The Longest Run

Christian (my brother-in-law) and Lisa - who I've written about previously here and here - now have a full-on blog up and running; it's called Blue Heron Farm Blog . The blog is full of background on the development of the Blue Heron Farm business as well as some great pictures and funny stories (Lisa is a terrific writer). If you're at all interested in the local/artisanal food movement I suggest you check out the blog.

I hope you all had a chance to read my posts last week ( A Day at the Goat Farm, Part One and A Day at the Goat Farm, Part Two ) about visiting the goat farm my brother-in-law and his wife have started. There's some good news to share: the Dairymaids have posted A Visit To Blue Heron on their blog, writing about their experience visiting Christian and Lisa. It's great PR for Blue Heron Farm.

As promised, I've posted some pictures of our day at flickr . As we were leaving the farm yesterday, Christian and Lisa were meeting with the Houston Dairymaids - two women who 'travel the state of Texas to find the best cheeses available'. The Dairymaids were tasting Blue Heron's cheese to see if they will represent it at local farmer's markets. I don't know yet how the visit turned out but certainly hope it was a big success. This will be Christian and Lisa's second year on the farm, but the first year with all of the aspects of their business in place (the goats, the dairy barn, licenses, etc.). With the great interest these days in local, artisanal, and natural products, it seems like an excellent time to be starting this business; as an example, check out Dairies Are Half-Pint, but the Flavor Isn't by Marian Burros in the New York Times. In the same vein, I've got some friends at work who are starting a farm in Maryland. They are not as far al...

Katherine's brother Christian and his wife Lisa have started a goat cheese business in Field Store Community, Texas. Katherine and I and the girls, along with my sister Amy's daughter Anna, spent this morning at the farm getting an update on what's happening on the farm. You can find out a lot more about the business at the web site for Blue Heron Farm . To give you a sense of what things are like out at Blue Heron, I figured I'd start with some video. I'll follow up in my next post with some pictures from the day. Here's one of the two pigs who live on the farm (the audio is particularly fun): It's baby goat season, and though most of the baby goats won't stick around Blue Heron for long, there were two babies on the farm today (one of which is just 4 days old). Here's some video of the goats: Finally, there is a cool group of cows who live (or maybe they just graze) across the street. Here's a video of my encounter with one of the bigger ones.....