And Reese the Jersey Makes a Dozen

Tuesday morning didn't get off to a great start. Phil had set up the sheep's new pen, but instead of happily heading into it, they all squeezed out through the slim opening between the old pen and the new pen. The rascals. He ran the quarter mile back to the homestead and, since only Jadon and I were awake, we joined him in the round up.

They were merrily munching away at the triticale, which was probably twice as tall as they. Through gentle maneuvering, we got all in. Or so we thought. They were carefully shut up when Jadon heard three more lambs, now far from their mothers. One was easy to catch, since she tried to bolt through the electric fence and got stuck. The next Phil grabbed by the leg and then carried to the pen. The third, though, ran back and forth and every direction other than where she should go. I was ready to give up, in the chest-high grass and the rising heat, but Phil is a good shepherd and persevered until even Clementine was safe with her mother.

With a start like that, the day could only get better. I have been trying to maintain a persistent cleanliness in the kitchen, and I made a great rice salad for lunch: a dressing with olive oil and apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, homegrown garlic and basil. Cucumbers, peppers (two types), tomatoes (orange and red), cooked kale and onions, chicken, all from our farm. And rice. Marvelous.

And, with milking still basically nonexistent, I looked online for Jersey cows. Craigslist has never turned up any real Jersey prospects, and I have looked off and on for two years. But this time, one ad caught my eye.

Three-quartered cow, calved June 5th. This cow was bred by "Eagle's Only Group." She has amazing blood lines. One heifer calf will pay for this cow 5 times over! She does have laminitis. It is easily managed but her ideal home would be with fewer cows. She will stay sound as long as you keep her out of too much mud. We have too many cows to not have a lot of mud! Don't miss out on this girl, you won't have many chances to buy genetics like these at this price.

Laminitis is a painful shredding of the hoof, due to acidosis, or a rumen that turns acidic from too much grain. This is a standard problem of conventional dairies, but in the case of Reese, she was a cow on a farm much like ours (small family farm, raw milk shares), who one day managed to sneak into the grain bin. She turned acidic, got laminitis, and foundered, which means she will be lame in her right rear hoof for life.

Her bad quarter, a permanent damage, happened when another cow stepped on her teat.

Even with three quarters, she gives about 5 gallons of milk a day.

We thought about this cow for a couple of hours. As I was making the rice salad, though, I realized what I really wanted to add was feta or cheese of some type. And I wanted milk to make cheese. Not to mention smoothies, butter, kefir, ice cream! Or have enough milk to spray on our land and improve the fertility. Or on our crops to increase the nutrient density. A cow with a large output sounded great.

So today Phil, after getting up at 5am to do chores, then helping friends move for several hours in the morning, came home and shoveled the cattle trailer free of three months of chicken droppings and bedding, then drove with the family the 70 miles to Reese's farm.

We absolutely loved getting to talk to Anita, the Jersey breeder. She said that there are only four Jersey breeders in the state. She took several of her cows to the national stock show in Kentucky, and her best heifer took 7th out of 300+ Jerseys there. We talked to her for over an hour and a half. She showed us her milk processing area, which looked very duplicable; she talked to us about feed and what to do with calves.

And, incredibly, she said that, among her customers, she has a good many conventional dairymen. They don't drink their own product, but come to her. I don't see how this is possible, but she said that 10% of bulk tank milk can be "trash" (something other than milk: water, dirty syringes). The drivers who pick up the milk add detergent to their tanks. This seems quite hard to believe, but I report it as I heard it, and am quite hopeful to never drink milk from the store again.

We got a very late start home, since we'd had so much fun talking, but we made it home safely. By the time Phil had backed down the driveway, it was about 10pm. He had been on the go, doing physically or mentally strenuous activity since 5am, and was completely beat.

I milked Reese in the cattle trailer. She is used to a milking machine, and she doesn't know me at all, but, all things considered, she did a good job. I didn't tie her or anything, and although we did dance around the space a bit, considering she wasn't tied and was over two hours overdue for her milking, a little spillage of the second bucket! wasn't bad.

I spilled a bit more, miscalculating how to fill the half gallon jars, but from that first milking, I had almost two gallons of usable milk. You can see half of it in the refrigerator, next to the kombucha.

Now THAT'S something to get excited about!