Soap Making: Our First Milk Soaps
This year has definitely turned into the ‘year of the goat’ on the farm. Even with only a single doe in milk this season, the presence of a milking doe in the barn has been a rather life-altering event. Twice a day milking had to be factored into our daily chore...
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Goat’s Milk Pancakes
As this spring’s goat kids get closer to being weaned, we now have some extra goat milk at our disposal. I was inspired the other day to actually cook breakfast, instead of resorting to my more predictable breakfast fare. I don’t make pancakes much any more,...
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Lotus & Minnie: On the Road Again
It’s dairy goat show season! No sooner were the cucumbers planted, than our trowels were traded for clippers, and we found ourselves driving around Northern California to the first two goat shows of the season. The only thing I think we were missing on the farm truck last...
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While the Farmer’s Away…
I once posted about the plight of the Pacific Madrone trees on the property. Many of the trees in our woodland areas are weak and diseased as a direct result of decades of poor land and forest management. This last weekend, while attending our first dairy goat show of the...
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The Rusty Milk Maid & A Reluctant First Freshener
When we were first seriously looking into adding goats to the farm, we did a lot of homework, a lot of reading, and we talked to various people more experienced than ourselves. Time and time again the same opinions kept cropping up. If looking for goats for milking some said...
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April Garden Update: A Sizzling Spring
The weather so far this year has been gorgeous. Although brisk in January and February, daytime temperatures have been quite warm for a number of weeks now, and we’ve had so little rain since January 1st (our driest start to the year on record), that winter is already a...
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New Additions: White Zedoary
This spring has definitely ‘gone to the goats’. I promise, we do still have gardens, chickens, turkeys, and bees, but as we start to build up our dairy herd, we’re occasionally finding ourselves with new goat additions this spring. On Sunday, our most recent...
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Livestock Predators: Bobcat (Lynx rufus)
For our regular readers it’s no shock that we have more than the average share of predators lurking near our poultry and livestock pens. In the six years we’ve been here though, we consider ourselves to have been relatively lucky, in that our losses have been kept...
Read More"Welcome to Curbstone Valley Farm"
a small organic farm and native garden located on California's Central Coast
About The Farm
Curbstone Valley Farm is a small private family farm located in the Santa Cruz Mountains, along the coast of Central California. We’re located in USDA Zone 9b (Sunset Western Garden Zone 15). The Farm is situated on seven-and-a-half secluded woodland acres. We maintain an heirloom kitchen garden, orchard, and native plant gardens. The Farm is home to a variety of heritage breeds of chickens, heritage turkeys, and honey bees, along with ADGA and AGS registered Nigerian Dwarf goats.
About The Goats
We are in the process of building up a small herd of registered Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats on the farm. We love this small dairy breed both for its milking efficiency, and milk quality. Although this is a small breed in stature, Nigerian Dwarf goats are not short on personality! Our breeding goals are focused toward excellence in milk production, and correctness in conformation. To help us achieve those goals, beginning in 2014 our herd will be enrolled in both DHIA 305-day milk test, and linear appraisal. Our herd members are registered with both ADGA, and AGS, and tested annually for CAE and CL.
About The Gardens
The gardens at the farm consist of an heirloom kitchen garden, an herb garden, an orchard, and a California native plant garden. All the gardens are grown organically, without the use of pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic fertilizers. The gardens are also planted with a variety of flowering herbs, and native plants, to encourage honey bees, and native pollinators, to frequent the garden areas for pollination.