Maine Specialty Cheeses

 4/8/10

Days and days and days go by! Where do I start~life is great. We have an apprentice in place which immediately began to ease our tremendous chores. Emily has come to us with a huge amount of enthusiasm and fun! We have had 15 baby goats born to 10 moms and we have some more on the way. We are making cheese, making plans and seeing such progress. We are enjoying an early spring and hope to start our garden soon. Below I have added some random 2010 pics! Enjoy and stop by!                                              

2/14/10

Happy Valentines day!

I am so ready for BABIES!!!! And so I check the girls a few extra times a day and drive Don nuts talking about when, who, what-it is exciting.

1/7/10

     Welcome 2010!

Its a new year! We are all healthy except for sniffles and such. A new year can bring such promise and hope. In the midst of snow and cold we cannot help but be hopeful! Our Zachary will graduate HS and Taylor will graduate 8th grade. We will be blessed with an apprentice to give much needed help around here and hopefully we will inspire, teach and guide her appropriately. We enjoy many of our friends and morn some dear souls lost in 2009. Life truly goes on and I count down to due dates! I hope to update more this year. Best wishes, Kim

 7/24- WOW Life gets CRAZY when your not looking!

I cannot believe its been so long since I updated! We ended kidding season with 9 goats milking and 16 babies thriving, we lost 2 @ or directly after birth, we almost lost my dear April to ketosis. We have had nothing but wet weather blessed with scattered sunny days, the bugs are brutal and the garden is pathetic-still we press on! Come visit!

Our human family is doing fine as well. The trials of raising children can catch up on us but all in all things are well. Gabby graduated and will be off to The College of Atlantis on full 4 year scholarship soon, Zack will be my senior, Taylor -8th grade 13 year old cutie, Noah-full of attitude @ 3 1/2-what will I do when he grows up and our little sweetie Izzy who is 14 months and taking it all in-no doubt for when she rules the world! Don and I trudge on with plans! We have 6 doelings we are keeping from kidding season this year. We are about to add 2 more goats to our herd. We continue to run out of cheese here so hopefully that will help. Noah added 15 baby chicks to our life and we are looking forward to an abundence of eggs next year. Hopefully I will update more frequently!

Eistein Joined the world 3/14 @ 10 pm sadly his sister didnt make it but Mom, Silkie is doing great!          

Below April, our queen, looked in on Ella and her new babies-so far ALL boys-anybody want a buck?

2/28/09

It is almost March and soon this amazing winter will be behind us. I dont think we have seen so much snow since we have moved here. I don't really know anyone who will be sad to see it go. The suns warmth reminds us better things are around the corner and the goats bellies remind us that the real work is ahead. I should feel rejuvinated after the winter "rest" but I am not! Hopefully the energy will come!

1/24/09

Chores are always a challenge during our cold, snowy winter months. Our animals reside on the top of our hill and the challenge to take care of them without killing ourselves is always there. However, when you are greated with a site like this we have to stop and think of how truely blessed we are!

For us this has been an exciting week, Gabby has turned 18 and we have a new president, its an exciting time for our children to be on the brink of adulthood! I think when I rounded the barn and saw this beautiful site I was struck, once again, by the beauty of life and all the possibilities.

1/17/09

Happy New Year to all! 2008 was a great year for us, we were able to take a dream, make it work and find a bit of success doing it. We are all looking forward to a busier year this year and as I reflect on all that went on and the list I never got to I realized some things of importance. I realized a whole year can go by "meaning" to get together with dear friends! I realized how much my family unit will be changing over the next few years as I send Gabby off to college this fall and Zack next year. I realized all of us really do impact somebodies life and to try to make that meaningful. So part of my resolutions are to make time for those dear friends-at least every couple of months, enjoy the insanity of my house in the afternoon and not worry about the food bill and to be the best person I can to everyone I meet because you never know the impact you may have.

As a family we were able to make an effort this year with our gift giving as well and take advantage of more meaningful gifts. Don purchased a goat sponsorship for me so we were able to send 2 goats to a Rwandan family. If you want to learn more go to Gifts that give more Look into more meaningful gift giving in 2009

Sadie is due to kid March 11! Cant Wait! Keep checking back and soon we will have "baby pictures"!!!

WOW! 12/30!

Tomorrow we say good bye to a crazy, crazy year. It is hard to believe I have not even had time for this journal! We have had a great year selling tons of goods to tons of great people! The children have all been troopers especially Zack of which I could not have stayed sane without! Sure he complains like any usual teenager but he is an awsome kid! We have had many highlight to our year,  like selling out of 15 garlic lovers chevre in less than an hour!  But honestly to many to mention here! We end this year with eachother and our health and great news that Gabby has been excepted to College of the Atlantic on FULL scholarship!!! What parents could be more proud!

We are still milking 2 goats and have a very limited amount of cheese for sale. I am already marking down kidding due dates and collecting baby names! I am desperately seeking an apprentice or 2 for 2009, so please come join our work force!  

6/4-Izzy is here!!

Well, its been a while since my last update and life continues here as ussual! We have a new family member, Isabelle Antoinette Roos came into our lives May 20th at 8 lbs 10 oz. with a fabulous labor and natural delivery. It was a Tuesday and we came home late Thursday. We are still recouperating and taking life a little slower and everyone is trying to adjust to some changes. However things always need to be done here and thanks to Don the goats are still being milked and the cheese kitchen is full! We are getting ready for our Market season to begin!

4/21- Spring is Finally Here!!  We have been working so hard on our commercial kitchen that I have not even thought of any updates! Projects like that can be so consuming, please look at our kitchen project page. I have less than a month to my due date. We have 2 more goats to kid and 2 possibly breed for a summer kidding. We have tons of milk, yogurt and cheese on stock at all times! Stop by to pick up goodies any time. We hope to do some planting this week, even though it is early the warm weather has been calling us to plant.

4/1- April fools day and the joke was on us!!Two of our does that we have been watching daily decided they would both kid! And within 2 hours of eachother they each had a set of healthy twins. Silkie kidded first and gave us two does and Beauty kidded next giving us two bucks! All are doing well and Beauty is already milking a gallon. She is our top milker and the volume should be going up daily.

 3/8: Suzie Kidded!  Suzie our dairy boer cross born here last year kidded today and gave us two beautiful, colorful does. They were born in the middle of the night and were dry with full bellies by the time we were getting to chores that morning. Mom and babies are doing great.

3/1: Snow again today!  Maybe March will go out like a lamb? Today we have our follow up visit with our vet for the state required tests for our kitchen inpection. I hate having anyone up our hill in weather like this! Hopefully spring will truely be here by the end of the month! I would love to get the baby goats outdoor but with the cold wind I can't risk it. This would be a problem with kidding early and striving for year round milk. We have a few more girls getting ready to kid in March so hopefully something will give. Until then we have lots of energetic indoor babies!

2/20: May Kidded!  Life continues here! With morning chores May had strong signs of labor. We always dread Mays labors-she seems to feel the whole house needs to labor with her! But thanks to Zachary she had a clean barn and the weather was ok enough to lock the other girls out. We checked her every half hour until finally instead of a bubble I saw a nose, however still very inside May. With a little help we got a beautiful good size doeling whose legs had been folded back instead of the more desirable under nose position. #2 came still in her bubble and not so eager to meet the world but another doeling although very woobly. May has had 3 for the last few years and sure enough another bubble with feet the wrong way again-but another girl! All seemed great and were wisked down to the house for some colustrom and warmth. It was 20 degrees and windy, plenty warm for big girls but not for little wet ones. May seems a little tired but doing well, sadly #2 died the next morning, she was born weak and never really wanted to fight to get up. The two does are thriving and seem very strong. Currently they are in our house with the original 3!

2/14: Happy Valentines Day!! Sky Kidded!  Morning chores started out fairly normal after another huge storm with snow, ice and about 2 inches of rain. However most of the barns and animals faired well. Don went to feed the Boer herd as usual and they all came running even Sky who was in the middle of birthing! Don skooted her back into the barn and helped deliver this beautiful-huge- 75% Boer buckling! He weighed in at 11.2 pounds and is thriving. He is extremely noisey, lives in the house and is eatting all his mom can milk and then some!

1/30: Sadie has Kidded!!

Today our first babies of 2008 were born! Great news, we have a buckling and a doeling. Sadie who is a first time mom did a fabulous job. We saw the signs and knew today would be the day but never expected a perfect delivery in about 2 1/2 hours. Both babies were healthy, the buckling was born first and weighs in at 7 1/2 pounds and the doeling at a little over 5 pounds. Both have nursed and are spending the night with Mom.

 1/21: Gabby is 17 today -happy birthday baby!

Morning chores where painful today. When we got up it was -2, burrr, once we got out it warmed up to 2 degrees. April shivered the whole time I milked her. She is still giving 1/2 gallon a day. We continue to watch Sadie and we are so frusterated not knowing when she is actually due.