Getting Milk

Every two weeks we are out at the farm where we get milk. We drive 45 minutes to get there, so by the time we arrive we all just want to get out and walk around. Usually the air "smells like cows" (as the kids say) but it's not too bad on this spring day.

While our farm friends fill up our milk bottles the kids greet Matey the dog and try to hunt down the barn cats.  Todd and I usually check out the coolers full of pasture raised beef or cheeses.  This time the kids helped us decide on a bag of cheese curds (which sounds gross in writing, but tastes something like mozzarella).

The cats were easy to find, just laying right in the open.  Todd headed back outside to play with Matey -- he always gets her all wound up and then leaves the hyper dog for the farmers to deal with.  So nice of him.

Evan really loves the cats.  This one is Buddy -- she's the most friendly of all the kitties.

I don't often take pictures in the barn since I have to use a flash (and to me that just doesn't seem very good for the animals' eyes) but we always see or learn something new.

Evan got to see his first real live kittens.  Four little newborns and their mama were way in the back stall (where Trip the horse used to live) in a pile of hay.  The mama was a feral cat so we couldn't get too close, but Evan was in love.  It's his dream to raise kittens someday.

Three little calves less than a month old were playing sweetly together in the side stall.  There's a new one named Major in there. This time they stood mostly still and let Evan and Chloe scratch their heads instead of the usual jumping around and playing wildly.

In another large stall, a pregnant cow is still waiting to birth her baby -- she was in there last time too, so Laurie explains she's due next week and it will be her first :-) Next time we visit, we'll get to see it and learn it's name.

The cows (about thirty all together) were out to pasture when we arrived, but Mr. Gary had called them up while we were looking at the kittens.  He said all we had to do was step back to the doorway and we got to watch them file into the barn one by one and head to their stalls.  Evan was over the moon as Harry Ray -- the biggest bull they have -- ambled in.  His back almost touched the metal bars on the ceiling!

We paid for our milk (and also our tab from last week when we forgot our milk bottles) and buckled back in for the 45 minute drive home.

On the way home we saw a family of geese, so we stopped in the middle of this country road and took pictures.  We just sat there watching the geese with no cars anywhere....

We saw Marion out working in her garden.  She's the sweet lady we met last year who puts all kinds of wonderful veggies at a little on-your-honor table in her yard.  We always stop and buy her food.  Last year she let the kids play in the leaves and then gave them dozens of cute little gourds to take home.  She sells cauliflower, cabbage, winter squash... We are really looking forward to what she harvests this year.


Then as we got back on to main roads the kids let their "elephant ears" flap in the wind.

The bag of cheese curds we had bought was almost empty before we pulled in our driveway, but we were still hungry for dinner out on the deck.

On the menu:  homemade granola with fresh raw milk. Yum.