I adore fresh, raw milk, and once I believed that I'd some day own a milk goat.  But the infrastructure demands are just too high --- pasture, high security fences, neighbors willing to milk morning and evening when we're away.  I'm not ruling out dairy animals forever, just for the foreseeable future.

But, as Mark likes to say, "Anna gets what she wants."  He's been networking, trying to hunt down someone who'd sell us raw milk.  Given the legal situation, I understand it's a lot like trying to find a drug dealer.

Last week, we got a little nibble --- someone willing to sell us fresh, homemade butter.  I hope the butter will be like a foot in the door toward milk.

Meanwhile, I just read in Mother Earth News that butter from pastured cows is highest in vitamins at this time of year.  Just like the yolks from pastured poultry eggs, butter from summer pastured cows is yellower and considered a premium product.  So we plan to stock up and sock summer butter away in the freezer to feed us through the long, hard winter.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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