Come on, girls, Caitlin and Brendan Foley, keep a cow for warmth, a donkey, he's kind of a watch dog, a billygoat with a punk hair do, and three dozen other goats on their farm. Hoofprint Cheese Company. Happy goats, delicious cheese, wonderful. That's the goal anyway at the Hoofprint Cheese Company and Upstate New York. As far as we can tell, the goats are happy, and we know the cheese is delicious. But farming is lots of work, little sleep, and it's generally not so lucrative. Still, it's a job like no other, and for many it's wonderfully enough. On this edition of On the Job from Express Employment Professionals, we'll meet a couple who's come back to the land to make a living doing what they love. If you want to find your next job, or if you're a company hoping to grow your workforce, Express Employment Professionals is for you. Find more information at express prose dot com. Now, Karen Michelle brings us a story from New York's Hudson Valley about how a ten year old love of goats blossomed into a way of life. The Hudson Valley of New York State has a long history of farming. In Dutchess County alone, less than a hundred miles north of Manhattan. In eighteen ninety there were at least thirty four hundred farms, but a hundred years later the number had dwindled to just over six hundred. There's hope the farm to table movement has spawned a resurgence in farming. Small farming and younger generations are choosen to stay, and newcomers are also tilling the soil, tapping the trees, and breeding livestock for meat and milk. Both thirty one years old, Brendan and Catle and Foley are among the young folks opting to make a living, or at least most of one, milking goats and making cheese, but still takes real outside jobs to keep Hoofprint Cheese company going. Caitlin Foley has always had a thing for goats, as her mother, Diane Massarone knows well this one. At about age eight, decided she wanted to go. I guess most kids asked for a pony, but I really just wanted to go. I read about them and and learned about them, and there how much of a personality they have, and so I just really wanted to go the family mom dad, Kate and her two sisters were already raising pigs and sheep. That's in addition to her parents other jobs. He is a caretaker of the estate where they lived and kept the animals, and she had a local private school. But Kate, evidently as straightforward then as she is now, insisted a goat. Diane gave in, well, we knew nothing about goats, and we said sure, sure, sure, and we just kept pushing her off and pushing her off, and she just kept at it. I want to go, I want to go, I want to go, and she would look at pictures of goats, and so finally we decided at when she turned ten, that we would surprise her with a baby goat. So she did you come home from school? She came home from school and we told her to put her boots on. We had to go to the grocery store. And she couldn't understand why she had put boots on to go to the grocery store, but we were going to a farm where she could pick out her baby goat. And that was her surprise ten year birthday present, which meant going into the farmer's living room, where she had a playpen full of baby goats for Kate to choose from. There are a whole lot of kinds of goats, depending on the kinds of counting, but most folks are familiar with two kinds of goats, Alpine, the ones usually see in fairy tales and movie musicals, and faniel eared Nubians, who, even to this formerly non goat person, really are adorable. So she had the long floppy ears that I thought were very cute, and she had her coloration. Her pattern was really cute. She had a belt in the middle that was white and brown on the head and the rump, and uh. She was. She was the most friendly, the most outgoing. She was one that would follow me around the living room, and I just knew that that was the one that I wanted, And so we brought her home. And she was a Nubian goat. So I named her Newby and we had her for her whole life, living with us or with her family, Kate's family, who had to build a barn for Nuby and learn about goats, how to milk and breed and birth and care for a growing hurt, and then Diane started making cheese, and well there was lots to do, which she says was no big deal. Well, my husband grew up um on a uh dairy farm and I grew up on at the Millbrook Hunt Club, so we were used to animals, and we both had a passion for animals, and that came through in our kids and it was just a normal way of life for us. They clearly passed that love of caring for animals onto Kate. She even worked at her high school zoo. Yes there was a zoo. She went away to college to study biology, and during her first year, on a visit home, she started dating a young guy who had worked on their farm, Brendan Foley. That was about ten years ago. I was thrilled. I loved Brendan right from the start and he was always part of the family anyway, so it was great. Time passed. Caitlyn graduated and started working in zoos, Brendan finished his degree in applied mathematics. We picked up and we moved to New York City. UM Kate had gotten a job at the Prospect part Zoo in Brooklyn, and I was I was in the process of getting a job in Manhattan, UM at a natural all consulting firm. So we lived in Brooklyn for for five years, four and a half years or so. By then they'd had enough of city life, just as the Hudson Valley had lured artists to its light and landscapes. That's how it was for the young couple. We got to the point where we we decided that we didn't want to do what we're doing for the rest of our lives. Um. And we're young enough to be able to make a change, and we don't have kids, um. And we still weren't married at this point, but we had been together for quite a number of years and you know, so we don't have those types of obligations and people that are relying on us in that sense, um, that we can make a change. UM. So it wasn't very long afterwards we decided that that, you know, what if we started a farm, and what if we if we did something, you know, along the lines of what Diane was doing with goat cheese and goats and goat milk. Because Kate knows goats. Um. You know, I like goats. I took care of them, but I'm not a n spurt in by any means, Kate really is. That's that is her domain. How scary was that? It was pretty scary. We both had pretty good jobs that we were doing to find out in the city, and um, to leave that and make that change, it was a little bit scary, but we knew it was what we wanted, so that's what we did. Well, this is only a little over two years ago that we made this decision, UM, and we had nothing. You know, we didn't have any goats, we had no machinery, we had no equipment we had we didn't have a place to do it. Um. So we spent the next several months UM trying to figure out how to do this and how to start and how to make this transition. The first thing we did was we moved back up here and we started acquiring animals. But at first they had trouble finding goats a goat, and so Caitlin's parents called the farmer where she'd gotten newbi. She did have this one little dough that she had really liked and she had kept, and she said that she would be willing to sell her to us. And so my parents called me up and said, we found your first goat let's go back, and you know, we're going to go get her. And it was sort of reminiscent of when I was ten years old and we did the same thing. But we went there and they had this very cute little dough named Velvet, and we picked her up and brought her home and she started a hoofprint off a Hi girls, come on over, Come on girls. The logo is a goat's hoof. No surprise there, and there's a mon girls, Happy Goats, Delicious Cheese, Wonderful Life. It kind of goes along with our goals for the company. We had talked about not being organic. Um that is enough any particular interest to us, but we do want to provide a living environment for the goats. We want to make sure that they're healthy and what they're doing because we think that that passes through in the milk um and we think it's the most humane thing to do. UM. So the Happy Goats is right in line with what we're trying to do. Delicious Cheese, we hope is what emanates from that from Happy Goats, and the last line, wonderful Life is we hope, we hope, we hope that this is the rest of our life, and but this is what we really want to do UM. This isn't about making the most money you can make in life. This is about rather doing something that you want to do, that you like doing, that you feel good about doing. UM. So providing a living that you can live off of UM sustainably and at the same time provide great food for the community. We're going to take a short break and when we come back well, Brendan sounds calm talking about that good life. Getting there is a bit of a stretch. They like. Many of the new general ration of young farmers also work off the farm as well. Hear what a group of them get together for a meal. You're listening to independent producer Karen Michelle with a story we call forget the big city. It's the country life for me. On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. One company is on a mission to put a million people to work each year. Sounds like a big number, doesn't it not to Express Employment Professionals seeking a skilled labor position or administrative order. Maybe you're an executive looking for a career that fits SING. We take pride in connecting the right people with the right company. Express Employment Professionals is on a mission to put a million people to work each year. Let us help. We'll open doors for you. Go to express pros dot com to find a location near you. Now back to Karen Michelle and the Young Farmers of the Hudson Valley of New York State. Sue Cup Farms is the site of this month's gathering of a group of the Young Farmers. UM. So we're okay, let's see I get it right, Harlem Valley Farm and Food Alliance. Right, Okay, this is I guess we're already a year old. Right. UM. We had our first event in September. It was our first farm Day. UM. People went around and toured each of our farms, UM in a single day. Jennifer Sukoop is one of ten members of the group, all seated around an impromptu table in the Maple Farm shop and production space, eating dishes sourced from their farms. Pig was the main dish and flavored with suk Coop's maple syrup. Jennifer had gone to college to become a chef Hoofprint Cheese Is Kate and Brendan Foley were among the eager eaters. One of the things one of the things that you probably noticed just going around the room. We're all in our thirties and uh in thirties and essentially forty caps us out. So I feel like we're really the next generation of farming in this area, and we're all trying to band together in order to to provide some support for one another, and really are all of our goals here. We all want to have um farm to table production, so direct sales to consumers, so all of us have there's something less tangible that appeals to the group. To my name is josh I fear Tell, and UM, I feel like one of the really special things about this group having to come together and create some of the connections that I think our grandparents probably already had. So when we need a bunch of round bales of hey because we're running shot for cattle, our advice about what style of trailer to get, or an issue with someone in town hall, you know, when you when you lose rural communities and you lose farms, Um, you're not just losing those farm businesses, You're losing a sort of way of life where you think to lean on each other. And that's a really important thing and I think for us a thing that UM called this group and creation was maybe trying to create that or in some way formalize it, make sure that we have that in a time and a place where that doesn't necessarily always exists. But things have changed. Where there were once hundreds of dairy farms in Duchess County, now there are about a dozen. In the past, dairy farms sold their milk to bigger companies who do the processing and selling, quite a different business model. Some farms changed completely, Jennifer, My father in law used to have as a just a dairy farm, and then he had some beef cattle, and you never sold any of that directly. He made naple syrup, but it was only he, you know, gave some to his family and friends. So when I took over, I really started UM shifting it from UM just that wholesale to retail. And it's been really slow. I mean it's been five years, but it seems like it's so slow changing UM. And then even like with the pumpkins and the fall and South have gone from just putting it on a cart outside to pick your own in the pumpkin patch too then turn into well we'll take a hey right up there, which is now turned into our whole fall. Some of these young farmers, like Jennifer and her husband, took over the family farm. Others started their own. Most of them went off to college to become something else, a physical therapist, a biologist, a mathematician, a chef, deesel, mechanic designer, but they were called back to farming. Not that most of them can make a go of it without at least someone in the family keeping an outside job. Andrew Richards father in law, had an apple orchard. He wanted to start a distillery and asked urbanite Andrew if he wanted to do it. He said sure, he could read books to figure out how, but it took his wife to make it possible. Without her job, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. Yeah, health care, the whole thing. I do. Take care of our son. I'll take at it for that. There were lots of nods around the table. Most of these farmers and distillers have kids. Brendan and Kate Foley are the exception. I think that the Goat kids are going to be our kids. They both have outside jobs. Kate works for a farm animal vet nearby. So and there Monday through Thursday. UM. I'm usually they're at seven fifteen and I leave there about four thirty. Um. And of course you know, choices are done on the farm before and after that. Kate's job is technically part time, so no benefits. That's where Brendan's job is. Key Tom, it's Brendan. How are you. Brendan works for a pension and health actuarial consulting firm. Much of his work involves being on the phone with his clime. So, so I guess you know. The first thing is I sent you over. About half of the week, Brendan can stay home at the farm, that is, wearing his usual T shirt, muck boots, and a bandana on his head. But on other days he puts on a dress shirt and takes a commuter train into Manhattan. When he and Caitlin decided to move ninety miles away and start a farm, he'd already been working for the company for a few years. His boss was amenable to the arrangement, and for now, Brennan says, the four hour commute is worth it for the healthcare and retirement benefits. Well, there's certainly a very long term goal of having this be our life, UM, this being the cheese and the goats. That's long term, but in the foreseeable future. The reason for having the outside job, the reason that at this point it is a necessity, is because all of those things that we take for granted in life, such as health benefits and like the ability to retire, is very hard to do UM with a farm. The cost of entry into this business is very high. In the margins are not particularly high. If you have an outside job, you can help fund this operation, and you can also continue paying for those things that you know, those what ifs. You know, what if something happens. What if I, you know, fall down and break my leg and I can't do any of this. I still have disability benefits, I still have you know, I still have a job that I can go to. UM. So to the extent that we can keep at least one off the farm job for the time being is imperative UM. It's essential. Long term. We hope that eventually the business turns to a point where it's profitable enough that we can that we can start paying ourselves a reasonable salary with health benefits and with retirement allowances or benefits. And I ra where for one k that's the goal. It's just in the next few years that's it's difficult. So essentially he's there working nearly all the time. Brendan had gotten up at three thirty in the morning to check on a batch of cheese. It wasn't ready, so we came back at five. The couple had to do chores then anyway, and today, between calls to clients from the room that holds medicines and cleaning supplies and a white board that keeps track of the pregnant dose, we've got Chloe Bell, Lilac Chobani. Brendan makes cheese in a room nearby, in a big stainless steel vat with dials and charts that look like something out of an old black and white movie featuring a mad scientist. Had I just turned the heat off thirty nine degrees? And today Brendan's making a cow's milk cheese for a local dairy farm. She's their only client, but Hoofprint hopes to make making cheese for others. Twenty of their business. Now they sell raw goat's milk, goat yogurt, and four of their own cheeses, all sold out for the year except for a few precious vacuum pacts. I love. It's a pale yellow, hard cheese that hits your taste buds immediately, but like a fine wine, has a long finish. This and at thirty dollars a pound, it's not cheaper. We're not trying to be some exclusive of cheese manufacturer here. We're not. It's not. But I think that part of what we're doing here is not just making cheese. Um. Part of what we're doing is is providing a farm experience. And those are things that you don't get off of a store shelf. Those are things that have value to people, perhaps no one more than Diane Caitlin's mother. I hated them living in the city. I worried every day and I knew they weren't happy, and I was just thrilled. When you you decide on a job and you want to make a certain amount of money, you want to make that money because you want to have a certain lifestyle. But the way they were going, they weren't living the lifestyle they wanted. So they this way, they're living the lifestyle they wanted, and that's priceless. But Brendan acknowledges there's a social downside. All he's smelling like barn. It's not necessarily like a cow. It's not like it's just barn. Brennan Foley. He and his wife Caitlin run Hoofprint Cheese Company in Millbrook, New York. That was independent producer Karen Michelle presenting Forget the big city. It's the country life for me. And that's all for this edition of On the Job from Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at Express pros dot com and you can listen to every podcast this season at Express pros dot com slash podcast. This podcast is produced by your host, Steve Mencher for Men's Media, I Heart Radio and Red Seat Ventures. You can subscribe on I Heart Radio and iTunes, where we hope you'll leave a nice review that helps other folks find us. And of course you can listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time On the Job. But the pen added the da

Come on, girls, Caitlin and Brendan Foley, keep a cow for warmth, a donkey, he's kind of a watch dog, a billygoat with a punk hair do, and three dozen other goats on their farm. Hoofprint Cheese Company. Happy goats, delicious cheese, wonderful. That's the goal anyway at the Hoofprint Cheese Company and Upstate New York. As far as we can tell, the goats are happy, and we know the cheese is delicious. But farming is lots of work, little sleep, and it's generally not so lucrative. Still, it's a job like no other, and for many it's wonderfully enough. On this edition of On the Job from Express Employment Professionals, we'll meet a couple who's come back to the land to make a living doing what they love. If you want to find your next job, or if you're a company hoping to grow your workforce, Express Employment Professionals is for you. Find more information at express prose dot com. Now, Karen Michelle brings us a story from New York's Hudson Valley about how a ten year old love of goats blossomed into a way of life. The Hudson Valley of New York State has a long history of farming. In Dutchess County alone, less than a hundred miles north of Manhattan. In eighteen ninety there were at least thirty four hundred farms, but a hundred years later the number had dwindled to just over six hundred. There's hope the farm to table movement has spawned a resurgence in farming. Small farming and younger generations are choosen to stay, and newcomers are also tilling the soil, tapping the trees, and breeding livestock for meat and milk. Both thirty one years old, Brendan and Catle and Foley are among the young folks opting to make a living, or at least most of one, milking goats and making cheese, but still takes real outside jobs to keep Hoofprint Cheese company going. Caitlin Foley has always had a thing for goats, as her mother, Diane Massarone knows well this one. At about age eight, decided she wanted to go. I guess most kids asked for a pony, but I really just wanted to go. I read about them and and learned about them, and there how much of a personality they have, and so I just really wanted to go the family mom dad, Kate and her two sisters were already raising pigs and sheep. That's in addition to her parents other jobs. He is a caretaker of the estate where they lived and kept the animals, and she had a local private school. But Kate, evidently as straightforward then as she is now, insisted a goat. Diane gave in, well, we knew nothing about goats, and we said sure, sure, sure, and we just kept pushing her off and pushing her off, and she just kept at it. I want to go, I want to go, I want to go, and she would look at pictures of goats, and so finally we decided at when she turned ten, that we would surprise her with a baby goat. So she did you come home from school? She came home from school and we told her to put her boots on. We had to go to the grocery store. And she couldn't understand why she had put boots on to go to the grocery store, but we were going to a farm where she could pick out her baby goat. And that was her surprise ten year birthday present, which meant going into the farmer's living room, where she had a playpen full of baby goats for Kate to choose from. There are a whole lot of kinds of goats, depending on the kinds of counting, but most folks are familiar with two kinds of goats, Alpine, the ones usually see in fairy tales and movie musicals, and faniel eared Nubians, who, even to this formerly non goat person, really are adorable. So she had the long floppy ears that I thought were very cute, and she had her coloration. Her pattern was really cute. She had a belt in the middle that was white and brown on the head and the rump, and uh. She was. She was the most friendly, the most outgoing. She was one that would follow me around the living room, and I just knew that that was the one that I wanted, And so we brought her home. And she was a Nubian goat. So I named her Newby and we had her for her whole life, living with us or with her family, Kate's family, who had to build a barn for Nuby and learn about goats, how to milk and breed and birth and care for a growing hurt, and then Diane started making cheese, and well there was lots to do, which she says was no big deal. Well, my husband grew up um on a uh dairy farm and I grew up on at the Millbrook Hunt Club, so we were used to animals, and we both had a passion for animals, and that came through in our kids and it was just a normal way of life for us. They clearly passed that love of caring for animals onto Kate. She even worked at her high school zoo. Yes there was a zoo. She went away to college to study biology, and during her first year, on a visit home, she started dating a young guy who had worked on their farm, Brendan Foley. That was about ten years ago. I was thrilled. I loved Brendan right from the start and he was always part of the family anyway, so it was great. Time passed. Caitlyn graduated and started working in zoos, Brendan finished his degree in applied mathematics. We picked up and we moved to New York City. UM Kate had gotten a job at the Prospect part Zoo in Brooklyn, and I was I was in the process of getting a job in Manhattan, UM at a natural all consulting firm. So we lived in Brooklyn for for five years, four and a half years or so. By then they'd had enough of city life, just as the Hudson Valley had lured artists to its light and landscapes. That's how it was for the young couple. We got to the point where we we decided that we didn't want to do what we're doing for the rest of our lives. Um. And we're young enough to be able to make a change, and we don't have kids, um. And we still weren't married at this point, but we had been together for quite a number of years and you know, so we don't have those types of obligations and people that are relying on us in that sense, um, that we can make a change. UM. So it wasn't very long afterwards we decided that that, you know, what if we started a farm, and what if we if we did something, you know, along the lines of what Diane was doing with goat cheese and goats and goat milk. Because Kate knows goats. Um. You know, I like goats. I took care of them, but I'm not a n spurt in by any means, Kate really is. That's that is her domain. How scary was that? It was pretty scary. We both had pretty good jobs that we were doing to find out in the city, and um, to leave that and make that change, it was a little bit scary, but we knew it was what we wanted, so that's what we did. Well, this is only a little over two years ago that we made this decision, UM, and we had nothing. You know, we didn't have any goats, we had no machinery, we had no equipment we had we didn't have a place to do it. Um. So we spent the next several months UM trying to figure out how to do this and how to start and how to make this transition. The first thing we did was we moved back up here and we started acquiring animals. But at first they had trouble finding goats a goat, and so Caitlin's parents called the farmer where she'd gotten newbi. She did have this one little dough that she had really liked and she had kept, and she said that she would be willing to sell her to us. And so my parents called me up and said, we found your first goat let's go back, and you know, we're going to go get her. And it was sort of reminiscent of when I was ten years old and we did the same thing. But we went there and they had this very cute little dough named Velvet, and we picked her up and brought her home and she started a hoofprint off a Hi girls, come on over, Come on girls. The logo is a goat's hoof. No surprise there, and there's a mon girls, Happy Goats, Delicious Cheese, Wonderful Life. It kind of goes along with our goals for the company. We had talked about not being organic. Um that is enough any particular interest to us, but we do want to provide a living environment for the goats. We want to make sure that they're healthy and what they're doing because we think that that passes through in the milk um and we think it's the most humane thing to do. UM. So the Happy Goats is right in line with what we're trying to do. Delicious Cheese, we hope is what emanates from that from Happy Goats, and the last line, wonderful Life is we hope, we hope, we hope that this is the rest of our life, and but this is what we really want to do UM. This isn't about making the most money you can make in life. This is about rather doing something that you want to do, that you like doing, that you feel good about doing. UM. So providing a living that you can live off of UM sustainably and at the same time provide great food for the community. We're going to take a short break and when we come back well, Brendan sounds calm talking about that good life. Getting there is a bit of a stretch. They like. Many of the new general ration of young farmers also work off the farm as well. Hear what a group of them get together for a meal. You're listening to independent producer Karen Michelle with a story we call forget the big city. It's the country life for me. On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. One company is on a mission to put a million people to work each year. Sounds like a big number, doesn't it not to Express Employment Professionals seeking a skilled labor position or administrative order. Maybe you're an executive looking for a career that fits SING. We take pride in connecting the right people with the right company. Express Employment Professionals is on a mission to put a million people to work each year. Let us help. We'll open doors for you. Go to express pros dot com to find a location near you. Now back to Karen Michelle and the Young Farmers of the Hudson Valley of New York State. Sue Cup Farms is the site of this month's gathering of a group of the Young Farmers. UM. So we're okay, let's see I get it right, Harlem Valley Farm and Food Alliance. Right, Okay, this is I guess we're already a year old. Right. UM. We had our first event in September. It was our first farm Day. UM. People went around and toured each of our farms, UM in a single day. Jennifer Sukoop is one of ten members of the group, all seated around an impromptu table in the Maple Farm shop and production space, eating dishes sourced from their farms. Pig was the main dish and flavored with suk Coop's maple syrup. Jennifer had gone to college to become a chef Hoofprint Cheese Is Kate and Brendan Foley were among the eager eaters. One of the things one of the things that you probably noticed just going around the room. We're all in our thirties and uh in thirties and essentially forty caps us out. So I feel like we're really the next generation of farming in this area, and we're all trying to band together in order to to provide some support for one another, and really are all of our goals here. We all want to have um farm to table production, so direct sales to consumers, so all of us have there's something less tangible that appeals to the group. To my name is josh I fear Tell, and UM, I feel like one of the really special things about this group having to come together and create some of the connections that I think our grandparents probably already had. So when we need a bunch of round bales of hey because we're running shot for cattle, our advice about what style of trailer to get, or an issue with someone in town hall, you know, when you when you lose rural communities and you lose farms, Um, you're not just losing those farm businesses, You're losing a sort of way of life where you think to lean on each other. And that's a really important thing and I think for us a thing that UM called this group and creation was maybe trying to create that or in some way formalize it, make sure that we have that in a time and a place where that doesn't necessarily always exists. But things have changed. Where there were once hundreds of dairy farms in Duchess County, now there are about a dozen. In the past, dairy farms sold their milk to bigger companies who do the processing and selling, quite a different business model. Some farms changed completely, Jennifer, My father in law used to have as a just a dairy farm, and then he had some beef cattle, and you never sold any of that directly. He made naple syrup, but it was only he, you know, gave some to his family and friends. So when I took over, I really started UM shifting it from UM just that wholesale to retail. And it's been really slow. I mean it's been five years, but it seems like it's so slow changing UM. And then even like with the pumpkins and the fall and South have gone from just putting it on a cart outside to pick your own in the pumpkin patch too then turn into well we'll take a hey right up there, which is now turned into our whole fall. Some of these young farmers, like Jennifer and her husband, took over the family farm. Others started their own. Most of them went off to college to become something else, a physical therapist, a biologist, a mathematician, a chef, deesel, mechanic designer, but they were called back to farming. Not that most of them can make a go of it without at least someone in the family keeping an outside job. Andrew Richards father in law, had an apple orchard. He wanted to start a distillery and asked urbanite Andrew if he wanted to do it. He said sure, he could read books to figure out how, but it took his wife to make it possible. Without her job, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. Yeah, health care, the whole thing. I do. Take care of our son. I'll take at it for that. There were lots of nods around the table. Most of these farmers and distillers have kids. Brendan and Kate Foley are the exception. I think that the Goat kids are going to be our kids. They both have outside jobs. Kate works for a farm animal vet nearby. So and there Monday through Thursday. UM. I'm usually they're at seven fifteen and I leave there about four thirty. Um. And of course you know, choices are done on the farm before and after that. Kate's job is technically part time, so no benefits. That's where Brendan's job is. Key Tom, it's Brendan. How are you. Brendan works for a pension and health actuarial consulting firm. Much of his work involves being on the phone with his clime. So, so I guess you know. The first thing is I sent you over. About half of the week, Brendan can stay home at the farm, that is, wearing his usual T shirt, muck boots, and a bandana on his head. But on other days he puts on a dress shirt and takes a commuter train into Manhattan. When he and Caitlin decided to move ninety miles away and start a farm, he'd already been working for the company for a few years. His boss was amenable to the arrangement, and for now, Brennan says, the four hour commute is worth it for the healthcare and retirement benefits. Well, there's certainly a very long term goal of having this be our life, UM, this being the cheese and the goats. That's long term, but in the foreseeable future. The reason for having the outside job, the reason that at this point it is a necessity, is because all of those things that we take for granted in life, such as health benefits and like the ability to retire, is very hard to do UM with a farm. The cost of entry into this business is very high. In the margins are not particularly high. If you have an outside job, you can help fund this operation, and you can also continue paying for those things that you know, those what ifs. You know, what if something happens. What if I, you know, fall down and break my leg and I can't do any of this. I still have disability benefits, I still have you know, I still have a job that I can go to. UM. So to the extent that we can keep at least one off the farm job for the time being is imperative UM. It's essential. Long term. We hope that eventually the business turns to a point where it's profitable enough that we can that we can start paying ourselves a reasonable salary with health benefits and with retirement allowances or benefits. And I ra where for one k that's the goal. It's just in the next few years that's it's difficult. So essentially he's there working nearly all the time. Brendan had gotten up at three thirty in the morning to check on a batch of cheese. It wasn't ready, so we came back at five. The couple had to do chores then anyway, and today, between calls to clients from the room that holds medicines and cleaning supplies and a white board that keeps track of the pregnant dose, we've got Chloe Bell, Lilac Chobani. Brendan makes cheese in a room nearby, in a big stainless steel vat with dials and charts that look like something out of an old black and white movie featuring a mad scientist. Had I just turned the heat off thirty nine degrees? And today Brendan's making a cow's milk cheese for a local dairy farm. She's their only client, but Hoofprint hopes to make making cheese for others. Twenty of their business. Now they sell raw goat's milk, goat yogurt, and four of their own cheeses, all sold out for the year except for a few precious vacuum pacts. I love. It's a pale yellow, hard cheese that hits your taste buds immediately, but like a fine wine, has a long finish. This and at thirty dollars a pound, it's not cheaper. We're not trying to be some exclusive of cheese manufacturer here. We're not. It's not. But I think that part of what we're doing here is not just making cheese. Um. Part of what we're doing is is providing a farm experience. And those are things that you don't get off of a store shelf. Those are things that have value to people, perhaps no one more than Diane Caitlin's mother. I hated them living in the city. I worried every day and I knew they weren't happy, and I was just thrilled. When you you decide on a job and you want to make a certain amount of money, you want to make that money because you want to have a certain lifestyle. But the way they were going, they weren't living the lifestyle they wanted. So they this way, they're living the lifestyle they wanted, and that's priceless. But Brendan acknowledges there's a social downside. All he's smelling like barn. It's not necessarily like a cow. It's not like it's just barn. Brennan Foley. He and his wife Caitlin run Hoofprint Cheese Company in Millbrook, New York. That was independent producer Karen Michelle presenting Forget the big city. It's the country life for me. And that's all for this edition of On the Job from Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at Express pros dot com and you can listen to every podcast this season at Express pros dot com slash podcast. This podcast is produced by your host, Steve Mencher for Men's Media, I Heart Radio and Red Seat Ventures. You can subscribe on I Heart Radio and iTunes, where we hope you'll leave a nice review that helps other folks find us. And of course you can listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time On the Job. But the pen added the da