The Beginning

This blog is intended to chronicle the progress of the Smith Dairy Goat Farm and cheesemaking business. One day I may laugh at this bold statement. Hopefully not, though. Time will tell.
We have taken the first step in realizing my goat dreams. We, being my husband John, and me. Last winter we decided that we would move ahead and look for property that we could raise dairy goats on. We were living in Catonsville, MD at the time, which is a suburb of Baltimore.
We originally looked in the upstate New York area for farms. Our friends, Josh and Cherie live in Schoharie, NY and we thought that area was really beautiful. The land there was fairly inexpensive. We decided to instead set our sights on Pennsylvania so we could be close to Grammy & Granddad and John's sisters and other family.
We found this great house in York county that has a lot less acreage that we were expecting to buy, but we loved the house - the property includes a grain mill (no longer working) - and we told ourselves that the three acres will be enough for our small number of goats. We will be using a portion of the mill for a "barn", and there is decent pasture land, however that has a stream running through it, which seems to be posing a problem as far as pasturing the goats.
So. Now we have the land that is zoned to have farm animals on it. We have lots and lots of work to do to get ready to bring home the kids. We want to start with two or three. Break ourselves in. Learn how to live with and care for goats. Then work into the milking process. Then on to cheesemaking. Possibly expanding the herd. Selling cheeses. Making soap? We'll see what happens. Where the winds take us.
I think that the first goat-related project will be to clear out the "barn". The barn is located on the ground floor in the rear of the mill. The mill was originally built in 1866. It was a flour mill, now defunct. There was an addition made to the mill in the 1930's made of concrete blocks. Right now, it is full of wood scraps, old mill parts and tons of other miscellaneous junk. Lots of heavy junk that will be difficult to move. There isn't much natural light in that area either. I will need to come up with a solution to that problem as well. My goats will need more light!