From left to right - butter, buttermilk, cream, yogurt, whole milk.  (as well in the other pictures, frozen yogurt cubes for winter smoothies, an mango, cinnamon yogurt popsicles for now! Yum.)

This is Lola, our milk cow.  She has never been milked in her life by a human until five days ago.  She gave a little gentle tap with her hind leg just once on the first day of milking while her legs were being secured, but otherwise she has been a wonderful milk maiden.  We started off the milking routine about a month back by just bringing her in each night by halter and feeding her a little bit of grain mixed with the nicest hay we have to get her into good milking shape.  A general rule we live by on the farm is you never get something from nothing.  So we try to keep Lola's energy up by giving her a little extra somethin' somethin'.  Not only are we getting milk from her, but so are three calves, one her own and two who have adopted on to her.  She is a very gracious and generous cow!  So she started to get the idea that when we came to see her at night she was going to have to leave the herd, but she would get some grain as a reward.  It helps when I sing to her, her namesake song - Lola by the Kinks.  Or so I like to tell myself. 

Next we started to secure the stanchion (see right) around her while she was munching.  This didn't really seem to phase her at all.  After maybe one or two times in it, she understood that if she was patient we would let her out and she would probably get lots of petting and attention.  (We didn't raise this cow but she was sold to us by someone who treated her like a pet.  As a result she is the most friendly of cows and always gives lots of slobbery kisses and loves to be petted just about anywhere, but particularly under the chin.)  Finally, once we thought she was ready, and we were ready - we had to buy a milk bucket and some big jars to keep the milk in, and some cheese cloth to strain it through - we tried out milking our fine lady Lola.  

First step: bringing her to the stanchion after an night separated from the calves so that she is 'bagged up'.  This was easy since she knows that's where we will put the grain for her.  
Second step: tying up her back legs.  Basically her back legs are loosely tied together so that she can still shift about, but can't kick sideways at us.  She hasn't attempted to, but it is a nice feeling of security for our faces when we are so close to her range of kicks while milking.  
Third step: washing her down.  I never really thought about this until I started hanging out with cows, but what would you do if toilets and toilet paper and hands and opposable thumbs didn't exist?  Well what Lola and all other cows do is, just not worry about it.  So to avoid fecal matter in our milk, we wipe all around the area we milk from.  She doesn't seem to mind and it seems to get her ready to let down her milk.
Fourth Step: Start milking.  My only reference for this was a vague childhood memory from an Uncle's friend's farm, and from what I've seen on TV or in movies.  Turns out, its just like those times.  Not very complicated and quite pleasant, but also tiring.  Strong hand muscles are not something you just have.  So we take turns milking to give our hands a rest and take only what we need.  Every now and then we try to milk the front quarters dry because the last bit of milk out of a quarter is where the majority of the cream comes from, but for the most part we leave that for the hungry calves.
Fifth Step: Graciously thank our cow, give her lots of pets and scratches, and receive lots of slobbery kisses and then send her out to her calves and to pasture. 

Whole Milk - as our friend Thom would hate for us to say "It is what it is."   But seriously - Whole raw milk is just the milk you get directly from the cow.  We bring it inside and strain it through a few layers of cheese cloth and then put it in the fridge and in our morning coffee.  The big jar in the fridge then separates with the milk on the bottom and the cream on top over the next 24 hours.

Cream and Milk- With a ladle we scoop the cream off of the top. Easy!  It is thick and delicious and WAY more creamy than the stuff we used to buy for our coffee from the grocery store.  The milk left over (about a 95/5 ratio of milk to cream since Lola is a Holstein which were bred for volume not cream) is much lighter than the milk we use to by, but we never bought skim milk, so I suppose that would explain that!  My advice, don't drink too much at once.  Raw milk is different than pasteurized milk.  Give your gut a chance to get used to it.

Butter!  Butter is easy with modern technology.  I was given a food processor for my birthday and although the idea of churning butter by hand is delightful, I have a job, other interests and to be honest I am not that patient.  So, the Food Processor does the trick!  All I did was pour the cream into the FP, turn it on high for about five minutes, drain the liquid (buttermilk) from the butter and put aside for pancakes and bisquits, and then rinse the butter under cold water.  I added a little salt that I mixed in with a spoon and voila!  Butter!  I guess the other option would be to blend it for a little less time add some sugar and call it whipped cream.  Maybe next time!

The other thing we made was yogurt.  And lots of it.  Since we milked quite a bit to get the cream, we had a lot of milk left over from the skimming process.  Some we have been saving up for the pigs - 25, 50 pound pigs will be showing up Monday evening - and the rest I made into yogurt.  Another modern day technology I love all year round is the slow cooker.  For yogurt in the slow cooker I just dumped the milk in.  Then I brought it up to 180 degrees, then dropped it to 120 degrees.  Next I added some yogurt starter (from a container of store bought yogurt) whisked it in and then wrapped the whole thing in towels to keep it warm-ish over night.  In the morning we had fresh yogurt with our porridge!  Next time I may strain it at the end to make a thicker more greek style yogurt and give the juices to the pigs.  Since there was so much of it I froze a bunch in yogurt trays for fruit and veggie smoothies in the winter (frozen yogurt makes them that much more creamy and nutritious) and also made a series of experimental popsicles - so far 1. stewed rhubarb, honey and yogurt. 2. Mango, peach, cinnamon and yogurt. 3. Strawberry, stewed rhubarb, honey and yogurt.  We have a lot of rhubarb right now.  In a few weeks everything will have raspberries in it.
The next milk related experiment shall be ice cream and some sort of soft cheese, feta perhaps? Stay tuned. 

Well the ducks got big in a hurry!  And now they are officially growing grown-up feathers. Well official might be a bit of a stretch as everything I know about ducks I have learnt from other people's blogs, none the less, the feathers are growing bigger and stronger!  Swimming is just about their most favorite thing to do since I gave them the opportunity 8 days into their lives, but as of right about now, they have out grown their pond.  This doesn't seem to stop them from all getting in there at once and splashing about.  The above pictures in order are the ducks at about 2 weeks, 2 1/2 weeks and 3 weeks.  Week 3 is when they really started to grow some serious teenager feathers (I think).  We are still waiting to hear an actual quack from them though.  Perhaps their cheeps are getting lower or perhaps we are just excited to see them grow and it is all in their minds.  Either way, we found out how to tell which ducks are female and which are male the day we bought them.  As The Duck Dealer said to us, "pick 'em up by the neck - if they hiss they are a male, if they quack they are a female."  I have read that they can quack as early as 3 weeks but some are later bloomers and wont quack until they are closer to 9 weeks.  So, we wait patiently by, listening close for a 'quack' or a 'hiss'.