The Work

The process of collecting eggs.

Feeding them food scraps to distract them while we collect….

the Kackle Berries (eggs) from...

the old chicken coop, which was in a trailer.

This was done once a day around 5:30pm. Chickens are easy to scare. 

We had to move slowly, speaking soft & nice, especially if 

you had to reach underneath a "brooder": 

a hen that insists on her eggs hatching, despite the lack of fertilization from a Rooster. 

If you scare them good, they may not lay eggs for weeks due to stress. 

We both got pecked a few times, but eventually they warmed up to us. 

I usually sang "3 Little Birds" by Bob Marley to them as I walked in. 

Milking one of the funniest goats, Precious.

Precious in all her glory. 

Milking is done twice a day with at least 12 hours in between.

They hop themselves up onto this stand, because they are in love with grain.

If left alone with a barrel of grain, a goat would eat itself to death.

Kind of like nutella, or crack, for humans. 

If they happened to run out of grain in the middle of milking,

they will stomp their back feet, and kick down your milk bucket!

Tom milking Sweet Pea, the OG.

Original Gangsta, or original goat…ster :).

She was the one of the first at Kackle Berry Farms.

All that work for this! Delivery day. 

Terry delivers the milk to farm share owners in town every Wednesday.

We got to explore the town on our own those days.

A special treat :)

The berry patch, right behind the Terry & Randel's house.

We removed some weeds.

Transplanted strawberry sprouts.

Mulched around the strawberries.

And the raspberries.

Tom hard at work.

The end product…almost. 

We also transplanted a tomato plant in the greenhouse.

As well as potted a few herbs such as mint, cilantro, sage, & oregano.

Magic making in the greenhouse.

Terry's magic green house also has outside garden boxes!

Of course it would only make sense to match them to the greenhouse!

Serious green thumb action.

Cheese in the making.

Cheese presses.

Separating curds and whey.

Cheese in the presses.

Yummy flavors

We would help Terry make cheese every so often. 

The last couple of days, I had the process down and made two batches on my own! 

It's a fun process and you can flavor the cheese in any way you want.

This was a fun job to do when the weather was being naughty.

We would sit and chat for hours on end, and enjoy the job of taste testing each flavor before placing it on the press.