I really don't understand how a traditionally made artisanal cheese recipe could even be considered a "trade secret." While there is certainly an art to the production of cheese, there's really no great secret to how it's made. The techniques and ingredients have been the same for centuries and any self-respecting "artisan" should be aware of his or her place in that tradition.

If anyone else knows of any cheesemaker blogs, please post to the comments. Thanks.

Fluffy article on the rising popularity of artisanal cheeses. According to Williams Sonoma, Williams Sonoma was responsible for introducing the concept of farmhouse cheeses to the U.S. back in the 70s. First time I've heard that theory.

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

Don’t Get Fresh With Me
NY Times editorial by Julie Powell, the writer responsible for the fascinating and fun blog, The Julia/Julie Project. The editorial in question posits the argument that local and organic food is an elitist pursuit. I’ve often thought this myself, but ultimately I’ve decided that there are ways to incorporate well-raised and carefully farmed foods into one’s diet without breaking the bank something that benefits everyone. Unlike her excellent blog, this piece is overly simplistic and, ultimately, smacks of reverse snobbery.

International Dairy Foods Association to Hold Cheese Safety Conference

450 Turkish Sheep Leap to Their Deaths

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.

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.

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

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 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.