Happy Cows ~ Quality Milk ~ Healthy People
This spring, Jay and I traveled to Tennessee to visit some good friends of ours that we had not seen in 6 years. But first, we did a little tourism: Our trip started by flying out of Spokane at what we thought was an early hour (arriving in the parking area around 4 am, for …
Continue reading Trip to Tennessee, Part 1
When I told Jay I wanted to try making Wensleydale cheese, he thought I wanted to make sheep's cheese. (No, I have no plans to milk my sheep on a regular basis...) Wensleydale Cheese is a type of cheese made in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire, England, brought to the area hundreds of years earlier by French monks …
What is Shedding? Animals shed their old coat in order to grow a new coat of hair. In cattle, shedding primarily occurs annually in the spring. Shedding is happening right now where I live and in most parts of the U.S. Cows shed from front to back, top to bottom. At first, you may see …
Is that a cow version of a bank robbery? Kind of! In reality, "holding up" of milk is only a problem when we're trying to milk a cow and she does not want to give us her milk (for a variety of reasons). Below we'll discuss what "holding up" is, how it works, how …
Winter is a great time to work on indoor projects, so here are some of my favorite salve recipes for farm and home use: Un-Petroleum Jelly Use as a general salve (for humans and animals) or as an udder balm. We use this for our cows in the coldest months when liquid teat dips might …
I've always had a interest in sheepskins...bought a couple from Costco for my living room and admired them. Now that we have sheep, my husband and I wanted to try making our own. We sent off three for commercial processing (Promise Land Tannery in Okanogan, WA) and they did a lovely job. I've also seen …
Before one can make a sheepskin rug (that article is coming up next!), a person needs a sheepskin to work with. A dear farmer friend (Thanks, Shawna!) told us about her relatives skinning a deer by pulling the hide off. Basically, the animal's body is attached to a tree, hide is attached to a rope attached to the bumper of …
