HOMESTEAD DAIRY MANAGEMENT

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Maplevale Organic Farm in Cross Creek, New Brunswick is the home of Hal, and Judy Hinds and a training center for the techniques of rural self-sufficiency. (A letter to the Maplevale folks will bring you information on their Earth skills Workshop summer program.) Hal and Judy also find time to put out a fine little quarterly newsletter called Northwind, from which the following article is taken. Subscriptions are available at $3.00 a year from Maplevale Organic Farm, Cross Creek, New Brunswick, Canada EOH 1 E0.

The following material originally appeared in Northwind, Vol. III, No. 4, Cby Hal and Judy Hinds, and is reprinted by permission of the editors.

A single Jersey cow can provide an astonishing abundance of milk and milkbased products over a week's time. At the start of our one animal dairy venture, we sold some of the milk if we seemed to have an excess. Since late May of 1974, however, we've used it all ourselves by adjusting the supply to the needs of our ever expanding and contracting family and converting any surplus into various kinds of cheese.

In a given week Chloe, our cow, provides us with about 25 to 28 gallons of milk which we turn into the following dairy products:

[1] 10 to 14 gallons of skimmed, but still quite creamy, milk for drinking
[2] 3 to 4 pounds of butter
[3] 4 pounds of cottage cheese
[4] 4 pounds of semi-hard cheese
[5] 1-1 /2 gallons of ice cream
[6] 1 quart of sour cream
[7] 1 quart of very thick whipping cream
[8] As much cream as we wish for table use
[9] Plenty of buttermilk for drinking or cooking
[10] All the whey we can use for cooking (plus generous amounts that serve as valuable food for the pig and the poultry)

Management of the home dairy to produce such a wide variety of items requires the gathering of some equipment and the establishment of a few definite routines.

HOME DAIRY EQUIPMENT

Our home dairy operation depends heavily on a number of containers: a milk pail, a small wash bucket used to hold bleach water at milking time, six to eight one-gallon jars, a cheese kettle (the four-gallon enamel canning type), pitchers, and ice cream freezing canisters. All these have to be washed carefully and are best air-dried on pegs (Hal made ours with 12-inch lengths of broom handles from the dump). A milk strainer and filters, lids for the jars, a colander, and wire racks should also be part of the dairy department.

A scoop, a ladle, and a rubber scraper are useful for separating cream from milk. (Nearly all the books on homesteading discourage the use of a cream separator on the output of a single cow because the device is so tedious to clean.).

If you plan to make butter, you'll need a churn of one kind or another. Ours is a six-gallon crock. The rest of the implements required for this operation are to be found in most farm kitchens: a large bowl in which to finish the butter, a colander, rubber scrapers, and a wooden paddle.