From “chasing the chickens” to being chased by a cow, life is very excited out here in the country. Our wonderful neighbor, Keith, that gave us 3 hens and a rooster, has offered to help us milk his cow! We’ve been talking and plotting and planning and struggling to figure out how to get fresh cow or goat milk. We don’t care, as long as it’s not pasturized and homoginzed. The Milk and Honey Farm down the road was selling it. Goat was $35 a gallon and cow was $20 or $25. As many of you might now, it’s illegal to buy raw milk. We’re supposed to be happy with the milk that’s sold in the store, with all the things they do to it and the animals that create it. I read in my Nourshing Traditons book that powdered milk is added to skim, 1% and 2% to give it body. Powdered milk is treated with high heat and really isn’t a healthy thing to consume (similar to hydrogenated ingredients). I’ve been off milk for years, once I read about all the flem and allergies and difficult to digest qualities of milk. Then I’ve read about all the wonderful things in raw milk and how people got better and felt better after switching to raw milk. Think back to small farms, they milked their own cows and drank that will no problems. It’s big commercial, unsanitary and in-humane farms that have the problems with safe milk to drink – hence the pasturization and homogenation. Juice is even pasturized. What vitamins and minerals withstand that process? Juice is left to simply be sugar water. It’s sad. But I have happy news!
Keith said to come by and we’d see about milking his cow, she had a calf a few months ago and he’s been grazing for awhile now. Keith is a farm boy from Iowa and has lived 40 years in Oregon, my now found love after Hawaii. I’m nervous, as I’ve never milked a cow and my friend’s have talked about miniature cows, so if you get kicked, it doesn’t hurt so bad. You know how little comments can stick in your brain. I really hadn’t heard of people being kicked by cows, I know they can, I just haven’t heard about it like I’ve heard about horses kicking. It turns out in all of Keith’s years with cows, he’s only been kicked once and I think it actually was a good reason. I don’t remember the story right now.
I asked Jonathan to come and take pictures. I feel calmer when he’s with me. I dragged him out snorkeling with me so I could stop hyperventalating. He calms me and I feel safe with him. He came.
So we get there and Keith has Rosey separated from the herd and her baby. Everyone is happy and content. He has a little fencing rigged up to move into a corrall. He has grain for her, which she never gets or she’d not want to only eat grass. We’re suppose to shue her in. She keeps turning around looking at us with her big brown eyes. She’s HUGE.
She’s a Red Angus, also known as Hornless Angus. Isn’t she pretty? I think he has the prettiest cows I’ve seen. They’re coats are glossy and they’re plump and they have the sweetest faces with their pink noses. I could look at them all day. And the baby, he jumps and runs and is so playful. If I lived here I’d really not get anything done between watching the cows and the funny ducks with their one black baby.
Like the chasing chickens story, I’m not sure if I can relay what happened to it’s humorous degree. Keith has the grain and his daughter and India are at one side and I’m at the other and we’re shuing her in. She’s backing up, going forward, looking at me. She starts to make bolting movements which is REALLY scary when you’re so close and it’s a small area. Did I mention she’s huge, she really is. Keith is trying all kinds of things and nothing is working. She’s never been coralled before. He goes to get a rope and she moves forward into the corral to get the grain. We don’t know how to move the fence and secure it with the piece of wood he has waiting. I know she would have backed out and gotten away had we tried. I know I was too scared to move that close to her hind end. She kicks her left leg (I still remember which one it was). Keith returns and she’s backed out. He stands right by her left leg and slapps her but. We all silently look at each other. He’s as comfortable with her as I was with my tiny Chihauah, Tica.
Out comes the rope. This goes on for a bit and then she really starts to buck. I felt like I was about to watch a bull roping escapade. Around and around things go. Keith backs the tractor up to serve as a longer wall for the corral. The rope is around her neck now. Jonathan puts the camera down and it helping Keith do, I don’t know what, but something. It starts to get lively ane we start backing up more and more. The next thing I see, Rosey turns and starts to run with the rope around her neck. The rope gets caught around her leg and Jonathan’s tied it to something. She’s kicking and darts around the tractor pulling the rope tight as Jonathan is about to be smooshed between the rope, cow and tractor. He high tails it out of there somehow and Rosey is off in the pasture with the rope around her neck mooing at the top of her lungs. We live ½ - 1 mile away and our neighbor that wants to milk her with us heard her go on and on. He wondered how the milking was going when he heard her. We were all glad to be alive with no bruises or broken bones.
We let Rosey in with the other cows and went upstairs and had some of Keith’s home brewed beer. It was a night! I wasn’t sad to not be going home with any milk. I was glad to have my whole family all in one whole piece!
Keith said we’ll have to tame her a bit. Feed her, get close to her, pet her. He tamed a wild cow that had never seen a person in 2 weeks. What a man. I believe he’s in his 70’s with a wife and daughter of his own. He’s willing to help us get milk from his cow – I find that utterly genuous and kind. (Like my pun? J)
