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Good morning on this beautiful day! The sun is out, yay! The Fourth of July is next Tuesday... already. I know it's not just me who feels like this summer is flying by. I enjoy chatting with each of you at the market and hearing about your summer activities-- camping trips, gardening (including warding off hungry bears!), trips to the Maine coast. And just spending time with family and friends around a campfire in the evenings. If you're looking for a summer feast for your family next week, I've got some help for you! Introducing "DELCIOUS LAMB BBQ" recipe: This Lamb BBQ takes some work but it's so worth it.    Come get your Lamb Shoulder Roast tomorrow at the Montpelier Farmers Market. This is the first time I'm able to bring lamb to that market.
The Montpelier Farmers Market is open 9-1. And now I'm off... I hope you have a fantastic sunny summer day. Love, Robert
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Happy June! It's very warm and dry today. I'm hoping and praying for some rain soon. We've seriously gone from snow flurries and a frost last week to very hot temps this week! What better way to cool down and take care of yourself after a long day than a bowl of delicious homemade ice cream? I've created a gift for you this morning that I'm very excited about. It's a recipe book of my three "go-to" ice cream recipes. I make ice cream using my own fresh, raw cream and a few other simple ingredients. I don't use eggs in my ice cream or cook it over the hot stove. Nope. Nothing fancy like that, because like you, I only have time for quick simple recipes. I use a Cuisinart Ice Cream maker which you can buy off of Amazon. This comes with an ice cream freezer bowl, that you keep in the freezer until you're ready to make ice cream. Then you simply grab your freezer bowl, pop it in the maker and pour your cream mixture in. In thirty minutes, there will be delicious, homemade ice cream.      I hope you give one of these ice cream recipes a try this weekend.
These are recipes that I've spent the last couple years perfecting. They work every time now! Come out to the farm store to grab your milk for making this ice cream. Each half gallon has at least a pint of cream on top. :) Summer farm store hours: Wed.--Sat. 8AM- 8PM Or come see me at the Montpelier Farmers Market this Saturday from 9-1. Yours truly, Robert Today I'm sharing how I make this simple, homemade cheese! This cheese is called Farmers Cheese or Paneer Cheese. It has a different name in each European country. I really enjoy making this cheese because:
INGREDIENTS: 2 Half Gallons Blue Goose Farm raw milk 1/2 cup white vinegar or lemon juice 1 tsp. salt Herbs or seasonings to taste Step 1: Pour two half gallons Blue Goose Farm raw milk into a large pot. Turn the stove on medium to low heat. Stir regularly. Step 2: Continue stirring until the milk starts to foam at the top and is close to boiling. The trick is to catch it just before it starts to boil. You'll see foam and very tiny bubbles coming up. (If you have a cooking thermometer, this point is around 190 F.) Step 3: Remove the pot of hot milk from the heat. Then pour 1/2 cup of white vinegar in. Mix in the vinegar gently but thoroughly. This is when the magic happens! You will be able to see the cheese curds immediately forming. So awesome! You are making cheese--give yourself a pat on the back. :) Step 4: Let the cheese curd mixture sit for fifteen minutes. While it is "doing its cheese thing" you can prep for the next steps. Prepare your salt and herbs-- it can be whatever you want! This is also the time to prep for straining. I use a colander bowl set in a cooler. What you want here is a smaller colander that you can pour the cheese and whey mixture into. The whey needs to be able to drain from the curds. Place your muslin or cotton cloth inside the colander and secure to the sides with clothespins. Step 5: Once the fifteen minutes is up, stir in your herbs and salt. Then pour the cheese mixture into the lined colander. Let all the whey drain out for a few minutes. Then gather up your ball of cheese and twist the top of the cloth shut. Gently pat and squeeze the excess whey out of the cheese with one handing while holding it with the other. The cheese is still hot, so be careful. Work slowly and carefully. You want to squeeze enough whey out so your cheese has a nice form, but not so much that it's dry and crumbly. Step 6: Place your cheese ball (still covered in the cloth) on a small plate. Next use another plate to press down and form the cheese. This is not to get more whey out, but rather just to form the cheese into a nice shape for cutting slices. Step 7: Once you are satisfied with the shape of the cheese, place it in the refrigerator for a few hours, with the cheese cloth still on. In a few hours, it's time to take the cloth off and cut yourself a delicious slice of the cheese! If it's not salty enough, you can always add more salt before eating. Mmmm! This cheese is so yummy. It doesn't last long around here.
Please leave me a comment with any questions you have! I would love to help. :) Happy Cheesemaking! Farmer Robert One of the hardest and most special parts of being a farmer is woking outside in all four seasons! I love living in Vermont, where there are four very distinct seasons.... and guess what? No season is easy-- they all have their challenges. But they all have a unique beauty.
The cows, sheep and lambs are happy to be out in the sunshine! It will still be a couple of weeks before they go out to pasture for the season, so they're eating balage and hay until that happens.  Yay! So many earthworms in the compost I've brought over for my flower garden. This compost is a mix of my sheep, cow and chicken manure. WOW, it's black gold! I feel so rich to be generating soil like this and using it to grow more food and beautiful flowers. I'm planting my first flower seeds in the garden this afternoon. :)  This pair of Canada Geese come hang out at our pond every April for a week or so! I'm pretty sure it's the same pair. They never nest here-- I think it's just a little vacation spot for them on their way down south.
What's your favorite part about early spring? Leave me a note in the comments and let me know. :) ~Robert Last Saturday evening, I had friends down for dinner! Ben and Katie from Wild Earth Farm. They are great neighbors and only live a mile from our farm. The rest of my family had gone to Maine for the weekend to visit with my sister's new baby, Joseph! Being on a farm alone is intense, so I was tickled to have them come eat lamb meatballs with me. Luckily, they didn't mind that I wasn't in for chores till 7PM and that dinner was late. I don't cook very often (Thank you, Mommy for all the meals you make!) but it's fun when I do. As I rolled my own ground lamb into meatballs and made a mushroom sauce with chicken stock and fresh raw cream, it felt like the richest experience. And then to be able to sit down and share it with family (or in this case, good friends!) connecting over the food I've worked so hard to produce on the farm. What we eat directly effects our health. When I'm eating meatballs from a lamb that has lived the fullest most natural life, you can bet I feel amazing. Customers always tell me, "This is the best lamb I've ever had!" It gives me the warm fuzzies whenever I hear you tell me that. It's means a lot that I'm improving your quality of life by the work I do! I put my heart into everything I produce here. I'm sharing the lamb meatball recipe I used last Saturday below ( It's from my sister Emma Grace!)    I'm watching the fat fluffy snowflakes drift by the window. It looks as though spring is a long way off. But, guess what? Spring is actually just around the corner. It's lambing season here at Blue Goose Farm and today I'm going to give you a peak behind the scenes of helping lambs into the world. The sleepy darkness of a cold February morning wraps around me as I make my way out to the barn. It's 4:30 in the morning and my day as a farmer is starting! I know a new lamb has been born the minute I step into the barn. The deep baa-baaa of the mama ewe and the little maaa of the baby lambs answering. I hurry over to see which sheep it was this time. Finding any new baby animal on the farm is special, but the lambs take the prize for completely stealing my heart! I love the unique smell of the birthing fluid and helping the lambs to their feet for the first time. The mama sheep normally licks them dry by herself, but if it's been a long labor or multiple lambs, I will gladly help! Once the lambs are up and nursing, I trim the umbilical cord and dip it in iodine to prevent infection. Then I move mama and babies to their own special pen so they can bond and recover! So far there have been five lambs born and I expect around fifteen more! It's so exciting to see how many lambs each ewe has and what colors they are. Lambing is always the first sign of spring for me. It's the miracle of new life, new beginnings. Even though there's ice, snow, and gray cloudy skies I know that spring is on the way! This is my fourth year lambing. It's hard to believe that I've been at this for this long. My very first year I wrote a poem about it, and I'd like to share a couple stanzas with you. We traipse along and then-- The barn invites us in. And there we find Spring's morn, Two baby lambs new born. One's white and one is brown. The mama licks them down. We hold them close--they're oh so small Yet life beats there--Spring's gentle call. Let's bow our heads and pray, For good gifts sent our way. For gusty winds and lambies sweet-- Where tongues caress and new hearts beat. What's the first sign of spring for you? Leave a comment below and let me know!
Hugs, Farmer Robert Guess what? It's Groundhog Day! Given the weather forecast for extreme cold this weekend, I'm guessing each and every groundhog is going to be tucked away in their burrows today. I'm feeling a bit like a groundhog myself today. I'm done with chores for the morning and just came in and made some hot chocolate. I'm not talking about the hot chocolate you make with hot water and a mix. This is the real deal! I'm sharing exactly how I do it in the recipe below. :)  I love this homemade hot chocolate because it tastes so delicious and satisfying. I'm almost done with my cup now and feel nourished and cared for. I surprised my two brothers, Caleb and Joshua, with mugs of hot chocolate! Benefit of homeschooling-- you get fresh hot chocolate brought to you while doing school! The pot on the stove is the chocolate sauce.
What helps you stay warm and cheerful on a cold February day? It would be so fun to hear from you. Drop your answer in the comment section below. XOXO-- Robert When folks first find out I produce and sell raw milk I often hear things like this:
I understand. There is so much information floating around about raw milk. Last week, I explained some of the numerous health benefits of raw milk. Today I'm going to talk about raw milk safety concerns. So what exactly is raw milk? RAW MILK IS FRESH FROM THE COW AND HAS NOT BEEN HEATED OR PROCESSED. (Pasteurization) Having my own raw milk dairy has taught me about raw milk and how to safely produce it. So a little bit on the science of raw milk.... SCIENCE?? I hear your brain freaking out!! I'll be brief and get right to what's important.
Since raw milk is healthy and safe to drink, why is milk pasteurized so widely today? In the 1800's many alcohol distilleries started dairies and fed the swill (old fermented grains) to the cows. These cows were fed this terrible food, housed in poor conditions, and never got to graze on lush green grass. The milk was awful and made people sick. Pasteurization was invented to kill all the bad bacteria in this yucky milk. Today, pasteurizing milk keeps it from spoiling for a long time so it can make the trip to big cities and even other countries. It's important to buy your raw milk from a small farm that focuses on just selling fresh raw milk to families.
Well, here it is-- the second day of the new year. In the last week, I've been diving into planning for the new year- I'm so excited to share some of these plans with you! But FIRST I'm going to share a very special New Year's present that my mom gave me.  My mom made this hat for me out of wool from my favorite sheep named Biddy. Biddy is my favorite sheep of the whole flock- she is such a snuggle bug!!
My mom is quite talented with wool-- she washed the dirty fleece several times, carded the wool and then spun the wool into yarn. The final step was knitting the yarn into a hat. It's very warm and delightfully soft. I'm one lucky farmer boy to have this hat to wear all winter while working outside. :) I'm happy to be planning for another year on the farm. Looking forward to working with the animals and following my dream of farming. Some of the things I have planned for this year are:
Reflecting on the last two years of my farming journey here in Vermont, I see all the learning experiences and hard work it's taken to do this. I feel the warmth of a Jersey cow wrapping her head around me, and a newborn lamb licking my hands. Outside I can hear crows caw-cawing and the wind rustling through the trees. It's 2023 now, and I'm looking forward to spending the year producing healthy food for you and your families! Thank you so much for being a part of my journey on the farm. Farmer Robert Today I'm going to show you how to make amazing whipped cream in exactly five minutes! Whoahhh! "I bought fresh organic cream from this farm kid and I couldn't make it whip for anything." I understand- because I've been unsure how to make it myself. I've finally figured out this elusive fresh whipped cream thing and am psyched to tell you how. Ingredients: One pint organic raw cream Vanilla extract and honey if you wish (I prefer mine unsweetened, as the cream from my cows is naturally sweet!) Step 1: Chill a stainless steel bowl in the freezer for at least twelve hours prior to when you want to make the whipped cream. I use my ice cream maker freezer bowl thingy. The colder your bowl is the faster your cream will whip. Step 2: Take your chilled vessel out of the freezer. Pour cold refrigerated cream into the bowl. Step 3: Beat with a hand beater for 3-4 minutes. The cream will start foaming very quickly. After a minute of beating, it will look like this:  Keep beating until you see fluffy peaks of whipped cream! This will take about two more minutes. Serve immediately! If you don't serve fresh whipped cream right way, it will lose its fluffiness and you'll have to beat it again. Your friends and family will be amazed as you *magically* produce whipped cream and swirl it on their pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving. Please leave me a comment and tell me how it worked for you! Hugs, Farmer Robert
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