Offseason Activities

Well, due to the economy, we don't really have an "offseason" this year.  Three years ago we went to Hawaii for seven weeks and sold goat cheese at the Hilo Farmers Market in January and February.  We rented an actual MIL apt., cooked meals, earned a little money and learned to live off the land, buying fish at the docks and bread from the rack behind the bakery at midnight.  Fruit was cheap and life was good.  We came home to kidding, milking chores, cheesemaking and then markets.

This year, we aren't going anywhere.  Maybe to Seattle for a few days to see the folks.  But, all the markets are expanding into late fall and very early spring, and several more are going all winter.  We have four markets to do this weekend:  Oregon City, Portland Park Blocks, Montavilla and Corvallis.  Lane County will start in another month too. 

Even though we are not vacationing and we are still marketing, we are not actually milking or cheesemaking.  What we are selling now is cheese made earlier in the season.  The goats like a rest while they are pregnant so that all they have to do is grow babies.... not grow babies AND make milk.  Milking in the rain?  Muddy goats?  Yuck!  It's basically a part of being such a small operation.  Our setup is fairly modest.  It's clean and efficient but nothing is clean on a farm in the rain in winter..... and I don't think that makes for the best quality cheese. 

However, we continue to bring the goats in for much smaller portions of grain to supplement their forage and hay.  Grain is limited in the early part of gestation so that you don't end up with overly large kids, especially in multiples.  But we increase their grain and it's frequency as the gestation proceeds.  Bringing them in from the barns and onto the milkstand gives us a chance to check and trim hooves, observe their eyes and condition, replace collars.  Every January we give yearly vaccinations, booster shots, to every goat.  CD &T vaccine.  CD helps prevent Enterotoxemia or overeating disease by helping to control harmful bacteria in their gut and keep it in balance with the good bacteria.  T stands for tetanus which is just like for humans, in case there was a skin break where the tetanus bacteria, which lives in the soil, could enter.  We'll also worm them all mid-gestation and again right before kidding to make sure all the nutrition is going to the kids instead of to parasites.  Finally, the newly pregnant does will get BoSe supplements and then will get them again right before kidding.  BoSe is Selenium in a suspension that is injected.  Selenium is essential for muscle development.  It's normally in the soil and therefore in the hay but not out here in the Northwest.  We are very very selenium deficient here so we give them Selenium in several forms:  a loose granular salt with trace minerals and selenium.  They love it.  David set up a little "salt bar" where they can stick their heads thru a fence to get to the round pans of red salt.  We also have salt blocks with trace minerals and SE that they like to lick.  And four times a year, before being with the buck, after breeding, before kidding, and several weeks after kidding... they get a bigger dose of BoSe.  The OSU vet who specialized in ruminant nutrition gave us this schedule and told us that most cases of weak newborn kids are due to Selenium deficiency.  Most spontaneous abortions also.  When goats just go down unexpectedly, it's often Selenium deficiency.  He said it's worse to give too little than too much.  If they get too much, they just pee it out. 

Anyway, spending time watching movies, progressive political shows, great documentaries and silly stuff just cause we actually have the time to do it.... sleeping in and taking naps, keeping the stove going and the house warm.  Baking lots of bread.  Watching football.  Markets and orders.  And herd health and maintenance.  That's our offseason!

The "GIVING" in Thanksgiving

Photo by Montavilla Farmers Market volunteer who then kindly forwarded it to us:


One more cold and wet market before Thanksgiving... Corvallis Wednesday, by the river, 9 - 1.  In other years, the very last market before the holiday has been a very good market, but this year, this economy, is different.  Still, we'll be there because a few of the people who do show up will be there specifically to pick up something from us.  It's so wonderful to hear from customers that we play a part in gatherings, parties, celebrations, picnics and how everyone loved it.  It's one of the best parts of what we do, knowing that the karma of doing it spreads outward like the ripples in a pond.


This year, what we've heard from people at all the markets is:  I wish I could afford this, or Do you have anything smaller, or We'll I'll see if we have money left after buying what we need.... our quality is better than ever.  Our product is as fresh as ever.  Our goats were wonderfully productive this season.  But people are struggling.  I see shoppers balancing limited budgets more than ever at the Farmers Markets.  Sometimes its frustrating to make something of quality and do all the work to go to market and then not make as much money as in other years.  But when we talk with other vendors, everyone is in the same boat.  Some of the farmers may not even be back next season... in fact I know of one experienced and seasoned farmer who has already packed up and moved from his farm... his home for the last 25 years.  It was so sad to say goodbye to him at the last market.  Big hugs.  Best wishes.  Sad looks.

This year, we had several market days where we gave away our cheese but asked people to make donations.  The cash donations went to that Markets Matching Funds program to let people stretch their token purchases a little further... and some of the donations went to the Alsea Valley Food Bank.  We got a letter from the Board that the donation to the market fund was going to help people at the pre-holiday market, the one just this last Sunday.  That was nice to know.

We also had quite a few days where we sold BOGO, Buy One Get One free.... other days where we sold the second container for 1/2 price, or just sold for last years price.  We've tried to give the best deals we can, discounting liberally, especially to familiar customers.  We've also traded liberally with other vendors, getting to the point where we virtually never shop for food at a traditional grocery store.

There are two bags of holiday meal ingredients sitting by the door.  If I actually make it off the farm tomorrow, they will go into the Food Bank drop box  at the Alsea Mercantile.  This year I'm buying very little for Thanksgiving, pretty much finding most of the ingredients in the cupboard or the freezer.  Simplifying what we are fixing somewhat.  I need to get some chanterelles from my neighbor who picks and sells them and that's a splurge but we had a nice turkey in the freezer from an earlier trade so that's about all we have to buy.  I've been stashing extra eggs and butter for a few weeks so the pies will be covered.  I even traded for some organic cranberries at a Farmers Market.  

Well, I'm rambling.... it's just that I feel the responsibility of "giving" this year more than ever.  Also of being thankful that we are able to be giving..... Happy Thanksgiving.

Endings and Beginnings....

Gresham and Milwaukie Farmers Markets ended this weekend and several more will end in the next two or three weeks.  However, Winter Markets will begin just as all the others are ending, there will even be some overlap.
Corvallis Saturday Market will continue through the Sat before Thanksgiving and the Wednesday Market is open the DAY BEFORE Thanksgiving!  Hot Damn.  Pick up your last minute fresh stuff!
 Lane County Sat Farmers Market will continue outdoors for the first two Sat. in November.  A one week break, then on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Holiday Farmers Market will open at the Fairgrounds.
In the Portland area: 
Hollywood Farmers Market will continue through the Saturday before Thanksgiving, though the hours will be 9am - 1pm.
Oregon City Farmers Market begins their Winter Market on Sat. Nov. 5th and again on Nov. 19th. at 8th and Main, 10am - 2pm.
Montavilla Market will have a market on Sunday Nov. 20th, regular location and hours, 10am - 2pm.
King Neighborhood Market is over but the PSU Winter Market will begin Saturday, January 7th, location Shemanski Park.
Corvallis Indoor Winter Market also begins Saturday, January 7th, 9am - 1pm, located at the Benton County Fairgrounds.

Gonna try some new things, maybe dressings for greens, maybe cooking demos.  Come see us, get some cheese.  We're hoping to have a good winter by putting ourselves out there to get our cheese to the well attended winter markets.  It's harder to do it in the cold and sometimes road conditions are scary, and even the nice weather markets are challenging.... people are very cautious these days in what they spend.... so it's hard to tell whether or not these cold weather markets will do well.

What do you do with the old goats? "Jack's Goat"

Photo by Nancy Chandler

The mama pictured above is "Jack's Goat".  Jack was about 14 and worked for us in the summers, milking goats.  When he decided he wanted some goats of his own to show in 4H, we picked out two of that seasons nicest kids to give him.  He might have paid for one and gotten one for free, or traded work for them... there have been a lot of transactions since then so I don't exactly remember, I just know that he got two GREAT kids and then did a great job of raising them and showing them for a couple of years.

Like a lot of young people, turning 16 and starting to drive completely altered Jack's priorities and he sold many of his goats.  He offered one he had gotten from us, back to us and we bought her.  I'm not sure what he had named her, but to us she was always "Jack's Goat".

She was a beauty!  Big, flashy, correct.  Lots of milk and beautiful kids.  AND she would adopt orphaned kids and raise them as her own!  (I mentioned this in the "Goatie" blog:  http://alseaacre.blogspot.com/2011/03/goatie.html).  We have milked her for five or six years now and Jack milked her for a season or two before we bought her.  She was the big boss doe for years, coming first into the milk stand, pushing other does out of her way.... but now younger does want to push her around....

Finally, this year, her milk is drying off mid-season, she's not as sleek and well-conditioned as she used to be and her appetite is off.  We pulled her out of the milk string, wormed her, gave her some selenium, put her on the finer hay we use for kids, and put her in a stall to rest up a bit, letting her out to graze with the kids during the day.  We also gave her some probiotic paste to stimulate her rumen.

As soon as we are sure that she's not sick, we'll put an ad up on Craigslist or answer someone's ad for a "brush goat".  When I talk to prospective buyers, I always ask:

• do you have shelter?  They need shelter from wind, rain and sun.
• do you have good fences?  I'm not a big fan of staking goats out.
• what are you looking for in goats? milk? meat? pets? brush eaters?  
• are you aware that you have to feed them besides letting them eat brush?  dry, quality hay and grain.... winter forage is not nutritious enough....
• do you know you have to worm them, vaccinate them yearly and trim their hooves?

Hopefully, we'll find her a good home where the demands on her will be minimal, where she won't have to go thru the physical challenges of kidding and milking, where she'll get to just finish out her time pleasantly.  She may not survive another winter or she may live for five more years but she'll do better in that setting, where she's not in a big group competing for everything. 

Happy Fourth!!

Photo by David Lygren

"Are You Organic?"

Photo by David Lygren


We received an email today from somebody asking us if our cheese is organic.  We get this question every week at the farmers markets and I've wanted to write about it for a long time.  This week is an especially good time to write about it because of a lovely little 2nd freshening 2 year old that is on the milk stand being milked right now. 

Two weeks ago, I was called out to look at her.  She had snot running out of her nostrils, she was warm, she was lethargic and weak.  She didn't want to get up to come in and be milked and when we did bring her in, she wouldn't eat.  She didn't have any milk.  If we had done nothing, chances are she would have died in a day or so, of dehydration if not from the Pneumonia she had contracted.  The cool spring nights, along with really wet weather, affected her, as it does at least one doe every year and she was really, really ill and it came on really, really fast.

We live a long way from the Vet and we've learned to do quite a bit on our own.  I had Penicillin in the fridge and I gave her some right away.  We put a special collar on her and a brightly colored band on her hind leg so that front, or back, she could be identified as receiving antibiotics.  She was milked by hand, separately from the others, and her milk was discarded, though at first she hardly had any.  We gave her injections morning and night for five days.  By the second day, she was eating and drinking again.  By the third day, she was getting her milk back and grazing in the sun during the day, chewing her cud to prove that her digestive tract was working again.  At the end of five days, she was her old self and had a really full udder.  The manufacturers label said to withdraw her milk from production for an additional 72 hours after the last dose was administered but we always play it safe and triple that time.

We milk 35 does.  They've been born here.  They've been raised here. We've raised their dams back ten generations.  We have lots of time, lots of grain, lots of milk into them before they ever begin to return that investment.  By the time they produce heavily, we've fed them for several years already.

If we were organic, my choices in this situation would have been:  to put her down, to let her die, to treat her and then sell her, or treat her and move her over into a parallel non-organic herd.  Large dairies with 100's of goats operate dual herds like that and simply move sick goats over to the non-organic herd.  We are much smaller than that.  Our relationship with individual animals is more direct than that.

We try to use antibiotics responsibly.  We don't feed them or administer them routinely but I always tell people that in the event that an animal gets sick, my first responsibility is to make that animal more comfortable, to relieve the pain, treat the infection, restore that animal to health just as you would a sick child with Pneumonia or Meningitis.

So, we have chosen to remain small, to use all the modern tools available to us and to NOT be "organic".  Do I go out of my way to buy organic vegetables?  Yes.  Do I use the same standards for the care of animals?  No.

Fresh Ricotta Salata

 Photos by Nancy Chandler using Droid

I may have finally done it.  I may have actually used TOO MUCH GARLIC!!  But oh, it's just so good.  This fresh Ricotta was made on Thursday from that morning's milk, flavored with sun-dried tomatoes, basil, lots of garlic and pine nuts.  Made the old fashioned way, this is a cheese my grandfather suggested, like the ones he ate in Sicily when he was a boy.

This picture was taken just before I cut, bagged and labeled it, put it in David's cooler for Gresham and Milwaukie Farmers Markets this Saturday and Sunday, June 11 and 12.  Come on down to the market for samples of this and our fresh spring chevre.  Check our website for market locations and hours:  www.alseaacre.com  If you attend a different market and want to try this, just ask us for it.  We'll take pre-orders for the following week.

"How do I use this?"  Try brushing a thick slice of this cheese with olive oil and then grilling it.  It won't melt, it just gets soft, kind of crispy in places and ultimately crumbly.  Place it warm on fresh spring salad greens with a vinaigrette and some homemade toasted croutons or bruscetta.  Yum yum yum!  As Grandpa used to say, Mangia and Buon Appetito!