It there is one thing goats hate, it is rain, and that was just the start of the problems the Tarrawingee business faced when it was hit by the devastating flash flooding earlier this month.
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Tolpuddle Goat Cheese and Farm Foods had been closed for more than two week after it cellar was inundated with water, destroying a month’s worth of produced cheese.
But after some hard work, the doors were reopened on Saturday and customers were welcomed back during an open day with food, drinks and music.
Owner Donovan Jacka said they were used to a little bit of flooding, but this time “it just went bang”.
The water moved like “a raging torrent”, damaging goat shelters, fences and the outside of the main building, before the water flooded inside the cellar.
He had to carry the other two months worth of cheese production up a flight of stairs to save it before it was also destroyed.
“Goats hate rain so they all run for the shelter as soon as it starts raining. Half of them were in the dairy and half were in shelters,” Mr Jacka said.
He moved the almost 100 goats through nearly a metre of water, first to the dairy then let them out onto the balcony as the water rose even higher.
All the goats survived, but the roses on the property did not when the animals got to them.
While Tolpuddle is back open, there are still challenges to overcome.
Sam Miranda winery has offered the use of its cool room to help with some storage, and the fresh and Greek-style cheeses can be produced, but without to use of a cellar to store aged cheeses at 14 degrees, production of that line is on hold.
Mr Jacka has been left frustrated by the delay in getting an insurance assessor to the property, which has delayed efforts to repair the building.
“That time before Christmas, everyone buys cheese before Christmas and has cheese platters, so it was a really bad time,” he said.
“Psychologically it was really, really hard.
“You run your own business, there’s no other income rather than what we sell from cheese.
“Especially with the drought, the prices of animal feed are going up and so it’s been pretty tough.
“Those two weeks, it’s probably our busiest two weeks of the year.”
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