Cheese Judging at the AZ State Fair

I was honored to be asked to be a judge at this year's Goat Cheese Competition at the fair. They had twice as many entries as last year. The only thing missing was a doggie bag to take some of the entries home with me! Debbie Emholtz of Jacob's Pride made a goat milk cajeta that I absolutely loved. Could have sat and eaten the whole jar right there! The cajeta was almost as sweet as Debbie :-) She and her husband are some of the nicest people. Two of our does are from her breeding program. Anyway, another hit was the pesto pine nut chevre. Sandy Van Ecko (spelling?) made that and it was amazing. She also made a desert cheese that was made with walnuts and cherries. Mmmmmmm. Now, if I can just get those recipes from them! Congratulations to both on their blue ribbons. Farm markets have been doing great! We are at quite a few during the week. Check out our updated website for more info ... http://www.crowsdairy.com/ Well, time to go milk the does and hang my chevre.

David Lee

Our youngest son, David Lee, has always loved to hang out with animals. I found this picture a few days ago. It really brought back some "goat" memories. The goat kid in this picture is out of our goat that was named Eclipse. She was a dairy goat that we bought and she would never raise her own kids. It was because of Eclipse -- and a couple of her friends -- that I became a very good hand milker. David would feed the kids afterward. Now, he is my main feeder for all of our animals. I appreciate him so much! Hard work is in his blood. In the current picture you can still see he loves his girls! Ha ha! Arvilla is his favorite and the other one that is staring at him is Charlotte.