Thought it would be fun to show some before and after photos. But then I realized we didn't have a real creamery before so I've taken some photos of our creamery as it is working today.....and included before photos of the milking parlor.
In February, we began construction of a cheese make room and the start of our process to become Willow Moon Farm Creamery....a certified dairy selling fresh and raw milk aged cheese. We were officially licensed on the 30th of June. It was a little later than we had hoped but...as is usually the case with construction projects. We're excited about our progress and are already working on expanding our farm store offerings, selling into the local markets and looking forward to launching our internet sales site. Keep visiting and watch our progress.
Our original milking parlor for two goats milked at a time.
Now 6 goats at a time, bigger room & vacuum system.
Our new milking parlor was built out in the space that used to be our milker's holding pen. It is a wonderful space now, clean, bright and with the vacuum motor in another room it is quiet enough at milking time to listen to great music and rock out with the goats!! While we're set up to milk 6 goats on the stand at once, we actually only milk 4 at the same time. Maybe we'll get the hang of managing all those hoses and inflations and graduate to 6 milking at a time. In the meantime, milking is pretty relaxing for all of us. We're milking just about 50 goats and it takes just under 1 1/2 hours.
The vat in our new cheese make room
Our new cheese make room was created in the space that used to house our kidding pens and smaller milking parlor. It is super!!! We actually have a small aging room complete with heavy wooden door. It stays nice and cool and is a great place to hang out when the outside temperature is 85 and up. The vat is from Micro Diary Systems, Frank Kipe, a great guy who, along with his charming wife, installed the equipment and taught us how to use it. It is simple, efficient and compact...perfect for a "micro-dairy"!! We'll add some additional photos of the cheese make room in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!!
AGS-Lifetime member (American Goat Society), ADGA (American Dairy Goat Association), VTDHIA (Vermont Dairy Herd Improvement Association) American Cheese Society All website content is the sole property of Sharon Peck, unless stated otherwise, and is not to be copied/duplicated in any form without express permission from Sharon Peck.
