The Milkman Cometh

When Little Miss Sweetness made her dramatic arrival two years ago, she had a gastric issue which required immediate surgery. She would end up hospitalized for the first month of her life as she recovered. She also had a heart defect, which would require a separate surgery a few months later. (All these issues are now behind her, and she's a thriving two year old.)

For the first two and a half weeks of her life, LMS got all her nutrition intravenously. Only slowly did the hospital staff allow her to transition to breast milk; even then, it had to be delivered by NG tube, so she wouldn't have to work hard sucking - and so the amounts could be strictly measured.

However, from Day One, Mrs. Yeoman Farmer's milk supply was as abundant as it'd been with any of our other kids. So, as she sat by LMS's side in the NICU, day after day, and week after week, she pumped. And pumped. And pumped. For one stretch, she was regularly producing 50 to 60 ounces per day.

One of my jobs was to walk the filled-and-labeled 2.7oz milk bottles down the hall to the hospital milk room, where they would be frozen. My other job was to scoop up another handful of empty bottles, and bring them back to MYF.

Little Miss Sweetness barely dented that supply of frozen milk by the time she was discharged. When the hospital milk room packed all those little bottles into Styrofoam coolers for us to take home, we were astounded at the sheer volume. The five coolers took up virtually the entire rear-most cargo portion of our minivan! I think I muttered something about being glad we had so many chest freezers back at the farm. We were going to need them.

And the milk didn't stop coming. The doctors didn't want LMS to nurse directly, or even exert herself sucking from a bottle, until she'd had the heart surgery and made a full recovery from it. So, with the NG tube in until at least November, MYF had to keep pumping. I made bulk purchases of larger milk freezer bags on Amazon, which were soon filled and added to our stockpile. I started wondering if we might also need another chest freezer.

LMS eventually had her heart surgery, made a strong recovery, and got the green light to begin nursing directly. She picked it up right away, much to our relief. And just in time: the pump had gotten so much use, MYF had literally worn it out and the thing was now falling apart.

What to do with all that milk in the freezer(s)? We had one 9 cubic foot chest freezer packed to the gills with nothing but milk, with the overflow stuffed into other freezers wherever I could find space.

We didn't want to get rid of all of it; there was no guarantee that MYF's milk supply would remain high enough for long enough. The "strategic reserve" gave peace of mind that we'd never have to buy formula. Still, barring a true catastrophe, it was far more than we would ever need. We wanted to donate at least some of it to a family that could get some good use out of it.

But how could we find that family?

MYF began making calls. The nearest milk bank was a long ways away, and wouldn't take our milk anyway (understandably, because MYF hadn't undergone a health screening, etc). The local crisis pregnancy center, which supplies formula for mothers who need it, didn't know any mothers who wanted frozen breast milk. The local adoption agency didn't know any adoptive mothers who wanted it. None of our friends had recently adopted a baby. No one knew anyone who'd recently adopted a baby.

So, the milk sat. And sat. And sat. We were now sure we would never need any of it for Little Miss Sweetness (who was rapidly becoming Big Miss Sweetness), but it was still not clear what we should do with it.

Finally, this spring, through word of mouth, we learned of mother-to-mother milk sharing networks. One of the largest is called "Eats on Feets," and seems to operate primarily on Facebook. Mothers needing milk can post requests, as can families with milk to donate. People then connect through private messages, and arrange to get the milk from donor to recipient. In addition to the national Facebook page, there are numerous state-specific and region-specific chapter pages. This makes it easier to find local donors and recipients, so milk need not be shipped.

I browsed the Michigan listings, looking for families-in-need-of-milk that weren't too far from us. Some of the requests were very simple, just giving a name and location. Others gave a fair amount of detail about the travails the family had been going through, and the lengths to which they were willing to drive for milk. It's impossible to read these without being moved, and without wanting to help. I felt guilty that I hadn't done more, sooner, to find this organization.

I sent several private messages, through Facebook, to mothers who'd posted requests for milk. (At this point, I wasn't sure I was comfortable putting up a post announcing that we had milk. Perhaps it's because I'm male, and virtually 100% of all posts were by mothers. I don't know.) Some never responded at all, most likely because FB segregates messages from "non-friends" into what's essentially a spam folder. If you don't check it, you don't see those messages. Others did respond, but either (1) decided we were too far away, (2) had just gotten a freezer full of milk from someone else, or (3) didn't feel comfortable using milk as old as ours.

I waited for the just-got-a-freezer-full people to contact me back, but that didn't happen. So, the milk sat.

Finally, shortly before the Fourth of July, I decided it was time to make a post of my own on the Eats on Feets board. Within hours, I had three separate mothers contact me. I filled them in as to the age of the milk, and none was troubled by it. We arranged public meeting places at times that would work for us and for them, at gas stations just off the freeway.

What a joy it was to pack the milk back into those Styrofoam coolers the hospital had sent us home with! I packed and delivered roughly one-third of the milk one evening to one of the fathers, and Mrs. Yeoman Farmer made the other two trips. The last of these was to deliver to a mother who'd invested in an enormous amount of freezer space, so she took every remaining ounce I could find in every one of our freezers. This is what the back of our minivan looked like, just before MYF pulled out:

It's wonderful having our freezer space back. And it's even more wonderful knowing that we've been able to supply three families with something so valuable, it can't be purchased in any store.

Protecting us from Ourselves

Hey, readers in Wisconsin: your state government is on the case, protecting you from any stupid decisions you might want to make about what you put into your own body. You know, like ... raw milk.

N.B. this is a crackdown extending even to those who've organized their farm to sell ownership sales to those interested in obtaining raw milk. Selling shares has been an effective traditional means of circumventing prohibitions on raw milk sales. If I own a share in the cow, the milk from the cow is mine and I'm free to drink it. I'm not buying or selling the milk. Just drinking what came from this cow that I'm a part owner of.

It would be one thing if the state wanted to protect ignorant consumers who might accidentally grab unpasteurized milk from the shelf at the grocery store. But these farm share owners, by the nature of the trouble they've gone to, have demonstrated themselves to be about as highly aware of the risks and benefits of raw milk as it's possible to be.

Raw milk has some pathogens which are potentially harmful if the milk isn't handled correctly? Yeah, yeah. I know that. But I'm an adult, a thinking and reasoning subject, who has decided that this product's benefits far outweigh any of those potential harms. And that this product is far superior to the chalk water that the dairy industry wants me to be stuck with.

Let's hope that at some point, government at all levels will get out of our way and let us make nutritional decisions like the free adults we are.

Welcome to the Conspiracy!

No, not the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. The unpasteurized dairy conspiracy! That's what the founder of a raw milk cooperative buyers club in California has been charged with. According to NaturalNews.com:

A multi-agency SWAT-style armed raid was conducted this morning by helmet-wearing, gun-carrying enforcement agents from the LA County Sheriff's Office, the FDA, the Dept. of Agriculture and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control).


Rawesome Foods, a private buying club offering wholesome, natural raw milk and raw cheese products (among other wholesome foods) is founded by James Stewart, a pioneer in bringing wholesome raw foods directly to consumers through a buying club. James was followed from his private residence by law enforcement, and when he entered his store, the raid was launched.

InfoWars has more about the story, and the conspiracy charges. They also have a video of the raid.

Do I ever feel safer knowing that these dangerous conspirators have been taken off the streets. Good thing the Supreme Court recently ordered the State of California to release 46,000 felons early from prison; that'll ensure there's room to incarcerate Mr. Stewart and his henchmen.

Seriously, isn't California supposed to be the world capital of "Keep Your Laws Off My Body"? How about starting by keeping your laws off of what I want to put into my body?

After all, California was one of the first states to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. I'm all in favor of such measures, but tell me: Is raw milk any more dangerous, or any less medically beneficial, than cannabis?

My Idea of Civil Disobedience!

Remember that Amish farmer who the FDA has been treating like some kind of drug lord? His customers are fighting back:

Four weeks after the government moved to shut down Amish farmer Dan Allgyer for selling fresh, unpasteurized milk across state lines, angry moms who made up much of his customer base rallied on the Capitol’s grounds Monday to demand that Congress rein in the food police.

The moms milked a cow just across the street from the Senate and served up gallons of fresh milk, playfully daring one another to drink what, if sold across state lines, would be considered contraband product.

What a terrific protest idea! If we still lived in the DC area, I would've shown up and joined them with one of our goats.

The video these moms put together is terrific:

And, as one of them points out, just look at those kids and how healthy they are!

Criminals

There are dangerous criminals among us. But you'll be relieved to know that the federal government is on the case, and busy getting them off the streets:

A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.


The product in question: unpasteurized milk.

It’s a battle that’s been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it’s also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.

But this line from the story jumped out the most:

“It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed,” said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA, whose investigators have been looking into Rainbow Acres for months, and who finally last week filed a 10-page complaint in federal court in Pennsylvania seeking an order to stop the farm from shipping across state lines any more raw milk or dairy products made from it.

What????? Raw milk should never be consumed? Kind of makes you wonder how the human race survived, drinking that toxic "udder brew," for so many millennia. In fact, I poured about a cup and a half of that poison onto my cereal this morning. I'm surprised I feel so healthy and vibrant, and that I haven't collapsed under E. coli-induced convulsions. Even more remarkably, I've been poisoning myself in this way for weeks now --- ever since our goats freshened --- and in fact feel healthier than ever. No doubt the other ten million raw milk drinkers in this country (and the countless other millions around the world) would agree.

To paraphrase something Ronald Reagan once said about his political opponents: The trouble with our friends at the FDA is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

And, I would add, that they have so much power to prosecute and crush the small farmers who dare supply a healthy product to the willing consumers who seek it.

Raw Milk Crackdown

Don't know about the rest of you, but I sure feel safer knowing the Feds are out there working hard to protect us from ... Amish famers trafficking in "raw milk in final package form for human consumption."

“They came in the dark, shining bright flashlights while my family was asleep, keeping me from milking my cows, from my family, from breakfast with my family and from our morning devotions, and alarming my children enough so that the first question they asked my wife was, ‘Is Daddy going to jail?’”


That’s how Amish farmer Dan Allgyer described an early morning visit last week from two FDA agents, two U.S. Marshals, and a Pennsylvania state trooper. Apparently, investigating a single farmer for possibly trafficking raw milk across state lines requires a show of force.

The full story is here:
Raw Milk Crackdown The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

Kind of makes you wonder how the human race survived for so many thousands of years, drinking this unpasteurized poison, without an FDA to shield us from it.

And definitely makes me glad we own our own dairy animals.

More Illegal Milk

Another great piece out today about the growing demand for "real" milk:

Once a Fringe Item, Demand Grows for Raw Milk - AOL News

Meeting shady characters in Brooklyn back alleys does not immediately suggest "milk." But that's exactly what Hannah Springer and group of unpasteurized "raw" milk devotees are doing to get their daily dairy fix, Gothamist reported this week. It's their way of getting around New York state's restrictions on the sale of raw milk -- and they aren't the only ones bending laws to get closer to the cow.In recent years, the consumption of unpasteurized milk has been rapidly expanding along with the market for organic, local foods.

When the Weston A. Price Foundation began its Real Milk campaign in 1999, there were only a handful of people selling raw milk – now there are hundreds, and president Sally Fallon Morell believes that is expanding.

Speaking of raw milk, I wanted to add something to a comment that one of my readers posted yesterday. She noted (correctly) that goat milk is about as close to human milk as we can get from livestock, and said that when in a pinch she has fed raw goat milk directly to her babies. With the adoption of Yeoman Farm Baby, Mrs. Yeoman Farmer and I had to do a lot of new thinking and research about how to feed babies; all of the other YFCs had been exclusively breast-fed. (The one time I'd had to purchase baby formula, I'd felt a little like I was buying cigarettes or something.) We eventually settled on one particular forumla that will work for YFB, and he's done very well on it.

All that is a lead-up to my main point: MYF and I would be comfortable giving raw goat milk to YFB if there was a snowstorm and we could not get out to the Whole Foods 45 minutes away that sells our usual formula. HOWEVER, we would only do so in a pinch, and not on a regular basis. Goat milk, as good as it is, lacks some essential nutrients that babies need. But if you're interested in making your own baby formula, using goat milk as the base, the Weston A. Price Foundation has some excellent recipes. We eventually decided against using these because of the "time and hassle" factor, and because our goats were not in milk with YFB arrived.

That said, if the Whole Foods formula hadn't worked out, I'm sure we'd have pursued the WAPF formula more seriously.

Illegal Milk

We now have a couple of dairy goats who are hitting their stride in milk production. We've had several of them kid over the last several weeks, and activity here on the farm has been such a blur that I haven't been able to post about them individually.

The last one we described in detail, Holly's kid, is doing extremely well. We're not milking Holly yet. We are milking Button (mentioned in that post), and getting some decent production from her now that her twins are again separated from her.

Unfortunately, we had three additional kiddings that ended in disaster: Pansy, Violet, and Queen Anne's Lace all delivered kids over the last few weeks, and all those kids died. With QAL, the problem was a teat that got blocked up with colostrum that we didn't discover until the kids were half-starving. One died during her first night, and the other died during the second night (after we took him in the house and tried "rescue feeding" him with colostrum down the throat with a tube). With Pansy and Violet, we think the problem was in-breeding. They themselves are fairly in-bred, and they got bred back to their sire last fall. One kid was born dead, another was rejected immediately at birth (and didn't last more than a few hours in the house), and another dropped dead from some other unexplained cause.

We didn't really need these kids, but it's always sad to see animals die. The upside, we thought, was we now had two goats in milk and we could take all of it. Unfortunately, both does have very small teats and proved to be extremely difficult for the Yeoman Farm Children to milk. After struggling for a week to get even a cup and a half per day from the two of them, we decided to let them dry up and hope the teats elongate on subsequent kiddings (as has happened with other does on our farm).

Queen Anne's Lace, by contrast, has teats the size of sausages and is very easy to milk. Losing her twin kids turned out to be a blessing, as we're able to take all the milk from an easy milker.

A couple of days ago, the last of our does (Marigold) also kidded; both of her twins are alive and well so far, so it'll be awhile before we'll be milking her.

Still, with all the milk we're getting from QAL and Button, Mrs Yeoman Farmer is back making cheese with a vengeance. I'm also enjoying raw milk every morning with my cereal. And with raw milk very much on my mind, the following story caught my attention today:

It was creamy, but not as thick as heavy cream, with a buttery flavor that coated the tongue and left circles around the inside of my glass. This was sweet milk times two, warm white in color with a hint of yellow -- my first taste of raw milk from a farm in upstate New York.


When I cracked open the plastic container that looked exactly like the half gallons I get from my usual grocery store, I pressed my nose to the edge to get a whiff. This milk didn't have that cabbage-like smell that pasteurized milk can have, even when it's a perfectly fresh carton. I couldn't help but take another "black market" sip, since the sale of raw milk is illegal in New York State.

I ended the excerpt there, because the author goes on the repeat a lot of the typical nonsense claptrap FDA/USDA agitprop about the virtues-of-pasteurization-because-science-doesn't-prove-the-benefits-of-raw-milk-outweigh-the-risks. (Though I must admit her article as a whole is much more balanced in detailing the virtues of raw milk than what's typical in the mainstream press.) For those interested in more about the scientific case for raw milk as healthy food, and why it should be more widely available, there's perhaps no better source than the Weston A. Price Foundation; this link will take you to a search result for all "raw milk" articles on their site.

We love our raw milk. Too bad it's illegal to purchase on the open market in so many places (including our state), and the only way to get some is to own your own dairy animal.

Life and Death

On a day like today, with lambs having been taken to the butcher, and when a melancholic mood is practically unavoidable...it's always nice to have things brightened a happy arrival. And today, we had two such happy arrivals:




Button, one of our dairy goats, surprised us with twin kids. One male, one female. The timing couldn't have been better: this means that we will now have at least one doe in milk all winter.


Deo Gratias!

Too Much Milk

From the Department of Unintended Consequences From Messing With Nature, today's NY Times reports on a new development in the dairy industry: sexed semen, resulting in...

Three years ago, a technological breakthrough gave dairy farmers the chance to bend a basic rule of nature: no longer would their cows have to give birth to equal numbers of female and male offspring. Instead, using a high-technology method to sort the sperm of dairy bulls, they could produce mostly female calves to be raised into profitable milk producers.

Now the first cows bred with that technology, tens of thousands of them, are entering milking herds across the country — and the timing could hardly be worse.

The dairy industry is in crisis, with prices so low that farmers are selling their milk below production cost. The industry is struggling to cut output. And yet the wave of excess cows is about to start dumping milk into a market that does not need it.

“It’s real simple,” said Tony De Groot, an early adopter of the new breeding technology, who milks 4,200 cows on a farm here in the heart of this state’s struggling dairy region. “We’ve just got too many cattle on hand and too many heifers on hand, and the supply just keeps on coming and coming.”

I personally don't have a problem with artificial insemination; it can be an excellent tool for improving a herd's genetics, by bringing in genes that would otherwise be unavailable on a given farm. We know many small breeders who use it for sheep and dairy herds. But I do find it remarkable that no one seemed to see the consequences of widespread adoption of "sexed semen" coming.

Driving around the country here, there are several smallish dairy operations with herds of Holstein cows. And, if you look closely at the other small farms, you'll often see individual Holstein steer calves being raised for meat. Holsteins are not the most efficient breed for meat, but provide a nice 4-H project for a farm kid and a good amount of beef for the typical rural family. In other words: even though male Holstein calves don't fetch a lot of money, they do have some value.

If the agricultural sex-selectors really want to make a difference, by eliminating males which have no value at all (and are otherwise immediately exterminated), they ought to focus their energies on the chicken industry. Help the egg producers hatch 90% females in their Leghorn flock, and you'll have made an enormous contribution. Unlike the situation with cattle, which must be bred (and therefore must continue producing calves) to keep them in milk, if the egg producers managed to hatch 90% females they could simply scale back the total number of eggs incubated. We could get the right number of replacement pullets, without hatching enormous numbers of cockrels which would need to be immediately euthanized.

Or, we could just encourage more yeoman farmers to raise traditional dual-purpose breeds of chickens. But that would be too easy.

Dry

Our dairy goats supply a nice stream of milk for the family. Our children are lactose intolerant, so Mrs Yeoman Farmer cultures the raw (unpasteurized) goat milk into various things that they can drink. There is usually plenty of extra milk for me to have a cup or two a day to put on cereal.

When Mrs. Yeoman Farmer's mother became gravely ill, she began spending extraordinary amounts of time at the hospital visiting. As the weeks went on, and the illness grew increasingly serious, MYF had little time for anything but visiting her mother and keeping on top of the kids' schoolwork. Milk piled up in the fridge, uncultured, and unfortunately eventually spoiled. I'm still taking it out to the chickens, a couple of quarts per day, to mix with their feed. But I wouldn't touch this stuff with a 100-foot poll for anything but animal feed.

Still more unfortunately, the goats began drying up. The children did their best to milk, in between seeing grandma and wondering if "today" would be the last day to say good-bye, but nothing could stop the inevitable progression of nature: milk eventually dries up. We try to stagger the goats' pregnancies, so at least one of them is always producing milk, but it's not a perfect science. A couple of weeks ago, we were down to about a cup of milk per milking --- or about two cups a day. That was about enough for me to put on cereal, but not enough for MYF to do anything with for the children. As a result, we called a halt to all milking until the goat does can be "freshened up." Needless to say, the two older children (who do all the milking) were overjoyed to have a temporary reprieve from this time-consuming chore.

But I was left in a quandary. The milk in the fridge was getting worse by the day, and soon got to the point where none of it smelled safe. I got by for a few days with breakfasts of fried eggs or bagels, but this morning I was starting to miss my raisin bran. As much as I prefer the wonderful raw milk we get from our goat herd, it was looking like I'd need to go to the store and actually (gasp) purchase some of the pasteurized-to-death chalk water labeled and sold in this country as "milk."

And so I did. I drove into town, parked the car, sauntered into our small grocery store, picked up a basket, and continued walking deeper into the store.

And then it hit me: we have lived here for over a year, and I had no idea where the milk was. The few other times our supply had been insufficient for my cereal, I'd bought milk from a larger (Meijer) grocery store in Jackson. I'd never actually purchased milk at the independent grocery store in our town.

So, up and down the aisles I wandered, inspecting the various refrigerated cases. But I couldn't find the milk. No luck. And I refused on principle to ask a store clerk such a stupid question as "Where's the milk?"

At long last, I spotted it. Way off in the corner, in the back of the store, no doubt placed there to force people to walk past and inspect all the other merchandise on the way. I snagged a quart of milk, and some cream cheese, and headed for the checkout line.

And wished I could find a way to get our goats back in full production again. Today.

How Did the Human Race Survive without the FDA?

Today's Chicago Tribune brings an excellent (and balanced) story about raw milk, including a graphic showing where it is legal and where it is illegal. The story is especially helpful because it not only quotes Sally Fallon (of the Weston A. Price Foundation, of which we are members), but also gives us this nugget from the other side:

"Raw milk is inherently dangerous, and it should not be consumed by anyone at any time for any reason," said John Sheehan, director of the FDA's Office of Plant and Dairy Foods. "There is absolutely nothing to the claims that it is this magical, mystical elixir that cures all."

Talk about finally showing their true colors! Kind of makes you question how the human race managed to survive for so many centuries, without the "benefits" of a process that cooks milk to death and primarily exists to allow big dairy companies to efficiently combine milk from various mega-herds --- and bar entry to craft dairies who might like to compete by offering a healthy alternative to Big Milk. Thank God for the FDA saving us from such a fate.

Raw milk has been a godsend for our family, and our Saanen dairy goats are among the most valuable animals on the farm. Too bad that in order to get raw milk, you pretty much have to own your own dairy animal.

But for those contemplating a move to the country, and who might be wondering what kind of business to go into: Note that the Illinois raw milk producer quoted in the story gets TWELVE DOLLARS a gallon. With limited supply, prices skyrocket. Dairy is a tough business, because the schedule is so unforgiving: those animals must be milked twice a day, at particular times, and the milk must be handled with great care. It's no day at the beach, and you don't get days off. But the potential rewards for niche markets such as raw milk can be substantial.

Queen Sheep

As promised, here is a better photograph of Dot and her new lamb:

Saturday was shearing day here on the farm, which made for a hectic weekend. But with temps now in the seventies, Dot and the rest of the flock are much more comfortable without their heavy winter coats.

Homeschooled Farm Girl and I figured that because Dot had only one lamb, and her udder is larger than that of any other ewe in the flock, it might be interesting to try milking her. It took a bit of cajoling, but we managed to get Dot secured in one of the goat stanchions yesterday. We quickly discovered that milking a sheep is quite different from milking a goat. The teats are much smaller, and it was hard to get a good milk flow going. I found that if I squeezed half of her udder gently with my left hand, elongating it to resemble a football (with the teat at the bottom), I could wrap my right thumb and fingers around the teat and get the milk coming out fairly well. I managed to get about two or three cups from her, and was careful to leave plenty for her lamb.

I don't think we'll be going back for more of this stuff. It was barely tolerable on my cereal this morning, and is so thick and creamy it really ought to be saved for cheese. But since we only have one ewe we can milk, and getting her into the stanchion is such a production, it's not really worth the effort. But it was a fun little Sunday project, and HFG and I got some quality Daddy-Daughter time out of it.

You Go, Goat Girl!

With both of our yearling does now in milk, and with each needing to supply milk for only a single kid, we began setting up to resume regular milkings. Last week, Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I moved some straw bales and rolls of fencing materials, and then brought both our milking stanchions into the barn from the garage. We covered them with tarps, to make sure the chickens didn't roost on them and foul them up. Then, with me back today from a weekend-long retreat, MYF decided that today was the day to start milking.

MYF spent quite a bit of time this morning preparing for the big event. She dug out the nice stainless steel milking pail (with lid), washed it, and soaked it in an acid wash solution. She cleared and scrubbed a designated counter space in the kitchen, and set all the milking supplies up on it. By the time I came in for lunch, we were ready to roll.

I helped get the first doe out of the makeshift kidding pen, and together we led her to the stanchion. It was a struggle getting her in, but the grain served as an effective enticement. As MYF washed the goat's udder and then settled in to milk, I went off to gather eggs.

When I returned, less than five minutes later, MYF was already nearly finished --- but we weren't going to be enjoying any milk anytime soon. The goat had smashed her foot into the milking pail, easily knocking off the half-lid. Frustrating, but it happens. We set the pail down, and Scooter the Amazing Sheepherding Wizard Wonderdog polished all the milk off by the time we got Doe #2 into the stanchion. She was just as much of a kicker, (and given Doe #1's filthy feet, we couldn't have used Doe #2's milk anyhow unless we washed and sanitized the pail...something we had no time for). Again, Scooter got to feast as we led Doe #2 back to the pen.

Suddenly, an obvious point occurred to me, which I mentioned to MYF: This is the first time we've tried to milk a goat for the first time. Both of our other milking does had been milked by their previous owners, and had been comfortable with the routine. It simply didn't occur to us to expect different behavior from these two. One of those things that's obvious in retrospect, but didn't cross our minds beforehand.

I thanked MYF for "giving it the old college try there, Goat Girl." And hopefully tomorrow we'll be better able to anticipate (and redirect) the does' kicks. If not...at least Scooter will be pleased.

Great Goat Trend

Wonderful news this morning from Seattle: the City Council has reclassified miniature goats as "pets" rather than "livestock." This means that residents can now keep goats within the city limits. There are restrictions, of course, but the big picture is what's important: even urban dwellers can now keep these animals, which are the most environmentally friendly weed-wackers --- and an excellent local source of meat and dairy.

The Seattle Times reports:

As of late, goats have gained the environmental status of hybrid cars and bovine-growth-hormone-free milk, prized for their ability to mow lawns without using fossil fuels. University of Washington and Seattle City Light recently hired herds to clear slopes of blackberry brambles.

Monday's vote marked yet another gain for miniature goats, which are about the size of a large dog. Also known as pygmy or dwarf goats, the animals weigh between 50 and 100 pounds and grow to about 2 feet tall. Owners keep them as pets and sources of milk.

People who want to keep goats will have to license them like a dog or cat and get them dehorned. Male goats must be neutered — the unaltered male gives off a musky scent that some find offensive, goat experts say. To protect sidewalk gardens and park vegetation, goats will not be allowed in off-leash areas or anywhere outside the owner's yard, with an exception: They can be lent to other owners to graze in their yards. Portland and Everett have passed legislation legalizing the goats.

[snip]

After researching the health risks and finding they were low, Conlin said, he proposed the new law because the goats can provide local milk and serve as "another link to the reality of where food comes from."

Animal lovers, advocates of urban sustainability and children testified in favor of legalizing the goats at the hearing Thursday. One person criticized the change, saying goats can escape any enclosure and they prefer to eat roses.

Grant sees a pastoral future for Seattle populated with minianimals. "We would be a really charming city if we were a place people could keep minifarms with chickens, goats, a vegetable garden and fruit trees," she said.


And get this, at the end of the piece:

Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck said there was more to be done. "Why stop there? Why not sheep, llamas ... ? I think there is an argument that there are greater heights to be achieved with urban sustainability."

I hope Steinbrueck runs for Mayor someday.

And I hope that other city councils around the country are paying attention.

Raw Milk

Raw (unpasteurized) milk is almost impossible to purchase, unless you know a farmer and get it directly from that farm. Even then, you often must bring your own jar and/or have it labeled with something along the lines of "WARNING: This Might Kill You."

I still remember the first time we bought raw milk. I called the seller, which happened to be a convent of nuns in Washington State which had a herd of cows. I called and asked the good sister, "I heard you had raw milk, and we wanted to get some." Her (suspicious) reply: "Who is this?" Only when I assured her I was a father of young children with severe food allergies, looking for natural food, did she relax and talk with me...and give directions to their farm.

Raw milk is not only delicious, it is also wholesome. Pasteurization kills bad bacteria...but it also kills all the wonderful living things that make milk so incredibly healthy. It basically turns a living thing into...chalk water. Granted, you must obtain raw milk from a healthy cow (or goat) milked under clean conditions for it to be safe. Pasteurization basically allows mega farms to milk dirty and/or mastitic cows and pool all the milk and "clean it up" on the back end. In other words, it's industrial agriculture at its worst.

We finally got so frustrated trying to find raw milk, we bought our own goats.

The New York Times had an excellent piece today discussing this issue:

Mr. Milgrom-Elcott never missed a drop. Each month, he joined mothers with newborns and Wall Street titans in search of a box of unpasteurized, unhomogenized, raw milk. He is also part of a movement of perhaps hundreds of thousands across the country who will risk illness or even death to drink their milk the way Americans did for centuries: straight from the cow.
Twenty years ago, the Food and Drug Administration banned interstate sales of unpasteurized milk. This spring the agency warned consumers again that they were risking their health drinking raw milk.

Still, individual states determine how raw milk is bought and sold within their borders. While its sale for human consumption is illegal in 15 states, New York is one of 26 where it can be bought with restrictions. The chief one is that raw milk can only be sold on the premises of one of 19 dairy farms approved by the state. Clandestine milk clubs, like the one Mr. Milgrom-Elcott joined, are one way of circumventing the law, and there are others.

Raw milk drinkers may praise its richer flavor or claim it is more nutritious than pasteurized milk. No matter why they drink it, the demand for it is booming. In 2000, the Organic Pastures Dairy Company in the San Joaquin Valley near Fresno became California’s first raw milk dairy with certified organic pasture land. This year its co-founder, Mark McAfee, expects it to gross $6 million — up from $4.9 last year.

It's really sick that Americans today must form "clandestine milk clubs" to obtain raw milk. Or buy their own dairy animal. But for those seeking a business opportunity...this could be very big.