A Lucky Farm Story

Tonight, while legions of revelers raise a glass of Irish cheer, I'd like to take you on a journey that begins with the wee miracle of a Welsh faerie cow. Gather 'round the hearth and snuggle in...

When first we followed the wind to our home in an enchanted valley, we offered our service to a strong farmer and his family of lovely daughters. In exchange, they gifted us with a white cow bearing red ears and a flowery name meaning "Luck". "She'll give you a fine milk cow next Summer," they said and we believed them.

One winter night in January, an unexpected Summer-like breeze blew over the ice-hardened ground, softening and whispering of things to come. In the morning, Jeff ran into the house calling, "There's a white calf in our field!" We threw on coats, pulled on boots, and rushed out. Yes indeed, there was a sturdy little speckled white calf in our pasture - her bright black eyes and obsidian silky ears cocked out just so. She spared us only a glace, then returned to trying to nurse...the horse!!!

Not just any horse, this is faerie story after all, but a wild red Mustang horse who had decided to let us love her. "No, no," we called, "You must drink from your cow Mama....Watch Out!!" Our gloriously proud Sierra mare was quite happy to foster the miracle baby and defended her right like the Iceni Queen of old. With such beginnings, our Zephyr grew up strong and stubborn - so full of vibrant life, she just couldn't wait to experience everything. And everywhere that Zephyr went, Sierra was sure to be watching, calling out encouragement or caution.

Right before Zephy's first calf was born, Sierra slipped on the ice and injured her hind badly. The vet sighed in the dark, cold night and told us that he couldn't hold out much hope. Under the bright stars, we covered her with sleeping bags, tucking straw beneath her huge, muscled frame, and waited. We sang and prayed, quietly shared stories, and told her how very grateful we were to have known her.

I suppose that should have been that, but Mustangs aren't built for quitting. I stepped away to fetch more straw from the barn. "You Are The Queen!", I heard Zoe shout. Turning, I saw mighty Sierra standing, shaking and spread-legged, defiant and alive. Quickly, I ran for more help and for the next hour and a half, four people on eight legs held up a beautiful red mare determined to walk back to her barn.

Weeks later, a still un-recovered Sierra watched over the stall fence as her foster-daughter gave birth to her first calf, and a few weeks after that, she let us say our final goodbyes. We buried Sierra at the highest point of our little farm, where she could watch over all.

When it came time for Zephyr's second calf to be born however, this wasn't close enough. In the cold winter night with a warm sweet breeze just beginning to blow, Zephyr left the barn. She walked up the hill to Sierra's grave and there gave birth to a beautiful speckled white calf. Jeff found them soon after, baby lying right on Sierra's spot, Zephyr lick lick licking him and calling - "Mmmmmmm, it's okay little one - Welcome to a world of love" just like her foster Mama taught her.

Tonight, we raise our glasses to Sierra and Zephyr, who taught us all that fierce and gentle are meant to be one.

A Dairy Good Day

While apprenticing at a large Market Garden farm in 2004, we were gifted with a tour of Western Cultural Heritage Institute in Corvallis Montana. A living Permaculture design demonstration, WCHI made a big impression on us. In particular, I recall the irrigation ditch running through their property. Due to highly charged water right disputes, the two families living at WCHI were not allowed to utilize the ditch in the traditional way: pumping water from them to apply to specific, discrete areas of their property. What they did instead is drawn right from one of the foundation principles of Permaculture.

While no water was extracted from the ditch, the folks at WCHI developed a riparian ecosystem all along the ditch for the full distance it ran through their property. Water loving plants, both for eating and medicinal purposes were encouraged to grow by sloping the sides of the ditch more gently, As they were allowed to redirect the ditches within their property, they added ponds and a meandering route to allow more of the water more contact time with more of their soil. As you can guess, all sorts of water loving creatures found their way to the new habitat including ducks, amphibians, and beneficial insects. Our girls especially loved the blonde lab who literally went deep water diving for tasty rocks.

Make Days, a phrase borrowed from the inspiring Kurt Timmermeister of Kurtwood Farms, are just like that here at Lucky Farm. We have not yet developed a reliable, consistent market for our fresh milk. Instead, we utilize our Gjinny's two gallon per day contribution as fully as we currently know how. Let me show you ---

A typical Make Day starts with a collected six gallons of milk. First, we hand-skim the rich cream, leaving what still tastes like whole milk in the jar. Six gallons of milk yields one gallon of cream and five gallons of milk. One of those gallons of milk becomes yogurt while 4 gallons become a wheel of cheese. But let's start with the cream, shall we?

We hand-churn our cream with a Dazey Churn purchased at our local Antique Store. What's funny about Dave Cherry's store is that most of these treasures go from working in local family kitchens to being displayed as "vintage", "collectible", and "memorabilia". Jeff has rescued quite a number of excellent homestead tools from the ignominy of a display shelf life. At least that's how I imagine it - I suppose some of them may have been hoping to retire, enjoying life on the sidelines after decades of keeping a family fit and fed. Ah well, maybe next decade!

For now, Jeff finds that if he lets the cream warm on the counter to about 70 degrees, the butter readily forms after less than 10 minutes of churning. I should qualify that - cream from milk that is about 5 days old churns that quickly. When Jeff consents to make sweet cream butter for me that is no older than two days, it takes a whopping 40 minutes to churn. My well-known preference for absolutely fresh dairy (I am so spoiled!) prompted experiments culturing the freshest cream to shorten the churn time. I found a good article with this quote about cultured butter on a quick Google search: "The culturing intensifies the butter flavor itself and also introduces a number of subtler secondary flavors that greatly enhance the overall butter experience. The action of the lactic bacteria also help break down some of the structure which keeps the fat globules apart. This increases the yield to butter over sweet cream and also makes the butter come much quicker when churning."

A little science field trip may be helpful here. Wikipedia has this to say about the process of making butter from cream: "The process can be summarized in 3 steps:

1. Churning physically agitates the cream until it ruptures the fragile membranes surrounding the milk fat. Once broken, the fat droplets can join with each other and form clumps of fat, or butter grains.
2. As churning continues, larger clusters of fat collect until they begin to form a network with the air bubbles that are generated by the churning; this traps the liquid and produces a foam. As the fat clumps increase in size, there are also fewer to enclose the air cells. So the bubbles pop, run together, and the foam begins to leak. This leakage is called buttermilk.
3. The cream separates into butter and buttermilk. The buttermilk is drained off, and the remaining butter is kneaded to form a network of fat crystals that becomes the continuous phase, or dispersion medium, of a water-in-fat emulsion. Working the butter also creates its desired smoothness."

Once the butter is complete, Zoe and I feast! Only kidding a little bit here, but the Make Day process for butter has one more step. A portion of the butter Jeff makes from 6 gallons of milk, about two pounds of butter, is used to make ghee or clarified butter. Because ghee has all milk protein removed, it becomes shelf stable. This is a great benefit for a family with loads of fresh dairy and limited refrigerator space. We first appreciated ghee for this ability to store "butter" for the months when our Gjinny is dry (we do not milk her in the approximately 2 months before she gives birth). Then Jeff found this fabulous ghee article which clued me in to the intense, ancient wisdom: "The milk of cows is considered to possess the essence or sap of all plants and Ghee is the essence of milk... When we consider Ghee we are in the company of superlatives. In India, Ghee has been so highly regarded for so many things, for so long, that one is slightly embarrassed to enter into this crowded river of praise."

Phew! That's a lot of butter education for one day. Next time - yogurt!!