Introducing our newest doeling, Corrine, born today, January 22, 2012, after Sunday dinner.  Corrine is out of Jenny and POG.  Her mother is a sweet doe and good milker and an easy keeper.  With the lactation genes from her father, she should grow into a beautiful production milker.  Welcome Corrine!

A second doeling was born this morning that we expect to keep and add to the herd.  Patricia gave birth to a large 10 pound buckling and this gorgeous girl who we named Beatrice.  Her sire is POG.  Her mother, grandmother and great grandmother are all fabulous milkers so we expect her to be as well.  With the snowstorm swirling outside, she is tucked in the goat playpen inside the house (and her brother as well).  Amber Rose is happy to finally have some company.  And of course the human kids (including Gabe in the picture above) are happy to have more baby goats to cuddle, feed and play with.

Patricia is in labor so we expect baby goats before the end of the day.  It is her due date and all seems to be going well.  It has been a rough week with Mary, Dreamer and Victoria kidding early because of fetal losses.  We did get Amber Rose out of it and she is doing well in the house with lots of TLC.  She is walking around and eating well and much more aware for longer periods of time.  We should be able to move her back to the hoop house this week to go into a special kid pen with any kids born in the coming days.  Dr. Kate came to help with Victoria’s labor and checked the dead fetuses.  She couldn’t figure out any specific reason for what was happening and surmised it might be the weird weather or simply a random event.  Although the three does are milking well because of antibiotic treatments we won’t have milk to use for cheese making until next week.

We are so looking forward to learning the new rhythm in our new facility.  It has been years of planning and preparing and here we are about to start living our dream.   We have enjoyed our rest period over the last six weeks but are ready to get back into a daily routine of milking and cheese making.

 
Come get some farmstead cheese from us today to celebrate National Cheese Lover’s Day!
Right now we have:

An aged goat milk hard cheese, creamy and gets sharper and more complex as it ages. Named after the Black Rock Forest ridge that shadows our farm.

An aged Greek style semi-firm feta, salty with a clean distinct flavor. It can be sliced or crumbled. Named after a notorious local creek where Native Americans killed settlers. (Moodna is a corruption of the Dutch “Moordenaars” or murderer’s creek.

A spreadable milk cheese made in just 24 hours this summer and fall and frozen fresh to preserve it for off season consumption. Shaped into a medallion. Rich floral creaminess and velvety texture with light citrus notes. Named after a scenic bubbling creek that runs through the center of Cornwall.

A Friday morning ritual.   A series of photographs and brief descriptions that capture the farm at that moment in time.

This little cutie was born one week ago.   Her mother is Mary and her father POG (Prince of Glory).  Her due date was January 21st so she was very early and weighed only six pounds (usually our babies are 8 to 10 pounds).  She will be a house goat for a few weeks until she gains some weight and catches up with where she should be developmentally.  We don’t mind though.  The teenagers, dogs and even the cats have been spoiling her.

A Friday morning ritual. A series of photographs and brief descriptions capturing the farm at that moment in time.

We thought kidding season was starting a little early with Zooey when she went into labor in yesterday morning.   It didn’t work out that way and we just finished burying her in the back pasture where she loved to graze.   We lost her three kids too.  She was a sweet goat, a good milker and an easy keeper.  She was born here at Edgwick Farm and lived her entire life here.  Zooey knew her name and Talitha knew Zooey’s baaa.

As Angela Miller from Consider Bardwell once told us, “Where there is livestock, there is deadstock.”  That is one reality of kidding season and farming in general.    But that doesn’t make your heart hurt any less.