Skimming cream

The cows are staying warm and dry in the barn during the winter, eating hay and dreaming of green pastures (I’m imaging that last part, of course). I didn’t get either one of them bred back this last summer as I intended. It’s been a year since Tilly freshened (12/31/2009) and about 7.5 months since Josie freshened. We’re still milking both of them twice a day, and intend to continue doing so for another year or as long as they continue lactating. I’ll get them bred in early summer, I hope. I prefer that their calves be born in Spring.

If I kept a bull on the farm, it would simplify getting the cows bred, but I don’t really want an extra mouth to feed. With two cows, two steers, and a horse, we go through enough hay. I considered selling Tilly so that we would need to feed less hay, but we ended up keeping her – I didn’t really want to get rid of her. We probably don’t need two milk cows, but we have them and are able to keep them fed. And, the milk is appreciated.

At this time of year while the cows are eating hay – and it’s just grass hay, nothing special – we’re getting 1.5 to 2 gallons of milk a day. The amount varies depending upon how well they like a particular bale of hay and how cold it is. Colder weather requires them to convert more energy into keeping warm, and it affects the amount of milk produced. Now, this quantity of milk is not really much for two cows, but I don’t expect or want extreme production. This is enough milk for our uses and to share with my parents and Danny. It’s also better for the cows’ health since it isn’t taxing them to much to produce this amount, I believe.

During the summer months when the cows are on fresh grass and closer to the time they freshen, we get between 3 and 5 gallons of milk per day. That’s more than we can keep up with, usually. We ought to be converting some of that into cheese, but we’ve not taken on the extra task of doing so on a regular basis. We do make as much butter as we can, and Anne cans it when we have enough accumulated. Canned butter will keep for years. We use the butter as shortening/oil in baking and cooking so that we don’t have to buy oil. It also gets used on hot biscuits, sweet potatoes, and other things.

During the summer months, I skim cream off of the jars of milk on a regular basis. I have to in order to have jars to put more milk into. We also drink whole milk a couple times a day (whole milk is good for you and easier to digest than skim milk). Since the cows have been in the barn, I’ve not had to skim as often. The cream from cows eating fresh grass is preferable to the cream from hay-fed cows. Also, we’ve been mostly keeping up with the amount of milk we’ve been getting.

I know there are different ways that cream can be separated from the milk. The cream naturally rises to the surface when the milk cools. If we’re going to drink the milk, we shake the jar to mix the cream back in with the milk. If we want to use a little of the cream, like for coffee or tea, we can pour some off the top of the jar. If we want it for butter or baking (we substitute cream for some of the liquid and oil called for in a recipe – makes good biscuits, for example), then I need to skim it.

We strain the fresh milk through a cloth into 2-quart wide-mouth jars before refrigerating it. The wide mouth is large enough so that I can get a gravy ladle into the jar. My skimming method is quite simple: I use the gravy ladle to take the cream off the top of the milk. I put the cream in a quart jar so it will be available for use later. When I get down to the milk in the jar, it’s visible (you can see the separation between the cream and the milk) as I’m ladling out the cream. That’s when I stop skimming. It doesn’t take long to skim the cream off of two or three gallons of milk. The amount of cream we get varies some during the seasons. We can usually get a quart of cream from 1.5 gallons of whole milk, sometimes from only 1 gallon. If you click on the photo to enlarge it and then look closely, you can see the line between the milk and the cream in the two full jars (just above the “B” in “Ball”).

Constructing a milking stanchion for our cows

I’ve been milking both Tilly and Josey in the mornings since the middle of January. At the time we butchered Chucky Joe, he was still nursing on Josey. So, afterwards, I figured we might as well have that milk now. Josey is still producing two to three quarts of milk a day.

 

Cleo is still nursing on Tilly, of course, since she’s almost six weeks old. Since Cleo was born, I’ve brought Tilly in to milk her in the mornings to make sure she’s stripped out. In the last two or three weeks, Cleo hasn’t left much for us. I have segregated Tilly at night a few times and am starting to do that regularly now. Doing so we get seven or eight quarts of milk from the two cows.

When I first started milking Josey after Chucky was born, I hooked her halter to a post in the barn. She’s well-behaved when being milked, and her being halter broke makes it easy to tie her and to lead her. Tilly, on the other hand, was not broke to a halter when we bought her. She still isn’t. So, tying her or hooking her halter to a post didn’t work too well for milking her. She protests against such confinement.

After Tilly got here, I built a gate for milking, because that’s what she was used to. It was set up just outside the loafing area in the barn. When I open the gate, whichever cow I’m going to milk walks straight into the milking stall. She stands next to a wall, and I close the gate against her which keeps her from moving around. Overall, this has worked fairly well for both cows during the last year.

Instead of giving the cows grain while I’m milking, I give them a flake of hay to eat. I’ve been putting the hay on the floor at the front of the milking stall. The only problem has been that they will move a little bit backwards and forwards while nuzzling through the hay. I’ve wanted to do something to constrain them a little more. So, today, I constructed a stanchion.

I used 2x4s to construct the stanchion. I set a post from floor to ceiling and tied it to existing posts. I used a 2x4 for the locking mechanism to hold the cow’s head in the small feed bunk I built to hold hay. It pivots over and is secured with a pin. When closed, there is about 8 inches of room for the cow’s neck which allows her to move enough to reach all the hay, but it doesn’t give her enough room to pull her head back out. I’m pretty sure of this because when I put Tilly in it to try it out today, she tried to pull her head out but couldn’t.



I actually put both cows in the stanchion to see how they would do with it and how well it works. Josey had no problem with it and enjoyed a little hay while standing there. Tilly, on the other hand, didn’t want her head locked in. She tried to get out but couldn’t. After a bit she calmed down and ate some hay. I sat next to her and simulated milking for a few minutes. When I moved near her head, she would begin to fight the stanchion and move her hind end over.

Because of Tilly’s movements, I decided that I would continue to use the gate in addition to the stanchion. This way, she would be forced to keep her hind end over and her forward and backward motions would be restricted. So, I made the necessary modifications to the gate (I made it shorter) and installed it. We’ll see in the morning how well it works. I believe it will work fine.

Fresh milk: a straining experience

Cleo, the new calf, isn’t taking all of Tilly’s milk. I am able to get two quarts or more in the morning. During the day, she’s pretty much getting all of it, so I don’t bother to milk in the evenings, unless it appears necessary. I expect that Cleo will nurse more as she grows and soon there won’t be much left for us as long as she has free access to it. At that time, probably when she’s three weeks old or so, I’ll separate her from her mama during the day or over night so that we can have some of the milk. By that age, she’ll be eating a little hay (she’s already nibbling on it), and she doesn’t need all of the milk anyway.

This morning I milked out nearly a gallon of milk. I put down fresh bedding in Tilly’s stall, because she makes a mess of it over night. I give her a nice flake of fresh hay, just lay it down on the floor. While she eats it, she stands still and lets me milk her. I usually take some warm water down to the barn in the bucket to moisten a rag to clean off her udder. Some mornings it’s messier than others (she’s not real careful about where she lies down sometimes). If I forget the warm water, I have to use cold, and she doesn’t particularly care for that (she kind of jumps a little bit). While I’m milking, Cleo often tries to get her share, but I discourage her – she leaves the teats slimy because she slobbers on them.

After I bring the milk back to the house, it needs to be strained to remove dust and any small pieces of hay or chaff that’s gotten in it. I have an old tin milk strainer that didn’t have the bottom screen. I cut a piece of PVC pipe that fits in it nicely and use that to hold the filter. I used to use squares of Bounty paper towels, but, in order to use less consumable goods, I started using a thin cloth diaper (it’s not been used as a diaper). I can use it several times, cleaning it well between uses, before it needs to be washed. It’s easy to adjust it to strain through different parts of the cloth for each day since it’s larger than necessary.

Then, using a funnel under the strainer, I sit it on a 2-quart wide-mouth canning jar and strain the milk through it. The wide-mouth jar allows me to skim the cream later if I want to. We like to drink the whole milk, so it doesn’t all get skimmed. I have been skimming a little bit to put in my coffee, though. Otherwise, we’ve been drinking the milk so far.

After the milk is strained, I set it in the refrigerator and clean the bucket, funnel, and strainer so that it’s ready for the next time.

     

Waiting for the calf. . .

Last April we bought a Jersey milk cow named Tilly. According to the people we bought her from, she was bred six weeks before we brought her home. Based upon that, I calculated her due date to be the end of December or the beginning of January. She looks to be right on track for her due date. Now, I wouldn’t purposefully have a cow freshen in the middle of winter. That just seems like the wrong time of year, but I had no say in when Tilly was bred. By looking at her, I believe she will give birth within the next couple of days. It’ll be nice to have fresh milk and cream again, though!

I moved her to a stall separate from the other cows a few days ago because she was starting to bag up. She’s continued to bag up and looks like she couldn’t get any fuller. I took a couple photos of her late this morning. I didn’t clean her udder before taking the photos, so you’ll have to excuse the mess on it (I still haven’t taught her to not poop in her bed). I put fresh bedding down in her stall twice a day, trying to keep her clean. Most of her manure ends up away from where she likes to lie down, but, like this morning, when she gets up she’ll drop a load right where she is. So, I keep adding bedding and trying to make sure she has a clean, dry place to lie down.

She may be in early labor today. She was acting a little different, just kind of standing there facing the wall. She may also just be uncomfortable. Either way, the birth of her calf is imminent.

Whether she has a heifer or a bull calf, we’ll keep it to raise. I plan on retiring my other milk cow, Josey, this next year – she’s 12 or 13 years old now. She’s due to have a calf in April. It will be a Guernsey-Jersey cross (a Juernsey?) as she was bred to a friend’s Jersey bull. I’d thought about keeping Josey’s calf if it’s a heifer, but I won’t if Tilly has a heifer. There’s no telling at this point. It’s entirely possible that they’ll both have bull calves. If so, we’ll keep at least one for beef.

 

I’ll let you know when Tilly has her calf. Soon, I expect.

New cow: Tilly the Jersey

Last Wednesday I bought another milk cow. We really like the milk that we get from Josey (our Guernsey). It’s so versatile: milk and cream from which to make yogurt, cheese, and butter. You can’t skim the cream off the top of goat’s milk as easily. Also, cows were created to eat grass; goats do better with brush. On top of that, I’ve never met a goat who would respect a single electric fence wire as a boundary they are not to cross. Josey and Chucky will not touch an electric fence wire if they can help it, whether the charger is on or not.

Anyway, we discussed getting another cow, and we liked the idea of a Jersey. I did a search online for Jersey heifers for sale in Kentucky. I found a listing for someone selling some only 40 miles away. I thought about it some more and then called the number from the listing. I ended up going over the next morning at milking time to see the cows they had for sale. I came home with one.

Her name is Shantilly, or Tilly for short. She’s a blond Jersey about 4.5 years old. She’s currently milking and was with the bull about six weeks ago. Hopefully, she’s pregnant. We’ll find out.

She’s doing well and getting adjusted to life in her new home. She’s not as used to attention as Josey, and she’s not been broken to lead. I’ll work on that and teach her what an electric fence is. She is very gentle and behaves very well while being milked. Her teats are a bit smaller than Josey’s which takes some getting used to, but she milks easily enough.

Hopefully, she’ll provide us with a nice little Jersey heifer next year. If all goes well, Josey, who visited a friend’s Jersey bull a few weeks ago, will deliver a nice Juernsey heifer about the same time. If so, we’ll have more milk than we know what to do with early next year.

Making sour cream and cream cheese

My mom is going to make a couple of cheesecakes for the coming weekend. We didn’t really want to use commercially processed cream cheese or sour cream. There’s so much nonsense put in those things that, although they may taste good, they can’t be very good for you. I prefer to not ingest such things as stabilizers E410 and E407. So, I searched online how to make our own.

Making sour cream was the first thing, and it turned out to be very easy. We regularly make yogurt from our fresh cow’s milk. I put several tablespoons of live culture yogurt in a jar, add warm whole milk (still warm from the cow), shake it all together, and put in our homemade yogurt maker for several hours. (The yogurt maker consists of an ice chest with a light fixture attached to the inside of the lid which is wired to a water heater thermostat.) It’s good stuff.

Sour cream is made in very much the same way. I take a quart of cream that I previously skimmed from off the top of cooled milk, add four tablespoons of yogurt, and set it in the yogurt maker overnight. In the morning, I put it in the fridge to cool. It makes a very good sour cream. Being cultured, it’s also good for you. By the way, we don’t pasteurize our milk – our cow is healthy and pasteurization kills good things like enzymes that are important and good for us.

Cream cheese takes a little more time, but it’s also easy. I start with one gallon of fresh warm milk that’s just been strained. I add 1/8 teaspoon of Mesophilic-M starter (ordered from Leeners) and one drop of vegetable rennet. Stir this all together and set the milk on top of the refrigerator overnight.

Around 10:30 in the morning, I pour the now thickened and good-smelling milk into a cloth in a colander. We collect the whey as it’s good to use in baking and other things (the live cultures it contains are good for you). I tie up the curd which is in the cloth and hang it in a jar or pitcher so that the whey can continue to drain off. After about 9 hours, the cream cheese is ready. One gallon of milk makes a pound of cream cheese.

We’ll see later this week how the cheesecake turns out. I expect it will be excellent!

I'm in North Carolina for the weekend

Anne and I decided on making a quick trip to North Carolina to visit her siblings. We didn't get to go for Thanksgiving last year. It's become a yearly tradition for all five siblings and their associated families to get together for Thanksgiving and Ruth and Harvey's house. Last year, for various reasons, we were unable to attend, and we missed everyone. So, earlier in the week, we decided to make the trip.

We're staying at Ruth's house, and Anne's other siblings will come over on Sunday. They all live within 2 or 3 hours of Ruth's house. We'll be heading back home on Tuesday.

Mom and Dad are taking care of things at home while we're gone. There are many advantages to having a homesteading community. One of these is that it provides built-in help. Dad's been helping me a lot during the last week or so with cutting and skidding cedar logs out of the woods. These will be for the house. While we're gone, he's taking care of the bovines and the turkeys.

Although he's nine months old, Chucky Joe still believes that he needs to nurse, and Josey continues to let him do so. He went a week or two without nursing. I think that Josey kicked him off during that time because he had made her teats sore. But, since they've healed (mostly), she's let him back at it. The calf weaner didn't seem to make a whole lot of difference for him. So, I took it off the other evening.

Actually, with him nursing, it makes chores a little easier. Chucky gets locked up separately at night, and I milk in the morning. This also gives Dad the option of not milking while we're gone -- just leave Chucky with Josey to do the job.

There's a lot of work to be done once we return home. It'll soon be gardening time, and there's a lot I want to do on the house. Taking this trip now is good because it's before the really busy time gets going. It's nice to see everyone. Anne is out enjoying they day treasure hunting with Ruth.

Chucky Joe is home

On Monday, January 26, we brought Chucky Joe home. Chucky is our 8-month old calf. Josey had become lonely during Chucky’s absence. The week prior to Thanksgiving, I took him to a friend’s farm to stay for a while. I wanted him weaned, but he had a problem recognizing the fact that he wasn’t supposed to climb over the fence. Granted, he only went over the fence in one place where I needed to fix it, but all the same, we didn’t want him getting to momma and taking all the milk. It was becoming more difficult with how we have things set up here to keep him separate from Josey. So, we packed him up and took him away.

Two months later I figured he ought to be well weaned and would no longer try to nurse. That, and Josey was lonely. She needed a companion. So, the children and I headed over to bring him home. He led out of our friend’s pasture just fine and loaded on the trailer with no problems. When I unloaded him near our barn, he recognized where he was and seemed excited to be home. He called out, and his momma answered him right away. As I took him around the barn, Josey excitedly came out of the barn with a special skip in her step. I let Chucky go and stayed to watch the reunion.

They were happy to see one another. They sniffed each other, and, then, Chucky decided he needed to nurse. Two months wasn’t long enough after all. I dissuaded him from nursing, but he continued to try. So, I locked him in a separate stall, not wanting to sacrifice the evening’s milking to a calf too old to need to nurse but too young to know better.

I went into town and bought a calf weaner from the feed store. It attaches to the calf’s nose and is supposed to make it difficult for him to get to his momma’s teats. It also has some tabs that are meant to poke the momma a little bit so that she will kick the calf off when he tries to nurse. Well, when I put it on Chucky and put him with Josey, he still figured a way to nurse. Figuring that the one I bought may have been too small, I returned to the feed store and bought the larger one. It seemed to work when I first put it on him. But, later in the evening, it was clear that he had figured out how to nurse with it on anyway.

In some ways, this worked out well. Anne and I made our trip to Michigan, and while we were gone, I left the weaner off of Chucky and just let him nurse. This meant that Dad didn’t have to do the milking. He wasn’t disappointed in this deprivation, either. Once we returned, I reattached the weaner to Chucky’s nose, figuring maybe it would at least slow him down. I was just going to separate him at night so that I would have the morning’s milk until I could get another weaner of a different design. However, somewhere in the first day or two after we returned, he decided it just wasn’t worth his trouble. He no longer tries to nurse. I’ve left the weaner on him, though, but it’s nice that we’re still able to milk twice a day as we really appreciate the cream, the milk, and the yogurt we make on a regular basis.

Josey and Chucky seem happy together. Contentment has returned to the barn now that Josey has the companion she needs.

Evening chores

I love a great sunset. With my new camera, I find myself looking for nice photo opportunities. Sunday evening (and several other previous evenings) I took my camera with me at chore time. This time of year, evening chores fall during the time the sun is setting. So, I watch the sky on the way down the hill to the barn and on the way back up afterwards, taking as many photos as I desire. The memory card in my camera can hold over 1,000 photos on the highest quality setting. I don’t expect to fill it up on these evening journeys to the barn and back.

Sunday evening there were clouds in the sky to catch the colors of the setting sun, and I snapped a few photos. I’m still learning my new camera. So, I try different shots with different settings. It’s quite fun. I usually can’t wait to upload them to the computer to see them clearly.

Chore time involves cleaning out Josey’s stall, milking her, carrying water for her, giving her enough hay for overnight, and closing the turkeys in their house. We have a well with a hand pump that is about 150 feet from the barn, and I carry water to the barn in five-gallon buckets. There are a few hundred bales of hay which we baled last summer in the loft. Josey’s hay feeder has a chute to drop the hay into from the loft. 

On Sunday, I let Ramiah take a few photos while I was milking Josey just to show that I was actually doing more than taking photos of the sky. I give the evening’s milk to my parents. They use the milk for cooking and cereal after skimming the cream off. My mom makes butter with the cream that Dad doesn’t consume or that doesn’t go in their coffee.

Josey is a gentle and affectionate cow. I’m thankful for that. I’d never owned a cow or been around any before buyer her. When I put her in the stall when she first came to the farm, I wondered about my decision to purchase here. She seemed so huge in comparison to our goats.

Yesterday, I worked for a while cleaning out another area in the barn in which we had goats until last summer. I just hadn’t gotten that job done yet. Josey would also spend time in there with the goats, and more recently I’ve used it for housing Chucky Joe overnight (he’s staying with friends for a few weeks right now). Josey had to be right there with me while I worked, trying to nibble on my jacket or pants while checking out what I was going and searching for any good bits of hay that might have been overlooked. Once I finishing getting it cleaned out, I’m going to move Josey into this area. In her current stall, even though I clean it out and put down bedding twice a day, she still manages to lay down in her own mess too often. The other area is larger which will give her more places to choose from when it’s time to lie down.