Homestead Milk Cooling

If you cool your fresh milk right away it will stay fresh much longer and have a better taste.
Here is how I cool mine. I put it in water in this rinse tub and add ice after the jars are in.
It looks funny because the fridge in the kitchen has almost nothing but ice trays in the top freezer.
When we have more milk I use another rinse tub. If you have just up to three jars, you can put them in the sink the same way.
The tubs are in the laundry room.
Hope this helps and enjoy that milk!
Nancy

A New Calf

No matter how many times I see a calf being born I am still very much in awe of the miracle. There are those tense moments when you are watching and waiting. Praying that everything goes well. And feeling sorrow for the cow and its suffering. This was her first calf so she really didn't know what was going on. But, as soon as their calf is born, they know just what to do. You see her here in the pictures licking her calf to clean him (Yep. A little bull calf.) up and get the membrane off. It also warms him and gets the circulation going.

There is a special noise that cows make when talking to their calves that they don't use any other time and they know that noise just as soon as their calf is born and they start speaking to them right away.
After you see that the birth went well and that the calf is responding well, there is the watching and waiting to see if the calf nurses. This little guy wasted no time after getting up on his wobbly legs in finding the teats. This cow wasn't sure what he was trying to do at first but after a few attempts by him, she figured it out and everything went well.

I hope that you will have the experience of watching this miracle take place and be reminded, as we are, that there is so much more in God's plan for his Creation than just our everyday existance. We see His handiwork all around us and for this we are so very grateful.
Nancy

P.S.This cow is Jersey and Black Angus and was bred with Black Angus. When we bought her mother she had been bred with an Angus bull so we bred her with Angus in order to have beef cattle.

Speaking of Bug Spray....

A friend that uses chemicals was talking about the insect problems in his garden this year and said that he sprayed a chemical on there. His comment was, "It doesn't do any good; it just makes them meaner." Our neighbor then came over and said that he had used the same well-known chemical and it hadn't done any good at all. Hmmmm.....
Well, I was happy to find something homemade and harmless that worked.
Nancy