Please let us know what you think -- we aim to make the best cheese we can with 100% of the milk produced by our cows on our farm.

 All the rest of the equipment -- lab equipment, walk-in cooler, water boiler, display case, and so forth are either here or due to arrive in the next two weeks (and was sourced in the US). We plan to have the equipment all installed and ready for production by the middle of June.

The first cheese types we will make include fresh cheese curds, cheddar cheese, colby cheese, and Jersey jack cheese. The curds, colby and jack cheese will be first up for sale as they do not require much, if any, aging. The cheddar cheese will be ready by about Labor Day this year.

The Young's Farmstead Cheese we make will be fresh milk 100% from our own Jersey cows. We do not treat our cows with rbST. Though no significant difference has been shown in the milk from treated and non-treated cows, we know our Guests expect us not to use rbST.

The Young family looks forward to this venture and can't wait to start sampling our very own Young's Farmstead Cheese to our Guests to get feedback and ideas.

Today's economic conditions make buying local more important than ever.  We also all know that buying local just to buy local doesn't get it.  The business you buy from still has to give you value -- at the end of the day, you have to get a good deal for your money or you won't buy there again -- local or not.  That's just the way it works.  That's what makes America great and what makes it work -- every business has the opportunity to succeed and has the opportunity to fail.  If we're local, we want a chance from our local Customers -- we know we don't have the right to their business -- but we hope we get the opportunity to earn their business.

I was reviewing what Young's buys -- and who we buy from -- as I was looking over our 2008 numbers.  All things being equal, Young's has always chose to buy local.  But I'd never thought of looking at how much we buy local.  I knew our purchases are mostly local, but I was really amazed at how local.  I define local as within 60 miles of Young's.  Almost 90% of all purchases Young's made in 2008 were from local companies -- and more than 70% of that was from companies within 25 miles.  This includes good and services. 

Young's will continue to buy local.  We know that 80% or more of our business comes from local Customers -- it just makes good economic sense for us to support the business.

Below is a list of local businesses we buy from (in no particular order) -- and this list is not all of them -- I apologize to any I missed in making my list!  Yes, some of this list includes the local branch of a national or even international business -- but they all have local employees and businesses that pay taxes -- and I hope they all like ice cream and know of a good place to visit to get a dip or two of their favorite flavor!

I-Supply Company
Reiter Dairy
Hoskett Veterinary Service
Southwest Landmark
Smith's Rolloff Service
A&B Asphalt
Gordon Food Service
A-C Service
Par Striping
Montgomery Insurance
Meadowview Growers
All-Phase Electric
Bowman & Landess Turkeys
Brown Publishing
Maine's Towing
Mader Electric
Spradlin Bros Welding
Sysco Foods
Triec Electric
Bryce Hill
CED Electric
Catanzaro & Sons Produce
Champaign Excavating
Clark County Glass
Mad River Topsoil
Mike-Sells
Lavy Enterprises
Kaiser Fruit Farm
KW Burris
Janeco Janitor Supplies
Instantwhip Dayton
Home City Tent
Cox Ohio
Dayton Daily News
Custom Tire
Do It Best Harware
Holmes Printing
W.R Hackett Produce
Delille Oxygen
Dooley Septic Pro
Economy Linen
Ehman's Garage
Electric Eel
Ellenbee-Leggett
Klosterman's Bakery
Enting Water Conditioning
Ertel Publishing
Folck's Country Cuts
Pepsi-Cola Bottling
Phares Pumps
RE Skillings
Blessing Water
Remington Steel
Rieck Mechanical Services
Schockman Lumber
Sherriff-Goslin Roofing
Farm Credit Services
WBZI Radio
Waterways & Pathways
White Glove Cleaning'
Woeber's Mustard
Yellow Springs News
YMCA-Springfield
Carl's Mustard
Coca-Cola
Berner Screen Print
Security National Bank

Buy local when you can.  It helps all of us.

 Dan Young

The Young's family is considering building a facility to make our own cheese using only milk from our cows.  We would make several kinds of cheese and sell it to our Guests and use it in our recipes in both restaurants.

This is an exciting idea, I think.  I keep imagining our own homemade cheddar cheese on our cheeseburgers!  Our our own pepperjack cheese on a hot spicy chicken sandwich.  Or really special grilled cheese sandwiches made with different kinds of farmstead, artisan cheeses.  I could go on!  But I think you get the idea.

So....what do you think of this idea?  Is it a good one?  Do you have ideas or suggestions?   What is your favorite types or flavors of cheese? 

We are in the planning stages, so now is the time to speak up!  Let me know your thoughts.  The best way to let me know your feedback is to email me at cows@youngsdairy.com.  Thanks!

Dan 

Unfortunately, this time of year, every year, many cats are dropped off at our farm.  Right now, the cats outnumber the cows!  We feed them and care for them in our barn and show them where the food is and keep them away from the restaurant -- cats wandering around the restaurant is not a good thing on most days.

 I suggest if you have cats you do not want or can no longer care for, and can't find a good home for them, then please take them to your local Humane Society or other animal shelter.  Better yet -- please spay and neuter your cats (and dogs) to help reduce the problem in the future.    Cat overpopulation is a serious problem -- it leads to lots of stray/feral cats and leads to animal hoarding in some cases.   I am a member of our local board of health and we have dealt with a few cases involving cat hoarding, and it's not pretty.

Read more at the Humane Society's website at http://www.hsus.org/pets/issues_affecting_our_pets/pet_overpopulation_and_ownership_statistics/

 Thanks for listening (or is that thanks for reading?).

 Dan

The good news for us was we only lost power for about 3 1/2 hours, so no losses on refrigerated foods, freezers, etc.  We only shut down Sunday evening and reopened 6 am Monday.   I know we were more fortunate than many in our immediate area.  I know I certainly hope we have no repeats of that for the next 100 years!

The committee, volunteers and sponsors work and plan and give throughout the year to make this ride happen.  We all have fun, but always remember the main purpose of the ride is to raise fund for wothwhile organizations than work to benefit the lives of Miami Valley residents.

 The four charities we supported this year are The Alzheimer's Association, The Wellness Connection, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Inited Rehabilitation Services (URS).

We ride to support the local chapters of our bike ride charities -- The Alzheimer's Association, United Rehabilitation Services, The Wellness Connection and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. 

This year we created a new route that went from Young's Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs to Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio -- about 83 miles.  Most of the riders stayed in Ohio Northern University's fantastic air conditioned dorms/apartments overnight and rode back to Young's on Sunday.

We had five rest stops along the way, and Young's provided lunch both days on the route -- and ice cream at both ends of the ride on both days.

This ride also had one day, shorter mileage options for those who don't have the desire to ride that far!

Each rider pledges to get donations or makes the donation themselves to support the charities.  After expenses (insurance, brochure printing, dorm charges and dinner and breakfast at the University) the funds raised are split among the four charities.  Each charity supplies volunteers to support rest stops, check in duties, and other helpful chores.

The ride itself is supported by ham radio operators, two bike repairs shops, motorcycles, and vehicles to pick up folks with broken bikes or who need assistance for part of the ride.

Last year we were able to distribute over $52,000 to the charities.  We will finish collecting all pledges over the next month or so, but I feel confident we will beat that number for the 2008 ride.

Thanks to all who were part of this ride.  You are what makes it fun and successful.  We are already planning on the 2009 edition of the ride -- stay tuned for more details -- but keep the July 25 & 26, 2009 open on your calendar! 

Just some of the changes we've done in the past couple of weeks and/or are working on within the next month:

Removed part of a wall at the Dairy Store to open up the dining room, make it easier to get in and out of when we are busy.

Replaced the entrance flooring into the dining room and our server area.

Replace the wallpaper in the dining room of the Dairy Store.

We've removed some chain link fence located between the picnic area and the driving range and batting cages.  This should make it easier to move around that area.

 We are getting ready to build a 'goat walk' -- a much more ambitious (and safe) are for our lpayful goats to climb and put on a show for our Guests.

 Within the next month, we should have installed a vending machine near the batting cages to vend tokens.  It will accept cash and debit or credit cards.  Once again, this is for convenience and speed. We also plan to install a driving range golf ball vending machine located in the covered tee area.

We are adding two large round tables to the choices at The Golden Jersey Inn and replacing a good number of the chairs that have been in daily use for 10 plus years.  The round tables will give our larger groups and familes a good place to sit and talk while enjoying a meal. 

Moovers & Shakers, our golf cart driven barrel ride into our fields, will have a new feature this spring -- a twenty foot giant tunnel!  It looks like fun.

We are repaving about a third of our parking lots and fixing potholes that appeared this winter.   

There's more coming than this summer -- details coming from a future blog. 

We have worked with our suppliers to identify the flavors of ice cream that use all natural ingredients.  This is a big task, as over a year’s time, we make over 110 different flavors of ice cream – some flavors are here all year and some flavors are around for a month or less – it’s just fun to experiment with ice cream flavors!

These are the flavors that we can identify as all natural.  Some of these flavors are permanent and some are seasonal.

•    Vanilla
•    Strawberry
•    Butter Pecan
•    Chocolate Peanut Butter
•    Caramel Chocolate Toffee
•    Chocolate Chunk  Cherry Vanilla
•    Coffee
•    Banana
•    Pumpkin
•    Cinnamon
•    Chocoffee

We are continuing to work with our flavor suppliers to make more flavors all natural and will let you know as we expand this list.

This minimizes soil and water erosion and the level of pesticides needed to grow things like corn and soybeans and actually sequesters carbon in the soil - not releasing it into the atmosphere.  We of course also use a lot of 'natural fertilizer' - the by-product of having cows!  This reduces the amount of manufactured fertilizer we purchase and apply to our crops. 

When we first started selling ice cream, we made perhaps 25-30 flavors a year. Now we make over 110 flavors a year! Some of them we make all year, some for a season, and some for as little as a week or two. New flavors we just put out to sell this weekend include Chocolate Chunk Cherry Vanilla. It tastes pretty much just as you would expect! Lemon Custard is back for the spring and summer. A favorite of Congressman Dave Hobson is back, also -- Peaches & Cream. He's been buying dips of Peaches for years now.

If you have any ideas for ice cream,please feel free to email me at cows@youngsdairy.com. I appreciate all flavor ideas!

We operate an advanced facility called a 'wetlands filtration system' that aerates and stores the wastewater until we can use it.  We recycle about 3,000,000 gallons of water each year at Young's!

Since we also operate our own water wells, pumps, and chlorination system, we in essence keep almost all the water we use here on the farm.  We pump it out of the ground, treat it, use the water for drinking, washing dishes, cooking, etc.  We capture it, treat it and use the water to irrigate the water on our fields.

Cardboard

As you can probably imagine, we go through a lot of cardboard in a day.  All of the different food items we have available at our stores comes in cardboard, things being sold in our gift shop come in cardboard boxes, even the golf balls that we sell at the driving range come in cardboard boxes.

When we started recycling cardboard, we actually got paid for it because not many businesses were doing it and the demand for used cardboard was high.  Times have changed and for the last decade or so, we have paid the waste company to haul the cardboard away to get recycled.  By doing this, we are reducing the amount of landfill space needed and of course are using less trees & energy. 

Aluminum Cans

Most of you know that for the past few summers, we have had a promotion with Pepsi to place a coupon on Mountain Dew cans.  This has been one of our most popular promotions, and as can be expected - we have collected a lot of Mountain Dew cans, 70,000 to be exact (or close to exact - that's a lot of cans to count). 

We donate these cans to local charitiable organizations to recycle - they pick them up and take them to the recycling plant and keep the money to support their organizations.  We have had some success in recycling cans from our company picnics during the year as well, using the same method.

Cooking Oil

We have been recycling our cooking oil for over 10 years.  After we cook our french fries, onion rings, chicken and other goodies in the oil, it goes back to special equipment that filters the oil and otherwise cleans it for many uses - animal feed, cosmetics & soap.  In the past few years, scientists have been able to use recycled cooking oil to burn in diesel trucks, busses and cars.