by street borders, and the description for district 4 is basically "everything else not previously described".

Wednesday: After the usual get up super early and send Doug off to market in Portland by 4:30am, I milked cows, fed the rest of the critters and set myself to replanting the sweet corn and grain corn.  The crows had a feast on the newly sprouted plants! I spent an hour or two replacing the drive belt on the tiller and going to pick up the new seed at FedCo. Before I knew it , the day was over and I only had one patch retilled and ready to plant! Not as production as I had hoped.

Thursday:Made a batch of raw milk Tomme and packaged all the feta in jars of brine.  The crumbles will be mixed with herbs and packaged tomorrow.  After morning chores, Doug spent the majority of the day mowing a neighborhood field.  He figures it was about 7 acres or so. After evening milking, Doug installed the new heating element for the pasteurizer ( two day shipping turned in to four!)

Friday: Made a batch of yogurt this morning and packaged feta, cut and wrapped cheese wheels for markets tomorrow and bottled milk. Hoping to work on teh garden some more this afternoon. Doug and Jens are going to be raking, baling and hauling all the hay he mowed yesterday. Once they get the bales back here to the farm, they will be wrapped and set with the previous ones.

Signs of spring

I love milking on early spring mornings. Today there is a heavy dew and fog hanging in the air. It is cool, smells earthy and 'cowy'. This is a sweet smell carried on the light breeze across the barnyard, faintly of manure and hay, but mostly the damp earth.
The cows are in full shedding mode, and if you run your hand down their back, you come away with a handful of fur. Some of them look like a child's well loved teddy bear, with bare patches showing the short sleek new hair. Many of them have come in this morning with maple tree blossoms scattered across their backs. The new leaves are coming out and the woodline at the end of the field has a distinct chartruse aura to it inbetween the maroon of the maples.
Spring on a farm makes people think of babies. We had three bull calves last month. This makes 8 bull calves in a row now! Not doing much for growing the herd. Our next group of cows won't be due until June.
This is Newlook and her bull calf.