New Adventures

One of our mutual dreams and goals back before we were married was to have a small farm where we could grow and raise nourishing food to feed the family we hoped to have one day. Now four years later we have a family, a garden, and as of this weekend, we finally have our jersey cow.

Our two year old is so excited to have a cow and a source for our very own fresh milk. He asks about the cow every day and has taken it as his responsibility to help dad milk in the evenings. After watching the routine only one time, he knew all there was to know about taking care of the milk after bringing it back into the house.

We started the cow on the pasture but after the first night when she just paced the fence line and bawled, we felt it was better for both the cow and our neighbors to put her in the barn to get her comfortable with us and her new surroundings before expecting her to stay calm out in the wide open by herself. She has been doing much better in the barn! We can't wait to get her out on the fresh spring grass though!

She is a very friendly cow who willingly follows and sticks by Aaron. She had been bottle-fed as a calf and somewhat babied by her previous owner. It's nice that we haven't had to work to get her to like people, but she's still not very comfortable with us milking her yet. She's got some stubborn mother in her that won't let all her milk down because we're not her babies! Hopefully she'll get used to the idea before too long, because we're certainly not overloaded with milk at our current yield of +/- 1 gallon a day. And I can't wait to have extra cream for butter! Now we're talking about getting another small animal so the cow isn't all alone out there. We enjoyed raising a lamb last summer, but haven't decided what else we'll get this year, or if we'll be adding to our farm for sure just yet.