Feb 8, 2009

Honorary Dairy Farmers

The very best thing about going to the farmer's markets are the people. We have the BEST customers! The chance to take our product to market and see people's responses when they taste the milk (and chocolate milk!) has been incredibly rewarding. The chance to personally share what we do is the biggest part of why we are in no hurry to see our milk at the local grocery store. It doesn't seem as if delivering a case of milk could compare with seeing people's opinions about goat milk change right before your very eyes!

Part of explaining what we do is making the offer to any interested customer to come out to the dairy. We want to be totally transparent in what we do. We invite people to come and see the health of the animals, the milk room, the processing room. We want people to be 100% comfortable with the milk that they buy, whether it is pasteurized or raw. One couple came out and did see what we are doing. They walked the property with us and listened as we waxed poetic about goat milk in general and our dreams for the dairy in specific. They met the goats...and chickens, turkeys, guineas, rabbits, horses, dogs. They decided that they wanted to get involved in a tangible way, so they made another trip out to the farm today, not to buy but to work! They rolled up their sleeves and raked out a dormant chicken coop, helped sink posts for a new and improved chicken Shangri-La, pounded fence posts and helped start the new kid pens that I was stressing about in my post from Feb. 4. Wow. And double wow. They are no longer "customers", they have become honorary dairy farmers and better yet, friends.

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