Last year, our family, a group of ambitious dreamers, began work on our most ambitious project yet: to build a goat ranch and creamery on what was once a small part of Great Farm, a prosperous 2,000 acre farm in the heart of Jackson, Maine. By the time we arrived, the original farm was long gone, and the fields were overgrown with spruce, fir, and scrub, but we believed we could make the land part of Maine’s vibrant farming community once again.
Eleven months later, we have built barns, paddocks, birthing stalls, a milk parlor, and a creamery. Peridoe Ranch is up and running, and Maine Creamery is now licensed by the State of Maine to sell our goat milk products. Our whole goat milk (heat-treated) is stocked at the Marsh River Co-op in Brooks, Tiller and Rye in Brewer, Good Tern Co-op in Rockland, and Fresh off the Farm in Rockport. Skim milk, cream, cheese, yogurt, and goats’ milk soap are all on the horizon.
Our motto is “Excellence in Milk,” and our team, which now includes fellow-dreamers from Waldo County, is devoted to producing the best goat milk products available anywhere. We believe even devout cow milk lovers will become converts!.
One of the most important elements of our vision for both Peridoe Ranch and Maine Creamery can’t be seen on the shelves of a store--though maybe it can be sensed in the special quality of our milk. Our family came to this adventure from a wide variety of backgrounds, including industrial food science and safety, animal husbandry, computer science, and midwifery. Making the ranch and creamery a reality has involved adapting those skills and learning new ones--and this is a crucial part of our dream: to make our farm a place where each of us can contribute our particular abilities while exploring and extending our interests. An electrician hired to wire our barns might learn about solar arrays; a milker might branch out into breeding; a goatherd might participate in cheese making. We want Peridoe to be a place where we all grow and thrive.
We also care about the land and community we are now lucky to call home. All our buildings, and all farm machinery, including our front loader, are powered by solar energy generated right here, with the excess exported to the grid. Our milking, heat-treating, and bottling operations are designed to run with a minimum of water (including cleaning and sterilizing). Goat manure is composted on site and will eventually be sold as a premium garden amendment. Our long-term plans even include opening a veterinary office with state-of-the-art equipment right here in Jackson.
In the midst of all this hard work, we have only recently begun building a home. Though it was an adventure, we don’t recommend the experience of living through a Maine winter in tents! Even so, hauling water all winter, rebuilding our solar array following storms (three times!), replacing burned out well pumps (also three times!), and redesigning our goat barns to withstand winter winds has left us with a real appreciation for what it took to establish the original Great Farm. We are proud to follow in the footsteps of those men and women, and proud to be part of the Jackson and Waldo County community.
We look forward to hearing what you think of our milk. If you can’t find it in your favorite shop, ask them about Maine Creamery milk, or give us a shout at More at creamery.me.