Gina Jeffries
I was born and raised in Skagit Valley which is in NW Washington state.
I was the typical horse crazy girl, as my parents discovered and it was a love I would never outgrow. At one point I had 7!
My farm (Give Me Faith Farm LLC) is only 2 and 1/2 acres, but my husband and I have a garden, orchard, free range chickens, ducks, geese and goats.
A late summer morning on the farm
Our goal is to produce most, if not all, of our food.
We built this greenhouse from recycled windows.
My first goat (my gateway goat?) was a wether named Elmer I brought home from a stable I worked at.
Elmer
He lived into his 20’s – the oldest goat my vet had ever seen when she came to put him down since his arthritis had become unbearable.
Elmer, posing for the camera
After he passed, I took on a pair of rescue goats and shortly after that, I met my soon to be best friend who has since “gifted” me with multiple bottle babies and I was hooked!
The Nubian buckling I purchased is going to be the breeding buck for both our herds, as she has dairy does and also a large herd of goats that she hauls to people’s properties to take down blackberries and brush.
My little Nubian buck, Jax
I currently have 8 goats. One is the original rescue who just hangs out. There are also the new buck and his bestie who will always be with him so he’s not lonely when it’s not breeding season, 2 dairy does and a daughter who will become a dairy doe next year, and a giant wether who is my 250 pound lapdog.
One of my does, Sabrina, on the milking stand, hooked up
I am down to 2 horses, though. And 8 cats. My parents just roll their eyes at this point.
My lovely girls-Cayenne (with her tongue out) is 20, Lucy is 31
I thought it would be great to learn to make my own cheese for many years, but I worked in an oil refinery and between that and raising a special needs son, I never got around to it.
Then, in 2015, I got hurt and put on temporary disability while I was sent back to college for retraining. Of the choices I was given, the culinary program sounded like a good fit. So, I began learning all about restaurant food production.
After I graduated from culinary school, I got a job at a tiny local bakery that produces strictly gluten free foods.
This is the bakery when I was working there in 2019.
I had a blast working there but, in December of 2019, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease and later, fibromyalgia. It completely took me out of the game and I was forced to quit.
I believe the fibro is a symptom of the Lyme. I was never sick the way others are but when I overdo it (physically) I hurt extra bad the next several days. Mornings are the worst, it takes hours for the aches and pains to subside. Once they do, I’m pretty well able to do whatever I did, but I run out of energy super fast.
I still have a great relationship with my former boss and she is selling some of my homemade soaps at the bakery. The soap making was a way to fill time, but I had enough people tell me I ought to be selling it, so I formed an LLC and started making more! I’m hoping to sell them soon from my website.
The cheese making desire was still on a back burner, although in my classes I was exposed to all kinds of interesting cheeses I had never even heard of. The 2 year program required an internship in a food related industry and I got super lucky to be able to intern with a local cheese maker at her tiny, but amazing, dairy.
It was unique in that the La Mancha goats were milked literally 30 feet from where their milk was turned into cheese! I learned a great deal over the summer that I was interning, including dairy sanitation, what cultures and techniques produced what cheeses, and even how to hand milk a goat.
Filtering the milk
After the internship, I found a gal online selling all her cheese making supplies so I bought them all. The cheese press was (of course) a New England Cheesemaking press.
She also had a bunch of different molds and followers, wax and drying mats.
My cheese harp and curd knife
Whey for the cats plus the mold I’m using for this batch
My first homemade cheese ever was a garlic/dill gouda. I made it with raw cow’s milk bought from our local co-op. Somehow, we managed not to break into it and it actually aged for almost a year. It was a bit garlicky but nobody complained.
To date, I’ve made 7 batches of chevre, several of which I’ve used to then make cheesecakes, 2 Colbys, 3 Goudas, 5 cheddars, 2 Parmesans, and a triple cream. Cheddar still kinda kicks my butt but I keep at it, trying to get the curds to knit together perfectly without becoming brittle.
My (smaller) cheese making pot
Pouring the curds into the mold
Hanging the butter muslin to dry after unmolding
Colby floating in brine
The last of a cheddar aged a year
Soon, my kids will all be weaned and then I’ll be cranking out cheese as fast as I can squeeze the milk out of my goats! I really want to make feta and Brie as well as learn to wax my hard cheeses. Currently, I use Foodsaver bags to seal them and I have a mini fridge to act as a cheese cave.
My cheese fridge out in an insulated room in our garage
I have chronic fatigue so I try to set daily goals that are attainable. Sometimes that means cleaning goat stalls or making a batch of soap, or making cheese and resting most of the day. It’s therapeutic to sit on a stool stirring curds.
The kids will be weaned soon so I can increase the amount of milk I freeze for soap making this winter and, of course, start making as much cheese as I can. I want to completely eliminate store bought. I guess you could say that my “job” has become figuring out ways for this farm to pay for itself.
My son is a computer genius (unlike his mom) and he has put together the website for my little farm. I don’t really have any idea how to run a business so this is a major learning process for me.
Advice for beginners:
I consider myself pretty much a newbie still at cheese making so I’m not sure what the best advice would be. When I can turn out a perfect melty cheddar, then maybe I’ll be “experienced.”
I would say the best way to learn is just do it! YouTube has tons of wonderful cheese making videos, Gavin Webber being a great one for different recipes.
Start with simple recipes – fresh cheeses like chevre or paneer are easy and don’t require much equipment. Obviously New England Cheesemaking Supply (cheesemaking.com) is a great source of information and recipes, too! I printed out quite a few when I first began.
Don’t give up if a cheese doesn’t turn out right. It’s easy to make mistakes when heating curds or over-stirring or even using too much rennet. I had one cheddar develop mold inside the freezer bag. I just scraped it off and enjoyed the perfectly delicious cheese underneath!
