January Snow

The weather has been very cold today, although I think that we have had a very mild winter overall so far. The countryside looked very beautiful this morning as I took these photos while feeding the animals.

The orchard, with manure heaped at the base of each tree.

Moo is due her half at the start of May. She is in calf to an Angus. Her belly has started to get very round. She has not bagged up yet but she has eight weeks yet to go. I am looking forward to having fresh milk again. I really miss my morning shake of milk, an egg and frozen berries. It was a super quick and healthy breakfast that I could drink while commuting to work, and it would keep me full until lunch.

The horses are doing well. The 3 yr old is going to a trainer next week for a few months to be broken. I had considered doing it myself but I have too much work commitments and it just would be easier to let someone else due it.

I will be glad to have him gone as he is a bully and is giving the other two a great deal of grief.

We are about half way through winter and have used just under a third of our turf supply. We should have some for next winter also but we will cut more again during the summer. It is a very economical way to heat the cottage.

During the summer, we plan to put a stove in the sitting room and purchase solar hot water panels for the roof.

Winter has been pleasant but I am looking forward to spring. I am eager to get started again with the bees and to have a cow in milk and a horse for riding. 

The polynucs have surprised me. The bees cluster against the walls, so there must be very little heat loss. One nuc that should not have survived due to the small size, seems to be thriving. These hives are more active on mild days than the timber hives. I intend to purchase a full poly hive to trial this season.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! It has been too long. 

It takes a great deal of effect to maintain a blog and due to this, I had to put it on hold while I gave my attention to other areas of my life.

I am currently working and studying, in addition to being a mother, a wife, a milk maid, a cook and unfortunately a cleaner.

So with exams recently sat, I am able to update you on the goings on here at the cottage.

We are all ready for Christmas and the children are very excited. They finished up with school and play school on Friday and are counting down the nights still Santa comes.

We are over wintering my two young horses and the children's pony max together in a new sand paddock. It is working out very well and it doesn't hold a drop of rain.

They are feed haylage along the fence and it is super easy to keep them now.

Moo, the jersey cow has  been dry since we brought her in, back in October. She is her own cow yard near the horses. She is due her calf early in March and her belly is growing everyday. We let her out on grass for a few hours on dry days.

Our milking machine failed just before we dried her up, It will require a new motor and after some consideration, we have decided to purchase a brand new portable milking machine in the New Year. In the long run it should be more cost efficient. I do not want a newly freshening cow without a reliable milk machine.

The bees are clustered for winter. They fly on warmer days to collect water and empty their bowels. I will start to feed them when the days warm up in the new year. At the moment they can't break cluster to feed, I just hope that they stored enough for themselves during last season. We only took a few frames of heather honey from one hive. Some of this has been stored, should I need to it give it to a lighter/weaker hive.

The fox visited and took our two ducks and a young pet chicken called chirp chirp. The children were very saddened by this.

We currently have two roosters and ten hens that are still laying well for us. I collect about four eggs each morning at the moment.

Hubby got two male ferrets a few months ago to resolve the rat issue that we had. Our shed was alive with the amount of rats that were present.

Thankfully the ferrets have cleared out all rats in our immediate area. They have proven to be very easy to keep as we release them a few times a week and they come back for feeding, which is raw meat and off cuts free from our butcher. They are not very tame and handling of them requires gloves. I'm glad we got them.

Merry Christmas xx

October

Winter is drawing in and I feel it!
The evening are getting dark earlier and nights much colder. I have ordered the round bales of haylage for the winter and the animals will be moving in from the fields soon.

We have sold six of the seven piglets over the last few days. The remaining one will stay with the sow for company. They were very easy to sell which surprised me. I had imagined the market at this time of year would be poor compared to spring. Who wants additional livestock going into winter?

The cow will move into the cow yard in the next two weeks. She wouldn't see a field again until  May next year. The milking machine had broke down about two weeks ago and instead of forking out a few hundred to fix it , we have decided to buy a new portable machine in the spring when she freshens. At the moment I am hand-milking her every evening. She is giving about 5 litres on once a day milking. Once she moves indoor, we will dry her off. She is due her angus calf in early March.

The hens are doing well. We are getting about seven eggs a day from ten hens ( one pullet, two ducks and two roosters ). We expect to get (less) eggs right through winter as many of the hens are this years.

The bees are still foraging in the middle of the day. A great deal of pollen is brought back into the hives each day. I expect that the queens will slow down now and then cease laying sometime next month. The full hives should have plenty of stores as I took so little from them but I will continue to feed the two nuc's.

We have three horses. A pony for the children and two youngsters for me. The youngsters stayed at my sisters farm all summer, but the older of the two, a two yr old Mermus R gelding will move back here for the winter. I will collect him at the end of this month. I will be training him over the winter to lunge, long rein and then ride. I prefer to start them young and slow. I worked with him for a few weeks during the summer and he can already be tacked up in cross-ties and take my weight lying over his back. The children continue their riding lessons and will be riding their pony max over the winter. I plan to bring them to lead-rein show jumping leagues in Feb with him.

The range in the kitchen and open fire in the sitting-room is lit every day. The cottage is very cosy and snug! Thank God for turf :-)

September

The turf is all home. There is comfort is having a shed full of fuel as we approach the winter. This will heat our cottage, provide hot water and do much of our cooking over the next six months. 

The children had been busy yesterday helping me collect mushrooms after school.

The fields are full of them. I made and am still making large amounts of mushroom and courgette soup for freezing.

We have lots of courgette and maturing pumpkins in the veg garden.

The piglets are very cute and hardy now. They get out of their yard through the gate and ramble around the field and garden exploring until Sally sow calls them back with her grunts. 

They are great fun to watch. Soon they will have grown too big to fit through and escape. 

The children are back at school and I'm back at work part time. Our home has became  hectic is the mornings and quite during the day. Life is moving on!

The cow has dropped milk production as  is expected for this time of year. In the next 4-6 wks she will come in off the land and stay in her cow yard for the winter. At Christmas we will dry her off. She is due her calf in March. 

The bees are doing well and are flying everyday now. The ivy and heather is starting here and they are bringing in loads of pollen to build up for winter.

I will have less time to update the blog but I will update it :-)

July Update

We have one broody hen sitting on eggs for the last week. I have marked them but I am finding it difficult to remove the additional eggs that the other hens are laying in her box. 

She doesn't appreciate my interference!

Last week we forgot to close the door on the hen house. A fox came and climbed the stairs and pulled four hens from their perch. Hubby was so annoyed in the morning! We have decided to change the design of the stairs to make it fox proof. It is inevitable that we will forget to close the hen door once in a while. 

The mart is held on Wednesdays in our local town, I will go there tomorrow and buy more pullets to replace these. Our egg supply is getting worryingly low!

We started to harvest the new potatoes in the veg garden as we need them. I made a lovely seafood chowder yesterday using our veg and herbs from the garden, fish that we caught last month and our new potatoes . It tasted so good and didn't last long.

I have started to harvest the soft fruits before the birds get every last one. They are busy pecking the young apples and pears from the trees and doing all sorts of damage. 

I checked the mating nuc on Friday. The queen cells where due to hatch on Thursday. Every cell was hatched in the four chambers and I could hear but not find the virgin queens. They make a strange high pitched sound that has a pattern similar to hens clocking. I even found that the workers behaved very different. They all were wiggle dancing on the frames and making a strong hiss sound while being very calm and gentle.

I will leave them alone for the next two weeks as they seem to be doing well. At that stage I will be looking out for eggs and a chance to mark the queens. The weather is promising for successful mating flights.

The cow was ai'ed about five weeks ago. I had marked in my diary when she was due to come into heat again. I was pleased when this date had passed with no signs of heat. A few days later I noticed that for a few hours, the bullocks showed interest in her and a couple tried to mount her although she wouldn't stand. This passed as quickly as it came.

She could be pregnant and that was a false heat! We will have her scanned in the next few weeks to confirm, but the vet tells me that it is typical for a cow to have a 'break through heat' in early pregnancy. 

A typical heat for her lasts about three days. A day coming into heat, a half day at standing heat and a day coming out. Fingers crossed she took to the Angus straw.

We are going to England at the end of the month to holiday and visit friends for four days. I can really see the disadvantage of having so many animals as it can be difficult to get someone reliable to look after them. Especially if you have a cow in milk!

In the future it will suit us better to holiday during the winter when the cow is dry and the farm is sleeping!

New house cow ebook available

"Have you ever thought about owning a house cow but don’t know where to start?  Do you dream of unlimited raw milk, manure and beef to complement your small farm activities?  “Our experience with House Cows” is an eBook written by a house cow owner to help other small farmers get started with a cow of their own.  The eBook is written for Australian conditions, particularly sub-tropical Queensland, but much of the information is applicable to cows and cow owners all over the world.  This eBook covers the basics of getting a cow, getting her in calf, milking her and caring for her calf, all using natural methods.  The final sections explain how to use all that milk to create delicious dairy products!  The eBook references several other cow, cattle and dairy books which are useful to the new cow owner and explain some aspects in more detail.  Go ahead, learn how to realise your house cow dream today!"

Liz had contacted me a year ago about helping her write the chapter on hand milking a house cow, as Liz uses a milking machine. So I'm very excited that her ebook is finished and available to those thinking of keeping a house cow. It is a wealth of information and although written from an Australian prospective, a cow is the same every where and the same cow rules apply!

Liz writes a smallholding/homesteading blog called 'Eight Acres' and you can download her ebook from her house cow blog . It costs $4.99 Australian dollars and is downloaded in PDF format.

The eBook features 41 pages of information and gorgeous house cow photos.  

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction. 1

1.1. About us. 1

1.2. About this book. 1

1.3. Conversion of units. 2

1.4. House cow terminology. 2

2. Why own a house cow?. 4

2.1. Raw milk. 4

2.2. Manure. 4

2.3. Meat 5

2.4. Lawn mowing. 5

2.5. Companionship. 5

3. Bringing home a house cow.. 6

3.1. Preparing for your cow.. 6

3.2. Choosing a house cow.. 7

3.3. Where to find a house cow.. 9

3.4. Transport and ownership issues. 9

3.5. Getting to know each other. 9

3.6. Cow safety. 10

4. Milking. 11

4.1. The milking procedure. 11

4.2. Training your house cow.. 12

4.3. Using a milking machine. 12

4.4. Hand-milking. 16

4.5. Managing mastitis. 17

4.6. Using the calf as a share milker. 18

5. Calving. 19

5.1. Getting your cow “into calf”. 19

5.2. Pregnancy care and "drying off". 20

5.3. Birth of the calf 20

5.4. Colostrum.. 21

5.5. Cow mothering. 22

6. Calf care. 23

6.1. Bottle feeding a calf 23

6.2. Introducing a foster calf 23

6.3. Castration. 24

6.4. Weaning. 25

7. Pests, parasites, poisoning and preventing illness. 26

7.1. General approach. 26

7.2. Buffalo flies. 26

7.3. Ticks. 27

7.4. Intestinal Worms. 28

7.5. Vaccinations. 28

7.6. Poisoning. 28

8. The home dairy. 29

8.1. Using up the milk. 29

8.2. Making yoghurt 29

8.3. Making kefir. 30

8.4. Cream, butter and ice cream.. 31

8.5. Cheese without rennet 31

8.6. Cheese with rennet 31

9. A final word of advice. 33

10. References. 34

Appendix A: Milking bales design. 35

Appendix B: Useful sources of dairy equipment 37

Appendix C: Cheese press designs. 38

Appendix D: Sources of cheese making supplies and information.

June Update

A few updates!

My exams are finished for now, thankfully!

One of the pigs was sent to the freezer last week. He killed out at a good weight and not too fatty. We just have the gilt left. She was very lonely at first but has become more friendly and enjoys all the attention she gets now.

There was a hatched queen cell in one of the hives a few days ago. I had put in a frame of young brood a week before and these were not raised into queen cells. My take on this is that the hive has a virgin queen and I will check in another week for eggs. The weather has been good for mating flights. 

The other hives are very strong and may consider swarming. I need to open the brood area in these by putting a foundation less frame in the centre of the brood. It should occupy them enough to not produce queen cells, hopefully! 

I will spilt one of these hives to make increases but the other, I want it as a production hive. We really want honey this year!

I picked up two broody hens today at the mart. I put them into the orchard with the other hens and when I checked on them later, I could only find one! Hubby will be disappointed when he gets home. We checked the roads and fields but no sign of her. She may or may not turn up.

I am busy at home toilet training our youngest. It is a messy and challenging experience for us both. 

One of our dogs is in heat which has caught the attention of all the neighbouring dogs. One even came inside the cottage today to mark his territory .Grrrrrr!

The veg garden is finally getting attention since the hens have been secured in the orchard. I rejoice in no longer having to hop over the hen poo on the doorstep each morning or crying when the kids carry it in on their shoes. They are no longer able to scratch out flower boxes and veg beds. 

Amber the cow or moo moo as the kids call her, was ai'ed last week to an angus  bull. She was also TB tested a few days ago. 

She is a sweet cow but I think I am the only one that can milk her now. She hates hubby since he had difficulty to bring her in and used a stick. She hates all men in case they are of the vet/ai type.

But she loves me and the kids, and is so easy but if she sees hubby she will turn around and refuse to come in till he goes.

So much for hubby being the relief milker!

Homemade butter

I had a litre of heavy cream in the fridge that was at risk of souring before I would manage to use it.

It was the perfect reason to make butter!

According to Weston A. Price, butter made from the cream of grass feed cows grazing on rapidly growing spring grass had what he called ' activator X '. 

It seemed a shame to waste it, so I went about making butter.

I took the cream out of the fridge in the morning, with the intention of making butter in the evening. Cream breaks into butter and buttermilk quicker when it is at room temperature.

I poured the cream into a bowl and used a handheld electric whisk. It only took a few minutes when I heard the noise of the butter coming. It sounds like a wet splash when the cream collapses in and splits.

I emptied the contents of the bowl into a large sieve, sitting over a small bowl to collect the buttermilk and put them back into the fridge. It is easier to wash the butter when it is chilled and has had the night to drain. So I headed to bed!

In the morning, I put the butter into a pot of painfully cold water. I used my hand to press out the buttermilk. I repeatedly replaced the cold water as it became cloudy. When the water remained clear, the butter was ready to be salted and pressed into ramekins. 

This involves mixing in good quality sea salt to taste and them pressing into moulds or containers ready to be used or in this case, stored in the freezer.

This litre of cream produced 400g of butter.

The buttermilk can be used in cooking, it is especially good in brown soda bread or pancakes. 

I really should be making this amount of butter twice a day, but I never have the time! 

And the pigs love the cream ;-)

Bloody Cow

A few days ago, as I let Amber out to grass, I noticed this coming from her business end.

I took notice, as that amount of blood and clots is not usual for a cow in heat. I took some photos using my iPhone and text them to our vet.

He phoned back and asked us to collect some antibiotics for her. He thought that as she is three months fresh, she must have retained some of the birth product and started to develop an infection. The heat would then encourage the infection to surface.

 Amber has been receiving 20ml twice a day after milking into her neck by me. And I can honestly say that her love of me has turned to terror!

So much so that we have had problems bringing her in to be milked. Yesterday she went the entire day without being milked as we couldn't bring her in from the field. We tried everything!

I managed to bring her in this morning and milked 14 litres from a very tight udder. I think she was relieved to have been milked. I decided to keep her in until she is finished her injections and decides again that she like me! Her last injection is tonight thankfully, I hate giving them as much as she hates being my pincushion. 

The withdrawal period for this drug is ten days after the last injection, so again we are having to buy in milk for the house and the pigs are delighted with the arrangement.

The weather has been very warm and I am hoping to check the bees again in the next day or two to see if they are ready to be spilt. I need to see drone bees/cells and that there is spare frames of brood for me to steal. Fingers crossed!

A little of everything...

Amber the cow has developed mastitis in one quarter. Surely it is from something I did or didn't do!
Anyway, I give her a tube into the teat canal and I also sent in a milk samples for analysis. The results were due back today but were delayed. I should have them tomorrow and the vet will give me antibiotics specific to her infection.
I recognised that we had a problem when the milk started to filter slower and then later started to produce clots, similar to cottage cheese. She was very tender on the quarter and started to kick out when I would clean and attach the teat cup. The infection has already subsided by using the tube and she isn't in pain any more but her milk is still producing clots from that quarter. She should be fine in another few days and we will be back to drinking her milk in a week, allowing for the withdrawal period.

In the meantime, the pigs are enjoying 14 litres a day of yummy milk and are putting on great weight. Ms.Piggy, the sow, showed signs of heat a few days ago and I was disappointed as I had assumed that she was pregnant, maybe she is! This is all new to me! I cleaned out their sty this evening, always a quick and easy job, using just the yard brush.

Hubby has completed the new hen house. It is my job to paint it when I get a chance over the next few weeks. He will mesh the fencing in the orchard this weekend before moving the hens permanently, fingers crossed. I guess we will have to lock them into the house for a few days until they beside it is their new home. I am collecting 8-9 eggs a day at the moment but I am unsure of how many they are laying as the dogs are professional egg thieves.
Planting of the veg garden is on hold until the hens are contained. They have already scratched out the bed I planted.

The bees are flying everyday and can be seen bringing back plenty of pollen. Each day the hives gets stronger as new brood emerges. I need to open up one hive to mark the queen. This is a difficult job, as finding one bee amongst thousands is a challenge. I haven't had a chance to do it yet, either due to the weather or children. But I know that the challenge grows with each passing day. I need her marked as I want to make splits later this month.

There is talk here of me getting another horse. Exciting! A young horse to work on over the winter and replace my current horse for next season.

April's Fool News

 

Winter is well behind us now. The bees are very busy foraging these days. I have seen them out flying as early as 9am these past few days, which is usual for this time of year. Their new site is more sheltered and faces east into the morning sun, it is warming up the hive earlier than the previous site and therefore they can fly earlier in the day.

I need to do my first open hive inspection of the year this week. I might do it tomorrow if the weather stays good. I have one queen to mark and I need to add on another brood box to the other hive. I will also add some frames with no foundation so as to allow the bees to draw their own comb. I have a bee meeting to attend tonight, the meeting will focus on making splits and establishing nucs.

I am eager for Hubby to start on a perone inspired hive design. I would like to experiment that different hive types and get more into natural beekeeping. 

 

 

Most of the over wintered veg is starting to bolt to seed. That includes turnips, winter salads, kale, cabbages, leeks, beetroot, carrots etc. I need to start using them up now before they get too tough and stringy. Although the pigs would only be too happy to help!

 

Our pigs are doing great. They have put on a lot of weight since the arrival of amber, the cow. The milk is doing them well and they are thriving. The male unnamed pig will go to the freezer this month. His female friend is pregnant, hopefully, and so we will expect a litter of piglets during the summer. Hubby is very fond of her and wishes to keep her as his breeding sow.

 

Hubby started work on the new hen 'apartment' last weekend. He hopes to finish it by this weekend. We are both sick of hen poo on the doorstep each and every morning!

The plan is to move them from the stable and free ranging, to the  new hen house in the orchard. Hubby will mesh the fencing and clip their feathers to hopefully keep them restricted to the quarter acre that is the orchard. They will still have plenty of space but wont be able to get into the yard to poop on everything and lay eggs in random places that only the dogs seem to know about.

On the downside, they make a good living by cleaning up after the pigs, pony and cow. They also spend a lot of their time scratching out worms in the dung heap. They barely cost us anything to feed at the moment, so we will have to feed them more!

The design of the hen house is as follows. There are four nesting boxes on the side that can be accessed from the fence. This should make collecting eggs a very easy job, sorry dogs! The main body has various branches for perching and the floor is slatted, there are 1-2 inch spacing between the floor boards to allow for easy cleaning. Most of the poo should fall through, but I imagine I will need to sweep it out once or twice a month. Either way it should be easy to manage.

They will have a ladder up to access the door. I hope that this will make it fox/dog proof. We don't intend to lock them in at night. We will just do as we are currently doing, allowing them to fly over the stable door when it gets dark, knowing that the stable is fox proof. 

We will use the rain water from the roof to fill a shallow paddle pond that Hubby has yet to install, that will be the water sorted. I hope that I or the children will only need to collect eggs and feed the hens, from the fence once a day. Although I am sure that there will be regular escapes.

The milk machine is working! Yippee

We finally have the milk machine working now. 

We got a service man out to overhaul the system. It needed a new regulator, gauge and the pulsator needed a service. We have enough pressure to milk 4-5 cows at a time now, not that we need it :-(

This is our bucket milker. My dad milked using this over thirty years ago so it was nice to get it back to work. It holds about 30 litres of milk, perfect for our small setup. I keep it in the house and carry it out to milk with. 

Machine milking is so easy compared to hand milking and I have her milked out better than I ever could hand milking, in just minutes. 

I bring amber in and tie her up while she eats her feed. I clean her udder and strip some milk from each teat.

I turn the motor on at the wall and connect the vacuum tube to the bucket milker. I can hear the pulsator clicking immediately as the vacuum builds up. Then the tricky part, putting on the four clusters without them falling off again. I need help from hubby to do this at the moment but I'm sure within a week I will have mastered this.

It only takes 4-5 mins to milk her out. I watch the milk line and wait till the milk slows or stops passing through. I then pull a valve on the claw that releases the vacuum and allows me to take off the clusters.

Amber is still eating her food and is not nearly ready yet. So I turn off the motor and bring the bucket milker into the house. I then feed the hens, pigs and pony. Usually by then amber is ready to go back out to her yard or field depending on the weather.

My twice daily jobs are cut from 40 mins down to 15 mins.

When I get back to the house, I now have the milk and cleaning to deal with. This suits me as I can do it while the children are around me. 

I take of the lid and leave it in the sink to clean.

That leaves me a large bucket of fresh milk. Last night we milked 8-9 litres and this morning I milked 6-7 litres. That is a lot of milk and much more than I was able to hand milk.

It takes about 10 mins to strain and bottle the milk, and clean the milker. I leave it in the kitchen till the next milking to keep it clean. The hens would enjoy perching on it if I left it in the shed.

I am not saving much time by machine milking because of the extra cleaning but it allows me spend more time in the house with the children, preventing them causing mayhem. 

Also it is just easier, hubby will happily milk now so it shares the work load, it milks out more milk than hand milking and the milk that is produced is very clean and hygienic. 

The point of this post is that I LOVE my new milking machine!

I am making 2 litres of Greek yogurt, but that's not nearly enough of milk used. The pigs are enjoying all the milk.

Orchard

Hubby has been busy all day. He has planted three extra fruit trees and staked fifteen more, of apples, plum, cherries and pears. Did you notice amber in the background? She is looking over the stonewall. 

He then brought a wheelbarrow of muck to each tree and spread it at the base.

The orchard is looking loved now. I'm very proud of his work!

I noticed that some of the willow cuttings are starting to take. I need to keep the pony out of the paddocks as he keeps stepping on them!

Amber went out today for the first time in the big field. She was not very happy about this! She spent the day mooing and following hubby around by the fence line. I think she might be in heat!

We still do not have the milking machine working. It is not producing enough vacuum. Hubby has tried tightening the belt and did a total disassembly and still doesn't understand why! 

Either way, we know it is a sample problem, just too damn simple for us to fix. He will visit a neighbouring dairy farmer this evening to see if he has any ideas. We have asked about five people so far and they all assure us it is a simple problem/fix but don't have any suggestions.

I spent some of the day with my little girl building a woodpile by the porch door for the approaching week. The boys were busy exploring for bugs!

Happy St.Patricks Day...

It was too cold and wet for us to bring the children to the parade this year.

What did you do for St.Patrick's Day if anything ?  

Reflections of hand milking

So I have been hand milking everyday, twice a day for nine days now. My arms have gone through the pain, tension and numbness of extreme exercise inflicked upon them for forty minutes at a time. 

They are now strong and more efficient, with milkings only taking twenty minutes.

I have cursed my hubby for not learning how to hand milk and I have felt self pity for carrying all the milking responsibility on my shoulders, I mean forearms!

Hand milking a cow is not as romantic as one might think. Yes, amber is very quiet and willing. She has never once gone to the toilet while inside the milk shed but hand milking is work, sweaty work! And I have to do it twice a day, everyday regardless of how much it doesn't suit my mood or schedule on that particular day.

I get up earlier than everyone else and head outside to check on the animals. The hens are waiting for me at the doorstep and follow me to the shed. I turn on the lights and get the feed ready. 

A scope of grain is thrown out in the yard for the hens to pick at, one bucket of nuts for the pony and a large amount of nuts for the cow. I have a bucket of milk and barley already soaked overnight for the pigs. 

The pigs are shouting for breakfast from their sty as soon as they hear me in the shed. I get their bucket and pour it into their trough. They are very excited!

Next into the cow yard, where max the pony and amber the jersey are. They have been waiting impatiently. Amber mooing very loudly. I gave the pony his nuts in the yard while amber makes her way into the milk house.

She stands into her stall where her breakfast is waiting. I tie her in and take a seat down at her udder.

I usually take off my jumper or jacket. Milking is hard work! 

I clean off her udder and wash and dry it. I put a bucket under her and milk hard for twenty minutes. Once Amber's nuts are eaten, she starts on her hay. She looks back at me frequently while chewing. Once I have milked her out, I put her back into the yard or if the fields are dry she might go out for a few hours. I leave the bucket of warm milk outside the shed where our dogs are waiting. They drink 2-3 litres at each milking. The rest I use to soak barley for the pigs next meal.

We are not using much of the milk at the moment. Because she has a rear teat that has two openings, it makes hand milking very messy as it sprays everywhere. She needs to be machine milked to produce milk of a good hygiene  standard for our home.

I occasionally milk a few litres from her front teats into a bottle for the house.

We have a milking machine! I have being begging and pleading with hubby to get it functional as soon as possible. There is a problem with either the motor or vacuum pump.

Hubby is gone away today to a neighbouring dairy farm to figure out how to fix the machine and get spare parts. I, hopefully, will be a very pleased wife this evening when the milk machine is fully functioning. 

Fingers crossed!

And then I can consider making some Greek yogurt or some soft cheeses. Or even taking a bath in milk :-) I always wanted to do that !