Pass the cream, please!

A little life moment happened Sunday morning, which reminded of why I do some of the things that I do.  My farmer laughed at me and shook his head, but I adamantly refuse to give some things up from my past.  I have to share.

My life as a kid consisted of a great many things.  Living on the farm, we had every-day chores to keep ourselves entertained if we wanted to avoid homework. My brothers were 4 & 6 years younger than I was. My sister was a year and half older.  The brothers were safe from most chores for much longer than my sister and I had been.  We girls chose to take turns completing the daily after-school chores (in reality, it was probably my parents that forced the turn-taking to avoid the inevitable squabbles that occurred on a daily basis, over silly things).

All of my grandpa's life, all of my dad's life, and all of my life, milk cows were a necessity on the farm (this may be due to my paternal Mennonite great-grandparents). As were chickens.  These two "chores", were just ingrained portions of our every day life.  One of us girls would feed the chickens and gather the eggs. The other would round up the one or two milk cows, bring them home from the pasture, feed them their grain, and then we'd milk them. By hand.  Just as my dad had done, and still did.  Just as my great-grandmother did (the difference being that she milked as many as 13, twice a day).

When I started milking cows and gathering eggs, I believe I was around 7 years old.  Some extremists might say that this is MUCH too young to be dealing with farm animals. Well, sorry to break it to you, but that's how us farm kids learnt a little thing called respect. There's a reason most kids from the farm are so much more mature, responsible and respectful than their peers.

I recall crawling up onto the platform where the chicken nests were in order to reach the eggs.  I also know that I learnt at an early age to watch out for the "old clucks" that thought they had chicks under them. (small sticks worked well for holding their heads and sharp beaks away from my little girl hands)  I also recall that I did not enjoy the chicken chores.  I know that I did enjoy the milking chores.

My "first" milk cow was a Simmental/Hereford X cow named Toots. (laugh all you want, I still giggle every time I say it)  I was seven, just a wee little kid when you think about it, and this great big beast was the most gentle thing in the barn yard.  We would get her into the stanchion, set up our little pink milking stool (that had a bad list to the left), place the galvanised milk pail under her udder (when we advanced in skill, we held the pail between the knees), and we'd milk.  Toots was a dancer, constantly weaving from side to side.  She was also a gaseous beast.  If you've ever been in a barn, you know the smells-and bodily wastes-that can emanate from these docile beasts.  We always had a poop shovel handy.  Toots was also one of a few well-mannered milk cows that graced our old barn.  She never hurt us, other than the random instances where we mistakenly placed one of our feet beneath her dancing toes.

Over the years, there were many milk cows, some just chosen from my dad's beef herd, and some bought from the neighbouring dairy farm.  The dairy cows (Holsteins in this case) always were a little more work.  They needed more grain to hide their bony hips and rib cages, they had a tendency to develop milk fever after freshening (after they had their calf and their milk came in), they were occasionally a little higher strung (we had one Holstein cow who promptly jumped three, 5 ft high corral fences the day we brought her home. She was also a mean kicker.  We named her "Idiot" but I'm sure my dad had a better name for her personally), but they produced almost twice as much milk as the regular beef cow.  And the CREAM!!!

After we finished milking, we would bring the milk to the house and my mom or my grandma would run the milk through the milk separator.  For those not familiar with this contraption, it is a pretty amazing tool for the small farmer. You pour the milk into the top bowl, and then open the little lever, and because cream is more dense and heavier than milk, it would separate the two liquids.  Here is a photo of a cream separator that I found on the internet.

 My mom and grandma rarely had a shortage of milk, cream or butter-only when the milk cow hadn't freshened for almost a year.  Then it was a few long months of buying *gasp!* milk.  And cream.

I'll let you all in on a little secret, okay?  Cream is fat. Healthy fat!  I never think twice about pouring a healthy dollop of cream all over my cereal.  My bowl of fresh strawberries, raspberries, or saskatoon berries (all from our very own personal orchard). Or my giant piece of chocolate cake with chocolate icing.  That's right.  You can judge alllllll you want.  There is NOTHING better than fresh cream, direct from the source, poured all over a decadent slice of birthday cake. Or anything really.

These days, the farm no longer has any milk cows.  My dad quit milking cows when us kids all finally flew the coop.  The last one is still wandering around the corrals with the rest of the herd.  She will hopefully die peacefully on the farm-she is roughly 13-14 years old now.  However; just because there is no longer the option of having fresh cream, does not mean that old habits are thrown out the window.  No no no.  It just means I go to the dairy aisle of the grocery store and buy the biggest "whipping cream" carton I can find.  And I still, to this day, pour heavy cream into anything where milk or "creamer" would suffice.

Sunday morning, I made an awesome oatmeal breakfast casserole.  (You can find the recipe here: http://loveoffamilyandhome.net/2014/07/oatmeal-casserole-recipe.html )  It was so delicious-berries, oatmeal, banana, cinnamon!  My farmer decided he would have some along with his morning cup of coffee.  I took out the whipping cream (that's right, half and half does not make the cut in this house) and set it on the counter.  Not for his coffee of course-which is what he was thinking-but for me.  So that I could have a refreshing splash of cream with my healthy oatmeal breakfast casserole. :)

Cheers!

C