A Horse Of Course

Reed

Earlier this week, Rhiannon's dream came true.  A horse of her own! Reed is 27 years old and is retiring at our place.  Reed is the horse Rhiannon learned to ride on, so having him here is pretty special for us.  He's a good boy, and Rhiannon is having the time of her life.

Checking each other out.

The cows weren't quite sure what to think.

They look like they are saying - WHAT is that?!

Beamer our watch cat supervises.

Getting your nails done takes on a whole new meaning when you are a cow

Finally getting around to posting about Dorothy's pedicure - from last October.  Her feet were not terrible, but did need trimming.  We called some friends who have a farm, and our local cooperative extension office to get some names of reputable cow hoof trimmers.

We found a guy not to far from us, he said he usually got $12 per cow on a dairy, but would need to charge us around $100.  Turns out he had to sort of go by our place to take his daughter to a college open house so he only charged us $60.  He came by in the morning and dropped off his equipment (which looked to me like a torture device), then in the afternoon he came back and trimmed her hoofs.

I was all nervous about it.  But it went very quickly and very well.  Dorothy came right over when we called - the hoof trimmer was impressed.  Brad grabbed her halter (he had a bucket of grain and a couple of cow cookies), and she walked right out the gate and into the machine without batting an eye.  We fed her corn cobs while she got her nails done, she was very good...didn't struggle, and only "did what cows do when they get nervous" a few times.

 

Making Butter

One of the great things about owning your own cow (especially a Jersey) is all that lovely cream.  One of the easiest things to make with that cream is butter.  On this occasion, 8 quarts of cream yielded 5 1/2 pounds of butter.

I start with fresh raw milk and let it stand in the fridge for at least 12 hours, this allows the cream to rise. Notice the yellow layer in the bottles below, that's the risen cream. 

Milk that has been sitting 12 hours and ready for skimming

You can buy electric or hand crank butter churns, and shaking the cream in a mason jar will work as well, but I like to use my food processor.

1 quart of cream in the food processor

The butter breaks

Butter

Once the butter breaks, you need to strain it to remove the buttermilk (this can be saved to use in cooking later).  You need to rinse the butter until the water runs clear.  I use a kitchen sieve.

Straining the butter to remove the buttermilk

I like to bounce the butter in the sieve after rinsing, this removes some of the water and buttermilk, and forms a nice butter ball to work with later.

Butter  ready to be worked

Once the butter has been rinsed and most of the buttermilk strained out, you need to "work" the butter to remove even more buttermilk. The more buttermilk you remove, the better and longer your butter will keep.  It is at this point that you add salt to taste.  I work the butter with my hands, kneading it almost as though I would bread.

Worked butter

When I am done "working" the butter, I like to form it into balls. I don't measure it, but the butter balls end up being about 1/4 to 1/3 cup each.

5 1/2 pounds of butter

I like to freeze the butter balls on a plate and then pop them off and store them in a jar in the freezer.  Freezing first keeps them from sticking together in the jar.

Butter balls ready for the freezer

Jelly jars make nice butter containers.

Butter ready for the table

Milking - A Family Affair

We like our milk fresh....really really FRESH.

Dorothy - our very patient family cow

 

Practicing for the 2010 Olympics - Pairs Milking

Udderly fantastic

 

Look at that cream line!

First Horse Show

Rhiannon was in her first horse show last Saturday, she's been riding since mid-June. She's horse crazy and buying a horse this year was not in the cards - no barn space, so we decided she should take riding lessons at Honey Dew Acres. On Saturday, we waited all day for her to ride for 20 minutes, but she loved it. She was in 2 classes and took ribbons in both. Her smile was worth everything!

The Chicken Tractor

The meat birds - as we fondly call them are quickly outgrowing their swimming pools in the garage.  So Brad is building them a brand new chicken tractor.  The one he built last year blew away - we won't discuss that in mixed company.  Anyway, this one is much better and should last a few years at least.  Unfortunately before he could even get it finished, some rather large familiar looking chickens took up residence.  They don't appear to be laying eggs and I'm pretty sure we won't be eating them.....

Update on the cows

The girls seem to have settled in.  We kept them in their stalls for almost a week after they came home so they could get used to us and we could get used to them.  Lots of brisket and neck scratches (my fingernails may never be clean again) and hand feeding grass seems to have worked. I think they like us.

They are choosing to spend a good portion of their time in their stalls ruminating these days.  It's really hot, and the barn is shady and cool.  I think they are well on their way to being spoiled cows.