Farmstead Goodies - almost ready to share

For the past few weeks I've been holing up with my pencil, camera, and computer. I appear at milking and mealtimes, mumbling something half coherent about "the store" before scurrying back to the living room, where drawings, photos, mock-ups, and all sorts of artsy and craftsy things are sprawled everywhere. 

Every other day, for a little over four weeks now, I excitedly gush, "Guess what?! I think I'll be able to finish tomorrow!" Maybe you've been there before? Well, I said the same thing today and I'm now realizing that it might actually happen this time. Woooooo hoo! 

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The Herd Goes Organic - Sprouting Grains for Feed

sprouted spelt and wheatAs I bet you can tell, Scrapple and I aren't necessarily about doing things the easy way. We've set out down this path to do them the right way, or at least the way we believe that to be. This mindset led us to rotational grazing, which, while being a bit on the labor intensive side, has the overwhelming benefits of providing our herd with a variety of fresh, nutrient dense, forages daily and enhances the land with the amazing fertilizing feature of our four legged friends.

We've strived to give our herd the best care possible, while at the same time allowing them to be goats and so far they seem to thank us by not only staying happy and healthy, but also giving us some amazingly delicious milk!

"nom nom nom"Along with the around-the-clock grazing, we give our milking goats (when they're in milk) a bit of grain when they're on the milking stand twice a day to supplement their diet. In keeping with our values and practices, we had hoped to feed organic but, unfortunately, none of our local suppliers carry an organic goat feed. We went with the next best thing, local, while hoping that eventually someone would start carrying organic/non-gmo

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Nevat, Our Newest Adopted Baby Animal

Nevat, following us to round up the milkers on a particularly windy day

Following the tradition of adopting small, white, baby animals, this past week we welcomed Nevat to Little Seed Farm. Our neighbors found Nevat a couple miles down the road in the forest. She was howling in the woods like a coyote and was far too cute to leave to fend for herself. Despite an unhealthy coat full of fleas and ticks our neighbors knew a beautiful puppy lay beneath. They also knew she could find a happy home with us.

As our herd expands next year and we experiment with running the milkers and the kids separately, Sophie will get promoted to full-time goat protection instead of her current perimeter job. That means we’ll need another dog to run with Sheba on the perimeter. Sheba alone would have a hard time managing the 50+ acres of fields. By April Nevat will be ready to join the patrol team. Hard to believe she'll be so big so fast.

Nevat after her bath time

We think she’s a Great Pyrennes somewhere in the 5-8 week range, but we’ll know better once she visits the vet this week. She has double-dew claws, which is a Great Pyr trait. Full white coat that’s very thick and fluffy.

The name Nevat comes from a Spanish (bloomy rind) cheese, available in both sheep's milk and goat's milk versions. It resembles a meringue and is one of Sweetbread's favorite cheeses. The word "Nevat" translates to "snowy" from Catalan, which is fitting for both the cheese and our little white fluffball. We took the picture below while in the caves at Murray's Cheese in NYC. 

Always fun to have a joyful little animal running around. Maybe one day we'll have a little one to name after our own bloomy rind.