got any herb, jack?

The last cheese - Monterrey Jack w/herbs d'Provence

just for Easter....meet Bunny Lee

I met a lonely rabbit on a neighboring farm who wasn't getting much attention, so they asked if I wanted her. I took her back to Little Falls, got her a few goodies at the pet store and made her a house out of a beer box. She is extremely affectionate and cuddly, and so cute you can't stand it. I named her after the old Jamaican musician Bunny Lee.

Provolone

Pretty lady

My good friend Amy's favorite goat, #18

Flatbread

There is a great restaurant in Portland called Flatbread (http://www.flatbreadcompany.com/). They have a huge wood burning oven that looks like a yurt, and it bakes up the best pizza I have ever had. The place is a big lofty space on the waterfront with handmade furniture and great locally brewed beer.


Goat cheese, mozzarella, and parmesan with green beans, beets and balsamic drizzle. Oh my God.

I love classic rock

There is a really good classic rock radio station in Portland called WBLM. They call themselves "the rock n' roll blimp", which is hilarious. It's all I listen to here, and I confess openly to loving Foreigner, Heart and old Rod Stewart. Yes I do.

montasio with black pepper

Instead of using a mold, I tied up and pressed the curd in cheesecloth to shape this one.

Rot-o-lantern

When I was up here last Halloween I carved this Jack-o-lantern - it's still here!

traditional cheddar

Making traditional cheddar cheese is complicated, but worth the extra time. My very favorite cheese in the world is a good cheddar. The wheel here was made with High View Farm raw milk and will be waxed and aged for 6 months or longer, if I can stand not eating it.

Pressing


Salting


Heating


Draining

fairy dusted

As if the farm isn't magical enough, the soil here is very rich with mica, which lightly coats everything from the road, to the your shoes, to your car tires in fine silver glitter.

16 haystacks

The hay is almost all gone in the hayloft, so John made 16 evenly measured piles of hay to feed the goats. At chore time I just push one down the chute - it smells like heaven.

good neighbors

Jim + Maureen live up the road from the farm and take good care of me when I visit Maine. I look in on their dog Bella a few days a week when they are at work. Maureen is an excellent cook, and Jim is a music fan with an enormous record collection. My evenings at their house are always filled with good conversation, lots of laughs and great food. I walked back down the road well after midnight this morning, and worried that I wouldn't be able to see well in the dark, they loaned me a headlamp to light my way.

"I soaked in the heavy nourishing air and this befriending atmosphere like rich life-cake, the kind that encourages love and brings on a mild pain of emotions. A state that lets you rest in your own specific gravity, and where you are not a subject matter but sit in your own nature tasting original tastes as good as the first man, and are outside of the busy human tamper, left free even of your own habit. Which only lie on you illusory in the sunshine, in the usual relation of your feet or fingers or the knot of your shoestrings and are without power. No more than the comb or shadow of your hair has power on your brain."
- from 'The Adventures of Augie March' by Saul Bellow

greenhouse bounty

Calendula

Big salad greens

the homestead

In the early 1970s, Mary lived in this log cabin which sits, unoccupied now, between the house and the barn here on the farm. It is a beautiful little house, which they built themselves. She home birthed her children here, home schooled her children here, kept chickens and cows and worked the land with draft horses. Oh, and they didn't have electricity either. We have so much to learn from John + Mary!

Wouldn't you like to be a pepper jack, too!

Mudhoney

It's Spring and everything is melting, making huge pools of water in the fields and deep roads of mud. While it is messy, there is the most delicious smell in the air. Damp, ultra sweet, like hay and flowers and grass and soil, the smell of this farm is intoxicating. Here is Finn navigating the ruts.

kids, the human kind

I took up a big project to work on in the evenings here - organizing hundreds of old family photographs into picture albums. My Mom recently gave me a big box of them. Here is my
Kindergarten class.

kids, the goat kind

The baby goats are cute as ever, I sit in the barn and play with them every day.

can't get enough caraway Swiss

I made this wheel with raw milk from High View Farm, the most delicious milk in the world. It is naturally slightly yellow so makes a very pretty cheese.

Why I do it

Norman Male

Here's Norman, one of the billy goats. He is one of the friendliest goats, and will stand up on the walls of the barn just to get nose to nose with you. He is cuddly and wants you to scratch him right under those gigantic horns. The male goats make hilarious noises, it sounds like whale song or bird calls.

so good to be back