Daily Details, Part 1: Farm, Markets and Packaging

I’ve neglected to provide a structured view of my day-to-day tasks and duties as I did this summer. In an attempt not to be repetitive, I tried to thematically convey some of the differences in my fall posts: I’ve been working with the animals slightly more here, I’ve been doing more farmers markets, and I’ve had more responsibility in working the markets alone. But I think a better outline of my duties helps bring to life my Fall here.

Other than the increased role in farm-work, the basic cheese-related tasks are the same: make cheese, work in the aging cave, prepare for market, package orders and shipments, work markets. Yet, because the farm is smaller and because I arrived at the tail-end of sheep season, the routine for each of these steps is vastly different from what I did this summer. My two internships have been equally amazing experiences, and thanks to their differences, I’ve been offered a chance to learn a lot of different skills in a really condensed amount of time

1) Farm Work
Perhaps because of the size of the farm and staff, the cheese and farm work aren’t compartmentalized. Brad and Meg, as well as most of their staff, tend to have a hand in both. In the summer, I mostly kept my animal interaction to gawking at cute calves. Once I helped milk the cows. As you know, out here, I’ve had much more interaction with the sheep. But I never had any udder-time with them because milking season was primarily over for the sheep. Still, after having watched their most intimate courting rituals and administered to their medical needs, I feel as though we’re as much pals as the cows I milked.

Penny guards (and occasionally
antagonizes) the rams. Brutus, who's
not pictured, guards the main flock and
is almost three times Penny's size.

I’d like to give special mention to the dogs on the farm because they’re just so darn cute. Both farms have border collies with really bizarre, but endearing, personality quirks that make them utterly useless as farm animals. I don’t know much about dog breeds, but I’ve come to the conclusion that border collies are extremely neurotic. Black Sheep also has three Anatolian sheepdogs that guard the sheep from coyotes and other roving woodland carnivores. The sheep dogs are HUGE, extremely friendly, and stay outside with the sheep and rams at all times.

2) Preparing for market and Packaging orders
Black Sheep produces less cheese and milk each year than Cato Corner. Meg and Brad have been making cheese commercially since 2005; Mark started making cheese at Cato in 1999 and his mom was making cheese on the farm a couple years before he arrived. In addition, things are just starting to get back to normal at Black Sheep since a devastating flood that wiped out most of the flock and crippled the operation struck in 2007. But the main factor in size of production is the nature of the animals. Cows are bigger. They have more milk. Further, sheep are dry for longer than cows or goats. And sheep are much more difficult to breed on a rotating cycle to allow for year-long milk production. So while there are about 70-ish milk producing sheep here to Cato’s 40-ish milking cows, and both animals are milked twice a day, the sheep give you far less milk to work with in an average year. Black Sheep's cheese production is about ten-thousand pounds per year, and Cato produces about fifty-thousand pounds of cheese per year. The result is fewer people working on the farm here and cheese work that is more seasonal.

The room for all the prepping,
packaging, and cutting. You can see
through the door, the aging cellar
is behind.

As a result, preparing for markets and shipping orders is bit less systematic. For market, there is no precise amount of cheese I’m pulling. I just go to the aging cave and pick out a couple wheels of the next available batch of a given cheese. Unless something is unusual that week (an additional event or market), I generally just use my own judgment to make sure there is enough of everything prepared for market.

I had mentioned that because of various state and local laws and licensing issues, the cheese here has to be pre-cut and packaged for each market. Once a week (usually Thursday or Friday), I prepare for two markets by making sure a little over 30 pieces of each cheese is in the refrigerator, cut, vacuum sealed, weighed and labeled. Then, I inventory the prices of each piece being taken to a given market on a sheet of paper, and organize the cheese into bins to be put in the coolers the next morning. Samples are cut into little cubes and placed in a labeled container. If there is ricotta to sell for the week, then that needs to be scooped and put in labeled containers.

When I first arrived, there were about two weeks of regular milk production from the sheep, so we could also prepare the fresh cheese, which is much like a cream cheese or chevre with seasonings. This would double the market prep time and take up both a Thursday and Friday. There were five different types of flavored fresh cheese so we needed to season and make each type, and then scoop each type into several 4 and 7-ounce tubs. We also make yogurt during milking season, so that would need to be put in tubs as well. So, in the summer, preparing for market can be quite time-consuming.

Orders are fewer and come in on a sporadic basis. Unlike this summer, there are no big packaging extravaganzas built into the schedule with boxes and packing paper eating up the room. If there is an order to prepare it’s usually just a couple boxes at a time, or someone is going to Portland or Seattle to make a cheese shop delivery. Otherwise, the orders are wrapped and packaged in much the same way: by putting the wrapped wheel in a box with ice packs and insulation. If the order is a delivery, the wrapped wheel is carried in a cooler. No surprises there.

3) Markets and Events

The winery event, clearly not even close
 to the ruckus of the Connecticut
wine festival

I described most of my market responsibilities in previous posts. The biggest differences: the cheeses are pre-cut and packaged at sizes averaging about a quarter-pound, samples are pre-cut and handed out upon request by disposable toothpick or spoon…oh yeah, and I drive to and from the market, set-up, sell, and pack-up all by myself. I’m tasked with two markets each week (versus one market per week this summer). Over the course of the season, I’ve worked three different markets: St. Johns in Portland, Chehalis, and Puyallup.

In addition, I was given the responsibility of representing the farm in various events, such as the tasting event in September that I mentioned in an earlier post. I also mongered cheese at a winery in nearby Centralia during a weekend wine tour event. It was nothing like the chaos and constant action at the winery event in Connecticut. I didn’t write about the Centralia wine experience here because I was mostly a figure-head or sentry of sorts, stationed at the table to answer any potential questions about the cheese, insert a spiel about the labeled samples, and point to a cooler in the wine store where more pieces were stored. I did a little bit of that, but mostly I ate a lot of the chili they were serving there.


Chehalis market day (Admittedly,
I could have taken a better picture)

The added market responsibilities have helped me develop confidence in how I talk about the product. Plus, I’ve developed a better sense of knowing what a customer’s tastes and interests are via body language and verbal cues, as well as knowing how to deal with the occasional problem-customer throwing a fit over taste or price. I’m still not an expert, but the added interactions have given me much-needed practice. Best of all, towards end of my first month, I began to feel more like part of the farmers market community, which is a fantastic community to be a part of.