Award Winning welsh, farmhouse cheese handcrafted in the traditional way from sheeps milk.
February 2009
It's that time of year again, we are heading rapidly towards lambing time and subsequently milking. The first lamb arrived today, a few days early with the rest due to start within the next week. Children are excited as they love this time of year, playing with all the newborns.
This year we are hopefully going to be milking approximately 150 ewes, hence increasing our production levels again. In time some of this milk will go towards making our new soft cheese. This little project is still in the development stage as we are still waiting for our business plan to be finalised (since beginning of October!!!). As we are now entering our busiest time of the year we are having put it hold for a little bit longer.
The new seasons, Dragons Back will be matured and ready for sale by the beginning of May.
Instead of attending Farmers markets (- fairly impossible with our little one!) I have started a monthly delivery round to local hotels, restaurants and delis. As a result of this one of the chefs has expressed an interest in using our cheese in the BBC Great British Menu this year which is great news for us!
July 2008
The silage is now harvested and we're waiting for some sunshine to ripen the corn so we can combine.
Milking is now in full swing - twice a day and the new seasons cheese is matured and ready for sale. We have just received news that this seasons Dragons Back has again won an award, this time from the British Cheese Awards. We will have to wait until 26th September to find out the colour of the medal.
Because Andrew feels we're not busy enough, with our 3 children and making Dragons Back he has decided we need to expand further and look at making another cheese!!! This time a soft one.
So with the help and advice from Chris Ashby AB cheesemaking courses (http://www.abcheesemaking.co.uk/) we are starting to look at various recipes and are beginning to experiment.
January 2008
Feb 11th is the day when our new season's work begins. The sheep start lambing!
They are now shorn and housed on a bed of straw being fed a mixture of silage, grain and peas. The flock size has been doubled this year to approximately 100 ewes as a result of our successful first full year of producing and selling cheese.
Milking will now start once a day by the end of February - Andrew can't wait for the 5 o' clock starts especially with the sleepless nights our new born son will be giving us!!
So the New seasons cheese will be made, matured and ready for sale from the beginning of May onwards.