Goat Fix

Hello folks,

Yes, I've been missing in action this past month and now I'm back.  Probably.  Let me see... We are on the verge of closing on a farm!  My company will be located in Dudley, Massachusetts on 23 acres of pasture.  The hay barn will be converted into the cheesemaking facility.  The goats will come later.  Know of any good general contractors on the Worcester area?  Pictures to come...

In other news, I seem to be the happy target of videos starring goats.  Friends have been posting to my Facebook page and what better way to share the cuteness (and oddity) than to compile them here:

Someone in Utah feels really strongly about the wild goats of the area.  He has taken communing with Nature to a whole new level, as told by The Bellingham Herald on July 20th.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/07/20/2609402/goat-man-spotted-in-mountains.html

On July 12th, the Huffington Post Los Angeles featured a story about Dana McGregor's surfing goats spotted on San Onofre State Beach.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/surfing-goats_n_1670261.html?utm_hp_ref=los-angeles#slide=1220377

Backcountry.com Facebook Page, what.

https://www.facebook.com/Backcountry

Buttermilk Sky is a ROCK STAR! At the expense of siblings.

Made to survive armageddon

Emily Van Halem, Eat Local, Taste Global Coordinator at The Stop Community Food Center in Toronto, recently wrote a piece for Shameless on young women farmers.  Emily opens a window to this world, interviewing twenty-somethings, their reasons for choosing this career, and their challenges.  It would seem that "intention, rather than necessity, appears to drive these young people to what is still seen as an unusual career choice."  Read the full Shameless article for a great profile on lady farmers.

Meanwhile today, as I was browsing the web, this video found me and begged me to watch it.  The 2011 TEDxManhattan Fellow, Stefani Bardin, created this short film documenting the digestion of Top Ramen noodles and Gatorade versus the digestion of homemade broth and noodles and homemade juice.  Not only will you be unable to look away, amazed that the technology of the future is already here, you will be stunned by what Stefani has to say during her narration.  I even think you'll want to go find one of Emily Van Halem's farmers when you're done.

Roger Doiron gives a TEDx talk

This TEDx talk makes me so proud of one Roger Doiron, Kitchen Gardeners International, and my own decision to farm.  I learned about Roger and his part-time project in 2008 when I was working on my community garden Master's thesis.  He had already performed a financial analysis of the costs and benefits associated with planting and growing an edible garden.  Since then, he and his organization successfully influenced the White House to plant its own kitchen garden and he went from part-time organizer to full-time leader.  I'd like to share with you the video of his recent talk, which happens to very eloquently explain why I decided to farm, too.

Hervé talks affinage

For you bilingual readers, here's another short segment staring my boss. Here he describes what is affinage pretty clearly... as long as you understand French!

Carbone 42 - L'affinage du fromage chez Mons

envoyé par carbone42. - Regardez plus de vidéos de science.

When he notes that we don't quite understand why a mould might appear in abundance one day and not at all the next, he's describing the challenge that is affinage.  As much as we'd like to break down the science of affinage into simple causes and effects, there are so many factors influencing one outcome that we are forced to treat the trade like an art.

"We're in a world of mushrooms, yeasts and moulds.  That's our job."  He continues, saying that we grumble when we see cheeses without any rinds or moulds because perhaps the cheeses are meant to be sold quickly or are packaged this way to avoid loosing any moisture (which keeps the weight and the price high), but this practice is detrimental to the flavor and the consistency of the cheeses.

Raw Milk Revolution

"I feel like I'm in Auvergne, in my country.  But I'm actually in the U.S., in the heart of Vermont!"  ~ Hervé Mons

Here's a short TF1 news segment on Hervé Mons visiting a couple of Vermont raw milk cheese affineurs.  Yep, that's my boss.  At the end, there, he's serving MonS cheeses.  Perhaps I worked some of them!