Thank you Stella!

I was rummaging around the fridge for pastitso-makings, and realized just how much Stella provides. Here's a literal snapshot of what's in our fridge/freezer right now, thanks to Stella...The row of jars on the far left, with the little one on top, is today's milking. There is a glass bowl of fresh feta, with the 3 quarts of whey behind it, that the chickens love. Rolls of frozen butter in the left foreground, what's left of the sour cream, and the start of this week's cream jar are front right. And jars & jars of milk We also have a little frozen colostrum, but I left that in the freezer.

Cow, cat and concrete...

Stella has a long way to go to match the size of her mom's horns, but she's getting there. She's a very protective mom, and also keeps an eye on any other critters in her territory. I have no doubts that she'd make short work of any stray dogs or coyotes or even a mountain lion that tried to make trouble.

Here's little Douglas, enjoying a pasture break. We haven't been working with him as much as we'd like with halter training, but he's pretty mellow about being moved around.

Is this really what you want in your guacamole? Magnus claimed this avocado box for his personal retreat, and later defended it from his sister, Mercia.
The cement truck was so huge and heavy, it had to be backed around the fir trees, doing quite a number on the soft ground, but what can you do?

The crew was very conscientious and took great pains to make sure the slab was finished up nicely.

Now we have to wait for the slab to cure before putting a sealant on it. Then, finally, we can drive on it and start putting up shelves.

Newt just couldn't help herself from inspecting the job site, as you can see by the tracks she left.

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Today Stella gave her first gallon of milk. She was apart from Doug just over 4 hours. Not too shabby for her first lactation, and me being a newbie milkmaid. She still had a little milk held back for Doug too. I imagine if we took Doug off her and bottle fed him, we'd easily get 3 gallons a day. That would be a bit too much for us, so it's working out just right as is. The laying hens are getting some milk every morning, and they love it. We're making butter and yogurt, and tonight we started some sour cream. Tomorrow we'll try making a soft, herby cheese, and work our way up to feta and cheddar.

You are what you eat - Milk!

Forget organic vs. factory farmed dairy products! Time to learn about raw vs. cooked milk.

Not long ago, all milk was used right from the cow. Filtered and chilled (or quickly fermented) as circumstances allowed, to remove impurities and add to "shelf life". People didn't get sick and they didn't die from natural milk products, contrary to what many bureaucrats, lawmakers and health department types will tell you. Clean cows eating well-kept pasture and hay give milk that is nearly a perfect food, full of enzymes, minerals, vitamins and other nutrients that can even help kill harmful bacteria and boost our immune systems. So why is most milk legally required to be pastuerized? If healthy pastured cows give the best milk, then why isn't this how all cows are kept. Don't let that smiling bovine on the plastic milk jug fool you. Here's an aerial picture of a so-called organic dairy -

And a closer view of a dairy feedlot. Not how I imagine cows should be kept...

Let me share an exerpt from a must-read book by Ron Schmid called "The Untold Story of Milk":

As America grew, immigrants flocked to the cities making them crowded. They wanted milk, which was a staple, especially for their children. When the cities were small there was room to keep a family cow. Common pastures in the heart of town had been set aside for this. Boston Commons is one example. But as cities grew, pasture was lost, yet the milk demand grew. While pastures shrank another industry grew- the whiskey industry.

The process of fermentation and distillation of the alcohol produced a side product. This product was an acid refuse of chemically changed grain and water known as distillery slop, or swill. This waste product was then fed to cows by individuals who cared nothing about the animals or the quality of the milk produced. Distillery owners started housing cows next door to these distilleries and fed the hot slop directly to the cows. This was known as the swill milk system.

This system grew especially as the distillery business shrank. Pressure was put on the distillery owners to make more profits from the milk side of the business. It soon became a huge industry. Slop is of little value in fattening cattle. It is unnatural food to them and makes them diseased and emaciated. But it made cows produce a lot of milk. The milk was so defective that it could not be made into butter or cheese. But they still sold it. Three quarters of all milk sold in New York in 1852 was slop milk.

A reformist wrote a series of articles criticizing the state of the milk supply. He gave eyewitness accounts to their crowded and dark buildings. He described the cows as being sick, crowded, dirty, poorly nourished and forced to spend their milking career chained in one place. The people who hand milked into dirty, open containers were often sick themselves and had no thought as to sanitation measures. The cows died at unusually high rates.

Distillery dairies continued to sell milk up into the 1900's. The last one closed in New York in 1930. Even though reformers and medical groups called for an end to this practice of selling milk not fit for human consumption, the government did nothing. So called "milk trains" were an attempt to get clean, fresh milk from traditional dairymen in the countryside into the cities. Yet compared to the high volume distillery dairies this was nothing but a trickle.

A well known fact even at that time is that the cow's diet determines the healthfulness of the milk. If fed a diet unfit for cows then they can only produce milk that is unfit for human consumption. Many people knew this but the swill milk industry thrived because it was plentiful and cheap. Slop milk was bluish in color and very thin so dealers added different things to make it look like white, whole milk including starch, sugar, flour, plaster of paris, and chalk!

People knew that bad milk could lead to disease. "Nothing can be more certain than that the quality of milk is greatly influenced by the state of the health of the animal producing it". So said the reformer Robert Hartley in his book on the state of milk production at that time in 1842 (pg 38).

Not much has changed in 160 years. While the worst of the distillery diseases are gone, today in America cows live in confinement dairies, living in stalls they never leave, stalls sometimes welded shut, where they are fed "scientific" diets devoid of fresh grass, diets designed to maximize milk production with little thought to quality. These diets are high in grains, soybeans and "bakery waste" (bread, cakes, pastries- even candy bars) and citrus peel cake loaded with pesticides. These cows are not producing the kind of milk America's children and adults need and deserve. Read more here.

Doesn't sound too healthy does it? Now when you factor in what pasteurization does to milk, the picture gets even uglier. Instead of mandating that cows be kept in a clean & healthy environment, our corporate-driven government just mandates practices designed to mask the effects that sick, filthy, medicated, hormone-treated, malnourished cows have on their milk. The byproducts of infection, such as dead white cells, are cooked and filtered, but is that what you want to drink? Pasteurization kills bacteria, good and bad, but not all of it. There are plenty of people getting salmonella from cooked milk.

Homogenization is the practice of spinning the milk in a centrifuge and/or forcing it under extreme pressure through tiny tubes to break down the size of the fat molecules so that they stay suspended evenly in milk. That's why you don't have to shake homogenized milk before pouring it. Some say the resulting smaller molecules are transformed enough to cause health problems in humans.

Ready to buy local, support sustainable farming methods and drink the best tasting and healthiest milk available? Check out Real Milk for a state-by-state listing of where you can buy real milk. Our own state, Washington, even has real milk available in convenience stores, and we can choose from a variety of dairies. There is a dairy in Tacoma that bottles milk from each cow individually so you can get to know you milk producer on a first name basis!

If real milk isn't available in your area, here is a score card of many organic dairies so you can at least look for products from healthy cows.
Do your homework and vote with your dollars. Don't let lowest common denominator economics dictate what you eat.