Category Archives: News & Events

Goat Cheese 101

  By | News & Events
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Learn the basics of goat cheese. We will make chevre (a french style of fresh goat cheese), and many of its variations, as well as feta and a quick mozzarella and ricotta. We’ll discuss how goat milk is different from other milks, and why certain cheeses are better made with goat milk. Do you have goats and want to make cheese? Are you thinking of getting goats? Meet the goats and decide for yourself! Please note: During the winter months, we may need to use cow’s milk instead of goat’s milk, as our goats will be dry, but we will be teaching the same basic skill set and styles of cheeses that you would use with goat milk.

Offered:
February 17 
March 16
 April 12
Fee: $150 a day

See our Workshop page for details. Download Workshop Registration Form

Rennet Harvesting and Goat Kid Butchering

  By | News & Events
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Every year, dairy farmers are faced with what to do with the male offspring of their cows, sheep, and goats. Come learn one creative way to use this resource and preserve one of the vital cheese making ingredients yourself. Participants will learn how to slaughter, butcher, and harvest rennet from a goat kid.

TBA: 
$25-$75 workshop
Fee: sliding scale.

See our Workshop page for details. Download Workshop Registration Form

Day at the Dairy

  By | News & Events
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Occasionally, we can offer advanced cheesemaking for a day at the dairy from late April to October working side by side with us as we go through our daily production. Observe firsthand the basics of making chevre, feta, and perhaps a hard goat cheese. Depending on the schedule and availability, we may also be making cow cheese that day. Limited availability — please email to arrange a schedule.

Fee: $175 a day.

SSee our Workshop page for details. Download Workshop Registration Form

Basics of Hard Cheese

  By | News & Events
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We will spend the day making one hard cheese, but along the way we’ll discuss the different steps that go into making a hard cheese, and how a slight change here or there will result in a totally different cheese. We’ll discuss the differences between milks, starter cultures, rennet, pH, aging and rind development.

Offered:
February 8
Fee: $150 a day

See our Workshop page for details. Download Workshop Registration Form

Home Cheesemaking Workshop 2015

  By | News & Events, Workshops
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A hands-on workshop in basic home cheese making.  In this two-day workshop we’ll be using simple equipment you may already have at home to make a jack cheese the first day, press overnight, then finish the second.  In addition, we will also make feta, yogurt, a lactic cheese, quick mozzarella, ricotta (a whey cheese) and butter, depending on the interests of the class. This workshop will concentrate on basic cow cheeses using grocery store milk but will also delve briefly into goat cheese. Basic use of ripening cultures and rennet and milk chemistry will be covered. You will go home with cheese that you’ve made! Offered:
January 31 & Feb 1
April 25 & 26 (tentative)
Fee: $300
$575/couple or 2 family members (one set of handouts)
A two-day class will be offered at Stone Turtle Baking & Cooking School March 13-14. Please contact them directly for registration.

See our Workshop page for details. Download Workshop Registration Form

Hibernation

  By | View From the Creamery Door
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I am in full-on hibernation mode.
The goats have been dry for several weeks, so chores are a minimum. I’m back in the house by 4:30.
What a gift winter days and evenings are!
I’ve taken up knitting again, and perhaps just maybe I’ll finish that sweater I started for Brad 17 years ago (that would be BG, Before Goats). Mostly I’m knitting in an attempt to keep myself awake after supper. Otherwise, I’d be asleep on the couch by 7 p.m.
On snowy days, and unlike last winter, we’ve had at least one a week since Christmas, we watch movies. The first blizzard, we watched 9 movies in three days. We’ve toned that down a bit to a couple a week.
I’m working my way through my pile of books that has been accumulating for a couple of years. I’ve read three since Christmas, not counting reviewing my bread books.
I’m baking bread again, furiously trying out new recipes to fit into the busy summer schedule. Our neighbor who plows our driveway is the happy recipient of much of this effort!
I’ve cancelled several of my winter cheesemaking classes, so Fix-It Guy can get some much needed repairs and renovations done in the dairy. It’s been too cold this week to get much done, which means more couch time!

ll be lucky if I can fit out the door, come kidding season. I better start my spring training… Kidding should start in six short weeks and then winter hibernation will be over.

Empty-nesting

  By | Apprenticeship, View From the Creamery Door
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Whoa, empty nest again. Another year of apprentices come and gone. I know I make ironic jokes about them every year, but really. I enjoy each and every one of them and miss them fiercely when they go. I guess it’s been part of the higher purpose of my life. I have knowledge and skills to share with more than the one child I was gifted, so I take on apprentices like foster children in the hope that some will follow in my footsteps and learn from my mistakes.
It makes me terribly sad when I don’t hear from them, like lost children, I wonder where they have gone and what they are doing now. Why don’t they write? We did our best…. and It makes me extremely proud when I see the strong young farmers and artisans and advocates and activists they grow into. And the both of us love it when they flock back for a visit. Flung the world over: Alaska, Washington, California, Vermont. Or right in my back yard: North Haven, Thorndike and Lewiston. They are making cheese, or raising goats, or sharing the farm life love, or raising awareness of local food systems.
My kids.