Last week we received the fine gift of four glass milk bottles from a kind friend. Up until now, we have kept our fresh milk in the fridge in glass preserving jars, transferring it to the milk jug for use. Kevin and I see raw milk as a magical and beautiful substance, so it seems entirely fitting that we should keep it in special bottles. When the bottles were filled up for the first time with fresh creamy milk, we gazed at them with reverence and satisfaction.
Glass milk bottles
Since we keep our cows and calves together, we do not have to milk every day. Kevin just separates Coco and her calf (Henrietta Hamburger) the night before we need some more milk. This is a great setup, though it’s becoming trickier all the time as the calf gets bigger, stronger and more cunning! We are grazing Coco and her calf on the neighbour’s place, so Kevin milks her in the little shed down there. (We feel very lucky to be able to graze our animals on the neighbour’s pasture in exchange for giving them a share of the meat from the calves when the time comes.) Kevin usually gets around five or six litres of milk at each milking, which is enough to last us for a few days.
The pasture is very rich and abundant this summer with all the rain we have been having, and Coco’s milk seems to be nearly half cream at the moment. We love it! Since I’m breast feeding Owen, I especially appreciate being able to drink lots of creamy raw milk. Kevin and I feel sure that the raw milk in my diet must be at least partly responsible for Owen’s fantastic rate of growth since birth. We were very proud parents when the doctor remarked on his impressive size and good muscle tone. At two months, he now weighs 7.13kg (15 lb, 12oz) and is 62cm long — up from 6.6kg (about 14lb, 8oz) and 59cm two weeks ago. He’s a big, bonny, healthy baby, and we are enjoying his smiles and lovely baby noises!
Happy Owen
We feel very lucky to have an abundant supply of raw Jersey milk. It’s too bad that laws and regulations in New Zealand make it so very difficult to buy and sell raw milk. Absurd, in a land so well-endowed with pasture and dairy cows, that people are forced to pay high prices at the supermarket for pasteurised (and usually homogenised) milk in plastic containers. Recently, the dairy industry here has been showing renewed interest in raw milk, mostly due to the high returns to be made on gourmet raw milk cheeses. We are hopeful that this could lead to changes in regulations and wider availability of raw milk products.
My favourite way to enjoy the milk is when it’s still warm from the cow, before the cream has even had a chance to separate from the milk. On these warm summer days, we are also enjoying smoothies made with home-cultured Caspian Sea Yoghurt (This is a kind of yoghurt for which the milk is not heated. It is cultured at room temperature.) and local honey.
That is one happy baby!
Cheers, Michelle
He looks just like you Rebecca!
We can feel the creamy joy all the way up here in the Eifel. Six liters lasts “a few days”? We typically go through twelve liters every two-to-three days, two to four liters immediately poured into pots to become homemade Quark. We’ve begun experimenting with raw milk cheeses. We also purchase additional heavy cream and raw sour cream butter from Gisela and her small, well-tended stable of bovine beauties, which is transformed into all manner of wonderful treats. It’s still strange to think of ice cream as a health food. Made with raw cream, raw local honey and our own preserved berries and fruits, I laugh at the concept of “dieting” as I enjoy my Sunday dessert.
Nice bottles. We’ve acquired a stock of over a dozen or so liter-size glass milk and juice bottles with a relatively wide mouth. They work well, but we’d love to get our hands on a nice set of flip-top Flaschen like those.
I’ve already assembled several cases worth of the rather well-known german flip-top half liter (beer) bottles, which are hauled to Gerolstein every few months and filled (for free) at the Helenenquelle, a public spring burbling forth with the town’s famous mineral water.
And last but not least, it’s clear for all to see, that is one happy baby. Raw milk baby indeed. He’s a lucky little guy, and he doesn’t even know it yet…
Weston Price reported on the particularly rich color and consistency of early spring milk, and believed it had additional nutrients from the new spring growth. (A logical conclusion since shoots are more nutrient dense.)
I used to buy butter from a farm that grass fed their cows at the crack of spring and freeze it. It was real double-churned butter and the spring butter DID taste better!
hello,
there is a raw milk product in australia called cleopatra’s bath milk. As it is sold as a bathing/beauty product it bypasses the regulations on pasteurization. basically just a loophole that allows the sale of raw milk.
nicole
It’s wonderful to see Price’s nutritional knowledge paying off so well! That became my favorite book after first reading it 3 years ago. Owen is a lucky boy.
As for me, I am lactose intolerant – only 8 ounces of pasteurized milk would make me sick (literally). But after reading Price, I searched for raw milk and, very tentatively, began drinking it. There was no problem! I can handle almost a litre a day – it goes down smoothly. I really love drinking the cream. All that fatty goodness. (I’m not being sarcastic!)
Enjoy the beautiful weather down there.
Oh-my-gawd!
Owen is such a Be-yoo-tee-ful child.
At this time though, I am more awestruck by his parents,
who are going to give this child a life, known by few, but once heard of, wanted by many.
I keep you all in my thoughts – same as my prayers.
E
Hi
Not only can you get cleopatras milk, but you can also get aphrodite milk that is raw also. Just a note for those ‘raw’ milk lovers. If you look on the ingredient list and see ‘Whole Milk’, this is most likley ‘raw milk’. Its another way of getting through the loopholes 🙂 If you live in Melbourne (Thornbry) there is great bio dynamic grocer who ‘may’ stock these items 🙂 There is also an organic butcher in the same street 🙂
O Rebecca and Kevin – what a delcious baby you do have!
Well, once thing is for certain from the photo, that baby isn’t relying on Kev for the his good looks and sweet disposition. 🙂
Hi Rebecca, I would like to find a supplier of organic jersey cows milk and I wondered if you can help. I live in Puhoi near Warkworth.
Regards
David.
Hi Douglas
You mentioned you make homemade quark all the time. You mind sharing with us how to make it, and where to get the starter from?
Thanks
Sandra
Hi Guys
Your milk bottle is fantastic. Can we buy them anywhere in NZ please?
Cheers R and J
Hi,
I would like to find a supplier of raw cows milk and I wondered if you can help me please. I live in Napier.
Regards
Sheldon
Hi,
Fellow milk enthusiasts – can anyone tell me where it’s possible to get raw milk in Christchurch? Much rather pay a farmer then the grocery store.
Cottage Crafts Milk Map:
http://www.cottagecrafts.co.nz/dnn/MilkMap/tabid/66/Default.aspx
Awesome Kevin – thanks. will get in touch with these.
where o where did those lovely bottles come from??