Mission Accomplished

With a twinkle in his eye and a smug look of accomplishment, Curious the goat returned to his farm today. His stink level declined quite a bit once our ladies were no longer in heat. I was thankful for that when it came time to heft him into the back of the pickup for the ride home. Henry also has a smug look of accomplishment, but I think it's for a different reason.

The snow has been deep for a few weeks now, settling down to about a foot. It was quite cold for a while -- down to -9 degrees, which I discovered is our threshold for freezing pipes. A little propane torch action on the bathtub drain solved that problem though. Some day I'll insulate our pipes, but most probably need to be replaced first.

Our neighbor Stan has taken it upon himself to plow our driveway (which we greatly appreciate), as his four-wheel drive tractor with a front end loader is much better than our old Ferguson in the snow. Upon learning that Henry was using the snow pile made by his tractor for a sledding-launch, he decided to make it even bigger and more worthy of a sled launch. Henry felt that Meowy the cat might also enjoy a sled ride.

I've thus far been pleasantly surprised that our rodent problems don't seem to be all that bad. I keep a few traps out, mostly in our basement and garage, just to be safe though. About once a month, I catch a few. They seem to come as a family, as I rarely catch just one.

Until last week, I hadn't considered the bounty of indoor hunting opportunities offered in Michigan. When Rachel heard some scratching in the laundy room, I came downstairs to investigate. My cheap Chinese pellet rifle, despite it's horrible accuracy, appears to be effective at indoor ranges.

Considering where our economy is headed, I feel that indoor hunting skills like this may come in handy in the future. They could really help to stretch that grocery budget, and food can't possibly get any more local.

You know how realtors like to describe a "fixer" house with a witty statement like "Bring your paint brush" when "Bring your bulldozer" would be a more accurate description? Since our rennovation money ran thin, we've decided that there's a lot of wisdom in those ads.

Since the "polish a turd" policy started in our living room seemed to work pretty well, we decided to continue the policy and paint the dining room as well. So long as you're in the next room and have poor eyesight, it looks pretty nice now.

As we were setting up the room for painting, we set out some light plastic drop-cloths to protect the floors. I'm not sure they're really worth protecting, but it seemed like a good idea. Anyway, the dropcloth wouldn't stay put. It kept billowing up like a parachute as the wood stove is sucking air through the myriad cracks and gaps in our floor. I've since attacked all the gaps from the basement with a can of spray-foam, and also added some fiberglass insulation. I haven't tested the new airflow rates with a dropcloth though. I'm not sure I really want to know what the results would be.

Some like it stinky

I'd heard that bucks were stinky, but when Curious first arrived, the stink wasn't really that bad. In fact, I'm not sure I really noticed any bad smells. I was pretty sure that everyone was just over-reacting.

Then, things changed. Apparently his stink machine takes a few days to warm up, and the presence of two fine ladies was just what he needed to get it going.

I'm not sure exactly where the stink comes from, but suspect that his "goatee" may be a source. Every time I'm in the goat's pen, he tries to rub his chin on my thigh. He's not particularly aggressive about it; just very persistent. Every time I turn around, he's there, with his chin moving into position.

There is at least one source of the stink which I'm quite certain of. Curious creates what he thinks is both a refreshing drink and a fine cologne, all rolled into one. I'll let you figure out what it is. I really make sure I keep my distance after he's been partaking of himself that way.

I finally ordered a cheap pair of hockey skates off of Ebay after some unsuccessful attempts at finding a pair at the Goodwill, so now we all have skates. We've been out skating on one of our ponds, which was really nice. A friend of ours invited us to skate out on Corey lake (the big lake about a mile north of us), which has frozen over. The ice on a lake of that size is laced with cracks from the expansion of the ice, although they don't seem to be a hazard at all. We could hear strange echoing noises while we were out on the lake, which is the sound of new cracks forming.

The snow started falling again a couple days ago, so skating is out for the time being. Hopefully there will be enough snow that we can break out the skis.

With the weather not particularly conducive to working outside, I've been cleaning out the barn. Up until now, I was just cleaning sections as it became necessary to use them. It's nice not to have to maneuver around the old junk, bat guano, broken glass, and ancient straw.

Nerds in Love

Yesterday we went to pick up a "rent-a-boyfriend" for the goats. His name is Curious. Henry grew concerned that Mom and Dad weren't really asking the important questions of the goat's owner, so he had to fill in for us. "Does he have any sperm?", he asked farmer Tony. Tony replied that he probably did. Definitely a good thing to know about.

Ashley, who still seemed a bit down after her latest worm episode, has perked right up. She *really* likes Mr. Curious. With a coy look and a "come hither" flick of her tail, Ashley lures him over. Curious's tongue flops out, and he starts with a nasal snickering while nibbling at Ashley's neck. She nibbles back. Her tail flicks again and captures his attention. As he begins his move, Ashley rears up and spins around to give him a head-butt. Life isn't easy for us men-folk.

Mary Kate wants nothing to do with Mr. C. You can see the utter disgust in her eyes as she stands in the corner watching his clumsy advances on gullible Ashley, and she often tries to intervene. She slips between them and gives Curious a solid knock on the noggin quite frequently. Just to make sure he remembers it, she rears up on her hinds (making her taller than I am) before coming down at him.

Buttercup was in a good mood this evening, as she started bouncing around the barnyard like a spring lamb. I reciprocated on my side of the fence, and we went back and forth a few times. Like a lot of other people who've never worked around cows, I was once convinced that they were not particularly bright or charismatic. In Germany, for instance, a common insult is to say "You're as dumb as a cow". I don't think they're dumb at all. They didn't exactly evolve to fly rocketships, but they're very good at what they did evolve to do. Don't ask me what that is though.

I was previously pouring Buttercup's grain ration right next to the hay in her feed trough at each milking, and got a little fed up that she kept tossing the hay out to get at the grain. Now I give her grain first. When she's cleaned out her trough, she steps back and looks at me. I pull the bucket aside, and go to fill up the trough with hay. Problem solved. No more dancing in the stanchion while I try to simultaneously keep the bucket near her udder but away from her hooves.

Buttercup apparently likes to take a Sunday stroll. Exactly a week after her first adventure that inspired my last blog entry, she got out again. This time, it was zero degrees out, with a wind chill of about 20 below. I think the wind rattled the barnyard gate open, so at least it wasn't a result of me being stupid in exactly the same way as last time. I was stupid in a different way, which somehow seems better. I now know to make sure that the latch chain attaches to a point below the hook on the gate.

After milking Mary Kate, Rachel noticed that Buttercup wasn't in her usual spot, and walked around the barn to see if she'd gone off to the other corner of the barnyard, when she discovered the open gate with departing hoofprints. She ran back to the house to inform me, and I went out to inspect. Sure enough -- she had escaped again. The tracks were on the same path as before, so I started my morning jogging routine. As I made it out to the road, I could see her at the top of the rise to the west, merrily trotting along.

Rachel grabbed Henry and followed us in the car, hoping that she might be able to herd Buttercup back in the direction of our farm. I finally caught up to her at the neighbor's house, and followed behind her into the soybean field. It was really blowing there, with little snow-devils whipping accross the field, and drifts that nearly topped my barn boots.

Buttercup saw Rachel and the car, and paused as I walked around to approach her from the other side. She let me approach, and came up to sniff my hand. With a playful bounce, she spun around and sprayed manure all over the snow. Then she turned around, and walked back on her own path right into the barnyard with me right behind her. It was apparently too cold for a Sunday stroll afterall. She did pause in the neighbor's field, long enough for me to take notice and look up to see a pair of foxes sneaking into the brush.

This last Sunday we decided that it might be a nice time to try skating on our pond. Henry and Rachel have some skates from the Goodwill, which were in definite need of breaking-in. Earlier in the week we'd had 60 degree weather which had melted all the snow, which pooled on top of the ice and re-froze quite nicely. I really need to find some skates for myself now, as Rachel really looked like she was having fun. Henry was excited to try his skates, but grew a little less enthusiastic when he wasn't able to instantly learn how to use them.

As I closed up the barn after this evening's milking, I stopped to watch a car pull slowly into our neighbor's driveway. It was dark, and they only had their parking lights on. Someone got out, donned a headlamp, and walked up the driveway towards their shop, which sits away from the house. I grabbed a flashlight which immediately went dead (D'oh!) and headed over to investigate. As soon as I stepped out our front door, the car backed out, headed down the road a bit, and finally turned their headlights back on.

I wasn't sure if anyone had been dropped off, or if the car's passenger had returned while I was in our house. I spoke with the neighbor (an elderly couple who appreciated my effort), and walked around their shop, but found nothing amiss. She mentioned that another neighbor had fought some intruders a few years earlier, and later died of a heart attack a few days after the struggle. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't catch anyone, but it's probably best for all involved that I just scared them off.

Buttercup's Big Adventure

Buttercup is a mellow girl, except for the few times when she lowers her horns and chases goats or chickens around the barnyard to let them know who's boss. As with most cows, she's into routine. She follows the same path out through the barnyard to her "cud corner" every morning after eating breakfast and getting a big drink.

With this in mind, I figured that she wouldn't be much of a flight risk when I opened the barnyard gate to drive the truck out after unloading some wood chips in the muddy spots behind the barn. The goats I knew to be opportunists, so I made sure to lock them both in the barn before opening the gate. With Buttercup, I just had to keep an eye on her in case she moseyed over in the wrong direction.

After sequestering the goats, I opened the gate, hopped into the truck, turned the key, and looked out the window to see a large brown and white object slowly moving towards the gate.

I hopped out, not wanting to scare her out of the barnyard, and casually walked over to her, thinking I'd just head her off at the pass. She maneuvered around me, headed out the gate, and made a break for it. Thus began Buttercup's big adventure.

My first thought was that I'd just taken off her halter a few days before, and didn't have any lead with me, but it really didn't matter. I did have some bailing twine in my pocket, so made a loop out of that to slip over her horns when I got close enough. But she wasn't interested in me getting too close.

She took off accross the small field to the west of our house and headed west (away from Hwy 60, fortunately) at a nice trot with me in hot pursuit, wearing my big wool Filson coat and rubber barn boots (I wonder why Olympic runners never wear these things?). I think she overheated about the same time I did, so she slowed down with me about 50' behind her. I wasn't too excited about her being out on an icy road (cars might have a tough time stopping if they saw her), but no longer had any say in the matter. She was going out for an adventure.

She first stopped at our neighbor's house to the west, where they have a barn with some goats and a horse; she thought it looked like a nice place to hang out, and looked over the barnyard fence for a while, but kept me at a distance. Then she turned around, back towards our house, but left the road to check out our neighbor's property (the one who's extra sensitive about trespassers, of course). It's just a hunting property, so he doesn't live there and didn't see this, fortunately. His property is mostly overgrown farm fields with lots of briars. They don't seem to bother her as much as they did me.

Then through the woods, past a beautiful pond (must be some good ice skating there!), accross a soybean field and accross county line road. She was starting to slow down quite a bit at this point, but still wouldn't let me near her. Finally she paused in another soybean field, nearly a mile to the west, and I swung a big circle around her until I was able to push her back towards our house.

She headed back accross the field in the direction she'd come, crossed the road, and picked up her old path. I grew hopeful that she'd follow it all the way home, which is exactly what she did. She kept her nose down almost like a bloodhound, and even knew to skip the detours.
I've traced it out for all to see above. The red was her departing route, the blue her returning route. I really need to set up our electric fence.

We also managed to rid ourselves of the oil furnace that dominated our basement this weekend. Put up a craigslist add, and after a few false starts, I had a taker who even removed most of the ductwork. The basement is much improved.

I finally got our rail put up near the top of our stairwell, so now we don't have to cringe every time Henry veers a little too close.

Winter

Nothing terribly exciting to report lately. Ashley the goat, who had chronic problems with worms earlier in the year (quite common for goats and sheep both), started having problems again. Rachel read that grey goats often suffer from copper deficiencies, and that copper deficiencies may lower a goat's resistance to worms. So maybe that's why she's having so many more problems than Mary Kate (who is brown).

One day she was looking particularly bad; she wouldn't stand up, and was shivering quite a bit as the worms really lower blood sugar and make it difficult to keep warm. Hearing stories about goats essentially dropping over dead in such situations caused a little concern, so we brought her inside to lay down in front of the wood stove that afternoon. She immediately perked up, but started screaming the instant I left the room, so I spent the rest of the afternoon working in the living room where she was. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she didn't leave any goat berries for us to clean up. Memphis the dog, however, was quite disappointed.

It was 15 degrees when I went out for this evening's milking. That means frozen teat-dip, but I've figured out that I can thaw it in the bucket of warm water I bring down for the pre-milking cleanup. I also figured out what I think was one of the causes of Buttercup's "dancing" in the stanchion, particularly towards the end of milking. We had left her halter on these last few weeks, thinking it was akin to a dog collar like the ones we keep on the goats. I decided that it wasn't really needed anymore, so took it off to reveal some sores along her jaw where her chewing caused it to chafe quite a bit. She seems to be a little less agitated now.

I've thus far tried to keep this blog on the subject of our adventures in farming, but I think it's time for a rant. Those of you who know me well know that I couldn't keep it hidden for too long. Below are the thoughts that run through my mind on most days.

Everyone who has ever been born is either dead, or will die someday. There's nothing new about that. Not everyone gets to live a long life; disease, famine, violence, accidents, and wars are an unavoidable part of human existence. But throughout most of history, I think most people have known that the potential to live to a ripe old age was always there, even if they themselves died young. Maybe their children would lead long and fulfilling lives.

I think that's changed now. I'm nearly certain that I will never reach "retirement" age, and I'm doubtful that my son will ever reach my current age. While I sincerely hope that I'm mistaken, I'm not really haunted by this thought anymore; I've come to accept it. On occasion I'm angry about it. I'm angry when I think that human greed and ignorance are the two things which have created this situation. But then I remember that human greed and ignorance on this scale are really unavoidable. So it's just something I have to accept.

So what dark and terrible force do I think is going to end our lives so abruptly? It's the coal generating the electricity to run the computer I'm typing on, among other things. You see, making carbon dioxide is the one thing that us 6.7 billion humans are *really* good at. In fact, there wouldn't be 6.7 billion humans if we weren't really good at this. The only reason there are this many of us is because we figured out how to use fossil fuels.

Maybe you've heard someone like Mr. Gore warn of a "tipping point", past which climate change rages uncontrollably due to feedback loops and leads to the end of civilization as we know it. Anyone who warns you about this is either ignorant or misleading in my opinion, because we've already passed it. Our planet is the Titanic, and we've already hit the iceberg. I won't blame you for trying to patch the leak, and will respect you much more than those who claim there's no leak. But I think the odds are stacked against you. Chances are that you've done little or nothing to patch the leak though, as have I.

So here's the iceberg I see floating in our wake. Here's the gash in our hull. CO2 is already at 380 ppb in our atmosphere, and rising something like 2ppb annually. The rate of rise in CO2 is going up quite a bit faster than the rise in our emissions, because all of the carbon "sinks" are collapsing.

Over 50% of the worlds coral reefs are now dead (some figures and anectodal evidence put it closer to 90%, so I'm being conservative here). Coral formerly absorbed massive amounts of CO2, in the form of calcium carbonate, which it turned into rock (limestone). In addition to warming the planet, CO2 has the ability to acidify water. A recently published study from the University of Washington showed that the rate of acidification is now progressing at 10-20 times the previously accepted rate used in climate modeling. Another marine survey has shown that the plankton (which are the basis of all life in the ocean) levels are down roughly 40% from a few years ago. Acid seawater kills plankton. Unfortunately, acidification occurs first near the poles, which is also where the bulk of our plankton live. Much of the oxygen in our atmosphere comes from these plankton. If the ocean goes, our oxygen goes away, and away we go. It's a real bummer.

And just for you folks whom Exxon and Peabody Coal's propaganda teams have convinced that climate change is either a myth or is "a natural cycle", the acidification scenario doesn't involve climate change. It's just carbon emissions.

So let's say that some new acid-loving plankton takes over and saves our collective fanny. It's not unreasonable to think it might. In that case, I figure that climate change will eventually toast our tootsies. If you think that climate change is a "natural cycle", then we'll all be killed naturally. Go warm up your Escalade and keep voting Republican.

The north polar icecap appears as if it'll be gone within 6 years (this figure keeps being revised to match that pesky reality -- a few years ago they thought it should live at least another 70 years). This alone is evidence that we've tipped. Ironically, the oil companies are scrambling to see what new oilfields the retreating ice has made available. There goes human greed and ignorance again.

So on the off chance that we haven't tipped, I think it's a really good idea to cut your carbon emissions, and I'll respect you more if you do it. Buy a Prius if it makes you feel good, but it won't really make a lick of difference so long as there are 6.7 billion of us around. We would need to cut our emissions over 90% if we hadn't already tipped, so anything short of that is really inconsequential.

If you really want sustainable, it's time to trade in your Prius for a spear and a loincloth. Unfortunately, that only works when there are far fewer than 6.7 billion people, and where we haven't poisoned most of the streams and lakes that were once the focus of subsistence living. We've burned that bridge.

So there's really not much to be done, other than that which makes you feel as if you're doing some good. I guess it's just time to sit back and enjoy the ride while we're all still here. Make the most of your life while you've got it. Enjoy yourself!

If I can get down to the barn about a half hour before Rachel and Henry in the mornings, I can have Buttercup milked out before Henry starts chasing the cats and serenading her with the "Buttercup Song". Once these activities commence, she starts dancing in her stanchion while watching all the excitement going on around her. I don't usually make it down quite that early though. Milking a cow who's dancing the two-step is a challenge, first because I have to keep the bucket underneath her, and second because she's a clumsy dancer who steps on her partner's feet. I can now attest that having a cow step on your foot doesn't necessarily mean that you'll have to amputate a mangled toe (as happened to my uncle Frank). But it doesn't feel particularly good, either.

For most people, spending an hour each morning and evening *every day* to milk a cow sounds like a nightmare. I have to admit that I was one of those people, and may yet be one again. Maybe it's just the honeymoon phase, or perhaps Buttercup is secreting some mind-altering substance into her milk, but I actually enjoy it. The actual milking time for the cow is 20 minutes, and 10 minutes for the goat (only one is still being milked right now). The rest of the time is used up getting their feed or filtering, bottling, chilling the milk, or cleaning milk pails.

I'm still learning to deal with things like thieving goats and frozen bottles of teat-dip, but haven't found any of it to be unbearable. Mary-Kate is the more rambunctious of the two goats, and has learned that every open gate is an opportunity which can't be passed up. If the opportunity looks like it'll be cut short by an attentive faux-farmer like myself, it only means you have to run faster than the farmer does.

Previously, when I opened the outside door to let Buttercup into the barn, Mary Kate would sneak in to flip the lid off of the garbage can we use for storing grain, inhaling it as quickly as she could before I could yank her away. She has it down to a science now, and can flip the lid off without even pausing, using her front teeth. Being smarter than a goat, I've figured out that I have to close the outside door to the goat stall before I open the door for Buttercup. But sometimes I still have to open the gate to bring water or scoop a cowpie from the goat's stall (Buttercup comes in during the day and steals their hay if we don't give her enough, leaving telltale signs to step in). I had to open the gate twice at this evening's milking, and Mary Kate didn't let either opportunity go by.

Ashley, our other goat, is a gentler soul, but she's not above stealing a few bites of grain. She used one of the open gate opportunities to make her move, and ran for the grain can. I think she saw us using the handle on the top of the lid, and was trying to do the same thing without success by the time I caught up to her. Mary Kate used Ashley's diversion to steal a few bites of hay from the bale we keep outside their pen. Eventually, if I really am smarter than a goat, I'm hoping to have a theft-free evening. Hopefully the goats don't figure out how to operate the gate latches before then.

All the animals seem to like to congregate around the barn during milking time. The cats always show up, knowing that they may get their milk-bowl filled up. The chickens have decided that the barn makes a luxurious coop when it's cold and snowy everywhere else, although I try to discourage this behavior. A couple days ago, I checked on the goat's hay feeder and found an egg sitting in it, but usually they make the trek back to the chicken coop to lay. Although Memphis (our dog) is very mild mannered around the cow, Buttercup is convinced she's a wolf, and lowers her horns if Memphis gets too close. I'm not sure what she thinks of the cats. One day, I held Meowy over the fence while Buttercup came up and licked her, so they must not seem too threatening. Burrito the cat often plays with a wiggling stem of hay in Buttercup's trough while she eats.

With our newfound abundance of milk, Rachel is making more cheese. Her mozzarella is turning out well now (using the "30 minute" recipe which takes about 90 minutes), and she made her first hard-cheese; a round of Gouda which is now aging in our basement for the next 3 months.

The first weekend after we brought Buttercup home, I rented a Bobcat with a trencher tool (looks like a huge chainsaw blade) to lay some water and electrical wire out to the barn. The recommended depth out here is 4 feet, to avoid freezing the waterline. The ditcher worked beautifully for the first half of the 125' run, but the sandy soil started caving in for the second half, forcing Rachel and I to re-dig the ditch by hand. A couple days after I filled the ditch back in, the snow started, and has covered the ground ever since.

It was a warm, gentle evening. I sat with her in the dim light, whispering softly and caressing her for hours, but she refused my advances. My skills were surpassed only by her ability to resist me. I spent the rest of the night tormented by my failure, fearing that it might be the sign of things to come.

Buttercup, our new cow, wasn't particularly happy to be moved to her new home on our farm, and she let me know it. As I was backing the horse trailer up to our barnyard for unloading, we heard some commotion as the truck was being bounced around by the trailer. I stopped the truck and walked back to inspect.

She had managed to crawl under the divider, giving her enough room to turn around and face the back of the trailer. Determined that I wouldn't catch her, she leaped straight out of the horse trailer, right over the closed doors. Udder and all. Still stunned by the spectacle of this incredible flying cow, I was heartened to see that she was heading down towards the barnyard on her own. Maybe she saw the goats and chickens there, and knew that it looked like her kind of place. The gate to the barnyard was still closed though, so she turned around and ran out into our partially fenced pasture, where she could have easily headed for Canada if she so chose.

After a few minutes inspecting her options with me trailing behind her, she turned around and headed back towards the barnyard. Rachel opened the gate, and in she went. Step 1 was now complete. Cow delivered, not running down the highway. That's good.

Next, I had to resurrect one of the ancient milking stanchions that we found in the barn. I don't believe the previous owners ever kept milk cows, so I suspect they had probably sat there for at least 70 years. One still had latches and appeared to be workable. I would've had this ready to go before the cow, but we were really just "browsing" for a cow, and I didn't think we'd come home with one this weekend, or even this year for that matter.

Following the advice of every "homesteading" type book, I was convinced that we wanted a Jersey, a breed which is known for manageable size, gentle dispositions, and the highest butterfat content. Although I'm sure we could've eventually found one for a decent price, they're not easy to find. Shopping for livestock isn't really like going to the store where you can find exactly the brand and size you're looking for. The Jersey we looked at two weeks ago wasn't particularly gentle (she liked to kick when being milked). Imagine trying to milk a mosquito bite, and you'll have a pretty accurate idea of her teet size. There's no way we could've milked her by hand.

You also have to keep in mind that dairys don't typically sell their good cows. Most every cow on the market is there because of chronic mastitis, low milk production, a blown ligament on the udder, difficulty calving, or any of a thousand different ailments.

When we went to go look at Buttercup, I was a little skeptical of her owner's glowing description, but I figured we might at least learn a little more in going to look at her. She's an Amish raised Ayrshire - Red Holstein cross. Ayrshires are a Scottish breed which seem to be moderate in most all respects, and Holsteins (more commonly black and white) are the super-producer breed that makes up about 95% of the US dairy herd. They're big, and they produce a lot of low-butterfat milk. I wasn't particularly excited about the Holstein part, but the Ayrshire breed sounded interesting. The average cow of each breed is 1200 and 1500 pounds, both of which are much more cow than I think would be good for our farm.

Buttercup is quite small; to my untrained eye, I would guess about 800lbs. Despite what looked to me like some rough handling by her owner, she was quite mellow, and didn't kick or fidget in the least when we tried milking her by hand (which I believe was the first time for her). Her small udder hangs high (this is good -- large udders often lead to problems with infection), and her teets are small but definitely workable for hand milking. She looks healthy, so we decided that she fit the bill.

I finally had the milking stanchion ready to go, and it was now well past her usual milking time. After a few minutes of playing chase back and forth accross the barnyard, I decided to make some "fake" fencing with ropes I have hanging in the barn. I figured she wouldn't know if they were electric or not, and might respect them.

It worked -- my ropes funneled her right through the open barn door into the stall where our two goats were huddled in terror. Two furry rockets launched out into the yard, ears and udders flapping madly. As far as they're concerned, Buttercup is about the size of a tyranosaurus rex, and is probably carnivorous. They kept a very watchful eye on her today.

After getting her in the barn, I was able to get close enough to Buttercup to try milking her. I wasn't sure I would be able to get her into the stanchion at first, so just tried milking as she ate a little grain borrowed from our goats. Nothing came out but a few dribbles.

I cleaned her udder some more (warm water is supposed to encourage milk "let-down"), over and over. Still no milk. So I thought maybe I could simulate the small tugs of a milking machine. Still nothing. Rachel suggested that our generator might resemble the familiar sound of a milking machine, so I started that outside the barn. Still nothing. I moved her to the stanchion, and gave her some more grain and hay. Still nothing. I talked sweetly to her, massaged her, scratched behind her ear... and she still refused to let her milk down. After a few hours of this, I finally gave up at 9:00 and went inside to eat my first meal of the day.

I had ultimately milked perhaps one pint from a cow that should normally produce at least two gallons, which means that for all practical purposes she didn't get milked that evening. That's really bad; a missed milking will lead to production losses, and can also encourage mastitis, (a bacterial infection of the udder). I didn't sleep well, and had thoughts of spending all this money on a cow who would now go dry. She'll eat about $4/day in hay and grain, which gets really expensive when no milk is being produced.

This morning's milking went a little better -- 5 quarts. This evening she was up to 6 quarts. I imagine she'll drop a little from her previous production level, but we're pretty happy with this amount. Unless Henry can down a few gallons of milk per day, we're going to have a lot of milk.

Ultimately I would be interested in selling "cow shares" (that's the only legal way to sell raw milk in Michigan), which can be quite lucrative if you can develop a good customer base. I'll have to know what I'm doing, and this is where I'll start to learn. Until then, we'll probably be giving some milk away, dumping some, and perhaps feeding a calf or some pigs with the surplus. Rachel, of course, will be making all the cheese she wants. One big advantage to cow's milk is that it separates into cream (goat milk doesn't) so that we can make butter or ice cream.

Another advantage to cows is that I think it's easier to run a grass-based dairy than it is with goats, who prefer brush over grass (goats eat like deer do -- they prefer to nibble a bit of every bush they can get to). It's much easier to grow and manage grass. All grass diets are much healthier for the cow as well as the people who drink the milk (the dangerous strain of e. coli is a product of grain diets in ruminants, for example), but are probably a little more difficult to manage. In New Zealand, where the people are smarter than us Americans, all dairys are grass based. They don't subsidize corn the way we do here, probably because Cargill and ADM don't write their agricultural policy.