January 2013 Newsletter

Happy New Year!

May 2013 bring you lots of smiles and many delicious meals!  I know I have a long list of things we’d like to see done around the farm.  I’ve already started working on many of them.  I also hope to spend lots of time participating in the growth of my kids.

December was a big month for Cast Iron Farm.  As you have no doubt noticed, the milk pick up has now moved to the new creamery space. I am loving this new arrangement.  I spent many hours over 2012 designing the perfect production spaces, and the creamery is the culmination of many hours of careful thought.  We should have hot water and a dedicated dishwasher in there by the end of next week, which will complete the space!  Remember to put the empty jars back into the yellow fridge for cleaning.  The jars I have sitting out on the granite countertop are the clean, sterile jars ready for the next milking.  Additionally, I have stocked the space with some basic office supplies for writing a note or a check, etc.  Please put any payments in an envelope and put them in the metal wire basket next to the office supplies.  I will pick them up on one of my many daily trips through the creamery.  If you are paying in cash, please use the receipt book to write yourself a receipt so that I can credit to your account.  Ask me if you have any questions about this.

In other news, on December 19th, Mark Macafee flew up here from California to do an inspection of the farm.  He was here while I milked, and we went into excruciating detail about my milking practices.  He was very pleased with the set up here and he extended an invitation to me to become the 2nd nationally listed farmer with the Raw Milk Institute.  This is a very exciting opportunity for Cast Iron Farm to be a part of proving that with careful practices, raw milk can be produced safely.

I am also working as a technical advisor to the Oregon Raw Milk Producers Association to help develop standards for all raw milk producers in Oregon!  I am a big advocate of testing.  As such, you will now find our test results posted in the creamery space.  I test the first non holiday Monday of each month.  If you have questions about interpreting the results, I would be happy to direct you.  Last month’s results showed VERY clean milk with no coliforms detected (!) and only 8000 colony forming units on the standard plate count.  We are meeting the standards required to milk after it has been pasteurized!

Lastly, we are expecting a calf VERY soon from Daisee (the white roan cow) any day (she was due December 24th.  Feel free to ask to check in on her and see the soon to be born new baby!

Enjoy your milk