Milk Products and Milking Reflection

We spent a rainy day mostly inside. Even after a year, I remain amazed at the precipitation here: that I can go to bed to falling rain and awake to falling rain, and go through my whole day with falling rain—it feels like a mini-miracle every time it happens.

Despite the rain, the day was not without its mini-drama. Most exciting: when I picked up my waterproof jacket to go out to milk and discovered a viscous liquid oozing out of the pocket. I vaguely recalled picking up an egg from the feral chickens after we moved their pen, and since I didn't remember putting it in the egg carton, I must have put it in my pocket, where, when the jacket fell to the floor, an unheeding foot squashed the egg.

What makes this mildly embarrassing was that only yesterday I noticed that Phil, having collected the dozen or so eggs in the morning, accidentally squashed one in his pocket as he climbed out of the chicken pen. "Ha," I thought. "I better be on my guard against broken eggs in my pocket." Ha, indeed.

Yesterday was characterized by milk. First thing, I went to milk and Bianca refused to let her milk down. She had dodged behind the haybale when I went to fetch her. I may have scared her with unusually fast reflexes, as I caught her. Then, I had not let my water heat up enough when I washed her udder. Though I have used cool water in the past, it could be the combination of owner-jumping-from-behind-haybale and cold-water-on-udder prevented let down. I went to reheat the water, but nothing doing. She withheld. The rascal.

I set out some cream to warm to room temperature, and then observed in amazement that about 45 seconds in the Blendtec produced butter and buttermilk. So much faster than the hour in the mixer that eventually produced nothing.

I'm not sold on homemade butter. It is fun to feel the waxy, slippery butter, but it is extremely hard to clean it (rinsing in cold water). And any buttermilk left in, and any water, spoils the butter rapidly.

Then, too, my hands get very coated with the butter, and, though I don't have messy hand issues, it's difficult to clean off.

And I'm not sure how to salt the butter. We have good Celtic sea salt to eat, but it's too chunky to incorporate well into butter. And I sort of feel like unsalted butter is not worth eating.

Besides butter, my kefir grains finally produced a yogurt-consistency product. I like that, but the directions say to "strain out grains," and I'm not sure how to strain the grains out of a yogurt-consistency product.

We also got the information needed to register our little heifers. Based on their coloring, I was surprised to find that they have the same daddy, and their granddaddy is a bull I've heard of. So baby Beatrice has a "famous" grandpa on both her mother's side and her father's side. I was tickled to see it.

A final milk observation. I feel like I've had a barrage of character-growth issues come up over the last few weeks. It can grow exhausting, to see all the ways I don't measure up to my own ideal. There's a part of me that longs for a break.

Then I remembered my first month of milking. There were times my forearms were so sore, I would go to bed at night, dreading the morning, since I knew I would have to milk again. I'm a former athlete—I know that muscles build up through use and REST, and there was no rest for my poor arms. Morning and evening, day after day.

But as time passed, my arms grew strong, and milking now brings me great joy (except this evening, when Bianca stepped into the milk pail, the rascal!).

And I suppose that's true for my character issues, too. I can groan under the new realizations of ways I should love my husband better or serve my family or care for my animals, but, if I persevere, I will grow stronger. That's a hopeful thought.

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In conclusion, something totally different.

Before the rain began, the boys interspersed their continued wagon rides down the driveway with a water feature.

They created a channel, digging out a meandering pathway, and ran the hose. What a life for boys!