Blessings {1}

Milk products in our fridge.

When our family moved to this farm, we had no idea we’d be getting a cow so soon after settling in! Molly, a black cow with a very big horns and an even bigger attitude, had just given birth to a calf which we named Dolly, and became our milk cow shortly after.

Nancy and I were used to milking so it was no problem at all for us. We milked every morning and evening but now things have changed and we only milk in the mornings.

Picture of Molly by Beth.

We were, however, unprepared for Molly’s grumpy moods that sent my temper flying and often the milk pail too. I can’t say those first few sessions went very well, but we did manage to find a method of keeping Molly content while we milked – phew!

It is only now, a few months later, that we are realising what a blessing having raw milk ‘on tap’ is! To have cream for butter or for baking is just amazing and I can have as much milk on my porridge as I want. (We used to drink rice milk only as our family is intolerant to commercial milk – a very expensive alternative.)

Buttermilk comes after butter making – of course, so we have buttermilk in the fridge almost all the time waiting to be used in rusks, scones or bread.

As well as having milk (we currently get 3 ½ litres a milking session as we leave most for the new calf), we have all the other wonderful products that can be made into yummy things as well.

Let me tell you about kefir.

We started to make kefir when a sweet friend in Sedgefield gave us a small jar of the kefir grains she had been growing. Kefir is a wonderful product that can be used in smoothies, in baking or just for plain drinking.

To find out more about kefir go to this site.

I decided to try making kefir but I must admit that the first few times I tried, I just messed it up – in fact at one stage my mom was quite certain we had killed the poor thing (Kefir is a live culture)! But I kept on trying and after a while of practising, I made our first jar of usable kefir!

We now have the most amazing smoothies which we make every second day or so with kefir and frozen fruit such as blueberries, raspberries, frozen papaya, banana and mango). We used to make yoghurt often, but the heating up process kills the wonderful bacteria in the raw milk, whereas it doesn’t in the kefir making process.

I love kefir for all its incredible health benefits and I love it for its divine taste in my favourite snacks!

And guess what? I even love Molly for all her buckets of attitude and I really love her for all her buckets of milk:)

Kelly