Audio journal of a grass farmer and cheesemaker. Short episodes recorded while I work, discussing everything from dairy farming, to enjoying the nature on our farm, to cheesemaking and direct marketing, to my mental health struggles.
In which I express my frustration at my inability to overcome depression and burnout, seven years in.
In which I describe our multi-year effort to get to the right herd size. Culling, more selective breeding and heifer replacements, and selling extra breeding animals.
In which I hash out the most limiting factors to our farm operation to illustrate decisions around future investment of time and/or money.
How I am attempting to make the best use of the forage available to get the most grazing possible before winter.
My effort at a low-cost, easy way to plant more oak trees. Maybe?
In which I describe the standard methods of sampling forages, and how I do it. Plus, why I sample. Hear the sounds of me hand sampling pastures as I talk!
In which I describe the history of two of my most challenging pastures and how I am planning to heal them/bring them to higher quality and quantity of forage.
Making hay, dealing with inspectors, and not sleeping much.
An update on farm goings-on, as well as some ranting about depression - and the next treatment I hope to try.
Fencing across streams and through head-high grass on a hot, humid day.
My thoughts on interacting with customers, getting feedback from giving out samples, and kids helping out.
My AI breeding strategies and how I have done in the first 4 weeks of breeding.
Listen to the grassland birds and hear an update about the grazing rotation and haying.
In which I discuss the weather, past, present, and future, and how it will affect grazing and haying.
In which I describe the steps on day 2 of a Lost Lake Blue make.
From cold, wet, and muddy, to hot and dry in a short period of time. What does this mean for a grass farmer?
Another observation on grazing behavior and timing of pasture moves.
In which I discuss the difficulty of making myself stay inside to make cheese when there are so many urgent outside jobs and the weather is nice.
In which I discuss the effects of paddock moves on forage intake and milk production.
In which I describe my thoughts and strategies as I manage the cows for optimal nutrition, optimal forage growth, and pasture health.
In which I describe my desired level of tameness and how I go about developing that in my animals.
In which I describe my process for transitioning the cows onto a full pasture diet over a week or more; plus the start of farmers' market season.
Making a farm work as I go through a heavy depression week, and thinking ahead to the best way to start the grazing season.
Thoughts around visitors to the farm, social media, and involving more people in various ways.
Tweaks to my schedule, tweaks to the pasteurizer, and tweaks to my test cheese recipe.
We are hiring, and we have a new theme song from Revolving Parlor!
New calves, oats, grasses, and legumes going in the ground, and lots of milk to turn into cheese.
Kind of an update on the goings-on of the farm, plus some thoughts about cheesemaking, cheese types, and creativity as a cheesemaker.
It's spring and time to seed oats, grass, and legume mixtures for hay and pasture.
Camembert and Burrnt Oak aging/cheese care, thoughts on a book I am reading, incorporating more traditional methods into my process, and sourcing of ingredients.
Taking a break from all social media and tv for at least a month.
In which I discuss sales, priorities, time management, and how important boundaries are to all those things and keeping ourselves sane.
How I use gradual, low-stress methods to train heifers on how to be milk cows - BEFORE they calve.
In which I talk through the ethics of culling, the necessity of culling, what it means to me personally, and our process for turning culls into quality grassfed beef.
How I switched my mindset during milking the last several months, and would like to take that approach to other parts of my life.
And financial statements sent off finally.
In which I describe my thought process as I considered adding different cattle breeds to the mix.
In which I attempt to express my grief at bringing animals to slaughter.
Wherein I discuss my long-term profitability goals.
Still error-checking my 2021 books; short discussion of cow dominance; lots about mental health, resilience, and my strategies for heading off an impending depression wave.
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