Winter Pictures

Lambyland!!

In a one month period 135 lambs have been born on the farm, and we are bottle feeding 120 of them. As of today we are now milking 60 ewes, and I've made six batches of cheese so far. Only 23 more pregnant sheep to go. Phew! here's some cute pics.

November Updates

Greetings from New England! I've been out on the East Coast for the past few days at the Dairy Sheep Association of North America's annual symposium. This is the third time I've attended this event, which was held in Albany, New York this year. It has been a great opportunity to meet and talk with other sheep dairy producers and share information and experiences. I have learned quite a few new things and will be returning with fresh knowledge and inspiration.

Shortly before I left town, we prepped and seeded the field directly below the corral with a dairy grazing pasture mix. Once the mix of ryegrass, fescue and clovers takes hold, it will increase my improved, irrigated pasture by about 5 acres. Thanks to an EQUIP grant from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a branch of the USDA, I will be reimbursed for most of my expenses involved with this planting. I will also be receiving funds for the native plant hedgerow planted along the bottom edge of the farm property by Community Alliance with Family Farmers, as well as for a significant amount of fencing in the main pasture which will break it into 6 seperate paddocks and alleyway for rotational grazing. Finally a good use of our tax dollars!

As winter sets in and my store of aged cheese dwindles I will be cutting back to alternating weeks at the Santa Cruz farmers markets. I will be attending the downtown and westside markets on these dates: Nov. 21, Nov. 25, Dec. 5, Dec. 9, Dec. 19, Dec. 23. Mike will be selling at the Cabrillo market every Saturday through Dec. 23. BTW, we have moved to a new location at that market in the upper producer's level. I anticipate the end of December as the end of farmers markets until the spring when i have a new batch of cheese, and lambing season has come to a close.

Speaking of lambing season, Marigold is due to lamb in the middle of December and then from the week of Christmas until mid-February I expect about 80 ewes to lamb--producing about 160 lambs! This year we will be bottle-feeding the majority of the lambs which should be quite an undertaking. I hope to be back in the milking parlor and making new cheeses at the first of the year.

It's not too late to adopt a ewe! I will still be taking sign-ups until the end of 2009. Please see the post below for more information.

Market Update

Garden Variety Cheese can now be found at the following farmers markets:

Downtown Santa Cruz, Wednesday 2:30-6:30

Westside Santa Cruz, Saturday 9:00-1:00

Cabrillo/Aptos, Saturday 8:00-12:00


Selected varieties of Garden Variety Cheese are also available through:

River Cafe and Cheese Shop, Santa Cruz, CA

Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing, Santa Cruz, CA [check out the beer & cheese tasting flight]

Cafe Sparrow, Aptos, CA

Chaminade Resort, Santa Cruz, CA

Chaminade Dinner

Farm to Table Dinner at Chaminade Resort
Friday, September 18th 2009
Reception at 6pm ‐ Dinner at 6:30pm
Please call 1.800.283.6569

Featured Winery – Talbott Vineyards
Featured Farmers ‐ Old Creek Ranch, Garden Variety Cheese, Tomatero Farms

Linwood’s Bar & Grill at Chaminade is pleased to introduce the launch of their very own “Farm to Table” dinners featuring fresh local ingredients straight from the fertile farms of the Central Coast to our table. Enjoy seasonal menus specially prepared by Chef Beverlie Terra. Savor spectacular Monterey Bay wines while socializing with the very farmers and winemakers that bring these products to you.

Reception
Guanciale wrapped Mozzarella
Pesto Crostini
Marinated feta cheese skewers
Lamb Sausage, Feta, Kalamata Olive Pizette
Brule Fig Crostini

Dinner
Starter
Ricotta and Zucchini Flan
Mixed Herb PestoTomato Relish

1st Course
Shaved zucchini, greens, croutons, pecorino cheese

2nd Course
Brined and Slow Roast Short ribs (Old Creek Ranch)

Dessert
Buttermilk Vanilla Bean Panna cotta
Fresh berries

$65.00* per person and includes hors d’oeuvres, family style dinner, dessert and wine. Reservations are necessary.*Tax and Gratuity not included

Adopt A Ewe Update

A fourth pick-up site for the Adopt A Ewe has been added in San Jose/Willow Glen.

In response to a number of inquiries about the Adopt A Ewe plan, I want to provide a little more information about the wool comforter and whole lamb options:

Handmade Natural Wool Comforter

The comforter is made with 3 lbs of natural wool batting with an organic cotton cover and hand-tied with organic wool yarn to prevent bunching. This is a "light" weight for mild winter climates like ours. The comforter is full/queen-sized and measures 86" x 86". It is shown on a queen-sized bed in the photo. Wool bedding is dust-mite resistant, good for wicking moisture away, and provides lightweight warmth. Regular sunning and airing is the best way to care for your comforter, as it is not washable. It is meant to be used with a washable duvet cover.

Whole Lamb

Lamb from Monkeyflower Ranch is naturally raised. No antibiotics, hormones or chemical wormers are used; garlic juice and rotational grazing are utilized for parasite control. The lambs are grazed on organic pasture. At slaughter time they are an average of 6-8 months old.

30-35 lbs of meat--here is the approximate breakdown:

• 4 shanks
• 16 rib chops
• 4# loin chops
• 10-12# boneless legs
• 2-3# stew meat
• 8# ground meat

Adopt A Ewe

Do you enjoy local, organic food that’s been lovingly produced by hand?

Do you wish you were more connected to where your food came from?

Ever thought about quitting your job, cashing in your savings and following your dream of starting a sheep cheese dairy? Want to live vicariously through someone who has?

If yes, Garden Variety Cheese would like you to:

ADOPT A EWE

For $500 you can cover the costs to feed and care for an organically raised dairy sheep during the off-season.

In return, you will receive $600 worth of farm products from January to June of 2010.

You will also be the proud sponsor of a lovely individual animal and you and your family will be invited to visit your ewe and the ranch at private events. And you will have the satisfaction of helping a young entrepreneur fulfill their dream of a life on the land while supporting local organic food production.

Garden Variety Cheese is a small farmstead cheese business, based on 40 acres in Northern Monterey County. We began commercial milking and cheese production in March 2009 and started selling three varieties of raw sheep cheeses at Santa Cruz farmers markets in June 2009. Our sheep produce lovely, rich sweet milk that makes fabulous cheese. To ensure the health and well-being of the animals and the high quality of the milk and cheese from Garden Variety Cheese, the 100 milking ewes here at Monkeyflower Ranch are fed on organically raised, irrigated pasture and organic brewer’s grain. Each ewe is named after a garden flower and treated with love and respect. Dairy sheep only produce milk for six months out of every year, and spend the dry season pregnant, fattening up for the milking season. By covering the costs to keep a ewe fed and cared for during this period when no milk is being produced, you can help to ensure the future production of more high-quality artisan cheeses. In return for your investment, you will receive delicious dividends when the ewes return to the milking parlor in the New Year.

The LAMB PACKAGE includes a whole lamb ($300 value)

The WOOL PACKAGE includes a handmade natural wool comforter ($300 value)

All packages will include semi-monthly cheese boxes plus email updates and pictures of your ewe and invitations to special events at the farm!

The ADOPT-A-EWE box pick-ups will be twice monthly at four locations:

• Royal Oaks (at the farm)
• Santa Cruz
• San Francisco
• Willow Glen/San Jose

Payment options:

• Single payment of $500 with order
• Two payment of $260 (1. with order, 2. Oct 15, 2009)
• Three payments of $175 (1. with order, 2. Oct 15, 2009, 3. Jan 1, 2009)

For more information, or to sign up, please contact rebeccajaneking@gmail.com

I Love Mold

Wow, so it's already been three months since we began the first milking season (and since I posted last). Twice a day, every day of that three months the sheep have been lined up in the alleyway and run through the milking parlor to extract their precious milk. Each time it got a little easier--now they actually fight each other to get up the ramp to the stanchions where their grain awaits. Every week we added a few more ewes to the line-up as their lambs were weaned until we were milking 66 ewes at the peak, for a maximum of 20 gallons of milk per day.


But now we are on the other side of that slope, taking ewes out of the milker group as they reach the end of their lactation and dry up. As of this weekend we are down to milking once a day so the ewes can gradually slow their milk production. By the middle of the month I hope to have dried off all of the milkers. They will get a month's rest and chance to fatten up before being separated into groups and paired with my three rams for a late fall/early winter lambing season. Then the milking and cheesemaking will begin again in earnest.



My focus now is switching to caring for the aging cheese and getting ready to sell. My cheese cave--a concrete-walled garage built into the hillside--has about 200 6-7 lbs wheels of cheese sitting on wooden shelves, growing all kinds of mold. I am quite pleased that even without any type of air-conditioning the room is staying between 55-65 degrees and around 90% humidity. It is not really the most pleasant environment to hang out in--a little dank and musty. I spend about four hours a week in there methodically turning the wheels and cleaning off the mold growth with cheesecloth and a brush soaked in brine solution. It is quite fascinating to watch the succession of mold cultures as they populate the rinds of the cheese of time. The fresher wheels are covered in fuzzy white and grey-blue molds which gradually give way to the sticky red of b. linens. The hard part is waiting for the right time to declare the cheeses finished and cut into them for sampling.


Yesterday I opened up the first two wheels for tasting, having declared them "aged enough" at three months. I have been making two different types of cheese. The first one, which I will be marketing under the name Moonflower, has a washed rind and a supple texture--smooth and tangy with a hint of something stronger at the rind. The second, called Black-Eyed Susan, is a bit drier and has a creamy, fruity flavor. If forced to compare them to known cheese varieties I would say the Moonflower is similar to a Tomme cheese and the Black-Eyed Susan, a Basque style.

This next week should mark the officially beginning of my cheese sales to the public. I will be selling at the downtown Santa Cruz farmers market on Wednesdays and at the Westside Santa Cruz market on Saturday. By early July I will be offering lamb sausage for sale in addition to the two aged cheeses and a raw-milk feta. I still have to determine how much cheese I will sell where, but I will probably be wholesaling some cheese to a few local stores as well. When I know when and where it will be available I will post that information.