Friday, June 5, 2015

The Grand Transhumance and Summer Coats

Welcome to the beginning of summer,  We are excited to enter this 2015 season!  First we want to thank all those who are supporting us through the CSA and at the Westside Community Farmer's Market.  It has been a joy seeing all your faces again.  

For many dairy producers throughout the Northern Hemisphere, summer means lush pastures for their cows, sheep, or goats.  These grasses lend to the best milk for producing cheese, butter, yogurt, etc...  In Switzerland, the culture celebrates the coming of summer with a festival called the Alpine Transhumance.  Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer pastures and winter pastures.  Well, while we don't live in the mountains nor do we keep our goats in their summer pastures for the entirety of the season, we have begun our own small version of Transhumance every day after the morning milking is complete.  With a bucket of grain and Marly at our side we bring the milking does into the far pasture of our land to graze and browse for the duration of the day until evening milking comes around.  They are starting to understand the routine and with each day it becomes easier.  With these new pastures it keeps them healthier and allows them to have green foliage in their diet, which is important for an organic producing farm.  On the other hand they are keeping this area cleared out for us and produce great milk for our cheese.  Both the farmers and the goats are happy!  

Summer on the farm also means shedding of the winter coats, literally.  Yesterday the sheep were rounded up and relieved of their wooly jackets.  David who is a "gun shearer" (A professional sheep shearer who works very fast, shearing a sheep within a few minutes) as they call them, showed up to shear our small flock.  It took him just about a half hour to shear our 6 Jacob sheep.  They are quite dapper with their new look and are ready to go off into their summer pasture.  

As for the farmers, summer is a time we embrace wholeheartedly.  It is a wonderfully busy time.  At the end of each day we are worn to the bones, but looking out at the goats and sheep in their pastures, the chickens pecking joyously, the pigs rooting around, the calves sunning themselves, and the frogs croaking by the pond it all is so worth it.