Pure Magic (By Way of a Beautiful Cow's Rumen)
In amongst the days of homeschooling, cries of "I'm Hungry!" from the students, two businesses and the normal litany of todos that make up a life, our rhythm is punctuated by milking. Honey, our new Jersey cow, arrived 2 weeks ago a bit low on milk and we have needed up our normal once a day milking schedule to 3x a day to build up her supply. Increasing the frequency of milkings, feeding her well and ensuring she is happy and relaxed (which, in Honey's mind, is keeping those annoying goats far, far away from her) has been our main farm focus as we juggle all the other aspects of life at the minute.
And so at 7am, 2pm and 9pm, one of us bundles up in our exceedingly attractive milking attire, gathers the various pots and washcloths and food and hay and rags and stool and accompanying podcasts and trundles out to the barn for 30 minutes of leaning up against a smelly cow. She is a different beast to our other milker, Petunia. She simply stands and watches me as I milk away, slurping up mouthfuls of hay like very dry ramen noodles. After being unable to milk for almost 2 years, her steady increase of supply from about 700ml to 2.5l a session has been gentle training back into the rhythm of home dairying for me. Her patient nature and low supply has given me the opportunity to slowly build up my muscles without the every impending threat that she is going to bolt.
On a practical level its good to have 2 people who can milk on site. We are 6 weeks away from kidding 2 nanny goats that will also need to be milked for soap making - which is roughly 2 hours of milking a day...a lot of milking for just one person with no break. I know he appreciates the sharing of the burden and for me it has been a good recommitment to keeping a house cow. Rather than my good looking milk man bringing me milk 2x a day, I am back to being elbow deep in the work of it -- reminder of both how much goes into it, but also how much we get out of it.
And we get a lot, I currently have an asiago and a gouda ready to go into our cheese cave (aka old fridge with a wonky door), 2 litres of yoghurt in the fridge for school day snacks with homemade blackcurrant jelly, 2 litres of lebneh - a yoghurt based cheese - ready to be rolled in spices and stored in olive oil, a steady backlog of butter filling the freezer and a litre of cream ready for whatever we may need it for. In the field I have a pile of manure waiting to go into my garden beds to turn in to veg and a pot of whey from the cheese that will be diluted down into plant feed.
All of that made from hay produced from the field next door in winter and our own grass in summer. It astounds me, if I am honest. Its some sort of dark art that turns grass into all of that food, by way of a cow's rumen.
Now, I just need to keep that in mind next time I muck out...remind me if I start swearing about it, ok?
All the best from the dairy rich, time poor Gartur Stitch Farm!
Kat
If you are thinking of keeping a dairy animal, we have our new Keeping a Dairy Animal Course running at the moment. Running until we kid in March, the course aims to take you through the ins and outs of keeping your own cow, goat or sheep for milk.
Or if just the cheese is your thing, we have our everyday cheesemaking course available as well.
