One of the many things that makes Bobolink different from other dairy farms — not to mention other cheesemakers — is that the cows here only eat grass. In a typical dairy operation, the cows will eat mostly grain or silage, often confined to a feedlot when they’re not in the milking barn. On some farms, cows are out on pasture eating grass sometimes supplemented with grain the rest of the time. The cows here, though, are different. From spring through fall they eat nothing but grass — outside. In the winter, they eat hay — outside. And that’s it.

There are a few reasons for this approach to dairying. The most basic is that grazing is part of the natural cycle of the cow’s life. Cows evolved to eat grass. Grain feeding is a relatively recent phenomenon — and one that can actually be harmful to the cows. According to EatWild, a website devoted to pasture-based farming:

Ruminants are designed to eat fibrous grasses, plants, and shrubs - not starchy, low-fiber grain. When cattle are switched from pasture to grain, for example, they can become afflicted with a number of disorders, including a common but painful condition called “subacute acidosis.” Cattle with subacute acidosis kick at their bellies, go off their feed, and eat dirt. To prevent more serious and sometimes fatal reactions, these animals are given chemical additives along with a constant, low-level dose of antibiotics.

Another good reason for pasture-raising animals — though not quite as high-minded — is cost. Once you have the land, grass is practically free. As long as it’s raining regularly and the sun is shining, the grass keeps growing back. Move the cows from pasture to pasture as they eat the grass down, and by the time you’re ready to move the cows back to the first pasture, the grass is back. Feed grain, on the other hand, and you’re looking at a costly feed bill.

Given the health and financial reasons, then, why would anyone bother with grain? As usual, the answer comes down to money. While it may be cheaper to feed grass than grain, grain-fed cows produce quite a lot more milk — something in the order of three times as much. Add in a confinement lot — something most large dairies use — and your labor costs can go down as well. The current system of large-scale corporate agriculture demands a large number of cows producing a huge volume of milk to make even a modest profit.

Small-scale operations, such as Bobolink, have an alternative in pasture-based farming that allows them to be profitable at a comfortable size. It also allows the operation to be seasonal (as in, the cows don’t milk in the winter — another rarity) and keeps the cows healthier. The average dairy cow milks for three seasons before it dies. We are currently milking cows that are 14 years old. This is almost as unheard of as the fact that we are able to get away with milking only once a day. We may be getting a third of the volume, but we’re more than making up for it in cheese.

(Now would be a good time to admit that my stats and figures here are a bit shaky. I’m relying on hearsay quite a bit. I trust this hearsay, but I know I need to do some more research on all of this. To that end, if anyone sees anything good — or knows of any good resources — please send them my way.)

A few pasturing resources:

Grassfarmer.com

EatWild - The Clearinghouse for information about pasture-based farming

American Grassfed Association

Grass-Based Farming: A Demo Dairy Project

DAIRY FARMER GIVES COWS A WINTER BREAK
Great Lakes Radio Consortium

Today started out like many others: we went to fetch the cows. They came in with a little more bother than usual — but nothing unmanageable. As we were walking them in we noticed that Rachel, one of the expectant, was walking slowly and a little funny — with her tail cocked in an odd manner — and that she was starting to dilate…obviously going into labor. Once milking was under way, she began to show more signs. She was laying on the ground and shifting her legs around in what looked like an awkward manner.

The barn isn’t really a great place to have a calf. For one thing, it’s kind of dirty - there is shit everywhere. There are many cows in very close quarters. Most importantly, perhaps, we’re actually pretty busy in there trying to get a job done. For all these reasons, once her water broke, we decided to give Rachel the option of leaving the barn. We let her out of the stanchion and shooed her out into the middle.

Instead of leaving, though, she just kind of staggered around a little and then walked across the aisle, stuck her head right into an empty stanchion and, in what may well be the most well documented calfing in history, proceeded to give birth right onto the barn floor. By the time she was done — just about 20 minutes later — the entire work crew and a few visitors were crowded around watching and shooting photos. I managed to get a lot of good photos, of which some are posted here. I’ll try to get a decent slide show up sometime over the next few days.

This was the first birth of any kind that I’ve seen. It was actually a little less “gross” than I was expecting. There was some but not an inordinate amount of blood. It was pretty cool to see the calf literally sliding out of the birth canal and, in a way, even more impressive to see her struggle to stand almost immediately. Within fifteen minutes or so, she was standing on her own. Granted, we helped it along, dragging her out of the barn so she would have a less slippery surface to work with — and so we could turn out the rest of the herd — but I think she would have been just fine without us.

I’m really glad that I got to see this — and even luckier that I had my camera in my pocket. Typically, the cows give birth out in the field and we find out about it in the morning. While doing it in the barn isn’t so great for workflow, it makes it much more convenient for us gawkers.

That said, Jonathan told us he’s pushing the next cow that goes into labor out of the barn. The birth really tied things up during the end of milking. We couldn’t let the rest of the cows out when the milking was done for fear of the baby (as yet to be named) getting stepped on. Once we could finally let them out, they immediately made for a field they weren’t supposed to be in and easily managed to bypass the barbed-wire barrier. We turned most of the herd around and got them where they were supposed to be, but one of the steers, Chumley, and two of the heifers managed to get out.

We left them alone, planning on joining them with the herd in the morning, but they freaked out a little and tried to find the herd on their own. Chumley got himself all the way over to the field they were in, but got his head stuck in a barbed-wire gate. Luckily, a passing motorist saw him and let us know. He wasn’t too badly stuck — or too badly cut up — but this was a pain for him and us nonetheless. We also inadvertently separated one of the recent mothers from her calf. By the end of the day, though, we got all of the cows back where they should be and are ready to face tomorrow.

As promised, here’s a photo of one of our recent additions. This is Tweedle with her bull calf Dee.

As of yesterday, after a two week baking hiatus, I’m back on cow and cheese duty. While I enjoyed my time in the bakehouse — and learned quite a bit — I’m happy to be back in the barn and creamery. It’s funny, really. The barn is a hot, smelly place. The cows exude heat (among other things) but I’m starting to feel quite at home in there.

We’ve had a few births over the last week or so. In a few cases — namely Sara’s and Betty Davis’ — we caught only a quick glimpse of the calf before it went into hiding for a few days. Boop, Betty’s bull calf, was missing for three days or so. Likewise, no one has seen Sara’s calf since Saturday. Apparently, this is a characteristic of the Kerry breed. Their young tends to go into hiding for the first few days of their lives, during which time they do quite a bit of sleeping.

Interestingly, even the partial Kerries seem to do this. Boop, for example, is half Kerry. His father, like all the new calves, is John; Betty Davis, his mother, is part Ayrshire. It seems that most of the Kerry traits are dominant. All the cows are black or brown, for example, and start grazing very early. It’s interesting that less tangible traits should also take hold.

This hiding behavior makes a lot of sense, really, as they’re on the defenseless side at this point of their lives. It makes things a little stressful for us, though, as we’re never sure whether the calf’s actually ok and hiding or just kind of dead. Boop eventually came out of hiding, though, and we’re assuming the little Kerry will too.

In addition to the above mentioned calves, Brunhilde finally had a baby. We’ve been waiting for weeks for this birth and were starting to get a little worried (well, I was anyway). I haven’t seen the calf yet (mother and son are out in one of the fields by themselves) but hope to find the time to get out there tomorrow.

We’re planning on taking photographs of all the bull calves. I’ll try to post some of them here soon.

Well, I know I said I was going to post about milking today (ok…last week, if you really want to be specific). I realized, though, that I wrote quite a bit about milking in an earlier post. Instead of going into more detail about that, then, I’ve decided instead to tell you about the pigs.

About two weeks ago, we got some pigs. They’re an English heritage breed called Tamworth and have a reddish color. They were probably about a month old when they got here and already have doubled in size. It turns out that pigs really excel at one thing — turning food scraps and whey into pork. Considering how much they’ve grown in the time they’ve been here, I’d say they do it pretty well.

The plan is to feed the pigs any edible garbage we produce in addition to giving them any whey the calves don’t need and any leftover bread we can’t sell. Right now, the pigs getting about six gallons of whey between them a day and piles of bread. After our dinner, they get the scraps. They’re not very picky. Turns out they like pork chop bones as much as they like carrot greens and onion ends. I’m not sure if they’re enjoying the pile of flour we gave them on Tuesday, but we’ll see if they eat it.

I hate to say it, but the pigs are really cute. Typically, they coming running over, oinking and squealing, whenever someone walks past, hoping for something tasty. They seem to like the whey the best. If we’re not fast enough pouring the whey into their trough, chances are one or two of them will jump up and start drinking right out of the can — a pretty funny site considering the can is about as tall as they are when standing on their hind legs. When we dump the whey, they push and shove each other to get the best spot at the bowl. Apparently, the best spot is the one directly in the stream of liquid. More often than not, they end up completely covered in it.

They eat faster and more noisily than any animal I’ve seen. After a particularly good meal, they’ll often roll over and lay down on their sides, as if they’ve exhausted themselves. I guess all that gluttony is hard work.

Come autumn, these pigs will be about 200 pounds and ready to become pork. I guess that’s kind of too bad in a way, but I think I’ll probably try to take a trip out to the farm them to eat some of it. I don’t really feel bad about it, either. For one thing, there’s not much other use for a pig. For another, they’re living better lives than most other pigs in this country. They’re fed well (really well) and have space to roam around. They live outdoors and have access to both sun and shade. I think they’re happy — something that eludes most farm animals. Plus, I really like pork.

Thanks to Brennen for the nice photos and Kari for the video chat shot

People have been asking me what a typical day at Bobolink is like. The short answer is there is no typical day. I could have to work a farmer’s market or an event — serving up tastings. I might have to take care of some field work, such as mowing, weeding, or setting up electric fences. Mostly, though, I’ve been milking the cows and making cheese. What will follows over the next few posts, then, is a “typical” day of milk and cheese duty. Today, fetching the cows.

7:45 am - Everyone on milking meets at the house for breakfast and coffee. Usually, breakfast is toast or a cheese croissant, with the occasional farm-fresh egg for some variety. We talk over the plan for the cows — which field they’re in now; where we need to take them next — and then head out to get them in.

8:15 am - By this time, we’re usually heading out to fetch the cows. Depending on how many people are on cow duty (usually three) someone will stay in the creamery to set up the milking system and get everything ready for cheesemaking. Other times, we’ll hook it up and then all head out together.

The milking system is basically a pipeline that runs from the barn into the creamery. On the creamery end, the milk flows into a large Pyrex jar. When that fills, it empties into another pipe and flows through a filter and into the cheese vat. Setting up the system is really just a case of inserting a new paper filter, connecting the pipe from the jar to the vat and visually checking to make sure everything is in place.

Fetching the cows is a walk out into whatever field they’re currently feeding on and rounding them up. Some days, this is easy. They’ll all be in a big group and patiently waiting for us to lead them to milking. This seems to happen most often when we’re a little later than usual fetching them or if there isn’t a lot of good grass for them to eat. On other days, though, rounding them up can take some doing. If they’re in a big pasture, they could be scattered in all different areas, making for quite a bit of walking to get them all moving together where you want them. Sometimes, they’re just lazy.

Driving a cow isn’t really that difficult; it’s really just a case of getting behind them and moving them along, shouting a little, waving your arms, sometimes hitting their behinds with a stick. As could be expected, some cows are more cooperative than others. Nudge, for instance, has a reputation for bopping people with her head (hence the name). For this reason, she has a bell around her neck so you can hear if she’s sneaking up behind you. She hasn’t really gone after me at all, but I have seen her go for others.

Once the cows are all moving in the right direction, they pretty much head straight to the barn. We just need to make sure that all the gates (really strings of electric fencing) are open where they need to be open and closed where they need to be closed. We make sure the way is open to the barn and get behind the herd and follow along, giving a little encouragement to those who need it.

When we get to the barnyard, the Kerry cows will often be the first into the barn and stand right in the doorway. This presents some problems, because the rest of the herd are intimidated by them; they won’t pass. It’s up to us, then, to get them out of the way. Once they’re cleared, most of the milking cows will enter the barn on their own accord and walk straight into their stanchions. We just have to lock them in. Others, of course, aren’t so easy. One old cow in particular, Coco, usually takes quite a bit of pushing and pulling to get her into the stanchion.

Right now, we’re milking 18 cows. The drys cows, bulls, and steers will either roam around the barn or the barnyard. Once all the milkers are locked in their stanchions it’s usually around 9:00 or so, depending on how cooperative the cows have been and how far we had to drive them. Once in, we get the milkers from the creamery and start the milking. More on this tomorrow.

Richie, one of the long-term (three-month stretch) interns left Bobolink on Sunday. He’ll be heading up cheesemaking on a goat farm in Pennsylvania. Right now, they only have a few goats. Richie will be helping them set up a cheesemaking process, developing recipes, tending the animals, and, ultimately, making the cheese. I wish him luck.

Richie is, to say the very least, quite a character. On his way out, he left the following photos for me on my camera. The scrabble, incidently, is one of the reasons I haven’t been posting much. I hope to remedy that from this point on.

Well, the end of my second week as a farmer is almost upon me, and I realize I haven’t updated the blog all this week. To make amends, I’ve posted a bunch of photos below. Enjoy.

Since I last posted, quite a lot has happened. I’ve learned how to drive a tractor (a pretty big one, I might add); I’ve gone through the whole cheesemaking process - doing all the steps rather than simply watching. Cutting curd is probably the trickiest part, though, in all honesty, none of this is really rocket science. It’s really just a matter of paying attention to what’s going on around you and being careful. That goes for the cows as well as the cheese. The difference is the cheese won’t kill you if you screw it up. Chances are the cows won’t either, but I suppose the possibility is always there.

On Sunday, after my day off, I felt like absolute crap. I was exhausted most of the day and whacked my head pretty hard on the grain intake valve and spent most of the day achy and ill feeling. I think that this was all the result of doing more physical work in a week than I’ve done in the past year. Day to day, it was fine. But once I got some rest my body just kind of shut down. When I woke up on Monday morning, though, I felt 100% better.

On Monday, we lost a calf. After milking, we moved the cows to a new pasture. The calf, Cordelius, decided that it didn’t want to go and took off in the other direction. Brennen - one of the other interns - and I tried our best to catch him, but he got past us and, somehow, out of the barnyard and back to the “home field,” where the cows had spent the past week or so. We all went looking for him a few times throughout the day, but saw no sign.

The next morning, milking proceeded as normal, except for Cordelia — the missing calf’s mother — who was mooing for her calf the whole time. Halfway through the milking, we looked out into the barnyard and saw the calf out on the other side of the fence. He was hungry, trying to milk off of the dry cows in the yard, but was otherwise fine.

For me, this week has been all about developing a routine. On Friday — tomorrow — Jonathan is going to Union Square farmer’s market and Jackie (another intern) and I will be milking the cows and making the cheese by ourselves. While this isn’t the first time unsupervised for Jackie, it is for me. I’ll report back on how it all goes tomorrow.

This Saturday, I’ll be working at the Lincoln Center farmer’s market in Manhattan. Sunday I’m off, and that’s the end of week number two.

UPDATE: I ended up posting this on Friday, after the day’s cheesemaking. All went well. In addition to Jackie and myself, we had help from Lise, a woman who volunteers here on a weekly basis. Jackie, who’s been here a month longer than me, has done this unattended before…but this was my first time. Besides a leaky valve, we had no issues to speak of. There’s still a lot to learn, but I have the basic procedure pretty much down.

Sorry it’s been a little while. Here are some new photos — taken by Joel, a friend of Brennen’s.

Cows outside

Cows inside — getting milked

Brennen holding the milking apparatus

Me, milking

Richie and Justine — don’t try this at home

John the bull

The rooster

I writing this from the comfort of my Brooklyn couch.

Yesterday I worked the farmer’s market in Union Square. One would think that this would be relatively mellow compared to the typical farm day, but that’s not quite the case. For one thing, the day is longer. I met Jonathan and another worker at the market at 7:30am to unpack the van and set up everything. By the time we were done packing up the van at the end of the day, it was 7:30pm.

Even though I put in a solid 12-hour day, I got off relatively easy. My commute was only a 1/2 hour each way by subway (I came back into the city on Thursday night). Jonathan’s commute was two hours each way — driving — putting his work day at 16 hours total.

In addition to the hours, the market is really a lot of work — all performed on your feet. Yesterday started out cold and rainy and, as a result, pretty quiet. Even so, there was a steady stream of customers throughout the morning and afternoon. The two bug rushes occur, predictably, at lunchtime and again around 5:30, when the office workers get set free.

The market is a lot of fun, though. As Jonathan told me, it’s where all the glory lies. People are truly excited about what we’re doing on the farm. They love to hear about the cows and calves. They dig the bread. Most of all, they’re excited about the cheese.

Yesterday’s big hit was a cheese called Baudolino — the first cheese we’re selling with this season’s milk. The cheese is just over 60-days old — the youngest raw-milk cheese can be by law — and is extremely soft and oozy. So oozy, in fact, that in the van and in the aging cave on the farm, the cheese drips down onto the racks below it. There are stalagmites stalactites of delicious cheese hanging down below. Laid out on a board, it collapses under its own weight, spreading out in a lumpy pancake fashion.

Relatively mild with a grassy sweetness, it’s really a great cheese. The customers agreed. Regulars were excited to see a new cheese and, by the end of the day, people were coming up to the table saying things like, “I hear you have a new cheese; I have to try it.” Despite the rain and chill, we sold out of all three wheels we had with us.

Today was all about the cows. We started the morning at 7:45am — not bad at all — with breakfast at the main house. From there, we went out to bring the cows in for milking. Today was a reunion of sorts for the herd, as we joined the group of bulls and dry females we moved yesterday with the group of milking cows.

The moving of the cows was fairly uneventful in and of itself. The unification of the herd took place in the barnyard. It was there I first witnessed what others were calling the “sommelier sniff.” This would occur any time a female would urinate. Hearing the noise, a bull — usually John, the big Kerry — would run over and stick his snout directly in the stream (stream is putting politely, for those who haven’t witnessed a cow pissing). Pulling his nose out, dripping wet, the bull then parts his lips, exposing his teeth, throws his head back, and inhales deeply through his nostrils, sniffing for the scent of ovulation. This would continue throughout the milking.

We herded the cows into the barn and locked them into their stanchions. For some of the cows, this was easy; for others, it was a bit of work. This was really my first direct contact with the cows, nudging, pushing, and pulling them into place. Though admittedly a little timid at first, I got the feel for being around them as the morning progressed. I was a bit wary with John and the other bulls roaming freely in the barn while all this was going on, but it wasn’t so bad. I just made sure to always keep one eye out and made sure I didn’t get between the boys and the girls.

The milking itself was fairly intuitive. The milk line is a vacuum pump affair. There are four sets of silicone or rubber/stainless-steel cups which attach to the udders and draw the milk out. The milk travels down the line, through a filter, and directly into the cheese vat. After showing me how to hook up one cow, Jonathan and I worked our way down the line, milking four at time.

For the most part, hooking up a cow is a one-person job. And, really, it’s quite easy after the first one — as long as the cow is cooperating. Since there’s a vacuum, it’s really just a case of lining the cup up with the teat and sliding it on. When a seal is created, the cup slides right in place with a fairly satisfying slurp. Repeat three times per cow and you’re in business. If all’s in order, all four udders release their milk, which you can see entering the cup. Some cows take a little longer than others - and some take a little massaging to get going. We did all sixteen currently being milked in just about an hour, apparently not too bad for my first time out — and the first time this season the herd has been back together (minus the babies, of course).

One thing about milking is the muck (again, putting it politely). An unavoidable fact of this business is the manure. It basically follows you around the barn - and you always have to be on the lookout for a cow relieving herself. To get the milking apparatus on and off a cows, you’re pretty much squatting right under the thing. I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I was in any way shat upon, but I was most definitely in close contact with the stuff. After the first few minutes, though, you really do get used to it. Turns out, too, that it washes right off.

An interesting little tidbit I picked up today — one I assume will come in handy many times — is that if you want to deny a cow the ability to kick, you pull it’s tail. A couple of the cows have a habit of kicking as the milking apparatus is being put on and taken off. For these cows, I would pull the tail back and up — fairly hard — and Jonathan took care of attaching. Sure enough, if one started to kick a little, all it took was a harder tug to put an immediate stop to it.

After milking, we made cheese. I mostly observed while one of the other interns and Jonathan did their thing. I’ve seen the process quite a few times now, though, and done it at home (albeit on a much smaller scale) a few times, so I’m hoping I’ll get to move up pretty quickly. I did do a lot of washing and fetching, though, so I wasn’t entirely dead weight.

Other than that, the only other work-related items today was a quick trip out into the fields to open up another pasture for the herd to graze. The biggest shock to my system was probably lugging milk jugs full of whey up to the babies, but I think I’ll get used to that chore pretty quickly.

One of the other interns told me he’ll always remember his first morning out here — looking around, taking it all in. I know what he means — and feel the same way.

Some photos from the apprentice house window and front door:

View from my bedroom window on this, my first morning.

Calves in the apprentice field — just out the front door.

More calves, same field.

I arrived this morning at approximately 11:30am, having left Brooklyn at the same time that Kari left for work. When I pulled up, Jonathan was in the middle of making cheese with a guy about my age who’s just starting to work at Bobolink a day or so a week. While working on the cheese, he was chatting with a woman who’ll be working at the farmer’s markets in New York.

After some lunch — where I met Bobolink’s full-time employee and two of the other interns — we finished the cheese making process and cleaned up. Then a bunch trooped out into one of the fields to check up on the state of the grass and meet some of the cows.

Next up was moving some temporary electric fencing around to create a new grazing area for the sheep. There are four total - one ewe, a ram, a wether, and a lamb. They’re not being milked or anything right now. They seem rather ornamental at this point.

After the sheep were taken care of it was back out into the field to move the bulls and dry ladies onto another pasture. Tomorrow at milking they’ll join up with the rest of the herd. This was mostly a smooth process, except for the one-week-old calf that refused to cross the little brook and ran the opposite direction and back to the field we’d just moved them all from. It took some doing - and a van - to catch him and get him into the same field as his mom.

We ate dinner together — there were seven of us including two of Jonathan and Nina’s children — which was nice. I really like the fact that group meals are a central part of the day. The fact that all the food was really good helps too. And that’s not even mentioning the bread and cheese which accompany pretty much everything.

After dinner, I helped Jonathan round up some chickens to move to a more secure room in the coop. This was pretty funny for me…I don’t think I’ve ever handled live chickens before and I was surprised at how fast some of them could run — especially the little grey with white speckled birds. Moving them is an attempt to thwart a chicken killer who has been breaking into the coop every night for the past couple of weeks and killing indiscriminately. We’ll see tomorrow how well this works. Apparently, about half the chicken population has been killed in the past two weeks. No one’s really sure what’s doing it, thought the speculation is cats or weasels.

So far, so good. I know it’s only day one, but I get the feeling this is going to work out pretty well. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the summer.

Today’s the day…in an hour or so I’ll be heading out from our apartment in Brooklyn on my way to Bobolink Dairy. Oddly, I’m not really nervous at all. I’m sure that will change as I pull up to the farm, though. I hope to post tonight with my thoughts on the first day, but I’m not sure what my internet situation will be like yet.

I spoke to Jonathan yesterday, and he tells me that there’s a lot to do today. I guess I’ll be put to work right away.

Back in September, Kari and I visited Cato Corner Farm in Colchester, CT. Cato Corner produces farmstead cow's milk cheeses. They sell their product in farmer's markets around the city, including Union Square in Manhattan and Grand Army Plaze in Brooklyn.

The farm is run by a mother and son team. Mark Gilman is the main cheesemaker. His mother, Elizabeth MacAlister, oversees farm operations. They have a few employees, as you'll see in the photos, including a woman who does the milking and another who assists Mark with the cheesemaking.

What was most interesting to us were the differences between Cato Corner and Bobolink. While they are similar sized operations - and both make a variety of cow's milk cheeses - they are strikingly different in some ways. At Cato Corner, the cows are milked year-round. Jonathan at Bobolink dries his herd off in the fall and keeps them that way until spring. The biggest difference, though, is probably in method. While the actual cheesemaking process and equipment is, of course, very similar, the two cheesemakers have different approaches. Mark at Cato Corner is much more precise in a way. And he's certainly more concerned with the possibility of infection during the cheesemaking process.

Last time we were at Bobolink, the cheesemaking room doubled as an open-to-the-public cheese shop. People were in and out of there during the entire process. At Cato Corner, on the other hand, we were required to bring with us two sets of fresh clothes - one for use in the cheesemaking room, the other for the cave. We had to change everytime we entered or left one of those areas. While in the cheese room, we wore hair nets - as did the cheesemakers. Everything in the room was white or stainless steel. This is not to say that Bobolink is dirty or unsanitary- far from it. It's just interesting to see the two approaches, both of which produce excellent cheese.

We decided that since we can't take the summer off to intern on farms, nor are we going to buy a farm without more knowledge about running our own business—let alone farming and making cheese—we would instead visit farms throughout NY state and the surrounding area this summer to gather information and meet people living the cheese lifestyle. The plan right now is to shoot a lot of photographs, conduct interviews, and compile it all into a documentary-style project. It could become a website or a book, at the very least. At the very most, it could be the first step toward a new way of life.

We visited Bobolink Dairy in Vernon NJ on June 12, 2004. Since I already know Jonathan White and have visited Bobolink before, I figured it would be a good place to get started on the project before beginning more formal interviews with farmers I don't know. Kari photographed the farming and the cheese making process. Overall, it went quite well, but we still need to make sense of the project and figure out what we're doing. It was a great start, though, and I think that by the end of the season we should be solidly on our way to a great project.

Please take a look at the photographs. I'll write more about our experiences and observations soon.

As planned, I spent all of last Saturday at Bobolink Dairy, helping Jonathan White make cheese and watching what he does there on a daily basis. All in all, it was a good day. I had fun, learned a little, worked kind of hard, and, most importantly, got a pretty good feel for what the day-to-day life is like.

The farm is located on the Vernon, NJ/Warwick, NY border. This is about 45 minutes from Ringwood, NJ, where Kari and I grew up and where we stayed the night before. To be their for the 7:30 milking, I had to get up around 5:30. Ouch. I’m not used to seeing 5:30 in the morning. More than likely, the last time I did it was the end of my night, not the beginning of my day.

I arrived at Bobolink at about 7:15. The area around the farm is quite beautiful. It’s interesting, actually, that 45 minutes from Ringwood in one direction brings you to Manhattan. 45 minutes the other direction brings you to farm country. True, some of these farms are being converted to McMansion-esque housing developments, but it’s still pretty rural. But I digress.

The little parking lot happens to be right next to the bake-house, a roofed-over concrete floor and Jonathan’s hand-built wood-fired brick hearth oven. Taylor, the baker who lives on the premises with his wife, was already hard at work, and looked like he had been for some time. Stuff starts early here.

Jonathan came out soon after I arrived and took me right to the cow’s barn where Josh, the herdsman, was getting started with the milking. There are about twenty-five or so cows producing milk at Bobolink right now. All are grass-fed and spend most of their time outside. This is in contrast to the typical dairy cow’s life, which is usually spent confined to a pen eating grain feed.

All of the cows have names, which I thought was a nice touch. Jonathan seems to really know his cows too, pointing out which are a little grumpy, which are timid, etc. He pointed out one cow, whose name escapes me, who will likely be turned into meat at some point soon. They haven’t been successful getting her pregnant, so she’s not producing any milk. Such is the way of life on the farm, I suppose. I’m assuming she’ll be better braised than grilled, being a milk cow and all.

The cows, for their part, seemed pretty content. They were eating cut grass while being milked because it’s the end of the grass-growing season. Because of this, they’re producing about half as much milk as they were at the height of the season. In the next week or so, the herd will be dried-off and that’ll be it for milk—and cheesemaking—until next spring. Commercial dairies usually keep their cows lactating year-round.

In season, the cows are milked twice a day, everyday. Therefore, cheese has to be made every day. The milk at Bobolink is never refrigerated, nor is it pasteurized. It gets piped directly from the cows straight into the cheesemaking vat, which already contained the previous evening’s milk - which has soured overnight. I drank some of the milk right out of the cow (well, it was diverted from the pipe into a jar—I didn�t suck it right out of the udder or anything) and it was really good. I�m not a big fan of milk for drinking, but this was really quite different than any milk I�ve had before—much better, in fact.

While the cows were being milked, I washed dishes. Not really dishes, but the cheesemaking equipment we�d soon be using, including knives, molds, trays, etc. Cleanliness is of utmost importance in cheesemaking, and everything is washed and sanitized before and after each use.

After the milking, we made cheese. The cheese we were making is called �Jean-Louis,� a twenty pound wheel, and is described by Jonathan as, �our largest cheese, which ripens slowly and develops rich, meaty, crisp, clean flavor. Named to honor the memory of Chef Jean-Louis Palladin.�

The entire process took a few hours, but the actual work involved didn’t take all of that time. There were a few hours while the milk was gently agitated and brought up in temperature. Then Jonathan added rennet and, once the curds were set, we cut them using a special curd knife (like an oversized hard-boiled egg cutter). My only previous experience making cheese was in our apartment. Cutting the curds here—with 40 gallons of milk—took much less time using the special knife than it did at home using a spatula in 2 gallons of milk.

After the curds were cut, they were left to rest a while. Basically, as they sat whey was expelled and they firmed up. For different cheeses, the curds sit for different amounts of time to achieve the appropriate firmness. After the curds were ready, we ladled them into the molds—for Jean-Louis, we used large perforated metal rings, about 12 inches in diameter and 12 inches tall. From forty gallons of milk, we got two full molds of twenty pounds each. After the molds were full, we turned them a few times, to allow for even settling, and they were left to rest overnight. After this rest, they�ll have settled down to about a third of their original height, as more whey is drained out. The next day, they�re removed from the molds, salted on the outside, and left to sit another day. Then they�re moved into the ripening cave.

The cave is really a shipping container with a door with the temperature and humidity controlled. The cheese age in here for at least 90 days (for shortest time permissible by US law for raw-milk cheese) and up to about 6 months. Most, I think, are in there four months of so. This depends on the type of cheese. The aging-room stinks of ammonia, a natural by-product of the molds that are ripening the cheese. This smell, though, doesn�t carry over to the cheese itself unless it�s over-ripened and has turned a corner.

So that was pretty much my day. Along the way, I helped Jonathan find a salmon serving dish in one of his barns, hung out with his family a little, and helped him cater (with cheese, bread, salmon, and shrimp) an event at Mountain Creek Ski Resort. All in a day�s work, apparently, for a local cheesemaker and farmer. By the end of the day (around 3:00) I was pretty much wiped out.

I feel like I got a really good taste for the daily operations at Bobolink. I can still picture myself doing this full-time, but I�m still not sure how to get there. I�m trying to work something out with Jonathan where I can do a short apprenticeship or something. I think that�s really the only way to really learn everything that goes into it.