Cherry Grove Farm

This weekend we got to go on a tour to Cherry Grove farm. 

It's a local organic farm about 5 miles away from us.

Their main income comes from the cheese they make,

but they also sell eggs, pork, and some milk.

The tour started out with the tiniest of the cows.

When Matt saw this one he said that she looked like a cross between a dear and a cow.

She was so small and dainty compared to the huge cows in Logan, Utah and Texas

that we've seen in the last 2 months.

She's a little Jersey cow.

She decided she wanted to check at the tiny human, 

and trotted over to say hi.

Since she was part of the "petting zoo," Matt let Madeleine gently pet her.

Madeleine squealed when she got to touch the cow's wet nose.

Thankfully, she didn't try to bite the nose either.

The baby cows don't make the milk though.

Here is the heard of mama cows.

They still look pretty cute even when they are all grown up.

42 of them get milked twice a day, and each produces about 6 gallons.

That's just over 500 gallons of milk a day.

And this is the heard of teenagers.

They were all about 3 feet tall.

They all came up to the fence to look at us. 

They had a big barn where they milked the cows.

It was really neat to learn about how this farm works.

We saw how they milked the cows and then learned about the machinery to cool to the right temperature for making cheese.

While we were in there, 

the farmer also explained how they were an organic farm and different ways that they try to use everything that they make.

Apparently it pays off, because the farm is completely self-sufficient.

which is impressive.

As we left the milking area, I looked up and saw a bag of water with pennies in it.

I've seen this several times on pinterest.

It's supposed to keep flies out of the barn.

I was skeptical when I saw this on pinterest and after seeing the barn, 

I'd say at best it has little effect.

There were still tons of flies in the barn 

(so many that some of the girls wouldn't go in the barn),

but the farmer said the bags were working.

At the very end, we got to go inside the store and try some of their cheese.

It was SO good. 

I love the toma cheese and Matt really like the rosedale.

It was delicious, and our favorite part of the tour.

They offer cheese making classes too,

so maybe Matt and I will have to do that while we are out here.

It was a fun experience (even though we were living in a farm area 2 weeks ago), 

and I'm so glad that Princeton arranged the whole thing.

It was a great weekend activity for us.