The Last Tour Stop

It really wasn't my last tour stop.... but I volunteered at Screamin' Oaks on Sunday afternoon.  I figured that the last four hours of Sunday would be the hardest, when everyone is tired and worn out from the weekend. 

This was the most wonderful display put on by a young 4 H member, now 17, who has been spinning since he was 8! 

He is Abe Budish of Walking Sweater Farm, who raises angora goats and sheep.  He had two Shetland Sheep and an Angora goat at the tour with him, and gave spinning demonstrations.  As well as spinning the wool from his animals, Abe does artwork by felting.  It is remarkable!

This great picture is of his dog, his favorite sheep and goat.  Can you believe this talent?

He showed us how he spun, and he let ME spin a piece of roving on a drop (CD) spindle.  I FINALLY understand what some of those on the knitting and sheep blogs are talking about!  Keith was totally enamored of this... he had come down to pick me up, as the farm is a mile from ours and their parking was full almost all weekend.  Of course, he fell in love with the angora goat... they have an affinity for him, I'm telling you.

This guy was wandering around all day... his name is Dinner.  He likes me, but he picked out a few folks he didn't like and went at them.  Most took it pretty well.. it would make a good story for them to tell, that's for sure. 

From the table under the blue tent, where you can see people standing, we had samples of about 12 different kinds of chevre, available to taste and to purchase.  We also sold goat's milk ice cream, so creamy and good!  Even though it was not oppressively hot, there was very little ice cream left by Sunday evening at 6.  I also got the receipe, so I am going to buy some milk and try to make some for us.  Roxanne sold milk, ice cream and cheese all weekend.

The tent to the right was another goat lady... Stacey Johnson of The Little Flower Farm, near McLouth.  Stacey milks Kinders and Nubians.  She regularly sells at the Leavenworth Farmer's Market, and  sells body butters (not made with goat milk, as she says it is very hard to do it legally with goat milk) and very large bars of goat milk soap.  I hope to talk to her soon, I would like to see some Kinder goats, as I think we might be better off with smaller goats.  Stacey is very interesting, and is a homeschooler.  I enjoyed speaking with her.

Besides things for sale, kids were encouraged to have their faces painted... the horse trailer became a craft room, led by three high schoolers from Tonganoxie, and was extremely popular.  Roxanne always sets up a straw bale maze... a pit of sand for the kids to play in, lots of things for them to do... and lots of animals to see.  Several times during the afternoon she has a milking demonstration in the barn, and she lets any little child (or adult!) who wants to milk, learn how.  Then the kids get a sticker that they milked at Screamin' Oaks.  I noticed that some simple children's wagons were very popular, the kids were running across the yard, pulling each other around.

Folks headed to the milking room for milking time, and visiting the does in their yard.

People love to walk around and look at the chicken pens, the dovecote, a pony in his pen, a calf brought up for the tour.... a donkey (whose braying we can hear from our house a mile away!) and the peacocks who decorate the property and give it it's name.

This farm is a good experience for families.  

I did learn several things from this year's farm tour weekend.  I learned that I still would like to have goats... and saw lots of nice French Alpines at both Landeria and Screamin' Oaks.  I know I want to investigate other kinds, as well, and hope to do that soon.  I know for sure that I don't want to do anything as big as either of those... Roxanne still works a full time job at the railroad, and her schedule is crazy... she has to pay someone to milk part time for her.  I would like to wait until I am at home full time to take on milking.  Someone on one of the tours asked me over the weekend... "Why do you want to tie yourself down so much?"... and that is something else to consider, because it will be a huge commitment.  We know we would like to have ponies again some day, true ponies, not minis... and maybe a riding horse, but these things all need to wait a year or two.  We miss having turkeys, too... and those will come again some day.  I really enjoyed the few stops I was able to make on this year's tour, and hope that Iwig Dairy is on next years so I can start with them!

More Tour Pictures

On Saturday afternoon, I drove over to the large goat dairy where I had toured last year.  Landeria Dairy is a grade A dairy in the state of Kansas, one of two.  Their cheeses are sold in numerous outlets, and the dairywoman there makes artisanal cheeses, including many French cheeses that she ages in a unique cheese cave carved out of the ground next to her dairy.  She is milking 52 goats at present, with hopes to get to 100. 

Here is the cheese room:

That's the bulk tank, into which all the milk just milked is fed by the pipes coming through the wall.  The milking room is just on the other side of the windows.  I wrote about how these goats are milked last year,  search for Landeria Dairy.  They are milked in groups of twelve.

Here is the big cheese vat, and the objects on top are the harps with which the curds are cut.

When asked what kinds of cultures she used to make the cheeses, the dairywoman danced around the questions and somewhere in the middle, said it "was a theromophilic vat".  I understand from talking to a few goat people yesterday that she is very proprietary, and does not like to give out her secrets. 

As she is making her living from this dairy, I quite understand, but I also don't think anyone in the crowd of three was planning on starting their own dairies.

Here is her cheese press, all the way from Holland... and those are three sizes of Swiss cheese being pressed.  They require frequent turning, so that you literally cannot set your cheeses and go off and leave them.  They start at one pressure and then progress, but must be re-dressed between the pressure being changed. 

They are then set to age on shelves she had farther along the wall, in big wheels.  I had always read about waxing cheese wheels, but she told me that if she were to wax, the mold would not grow to age the cheese the way that it should, so she does not wax her cheeses.  Someone asked for how much a large wheel would sell, and the price was phenomenal to me, I could not have afforded it. The cheeses are then put in the cheese cave to age for months.

At present, there is only one employee working there with her, the young woman who did the milking demonstration last year.  When we asked about demonstrations this year, we were told the herd was being milked at 8 AM and 8 PM presently, and that it took 3 1/2 hours from start to finish.  Cleaning the milking room, running the girls in 12 at a time, cleaning their udders, hooking up the machine, milking them out, running the next group in, then cleanup after all of this, then feeding....

It was no wonder that the dairywoman looked worn out.  She had only one tour helper there, a lady I assumed was her mother, who was watching the sample cheeses. As much as I like goats and want to make cheese, this is far, far too hard.

Some of the lovely ladies whose milk is making the cheese.  The herd is French Alpine, and she told us they are all the result of one goat she purchased years ago.  She did tell us that for a number of years, she milked 25 goats morning and evening by hand.

In the buck barn, well away from the milking parlor.  I didn't like the way this guy was smelling me!

Some of the juveniles in the juvenile pasture.  I noticed that none of the bucklings were disbudded... we are talking about 60 some kids here.  Some doelings were not disbudded either, but when I asked another goat keeper about it, I was told that if the bucklings were being sold for meat, and there were that many goats, it was doubtful if there was time for disbudding, and only likely that herd replacements would be.  I DID notice, however, that plenty of the milking does had horns, too.

Sorry for the shadow in the picture.... I just DID NOT THINK about sun angles.

And... to close... along those lines.... the NIKON BROKE AGAIN, the second one.  It will no longer open, just as the first one did.  I will be making a stop at Best Buy tomorrow night, and this time asking for my money back.  It's ridiculous.  I know it has been longer than thirty days, but for pete's sake.  I'm going back to Canons, they are sturdy and strong and stand up to being shoved in a pocket and pulled out over and over and over!  I was warned by a photographer friend that they are not sturdily made and she can now say she told me so!

One more day of farm tour posts... the pictures tomorrow will be good ones, and a good story!

I leave you with one more picture of the beautiful plant farm from Saturday:

Oh my goodness!

I appreciate your comments, and love to read them. I hope you have enjoyed these tours of our local farms.  I really, really enjoy seeing what people are doing on their properties, the things they are doing to be sustainable, and learning about new ways to garden and  keep animals.