Help keep this farm going
Have you ever found a recipe in a google search result, and then you click through and find yourself scrolling for 100 years to get to the actual recipe?
It’s for search engine optimization, I get it. But It still drives me bonkers.
And so this post won’t be like that. I’ll get right to the point.
Last year Matthew and I cashed in all our retirement savings, sold everything that wasn’t bolted down, took on every side hustle imaginable, and put it all on black. We bet on this farm and we bet on this business.
Unfortunately, we’ve hit some setbacks. Truth be told, we’ve been dealing with one setback after another for over a year but everyone has problems so we’ve been quiet about ours. Except for we’re reaching a point where there may not be a goat dairy if we don’t start selling more cheese.
The new labels, which we had to buy to work with our new packaging machine, and which we decided to print in America, aren’t reliably scanning at checkout. And because of that, one of our biggest grocer accounts is pausing on ordering from us.
It’s a hard blow. Made even harder because, for whatever reason, our cheese sales in the big grocery stores have been dismal for awhile. There’s a lot of reasons this could be happening, and we’ve actually partnered with a company that is going to help us work through these challenges, but the pressing reality is this:
We are a Farmstead Goat Dairy. That means every day the milk keeps flowing. Unlike a cheesemaker who doesn’t own their animals, we do not have the luxury of just not purchasing milk. Instead we have the responsibility of feeding and housing these animals, 365 days a year.
And that takes money.
Money we get from selling cheese.
Really, really good cheese at a price point that is as low or lower than most any other goat cheese you can get in this area.
Cheese that’s made from goats that have 24/7 access to the outdoors, who are fed a diet rich in premium alfalfa, who receive no soy in their grain, and who are free to live wild and outrageous lives among the trees and blackberries.
When it comes to the kind of dairy Matthew and I want to be a part of, this is it. The partnership that we have with our girls is one of mutual respect and admiration. We give more than we take and we sleep well at night because of it.
Not to mention our farm is harnessing the sun for power, recycling water from the dairy for our fields, and continually creating habitats for the true wildlife that surrounds our farm. Our goats live among the coyotes, eagles, osprey, ravens, and owls.
Just 10 minutes from downtown Olympia we are producing a product we are extremely proud of, on a farm that we are even more proud can exist.
But the thing about small farms is…they don’t stay open by chance. They stay open because of people who choose to spend their hard earned money, again and again, to bring the best food they possibly can into their homes.
Which is why, this Holiday Season, if it’s in your family’s budget, please consider purchasing our Holiday CSA. You won’t find a better deal anywhere and the pickup windows are big. Everybody wins.