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We still have another eight days, and eco-terrorists!

Jack and his wife are leaving this morning to go back home.  We are leaving on Tuesday in a week, staying in Vail and enjoying a fantastic holiday.  I can say that this has been the best skiing holiday we have ever had.  Vail is really welcoming and a fun place to go.  We are driving Jack and his wife back to the airport around 9 am today.

They were hoping to be able to stay longer, but as Jack said: "real life got in the way".  They come here about once a month during the ski season and spend two weeks in the summer hiking and doing other summer activities.  For what it's worth, Jack only announced last night that they had to go back home earlier than anticipated (they were supposed to stay till Wednesday).  

In other news, we had a small outbreak of Ecthyma on the farm.  Jennifer told me last night that the vet had spent a considerable amount of time on the farm and our goat herd was infected, they confirmed that it's Ecthyma, which was absolutely not present in our herd a few weeks ago.  We check for viral contamination in our goat milk every month.

The vet said it was the same genome (go figure what they can find out now) they found in a goat herd about 20 miles away.  When he said that, it dawned on me and said:  "Remember a few weeks ago the three morons that invaded the goat pen to liberate our herd.  It is entirely possible that they had visited another farm first, and picked up the microbe there".  

The vet then said that he had the anti-viral medication in stock so that he could immunize the herd, and also the herd decontamination protocol.  Our vet immediately contacted the Animal and Plant Health Agency, and Jennifer coordinated the decontamination of the goat fields and pens, and a goat dip to ensure that the source contaminants were removed.  The APHA also contacted all the farms on which these morons had trespassed to give them the heads-up.  Jennifer, our foreman and crew plus several other employees worked all day under the supervision of the APHA (The vet contacted APHA at 5 pm Saturday, and two of their inspectors were at the farm at 6 am this morning...on a Sunday!), they supervised, monitored and coordinated the decontamination protocol, their presence reassured Jennifer.  Everyone looked as if they were in a bad sci-fi movie with their white decontamination suits, gloves and masks...I thought it was too much, but both APHA and our vet confirmed that this was the approved protocol for dealing with the infection, and the chemicals.

The last thing is that we segregated the goat cheese and milk that we had at hand for the past three weeks, about a third of our entire stock, and had the APHA collect samples for testing.  Most of the cheese affected is not scheduled to leave the farm for another few weeks...All this occurred in the space of 24 hours (on a weekend).  APHA said that it's almost impossible for the cheese to be infected.  As a safety measure, Jennifer had all the cheese tested, but I am thinking of having the whole lot destroyed (about 500 kg of cheese).  I rather err on the side of caution.  

Financially it's insignificant, but it's a lot of extra work for our staff...on a Sunday.  Many employees gave up their entire Sunday for this.  It's not an issue of wages it's an issue of taking their free time to help on the farm.  Jennifer told me that she called four people who contacted others.  By 7 am this morning, we had 40 additional people on the farm ready to help.  Tractors, rakes, water hoses and disinfectant.  As Jennifer said, there were not a lot of ecological products used in the pens today.  APHA was adamant about the chemicals we HAD to use in the decontamination protocol.  APHA even contacted DEFRA to ensure that they were aware of how and where the disinfectants were used so that our Organic certification not be compromised...again on a Sunday!

Thanks to all our staff for this amazing effort

Note:  I still cannot believe that APHA showed up at 6 am this morning.  They just about woke Jennifer up.

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