Bessie the Milk Machine

The Milk Machine is in business again. I've been milking Bess once a day since a couple of days BEFORE the calf was born.  The milk has gone from an icky rosy pink color  to a beautiful ivory white.  The rosy color:  broken blood vessels inside her udder as it swung against her back legs pre-delivery.  (It WAS pretty big, and looked uncomfortable to walk with) The white creamy color:  the best milk I've ever tasted! She had been giving a little at a time--one quart, then 2 quarts, then close to a gallon for the past 4 days or so.  Part of that (I think) is that she and I needed to work back into a routine, with Lucy outside, and with Bessie sure that little Ruby wouldn't be in danger if mama Bess concentrated on her bucket of grain for a half hour or so....  Today, if I'd had a second bucket, I think she would have given at least a gallon and a half if not 2.  I had to end at just over a gallon because the bucket was full, and there was lots more waiting to be milked out.  I haven't had to take Ruby (the calf) away from her in order to get milk for the family--she is giving enough for Ruby, for us, and then some.  So it's time to play with milk again, and to satisfy my craving for cream, and whole milk, and home-made stuff with Bessie's delicious milk.  I've made a batch of butter so far, and have a gallon of milk in the Crock Pot right now, making the easy ricotta cheese recipe (one gallon of whole milk, 1 tsp citric acid dissolved in 1/4 cup cool water, stir together in a Crock Pot, let cook on high until the curds separate and the whey is clear rather than "milky".  Then you drain it in cheesecloth and eat it fresh, or refrigerate it, or salt it.....my favorite is a small bowlful of cold ricotta with a scoop of home-made blueberry jam mixed in.)  Yum.....!) So my thought today is to milk all the extra that she is giving, because she is fully capable of feeding Ruby AND giving us 2 gallons a day if I work her up to that (that's probably a conservative estimate, if she can truly give 6 gallons a day at her peak milk output).  I can freeze the extra, or make cheese, or share it with friends who also love her milk.....I'll just have to be prepared to milk a little bit longer to relieve the pressure inside her udder and harvest all that rich raw milk.  ;) The pasture is greening up, and the clover that held on through a month of dry weather is putting out tiny little leaves and even a few flowers.  With rain forecast throughout the next week, we should be OK as far as pasture grass for the cows.  I've been keeping them off of it since the rain on Wednesday night, just to give the pasture plants time to grow the tiniest bit.  The chickens are still not happy to be kept from the "free-ranging" (although truthfully, they have WAY more area to freerange than any bird in a typical chicken farm!).  They'll adjust, and will be happy when they can pick through taller, more lush grass and not the short stubble that's out there now. The hay situation still looks bleak, but the fields that I pass are growing again.  I have ads for Lucy the heifer to be sold in two on-line sites, but no interest so far.  (That's Lucy in the photo above).  I don't really want to sell her, and I think she'd sell better if she was bred or if she'd already had a calf and was being trained as a family milk cow.  (When she's bred would take us until November or December if I can afford the artificial insemination and...ahem..."supplies" for both cows.   When she would have her first calf takes us to fall of 2013!)  We can't keep all 3 cows indefinitely, and the boys agree with me that Ruby the calf and Bessie are the 2 that we want to keep.  If we keep Lucy through the winter, then we need hay for 2 full-grown cows, plus a small amount for baby Ruby who is already starting to grind hay between her baby teeth to see what it tastes like.  For one cow, the guideline I've found is 1 ton to get through the winter.  Not sure how accurate that is, and our cows seem to waste a good part of each bale.  Both cows are going through a little more than one full bale a day (50 pounds or more average per bale, so 25/30+ pounds of hay per cow per day), plus Bess gets alfalfa hay and grain when she is milked.  I think we'd need 400 bales to get both cows through the winter with a little extra.  $5 a bale puts that amount of hay at $2000!!!  I think if money was no object, we'd get about double that in case next year is as dry as this year is, or at least to have more than 18 bales in the hay mow and depleting that supply fast!  Our "hay guy" had promised me 80 bales a couple of weeks ago, but his phone is not accepting new messages.  Hmmm..... Change of topic:  16 of the young roosters or young ducks met their "day of reckoning" yesterday.  A friend came out and took 4 of them, although his method of killing them was something I'll advise against if anyone else comes out to do the dirty deed on our property.  "Humane" was not the way I'd describe it, and it may have been quick, but I think we'll specify that a stump and a sharp axe will be used the next time he comes.  ;(  Plus, he took the headless birds back to his house, 45 minutes away.  I wonder if he had a difficult time getting their feathers pulled after that amount of time. The other 12 were driven to Walworth Wisconsin to the butcher there.  Jeff was gone to Michigan with the boys, and there were too many roosters for us to do even if we'd all been home.  I'm mentally and emotionally stuck at the point of being able to do everything to process birds except the actual act of killing them.  I think that since this was the first time we'd had ducks to butcher, it was a little harder for me than it might have been otherwise. The ducks are the ones which were born right before Easter.  They grew quickly, but never filled out to be very full-bodied.  We separated out the males, who were starting to cause problems and were very flighty and distracting, and the barn is so much quieter and calmer without those 6 ducks dashing all over and getting the other birds agitated whenever I walked in. Back to the hay topic:  Let me just put in a little plea for anyone who might have a friend or contact with extra hay that they'd be willing to sell:  I need to buy at least a ton of it, maybe not all at once because that's a lot of money.  Grass/alfalfa mix would be great, but at this point, grass hay would get the cow(s) through the winter with the minimum amount of nutrition needed.  One friend with a full-size pick-up truck is willing to pick it up and bring it to our farm.  Also:  If anyone knows a farmer or family member or friend who wants a dairy heifer for an eventual milk cow, Lucy is available.....I'd be willing to trade her to a good farm/home in exchange for hay at this point. After today's sermon (5 loaves and 2 fishes, coupled with the 23rd Psalm, and how God will provide all of our needs), I'm attempting to put my worries aside and trust that the cows won't go hungry, or that Lucy will be bought so that we can feed Bess and Ruby, or that a bounty of hay will suddenly and unexpectedly come available at a price we can afford. After all, if God knows every sparrow that falls to the ground, and every lily of the field, He is really the one who is going to provide for the cows' well-being.  My part of that is to be a good steward of them because God has placed them in my care, and follow every lead to buy the hay that might be available, and be a good shepherd who pays attention to their needs both now and for the long winter.  God will ultimately fulfill those needs....right?  Have faith, Laura!  Stop worrying!  ;)  It's all part of the learning process!