Well, it’s happening. We opened escrow on the farm on May 6th with a closing date of July 15th. It’s a contingency offer. The farm was shown 14 times. We were there, and/or met all the potential buyers, which is rather unusual, but as our place (still on Zillow if you want to peek inside!) is so unusual, both sets of agents felt it would be helpful. The woman who’s offer we accepted is coming from Oakland, with her goats and cheesemaking skills, as well as a PhD in microbiology. She’ll work remotely, which is such a great thing, these days.
We’re packing boxes, sorting what goes to the estate sale we’ll have at my mom’s old place (Space One), what we’re leaving for the new owner (lots of stuff, luckily), and what we’ll keep. Fun times!
As many of you know, this is a very hard transition for me, but I know I’m not the only one to have gone through this by any means. Leaving dreams behind is difficult. Still, we’re moving forward toward new rhythms and patterns.
Party Time!
We’re planning a farewell party for the farm and hoping to coordinate it so the new owner, Cait, can meet the community. The tentative date is September 1st, so if you’re in the area, please come!
Blog Changes
For all of you long-time subscribers, thank you!! I haven’t posted any dairy and farming articles in some time, but the archives continue to be my most read pages. I wanted to give you all a heads up that I will be adding categories focused on the writers’ life and even possibly serializing one of my novels. I know this may cause me to lose many of you who are here for tips and such on goats and cheese, so I wanted to thank you now and tell you I totally understand if you unsubscribe!
Newsletter
I’ll be continuing my once monthly e-newsletter which focuses on updates and odd bits of news not usually worth storing in an archive. I’d love to see more of you there, if there’s an interest.
Here’s a link to the most recent edition, which includes a bit about our visit to Honomu Goat Dairy on the Big Island of Hawaii. You can subscribe by clicking the link in the menu above.
I’m on Twitter/X, Bluesky, and also hanging out on Reddit as Cheesalady on the subreddits: cheesemaking, authors, goats, horrorlit, selfpublish, books, and askPhysics.
Take care everyone!
Hi Gianaclis, congratulations
Thank you Carlos! I hope you and Randy are doing great. I love seeing how things are going there on Linkedin. We hope to again be able to travel more someday soon and head your way.
Hi Gianaclis I have also been thru that transition of selling my farm & going to new adventures. I hope you enjoy yours as much as i am enjoying mine! I moved to Portugal & am having a blast
Pam
Thanks Pam. Wow! Portugal, that’s so cool! Maybe I’ll come visit sometime. I hear it’s a fantastic place to visit for cheese!
Your emails to my Saanens @usa.com account was always quickly read as I had to sell all the does the year after my husband died (2014) because the lady taking care of them had to be evicted from my property. I kept my bucks until the last one passed from old age 3 years ago.
During that time I was a long haul driver and continued that until 6 May when I got laid off due to the company closing their doors. I’m sitting home drawing unemployment and wondering if I really should just stay home now…. I will be 73 in July. I’m leaning that way and getting back into having a couple Saanen goats and chickens. My friend, Nancy, has Nigerians and knows how to AI. She will help keep me on the straight and narrow so I don’t get as many goats as I used to have. 🤣 I’m still in good shape, but having goats takes a lot of work and I best realize how I am aging. I have plenty of semen in my tank 😁 so wouldn’t need a buck unless the does absolutely can’t be bred that way, then I have another friend nearby that does have a couple really nice Saanen bucks.
I will have to bookmark the archives so that I have that information again. I will sign up on the above link. I guess I didn’t realize that you were Pholia Farms, that you just had cows….things didn’t sink in while I was driving. I heard of you thru my friend Nancy Boling (Springwater Dairy). Best wishes in your next endeavor.
Laura
Life is so filled with change. Bravo to you for facing it as well!