She calls herself the “Crazy Goat Lady,” but there is nothing crazy about Cindy and her husband Larry, who own and run a goat farm about ten miles down the road from us in a small hamlet called Eagle Bridge.

Cindy, Maria, and I have become friends; we met at the Farmer’s Market, where I discovered Cindy, her goat stories, her delicious goat cheese, and her incomparable soap, the best soap I have ever used.

Cindy is creative; she always is working on something new and different, from soaps to truffles to special cheeses and yogurt.

She has the warmest smile and a dry sense of humor. She and Larry are following their dream.  And they never stop working, dawn to dusk and beyond. I can’t imagine milking 70 goats daily and then hand-feeding every lamb.

They started the goat farm seven years ago when Larry retired as a tractor-trailer driver; he couldn’t handle the rude and crazy drivers around him, and he says they’ve gotten worse all the time.

 

 

His dream was to own his own farm. She wasn’t sure at first, but it became Cindy’s dream as well. She loves her goats and makes her very special soap in the basement of the farmhouse.

Since I first wrote about her on the blog, she is getting a lot of soap orders from the blog readers. It’s a great soap made with goat’s milk.

Her e-mail, if you want some, is [email protected].

I liked Cindy from the first time I met her at the Farmers Market. I saw her as a Good Witch with a beautiful smile, a wonderful sense of humor, and an appetite for hard and creative work. Everything she makes is good.

I love visiting farms; real farms are sprawling messes, a hodge podge of shacks, sheds, buildings, fencing, barns, wires, smells, junks, and tents. The milking rooms are always spotless.

Cindy and Larry know each of their 70 goats by name.

Most of the kids are sold, which is tough on them but necessary. Last year, they had 145 kids. Each one got a bottle more than twice a day.

(Cindy doesn’t name her kids; it’s too hard to part with them. This one went to a new home today.)

They milk the goats every day and feed the babies by hand. It is exhausting and relentless work, and both love doing it.

Cindy invited me to come out to her far to see her new triplets. Maria was busy, but at the last minute, she couldn’t resist coming along (of course she couldn’t.)

We spent a couple of hours there today, meeting the goats and hearing about them, Larry told Maria there were two beautiful female goats who needed a home, and Maria lit up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. Tempting, she’s thinking about it. I vote no, but it’s her decision.

I don’t think she’ll want to do it; she is plenty busy. We got a wonderful tour of Cindy’sfarm,  Caz Acres, and yet another peek into a farmer’s hard but meaningful life and richly rewarding life. Come along with us on tour; the photos tell the story..

Cindy is in the tent where the goats live.

 

 

Cindy and her husband Larry, I enjoyed meeting him. He is honest, hard-working, and loves the goats very much. Seeing him talk to each one and scratch chem along their necks was touching. No one can run a farm with that many animals alone. Larry always wanted to farm.  Farming is a great partnership, always.

This is a goat Larry says needs a new and nice home. Maria is thinking about it. She is a sweet creature.

I don’t know this goat’s name, but he was very interested in eating my Leica. I told him that would not be a good start in our relationship.

I remember having three goats at the first Bedlam Farm. They were way too smart for me; every morning when I woke up, all three were standing on the roof of my car, laughing at me. I gave them away to a nice farmer.

 

Farmer loves animals, and they love her. She was surrounded by the goats and talked to each one of them.

 

 

 

At farms where milk is produced, the milking house is the cleanest place on the farm and the place where people go to talk in peace and quiet. It is never quiet when there is milking going on. And with 70 goats, it is never quite at all.

 

I love this portrait of Cindy in the milking house; she has a kind of winsome wisdom about her. My camera is very fond of her.