You know you are a farmer when.....................

You know you are a farmer when..........................

There is a heifer calf taking a nap in your living room in front of the heater! :-)

We had a beautiful heifer calf born this morning, one of the coldest so far this winter in Wisconsin. She was very lethargic and freezing when we found her and her mom was off eating... never looked back even when we were carrying her through the field, even when we put the calf in FRONT of her in the milk parlor.

So, this little one will remain in here for another hour or so, then out to the garage or milk house to re-adjust to the cold for a day before we put her with the other calves. HOPEFULLY she will survive.

Her name is Natalie... her mom is Nelly. We try to name the calves with the first initial of the mom's name so we can keep track of family lines easier.. plus it is FUN! :-)

You Butter Believe It!

Today we were busy with many chores on the farm. One was taking FIVE hours to shake and make butter! UGH! It was a family event. The littles had quart jars with 2 cups cream to shake and the rest had 1/2 gallon jars with a quart of cream at a time. I will not be surprised if all my kiddo's are complaining of achy arms tomorrow. :-) I kept busy draining off the butter milk and rinsing the butter, then when we were all done salting and packaging it. Four gallons of raw cream from our organically raised grass fed only cows gave us 7.25 pounds of butter. I package them in 1/4 pound = 1/2 cup portions individually wrapped then put four of them equaling one pound into a quart freezer bag. I wore gloves for most of the process because I was concerned about my body absorbing the fat. I didn't wear them for the final packaging and may regret it tomorrow when I hop on the scale.

The four of us who are on phase 2 of the hcg protocol usually drink about 1/2 gallon of cream a day while on phase 3, 4, and maintenance. So we had to come up with a way to use the cream since we aren't eating it. AND I do NOT have enough room in my freezer for making all of it into ice cream and cream cheese clouds. To our family raw organic cream from grass fed cows is called Liquid Gold. :-) So any cream that our friends cannot use we are making into butter to freeze. I may end up making some cream cheese clouds and storing them until phase 3. I have cream cheese in the freezer too. I do sometimes use cream to make cream cheese and will end up making some of that too. I think I'm going to call my Amish friend on Monday who has a butter churner and see what she would charge me to help me with the butter making process. Hopefully I can pay her in driving or butter. But spending 5 hours on 7 pounds of butter is just not an option for me. We still have about 3 quarts to shake, and I have another 3 gallons of cream from today in the fridge. We empty our milk tank to clean it every 2 days. When there is milk left we drain the skim milk into buckets to feed to the farm animals and keep the cream for us. Anyway, I'm exhausted and CRABY... oops, mom's are never supposed to be craby! :-)

Oh well, since butter is $3 a pound, having my own home grown butter that is from cows that are the healthiest on the planet makes the day worth it...... maybe. :-)