You must have noticed – either during personal visits or from our posts in the virtual world – that we do not only keep goats. Another important member of our party are sheeps. We move the herd around the surrounding pastures in the mountains, which belong to the farm. So the sheep have first-class living – healthy mountain pasture full of herbs with luxurious views. Thanks to this, they have good quality wool that needs to be shorn at least once a year.

But then comes the non-Russian question “Where to take her”? We keep some of the wool – so that we can process it together into the handmade workshops. We’re putting the rest up for sale.

This year we have come across traditional beskydy woolen bedding manfucturer,that buysout wool from local breeders. They handcraft the best products that are suitable (not only) for allergy and asthma sufferers. Wool is the perfect natural thermoregulating material. In winter, duvets warm you up, in summer they can cool you down. Wool is an almost immortal material – with proper maintenance, your duvets will last for decades. In today’s accelerated age of consumer goods, to produce a product that has the potential to serve you for a lifetime is almost miraculous.

What’s more, wool bedding smells incredibly good and radiates pure life energy. A few members of our goat party have already purchased their quilts, confirming all of the above

Duvets are produced in nearby Frýdek-Místek. So when you will be on your way to our farm – whether you’re going for fresh goat’s milk, kefir, gourmet cheeses, or have an excursion booked , come and see Besky manufacture as well. They will be happy to show you around the manufactory and let you smell the duvets. The premises of the manufactory are deliberately designed so that from the shop you can see directly into the production Like us, you need to arrange a group excursion in advance.

But we are very happy that this tradition of delivering goods from regional producers and manufacturers has been renewed by Státní zemědělský intervenční fond, which has been going to the regions with a mobile shop for several years.

And this year you can also buy our mobile cars full of goodies goat’s cheese ripened under a noble mould GABRIN! The cheese is creamy inside with a creamy taste and a light goat aroma. It is handmade according to an old family recipe. Each piece of cheese is such a little original. The cheese production process consists of pasteurisation, inoculation, sieving and subsequent separation of curds from whey. It is perfectly delicious! For gourmets

In June, stops are planned in Vsetín, Český Těšín, Kroměříž, Havířov, Třinec, Bruntál, Valašské Meziříčí and Frýdek Město.

A perfect opportunity to taste at least a snippet of our production. Thank you for supporting us.

If we have a healthy gut, we are better able to fight off pathogens and make the most of the nutrients in the food we eat. Colonies of friendly bacteria live here in harmony with our body. But all it takes is constant stress, dissatisfaction, depression, mental emptiness, industrialized diet, semi-finished products, smoking, alcohol, unhealthy environment … and that balance starts to tip.

That’s why we decided to grow and multiply tibetan kefir grains. It is a living organism that can make kefir from milk. Our sponges are fed with delicious organic goat milk.

Tibetan kefir grains can supply the body with the necessary probiotics, which help digestion, promote the cleansing of the body and thus the organs. We recommend everyone to dose carefully in the beginning. The most that will suffice 1 deciliter of kefir per day and multiply after each week to an amount that does you good.

NEVER load sponges with a metal spoon – they really don’t make friends with metal. She will like it in glass or plastic.

How do we do that?

• Place the Tibetan sponge in a glass with fresh milk, cover with a cloth and leave to work for 24 hours. You can try our procedure – 12 hours at room temperature and 12 hours in the fridge
• If you see water on the bottom (whey) or small lumps (cottage cheese) – nothing is wrong. On the contrary, it is proof of a correct fermentation process.
• After 24 hours, stir the contents and strain through a sieve.
• Rinse the grains ideally with fresh water, return to a clean glass, pour in the milk…. and look forward to more delicious homemade kefir.

You can buy grains in the farm shop in Hážovice 2070.

Wishing you lots of health, a happy mind.

In the hills away from the hustle and bustle of the city, where you can wet your lips in a clean mountain spring…. Where the sight of the surrounding hills and valleys makes your heart clench with a pleasant anxiety at how infinitely beautiful Beskydy nature is…..

There, an equally beautiful woman and her family live in seclusion. A woman who has found her destiny in living in harmony with nature and its regularly recurring cycles. Her name is Viera, many know her by her brand name JaDoLi. A local gem that restores the forgotten ancient craft of spinning. She loves everything about sheep wool – raising her own sheep, shearing, washing and dyeing wool. Its processing by spinning, felting and weaving.

You can meet her at craft fairs, where she and her spinning wheel are surrounded by the aura of the ancient past of women from the local hills and valleys. She enjoys passing on her knowledge, skills, enthusiasm and love of wool to anyone interested.

At our farm, we not only produce and sell fabulously good gourmet goat cheese, but we also take visitors on tours of our goat kingdom. But we also offer a refuge for all souls who need to stop in the cycle of hectic everydaylife. Together with JaDoLi we have prepared a morning workshop on sheep wool processing for beginners.

The workshop is designed for a group of 3 – 9 people and lasts 3-4 hours. What will you learn? Under her kind guidance you will learn how to wash and comb wool. You will try out pre-scaling techniques, spinning (on a spinning wheel or spindle) and wet or dry felting.

The workshop will be held in the farm shop in Hážovice 2070, the workshop includes tasting of goat milk products and parking.

The price of the morning workshop is 2 600 CZK per group + 100 CZK/person/material.

So, are you in? Will you take us back a few centuries for a few hours and become a Beskydy spinner – a wild woman – a fairy…? Of course, the offer also applies to men!

The course must be booked at least 4 days in advance at info@zerlina.cz.

Imagine knowing exactly where the milk, cheese, yoghurt, meat or potatoes you eat at home come from. Or better yet, you yourself have partially contributed to the production of the food on your table through physical labor Whoever grows their own vegetables, fruits at home or has home-grown eggs thanks to their chickens, knows very well that such ingredients have a completely different energy than those bought in the supermarket.

And because we can’t all live in separate houses surrounded by gardens and meadows, we’re happy to share our produce with anyone who doesn’t have the opportunity to grow or raise it at home.

Officially, it is called community supported agriculture (CSA). Thus, the farmer and the final consumer become partners. A farmer who has regular buyers can better plan his harvest, and the consumer knows where his food comes from and what processing cycle it has gone through.

But since the name KPZdid not fit our purposes, we decided to call this mutual community involvement the Friends of the Farm Club. And how does it work?

Engagement

What you get from us

More and more people are struggling with poor digestibility or directly cow´s milk allergy. They are therefore looking for alternatives to keep dairy products in their diet.

Milk from our farm is sourced under strict and relevant organisations controlled technological conditions. The animals are fed healthy food from our own organic production. In the production of organic cheese all raw materials come from organic farming. The goats spend a large part of their day in the environment of grassy pastures in the hills of the Beskydy Protected Landscape Area.

Goat’s milk is nutritionally very similar to cow’s milk, yet it has several important characteristics that set it apart:

• Ubichon 50 was identified as the substance responsible for the main beneficial effect according to the research. It improves the overall condition of the organism, strengthens the immune system, harmonise the nervous system, improve chronical skin and digestive disease.

Your health is important to us! Come and strengthen and consolidate it at the ZERLINA farm.

Sheep breeding has a strong tradition in Wallachia. That makes sense! The once harsh living conditions here required the inhabitants to dress really well. Sheep’s wool is one of about a billion other miracles of nature

Sheep wool products absorb water so they can wick moisture away from the surface of the skin. This keeps a person dry and warm, at the same time acting as a “temperature regulator” and maintaining a stable body temperature. Isn’t that great? Functional material from nature and we wear and develop synthetics…

And what is this merino wool? It is an extremely fine wool produced by a breed of domestic sheep known as Merino originally from North Africa. Thanks to sailors, traders and travellers, it has made its way to Australia and New Zealand, where most of the world’s current production is concentrated. Here, the sheep live free-range on mountain ridge tops where the climate is harsh. Merino wool is softer, more resilient, longer lasting and less itchy. It has even better insulating and antibacterial properties than traditional staple wool. Merino wool clothing and accessories are ideal for outdoor use, as a base layer or as clothing for small children. Mothers of forest nursery children could tell…..:) Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Because of all these wonderful properties, we decided to offer products made of merino wool, which does not come from the Czech Republic, but is processed by the Czech company SURTEX. In the farm shop you can buy gloves, socks, leg warmers or socks. But we do not forget about products made from classic Czech sheep wool, for example from our colleagues from the sheep farm under Radhoštěm.

“It’s early in the morning. It is still dark, as the darkness is slowly receding, but the sun has not yet risen. The snow-covered farm reminds me more of a phantom from fairy tales than a real building at this time.  This atmosphere is enhanced by the omnipresent peace and silence. There is a similar atmosphere in the stable. The brownies are still lying down and only Rika is quietly greeting me with a growl.

I´m gonna hear something else. The sound goes from the back part of  stable. I’m curiously going to check it out. And there,  In the corner under the hay, two newborn baby goats and their proud mother goat look at me.

For a moment I just stand there spellbound. The bigger from  both baby goats clumsily get up and look for the much needed life-giving milk. The mother goat licks him carefully. The other goat, perhaps disturbed by the sudden departure of its sibling, quietly purrs. Its mother answers its call quietly and it, encouraged by her call, follows the sound uncertainly. Soon he joins his sibling and they are both feeding for the sixth time.

I’ll let the new family stay with the other goats for a while. And then I’ll move them to a separate box so they have proper privacy. While writing new additions to the stable diary I suddenly realize that on 19th February begins the Year of the Goat.

In  Chinese culture, the goat is a symbol of motherhood, peace, tranquility and harmony. And as I observe the new family, I must s just agree with this……”

I didn’t start to vaguely suspect that I wanted to go into farming until I was well into my thirties. And it happened, as sometimes happens, that a man happened to be in the right place at the right time. Maybe because of the memory of the Tatras mountains I decided to move myself and my children to Wallachia. Buying an old homestead was not a problem at that time – the fact that it was sold with seven hectares of land – I was a bit puzzled – what am I going to do with it? And here´s the question and the answer didn’t take long. If in Wallachia, then in the Wallachian way and the first 5 goats conquered seven hectares of pastures.

Soon it turned out that they would not be enough and so I reinforced the group with myself with a scythe and kids with rakes, in a nice Wallachian way, we started in the morning and finished in the evening. But it was not enough, so I reinforced the group with a horse with a hoe, and a car with a trailer for hauling hay. When we figured out that we were going to tear the horses down and cook the car that way, we added a tractor with tools, a hay baler, and a sidecar behind the tractor until we finally had all the equipment to maintain the pasture. And seven hectares was not enough for that.

Gradually we began to gain ground. One hectare, two hectares, until it was 50 hectares today. In between, the first 5 kids multiplied to 7, the next year to 15, then to 25 and finally to the almost 50 dairy goats we have now.

Of course, it didn’t all go as smoothly as described here. There were failures. The first time I tried the cheese, the curds leaked through the sheet with the whey. There was wet hay, a sick goat, a stray ram, a broken tractor, and we already had a fire. At the beginning of my farming career, I thought I would solve the problem and be done with it. So I disposed of the wet hay, made new, dry and scented hay, and wonder of wonders – the goats ate the hay over the winter. And new ones had to be made, and the tractor had to be rebuilt, and repaired again, and so it goes on and on on on the farm. One becomes a true farmer only when one becomes part of this cycle, when one is present to face the challenges of weather, technology or simply fate.

Ivana Christina Hermann