Day 3 at the farm began earlier than usual as I awoke early to see Odette off to the Sables d'Olone market. Since she had been there almost 2 months, she was able to participate in almost all of the farm operations: milking, cheese making as well as running the market day on her own. It was good to see such a broad smile as I caught her a bit unaware at about 6:30 in the morning as she loaded the car from the fromagerie. She had to pack up the cheese and drive about an hour, then park and unload at the market and then park the car in a different place. In a later blog we will have some pictures of the Saturday market, much bigger than the one on Wednesdays.
Early mornings at la Normandeliere are quiet. Everyone whispers and Natalie starts her day in silence gently stroking her cat, Melissa, who LOVES butter. Natalie loves crossword puzzles too and does one every morning as she drinks her coffee. The day is long and I admire her calm in the early morning.
I always carry my camera in my jean pocket and here are my first pictures of the milking operation. This is the side entrance to the chevererie (the barn where the goats are milked and also spend the night as well as the winter). Their Bauceron, Maas, takes an early morning drink as he gets ready to keep the goats in line. The picture was taken at the side door where David drives the little cart from the fromagerie carrying the three milk cans to collect the milk twice a day. As I carefully take deep step into the milking area (I could have just as well gone around to the open front door), the sound of the bells around the necks of some of the goat is what I first hear. Then I see more than 80 goats turning their heads toward me, some putting their heads through the bars to greet me.
Each goat is an individual and David, who is the chief "care-giver," (feeding and milking) says there are many who love to be caressed. Others are not so interested in that sort of personal attention.
Here's a look after the hoses for the milking are attached.
The goats march up the stairs from the two pens, one on either side of the barn. They are all eager to find a cup of grain awaiting them in a little box in front of each stantion. There is a double row that allows about thirty goats to milked at the same time.
Here they are all waiting their turn, some still munching on the new hay David has already put out in the mangers before he sets to milking in three rounds. Their eyes do not shine so brightly in real life, but many come over to greet me.
They all have a tag with a number, but David knows those numbers by heart and can tell me some of the "numbers" who will welcome my attentions.
While David is milking, I have been given the job of feeding the babies kept in separate pens in a special part on the other side of where the milking goats are kept. In this picture there are 12 little one who were kept to enlarge the herd - born last spring. In the adjoining pen, there are goats born a year ago that will also be added to the herd. Those born in the spring are quite shy but the older ones even jump up on the wooden bars or put their heads through to greet visitors. The first night I was there they chewed a hole in my Mexican straw hat and almost took a bit out of my dress. It is a very tight fit to walk along the area where they are fed as you will see later.
This little white one had a couple of adventures. When the tag was put on, she resisted and somehow her ear became torn. It took a while to heal and she became the shiest of all. Once she got out and was found by a neighbor and returned to the farm. She is still curious, but very cautious.
Back in the milking part of the barn, we see the very youngest goats born very late in the spring. There are about 4 of these who are allowed to stay with the goats being milked. Although they now eat hay, they also still nurse from any mother who will let them. The bounce in and out of the manger as well as jumping up on a high board in the pen. Every time I tried to take a picture, they ran away so I had to use my telephoto lens to give you a look at them.
This one is standing at the back of the pen as you will see in the picture below.
These two happily romp through the manger any time they want. If I got too close, they would jump through the space between the wooden bars.
Here everyone is lining up for the next shift of milking.
Here is one of the more friendly ones!
This one looks like she is going to sleep.
And here I am below, listening to gentle tinkle of the bells and the constant beat of the milking machine as it drains the white liquid from the full udders into the cans to be taken immediately to where Natalie is waiting to turn it into several different cheeses. I was thinking back to my childhood on a small farm in Vermont and how good it feels to spend a few days on a small farm that makes artisanal cheeses. Both Natalie and David can do all of the work, but David is the main herder and Natalie spends most of her time making the cheese.
After the milking is over, David opens the doors of the two large pens and the goats follow him outside to the pasture.
Later David is worried about the condition of the cabbages we had planted the previous day and he gets ready to rig up a way to water them. But he is missing a part, so we head off to the store to try to find a fix so we can water the winter crop so necessary to supplement the hay and grain.
David went straight for an area where he could find a connection for the pipe he wanted to use to do the watering while below I took a look at the lamps. Much more colorful than any I could find in a store in the States! Maybe I just don't shop at the right places.
Below you can see the thirsty cabbages, the ones with a bit of water were watered with a slow drip the night before.
On the way back to the farm, David took me to see one of his friend's gardens. Bruno is a bachelor, not because he wouldn't like to get married, but because he spends so much of his time gardening. I couldn't believe that he had so many green houses, such straight rows, so many fruit trees and he works all by himself. Everything is in such neat rows, all beautifully weeded or covered with black plastic. He sells at a good price, not too much higher than non-organic farmers and later when I went to the Saturday market at Sables d'Olone, the line in front of his stand was indeed quite long during the whole morning.
Here the red lettuce is planted beside the celery. This is the result of someone who takes great pride in his work!
Bruno also has several green houses. Here are the tomatoes.
Back home at the farm, David draws water for his tank to continue the watering of the thirsty cabbages.
Once in the field he asks me to drive the tractor again. I tell him it might be better if he did the driving and I did the watering given that I had run over a few plants the previous day. We watered a couple of rows but eventually abandon the project as there is not enough water coming out to thoroughly soak the plants.
At 5:30 in the afternoon I decide to go with David as he brings the goats back from the pasture. He tells me where to stand and teaches me the "goat" call and I successful lead everyone back into the barn for the milking. I suspect they would follow anyone as they are looking forward to the nightly milking and grain eating routine.
Sometimes the entrance gets a bit congested!
That evening I was excited to follow Natalie into the fromagerie to have a look at the some of the tasks in making cheese. At the entrance one must take off outside shoes and put on clean white boots or clogs, a white lab coat, a white hat. There is also a tiny sink where one presses on a lever with the knee to wash and scrub hands before working with the cheese. There is so much to learn and I marvel knowing that David and Natalie both had different jobs 10 years ago when they decided to buy a farm. They enrolled in some training but they also read a lot and become competent by trial and error. I will recount later an incident that happened while I was there that makes one realize how many pitfalls await when one makes such a big life-style change.
There are many aspects to cheese making and I will tell you about them as I learned them. Actually they only make the cheese in the morning (not in the evening) by adding a small container of the milk (right hand picture) that has fermented all night in a large metal container. In the right hand picture there are also two containers with salt that are used to put on the cheese to stop the aging process.
The cheese is made in small plastic molds as you see below to the left. There are little carts with stackable metal shelves where the cheese is kept after the molding and demolding process is completed. To the right is the "starter" for the next batch of milk. Immediately after milking is over, the little cart you saw at the beginning of this blog, is driven up to the back entrance to the fromagerie. In the picture to the right, you see the "gros sel" (large salt) that is sprinkled on top of each mold to stop the fermentation.
Below Natalie use a large ladle to scoop out the "petit lait" (whey), most of which will be fed to Pacrette. Only a small amount is kept to start up the process each morning with the latest batch of milk.
The cheese below waiting it's turn to be refrigerated is called "buche." Buches come in white or black. The black is ash (a commercial product) that is used to give a certain flavor to this cheese. The white buches are the same cheese - just without the ash.
To the left is the container for the ash and to the right, the cheese which will be cut off around the top of the mold if the cheese is a little too high. They try to made sure that there is a uniform shape for each of the cheeses. Below Natalie has two tubs of the fermenting milk from the previous night's milking. She fills the molds three times letting the newly formed curds settle into each mold. The first time she fills the mold only half full. By the second time around, the cheese has already begun to mold and the molds have holes so the whey can keep draining off. The last time around, she must be extra careful to see that each mold has the same amount of cheese in it. She has the molds carefully set out so that she uses each of the large containers for the same molds. In the background you can see the small area where they sell cheese from 10-12 every day. They also invite people to observe the milking of the goats. Not all farms do this as goats can sometimes become frightened.
Below are the different cheeses in the case at the front of the fromagerie where the cheeses are sold.
To the left you can see the cheese already firming up and to the right looks out to the case where the cheeses are sold from 10 - 12 in the morning.
To the right are the white "buchons" (without the ash). Below I have been given my first job - salting the cheeses ready to go into the fridge.
And below, Odette returns from the market where she has sold most of the cheeses she took early in the morning.
Here is some of the other equipment needed to be a cheese maker. To the right is the commercial washer. All the molds and plastic cases, funnels and other small items must be run through this washer to sterilize them. Below the three milk cans have been soaped and hosed by hand and await David's pickup the next morning.
The last two pictures in this blog are hanging in the area where the cheese is sold. The first one was taken when the goats first arrived and he drove them all the way over to the sea. I think they look a bit confused. The other is a sign telling people when and where they can see the goats milked.
This last is about the proposed new port in Bretignolles which would take about half the land that David and Natalie need for hay fields to feed the goats. The controversy about this port and it's ecological effects started only two years after they started the farm and had received the organic certificate. As you can well imagine, they are quite discouraged after putting so much work into their farm.
Both Odette and I as well as other Woofers wrote letters against the idea of creating a port. There is an independent council looking into the feasibility of digging this port. We were both there at a time that we could go to the Mayor's office with our letter as well as talking to a council member. I also attended an "information" meeting at a rather large auditorium. David and I got there a couple hours after the meeting had started and the presenters of the feasibility study had not yet finished the presentation.
We did not stay too long during the question and answer period as of course David has to get up early to milk the goats. David could see that about 85 per cent of the audience was for building the port so he became rather discouraged. One woman (who turned out to be David's sister) asked a very good question: How about showing the audience an example of such a port that has been built in the last 20 years. Hemming and hawing and the answer seemed to be that there weren't any. There is a lot of information on the net and a later date I may add links to this information in French.
No comments:
Post a Comment