Milk and its Racy Side

Dear friends,

You may not at first see the connection between your wholesome glass of milk, your bowl of creamy yogurt, your cheese on crackers and... bovine intimacy, but...let me tell you, it is all too clear to me. At the end of this long winter--yes, I know, it is a BIT on the optimistic side to call this the end by any means--we are thinking and talking all too much about cow mating habits...those racy matrons!

We have been anxious about our milk supply in the coming months. We rue those steamy summer days when our bull, prime and ready, bred not one, but all three of the open cows in just one night and day. We were so on top of the heat cycle. We noticed Teeter in heat, walked the bull down to her, and let the good times roll. YES! We were on top of the game--even in frenetic summer time. The next morning, we would take the bull back out from the girls and stagger the breeding of the other cows so that milk supply would be nice and even come spring. BUT...cow sex is not so easy to manage as you might think. We were certainly premature in our back-patting last August. Wouldn't you know our young gent tagged all three cows before we could rub our eyes and gather our wits back about us. Drat!

Now, all that goes around comes around. And...now is the time of reckoning. Teeter, Cricket and Rosalia are all due in May. This means they will be 'dried off' this month to allow a resting time before calving. We have--well, had--but 5 cows. Queen Bonnie is 13 years old and at the end of a very long lactation. This means she's not giving a whole lot of milk. Charity calved in January. She's giving you all a nice lot of good, creamy milk and will be for months to come. BUT....soon, we we would have had only Charity to rely on until her racy friends would start freshening in spring.

This all means that in between tax paperwork, snow removal and farm tending, Phil has been scouring the state for a nice hand-milking cow for months! She had to be due to freshen in March so there'd be milk in our coming lean times. What hard luck we've had finding a suitable cow. BUT...last week, a nice Jersey from Pittston finally appeared as an option. Phil drove out last Friday to have a look--she sounded so promising. And...the good new is...he found a match for us! He brought home a sweet, black-faced Jersey with a little red curly 'do' atop her head. Her name is 'Fanny'. She has fit right in with very little jostling about or any kind of hostile herd hierarchy business. She acts as if she's always known us and we like her very much.

We will still be shorter on milk supply than we'd like for March and April as we go through this transition time, so bear with us. Fanny is due at the end of March, but one can't make up for three. Teeter, Cricket and Rosalia will go on vacation and come May we will be singing pastures a-plenty again and doing all we can to keep up with all the 'extra' milk. So, hang in there with us. It's going to be a bit of a ride as we bump our way out of the snow and ice into the bright and muddy spring time ahead.