Milk, Cream, Butter

LaFonda, our patient little  cow, is providing us with about a gallon and a half of milk, morning and night.  We are still pretty slow at hand milking,  and this is plenty of  milk for our needs, so we are  relieved she is not producing much more.

After each milking session, we strain it through a fine sieve and cool it in a large open bowl set inside a large bowl of ice water. As it cools, any cow-y aroma evaporates into the air.  Then we pour it into  clean 2-quart containers. The cream separates to the top and can easily be skimmed off.

Cadence made butter yesterday by simply pouring the cream into jar and shaking it. It takes a while, so she multi-tasked, shaking while reading the paper.  A great arm workout!

Soon, a large lump of butter formed,  floating in the buttermilk.

The buttermilk is poured off  and the butter is creamed in a bowl to press out any remaining buttermilk. Cadence added a pinch of salt.   We spread it on toast made from Rog's sourdough bread--YUM!