Milking cows

Is having a milking cow a pleasure or a pain? Sometimes it seems like a painful chore, and it can be very annoying when the cow or the calf does not do what I want it to do, when I want it to do it! However, most of the time I find having a milking cow a really nice and even relaxing chore. When I sit down to milk an easy to milk cow or I use a machine on the not so easy cows, I use this time as a meditative time.

For example , I have Ruth who is very quiet and I can even milk her with just a feed bucket in front and not in a milking bale. She has four lovely shaped teats so physically milking is easy and I can just rest my head against her flank and wander off in my mind! And then I have Blanquita. She is my highest producing cow, but not easy to milk - small and tight teats. I like to milk her with the machine and then it becomes a pleasure rather than a pain.

This is me milking Ruth when she first calved.

At the moment, I’m using a machine as I have Blanquita and Collette who are both hard to milk and even though Ruth is easy, she’s getting milked by machine too. The machine can be relaxing. I just pop the suction cups on and sit and contemplate. The machine makes a rhythmic noise and I can just zone out to it. I’m actually writing this as I milk, because I often think of things I want to write about while milking so I thought I might as well give it a go and will put it on the computer later.

Milking by machine is quicker to milk each cow, although I would argue that point if all my cows were like Ruth. Although, it is so much easier on my back, which is one of the original reasons I got a machine. What takes more time though, is the clean up process. Washing it afterwards is a little bit more work than just standing up and carry the bucket to the kitchen!

If all my cows were like Ruth and I only milked one each day, I wouldn’t bother with the machine. But, I like to make cheese and butter, so sometimes one cow is not enough. Sometimes one cow can be more than enough, but I just happened to have three calve all at once, so three it is!

Another really nice thing I enjoy about my cows is watching them! Our house is on a hill and most of the milking cow paddocks are below the house. I walk out to the garden or when I’m walking down to lock the calves up, it’s just such a nice view and to see them in that view makes my heart happy!

I only milk when I need or want to milk so the calves stay on the cow all the time, except for the nights before I milk. In the afternoon I separate the calves from the cows and then after milking I put them back together.

My life will be complete when I have about four cows like Ruth. All jerseys, 2 to milk at a time and easy to milk and manage. Yep I don’t wish for much in life!

Aging well

I’ve heard a bit of talk recently about the show about the Blue Zones on Netflix. I don’t have Netflix so can’t speak about this particular series; however, I have read a fair bit about the Blue Zones and about Dan Buettner.  If you’re unfamiliar with the term blue zones, they are basically areas in the world that have a higher than “normal” incidence of centenarians (people living to 100 and beyond). Some of the reasons that have been given for this are:

• ·        Diet – people still eat a fairly traditional diet, with very little or no modern convenience foods
• ·        Community – people are still in contact with family or friends – in most areas, multi-generational living continues – old people aren’t put in aged care facilities.
• ·        Purpose – people still led an active life and had a reason to get up and about.

What I’ve read about Dan Buettner, is that he seems to have “cherry picked” some of the zones that support his theory that being vegetarian is one of the key reasons. This annoys me because it is simply not true. There are some that are completely vegetarian – the seventh day Adventists are, but they also don’t drink or smoke.

An Icelandic community has a high rate of centenarians, eat a lot of meat – mostly well fermented fish. Traditionally, it would have been difficult to be a vegetarian in a very cold climate.

I remember listening to an interview done by Richard Fidler with a gentleman that had written a book about Sardinia (a blue zone) and he was shocked that even though they ate mutton, and cooked in a lot of fat, they were healthy – they were healthy despite this fat consumption!! I say they were healthy because of the fat consumption! Incidentally, I got that book out of the Library to read, and they didn’t eat a lot of meat, but they ate some and traditionally cooked a lot of meals in Lard. This is common in a traditional Mediterranean diet – lard for cooking and olive oil poured over everything before eating! They would often grow out a pig to preserve for salami and ham and of course lard etc.  

My problem with someone trying to suggest that being a vegetarian is going to enable you to live to 100, is missing the whole point. These people are living a long time because they are eating a traditional diet, they keep active, they are happy and they have community around them.

It is very difficult to eat the perfect diet for perfect health! There are so many conflicting views about what to eat, and even when to eat. It makes it almost impossible to work out what is right. I think what is right for you, maybe totally different for someone else. Start at the beginning……learn to cook what you like to eat, learn to listen to your body to see if what you like to eat makes you feel good. If you don’t feel good, learn to cook food that makes you feel good. Listen to your body!

I eat freshly ground spelt sourdough, because I like a little bread and only want to eat what makes me feel good.

Take away the obvious inflammatory things like gluten, dairy and bad fats. Cook meat and veg, make soups, eat eggs instead of cereal. Eat real food! Don’t eat packet food. When you take away gluten and then you eat it again, if it doesn't make you feel bad, then you can probably continue to eat it. But eat it in moderation. Our bodies don’t need a lot of grains whether they have gluten or not. Dairy may not worry you, or it might…..listen to your body. And fats, well stick to the saturated variety and you will be much better off – animal fats and coconut oil are the best to cook with. Olive oil for everything else.

A pretty typical breakfast for me - eggs, tomatoes and cheese.

Salad - a meal in a bowl - meat with lots of salad ingredients!

Once you start eating better, you feel better and then you want to do more…..you can move more, walk in nature, dig a garden, play! Then when you feel happy because you feel well and are enjoying moving more, you start to meet more people and enjoy that community. And then you have the secrets to aging well!

That is my plan, what’s yours?