Markets

Thank you for staying with this blog.

The posting is too erratic even for me.

I am at the Columbia Library after our Wednesday market. I started doing these mid-week markets last week and will be continuing them indefinitely. These aren't the Saturday sell-out-in-an-hour markets these are the Wednesday die-hard-market-goers market. In other words it can be slow. We pack the station wagon up at about 3:20 head in to town and unpack before the bell rings to alert the handful of shoppers that we are open for business. Ken sticks around for the first group of regulars and then he heads just across the parking lot we call home to the ARC or Activities and Recreation Center, for a swim. I talk to our market neighbors about just about any thing. Someone might ask about having horns on our goats and cattle panels, I might ask about cattle prices, or how long it takes to render fat into soap. Of course every once in a while someone comes to get some cheese, or maybe they just come to look at our cheese and wind up buying it. It does seem like they always buy. If they stop they are going to buy. Here is the pitch; "We make goat cheese"
"various responses"
"Do you have any questions I can answer" (even if they don't they come up with one so I don't get left hanging)
Then they buy cheese.

You could buy cheese to if you come to Columbia Farmer's Market on Saturdays (I wont be there) or Wednesday afternoons!

I am still tired friends. Now I know what they all meant when they said they were on automatic pilot. Somehow it all gets done though.

In parting my cabbages are doing great and I just planted about 120 red onions. Sauerkraut with onion anyone?

Forget it.

Lets just forget it ever happened.


I now have a new computer (thank you dad). That means I can make entries throughout the week and put them up here on my day off. I like that idea.

Once a week.

Hello loyal followers of the Daily Rind.
I apologize for the lack of reliable updates here. I keep hearing about more and more of you who actually read this blog and its quite a nice feeling. It also makes me wish I could be more consistent in keeping up to date. We have agreed on a schedule now of six days a week of work, that is six days I barely have time to write in my own personal journal let alone use the farm's dial up to update this blog, but I will attempt to be much more active on the day that I do get off. So lets start.

I have never felt so good in my life. I have never felt so productive or essential. I have taken on more responsibilities now and have, I think, become an integral part of the process. I know that Ken and Jenn, with the super farming powers they seem to have, COULD get everything done, but I relish the ability to share the load. I know the schedule now, I wake up and say "today this is what needs to be done" and I do it. From salting to dipping to washing to goat chores to cleaning. The most rewarding is still probably the days we actually make the cheese, usually on Fridays. I can handle the production of Franklin Island Feta all the way from renneting to packaging.

This past weekend Ken's family came down and are going to be staying the whole week. I have to say I was nervous about sharing the space with ten new people but they are awesome people. I have also kind of picked up my own work load in order for Ken to spend some more time with them (he still finds endless things to do).

Yesterday before the rain really started all the cousins wanted to go look for arrowheads in the ever productive creeks on the property. I had one more chore, putting some Prairie Blooms into the aging room, before the unscheduled time before dinner and evening chores. I went down to the stream to join the hunt. I found my second Goatsbeard arrowhead, a tiny bird point, one of the smallest we have found out there. It is about 3/4 of an inch long and about a centimeter wide. Hopefully I can put up a picture soon, maybe along with some morels that will undoubtedly be popping up in the next couple of weeks.

The last thing which you might all find of interest is my endeavor into vegetable ferments. I have constructed a nice fermenting bucket and will be starting my first batch of sauerkraut this week. I have already planted about thirteen cabbages in one of the garden beds. It is also my first serious foray into gardening. I hope to eventually learn some pickling techniques as well. In about ninety days those cabbages will be full heads and I will have more kraut than I will ever possibly eat so if you read this and you happen to want some you are welcome to ask, as long as it will be easy for me to bring it to you or for you to come and pick some up.

I will be back on here in about a week from today, until then thanks for reading and your comments are always appreciated. I do moderate them though so they will not show up instantly. In parting I suggest you find books or articles written by Michael Pollan. He is very good.

Work

Time flies when you are having fun. Except on a farm. 

I have only been there for six days and it feels like a month, because it is hard. Well, the tasks aren't difficult but there is just so much. I love it though. I never thought I could enjoy discipline but I do. I know what to expect when I wake up and I like that. Sleeping is like blinking. Especially when you don't start till 1:30 and you are going to be waking up at 6:45.

Today is a nice break. Laundry and relaxing, no goat poop or hay dust. But then the goat poop and hay dust and the heavy buckets and all the work are what make this one of the best times of my life. Its a duality for sure but the enjoyment wins out.  Oh yeah and we make cheese to, thats like a vacation built in to the day. 

Here are some pictures I took this morning. I don't have time otherwise. 

I hope you like looking at goats. 

Feeding those babies is the first thing I do in the morning. 

Getting ready to go today. Hope I have what I need. Work clothes? What are those? You mean like a polo and Chinos? I'm equal parts ready to do this and terrified to do this. Fortunately the Munos have been very cool so far.

While I was in Vermont this whole thing kind of came to life. Like I had this dream of making cheese but it was a cartoon and then it came to life with more detail than I imagined was there. I think that is going to be amplified on the farm.

Oh yeah and a bunch of the goats are going to be having their snowball goat babies, so I will take some pictures ;-) .

Photos

I hope you like sunsets and curds.
This was a very good week.

Back from Burlington.

I am back. It was one of the best trips of my life. I wish all classes were that fun. Vermont is a great state, almost as good as Missouri, pretty close at least. Dinner is at Nana's tonight, pictures of the trip when I get home from that. Also, you should all subscribe to this bad boy with an rss reader or something because I like thinking people are reading it. Also here is a shout out to my fellow VIACers: Cathy and Robin cool women from Georgia. Luca- Italian maestro. Sean and Andy- call me when Curd-Boyz is ready. Katie- this is called a blog :-P. Richard- 21st century renaissance man. Marc- COAGULATION! (claps hands together).

Everyone in that class was great. Hope to see some of you in the next round. Also if you ever read this call me whenever you have success in the cheese world.

Pictures to be forthcoming.

Best Day Ever.

The day I made cheese. This is the most fun thing in the entire world.

Today after class I went with Sean, Andrew and Katie through the beautiful hills of Vermont dairyland. We saw some awesome cheese producers. I can not think of something I would rather do.

Also the Northeast is everything its supposed to be, complete with foggy drives and lantern holding phantoms.

Burlington

I am here. Sorry for not updating you more. My twitter has been busy though you can find it under the name Daily Rind. 

Burlington has a lot of hair salons, more than most places. Its a nice place though. I have much more to say but I am about to go to my first class. Hopefully I get a chance to update this when I get more time. 

What if

What if the world we lived in wasn't dominated by our culture. What if invading white people were only a minority to the indigenous people here in America? What if their culture dominated and flourished and changed. What if they industrialized and then became post-industrialist fatsos? I think that Artisan cheese makers would featured on national geographic programs and travel channel programs. I would be the equivalent of poison dart maker or drum skin stretcher, or like one of those southeast asian guys who serves the blood of cobras. I mean cheese would probably be seen as some disgusting taboo food. A film crew would come in and jabber in a foreign language at me, dressed in my strange terrifying costume of white sanitation suit, hat and booties, then go home and show everyone my savage behavior with the caveat that strangeness and taboo are all relative. Somewhere out there a thousand bored people would tune and tell themselves THEY would have the guts to eat some of that disgusting curdled milk. Somewhere brown skinned men and women would dress up in sanitation suits and cut curds using stereotypical english phrases like "howdy cowboy" and "God bless you" for tourists, who at the end of it all get some Velveeta on a toothpick made of bone. 

The Milking

My name is Samuel Stella. So far things have been interesting every now and again. Not worth telling too many people about. I think that will change very soon. I have just today received confirmation and instructions for my first day at the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese. Here are a few quotes from the email:

"Hi all,

Here is the agenda for next week Essential Principles and Practices class here at VIAC Monday - Wed. The class starts at 8:30am we provide Breakfast and Lunch and dinner is on your own.

The class is held here in our conference at Carrigan Wing, see the web site for how to get to our building. There is a very large building being constructed here in the lot where you park. Just find a place behind the building, in a non-metered spot and walk towards and around the construction we are, just past the green house on your right, down that little path"

Well thats only one quote, but I have provided to show you that this IS happening. I mean if you know me you know I am not that good at coming up with false minutia. Actually I am in fact very good at that but this is real.

I was a student at the University of Missouri, long story short I was uninspired. (Please quote this as uninspired not uninspiring, I was quite inspiring, just as I said not very aspiring.) For a semester I imagined all manner of scholastic alternatives. None seemed too good, except making cheese. I am still not sure what first prompted the thought in my head that I, Samuel Stella would like to make cheese, but somehow it was there, and it fit. Soon enough the daydream was more than that.

I am leaving for Vermont in five days.

The other night before I fell asleep I imagined myself standing over a gelatinous, bone colored, curd focusing so intently on the process. I imagined my face static with the zen concentration of a bonsai sculptor and all my love was in the cheese. I should pause to tell you that this is not hyperbole, this is what I pictured. Next I was tasting my first cheese. The first of a potential million. I exploded with bright white elation.