May 31, 2007

I also never knew that I had so many supporters. Thank you for all the 100's of emails regarding yesterdays events. I tried to email each one of you back personally and if I missed you, I apologize. I still think the whole situation is beyond weird, but hey.. life goes on right? For those of you whom have asked if I am starting a new message board, .. we do have one here. I have not been nurturing it the way it should have been as I was devoting any extra time I had to the other group, but now that I am not there, I can devote more time to this one. Just go to our FORUM and start posting. We had ALOT of people join in the last few days and I think we have over 300 members now. 

And now.. back to the regular tenzicut blog..

ell... hold onto your hats for the update this afternoon if I can move.  Today is the day we start to milk "Daisy". Since she is an ungrateful urchin after last February's care 24/7 of her when she was down for 15 days, she has reverted to a nervous range cow who really doesn't want anything to do with humans. The milking session should be about 30 minutes from now. 8:30 am Pacific time. Hopefully you hear back from me by 10 am.

Afternoon Update:

Well, we had the milk bucket, we had the lariat, we had the hobbles, the grain bucket. I gave "Daisy" some grain as she has been coming up to me the last few days. I made a quick grab, pulled out the hidden lead rope, almost had my arm pulled out of my socket and then she caved in.

I lead her to a willow tree and tied her to it. Then my boyfriend and Mary came out of hiding. I put a rope on her front leg and we hauled it up so she was standing on 3 legs with the hope she did not want to kick me with the back two feet.

I started to milk her short little teats and quickly realized this was going to be the hardest cow I have ever milked (a 2 finger teat at best) and instantly daydreamed 18 months ahead to being able to milk her darling daughter. I was milking into the bucket as I knew this milk was going to be trashed anyway due to a foot in it or tail or something.  It did end up with alot of debris in it.

Suddenly I looked down and "Daisy" was on all 4 feet and just standing there. Not looking happy, but she was standing. Feeling more confident and at the same time, more cautious, I started to fill jars we were keeping for drinking. Right away I noted that the milk had a rich yellow cast to it. I envisioned butter. The cream was rising nicely even on the small amount of milk we had in this jar.

I also noted that "Daisy" is only on 3 quarters of her udder. That shortened teat which is vastly smaller than her other small teats is dry. I do not know if she had an injury or mastitis on the range when she freshened the first time. I know we will not be keeping her forever as our milk cow. She will just be a brood cow. After we milked a couple quarts we gave up as the calf had nursed quite a bit this morning and I do not think "Daisy" is in full milk yet. I also did not want to tax her too badly and to convince her that being milked by people is a good thing.  All in all, the first milking session was rather uneventful. We may be able to get pictures tonight, but no one took any this morning in case they had to drag me out from under a cow.

After we got the wee bit of cow milk strained and into the refrigerator, I put Mary onto the task of milking "Crystal" to teach her the art of getting milk out of an udder. I think she thought it would be a bit easier, but in the end, she got a quart full of milk for soapmaking. Mary will get quick with practice. I make it look easier as I have been milking for 11 years. Mary doesn't know it yet. but she needs to come back tonight to milk "Crystal" out again. It is the only way Mary will learn and strengthen her hands to tackle "Daisy". Yes.... I know I need to shave "Crystal" into a short coat again. But all her milk this year will be going into Mary's Goat Milk Soap. So if you buy Mary's lovely and truly natural soap, you can honestly say you know the goat who gave the organic milk which is making your skin so soft.

I am sitting here at an appointment for Amy's car to keep her company. Mary and my boyfriend are at our house building a milking stanchion for "Daisy". It is supposed to be up to 30C/90-something F, so it is kinda nice to be loafing in the air conditioning of the office.