My husband John and I moved to North Idaho with our three sons in 2008. We launched the CLRC the following fall – with just one teacher and 9 students. Both the CLRC and our goat farm grew and developed around our own homeschooling with our sons and is still centered out of our home in beautiful North Idaho where we work together to run the CLRC and our family farm.
What We Grow
Readers may have noticed on the social media that we've been posting weekly "Fridays on the Farm" images. Our son Daniel spends time photographing the dynamic seasonal flora and fauna, and we plan for this blog section to be a space where you can get to know us better by seeing what we see every day.
What We Make
Fall is a busy time of year as we not only begin the school year, but are also busy preserving the rewards of our summer labors with the fruit trees and in the garden. We eat from harvest to harvest – so after enjoying lots of spinach salads, we savor potatoes stuffed full of chives (and goat cheese of course). Then come the zucchini muffins, zucchini casserole, fried zucchini, and zucchini lasagna – with chocolate Zucchini bread for desert! Every night our table is adorned with plenty of cucumber, bell peppers, and tomatoes, and then there are the fruit trees – apples, plums, cherries, and pears go into sauces, crisps, pies, and fruit smoothies :).
Laying Hens
We also raise free-range laying hens and enjoy the deep rich yellow eggs that they provide for us throughout the year.
About Those Goats
The majority of our farm life focuses on our wonderful goats! We raise Nubian dairy goats and breed each year in order to ‘kid’ in May or June – as soon as the school year wraps up. We usually end up with 5-10 kids and just bask in the cuteness! The goats help establish the rhythm for much of our farm life. They need to be milked twice a day and regularly taken ‘out to eat’; that is, we have about 3 acres of fenced pasture, but once that is eaten down we take them out for regular excursions on the rest of our land where they run about like excited children looking for choice leaves, stems, and branches.
We drink a lot of goat milk and enjoy cheddar, feta, paneer, and cottage cheese – as well as plenty of chevre!
Our neighbors
Between the garden and the goats, we have some fairly predictable routines and rhythms that we observe throughout the year. Of course, there are always surprises and each season brings with it sylvan visitors that we welcome and enjoy observing ourselves.
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