Fresh new season
Winter adventuring 2021. Bushwhack to Blue Ridge Parkway from Big Ivy. Barnardsville, NC
Where did winter go? I have no idea where the last 3 months went…really. I reflect upon it and nothing comes to mind. Well…some memories do, but it doesn’t add up to 3 months worth of time. And now, we have entered a new incredibly fast paced spring season. Markets have begun!(we are in the Weaverville tailgate markets on Wednesday, and the Mars Hill market on Saturday…more on our social media pages with market info.) We are over halfway through calving season. 4 Calves down and 2 more to go. With calves born, comes milks! Milking 2x a day, morning and evening, is now the daily dealings. With milking, now comes cheesemaking. We have entered our second year of cheesemaking, and even though the entire last year went by quickly, I do feel like I learned a lot. Of course, it feels good to say that. With the world in a bit of chaos last year, it was nice to have a central focus throughout. What will this year bring? Before I start turning my mind to the spring and summer, I do want to reflect at least a little on this past winter.
Winter was restful. It’s still my favorite season. It brought a mixture of creativity and adventure mixed with more family time. I had some great overnight trips in the Great Smoky Mountains. Running on the trails in the vast Smokies is always a memorable experience. Besides hitting the trails, Kate and my time was spent close to home. The cows faired well over the winter, and I’m so happy they had a dry barn to live in. It was a wet one. 12.49” of rain between 1/1/21 and 4/1/21. That much winter precipitation makes things muddy around here.
We played plenty of family games and we drew and painted. I got into bread making a couple times a week, and I even made a couple batches of sourdough croissants. So, looking back on it, it was a good winter, restful without an ounce of boredom to speak of.
My Dad and I also continued to knock off items off the to-do list. We made sure not to over do it though. Every work day had its mandatory hour long tea break. The major project over winter was building a second above-ground cheese aging space. In total, we now have 128 sq ft of aging space with 9 feet of head space. We now have two different climates to age in. One is a more humid climate. 95%RH @55F. That space includes the brine tank and it will hold our bloomy rind cheeses we are making this year. The second space, which is our new cave, is aging our alpine style hard cheeses. That cellar is controlled at 85%RH and 55F constant. So every wheel of cheese we made last year is now aging in the new space. We moved everything over. That gave us a chance to clean the old cave and get it ready for the new year.
Besides that, we got a couple bunnies.
Happy spring!
