Man the Lifeboats! UPDATED

As of 10.00am this morning (December 29th), this is the view of the river to the side of the house. The front fields are now under water, the roads either side of the bridge are barely passable, the neighbour's field over the road is under water, and the river has broken its banks in at least 3 places I can see. Thankfully (for now) the house seems to be OK. The barn is another 4-5 feet above the water line so all the sheep are OK and if things here in the house get worse then the barn is the next stop. Apparently, 10.00am is the peak river time as well, except it's still raining here.


Well, not quite yet anyway but these two images will give you an idea of just how much rain we have had in the last couple of days. coupled with the melting snow further up the valley, it's easy to see how the river can eat away at the river bank and create a raging torrent out of just a small stream. It's hard to believe that since October the river has risen at least 12 feet to what it is now.

2008 in Review and Looking Forward to 2009

I think a lot of people are in some kind of holding pattern at the moment, waiting to see what the future is going to bring.

The economic collapse that seems to have smothered the whole country has had a fairly significant impact on our operation as well unfortunately. Firstly the fuel crisis raised the price of all our feed plus many of the day to day running expenses, then Jen's part-time IT role was cut back, and with me farming full-time and keeping this place running, it has meant being a lot more frugal with a much smaller income for the time being. Living on savings is never a good position to be in, and there is still a fair amount of work to be done before the milk house and cheesemaking facilities are ready and we can start making cheese.

We will start milking around mid March, and that should last a good six months, but at the moment we are wondering whether, in light of the economy, it would be a smarter thing to spend another year slowly getting things organized. We still have markets for our milk (including Rogue Creamery), but it would mean me getting a part-time job locally just to make ends meet and doing a lot more of the construction of the milk facilities myself - something I'm becoming more familiar and happy with as time goes on. I've already begun to look around and see what is out there as far as a job goes. It's almost certain it won't be in IT unfortunately, but a filler role in a clerical position for a year should get us through.

Things aren't all doom and gloom, far from it. There is still a growing market for artisan cheese and the economy will definitely pick up in the future. We're not the only ones doing it tough, although we are a lot more fortunate than many in that we can grow a lot of our own food, and we have a business that we are working towards, plus we have an income, even if its just enough to get by.

It's been a tough year in some ways, but a massive learning experience as well, which we knew we had ahead of us. Next year we will be able to do a lot of things much more easily and more efficiently as well. Running a sheep farm isn't something you 'fall' into, it takes years of learning, but the desire is as strong as it was the day we arrived, probably more so now as we know we can do it.

If our projections are correct then in March we will begin milking the first of our 26 ewes that will lamb. Conservatively we are hoping for a 100% lamb rate which will ensure at least 26 lambs. If half are ewes then we will add them to the flock, cull the rams and the older 8 Dorset/Suffolk crosses we kept from the original flock. By the end of June then we should have at least 50 ewes, almost 40 of them will be of breeding age by next September. That will also enable us to sell upwards of 20 rams to the markets - or keep some ourselves and sell them locally for better prices. We will also keep at least 1 of the Lacaune rams born and one of the East Friesian's as well so we can do a ram swap with either of the two people we bought our rams from this year - I'm also becoming more partial to the Lacaune's anyway. Despite being a little more flighty than the East Friesians they seem much more hardy and in the valley here where sheep are prone to hoof rot, that extra hardiness might be a good thing. We have enough hay feed to get us through the winter months as well so next year we will be able to hay ourselves and sell a good portion of it - again this years effort was a learning experience.

So, until next year, I'd like to pass on the Season's Greetings to everyone who stops by and hope that you tune in in 2009 for more ramblings from Catesby Farms.

'Mr B's' Second Canadian Adventure

Next Tuesday I take Byron back to Vancouver, Canada for his second hip replacement. The first one has gone extremely well and he is now racing around the back yard with the rest of the dogs. After running around though he is noticably carrying his right leg, so next week, before his hip deteriorates too much more, we are going to give him his second bionic leg.

Hopefully the weather won't affect the drive up and back, but the last few days we have been busy getting everything finished as a cold front with the prospect of snow is on the horizon.

We also had our first official ODA inspection on Wednesday and we passed without any issues. In fact the guy doing the inspection was impressed with the fact we had covered every base and were doing things properly without cutting corners - which makes you wonder what horror stories there must be out there that he sees on a regular basis.

A Cold Winter is Approaching..

Looking at the last couple of pictures reminds me of how quick the weather can change around here. The grass is now lush and green, but the mornings are generally foggy and cold.

The last week or two has been spent fencing and general clean up work in preparation for the coming winter and the lambing season that should begin mid February. Our sheep handling equipment finally arrived from Ketcham's and we finally got around to using the foot bath we had built and then ran the flock through the equipment, trimming their hooves and worming them.

Things went really smoothly. We've always been cursed with terrible weather or uncooperative sheep so it was finally nice to get everything done in both good time and feeling pleased with our efforts at the end of it.


The sheep are all in pretty good condition right now so their maintenance for the next few weeks will be minimal, allowing us to concentrate on completing the fencing projects and turning the vegetable garden over one last time, as it's all been cleared of what was left of our 2008 crop.

There seems to be quite a buzz around the neighborhood about our cheesemaking venture. The local store owner (here's some local history on the place written by our next door neighbour - The Lookingglass Store) is already looking forward to stocking some and apparently he has been talking to the local vintners about it as well. It seems we already have a reputation - this on top of an article appearing in a local Portland magazine in January about up and coming cheesemakers, featuring yours truly amongst others!

The New Lagoon

Now that the lagoon has been completed we are planning the next stage of redevelopment - the Milk Barn. We are awaiting prices from a contractor to complete the exterior, which includes removing old doors and windows and relocating them, putting on new siding and concreting around the outside to give us a cleaner more usable outside work space.


The lagoon project was completed in fairly quick time by Potter Excavation. As I mentioned previously they did an excellent job. We are busy fencing it off at present inbetween the rain showers that are becoming more frequent now as autumn hits us, and once that is done we can allow the sheep back into the adjoining field. The surrounding valley is at present a mix of green, orange, red and gold, but the cold weather is already here and we're hurrying up with our internal remodel of the house so everything is finished by winter.


In the coming weeks we have to plough over the vegetable garden, prune back the fruit trees so we can manage them better next year and then properly lay out the area ready for next year. This year the vegetable garden was more an exercise in discovering what we could successfully grow, and what we had trouble with. Being more organized next year, knowing exactly what to plant and when will ensure we have a more productive garden.

Things are starting to come together at long last. All of the projects that we have been working on since we arrived seem to be slowly coalescing toward our goal. Once the fencing around the lagoon is complete and we have repaired a few holes in the fenceline around the property, we will be ready for the new year. Last week we cleaned out the big barn, moved all of the manure into the holding barn and spread a few loads over the front and side fields. With just the 'lambing' barn and the jugs to be done now we will be ready for mid February when our first lamb is due.

The chessemaking is also about to get underway in a more earnest way. The next few months will see a lot of experimentation. We are hoping that in that time we can perfect our processes and our recording methods so that once we begin milking the sheep come April everything is second nature. We have also finalized our list of equipment with C. van 't Riet Dairy Technology.

Byron's recovery is thankfully almost complete. He still spends the majority of the day in his room, but several times a day he now gets the run of the back yard by himself. He has his 3 month x-ray's scheduled for the third week of this month and once those are done he should be able to join the rest of the dogs again.

The Construction Begins!

After receiving 5 bids for our 'hole in the ground' we have selected the construction company, and within 5 days they had our back field full of machinary and were working. I'm impressed. Not only are they moving along at a good rate, but they are doing a really excellent job and they are keeping the construction site clean and haven't created any unnecessary problems with the surrounding field. On top of that they are going to do a few extra things for us for the cost of some scrap metal lying around and one of our two piles of manure that was dug from the concrete tank originally. Now that's a deal!

On Saturday we turned our ram out with our ewes. At first he seemed a little shy but now he seems to be doing his job. We have a harness on him at the moment with an ink block attached which is changed every 16 days (to a new colour). This will allow us to determine approximately which ewes are pregnant (or have ovulated) and therefore when their lambs are due to within a day or so.

The new web site is still happening but we are waiting on our new internet service to be installed (they need to put in a relay box and router up at the barn which has a direct line of sight with the tower on the hill in the distance). Once the router is installed we can install one of the key features of the web site - webcams! Yes you'll actually be able to see live on the internet what is going on around Catesby Farms, from lambing to cheesemaking, as they happen! It also means we can use the cameras kind of like a closed circuit TV when lambing is on to keep track of what is happening ourselves. Once the cameras are set up, I'll be releasing the web site.

Last piece of news is that we have begun renovating the house. We have bought paint and slate for the floor and are in the throes of remodelling the house ready for winter.

Byron continues to improve as well and has now taken to jumping on the couch in the evenings when we have him out of his room. In all, things are moving forward exactly how we want them to.

Dogs and the Tidying of Many Things

As usual time seems to have flown by without even a simple comment from me here, and again I must apologize to those who visit regularly. The last few weeks have been a constant stream of activities from simple tasks like rewiring our livestock trailer to long and emotionally draining things like taking Byron to Vancouver, Canada for his hip replacement surgery. I'll start at the beginning as best I can and hope I neither ramble nor lose you along the way.

Early August was spent mostly in the vegetable garden harvesting all of our produce, and setting up the irrigation for the main fields. We've amassed several hundred pounds of potatos as well as beans, cauliflower, corn, cabbage and are now being inundated with tomatoes. We certainly have enough in the way of produce to keep us going over the winter months ahead, plus in a few weeks the chickens will start laying and the Katahdin sheep we had, well some of them were slaughtered and the meat is now in the freezer (we have kept the best ram though for genetic experimentation next year!).

We acquired a new puppy in the middle of August, another Border Collie that we have named Hamish. He comes from exemplary stock and is an exciting prospect as far as herding goes. From what we have seen of him so far he will become an excellent sheep dog. His aunt recently came 5th in the UK Nationals so he has a lot to live up to. Jen has already started training him and he has picked up the basic commands very quickly. He's also proving to be a master thief and we can't leave anything on the bench top or even an open cupboard because he will steal anything from loaves of bread to shoes. That definitely needs to be worked on!

Late August saw me drive to Vancouver in Canada with Byron for his hip replacement. The operation can be done two ways and the way we had chosen (cementless process where the bone knits to the prosthetic hip ball and socket rather than being glued) required a trip to San Francisco or Vancouver. As the drive is the same and the same doctor would have done the operation (she lives in Vancouver) it made sense to drive north rather than south.

Well the operation to date has been a complete success and we have noticed already that there is a major improvement in the way Byron moves and gets around. Keeping him confined to a single room in the house is proving difficult but he is coping well. He will eventually need the right side replacing as well but we will wait until summer next year before we do that. The doctor has said that he should be strong and agile enough to be able to herd sheep once he has fully recovered so that is really positive news and something to look forward to. Keeping him confined to our office and spending time with him one on one has strengthened the bond between us and he has become more responsive to us.

After returning from Vancouver I headed back up to Portland a few days later to pick up some more sheep. This time it was for our Lacaune ram and six Lacaune ewes, so our flock currently stands at 26 East Friesians (12 yearling ewes, 1 yearling ram and 13 lamb ewes), 7 Lacaunes (6 yearling ewes and 1 lamb ram), 1 Katahdin ram, 24 Dorset/Hampshire/Suffolk crosses (9 older ewes, 7 weathers, 7 ewe lambs and 1 ram that should have been a weather but wasn't castrated properly!).

This week we had the engineering contractor people out to inspect the site for the lagoon. Bids for the job have to be in by today so hopefully by early next week we shall know who is doing the job and when they will start. It has been problematic to say the least (with people leaving their jobs and others on holiday) but it appears we are very close now.

Yesterday we had a lamb go down with a bad case of worms, something that surprised us considering we wormed a few weeks ago and the fecal tests we had done showed no worms. We think its possible the new Lacaune's brought them in, so today is worming day again! The lamb seems to be recovering after a quick trip to the vet, an IV, a shot of magical 'sheep cure all' and now a few doses of maple syrup (the high sugar content is needed to kickstart their system).

The web site alas has taken a back seat, but never fear, it is being worked on and will appear soon.

CAFO Approved

Today was a major milestone in the development of Catesby Farms. We recieved notification that are CAFO application has been approved and that as of today we are now CAFO certified by the state of Oregon. Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) is one of the most important steps required in establishing a cheese facility (if you milk your own animals) and also one of those that tends to get glossed over or forgotten because there is traditionally no fanfare, or physical 'change' to anything that a picture could illustrate.

Still, it enables us to keep up to 200 sheep on our property and defines the parameters within which we can operate our cheese facility. The next certification is the cheese facility itself and once that happens we are fully registered, licensed and certified by the state of Oregon to start producing cheese. Next week we will be confirming the plans with our engineer for the construction of the waste lagoon which will begin construction this Autumn (Fall). We have not yet secured a general contractor to oversee the operation but once we have one they will take charge of both the lagoon and the milk barn refit.

So, this was the first major hurdle. From here on in the actual construction begins.

On a side note, we have sourced some East Friesian / Lacaune rams for our breeding program, down in Klamath Falls. We are still going to do some experimentation with the Katahdin's, but the aim initially will be to increase the size of the milking flock. This year we will only have 12 East Friesian ewes to breed, next year we will have 25 unless we acquire more. On the plus side we do have 10 Dorset ewes that we can breed either the Katahdin's or the East Friesian rams to depending on what else we are looking for. As I mentioned, the meat from the Katahdin's is good quality, so perhaps we will investigate specialist meat cuts locally as a side business.

Chicken Coop 301

We have now completed our third chicken coop. The first two were conceived and built while we were living in Arizona - the first was an enormous construction that was impossible to move once finished and the second was too light and flimsy and eventually broken into by one of the huskies, with dire results. While the first was truly a work of art, its design proved too over-engineered for our current requirements.

This third model is a hybrid, built for pasture feeding and sturdy enough that it shouldn't prove a lure for foxes or raccoons. It's mobile and will likely be all we need, as the chicks get older and we begin to thin them out there will be plenty of room for a dozen fully grown birds. In 3-4 months time I'll build a small laying box attachment that we can afix to the rear.

We have now begun the quest for a general contractor to begin work on our cheese facility!

Some Semblance of Sanity Returns

Now that the irrigation is working in the front fields, our new pump has arrived and awaits installation of the electrical panel, and half of our guests have returned home, things are slowly returning to normal. The haying is all but done, neatly stacked in the barn and likely going to be sold as all our pasture is still green and healthy and the neighbour has allowed us to graze the sheep in his pastures as well. The actual haying exercise has been problematic but we have learnt enough to be able to manage it all ourselves next time around, as long as all of our ancient equipment is up to the task and the modifications we need can be made to the bailer (converting it from wire to string tie).

We're hopefully coming to the end of 30+ days of 90 degree weather as well. Just a small dose of rain would be a welcome change. In the last couple of days we have been gathering soil and hay samples to determine the nutrient uptake ability of the ground and the nourishment value of the hay. One thing we have quickly learnt is that what cows and horses will eat is much different to sheep as sheep are much more fussy. Unless its still green they won't touch it, much to our annoyance. We're hoping that in the winter months this fussiness goes.

Our flock has in the last couple of days unexpectedly grown as well. Several weeks ago we noticed that a 'stray' ram had appeared amidst our ewes. It's not breeding season yet so we let him be thinking his owner would eventually come by (even after we scoured the neighbourhood asking who owned him). Well nobody wanted him apparently so we figured when the time came he'd be off to the scales as an extra few dollars in our pocket. Well one sheep might have been fine but yesterday afternoon we discovered 5 more in one of our fields. Same breed, same age roughly (yearlings). Again we did the drive around asking the neighbours, and again nobody knows who owns them. It's not like they're the same as all the other sheep around either, they're quite likely either Katahdin's or Damara's, hair sheep usually reddish in colour. They're also all male, undocked and unweathered.

So, we have a dilemma. What to do with 6 young rams. There are essentially 2 options and both have their merits. Both breeds of sheep are bred to have less fatty meat than traditional meat sheep and are much hardier, able to survive on very low quality scrub feed, so either we could pocket a few hundred dollars by selling them to the scales, or we could slaughter them ourselves for the meat. The second (or is that third) option is to use them as male breeding stock with our East Friesians. Say what? Well they are a similar build, are extremely hardy to sheep parasites (which will do well with the rather frail East Friesians), actually produce above average quantities of milk, and are aggressive toward predators such as coyotes.


I'd just add in here at this point that we are unsure of the 'wandering livestock' rules in Oregon, but these sheep are untagged and apparently not carrying any identifiable marks (I even checked for tattoos in the ears).

Perhaps its not such a dilemma after all, but my initial thought was "We'll contaminate our breeding plan!". We will need to have the sheep fully checked by a local vet to ensure they are OK, but maybe a Damara or Katahdin / East Friesian cross is breaking new ground in the sheep / cheese industry and the possible advantages are extremely interesting. Stay tuned on this one!

Hay there!

Yes it's been a while since I last posted and a lot has happened in that time. We're currently busy in the throes of haymaking as are all of the people here in the valley. We've had a week so far of wonderful weather so its all hands to the pump as it were.

Given our location and the water rights we have from the creek that runs past our door we will be able to get a second cutting of hay later in the year, something few of our neighbours will enjoy. The irrigation piping is currently being laid out and we have a new pump on order. As has been the case with a lot of the farm's infrastructure, the old wiring for the existing pump is dodgy, badly corroded and likely a hazard. While taking the old pump around to get a new automatic starter / switch for it we got some interesting comments until I assured them that we hadn't just stolen it from the local farming museum. Apparently it was made circa 1952 and most were phased out almost 30 years ago.

We also currently have a full house. Last week I returned briefly to Australia to pick up my kids for a 3 week holiday, and Jennie's sister is also visiting with her two boys from Connecticut, so seven people and nine dogs means something is always happening.

The sheep from Vermont Shephard have all settled in now and their friendliness has begun to rub off on some of the older ewes and what lambs we have left from our lambing season. Two weeks ago we took the cull ewes (mostly the Suffolk and Hampshire's) and 50 lambs down to the scales to thin the flock out and so we are back to just over 50 now, a much more managable number. We'll do one more trip out there probably in a month as we have a couple of the younger lambs who were undersize left as well as a couple of ewes we have now decided to cull.

East Friesian Vs Dorset/Hampshire/Suffolk

A regular reader, and Canadian friend of mine asked me recently what the differences were between the sheep we currently had and the new ones we had just purchased. This is an excellent question, and seems to follow many of the ones we get from locals - Why can't you just milk the sheep you have?

It's true that we could. The Dorset is a good all-round sheep. It has a decent carcass for meat, its wool is clean and produces a good fiber diameter, and it is an above average milker and breeder (known for higher percentages of multiple births).

They also have a more docile aspect to their nature compared to the Hampshire and Suffolk sheep we have. So, while these attributes are fine under some circumstances (for an all-round operation) the Dorset is not stellar in one particular aspect - the aspect we need - milk production. On the other hand it does have one extremely attractive benefit - what is called the 'out-of-season' breeding characteristic. This means that it is not unusual to get 3 breeding cycles in 2 years instead of the traditional annual cycle.

East Friesian's on the other hand are the most highly productive dairy sheep (producing up to 700kg/1500lbs per lactation cycle which is up to 3 times greater than average sheep).

So, while we could indeed milk our Dorset's, the milk production with East Friesian's is much higher, and more milk means more cheese! Now, cross them with Dorset's and if you can breed into a ewe lamb both the East Friesian milk productivity and the Dorset's 'out-of-season' breeding characteristic you have a winner - a sheep that breeds more frequently and when it lactates is produces three times the normal milk supply. And that is exactly what we aim to do.

Its not all Brie and Crackers

We're extremely thankful to the Pacific Northwest Cheese Project for their article on up-and-coming cheese makers that featured Catesby Farms this week. I consider it to be the number one blog on cheesemaking and is always packed with fascinating and informative news. The article captured exactly what most people who look at this from the outside, or those looking to start cheesemaking, don't necessarily realize - that the cheesemaking itself is just the icing on the cake and that the steps required to get to that point are many, and riddled with both humor and frustration.

We were fortunate in that we went into this venture with our eyes wide open, knowing exactly what was involved and ultimately how much time and money it was going to cost us before we would be seeing our packaged product on store shelves.

Of course there is an easier way to do this - you simply buy the milk in large quantities and forego the entire livestock operation, but then you miss out on so much and ultimately have less control over your final product than you would imagine. What were the animals eating? Were they housed in a building that would stress them? Were they organically raised? By being able to control the entire process from animal birth to what they eat, you have total control over your final product, and that to us is critical.

This week is an important one. We not only have our engineers doing their site evaluation and preparation for our new lagoon, but this coming weekend we will be selling off a good number of our lambs and hopefully getting things ready for haying. Reducing the flock will enable us to better manage what we have, plus we need to undertake the next round of worming, etc and its easier to do 50 sheep than 135 of them!

The dam went in at the weekend. The creek that runs alongside the house (Morgan Creek) has a dam (Yoder Dam) that can be constructed and deconstructed seasonally that raises the water level about 4ft for irrigation. We have rights to pump water and irrigate our pasture which means we are able to get a second and third hay cutting on some of the fields.

Catesby Farms Web Site Launch

Over the next couple of weeks I will be working in my spare time on the Catesby Farms Web Site that will be located at http://www.catesbyfarms.com. At present it only has an advert for the puppies but eventually its first incarnation will include sections on the farm, projects currently underway, our sheep, and early next year our cheesemaking.

I am hoping for it to also become something of a repository for sheep and cheesemaking (as it pertains to sheep milk). The blog will still exist, and as it does at present, include my own personal observations and perspective on the whole operation.

Pits, Puppies and Potatoes

One of the biggest issues with owning a livestock operation is manure and having a plan in place to effectively manage it. With the added complexity of a milking facility, an eventual cheesemaking room and the liquid waste water generated by all, having a method of collection and removal determines pretty much everything regarding how Catesby Farms is run.

As the farm was originally a dairy farm, a lot of what we need is already here, it just needs bringing back up to an operational level. The 'pit' is one of those things. It's a 10ft deep, 20ft x 20ft concrete hole that will collect all of our liquid waste and a small amount of solid waste, with the liquid waste being pumped off and spread as 'fertilizer' around the paddocks. Until this week the pit was full of 25 years of solid waste.

Environmental laws now in place mean things need to be done radically different to 25 years ago when the tank was built. Back then it didn't matter that the bottom wasn't concrete and that the pit wasn't sealed. Today it's the law. In the next few weeks the bottom will be concreted in and the tank fully sealed. After that we will either dig a secondary lagoon to pump liquid waste to (from the pit - and prior to spreading around the farm) or we will build another pit. This will take care of all of our waste water issues bar one - the need to connect the septic tank (the one without the drain field) to the pipe that drains into the pit. As the waste water from the septic will only contain wash water, we do not need the expensive septic system we had originally thought. Instead the cost of building it will go into the new pit. Swings and roundabouts really - but it gets us the ODA approval we need.

Once the manure management plan is in effect the Milk Barn construction can continue. The reality is that this solution will cause us the least aggravation.

On Friday we moved into the next phase of our operation regarding the sheep as well. Our 25 lambs and yearlings from Vermont Shephard arrived. We have decided to sell all but 3 of our lambs to slaughter (we will slaughter a couple for our own freezer, but the three we will keep are the little one we hand reared, and the two named by Jordanna and Zoe, my two girls - thankfully 2 of them are ewes so we should profit from them down the line). Of the ewes we will keep a dozen, which means that from mid June we will be down to 25 East Freisian ewes, 12 Dorset/Hampshire ewes and 3 cross-breed lambs - for a nice round 40. In February next year the 12 ewes and the 12 yearlings will lamb, adding approximately another 35 sheep (a far more managable number than the current 135.

The puppies continue to do well. All 4 are now very active and are looking to explore their new world. Both Othello and Gizmo are proving to be extremely good parents and it will be difficult to sell the puppies, although we have had interest already.

The last few days the weather has been wonderful and we have extended our vegetable garden yet again with corn, cabbages, carrots and lettuces. Both the strawberries and potatoes are doing extremely well (maybe it was adding some of the 'fertilizer' we dug out of the pit that did the trick).

Look how sweet we are. Don't you want to own us?

The puppies are 17 days old now, all have their eyes open and are starting to play with each other and interact with their world. Next week we will start getting ready to advertise them for sale. It's tempting to keep one but with 5 dogs already thats a bit too much for us to look after.

Looking out on the World

Two of the puppies opened their eyes for the first time today to take a look out into the big wide world. We also moved them and Gizmo from the back room into the office. Gizmo has been chomping at the bit to have company once again so now she feels she is once again part of the family.

We've had nice weather for the last couple of days and have made the most of it, repairing fencing and replacing a whole side fence next to the lambing barn. Yet another skill we can add to the CV. Over the next few weeks we intend to replace and repair a lot of the fencing around the property. In some places it seems to have been cobbled together (for want of a better description) and while it gives the appearance of a fence, would scarcely keep anything penned.

During the week we also came to a gentleman's agreement with a local farmer to cut and bail our hay for us. He supplies all of the machinery, bails and stacks it in our barn and we split the hay 50/50. According to the previous owners there should be plenty that we will likely end up selling some of ours, especially as we will get a second and possibly third cutting from it.

Jen spent the day in the garden planting more vegetables and tomorrow we will cultivate some more ground for the next batch - corn. Monday we pick up our new Bobcat, and later in the week we've even planned on making some more cheese! Yes, that funny yellowish stuff that all this is really about...

We got a New Toy!

It will certainly make life easier around here that's for sure! With an 800 lb capacity and a backhoe attachment, we're going to get a lot of use out of this new toy.

It's been a good week all around

Funny how a bad week can be followed by an extremely good week. Of course the puppies were the highlight of the week and they continue to do well. We took them to the vet on Thursday and they all got a clean bill of health. Gizmo has finally decided that she wants to spend 10 minutes every couple of hours racing around the back yard to give herself a break.

Today we put together a whelping box for her which gives her much more room and there is less chance the puppies will get squashed and scream when she moves around.

Other news included a possible solution to our septic tank problems in the Milk Barn. The farm has an old lagoon that can be restored, and all the liquid waste directed to it from the milking room. As for a human toilet, the PMO allows us to use a chemical toilet, so we might be able to do everything for the cost of some drain/pipe laying and the acquisition of a pump. More on that as we get info.

First up we need to get the old lagoon/pit emptied so we can see if any of the original pipes drain into it. Hopefully thats a simple enough job we can have done next week.

36 Hours Old...

36 hours old....

Welcome to the World Iago, Macbeth, Mercutio and Portia

Yes we're still in shock. This morning, between 9.00am and 11.00am Gizmo gave birth to four little puppies. What is most surprising is that until it happened, we had no idea that she was even pregnant. Yes we had tried a couple of times before and thought the last time was another failure but it goes to show that one just never knows.

There are 3 little boys, all silver/black and one little girl who is pure black. All appear to be doing really well, feeding properly and making little squeaking noises.

More news to follow...

Anti-Septic

Another week has flown by during which we received some not so good news. It appears that the septic system in the Milk Barn, while actually collecting and dispatching effluent to the tank in the vegetable garden as it should, lacks one major component - a drain field. The upshot? We need to have a drain field layed out and then buried in the garden somewhere, and not just anywhere. It has to be somewhere that gravity can feed it as well as complying with all the rules and regulations the County and the State want to throw at us (including set distances from things like boundaries, fencelines, wells and swales).

So, considering the tank is old, concrete, and probably cracked somewhere (after all that water has to be going somewhere right?) we are going to get a new tank installed at the same time as the drain field is done. This way we can comply with the ODA regarding whey disposal as well as regular effluent.

There is some good news though, it seems we can bury the drain field in the end of the vegetable garden in the 'orchard'. More bad news is that the ballpark cost is $7,500 - $15,000 depending on what needs doing. The higher amount is a worse case scenario that involves pumps and a non-gravity system, the lower amount is if no additional work needs doing other than a straight install. Once its done though, the rest of the renovation will be the easy part as we'll have water and septic and of course the new roof. I can hear the bank account sighing at last.

Today is a lovely day to cap off the week, 88 degrees at the moment (29C for those of you on metric) and we've spent the day roto-tilling the vegetable garden, planting potatos, and mowing, and I got a tan to boot! During the week its been all go, water blasting the barn area and moving manure.

It also appears that our 24 sheep from Vermont Shepherd will be arriving a lot sooner than we had expected, the end of this month to be exact. In order to reduce the size of the flock then over the next couple of weeks we'll be retiring some of the sheep and filling the freezer with.....well, meat.

Milk Barn - The Internal Workings

I thought I'd begin the next stage of the renovation of the Milk Barn with a brief explanation here as to what is currently there, what we intend to do, and ultimately how we envision it looking when its done.

This is what we are faced with at the moment. Apart from the front 2 rooms (where the previous owner made honey), it hasn't been used for close on 25 years and was originally designed for cattle in a 5x5 herringbone configuration that could milk 10 cows simultaneously. All the original stanchions remain and much of the transport piping is still in place. The steel needs cutting out and the concrete herringbone over the pit needs to be redone so the pit is properly rectangular. Of course the entire ceiling needs replacing, new walls need constructing and the floor needs to be relayed (thankfully it appears that thr septic system piping is still working after all these years).

The above plan (click on the image for a larger picture) shows what the final layout will hopefully look like. We will be limiting our initial milking process to a maximum of 6 sheep simultaneously although the equipment we will be purchasing does allow for expansion by units of 2. Depending on the eventual size of our flock (yes we are still discussing it) and our production figures we may switch from bucket milking to a basic vacuum pipeline, but the bucket units themselves will be fully integratable into a vacuum system, so no additional costs other than constructing the pipeline and buying the vacuum pump are involved.

The Milk Barn has a New Roof

As predicted we had four wonderful days of sun this week. The roofers from Hunts Roofing and Construction arrived early Monday and inside three days did a great job in removing the old tin roof and replacing it with a tar shingle that matches the house. The plumbers came back at last and installed all of the plumbing, so we now have water in the back barn and capped piping in the milk barn area.


The next stage is to get inside and gut the place by removing all of the old stanchions, the ceiling and the wall coverings, then to begin the process of firstly cleaning all of the studs and then changing the locations of the doors and windows. With that done we can look at outside covering.

Thursday we completed the second half of the flock check up. We actually managed to put everyone through the tilter this time thanks in no small part to the weather and the lessons we learned last weekend. So all the sheep are tagged and wormed, and all the lambs have now been given their vaccination booster. We intend to do the run through about every six weeks in order to check for things like hoof rot, but after Thursday we have a lot more confidence in our ability to get the job done in a single day.

We also heard from David Major at Vermont Shepherd. He will be personally delivering our 12 yearlings and 12 lambs in June, sometime after we have thinned our current flock to 20.

Come Hail or Shine

How was your Sunday? Ours involved being battered, bruised and bloodied by an army of sheep. Amidst hail, sleet (or was that actually snow), rain, and infrequent sunny spells we managed to complete a full check-up of half our flock.

The lambs needed vaccinating. All the sheep needed a foot bath, worming/drenching and tagging, and the older ewes needed their hooves checked and trimmed. Sound easy? Well of course nothing is as easy as it sounds. Apart from numerous cuts, I got kicked in the mouth and have a fat lip, and Jen dislocated her thumb (it popped back in thankfully). The 'beast', as we call our tipping machine, did a great job once we got the hang of how to use it effectively and the run we set up worked well although most of the sheep needed coaxing into the beast and I frequently found myself wallowing in the mud trying to force an unruly ewe through the foot bath. More than once I found myself in a compromising position behind a ewe trying to prevent her from backpeddling. Jen always threatened to whip out (not a good choice of words I know) the camera so I am thankful at least she didn't - Australians have a dodgy reputation with sheep already so I didn't want to provide anything more for the gossipers among you.

For the fashion conscious, all of the sheep we checked today now have blue mohawks so we can tell them apart from those that need doing next time. I swear by the end of this we'll have a flock of multi-coloured sheep.

At the moment cheese is the furthest thing from our mind (and we are only shaking our heads at the prospect of actually milking some of these sheep), but once summer comes and we can ship the lambs and many of the ewes off to [insert euphemistic term for knackers yard here] we will have a more managable flock, but the lessons we are learning now and the experience we are gaining will become invaluable. 100+ sheep at the moment is just a little too many to manage effectively, but eventually when we taste that first piece of Manchego or Cheddar, I am sure this day will be long forgotten...

We Have Been Approved!

The first official stage of our venture into cheesemaking has passed the muster. After several communiques with the Oregon Department of Agriculture we submitted our construction/renovation plans for the Milk Barn/Cheese Making Facility early last week. This morning we received a phone call from the ODA to tell us that the plans have been approved.

What does this mean? Well it means that the layout we have designed to incorporate all of the construction elements of the PMO has passed the ODA's regulatory assessment. This means things like overall layout, position of rooms, access routes and walkways, location of doors, position and number of sinks, etc is done. It also means that our construction materials, wall coatings, etc have been OK'd too.

Some of the extra safety precautions we had included proved to be unnecessary, but we will include them just the same. This is a huge weight off our shoulders because it means that we can essentially secure our general contractor now and actually begin construction. Our plans have been passed down to an ODA rep in Grant's Pass who will be scheduling a visit in the not too distant future.

As I mentioned before, the roofing contractors are due to begin Monday so its full steam ahead. On another funny note, one of the 4 ewes who had not lambed gave birth to twins out in the fields today. That was completely unexpected. Both are doing well despite being delivered in appaling weather conditions (we've had rain and there was snow dropped overnight on the surrounding hills).

All in all its been a good week as we found out from our vet that our chief sheep herder Marlowe has finally come back negative for Valley Fever. We'll continue with the rest of the medicine he's on until its gone, but after 2 years and plenty of aggrevation, we might have finally seen the end of it.

Spring has Sprung

The daffodils are covering the garden beds, pink blossom covers the cherry trees, and Spring has finally descended upon us. I've noticed the weather has definitely got warmer in the mornings and there is still light in the sky at 8.00pm.

Lambing is now over for the season, only one of the 4 remaining ewe's gave birth, twins to be exact and they were both big and healthy. On the farm front, we have signed a contract to have the roof of the milk room replaced. That should start sometime early next week and take about 3-4 days. Once the new plumbing lines that are presently being installed are done we can get in to test the septic system. We had an inspection done yesterday and the tank is usable as long as the pipes are clear which we'll need the water for. Let's hope they are because a new septic system will cost us around $10,000 and require the milk room floor to be dug up in places (we will have to re-lay that anyway so it's not such a big deal).

Once the new roof is on we can get inside the milk room and begin removing all of the interior walls, exposing the wiring and mapping out where everything will go. All the old stanchions will need cutting out as well.

You can finally change your bookmarks as well. We have got the URL for the farm working at last. At the moment it redirects here but in time I will update it so that the Blog is a separate link and the rest of the site will cover other aspects of the farm and what we are doing.

http://www.catesbyfarms.com

The Milk Barn

This is the Milk Barn that will form the centerpiece to the farm in the years to come. As you can see it needs renovating badly, but everything is there that we need.

Eventually it will house the milking room, the cheese room, a bathroom, and an aging/storage room. Because it has to comply with strict state regulations for us to receive Grade A certification, we need to do more than just 'fix it up'. There is a septic system which is being evaluated next week and then we are getting an industrial hygienist in to determine exactly what will need to be addressed, before we get the Oregon Department of Agriculture in to assess our plans.

First item on the list of things to be done though is to re-roof. That's a certainty and we are getting quotes on that drawn up at the moment. Then we could be faced with reinstalling a new septic system, relaying the concrete floor according to the PMO (Pasteurization and Milk Ordinance) code, and block wall resealing. The actual internal timber framing and construction seems to be the easy part (maybe it's because that's the part we can do ourselves).

So, stay tuned for updates or follow the project on the Milk Barn Renovation links below.

Lesson #23

A three-legged lamb can still run faster than a two-legged man.

No it's not a play on the "Four legs good, two legs bad" meme from Animal Farm, although it could very well be. We noticed one of our lambs limping yesterday morning, so with crook in hand and using our best marshalling skills we have learnt we spent a good fifteen minutes chasing it around the barn. Sheep might be stupid creatures but when they realize one of their own is being 'hunted' they close ranks surprisingly cleverly.

Still, after hooking it at least three times I finally managed to catch it. One of its hooves has split, with the entire hoof casing on one toe almost peeled off. Lovely I hear you say. Alas there is little you can do in a situation like this other than disinfect the wound and isolate the animal, which we have done. If there is little improvement in a couple of days we might have to become creative and bandage the leg. Thankfully all the sheep have now been vaccinated and the booster shot on March 30 should be quite smooth.

Tomorrow we start demolition on the interior of the apartment.

Oregon Cheese Guild Festival

This morning we drove down to Central Point just north of Medford to attend the Oregon Cheese Guild's Festival. This was the first real opportunity we have had to see Oregon cheesemakers and taste their wares and there were certainly some fine cheeses to taste. Coupled with some local vintners and breadmakers it was a great introduction to Oregon farmstead products and an experience we can certainly add to in the future.

Special note must go to what I thought was the best cheese of the show - an aged Gouda from the Willamette Valley Cheese Co..

This week we have had contractors coming and going, providing us with quotes for various jobs around the farm that need doing. I alluded to a long laundry list a while back, well recladding the machinery shed is first on the list, followed by a renovation job in the apartment inside it. This is going to be a tear down to the bare frame, mould removal (by experts) and then a complete rebuild (by us). We had planned on doing this later but we figured that the building experience would be extremely useful for the milk room and cheese kitchen renovation in summer. Regarding the milk room etc, we have an industrial hygienist assessing the structure next week and the completion of the plumbing also on target for late next week.

Job Description: The Sheep Wrangler

What better way to spend a relaxing Sunday than being gored by wild 80 pound 'lambs' being given their 6-week CD/T vaccinations (for overeating disease and tetanus for you laymen and women). And oh yes I have the shredded pants to prove it. They look such sweet and innocent things don't they (the lambs, not the pants)? Yeah right!

Actually I enjoyed it once I got the hang of it. Now I know why shepherds use a crook and why the Kiwi's invented the gambrel, both are essential tools for capture and restraint and I must admit I had a small chuckle when Jen ordered them as I wondered whether we were really going to use them or if they were just for 'show'. So we've done half of them today in just over 2 hours and we will do the remaining half in another two days with a few of the recent newborns waiting a few weeks until we do the booster on the first lot.

It looks like a massacre in the field at the moment, we used a red spray paint on them to indicate they had been vaccinated and there are now 35 lambs walking around with what look like gunshot wounds. I do hope the neighbour doesn't think I'm just a lousy shot.

Jack Frost still lives here

As I wrap my hands around another cup of coffee and the feeling slowly returns to my fingers, things continue to take shape around us. We've secured our milking flock, or the beginnings of it from the most reputable of locations -Vermont Shepherd. As their web page proudly announces - "Vermont Shepherd Cheese is the country's most famous and oldest sheep milk cheese."

So, to acquire both lambs and yearlings from such a well established farm is a huge bonus for us. No our plans as I outlined in an earlier post haven't changed, just the source of our sheep has changed, and we want the best we can get, so with these sheep coming with full milking records of mothers and probably grandmothers, we will have solid records from which to begin our operation. That means selecting 25 of our own flock to keep for at least a year so we will keep a mix of older ewes to provide lambs for us to sell next year, and lambs born this season that have the greatest proportion of Dorset in them for future breeding.

It all seems very complicated at first, but this aspect of it, the genetics and the flock management is one aspect of this life that I really enjoy getting my head around. I think once we have our 25 Vermont Shepherd sheep and got rid of all but 25 of our current sheep I will feel much more like we are on the path to proper flock management.

The Cheese Test Bed Facility

Stage 1 of the "grand plan" is remodelling the second kitchen we have at the back of the house. Once this has been completed we can recommence our cheesemaking endeavours and start honing our cheesemaking skills. The Test Bed Facility is now about half complete and we should have it operational sometime next week with a last concerted effort. General farm duties will of course slow the process but we believe lambing is now done (we have 4 ewes who have shown no signs of pregnancy so later next week we will turn them out into the main flock).

The little lamb we saved whose mother died soon after he was born (we have named him Ram-Bo because he's a little fighter) is doing extremely well and is now fuller and healthier looking than many of the other lambs. We'll keep him after the effort of saving him. In the jugs at the moment we have another runt. She was born on Feb 23rd the day after my birthday. Both her and her brother (who unfortunately died) were bags of bones and it has taken a full week for her mother's milk to finally come in. We fed her a couple of bottles to get her going but she's now much more active and feeding well.

On March 15th there is a cheese festival down in Central Point at the Rogue River Creamery. Should be a great day and an opportunity to get to meet some more local cheesemakers and learn.

This is just so cool:

The Good Life

Today we began the cultivation of the acre or so that will become our vegetable garden. The previous owners had used it for the same purpose and the fenced area has several apple trees, pear trees and a cherry tree as well. It has remained unused for a season now though and it badly needed weeding and tilling. Thanks to our Roto-Tiller the job will be much easier on the back.

Jen has already begun the planting with onions, and this week will see the addition of peas and spinach. The soil is rich and dark and a far cry from the manufactured beds we created in Arizona.

Apart from the cheesemaking, the prospect of becoming virtually self-sufficient was one of the factors that influenced our decision to make the move to farming. One bonus to all of this is that the farm hasn't used pesticides or chemicals for many many years and there is an extremely good chance we can get ourselves registered as organic which might be yet another avenue for us down the track.

The irony isn't lost on me

In the last few years my mother has been doing a lot of genealogical research on her family name. The name SHIPWAY is derived from the term Sheep Way - a path that the sheep farmers used to drive their flock to market along, and our forebears were firstly Gloucestershire sheep farmers, and then worked in the cloth trade. In a way you could say I've come full circle and the irony hasn't been lost on me.

The Vision: Clarity at last

We have a long journey ahead of us, the plan of which I thought I would share with everyone so they know exactly what it is we're doing, and where we hope to end up.

Stage 1:
Completion of the second kitchen in the house. Yes we're lucky enough to have a second kitchen. We are presently renovating it so we can turn it into our "test facility", that is we can recommence our cheesemaking activities and use it to hone our skills and our cheeses.

Stage 2:
We intend to sell all but a half dozen of our current crop of lambs in order to finance the acquisition of a dozen springer (pregnant) ewes and 2 rams (East Friesian/Suffolk crosses). We have sourced a breeder in California who I will likely visit in the coming week.


Stage 3:
Completion of the milking facility. This is the first part of the construction phase and involves the reworking of the existing milking parlour into something that will accomodate sheep rather than the cows its currently sized for.

Stage 4:
Completion of the cheese facility. Phase 2 of the construction involves building the cheese room, the bulk storage room, the anti-room/entry, and the upstairs office into the old milking parlour.

Stage 5:
Breed our Dorset ewes with the rams we get this year to produce good East Friesian/Dorset crosses. Sell the other lambs and the older ewes from our original flock that we no longer need and as per stage 2 use the money to acquire another dozen springer ewes. This will give us a working flock of at least 24 East Friesian/Suffolk ewes, approximately a dozen Dorset ewes and up to 24 lambs, the rams of which will be sold as stud animals and the ewes probably kept.

Stage 6:
By this stage we will have been milking for some time and making farmstead cheeses. At this point (or possibly earlier) we will make the move to properly commercialize our venture.

Of course while all of this is going on we will be repasturing at least 2 of our fields, upgrading some of the farm's other facilities (including the one bedroom "apartment") and looking into some other ventures including hay sales and growing mushrooms.

Cheesemaking 101: Basic +

I returned from Portland on Thursday evening after my three day cheesemaking course at Oregon State University. The course was fantastic and crystallized a lot of what we want to do in a way that I know is now achievable. Full credit to Marc Bates and Dave Potter who did most of the coordination, and the teaching staff of OSU, particularly Lisbeth Goddik.

The course covered everything one could possibly need to know to start up their own cheese making venture, from construction of the site, to marketing the final product. There was even a field trip to two farmstead cheese makers to further clarify everything presented in the course. The balance between the chemistry and the technical detail, and the hands-on side of things was handled well, certainly well enough not to discourage people.

I now have a decent list of contacts, both fellow cheesemakers and USDA and OSU people willing to answer questions and help out where they can. It's a small community, but certainly one where advice and help is easy to come by. I look forward to tapping these resources in the future and keeping in touch to see how my fellow cheesemaking students fare in their own ventures.

Job Description: The Shit Shoveller

There's something about waking early, barely able to see through the fog, bitterly cold hands you can't feel fumbling with gates and a frost on the ground that crackles as you walk through it. The water in the feeder hoses has frozen, and the thawing dew is dripping through the roof onto your head as you feed a ravenous flock of sheep and their progeny, followed by the hauling of 50 gallons of fresh ice cold water.

For someone who has lived in either a sub-tropical or "arid" environment for the last 20 years where there were two seasons, summer, followed by a cooler summer that people claimed was really winter, getting back to a real winter has come as a shock to say the least. While the snow on the surrounding hills has all but gone now the morning's are still below freezing and it's afternoon before our new world finally warms up. Thankfully we have coffee, the wonder drug that revitalizes and refreshes.

The days of incessant rain before we arrived and the sheep imprisoned in the barn and feed area had left the place a veritable sewer. Yesterday we cleaned it. 20 years in IT, and I'm now shovelling shit for a living. In some places the straw and the manure were so thick and trampled it was like lifting carpet, wet shag-pile carpet. But the end result was satisfying and even if the sheep didn't acknowledge the effort, we were pleased with our efforts.

Our daily runs to Lowes or Home Depot are beginning to cost us less finally. Yesterday we were at the DMV as well changing the titles over on all the farm equipment (including the 1955 Chevrolet Truck we got with the property).

Jumping in at the Deep End

Someone described us once as never doing anything by halves, and we're not about to change either.

We arrived at the farm on 1st February, right in the middle of lambing, at the end of a cold snap and just as the rain had broken after more than a week. The fields were sodden, the sheep had been cooped up for days, and the jugs were full of new mothers. There was no time to "feel our way", no grace period, and certainly no time to sit back and enjoy the peace and tranquility of life on the farm while we eased into things.

Jen is a bookworm. Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders know us well. She'll read a dozen books and digest every word so she knows what's supposed to be done. Me, I'm a "dive in get your hands dirty and learn on the job" person, so we complement each other well. Running a farm requires both types of personality. We learned that on day one.

So there we were, feeding, docking, cutting tails, castrating, worming and moving newborns around all on our first morning, and loving every minute of it. Things have settled down now that we know what we're doing and there are only a half dozen ewes left to lamb. We have our goals set for the coming weeks which includes constructing a proper examination chute, replacing some gates and fencing, and I'm off to Portland next week to do a short course in Cheesemaking at Oregon State University.

We have a long laundry list of things we want to buy and we've slowly started to redecorate the inside as well. Everything at the moment seems to be a "work in progress" as we try and divide our time equally between all of the things that we want to do and that need doing. We've had a couple of neighbours drop in already as well and it seems that our intended exploits (the cheesemaking) have already got the locals talking.

The Seachange

Everyone thinks we're crazy but I know they harbor a secret desire to be able to do the same. A belief in whether they can or not is all that holds them back.

Hi, I'm David. I'm what you call a British-born ex-pat Australian, now living on a 50-acre farm in Roseburg, Oregon with my wife Jennie. We've both lived and worked all over the world. I was in IT for 20 years, Jen was in printing, advertising and then IT for longer. After burning ourselves out working in Florida, we moved to Arizona to contemplate our next move, and now here we are in Oregon, sheep farming and starting on the path to become cheesemakers. Yep, you read that right, we've gone back to the land and are forging a new life away from suburbia, away from the rat-race, and away from the grind of 9-5, or in our case 6-midnight.

The purpose of this blog is two-fold. It will keep everyone interested in our pursuits updated, but it will also serve as a record of our achievements and failures, of which I am sure there will be many, for those who choose to follow us and learn from us as we in turn learn from others.

So, welcome to Catesby Farms.