Fall Fields

Well fall has finally hit here. It's October 13 and we have just had our first slight frost on the garden. Latest one ever I believe. We are located about 1200 feet above sea level 3 miles from Lake Champlain as the crow flies and agriculturally speaking, our zone is zone 4. In this zone the growing season should be about 120 days. That's for veggies anyway. It's longer for pastures.

Fall's arrival each year is slightly different. The light changes and one can actually take note of this in August up here on the hill. Colors are more vibrant, and the air smells clean. Fall also brings with it certain other chores on the farm. Like bringing in firewood. We heat in the winter using our own firewood harvested here on the farm. This means finding fallen down trees or cutting down standing dead trees. Then the trees must be cut up into logs and then into smaller chunks and then split into manageable sizes for use either in our outdoor wood boiler or woodstoves in the house.

Fall's arrival also signals the time to finish up necessary outdoor projects before Nor'easters begin to blow our way! Like the woven wire fence we are putting up to protect our blueberry fields from errant escape artist sheep. They love to nibble the tips of the leaves and scratch their backs on low hanging branches.The problem is during picking season they also knock a lot of fruit off the branches by all this movement. I must say though it's quite a sight to see about 30 sheep running on a mission to the blueberry field!

Clear crisp fall days also bring their share of lofty balloons soaring over our house. They seem so close I always wonder if they can hear me talking.

Why diary and not dairy?

This is my first blog. Why diary and not dairy? Well the two go hand in hand. One tends to a diary each day as does one to a dairy. You see, each and every day animals that are lactating must be milked. Twice a day. That means Saturday and yes Sunday too. Through beautiful summer days and awful snow storms in January and February, like here in Northern Vermont. Unless of course you are milking what they call 'seasonally' based on certain seasons, or in our case because sheep don't lactate (milk) for that long. A typical sheep milking season lasts in our climate from May thru the third week of October. It is getting into the second week in October so the sheep are drying off and sheep cheese making will soon cease, for me, until the cycle begins again in May. We do milk cows as well, on a very small scale, and so I will be able to continue making the cow's milk cheeses for a while longer.

One thing we have been very busy doing over the last two and a half years is building a new cheese house. We outgrew our old cheese room in our milking barn several years ago. We still need to finish some things on the new facility but are now open to visitors. Finally! For a long time folks would drive to the farm wondering where they could purchase our cheeses right here on the farm. It was not possible. We had no retail space and no extra bodies to avail themselves to help. One thing has changed. We now have a small space, but it is a self-serve sort of thing like many in Vermont. This might be a Vermont thing. Like an honor system at a vegetable farmstand.

So join us if you are ever in the neighborhood and love cheese. Cheese types we make are described on our site www.sheepcheese.com

Well as Willem Lang says, "gotta get back to work!"