we're getting just shy of a gallon a day from ms. milkteats, and she's very cooperative about the whole thing. it's nice.
her milk is so thick with cream, though, that i have to skim about half of it off or it's nearly undrinkable! tasty, but fatty. every three days or so i find myself with about a quart of cream that i am happily making into fresh cultured butter, which then yields fresh cultured buttermilk, which i put into my sourdough pancakes and biscuits. Y U M. seriously. it's amazing, with a cow and a few chickens, how much less i have to buy at the grocery store: milk, butter, eggs, cream, yogurt, ice cream (and eventually cream cheese and sour cream and regular cheese)... all i need is some bees for honey to replace sugar and a wheat field for flour and we'll be set :).
last night after milking--we do use the machine, and it turns out to be great, but i finish by hand to fully drain her--matt and i were watching a movie and i kept getting this itchy spot on my belly, so i finally lifted my dress to inspect and i found one of these on it:
lone star tick
AHHHHHHHH it was horrifying. and huge. like the size of my pinky nail. so matt freaked and told me i better go to the doctor today and blah blah (he's very paranoid about lyme disease having known a few people who had it--one is on crutches just a few weeks post-infection)... but this sort of tick doesn't carry lyme disease so i'm not going to lose my sh*t just yet. i did slather the tiny bite mark with neem oil, however, just in case. i think i got him about 5 minutes after he started biting me, because i was definitely aware of the itch as soon as it started. needless to say, i kept the nasty bug on a piece of tape just in case i DO get sick and need to prove what bit me. being pregnant (and thus somewhat immuno-compromised), i'm a little more worried than i would normally be, but it's just a freaking bug bite after all.
i had to have gotten it sitting in the field underneath the cow while i milked her. there's no other way a bug like that would've made its way onto my large and protruding belly, of all random places. *shudder* it definitely gave us both the heebie jeebies though. first tick bite ever, for me.
her milk is so thick with cream, though, that i have to skim about half of it off or it's nearly undrinkable! tasty, but fatty. every three days or so i find myself with about a quart of cream that i am happily making into fresh cultured butter, which then yields fresh cultured buttermilk, which i put into my sourdough pancakes and biscuits. Y U M. seriously. it's amazing, with a cow and a few chickens, how much less i have to buy at the grocery store: milk, butter, eggs, cream, yogurt, ice cream (and eventually cream cheese and sour cream and regular cheese)... all i need is some bees for honey to replace sugar and a wheat field for flour and we'll be set :).
last night after milking--we do use the machine, and it turns out to be great, but i finish by hand to fully drain her--matt and i were watching a movie and i kept getting this itchy spot on my belly, so i finally lifted my dress to inspect and i found one of these on it:
lone star tickAHHHHHHHH it was horrifying. and huge. like the size of my pinky nail. so matt freaked and told me i better go to the doctor today and blah blah (he's very paranoid about lyme disease having known a few people who had it--one is on crutches just a few weeks post-infection)... but this sort of tick doesn't carry lyme disease so i'm not going to lose my sh*t just yet. i did slather the tiny bite mark with neem oil, however, just in case. i think i got him about 5 minutes after he started biting me, because i was definitely aware of the itch as soon as it started. needless to say, i kept the nasty bug on a piece of tape just in case i DO get sick and need to prove what bit me. being pregnant (and thus somewhat immuno-compromised), i'm a little more worried than i would normally be, but it's just a freaking bug bite after all.
i had to have gotten it sitting in the field underneath the cow while i milked her. there's no other way a bug like that would've made its way onto my large and protruding belly, of all random places. *shudder* it definitely gave us both the heebie jeebies though. first tick bite ever, for me.
1 comments:
Loren said...
first tick bite ever?! Lucky! I think I have had, at least 6. They are so gross aren't they? I even got treated for lime disease once. (I didn't actually have it. We just didn't have the bug to prove that it had come all the way out and the one I described was the kind that carry the disease). Not a disease that you mess with!