The Goat, The Bad and the Ugly

Back in March, when we first met Abbe and we asked about life on a farm, she warned us. She gave us the "not all fun and games" talk. I recall her words quite vividly.

She told us about the good days, when the goats would pasture in the sunlight, and at night she and Anderson would share a bottle of wine and stargaze on a blanket spread out over that same grass. Last Friday, when Shelly and I went goatsitting, we had a brief taste of just how good farm life could be. After we finished our chores, we enjoyed the view of this bucolic landscape at dusk...


...and then we picked some wild raspberries before tucking the animals in to bed. But on the same visit, we noticed that one of the male kids looked a little funny. He wasn't chewing his cud, and he'd only stand long enough to avoid being trampled on by the nannies flocking to the gate to greet us, then he'd fall back down again.

Yesterday, when we arrived at the creamery for a full day of cheesemaking, the first thing Abbe told us was that the poor critter had passed away. Parasite overload was the diagnosis. But yes, she did warn us of these moments.

Was this as bad as the time that Abbe and Anderson could barely make out the silhouette of a coyote dragging the carcass of a goat they had just buried in the distance behind their farmhouse? Was this as bad as it will be a few days from now, when I help Anderson load all of the male kids onto a truck and deliver them to the slaughter house? I suppose it would be futile to compare notes, really. But the point is, the business of animal husbandry and seeing food from "field to farm to table" can be ugly.

For the rest of the day I helped Shelly and Abbe to produce a small batch of feta and, in the downtime, to salt and package some chevre. The eight hours of my shift weren't enough to see the process through from beginning to end, but I certainly (and literally) got my feet wet. Coupled with difficult moments on the farm like those mentioned above, the following points about cheesemaking have given me a new appreciation for cheese (and all food, for that matter):

• Making good cheese requires a lot of cleaning.
  
  
  Yesterday we scrubbed floors and vats and tanks, did dozens of dishes, sanitized containers and bins and cartons, washed buckets and tubs, et cetera , et cetera...
  

• Making good food takes time and patience.
  
  
  While the milk is being pasteurized, or the cultures are doing their thing, or the rennet its thing, you have to fill the in-between time with other tasks, like salting chevre. That's what Shelly's up to in the picture above. Later in the day we experimented by mixing honey with the chevre. Yum.

• Making good food requires precision and attention to details.
  
  
  Milk, live cultures, rennet, and the end product, cheese, are all very fickle. There's a lot of calculating involved. Not to mention that there are legislators and guys in lab coats working for them who tell cheesemakers like Abbe how they think things should be done. Above, Abbe is double-checking a special circular log that documents the proper pasteurization time and temperature of the milk.

• Making good food requires love and a sense of humor.
  
  Abbe often tells us to think good thoughts during the production process. She asked me for instance, to stir the curds and whey with lots of love. And as far as her sense of humor goes, this is what you see as you enter the raw milk room at the creamery: